Popa Singer, page 10
11
The Never-Ending Nightmare
Early in the morning, on July 30, 1958, Papa Doc donned the uniform he had christened the night before. He asked Fonthus-Figaro to draw up a list of those in the Military Academy cohorts—classes of 1941 and 1942—that Pasquier, Albi, and Dominguez had belonged to.
“It’s no coincidence,” he said, “that Pasquier tried to recruit classmates from his class that were stationed in far-flung garrisons in the backcountry. Esprit de corps is a powerful Mulatto trait among our police force. We’re talking about truly unnatural beasts. Goddammit we’re going to have to execute 22 of them at Fort Dimanche!”
“Clovis’s wiretapping system recorded the calls from Pasquier’s rebellion,” said Fonthus-Figaro. “He started off by reaching out to commanders at the Port-au-Prince central square. Then he communicated with thirteen military district chiefs in the provinces. He called nineteen superior officers. Leaving your dear godson Captain Claudius out of it, as he’s beyond all suspicion, we’ve got a batch of eighteen suspects to put down.”
“The list is missing four guilty parties. Ever since my victory on September 22, my navel is forever linked to that fateful number. It’s the crown jewel in my star. I woke up on this day with the following brilliant idea: the firing squad for the execution of Pasquier’s 22 accomplices should consist of the 22 highest-ranking officers of the police force. The joint staff of the armed forces will receive the order to fire their Springfield rifles by some low-level soldier. Fifo, can you think of any better way to teach any of our potential enemies a lesson?”
“After the execution,” said Fonthus-Figaro, “your Haitians will cry: ‘Long live papa-22-of-the-Republic-for-life!’”
Things moved quickly. On the night of the 30th, the President convened his military chiefs Barbotog, Gros-Bobo, L’il Râ Bordaille in his office. Besides his faithful Fifo, his godson Captain Claudius Rémont and his secretary-concubine Francesca de Saint-Totor were also by his side. He informed them of his decision to liquidate, according to a sui generis ritual, the officers Pasquier had called instead of going straight for an assault on the Palace . . .
“It’s proof,” he said, “that far from suspecting them, he was confident they’d participate in the plan. Totor has typed up a list of the eighteen insurgents. We’re getting close to the 22 of my propitious moon. Name four last-minute guilty souls of your choice. That shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for any of you.”
“There’s one name that comes to me off the top of my head. Just last Thursday, Excellency, I heard you bitterly complaining about an officer in the Presidential Guard.”
“I know the bastard you’re talking about, dear Totor. In effect, my friends, for some time now one of my closest guardsmen has been appearing in my dreams in the form of a Saudi Arabian emir. With a machete in each hand, he demands the keys to my treasure: ‘Your harem or your life!’ he screams each time. I have finally recognized Captain Tédéhomme Maxisextus’s voice. Aide-de-camp to the First Lady, this officer has been taking advantage of his proximity to my inner circle to play around, up close and personal, with the innocent sex appeal of our two little girls. That garrison playboy has indulged in some heavy fondling at the expense of my adolescent daughters’ sacred fire. And it gets worse: even our chubby, plump little Jean-Jean—that future little devil of ours—hasn’t been spared his wandering fingers. Lately his misconduct has gone up a notch in its scandal and profanation: after Carla, Maria-Antonia, Jean-Jean, and Francesca, Mama Simone, the Queen Mother herself, was subjected to her own bodyguard’s goddamn gallant fingering! We can expect the worst: an attack on the decency of the Spiritual Leader isn’t far behind. In trying to get off, with a few Te Deums here, a few laudamus-sextus there, Captain Maxi has placed himself phallically outside the law! And thus do we have our nineteenth convict for my list!”
“In the troop placed under my command,” added Captain Rémont, “Maxi isn’t the only one to have betrayed my godfather’s trust. Late one evening last April 5, while I was taking a relaxing stroll in the park, I came upon one of the Monastir twins, Lieutenant Thomas, down on all fours in the grass with Carla, dressed in a baby doll nightie, straddling his back. I was about to react when the other Monastir brother, Lieutenant Wilfried, appeared with Maria-Antonia, in the exact same libertine position. ‘What the blazes are you two lieutenants up to?’ I cried. ‘Just a bit of moonlight frolicking, Captain!’ those indecent marasas and their consenting victims answered in chorus, without even interrupting their little game of double-dutch!”
