Augustino and the Choir of Destruction (20 page)

Daleth
, a door open onto a shining sea in Hebrew, is a word that opens up to light, even if it sounds sombre and final, it isn't, believe me, and the drawing of a white lotus on this letter represents Chinese Buddhism, still Suzanne had only just said to Adrien and Daniel in a radiant burst of sincerity a few moments ago, what a splendid dawning this was, how it gives you a taste for life, long, very long life, and her friends had rejoiced in her good humour, which seemed stable and constant in her, well, not quite yet, one of her daughters was in England, the other in Germany, and the son, still a bit lost and dreamy, with no profession — and this caused his father to despair — no, Suzanne just could not inflict this solution on them all, even though she'd planned on it, this was not the time to write to them when they were scattered far and wide, and her journalist daughters were doing so well, no, this isn't the day or time she would choose, because, because, ah the birds were singing, and her husband was looking at her tenderly, yes, I must say again, what a dawn, what a splendid day, but we ought to get a nap before going out for tennis, Adrien, seeming to note the unusual intonation in her voice, repeated it too, yes splendid, and another among many, that's what's amazing, he exclaimed, suddenly relaxed by the sea air, all of a sudden, when you think about it, isn't every instant miraculous, though he did regret not being at his worktable and leaning over his dictionaries the past few hours, each of these children, Nora told Mère, for however brief an appearance they made in my life, was like a little sun, perhaps no ray or light from within their heads, sometimes no real brain function, like Thérèse, age four, who couldn't walk or talk for several months, making us think she was autistic, but she wasn't, she started to sing when you rocked her a little, one night we were sitting together, the nurses and I, with babies on our laps near the door to catch some badly needed air, when we heard her sing, there were lots of patients everywhere, on straw mats, on the floor, we had so little space, but we all heard her singing like a stream in the night, at that instant, as she sang, it's strange that I did not have more faith in myself, in that minimal effort that was not futile in the face of the desperate fate of what once was my country, I knew that I should have devoted my entire life to them all, yet still Greta begged me to return before her baby was born, I knew I'd never have time, Thérèse needed rocking day and night, needed to be held up a few seconds every morning so her little legs didn't buckle, needed to get her over the scoliosis, needed to have an operation, but already she was happier to be alive, our little sunshine, I'd have so little time, one evening I suddenly got a forty-degree fever, the start of malaria, I was in the laundry, thinking we needed more than a hundred diapers a day, I was criticized for wasting them, but these sick kids were constantly having diarrhea, and they needed them, whenever anyone made the slightest reproach I just fell apart, I'd even bought diapers in town on my own, then suddenly as I was ironing in the laundry room, the fever hit, I also felt there was very little cooperation or organization, in the kitchen, for example, the two hotplates for the baby bottles were out of order, the pots and pans were worn out, and the bottles or the semolina would burn, so I bought a saucepan in town, and I got blamed for that too, and I told myself maybe I was the biggest defect, I talked about buying a pot in town in a country where a father earned sixty-five dollars and had to feed a family of six, still, I suppose because I was a mother, the most afflicted children around me felt something like a will to live, some even held on a long time, I was just there for lack of strength in lives prematurely eclipsed, the courageous efforts that would eventually prove vain, but, said Mère, you were there that's all that matters, Nora said, it might have been only thirty-seven at first, but I had a bad cough, and I thought, it's nothing, the kids have passed their colds on to me, I'll feel better tomorrow, I had such little patience, when the Italian priest called for me to get some water to baptize one of my dying kids, I told him, maybe you should treat them instead of inflicting this idiocy on them, a baptism for a two-year-old, he will go to heaven, said the priest stunned by my fury, no, it wasn't patience I lacked, it was pity, I should have felt sorry for this priest so tormented by the misfortune he saw all around him, he said, you've been working since