Colour of Dawn Read Free Page A

the trigger, the butt. I closed my eyes for a few moments to gain strength to bear the violent music in my blood, which threatened to suffocate me. My hand was shaking.
    But I remembered the tale told to me as a child by Mother one evening at nightfall; the tale of a woman who had gained all the strength in the world by swallowing a sacred stone given to her by a mage. Since then I have kept beneath my breast a small imaginary grey stone as a talisman against the evil spells of this island. My thoughts were all on this little grey stone as I tucked the gun beneath my nightshirt together with the few papers that had also been hidden in that cranny. In the bedroom I placed the gun in a box on top of the wardrobe and stowed the papers in my bag next to the bed. Despite all my acrobatics, despite all these comings and goings, Mother didn’t notice a thing. Lying beneath the sheets, she simply emitted a lengthy stifled moan as she turned towards me.
    I have hardly begun to drink my coffee when Mother joins us in the backyard a few minutes later. She simply says: ‘Do either of you know where Fignolé spent the night?’ and doesn’t wait for a reply. Mother’s suffering is obvious. She suffers in silence. Something has been torn from her. She submits totally to this void, this great empty space, submerged in suffering and the waiting for Fignolé, but she won’t talk about it. Mother must have faltered by her son’s bed and invoked her loas as if grasping a pair of crutches. Mother falters but never falls. While Mother lives, the end of the world will never arrive.
    Despite a certain plumpness accumulated with the years, Mother is still beautiful, though it is not that same beauty that was considered a scandal some years ago. Mother is a sovereign in decline, and this morning a tragic sovereign. The waiting turns her mouth into a remote island in the middle of her face, with her eyes like far horizons. Her hands resting on her knees, she murmurs as her whole body sways:
    Holy Mary, mother of God,
Pray for us, poor sinners…
    She hasn’t said a single word about the absence of Fignolé. Not a word. Instead she raises her voice against the whip, the rigoise that Angélique has used on Ti Louze’s back and Gabriel’s frail legs. I join Mother in this strange chorus and soon we are all three of us yelling. Deep down, we know that Ti Louze and Gabriel are strangers to these cries, to our anger. We yell all the same. We yell because we cannot talk of the only thing that would relieve us, the only thing that would restore us to our humanity. Our sufferings began a long time ago, and those we would wish them on are too far away. Ti Louze and Gabriel are within earshot of our voices, within reach of our hands. We are cruel by default. Wicked by obligation.
    In the face of inextinguishable anger, Gabriel breathes jerkily as he examines his legs carefully. He fears that the lash has left visible traces; he fears his little friends will make fun of him at school.Ti Louze sniffs loudly. She no longer has the words to beg for leniency: ‘Please, please…’ A trickle of blood runs from the two or three scabs she has caused herself by dabbing at insect bites with an old, worn cloth. Through her tears, Ti Louze calls on death but will have to wait for that wish to be granted. Ti Louze and Gabriel must think that the world is an unfair place, and they’re not wrong. Gabriel will get used to it, sooner than he may think. For Ti Louze the game has already been played out, in full. Ti Louze, whose braids are no longer than finger-bones; a true African’s head with no future on this island – Ti Louze, so black she is invisible.
    A moment later, no doubt weary of this game, Mother asks me to call Paulo, the son of our neighbour Madame Jacques. She doesn’t mention Jean-Baptiste or Wiston who live at the other end of the street. While waiting for Paulo, she ceaselessly slaps