A Rendezvous in Haiti (20 page)

“Oh yes. He lies in the old valley Josselin, up the south slope.”

McAllister was reborn. Hope burned like a fever as the priest translated patiently from Creole. The little Haitian had blurted his tale ten times—he had told Martel, and the men, and the women, and the children, and other men, anyone who would listen, and now he sat bug-eyed before Martel while the priest murmured to the blanc. “It might have been me,” the little man said.

“But it was Gros-Cul,” Martel said. “And Blanchard is coming here. I want to know something, and I want you to think, and remember.”

“I am thinking,” the man said. “I am remembering.”

“Then tell me if Blanchard knew who the boy was. Tell me if he ever used Fleury's name.”

The man considered this in silence. They heard the snap of burning wood, the cry of a baby; in a nearby hut a bolt shot home—a guerrilla cleaning his weapon. “He never used Fleury's name or my own. Not once did he say to him, ‘Fleury,' or ‘Gros-Cul,' or to me ‘Ti-Tomas.' Only ‘ou'.”

“Good,” Martel said.

“Good,” McAllister said.

“Why good?” the priest asked.

McAllister and Martel spoke at once. Martel nodded, and McAllister went on: “If he knew who the boy was, he'd head for the border. He didn't know, so he'll just come home.”

“Hired thugs,” Martel said. “He thought they were hired thugs. It's the language he understands.”

“I'd like my weapons now,” McAllister said.

“You'll have them in time. The Marines have mutilated Cacos, you know.”

“And the Cacos have mutilated Marines.”

“Patience. Hours yet.”

“It feels like Sunday,” Scarron said. “One of the sad Sundays.”

After this early coffee they dismissed Ti-Tomas. “The sun barely risen,” Martel said. “Hot meat this morning, hey? Chicken, I think. You,” he called, “Faustine! Spit a chicken, with the little apples and the sea-salt and the plantain. You hear? You understand? Good. Do it now. I like that,” he told Scarron and McAllister. “Let his woman cook for us.”

“If he didn't know who Gros-Cul was,” Scarron said, “he is not so much at fault.”

“It is not a question of fault,” Martel said. “Fleury is me and I am Fleury and no more need be said. I'd kill Blanchard myself but am being courteous to my enemy here, who has a prior claim. If the lieutenant misses, I do the job myself.”

“The lieutenant will not miss,” McAllister said.

“Bad enough to hurt Fleury,” Martel said. “If I cannot show him Blanchard's body, God help me and all of us.”

McAllister said, “We do it at the ford?”

“Certainly. He must come that way. The sentries are out now, and will report when they see him. We have every advantage at the ford.”

“I know all about the advantages,” McAllister said.

“I shall stand on the bank, and wave him welcome.”

“Is that usual?”

Martel said, “No.”

“Perhaps it should all be as usual as possible.”

“Yes; perhaps the sentries will greet him. But I must see him dead. No more white Cacos.”

“About my weapons …”

“Shut up about your weapons! I cannot have you flaunting weapons. In my village no blanc carries a weapon.”

“Blanchard did.”

“No more. I will carry them to the ford; I will hand them to you myself. You must behave yourself, Lieutenant. My men have you always in their sights.”

“I'm your guest,” McAllister said. “It is not my habit to shoot my hosts.”

“There are a number of dead Haitians who might contradict you.”

McAllister made no answer, but in time said, “It would be interesting to fight beside you.”

Martel said, “Haiti could use a man like you. You really ought to be an officer in the Gendarmerie.”

Scarron smiled; another day, McAllister too might have enjoyed the joke.

“A beautiful morning,” Martel said. “I wonder if the rains are over. Too early for the Christmas winds. Time for a clairin, hey?”

McAllister said, “Not before breakfast, thank you. Maybe after work.”

Their breakfast was hot and they took it without much talk. The chicken was richly spiced, but what with his pain and impatience, and the naked Faustine serving them, McAllister could scarcely swallow; he gulped his coffee gratefully. He was breathing quicker, as he did before any action, and he did not deceive himself: it was a murderer's rapture rising in him, the emotion that would impel a decent man to the final and irrevocable breach of decency, horribly mingled with a final and irrevocable joy. But he did not like killing from ambush, and the coffee soured on his tongue.

