The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (33 page)

(
He resumes eating.
)

        As usual, this is good.

(
YETTE
watches him, and shakes her head slowly with a pitying admiration. Fade-out.
)

Scene 9

France. Interior. A room in Napoleon’s palace.
NAPOLEON
seated before a fireplace and an
AIDE
.

AIDE

Are you too tired, Excellency?

NAPOLEON

Read the next one. And after that, enough.

Who is it from?

AIDE
(
Reading.
)

Toussaint L’Ouverture. From the prison in the Jura Mountains.

NAPOLEON

I know where it is. I put him there.

AIDE
(
Reading.
)

I have had the misfortune to incur your anger; but as to fidelity and probity, I am strong in my conscience, and I have to say with truth that among all the servants of the State none is more honest than I. I was one of your soldiers and the first servant of the Republic in San Domingo. I am today wretched, ruined, dishonoured, a victim of my own services. Let your sensibility be touched at my position … (Interior. Snow falling. A cell in the Jura Mountains. A
TURNKEY
enters a cell. He goes to
TOUSSAINT
,
starved, hollow, shrunken, asleep, and shakes him. The body does not move.)

… Be touched at my position, you are too great in feeling and too just not to pronounce on my destiny … Signed Toussaint L’Ouverture …

There is a doctor here. He wants to see you.

(
The
DOCTOR
enters.
)

DOCTOR

I had to examine the body to confirm it.

He looked as shrivelled as a marmoset.

(
He goes to a window.
)

All the snows of the Jura didn’t whiten him.

His hair was the grey of soiled snow. Blizzards

Whiten out memory, pines disappear,

And men walking through clouds

Are faint as angels. When I found him

He was as black and cold as the bars

Of his cell. He was coiled like a child.

They might have given him an extra blanket.

It’s snowing hard there now. It’s the season,

But there’s no blizzard that can obliterate him.

The wind keeps scattering those torn-up treaties

We made with him, all in the name of peace.

There’s no peace deeper than a winter peace.

A cold, white peace. They’ll bury him up there.

In Haiti, two jackals fight for his carcass.

The autopsy is there, a white report

With its black characters. Am I dismissed?

NAPOLEON

Yes.

(
The
DOCTOR
exits.
)

        Are there any more letters?

(
Fade-out.
)

Scene 10

Haiti. Exterior.
POMPEY
in the field, with a few other
WORKERS
.

POMPEY

This earth getting too dry.

We need some rain.

(
A conch shell. Then bells. A
PEASANT
,
shouting from far off, runs onto the field.
)

PEASANT

We have a king, Monsieur Pompey! You hear the bells?

Long live the Emperor Jean Jacques the First.

POMPEY

Stop this foolishness.

Why Dessalines must be King?

PEASANT

Because Toussaint is dead.

They hold him.

YETTE

Bon Dieu. Bon Dieu.

Haïti fini.
Haiti is finished.

Haiti is finished. Look, the sun dark.

PEASANT

All you didn’t know? Pompey, Monsieur Pompey?

POMPEY

Where is the rain now? Where is Moise?

You remember the night of the cane fires we was dancing?

Then the rain fall and we went inside and shelter?

Where is Biassou, the one-handed general? And

Where are the days that the earth smell of rain,

And the horses that bowed their necks to his hand?

Where is all that? From now on,

Water will taste different. Grass smell different.

And this, the Haitian earth, different.

We cannot do no more work today. Go home.

Fold up your hopes to show them to your children.

Because after him, now come

The angry kings.

God help us men.

Scene 11

Cap Haitien, 1805. Interior, the cathedral. The altar.
ARCHBISHOP BRELLE
kneeling. A
CHOIR
.
Behind
BRELLE
,
as he bows, the also kneeling figure of
DESSALINES
.
Dimly, farther, in the dark pews, below the soaring arches, in full regalia, the
GENERALS, CHRISTOPHE. BRELLE
reaches for the jewel-encrusted crown. The music soars, he moves solemnly towards
DESSALINES
.
From the squares and the military emplacements outside the cathedral, cannon thunder.
DESSALINES
,
crowned, with sceptre, acknowledging homage from the
GENERALS
.
He accepts the homage, more fear in its extravagance of gesture than homage, and abruptly, but grinning, indicates …

DESSALINES

Assez. C’est bien assez, merci.

Merci, merci, merci …

(
DESSALINES
indicates that he would like to move on. The emperor moves, the entourage begins to move. Near the emperor is another black
GENERAL
.)

GENERAL

And now that we have a black emperor, Your Majesty,

We expect, of course, a black nobility.

(
DESSALINES
stops. The entourage stops.
)

DESSALINES

A black nobility?
Moi seul, je suis noble!

I alone am noble! Christophe! I appoint you …

(
Then he progresses, laughing. The entourage progresses.
)

Secretary of Agriculture. You will prepare

A tour of my kingdom. The states, the houses …

We have to make our people go back to the earth!

Now tell the wild boar that I killed on the beach,

When my arse was exposed to the wind, go on;

Find his carcass where the flies sang their hymns

And tell him you saw me. The Emperor Dessalines.

That I alone am noble! Remember that!
Moi seul!

