Dancing in the Baron's Shadow (8 page)

The Macoute turned to the others. “Anything else?” he asked.

Nicolas bit his lip.

“There's no one else here,” one of the Macoutes replied. “We found an empty crib, no child. No wife. A packed bag. There's a maid out back. She claims she doesn't know anything, but we'll see about that.”

Nicolas gasped. Poor Freda! And yet it seemed like Eve had gotten away. For now.

The Macoute's mustache twitched again. “So noted. The wife's escape is proof of her guilt as well. Let's go.”

The men filed out of the house. A cool wind blew in from the garden through the open door, and Nicolas smelled the familiar
fragrance of his roses and jasmine blossoms. They'd never smelled so sweet. Two pairs of hands dragged Nicolas outside. He resisted their grip, then felt the hard butt of a rifle against his cheek. Another punch to the jaw darkened his consciousness for a moment. He came to quickly, his mouth filled with blood.

Monsieur Pierre-Louis's dog leapt against the fence, barking furiously. The other dogs on the street swiftly joined in and a concerto of howls rose in the night. Nicolas thought he saw a light at Monsieur Pierre-Louis's window. Maybe Eve and Amélie had found their way in next door.

He felt a tightening around his head. A hood. Flashing before his eyes in the sudden darkness, he saw his garden, the pink-and-white rose petals crawling along the stucco, and he felt his daughter's small hand clutching his finger, the softness of Eve's raven hair. He was thrown into a truck and felt himself pulled under.

Raymond only opened his eyes when he accepted the knocking on the door would not stop. He lay there waiting, praying that Madame Simeus would leave. He could hear her raspy voice insulting him through the door.

His head was pounding. He'd found a half bottle of rum that Yvonne had snuck home from her Friday night job, and he'd downed it in one sitting, hoping to escape his agony. Raymond had never been a drinker. In fact, Nicolas always teased him about it, saying he had the alcohol tolerance of a five-year-old girl.

“L'Eveillé! Open up!”

Raymond was soaked in sweat. What day was it? He tried to remember, and it came back, slowly, the memory of having remained in bed all day without going to work. The memory of that evening on the beach, of the night in his car when he'd come to understand the depth of his abandonment. He rolled over and moaned, his head throbbing against the pillow. Slowly, he stumbled out of bed.

He limped barefoot in the dark. He lit a kerosene lamp on the kitchen table and stepped over the shoes he'd kicked off at
the entrance. When he opened the door, dawn blinded him. A black silhouette stood before him. He squinted, bringing it into focus. Madame Simeus stood with a hand on her hip, her face scrunched into a scowl.

“It's six o'clock in the morning!” she snarled.

His eyes burned in their sockets. “Wake up, Madame Simeus!” he roared. “You're sleepwalking again.”

“I beg your pardon?” Madame Simeus grumbled indignantly. “You have a phone call. We've discussed this before: phone calls are between eight and six. Have you no respect for others?”

“I don't understand,” he mumbled.

“Someone is on the phone for you!” she snapped. “It's the third time she's called this morning! And it's not your wife, L'Eveillé. Is this why Yvonne left you? You're a
coureur de jupes
? A womanizer?”

She stuck her neck out, sniffing the air before grimacing. She reminded Raymond of a turtle. “Eh! And you've been drinking?”

“I don't have a girlfriend,” Raymond slurred.

He fought back the urge to vomit. He needed water desperately. He had no idea who was calling him. If it wasn't Yvonne, then who? Since he couldn't afford a phone of his own, he'd given Madame Simeus's phone number to the children's school and to Nicolas and Eve in case of emergency. Had something happened?

Raymond backed away from the light. He grabbed a pair of pants, gulped some water, and tried to keep his balance as he stumbled out into the yard. Madame Simeus walked ahead of him, muttering under her breath. Raymond followed close behind, shading his eyes from the light. The thick, sweet smell of the gardenia blossoms made his stomach churn.

