The Haitian Trilogy: Plays: Henri Christophe, Drums and Colours, and The Haytian Earth (24 page)

And the past turns to its forgetful sleep.

Return again, where buried actions lie,

For time is such, alternate joy and pain,

Those dead I raised have left us vows to keep.

Look, a new age breaks in the east again.

(
Lights full up. Quatro music.
MASKERS
dance down steps and up aisles.
)

POMPEY
(
Leading the carnival.
)

So, you men of every creed and class,

We know you is brothers, when you playing Mass,

White dance with black, black with Indian, but long time

Was rebellion,

No matter what your colour, now is steel and drums.

We dancing together with open arms.

Look on our stage now and you going see

The happiness of a new country

When it was:

CROWD

Bend the angle on them is to blow them down, is to blow them down.

Bend the angle on them is to blow them down, is to blow them down.

When the bayonet charge is the rod of correction.

Shout it everyone, when the bayonet charge is the rod of correction,

Full rebellion.

(
All go out dancing except
POMPEY
.)

POMPEY

Mano, Ram, Yu, Yette, wait for me, wait for me.

Don’t leave me behind, the most important man in this country!

(
Carnival music.
)

(
Fade-out.
)

THE HAITIAN EARTH

The play was produced on the Morne, Castries, St. Lucia, by the government of St. Lucia on August 1–5, 1984, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Emancipation. Directed by Derek Walcott. Set design was by Richard Montgomery, costumes by Sally Montgomery. The cast, in order of appearance, was as follows:

DESSALINES
—
Gandolph St. Clair

BOAR
—
Anthony Lamontagne

CHORUS
—
Sixtus Jeanne Charles

BARONESS
—
Caroline McNamara

ANTON
—
Jon Clitter

TOUSSAINT
—
Arthur Jacobs

MATRON
—
Julia Bird

CALIXTE-BREDA
—
Bernard Mogal

BARON
—
David Frank

CLERK
—
Dunstan Fontenelle

PROPRIETOR
—
Irvin Norville

STUDENT
—
Irvin John

VASTEY
—
John Vitalis

CHRISTOPHE
—
McDonald Dixon

MARIE-LOUISE
—
Hermia Norton-Anthony

DRIVER
—
Irvin Norville

YETTE
—
Norline Metivier

POMPEY
—
Augustin Compton

ANGELLE
—
Anne Daniel

BOUKMANN
—
Eric Branford

BIASSOU
—
Irvin Norville

MOISE
—
George “Fish” Alphonse

SERGEANT
—
Dunstan Fontenelle

OGÉ
—
Malcolm Alexander

CHAVANNES
—
Ricardo Didier

LECLERC
—
Yves Roques

PAULINE
—
Caroline McNamara

SECRETARY
—
David Frank

CAST OF CHARACTERS

JOHN JACQUES DESSALINES
,
a slave, then first Emperor of Haiti

THE CHORUS
,
a peasant woman in martial costume

A BARON
,
a visitor to Haiti

BARONESS DE ROUVRAY

CALIXTE-BREDA
,
owner of the Breda plantation

ANTON CALIXTE
,
illegitimate son of Calixte-Breda

TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE
,
Calixte-Breda’s coachman; afterwards a commander of the Haitian Army

A PROPRIETOR

A STUDENT

VASTEY
,
secretary to Christophe

HENRI CHRISTOPHE
,
a waiter; later a general; then King of Haiti

MARIE-LOUISE
,
his wife

A PRIEST

YETTE
,
a mulattress

POMPEY
,
a slave; later heir to the Breda plantation

ANGELLE
,
a slave

BOUKMANN
,
a slave leader of the revolt

BIASSOU
,
a slave general

MOISE
,
slave nephew of Toussaint; afterwards a general

A SERGEANT

OGÉ AND MULATTO DELEGATES TO THE FRENCH ASSEMBLY

CHAANNES

GENERAL LECLERC
,
Napoleon’s commander in Haiti

PAULINE LECLERC
,
his wife

A SECRETARY TO LECLERC

ACT I

Scene 1

Dawn. The sound of hungry cattle, a small herd, in the darkness, and in between, the sound of the sea. San Domingo. A wide, wild beach.

DESSALINES
,
as a
boucanier
(buccaneer), a dirty rag around his forehead, a jacket of untanned leather, animal skin for sandals, is turning a carcass of wild meat on a spit. A huge boar lumbers up among a shale of rocks, fierce-eyed, slavering, with long white tusks.

DESSALINES

Venir! Venir, salaud!

(
He withdraws a knife and walks towards the boar, which cowers, its tusks bared, its lips snarled back.
)

Hai!

(
The boar charges.
DESSALINES
leaps aside and falls as the boar spins around and charges again, its tusk ripping his calf. The boar wheels again and stands, watching.
DESSALINES
,
eyes wide open in angry astonishment, rubs his lacerated calf and shakes a bloody finger at the animal. He talks to it softly in Creole.
)

You come here, you see me minding my cows,

Trying to make a life, you black like me,

And now you cut me. I do you anything?

Eh?