dawn, go and get some rest, he had God, I had nothing, not even feelings of pity, I had witnessed, helpless, the child's baptism, the water running over his wounds, he would die in my arms that afternoon, you can't imagine how long it seems when a child dies in your arms, baptismal water or witches' relief, it just prolonged the agony, then next day, there was another little sun to help me forget, Jerome, I sometimes gave him a can of sardines in secret, or a piece of bread, hoping to improve his diet, telling him all the while how he warmed my heart, I felt bereft of everything, the voices of my own children, of music, of beauty, of culture, isn't it scandalous to feel that, like Ibsen's Nora, far from her loved ones, imprisoned with nauseating smells, even a fan wouldn't have helped reduce the odour of curdled milk and dirty diapers, and above all, my fever kept up, and I was so dizzy I couldn't stand up, I didn't dare tell anyone, in a kind of fog I asked the priest, I'm so thirsty, has the tanker-truck come yet, go and rest, he told me kindly, we'll have water tomorrow, the truck couldn't get down the road, the driver's on holiday till tomorrow, so go get some rest, then you won't have to worry about the children's baths, see, no water, that is hell, I told the priest, just one chamber-pot full of water for nine babies, no, there is worse, he said, having to cut sixty Cayor worms out of the feet of little Daniel the way I did yesterday, or watch strips of skin fall off some of them like scales off a fish, but that's not hell, malnutrition that can be treated, he said, and skin treated with tetracycline can be brought back, and of course mosquito-netting to keep the flies out, I listened feverishly, feeling myself curl up inside, how had I come to this, I said to myself, so useless in every part of my body when I was needed, how, why, I needed to speak to Christiansen, explain it all to him, I knew the almost maternal understanding he could express, something my friends benefitted from as well, I remember once Valérie went to see him in his New York office and consulted him as a friend whose past experience would have been soothing support, I wasn't born yet when you were a child resistance-fighter in Norway, Valérie said to Christiansen, but what disturbs me is that time of false peace, our country house with little sisters and their father bombarded, I was still going to have a comfortable life alone with my mother, Mother said, you've got a future ahead of you, no point looking back to the past, you'll only find pain there, get hold of yourself, but I rebelled and said, those before me are responsible for the state of the world they've left behind, nothing but destruction, what a sinister inheritance, and if nothing changes in human politics, it will be just as bad for my children, we do each inherit that notch in the flesh that is our responsibility, don't we, Valérie asked Christiansen, if it really were a time of peace, things wouldn't be falling apart all around me, life gets cut down, a crime, isn't it, what would my father and sisters have become if the knot of their lives hadn't been slit, the dishes and crystal glasses were still on the dinner table, one wall was cracked and burnt where they all sat, my mother was in Paris, and that wall had to become a crater, this link between you and me, Christiansen, has been buried for years while you were a little boy fighting, buried under the same ruins that cover my family, yesterday and today, Bernard, who knew nothing of all this, and our children are the result of the uncertain, threatening peacetime, a very happy family nevertheless, but what if there were an opening for those who still don't admit their guilt to come back through, wouldn't we be wiped out like my family, orphaned, my mother and I, Christiansen listened to Valérie, his experience of the past never without its uses and sometimes helpful if possible, could only tell her, Valérie, we live in the present, that is where you are a writer, but you are right, when some inherit a world of blue skies, while others nearby have foundered, there is very little peace with this pain and mystery from the past, but these are your tools for casting light, thus I knew I could explain to Christiansen as Valérie had done, my feelings of defeat and my desire for tranquillity and a world of blue skies, a place to heal myself, now was the time to settle this, Christiansen simply said, come home dear, but Greta and the others got worked up and said, we told you it would be too much for you, Mama, you always act as though you're twenty, Christiansen was coming to meet me in Europe where I'd go into hospital, God what a mess, I thought, I