Cimetière de Montmartre (continued): #16: Mimi Barthélémy

'Port au Prince 1939 – 2013 Paris

Mimi Barthélémy

Conteuse haïtienne'

Mimi Barthélémy was a story teller, writer and singer of Haitian stories, in both French and French creole, who published a number books and albums collecting her stories.

Marie Vieux-Chauvet: Amour, Colère et Folie | Love, Anger, and Madness (1968; repr. Zulma 2015)

Marie Vieux-Chauvet's trilogy Amour, colère et folie (translated as Love, Anger, and Madness) is a major work of Haitian literature, although for many years it was virtually unavailable to readers in Haiti. First published by Gallimard in Paris in 1968 and strongly (but tacitly) criticising François Duvalier's violent régime policed by his dreaded tontons macoutes, Amour, Colère et folie swiftly incurred the wrath of 'Papa Doc' who threatened the author and her family with their lives. Vieux-Chauvet (1916–73) was in New York (where she died) at the time of publication, and her husband in Paris, although on his return he bought up copies already distributed and destroyed them.

This new edition of Amour, Colère et folie by Zulma contains an Afterword by Dany Laferrière, the newest member of the Académie française, who recalls finding a pristine copy of the trilogy under some sheets in an old wardrobe of his mother's: the suggestion is that this was forty years ago.

Amour begins the trilogy and is the longest of the three. Central to the story are three sisters. The 39-year-old Claire Clarmont, an 'old maid' brought up by bourgeois, puritanical (even violent) parents who has never been allowed – or more correctly never allowed herself through timidity and lack of self-confidence (she's the only black member of the family) – to love a man, although her sexual frustration and her jealousy are crippling her. Middle sister Félicia is eight years younger and married to the Frenchman Jean Luze, who has had a sexual liaison with sister Annette, who at eight years younger than Félicia is the 'baby' of the family at 22.

Annette is sexually liberated, as opposed to her sister Claire, who is nevertheless the rebel of the family. Claire dreams of sex, and of being with Jean Luze. Towards the end – after Annette has found sexual contentment and appears to be happily married – Claire plans to kill Félicia and practises the crime by stabbing a cat. All of the above events, though, ignore the political backcloth which all the while threatens to engulf the personal. Power is now in the hands of the ignorant and the heartless.

Previously, Claire has said:

'In the horror of my solitude I've found out that society isn't worth a shit. It hides behind a wall of imbecilities. It is the principal thing that cripples freedom. To be born, to suffer, to grow old and to die resignedly, such is our lot as long as we don't rock the boat.'

In Vieux-Chauvet's trilogy, even people who don't rock the boat are summarily assassinated at the whim of 'le commandant' and his men. Or, like Claire's friend Dora are perhaps raped and mutilated to 'encourager les autres'. Or else they are driven mad like Claire, who envisages stabbing Félicia so she can have Jean Luze to herself, although she hits the wrong target – which is actually the right target, but that's another issue.

Colère leads us further into the nightmare that was Duvalier's Haiti. Men in black (the Tontons, of course) begin the novel by showing that freedom is now dead by driving stakes around the house of the Normils, in so doing effectively preventing them from gaining access to their lands, effectively robbing them of their lands. The house and lands are the grandfather Claude's birthright, and his son Louis goes to a solicitor (with his daughter Rose) in an attempt to reclaim the land. But Rose is of course intentionally there as bargaining power, and despite taking a huge amount of money, despite Rose being continually brutally raped by one man in black, the family will never get back its lands and some will be killed. All those who don't support the mindless, murderous régime are at risk.

Folie reduces things to basics: one at a time, four very hungry poets come together in a room lived in by René the narrator. They are afraid to venture outside for fear of being shot dead, there is no food and only white rum to drink. They go mad and are executed in the end.

To varying degrees, all three stories contain strong elements in the main title: love, anger and madness. The raw power of this book is unforgettable.

Dany Laferrière: Pays sans chapeau (1996)

As I wrote in the blog post below, Dany Laferrière left his native Haiti in 1976 after the murder of his fellow journalist Raymond Gasner, and Tout bouge autour de moi is an account of his return to Haiti in 2012. Pays sans chapeau, however, concerns an earlier return he made: his first in twenty years, in 1996. But this time it's a semi-fictionalised account.

