The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (25 page)

DESSALINES

Courir! Courir!
Run, nigger, run,

I betting on you.

(
Some of the
SLAVES
join in the laughter.
DESSALINES
’s expression changes slowly. Down the road, the
SOLDIER
galloping, and
JACKO
,
trying to keep up, is dragged for some length in the dirt.

ANTON
and the
BARONESS. TOUSSAINT
comes towards them. He pauses. He is in coachman’s livery.
)

ANTON

What is it, Toussaint? There, you saw what happened?

TOUSSAINT

Perhaps he deserved it. The carriage.

How many will there be to go to Le Cap?

ANTON

All of us. Harness four. Wait. Toussaint … You do not have to go. You know that?

TOUSSAINT

Four.
Excusez moi, madame, m’sieu.

(
TOUSSAINT
bows. The
BARON, ANTON
,
the
BARONESS, M. CALIXTE-BREDA
,
a matronly
WOMAN
.)

CALIXTE-BREDA

Mirabeau, Robespierre, Rousseau, Voltaire,

What are all these metropolitan names, Baron?

They’re romantics overcome by the odour of the mob.

MATRON

Bouquet d’Afrique.

(
The guests laugh.
)

A man’s origins hides in his linen.

(
More laughter.
)

CALIXTE-BREDA

And this man … Ogé … He’s a mulatto.

He was a member of the Friends of the Negro …

He is, was, my son Anton’s very good friend.

BARON

Was? He isn’t dead yet. That’s tomorrow, no?

CALIXTE-BREDA

He’s as good as dead. Maybe just as well.

Rights for the mulattos today means rights

For the slaves tomorrow. Well, there’s damned

Little entertainment here apart from executions.

MATRON

I had a surly cook once. Very rude. Finally,

Desolated, I threw him into the oven.

(
Laughter.
)

That was after my husband died.

No. It’s true. Don’t be shocked, Baron.

It is funny now I come to think of it.

CALIXTE-BREDA

Their trial has lasted two months. It has been fair.

They began an insurrection. Chavannes killed my friends.

I have no feeling of revenge. You must write that

In your esteemed style, Baron.

You must see that Anton, my adopted son,

Is a mulatto. But I treat him like my own.

So we aren’t all that cruel.

MATRON

You should display more gratitude, Anton.

(
CHORUS
enters, marching at funeral step, to a single drumbeat on her drum,
CHORUS
sings.
)

CHORUS

I

C’était bel jour comme ’jourd’hui.

Eux prendre les deux mulattres:

Ogé avec Chavannes.

Eux ’taient aller Paris

En culottes et cravates

Eux pas ’taient Nègre savannes

Pour demander leur droit,

Leur droit, leur droit, mulattres.

II

Mais mulattres trop couillons,

Pis eux ni grands cabanes.

Eux croient eux c’est gens blanc

Et, Nègres ka rester cabrits

Z’animaux et moutons,

Alors jourd’hui, jourd’hui

Bon Dieu fait eux pardon

Eux prend Ogé ec Chavannes

Pour faire crucifixion.

III

Bon Dieu, toute moune c’est même

Mulattres, bechés et Nègres,

Mais nous sourds, nous aveugles

Tout n’omme eux c’est une race

Messieurs bi-dim, bam-bam

La guerre kai commencer

A’ nous aller la place

A’ nous La Place des Armes.

I

It was a lovely day,

A day just like this one.

They took the two mulattos

Named Ogé and Chavannes

And stretched them in the sun.

The two, they went to Paris

In trousers and in ties

To plead the mulattos’ cause

Before the French Assembly,

And what they did to them

You will see, you will see!

II

These two men they were fools

Because they had good beds.

They thought that they were free,

They had a right to ask it,

Brotherhood, liberty.

They learnt good French in schools

But what was in their heads

Will roll into a basket.

III

God, all men are one race

But men are deaf and blind,

They pleaded for their case

But now their plea is wind,

Wind in the marketplace.

And Justice, she so blind!

And Justice, she so blind!

Scene 3

Night. The city of Le Cap. Crowds in the street. A carnival atmosphere. The gang of
SLAVES, DESSALINES
among them, being herded along to an open square, where there is a platform and two wheels. Kettledrum rolls.

A
CLERK
mounts the platform and reads, by the light of a torch held by a
SOLDIER
,
the death sentence.

CLERK

They are to be taken to the Place des Armes,

And the opposite side to that appointed

For the execution of white criminals, and

Have their arms, legs, and ribs broken

While alive, upon a …

(
DESSALINES
sits among the gang of
SLAVES
in the square, watching the gibbet. The square is filling with
SLAVES
from other estates,
SOLDIERS
guarding them.

Auberge de la Couronne. Laughter, drunken
CITIZENS, PROPRIETOR. CHRISTOPHE
,
as a waiter, serving drinks to a table of
MULATTOS
sitting apart. A
STUDENT, VASTEY BARON
.
The sound of the inn growing louder.
)

CLERK’S VOICE

Scaffold erected for that purpose, and

Placed by the executioner upon wheels,

With their faces turned towards heaven,

There to remain as long as it shall

Please God to preserve life; after

This, their heads to be severed from

Their bodies and exposed upon stakes.

