The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (19 page)

It is not far, I know a path through the fields.

LECLERC

Do you think that you are in any condition to walk?

I can lend you a horse if you insist on returning.

ANTON

No, I am going alone. I thank you. Good night, good night, madame.

(
He exits.
)

LECLERC

A remarkable young man, very stubborn, very passionate.

PAULINE

I presume that you saw us kissing from the balcony.

LECLERC

We retain our understanding, I am your brother’s general,

And you remain his ambassador for foreign affairs.

(
They go off. Glare of fire—drums. Lights fade out.
)

Scene 10

Night.
ANTON
,
drunk in the canefields, walking alone. A glare in the sky.

ANTON
(
Singing.
)

Oh, the moon may be a silver coin,

And the sun is a sovereign light.

(
He stops, laughs.
)

The moon, the moon, it was that remarkable metaphor of the moon that startled her. Anton, you are a fool. She slaughters men as her husband does battalions … Well, she has uprooted me also. You are drunk and a fool. Oh, let me thank my fool of a father, Monsieur Armand Calixte, otherwise how should I have met her? Ah well, I have done this before, only I will not hunt men like animals, I am not a hunter of men. What was that sound? It seems as if the whole country is on fire. I think I must be lost. Think, if I were not of this complexion now, she and that fat Madame de Rouvray and her stupid husband would have been amused to see me exploded with saltpetre, ripped by hounds. Ha. Life is ironic …

(
During this speech, three black figures creep near
ANTON
.)

VOICES
(
Softly, like the wind
)

Anton Calixte! Anton Calixte! Anton Calixte!

ANTON
(
Alert
)

                                                                               Who was that?

Yes, yes, I am Anton Calixte, what do you want?

VOICE

You are the son of Monsieur Calixte?

ANTON

I am his nephew. His nephew! I know these voices!

I am one of you, believe me. My mother was black, my mother was black.

Gaspar, Félicien?…

VOICES
(
Like wind as they circle him.
)

You have the blood of your father, for that you will die.

When the moon hides in a cloud, for that you will die.

ANTON
(
Urgent
)

Let me see who you are. I have done nothing to you.

Oh God! I have your blood in me.

(
The moon hides in a cloud. They murder him. A
SLAVE
screams in triumph. The drums of revolution begin.
)

Scene 11

The Bois Cayman. Drums. Enter
SLAVES
running with flambeaux towards the body. Silence. Enter
BOUKMANN
.

BOUKMANN

Jour sang rivé!

SLAVES

Hallelujah!

BOUKMANN

Jour nègre rivé!

SLAVES

Hallelujah!

BOUKMANN

C’est moi Boukmann qui dit ça!

Dire Hosannah!

SLAVES

Hosannah!

BOUKMANN
(
Holding up cross.
)

Ça c’est croix n’hommes blancs, pas croix Damballa!

SLAVES

Hallelujah!

C’est pas croix Damballa!

BOUKMANN

Crasez croix Dieu blanc.

(
He breaks the cross.
)

You wishes to know why Boukmann break the cross?

This is the white God cross, not the god of this colour.

Alors, crasez croix Dieu blanc

Hosez serpent Damballa.

(
Drums. A serpent is brought in.
)

SLAVES

Damballa, Damballa!

(
A white rooster is brought in by a
FEMALE SLAVE
.)

BOUKMANN
(
Holding the rooster.
)

Red blood will flow from the white throat, I say.

Burn the canes, kill the enemies,

Kill everything white in Haiti today!

(
A ritual dance begins, with flambeaux.
)

We forget our gods when we leave Africa.

We make Shango vex, we forget
Damballa!

Brûlez, brûlez, brûlez!

(
All exit, led by
BOUKMANN
,
with torches. Drumming. The dead body is left abandoned.
TOUSSAINT
,
as a coachman, enters, finds
ANTON
dead.
)

TOUSSAINT

Monsieur Anton! Anton, Monsieur Anton?

(
Over the body
)

Monsieur Anton! Drunk again. Come on,
levez.

(
He touches blood.
)

Oh God. My other life is finished. Love is dead.

(
He takes up the body.
)

This poor boy hated nothing, nothing.

(
A
SLAVE WOMAN
enters, passes
TOUSSAINT
.)

SLAVE WOMAN

That’s a heavy burden you’re carrying, black man.

(
Fade-out.
)

Scene 12

It is the late autumn of the first year of the nineteenth century. Rebel Haitian armies under Toussaint sack the city of Les Cayes. Bands of marauders. Torrential rain fights with the fire of the city.
DESSALINES
,
soaked, watches the scene with some
OFFICERS
.
A shed. A
SOLDIER
passes.

DESSALINES

You there,
soldat!

SOLDIER

Yes, my general.

DESSALINES

Under what army are you, me, Christophe, which,
hein?

SOLDIER

With General Toussaint, General Dessalines.

DESSALINES

In your cloak there, rum,
non?
Bring it here,
nègre,
and give your general a drink. Look at it burn, look. Remember this, this is the turning of a century,
nègre.
Oh, it pleases me. I could wash my face, Sergeant, in the handful of its ashes. Tell me, I love to hear it, what city is that? (
He drinks.
)

SOLDIER

That is Les Cayes,
mon général,
and we have scattered the forces of the mulatto Rigaud. The worst enemy of our new black republic.