(
He walks towards the boar.
)

Now the Frenchmen will come here, and they will see

That they had a nigger here, and I won’t be able to run fast

Because you cut me, you, a nigger like myself. Eh! Eh!

(
The boar lunges again and
DESSALINES
lets out a scream that rips the whole beach as he and the boar tangle in the sand, man and animal grunting and honking in the spraying sand.
DESSALINES
cuts the boar’s throat. He wipes the blood on his mouth.
)

I had this wild dream that I would kill a boar.

I had it sleeping on this wild beach last night.

I’ll tell you,
cochon,
the sea frothed like your mouth.

And I have magic in me, and power, to kill the sea.

(
The boar, dying, grunting in death spasms, stretches out. Still.
)

My friend, I think God send you as a sign.

Nothing can kill me. My name is Dessalines.

Jean Jacques Dessalines. Nothing can kill me.

(
He looks around, sees the wide empty beach, the herd of wild cattle. The lonely desolation of it all. He shouts. There is no echo because of the sea. He shouts louder. He shouts again.
)

You all can have it! I don’t want it.

Take it! Take all of it!

I will drive the French pigs into that sea,

And when I come back here, on this same beach,

I not going to look like this.

The next time you see me, I will be a king!

The hills, the sea, will echo with my name.

DESSALINES! DESSALINES
!

(
His figure recedes down the wild beach. Music begins.
)

CHORUS

L’heure la couronne fumée,

Ka monter la montagne

Oui ça i ka chanter?

CHORUS OF PEASANTS

Toussaint!

Toussaint!

CHORUS

Et l’heure tonnère, en ciel,

Ka secouer nos collines,

Et l’éclair fait un signe,

Oui moune nous ka songer?

CHORUS OF PEASANTS

Dessalines!

Dessalines!

CHORUS

When that big drum,

The thunder shake Haiti,

When we see the

Lightning flash his signal,

What man we does remember?

CHORUS OF PEASANTS

Christophe! Henri Christophe!

(
DESSALINES
nods to the mounted
SOLDIERS
.
Confidently he moves to the front of the group and chains himself.
)

Scene 2

Noon. The long, hot road.
The
SLAVES; DESSALINES
,
lost among them, walking, receding. Dust. They pass Belle Maison, the Calixte-Breda mansion. Some miles out of Le Cap.

A garden.
ANTON
,
a young mulatto, watching a group of
SLAVES
.
A young white woman, the
BARONESS
,
finely dressed, is coming towards him. He waits. The
BARONESS
draws alongside the young man. They watch the group.

BARONESS

Who are they?

ANTON

Who?… They’re slaves,

Baroness.

BARONESS
(
Affectionately
)

Idiot, I know that. I mean

Where are they going?

ANTON

To the spectacle, I imagine.

You’ll see them tomorrow.

BARONESS

They looked quite happy.

ANTON

It’s a break for them.

BARONESS

You look upset. Isn’t this a common sight?

ANTON

In a time when the reek of massacre

Is on every napkin, when the stench of sweat

Floats over the dinner linen from the compounds,

I’m tempted to write out my thoughts, but thought

Is like a thicket without a clearing,

And I begin, then my wrist is paralysed.

I look at my hand and I abhor my own colour;

It is mixed, a compound, like the colour of the earth.

And I put my pen aside, and I live apart

From thought. I have read all of them,

Rousseau, Voltaire, but it is as if I’m not entitled

To thought, to ideas. Entitlement, entitlement,

Enlightenment, enlightenment. White

Is the colour of thought, black of action.

And I’m paralysed, madame, between thought and action.

Perhaps I should not be a writer but a soldier.

Perhaps I should be there with them. A bastard.

BARONESS

Perhaps it’s that which I find so attractive.

ANTON

Perhaps I’m very tired of Western culture

And its privilege of ideas, perhaps,

Except for art, I see the whole technological

Experience as failure, but true or not,

I have no wish to go back to the bush.

I think their African nostalgia is rubbish.

But I’m not going to be drawn in by a drawing room.

No doubt, Baroness, you think I must either hate it

Or envy it, which amount to the same.

I must think of these things.

BARONESS

                                                  Why, dear boy?

ANTON

Because I’m a bastard, a mulatto,

A man without rights.

(
DESSALINES
,
walking, has moved up to the front, nearer the
SOLDIERS
.
He whistles happily. He gets nearer to a young slave,
JACKO
,
who is manacled by the neck to one of the
SOLDIERS’
horses.
)

DESSALINES

You still troublesome, Jacko?

(
JACKO
turns his head.
)

JACKO

Dessalines? What you doing here, my man?

DESSALINES

You shut your arse, nigger.
Paix chou’ous, garçon!

JACKO

They say you was dead. They say they burn you.

DESSALINES

Black magic, boy. Black magic. Keep walking.

What could be safer than this? Don’t worry.

Tonight you’ll be free. I’m walking to my throne.

SOLDIER

No disorder there. You! Fall back!

(
The
SOLDIER
yanks
JACKO
forward and starts trotting his horse so that
JACKO
has to trot.
DESSALINES
laughs, shouts.
)