The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (6 page)

Through lymph and vein like snakes to eat this offer?

That hesitation …

(
Tired, he knocks the crown over.
)

The crowd sighs, Henri, with relief,

I do, too.

Return my mitre, it has made history.

Say something, Henri.

(
CHRISTOPHE
passes the
CROWD
and goes to the steps to speak.
)

CHRISTOPHE

I am tired of many things,

Chief, living. This ephemeral gesture

Of a greying hero, with murders for his memory,

I think this is the tiredness

That threatened Dessalines before he died.

Leave us. Go home.

(
The
CROWD
disperses raggedly.
)

I am very confused, Father.

(
SYLLA
and
GENERALS
go;
VASTEY
and
BRELLE
stay.
)

I had no comfort; what I wanted

Was memory, which no worm bites; this summer flesh

Wrapped in comfort around the arctic bone

Will crumble like my work; you understand, white man,

This nigger search for fame

Dragged like a meteor across my black rule.

Apart from that I have no ease,

No gods, Haitian or Christian; my primer is blood or honour;

My pieces, cathedrals that I would build,

Would have made brick biographies, green ruin,

Played over by children and girls dressed like butterflies

In a tropic summer. But you cannot understand, only Vastey.

BRELLE

You have no faith,

You want to be King.

You pray to a God of power and glory,

No prayer is answerable till hands are meek.

You think I am all faith.

Our faiths, Henri, are only crooked divers crouched

For leap into negation; spun on a world

Then flung into the dark where horror rules,

Guesses like stars whirl, hazardous in the dark;

I too doubted that only temporal triumphed.

This world is like a teardrop posed

In the eyelid of eternity, then dropping down the dark,

Round as a bubble, pricked by accident.

Accept this harm, master

The death of summer opening in the petal,

The evil threatening your light:

To be President is enough.

VASTEY

Must he break his back,

Squatting on a soldier’s stool

With failing eyes? He grows old.

And now this desk, buried up to the neck

With the flat white wishes of hope turned to paper,

Dead hands, dead wishes around him,

His eyes and veins all ink?

Shame, Priest,

It is religion that is our confusion.

BRELLE

I know you both bitterly resent my intrusion,

But I know the emptiness of glory;

It is not the amount of syllables that make the story

But the sincerity.

You think my intrusion to be severity:

I have risen from acolyte to archbishop.

You from a slave in Grenada to this grandeur.

Where is the honour? Pardon me, Henri.

CHRISTOPHE

A man does not like to be brought naked in the sun,

Or have his hopes pilloried in the market.

Leave us, Brelle.

(
BRELLE
goes out.
)

My dreams are cracked, scudded like smoke.

VASTEY

I tried my best. I should have had

More accomplices in the crowd:

That soldier was not loud.

CHRISTOPHE

You did your best.

There will be another chance.

I will be King, a king flows in me. I am tired;

Let us go in.

To ride through shouts, crowned, insolent, to ride

Under long arches.

VASTEY
(
Leading him away.
)

Yes, General.

We must try again.

CHRISTOPHE
(
Laughing.
)

There is no “more.”

The leaves rust in silence; rivers and tongues

Are dry; my age is drought:

Grey hairs and wrinkles and the senile clutch

Of one dry grief to the anarchy of the bough.

That’s how I feel, but to be King, only to be King; ah, Vastey,

To rule in comfort … ah …

Let us go in.

(
They are going out, when they hear the
CROWD
.)

The crowd, their laughter, huge childish terrors,

Like a river’s noise in history.

Do not trust crowds, Vastey,

Break them or they break you.

(
They go out. For a moment the stage is bare, the bunting and flags draping mockery when the
CROWD
returns.
)

SOLDIER

And this gratitude we pay him? Shame!

FIRST VOICE

Honour and love are rich enough estates

For any.

SECOND VOICE

It is certain that he is a good soldier,

Loves his country; but why crave

The crown and its dangers?

FIRST VOICE

We saw what the sceptre did to Dessalines;

Do we want that repeated?

SOLDIER

Rubbish. Dessalines is dead and Pétion is defeated;

No crow rules but a king

Who is king except in name only.

FIRST VOICE

Then that should content him.

(
Laughter and jeering.
)

SOLDIER
(
Establishing quiet.
)

Is it for that in fear you sent him,

To wear his wounds without reward,

Mocked in the market, the pawn of peasants?

I am a soldier and love his service,

Dwell in his discipline without desertion.

Hand him the crown in a revised assertion,

Crown him with clemency, not in derision.

I say all this, what is your decision?

FIRST VOICE

Why should a king’s name honour him further?

SOLDIER

You let Dessalines rule and he was despotic,

You are helpless, and numb in the narcotic

Of your superstitions. Only a king can rule;

Give your government dignity. Must it look like a school

Conducted by a foolish master?

SECOND VOICE

Oh, if the crown comfort him, let him have it.

(
They cheer.
)

SOLDIER

He is born to be king; he will build

A weather only of wealth. Call him.

(
Some go off.
)

FIRST VOICE

Remember, Dessalines …

SECOND VOICE

How much are you getting

For what you are repeating?

SOLDIER

Oh, shut up.

FIRST VOICE

Remember that power changes the powerful.