“That’s called killing two birds with one Springfield!” said the President dryly. “All we need is one more felon to pick up. A little effort now, comrades!”
“The lieutenant of the Guard, Jérôme Hilarius,” said Boss Gros-Bobo, “has been exiled from the ranks of the Duvalierists. Last March, Mr. President, your famous speech to the students at the Ethnological College revealed to the country the three principal architects of the Haitian universe: the Deity, Dessalines, Duvalier. On that day, you made the three truly capital Ds of the Vodou pantheon shine in the eyes of our youth. On the day after the event, as I was celebrating that brilliant discovery with Lieutenant Jérôme, he spit out, disgruntledly, the following blasphemy: ‘Three great architects of the universe, you say, chief—at the next carnival some grotesque carnival band is likely to turn the President’s three D’s into three fat Derrières-in-the-field!’”
“That’s no surprise coming from him,” added Barbotog. “The supreme D cherished by Lieutenant Hilarius is the papa-lwa-Dollar. Although he wasn’t a part of our intelligence service, our twenty-second corpse was always holed up with that CIA operative in Port-au-Prince, Colonel Jimmy Dickenridge.”
“Thank you all for your loyalty,” said the President. “I’m putting Fifo in charge of inviting the 22 general staff members of the police force to be present at Fort Dimanche in black tie on the evening of August 5. Not a word to anyone about what I have in store for these gentlemen from the heart of the platoon.”
On the morning of August 5, Barbotog informed the President that the twenty-two condemned men had been locked up tight for the past three days—“incommunicado, trust me, Mr. President!”—in Fort Dimanche.
“Bravo, dear Totog! Now that the Duvalierian iron is hot, we’ll have to strike this very night, as planned.”
Late in the evening, a convoy of official vehicles hurriedly took off from the Champs-de-Mars headquarters toward the northern exit out of Port-au-Prince. In Fort Dimanche, Tonton Macoutes armed to the teeth awaited the high-ranking military officers. Stationed up front, Barbotog played master of the house, shaking hands with the terrified men. He had a friendly and reassuring word for each soldier.
“A thousand thanks for coming. The President shouldn’t be much longer. His Excellency intends to raise this August night to goddamn historically Elizabethan heights!” he announced to the company at large.
The soldiers exchanged the most forced smiles of their lives: how were they supposed to follow the head of the Macoute military in the mountaineering expedition he had in mind for that August evening? They waited for two hours (burning through more than one pack of cigarettes between their sweaty fingers) before Papa Doc arrived, wearing his commander’s uniform as chief of the NSV. He responded to his twenty-two subordinates’ solemn salute with a disgusted gesture of the index finger. He indicated for them to follow him to the firing range, about a hundred yards behind the prison’s dilapidated buildings. At one of the far ends of a floodlit clearing, the twenty-two condemned men were already tied up, petrified with fright, each to his own stake.
“Gentlemen of the national police,” said the President, “you all know I’m not one to beat around the bush. Therefore, without further explanation, I command that you 22 zonbi form the squad of executioners called on to ice the 22 traitors lined up here before you. Gentlemen commanders, I said, form the goddamn squad!”
Like so many disciplined soldiers, trained either at the school of the American Marines or at West Point, the officers immediately formed a perfect line, facing their dumbfounded and despairing buddies. L’il Râ Bordaille gave each of them a loaded Springfield.
“Gentlemen, officers, before carrying out the orders of your Supreme Leader, I invite you to listen to the words of our distinguished ethnologist. Tonight, so as to do away with this pack of traitors without any court-martial, I’m disregarding the old traditions of the armed forces of this planet. Each great democratic culture is free to cover its ass however it wants, in accordance with the originality of its historical roots. Why should my Haitians be the only ones not allowed to cover the big bounda of their own cultural identity? Tonight, I’m leaving aside any foreign models of capital punishment. It’ll be an ad hominem cap-in-the-ass death sentence, Haitian-style, of course! In my death ceremony, the discharge of Springfield rifles will no longer be unique, anonymous, or blind. I’m opting for shot-by-shot, one after the next, fired on my orders, by a platoon officer. In this way, each of the commanders of my police force will have the luxury of looking into the eyes of the former comrade in arms—the absolute bastard he’s been called on to hurl beneath the earth of the disrespected fatherland. This is the Duvalierian way of saving the honor of a police force that Pasquier, Albi, Dominguez, Ben Estefano, Arthur Payne, Joe D. Walker, Dany Jones, and other international mercenary sheriffs nearly dishonored for all time. With my zombification plan now in place, all that’s left is the execution.”