Pays sans chapeau (lit. 'Country without Hat') is a Haitian name for death, a place where a person's hat is never worn. And death is very much part of this novel, as indicated by the local painting Enterrement à la compagne ('Burial in the Country') by Jacques-Richard Chéry on the front cover.

Laferrière's novel describes the exile, the narrator (Vieux Os ('Old Bones')) getting together his mother Marie and aunt Renée (who both appeared in Tout bouge autour de moi), re-joining his friends Philippe and Manu and his former girlfriend Lisa, whom he learns has always loved him.

But the 'real' events described between family and friends are interspersed by dream sequences, so that the novel largely consists of relatively small sections which happen in a kind of dream or subjective world where zombies or Haitian gods exist, and larger sections in the 'real' world divided by smaller labelled ones. But there is a certain amount of merging, of confusion between the 'real' and the 'dream' world. The final section, where Vieux Os visits the other world and meets some gods, is logically called 'Pays sans chapeau' after the title of the book, and the final section is a one-page resolution of both the dream world and the real world.

Dany Laferrière: Tout bouge autour de moi (2011)

Once – on a twelve-night stopover between Miami and Belize – I went to Haiti, staying most of the time in the capital Port-au-Prince ('t' unpronounced). It was a tremendous experience, and has left me with memories as vivid as if it were yesterday. It has also led me to follow later events in the history of Haiti, including its literature. Before saying a few words about Dany Laferrière's memories of Haiti, I speak here of my own.

My visit was in the eighties shortly before the fall of the horrendous dictator Baby Doc (who died last October), when the radio jolted you into wakefulness with a military chant in which the words 'Vive Duvalier, président à vie' are the most memorable. In the heart of the capital the dreaded tontons macoutes policed the streets. And although the people I met openly expressed their hatred of them, I otherwise found very little evidence of open political dissent: indeed, and as Dany Laferrière notes, the people in this desperately poor country were proud of the contradictory opulence of the presidential palace.

The poverty is perhaps the first thing that I noticed on arrival in the city. Tourists have never flocked here, and a white person is a rare sight, a symbol of wealth and therefore a potential source of revenue, and I met a number beggars who approached me with highly elaborate tactics, although those offering to be my guide were more common. I saw wooden shacks that were homes for so many people, and saw a whole family bathing in muddy rain water that had collected in a hollow at the side of a street-cum-dirt track.

I also encountered hostility that was sometimes casual, sometimes malicious: the girl in a slum area in Cap-Haïtien who laughed when my foot got stuck in a gutter and said 'C'est bien fait pour toi' ('It serves you right'); and the guy way to the back of me on the empty road to Pétionville who yelled 'Branleur!' ('Wanker!) at me: I turned to look and he verified the exclamation with 'Ouais, toi!' ('Yeah, you!').

These of course are just isolated incidents, and my memory leaves me with far more positive things. The people smile brightly through their pain and their poverty. If you're lost or in difficulty they'll help you and expect nothing in return. I went on a long, gloriously noisy bus ride to Cap-Haïtien, a sleepy adolescent girl lolling her head on my shoulder, her mother next to her bouncing about with the rough ride and to the sounds of the local Tabou Combo band on the bus cassette, all the time chewing on a huge stick of sugar cane. In the hotel in Port-au-Prince a businessman  from Harlem introduced me to la caille, the local name for the mancala board game: he was wearing a tee-shirt with the logo 'Why worry? Play warri' (another name for mancala), but went cold on me when I bought a far superior mahogany version near the central market for $4, whereas he was selling his boards for $10.

I don't think I need to mention the tap-taps because if anyone knows anything about Haiti at all it's the crazy form of transport there. Dany Laferrière, though, does briefly mention them in Tout bouge autour de moi (lit. 'Everything Around Me Is Moving'), his description of the earthquake in Haiti, which took place on at 16:23 on 12 January 2010: the exact time emblazoned on Haitians' minds. Estimates of deaths vary wildly, but perhaps 160,000 lives were lost.

Laferrière was born in Haiti and had left it long before my visit: he worked on the 'opposition' paper Le Petit Samedi Soir, but emigrated to Québec in 1976 following the assassination of his colleague Raymond Gasner. Tout bouge autour de moi was written from the time that Laferrière returned to Haiti for a Haitian-Canadian literary conference, and just after he'd ordered lobster at the Karibe hotel in Port-au-Prince and started on the bread the world moved and Haiti was thrown into chaos.

