CHAPTER XVII THE BELLS AND THE RAIN

It rains very often on the west of Martinique. The day is joyous, brilliant, gaudy with the yellow of the city and the blue of sky and sea. Pelée, with his turban of cloud, sits tranquilly in eternal summer, then, as though at the pointing of some wizard’s wand, it rains. Clouds overcast the blue, the thunder of the rain on roof and verandah mixes with the rush of rivulet and runnel.

It was as though the bells had called the clouds. Suddenly the people were scampering, the rain was lashing. Gaspard, who had sought the shelter of a doorway, could hear the thunder of the verandahs all along the Rue Victor Hugo, an arpeggio played by the fingers of the rain. Wind had risen, and from above came the voice of the great trees beating their wet green bands together, the sigh of the palmiste bending to the wind, the whisper of tree ferns; from the street below the Rue Victor Hugo came the fainter tune of rain-stricken verandah and flowing runnel, laughter, voices calling one to another across the dividing rain, the voices of children and, still, through it all, the bells.

Rain, wind, tree sounds, perfumes of new wet foliage and earth, spouting of the gouyave water, children’s voices, and through it all the carillon of the bells, sweet, joyous vibrant, like the voice of the love that lives through darkness as through sunshine.

103 And now, look! A burst of blue above; the bells have broken a way to heaven, a last thunder from the verandahs, like a parting salvo, and the squall is making a rainbow over the blue sea.

It is over. The verandahs and shop doors are emptying, pretty faces are turned up to the sky as if to test the truth of its blueness, and white umbrellas are opening against the sun.

Gaspard leaving shelter set out to find the Rue du Morne.

His mind was still filled with the image of the girl, the girl with the face of a beautiful child and the eyes of a woman, but the business he was on soon drove her picture from his mind.

“Monsieur, can you direct me to the Rue du Morne?”

Monsieur, an old Creole gentleman under a white umbrella, can and does, but his directions are given in the Creole patois, and so rapidly that what he says seems one word. Gaspard making out that the Rue du Morne lies somewhere below finds a side street leading downward to the blue dream of the harbour.

One could almost tumble into the harbour from here, at least in imagination. Never was there so steep a street, it is mostly steps, foot-worn, moss-grown, murmurous with water, for the side runnels are in spate after the rain.

“Madame, can you direct me to the Rue du Morne?”

In the street below an old Creole lady under a white umbrella, the female replica of the old gentleman in the street above, replies to the question volubly, and also seemingly in one word.

He gathers that it lies somewhere up above, but too lazy to climb he pursues his way along the street which is a replica of the Rue Victor Hugo. It is now getting towards the drowsy time of day. The streets are emptying.104 He enquires his way as he goes and everyone is delighted to direct him. Sometimes it seems the Rue du Morne lies above, sometimes below; he comes to the conclusion that all these delightful people do not know in the least what they are talking about. In another city he would now be irritable, in St. Pierre he is only drowsy, mesmerised by the hopeless search; it does not seem to matter a bit, he would just as soon sleep under that coloured sky when it is filled with stars, as in a room in the Rue du Morne, No. 3.

A banana-coloured baby eating a banana at a doorway draws his attention, he is fond of children, and this thing, stark naked like a honey-coloured cupid, attracts him.

He takes his hat off to it derisively.

“Monsieur, can you direct me to the Rue du Morne?”

It can, apparently, in a voice hoarse as a crow’s and with a thumb pointed to the sky, then it vanishes into the house suspicious, maybe, that it has been trapped into talking to a Zombi.

Zombis are evil spirits, shapes, wizards. Now, in a little street, steep as a stairway, dusky with house shadows, framing a glimpse of blue sea, he asks the question for the last time of an old woman with a patient, kindly face, who has come to her doorway for a breath of air.

“Yes, this is the Rue du Morne, and No. 3, this is it.”

She is Manman Faly.

They like each other at sight, and he explains what he wants, shews her a handful of money, and follows her into the house.

She shews him into a room clean, but almost destitute of furniture.

In one corner is an “elephant,” not an animal, but a mattress two feet thick.

It is the thing he has been yearning for. St. Pierre has105 seized him at last, the drowsy languorous spirit has been leading him by the arm for the last half hour, it leads him now to the mattress and tells him to lie down. He does, and almost immediately falls asleep, whilst Man’m Faly closes the door and leaves him to take her own siesta.

Towards the evening he wakes up, has some food, a drink at the bars by the star-flashing harbour, returning sober and early to his room.

There is no glass to the window of his room—not a pane of glass in the whole city, except maybe the coloured panes of the cathedral—and as he lies fully awake before sleeping, he can hear through the slats of the shutters, the voice of St. Pierre by night; the tune of a thousand rivulets, fountains, water-pipes.

The whole city is held by sleep, yet it sings the whole night long, answering the sea below, and the woods above.