Crossing the Mangrove

“So it was that the warm, salty tears streamed down her cheeks, still chubby from childhood. Tears of pain, tears of mourning, but not of surprise. For she had known from the very start that this man would break into and out of her life in a brutal fashion.”

This quote highlights how young Vilma is, making her pregnancy particularly shocking. She is one of two girls impregnated by the deceased Sancher, the other being Mira. Thus, the quote foreshadows both girls’ painful flashbacks, despite their shared “love” for Sancher.

“The coffin was placed on the bed, covered with a profusion of fresh flowers from the nurseries, in the larger of the two bedrooms under the three beams symbolizing Bread, Wine and Poverty, which during his lifetime had witnessed Francis Sancher’s prolific lovemaking with his success of women, and which had never been touched by a broom.”

It is ironic that the place where Sancher created two new lives (Vilma and Mira’s babies) is also the place where he is formally put to rest. The phrase “Bread, Wine and Poverty” is explained as “A way of predicting the fate of a home by counting the beams that represent Bread = strict minimum, Wine = abundance and Poverty = misfortune.” In the novel, misfortune is a powerful force. The room’s lack of a broom is likely a reference to “jumping the broom,” a marriage custom brought from West Africa through enslaved African people.

“‘Sa ou fè? Ola ou kaye kon sa?’ (Hi! Where are you off to?)

The stranger give him a look of incomprehension, which settled for Moïse at least one point: This was not a Guadeloupean, for even the Negropolitans who have been yellowing their hides for years from the sunless winters of the Paris suburbs know what these words mean.”

This quote exposes the cultural complexity of Guadeloupe, as well as the village’s distrust of outsiders. The novel explains “Negropolitans” as “French West Indians who have lived most of their lives in metropolitan France.” Likewise, “yellow” is a term used to describe someone of mixed race with light skin. Here, postman Moïse suggests someone pretending to be European by “yellowing” (lightening) their skin presumably does the same to their identity.

“Can a rapist of women be a makoumeh as well? Can one have a liking for both men and women?”

The word makoumeh (Caribbean Creole for “gay”) is used to gossip about the friendship between Sancher and Moïse. Sancher being gay and being a rapist are lies told by the more conservative villagers.

“You need to have lived inside the four walls of a small community to know its spitefulness and fear of foreigners.”

Despite the celebration of Creole identity in Caribbean literature and society, this novel’s village is xenophobic. This quote is spoken by Moïse, whose Chinese mother was mocked throughout his life; she describes the village as a prison. Likewise, the villagers view newcomer Sancher with equal suspicion.

“His colleagues at the post office often got themselves transferred to French France. You would see them on their annual leave, trailing along a blonde, a lake of sadness at the back of their eyes and the bitter swell of exile furrowing the corners of their mouths.”

While the people of Guadeloupe are French citizens, they see themselves as different from those of “French France.” This desire to mimic European culture is doomed to fail, as reinforced by the quote’s figurative language (“lake of sadness” and “bitter swell of exile”).

“The people of Rivière au Sel don’t like me. The women pray to the Holy Mother when they pass me by. The men recall their nocturnal dreams when they soaked their sheets and they’re ashamed. So they defy me with their eyes to hide their desire.

Why? Probably because I’m too beautiful for their ugliness, too light-complexioned for the blackness of their hearts and skins.”

This quote brings to mind the “Myth of the Tragic Mulatto,” a figure despised by fellow women and desired by men. The myth is a warning against the “sin” of racial mixing and its potential danger of sibling incest. In the novel, half-siblings Mira and Aristide are aware of their shared blood yet are intimate. The quote’s color imagery juxtaposes Mira’s light skin with others’ dark hatred—including that of her other half-brothers.

“It made him dream. What had his island looked like before it had been auctioned off through the greed and love of lucre of the settlers? Like the Paradise his catechism described. Yes, it was Loulou who had instilled in him this love of trees and birds. Now, alas, the forest was a desecrated cathedral.”

Aristide imagines precolonial Guadeloupe as a Garden of Eden, its purity destroyed by European colonizers. Ironically, this Christian framing of the world was another idea imposed by settlers.

“In the secret of my heart I took pity on Mira because I saw misfortune hovering over her. A black cloud over her head. It’s not fair skin that is the key to happiness.”

Mama Sonson is a clairvoyant who sees Mira’s misfortune as a black cloud, a common trope in literature. Despite what jealous villagers believe, Mira’s light skin has not brought her happiness—only hatred for herself and others.

“So I stayed at home with my servants, my children, and gradually this house made of wood at the edge of the dense forest, deprived of light and sun, a paradise dripping with lover’s chains and anthuriums, this house became my prison, my tomb. My youth flew away. At times, it seems I was already dead and my blood had already frozen in my veins.”

Dinah voices the collective suffering of women like her, trapped in prison or tomb-like homes. While her husband Loulou considers her a zombie, she goes a step further and describes herself as dead in a paradise lost.

“Nobody knows that I am to blame for the tragedy that has just drawn to a close. But I am, and nobody else.

The misfortunes of the children are always caused by the secret sins of the parents.”

Despite the Bible stating otherwise, Dinah claims it is her secret sin that has brought her family tragedy. This sin is presumably her affair with Sancher, but in reality, it is her jealousy over Mira’s relationship with Sancher.

“My little angel, that’s how we are, we men! Neither the skin nor the hair have anything to do with it. The white women in French France suffer the same. It’s the fate of all women. We’re born torturers.”

In this quote, Dinah’s husband and Mira’s father Loulou echoes Mama Sonson’s sentiment that light skin is no promise of protection (Important Quote #10). He believes men whom he calls “torturers” are responsible for life’s pains, yet undermines their responsibility by saying women’s fate is to suffer.

