Heading South (15 page)

BRENDA

I always try to speak well of people, but since you asked me what I truly think, I have to admit that Ellen isn't a woman, she's a bitch in heat playing at being an intellectual. She was lost the moment she first laid eyes on Legba. Really, it was disgusting to watch. People like her don't know the difference between sex and love.

SUE

It's true, Brenda is very discreet. She's not one of those women who show their emotions. Her face is always calm. I would never have known what she was going through if she hadn't confided in me. That day she seemed totally lost. I'd never seen her like that. She came into my room, which she'd never done before, and she said: “I can't do it anymore, Sue. I think I'm going to kill him, and then kill myself.” Coming from Brenda, I didn't know what to think. I didn't even know who she was talking about. I vaguely thought she was talking about her husband, because I knew they weren't getting along very well. I thought that that was why she'd come down here on her own this time. That's what I thought, anyway. Until she admitted to me that she was in love with Legba. How a woman like Brenda, who is so serious, such a devout Christian, could fall in love with a little gigolo like him was beyond me. He acted like a prince because this German woman had given him a gold chain that he wore around his neck like a leash. A pitiful little drug dealer. Surely you know he sold cocaine on the beach? Since his death the other young prostitutes have vanished into the woodwork. I haven't seen one of them on the beach. Gogo, Chico, not even the handsome one, Mario. All gone off somewhere, like a cloud of flies attracted by the smell of a fresh corpse. Anyway, when Brenda came out and told me point blank that she was in love with the little rat I had the surprise of my life. But there's no point going on about it. People's feelings are part of life's impenetrable mysteries, I must have read that somewhere. Oh, I stopped wondering about life a long time ago. I take things as they come. Brenda told me that Legba had stopped coming to their rendezvous, and she couldn't stand the pain of it any longer. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't eat. All she could think of was him. And he couldn't care less about her. The only thing he was interested in was money. She spent the whole day in her room, she said, bawling her eyes out under a pillow. She couldn't go on living like that. She was talking quietly, sometimes so low I couldn't understand half of what she was saying. Just saying his name, over and over. “Such pain,” I thought. There's nothing I can do for her. She's the only one who can control her destiny. That's just the way it is. I suggested she take some tranquilizers, and she just looked at me in alarm, and I knew she'd already tried that. That's when I realized that if Brenda was confiding in me it could only mean one thing: she wanted me to stop her from committing a crime. Of that I am certain.

ELLEN

I love love so much—love or sex, I don't know which anymore— that I've always told myself that when I'm old I'll pay to get it. I just didn't think it would happen so soon. That boy was Satan personified. The Prince of Light. But the kind of light that can kill you. He showed me what hell was like. I'd never been afraid of suffering, but this was too much. I'd given him everything. In return, he'd humiliated me in ways I'd never imagined possible. He dragged me through the mud. I took it all. It makes me laugh, now, the way Brenda goes around acting like the weeping widow. I'm the widow. Brenda couldn't have known a hundredth part of what I had to put up with just to be near him. The flames of hell. Imagine a young, arrogant kid like he could be, with a woman of my age. Can you even imagine what it would be like with him and his friends? There's Ellen Graham, the hag. But time heals all wounds. Brenda spends her days in her room, crying. Me, I don't cry.

SUE

It's a terrible thing to say, but I'm sure it was either Ellen or Brenda who killed him. He drove them to it, them and others, too, and what was bound to happen one day happened. All because of the contempt that northern men have for women of their own race.

