The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (27 page)

DRIVER

That is all you have, eh?

YETTE

All.

MAN

So, you, too?

(
The
REFUGEES
,
a few mulattos among them, and even some whites, numb, dazed. They greet the
MAN
with luggage. The wagon moves away,
YETTE
watching.
)

YETTE

It was bad? All I save is my clothes.

MAN

Everything. I lose everything.

This is all. I had a shop. I was doing well.

YETTE

All of Le Cap burn down?

MAN
(
Irritable with exhaustion
)

You remember it? You didn’t see it this morning?

Well, nearly half of it burn down, you hear?

From the Auberge de la Couronne all the way

Down to the sea, flat, like a burn canefield.

My hands … What I am going to do with my hands?

(
He extends his palms.
)

Somebody will have to show me how to plant.

YETTE

I will have to learn, too.

(
They look towards the diminishing, rocking wagon.
)

You lose everything?

MAN

Who cares what I lose? Who cares?

When a sorrow is so big, when it is war,

Who ever think of anybody else?

Well, well, well, well, well …

(
He waits for the fit of despair to pass.
)

Well, well, well, well yes, well yes …

I have to talk to myself. To my feet.

(
He talks to his feet.
)

Come on. Let’s go. Come on. Come on.

They frightened. They don’t know the road.

They don’t know where to go.

(
He squats.
)

Smoke, fire, and ashes. Is Sodom and Gomorrah.

All that filth and nastiness they did in there.

YETTE

But, monsieur, why they burnt it, you can say?

MAN

This city was like a woman that start off good,

Then money corrupt her and change her looks.

Once cities get too proud, God will do that.

(
He crosses himself.
)

Today now, look at you, dirt on your cheeks,

Your laces straggling in mud? So with cities,

So with women. This city, on a Sunday morning,

With its lace balconies, its mansard bonnets,

Its church bells ringing like earrings,

And next thing, it was a whore. If you want facts,

Say the mulatto people get vex and burn it.

The wagon is coming. I’m going on that way.

And you?

YETTE

                 I have a little piece of land

My auntie left for me. I’ll learn to plant.

(
The wagon comes, the
MAN
mounts it and waves to
YETTE. YETTE
shoulders her belongings and climbs the hill. The
CHORUS
enters, carrying a fork, a sack.
)

CHORUS
(
Singing.
)

Alors, Yette ’trappait morceau terre,

Et i’ commencait planter,

Eux deux, yeux c’est même couleur,

Terre-a, et jamette shabine,

Et pour lui-même, moi ka chanter

Et pour Christophe, Dessalines …

(
Other
PEASANTS
led by
POMPEY
join her and cross the stage with forks, sacks, scythes.
)

So Yette find a piece of land

Where she teach herself how to plant,

Her skin the same shade as the ground,

And you’ll see why I sing this chant

For her, my rose and my queen

And for Christophe and Dessalines.

(
YETTE
joins the cane cutters ahead.
)

Scene 9

Exterior. Midafternoon. The sound of a man singing in the valley, throughout a hill slope on the mountains.
YETTE
,
alone on a small allotment, bent to the earth, weeding. Uprooting rocks. A hoe on a mound beside her.

YETTE
(
To the sky
)

… Papa … if I could write you, you would laugh now to see your daughter, who you say would be nothing, bending down on the earth … Not in a bed but in the earth, trying to plant something. After Le Cap burn down, where I was doing well—money, I mean—after the French people burn down the hotel where I was working, a man here give me a small parcel of land and I am trying …

(
She takes up a gourd of calabash and drinks water, then rests it carefully beside her and resumes her planting and weeding. Durable, determined, teaching herself, but on the tight edge of despair and collapse.
)

Scene 10

Exterior. Day. A field.
WOMEN
from the Calixte-Breda plantation are in a cleared cane piece, gleaning. Part of the field is burnt black, brown, and gold.
POMPEY
,
a section overseer, stands some distance from the gleaning
WOMEN
,
giving them directions. He is carrying a musket.

ANGELLE
moves from the group to a private area of the field, in a patch of failed and yellowing corn. She is about to enter it. She screams and staggers back. In the drying corn a tattered black,
DESSALINES
.
His eyes. The
WOMEN
in the other parts of the field.
POMPEY
moving towards the screaming
ANGELLE
.

POMPEY

A snake? It is a snake?

WOMEN

Serpent? Serpent?

(
POMPEY
running, his musket ready. The gleaning
WOMEN
draw back.
)

POMPEY

Angelle! Angelle!

Restez! C’est un serpent?

(
DESSALINES
rises from the corn piece. He extends both arms helplessly.
POMPEY
aims the musket.
ANGELLE
draws back.
)

DESSALINES

Wait …

(
He stops. Heat, silence.
)

I was just sleeping.

Is not a snake, citizen …

(
POMPEY
listens.
)

I am on my way to the Bois Cayman.

It is over there?

(
POMPEY
nods, assesses the man. His motley tattered clothes, the scars across his chest. The hunger, the authority.
)

I am looking for a nigger they call Boukmann.

