Victoire (18 page)

From that moment on, Victoire was back at her kitchen range. As soon as her housework was done she set off for the Open Door, where she worked until three in the afternoon. A crowd of country
women helped her, slicing onions, grinding garlic, fanning the fire, and doing the washing up. They were all scared of her, her whiteness, her unsmiling face and kept very quiet.

Given his paltry resources, the priest in Le Moule had nothing but root vegetables, pigs’ snouts and tails, saltfish, and sometimes tripe at his disposal. Occasionally, charitable merchants made him a present of goods that were going to spoil, such as crates of cauliflower, carrots, and turnips. Victoire metamorphosed everything. It was something like the Transfiguration. In her hands, the fattest, toughest, and gristliest pieces of meat turned tasty and melted in the mouth. The
maléré
in their amazement, unused to such good fortune, surged in and the numbers swelled more than fifty percent.

No longer able to contain his gratitude, the priest in Le Moule extolled Victoire’s merits in his sermon at high mass and called her a true Christian. He went so far as to invoke the wedding at Cana when Jesus changed the water into wine. Fully aware of the malicious gossip rumored about her, he made it known that it is possible to massacre the French language and have one’s heart in the right place.

Did this quash the gossip and the mockery, I wonder?

This first year of teaching at Le Moule coming after years of humiliation at Versailles forged my mother’s philosophy of life and dictated the education she gave to us, her children. The whites and mulattoes are our natural enemies. But as for the Negroes, oh the Negroes, big or small, their wickedness is immense. They are hurricanes and earthquakes that we must guard against. She convinced us that friendship does not exist. We have to live alone. Above the crowd. Finally, she convinced us of the vulnerability of women. According to her, the reason why the inhabitants of Le Moule hounded her mother and sullied her reputation was because she was nothing but a woman living alone with her daughter, without a man to protect either of them. Neither father nor husband. In order to navigate the ruts of life with a minimum of damage, you need the arm of a man. But not any man! Love was a mystification, a folly that
could very well be fatal. You needed to arm your heart and carefully choose for a partner a man whose personal qualities put him above the others and who stood tall like a protecting tree.

A Grand Nègre, in fact! We always came back to them.

During the long vacation, teachers who were starting out met at the Lycée Carnot in La Pointe for training courses.

Ever since it had been founded in 1883 following the initiative of Alexandre Isaac, himself a mulatto, director of home affairs in the government of Guadeloupe, the Lycée Carnot was more than a simple secondary school. It was a breeding ground for the budding intelligentsia of color. Under the shadow of its massive mango trees in the recreation yard, all whom Guadeloupe would count as important personalities would pass along its balconies. Since it was also a boarding school, it could house the trainees. This enabled Jeanne to keep a promise she had made years ago: never to set foot again in the rue de Nassau.

But what was to be done with Victoire?

She couldn’t force her to stay behind in Le Moule without her. With a heavy heart she had no other choice but to let her return to the Walbergs, in other words to Boniface’s bed. Victoire had the tact not to show her joy at the prospect of moving back to the rue de Nassau. But the shine in her eyes, the coloring of her cheeks, and the way her entire person came back to life spoke for themselves. The day she bade farewell to the Open Door she cooked a banquet for almost two hundred
maléré,
and people still remember it today. The priest at Le Moule noted in his diary: “Today, June 22nd, Madame Victoire Quidal surpassed herself. It is the Almighty who has manifested Himself in her hands.” They say that some of the
malérés
in their gratitude carried Victoire’s and her daughter’s trunks free of charge to the diligence. But that remains to be confirmed.

I don’t know what gave Victoire the greatest happiness on the rue de Nassau. Being back with Boniface? Or with Anne-Marie? Or being back in her den, her domain, her kitchen range? The market women, who had somewhat neglected the place, set off back to her
kitchen, and every morning there was an unloading of treasures. Victoire would weigh the red-eyed rabbits in their white fur, and sniff the tench and red snapper. Her fingers tapped away, pattering and pouring the salt, saffron, and cardamom, cutting, boning, and trimming.

