Colour of Dawn (8 page)

Gwo Louis was Merisié's bodyguard, an armoured regiment on two legs at the exclusive service of his boss. Ex-militia man Merisié had succeeded in surviving another Prophet-President for Life, with round spectacles and a black fedora. Part civil servant, part spy, Merisié was a grand master of base deeds. But just as there is no end to the servility of people on this island, so Gwo Louis was the grand master of deeds even more base than those of Merisié. The absolute low of the low. Gwo Louis, who had a chest substantially broader than the average, leaned his face out of the window, displaying his head for the three youths to admire. A head so big you could imagine it was sculpted from rock. Behind this face you could make out a terrifying reptilian venom, and beneath the thick layer of fat the power of a wildcat. And, of course, a great, boundless stupidity.

Eyes on fire like two beasts of the Apocalypse, they got out of the car and with their guns on display slammed the doors and advanced towards the boys. Merisié began by pacing up and down, hands behind his back, fixing each of the boys in turn with his stare. From the outset, Merisié accused them of wanting to threaten the safety of peaceable citizens at the instigation of Octave. From wanting to disturb the peace of the neighbourhood to a crime against the security of the State was a small step, which Merisié made in the following seconds, treating the boys as trouble-makers, opponents of an established government. He threatened to cut them up into pieces.

To break their bones.

To slit their throats.

To smash into their chests and gouge out their hearts.

To open up their stomachs and drag out their guts and intestines.

As for their genitals, their penises and testicles, he promised them with a gnashing of teeth that he would season them with salt and paprika and eat them with rice and kidney beans.

Standing at the entrance to the tiny gallery, Gwo Louis deterred them from any idea of running away. He punctuated Merisié's demented speech with a noisy, vulgar laugh which shook his fat bulk. To the great surprise of his cousins, Fignolé moved towards Merisié and asked him why he was angry. His sole reply was to tell Fignolé in no uncertain terms that he'd be the first to be cut into pieces. And he mimed taking aim at them one by one as they did in cops-and-gangster films on the TV. Uncle Octave, who was visiting a neighbour, was alerted and ran back to his house. When Uncle Octave arrived, Merisié gave a sign to Gwo Louis, who shoved into him, then immobilised him by twisting his hands up behind his back. Octave was taken away by these two men and we never saw him again.

Fignolé, pure metal. Someone who has always wanted to think for himself. Who believes that freedom is not first and foremost a right, but a duty, a demand. Jean-Baptiste and Wiston did not understand him. Even John, armed with all his qualifications, could not, would not follow him. Could not understand that in the name of this freedom he had turned against the head of the Démunis after his return to power and joined the new wave of insurrection on the streets. The last argument between them had been violent. Fignolé did not hesitate to shout out his anger at John, to tell him what he thought of him, an aristocrat from the well-to-do neighbourhoods of Philadelphia come to warm up his soul in the tropics. Come to dispel his rich kid's boredom by sowing chaos among the poor whom he admired like exotic animals walking around on their hind legs. And because of this abrupt change in Fignolé, in the film he played in his head, John had to find himself a new role. We never saw him again in our house. His absence left me neither cold nor warm. It is so easy for someone like John to be nice and good and to invent stories for books and films. John has a future. We don't. There are rich people, others are poor. We will always be poor, John always rich. John is not one of our own and never will be.

I turn before leaving the large ward and catch the surprised gaze of the stranger seizing mine like a pair of hands. God protect me from the expression of this man who wants nothing so much as to awake in me the greatest possible terror and take delight in doing so. Like those strangers on the look-out along the roadsides.

God protect me from the eyes of this man who could send me headlong into Hell.

FOURTEEN

I
was literally grabbed by this unknown hand, and shoved so forcefully that I lost my balance, stumbling on the broken surface of a short, narrow alleyway leading to a wooden door protected by a grille. As I came up before this door I suddenly remembered Lolo, whom I had lost in the crowd. As the idea came to me that something could have happened to her, my panic gave way to a turmoil that I could barely contain. I yelled at this man who had just saved my life that I had a friend who was still outside and that she could perhaps be dead as we spoke. The man begged me to calm down and told me he would take me to a safe place first and then go out to look for her.

