Her relations with the rest of the household were not simple. With Boniface Jr. especially, they were always ambiguous. Sometimes capricious and cantankerous, he took the side of the servants, calling her an intruder and a bastard. Other times, he defended her against their sarcasm and stifled her with kisses and caresses. I don’t know how far they went. But I believe she wasalways wary of him as if he stood for danger. Since she did not have an ear for music, Anne-Marie chose to ignore her. Her own mother apparently had no time for her, too busy praying to God, listening to music, or cooking. The only person left who constantly showed her any affection was
Bèf pòtoriko,
although she never called him by any name other than Monsieur Walberg.
How I would like to include here a case of pedophilia! The white Creole swine abusing the little Negro girl, his servant’s daughter. Alas! Boniface Walberg was a modest man of integrity. He would enter Jeanne’s bedroom simply to read her a bedtime story and then make the sign of the cross on her forehead. He would spoil her as if she were his own daughter, returning home from the quai Lardenoy with his pockets filled with
siwo
candy,
grabyo koko,
and sweet corn
kilibibi
. At carnival time he would take her onto the Place de la Victoire to admire the masqueraders wearing toques. For her fifth birthday he gave her a marionette, a
bwa bwa,
dressed in a striped suit, wearing a crown, whose arms and legs moved when you pulled the strings. She began to hate him at the age of eleven because she discovered the nature of his relations with her mother. One stormy night, streaked with lightning and booming with the stentorian voice of thunder, she took refuge in the Regency room and found him asleep in Victoire’s arms with the sheet thrown back, exhibiting his monstrous private parts.
Soon everything changed. The ambient hypocrisy, harassment, and indifference no longer had any importance. Jeanne discovered what was going to matter in her life: her studies. Mme. de Saunier du Val, who had served her time, was replaced by M. Roumegoux, who came every morning to give private lessons. This illegitimate son of a white Creole and an Indian mother, a former seminarian, who had been terrified by the vows of chastity, had been hired by Anne-Marie on the basis of an advertisement in
L’Écho pointois:
“Young man who has studied at Pau, of illegitimate birth but belonging to a well-established and reputable family, seeks position in a family who would appreciate his extensive knowledge. LikesMozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Offenbach. Untalented player of the violin, recorder, and lute.”
Since the nursery was no longer big enough, she fitted out a room with somewhat disparate furniture: a large writing desk with three drawers, a Directoire bookcase, and four or five chairs in the Louis XVI style. M. Roumegoux sat his bony buttocks in an armchair of the same style and the lesson began:
“The world is comprised of five continents: Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Americas, and Europe.
“Africa doesn’t count. Over there is a bunch of savages and cannibals who eat one another in a cooking pot. Asia and Oceania are not much better. The armies of Alexander the Great, who was the first to enter India, brought back stories of people who instead of burying their dead devoured them alive. There was a time when the Americas were mistaken for an earthly paradise, the Garden of Eden. Amerigo Vespucci writes in a famous letter dated 1500 to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici: ‘It is true that if there is an earthly paradise somewhere in this world, I believe it cannot be far from these lands.’
“In the end they discovered that here too was nothing but a place of barbarity. All that is left is Europe. Situated at the center of the world, Europe is the heir and apex of classical civilization. Ever since the fifteenth century, since the Renaissance, it has constantly generated a torrent of fertilizing
Bèf pòtoriko,
although she never called him by any name other than Monsieur Walberg.
How I would like to include here a case of pedophilia! The white Creole swine abusing the little Negro girl, his servant’s daughter. Alas! Boniface Walberg was a modest man of integrity. He would enter Jeanne’s bedroom simply to read her a bedtime story and then make the sign of the cross on her forehead. He would spoil her as if she were his own daughter, returning home from the quai Lardenoy with his pockets filled with
siwo
candy,
grabyo koko,
and sweet corn
kilibibi
. At carnival time he would take her onto the Place de la Victoire to admire the masqueraders wearing toques. For her fifth birthday he gave her a marionette, a
bwa bwa,
dressed in a striped suit, wearing a crown, whose arms and legs moved when you pulled the strings. She began to hate him at the age of eleven because she discovered the nature of his relations with her mother. One stormy night, streaked with lightning and booming with the stentorian voice of thunder, she took refuge in the Regency room and found him asleep in Victoire’s arms with the sheet thrown back, exhibiting his monstrous private parts.
Soon everything changed. The ambient hypocrisy, harassment, and indifference no longer had any importance. Jeanne discovered what was going to matter in her life: her studies. Mme. de Saunier du Val, who had served her time, was replaced by M. Roumegoux, who came every morning to give private lessons. This illegitimate son of a white Creole and an Indian mother, a former seminarian, who had been terrified by the vows of chastity, had been hired by Anne-Marie on the basis of an advertisement in
L’Écho pointois:
“Young man who has studied at Pau, of illegitimate birth but belonging to a well-established and reputable family, seeks position in a family who would appreciate his extensive knowledge. LikesMozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Offenbach. Untalented player of the violin, recorder, and lute.”
Since the nursery was no longer big enough, she fitted out a room with somewhat disparate furniture: a large writing desk with three drawers, a Directoire bookcase, and four or five chairs in the Louis XVI style. M. Roumegoux sat his bony buttocks in an armchair of the same style and the lesson began:
“The world is comprised of five continents: Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Americas, and Europe.
“Africa doesn’t count. Over there is a bunch of savages and cannibals who eat one another in a cooking pot. Asia and Oceania are not much better. The armies of Alexander the Great, who was the first to enter India, brought back stories of people who instead of burying their dead devoured them alive. There was a time when the Americas were mistaken for an earthly paradise, the Garden of Eden. Amerigo Vespucci writes in a famous letter dated 1500 to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici: ‘It is true that if there is an earthly paradise somewhere in this world, I believe it cannot be far from these lands.’
“In the end they discovered that here too was nothing but a place of barbarity. All that is left is Europe. Situated at the center of the world, Europe is the heir and apex of classical civilization. Ever since the fifteenth century, since the Renaissance, it has constantly generated a torrent of fertilizing
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