The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (5 page)

And then they take you to treat you to the same argument they use against you. Thou shalt not kill. God has given no man right to kill, tell that to the lawyer, and the gaoler, and the warder, and particularly to the rope that cannot understand logic and argument. What will the priest say … “My boy, it was murder that hung Christ like an albatross around the neck of Golgotha; my boy, you must not kill; take him away and God have mercy on his soul…” This place is an arena, a human arena of lions and laughter; only the wicked and those who do not think can survive. What are you laughing at?

SECOND MURDERER

Sorry, sir. Now, sir, what would you say are the best hints to become a professional murderer?

FIRST MURDERER

First, be a vegetarian; second, be kind to animals; third, keep in practice. Now you see this King, this Dessalines, watch me handle him. Now you must plan, and I will have already planned. Let us see what will happen. All right …

(
He sketches the campaign on the ground.
)

Look. The King is coming, we are here. He is with his calvary and going to Port-au-Prince. The soldiers throw him from his horse; they must not touch him, that is our job; they take his sword, he wanders off the road, while the dark settles, and here by the road we are going to wait, sharp and clean …

(
He raises his head, listening.
)

I hear horses. We can take his finery. You ever see an easier job? What is the matter with you? Where is your instrument? You mean you came here without an instrument? Boy, you are a shame to your father …

SECOND MURDERER
(
In a frightened whisper
)

You not scared about … God or death?

(
Sound of horses, distantly, and voices.
)

We should not kill. Is that what my father used to do? We ca—

FIRST MURDERER

Keep quiet … keep quiet, boy, we must not think …

SECOND MURDERER

But to kill a man …

FIRST MURDERER

Ask the generals of the wars that are supposed to buy liberty and peace; ask them why they use ordinary people, workmen, niggers, and smiling boys with sonnets in their eyes dying like Greece on vulgar cannons; ask the man who hired us. I am his hand, he is his conscience.

SECOND MURDERER

And what about God?

FIRST MURDERER

Ask God why He killed His son, and what good it did us since …

SECOND MURDERER

You are a heretic and a murderer … He is coming …

(
FIRST MURDERER
crouches, waiting; the other stands dazed, watching an opening in the bushes; the older man pulls him and strikes him silent.
)

FIRST MURDERER

Poor boy, yet what he says …

I have no authority to cut the throat of light,

I am tired of washing the blood from my hands, but

Who can pardon the hawk its instincts, the gull

Its flight from the storm, the vulture on the corpses that stink?

Who will pardon the hunter, not the friend, dead between three

Trees?

(
DESSALINES
enters, dishevelled.
)

DESSALINES

Who are you?

(
Then he realizes.
)

Of course, so ordinary and professional …

No … please, please …

(
He is not in panic but trying to talk sense.
)

Listen …

(
Meanwhile, the
SECOND MURDERER
,
on his knees, watches with fascination the horror that is about to be enacted.
)

FIRST MURDERER

Sir, let’s be quiet about this …

(
He advances calmly and draws a knife with terrible leisure. The
SECOND MURDERER
buries his face in his hands and begins to mumble a kind of prayer, hardly audible, as the lights fade out.
)

PART TWO

The first that there did greet my stranger soul,

Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;

Who cried aloud “What scourge for perjury

Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?”

—
Richard III

Scene 1

Before the cathedral at Cap Haitien.
SYLLA, VASTEY
,
other
GENERALS
,
and
BRELLE
are on the cathedral steps. The mitre of the archbishop makes the apex for the triangular arrangement of the scene; on either side of the steps a
CROWD
is lined, all facing offstage.

SYLLA

This paupered love in the lazaretto

Of my grey-haired heart had anticipated

Peace and penance when we cracked them at Crête-à-Pierrot

When history sucked the last sail out of vision;

Now impossible, it seems, with

Jealousies snarling, greed

Plotting, with Pétion fighting Christophe:

Look now, a civil war.

BRELLE

What had you thought of?

SYLLA

I had hoped for, first, faith,

People singing, eating leisurely

Under the green ease of councils, a federation

Of complexions; but Haiti will never be normal;

Not I either, dying blind,

Will see it.

BRELLE

I see, Henri would prefer us to think

This fight for the presidency against Pétion

Necessary for us to get on;

But no poison is a necessary drink.

But Monsieur Vastey must think differently.

VASTEY

Of course, ingratitude.

Who would be President on Pétion’s terms?

He had framed the Senate to a stronger constitution;

The President would have been the figurehead of an institution

He could not control, no more than I can halt storms.

The Senate was the body; he could not be the mouthpiece

Of factious members of a corrupted office;

If he had done nothing, he would be straw to their weathers,

A feather blown by their inclinations.

SYLLA

Well recited, schoolboy.

BRELLE

Well, why did he not present the cabinet their protestations?

Why settle by war what quarrels would?

VASTEY

The general believes the price of freedom is blood.

SYLLA

No one is more generous than generals;

I, one once, know that;

War is cheap.

VASTEY

How can you live with enemies around you,

Betrayal on the tongues of those who surround you

Ready to play cat and mouse?

