Haiti continued - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 200

on to the smooth earthen floor of the peristyle. The pillar in the centre was painted in brilliant spirals of
blue and white. The houmfor was surprisingly unencumbered with implements—a few frescoed serpents
and a painting of St. James the Major in polychrome on the blank wall, the silver comb, hair brush and
looking-glass of the goddess, the usual crossed flags, little else. Like the peristyle, it was empty and clean.
This fastidious and housewifely scrupulousness in the temple, it appears, is a characteristic of the votaries
of Erzulie. In answer to our requests, the mambo took a plateful of cornmeal, and covered the beaten floor
round the pillar with vévérs . It was delightful to watch the deft sweep of her hands, and the speed and
precision with which the emblems grew—the criss-crossed heart, the swords and flags and sailing ships,
the skulls, the serpents and the sickles. She straightened again, patting the white powder from her hands,
and a few errant specks that had settled on her flowered dressing-gown and silk turban, and smiled. Her
movements possessed a grace and dignity and simplicity of which only certain Negresses seem to own
the secret.
The afternoon had lapsed in packing, and the evening in fare-wells. After dinner we had sat for an hour
or two round one of the little metal tables of the pâtisserie under our hotel, drinking coffee and hopefully
listening; but no far-off beat of drums came to our ears. It was, from a Voodoo point of view, a dead sea-
son.
I stayed on alone to write my notes, and, having brought them up-to-date, sat smoking in one of
those infrequent moods when one feels entirely quiet and at peace with everyone. Lamps among trees!
How beautiful and mysterious they always are, and how beautiful were these, stretching away across the
Champ de Mars, along the diminishing pathways with which that expanse of trodden grass is traversed. A
national holiday was in progress, and the president's palace at the other side had assumed its festive gar-
lands of lamps. Haitian couples were strolling idly under the lamplit leaves, and the ring of their laughter,
every now and then, came floating through the tree-trunks and the statues. A radiogram across the road
in the Cafe Kalmar played Choucoune —a lulling and charming sound—again and again.
The reader may remember a couple of oblique and mysterious references, in the last chapters, to the
stranger that had so impressed us, on the night of the play, by his air of deep-eyed and spectral aloofness,
his pallor, his fragility and the gypsy-like neglect of his appearance. Turning my eyes, now, from the
Champ de Mars, I saw him leaning against one of the pillars of the pâtisserie . I must have been in a frame
of mind when human contacts occur with ease, for our eyes met, and we exchanged a friendly smile.
It was not difficult to introduce ourselves—' Fermor': 'Clément Magloire-Saint-Aude' —and to sit down
again at the same table. Before many minutes had passed, we were embarked on a fascinating and close-
knit conversation about French literature of the most diverse kind: Villon, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Heredia,
Gide, Dali and Breton, of which my new friend discoursed with a ruminative and mature familiarity. It
was difficult after some time to believe that the lights before our table were those of Port-au-Prince, and
not those of the left bank of the Seine; still more difficult to believe that he had never left Haiti. And
English literature? Yes, he loved it, although, he protested, he did not know it very well. Which of our
writers, I asked him, did he prefer? There was no hesitation in his answer:
'Sir Walter Scott.'
And which of his books in particular? He was equally decided: ' Ivan-o-é'; and for a minute or two
the talk revolved round Robin Hood and Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert. His discourse ranged with an ever-
increasing charm and unexpectedness, and after an hour he asked me what my profession was. With a
truthfulness that was only anticipatory, I told him, a writer. On what? Well, I said, on the Caribbean is-
lands, among other things. On Haiti? Well, yes. A friendly and commiserating smile spread across his