was leaving my second family, second set of true children, Garcia, Jerome, all the others, living or dead, I was infected with malaria and who knows what else, I suddenly seemed like one of my father's lepers, I'd stay away from too many tearful farewells, where is Africa now, will I be going back, though I felt so incompetent, I forgot to tell you, Esther, I'm now the grandmother of a little boy, Greta had no great difficulty with the pregnancy, my universe was well-ordered and intact, then at once Mère said to Nora, could we stop and look at the sky, it's all so beautiful and peaceful when people are asleep in town, but Mère felt she should put her trembling hand on Nora's shoulder, Nora didn't notice a thing, a thin shoulder it was under the lace dress that seemed to float around her body, a body that, as Christiansen said, had changed a lot, and Nora herself was no longer the same, she wanted to console her and say, Nora my dear, believe me, I have intuition, and you will go back to Africa where you believe the work is not done, Nora was so delighted to hear this that she embraced Mère, wondering why Esther seemed to tremble a bit, perhaps it was all the excitement of the party, perhaps she'd caught cold in this heat, or was it Nora's fever returning to her temples, would she come out of this fog feeling as alive as she did before, running here and there with inexhaustible energy, Mélanie heard Marie-Sylvie's voice from the tiny, phosphorescent green phone, Mai wasn't in bed or even in her room, Mai, where was she, Marie-Sylvie asked, Mélanie was going to catch up to the group on the beach, but Daniel, Adrien, Suzanne, Chuan and Olivier were already so far ahead, their shadows melting in the first misty rays of sun, so far along the shore she'd do better to head back to the house quickly, if it was true this time that Mai had really disappeared, not just hid in the shadows of the black almond-trees with her cats or up a tree eating fruit, Marie-Sylvie had said, I don't see her anywhere in the house, the backyard by the pool, or the garden, but she was right there when she woke up, I had to change her pyjamas because . . . Marie-Sylvie wouldn't say what Mai had done, I haven't seen her since then, she said, Mélanie went quickly to start the jeep and hit the accelerator, faster, faster, traffic was smooth at this hour, not many cars and pedestrians, that's how it happens, they're up in the morning and then disappear God-knows-how, you see them playing on a carousel at kindergarten or at nursery-school, then suddenly nothing, too bad there were no passersby, Mélanie would have asked every single one, have you seen her, she's my daughter, perhaps she's just run off again, maybe she's gone to the stadium again, you can meet the wrong people there, it's happened before, yes, no, I forbade it so strongly, Mélanie thought, so where is she, that's how it happens, there's no one around, then someone shows up in a car and opens the door, the worst thing would be some secret meeting at that enormous stadium, so long that Mai could easily get lost in it, like that day on The-Island-Nobody-Owns, she'd fallen asleep under the Australian pines, but in the hour before her father found her, what had happened, no one knew, and even with the help of a psychologist and a pediatrician, they still knew nothing from her about that day, mustn't alert Daniel or Mère yet, above all, it might just be another one of her games, there was that brother of Marie-Sylvie's who'd been spotted hanging around the gate wearing a Mexican sombrero, although Mélanie wasn't worried about He-who never-sleeps, they would still search everywhere under the trees with Augustino, who was rubbing his eyes, because he hadn't slept either, and with the dogs, OK, probably none of it was true, and Mai was probably close by, and her mother would smother her with kisses and say, my angel, I'm sure this has been a long night for you, but it was such a happy one, especially for your grandmother, you're convinced she'll be there for you and Vincent and Augustino tomorrow and always, but it just isn't so, why weren't you sleeping, Mai, I put you to bed and read you a story myself, maybe it was nothing, Mélanie thought, maybe just a moment of fright that we sometimes get thinking of our children, a sense of imminent danger, Mai, where was Mai? Mama, I've done everything I could, Vénus wrote to her mother, I defended my brother like you told me to, the minute I saw his hairy head in the mangroves, the minute I saw my brother, I said, God have pity on you, Carlos, even if you hide on the Captain's boat, I'm afraid for your life, because there's a traitor here, an informant, and it's Richard — Rick, Mama, you don't know this awful guy, but he was the manager of the estate for my devoted husband William before he died at sea, he turned Carlos in, Perdue Baltimore, who works at the Department of Corrections and Probation, and I will do all we can for my brother, Mama, right now at the Juvenile Detention Centre, he's beaten and mistreated, Perdue Baltimore