DESSALINES

There must be one hundred thousand slaughtered there.

Burn, burn, city of contagions, consume it all.

Though God poured out the whole basin of this sky

He could not drench that fire. Go, leave the bottle.

You, there, you soldiers. In what quarter of the town

Is General Christophe?

SOLDIER

                                          Here he comes now, my general.

(
Enter
CHRISTOPHE
muddy, tired.
)

DESSALINES

Put up the general’s tent to break this rain.

(
An awning is added to the balcony.
)

Look at it, General. It is art, is it not?

CHRISTOPHE
(
Collapses on a stool.
)

                                                   Poor country. This is not a war.

DESSALINES

No, it is not war. But it will do for now. Here, drink!

I understand you had a difficult assault?

CHRISTOPHE

                                                                      You said assault?

This butchering of mulattos you call assault?

You’ll catch a chill there, sitting in the rain.

Lend me a cloth, my own is soaked with blood.

DESSALINES

Here, have this shirt, I sent for dry boots and linen.

Well, where is our excellent commander L’Ouverture?

CHRISTOPHE

I thought that he was working close to you.

DESSALINES

                                                           No, I had an easy quarter.

A cowardly segment of Rigaud’s mulatto army. Oh, look!

There must be one hundred thousand dead out there.

Listen to the cries.

CHRISTOPHE

                                  Yes, they smell wonderful, don’t they?

Burnt flesh and trampled muck and sweating rain.

It is only two o’clock, and dark as an eclipse.

DESSALINES

The pot is overturned, up in the north; the news is this,

That bloody, murderous slaughterer Sonthonax,

Boukmann, the Jamaican, and other rebellious regiments

Have burned the plains into a smoking shambles.

CHRISTOPHE

They burn the crops, but when peace has returned …

And which of them has yet conquered Leclerc?

DESSALINES

Up in the north two thousand whites are slaughtered.

The flame is catching in the unharvested canes,

Not only in this island, but through the Antilles.

We have sent agents to stir up this violence. Drink, drink.

Here, two hundred estates destroyed. The black wolves

Of our marauding soldiers, swollen by famine,

Have sacked the indigo and coffee fields. It will spread

Even in the British territories. In Martinique, Guadeloupe.

CHRISTOPHE

I only wish I had your sense of theatre. And Leclerc,

What has he offered us for the capture of Toussaint?

DESSALINES

The yellow fever has wrecked the French battalions.

The time has come, with Leclerc’s forces weakened,

For us to strike some temporary pact. As you remember,

He offered to withdraw his forces of occupation

If we hand over Toussaint to Napoleon. Oh, this Napoleon,

He is such an egotist. He thinks that Toussaint’s capture

Would weaken us. Oh,
mon Dieu, mi blague,
I could laugh, laugh.

CHRISTOPHE

There is no one the Corsican hates more than this ape,

This—what does he call him?—“this gilded African.” We sell him?

DESSALINES

One thing perturbs me. Pass me the bottle, friend.

One thing perturbs poor Dessalines: we are four armies,

And all assembled under distinctive generals, you, me,

Toussaint, Maurepas. But of all of us, Toussaint

Has grown most power drunk. He has monarchic aims, I know.

CHRISTOPHE

Let us not lie to ourselves. We are betraying him.

A transaction of exchange, let us not excuse it,
hein?

You think he’ll set himself up as Emperor?

How do you know?

DESSALINES
(
Laughs.
)

I have a parrot that speaks to me in my dreams. Look!

Napoleon thinks of the whole world as his empire, yet

This ape has beaten him, outwitted his best generals.

And since Napoleon thinks in terms of a late Caesar,

He thinks this ape, encaged, will resolve the war.

Even Leclerc, who is a cynic and no fool, believes it.

And as you say, this is not war. Yet how I love it,

Look at it burn. This is more than war, it is revolt;

It is a new age, the black man’s turn to kill.

CHRISTOPHE

                                                 Then we are no better. Revenge

Is very tiring. Please do not hog the bottle.

Where does all that leave the mulatto, Dessalines?

DESSALINES
(
Pointing.
)

There, out there dead in the stinking rain.

(
A drumbeat. Enter
TOUSSAINT
.)

Speak, parrot. Here comes our bill of sale. The meat we dice for.

TOUSSAINT
(
To the
OFFICERS
)

We have scattered Rigaud, but we still have enemies

Here on the soil of our beloved Haiti: Leclerc, his armies;

Yet we have allies also, the fever, and our great zeal

To make this country greater than it was. Revenge is nothing.

Peace, the restoration of the burnt estates, the ultimate

Rebuilding of those towns war has destroyed, peace is harder.

We strike our march in the next hour. Collect your troops.

(
A bugle is blown.
OFFICERS
exit.
)

DESSALINES

Your lungs are iron, to still have breath to speak. Some rum?

TOUSSAINT

These clothes are stuck to me with filth and blood, a basin.

No, I must keep a clear head, though my generals do not.

DESSALINES

How many did you butcher of the yellow ones?

(
A
SOLDIER
brings a basin and a cloth.
)

TOUSSAINT

                                            I do not have my ledgers with me.

The cavalry is cutting the last troops on the plain;

There is nothing between our mercy and their death

But a vast swamp of stinking mud. It is dark,