Franketienne - Ready to Burst

— You’re not doing anything, Raynand.

— Absolutely nothing. For months now, I’ve got neither tobacco nor pipe. Neither dust nor smoke.

— For me, there isn’t much going on either. But I’m getting by.

— What have you been doing, Paulin?

— I give private lessons to the children of this businessman over by Carrefour-Feuilles. That brings in about a hundred dollars a month. It isn’t much. But I make do with that.

— Where I’m at right now, I’d make do with a quarter of that. And I’ve been looking. I’ve walked everywhere. Like a mad dog. I haven’t found anything.

— Tell me, Raynand. If I remember correctly, you’re from the Montrouis area?

— From Délugé, to be precise. But I have some relatives living in Montrouis. Farmers …

— Would you be able to make a little trip to the region?

— Why are you asking, Paulin?

— I’ll let you know in a bit. For the time being, just answer me. I just want to help you out.

— How so? I don’t see the connection.

— Do they grow groundnuts in the region?

— What are groundnuts?

— They’re what we call pistachios around here.

— Paulin, you aren’t about to ask me to sell grilled pistachios to get back on my feet.

— No. I just want to know if they grow pistachios in the region.

— You can find them on the neighboring mountains and in the hills around there. I remember seeing fields of pistachios the last time I was in Montrouis. In that scorched and rocky dirt. That was about seven years ago now. I think the pods germinate in the soil, which then has to be scratched and dug through when it’s time for the harvest.

— Well, then. You’ll be doing some scratching and digging, Raynand. You’re going to root around in your head to make something come out.

— I don’t understand — I don’t get it, responds Raynand, eyes bulging.

— Just listen. The other day, the businessman whose kids I give lessons to was talking about a pretty interesting project, right in front of me. An American industrialist has come to the country to make an important deal. Apparently, he’s already made contact with certain officials with an eye to pistachio farming.

— To what end?

— They’re used to make oil and soap.

— Is it really a sure thing, Paulin? Because it’ll take time to put together a soap or an oil factory. Setting up the business, the scrap iron, the installation of the machines. I’d have to wait too long.

— Not at all. The factory is already in place somewhere in the Caribbean. In Puerto Rico, I believe. A boat would come pick up the pistachios here in Haiti. The processing would happen over there.

— How much is this rich industrialist set to pay us for a sack of pistachios?

— I don’t know yet. At the very least, it should be enough to get you back on your feet. I’m going to put you in contact with my friend, the businessman. He’s in direct communication with the American. He won’t say no, I’m sure of it. You, for your part, you’ll sort out a warehouse.

— I’m up for it. I’ll wait for the response. Then I’ll make my way to Montrouis.

— It’ll work, Raynand. You’ll see.

— I hope so, with all my heart, Paulin. In any case, I thank you … Wait a second, Paulin. And the title of your novel?

— Haven’t yet figured it out, Raynand. But it’ll come to me on its own. In fact, you’d be doing me an immense favor if you’d suggest a title for me.

Raynand has been in Montrouis for the past week. From the moment of his arrival, he’d made arrangements with Verdieu Belhomme to procure a certain amount of pistachios, about the equivalent of a hundred bags.

Once upon a time, Verdieu Belhomme had been a perfectly gallant farmer. Today, he’s nothing more than a shadow of himself. His first son left him to live a dissolute life in the capital. His wife died that same year. His daughter Célie, a beautiful girl, it’s said, also abandoned him. She packed her things one morning and hopped on the first big truck that went by. Since then, she lives as a prostitute in a brothel in Port-au-Prince, the Royal-Cabaret, where’s she’s all the rage.

Verdieu Belhomme rarely leaves his village. He no longer goes to the capital — it’s been at least ten years. He’s resigned to his life as a field rat. Not hoping for anything better. Just waiting for death. He often regrets his naïveté at having listened to that white preacher who’d advised him to get married. To have only one wife, in accordance with the laws of God and Christian morality. He’d stupidly obeyed the preacher, who knew absolutely nothing about this strange land of Haiti. Who didn’t understand that the strategy of the Haitian peasant is to take as many mistresses or wives as possible to produce multiple clutches of children for him. The great law of accumulation that underlies the rural economy of the family. The supreme solution to the problem of a sufficient workforce. Verdieu Belhomme often asks himself how he’d been so foolish as to break that fundamental law of the Haitian peasantry, and to follow the treacherous advice of that preacher, who left him in a state of misery and confusion. He wouldn’t have ended up where he is today — as a disgraced peasant. He’d be like his neighbor Chérilus, a King Midas with the Golden Touch, with his thirty-seven children. Ah! Children! The wealth of the poor. Sure support for old age.

Today, he’s all alone. Denim pants with holes in the seat in the shape of two hexagonal eyes. A shirt so shredded that it’s as if it had been saved at the last minute from the jaws of a raging bull. Long, thin machete on his right hip. Downcast visage that makes him look older than his fifty years. Verdieu Belhomme walks against the wind, on every pathway, over all the hills of Montrouis, which he knows by heart, just as he knows the dry and rainy seasons of the year.

For some time now, happiness has been elusive. When he goes to or returns from his cursed garden, he looks just like a fighting cock. Beak to the ground. Disconcerted. Bruised by strikes of multiple spurs. Ow! Such stubborn soil! So many trials for one human being! This life, even tougher and heavier than carrying a casket on one’s head. The sterile soil, an old menopausal woman. When he drinks his rum, his fingers tremble, his lips twist into a bitter grimace. Such terrible luck! A narrow passageway holds back his limbs. The wrong paths break his momentum. It’s as if an invisible machine is chewing up his life like stalks of cane in a mill. The gears tighten. But he’s left with neither juice nor molasses. He thinks, with regret, that for a long while now he’s been reduced to a pile of old, dried-up cane stalks, good for burning to repel mosquitoes. His life: ridiculous. Insignificant as that mesquite tree, tilted toward its fatal decline. Covered in moss, a hairy beard. He’s no longer a beautiful tall tree. His flesh, torn apart by blows of the ax. His mouth, crushed. His gums, toothless. His body, laced with scars. Tripped up and tumbling over. Running into tree stumps. His vision barely reaches over the hedge of candelabra cacti that border his little ajoupa . His activities end at the enclosure of his garden, his everyday landscape. Misery on his heels, faithful companion. The desolation corseting his hips in barbed wire. Distress down to the very roots of his being.

Despite everything, Verdieu Belhomme still knows how to get unstuck. To sort himself out so as not to die too quickly. He manages to find a pretty good stock of pistachios for Raynand.

— And the money — when do you think you’ll have it? he asks Raynand.

— As soon as the boat comes to pick up the first loads of pistachios. Maybe in about two weeks.