The book doesn't attempt to be an account of the earthquake, but simply describes the state of the capital of the country as Laferrière witnessed it at the time of the catastrophe. It is related in episodic form in over one hundred different sections which are not necessarily linear and include his return to Québec, then his return to Haiti again not long after due to his aunt Renée's death, and there's even a short piece about a woman in her sixties greeting him in Montréal after recognising him from television.

I know what Laferrière's talking about here, know both the places he mentions and easily recognise the Haiti he depicts, and I'm fascinated when he describes seeing such Haitian writers as Frankétienne and Lionel Trouillet, although I doubt that a great number of people will experience a great deal from this book, and I'm left with an impression of messiness, lack of coherence. That may be because I've read this short account over four days in between which I've been following the insane activities in Paris. Dunno, but I'm now starting to read Laferrière's Pays sans chapeau, which is a fictionalised version of an earlier return by Laferrière to Haiti. It's described as a novel, and I'm hoping to be more enthusiastic about this one.

Haitian Literature: Frankétienne

Toussaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian revolution. The Haitian writer and artist Frankétienne, dubbed ’Monsieur Haiti’ by none other than Aimé Césaire, lost his house completely in the earthquake, but survived, saying: ‘I don’t believe in reincarnation, but if offered a return ticket, I’ll certainly ask to come back to this shithole’: This link is to a French inteview with him: Frankétienne

Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat (1969- ) was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and was twelve years old when she left with her family for New York. She writes in English and her first novel was Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), which in part concerns the young Haitian girl Sophie's relationship with her mother, who is speaking here about the 'testing', a degrading old custom to which she subjects Sophie:

'When I was a girl, my mother used to test us to see if we were virgins. She would put her finger in our very private parts and see if it would go inside. Your Tante Atie hated it. She used to scream like a pig in a slaugherhouse. The way my mother was raised, a mother was supposed to do that to her daughter until the daughter is married. It is her responsibilty to keep her pure.'*

Her mother describes her rape and the conception of Sophie rather more laconically, but no less dramatically for that: 'A man grabbed me from the side of the road, pulled me into a cane field, and put you in my body.'

Krik? Krak! (1996) refers to a storyteller asking if he can tell a story, and the enthusiastic reply. It is a book of stories of the myths of Haiti, the family, the horrors of the tontons macoutes, the contrasts between the poorest country in the western hemisphere and the riches of north-east America, but most of all it is a series of stories about stories. In the longest story, 'Caroline's Wedding', the narrator Grace remembers a story told by her father about the Haitian dictator Papa Doc:

'God once called a conference of world leaders. He invited the president of France, the president of the United States, the president of Russia, Italy, Germany, and China, as well as our own president, His Excellency, the President for Life Papa Doc Duvalier. When the president of France reached the gates of Heaven, God got up from his throne to greet him. When the president of the United States reached the gates of Heaven, God got up to greet him as well. So, too, with the presidents of Russia, Italy, Germany, and China.

'When it was our president's turn, His Excellency, the president for Life Papa Doc Duvalier, God did not get up from his throne to greet him. All the angels were stunned and puzzled. They did not understand God's rude behavior. So they elected a representative to go up to God and question Him.

'"God", said the representative, "you have been so cordial to all the other presidents. You have gotten up from your throne to greet them at the gates of heaven as soon as they have entered. Why do you not get up for Papa Doc Duvalier? Is it because he is a black president? You have always told us to overlook the color of men. Why have you chosen to treat the black president, Papa Doc Duvalier, in this fashion?"

'God looked at the representative angel as though He was about to admit something He did not want to.

'"Look, he said. "I am not getting up for Papa Doc Duvalier because I am afraid that if I get up, he will take my throne and will never give it back."'

Edwidge Danticat is a great storyteller. Only a fool would read this 'joke' as a racist statement, and only a fool would fail to see that this story illustrates just as much the tragedy that is Haiti as the hell that Haiti is now undergoing.

*The structure of the title Breath, Eyes, Memory, written by a 24-year-old Danticat, invokes another very powerful book about Haiti, the suppressed Amour, colère et folie (1968) by Marie Chauvet, who died when Danticat was seven. Simone de Beauvoir was greatly impressed by that strong criticism of the Duvalier regime, but as a result of its publication, Chauvet was forced to flee to New York.