My saviour, who I could now see properly for the first time, knocked on the door three times with his left hand. I moved my eyes to his right hand, which was still holding me. It was covered in blood. This was the first image I had of him, the hand and the blood. The smell, slightly acrid, of the blood came to me as I bent down to refasten a sandal strap that had come loose and my right cheek brushed against his fingers. He crouched down. I raised my head and saw his face right next to mine. Close up, like at the cinema. An image that erased all the others and would later take its place next to that of his whole body. And then, the voice.

‘Open up, it's me.'

The door opened a little. A young man, thinner than my saviour, first of all showed his face obliquely behind the half-open door and then moved to stand, visibly surprised, before us.

‘I've brought you a guest. Take care of her and wait while I go and look for another.'

My saviour grabbed a piece of fabric that was lying on a table and wrapped it round his hand. As his friend continued to stare in amazement, my saviour added with a smile:

‘I'll explain later.'

I looked at that face again. Listened to the voice. The face was finely sculpted, manly, attractive.The voice had a slight edge. There was a hint of trouble in that voice that cracked now and again, making you want to smooth the edges. A voice that formed a wall you wanted to break through. A voice that even then stirred my senses and my blood.

My saviour took to the alleyway again and disappeared behind the barrier across the entrance. The crackling of gunfire began to recede. Then, little by little, the noises from outside vanished. A deathly silence reigned over the city, a silence more terrifying than the tumult. The time that separated me from the return of Lolo and my saviour seemed even more interminable. Anxious, I couldn't keep still; I sat down, stood up, paced up and down, then slumped into a chair opposite the youth who had stayed with me in the house. But it was more than the mere fear of death or injury. I couldn't explain that spasm in my chest, that knot that was slowly tightening, that lump in my throat.

When I heard a knocking on the door I rushed to open it immediately. The youth halted me with a gesture, signalled to me to hurry away towards the back door and placed his index finger across his lips to indicate that I should be quiet and not move. He stood on a chair against the wall and looked through a hole above the door. My saviour knocked impatiently a second time.

‘It's me, open up!'

I could already hear Lolo sobbing and moaning. The youth who stayed with me hurried to open the door and in his haste knocked over the chair, which in turn tripped me up. Lolo erupted through the open door like a volcano and threw herself into my arms. Pleased as she was that she had not been hit by a bullet, she was inconsolable about the idea of having lost her first mobile phone. She cried hot tears, and as I comforted her I couldn't help thinking that Lolo, with her fertile imagination, was constructing in her head a Hollywood film where she played the role of victim simultaneously with that of some Mother Courage, which she would show in a mass of detail before spellbound audiences. Once I was able to raise my head, I saw my saviour talking to the other youth with a serious air. He was standing, backlit, in the doorway, his silhouette superimposed against the noon sky. I tried to catch snatches of their conversation, without realising that I was already under the spell of this man. God, how I wanted to close my eyes and stretch myself against him! How I wanted it! When he turned, his eyes met mine and his laugh burst out like a guava beneath the pressure of a hand.

Outside, the commotion had gone completely quiet. Taking advantage of the general calm, the other youth suggested we share two bottles of pop, bread and grapefruit jelly.

‘It's all we have,' he said. And he introduced himself. I heard that he was called Evans and he lived on the ground floor with his mother. That Luckson, whom he indicated with his hand, had joined him when his mother, a Madame Sarah, went off on business to Curaçao. That they were both studying mathematics at university. On hearing these words, Lolo threw me a sidelong glance. I pretended I hadn't seen her, as I knew what she meant.

Luckson simply acknowledged us with a movement of his head, sank his teeth into a piece of bread and sat down on the ground, making light of the injury to his hand. I still love this image of him. Sitting with his knees bent under him, his torso half naked, his head inclined. All I have to do is go back over those few weeks to be fully immersed in these images. Again and again.

