Victoire: My Mother's Mother

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In the hamlet of La Treille on the island of Marie-Galante, not far from the town of Grand Bourg, the name of Quidal is as common as grains of sand on the beach. This is their domain. Rumor has it that they are descendants of the property belonging to Master Antoine de Gehan-Quidal, owner of a sugar plantation. Ruined after the abolition of slavery, he returned to France and left behind a hundred or so “new citizens” in his slave cabins. The branch I come from had nothing to distinguish it from the others. Just as black. Just as famished. My great-grandparents were a strange bunch. Oraison, the third son of Dominus, who, like his father and grandfather before him, cast and hauled up his fishing nets deep in the ocean, had married, or rather lived with, his cousin Caldonia Jovial. They had engendered a dozen children, five of whom still remained on this earth. Their cabin was no different from the others. Built of pine-wood and protected by sheets of zinc siding. No veranda. No cement floor. Cooking and washing was done in the yard where a group of male papaya trees grew. Oraison, a petroleum blue Negro, as long as a day without bread, had a stock of tales that any qualified research specialist would describe as “erotic.” Fish were compared to the male member, thick and sticky; seawater to the liquid that soaks women down there. He also sang in a pleasant high-pitched voice. Although he was no professional, his singing talents were often called upon at wake ceremonies. As for Caldonia, she interpreted dreams. People came from far and wide to unlock their dreams.

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