I Am a Japanese Writer

PRIMITIVE PAINTERS

AND THE VOODOO painters? What are you talking about, Bjork? The ones who come with the show. We’re going to see paintings, not painters. Sure, but people don’t just want to hear my music, they want me to come and play it for them. They want to see the chef, that’s why the tv is full of cooking shows. People want to see the designer, the dress and the girl wearing the dress they’d like to wear. They want to see everything. That’s what your job is for. You make it possible for them to see me. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that. Come on, what did you think? This telephone is an extension of my ear. So I want to see the voodoo painters. I want to get to know them, one by one. Okay, whatever you like. If you think it’s just a whim, then you shouldn’t be around me. A whim? Since I started working with you, I’ve stopped bothering with the difference between what’s real and what’s fantasy. You, Bjork, you live in your fairy-tale universe, it’s normal for you, it’s solid, you can walk on it, but I have to sell it to people for whom reality means working in a windowless office eight hours a day, wearing gray suits and believing that money can buy everything, including the imagination. I have to make them see that your world is more real than theirs, and that’s why they should bow down before you, the ice princess. I know all that, just find me the painters. That won’t be easy — if they’re as important as you say, they won’t give a damn whether you’re the princess of Iceland or a clown from the Cirque du Soleil. I’m not talking about calling them — it’s the museum’s administrators you need to get to. In that case, no problem. We can work it out, Bjork. We’ll ask them to extend the show a day or two. Make it two days at least, the producer of Bjork’s international tours spits into her cell phone. All right. Bjork loves you already. The man turns red, and it isn’t the Bermuda sun. His color spreads to Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, Milan, Sydney — you never know where Bjork might be. The little girl who played dolls with a voodoo goddess, the most fearful one of all, Erzulie Dantor, can’t tell the difference between the atlas of the world and her clothes closet. She lives in a parallel universe where the days are named for cities. She doesn’t say Tuesday, she says Berlin; not Thursday, but Milan. The curator calls back. Sorry, the voodoo painters have no intention of putting off their journey for Bjork. Yes, we explained everything to them. They didn’t seem to understand what was at stake. Bjork is ecstatic. She didn’t expect any less of them. Melbourne is canceled. It’s not the first time a city has been canceled at the last moment. Melbourne is wiped off Bjork’s map. Days, like cities, can be made to disappear. The voodoo painters won’t wait for Bjork. So many of them have already died. The ones left are stars. They live in cloistered rooms, use no salt on their food, require no light and speak only to members of the staff. The museum has put seven rooms at their disposal, but they refuse to split up. A small group of men wearing hats at the far end of the room. The dim light casts shadows on the wall. Dewitt Peters, an American from Boston, a professor of English at Pétion College in Port-au-Prince, discovered them when he first arrived in Haiti in 1944. He was visiting the country when, on the road to Saint-Marc, he saw a strange painting on a door: a snake with the head of a man. It was Damballah! He entered the voodoo temple and found the walls covered with paintings, as if he had gone through a doorway that led into another world. It was the universe of Hector Hyppolite, the grand master of voodoo painting. Breton was crazy about him. The world of dreams at your fingertips. Dewitt Peters announced he was opening an art center. Rigaud Benoit, a Port-au-Prince taxi driver, was the first to cross the threshold of the center, with a self-portrait entitled Taxi Driver. A small hat riding lightly on his head. He was followed by Jasmin Joseph, the painter who painted only rabbits — fifty years painting nothing but rabbits. Jasmin Joseph and Rigaud Benoit, two beings who were perfect opposites (one was tall, thin and nervous; the other small, round and serene), never left each other’s side, and entered into glory hand in hand. One morning, a boy came looking for work, and the Center happened to need someone to sweep the floors. His job was to open up the Center every morning, once he’d swept out the building. He spent hours staring at the paintings. He decided to trade in his broom for a brush. His name was Castera Bazile. Dewitt Peters needed to see a friend in the country. He decided to go through Croix-des-Bouquets, well known for its lively market. Peters liked to visit cemeteries which, for him, were open-air museums. There he discovered the heavy crosses sculpted by Georges Liautaud. Modest graves, and such powerful crosses. The great sculptor lived close by; Peters went to see him and was able to convince him that he was an artist. That wasn’t easy, because the sculptor Liautaud was no man for jokes. One morning, Préfète Duffaut brought in his first “imaginary city.” He explained to Pierre Monosier, Peters’ young assistant, that Erzulie (or was it the Virgin, he couldn’t be sure) had unveiled the city of the future for him. At first the city was uninhabited; it took him twenty years to see people in it. In Petit-Goâve, on the road that leads to Les Cayes and the Deep South, lived a man who knew the language of roosters and painted only scenes of daily life. Scenes stolen from the market. And also, this apocalyptic triptych: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. A man who wore a straw hat, boney, agile and serious: Salnave Philippe-Auguste, a judge from Saint-Marc. He painted only jungles, a follower of the Douanier Rousseau. Here they are today, in a room at the Ritz-Carlton. They have their passports in the inside pocket of their jackets, along with their return tickets. They do not eat. They are waiting to be taken to the airport. The curator shows up with a little girl he is leading by the hand. This is Bjork, he says. Bjork sits on the bed. The curator exits, closing the door discreetly as he goes. No one moves a muscle for at least ten minutes. Then Bjork gets off the bed. She announces, “I’d like to sing you something.” Silence. Bjork begins to sing a ballad. Then a rock song. And a third, in Creole this time, without an accent. She pays her respects. A voodoo doll. Hector Hyppolite picks her up and slips her into the inside pocket of his jacket. A small black doll with slightly slanted eyes. A couple comes for the group. It’s time to leave. A white van is waiting for them in front of the hotel. They reach the airport, go through immigration and get to the security zone. Their suitcases are searched, x-rayed. The security agents discover, on Hector Hyppolite’s person, a statuette of Bjork sculpted from ebony. The statuette will find its rightful place in a temple in Croix-des-Bouquets. Midori is already considering becoming a voodoo doll like Bjork. It’s the only way to be a star without dying.