Always quick to assess and take advantage of a situation involving the opposite sex, Lolo quickly introduced us.

‘I'm Marie-Lourdes, Lolo to those who know me, and my friend is Joyeuse.'

I finished my drink quickly and replied with a trite, meaningless comment. I then thanked them and said we should be getting back. They reminded us that we could not yet be sure that the streets were safe. The Sacré-Coeur clock was striking three by the time we left them. There were no longer any clouds of black smoke from burning tyres drifting up from the four corners of the city. Fear was spreading its wings more insidiously. Furtive shapes slipped along the walls. We crossed deserted streets as if on the outskirts of a dream. And I thought of your face, Luckson, your mouth and your face. And already I wanted to taste it. To touch you. I wanted you to be mine. The whole world could vanish leaving just you and me.

Seeing me arrive home, Fignolé stopped strumming his guitar and looked at me.

‘What's happened to you? You look all shaken up. What's with that blood on your T-shirt?'

‘I'm not hurt, don't worry. I was caught up in the incidents at the top of Rue Pavée. Someone helped Lolo and me.'

‘That's all, you're sure?'

Something must have been written all over my face, giving me away.

‘What else do you want there to be? I could ask you the same thing.You're lathered in sweat.Where have you been to get like that?'

‘You know perfectly well. So don't ask questions. You'll risk upsetting Mother.'

Without explaining any more, he simply took off his T-shirt, picked up his guitar and played the first notes of Redemption Song by Bob Marley, his favourite music.

Redemption song
Emancipate yourselves
From mental slavery

Listening to the news the next day I understood that he had followed at arm's length those who were carrying the coffin of young Maxime, circling the city centre.The journalist's words on that day still resonate with me: ‘Students hostile to the Prophet-President insisted on accompanying the body of Maxime as far as the southern exit from the city towards Martissant… Everything went tragically wrong when several hundred of them came up to the railings outside the National Palace… Some demonstrators were injured when stones were thrown by the Prophet-President's supporters. Later on, four of them were wounded by bullets and another shot while they were trying to run away towards Rue Capois.'

These events happened exactly one month ago. I had just met Luckson, a strong-willed man, a man of love. This meeting did nothing to uproot the certainty I feel that Fignolé is gambling with his life.

FIFTEEN

I
n the cafeteria there is a pervasive smell of medicines and blood. And if there is anyone who thinks that we are not surrounded on all sides, all they need to do is to sit by the windows for the smell of fried fish and rancid oil, the powerful taint of rubbish, to persuade them to the contrary.

Port-au-Prince, the outpost of despair. Port-au-Prince, a great settlement of concrete and mud on a grassy plain. Port-au-Prince, my torment and my punishment. All these images, all this past history. Two centuries of secret misdeeds inscribed in the walls.The city's descent into Hell began too long ago for me to complain about it. As for the absence of Fignolé, I'm not complaining about that, either. I phone Madame Jacques. She sends for Mother, who tells me that Paulo has gone to look for news around Martissant and has not yet returned. After a few seconds she adds in a voice she is trying to make seem firmer than necessary, ‘If Fignolé still isn't back by the time you get home you should go and tell the police.'

Mother's words leave my mind blank for a moment, as if I have lost the true meaning of things. I recover myself by thinking of the word of God, which I repeat, eyes closed:

God is powerful
The horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea
God has become my salvation.

Gabriel goes with me to the Pentecostal church every Sunday, sometimes on the Tuesday fast days. There, I meet the faithful, crowded together on the narrow pews. Between the four walls of the church, we delight in the words that Pastor Jeantilus rains down on us from his pulpits. The beauty and poetic extravagance of all these tales enter our hearts, surprising us every time: Lazarus rising from the tomb, Jonah emerging from the belly of the whale, the walls of Jericho collapsing at the sound of the trumpets, the abundant fishing of Jesus, Jesus himself walking on water! Pastor Jeantilus croons and is enchanted by the resonance of his own voice. He moves us and wrings us out every Sunday like the purple seaweed riding the foam. Pastor Jeantilus, a real magician!