No Other Life (7 page)

Four weeks after this conversation, the dictator Jean-Marie Doumergue died and was buried in a state ceremony in the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Secours. The funeral Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Pellerat, head of the Ganaen hierarchy. The papal nuncio was in attendance and conveyed Rome’s condolences to the dictator’s widow, son and daughter. The Army was represented by, among others, General Antoine Macandal, Chief of the General Staff and acting Head of State. In Ganae on the death of a president, the Army takes over the running of the country, pending elections. General Macandal was a mulatto, as were most of the top army officers who served as members of the military junta. The mulatto elite, newly confident, was prominently in evidence at the ceremonies.

Two days after the interment, Doumergue’s widow, son and daughter were secretly flown to France to live out their lives as wealthy exiles on money which the dictator had illegally deposited in Swiss bank accounts. My friend Simon Lamballe, recalled from Cap Nord, told me that the United States had recognised the junta and had agreed not to press for elections until the country was ‘stabilised’.

‘That’s just window dressing,’ Simon said. ‘Things
are
stable and the Americans know it. Everybody’s happy. We’re back where we were fifteen years ago, before that
noir
bastard came to power.’

But Simon was wrong. The parliament, a puppet forum during the years of Doumergue’s regime, now began to form alliances and demand elections. There were protest marches and demonstrations. And now a new voice was heard on Radio Libre. It was the voice of the People’s Church. Jeannot’s voice.

One evening I was in the school garage, helping Hyppolite jump-start our old Peugeot, when Father Duchamp ran in, telling me to come and listen. Jeannot was making a speech. When I reached the sitting room, I heard:

One hot meal a week.

Yes, that is what the people eat in Cap Nord and Cap Sud.

One hot meal a week. The rest of the week –

I don’t have to tell you.

Work all day in the fields and come home to eat plantains at night.

But here in Port Riche.

What do the rich eat?

The rich who hold power thanks to the generals.

What do they eat?

Fine French food. Imported meats.

What do they drink?

Fine French wines. Champagne.

They gorge until they vomit.

The poor starve until they retch.

Brothers and Sisters, what is our mission?

It is to enter the temple of privilege

With swords.

To drive these parasites out of our country.

That is what we must do.

That is the work of the People’s Church.

You are the Church.

You have the power.

Act.

Father Bourque was not present when we heard that speech. But that same evening he called me into his study.

‘Paul, I know this will be difficult for you, but I want you to cut all ties with Jeannot. It’s absolutely against the teachings of the Church to incite people to revolt. He’s gone off his head. In my opinion he’s no longer fit to be considered as a Catholic priest.’

‘But the work I’m doing at his orphanage and the literacy classes, none of that is revolutionary, Father. It’s useful work.’

‘Paul, listen to me. I am going to retire next year. I’ve already recommended that you succeed me. If you want to change the way things are run, if you want more black students, you’ll have a chance to do it when you’re in charge here. But if you continue to associate yourself with Jeannot, you’ll never be appointed as my successor. In addition, you are risking censure, expulsion from the Order and God knows what else. Please, Paul?’

I said I would have to speak to Jeannot. The next day I went to see him. And, at once, he said, ‘Paul, it’s all right, it’s all right. We need you where you are. You mustn’t risk your career at the college. Imagine, if we have a revolution, what a blessing it will be to have you in charge there. Of course, I’ll miss your help at the orphanage and at the club. But we’ll stay close, you and I. As always. Remember,
Petit
is still your boy.’

‘But why do you keep talking about a revolution?’ I said. ‘The parliament wants elections. Doumergue is dead. For the first time in Ganae’s history we have a chance to change things in a democratic way.’

‘How? There’ll never be democratic elections here, not while the Army runs things. We need to overthrow the Army and take the means of production away from the elite.’

‘And how do you propose to do that?’

‘You’ll see.’

After this conversation, in obedience to my superiors and to Jeannot’s wishes, I distanced myself from his daily operations and so was divorced from the events that followed. Jeannot’s broadcasts were heard in every village and hamlet in the country. In Ganae, where eighty per cent of the people cannot read or write, his voice became the voice of a new power, a voice which, by threatening a people’s revolution, forced the junta to heed parliament’s call for a general election.

René Laberge, one of my former pupils, was now the Member for Pondicher in the General Assembly. He was also the leader of the Social Democratic Party, a newly powerful grouping in the Ganaen parliament. Two months before the general election was scheduled to take place, René came to see me at the college.

‘I want to ask a great favour of you, Father. We’re hoping to have honest elections for the first time in our history. The trouble is, we have too many parties and none of them is really known to the people. I believe there’s one person in Ganae who would win in a landslide. You know who I’m talking about.’

‘Yes. But he doesn’t believe in elections.’

‘That’s why I’m here. You’re the only person in the world who might make him change his mind. If he doesn’t run, the elections will be a shambles and the junta will simply take over again.’

‘René, I’ve promised my superiors to keep my nose out of politics.’

‘I know. I’ve spoken to Father Bourque about this. He says, in this case, it’s up to you. Jeannot is down there in La Rotonde talking revolution to slum kids and wide-eyed young priests. With the Army under mulatto control, any attempt at a
noir
uprising will end in failure and hundreds will be killed. There’s a way to prevent that, if only Jeannot will run.’

Later that same day I spoke with Father Bourque. ‘There’s another problem,’ I said. ‘Jeannot is still a Catholic priest and the Pope has expressly forbidden priests to run for political office. It’s important to Jeannot that he remain a priest. A great part of his appeal to the people is that he
is
a priest.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Father Bourque said. ‘And it’s true that, if Jeannot runs, the nuncio will report adversely to Rome. But, even so, I think it’s worth the risk.’