ALBERT

That morning I went to see a friend who works at a small hotel not far from here. When I came back, I walked along the beach. It was dawn. The beach was empty except for someone who looked as though he'd spent the night there. As I got closer I could see it was Legba. He looked like a sleeping angel, curled up on the sand like that. His face in complete repose. When I reached him it seemed to me that the night had been pretty rough on him. But even then all I saw was a frail young man. He even looked like he was smiling. I don't know why, but I sat down beside him. There was no one else on the beach. There was that strange dawn light. The feeling of being nowhere. I began to stroke his hair. He shivered as though he was cold. I lay down beside him and took him in my arms. I can't tell you how bizarre it all seems to me now. It was like I was watching my double. I remember that light in my eyes. That music in my head. That young body on the beach, almost naked. And no one else about. “Careful,” I told myself, “beware of the sweetness of this skin.” And I . . . kissed him. I kissed Legba. It was the first time I'd ever kissed a man. I kissed him. Everywhere. He responded to my caresses in his sleep, I think it was probably out of habit. I should have got up and run away, but it was too late. I was already caught up in the fiery ring of desire. I hadn't known that such physical happiness could exist. That morning I ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. Strange, isn't it, that without even asking me any questions you've made me bring up all the secrets that I kept hidden in the deepest recesses of my being.

ELLEN

Well, he certainly hid his light, didn't he, the hypocrite! Every time I went out looking for Legba I'd get this mean look from him . . . Because he was a rival. I wanted to go up to him and slap him in the face. I can tolerate anything but bigotry. Always with his nose stuck in the Bible, the little shit-arse! Now that he's got a taste for it, as he says, he's not going to switch to another road. I don't believe a word of what he told you: the dawn, the light, the music of the spheres, the forbidden fruit, it's all just shit in a silk stocking. Oh sure, once it was over he had to rush off and do his penance. I'd like to have seen him whipping himself. He's the worst kind of sadist. And let me tell you something: that's the kind that can kill.

BRENDA

Of course I can't go home. I don't have a home anymore, or a husband. I don't want to have anything more to do with northern men. I'd like to spend time on other Caribbean islands. Cuba, Guadeloupe, Barbados, Martinique, Dominica, Jamaica, Trinidad, the Bahamas . . . They all have such pretty names. I want to get to know them all.

The Network
(A Screenplay)

INTERIOR BEDROOM. 9:30 AM

Tanya (petite, sexy, brunette) wakes up. She stretches luxuriously in her bed. The telephone rings.

“Hello?” (
Tanya's sleepy voice.
) “It doesn't matter, I was already awake. Who's this?”

“Guess.”

“Ah, it's you, Simone . . . What's up?”

“I got home at six o'clock in the morning . . .”

“I was so tired last night I thought I'd die of exhaustion. Don't you ever feel like that?”

“You know how paranoid I am, Tanya. I think I'm dying every five minutes. Sometimes I even see myself lying in a coffin.”

“Well, listen to this: here I was, all dressed, makeup on and everything, and just before going out I pour myself my usual glass of rum, no ice, and, you won't believe this, but I took one sip, one single, solitary sip, and fell back on the bed like I was stone cold dead . . . it was a complete blackout, Simone.”

“When you hadn't shown up by two in the morning I went looking for you . . . Your house was totally dark.”

“Why didn't you come in? You have a key! I was here!” (
She
laughs.

) “Because there's always a light on at your place. Even when you go to bed you leave the television on. But last night, nothing, complete darkness . . . I thought maybe you'd gone out with someone.” (
Nervous laughter.

) “You mean Fanfan? Don't be silly! His type doesn't interest me one bit. You don't have to believe me if you don't want to, but I was here, Simone. Dead to the world. A complete blackout, like I said. Nothing. Total vacuum.”

“Well, you missed a good time, Tanya. Tabou outdid themselves last night, a real mess. They had a contract for eight thousand dollars, half at ten o'clock and the other half at midnight. Well, Tabou didn't start playing until one o'clock in the morning. The owner of the nightclub, you know Freddy, he refused to give them the second half of the money. So Tabou only played until three and then quit. Well, the crowd tore the place apart. They smashed chairs and tables, everything they could get their hands on.”

“Tabou only played for two hours! That's crazy! Why would they do that? Freddy's always been good to them.”

“I don't really know what went on . . . It was a crazy night. At around four, Harry took us to a diner out on the airport road to get something to eat . . .”

“Harry Delva!?”

“Harry Delva's gone, sweetie. He's got the shakes in some freezing basement apartment in Boston. Coke's made him as thin as a rail. He sleeps with his guitar, which is the only thing he has left . . . No, I'm talking about the American consul . . .”