“There she was, proudly glowing with her light skin that made others ashamed of the color of theirs. Glowing with her dazzling shock of hair. Glowing with her scent of forbidden fruit.”

Mira is objectified for her light skin, likened to “forbidden fruit.” The original forbidden fruit was in the Christian Garden of Eden, consumed by the first woman Eve against God’s rules. Shortly after this quote, Sonny calls Mira a “manicheel”—a beach apple—to reinforce her status as an Eve-like woman, a “fallen” woman.

“‘Say what you like,’ they couldn’t help commenting, ‘misfortune has its own justice! Not only does it take care of those who don’t have a penny to their name or are black as you and me. It punches left and right. Punching the po chappé, the mulattoes, the Indians and, from what I hear, even the whites over there in French France!’”

Two women passing by Loulou utter this quote, noting how his family’s misfortune has taken a physical toll on him. This is one of several instances where the novel identifies misfortune as a powerful force in the universe. Misfortune seems to be a more equitable form of justice, as even white people are at its mercy. With that said, “po chappé” refers to people of mixed blood.

“For what matters in today’s Guadeloupe is no longer the color of your skin—well, not entirely—nor an education. It was our fathers who worked themselves to the bone to be able to stick their fly-specked diplomas on their wooden walls. Nowadays, the high school graduates, master embroiderers of French French, sit on their doorsteps waiting for their unemployment checks. No, what matter is money, and Vilma would have money to spare.”

Sylvestre, one of the patriarchs of the prestigious Ramsaran family, laments his relative loss of privilege (based on old values of race and education). In the past, those with degrees and fluency in French were privileged, whereas now, it is wealth that dictates status.

“When they passed me by, they grumbled words whose meaning I could guess from their expression and the furrows on their brow. It took me some time to understand the reason for their attitude. Our skins were the same color, our hair the same texture. And yet I was living in opulence, without hardship, in a house with a veranda and an attic. I had my fish cleaned by a maid who served me two meals a day. In their eyes I was a traitor! I suffered from this isolation because I wanted to be loved. I didn’t know there’s no love lost between black folks.”

The dark-skinned Léocadie is privileged in a way that other Black people resent, as colorism usually elevates those with light skin. Some of these people feel she has abandoned them, even calling her a traitor, rather than recognizing her desire to elevate her community through education.

“I had forgotten I was a scarecrow that sent men, love and happiness running. They would never settle on my branches. I went home, barricaded my solitude and cried every tear out of my body. I cried as I had never cried for fifty years. I realized that my heart had remained a fragile, every so fragile bulb, wrapped in layers of skin that I thought were tough, but in fact were easily sliced by the knife of suffering.”

Léocadie uses nature imagery to describe her suffering: Because of her dark skin and privilege, she is a lonely “scarecrow” who frightens potential friends and lovers. A bulb is the part of a plant that remains underground, to be nurtured; however, Léocadie’s bulb-like heart has been starved of empathy.

“Yes, he had been waiting for his death, seated on a moss-covered tree stump, with a steady stream of soldier ants feverishly busying themselves between his feet. How had he met his death? Had he heard her step crush the damp grass? Had she loomed up unexpectedly out of the heloconias? Had she leaned against a wild cherry tree and warned him of her presence with the dry cough of a Gitane smoker?”

The natural world threatens Sancher as he awaits death: Soldier ants are carnivorous, and heloconias are flowers also known as lobster claws. This quote personifies death, using ominous words like “loomed” and “warned.” Likewise, Gitanes are a brand of French cigarettes, and the phrase “dry cough” suggests death is a longtime smoker.

“I am guilty, I am the one to blame for all this unhappiness. For you don’t need to look very far; a child’s misfortunes can always be traced to the parents.”

Like Mira’s stepmother Dinah, Vilma’s mother Rosa takes responsibility for her family’s misfortune (Important Quote #12). She always desired a daughter, but after her light-skinned baby Shireen died, she rejected dark-skinned Vilma as too similar to her husband and sons. This rejection pushes Vilma to seek comfort in Sancher’s bed.

“One day, tired of being refused by these heartless women, they climbed on each other, and to their surprise found the same flash of pleasure at the end of their lovemaking.”

The novel describes same-sex relationships as an economic necessity, rather than a matter of sexual desire or orientation. For Haitian handyman Désinor, sex with a man proves just as pleasurable as that with a woman.

“Underneath all his fancy talk he secretly despised his fellow countrymen, and only felt at ease with the French French who streamed through our dining room. He would parade in front of them, playing The Magic Flute or Madama Butterfly on the record player. Never a béguine or a mazurka!”

Dodose and her husband Emanuel are privileged members of the Black community. Emanuel is a nationalist who looks to Algeria as a model for resistance against white colonizers. Yet, like some postcolonial subjects, he exhibits internalized racism—which Dodose notes in this quote.

“Nothing came to warn me in my happiness that misfortune was slyly creeping up on me.”

This quote reinforces misfortune as a powerful force, personified as “creeping up on” Dodose. At this point, not only has her European lover been recalled to France, but her husband has been exiled for his political activism.

“Leave. Breathe a less rarefied air. He suddenly seemed to be suffocating under the talk trees, and he dreamed of a land where the eye would not be blackened by the hills but could follow the unlimited curve of the horizon. A land where, despite what they say here, the color of one’s skin doesn’t matter.”

Emile imagines the racism of Rivière au Sel as something that can be escaped. Ironically, France was once a relatively welcoming for people of color, or at least African Americans subjected to the legacy of slavery in America. However, France’s colonial past and postcolonial present continue to pose challenges.