Alphabet of the Night Read online

  We ask you for the courage to work our land. We need the harvest so we can offer you gifts. The water we are going to spill on the ground is our contract by which we promise you to respect the land that gave birth to us.”

  11

  The same day

  4 27 p m

  I HAVE JUST SPENT THE DAY doing things that seem supernatural to a stranger. It was difficult! Fresnel is not dead. He is not living deep underground. Edner the hougan searched for him everywhere. Even on the surface of the mass graves. He did not reply. I don’t have detailed knowledge of the mysteries of this country. But how can you not believe them when you have always lived in Haiti?

  At ten o’clock this morning I was in the arbour playing a game of dominoes with a group of cheerful, noisy people. I would have happily spent the day like that if I was on holiday. But I was here for another reason. I could think of only one thing: the exact time of my consultation. Interesting as the game was, I had the feeling of being too close to Fresnel. His voice came from all sides. I even heard it in the clack of the dominoes. Absence became a heavy veil, isolating me from the people nearest me. And I wanted to get back on my road, to follow the banks of the calmed river. Subdued.

  The sun had shaped my memory already. I didn’t take much notice of the scheming sunbeams that shone through the plaits of the coconut trees. They looked like fragments of ghosts on the ground. The wind, busy playing hopscotch with the kites, left its mark on every sway of the coconuts. The ground shook. Really shook. The kind of shaking that grabs the pit of your stomach and sets off your survival instincts. Edner appeared from nowhere and stood in the middle of the arbour. He began to whirl round. Grabbed a bottle of white rum as he passed. In spite of the day, the sun and the wind, he still laid his calloused hands on me, looked at me with his wounded madman’s eyes.

  The game of dominoes made way for more serious matters. The hougan launched into one pirouette after another. It gave me a scare, frankly. With incredible composure, one of his assistants took the bottle away from him and got him under control. He took off Edner’s shoes.

  “Ey fout gason! Pile tè a se la fòs ou ye,”* he boomed.

  Edner let him do it. Then the assistant dealt with the hougan’s trousers, rolling them right up his legs. He tied a red scarf around his right wrist for him, and then disappeared the way he came.

  Edner regained his composure, and gestured me to follow him into the room where he worked. A real chaos of colours and strangeness. Here was the silence. Through the translucent haze I could make out four men, crouching in positions of utter collapse. Their neglected bodies were just so many borderless territories inhabited by the gods. The only thing that seemed to defy the silence was a few yellow candles. The hougan grabbed one of them and calmly ran his fingernails through the wax. After each turn he stopped and poured a drop of white rum onto the ground in honour of a lwa god. His distraction only lasted a moment. At last he sat down in his armchair.

  I expected him to get out a pack of cards and ask the usual questions. I had been preparing myself for this game for some time. In cases like this it was supposed to be inevitable. But against all my expectations, he approached the problem differently. Without cards, without rigmarole. He asked me for Fresnel’s photo, his boxer shorts, his hairbrush and seven hundred and thirty-five gourdes and thirty-five centimes. From my scant knowledge of that world, I knew the thirty-five centimes was the share that was due to the gods. The copper coins (seven five-centime pieces) would be blessed and placed in the middle of the first seven crossroads from the peristyle. I hastened to comply. He showed me a mound of earth whichto my mind⎯served as an altar, and made my offering.

  The four assistants, a queenly soloist and three drummers, backed out of the room. They began to play. The pounding of the drums bounced off the walls and came back, even more deafening, to take possession of the space, of my eardrums, my waiting. Taking advantage of this atmosphere, Edner asked me to come closer and sprinkled me with fresh water from a large earthenware jar. Then he addressed me.

  “After this sprinkling of holy water you will become my pitit-fèy.* This water comes from a spring upstream. It is pure water. Every Thursday, seven unsullied women fetch water to fill the jar. These women, preferably in the menopause, are the faithful servants of the lwa of all the rivers and the sea. You can imagine how angry Agwe, Simbi, Klèmezin Klèmèy would be if this role was performed by women who are menstruating or at a time of great sexual activity. This water will let you pass over into the world of the supernatural, which is the true world of knowledge. You are fortunate to have gods who watch over you.”

  He baptised me. A minute after I was received as an initiate, he drew a curtain, gave me back the things I had laid out on the mound of earth, and asked me to go into the back room on my own.

  Two or three minutes went by. Endless. Edner’s voice ripped through the curtain.

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did someone speak to you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He asked me to come out of the back room. There was a broad smile on his face. He took a mouthful of rum and handed me the bottle.

  “I think you’ve made a wasted journey. It’s better that way. I like to see my clients go away happy. Your friend isn’t dead. He might be in prison or in exile. Go and confirm it on this side.”

  “I’d prefer to confirm that he is actually alive. Do you have a way of doing that?”

  He did not seem at all bothered by my scepticism. He asked me for a photo of someone close to me who was dead. I got out a photo of Lucien in his Sunday suit. It was a passport photograph that he had had taken for a visa application to the Venezuelan Embassy. He wanted to leave by any means possible. I can’t remember how many job applications I had to write for Lucien. He never managed to get a visa to leave the country. Not enough guarantees. After trying the American, Canadian, French and Venezuelan Consulates, his passport was now adorned with more than a dozen refusals.

