Heading South

The Master’s Flesh

I WAS HAVING COFFEE at this woman’s place in a ritzy part of Debussy. Tree-lined streets. House discreetly hidden behind a hedge of bougainvillea and hibiscus. Old, middle-class family going back to the colonial period. We were sitting quietly on the verandah. Light breeze. Night slowly coming on.

The old servant comes with the coffee, dragging his feet. A soft, irregular sound. Time stretches on to infinity. I think of Dali’s melted watches. When I glance briefly into the large room, there’s a full portrait, in oil, of a couple I don’t know, at the bottom of the stairs. A tall Negro man standing beside a young white girl. The old woman facing me notices my mild shock, has perhaps even been waiting for it.

“Those are my ancestors,” she says in the detached voice of someone who has told this story a number of times already. .

“Oh?” I say, this time hiding my surprise.

“He was a former slave, and she was the master’s daughter. I think theirs was one of the rare legitimate unions of its kind,” she adds, with a certain deliberateness.

“They were married, then?”

She looks at me slyly.

“Of course.”

“So he managed to seduce the master’s daughter, did he?”

“No, it was she who seduced him.”

I look again at the portrait. The man has a dignified air. The young woman’s knowing smile is the same one I’ve just seen twice on the face of the old woman sitting across from me.

“Family lore has it,” she continues, “she saw him from her window. Her bedroom was on the second floor. He was working at the sugar mill. I imagine his naked torso, covered in perspiration. My forebear was a very muscular man. At that moment she was struck as though by a violent pain in her chest. The release, if I may put it like that, of a very powerful physical emotion. An obscene passion. She was overcome by it. And all the more so as she had to hide her feelings from the world. It was a passion forbidden by the Napoleonic Code. But of course one cannot bid one’s heart not to love. Much less one’s body. A body is much worse than a heart, Fanfan. Unable to resist any longer, one night she stole down to his hut. It seems they quarrelled the entire night. He pushed her away. She became a madwoman. And she was such a delicate soul. She cried. She clawed at her breast, she slapped his face as hard as she could, she swore at him, she begged him to kiss her, she demanded he make love to her, she threatened to scream and accuse him of trying to rape her, she wept until she had no more tears to weep, she tore her clothes, she begged him, begged him, begged him to take her. He, for his part, was not insensitive to the luminous quality of her fragile, white body, so rarely given to a Negro man, but he knew that if he gave in to her, death would be waiting for him with the rising sun. And so the more violent became her desire for him, the more he resisted. But finally, just before daybreak, he relented and entered her. She cried out while pressing her fist into her mouth. And then he fell asleep, still on top of her.”

“And that’s how they were found?”

“No. She woke up shortly afterwards, before he did. And they ran away. Of course they didn’t get far. Imagine: a slave and a young white woman. The master wanted to kill him with his own hands, but she swore she would stab herself if her father touched a single hair on his head. Two days later, he escaped, alone.”

“And they caught him?”

“No. Other events had come up in the meantime. More serious concerns. . The War of Independence broke out. Santo Domingo became one vast, raging fire. Dessalines became the leader of the native army. My forebear commanded the Twenty-Second Half-Brigade, in the north. General Dessalines, as you know, carried the war right up to the final battle. They completely routed the army of Napoleon. Glory! Santo Domingo became Haiti on January the first, 1804. Then Des-salines ordered the general massacre of all the French on the island, and my forebear interceded with the commander-in-chief to spare the family of his beloved. Dessalines hesitated, but in the end he agreed, most assuredly in recognition of the heroic actions of my forebear during the final battle at Vertières. The family left Haiti on the first boat leaving for France, but the young woman stayed behind to live with her lover. It’s a nice story, don’t you think?”

“Very nice.”

The old woman suddenly breaks out laughing.

“Do you know what General Dessalines said to my forebear, when he granted him the young woman whose family he had just saved?”

“No.”

“He said: ‘I see you like the master’s flesh.’”

“The master’s flesh?”

“That’s how he referred to the young girl. . Strange, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

“In the end,” she continues, after a moment, “desire is always what drives history.”

“You mean love. .”

“No,” she insists. “I mean sex. The furious desire of the master’s flesh. .”

There is a long moment of silence.

“I’m a bit tired, Fanfan. .”

I took my leave of her. The old servant came, moving as slowly as ever, and opened the gate. As I passed through it, I felt as though I was entering another world.