Читать книгу Moonbath - Yanick Lahens - Страница 16

9.

In the early afternoon, with some other women, two from Roseaux, one from Pointe Sable, and two from Ti Pistache, Olmène and Ermancia went back to Anse Bleue. Splitting up, catching up, splitting up from each other again. Like a flock of migratory birds. A moving stain, never the same, on the paths winding under the sky and sun. Olmène felt more than ever that she belonged with these peasant women. Open to all the winds. Women in the same washed-out, patched-up dresses. Women with speech in tatters. A force sleeping in the swaying of their hips, in their voices too. Like under the dirt, a sheet of running water, a source of a fire.

It was hardly three o’clock when, on the road between Roseaux and Ti Pistache, they passed a young priest, already quite beaten up by the sun, big red patches on his skin. He rode a donkey led by Érilien, the sacristan of the chapel in Roseaux, and carried a collection of miscellaneous objects—a pot, two enameled mugs, books, a blanket. Sweat beaded on his forehead, at times nearly forcing him to close his eyes and marking his white cassock with big halos under his armpits, on his back, and above his navel. The priest breathed like a bull. Two bulging eyes protruded from his fat face. Eyes that were strong-willed and naive. Naive to the point of seeing his entrance into the world of Ti Pistache, Baudelet, and Anse Bleue as both certain and necessary, and that this certainty and necessity were irremediable. “That’s the new priest,” Olmène said to Ermancia. “He is going to the Chapelle Sainte-Antoine-de-Padoue in Roseaux.”

The young priest, a chubby but tired thirty-something, took off his hat to greet them as they approached, wiped his face and neck, introduced himself, and announced that he was the new priest in Roseaux. That he would build a beautiful church there. “I expect you to come and hear the word of God.” Ermancia smiled and acquiesced with a submissive “Yes, mon pè.” Hardly audible. Eyes fixed on the ground. Érilien overrated the piety of the women whom he claimed to have known for a long time. Olmène smiled in turn, examining the man, secretly but with a sharp eye. Their smiles had raised an invisible wall into which Father Bonin—that was his name—collided without even realizing it. A wall that the sacristan had helped them build with his words. Ermancia and Olmène, standing behind this wall, glanced over it for a moment as the Father walked toward Roseaux. Érilien, not wanting to arouse any suspicion from the newcomer, didn’t exchange a single look with the two women and turned away without turning back, his hand firmly squeezing the donkey’s reins. Father Bonin went on, exhausted by the journey but his heart at work, his soul lighter, persuaded that he had brought two new sheep into his flock on its way to salvation.

Between Roseaux and the Peletier Morne, Olmène, Ermancia, and the other women walked along the Mayonne River, bordered by malangas with large violet leaves and watercresses like fuzzy manes, with the same fear in their heart of seeing Simbi* come out from between two rocks and lead them to a secret place from which they wouldn’t return unscathed, like Madame Rodrigue’s daughter, from Pointe Sable, who had disappeared one afternoon and whom they hadn’t found find until three days later, wandering ten kilometers away, haggard, half naked and mute. Abandoned by her bon ange in the middle of the winds. And, because the surface of the waters could be an unpredictable mirror, merciless at times, Ermancia turned around to make sure that Olmène followed her and didn’t lean over the river, trying to sneak up on that which could make her disappear.

They went on. Each climb followed a descent that didn’t lead to a plain but just to a strip of land that lead to a new climb on a narrow path bordering a dangerous abyss. Sensing that they were approaching Anse Bleue, they sped up in silence and climbed the last hill.

Olmène and Ermancia finally saw Anse Bleue. Behind them, the parrots coming from the distant mountains cried, announcing the impending rains. On the horizon, the red globe of the sun set amidst the squalls of seagulls. The wind broke the crests of the waves in sprays of foam that came to die on the sand. Anse Bleue was already sleeping. They descended the hill with a light step, almost running, magnetized by the village. Olmène was eager to see her father Orvil, her two brothers Léosthène and Fénelon, and the entire cohort of aunts, uncles, cousins. Everyone.

The way to Anse Bleue had been long. Very long. It led to our world. A world without a school, without a judge, without a priest, and without a doctor. Without those men who are said to stand for order, science, justice, and faith.

A world left to ourselves, men and women who knew enough about the human condition to speak alone to the Spirits, Mysteries, and Invisibles.