“Ex-lieutenant colonel Altidor Kesner, where are you, you monkey’s miscarriage?”
“Here, Your Excellency,” sighed the condemned man.
“Right, I see you. You’ve betrayed your benefactor out of loyalty to the class of 1941 Mulatto officers Angelo Albi and Sonson Pasquier. Your cousin, Colonel Officer Helder Wilfort, is charged with ending your lawless vagabond’s maneuverings. Ex-lieutenant Altidor Kesner, for goddamn-fuck’s sake—now fire!”
“Ex-lieutenant Nicolos Pépé, son of a harlot and big old whore yourself, where are you!”
“Here, Mr. President!”
“Right, I see your Mulatto whorishness, your buddy from the class of 1942, Major Ernest Chicognard is heating up—just look at him—with the idea of lighting up your bastard traitor’s lungs with his Springfield. Goddamn-fucking ex-major Nicolos Pépé—now fire!”
“Ex-captain Te Deum Maxisextus laudamus! Where’s your Latin canto of nimble acts of grace? Don-Juan-Casanova-rara-band-Marquis-de-Sade, where are you? Ah, ah, ah! You’re sniveling in your disgraced officer’s shorts! You aren’t answering your President’s call like a courageous macho-man? I send you back to the Mardi Gras of my nightmares like an Arabian emir with a screwed-up hard-on! For the last time I’m casting my eyes on the stalker of the warm bodies of State power, stalker of Papa Caesar’s harem! Down with your lubricious crocodile tears! Down with your whore of a grandmother’s clitoris! Your own brother-in-law, the sweet, surrealist Lieutenant Colonel Chris-Paul Lafalaize will snuff out, on my orders, your too-goddamn geometrically unstable libido from my household. Goddamn-fucking ex-captain Te Deum Maxisextus laudamus—now fire!”
The ritual was repeated twenty-two times in a row. The only minor setback was Captain Tédéhomme Maxisextus’s crying fit. The other executions, notably that of the Monastir marasa, went like the bleakest clockwork.
12
Clandestine Transmitter
My brother Régis heard the story of the Fort Dimanche executions from an eyewitness, a nurse friend of his who worked in the prison dispensary. On the same occasion, Régis revealed to Popa and me that a clandestine transmitting station, Radio Liberty, of which he was the director, would soon be divulging the episode he had just recounted to the public. The scoop of the inaugural broadcast was planned for August 22, 1958.
Weeks before the “Sheriffs of the Full Moon Affair,” Régis had decided to make an about-face from opponent to conspirator. Instead of a twinkling solar erotic being, he was, I discovered, a cold libertine, hearty and hale, who had accepted all the risks of clandestine combat. Without us noticing, he had rapidly become the primary liaison for the opposition leader Marc-Antoine Grandet. Head of a handful of courageous supporters, the latter was fearlessly organizing, from his hiding place, a network of resistance to the State’s terrorism.
Besides Régis Dénizan, Radio Liberty’s other right-hand man was a merchant of Cuban origin who’d lived in Port-au-Prince for many years. Tonio Alvarez’s launderette—El Oso Blanco was its name—was situated on the northern side of the Champ-de-Mars, at an equal distance from the Palace and the headquarters of the police and the armed forces. It was separated from the President’s office by two hundred yards of lawn, as the crow flies. It was truly the one place in town where Barbotog’s henchmen would be least likely to look for the radio waves emitting anti-Duvalierist propaganda.
To move around safely, Régis sold the old roofless jeep that he was known for in the neighborhood. He bought a little used Morris, discreetly adapted to his conspiratorial activities. To von Hofmannsthal’s great joy, he was proving to be a master of disguise. He had been operating right under the nose of the Tonton-SS, disguised as a police officer, chef, itinerant monk, agronomist engineer, telegraph operator, stewardess, nurse, mailman, fireman, even a Sister of Charity. But whatever the chosen disguise, he was always the same person, wracked with the same despairing and humble fury. Whether engineer or mailman, he was consumed by the same rage and the same shame in the face of all the misery befalling us.
