In Darkness (16 page)

He continued to study the ships. They sat low in the water – too low. Sluggish water, made lazy by the hot sun, tapped against their hulls. A single figure bustled on one of the forecastles.

Birds banked and dived in the blue sky above.

Toussaint put his nose close to the ground and breathed in. He smelled mud; he smelled the richness of fertile vegetation. He smelled the spirit of Haiti. He smelled opportunity.

— How many are on the ships? he said. I mean, how many have you seen?

— Not many, just a few who mill around on the decks. Sometimes the envoy, in his silly hat.

Toussaint frowned. Not many. Yet the ships were large. He might have thought them laden with cargo – millions of francs’ worth of sugar cane, indigo, potatoes, and the like – except that cargo left Haiti; it never arrived. The only things that had ever arrived on ships like that were slaves. Slaves such as Toussaint’s father, who even on his deathbed had spoken of the endless days of sickness, of bodies being thrown overboard, of weeping in the darkness, of manacled legs and hands, of flesh rotting from contact with the human effluvium that was omnipresent belowdecks.

Why are they sitting so low in the water?
he wondered.
What’s on those ships?

He clapped Jean-Christophe on the back.

— I want to see what’s on those ships, he said.

— But they’re out in the bay – the commissioners still won’t let them into port.

— I know, said Toussaint. I hope you can swim.

Toussaint stood on the beach, looking out at the gray water. A path of moonlight on the sea led out to the horizon. He had the sense that if he followed it he would end up with the dead in their resting place, and for a moment he was tempted not to swim to the ship, but to just swim, until he ran out of strength, until the sea took him, until he could see Boukman again, and his father, until he could clasp their hands and say:

— It has been too long.

Gazing at the moonlight, he remembered something Boukman had told him: that the sea and the moon were linked, the moon guiding in some mysterious way the motions of the tide. Toussaint felt that the sea was indeed more of the moon than of the earth. It seemed an alien place, full of strange creatures, whispering to him, but cold. He took a deep breath, ignored the impulse, and concentrated on feeling the wind on his bare skin.

Jean-Christophe stood beside him, shivering. Toussaint stepped forward so that his feet were in the water, and suddenly he was afraid to go on. He perceived the surface of the sea not as a simple plane, but as a membrane, a horizontal border into somewhere foreign and not of this world. He took a step back.

Jean-Christophe touched his shoulder.

— Look, he said.

He pointed to a shape in the gloom beside them, half-buried in the sand. Toussaint peered down and saw the face and bust of a beautiful woman, her eyes of peeling paint, her form of wood. He identified it as the figurehead from the prow of a ship, a mascot and no doubt source of comfort to the men who had sailed with her. Presumably that ship had long since foundered, but the sight of her carved hair and heaved bosom gave a strange access of courage to Toussaint. He stooped to touch her, noting how closely she resembled icons he had seen of la Sirene, the lwa of the sea and of the dead.

The wood was warm to the touch, and he smiled. He had seen the ocean before, with his father, and seen the things that swept up on the beach: pieces of polished wood, glass, sometimes even human bones, or barrels of still unperished food and drink. The sea, he realized, was not foreign at all; it behaved like humans. It took things – the driftwood, the drowned – and loved them, but always, like a person who dies and leaves behind their possessions, it ultimately abandoned them, casting them up onto shore, and moving on. Nothing belonged to the sea forever; it would always end up on some beach somewhere, forgotten.

The sea expels these things,
he thought,
these mementos of the lost. It does not want to remember.

He understood that. He did not want to remember, either, did not want to think about his ancestors who had come, suffering, to this land over this shining sea. But what he wanted and what he did were two different countries at war with each other. He wanted to be with Isaac, yet here he was. He wanted to ignore the past, yet he fed on it for his anger, for his impetus in his fight against the slavers.

He touched the warm face of the wooden lady once more, then walked out into the ocean and let it embrace him. Behind him, he heard Jean-Christophe gasp as he entered it.

The water was slippery, almost greasy, against Toussaint’s skin. He swam breaststroke, his hands meeting before him like prayers.

He thought of the fish swimming beneath him, their silvery grace drinking in the light from the moon above, reflecting it with their flashing scales. The taste of salt was in his mouth. He was not a particularly strong swimmer – having only swum in river pools before – but he was stronger than Jean-Christophe. He could hear the younger man struggling behind him, his breathing heavy and labored.

Ahead, he could see the glow of the ship’s lights on the water. From the hill he had observed a ladder with his spyglass, and he made toward it. He knew himself to be invisible – he was black, and so was the water. Cape Town had a port patrol, but it was over to the east, close to the shore. They were guarding the quays against the men in the ships – it had not occurred to them that someone might go from shore
to
the ships.

There was the rope ladder hanging from the side of the first ship. For a moment he simply hung from the bottom of the ladder to catch his breath. The black water tapped against the hull with a soft, rhythmic clapotis. He glanced back, saw Jean-Christophe nearing the ship, and gestured to him to follow. Then he began to climb and soon reached the height of the portholes. Swinging himself from side to side, he gathered some momentum. This was the dangerous part. He caught hold of a round opening and hauled himself up, until he was looking inside the ship.

His eyes widened.

In the hold, men sat in row upon row, or slept in hammocks and on the small spaces of planking afforded them by gaps between barrels of powder. All wore some semblance of uniform, although many had taken off their heavy surcoats and draped them over spars and beams. Weapons were arranged in metal pyramids on the floor.

Soldiers.

One of the men who was opposite Toussaint, facing toward the porthole he was looking through, paused and frowned. He cocked his head to peer at the space where Toussaint was. Toussaint held his breath. He closed his eyes, hiding their whiteness in the darkness.