She was also happy to be back in the afternoons resounding with melodies. I bet too she was happy to be back with Valérie-Anne and Boniface Jr. A sincere affection bonded her to these two, whom she had seen born and who oddly enough remained closer to her than her own daughter. They both called her Mamito, and Boniface Jr. confided in her the name of all his conquests. Since he detested his mother, he was grateful to Victoire for giving his father stability and a semblance of happiness.

True to her discretion and taught by her lesson at Le Moule, she in no way wanted to embarrass Jeanne by her visits to the Lycée Carnot. Consequently, although the rue de Nassau is just two steps from the rue Sadi Carnot, they were separated for almost three months. Anne-Marie’s radical change of attitude toward her godchild dates from that moment on. She had taken the brunt of a good many refusals and humiliations without saying a word in the interest of not hurting Victoire. But this time Jeanne’s behavior, betraying a reprehensible indifference with regard to a mother whose only thoughts were for her daughter, shocked her deeply. From that moment on, she became downright hostile, making increasingly scathing attacks every day on her selfishness and vanity. Victoire did not agree.

“A pa fòt aye!
” she murmured.

“It’s not her fault?” thundered Anne-Marie.

Victoire absolved Jeanne almost entirely, considering she was more to pity than to blame, torn as Jeanne was between her filial love, her ambition, her pride, her narcissism, and that terrible fear of the Other that she has passed on to all of us, her children.

Unquestionably the happiest of the entire household was Boniface. Every night was an enchantment. Every meal, a feast.

“You’re spoiling me, you’re spoiling me,” he would repeat, and you never knew whether he was thinking of his nocturnal or diurnal pleasures.

In the evening he would no longer stay behind at the club or lose his money at an occasional party of whist. On leaving the store on the Lardenoy wharf he would stop by the Place de la Victoire to listen to the municipal concerts. It was strange because he had no taste for music and would often doze off in the middle of the most remarkable adagios. It was because he loved to be with Victoire and even Anne-Marie. The proximity of these two women, who had woven his days, made him appreciate those left for him to live. When the musicians put away their instruments, ever so slowly the three of them would return home, not yet three old bag of bones, but already largely worn out.

At the very start of the twentieth century, life began to change for women. They did not yet have any rights. But at least they were no longer confined between four walls. Admittedly, daily mass, monthly confession, communion, and the weekly calalu constituted the bulk of their schedule. Yet every afternoon Anne-Marie dared set off with Victoire for the Place de la Victoire. This square, laid out and planted with grass, had become the town’s throbbing heart. Anne-Marie and Victoire always chose the same bench near the music kiosk. Never satisfied, Anne-Marie sharply criticized the musicians’ performance, especially the first violins and the choice of program. One concert alone found favor with her: the one given by an orchestra from Martinique. It began with some beguines and mazurkas and finished with the overture to
The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein
by Offenbach. Such eclecticism delighted her. She vehemently repeated her theory that there is no such thing as “highbrow music” or “popular music.” There is only
music.
The rest is a matter of taste, which is up to the true musician to satisfy. Ever since she was a girl, Anne-Marie had uttered opinions that were not to be contradicted. Neither Victoire nor Boniface was in a position to stand up to her. Moreover, they didn’t even bother.

One afternoon, the trio saw Jeanne loom up. She was walking with a group so absorbed in conversation that they looked neither right nor left. Each member of the group wore a subtle type of habit: all had identical dark complexions, spectacles, hairdos, jewels and shoes. The way these young people moved, spoke, and laughed testified they were conscious of forming an elite, an example for the rest of the island. Victoire had eyes only for her child. She who was so awkward, common, and unattractive, how had she managed to create such a prodigy? She was touched by her daughter’s expression, which seemed to say: “Look at me. I’m the prototype of a new generation. Be careful! Hands off! I am not for any Tom, Dick, and Harry!”

