American Gothic (10 page)

“Only in the minds of ignorant men and women,” Lavalle sniffed. “I thought you were a freethinker.”

“Perhaps I am more of a freethinker than you.”

“Nonsense,” Lavalle said, cutting the matter off with a smile. “The possibility that there is so much as a grain of truth in any religion, much less voodoo, is simply more than I am prepared to accept. Show me the science that proves it and I will believe. Until then, never.”

Peregrine leaned forward on his elbows. “My servants?” he asked in a low voice.

“Of course. Your housekeeper, Marie France, is a mambo.”

One of Peregrine’s eyebrows went up.

“That’s what voodoo priestesses are called. I wouldn’t take any action on that knowledge if I were you. I don’t know that I would hire such a person, but she’s already on your staff, and discharging her could lead to complications.”

“What kind of complications?”

“Not magical ones, if that’s what you mean. Besides, good servants are hard to find. And as I’ve said, they’re all mixed up in it. My nurse, Magalie Jeanty, is the only person beside the Cap Misère priest who doesn’t practice black magic, and to tell you the truth, I’m not one hundred percent sure about Father Jacques.”

“How did Magalie manage to avoid it?”

“She was brought up in a convent. A Catholic upbringing does, it seems, have some minor benefits. You are not Catholic, I trust?”

“Never touch the stuff.”

“Smart fellow.”

“I do like a game of chess from time to time,” the American said. “Do you play?”

“Not very often, but I do enjoy it.” Lavalle did not consider the time he devoted to studying chess problems in the evenings the same thing as playing. “Shall we have a game?”

Peregrine destroyed Lavalle in their first game. The second was a draw. Lavalle won their final game, though Peregrine could have easily beaten him if he hadn’t made a critical blunder. It occurred to Lavalle that his host might have lost on purpose. If so, Lavalle thought it damned sporting of him. Perhaps the American was, against all odds, a gentleman. This surprised and pleased Lavalle. It would be good to finally have a dependable friend on the island.

15

Hospital St. Jude

T
HE MOTHER—ELISABETH Capois was her name—stood beside the bed, patiently watching.

Dr. Lavalle removed the thermometer from the little girl’s mouth and looked at it without reaction before reaching over to deposit it in the glass of sanitizing agent. The liquid was flavored with peppermint, which the children liked, one of the innovations Lavalle had made for the small patients he treated. Lavalle looked down the child’s mouth and into her ears. He shined a light into each eye to check the response to the light.

Magalie Jeanty stood next to a rolling metal cart, handing Dr. Lavalle the tongue depressor, the swab, whatever he needed next in the examination. She knew his routine perfectly. After listening to the little girl’s heart, Lavalle made the appropriate notations in the chart and handed the clipboard back to Magalie, who hung it from its hook at the end of the bed.

“And how do you feel today, my little pumpkin?”

“Bien.”

That was how she always replied to the question:
Good
.

Lavalle was going through the motions, noting the decline as it progressed in stages day by day. There was nothing else he could do. Sometimes his work was heartbreaking. Elisabeth followed Lavalle around the portable screen that Magalie moved from bed to bed in the open ward to create a bit of privacy during examinations.

“There is no change,” Lavalle said. “I am sorry.”

“I will say a prayer.”

Lavalle looked at the mother a moment before nodding. It would do no good, but it might give Elisabeth Capois some measure of relief. Who was he to tell her she would be wasting her time by praying to the same remote deity that put her daughter in the hospital through his indifference or malevolence?

Lavalle was pouring himself a small sherry with his back to the door of his office when he sensed Magalie’s presence.

“I need a break,” he said without turning. “We can continue rounds in a little bit.”

Lavalle removed his clinic coat. He had seven, one for each day of the week. His housekeeper boiled, starched, and ironed them serially, the creases in the arms knife sharp. He put the tropical-weight seersucker jacket over his damp shirt. It was too hot to wear a coat, but one had to maintain standards. There was real danger in letting discipline go. Haiti was filled with reminders of how thin the veneer of civilization was over the wildness that lurked just beneath the surface of daily life. The drums in the hills reminded Lavalle nightly. Chaos was out there, just beyond, waiting for its opportunity. And so he wore his jacket, no matter how hot, because even one loose thread could lead to a complete unraveling.

Lavalle was a man of science: meticulous, organized, rational, logical, a paragon of self-discipline. The only thing he really feared was confusion and muddle. And yet he was learned enough to know that in the end, entropy always won. Systems broke down. Energy dissipated. Chaos reigned.