(
He exits, acknowledging cheers, mounts to the balcony, others following.
)

Scene 12

Interior. Night. The ballroom at Belle Maison. Hundreds of candles, banners. Liveried
ATTENDANTS. MUSICIANS
in an alcove on a level overlooking the ballroom floor. A flag, with a portrait of the Emperor Jean Jacques Dessalines. Trumpets, applause.
DESSALINES
enters with his
GENERALS, BRELLE
,
and court.
YETTE, POMPEY
waiting on the stairs.

DESSALINES

So. This is the house where Toussaint was a coachman. Did you know that, Henri? This is the house. Well, we will show you tonight! You hear me, house? Tonight! I’ll make your old arse rattle! (
POMPEY
and
YETTE
descend the stairs.
) Our host, Citizen Pompey! I present my wife, the Empress; my daughter, Celimène, coming behind her; Monseigneur Corneille Brelle—as you see, citizen, we still respect the Church. The bishop crown me Emperor seven weeks before Bonaparte was crowned at Notre Dame. My Minister of Agriculture, Citizen General Henri Christophe, his secretary Baron Citizen Pompey, Valentin Vastey. Vastey. You see. Look at this council, every colour is here, and these are?

POMPEY

My wife … Yette …

(
DESSALINES
lasciviously holds on to her hand.
)

DESSALINES

Enchanté. Ravissante.
We dance: I have brought my musicians.

Eux aimaient toute ça, bien, eh, Christophe?

I say, they like all this, eh?

A little colour. This black majesty!

What music should I dance to, Archbishop?

I will show your grace my grace! Ha! What?

BRELLE

You know, when it’s harvest time for the canes,

Your people have a mock war. They split in factions,

This one adores the rose, this one the daisy

They call La Marguerite. With wooden swords, with feathers

Plucked from the canes in arrow, they sing

These tender battle hymns; they march, they die.

I wish this war was what they did, that our corpses

Were slain for flowers. What a perfume

Would saturate the Haitian earth instead.

To faint from sweetness at the smell of peace.

(
A
La Comette
dance. The
DANCERS
waltz and freeze, waltz and freeze.
VASTEY
and
CHRISTOPHE
watching
DESSALINES
and
YETTE
dancing.
POMPEY
leans against a wall.
)

CHRISTOPHE

Call him Jacques the jacko, jackass, anything but an emperor!

What kind of emperor is this, Vastey? Listen, you see how he

Divides the estates among his ex-soldiers? By his nose. This

Is a government by that nigger’s nostrils, his mud-foot veterans

Bring him scraps of paper deeds, forgeries, they are the deeds

With smoke, and this medalled jackass who cannot read sniffs

And then pronounces on their merit. A nose rules us, friend.

A nose is my Emperor. I make policy. I must look after his

Agriculture, and he does that!

He wants Haiti to be black, so he does this by bleeding it white.

VASTEY

The revolution made him what he is, General.

CHRISTOPHE

Don’t call me general. I am in agriculture.

But I have learnt one thing from it.

(
Pause.
)

That pig should be butchered.

Tell him I’m tired and I’ve gone to bed.

(
He exits, climbing the stairs.
)

Scene 13

Interior. The
MUSICIANS
weary, playing. Hours later. Other guests asleep. The royal family absent.
DESSALINES
and
YETTE
still dancing.
DESSALINES
barefooted.
POMPEY
stirs, wants to move towards
DESSALINES. DESSALINES
notices. He stops dancing. The music stops. He strides, totters over to
POMPEY
.

DESSALINES

You want to sleep, citizen?

Go to bed. Your Emperor’s permission.

Go to bed. The cock is crowing.

Go!

(
He pushes him out.
POMPEY
moves.
YETTE
stands alone, sweaty, dishevelled.
)

Your wife will be all right.

Your Emperor’s assurance.

(
To
YETTE
)

You will be all right, yes?

(
YETTE
nods wearily. To
POMPEY
)

Music! Music! You are not married, not true?

(
POMPEY
shakes his head no.
DESSALINES
claps his hands.
)

Then tomorrow, first thing, I will marry you.

Not me! But the archbishop! A white archbishop!

(
He returns to
YETTE
,
dances.
)

A real archbishop, citizen. And white.

And a real emperor. Now go to sleep.

You will need all your little strength tomorrow night.

(
POMPEY
withdraws. To
YETTE
)

And tonight, my honey-colour negresse,

Tonight you and I will make a prince,

A little present for your husband.

Maybe twins. What is wrong?

I understand. You are tired.

Come. Come with me.
Assez?

(
The music stops. He claps his hands, indicating they should all leave. The remnants of guests who still have the strength go off. Some cross the fields, meeting the dawn.
)

Come to the balcony to see your kingdom.

Smell the air. Morning.

Morning in Haiti. What is your

Name again, mulatresse?

YETTE

Yette, Your Majesty.

DESSALINES

Come to the balcony to smell the morning, Yette.

(
They move out to the balcony.
)

Your Majesty.

(
Laughs.
)

                        Suppose …

Suppose I let you call me Jacques?

(
The balcony. Morning. Fresh. Stirring.
YETTE
exhausted but lovely. The cool wind.
)

I mean to say what is that for us, Your Majesty!

You making love and jumping under me, crying

Uh—uh!—uh, Your Majesty. And afterwards,

Thank you, Your Majesty. It is ridiculous, not true?

(
YETTE
says nothing.
)

A lovely day. The morning. Fresh. The breeze.

Like a cool tongue on a woman’s thigh.