Dancing in the Baron's Shadow (5 page)

Raymond had come here to borrow a bit of money from Nicolas to repaint his car, but the thought of asking his brother for help still pained him. He'd mulled it over all morning as he brushed his teeth and drank his tea. He was going to ask because he had no other choice. He didn't mention anything to Yvonne, just in case.

For the first time, he started to regret not having taken a job with Faton at the tannery. Perhaps that's what he should do. Accept the inevitable, that he needed to provide more for his family at any cost, to get a job working for someone, for a company. Accept the stench of decomposing cowhide and lime and dye that seeped through the skin. He'd have to accept the consequences of that stench as well: the icy distance from his wife and children, whose warm embrace he depended on; Amélie, whom he'd never again be allowed to hold; his sister-in-law, who would back away when he entered the kitchen; and Nicolas, who would surely keep him farther away.

Raymond found his place at the table, next to Eve. Who was he fooling? This charade of not believing in anything better, this resignation to a
vie de misère,
it was a lie. Raymond was intensely aware of this as Eve filled his goblet with passion fruit juice and her gold ring caught the ceiling light. He wanted this, all of it, the luxuries in life: the brushing of the soft tablecloth against his legs, the slam of full cupboards doors, and the humming of an electric refrigerator.

As they ate without saying much, he listened to the ambient noise around him. Utensils scraped differently against ornate porcelain plates than against his cheap aluminum back home.
As Raymond reached for a serving spoon, he realized that the apparent inconvenience of having to stand up and reach around the glass candlesticks and crystal water pitcher would always be an extraordinary privilege for someone like him.

Raymond lifted his eyes and saw Eve watching him. Next to her, his brother ate without a word, but with the subtle pout of a man savoring lobster with distinction, knife and fork poised, methodical. Raymond himself chose to forgo the knife, stabbing at his food and simply pressing down on the crustacean's shell until it gave.

The baby sat on her mother's lap and Eve attempted to feed her a mouthful of rice. She squinted at Raymond. “Aren't you hungry?”

He'd been picking at his food, his appetite dulled with the first cold blow from his brother. “I'll take some of it home, if you don't mind,” he answered. “For the kids. Yvonne struggles terribly with the cost of food these days.”

“It is outrageous,” Eve said, and nodded. “How can they expect the
malheureux
to afford a single cup of rice with this inflation? I'll fix you a plate for them, of course. How are the kids, anyway? Do they have what they need for school?”

Eve bounced the baby on her knee and Raymond nodded politely.

“They're fine,” he said.

“Good, because I told Yvonne last time I saw her that my friend owns a shoe store downtown. All she has to do is tell the staff that I sent her and they'll give her a great discount.”

“The man says they're fine!” Nicolas's voice cut through the room and Eve lowered her eyes once more.

“Leave him alone and mind your own business,” Nicolas added.

Eve waited for him to begin eating again and glanced at Raymond.

“Are you sure you're feeling all right?”

“Yes,” Raymond answered. “I'm just a little preoccupied. I have a little problem with my car. I'm going to have to get it fixed up.”

Raymond watched his brother spear a large chunk of beef with his fork and chew it slowly, saw the veins in his temples dance.
Finally, he cleared his throat softly, still staring at his plate.

“What's wrong with it?” Nicolas asked.

“The car?” Raymond said. “Could be the transmission.”

“Could be?”

“I can fix it myself, but I'm going to need to buy the part,” Raymond said. “Could run me about five hundred.”

“Five hundred?”

Nicolas finally looked up and stopped chewing. It was Raymond who avoided eye contact this time. Asking for money was bad enough, but lying wasn't something that came easily to him. He decided to tell the truth.

“Also, I need to get it repainted. I ran into some trouble with the Tonton Macoutes yesterday.”

Nicolas nearly dropped his knife and fork, and Eve froze. Even the baby stopped fidgeting. Raymond had never seen his brother like this, his black eyes staring at him so fixedly. He'd seen him afraid before, like when he panicked when they got lost together in the fields, or when their father passed away, or when Eve was in labor. But never quite like this.

“What are you saying?” Nicolas said.

“This family asked me for help yesterday evening,” he said. “They were banging on my window. The Macoutes were after them, so I had to do something.”

Amélie banged a spoon on the edge of her mother's plate, jolting the tense adults.