Lavalle had seen the triumph of chaos once before, in Paris. It had been terrible. He made it a special point to never think of it.

Magalie was conferring with Elisabeth when Lavalle left the hospital. The nurse’s hand was on the unfortunate mother’s shoulder, their heads close together. They were together asking Jesus to heal the child, Lavalle thought. He did not approve of mixing medicine and superstition, but again, what did it hurt in hopeless cases? It was like giving opium to a dying man; if it eased the suffering, what did it matter?

Lavalle put his hat on his head as he stepped outside. He set off briskly, a bamboo walking stick tucked under his arm. The doctor was not at the hospital to see Magalie Jeanty pass Elisabeth Capois a small leather pouch bound with a hank of horsehair. The tidy bundle held a human finger bone, a crow’s feather, and a few threads clipped from the inside pocket lining of one of Lavalle’s clinic coats. And if he had seen it, would Lavalle have objected? What did it hurt, a little voodoo?

Magalie whispered each line of the prayer in the mother’s ear.

Elisabeth stood, the talisman clasped over her heart, and repeated the whispered chant. She called on Ogou Balanjo, the spirit of healing, to return the little girl’s
ti bon ange
—little guardian angel—so that the child could live.

Dr. Lavalle’s magic had been too weak to help her daughter. It was time to call on the old ones, the way people always did, when there was nowhere else to turn for hope.

Coffee was the one dependable civilized comfort to be had in Cap Misère, Lavalle thought (unless you included the rum, which was either excellent or undrinkable, and also the cigars, which were subject to the same qualitative extremes).

The doctor sat outside in his favorite chair at his favorite table in his favorite café and ordered a cup, black and strong. He was lighting a cigarette when an enormous physical presence, surmounted by what seemed to be an even bigger smile, loomed over him.

“Good morning, Prefect. Would you care to join me for coffee?”

“I’d be delighted, Dr. Lavalle,” Toussaint said.

The waiter was nervous at serving the policeman, spilling a little from the chipped china cup into the saucer before hurrying away. Most of the residents seemed uncomfortable around Jean-Pierre Toussaint, Lavalle had noticed. It was a common enough phenomenon among the underclass, which tended to be fearful of authority. It was not as if the prefect was in the habit of oppressing people. If anything, Lavalle thought, Toussaint was too liberal in the way he dealt with the public drunkenness and petty thievery that characterized the balance of crime along their stretch of coastline. There was almost never anyone locked up in the one-cell jail at the district constabulary. Lavalle did not think Toussaint had a policeman’s disposition. If he had been born in France, Toussaint would have been a baker or run a candy store. He was related to someone important in the capital, which was the way most people got employment with the island’s government. It was simply a matter of chance that Toussaint’s employment was with the constabulary.

“Do you have any news on that recent unfortunate matter?” Lavalle asked when the waiter had gone away.

“I am making inquiries,” Toussaint said. The opaque comment was the policeman’s response to questions about any crime more complicated than a stolen chicken. Lavalle took it to mean he had exhausted his supply of ideas and was doing nothing.

“It is curious,” Lavalle said. “A body with neither blood in its veins nor wounds to suggest where it went.”

Toussaint shrugged. “Strange things happen sometimes.”

“I should have done more tests.”

“Do not let it concern you unduly, Doctor.”

“It is my job to be concerned.” Lavalle was the unofficial—meaning “unpaid”—coroner in that part of the island.

“And also mine,” the prefect of police said. “Unfortunately, Doctor, there is not always an answer. We must trust in the Almighty to sort things out.”

“I prefer to rely on hard work and knowledge.”

“What does your excellent education inform you about this matter, Doctor?”

“There are facts I cannot immediately explain,” he said.

“Do you think witchcraft killed Angelique?”

Lavalle looked up at the prefect.

“I didn’t put anything like that in my report,” Toussaint said. “It is unwise to mention such things.”

“I suppose so.”

“Some people find the subject upsetting. Still, it is what I think.”

“You think voodoo killed that woman?”

Toussaint nodded his great head.

“You surprise me.”

The policeman grinned. That was his response to everything: he grinned. “Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am. But I see sorcery in this.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” Lavalle said. “You think the cause of death was sorcery?”

“Our ways must be strange to you, Doctor.”

“They’re strange enough.”

The policeman nodded, grinned, and nodded again. “We are fortunate to have an educated man like yourself, an eminent doctor, in Cap Misère. The only white men we see in the south are fugitives and missionaries.”