Once in the house, Madame Simeus led him to the telephone in its small vestibule. A faint smell of coffee floated in the air, together with the salted herring and cornmeal she always had at breakfast. Raymond's face flushed with embarrassment. He'd always been an early riser. Right now, he should be getting ready for work. But he'd been too weak to get out of bed since Yvonne had left.

“Is this going to happen again?” Madame Simeus asked, pointing at the receiver. “If it does, you're out of here, no excuses.”

“Thank you, Madame Simeus,” Raymond spat before picking up the receiver.

“And tell the hussy to stop calling.”

“I'll let you know when I'm done,” Raymond said.

He watched her walk down the dark hallway, pausing briefly to adjust an old photograph of her deceased husband on the wall. Suddenly, he felt sorry for the sad, old woman. He was like her now: left here all alone. Raymond pressed the phone against his ear.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“It really happened, Raymond.”

“Eve?”

Raymond supported himself against the wall. It was Eve's voice, but he had never heard her like this. The poise was gone, replaced by urgency, desperation.

“They took him.”

“Eve? What are you saying?”

“They took Nicolas, Raymond!” she screamed into the phone. “They came into the house, and they took him! Do you understand? The Tonton Macoutes arrested him, and they took his manuscript. They found it. Oh God—” She broke into wails at the other end of the line.

Raymond was suddenly awake.

“They took Nicolas?”

“Are you listening to anything I'm saying? Raymond, I need you.”

Raymond heard her speak, but it was like a dream. His head felt like it was full of cotton. He tried to shake off the exhaustion and self-pity and rum.

“Eve, slow down!” Raymond was convinced he was going to be sick right here in Madame Simeus's vestibule. He took a deep breath.

“There's no time. You wake up right now. Get dressed. You have to get him back for me. Do you hear me? You have to help us!”

EIGHT

R
aymond's car slipped through the gates of his brother's house at seven. The padlock had been severed—the Macoutes must have used bolt cutters to let themselves in. The sun had already risen, and the Turgeau neighborhood rang with the bells of shoeshine boys canvassing the streets. He parked next to Nicolas's car.

The neighbor's yellow mutt ran to the fence to bark at him, and Raymond jumped back, startled. He wondered what the dog had seen, and if it had been barking when they came to take his brother away. Did Nicolas know they were coming for him?

Raymond found the front door slightly ajar. The strike plate was loose, indicating an attempt to break the door down. Raymond ran his fingers along the acacia frame before pushing the door open. The chaos inside left him breathless. He took in the shattered glass, torn lampshades, overturned chairs, dangling paintings, and, there, the rocking chair he used to sit in with Amélie—a gaping hole in the center of its ornate caning. Raymond's heart broke.

“Eve?” he called as he entered the living room, stepping over books and papers.

The house was unrecognizable. Nicolas and Eve had been so proud when they first bought it. Raymond had helped them move in the furniture Eve had commissioned from the friars of Saint-François de Sales, fixed the cabinet doors, and painted Amélie's crib. He knew this house as well as they did, almost as
if he'd built it with his own two hands. He had the blueprint etched in his mind, and he fantasized about using this house as a model for the one that he would own one day, that he would build for his family. A house with three bedrooms, a kitchen with running water, tables carved out of mahogany or oak, and a backyard where his kids could play without having to answer to a grumpy landlord. Nicolas's house was all he'd ever wanted for himself. Raymond felt as if it were his own home that had been violated.

“Eve? Where are you?”

“I'm in here.”

He followed her voice as she repeated, “I'm in here, in here,” like a chiding parrot. He didn't know what to expect when he walked in Nicolas's office, but hoped she wasn't hurt. He found Eve sitting in a corner, holding Amélie against her chest. The child was sound asleep in her small white shirt and pants. The room was dim, so Raymond pulled back the curtains. The sunlight spilled in, blinding Eve. Raymond saw her rocking back and forth, eyes swollen, skin pale in the bright daylight. No bruises. No blood. He wondered if he should look away because she wasn't properly dressed, but in this moment, he had to ignore the shape of her bare breasts under the nightgown, her bare shoulder where the child's brown head rested.

“Are you all right?” he whispered as he approached her.