He saw his friend the crone. They exchanged a nod. McAllister could not be comfortable among these people but could not dislike them. Martel offered cigarillos; his guests declined; the guerrilla smoked in the shade of a mountain mango tree. To quiet himself and to pass time McAllister said, “What would you do if the Americans left?”

“Conquer,” Martel said, “and rule. Look at Haiti: a happy, busy, pastoral people bustling about their daily work.” Deux Rochers was already torpid, and Martel's irony was more than broad—it was bitter. “My God, what history has done to them!”

“History and their own masters,” Scarron said.

“Agreed, agreed,” Martel said. “I suppose after a century we should stop blaming the blancs. When I first came to this village last year there was not even a faded memory of blancs: only legends. The blancs had constructed great palaces of wood and stone, I was told, and the blood of dead slaves thickened the mortar, slaves imported from Guinea and Dahomey, and some of these villagers believe they are still in Guinea or Dahomey. They might as well be.”

McAllister said, “The small people from the east, who are they? And why is there a charm against sandstorms?”

“Survivals of Africa,” Scarron said.

“There is a chant,” Martel said. “‘The sun rises in the east, and sets in Guinea.'”

“Old magic,” McAllister said.

Martel shrugged, and smoked, and said, “You see magic as hocus-pocus. To my people the other world is real, and this daily life merely a pastime.”

“And to you?”

“The revolution is my god,” Martel said. “But I wear a ouanga bag.”

“Revolution,” McAllister said. “What's wrong with elections? We supervised a plebiscite last year and gave you a new constitution.”

Martel said, “Merde, alors.”

“It was a farce,” Scarron said. “The only clause so far invoked allows foreigners to own land. The rest is either irrelevant or unenforceable.”

“Good intentions,” McAllister said. “The longer I stay the less I know.”

“Good intentions,” Martel said. “I believed in them once, and I can remember the day I ceased to believe.” He flicked his cigarillo viciously into the fire, and asked Scarron, “Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“We were in school together,” Martel said, “and one day, sitting among the priests, leafing through my history, I came across the account of an enlightened European, traveling through Haiti in seventeen-ninety. He was a gentle man and a friend to the poor Negro.”

A homily. A lecture. McAllister frowned; resentment stirred. This was not a time to discuss morals and manners.

“And in his account was the passage that told me who I was. I read it several times that day and never lost it. In the morning I speak it aloud as Ti-Jean prays to Christ. I carried it with me in France and Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien and prison, and I carry it with me now, and I have never before spoken it aloud to a blanc but here it is.” Martel's eyes had reddened. He spoke swiftly in a cold, vindictive tone.

Scarron translated: “‘A woman I saw, a young woman, one of the most beautiful women on the island, gave a banquet. Furious when a platter of botched pastries was served, she ordered her black cook seized and had him flung into the red-hot oven.'”

McAllister muttered, “Jesus.”

Martel said, “The blancs used to stuff gunpowder up a black arse and blow a slave to bits, for amusement or example.”

After a moment McAllister said, “Times change,” and immediately felt like a fool.

“Not unless we change them,” Martel said. “You fear revolution, do you? But do you know what is the real wonder? Not the ferocity of a revolution, when the brutes finally rise in a brief violent spasm, but their endless patient moderation.”

There seemed no answer to that; McAllister made none.

Soon Scarron said, “Sufficient unto the day. Our problem is Blanchard.”

Martel said, “Yes. In a war we must survive our enemies; in a revolution we must survive our friends.”

Blanchard said, “Look there.”

A couple of acres of cane, and the stupefied marchers again, the chanting foreman with a bundle, the drugged laborers in lockstep. The men halted, the foreman passed machetes, they all vanished into the cane.

“It's two worlds,” he said. “They march along like we weren't here, and we ride along like they weren't there.”

“I'm from another world too,” Caroline said.

“It was a mistake,” Blanchard said. “I'd do it different now.”

“There's still time.” The heat fierce, still no breeze, and those ghastly slaves.

“I'll take care of you,” he said.

A runner: McAllister held his breath.

“About an hour,” Martel said. “We'll ride on down.”

They saw Father Scarron wake with a start; he had dozed.