  He asked me to go back behind the curtain, this time with the photo of Lucien. Two minutes later, as if at the height of a storm, the evidence suddenly appeared. Gigantic. Astonishing. Lucien’s voice came out of the mist. Staggering.

  “Why have you disturbed me? I had to come back to speak to you. What do you want? You saw me die outside your shop and you think the angels of the night will soon be short of bullets. Don’t kid yourself. When they haven’t got any bullets left they’ll get out their machetes. The same ones you ordered from Brazil, Mexico, from everywhere, thinking you were being helpful by selling them.

  This country is done for. I feel good on my journey. If you want to talk to me, leave this country. You won’t believe me: even dead and six foot under, my killers disturb my abandoned body.

  Stop looking for Fresnel in this country. He’s in Miami. He wrote to you. But he refuses to send the letter through the post. He knows they will open it. They are everywhere. They won’t think twice about killing you to intimidate the other shopkeepers. You are a Jew. Your name is Assaël. You were born with a compass in your hand. You are lucky to have plenty of visas. Leave, and good luck. As for me, I have no regrets, I am setting off on my road again. It is a long one.”

  As for Fresnel, he will definitely find someone to deliver his letter to you personally. Cursed be the day when we gave power to the voracious leech.”

  The voice died away, leaving just the sound of interference that had come with it. Without any comment. Edner gave me the bottle again and shattered my inertia.

  “Take this bottle. Drink your toddy and leave, go a long way if you have to, in search of your life. You have seen that life goes on indefinitely, beyond death, of course. The important thing is to live to the full all the lives that come along. Leave, my son, and send me a postcard. I am not master of my own destiny. I am here to serve the lwa. As long as the sun is allowed to pass over this country, I will have t
o stay.”

  * “Man, you have to tread the land with your bare feet. The land is a source of strength. Tread this land for me.”

  * Spiritual son.

  12

  16th December

  At the entrance of the town and the night

  EVERY YEAR, THE NIGHTS of Port-au-Prince take a lot of lives away on journeys to the other side of the sun. The appeal of the unknown is of no use. Drop by drop you hear the story of hours decimated by resignation. I have just got back to town. Again I use my foreigner’s eyes, my foreigner’s approach. I have nothing to be ashamed of, considering the dearth of any aid here. The same children are in the same place, sniffing glue. It is their way of drawing on waxed paper. The image they want to create is far removed from the games they are meant to play. The sight of them always takes me back to my own childhood. I feel no remorse; despite this monument to imposed delinquency which adorns itself with yet more decorations each time it makes an appearance. At the root of it is the hand of Brother Pascal, which for so long wandered over my child’s body. From one decoration to the next, my past is chequered with unhappy, unsmiling masks. I have spent my life as a target. Yesterday I was a tiny spot to hit. Today I wear glad rags for a land that has died.

  Haiti is like a raging river that scours the earth in search of its buried heart. Only by getting angry does it manage to find the treasure chest. When it has finally taken out its heart, it goes back to bed and spends its days watching life moving away on the bank. I know the stories of the heart. I live off Haiti. Passion is a dense fog, and anyone with determination searches for whatever part of childhood they can find. My character is a product of deprivation. How many embraces have I missed since death and fear came knocking at my door?

  Despite my long communion with this country, I sense I am missing certain things. Yet they are important for my survival. My attachment to this country is as strong as the fickleness of a thousand ravening vultures. Which of us will return to the same madness a million times? The winner will undoubtedly see the end of the tunnel.

  My family has been here for generations. It is normal that I should be marked. I have the feeling of having served. Who hasn’t? I have heard Haitians telling anyone who will listen that they will stay like this until the after-season.

  I am in the town with the rage of the river still in my ears. I am in the town with Lucien’s voice. No. He told me that Fresnel isn’t dead. I know he never liked Fresnel, the pretentious little mulatto who hated coming to the shop.

  Lucien is free. When he was alive he never spoke to me the way he did in Fresnel’s jar. Death is like exile. They both have the power to liberate, from a country, from a social dimension, from preservation.

  I take Lucien at his word. For once, the streets of Port-au-Prince don’t stick their tongues out at me. My fear is elsewhere. When you have travelled on roads flooded by the river Artibonite, when you return from the depths of mystery, a town, even a ferocious one, is nothing to be afraid of. It has been said that Fresnel’s letter will get to me. At this very moment it might be on an American Airlines flight, hidden in the false bottom of a bag. I fly. I glide. The street follows its road. I look after mine. People are talking about the high cost of living. The masters of night are preparing for battle. The President is having his siesta. The radio bellows the latest news.