He stepped over an antique clock whose time had stopped, the glass cracked, the hands frozen at four o'clock.

He saw trails of dried tears on Eve's face, and her eyelashes were still wet from crying.

“No one would come,” she muttered.

Raymond rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. She let him, didn't push him away. His knees trembled and nearly buckled as he righted a chair and sat down next to her. Raymond put his arm around Eve and pulled her closer.

Amélie awoke, opened her eyes, and smiled when she saw her uncle. She reached for him and Raymond sat the baby on his lap.
She was warm and smelled like talcum powder, and he buried his face in her curls. She too had been crying, he could tell.

“No one would come,” Eve repeated. She turned to face him. Her hair was still in large pink curlers. Her lips reminded Raymond of faded rose petals.

“I've been up all night with the neighbors,” she said. “Monsieur Pierre-Louis from next door saw me jump the fence, so he took us in. He hid us in his maid's room.”

Raymond felt her body move away, as if she were suddenly waking up. She shifted in her seat.

“I wanted to stay with Nicolas,” she continued. “But he wouldn't allow it. He made me leave. And Amélie, I had to think of her.”

Raymond listened but didn't speak. He let her describe how she'd first run to Freda outside, how the maid had held the baby while she jumped the fence. She'd often played out the scenario in her head and had planned to take the bag that she'd prepared for emergencies. But when the moment came, she'd forgotten, too crippled with fear.

After the Macoutes left and everything seemed quiet, Monsieur Pierre-Louis had warned her not to return to the house, warned her that they might come back, but she had to go see for herself. She wanted to make sure Nicolas wasn't there, that he wasn't dead. Freda had spent the night awake in terror.

“The Macoutes sent men to interrogate her,” Eve said. “They didn't arrest her, but she was afraid for her life. She told them she had no idea where I was. They beat her…”

Raymond's eyes lingered on Nicolas's empty desk chair. He pictured men handcuffing his brother and hitting him. It was difficult to stomach. Nicolas was too dignified a man to be treated this way! His brother's absence, the fact that Duvalier's henchmen had really and truly abducted Nicolas—the meaning of it all started to sink in.

“Freda said she heard them take him away, my Nicolas,” Eve added, her voice breaking. “She said they were taking him to Casernes Dessalines. My poor Nicolas…”

She paused, unable to suppress a shudder. “I called everyone we know,” she said. “I called Jean, Georges, and neither one would come. They were too afraid. They said there was a curfew.”

She turned her large, wet brown eyes toward him, her thin eyebrows arched in desperation. “I'm never going to see him again, am I?”

Raymond lowered his gaze.

Amélie rested her face against Raymond's chest and he sighed. He missed Adeline and Enos. He held her closer as if to compensate for their absence. Amélie was round and chubby, her skin almost as delicate as a spiderweb. She was different from his own children, who were frail like small twigs and black like the night; his children, who smelled like the lemongrass leaves they stirred at night in their tea when there was nothing to eat for dinner. He felt overcome with a wave of grief. He thought of telling Eve about their departure, but he was afraid both of them might collapse under the weight of so much loss.

Raymond handed the baby over to her mother and stood up to peer out the window. No one was out there, but he was still uneasy. Monsieur Pierre-Louis was right. Returning to the house hadn't been a good idea.

Something crunched under his shoe. He picked up the picture frame and stared at the black-and-white photograph. Two little boys stood side by side in shorts, long-sleeved shirts, and ties. The taller boy had an arm around the younger one. Raymond's heart sank. He'd forgotten this picture existed, but remembered the day it was taken. It was from Nicolas's First Communion—a rosary dangled from the boy's hands. Raymond searched the young faces and found that he was the only one smiling. In the photo, his little brother was frowning. That was Nicolas. Always so serious.

“Raymond?” Eve said. “Will I ever see him again?”

She'd started to tear up again.

The words rolled out of his mouth as he put the picture frame down.

“Don't worry,” Raymond said. “We'll find him.”

