Wonder (5 page)

Hordes of bats emerged from the darkness of caves at midday to flutter, blind, above the heads of the terrified islanders, sometimes brushing close enough to lift a lock of hair with their crooked fingers.

Overnight, alleys were teeming with snakes that slipped into the slightest chink between the boards or the stones of houses; and the inhabitants found them in their kitchens, their bathtubs, even between their sheets. People now walked with eyes to the ground, while in the sky the crater kept spitting grey clouds and orange flames. Some talked of seeing hideous reptiles crawl, undulating, into the sea and disappear into the waves; others even swore that snakes had been found coiled up in the holds of ships, hidden among the rigging.

The
curé
had no doubt: it was unquestionably the Apocalypse. He had witnessed it from the outset, following its progress step by step while its spectacle of fire unfolded before his dazzled eyes. God was speaking to him by showing him how to read in the surrounding countryside the mysterious story that had been transcribed into the sacred texts thousands of years before.
The thought filled him with elation when he presented to all, several times a day, the blood of Christ in a chalice that turned black in his hands.

By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying …

Here, he had to break off, choking in the acrid smell filling the church. The crater spewing flames was trying to prevent him from spreading the Good Word – ah! He would rise up, alone, before the diabolical mountain. He coughed, tried to get his breath back, choked again, finally reached out mechanically for the cup resting nearby on the altar. He gulped some wine and felt better.

Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen …
he repeated, startling certain members of the congregation, some of
whom, knowing little of the cursed city’s history, searched briefly with their eyes for a woman called Babylon who had stumbled in the aisle.
And is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul sprit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buys their merchandise anymore: The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thy fine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious woods, and of brass, and iron, and marble, And cinnamon, and odours and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men
.

These sombre words, ringing out like the trumpets of Judgment Day in the dimness of the nave, were followed by a silence so deep that one could hear the wheezing of
the stunned parishioners on the long wooden pews. They held their Bibles motionless at the level of their chests, a frail paper rampart against the firestorm that threatened at any moment to swoop down on them, uncertain if it was the fruit of divine rage or of the malice of the devil.

T
HE HATCH IN THE BOTTOM OF THE HEAVY
wooden door creaked open, a heel of bread was tossed inside, and a hand reached out for the empty jug Baptiste was supposed to give over promptly. With any luck it would be returned a few hours later, filled with tepid water. He hurried, knowing they had a brief attention span. The night before he had taken too long to emerge from the sound sleep he’d fallen into abruptly, as though he’d fainted, and the hatch had slammed shut before he could hold out the nearly empty jug. This time, he managed to hand over the receptacle, which disappeared straightaway.

Sitting on the ground opposite the window he’d drawn on the blank wall, he sucked on the hard chunk of bread. He softened it under his tongue, revealing the abrasive texture of the coarsely ground wheat and corn. When the crumb had regained a little of its elasticity he chewed slowly, waiting for its taste to spread before he tore off a new mouthful.

Long hours went by, maybe the whole day, before he heard again the click of the key in the lock that announced the hatch was about to be opened. With one leap he was at the door, holding out his hand for the jug, which was released before he had time to close his fingers on the rounded neck or to grab a handle. The precious liquid spilled onto the ground, which drank it up at once. The hatch was shut and Baptiste dropped to all fours like a dog and tried to lap up what was left, but the earth had swallowed it all. He stood and looked at the dark spot, its outlines already blurred. Tears of helplessness were already filling his eyes; he swallowed them. They too would have been wasted water.

Meanwhile,
L’Opinion
was trying to reassure the population by calling on history:

We have read the report addressed to the Governor in 1851, by the Commission which had studied the volcano. The result was that the eruption of the mountain does not represent any danger. This volcano has released nothing save mud and ashes. Inhabitants of this island, sleep well, dear friends!

Les Colonies
, whose editor-in-chief was a friend of La Tour-Major and one of his most ardent supporters, was
doing the same, reporting on any “oddities” that affected the island, but careful to put together articles, advertisements, and commentaries at the back of the journal that demonstrated that life on the island was following its course and there was no cause for alarm.

On May 2 he published a notice stating that the grand excursion organized by the gymnastics and firing club, planned to close with a picnic on the summit of Mount Pelée, would be held as announced, on Sunday the fourth. Weather permitting, the participants would spend the day creating happy memories they would cherish for a long time. If they had climbed the mountain that Sunday afternoon and been able to pierce the fog with their rifles, or if some practice of gymnastics had let them rise above the strip of poisoned clouds that encircled its upper third, club members would have seen a smooth sea, coal-grey, on which floated hundreds of dead birds in lugubrious black-and-white clusters. But no one ventured onto the mountain that day and even at
Les Colonies
they had to resign themselves, on the eve of the celebrations, to publishing the following laconic notice in the midst of the obituaries:
The outing planned for tomorrow will not take place, as the crater is absolutely inaccessible
.