He counted to twenty.

Opening his eyes a crack, he saw that the soldier had turned his attention to one of his neighbors, and was sharing some tobacco with him. Toussaint breathed out very slowly. Then he quietly rejoined the ladder and climbed down. The sea when he reached it was shocking cold and as bracing as a baptism.

He swam to the next ship and climbed its barnacled hull. Inside, arrayed in rows or lying in sleep like discarded toys, not in use at present, were hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers.

The third ship was the same.

It was what he had expected, but it was still terrible to see. The number of them! A host such as Haiti had never seen, the country having relied upon fear and intimidation more than military force to subdue its black population. He and the other generals had overcome the commissioners, but how could they hope to overcome such as these?

By pure chance, he was clinging to the side of that third ship when an officer entered the hold where the soldiers were sleeping, or playing cards, or drinking from small bottles of rum concealed about their persons. He rapped his sword against a beam, and the soldiers scrambled to attention.

— The commissioners defy us, he said. Therefore, tomorrow, before dawn, we invade by force.

— Vive la – began one of the soldiers, amidst the hubbub of voices.

— Hush, said the officer. Do you wish them to hear us?

Yes
, thought Toussaint.
Yes, I do.

Galvanized, he entered the water once again and struck out for shore. He swam with a sure, swift stroke. The moonlight still made a path on the water that looked as if it must lead somewhere for anyone brave enough to follow it. Toussaint had been to enough vodou funerals to know that the adherents of that hybrid faith often floated their dead down that road to sink them into the ocean.

For a moment he considered that luminous road, but then he thought of something. Even with the help of the commissioners, he wondered how they could vanquish the army that France had sent.
But not all of my men are free yet
.

— Are you well? asked Jean-Christophe, drawing level with him.

He smiled.

— Very well, thank you, he said.

He swam back to the land, the scented and beautiful land, nourished with the blood of his people, rising like the curves of a woman above the night-black water.

Now

The week after Dread Wilmè died they had his funeral in the Site. They drove his body through the streets on the back of a pickup truck, and everyone went and sang songs against the government:

— Grenadye alaso, sa ki mouri zafè a yo!

Grenadye alaso, sa ki mouri zafè a yo!

Nen mwen papa, nen mwen mama, sa ki mouri zafè a yo!

They sang that they were going to war and they were prepared to die. Well, a lot of them died, but they never went to war – except against each other. A lot of those chimères who worked for Dread, they ended up joining Boston, or other gangs, and they shot each other and cut each other to pieces.

But right then, they were together. It was the last time the whole Site was together, I guess, like a big party.

Me, I had to beg Manman to let me go, cos my leg was bandaged from being shot, and I had crutches. She wanted me to stay in our shack, said it would be safer for me there. She said I was lucky the UN had paid for my treatment; me, I thought maybe they shouldn’t have shot me in the first place.

I wanted to see Dread, who had saved my life.

I begged and I begged, souplè, Manman. Eventually she said, OK. We went out and it wasn’t hard to find where the funeral was, cos anpil people from all around were heading in the same direction. We came to the wide street that led to the sea, the one where Marguerite and me found the baby, and we saw the pickup truck carrying Dread’s body, and the people following behind it, singing.

We heard that there was no power for lights or music – the UN had cut off the electricity to the Site, so there could be no funeral.

But someone went to see a guy called 50 Cent; he had a diesel generator that he let out, only this time he gave it for free, cos it was for Dread. Then there was power, and light, and a beat to walk to.

A man was beside us. He had a machine gun in his hand, but it was pointing at the ground. There were no MINUSTAH anywhere. People said they were too scared to come near the Site on this day.

— I heard he isn’t dead, said the man. I heard he’s a zombi, so he only seems to be dead. I heard his houngan has arranged it all. Some moun, they say that he cannot die, cos of the babies that he eats.

I stared at the man. He had a scar that ran down one side of his face, like someone had tried to cut his mouth out. I knew about zombis. I knew they were rare. Like, if someone wanted to be a houngan, then they would have to become a zombi first, or sometimes if someone had to be punished they would be made into a zombi. What would happen is that a houngan would give you some drugs, make you seem like you were dead. Then they’d bury you, two days, or three, before digging you up again. Moun said that they saw Baron Samedi in that time, that they were able to communicate with the lwa, that they were never the same again when they were reborn. Manman, she said it was why houngans had these eyes that looked very far away, cos they’d been dead and had come alive again.

— Dread’s not a zombi, said Manman. He’s dead. I saw him die.

— You saw it? said the man. He touched Manman, like it could give him luck.

— Yes. It was in the street outside our shack. There was this army truck, it was going to run over my son here. Dread pulled him out of the way, saved him. But he was all bullet holes in the end. No way he’s coming back to life.

— But his houngan –

— No. He’s dead.

The man was smiling. I noticed then he wasn’t as old as I thought at first.

— He saved the boy, though. That’s strong maji.

Manman frowned. She pulled me away and we fell into a different group, all girls chanting and crying. Eventually, we came to the sea. There was no beach, just a row of shacks and some fishing boats, a stink of fish in the air. There were gulls doing circles overhead, screeching. Behind us, the other Port-au-Prince rose on its hill up toward heaven, all clean and bright, but we were down in the trash heap, down in the Site, and Dread Wilmè was dead.

Everyone stopped chanting.

This old man, he stepped up beside the pickup truck where it had stopped, gestured for the men around him to take down the coffin. Someone lifted me up then, so I could see better. It hurt my leg, but I didn’t mind cos I was above the heads of most of the people. The coffin was open. Dread Wilmè was lying inside in a suit, looking totally indemne, like you wouldn’t believe that he had a thousand holes in him.