Two Years in the French West Indies Part 14

"'Mi yche-la moin mene ba ou! Tou lejou moin te ka di ou moin tini yonne yche: ou pa te 'le coue,--eh, ben! MI Y!' [Look at the child I have brought you! Every day I have been telling you I had a child: you would not believe me,--very well, LOOK AT HIM!]

"The sister gave one look, and cried out: 'Baidaux, oti ou pouend yche-la?'... For the child was growing taller and taller every moment.... And Baidaux,--because he was mad,--kept saying: 'ce yche-moin! ce yche moin!' [It is my child!]

"And the sister threw open the shutters and screamed to all the neighbors,--'_Secou, secou, secou! Vini oue ca Baidaux mene ba moin!_'

[Help! help! Come see what Baidaux has brought in here!] And the child said to Baidaux: '_Ou ni bonhe ou fou!_' [You are lucky that you are mad!]... Then all the neighbors came running in; but they could not see anything: the Zombi was gone."...

III.

... As I was saying, the hours of vastest light have their weirdness here;--and it is of a Something which walketh abroad under the eye of the sun, even at high noontide, that I desire to speak, while the impressions of a morning journey to the scene of Its last alleged apparition yet remains vivid in my recollection.

You follow the mountain road leading from Caleba.s.se over long meadowed levels two thousand feet above the ocean, into the woods of La Couresse, where it begins to descend slowly, through deep green shadowing, by great zigzags. Then, at a turn, you find yourself unexpectedly looking down upon a planted valley, through plumy fronds of arborescent fern. The surface below seems almost like a lake of gold-green water,--especially when long breaths of mountain-wind set the miles of ripening cane a-ripple from verge to verge: the illusion is marred only by the road, fringed with young cocoa-palms, which serpentines across the luminous plain. East, west, and north the horizon is almost wholly hidden by surging of hills: those nearest are softly shaped and exquisitely green; above them loftier undulations take hazier verdancy and darker shadows; farther yet rise silhouettes of blue or violet tone, with one beautiful breast-shaped peak thrusting up in the midst;--while, westward, over all, topping even the Piton, is a vapory huddling of prodigious shapes--wrinkled, fissured, horned, fantastically tall....

Such at least are the tints of the morning.... Here and there, between gaps in the volcanic chain, the land hollows into gorges, slopes down into ravines;--and the sea's vast disk of turquoise flames up through the interval. Southwardly those deep woods, through which the way winds down, shut in the view.... You do not see the plantation buildings till you have advanced some distance into the valley;--they are hidden by a fold of the land, and stand in a little hollow where the road turns: a great quadrangle of low gray antiquated edifices, heavily walled and b.u.t.tressed, and roofed with red tiles. The court they form opens upon the main route by an immense archway. Farther along ajoupas begin to line the way,--the dwellings of the field hands,--tiny cottages built with trunks of the arborescent fern or with stems of bamboo, and thatched with cane-straw: each in a little garden planted with bananas, yams, couscous, camanioc, choux-caraibes, or other things,--and hedged about with roseaux d'Inde and various flowering shrubs.

Thereafter, only the high whispering wildernesses of cane on either hand,--the white silent road winding between its swaying cocoa-trees,--and the tips of hills that seem to glide on before you as you walk, and that take, with the deepening of the afternoon light, such amethystine color as if they were going to become transparent.

IV.

... It is a breezeless and cloudless noon. Under the dazzling downpour of light the hills seem to smoke blue: something like a thin yellow fog haloes the leagues of ripening cane,--a vast reflection. There is no stir in all the green mysterious front of the vine-veiled woods. The palms of the roads keep their heads quite still, as if listening. The canes do not utter a single susurration. Rarely is there such absolute stillness among them: on the calmest days there are usually rustlings audible, thin cracklings, faint creepings: sounds that betray the pa.s.sing of some little animal or reptile--a rat or a wa manicou, or a zanoli or couresse,--more often, however, no harmless lizard or snake, but the deadly _fer-de-lance_. To-day, all these seem to sleep; and there are no workers among the cane to clear away the weeds,--to uproot the pie-treffe, pie-poule, pie-balai, zhebe-en-me: it is the hour of rest.

A woman is coming along the road,--young, very swarthy, very tall, and barefooted, and black-robed: she wears a high white turban with dark stripes, and a white foulard is thrown about her fine shoulders; she bears no burden, and walks very swiftly and noiselessly.... Soundless as shadow the motion of all these naked-footed people is. On any quiet mountain-way, full of curves, where you fancy yourself alone, you may often be startled by something you _feel_, rather than hear, behind you,--surd steps, the springy movement of a long lithe body, dumb oscillations of raiment;--and ere you can turn to look, the haunter swiftly pa.s.ses with creole greeting of "bon-jou'" or "bonsoue, Missie."

