Maryse Conde: Victoire: My Mother's Mother

Once, according to him, an orca had dragged in its wake the Ezékiel all the way to Antigua. Together with his brother and son, he had crossed the Grand Cul-de-Sac Marin, leaving behind them the white sand beaches of Saint-François. Suddenly the animal disappeared. However hard they scrutinized the deep blue surrounding them, all they could see were fishing boats like theirs. Another time they had passed a floating wreck of a ship loaded with men with slit eyes, lemon-colored skin, and black hair who pointed to them, babbling in a strange tongue. In the time it took to get their senses back, the ship had vanished. And then once, when they were far out in the ocean, they saw the water rise up like a mountain. The boat began to dance from one crest of a wave to the next. A few yards distant, a genuine wall of water was unfurling.

“An mwé!” they had shouted in despair.

Suddenly, as if by magic, the wall collapsed in a haze of drops and everything was back to normal, while the waves came to die softly on a line of reefs.

A pa jé! I’m not lying, the sea plays you some of the most incredible tricks!

Once a month Caldonia, loaded with bundles of leaves, scrubbing brushes, and basins, rounded off her meager receipts from washing and fishing by scrubbing the floors of the mayor, Fulgence Jovial. He was her cousin twice removed, but he preferred to boast of his more flattering relationship to Jean-Hégésippe Légitimus, the first black man to have entered the political arena. He had been his right-hand man at Grand Bourg and, like him, proclaimed himself “Grand Nègre,” an expression that has nothing to do with money but implies intellectual and human values, self-pride, respect, and social esteem.

After having knocked up half the girls who were at an age to be impregnated on the galette of Marie-Galante, Fulgence Jovial mended his ways and married at the town hall and church Gaëtane Sébéloué, the illegitimate daughter of a bastard mistress of a wealthy owner of a sugar plantation. Thanks to the estate of his wife, he could boast of owning the most precious of mahogany furniture in his upstairs-downstairs house. Like a guide in a museum, he would walk his visitors through one room after another, having them admire the wardrobes from Nantes, the chests of drawers, the consoles, and above all the magnificent sideboards.

When Caldonia went to work for the Jovials, she entrusted Victoire to her sister, a trinket seller at the market. On this particular day, she made an exception because for once Thérèse was in Grand Bourg. The Jovial couple had in fact an only daughter, Thérèse, whom they idolized. Going against Fulgence’s wishes, who considered music frivolous and dreamed of her becoming a doctor, Thérèse was studying piano in Cuba under the great Marista Nueva Concepción de la Cruz and only returned once or twice a year to visit her parents. A few years earlier she had held Victoire at the church font, as she did dozens of children every time she came back to Marie-Galante. In our islands the godmother is chosen wisely; we can even say it’s a calculated choice. She is a surrogate mother. Well-off, even very wealthy, she must be able to give her godson or goddaughter everything the biological mother cannot. And she should be capable of taking over in the event of death. Thérèse cared little for the numerous children she was supposed to have in her charge. But she had a particular liking for Victoire. Was it because of her unusual physique? She never forgot to bring her back a recuerdo de Cuba, however small it might be.

On this particular day, she had her come up to her room, a bonbonnière filled with her childhood toys: celluloid and porcelain dolls, cuddly teddy bears, wooden puppets, and a rocking horse. Then she placed a 78 record on the phonograph. As soon as the music started, Victoire drew close to the gramophone to touch it. She remained rooted to the spot, fascinated by the slow rotation of the record. When the melody stopped, she who was usually so gentle began to stamp her feet:

“ Mizik! Mizik! ”

Amused, Thérèse started up the phonograph again and the morning was spent listening to one record after another. At one o’clock, when Caldonia came up to fetch her, Victoire refused to go with her. Quite unusual for her, she squirmed and sobbed enough to break your heart all the way to La Treille, constantly murmuring the magic word:

“ Mizik! ”

How I would like to discover the melodies that gave Victoire these first emotions!

I know that Thérèse’s ambition was to become a concert pianist. But fate decided otherwise. After her love life had been wrecked, she retired to France, where she sank into oblivion. What was she listening to that morning? Was it a suite for piano by Isaac Albéniz, who was to become her favorite composer? Was it a beguine or a bèlè from Martinique? Was it one of those Neapolitan rondos so dear to Nueva Concepción?

We shall never know.

What we do know is that from that day onward, her interest grew for this atypical goddaughter, who, strangely enough, seemed to share her musical tastes and who was so different from the local bitako bumpkins. She placed her under the formal protection of Gaëtane, making her mother swear that she would take care of Victoire’s well-being. In short, Thérèse first treated Victoire with great indulgence, then later cast her as the very picture of deceitfulness.

But let us not get ahead in our story.

CALDONIA NEVER LEFT La Treille. The island where she was born and where she would die fully satisfied her. She therefore instructed her sister, who went to La Pointe once a month, to procure a music box. The sister bought from Abel Lhullier, rue Frébault, a small metal trapezoid box painted in white and decorated with a double frieze of blue flowers. When you turned the handle as far as it would go, it emitted a metallic melody: the habanera from Carmen by Bizet:

L’amour est un oiseau rebelle

This quaint object was found among my mother’s personal belongings together with jewel boxes, mother-of-pearl fans, letters, and bills. It was an intriguing piece. Nobody could understand where it came from.

Victoire now possessed more than a toy: a fetish. From morning to night she would listen to her music box, singing softly to herself. She even slept with it. Sometimes, Lourdes teased her by hiding it. She would then cry so hard that Caldonia became angry and laid into Lourdes with all her might.

Victoire’s early years were uneventful. I can only point to one incident that people called supernatural. It happened when she reached seven or eight in the middle of Lent during the month of March or April.

One afternoon, Caldonia had left Victoire asleep and gone down to watch over Oraison’s sale of fish. When she got back there was no sign of Victoire in her kabann . Nobody answered her calls. Completely beside herself, she began by beating Félix, Chrysostome, and Lourdes for not watching her. Then the entire family set off in a search party, running along every path and track.

In fact, where was there to go?

In those days there were no “ogres” in Marie-Galante feeding on young flesh. Child molesters and kidnappers were unknown. There were no wooded spots on the island where a foolhardy child could play in all innocence. Nothing but the infinite glare of a jailer-sun where stunted savannas alternated with cane fields. The harvest had taken place three months earlier, but the young cane stalks were already budding and impenetrable. Who would ever dream of penetrating their dense foliage?