The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (3 page)

Are fatal. We have slipped the chance to hold time by the tail,

Bystanders at our own loss.

GENERAL

Has this affected us so much?

VASTEY

Dessalines is dangerous. Restless rulers

Dream to their pillows of personal power.

Now that Toussaint’s dead, the choice is open

To the strong man.

CHRISTOPHE

Do you advocate rebellion

Against the republic?

VASTEY

No, General, you misunderstand. I do not consider

Dessalines democratic as, say, Toussaint taught:

He nurses whispers, imperial ambitions;

He will work without council, and oppress the poor.

GENERAL

He will want to be King. Toussaint

Never assumed this.

CHRISTOPHE

History has duped me; I, who was a leader,

Shall now play school to a pawn, a breeder

Of petty hates in which I am part.

Pétion is an actor, he too is no pawn.

If we could assemble and wait …

GENERAL

What does the general decide, after all:

Will he wrench the fruit green from the stalk,

Or will he wait for it to rot, and fall?

VASTEY

My personal advice is: In your talk,

Do not be too smooth, show your discontent

At being brushed off the chessboard of history;

But play the pieces on the board with duplicity,

Until you are King by the hand of history.

CHRISTOPHE

You are fools; I do not tie the shoelaces of history;

I am the history of which you speak.

VASTEY

Yet I know our army to be far from weak;

Civil war, I think, should crown us in a week.

CHRISTOPHE

But the country is much too paupered by malevolences,

Conquests, fevers, ruins, to stand a war of brother against brother.

We must try other ways, other chances.

So this is the waste country I inherit,

A stepping-stone to former slaves …

GENERAL

Were we not all slaves, General?

CHRISTOPHE

A king flows in me.

You have seen me command,

Cruel and kingly when I burned Le Cap,

Rochambeau realmless, harried to France.

I judge my conduct

In a king’s eyes and find this failure.

VASTEY

The riot we expected is routed. Why idle here?

You love your country; but that should not disfigure

Self-love out of proportion.

Pétion is placed as awkwardly as we are.

I would advise a secret exchange of views

On the possibilities of a joint control.

CHRISTOPHE

I understand your philosophy, put the self first.

No, gentlemen, the soldiers are sick of savagery;

We will sit outside the chambers of their policy.

When Dessalines is deposed

By his own despair,

We shall wear popularity openly like the sun.

Command the removal of this regiment to the north;

We’ll see what Dessalines is worth.

I’m for some sleep inside.

… Good night.

(
He exits.
)

GENERAL

Christophe is a two-sided mirror; under

His easy surface, ripples of dark

Strive with the light, or like a coin’s two sides,

Or like the world half-blind when moons are absent,

And brilliant in the glare of sun.

Under that certain majesty he hides

The teaching of Toussaint, the danger of Dessalines.

VASTEY

I am tired of war; I want a little money.

But I’d make war to get money.

Christophe loves Haiti, like himself, cruelly.

But like a well-intentioned physician, he bleeds

It too much.

But we had better sleep before the march;

Tomorrow, three days late, we will ride under an arch

Garlanded with plots, festooned with cruelty and screens

Of treachery, hear people shouting,

“Long live Dessalines…”

Does that frighten you, m’sieur?

(
They exit. The
GENERAL
lingers, thinking, then goes out slowly, as the lights fade.
)

Scene 3

The conference room, or the same as Scene 1.
VASTEY
taking dictation laboriously from
CHRISTOPHE
at a desk. Through a middle curtain half-opened, the throne can be seen, patient and empty. From time to time,
CHRISTOPHE
casts glances at it.

CHRISTOPHE

“… all applications to be forwarded to the office of the

Commissioner of Internal Affairs, Cap Haitien. By order,

Henri Christophe. For Jacques le Premier.” Good, Vastey?

I have noticed the present conduct of this King;

He rules with a drunkard hand, heavily,

Knowing only a government by guile.

Have you seen the estates, Vastey?

(
VASTEY
proffers the document, which he signs awkwardly.
)

The grass overruns the aristocratic urns,

The weeds grow between broken coachwheels

That the wind spins in an empty season, the rich ruined.

Toussaint would have liked that: but no flowering

Peace, only poverty, a souring

Idle crop, an overpowering

Stench of tyranny.

VASTEY

Yes, sir. This copy …

(
CHRISTOPHE
waves it aside vaguely.
)

CHRISTOPHE

Do you mock me?

(
He says this indulgently.
)

You know I cannot read.

Reread them, are they intact?

I hope you have not obscured plain fact

In a smoke of Latin expressions?

VASTEY

There are no digressions.

Shall I read it to you, sir?

CHRISTOPHE

Oh Lord, no.

(
He sits down.
)

Today, another meeting. I am ashamed, recalling councils

Of war, before Pierrot, and when we splintered

Them at Ennery, now up to my neck

In paper, a tired commissioner.

I think that if I went to war again,

I would bleed ink, so many papers, white men’s ways.

Where are the others?

Get the notes for my report.

Locked in these laces, captive in silk …

Colourless courtesan of a rival ruler,

Old dog with no teeth …

VASTEY

The King, look at the throne, is

Out again killing offenders,

Washing his pity in blood.

Will he be here?