This sudden "becoming aware" in broad daylight of a living presence unseen is even more disquieting than that sensation which, in absolute darkness, makes one halt all breathlessly before great solid objects, whose proximity has been revealed by some mute blind emanation of force alone. But it is very seldom, indeed, that the negro or half-breed is thus surprised: he seems to divine an advent by some specialized sense,--like an animal,--and to become conscious of a look directed upon him from any distance or from behind any covert;--to pa.s.s within the range of his keen vision unnoticed is almost impossible.... And the approach of this woman has been already observed by the habitants of the ajoupas;--dark faces peer out from windows and door-ways;--one half-nude laborer even strolls out to the road-side under the sun to her coming. He looks a moment, turns to the hut and calls:--

--"Ou-ou! Fafa!"

--"eti! Gabou!"

--"Vini ti bouin!--mi bel negresse!"

Out rushes Fafa, with his huge straw hat in his hand: "Oti, Gabou?"

--"Mi!"

--"'Ah! quimbe moin!" cries black Fafa, enthusiastically; "fouinq! li bel!--Jesis-Maa! li doux!"...Neither ever saw that woman before; and both feel as if they could watch her forever.

There is something superb in the port of a tall young mountain-griffone, or negress, who is comely and knows that she is comely: it is a black poem of artless dignity, primitive grace, savage exultation of movement.... "Ou marche tete enlai conm couresse qui ka pa.s.selarivie"

(_You walk with your head in the air, like the couresse-serpent swimming a river_) is a creole comparison which pictures perfectly the poise of her neck and chin. And in her walk there is also a serpentine elegance, a sinuous charm: the shoulders do not swing; the cambered torso seems immobile;--but alternately from waist to heel, and from heel to waist, with each long full stride, an indescribable undulation seems to pa.s.s; while the folds of her loose robe oscillate to right and left behind her, in perfect libration, with the free swaying of the hips. With us, only a finely trained dancer could attempt such a walk;--with the Martinique woman of color it is natural as the tint of her skin; and this allurement of motion unrestrained is most marked in those who have never worn shoes, and are clad lightly as the women of antiquity,--in two very thin and simple garments;--chemise and _robe--d'indienne_....

But whence is she?--of what canton? Not from Vauclin, nor from Lamentin, nor from Marigot,--from Case-Pilote or from Case-Navire: Fafa knows all the people there. Never of Sainte-Anne, nor of Sainte-Luce, nor of Sainte-Marie, nor of Diamant, nor of Gros-Morne, nor of Carbet,--the birthplace of Gabou. Neither is she of the village of the Abysms, which is in the Parish of the Preacher,--nor yet of Ducos nor of Francois, which are in the Commune of the Holy Ghost....

V.

... She approaches the ajoupa: both men remove their big straw hats; and both salute her with a simultaneous "Bonjou', Manzell."

--"Bonjou', Missie," she responds, in a sonorous alto, without appearing to notice Gabou,--but smiling upon Fafa as she pa.s.ses, with her great eyes turned full upon his face.... All the libertine blood of the man flames under that look;--he feels as if momentarily wrapped in a blaze of black lightning.

--"ca ka fai moin pe," exclaims Gabou, turning his face towards the ajoupa. Something indefinable in the gaze of the stranger has terrified him.

--"_Pa ka fai moin pe--fouinq!_" (She does not make me afraid) laughs Fafa, boldly following her with a smiling swagger.

--"Fafa!" cries Gabou, in alarm. "_Fafa, pa fai ca!_" But Fafa does not heed. The strange woman has slackened her pace, as if inviting pursuit;--another moment and he is at her side.

--"Oti ou ka rete, che?" he demands, with the boldness of one who knows himself a fine specimen of his race.

--"Zaffai cabritt pa zaffai lapin," she answers, mockingly.

--"Mais pouki au rhabille toutt noue conm ca."

--"Moin pte deil pou name main m."

--"Ae ya yae!... Non, voue!--ca ou kalle atouelement?"

--"Lanmou pati: moin pati dee lanmou."

--"Ho!--on ni guepe, anh?"

--"Zanoli bail yon bal; epi maboya rentre ladans."

--"Di moin oti ou kalle, doudoux?"

--"Jouq larivie Leza."

--"Fouinq!--ni plis pa.s.se trente kilomett!"

--"Eh ben?--ess ou 'le vini epi moin?" [15]

And as she puts the question she stands still and gazes at him;--her voice is no longer mocking: it has taken another tone,--a tone soft as the long golden note of the little brown bird they call the _siffleur-de-montagne_, the mountain-whistler.... Yet Fafa hesitates. He hears the clear clang of the plantation bell recalling him to duty;--he sees far down the road--(_Ouill!_ how fast they have been walking!)--a white and black speck in the sun: Gabou, uttering through his joined hollowed hands, as through a horn, the _oukle_, the rally call. For an instant he thinks of the overseer's anger,--of the distance,--of the white road glaring in the dead heat: then he looks again into the black eyes of the strange woman, and answers:

--"Oui;--moin ke vini epi ou."

With a burst of mischievous laughter, in which Fafa joins, she walks on,--Fafa striding at her side.... And Gabou, far off, watches them go,--and wonders that, for the first time since ever they worked together, his comrade failed to answer his _oukle_.

--"Coument yo ka crie ou, che" asks Fafa, curious to know her name.

--"Chache nom moin ou-menm, duvine."

But Fafa never was a good guesser,--never could guess the simplest of tim-tim.

--"Ess Cendrine?"

--"Non, ce pa ca."