says we have to do everything we can to make sure he isn't transferred to adult prison in Louisiana when he turns twenty-one, because that will be the end of him, he won't just be a delinquent accused of manslaughter, locked up with other convicts often younger than he is, some of them twelve or thirteen, but an inmate in an adult prison he can never get away from, you remember Perdue Baltimore, Mama, born in Barbados to George and Rita, university graduate, she says she can put a word in for Carlos at the Department of Corrections and Probation, she's already done a lot to reduce the mistreatment he's getting from the prison staff, once an officer tried to choke him for refusing to obey, but you can't tame Carlos with violence, you know that, Mama, even the Correction Centre, though it's a prison for young people to be held until they're twenty-one, it's still a hellhole, airless cells made of concrete, dark, stinking corridors, the sound of water dripping from the showers day and night, the endless shouts of the guards and of prisoners fighting, they use sticks too, Carlos along with them, he had to be in solitary confinement for twenty-four hours to calm down, do you know, Mama, how many fights there were between guards and boys last year, nearly four hundred, Mama, no, it's inhuman, sure Carlos shouldn't attack the guards the way he's done to get even with them, they call the twenty-four-hour cell the Hole in the Rock, Perdue Baltimore says there's no way Carlos can be rehabilitated if the guards are so violent with him, Carlos is so young that violence will just breed fear, and there's no future for him, and when he's twenty-one, he absolutely must not be transferred to adult prison in Louisiana, because it'll be hopeless, I've done everything I can, Mama, remember a long time ago, I held a charity bazaar, and now the kids on Bahama Street have been inoculated for smallpox and meningitis when they reach school-age, I sold my house for Carlos, the home of my husband, Captain Williams, I sold his boat too, but still I'm in debt, even if Perdu has helped me with credit, I don't know what will happen to my brother without her, because there was no one to help us, they all said he was a criminal who deserved to be in jail, never mind that he was innocent, he thought the gun that Cuban cook gave him wasn't loaded, but no one believes me, especially because of all the trouble he's been in with the law before this and his involvement with gangs on Bahama and Esmerelda Streets, when he was a messenger and drug-runner, remember, Mama, how it kept you up at nights and how you said that Pastor Jérémy and you were pious parents always ready to serve the Lord, how could this happen to our family, it's not like we were in Chicago where so many black kids are lost in riots, and the judges are indifferent to what happens when they're thrown into prisons and correctional centres, Perdue Baltimore says there is so much criminal activity on those streets, it's hard to know everything that goes on, there are a few good sheriffs who do their job well and try to keep teenagers out of jail, but there are also a lot of unemployed fathers on Bahama and Esmerelda who don't set a good example, you said, this isn't Los Angeles, where you can get killed by some street thug while decorating your Christmas tree, but when they caught Carlos, they laid him flat on the grass in front of the house and handcuffed him behind his back, it was a shame, Mama, and while my brother, your son, was still down, a police officer put his knee on him while he raised his head to me and said, help me, Vénus, his mouth half open, he was so afraid, I remember the tattoo on one arm, it was Polly the dog, and on the other it was arrows and knives, I've done everything I can to help my brother as you asked, I have no house, and I now know my husband William died defending my honour when they laughed at him out on the sea for marrying a black, fifteen-year-old escort, Rick says it was about drugs and a settling of accounts between enemy captains, I know we loved each other, and he was a brave husband and captain, Perdue Baltimore says I've got to study the way she did, work days and study nights at Collège de la Trinité, my dachshund and iguana and I can live on a houseboat together, I've sold all the captain's paintings except