Alphabet of the Night Read online

  Farmers, workers, recycled poor people, women, all throw themselves at His Excellency’s imposing personal bodyguard. The good thing is that it is always the same ones who have done this show for years. Gently, the guards hold back the good people, making sure to let some slip through to be greeted by the President. They will not give up until the President invites two or three of them to get into his car; the people’s car, he will later call it.

  This year I have been invited to the palace. It was Zaccharias who arranged for me to have a place of honour. Third row. Behind the foreign diplomats. I will be three rows in front of the other Jews and a thousand miles from the people. It is a shopkeeper’s duty to appear in the palace courtyard at the festival. It is also the change we get from our contributions to the special festival fund. Zaccharias numbers me among his friends. But he doesn’t know that Fresnel has written to me. He is alive. He is waiting for me in Miami.

  I will not go to this party in honour of the President. I will not wear the badge worn by his henchmen. I say this with all my soul, annoyed by the night. The cries beneath my window, the news, the faces ravaged by complicit mornings have got the better of my innate sense of collaboration.

  It is a long time since I stopped dreaming about being a historian or a politician. Let the street deck itself out with guests on the big day, let the cars blow their horns til my eardrums burst. I will not carry the flag of the night during the daytime. All year round the people hide themselves away. At every carnival they are brought out with a roll of drums. At every anniversary of the Revolution they are brought out with a lot of popular hogwash and promises. The street is getting ready to be full of life, hostage to merchants of death wearing full regalia. Even in this country of days at half-mast, the sun still manages to play along.

  Although I am a Jew, I will not give a cent towards the next campaign. The weapons bought with my contribution and that of so many others are always turned on us, on our secrets. The army’s new anti-riot company might be well trained and reassuring, but I am not going to see it. I left the good old days of naivety and principles at the last crossroads. We have always paid for the right to live in the semblance of a country. Our shops and our origins have always doomed us to collaborate, to serve both God and Caesar.

  This is my country no longer. The radio gets on my nerves. The official communiqués make my life a misery. They always have to put salt on dried blood. As if fresh blood lived on confessions. It is a country that is always apologising. Too many contrasts. They throw a party to celebrate last night’s harvest. This country is sinking into another country, with its hundreds of thousands of children waiting for death in the capital alone. Life is leaving, moving far away from love, far away from freedom. I am going with it.

  This year I am not going to listen to the same old speech that I have heard for the last ten years.

  “I am proud to be the worthy successor of Toussaint-Louverture and Dessalines the Great. I assume the responsibility of leading the Haitian people on the road to progress and democracy. How many of my brothers and sisters, here and elsewhere, do not believe in the Haitian miracle? And I reply with all my strength that our ancestors routed Napoleon’s army at the cost of many sacrifices and that our generation will repeat this achievement. Not with weapons, but with our industries, our roads and our agriculture. History requires us to defend our status of being an example to other black peoples. With the international community, hand in hand with our friends from industry and commerce, together with the enlightened opposition, my team and I pledge to honour the solemn promises we made before the people when we accepted the mandate to secure the future of this country in order and discipline.”

  By the time the band at the National Palace strikes up the first verse I will be on the plane, en route to the madness of another life. Out of the window I will see the distance between this people and the others. I am not going to wait for night before I leave. I am afraid its reign will threaten my meagre right to escape.

  PART THREE

  THIS IS FRESNEL’S LETTER to Jeremy Assaël. I will keep it for as long as my journey lasts.

  Jeremy,

  I am writing to you from the balcony of my apartment. It is a beautiful day. People are happy. At least they look happy. If I dare to sit in a deckchair and show myself to my neighbours, it is because as from this morning I am an official asylum-seeker with the right to live with Uncle Sam. I get an allowance from the State of Florida which will give me something to live on during the time it takes me to integrate. My immediate project is you. Then I am going to write a book, a novel that will talk about exile and crossings. I must write it in English, otherwise it will never see the light of day.

  I think it is important that you think about shutting up shop. If I was allowed to make decisions for you, you would already be in the United States, the Dominican Republic, anywhere, making a new life for yourself. On the other hand I am keen to tell you about my departure, to explain why I believe your future in Haiti is engraved with mourning.

  6th October

  I was at the private viewing of Pascal’s exhibition. I introduced him to you once at Kenskoff. He is a young painter whose theme is naked creatures displaying their genitals. Feeling a need to support his creative talent in the face of nostalgic and caustic critics, I made it my duty to be with him for this venture.