“Turns out it was Milot Sauveur and his family,” Raymond added, as if this fact would somehow alleviate the gravity of the situation. He looked at them, but Eve and Nicolas were still staring back like a pair of stunned birds.

“Come on, you know—Milot Sauveur?” he repeated. “The journalist from Radio Lakay who went missing?”

Raymond fought the urge to get up and walk out. He hoped his brother might still be reasonable and come through for him. He'd been on edge all morning, looking over his shoulder, praying he wouldn't be pulled over. He had removed the red ribbon
from his rearview mirror so he wouldn't be pegged as a taxi driver, but the problem with that, of course, was that no one hailed him for a ride. The whole thing was a disaster.

“They had a baby,” Raymond said. “What was I supposed to do?”

“What
did
you do?” Nicolas asked, his voice hollow.

“I told them to get in and the Macoutes chased me around Cité Simone,” Raymond said. “They thought they could catch me, but they didn't know who they were dealing with. I know every dark alley in Port-au-Prince, so I stepped on the gas and…”

Eve groaned softly, dropping her head as if she'd been struck.

“Did they get your license plate?” Nicolas asked, his voice burning.

“I don't think so,” Raymond said. He squeezed the handle of his fork.

“You don't think so?” Nicolas echoed, nodding repeatedly as he made his point. “What if they did? What if they find you? They could show up any minute. Are you a complete idiot? You're endangering us just by being here.”

“They didn't see it, okay?” Raymond dropped his fork.

The table wavered slightly between them. The goblets of fruit juice and ice water sweltered in unison. Raymond took in the raw cotton of Nicolas's shirt, the stiffness of his collar, the perfectly trimmed Afro, and the elegant sideburns. In the corner of his eye, there were the red nails of this woman he sometimes longed for, the trophy child, the glass and the gold.

“Relax,” Raymond continued. “I know what I'm doing. I always do. You should know that.”

“This isn't child's play,” Nicolas spat.

“Do I look like a child to you?” Raymond replied.

“You're going on and on about knowing your back alleys like it's something to be proud of,” Nicolas said.

“I'm not ashamed of what I do,” Raymond responded calmly.

Eve gulped some cold water as the brothers stared each other down. Raymond felt his jaw twitch. There was so much he wanted to say to Nicolas, but what was the use? This was his house, after all. Raymond was only a guest who had come to beg.
The
whole thing was a bad idea in the first place.
He didn't want to fight, but he also didn't want to put up with this kind of condescension from his brother.

“You don't see how what you did was wrong?” Nicolas said.

“I saved their lives! Since when is that wrong?”

“Very noble, but what's wrong is when you jeopardize the lives of others trying to be some kind of hero.”

“I'm sorry you don't approve of my choices,” Raymond said. “Maybe you're right. I should have left him and his wife and their baby, younger than Amélie… I should have left them to be slaughtered in the street.”

Nicolas rested his elbows on the table and leaned in closer. “I don't think you're hearing me—”

“I'm hearing you,” Raymond retorted. “It's you who's not hearing me. You can't, because we're speaking different languages.” He pushed his plate away. He regretted the way the utensils clattered aggressively, but his heart was racing with the familiar rush of anger that overpowered him whenever he tried talking to Nicolas.

“You are not a
kamoken
rebel,” Nicolas said. “You're just a taxi driver.”

Raymond bristled. “So you keep reminding me. Ever since we were kids. Do you think you could make it through just one day without giving me shit about how I make a living?”

“Please,” Eve said, clearing her throat. “Let's not get into all this now.”

Raymond pushed on. “I'm just a cabbie. I'm poor. Why does that offend you so much? I do honest work, always have, while you sat around like a prince, like labor was beneath you. Do you seriously think you're better than everyone else? You and your snobby friends sitting in your study, drinking whiskey, smoking, running your mouth about politics, like you have any idea what it's like out there.”

Nicolas raised a menacing finger in the air. “If you don't like my friends, then don't come to my house.” His eyes bulged out of their sockets.

“I won't then!” Raymond pushed his chair back.

Eve reached out to grab him by the arm, surely to insist that he didn't have to leave, that Nicolas never meant what he said, that he was just overly sensitive. She couldn't stand the way her husband treated his brother. She had grown up in a loving family before she married Nicolas, and she believed in the bond between siblings because she herself once had brothers. It was one of the things Raymond liked about her.

