Читать книгу Black Man on the Titanic - Serge Bile - Страница 35

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For Joseph, the countdown started a month after the Ville de Saint-Nazaire tragedy.

At dinner one evening, his mother announced that she had saved enough money for his passage to France, where he would attend school. His future was set. It was just a matter of time, Joseph knew, and the excitement kept him awake that night.

And for good reason: Many of his friends dreamed of traveling across the ocean to visit—and even live in—France. It had been his own secret wish, even though he never talked about it. From a distance, he’d succumbed to the charms of that faraway land, as the adults often praised its beauty and its culture. The France they talked about seemed different in its sophistication from the cruel one their ancestors had fought against during the independence wars, and whenever Joseph met a “Parisian” in Le Cap, such as his uncle, Nemours Auguste, he understood how one could be fulfilled by a stay in France. In fact, Nemours Auguste was one of the most noteworthy figures of the time. Historian Marc Péan reports that, in many respects, Auguste held a groundbreaking position. A physician who’d graduated from the Medical School of Paris, he was a very good practitioner who was praised everywhere for his know-how and his remarkable cures.

For a long while, Joseph dreamed good dreams of Europe. However, he acquired mixed emotions when reality set in and his departure date was set. He felt both joy and sadness at the idea of leaving his family, his friends, and his city. Was it worth it? Could he not succeed in life if he stayed in his country? For the first time in his young life, he questioned his mother’s choice for him. But since her decision was made, Joseph wondered if other parents would consider a group departure. It would be so much better if other children his age were to embark on the journey with him. Once in France, they could then help and encourage each other.

The idea was appealing, but there was one problem: 241 Le Cap children were born like Joseph in 1886. How many of these parents could afford such a trip? Most students ended their education after secondary school, including Luc Grimard. The orphan did not allow his life circumstances to stop him from succeeding, however. He later established himself as one of the greatest writers of his generation.

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Since the sinking of the Ville de Saint-Nazaire, Joseph Laroche was rattled. Despite himself, he had become obsessed with the destiny of broken ships, as if a small lamp was lit in his head to shine light on the submerged wrecks and pull them from oblivion by bringing them back to the surface. He had no doubt that, even before the Ville de Saint-Nazaire, he had gotten wind of at least one other maritime catastrophe; probably due to a lack of understanding, he had not really paid attention to then. Today, everything was different. Today, he was well aware of what could happen to one at sea. He couldn’t think of anything else. Or picture anything else. Or hear anything else. Even in Joseph’s history class, the topic of the sinking disaster haunted him. The teacher conducted a lesson about Christopher Columbus, a white seafarer who had arrived in Haiti in December 1492, before colonization, with three large caravels. When one of these ships, the Santa Maria,53 sank off the coast of Le Cap, the first-contacted Native Americans aided the crewmen; together, they built a fort with the ship’s debris. When he left the island, Christopher Columbus left behind forty-something comrades. The latter committed so many abuses that their fed-up hosts slaughtered them.