CHRISTOPHE

Don’t know. Go for the notes.

VASTEY

Here come the others, but

No King.

(
He exits.
)

CHRISTOPHE

Come in, gentlemen, the King

Will come.

(
Enter
SYLLA, PÉTION
,
and a
GENERAL.
)

Good evening, gentlemen, sit down.

How are you, m’sieu, m’sieu, and you, General Pétion?

What are you smiling at, General?

PÉTION

Your new role, Henri; you wear it so mildly

It breeds suspicions. You must not preside

With such superior sarcasm.

(
General laughter as they sit.
)

CHRISTOPHE
(
Wryly amused
)

I have sent my secretary for a statement

Concerning the finances; you have observed the state

Of the country? The old plantations

Stand haggard as prisoners, the windmills have broken arms,

The soldiers not sent home, murmurs mounting,

While the King wastes money like blood,

Slaughtering his “enemies.”

SYLLA

Who are our enemies?

Not complexions, heresies, but time;

The gusts of years, the …

(
He says this almost privately, but they listen.
)

CHRISTOPHE

I am his enemy, if he continues.

Do not interrupt, old man;

Kings rule and grow corrupt,

Absolute authority can only disrupt

The church and state. Murmurs erupt

To anarchy, the peasants will kill.

PÉTION

You talk like Brelle.

Have you gone to church lately?

(
Laughter.
)

CHRISTOPHE

You are a mulatto, you must hate me

For this insolent love.

I am only a soldier, a poor fish; you are all whales

Thrashing about in political machinations.

I have done as the constitution has demanded,

My men dismissed, my power disbanded.

SYLLA

Not disbanded, but cut down.

Are you not safe? The French are far,

The treasury is without the wherewithal

To equip soldiers who should be on plantations,

The war is long over.

You have been identified as your country’s lover.

Discard the despair of ceaseless argument;

If the farmers dispute the open property,

The land will fester under those who love her,

The plough hidden in the tall grasses, ruin, the cabin

Remain with unhinged doors, the children

Play in the pools of blood in front of the door.

Where is this peace that the French used to mock?

We pull a rock

On our heads, if we starve a tired people.

CHRISTOPHE

You should have chosen the soapbox

Or the steeple. Thank you.

(
He notices
VASTEY.
)

Come. Vastey, help me distribute testaments

Of our poverty. Read these, gentlemen,

And observe our industry.

(
He distributes papers, which provoke a mild consternation, which petrifies as soon as he says …
)

His Majesty, the King of Haiti.

(
They rise. The whole gesture is one of mock solemnity that irritates
DESSALINES.
)

DESSALINES

Thank you, Henri. Sit down.

(
He himself is about to sit when
CHRISTOPHE
ironically indicates the throne and
VASTEY
parts the curtain.
DESSALINES
hesitates, suffering the little joke.
)

Thanks. Well, be quick.

(
He sits on the throne.
)

What is it you want, Commissioner?

CHRISTOPHE

Patience, Yo … Jean … I mean Your Majesty.

(
Laughter.
)

DESSALINES

You are rude, Henri, I am a king, no political toy.

CHRISTOPHE

And I was a general before I was a schoolboy.

PÉTION

Please, please.

DESSALINES

You envy me, you wear a hurt pride.

CHRISTOPHE

I consider the articles expressed

In your constitution, and I find,

Hidden in your assembly’s salad of words, dressed

In a kind of poison to any freedom,

An evidence of autocracy.

You have decided to assume a monarchy

Before Toussaint’s breath faded from the glass of history;

You consulted a clique only, a class

With twisted personal interests at its mind’s end.

In this rule there is an end

Of democracy, only a long exploitation

And a bitter harvest, an expiration

Of the breath of decency, financial depression;

And I was never asked to give my impression.

DESSALINES

You see what it amounts to, gentlemen; Christophe’s advice

On a subject we all have agreed on twice;

Consider the popular petition:

I rule because of the people’s decision.

CHRISTOPHE

Nonsense, rubbish.

(
They are all shocked to an electric silence.
)

DESSALINES

I am the King! Henri, never

Forget that. Sit back in your places.

CHRISTOPHE

Then rule like one,

With a king’s grace, not a king’s grimaces,

You keep your own people in virtual slavery.

DESSALINES

I am the King. Your present bravery

Goes well on my battlefields, not in my chambers.

CHRISTOPHE

Haiti must suffer from those who hate her.

DESSALINES

Mind you do not go too far.

So I hate Haiti? I wish you were King.

CHRISTOPHE

That is not my wish.

DESSALINES

Every slave dreams in extremes,

And we were both, Henri.

You think I am tricking you? I am your friend.

CHRISTOPHE

I am the friend of the people.

We must avoid opportunities of separation;

You kill offenders because of their complexion;

Where is the ultimate direction of this nation,

An abattoir of war?

DESSALINES

I who was a slave am now a king,

And being a king, remember I was slave;

What shall I live as now, a slave or king?

Being this King chains me to public breath

Worse than chains. I cannot have a masque

Before some slave scoops up a gutter tale

To fling into my face; I cannot drink

Red wine unless the linen rustles blood; I cannot break bread

Before an archbishop canonizes a body

Broken, stuck like an albatross on the hill of skulls.