NINE

J
ean Faustin's office was located on Rue Pavée, at the center of downtown Port-au-Prince, a few miles from Nicolas's home. Raymond almost missed it, its narrow steel door wedged inconspicuously between a third-generation Lebanese fabric store and a sandwich shop where Nicolas once said he used to buy lunch for his mentor.

The entrance was further obscured by the mass of street vendors on the sidewalk. Raymond and Eve had to fight their way through spreads of peanuts, coconut brittles, and avocados. The door was locked, and they waited a few steps away for Jean-Jean.

The old man turned up just a few minutes later and paused a moment to bicker with the vendors. Raymond heard him plead with them that the clutter was bad for his business.

“My clients won't come to consult me in the thick of an outdoor market,” he complained. But the vendors paid him no mind.

One woman laughed at him outright. “Everyone needs to make a living,” she said. “The streets belong to all of us.”

Jean-Jean finally relented and pulled out his keys. He fumbled with them, holding them up to the light. Raymond had heard his brother say that the judge's vision, affected by diabetes, had started to fail him, making it increasingly difficult to locate small objects or read street names. He didn't notice Eve and Raymond standing there. Raymond kept his hand on Eve's back, steering her through the crowd as she held the baby.

Jean-Jean was hunched over the latch, his face close to the bolt as he manipulated the key. He was dressed in a navy suit and held a tattered briefcase, which he carried everywhere he went.

“Jean-Jean,” Eve called. She shifted Amélie from one arm to the other. The little girl sucked on a pacifier and kicked her legs, her eyes damp with uncertain tears. “It's me.”

Jean-Jean turned around, startled. The color drained from his face, and his mouth trembled.

“Eve? What are you doing here?” he asked. His eyes darted left and right to make sure no one else was lying in wait. “You can't come here.”

“I didn't know where else to go,” Eve said. “You said on the phone that you couldn't come because of the curfew, so we came to you.”

Raymond stepped in closer and looked at him. It took a moment for Jean-Jean to recognize rough, disheveled Raymond as Nicolas's brother.

“Can you help us?” Raymond asked. “Nicolas was arrested this morning. They found his book.”

Jean-Jean averted his eyes, but Raymond had already seen the sheepishness in them. He knew that look. He'd seen it many times in his cab when passengers scratched their heads because their wallet had suddenly gone missing, or mumbled that they were short on cash. Disappointment seeped into Raymond's bones. This was the man Nicolas spoke so highly of?

“I warned him about making waves,” Jean-Jean said. “I told him.”

He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. He still wouldn't look Raymond in the eyes, and Raymond swallowed his budding disgust.

“I'm sorry,” he continued. “I wish I could help.”

“But you're a judge,” Eve said, moving in closer. “You can do something. They'll listen to you if you intervene on his behalf. Nicolas always said you were the first person I should contact if something ever happened to him.”

“I can't take that risk.” Jean-Jean glanced over his shoulder.

Raymond recognized fear when he saw it. The man was afraid.

Trucks and cars zoomed down the street, honking incessantly for slower drivers and pedestrians to move out of their way. Uniformed schoolchildren had flooded the streets, buying porridge and bread on their way to class. A man with wavy gray hair and fair skin came out of the fabric store and stood at the threshold, sipping a demitasse of coffee. He glanced at Jean-Jean and nodded politely. The top two buttons on his shirt were open, revealing a Star of David caught in the wiry black hair of his chest.

“So you're going to let him die?” Raymond spat.

His head was stuffy. He hadn't eaten. Eve had dressed in a hurry, throwing on a blouse and skirt; they hadn't thought about food. He needed water or coffee—something in his stomach. He couldn't manage to hide his anger and disgust with Jean-Jean's cowardice.

The man at the fabric store cleared his throat.

“Ça va, Maître Faustin?” he asked. “Everything all right?”

Jean-Jean turned around and nodded politely.

“Good morning, Mr. Levy. Yes, everything is fine! Don't worry. These are friends of mine.”

Mr. Levy caressed his bushy mustache with his small, stubby hand. A gold ring glittered as he raised his cup to his lips. He looked dubious. Raymond could smell brilliantine.