A young woman, very petite and attractive, had come to the door of the café and was looking out at Lavalle, smiling. A prostitute, the doctor thought, new into town from the hill country.

“I assure you I am no missionary,” Lavalle said.

Toussaint laughed.

The policeman’s good humor was so infectious that Lavalle felt the shadow move away from his spirit.

The conversation went on to lighter, brighter matters. Good coffee, friendly banter, warm sunshine, a beautiful girl to think about meeting in the evening—they were the perfect medicine to cure the doctor’s sense that unforeseen forces were combining against him in a way he could not understand.

16

A Woman of Virtue

N
APOLEON’S IRON-SHOD HOOVES galumphed along the sandy road between the ragged mountains and the glittering shore. A full moon was rising in the eastern sky, bathing the twilight in silvery light. In the west, the horizon bled purple from the sunset’s afterglow, a slash of scarlet beneath a single thin, crêpe-shaped cloud hovering far out over the water at the rim of the world.

Lavalle looked forward to the diversion of a game of chess with his friend even more than usual. It had been an unusually difficult day.

They took turns at white, and tonight the honor of the first move was Lavalle’s. He had already settled upon a Queen’s Opening. He was certain Peregrine would use the Dutch Defense, sliding his black king’s bishop pawn forward. Lavalle had learned that the American had a fondness for attacking on the king’s side. Peregrine would expect him to respond with the Classic Variation, moving the white queen’s pawn, clearing the way for Lavalle’s queen and bishop to attack. But no! Lavalle intended to throw Peregrine off balance early by instead moving the king’s knight pawn forward one square, planning to
fianchetto
the king’s bishop and exert white’s power over the diagonals, pressuring the powerful center from the wings.

The sound of Napoleon’s hooves disguised the drumming when it started, so that it was only by degrees that Lavalle became aware of the low, rhythmic beat, as if he were hearing the collective pulse of the trees on the mountainside.

Lavalle tugged against the reins. Napoleon stopped, agitated and surprised, backing and turning as if to return to Cap Misère. Lavalle glanced over his shoulder, remembering being hit from behind and knocked from the saddle. The road was empty. The moonlight shone almost merrily upon the light chop in the water. If not for the throb of voodoo drums in the hills, the scene would have made a pretty picture.

“Allez!”

Lavalle kicked his heels and dragged the horse’s head back in their original direction.

A figure appeared in the shadows ahead. It was a barefoot woman, her blouse knotted under her breasts. Seeing her quick, graceful walk, he imagined for a moment it was Elisabeth Capois. But that had to be wrong, he thought. The mother wouldn’t be that far from Cap Misère at night, and certainly not on that night, when she would be sitting up with her dead child, waiting for the funeral in the morning.

Lavalle was almost upon her when she turned and disappeared into the trees beside the road. He didn’t see the trail until he was directly across from it, a narrow path wide enough for one person that angled up the steep incline toward a flickering light that seemed to emanate from a clearing halfway to the top. The drumming came from whatever was at the end of the trail. He saw her, already far away, moving fast on her long legs, like a stork silently picking its way through the water toward a fish that remains invisible to human eyes.

Looking around himself, Lavalle confirmed for the second time that he was alone on the road. He whipped the reins against the horse’s shoulder, driving his mount into a gallop, anxious to be gone from that place of black magic.

A glass of good champagne was rare enough on the island. The fact that it was chilled made it even better. Peregrine had brought several cases of Champagne Perrier-Jouet with him on his yacht, and chilled it with a mechanical refrigeration device of his own invention that pumped compressed gas through a radiatorlike collection of copper tubing, the entire affair driven by a small electrical generator powered by a one-cylinder gasoline motor.

“We may be in a very backward place, but that does not require us to forgo the conveniences,” Peregrine said as he opened the bottle. He had given Marie France and the rest of the servants the night off so that their game of chess would not be disturbed.

Lavalle returned Peregrine’s smile, once again admiring the American’s teeth. They were perfectly formed and very white—so white they almost seemed tinted with blue.

“Not that it is easy to forget we are strangers in a strange land,” Peregrine said. He inclined his head toward the open window. The sound of insects calling to one another in the night nearly covered the drumming, the distant rhythm rising with the wind.

“I have to confess that at times I am tempted to follow the sound and have a look at what they’re up to out there in the forest, from a discreet distance.”

“That would be unwise as well as dangerous,” Dr. Lavalle said.

