FRIGHTENED BY THE battle with Ogé and Chavannes, the Assembly of the North sought both to exact revenge and to strike fear in the other freedmen by demanding that the Spanish authorities extradite Ogé, Chavannes, and their collaborators.
“The Spanish authorities will never hand them over,” said Lambert to Beauvais with great conviction.
“I certainly hope not,” responded Beauvais, decidedly more pessimistic.
The following day, they learned that not only had Ogé and Chavannes been delivered to the Whites in Cap-Français, but that they had been brought before a special tribunal and been condemned to death. Mad with worry, Joseph went to see Minette, who offered on the spot to accompany him to Cap-Français. That evening, Labadie himself brought the money for the trip. Minette entrusted Lise and young Jean to Jasmine’s care and left to take her place in the coach alongside Joseph. The journey was exhausting. Knocked about for an entire day, they arrived in Cap-Français completely spent.
The atmosphere there was one of unparalleled agitation.
With its grand houses graced with wide balconies, its picturesque little streets, and its shops decked out in the latest Parisian fashion, Cap-Français surpassed Port-au-Prince as much by the luxuriousness of its homes as by its bay full of ships. It even seemed to Minette and Joseph that the crowd there was denser, more active, and more diverse.
The news was true. They found out as soon as they entered the hotel. A red-skinned Mulatto came to meet them and take their luggage.
“Would you like one room?”
“No, two rooms.”
“Oh!…And I suppose you’ve come here like all the others to witness the torture of Ogé and Chavannes?”
Minette glanced at Joseph, who had gone horribly ashen. She took his hand.
“And so when’s the spectacle?” she asked, feigning indifference.
“Well, it’s planned for tomorrow morning. Apparently they’ve been condemned to breaking on the wheel. The Whites are furious and have sworn not to take mercy on them…”
They went up the stairs and arrived on the first floor, where the big Mulatto pointed out two adjoining rooms.
Once they were alone, Minette took Joseph’s face in her hands.
“Listen to me, don’t despair. He was probably just exaggerating. We’ll get some information soon. Get some rest. I’m going to freshen up and then we’ll go out together.”
Joseph sat down on the bed with a dejected air and seemed to be conjuring a particularly frightening scene, for his hands trembled. Suddenly, he hid his face in his elbow and threw himself across the bed.
“Come, come,” said Minette, caressing his hair.
Then she sighed and went to her own room. She did not bother freshening up. After passing Joseph’s room on tiptoes, she raced down the stairs. A couple had just arrived: two middle-aged Negroes that were being led to other rooms by a young slave. Minette scanned the room for the big Mulatto and noticed him behind a counter, in the middle of writing in a notebook. She went up to him and said smilingly, in an effort to hide her anxiousness:
“Are people of color free to attend the punishment of Ogé and Chavannes?” she queried.
“Of course. Yesterday’s paper even said we’ve been invited.”
“I’ll be there,” she promised, still smiling.
“It’ll be tough to watch…”
“Do you think so?”
She went back upstairs and knocked at Joseph’s door. He opened.
“Listen,” she told him, “we won’t go out this evening. We’ll get some rest. There’ll still be time tomorrow to go out to get some news.”
He pushed her away with the violence of a madman and headed for the staircase.
“Joseph, where are you going?”
He offered no response and fled the hotel.
She went back into her room and stretched out on the bed. Her head was abuzz and her heart was racing annoyingly. She moaned feebly and turned onto her side. She somehow fell asleep that way. When she awoke, it was already dawn. She jumped up, thinking of Joseph. Opening her door, she went to knock at his room. As there was no answer, she turned the knob and the door opened on its own. The room was empty. She changed her clothes and went downstairs. The big Mulatto, an early riser, was already attending to his business.
“Have you seen my brother, by chance?”
“Your brother? Ah, yes…”
He burst into laughter.
“He must have spent the night in one of those places young people his age like to go to – he still hasn’t come back. There are some pretty famous brothels here. In fact, just next door there’s apparently a Negress who’ll dance naked, one gourde per person…I probably shouldn’t be telling such things to a young lady like yourself, but it’s just to reassure you. Young people like the fun spots…Well, well, there he is.”
He was in quite a state: disheveled, dirty, his hair wild, his eyes beaten, and shaky on his feet!
The big Mulatto burst into laughter once again.
“Oh, they’re all the same, those young people!”
Minette dragged Joseph along without asking any questions. He seemed so ashamed to see her that she left him alone and went into her room. Where was he coming from? In what seedy bars had he spent the night? What had he exposed himself to that had so transformed him? His eyes were furtive, his smile constrained, and his movements so awkward that he seemed to be hiding some sort of new character that even he found troubling.
Minette was pondering all of this for more than two hours and then joined Joseph in his room. The door was slightly ajar. She pushed it open: he was sleeping with his fists clenched, laid out on his stomach, with one leg hanging over the side of the bed. She left the room without waking him and went out into the street alone.
An early-morning crowd of people decked out in all their finery jostled one another as they passed by the shops on their way to the central square.
A barricade had been installed around a section of hard-packed earth. As the crowd arrived, people separated into two rows: the Whites went to the right and the people of color went to the left. Minette followed the people of her station and went forward toward the barricades. Two enormous wheels, gleaming in the sunlight, leaned against iron bars that four executioners had just brought in.
“What are those iron bars for?” someone asked.
“I’ve heard they’ve been condemned to be broken alive.”
“Does that hurt a lot?”
“You can go ask them.”
When they brought the two prisoners out, their hands tied behind their backs, Minette tried to figure out which of the two was Vincent Ogé. They both held their heads high and looked directly at the curious onlookers. Slipping adroitly through the crowd, she was able to reach the first row, and stood next to an elderly woman, stout and imposing.