He barely lived in Bourdon anymore. He showed up at the house out of the blue every now and then. Knowing he was being tightly surveilled, he came and went by a path known only to us: at the back of the garden, down below, next to an unfrequented empty lot, traversed by a ravine that the rainstorms turned into a torrent of mud. On each visit, Régis showed Popa and me a different disguise.
On the afternoon of August 23, the costumed visitor who told us about the bloodbath at Fort Dimanche was wearing the white cassock of the Fathers of the Oblates of Marie. He had an enormous rustic wooden cross hanging on his chest. He had no other personal information to share with us. His humanity kept its head lowered, as much in the face of the great massacres of the world as in the face of the miniscule bits of popular disturbance he had just executed over the course of a long, torrid day in La Saline, in Bel-Air, in Bolosse, in Lakou-Bréa, in Tête-Bœuf, and in other neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince where hope has always hung on by an old bit of thread.
I did my best to help Régis’s Radio Freedom broadcasts give Haitians the sense that they had come to an existential standstill inside a tunnel, out of which their third of an island risked emerging in a body bag. I wrote up the story of the executions he’d told us about in person. Tuning in to Radio Freedom took on an extraordinary importance. Only one thing mattered to the authorities: locating the source, at whatever the cost, of that hour of truth telling that, each and every night, exposed the Medusa’s head of the Vodou National Salvation Front.
In vain, Barbotog oriented his hunt toward the residential neighborhoods of Pétionville, Croix-des-Bouquets, in the heights of Kenscoff and Furcy, and in the seaside communities of Jacmel. After several days of useless commotion caused by the Tonton Macoutes, the President decided to solicit technical support from the naval forces of the American army base in Guantanamo, on the western tip of Cuba. A US destroyer, on patrol in Haitian waters, received the order to disembark a team of tracking experts on the island. After a week of reconnaissance, they delivered a formal report to Duvalier: Radio Freedom was transmitting definitively from somewhere on the northern wing of the Presidential Palace.
The Duvalier family’s private rooms were located in that part of the building. The famous houngan of Mirebalais, Victor-Hugo Novembre, resided in an employee’s studio there, in his role as “special chaplain to the President of the Republic.” Leaving his bedroom, Papa Doc had only to take a few steps across the Persian rugs to indulge in his secret consultations with Baron Samedi or with any other of the political lwa of the cemeteries Novembre had the power to summon.
Immediately after the US Navy experts’ report had been translated into Creole, Papa Doc rushed to his official sorcerer. Victor-Hugo Novembre was not caught unawares by the revelation. His investigatory methods were just about to lead him to the same conclusion as the white American experts of Guantanamo with all their specialized knowledge. For several nights in a row, Baron Samedi, helped by the famous detective-god Ogou-Badaviolet, had noticed suspicious radio waves in the residential areas of the Palace. Whenever the transmissions stopped, the vagabond waves went roaming under Carla or Maria-Antonia’s perfumed sheets.
“Once night falls, your mortal enemy,” continued Novembre, “the defeated candidate from the last elections, that pain in the butt Marc-Antoine Grandet, has the diabolical ability to change himself into a clandestine broadcaster, from whatever hole he’s lying in wait in. He can transmit freely out of your powder room or your toilet. If we let him, Grandet will take on other forms of existence in order to destroy you: shark-toothed grand piano in your Japanese sitting room; black Labrador foaming at the mouth with pleasure right alongside the epic orgasms of the presidential couple; anthrax epidemic mounting an attack on the blood cells of the Vodou National Salvation Front. Transformed into a purebred dildo, he can perch the First Lady and Carla and Maria-Antonia on his erect back like Amazons on some infernal ride before subjecting them to the most first-class rollicking in universal orgiastic history. Assisted by his brothers, all of them militants of the hairless-pigs sect, he has metamorphosed into a Hertzian evening télédyòl. He has mounted a campaign against your revolution. The entire Grandet family must find themselves immediately in the formaldehyde jars where we preserve the cutoff heads of our enemies. This is the only way to silence Radio Liberty.”
