Maryse Conde - Who Slashed Celanire's Throat? - A Fantastical Tale

Agénor de Fouques-Timbert hated the place he was going to — the Bois-Debout Great House at La Regrettée, abandoned for over thirty years. Unfortunately it was always there that Mavundo, his trusted mischief maker from Santo Domingo, arranged to meet him. He whipped Colibri, who restlessly snorted the air. The horse lumbered down the slope of the Morne du Calvaire, quickened its pace across a series of savannas, and stopped abruptly as soon as they came in sight of the Great House. An alley of royal palms, a hollow facade like a trompel’oeil, and the remains of the washhouse walls — that was all that was left of one of the most magnificent mansions in the region. After having carried away the furniture, the rugs, and the family portraits, thieves had gone to work on the bricks and roof tiles, leaving not one stone standing. On the other hand, they hadn’t touched the slave shacks, and their dingy quarters stood intact at the foot of the Great House buildings like a mangy herd. Their doors gaped open onto mounds of beaten earth once used as beds or tables, as well as the wretched shelves still fixed to the wall. Once separated, the two graveyards now merged into each other: the masters’, with its arrogant marble tombs and wreaths and crosses of pearl, the slaves’, where under the nettles and sensitive plants, the only signs of a tomb were the white bones of conch shells. The two chapels had also fallen into ruin, overrun by the creeping leaf of life. Agénor was suffocating in the stifling atmosphere. Even after so many years the place still recalled the groans and lamentations of those long buried, the tears they had shed, and their unanswered pleas and prayers. The smell of this suffering humanity seemed to cling to the branches of the trees.

Colibri had come to a standstill, frightened by all these ghosts looming around him, and only when Agénor whipped him on did the horse reluctantly amble off again.

Mavundo was waiting for him in the old slave chapel. He was a puny, reptilian, red-skinned individual who outwardly appeared perfectly ordinary but inwardly concealed an immense cunning. He commanded a multitude of dwarves hidden in the wind and scattered to the four corners of the globe. Thanks to them, he could see and hear everything. He had studied with the great Rwaha of Ethiopia and lived seven years under his wing in Addis Ababa. Agénor understood from the expression on his face that he was about to announce something terrible. He was right. Mavundo had just learned from one of his dwarves that Madeska had died on Montserrat, where he had been living as a recluse outside Plymouth. His death could be attributed neither to the volcanic eruption nor to the hurricane. The dwarf had found his body, his belly slit open with his guts oozing out, in the very middle of the mangrove swamp. The racoons had made such a good job of mauling his face and neck that his new wife, a young girl from Montserrat, had trouble identifying him. At the end of the day, therefore, the spirits had finally caught up with him. After all these seemingly peaceful years, they were now embarked on the road to war.

In fact Agénor had been expecting this news for the past twenty-five years and accepted it with resignation, almost with relief. When he had decided to go into politics some years earlier, his father-in-law, who had always considered him a despicable fortune hunter, had shrugged his shoulders in disbelief. He wasn’t the only one. The whole of Basse-Terre scoffed at the idea. Too many people saw him as a poor-white country bookie, barely capable of growing sugarcane. So he swore to himself he would surprise them. He got the idea of asking Madeska for a human sacrifice as the best way to win the support of the invisible spirits. The mischief maker’s family had been close to his from time immemorial despite the difference in color. Madeska couldn’t possibly turn him down. As a wise precaution, they had come to an agreement. He was never to meet the belly donor, a certain Pisket. Madeska, who was on intimate terms with her best friend, a certain Madone, took the matter in hand. The deal between the mischief maker and the bòbò had cost him a fortune. What’s more, in order to carry out the rites that had to be performed every week of the pregnancy up to the final sacrifice, Madeska wanted the girl to be entirely under his control. They had had to find lodgings close by and open a laundry in her name so as not to arouse suspicion. Madeska had just informed him that the birth had gone according to plan and the sacrifice would take place that very night, when suddenly, badabim, badaboom, in rolls misfortune blacker than the ass of a Congo! As a rule Madeska left the sacrificed newborn deep in the woods, haunted only by raging wild animals. This time, goodness knows what got into his head to set the newborn down right in the middle of the Calvaire crossroads. Not surprising that wretched police commissioner Dieudonné Pylône stumbled onto it and that meddling Dr. Pinceau got the idea of patching things up! What happened when a sacrifice was misappropriated? Agénor had prudently waited a few days before going down to ask Madeska for details. Alas, when he had finally made up his mind, the bird had flown! The mischief maker had split. Sobbing their hearts out, his wives added that they hadn’t a cent to their name and had fifteen children to feed. Worried out of his mind, Agénor had gone to consult a well-known Nago soothsayer who read the grains of sand on the shore. He hadn’t minced his words. Darling little Celanire had become a darling little devil. Dr. Pinceau had done exactly what he should not have done. He had brought her back to life! Moreover, he would pay dearly for his foolishness and would be one of her prime victims. In fact, snatched from death, the baby would become even more formidable. You see, what is difficult for a spirit, good or bad, is to be reincarnated. Thanks to her docile little body, the evil spirits, starting with Ogokpi, the superdemon, would be able to parade freely among humans. Right up to her death, they would use her to commit any crime that caught their fancy and any mischief that came into their heads. Furthermore, convinced they had been swindled, they would savagely take their revenge on all those who had participated in the aborted sacrifice. Madeska thought he could save his skin by crossing the ocean. A waste of time — the spirits would catch up with him whenever they wanted, wherever he was. Likewise, they would hunt down every single one of those who had been involved in the affair, one by one.

Confronted with these dire predictions, Agénor had spent half his fortune protecting himself. His head bursting, he sometimes wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to give up. Lie down and sleep. Lie down and die. Be reunited with the mother of his children. Once again the fools had got it all wrong. That cross-eyed hunchback, who had become a laughingstock, was the only woman he had loved with all his heart. Before sinking into the void, she had given him a smile that meant “Don’t take too long! Remember, I’ll be waiting for you.”

He knew that one day his learned assembly of mischief makers, sorcerers, magicians, soothsayers, houngans, mambos, obeah men, kimbwazé, marabouts, and dibias would be of no use and he would die in torment. When he had set eyes on Celanire again at the Governor’s Palace and met her gaze, he knew his time was finally up. How odd! After all these years, he had recognized her. Twenty-five years earlier he had been unable to contain himself. He who never set foot inside a church, he had gone over to the cathedral of Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul at the hour of mass to get a closer look at darling little Celanire, the miraculous baby who was the talk of Grande-Anse. Standing on the steps, Ofusan was cradling her in her arms, showing her off like the Holy Sacrament, and everyone kowtowed in front of her. The infant, only a few weeks old, was dressed ostentatiously in silks, satins, and lace, the way mothers proudly deck out their offspring. A large lace bow frothed around her neck. When he leaned over her, with the pretense of a smile, the baby looked up. Then she eyed him scornfully with her unrelenting gaze, as if to say, “So there you are. Yes, I’m still alive, no thanks to you. I’m in no hurry to settle our business, I’m going to take my time.”