Victoire Read Free

Freedom is an abstract concept, a dream of the affluent. As slaves, these men and women were less destitute. In their servitude, a master provided them with a roof over their heads and enough not to starve to death. As free men, what did they own except their poverty? If Father Lebris had lived, he would probably have been a mentor to Victoire, and perhaps her destiny would have been different. Unfortunately, she was not yet one year old when malaria triumphed. Like Eliette, he was laid to rest under the casuarina trees in the graveyard on the outskirts of Grand Bourg. For the second time, Victoire was abandoned. She remained in the hands of a woman who worshipped her, but who was illiterate and basically incapable of educating a child.
    Around 1880, the migration from Marie-Galante began. The economists teach us that the emerging production of beet sugar in Europe began to destabilize the Caribbean market. From Saint-Louis, Capesterre, and Grand Bourg the inhabitants streamed toward the “continent” Guadeloupe, as they call it without a trace of irony. Their region of choice was Petit Bourg, where employment was to be had thanks to a factory and two rum distilleries. The sea too was bountiful: amberjack, sea bream, tuna, and snapper. You could fish with traps or dragnets. The newcomers pitched their cabins outside the town, in places today known as Pointe à Bacchus, Sarcelles, Bergette, Juston, and as far up in the hills as La Lézarde and Montebello. Elie had just set up house with Anastasie Roustain, known as Bobette, who had given him two sons. In order to feed his family, he decided to leave Marie-Galante and proposed taking with himhis twin sister’s daughter, whom he considered his own despite her unfortunate color.
    Only Elie knew for certain who was Victoire’s father. He had bad-mouthed her and flown into enough tempers in his jealousy! What did she hope to get from this white man? A soldier into the bargain. A soldier’s like a sailor: instead of a woman in every port there’s one in every garrison.
    Caldonia refused categorically to let the apple of her eye go. What would her life be without the girl she idolized? Victoire was five or six years old. The sound of her voice was seldom heard. Nor was there hardly a smile, a ripple of laughter, or one of those cabriole dances that make childhood so delightful. It was as if her joie de vivre had been buried with her maman. Her hair was so straight and smooth that any braids became undone in minutes and flopped over her face, covering it with a silky curtain of mourning. In order to soothe her nightmares, Caldonia put her to sleep in her bed. Night and day, huddled against her grandmother, she acquired the bitter smell of her old clothes. The smell of sweat, dirt, and arnica.
    At this time, the very poorest were preoccupied with an education. Free schooling for all had been one of Monsieur Schoelcher’s promises, which they planned on keeping. The Brothers of the Christian Doctrine of Ploërmel had opened a school in Les Basses, where the airport now stands. Apparently, Caldonia didn’t think for one moment of enrolling Victoire. No more than she did her younger children. As a result, my grandmother never learned to read or write. She never learned to speak French correctly, and so as not to shock her daughter’s acquaintances, she kept a stubborn silence under all circumstances.
    The only schooling she received—but can we really call it schooling?—was religious. Aurora Quidal taught catechism in her wattle cabin. Sitting in a circle, the children would chant, oddly alternating phrases in Creole and in French.
    Ka sa yé sa: lanfé?
    One God in three distinct persons.
    Ki jan nou pé vinn pli bon.
    Eat and drink. This is my body.
    Throughout her life, Victoire, even though she never spoke of it, remembered her childhood as a paradise lost. It appears, however, that it was mostly dull, hardly entertaining, and darkened by poverty, which was the lot of the