Here is your King …

(
Re-enter
CHRISTOPHE
and
VASTEY
.)

All smiles; like prisoners, they break

The prison of restraint and modesty.

SOLDIER

Speak quickly, fool, or you speak anarchy after this.

They cry for you, Your Majesty; fear made them hesitate

To honour you with your natural estate.

General, you are now King; they are fickle;

Abuse the sickle, opportunity,

In harvest. Look, he cannot speak; leave him.

Let us leave.

(
The
CROWD
goes, bewildered. The
SOLDIER
hesitates, then is paid. Exiting.
)

Goodbye, Your Majesty.

CHRISTOPHE

Poor Brelle.

I think they love me.

VASTEY

That soldier did it; we must fatten him.

He never gives up, he would fight

With a sword’s stub.

CHRISTOPHE

Their love goes further than the corporal.

So, I am King.

VASTEY

Pétion is powerful still in the south,

A king rules this country in the blue north;

This is the richer side of Haiti; look at the hills

Curled in the afternoon like mist.

CHRISTOPHE

On that blue smoking citadel

That hides the sun until its zenith by its height,

I will build a fort

Made out of stone, as befits a soldier,

Magnificent in marble, a king’s comfort.

So high, so bleak,

The sound of the sea will be only a weak wind, or to look

Down on the summer sea, spreading sleep

In wrinkles, will giddy.

VASTEY

At what cost will the general build these things?

Bishoprics oppose the caprices of kings.

CHRISTOPHE

Caprices! Who talks of caprices?

I will exhaust this country into riches. Have you seen

The contagion of blight settling on the limes like apathy

On our stalks? I will build my cathedral in a month,

Then break or build this kingdom.

Look, look up, that hill …

VASTEY

That one, where the gulls achieve halfway,

Then slide back screaming to a muttering sea?

I see; why?

CHRISTOPHE

The air is thin there, the balding rocks

Where the last yellow grass clutch whitening in sun,

And the steep pass below the sea, knocking

Like a madman on the screaming sand,

And the wind howling down the precipices like a lunatic

Searching a letter he never wrote—against these rocks,

Wind, sand, cold, where the sharp cry of gulls beats faintly on the ears,

And in the green grove a milk of doves—what army

Would bend its head against the wind to reach?

We would, there, be safe.

And strong, and pretty.

The smell of roses which the sea wind dispels,

Dispelling also the birds’ voice, the weaker oleander—

Let us build white-pointed citadels,

Crusted with white perfections over

This epilogue of Eden, a prosperous Haiti,

My kingdom where I, a king, rule.

Mine, mine, Vastey! Once a slave,

Then after that Napoleon can envy,

With the Antilles mine, the whole archipelago overturning

Cauldrons of history and violence on their masters’ heads,

The slaves, the kings, the blacks, the brave.

VASTEY

A king only is strong,

A king alone rules long,

And a king’s children.

CHRISTOPHE

I shall build châteaux

That shall obstruct the strongest season,

So high the hawk shall giddy in its gyre

Before it settles on the carved turrets.

My floors shall reflect the face that passes over them,

And foreign trees spread out the shade of government

On emerald lawns; I will hold councils.

I’ll pave a room with golden coins, so rich

The old archbishop will smile indulgently at heaven from

The authenticity of my châteaux.

I will have Arabian horses, yellow-haired serving boys,

And in the night the châteaux will be lit

With lanterns bewildering as fireflies,

Over the lawns at night, like mobile candelabra.

I who was a slave am now a king; after my strength

Not England, Jamaica, or Napoleon

Shall send ships to disgorge invasions, but search for

Trade and quiet. Haiti will flourish,

When I am King.

VASTEY
(
Yawning.
)

It is going to rain.

Let us go in.

It is beginning to get dark.

(
Fade-out.
)

Scene 2

The throne room in the palace. It is dark,
VASTEY
and an
ATTENDANT
enter; there is the sound of church music from an adjacent room.

VASTEY

Strike a light.

Where is this music? Oh, the château chapelle …

Brelle is at prayer. Here it is so dark,

But bowed at his altars in bowers of brightness,

An archbishop praying with shortening wax,

Rehearsing his death by muttering martyrdoms,

Unravelling litanies of murdered saints—

The fool.

That lovely music! Mournful, meditative …

ATTENDANT

Shall I light a candle?

VASTEY

Wait. This music is appropriate to this dark,

Spreading, like silken water, ripples of quiet.

Strike a light? I told you, go on.

ATTENDANT

Yes, sir.

VASTEY

Strange how this glare reflects a dancing

Of my will that will not be stilled.

Light knocks and flickers on the wall …

Are you sure the King’s not here?

ATTENDANT

Yes, sir. I thought it was the archbishop you wanted.

VASTEY

I will get the archbishop …

Is it true the soldiers are shedding

Their duties shyly, like dirty suits?

No, light no more chances; is it true

The few that remain threaten faction?

How much of this rebellion is rumour?

ATTENDANT

I don’t know, Baron.

VASTEY

I waited for that …

And when will you desert us,

And be pawned to Pétion for his promise of plenty?

What do the people think of the King?

Certainly the priest is better liked?

Speak up, you can only be shot …

ATTENDANT

They like everybody, sir.