The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (26 page)

And they’re killing two just now.

(
He slaps the cigar from the
BARON
’s face, pours wine onto his shirt. He walks up to
YETTE
.)

Wouldn’t it be nice if your children were white?

But making children is not a whore’s business,

Any more than making revolution

Is a mulatto’s.

(
YETTE
spits at him, then looks away.
CHRISTOPHE
mounts the platform and unchains the frightened
NEGRO
,
who is being used for the Dance of Liberty.
)

Go. And run far.

(
The
NEGRO
runs through the curtains and out of the room.
CHRISTOPHE
turns.
VASTEY
stands with a drawn knife.
)

Comedian.

(
VASTEY
lunges at him.
CHRISTOPHE
does not move.
VASTEY
pauses.
)

VASTEY

I am not an animal.

CHRISTOPHE

And those two out there, in the Place des Armes,

Ogé and Chavannes! They are animals?

Why don’t you fucking cowards do something?

(
Suddenly, exasperated, he screams.
)

Jokers! Jokers!

They should break every one of you.

Jokers! Bloody jokers?

Wipe your nose, Baron. One day you will all have

To make up your minds if you’re white or black.

(
He moves out to the street.
YETTE
leaves the stage slowly. She enters a small room. She sits there, staring at her face in the mirror.
)

Scene 4

Exterior: A street. Night. There is still a
CROWD
in the streets, but
SOLDIERS
among them, too, moving them on.
CHRISTOPHE
,
shirt open, barefooted, strides among them. He meets his wife,
MARIE-LOUISE
,
on the street.
)

CHRISTOPHE

Marie. You leave the baby by herself?

MARIE-LOUISE

Yes. I was just coming to look for you.

CHRISTOPHE

Know why I am in the street? I leave my work.

You want to know why?

MARIE-LOUISE

I never ask you your business.

CHRISTOPHE

Go home. Pack everything.

Henri Christophe is a waiter no more.

From tomorrow, everything will be different.

You hear me? Different! Now run home!

(
MARIE-LOUISE
exits, running.
CHRISTOPHE
walks past the band of waiting
SLAVES
.
Flambeaux and lanterns illuminate their bodies.
DESSALINES
sits up from sleeping.
)

DESSALINES

They ready?

SLAVE

Almost. Soon is morning.

DESSALINES

Well, don’t wake me till they ready.

(
He goes back to sleep.
CHRISTOPHE
watches him sleep.
)

CHRISTOPHE
(
To
SLAVE
)

How can he sleep with all this business?

SLAVE

Him? He could sleep on his grandmother grave.

(
CHRISTOPHE
exits. Lights fade.
)

Scene 5

Daybreak. The same. The balcony of the Auberge de la Couronne, crowded with
MULATTO WHORES. YETTE
,
waving at the
CROWD
.
They jeer at passersby. A gallows. The wheel. A hot, dusty square ringed by a crowd of
SLAVES, FREE COLOUREDS
,
and a kind of summer pavilion for the
WHITES. TOUSSAINT
,
in coachman’s livery;
ANTON
;
the
BARONESS
,
the
BARON, CALIXTE-BREDA
,
the
MATRON
.

CALIXTE-BREDA

I hope the carriage is in a safe place, Toussaint.

Do you want an extra parasol, Baroness?

Ogé and Chavannes, yes. These dreamers.

They called themselves Friends of the Blacks.

I heard they offered six million in securities

To the National Debt. It’s an expensive dream.

They stated in their umpteenth petition

To the Assembly: “Protestants, comedians, Jews,

The relations of criminals ‘all’ have their civic

Rights, but not the Mulattos.” The Assembly has sworn

“Never to give rights to a bastard and degenerate race,”

So these two madmen begin a revolution.

Well, it’s the end of all that stuff today.

(
TOUSSAINT
unfurls a parasol over
CALIXTE-BREDA
.
The
WHORES, YETTE
encouraging them, scream, wave.
)

MATRON

Whores. They have no politics.

BARONESS

Please, madame. It is too hot. Shut up.

CALIXTE-BREDA

Those are our
belles de nuit.
I believe

Their sympathies are basically royalist.

She’s a pretty-looking number, isn’t she?

BARONESS

Their tastes are usually aristocratic.

BARON

They’re the true gauge of a country’s finances.

Their figures speak for themselves.

Of seven thousand mulatto women in Saint Domingue,

Five thousand are those or the mistresses of whites.

Now, isn’t that prosperity?

CALIXTE-BREDA

Baron, your mind continues to bewilder me.

What value is that fact?

(
A scream, then another, rend the air. A hot, heavy silence. The execution begins. Two
MULATTOS
exhausted from torture.
SLAVES
,
watching. Suddenly
DESSALINES
sits up.
)

DESSALINES

I told you to wake me up. Shit!

ANTON

Unless all this has meaning, love

Is meaningless.

We would be animals, animals!

BARONESS

We are animals. Be a man and look.

(
There are more screams.
)

ANTON

I cannot bear this. Excuse me, gentlemen, please.

Madame Baroness, could we talk for a second?

My friends are dying. As well as pain,

Why should that sharpen and excite desire,

With me the tortured, and you the torturer?

You had me on a wheel, you broke my spirit,

You punished my presumption for loving you,

To feel my blood knotting itself in yours.