“Raymond,” she pleaded.

“Let him leave, Eve,” Nicolas said.

Raymond didn't wait for her to finish her sentence. He started down the hallway, but then spun around and walked back to the dining room. He didn't know why. It was the same instinct that made him drive Milot Sauveur out of Cité Simone.

Nicolas and Eve were still sitting there. Nicolas was chewing furiously on a toothpick, nearly stabbing his gums. Eve held her head low in her hands like she was suffering from a violent migraine. When she saw him return, she implored Raymond with her eyes.

“You know the real difference between you and me, Nicolas?” Raymond asked. “You're an ass.”

Eve began to protest, but he continued, unfazed.

“No, please. Let me speak my piece or I'll choke on it tonight. Nicolas needs to hear this.” He paused and looked right at his brother at the head of the table. “Everything I do, I do for my family. I slave away out there, I sweat. Sometimes I only eat once a day. The other day, I had to syphon gas out of a car just to get my car going. My meals, my money, my blood, it's all to keep my family alive. I always think of them first. But you, Nicolas, you don't think about anyone but yourself.”

Nicolas stared back, quivering with rage. Raymond sighed. Suddenly, all of this just seemed exhausting.

“You're selfish,” he said, dropping his voice. “Look at all you have, and you're risking losing it all.”

“You're angry because of what I have?” Nicolas roared. “How typical.”

“I'm angry because you don't cherish it!” Raymond's mouth filled with spit. “Any man who plays with fire like you do, dancing with the Devil, is bound to burn.” He looked at his brother knowingly. “And what will your family have left except your ashes?”

Nicolas slammed the table with the palm of his hand and Amélie's face twisted with fear. Eve jumped up as the baby began to cry. Her husband's eyes glimmered like fiery lumps of coal.

Raymond chuckled, but his laugh was tired, empty. He shook his head.

“You stupid, stubborn little man.”

“Get out!”

“Nicolas!” Eve seized her husband's arm. She looked to Raymond, but he had already walked away.

FIVE

R
aymond knew he wasn't going to get much sleep that night. He lay frozen on the mattress next to Yvonne, listening to her rhythmic breathing and the creak of bedsprings each time she shifted. He stared at the dark ceiling and let starlight bathe his half-naked body, the sheets rolled down to his waist. He was used to the city heat. When Yvonne opened her eyes and found him wide-awake, she barely lifted her head off the pillow.

“You should sleep,” she said.

There was concern in her voice. Also exhaustion. She needed sleep too, probably even more than he did. When the sun rose, she'd rush out of the house to her job laundering clothes, a job they both knew was more physically taxing than Raymond's.

“Don't worry about me,” he whispered. “I'll be tired soon. You go back to sleep.”

She lay there, staring at him, until her eyes closed. He felt grateful. He didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to explain himself, and by now, she was used to him returning home from his brother's house silent, stewing, rehashing threadbare arguments in his mind.

“God will provide for us,” she muttered as she drifted off. “Don't give up hope.”

What does God know of our suffering,
he wondered,
or our hope?
Hope was a luxury, nowadays. Haitians liked to believe that
I'espoir fait vivre—
where there is hope, there is life—and that you could survive on hope alone, but there was a breaking point.
And Raymond had to admit that he could not survive as a taxi driver. Sometimes he wished he had stayed in the village, kept their parents' house, and farmed the land. But the exodus of villagers to Port-au-Prince had swept him up. He needed to make a life for himself and his family, and there wasn't much money in fixing up cars in Saint-Marc, nor in rice harvests. Breakneck inflation kept the working class on the edge of starvation while the bourgeois like his brother were starting to import luxury goods. There was nothing left for farmers to do. Yvonne could barely afford rice these days, much less meat. In the darkness, he shook his head, eyes still wide open.

What does God feel about all this?
Raymond felt as if God had stopped listening, up there, wherever
there
was, but quickly regretted his blasphemy. Losing faith was not an option. After all, God had enabled him to be alive so far, and given him such blessings: a beautiful family with a devoted wife, gems for children. He turned to look at her sleeping face.