  “The Haitian community in the United States is in turmoil. According to an article published by a daily paper in Miami, the twelve alleged bandits recently lynched by members of popular organisations close to the government in front of pupils from every school in the capital, were members of the opposition party who had planned violent action to weaken the regime. These so-called Zenglendos* were handed over bound hand and foot to the government by members of their own party. Everyone remembers these tragic events. We did our duty as journalists in exposing the fact that schoolchildren were forced to be present at the execution. Our objectivity required us to present the facts without taking sides. But today we have every right to rebel against this motiveless killing. We believe that no war, even one that is won, is worth a human life. Our people, our fellow countrymen, have sunk to a level of true non-humanity. Our children are living with blood. Our children have only treachery and back-stabbing as examples.

  Once more, and once too often, our national pride has suffered grievous harm. We are unable to organise ourselves. Who cannot remember the successful fundraising organised by the opposition in exile? Our reporters on the spot noted that even the Chinese made contributions. The suffering of the people, at the mercy of bad government for almost two centuries, aroused the pity of other countries around the world. The struggle even seemed to catch the attention, too often passive and indirect, of the leaders in the North and of international institutions. But this untimely outrage sadly takes us back to square one.

  This will probably be my last news bulletin. The operator has just told me that the Chief of Police telephoned. His men are on their way. They are marching on the radio station, the last bastion of your liberty, your right to information. I knew it had to come. But those who gorge themselves on the pride and the blood of those who have always tried to build cannot escape the revenge of the population of zombies when they come out of their torpor. All the zombies are waiting for is a pinch of salt.”

  The presenter’s voice has just been replaced by the national anthem. Suddenly I want to go home. There is nothing good in store for this town.

  For our country

  For our forebears

  Let us march united

  A voice, yet another voice, is going to be crushed against the night. It is true this country really does exist. But it is no longer the majority who think that it will continue to exist without us.

  * Armed gangsters.

  13

  24th December

  WHAT A SHAMBLES, THIS SHOP. It took me three days to find the box of letters from Lucien. For a long time I have kept Fresnel’s letters. He writes so beautifully. And now I have got his most recent one. The only one I was prophesised to get. It is in the box with the rest. According to Fresnel’s instructions I ought to destroy it. I decided to keep it. It is not as well written as the others. The prose is poor and direct. It’s mad, exile. Fresnel has stopped playing with words. He has acquired the habit of important things. His address is there. He is living in Orlando and has just been granted political asylum. He promised to tell me all about it, but I can imagine what he had to go through, poor thing. I will take the letter with me.

  It was Jeannot who brought it. He dropped in to see me. He looked odd in his woollen jacket. I had never seen him in that get-up. I never liked him anyway. He is a prickly character who spends his life between flights. Officially he is in import-export. I am not the only one who thinks he has his little deals on the side. He once told me that the Head of Customs had denounced him in some high and obscure quarter. He got a summons from the President himself. At nine o’clock at night, in his office at the palace. He went. He knew that running away was not the answer. The President asked him if he imported arms in his containers. He said no, but made it clear that he could do so if that would be of service to the Revolution. He left the palace with the President’s private telephone numbers. He brags about using them against the Head of Customs when he behaved as if he had forgotten that he, Jeannot, had been into the snake pit without getting bitten.

  He came in wearing his jacket and left it behind. As he went out he said to me:

  “You’ll be needing it. But first you’d better take something of yours from the inside pocket.”

  It was the letter from Fresnel. It is now safe with the ones that took me three days to find. I can imagine my cousin’s face if he had found these letters.

  I sold my shop. I needed to make my story move faster. In my family, you die in your shop. If everything is going well. But it isn’t. My cousin took over the shop. We spent a night discussing the consequences of my decision. He didn’t understand a thing. For over a century
we have buried ourselves in the trivialisation of events. This country has created a complex system of short cuts for itself, to keep the dysfunction functioning. I have stopped feeding the utopia. In a week I am leaving.

  I will take the time for a walk round the town. Before I go I would like to know who is going to make it their business to liberate the day. I will take whatever time I need to make my fear waver. I have time. No one is expecting me for a week. I would never have imagined that one day passion would show me the way to the dawn. It is not the night. You never go out during the night to come back during the night. Let’s hope this week and what it holds doesn’t try to stop what is forging ahead. In all honesty, I am on the downward slope to exile. It’s better that way. I need to take a step back to be able to understand what was once my country.

  14

  HERE WE ARE. In a few days’ time it is the Festival of the Revolution. Port-au-Prince is getting ready to change its image. This festival is a rag-bag in praise of the President. Those who have never taken part or been subjected to the parade have obviously not set foot in the capital of Haiti. Photos of the smiling leader will face up to gusts of wind, opponents and the dust in the street. People who have never been near the town on a day of kow-towing to the reign of the night can never imagine the weight of the presidential sash.

  The procession always sets off from the cathedral, makes its way through the rows of choirboys with the blessing of the Apostolic Nuncio and His Holiness the Archbishop, both gleaming in suitable robes. Outside, in broad daylight, pupils from the Convent schools stand in front of those from the State schools, waving cut-out coloured paper flags in their privileged little hands. The crowd, which comes from everywhere, greets the procession with “Long live the President!”