  Disastrous evening. The management smothered the art. It is good to see an artist friend’s work take off, but I can tell you the way it was done left us speechless. Pascal’s paintings were wildly successful, out of all proportion. Madame Célestin, the gallery owner, had set up an incredible marketing strategy to get her own back on the press, who had refused to publicise the event. It was amazing. Using her connections at the National Palace, she managed to get one of Pascal’s pictures hung in the President’s office. Ministers saw it. Diplomats liked it. Collectors got wind of a bargain. You can imagine the stampede for poor Pascal’s canvases. Within half an hour they were all reserved. Sold.

  More disgusted than pleased, the barely-known artist managed to slip away from the pack of de facto connoisseurs and join me at the Café des Arts. I had arranged this refuge in case we needed to beat a retreat. It was the only way of avoiding a drama, because I had a desperate urge to burst out laughing, the scene was so unreal and foolish.

  Almost 10 p m

  Particularly cool evening. Pascal was doing his best to spend his old pennies. He had to make room for tomorrow’s jackpot. He is a Third World artist. Money hampers his necessity to create. The sooner the money is spent the better. I know instinctively that it is the crappiest situations that drive an artist to the limits of his relentless struggle to transform and create. It is the wretchedness of Haiti that produces so many artists and pocket politicians.

  A waiter brought us a bottle of champagne which we had not ordered. I was just explaining to him that he must have got the wrong table when a deluxe creature planted herself in front of me and demanded a gift fit for a queen. She invited us to share the bottle with her. Aside from the impossibility of refusing her, she was genuinely interested in Pascal’s work. The emptier the bottle became, the more she insisted on posing for a portrait by Pascal. Flattered, my dear artist friend agreed. They left me with the remains of the bottle and went off to get to know each other better, far from me, far from the noise.

  I don’t know what stars they lit up together. I had a bottle to finish and a vague plan to go home. I didn’t get time. They didn’t give me time.

  Rather too late I noticed the terrace of the café had emptied like a spendthrift’s wallet. I found myself surrounded by the last remaining customers. They were armed and determined to take me away. They had had the order to do it.

  I have always compared my country to a big open stage. That’s simply my belief. It’s true that everyday life always contains elements of the carnival; but the facts, which I forget too quickly, were overwhelming. The unusual aspect of the story had overshadowed my fear. I was wron
g to interpret what was happening as imaginary. The guys in front of me really did have something against me. Their boss had decided on it.

  I promise you I hadn’t spent all day thinking about death or prison. When at the start of the evening I saw Pascal’s pictures selling, I caught myself dreaming about an idle future. I even believed that art could set itself up as a sideline in this country that has lost the power of speech.

  Even in my hazy state, the infernal machine had got underway. These henchmen were not interested in playing games. They were there to take me away. You understand, Jeremy. It was what they were used to. And I didn’t feel at all scared. I held out my wrists to them, one last request for civilised treatment. I wanted to have real handcuffs for the honour of being arrested with dignity. Like every Haitian, I had often imagined how I would react if I was arrested. I had vowed I would ask to be treated as a delinquent, a common-law criminal. In a country where a crust of bread is worth as much a human being, it is wiser to go to prison labelled as a criminal than as an opponent of the government.

  The poor henchmen did not have any handcuffs. Since I put up no resistance, they had to make do with taking me away. The journey to my cell was quite comfortable. The night that accompanied me had already vacuumed up any citizens without a badge, without an official permit to be out on the street. Flanked by two militants, guardians of the Revolution, I just let myself be taken to meet the silence. In these circumstances, words would only bounce off the walls of propaganda. I think all Haitians are disappointed. I searched the faces of my abductors. I had the time. I don’t think they enjoyed spying on the shadows of the night either. I imagined them doing another job apart from this. The one on my left would make a good farmer, I’m sure. The one on the right was a young guy, well-hung. He would be good as a chulo*, looking after tourists who are recovering from heartbreak.

  As long as you are still living in Haiti, I will refrain from telling you what I was subjected to during my interrogation. I didn’t get the chance to see my torturer’s face, but I think I know who it was. His voice was already all round town by way of rumour and half-hearted attempts at revolt. He questioned me in a broken French to which only His Lordship has the key. His normal way of speaking, resumed whenever he laughed, has livened up so many evenings that I couldn’t not put a name to his voice. Our discussion centred on the woman who had gone off with Pascal. It turned out she was the ex-companion of one of the regime’s musclemen. This man could not stand having his honour dragged through the paintings of some dauber who had struck lucky. I was accused of being an accomplice to the kidnapping of this woman. I swear to you she went with Pascal of her own free will, that I had absolutely no idea where they were going or what they were planning to do.

  I can still remember the fiery notes of that night. But I will never be able to forget the risk that the young man who was on my right in the car took to save my life.