If she had been less blinded by Jeanne, Victoire would have noticed by her side a Negro fitted perfectly into a navy serge three-piece suit, wearing a soft felt fedora, who had just turned forty, in sharp contrast to his extremely young companions. His walk was characteristic: as stiff as a poker, with his head thrown backward. This was my father, Auguste Boucolon, whom Jeanne had just met. Principal of a school for boys on the rue Henri IV, he was so highly regarded by his superiors that they had put him in charge of the teachers’ training courses. He was thinking, however, of leaving the teaching profession, since he had other ambitions in mind and had no intention of finishing his life as a civil servant. He had been so dazzled by Jeanne that she had made him speechless, something that seldom occurred. Jeanne, however, had not reciprocated. She found him
bodzè,
a bit of a dandy, somewhat common with his fine mustache. But she wasn’t used to being desired or regarded as an irreplaceable precious object.

What nobody knows is that on that particular afternoon as she walked past the kiosk with her colleagues, Jeanne was perfectly aware of Victoire seated between her white Creole patrons. On the right, her mistress, elegantly dressed in a two-piece suit of georgette crepe, although a little too stout, wearing a gold choker, her complexion skillfully enhanced by her makeup. On her left, her boss,
his suit a little too tight, he too somewhat potbellied, somewhat big-bottomed, a starched collar digging into his Adam’s apple, with a jet-black mustache and a full head of hair that resisted the passing years. Victoire the servant, so much like a servant, held in her lap a parasol, a handbag, and a skipping rope belonging to Valérie-Anne, who was playing nearby. Go and kiss her? That would mean introducing her and the Walbergs to her friends. Jeanne guessed the thoughts that dared not be uttered and the remarks made behind her back. She imagined the conversation:

“How are you, Madame Quidal?”

“God willing.”

She did not have the courage and proudly walked past, her eyes fixed on the foliage of the sandbox trees. This memory, together with that of a multitude of minor and major betrayals, probably tortured her up to her death.

After completing the training course, she was assigned to the girls’ elementary school at Dubouchage in La Pointe—quite a promotion. It was a huge establishment for its time, the biggest school on the island in number of pupils and classes. She worked there as a schoolmistress for thirty-seven years and people are not yet ready to forget her. Many were the pupils who hated her; many were those who adored her. She left none of them indifferent. At over seventy, Michèle M——, with tears in her eyes, reminded me recently of her status as teacher’s pet.

“I was her favorite pupil. After school, I was the one who always carried the homework she had to correct back to her house. At ten o’clock recreation she would send me to fetch her a cup of milk and a buttered slice of bread. Adelia, the maid, would arrange the plate on a little wicker tray that she covered with a doily. I can remember her favorite cup, orangey yellow, decorated with a Japanese lady in a kimono. Her house was filled with lovely things, all sorts of curios I had never seen before.”

F
OURTEEN
 

In August, taking advantage of Anne-Marie’s dentist appointment, Jeanne made an exception and set foot once again in the house on the rue de Nasssau to inform Victoire she was to be married the following month.

Victoire was in the kitchen cleaning a capon she had the inspiration to stuff with green papayas, cinnamon, and diced bacon.

“Pouki sa?”
she asked, inspecting surreptitiously her daughter’s belly.

“I’m not pregnant,” Jeanne reassured her coldly.

That’s not the way we do things, her stuffy person and prim posture was saying. So why? What was the hurry? Why was she rushing into marriage? She had just reached twenty. With her physique, her prestige as an elementary school teacher, and, by no means insignificant, her salary, she was an enviable match. She had every freedom to choose and all the time in the world. Auguste Boucolon, Grand Nègre, admittedly could boast of never putting a foot wrong! Brought up by his mama, who was abandoned long before his birth by her seafaring common-law husband, he had proven to be unusually intelligent ever since the local elementary school. He was one of the first to win a scholarship to the Lycée Carnot. Moreover, he was con
sidered good-looking. Supremely well attired. A genuine Beau Brummel with his choice of hats—fedora, boater, and pith helmet—as well as his well-tailored suits. But at the age of forty-two he was older than the mother of his betrothed and already balding, displaying a crown of graying hair. Furthermore, he was a widower, father of two small boys and an illegitimate daughter, conceived while he was a schoolboy, who worked at the registrar’s office at city hall and whose mother sold her produce in the market. All that wasn’t very romantic!