PROPRIETOR

I say if it happen, it happen, and life must go on!

You know who have the pure philosophy?

These women!

(
GRACES
,
three handsome, light-skinned women in republican costumes.
)

Our three girls, Marie, Thérèse, and Yette,

Egalité, fraternité,

So to forget the horror

A little music, and

A nous!
The three Graces!

(
The three
GRACES, YETTE
among them, dressed as La Liberté. The
GRACES
begin their worn routine. This comprises a ballet of revolution, around a chained
NEGRO
.)

GRACES
(
Singing.
)

Allons, enfants, allons, messieurs,

Le jour de gloire est arrivé.

(
A grimy tableau on a platform. A chained half-naked
NEGRO
;
around him the three costumed
GRACES
,
holding up a sign:
LA LIBERTÉ DE SAINT DOMINGUE
.
)

YETTE
(
To
STUDENT
)

You working damn hard for a free coffee,
garçon.

STUDENT

Paix chou’ous.
I am an intellectual whore. I admit.

VASTEY

You taught us the art of atrocity, civilisation.

The science of massacre. There were once in this place

A million Indians. Today there are six hundred.

Their slaughter was in the interest of science?

STUDENT

I have studied philosophy in Paris itself.

I don’t know why you should feel so confused.

The torture is of no consequence, here is the reason:

This is hot. This is black. There’s no milk in it.

You know what coffee is? A slave is pure coffee.

But what’s a mulatto like her?
Café au lait.

I am in a café; I am a Catholic, a colonial, look.

If I mix coffee with milk, it’s no longer coffee.

(
He indicates.
)

It is sentimental to base a civilisation

Upon a peasantry, culture is based on intellect,

On hierarchy and order, the Church herself,

The spangled, dizzying definition of angels,

Archangels, saints, canonical decrees

Admit the ascent towards that radiance

Of utter thought, for what’s the Supreme Being

If not the Utmost Intellect?

YETTE

                                                 True. True.

STUDENT

                                                                    And since, in nature,

We see the evolutions of power and servitude,

How one system sharks into another’s maw,

How everything is gloved in appetite

To feed the major beasts, how there is difference

Even in the affects of nature, in cities,

Blizzards; in jungles: dark rain, it follows

That there is size, and scale, and service,

And that at the bottom of the pyramid,

The apex, of every sane society, the peasant,

And lower than the peasant, the slave;

The slave, who even in his own family,

No less than the obscurest beetle,

Gives orders as the father to his spawn,

Or you might as well chuck the whole thing in a ditch

And call confusion order, and not chaos.

Saint Domingue, therefore, despite its slaves,

Remains an excellent example of natural order,

Obedience to the Church in servitude,

Protection of the slaves, its children,

Harvest, and in the New World, in terms of example,

Is more than Europe, an earthly paradise.

Even Paradise had its revolutionary angel,

And it was the first revolt, wasn’t it,

That flared up that order? It was the light-bringer

That tried to make the celestial order chaos

And, out of heaven, made hell. It is for this

And not for their politics these men are punished.

(
He exits.
)

PROPRIETOR

Makes plenty sense to me. Coffee is coffee.

Coffee with milk is not coffee, but
café au lait.

Therefore, sir, you are not a cup of coffee.

VASTEY

Don’t talk to me about Paris.

You see what they do to mulattos who go to Paris …

BARON

That is one arrogant nigger over there. The waiter.

He was born in Saint Christopher, so

He calls himself Christophe.

(
He suddenly begins to sob, dryly. No one notices.
CHRISTOPHE
refills the mug of rum.
)

VASTEY

Why was I born into this tribe of mongrels?

You hear them? They torture two of their people,

And they come here and get drunk.

(
CHRISTOPHE
turns, assessing the smoky, raucous crowd.
)

CHRISTOPHE

Just now they’ll start singing,

Give them enough rum, then someone

Will pull out a knife.

(
Some singing begins with the
CHORUS
of the three
GRACES
.)

The nigger blood will show.

They remind me of monkeys.

VASTEY

I am one of them. Do I remind you

Of a monkey also?

CHRISTOPHE

A philosophical monkey,

Always pronouncing big words

Imported on the last boat.

VASTEY
(
Rising.
)

Ape … you illiterate black ape!

(
Silence.
CHRISTOPHE
takes the drink and goes to the rum barrel, grins, fills the mug, and returns with it. He places it before the
BARON
.
All now watch.
CHRISTOPHE
extends the napkin.
)

CHRISTOPHE

Tell me more, Excellency.

I am here to learn, mulatto.

Because the French, they know you!

They know they dealing with monkeys,

Monkeys with foulards, you don’t want to be free,

You just don’t want to be black. Right?

(
He tears off the
BARON
’s cravat.
)

Fat mulatto monkeys that smoke five-franc cigars

And keep bawling for more wine,