“My Lord,” said the woman, making the sign of the cross.
Those who were situated in the first rows were touching the barricade and were no more than a few meters away from the prisoners. Which of them was Vincent? One was a Mulatto with curly hair; the other was darker-skinned and had a complexion more like Joseph’s. But it was the Mulatto who looked most like him. His eyes, fixed on the crowd, showed a noble pride. When the executioner approached him, his face took on an expression of terrible revulsion. In that moment, he looked so much like Joseph that Minette no longer had any doubt. That was him, Vincent Ogé. When the executioner untied his hands, he raised them to the heavens and cried:
“Don’t forget anything you see here today, my brothers.”
It had been so long since Minette had heard Joseph speak that she trembled. It was as if it was him and not his brother who had just spoken. It was the same deep and sonorous tone, the same slow, careful pronunciation.
Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, whose hands had also been untied, held them out to the right side of the barricade.
“I denounce the Whites,” he screamed with a ferocious voice. “I denounce the Whites, our torturers, forevermore and I leave to our brothers the task of avenging our martyrdom.”
An enormous clamor drowned out his voice. The executioners had just grabbed the prisoners to attach them to the wheels, their arms outstretched and legs spread wide. Minette lowered her head. A feeling of nausea welled up inside her. She put her hand around her neck and raised her head. At the same time, a terrifying scream broke the silence. The executioners, raising high the iron bars, broke the prisoners’ limbs. Their screams quickly became horrible bellowings. A freedwoman, weeping as she leaned against a tree, began to vomit. Minette fled, her hands covering her ears. The screams followed her all the way to the hotel, all the way to Joseph’s room. He awoke and looked at her with terrified eyes. She threw herself into his arms, put her hands over his ears and sobbed.
“Don’t listen, don’t listen, Joseph!…”
He threw himself to the ground, sunk his teeth into the sheets and the mattress, with gestures of utter rage, in turn letting out devastating sounds not unlike those of the tortured prisoners. Minette fell to her knees.
“We’ll avenge them, we’ll avenge them – you’ll see,” she repeated. “Their suffering and their death won’t be for nothing. They spoke out, and that won’t have been for nothing…”
She helped him to rise. He collapsed onto the bed, weeping, and covered his head with the pillow so as not to hear the strangely fading but increasingly devastating cries that would keep all the inhabitants of Cap-Français awake through the night.
The next morning, at dawn, it was clear from the silence that had followed their cries and then their whimpers that the tortured men had died. Their remains were brought to their mothers, two old women petrified with horror who had been forcefully kept in the parish and to whom were handed over two coffins, each containing a mutilated cadaver. Joseph stayed in Dondon to be with Vincent’s mother, and Minette made the long journey from Cap-Français to Port-au-Prince on her own.
This time, she stopped in Arcahaie. She was demoralized, broken. She needed Jean Lapointe’s strength and rugged energy. She went to Boucassin on foot and, carrying her trunk, climbed up the long hill that led to the house. When she saw the little house with its sole gallery, the flood of memories that washed over her was so strong that she collapsed onto her side, her eyes closed and barely breathing. Lucifer and Satan came to lick her hands and ran to alert their master.
She avoided breaking the spell and willingly suppressed the memory of the horrors she had witnessed at Cap-Français. She had not come to talk about such things. Drowning herself in pleasure, she planned to savor the selfish delight of being happy. He asked her all sorts of questions, all of which had only to do with love: “Were you tempted to love someone else? Were you faithful? Was your voice always so beautiful?”
The spell lasted for five days, after which time the manager of the estate came from the workhouse at a full gallop. Six of the best slaves had fled during the night.
Lapointe flew into a terrible rage, saddled his horse, and left for the workhouse, from which there immediately rose terrible screams. The screams reminded Minette of those she had heard from Ogé and Chavannes. She did not want to believe that her beloved was their cause. She waited for him, pale, standing on the gallery and surrounded by trembling slaves. Ninninne came up to her.
“Oh, Lord!” she said to her. “Now he’s angry. Too many slaves are escaping.”
Her back was bent and she shook her head slowly in her black madras scarf, adding:
“Fleurette and Roseline were the first to leave…”
An indefinable smell coming from the workhouse suddenly flooded her nostrils. The cries immediately turned into screams.
“Fire torture!” said one of the slaves mournfully.
Fearing she would leave like the first time, Lapointe hurried back. He found her packing her things, pale and more shaken even than his servants.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“I’m leaving and never coming back.”
“Because of a slave I had to punish?”
“You’re nothing but a dressed-up white brute,” she answered him angrily.
“You’ll regret insulting me one day. I’m also fighting for our rights.”
“By cutting the throats of the Blacks?”
“They’re slaves.”
“I see! Just be quiet, then.”
He tried to win her over by changing the subject.
“Between lovers, there should only ever be reproaches that have to do with love.”
“Love gets mixed up in everything these days. Times have changed.”
He saw that she was intent on carrying out her threat and tried to take her in his arms.
“You don’t want to leave, do you?”
“Let me go. Don’t touch me. I loathe you.”
She pushed him away with such a look of revulsion that he stared at her, astonished.
“Twice now you will have left me over these slaves. Perhaps one day you’ll come back to me because of them.”
He was suddenly enraged.
“But understand that without them I would be nothing, nothing…I’ve got to do everything in my power to keep them.”
As she offered no response, he shrugged his shoulders and helped her mount a horse. Then, handing the reins to a slave, said with a smile both mysterious and cynical:
“Bring Mademoiselle back.”