Must Christophe not strengthen the floors of his house,

Before the whole collapse in dust?

SYLLA

While industry and the plough rust?

And the people murmur against this slaughter?

Was it not merely to appease an affront

That Christophe takes blood for an expense account:

“Tell Pétion I am going south

To ram his constitution down his mouth”?

(
Cheering. Dimly.
)

He’s coming.

BRELLE

This victory should buy quiet.

Adjust my mitre and my robes, I must learn to conduct

Myself like a dutiful archbishop;

But I am too old to change.

Do I hear a trumpet?

SYLLA

The President has always been a vain man,

But noble as kings.

VASTEY

Royalty frightens him, he is otherwise intentioned.

Why do you two smile? It is as I mentioned.

(Asennet.Enter
CHRISTOPHE
and
LIEUTENANTS
.)

Hail!

(
The
CROWD
echoes this.
)

Today you free your country from her enemies

With a new government cloaked in modesty

In open sunlight; peace like blackbirds

Shall settle on the season.

(
The
CROWD
applauds.
)

BRELLE

Sprinkle the conqueror with holy hope,

And pray he control the power given

By God and history to his grip. Let war adjourn; we are tired

Of bitter separations between complexions

That grin above the skeleton. All flesh is similar;

We have so little time for hooded prayers,

The eremite mercy, the black regret.

Let us live like servants

To the inspired intentions history frames today,

And pray that he directs his services straight to God

As this breath, censers, smoke, and wish

Rise crookedly to heaven. Kneel, President.

(
He blesses him.
)

Now rise gowned solely in Christian humility,

And learn from this precious silver of my eyes that I

Who should be beyond complexions

Am proud of this dark brood of sorrows

Who rise to birth from blood; but blood that must no more be cheap,

The currency of gain. Hold this life precious

To tell history and children remembering us in queer languages

By cracked columns, in dusty aisles where weeds

Are memory’s signatures: our breed shall learn

How men like you, Toussaint, Brelle, Dessalines, dead,

Led their own people from embarrassment to insolence,

Breaking their former masters on their knees.

Rise and rule well, but never give cause

To turn these children against themselves and you;

Because if you do that, I shall betray you, too.

Henri, I welcome you to the uncontested presidency.

CHRISTOPHE

I cannot speak from pride.

VASTEY

Speech, speech …

(
The
CROWD
picks this up.
)

BRELLE

That is the politician’s nightmare.

It is a wonder how they speak too often

At the wrong time, then at the right time soften.

(
Laughter.
)

CHRISTOPHE

I can only show my pride in promises;

My tongue is only garrulous

In dreams. But I will try to speak.

I have beaten Pétion; he will not trouble us.

It was a long campaign. The men, your husbands, sons, brothers,

Are tired; we all want peace;

I will send them home. I promise you my rule

Shall burst the gourds of plenty;

I will make history, richer than all kings.

BRELLE

Still plucking at an irritated string …

King … King …

VASTEY

Citizens, should this man not be King?

(
The
CROWD
murmurs disappointedly.
)

Ingratitudes, so he must show his wounds,

Bare his split shoulder like a harlot, to beg the purses

Of your wish?

(
The
CROWD
grumbles.
)

FIRST VOICE

Why must he be King? Is it an honour?

SOLDIER

But he is the liberator, and donor

Of this peace; gratitude must give her feeling voice.

SECOND VOICE

In temporary forgetting you rejoice.

I remember …

SOLDIER

This is history, titles and medals are toys …

VASTEY

Make him a king and joys shall fill your scenes

With splendour, dignity, plenty.

FIRST VOICE

With all the splendour of a Dessalines,

The palace glittering, our stomachs empty?

SYLLA

This is hardly the occasion.

BRELLE

Yet we cannot settle these things by evasion,

With candles lowering in rustling chambers;

This is a young energetic nation,

And these are not the rabble but respectable members.

What does the President say?

CHRISTOPHE

I will be King if the nation

Wants, otherwise it has not been my inclination.

BRELLE

Do you speak as a man or as a politician?

CHRISTOPHE

I speak as my country’s physician,

Admitting deceptions to restore her sanity.

BRELLE

You hear him? Offer a crown.

Tear the veil of purpose from his ambition,

Try him, offer some sort of crown.

(
The
CROWD
echoes this.
)

There is no crown. Vastey, here is my mitre.

Present it to this servant of his country,

Warn him of the implications that tighten

Around this honour that seems an only indolent office.

Only God makes kings.

(
VASTEY
offers the mitre.
)

Wait.

When you wear this mitre’s meaning on your skull,

Remember the crude riots death must stage

To amuse; it has in it the authority of the bishopric,

A mortal right over the flesh’s province,

The light imprisoned in the eye, the death of tongues;

It expels the criminal and cripple without why—

That’s more than I can do, and more

Than God thinks worth His doing.

With this for signature, you can

Break the built bone, make the eyes drink the dark.

Why do you hesitate? This halt is dangerous—

Why watch me so? You think I mock you, but you are my friend.

Because I am your friend I mock you here.

I do not like that dubious hesitation.

Does temptation make you tremble, or is it ambition creeping