  After an interrogation that made liberal use of torture, the spare lackeys had to drive me to a safe place. In my case it was safe conduct to some obscure spot outside the town. It’s simpler that way. It saves any gawkers in town from spitting on one more corpse, one death too many.

  When the car pulled up I thought my last moment had come. The young man with the face of a chulo took me by the hand and motioned me to get out.

  “Mr Fresnel sir, I was in your history class at the lycée. I don’t remember a whole lot of it. But you told us about nights like this which punctuate the history of our people. I don’t believe in this Revolution any more, which forces me to work as a killer. One more death is hardly going to do the government any good. I suggest you get out and seek refuge in the Dominican Republic. I know someone who can help you get across the border. He lives just opposite from here. He’ll know what to do. Don’t worry about us. No one is going to check that there is one more body on the mass grave at Titanyen*. I can count on my allies. We all have our moments of weakness. It’s our way of believing in this country. Don’t thank me. The bosses are nice and warm at home. Too scared to go out. So we’ve given ourselves the pleasure of having the right of reprieve. Haiti is a crazy country which spins round and round. When it stops it’s never in the same place.”

  Calmly, the smuggler took me back to my house to pick up my papers. Then he took me into the next-door Republic. We celebrated with Dominican soldiers until daybreak. It was the first time in my life that I had left Haiti without intending to return. Afterwards I was able to leave for the United States.

  Now, let’s talk about you.

  Jeremy, I know you well enough to imagine your state of mind. You think you are vested with the power of continuity. That’s not true. Your family has its secrets and has always revealed them in the form of symbolic references. You were born in a shop and you have always lived for that shop. Far from envying your situation, I think you were duped by a strict system. You are just a pawn in a history that has been reshaped to fit.

  Unintentionally, your grandparents were players in a grand political manoeuvre. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the French had given up the idea of regaining their sometime pearl of the West Indies. Haitian independence was already spent; all the more so as the general abolition of slavery had won over the intellectuals and the workers. Meanwhile, the Germans, Italians and other Europeans were imposing their way of life on America and the Caribbean. So the old mother country killed two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it rid itself of its motley population of Sephardic Jews, Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians who had previously washed up on the Mediterranean coastline. France had other plans for the sunny coastal regions. They had to make sure there was enough room for areas with plenty of villas, and that little Marseilles did not spring up everywhere along the coast. And on the other hand, this policy let France get its revenge on Haiti by forcing them to take their surplus immigrants.

  An agreement between the two countries allowed the first Levantines to settle in Haiti. They got quite a warm reception. After all, they were professionals who were useful to the country’s moribund economy. Once the floodgates opened, the number of arrivals increased at an alarming rate. And it was no longer professionals, but mostly down-and-outs who wanted to get themselves a place in the sun by fair means or foul. The Haitian government were not slow to react. They quickly retracted, although some observers said it was too late.

  The people of Haiti did not look favourably on the new settlers. A clash of cultures? The Levantines ran local shops. Informal trade. They took their cheap wares to the remotest parts of the country and made a small fortune out of them. Imagine it now, foreigners in strange get-up wandering round the streets, busy ruining you by offering illicit goods to your customers. Jeremy, I’m sure you would be the first to the barricades. I don’t want to make any judgement on your people’s past, on your class, but you ought to know that this has never been your country. What’s more, with all the money you have made, the day will come when you are going to have some explaining to do. If you have the time, of course.

  It has already been said that the Haitian lives locked away inside a theatrical performance. I am Haitian and I accept this caricature. There is also the carnival and the Mardi Gras. This day marks the end of the festival, of the madness. It is the day when the victims dare to confront their torturers and/or their descendants. Every year there is a procession of the condemned: the policeman, the colonist, the American invader, the Protestant pastor, the Catholic priest, the politician, the intellectual, the banker, the big landowner, the Dominican whore, the flea-bitten artist, the wandering Jew.

  Every year, when it comes to burying the masks, all the fires are presented with the wandering Jew. Always the wandering Jew, every Mardi Gras. Remember you are a wandering Jew and that your place is on the road.

  * Dandy.

  * Town to the north of Port-au-Prince.

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  Copyright

  For Caroline, again with much gratitude

  English translation © Christopher Moncrieff 2007

  First published in French as L’Alphabet des nuits © Bernard Campiche Editeur 2004

  This ebook edition published in 2012 by Pushkin Press, 71-75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ

  ISBN 978 1 908968 96 8

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press

  Cover: Voodoo Haiti 2003 © Tiane Doan na Champassak/Agence VU

  Set in 10.5 on 13.5 Monotype Baskerville