“You see, my dear, I told them,” began Monsieur de La Chevrotière, turning towards his wife who rolled her eyes, unseen, because the darkness was total, “it would be best to avoid panic and to do so, nothing could compare with organized entertainments.” For several hours now, he had been giving her a detailed account of the meeting held earlier that evening, when the La Tour-Major clan had decided on the strategy to adopt so as not to let the election get away from them. She had thought she could put an end to the wave of words by getting into bed, but her husband continued to hold forth while donning pyjamas and nightcap and, lying comfortably beside her, back propped against two down-filled pillows, he continued his soliloquy: “Enough modesty, they had no choice but to recognize that I had the best idea. And I—” Just then he was interrupted by a small piece of plaster that fell from the ceiling and landed on his cheek.

A few seconds later, the entire dwelling folded like a house of cards collapsing inwards. A cloud of poisoned gas had gushed down the mountain to drown the city, while at the summit, in the purple darkness, white flashes of lightning shot through the sky.

“I … I am … dying,” Monsieur de La Chevrotière managed to get out finally, and his wife, with a superhuman effort, covered her ears with her hands.

A
T FOUR A.M. ON THAT
A
SCENSION
D
AY
, M
AY
8, 1902, a man leaning on the bar of the Blessé-Bobo went to look at his watch and realized it had been stolen; a woman unable to sleep was getting up to gaze out the window to see if the white soot falling from the sky for days had finally stopped; two lovers met at the Agnes Fountain as they did every night, and left together, impatient; a dog dreamed that he was chasing a cat, his chops and whiskers quivering as he uttered shrill little cries in his sleep; an old man on his deathbed suddenly felt better and found the courage to haul himself up on his pillows and ask the servant dozing in a chair beside his bed, cap askew, for a drink; the Sun was still on the other side of Earth; the murmuring wind was tickling the palm fronds; a gendarme was writing a report and drinking black coffee; a prostitute on her stool, lipstick more or less intact, was waiting, staring vacantly, for dawn to come at last; a butler above all suspicion was stuffing silver spoons into a bag, intending to sell them the next morning; a
child was waking from one nightmare only to fall into another; the sea was leaving on the sand handfuls of shells, tangled tufts of seaweed, and pieces of driftwood licked clean until they were white and smooth as bone; a mother exhausted from sitting up with her sick son laid her head on the pillow next to the child’s clammy head; a horse in a stable fell to his knees, then collapsed; a hen nearby laid an egg then stared at it, dumbfounded; a poet peered in vain at the smudged sky, awaiting inspiration, and without realizing it, left an ink spot where he’d intended to begin a sonnet; moths in the hundreds scorched their wings on streetlamp bulbs; a lover slipped in silence into his mistress’s bed while her husband slept some rooms away, and put his hand on her breast, half-smiling; spread-eagled on the dirt floor of his cell, Baptiste listened to the swarm of cockroaches; a sailor on a ship moored in the harbour leaned over the ship’s rail to vomit a bitter mixture of rum and ale; at the bottom of the sea a telegraph cable broke; bats flew back to the caves where they spent the daylight hours hanging by their feet; the pressman at
L’Opinion
watched the metal monster spit out long rolls of paper; Gontran de La Chevrotière farted in his sleep and was deeply satisfied; a colony of termites completed a castle of earth and saliva as tall as a man; Father Blanchot dreamed about a beast with seven heads, all blond, that looked at him with blue eyes; a former
slave put her hand unconsciously on her ankle where there used to be fetters; an ancient banana tree in the depths of the forest fell amid a rustling of leaves heard by no one; under its warm crust, the earth seethed; in a hospital bed, a man who’d been told he would never walk again was running in his dream, while one floor higher a white woman gave birth to a black baby; a pickpocket examining the night’s spoils admired a gold watch whose second hand was moving by fits and starts.

And then, in a moment, all that was blown away, and infinitely more; all multiplied by a hundred, a thousand, thirty thousand: wiped out.

F
OR A FEW HOURS NOW THE ATMOSPHERE IN
the solitary dungeon in the prison yard has been saturated with very fine coal-black dust that comes in through the slightest crack and hangs in the air like sand in water. Baptiste’s gullet is on fire, his eyes dry and sore, face and hands flayed like wounds rubbed with salt. He could swear that it has been days since he’s been given anything to drink, although his prison is sunk into a false darkness that makes the day look very much like the night.