When Death Comes for You

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When Death Comes for You Page 21

by Marjorie Florestal


  “Mouin renmein ou tou.” I love you too.

  I ran upstairs, and when I returned a few minutes later, Philip was not there. I was grateful I did not have to work with his eyes on me. I moved among the guests, refilling glasses and lighting candles, all the while my mind swirled with questions.

  Where had he come from? Did he know how hard I’d tried to find him? I had even endured his mother’s sneering contempt when I finally summoned the courage to ask for her help. She looked at my work-rough hands, my thin cheap dress, the kerchief covering my hair and said, “My son is better off without a tet mare like you.”

  Philip was here. Soon, we would be together again.

  The rest of the night passed in a blur. When the party was over, I climbed the stairs to my room, shaking with excitement. I splashed my body with cold water from the washbasin and dressed in my one good nightgown. The darkness outside was absolute, but I lit the candles I stole from downstairs. The floorboards outside my room creaked, and I shivered in delight. Before he could even knock, I opened the door.

  It was not Philip who stood in the glow of candlelight.

  “Is something wrong? Does Madame need me?”

  Monsieur pushed his way inside, closing the door behind him. “Ma jolie Rose, it is I who needs you.”

  We had danced this dance before. In the two years since I took this job, I had learned how to manage this man. Still, my heart pounded in my throat. I worked hard to mask the tremble in my voice. “It is not the will of the Spirits that we be together, Monsieur.”

  “Who are they to keep us apart?”

  “Neither you nor I dare question their will.”

  He stepped closer to me. I sidled back. “Tonight, you were like a flower opening to the sun. I want to bathe in your perfume.”

  His breath smelled of Cognac and well-aged cheese—not unpleasant, but pampered and soft. I thought I could easily fight him off, if it came to that. I was wrong.

  “Monsieur, you must go back to your room. Madame will—”

  “I have done my duty by her,” he interrupted. “What she seeks is a child. It is not my fault her barren stomach will not accept my seed.”

  “The medicine cannot work if we defy the Spirits.”

  “The Spirits be damned.”

  He pulled me to him and pinned my arms behind my back with one hand. The fingers of his other hand traveled up the buttons of my nightgown. For the first time, I understood his true strength.

  “Please don’t do this, Monsieur,” I begged. “I will tell your wife.”

  He laughed. “You should know by now my wife cares nothing for the problems of servants.”

  He was right, of course. Madame never said a word about the line of young women who went in and out of her house. She didn’t notice the black eyes, the bloody noses, the tears. I thought I was smarter than those girls. I had the Spirits—and a six-inch knife that was usually strapped to my thigh. But tonight, I had put it away. Because of Philip.

  “Please,” I said again, hating my weakness.

  “It does not have to be this way,” he whispered. “I know how to pleasure a woman like you, and also how to make you submit. It is your choice.”

  I bucked against him, desperately trying to knee him in the spot he treasured so much. He gripped my throat with fingers that had never known a hard day’s labor.

  “Putain,” he cursed. “But then, I prefer it rough.”

  He slapped me so hard, the bells of Saint Nicholas rang in my ears. Then he went to work.

  It was as rough as he’d promised.

  When it was over, he staggered from the room, leaving me alone and bleeding. I lay there empty, listening to the howl of the wind. When I could stand it no more, still in my shredded gown, I ran from the house and into the storm.

  In the eye of the hurricane, there is nothing but calm. The wind dies, but too quickly. The stillness it brings is unnatural. You don’t know this at first. You think it might all be over. But the lull only lasts a few minutes. When the wind returns, she does so with a vengeance. Where you once felt and heard her, now she is more than that. She is a presence as real as you are.

  Finally, you understand: She has come for you.

  I stood at the water’s edge and watched the wind raise a sheer wall of water as high as a mountain. It barreled down on me, and I raced out to meet it.

  When the ocean covered me, I felt only relief.

  Noye mape noye

  Noye mape noye

  Erzulie si’w wè mouin

  Tombe nan dlo

  Pranm non

  Sove lavi an mouin

  Noye mape noye

  CHAPTER FORTY

  My Namesake

  I spent the night anba dlo, buried beneath the ocean, as the worst storm to hit the Caribbean since recorded history did her damage. She rolled over Haiti with winds of 145 miles per hour and precipitation that fell long into the night, covering the land in forty inches of rain. Mudslides, flash floods, overflowing rivers, and high ocean waves—we drowned in her waters. They called her Hurricane Flora, my namesake.

  By dawn, eight thousand people were dead. How I longed to be counted in that number, but I was still here, still trapped in this prison called flesh. I crawled out of the ocean floor and made my way back. The storm had not touched the beach house, as it was built on stilts so high the clouds were our ceiling. I climbed the long staircase with the grace of an old woman.

  It took everything I had to enter my room and fall on that bed. My skin was shriveled and cracked. Fine white lines inched their way up my body, snaking crevices filled with sea salt. Leaves and weeds made a nest in my hair. I lay there, unmoving.

  When day slipped into night and the floorboards outside my bedroom creaked, I finally stirred.

  He stood at the foot of my bed, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Ma jolie Rose, I trust that after last night we have come to an understanding? You will find me a generous lover. Is it a house that you want? It is yours. Do you desire servants? I will gladly provide. All this I do for love, but you must never defy me. I do not want to hurt you again.”

  I said nothing, merely watching as he took off his clothes to reveal pale flesh and a thrusting red penis. He sunk into my bed and shoved a tongue in my mouth. Fingers poked into the dry caves of my body, his grunts filled the room.

