No sooner had the darkness swallowed up the lanky silhouette of Emile Etienne than the rain stopped. At the same moment the wind got up, not the wind that devastates everything in its despair and disarray, but a soft, caressing wind, smoothing out the rough edges and restoring harmony. It gently pushed the sullen flock of clouds into a corner of the sky and an insidious whiteness began to emerge. It first appeared over in Le Gosier, which is in a straight line across the bay behind a curtain of tall trees. Then gradually it spread and stole across the sky so that in seconds the heavens became a calabash full of milk. The day was going to be dry and clear. Suddenly everyone realized it was five in the morning.
The women, who had left babies with a grandmother or an elder sister, realized the infants would soon be shrieking for their milk, and hurriedly got up. The men, who had drunk for the sake of drinking, looked at the empty rum bottles, realized they were down to the last drop, and got up as well.
So there was a jostle of comings and goings between the veranda and the bedchamber, of genuflections and signs of the cross, of “good-byes” and “What time’s the funeral?”
By one of those about-faces that death is capable of, people were having scruples about leaving Francis Sancher lying there in his wooden prison, and they started to pity him.
Léocadie Timothée voiced this reversal of opinion when she murmured:
“Poor devil! Rain like that means he misses being alive, however bitter life was and nothing to sweeten it with.”
There was a general sigh of approval, but nobody really knew whether it was for the comment on life or the comment on Francis Sancher. Everyone felt watery-eyed, for what or for whom nobody really knew. People were looking at each other in sadness, suddenly rooted to the spot, incapable of making a move home or starting up the motions of daily life again.
Finally, they reluctantly decided to make a move, wading through the mud while the rain-soaked leaves fell on their necks and stuck there like poultices. Over their heads, the great expanse of sky gradually dried, regaining its usual blue color, and the sun slowly returned to its place in the very middle of the heavens.
Inside the house a devoted group remained behind amid the smell of coffee prepared and served by Marina, Rosa’s loving sister. The two families plunged in mourning. The relatives. The friends. Here especially, the insidious about-face dealt by death and the approaching daylight was working in a wondrous way. Some, like Loulou, or Sylvestre Ramsaran, believing justice had been done, felt purified. Once again they could carry their head high and look people in the eye. Loulou was wondering whether he shouldn’t speak to Sylvestre about that piece of land he’d had his eye on bordering the river Moustique, not to set up orchid greenhouses this time, but to plant a variety of grapefruit from Dominica whose flesh was pinker and juicier than those from California. Sylvestre artfully guessed what Loulou would be driving at and was already formulating an offer in his head that would discourage him.
Others like Aristide, Dinah and Dodose Pélagie were close to feeling a kind of grateful affection well up inside them for the man who had given them the courage to discard the old, worn-out clothes they slipped on morning after morning that were too tight around the armpits. Such an emotional upset made them ask themselves questions of a superstitious nature. Who in fact was this man who had chosen to die among them? Could he be an envoy, the messenger of some supernatural force? Hadn’t he repeated over and over again: “I shall return each season with a chattering green bird on my fist”? At the time nobody had paid any attention to his words, which had been lost in the ruckus of rum. Perhaps they should watch for him to reappear supreme through the rain-streaked windowpanes of the sky, and finally gather the honey of his wisdom. Just as some of them crossed over to the window to look for the flowering of the dawn, they saw the contours of a rainbow, and it seemed to them a sign that verily the deceased was no ordinary man. Surreptitiously, they crossed themselves.
Shaking off her exhaustion and seeing the wonderfully straight and unobstructed road of her life stretch out in front of her, Dinah opened the book of Psalms and everyone responded.