for one, he's got quite a reputation as a painter on the Island, but a lot of our nicest household things have been stolen, and I know Rick is the one, he's a low-life, I can't tell you all the things he's done to me, he was always harassing me, and I had nowhere to go except off in a boat on the canal, you have no idea, Mama, Papa forbade me to cross the threshold of your house because he was so put out about our wedding and my life as an escort, when I sang with Uncle Cornélius at the Club Mix, but what else could I do, I'd so love it if Papa would let me sing again in the temple where he preaches on Sundays at Cité du Corail, everyone says it's Pastor Jérémy who brings the lost sheep back into the fold, to me it's like Papa, Carlos' father, who is in prison and has only us, his family, to stand by him, why have you abandoned him, you asked me to help Carlos my brother, and I have, justice is expensive, I have no house, nothing any more, if only I could sing at the synagogue or the Baptist church or the temple at the Cité du Corail, our father's church, I haven't seen anyone in the family for such a long time, not even the Toqué, Deandra or Tiffany, the twins must be big by now, and I may only be a sinner, as my father would say, but I'm your daughter, you're living all cramped together, and I told you to come and live on my husband's estate by the canal with the vines and water-snakes, while I still had it, when Captain Williams was still alive, and we fed the hummingbirds and passeriformes out of our hands each morning, it was a paradise here, real paradise till my husband got killed out at sea and his boat came back flying a black flag, and that crooked manager he put his trust in, Richard, Rick, turned the place into a serpents' nest, day and night he harassed me, even though I had a gun under my pillow at night the way the captain told me to, I didn't want to use it, I often thought I could get Rick out of the house, but I never did, then Mama had written to Vénus that it was true, that Pastor Jérémy judged his daughter as a sinner, he'd forgotten she was an escort at the Club Mix and didn't really know what that word escort meant anyway, just as long as his daughter was decent, no, it was when she married Captain Williams and became an accomplice in his illegal cocaine and crack trade, surely she knew that, and besides the captain was an old man for such a young girl, and it made no sense, the sin was in the marriage Vénus should never have agreed to, the pastor acknowledged his sorrow at Carlos' imprisonment, but his family had not abandoned him, they'd all go to see him soon at the Detention Centre, Toqué was making progress at school, despite a congenitally infirm leg, and the twins Deandra and Tiffany, all would soon go and take packages of clothes and cigarettes for Carlos, he'd have liked to see Polly, but they couldn't take her, nor Oreilles Coupées, the latest dog that Deandra had rescued from the Island animal-killer, but they would go and see him, it was awful for Pastor Jérémy to see what was written on his worn blue shirt, No. 340, Block 3, and to see his son behind bars, every Sunday he prayed for him in the temple, and weekdays too, and although the pastor was disappointed in his sinner-daughter, she was once again welcomed into the house, she could come back and see her family if she wanted to, she could sing on Sunday at the temple in Cité du Corail, for our children are indeed also the children of God, said Pastor Jérémy, of course she could sing in church, but Jérémy recommended she dress more modestly and less transparently than before, for all was vanity, and Vénus must be decent to sing the psalms, Carlos was a thorn in his father's heart and an affliction to his mother's spirit, those syringes and drugs, that was evil, said Pastor Jérémy, but saddest of all was that he had nearly killed Lazaro that day at noon, so what if it was a game of vengeance between boys from rival gangs, Carlos was paying for his foolishness now, a thorn in his father's heart and an affliction to his mother's spirit, unless Perdue Baltimore could pull off a miracle, he'd be sent to an adult penitentiary next year, they had to write to the governor and the Department of Corrections and Probation, to think that Carlos and Lazaro had been great friends before these gang fights, gone boxing together on Saturdays, Pastor Jérémy would pray in the temple for the governor to show clemency to his son and give him a chance at rehabilitation, Lazaro's mother too was heart-struck about her son's refusal to forgive Carlos and his dedication to revenge, what's going to happen to our kids on Bahama and Esmerelda Streets, still Perdue Baltimore