“Are you sure?” Mr. Levy insisted.

“We're discussing private business,” Raymond said.

He didn't like the way Mr. Levy looked at him. Raymond could see the contempt in the storeowner's eyes as he assessed Raymond's dirty pants and scuffed shoes. Raymond turned back to Jean-Jean and shook his head.

“You're supposed to be Nicolas's friend,” he said.

“And I am, but that doesn't mean I can compromise my own safety just because you show up here like this, at my place of business, unannounced!”

The judge was now waving his arms as he spoke. He was agitated. Nervous.

“Jean, it's us you're talking to,” Eve said. “Please. Can't you do anything for us? For Nicolas?”

He looked over his shoulder again, scanning the crowd, and
lowered his voice as he turned back, choking on his words. “I'm being followed. Most likely they will arrest me too. I will lose my job. I will lose everything.”

Raymond stared at him. “My brother will lose his life,” he said. “I guess he was wrong about you.”

Jean-Jean thought for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “I'm very sorry. I can't help. I can't do anything.”

Eve cocked her head to the side. “And what about Amélie?” she asked. “What am I supposed to tell her?”

Jean-Jean's eyes flared with anger. “I asked Nicolas the same thing, Eve. What about his family? Your life? He said he had a plan for you if things went bad. Well, I'll tell you now, things are bad. If you have a plan, then I recommend you take immediate steps to follow it, and hope it's not too late to save yourself and your daughter.”

Raymond studied Jean-Jean one more time and concluded by the way his shoulders drooped that it was no use. He was too afraid. The judge still couldn't look them in the eyes, just stared down at his shoes.

“I'm going to work now,” he muttered, turning the key in the lock.

Jean-Jean slammed the metal door behind him. He climbed the steps up to his office and left Eve and Raymond standing on the sidewalk. Eve shook her head in dismay. Mr. Levy was still staring at them. The air between Raymond and Eve grew cold.

Raymond parked in Georges Phenicié's driveway and took a deep, appreciative breath, inhaling the smell of the leather seats in Eve's navy-blue Renault. Raymond had never been in a new car before, not one like this. And he'd certainly never ridden in Eve's. His children had once, and they made it sound like their aunt had taken them for a ride in a plane. He pulled the key out of the ignition and glanced over at Eve. She hadn't said a word during the drive from Jean's office.

“It's a nice car,” he said. “But I don't think we should drive it again.”

She nodded. “And I don't think Georges will help us.”

Raymond's hands clutched the soft wheel of the Renault.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He nodded. “I'm fine.”

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

Raymond sighed, realizing that he still reeked of alcohol. He hadn't had time to wash up before leaving the house. He longed for a decent pillow and a strong cup of coffee, but so far the adrenaline had kept him on his feet.

“I didn't know you drank,” she said.

Amélie had fallen asleep in Eve's arms, her head rolling from one side to the other.

“I'm fine,” Raymond repeated, pushing himself out of the car. “Let's go.”

He'd never been to Georges's house or any home this grandiose. It was a newer two-story gingerbread in the hills of Bel Air, one of the few parts of the city he barely knew. It was the sort of neighborhood designed for old money, and everyone owned their own vehicles. He'd been there only a couple of times to drop off the help outside the gates. Georges's house was stark white with balconies and parapets hidden behind vines and stems of wild orchid blooms cascading over walls. Around them, hidden in the branches of breadfruit trees, doves broke into high-pitched symphonies. The house was minutes away from downtown, but it stood in sharp contrast to the city's chaos. Raymond watched Eve stroll up the walk like it was no big deal.

“This way,” she said.

She'd here before. She said she'd sat at the dinner table with Georges and his wife before she'd died of a heart attack. Raymond was seeing another side of his wealthy brother's life: friends who were even wealthier. This was no time to think about material things, but still, Raymond fought a gnawing discomfort as he followed Eve. He felt impossibly out of place. His pants, his shoes, his callused hands—they belonged in the slums of Cité Simone, not here in Bel Air.