I had not visited Jeannot’s boys’ club in some months. When I drove up there the following afternoon, the place looked as though it had been transformed into a campaign headquarters. There were seminarians, young priests and nuns, youth leaders, street boys and others who I did not recognise, at work in each of the six rooms on the ground floor. I saw office desks, computers and, significantly, a room where a crew from Radio Libre was sitting with microphones and sound-recording equipment. In the outer hall there were charts on the walls detailing various demonstrations and parades that were to be held in the next weeks. Father Cachot, until now Jeannot’s assistant, had been replaced by ‘Pele’ Pelardy, a Marxist exile newly returned from New York.

I sensed at once that I was not welcome among these people. But Jeannot, when he heard I had arrived, ran out to greet me. ‘Where have you been? Why didn’t you come sooner? Let’s go up to my room.’

I saw Pelardy look at me with the dislike people of his sort have for priests. ‘There’s a finance committee meeting,’ he told Jeannot. ‘They’re waiting for you now.’

‘Let them wait, then,’ Jeannot said. He took my arm and we went upstairs. As we did, I saw a new crush of supplicants waiting in the front hallway. They were people of every sort, the poor of La Rotonde, peasants from the countryside, small politicians, businessmen, students, street vendors. As we moved past them, going up the staircase, faces turned, conversations died to whispers, people waved, hoping to catch Jeannot’s eye. Of course I was accustomed to his being the centre of attention. But this was different. I thought of Doumergue. It was as though the awe which Doumergue had inspired had been transferred to Jeannot. He was now the most talked-of man in the country.

Jeannot, typically, ignored all of this. He took me into his tiny, monkish bedroom and closed the door. He went at once to a table and made instant coffee on a heater ring just as he had done in the old days, when we would meet to gossip and talk of his plans.

‘What’s going on,
Petit
?’ I asked him. ‘All these people, these meetings?’

‘The People’s Church is like Rome, it won’t be built in a day. I’ve missed you, Paul. All these people, yes, I’m surrounded. But you’re the only one I can really talk to.’ He poured hot water into the coffee and handed me a cup.

‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said. ‘I’ve missed those days when I could come here and do something useful. But maybe now I can be useful to you in another way. You know René Laberge?’

He laughed. ‘Don’t say it. I know what you’re talking about.’

‘He asked me to speak to you.’

‘Me, running for president? Ridiculous.’

‘Jeannot, listen. There will be international observers at these elections, including the ex-premier of France. That’s unheard of, here. And if you run as the candidate of the poor you’ll get so many votes that the Army won’t be able to rig things against you.’

He started to argue with me. But as we talked, as I kept pressing him, I sensed that he was beginning to change his mind. At last, he said, ‘But if I
did
become president I’d alter the system completely. I’d try to take this country out of the hands of foreign capitalists. I’d destroy the power of the elite. I’d get rid of the army officers who run the drug trade. In fact, I’d get rid of the current top brass.’

‘In other words,’ I said, ‘as president you’d make a revolution without having to start by building barricades in the streets.’

‘Wait a minute. There’s the other problem. The Pope has forbidden priests to run for political office. They’d defrock me, or whatever they call it nowadays.’

‘Father Bourque says they might not.’

‘But if they did kick me out – look, it’s important that the poor know I’m their priest. If I enter politics, all that will end.’

‘And if you foment a revolution here, don’t you think Rome will see it as taking part in politics?’

He smiled. ‘I should know better than to argue with
you
.’ He put his arm around my shoulders. ‘All right. Tell Laberge I’ll think about it.’

A week later we read it in the newspapers. Father Jean-Paul Cantave, ‘Jeannot’, the priest of the poor, would stand as the Social Democratic candidate for president.

He went on radio. He campaigned all over the island. On the week of the election, the world media descended on Ganae. International observers were flown in. The Army promised to oversee the polls so that there would be no cheating or disturbances. For once, the Army kept its word. When the results were tallied, Jeannot won seventy-five per cent of the popular vote. The world’s press announced that a thirty-year-old Roman Catholic priest had been elected to run the country. Rome was silent, a silence which was interpreted as consent. Seven weeks later, Jeannot was installed as president of Ganae.

On that day, Fathers Bourque, Duchamp, Joliette, Destouts and I were driven by Hyppolite to the presidential palace. The great square surrounding it was jammed with people. We had to make our way on foot towards the main entrance. The high, ornate railings surrounding the gleaming white buildings were covered by the bodies of slum children who had climbed there for a better view of the courtyard in which the ceremony was to take place. They clung there like human flies, ecstatically screaming, ‘Jeann-ot! Jeann-ot!’

In the courtyard amid honour guards, bands, flags and loudspeakers, the Church hierarchy, appointed during the dictator’s regime, sat on rows of gilded chairs: behind them were the bemedalled generals of the junta and the leaders of the many parliamentary parties. Facing these dignitaries were row upon row of the elite, men in formal morning clothes, women carrying parasols and wearing bright garden-party dresses. We sat beneath the presidential dais, a small group of priests, nuns and social workers, specially invited by Jeannot. And I – I tell you I was filled with pride as I saw him waiting, small and frail in cheap white cotton trousers and peasant shirt, slack as a puppet on strings until the microphones were readied and the media people signalled that it was time to begin.

And then in that miraculous transformation we had so often witnessed in church, he stepped forward and it was as though some unearthly presence had come down among us. He began to speak, not in French but in Creole, his voice reaching out beyond the capital to the villages, the highlands, the remote places of the island, that voice, electric in its power, humble yet triumphant, the voice of a priest preaching truth. We were caught by that voice and, as the loudspeakers sent it booming beyond the palace gates, the multitude jamming the great square and in the teeming streets adjoining it listened as though they were his congregation. He spoke to them, not to us.