“You do not think they would welcome a potential convert?”

“It is not a matter for joking, my friend. These are not Baptists.”

“What do you suppose goes on?”

“They dance themselves into hypnotic trances,” Lavalle said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if drugs are involved. I know rum is.”

“Are you the least bit curious?”

“No,” Lavalle said. “Joining drunken illiterates dancing with their machetes in a ring around a jungle bonfire is not my idea of an intellectual exercise. Some doors are more easily opened than closed, Peregrine. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that being educated and sophisticated may not be enough to protect you from savagery. And I don’t mean the savagery out there,” he said, pointing out the window, “but in here.” He put his hand over his heart.

“You are part philosopher, Doctor.”

“We all are. Pour me some more champagne, if you don’t mind, and let’s discuss something a little less unpleasant.”

“If you do not want to join me for a little walk tonight to learn a something about voodoo…”

Lavalle shook his head.

“Then I suppose we shall have to play chess. But we’re going to need another bottle of champagne.”

The opening gambit was a success. Lavalle’s slashing attack on the center forced Peregrine to capitulate.

“I met Lady Fairweather the other day,” Peregrine said as he set up the board for their second game.

“Really.”

“I found her charming.”

“She has a quick wit,” Lavalle said.

“Pity she doesn’t play chess.”

Lavalle leaned back in his chair and gave Peregrine a long, appraising look, as if seeing him for the first time. It was funny how learning that you and someone else were interested in the same woman changed things, and not just how Lavalle felt about Peregrine, but how he felt about Helen. Lavalle was, he realized, a lot more serious about Lady Fairweather than he had let on to himself.

“I tried to teach her,” Lavalle said. “She has the aptitude but not the interest. Her late husband played rather well, meaning not so well as to be able to beat me except on a lucky night. I don’t think Lady Fairweather is the sort of woman who likes to play games.”

“She’s a good-looking woman,” Peregrine said. “An attractive young widow with money to boot. She wouldn’t wait long to find a husband back in London. I wonder why she stays here.”

“Her husband is buried here, and she still grieves for him. I think she feels closer to him, staying in the house they shared, overseeing the plantation.”

“It’s a big job for a woman on her own.”

“Helen isn’t your usual woman.”

“Helen?”

Lavalle ignored Peregrine’s grin. “Sir Graham was in poor health even before their marriage. He was a good deal older than she, you know. They came to Haiti for the climate. He couldn’t take the English winters. I have a feeling Lady Fairweather has helped run the plantation since the day they arrived. She’s a perfectly capable manager. I daresay does a better job than many men could.”

“Do you like that in a woman—the ability to take charge and get things done?”

“Yes, and I have a feeling you do, too,” Lavalle said.

“I am thinking about asking her to teach me to paint. Her watercolors are magnificent.”

A vague sense of illness moved through Lavalle. He thought it might be from drinking the chilled champagne until he realized what he was really feeling was jealousy.

“Of course, I don’t want to get in your way,” Peregrine said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You saw her first. If you’ve staked out a claim, I’ll stand down. I wouldn’t want to lose a friend over a woman. Men on this island who play chess are hard enough to find as it is.”

“Don’t be absurd, Peregrine.” Lavalle laughed uncomfortably. “I have my eye on Lady Fairweather the same as any other man in his right mind, but there are no understandings between us.”

Lavalle gave Peregrine a confident smile.

“Yet,” he added.

Lavalle was a little drunk when he left Maison de la Falaise. The moonlight was nearly bright enough to read by. He hadn’t noticed on the ride in, but in a side garden the branch of a tree that must have split off during a storm earlier in the week rested against the damaged roof of a gazebo. Lavalle would have to remember to speak to Peregrine about keeping after his staff. It wasn’t the first sign he’d seen that things were beginning to slip a little at the American’s estate. It took a constant exertion of will to keep on an even keel in Haiti. The only thing standing in the way of chaos at Maison de la Falaise was a civilized devotion to order. Peregrine would have to keep after his staff almost relentlessly to prevent them from reverting to their feckless ways.

The drums had stopped on the mountainside, but the silence was almost more unnerving. Lavalle dug his heels into Napoleon’s flanks and headed back to Cap Misère at the pace he usually reserved for emergency visits to patients in the hamlets scattered along the coast.

Lavalle usually went over the evening’s chess games on his ride home from Maison de la Falaise, but that night all he could think of was Helen Fairweather. The doctor would have to pursue her in earnest, or she would end up in Peregrine’s arms.