He silently thanked God for that day in the city when they'd met, and that he hadn't had the heart to let her stand there in the rain. She'd just finished her shift at the Karibe Hotel. Her dress was soaked, and she had to get to her next job in Martissant. He flirted with her the whole way, because he liked the way her red dress clung to her small body, wet with rain, and how she never looked him in the eye when he joked with her, but instead looked away with an amused smile.

“What's your name?” he asked. “Mine is Raymond. Raymond L'Eveillé.”

She laughed. “You're chatty, aren't you? And fresh too.” He pressed until she gave in and told him her name. He was there to pick her up again that night, surprising her as she walked through the hotel gates after another long shift.

“Let me give you a ride home,” he said to her.

“You just give out free rides, huh? You're just generous that way?”

Lying next to her in the darkness, Raymond shuddered. Where had all their flirtation and joy gone? A few days after they met,
he'd driven her to the Champ de Mars and bought her a
fresco.
They made love in his car. A few weeks later, he told her he wanted to marry her and she said yes.

“What are you thinking of?” Yvonne asked. So she wasn't asleep.

He stared at the ceiling. The starlight outside his window spilled over his tired face and he held himself as still as he could, hoping she would leave him alone. She reached out in the dark and touched his bare chest. Her palm was hard but warm, and although he'd grown accustomed to the sweltering heat in the room, he felt flames where her fingers grazed him. She felt for his heartbeat.

“It'll be okay, Raymond,” she said.

Raymond closed his eyes and felt his body sink deeper into the mattress, against the springs, and prayed for sleep to take him even as he felt disgusted by her words. Nothing was going to be okay and she knew it. Still, Yvonne curled up against him. Her breath melted into his ear, and he felt something inside unfurl. She leaned in, seeking his lips in the dark, but all he could do was squeeze her arm in response.

“What's that sound?”

Yvonne stopped and listened, her head cocked against his shoulder. Raymond thought he heard a whimper. No, it was a voice. A woman's voice, calling in the night. “I'm ready!” Yvonne's hands ran across his chest, but as soon as she leaned in again to kiss him, the sound of soft knocks jolted them. She grabbed Raymond's arm.

“Don't—”

“I have to,” he said. “You stay in bed. I'll go help her.”

Raymond scrambled in the dark to put his clothes on. In the kitchen, he called out as the knocks persisted. “You have to wake up, Madame Simeus! This is a dream; you're not awake.”

He opened the door to find his landlady standing there, her coarse silver hair combed back into a chignon, mumbling incoherent words. She had smeared peach lipstick around her mouth
and donned a pearlescent gown he'd never seen on her before. Her eyes were open, vacant, but deeply asleep.

“Will you take me to the dance?” she asked.

Raymond stifled a smile. He saw her legs uncovered where the dress stopped at the knee, her ankles scrawny, her feet in fuzzy white slippers. Madame Simeus, always so proud and indignant.

“Come, I'll walk you back to bed.”

“I'm waiting for my date.”

“Right.”

He grabbed her arm and guided her back into her house as he'd done many nights before, thankful for the interruption, his eyes searching the darkness around them.

Nicolas was also awake, staring at his notebook, holed up in the darkness of his study, and hoping that if he couldn't sleep, at least he could work. The manuscript was tucked away in its usual spot, and as usual it seemed to blaze and crackle like a glowing fire in the room. Maybe that was why he felt slightly feverish.

Eve had finally fallen asleep after starting to fold clothes and precious little things. They were slowly preparing to leave for the Dominican Republic. Amélie was at her side in her crib. Nicolas, on the other hand, hadn't been able to sleep since he'd started working on the book.

In the glow of the lamp, Nicolas peered over his notes. He bit his nails at the thought of Jean-Jean reprimanding him for writing the book, for unearthing such sensitive information in the first place.

And yet he couldn't ignore the anarchic nudge within to challenge all of this, to change the world around him when everyone else was being coerced and corrupted. Sometimes the sleeping anarchist in him would just wake up in the middle of a lecture. His students would sit there in shock as the words poured out of him. When they began to gasp or grow awkwardly still, he'd know to rein it in quickly. He hated that look of resignation on their faces. Resignation sickened him.