They rose, and slapped the dust away. Figures swayed to life near the huts; children gawked. McAllister removed his lieutenant's silver bars; they were all he wore that glinted.

Martel said, “Not you, Ti-Jean. Stay here in the village.”

“The man is a Catholic?”

Martel shrugged. “I believe so. He can have his last rites post mortem.”

“I'll go with you,” Scarron said.

“Not in white, please,” McAllister said. “You can see white moving through the brush for miles. Start down when you hear the shot.”

“Hubert, Oreste, Pascal, Josius!” Martel's men fell in line. Guerrillas gathered to approve, to wish them luck, to inspect McAllister. Villagers peered from their huts.

On the fringe of the crowd Faustine loitered, half-naked. McAllister wondered: did she know? God, let Caroline be whole!

“Well, I am no use now,” Scarron said.

“You've done your job,” McAllister said.

“No pity? No mercy? Just hide behind a bush and shoot him?”

“Don't be sentimental,” McAllister said.

Martel said, “Mercy is Ti-Jean's job.”

“No, it's God's,” Scarron said. “Father Scarron cannot ask him to bless you. But Ti-Jean wishes you luck.”

“Let's just sniff the morning,” Blanchard said. “No hurry.” They paused beneath a tall gnarled bougainvillaea all in red flower.

“Shade,” Caroline said. “Thank God.”

The earth was a dull green everywhere, only brighter on the broadleaves, and the sky was a remote cloudless blue. A rich hot hairy smell rose, of horse and mule; from the profusion of blossom above her, a single scarlet flower floated down.

“Take some water,” he said. “Soon be home. Down to that stream, across, a mile up the hill.”

Home. She drank. Her sweaty clothes stung, her head itched, her heart was cold and closed.

“I suppose I'm sorry,” he said. He coughed once, and wiped his lips on his sleeve. “Quiet. Dead time of day. Let's move.”

They rode across the last mile side by side. When two black figures rose from the brush, advanced to the far bank and waved, Blanchard said, “That's better. Josius, and Oreste. Good men. Good fighters. They stand fast. You need men who stand fast.”

On the shallow bank Caroline's mule refused the water, then lurched forward to bury his nose and drink. She hauled back sharply on the halter, and Blanchard leaned across to swat him on the rump. The mule edged into the stream, and Sammy beside him.

McAllister lay prone within a dense mass of brush and oleander. He was hatless, he had a clear view of the approach and the ford, and when he saw Caroline he thanked God, and snugged the butt to his shoulder. The rifle was an old friend, an Enfield, with tiny ears to protect the front sight and an aperture rear sight. No fancy shooting today. There were five cartridges in the clip and one bull's eye would do it. The two Haitians stood on the bank and called greetings and encouragement. Martel was some yards to McAllister's left, and the horses were uphill, feeding and therefore quiet. The sun rode high.

McAllister sighted on the center of Blanchard's chest. The front sight bobbed and wove infinitesimally; he breathed, again, willed his muscles calm. Caroline was this side of Blanchard but the angle was sufficient. They were fifty yards from him, and he let them come on, and held the front sight on Blanchard's chest. McAllister was wholly concentrated: he had seen from a distance that Blanchard wore a sombrero and rode a superb horse, but all that mattered now was the bull's-eye.

Blanchard coughed, and hunched away from the front sight. McAllister took his time. Caroline leaned to Blanchard and laid a hand on his shoulder. McAllister let his eyes flit to her and was shaken: she was murmuring to Blanchard, concerned, a half smile.

He sighted finer, and pressed the trigger lightly, preparing; he filled his lungs, exhaled briefly, held his breath. Blanchard coughed again and bent forward. This was McAllister's vocation and his rifle was steady, but he committed simple human error, and glanced at the man's face. It leapt at him, familiar, angry, the blue eyes not dead but pained: yes, the cough, the mustache, the distant echo, the great war, a cold day, a hill, an abbey—where? when? Fire now, you fool!

When Blanchard contracted, coughing, Caroline said, “Hold on. Almost home.” She saw blood on his lips and remembered that he had kissed her, and sadly she watched him writhe. He heaved himself up in the saddle to draw a huge breath, he spat a great gob of blood, and there was an immense explosion. Caroline was dazed. McAllister called her name, and she sat stupefied.