Boukmann. You know him?

(
POMPEY
shakes his head no.
)

I am looking for that man, citizen.

That is all.

(
He moves past
POMPEY
,
past the staring
WOMEN
,
through the corn. On the small ridge, with its view of Belle Maison,
DESSALINES
pauses. He indicates the house.
)

Nice house. Nice house.

(
They watch his moving figure dip and disappear. The
WOMEN
gather,
ANGELLE
among them.
)

ANGELLE

I think it was a snake.

Look, when I see him so …

(
POMPEY
returns to the
WOMEN
.)

POMPEY

Lasse parler. Assez! Mwen dis.

You never see a runaway nigger before?

Don’t worry, the soldiers will get him.

Travail, travail.
This damned sun making hot.

Angelle! You hear me?

(
He is drawing her into the indigo recesses of the kitchen, among the sacks, when she sees someone and breaks away.
POMPEY
comes to the arch of the doorway. There is a woman there.
YETTE
,
whose face we can’t distinguish at first because the light of the yard is behind her, waits. Her hair is long but loose. She is firm-bodied, and she enters the kitchen calmly. She carries a basket which she sets down quietly, and dipping a cup into an open-mouthed grain bag, she ladles out cupfuls of corn into her basket.
POMPEY
studies her.
)

Who you are?

And what you doing in here?

(
YETTE
continuing to ladle out the corn, silent.
)

You hear me talking to you?

You know who I am?

(
The ladling continues.
YETTE
sucks her teeth.
)

Listen, I am in charge of these provisions here.

Sacre!
Answer me, woman!

(
POMPEY
grabs her arm.
YETTE
stares at him. She looks down at his gripping hand.
)

YETTE

L’agez.

Let go.

Look, mister. I’m not a thief.

(
She smashes the cup’s edge against his cheek.
POMPEY
steps back, then lunges.
YETTE
whips out a knife.
)

Eh-eh.

(
Pause. They watch each other, breathing.
)

Niggers don’t fuck with me.

(
She continues ladling, picks up her basket, goes, then turns at the arch. She extends her arm, turning it in the light from the yard.
)

Eh! You see this colour?

Respect it. I not shamed of it.

To you, all niggers, all mulattos is whore.

And I have permission to take some corn.

From Monsieur Calixte himself.

(
YETTE
exits, moving through the yard among the other huskers and
SLAVES
,
regally.
POMPEY
,
fingering his cut cheekbone, comes to the archway.
ANGELLE
comes near him.
)

ANGELLE

She cut you?

POMPEY

Yes. Who was that yellow bitch?

ANGELLE

They give her piece of land on the hill up there!

She is a mulatresse from Le Cap. A free woman.

She just come in the barracks, it have a month, now.

Her name is Yette. She don’t like black people.

POMPEY

Yette.

Come on, go back to work, come on, come on.

All of you. You, too, Angelle.

(
He hurls her back among the
HUSKERS
.)

You too young to be so blasted hot!

Come on.
Faiyants!
Today the crop finish,

Tonight is fête!

(
He moves among the
WOMEN
,
slapping, shoving them, but almost absently, his eyes on
YETTE
’s distant figure.
)

Scene 11

Exterior. Night. The yard, a slave barbecue in the back yard of Belle Maison.
SLAVE FAMILIES
around the barbecue, looking out from their barrack windows. Two
DRUMMERS
,
a
FIDDLER
,
and a casual choir of
GIRL SLAVES
.
Dancing. Sexual, but with self-mocking lechery. Beyond and above them the windows of the mansion.
ANGELLE
dances,
POMPEY
moves among the crowd, hot. He dances a sexual parody of waltz. Laughter. He passes
TOUSSAINT
seated on a chair, a lantern at his feet, a book beside him.
POMPEY
touches his hat. The mood of the chanting changes into a lament.

POMPEY

Bonsoir, Monsieur Toussaint.

It was a good crop this year, eh.

TOUSSAINT

Bonsoir,
Pompey. Yes. One of the best.

POMPEY

’Ous pas kai danser?
All you do is read.

Day and night, read …

My head. I wish I could put something in my head.

No education. That is why I am so.

You know. Woman. Good time. That’s why. Dancing.

Is to make the best of this life, right, monsieur?

TOUSSAINT

Look, a new one for you.

(
Their point of view:
YETTE
,
overdressed for the simple occasion, comes into the area of the firelight alone. Her clothes, her colour inhibit her. She pauses. They have turned to her. Their faces not hostile but strange. The music dwindles.
ANGELLE
has stopped dancing. The she goes to
YETTE
and waits. They talk softly.
)

ANGELLE

We glad you come.

YETTE

Merci.
I was up on the hill and I hear the

Music and I feel so …

(
ANGELLE
puts her hand softly across
YETTE
’s lips.
)

ANGELLE

Paix!
Shh … Is your people … We is neighbors now, sister.

YETTE

I too stupid to wear these clothes.

But is all I have. You see, I thought …

I thought the dancing was inside the house.

I bring some yams. I plant them myself.

I feel so.

(
Pause.
)