Molière!
he thought sadly.
Where are you?
Molière, his former pupil, who had been the opposite of resigned when he reached
out to Nicolas. “I'm now an archivist in the prisons of Port-au-Prince,” he'd said with a quiet smile. “I remember what you taught me about justice.” And Molière presented Nicolas with what would become the backbone of his book. “You said there were many ways to start a revolution, Maître. Remember? Well, here. I thought you'd want to know about the disappearance of a certain Dr. Alexis.”

Three days now of trying to reach his young source and still no word. Nicolas tried not to panic when the last phone call led him to a relative who announced sadly on the other line: “Molière is gone. He has disappeared.”

He heard a pop outside the window. Nicolas jumped and peered through two louvers. Something had hit the shutters, something thrown. A stone, possibly. His eyes adjusted gradually, and he could make out the branches of almond trees swaying eerily over the hood of his car. A distant streetlight cast a bright glow on the sidewalk. Nicolas pushed the louvers wide open and looked at the fragile stems of garden roses that held their weight against the quiet breeze and the sleeping anoles.

Nothing moved in the night. He must be getting paranoid. Probably just blind bats dropping
cachiman
fruits on the house midflight. Then, just as he started to close the shutters, a shadow streaked through the garden. It headed for the gate. Nicolas's blood ran cold. He opened the shutters wide again. Yes. A silhouette was stepping over the bougainvillea bushes. A man.

“Hey!” Nicolas shouted.

The intruder reached the wall surrounding the property. The gate was padlocked, and he tried to hoist himself over the edge. Nicolas fumbled around under his desk. His fingers found the release and the hidden drawer popped open, revealing a space where he kept his notebook and a blue pouch. He unwrapped the fabric with trembling hands and emerged from under his desk with the Colt .45. The thing seemed to grow heavier each time he held it, especially when he cleaned it under Eve's reproachful eye.

As he left his study and rushed past the bedroom door, Eve's head popped out, her eyes panicked. “I heard something. What is it? Why aren't you in bed—”

“Get back in the room and stay inside!” Nicolas pushed past her as she gasped at the gun he held, running to the front door, bumping into the console table and rattling lamps and framed family photographs.

With a grunt, he unbolted the door and ran to the veranda. The warm midnight air coiled around his knees and ankles. He stood there in nothing but his robe and a pair of leather slippers. He caught his breath and stopped for a moment, looking. Was the man still here? There he was, pulling himself over another part of the wall. Nicolas raised his gun to eye level. “Stop! I'll shoot!”

The silhouette fell over the other side of the wall, landing with a thud.

“
La police!”
Nicolas yelled. “Police!
Au voleur!
Thief!”

Heart pounding, he shouted with all the air left in his lungs. He had to alert the neighborhood! He had to scare off the intruder.

A car door slammed, and an engine sped off furiously into the night. The dogs of the neighboring homes howled and barked in concert. Windows lit up, silhouettes ushered behind curtains, residents carefully avoiding exposure. Nicolas looked around to be sure that there was no one else stalking the house. His hand was still wrapped around the handle of the Colt, his finger resting against the trigger guard, as he'd been taught to do.

As dawn lit up Turgeau, the police came to inspect the garden. Nicolas was annoyed when they said the crime had already been committed, so they wouldn't come out till curfew was over.

“I don't think the intruder or his accomplices would stick around for you to come inspect my garden,” he said. “I've already looked. No one is here!”

Eve tried to placate him, and he kept quiet, allowing them to look for evidence. Maybe the intruder had dropped something. Maybe he was trying to break in. Who knew?

The neighbors asked questions Nicolas was unable to answer. Nothing was stolen, nothing was missing, no door was broken, no harm was done, and there was no conclusive report to be written. His next-door neighbor, Monsieur Pierre-Louis, a retired airline pilot, called him over to the fence that separated their two houses.

“Neighbor, is everything all right?” he asked. “You know we should look out for each other. If you need anything, let me know.”

Nicolas nodded thankfully. Yet, as the officers left and the neighbors shook their heads in sympathy, Nicolas was filled with a fear and unease he knew would haunt him for days. Who was the true suspect here? When he invited the police into his home, when they took their time wandering the grounds, staring into the windows of his study, were they really searching for clues about the intruder or were they curious about something else? Nicolas shook his head in regret. He shouldn't have caused a scene, shouldn't have called the police. If he wanted to get his family safely out of Haiti, he would have to be smarter than that.