Marie Vieux-Chauvet - Love, Anger, Madness

M. Long is a fat, puffy, congested man. It’s my birthday today, and we are literally being cooked alive, and M. Long looks like a boiled lobster. Jean Luze seats his boss and offers him some whiskey.

The cake is on the table, crowned with eighteen candles. Annette’s idea, naturally. They kiss me and offer me their gifts and all sing “Happy Birthday to You.” I got a sewing kit from Jean Luze, a box of handkerchiefs from Annette and from Félicia a gold medallion.

“I decorate you,” she said, pinning the medal to my blouse.

“Come now, give us a smile.”

Jean Luze held my chin and looked into my eyes. I’m afraid he’ll hear the disordered beating of my heart. He is tall and I barely reach his shoulder. I would like him to lean and take me in his arms to carry me very far away. Such is the incurable romantic that slumbers in all old maids!

We offer some cake to Augustine, the maid. The house is festive.

“Put on a record, Jean,” Annette proposes. “The screaming just ruins everything.”

The screams waft from the jail. Horrible, unsexed droning.

“Calédu is having a bit of fun,” M. Long exclaims with a jowl-shaking chortle. (His accent adds a childish note to his cruel remark.)

“A peculiar way to have fun, don’t you think?” Jean Luze asks him with a strange, almost hostile, smile.

“Oh, you know, I say to each his own. And anyway, you would have to be insane to try to change anything around here.”

He holds out his glass to Jean Luze, who fills it with another shot of whiskey.

Annette flutters around them. She pours on the charm even for this hideous American. She’s turning into a nymphomaniac.

“As I told you recently, Monsieur Luze,” M. Long continues, “the coffee harvest has been so bad that for the last three years we have had to fall back on timber. I’m waiting for an answer from the company. If we don’t export wood, we’ll have no choice but to close up shop. The timber stock in the mountains and even in the towns is just extraordinary! This island is amazing: the sea, the mountains, the trees! Yes it’s a pity, a real pity they are so poor and unlucky.”

“What will happen to the peasants and their small plots if they agree to deforestation? The rain will wash away the soil,” notes Jean Luze.

“Oh well, that, my dear friend, is their business. They can either agree to sell their wood or we can leave. We are not asking for a gift, not at all…”

I can’t fully follow the conversation. The screams make it hard to pay attention. I prick up my ears. I feel obliged to listen for the faintest whimper. I am almost certain that it is a child crying. I am developing a trained ear. A final outburst ends on a hoarse note, so painful that I stand up with my hands over my ears.

“The cries upset you that much?” M. Long asks me.

“Not at all.”

Jean Luze hands me a glass.

“Drink,” he says.

The glass shakes in my hand.

M. Long speaks of his country, so rich, so beautiful, so well organized, it seems. What has he come looking for in this hole, if not wealth? What if not to fleece the sheep that we are?

After M. Long’s departure, Félicia goes to her room. Jean Luze lingers in the living room listening to Beethoven. Standing in the dark, Annette is watching him. I stay up with them for as long as possible. I’m on to them: they have a rendezvous tonight. I close the doors and wait. The house seems asleep. I hear the careful patter of their steps, the creaking of the door to Annette’s room as it opens. I imagine them naked, kissing, taking each other again and again. I get in bed, naked as well, ablaze with desire. I am with them, between them. No, I am alone with Jean Luze. Amazing how love cancels out all other feelings. I would hear screaming from the jail and pay it no heed. I am Annette. I’m sixteen years younger. I hear nothing, and then a terrible cry and the sound of a body falling. It would be inconvenient to witness any kind of drama. I stay still, waiting for things settle. Annette’s door is ajar and Félicia is lying on the floor. Jean Luze, appropriately dressed, is leaning over his wife, while Annette, in a dressing gown, pale as a corpse, looks at me. I know nothing. I understand nothing. Isn’t fainting normal for pregnant women?

“Go get Dr. Audier,” I say to Jean Luze.

He quickly carries her into their room and runs off.

I hear his steps creaking on the stairs and it’s now my turn to lean over Félicia.

“My God, what’s happened to her?” Annette exclaims, hands on her heart.

She can’t play innocent. Acting is not her strong suit. She didn’t want these complications. She’s nervous, and she’s nervous that she’s nervous.

I avoid answering. I am busy rubbing Félicia’s hands.

“Leave the room, Annette.” That’s all I say.

Félicia and I are alone. I rub some alcohol on her cheeks, slap her and call her name. She comes to and starts sobbing.

“Claire! Claire!”

Oh no, I don’t want to hear anything. I’ll take care of her as always, but I don’t want to hear her secrets. Spare this poor old maid!

“Claire! Claire!”

“Keep quiet. You will just make things worse and you will lose the child.”

Jean Luze returns with Dr. Audier. She hides her face in her hands and bursts into fresh sobs. After examining her, Audier gives her a shot and prescribes a few days’ bed rest.

“You better not leave her side,” he advises Jean Luze in a low voice. “She’s had a terrible shock.”

He is full of repentance. He kisses her and whispers something in her ear.

I am still there, watching every move.

“Nothing happened, I swear, nothing,” he repeats, now in a louder voice.

Does she believe him? She touches his face slowly, full of tenderness, as if she has already forgotten everything. What confidence she has in him!

“There’s no hemorrhaging, that’s good!” the doctor declares. “Just simple fainting!”

I see him out and then return to Félicia’s side. The injection has put her to sleep.

I turn to Jean Luze with the most sincere expression I can muster and ask:

“How did this happen?”

He looks at me casually.

“I have no idea. I was in the living room and I heard her scream…”

Oh, what good liars we are, both of us!

He did not go to work this morning. The door to their room is closed and Augustine has brought them breakfast in bed. Annette seems more nervous than last night. She paces up and down, eyes on their door. Why has he shut himself up with Félicia? What is he going to promise? The door opens in the afternoon and Jean Luze emerges, somber and so distant that it would take superhuman courage to approach him. Annette nevertheless calls out to him, and he looks at her with intentionally unconcealed antipathy. I hide in order to hear their conversation.

“It’s over, Annette,” he says, “I hope you’ve understood this. Félicia’s life and the baby’s life depend on your behavior. You have to control yourself.”

“But I can’t, I just can’t…”

“Let’s not overdo it, shall we.”

His tone is cutting.

“I love you.”

“Quiet.”

“Living like this with you but not with you, and to keep quiet? That’s too much.”

“In that case, Félicia and I will leave. I got married to have a home, children, to be done with being a man-about-town. I don’t want problems, understand? I don’t want trouble.”

His voice is so hard that I doubt ever having seen them in each other’s arms.

“So, you didn’t love me?”

Silence.

“So, you didn’t love me?”

He answers with total astonishment and profound contempt.

“Love you? Come on.”

There is another silence, during which I regret not being able to see the expression on Annette’s face. Mine is stubborn and unhappy. Is it because I think I could plead our case much better?