“Oh, that Harry . . . He scares me. He's got the eyes of a serial killer . . . But why didn't you go to Pétionville?”

“We did, but get this: everything was closed!”

“What do you mean, closed? I thought Kane's . . .”

“You know that Minouche and Kane . . . Anyway, let me finish my story. So, Harry parked the car in a swamp, and I lost a shoe in the mud.”

“Oh, I wish I'd been there!”

Tanya is doubled up on the bed, a hoarse laugh escaping from her chest.

“Go ahead, laugh, but it was a nightmare. A total nightmare. I spent the rest of the night with one shoe. And to top it all off, I've never had a worse meal in my life. It was so dark in there I couldn't see my hand in front of me. I mean, I couldn't even tell you what I was eating.”

Tanya is rolling about on the bed, twisted in the silk sheets. The telephone slips from her hand.

“I can't believe I missed it!”

“Not to mention the mosquitoes!”

“Stop, stop, Simone, let me catch my breath!”

“I'm telling you it was a nightmare, and all you can do is laugh . . . You think it's funny!”

“Don't be mad at me, Simone, please. It'll pass. I wasn't laughing at you . . .”

Simone seems genuinely upset.

“I have to hang up now, Tanya. I haven't slept yet.”

“I'm sorry, my sweet, I didn't mean to—”

Click.

INTERIOR BEDROOM. 10:05 AM
Tanya is sitting on her bed, applying nail polish (fingers and toes). The telephone rings.

“Hello . . .”

“It's Minouche! Is this a bad time? Anyway, it doesn't matter . . . Where were you last night? You missed everything, you poor dear. Freddy got into a big fight with the boys from Tabou.”

“Oh?”

“Something about their contract. Anyway, it doesn't matter . . . Oh, my dear, it was superb. Everyone was there except you. Alta hasn't told you anything about it? You know what a mean tongue she has, she told everyone that you weren't there because Fanfan wouldn't let you go out . . .”

“No one tells me where I can and cannot go, you hear me, Minouche? And certainly not that pitiful little shit, Fanfan. I go where I like.”

“Don't yell like that, Tanya! I couldn't care less about Fan-fan, my poor dear; I don't understand for a minute what it is you see in him . . . Anyway, it was a perfectly nutty evening. What about you, are you all right?”

“Of course I'm all right. Why are you asking me that?”

“Don't tell anyone it was me who told you this, but last night Simone let it slip that you tried to commit suicide.”

“She said
what?
”

“You know what she's like, that Simone, when she gets on her holier-than-thou kick. Sometimes I want to punch her pretty little face in. I don't understand why you clasp that vicious little snake to your bosom.”

“Let's not go into all that again, Minouche.”

“You're still defending her! Anyway, it doesn't matter . . .”

“So let's drop it, then, shall we?”

Long silence (stalemate).

“All right. She said she went out to look for you at about one o'clock in the morning, and found your house in total darkness. And since she has a key, which is something I don't have, despite our ten years of friendship . . .”

“Never mind that, Minouche . . . go on with your story.”

“Since she has a key, as she never misses an opportunity to remind me . . . No, really, Tanya, why did you give that little bitch a key when you won't even let your best friend into your house?”

“Can't you guess, Minouche?”

“Tanya, don't tell me you're still mad at me for borrowing a couple of dresses, what was it, five years ago?”

“And all my jewelry, and a dozen pairs of almost new shoes, and eleven evening gowns . . . That's not borrowing, Minouche, that's moving me out. So please, go on with your story.”

“Very well, since you refuse to let that little incident go . . . Your friend Simone, who has a key to your house, let herself in and found everything strewn all over the place, which is not like you at all. At first she thought thieves had broken in. But no, it wasn't that, because everything was there, nothing had been stolen. Then she saw a green pill bottle on the bed. She started screaming, and a woman, your downstairs neighbour, apparently, came in and told her that an ambulance had just left, with you in it.”