Eve knocked three times at the front door, her knuckles banging
the carvings of flowers in the oak grain. Amélie woke up, fussing a bit before burying her face in her mother's shoulder again. Raymond wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The midday heat had begun to eat away at the city, to eat away at him. They waited, but no one came to the door. This time, Raymond pounded on the door.

“
Honneur
?”

He called out the common, rural salutation, “honor,” and soon they heard footsteps approaching. The door swung open, and a young woman's round face appeared. She had a red scarf wrapped around her head. Her skin was of smooth, lustrous ebony, and her small nose twitched when she saw Raymond standing there.

“We're here to see Monsieur Georges,” Eve said, leaning closer to Raymond. “It's urgent. Tell him it's Madame Nicolas L'Eveillé.”

The servant hesitated as she eyed them both. She recognized Eve and greeted her politely, nodding her head.

“Monsieur Georges is not here,” she said, almost singing her answer in Creole.

Raymond recognized a northern accent.

“He left early this morning.”

“Left?” Eve echoed, her eyes wild with panic. “I don't understand. To go where? For work?”

The servant shrugged. “I don't know, madame. He didn't say.” She dipped her head to express humility just as Raymond's eyes found the black Citroën parked in the driveway. He'd seen it before at Nicolas's. Georges's car. Raymond knew a man like him wouldn't walk and he wouldn't take a taxi.

Something snapped inside him, and Raymond pushed against the door and forced the woman back. “
Pardon
,” he said over her protests. He stormed into the house, and Eve followed him into the foyer, stunned.

“Georges Phenicié? It's Raymond L'Eveillé, Nicolas's brother!”

His voice reverberated against the high ceilings of the house. Eve followed him down a narrow hallway. Raymond walked into
a large kitchen, but no one was there. The table was set, the place setting nicely arranged on a hand-embroidered tablecloth, and a fruit holder at the center of the table held scarlet pomegranates and bright, round oranges. On the kitchen counter, Raymond noticed a glass pitcher, the ice still melting in its belly.

“Sir, please,” the maid begged, following them both. “You can't just barge in. Monsieur Georges is not here.”

She tried to position herself between Raymond and the kitchen, but he walked around her. When she extended her arms and insisted they leave a message, he pushed her aside.

“
Ti chérie
, please, stay out of this!” he said.

Raymond went into the dining room, the living room, and saw nothing but empty couches and chairs, embroidered pillows and chandeliers. Exotic bouquets of eucalyptus and peacock feathers fanned out from ornate crystal vases. No one.

“I don't believe this,” Eve muttered.

“Georges Phenicié!” Raymond screamed once more. He glanced at Eve and lowered his voice. “He's got to be here somewhere.”

The maid gasped and covered her mouth to stifle her indignation when Raymond ran up the stairs toward the bedrooms, holding on to the railing. Raymond heard her mumble something about calling the police. Eve followed him, out of breath and slowed down by the child in her arms. Amélie had started to cry again, disturbed by Raymond's shouting.

Upstairs, the hallways led to an empty balcony overlooking the city and several bedrooms, all of them empty. Then they arrived at the master suite.
The bed could fit four people,
Raymond thought. The sheets were bright white, bleached and starched, and the curtains had been pulled open to let light shine into the vast space. Raymond was disoriented until he heard a rattling sound.

He stopped in his tracks. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

Eve froze. They listened, their eyes glued on the armoire that the noise had come from. There it was again. The mirrored door moved.

Raymond walked toward the armoire and pulled the doors open. A shadow shifted between the suits and soon resolved into the silhouette of a man hiding behind ties and double-breasted
jackets. Raymond recognized his two-piece linen ensemble. He called his name and noticed the whites of Georges Phenicié's eyes as he looked up, sheepish, like a child caught stealing wedding cake.

“You're hiding from us,” Raymond said bitterly. It was pathetic—this big, imposing, important man cowering in a closet. “Is that really necessary?”

Georges climbed out of the armoire and ran his fleshy hands down his pants to smooth the wrinkles. He saw Eve struggling to soothe the child in her arms and his eyes darted away.