could accomplish a miracle, Venus thought, and she's going to intervene with the Department on Carlos' behalf, begging the judges for clemency, Carlos must not go to the Louisana prison with murderers, Vénus remembered selling all her husband's paintings but one, and that she'd take her dachshund and iguana, for in a few hours she'd be leaving, saying goodbye to the estate by the canal, nothing left or very little, but that picture would go everywhere with her, her sensual husband had painted for her with so much love that the passion appeared proudly on the canvas, it was the one he'd painted on their wedding day, it showed them in an embrace, and Williams had lent his own sea-sunned pink tint to the body of Vénus and taken on her black skin colour for himself, to show her how inextricably linked they were, that picture was the sign of their permanence as a couple, each was the other and away with prejudices, yes, I've done all I can, and I'll still do more, Vénus had written to Mama, and Pastor Jérémy had said to his wife, if I ask the governor to pardon my son's offense, I must do so myself, let Vénus come back here to be with her brothers and sisters, and Vénus thought how, after all these years, she'd see the house low under the palm trees which had never been trimmed, the freezer that still hadn't been moved away, although it was supposed to long ago, and the yellowing Christmas trees, well, they would still be there nearly fried by the sun, and the parasol over the games table, the dice polished by storms, under it the hens and chicks pecking away, for Pastor Jérémy had preached to all in his sermon that it was time for the lost sheep to return to the fold, even if it might pierce his heart like a thorn to think of Carlos and afflict Mama to her very soul, what future do Bahama and Esmerelda hold for our children, would there one day be an end to these gangs on the streets, and the millionaire captains who had invaded the town for the flotilla, Lazaro thought as he rowed his boat after shutting off the motor, the sea appeared smooth, hardly a ripple, and the movement of his oars and a soft rocking was all, in a few days he'd be with the men and their swearing and their nets on the shrimp boat, but it would only be for a while, he wasn't going to spend his life here on this island with his mother Caridad that he no longer wanted to see nor hear her complaining, his mother, a convert to freedom and the moral deviance of the other women, imitating them when she should cover her head and face, saying like the others that women's rights had been trampled on so often in Muslim countries, she took part in their conferences, listened to them and said, the time of the Inquisition is over, she was loathsome to listen to now, and as for Carlos, well, who knows when he'd get out of jail, but Lazaro would be back for revenge, he'd love to get into his cell and kill him by surprise, yes, but he'd wait, the time would come, and that's what upset his mother still more, for, she said he was just like his father Mohammed, unable to forgive, irreconcilable, brutal like his father in Egypt, these millionaire captains from Europe and Scandinavia with their regattas, now they owned the Island like some country getaway, it was disgusting, Lazaro thought, I'd rather see nuclear submarines than these boats, these vacation ports for a few days, and these sailors drunk on beer every night, gorging themselves with women and rum, they'd all set sail and make ready on the horizon, boats like Anchor, Conqueror, Sea Pioneer, with their Pathfinders, Pelicans, Hydras and Yamaha models, speed and engines, it was outrageous to have them in town, this was the world of upstarts his mother was drawn to, rich and materialistic, forever complaining about archeological museums, treasures and statues being destroyed over there in the country that once was ours, she would say, they're going to destroy all the treasures of antiquity, and that's how it was at Sarajevo, antique works killed the way they kill horses, nothing, not a thing would remain, and how was humanity going to remember, no memory of vases and statuettes, nothing, no libraries, no monuments, tomorrow there would be no memory of Mesopotamia, nothing, what I worry most about, she said, are the vandals, but Lazaro thought this was a memory of humanity that should be lost or burnt, he too loved birds and only birds, pelicans and seagulls flying over the fishing boats, but this Western society his mother had chosen was not for him, it was disgusting that his mother Caridad didn't realize that the laws of his father Mohammed were the only just ones, she wouldn't wear a scarf, she dressed like all the other women in