Those gasps, those screams, all those explosive spasms

Are mine there on that wheel, and you can smile,

Look at your fingernails, and go back to France,

Leaving my love to rot here in the sun,

Your soft hand melting in my hand like snow

That my own passion melted; you withdrew it,

And my hand, my heart, my life itself is empty.

I am worse than them. They died in vain.

I live in vain. Why did you encourage me?

Were you curious about what kind of beast I was,

What savageries I could invent in bed?

You cannot just smile. I beg you. Answer me.

BARONESS

Shh. Quiet! Your voice. They’re praying for the dead.

As they say, “
Consummatum est
” We consummated,

But now it’s finished. I love my husband,

He is a mercilessly tolerant man. Civilised.

His civilisation bores me to death, or worse,

Bores me to certain savageries, in sweaty sheets,

But you’re getting tiresome. You’re making

More of a spectacle than the one here. Thank you.

Our two months here have been wonderful. Goodbye.

CALIXTE-BREDA

You will not be returning with us, then,

My dear Baron?… You are quite sure …

We’re going home, Anton.

MATRON

                                              Please stay.

We have other amusements beside this barbarity.

Saint Dominque’s not such a bad place after all.

CALIXTE-BREDA

We appeal to you, sir. You need to see more

To write honestly about us. Wait, Toussaint.

MATRON

We await you, sir.

I’m sure the baroness would happily remain.

BARON

I doubt that very much, madame.

Do you wish to know my last word in this country?

I am leaving it, thank God, for good.

The more I know the men who inhabit it,

The more I congratulate myself on leaving it …

When one is what you planters are,

One is born to own slaves. When one is what

The greater part of these slaves are,

One is born to be a slave. Gentlemen, madame,

In this country, everybody is in his place.

I thank you all. You also, madame.

(
He moves off, bowing.
)

CALIXTE-BREDA
(
Tapping the carriage roof.
)

Allons,
Toussaint.
Allons.

Cochon.
Anton!

(
ANTON
kisses the hand of the
BARONESS
and bows to the
BARON
.
He enters the coach.
)

Let us leave quickly, something tells me that tonight

This place is going to explode.

(
Later. Exterior. Dusk. The gibbet. The two bodies guarded by
SENTRIES
.

From
CHRISTOPHE
’s point of view, in the middle distance, silhouetted in the dusk, there is another
BLACK
,
in soiled clothes, loosely matted hair, his posture casual, almost jocular.

He, too, is watching the scaffold.

DESSALINES
.
From
DESSALINES
’s point of view:
CHRISTOPHE
,
in waiter’s uniform, paused in the center of the square.
)

DESSALINES
(
Softly
)

Ay! Nègre! Ou c’est un affranchi?

CHRISTOPHE

Pardon?

DESSALINES

Ça? ’Ous pas comprendre creole?

You are a free nigger?

Behold, “A Friend of the Blacks!”

Friend of the Blacks, my arse!

The fucker owned slaves.

But if that’s the way they treat

“Friends of the Blacks” after Liberty,

Equality, and Fraternity, of the great

French Republic, what will happen to

The blacks? What will happen to you?

CHRISTOPHE

Yes. I am a free.

(
Pause.
)

                             And you?

(
CHRISTOPHE
moves nearer to the two bodies. There is now a sign above them proclaiming
LES AMIS DES NOIRS
.)

I cannot read. I know what the sign say.

AMIS DES NOIRS
. Friends of the Blacks.

They died for all of us.

(
He pauses, turns.
)

DESSALINES

For us?
Mulattres! Mulattres!

Very smart yellow niggers.

They die for their own self.

What they call you, free nigger?

CHRISTOPHE

Christophe. And you …

(
DESSALINES
has lost interest in his question. He studies the figures of the martyred men, then spits and strides away, across the square.
)

Scene 6

Night. Explosions of fire. Le Cap is burning. Smoke clouds everything. Cinders.
CHRISTOPHE
,
running up rickety back stairs, staggers from a cloud of smoke. He staggers again, turns, screams, blinded by smoke.

CHRISTOPHE

Marie!

Marie-Louise!

(
Through clearing patches of the smoke, skeletal pillars. Forms flash behind him, vague. His eyes reddened from the smoke. Utter panic. A
CHILD
is screaming.
)

Marie!

Marie-Louise!

(
The smoke obscures his face. The
CHILD
crying. Fade-out.
)

Scene 7

Exterior. A small Catholic cemetery by a fishing village. Coming towards us,
CHRISTOPHE, MARIE-LOUISE
,
a wrapped bundle.

CHRISTOPHE

Throw that thing away.

It is dead.

(
MARIE-LOUISE
shakes her head stubbornly.
)

What use is a priest?

(
He stands watching, then steps forward for a better view. He wipes his hand across his dry mouth.
)

That’s what niggers get for helping niggers.

MARIE-LOUISE

The child baptise Catholic. I want a priest.

(
PRIEST
enters.
)

PRIEST

Father, now we commit the body of this innocent to the earth from which it came, believing that for all of us there is the resurrection and the life … Dust to dust … ashes to ashes …

Scene 8

Exterior day. A wagon, mule-drawn, laden with belongings, and at the back …