  Just as he would have claimed his release, my hand tightened over cold steel and out came the knife. The first slash went through soft flesh. The second eased past muscle and oozing blood. The third sank into bone. He screamed like a slaughtered pig and rolled this way and that, but each stab found its mark.

  Six stabs of the knife. The seventh was an excision.

  He lay there gasping, his eyes wide with shock, the orbs a faded yellow in candlelight. Blood spurted from between his legs. He held tight to his shriveled stump like a chicken that didn’t know its head had been cut off. I pushed his hand away.

  “No!” he screamed, his voice high and piercing. “No, please.”

  I ignored his cries and set to work staunching the flow of his life’s blood. Death was too good for him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The Trial

  The courtroom was a repurposed storage shed on McCalla Field about a quarter of a mile from the main refugee camp. The inside of the shed was as hot as one might expect of a tin-roofed structure plopped in the middle of the desert. Fans whirred overhead, circulating the heated air and sending it back down only slightly cooler than it had arrived.

  “Are you nervous?” Renée asked as she laid out her files in neat stacks on the long rickety table in front of her. She glanced at Rose, who sat beside her. The older woman hadn’t said a word since her arrival twenty minutes earlier. She said nothing now, merely shook her head at the question.

  A folder fell to the ground, spilling its contents. Renée picked up the photos and placed them on the table. “Good, because you have nothing to be nervous about. Our case is strong, and I won’t stop fightin
g until we win.” She was babbling, but she couldn’t stop. Frankly, she was the nervous one—though she would never admit as much to her client. There was a lot riding on this hearing.

  The door to the makeshift courtroom opened, and Adam Hartmann strode into the room with Gigi at his side. He walked past their table without a word, but Gigi leaned over and gave Renée a big hug. The scent of cedar, jasmine, and rosewood clung to her.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I’m here? Adam said he got permission.”

  “I’m glad you’re here.” Ordinarily, she might have raised a fuss. It was unusual in an administrative hearing for a nonparty to attend, but Gigi was a welcome distraction.

  Renée turned to her client, who sat in stony silence, her gaze fixed and distant. “Rose, this is my friend, Gigi. She’s with the observer team from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.”

  “Enchanté, Ms. Fleurie,” Gigi said.

  “She’s a bit nervous,” Renée interjected when Rose said nothing. Gigi gave her a sympathetic smile, then sauntered off to sit a few feet behind Adam, her hand lingering at his back as she walked past him.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Renée whispered, but Rose remained a silent, ghostly presence.

  The door opened again. A young woman with blonde streaks in her jet-black hair marched into the room. “Please stand for Judge Fred K. Hirabayashi.”

  Renée was surprised at the formality. It seemed out of place in a glorified storage closet, and immigration proceedings were typically informal administrative hearings rather than court trials. But a judge was a judge. She stood and helped Rose to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Adam pop out of his seat like an overeager student.

  Judge Hirabayashi bounded into the room. A tall, heavyset man in his late sixties, he exuded a youthful energy that belied his years. The dark-rimmed glasses he wore hid his almond-shaped eyes and gave him the air of a retired professor.

  “You may be seated.” Judge Hirabayashi made his way to a large table in the center of the room. Someone had gone to the trouble of placing the table on a wooden platform so that it was slightly raised to mimic a judge’s bench. Judge Hirabayashi shook his head, as if amused by the sight.

  Renée watched the judge settle in his seat. She didn’t know what to make of him. He wore the traditional black robe, but the unmistakable glint of blue denim peeked out from beneath its length, and his sneakers were blindingly white. Whatever else he might be, Judge Hirabayashi promised to be a character.

  The young woman with the blonde streaks—she must be his law clerk—seated herself to his right. She plunked down a tape recorder and hit a few buttons. “We’re ready, Judge.”

  The judge glanced around the room. “I believe introductions are in order.”

  Adam popped out of his seat before Renée could respond. “Good morning, Your Honor. May it please the court, my name is Adam Hartmann and I represent—”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Hartmann,” Judge Hirabayashi interrupted. “And you, Ms. François,” he added when Renée made to rise. “I can tell by the name tags hanging off your tables,” he added dryly. “I can also guess, by the process of elimination, that the woman sitting next to Ms. François is our asylum seeker, Ms. Rose Fleurie.”

  Judge Hirabayashi leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, “It is to our guest that I refer. Perhaps she would care to introduce herself?”

  All eyes turned to Gigi who rose and began to speak, but Adam cut her off. “Your Honor, this is—”

  “Let the lady speak for herself, Mr. Hartmann,” Judge Hirabayashi said, his voice brooking no dissent.

  Adam’s mouth formed a startled oh, giving him the look of a chastised guppy. Renée was starting to enjoy herself.

  “My name is Gislène Bienaimé, Your Honor,” Gigi said, her voice soft and effortlessly seductive. “I hope it is permissible for me to be here. I work for the UN, and it is my great privilege to observe these proceedings.”

  “I did inform your law clerk that Gi . . . Ms. Bienaimé would be in attendance, Your Honor,” Adam said.

  The judge ignored him. “The honor is mine, Ms. Bienaimé. Your presence is most welcome.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  Gigi sat down, but Judge Hirabayashi continued to grin at her like a besotted teenager until Adam pointedly cleared his throat.

  “Do you need medical attention, Mr. Hartmann?” the judge demanded. “That cough sounds irritating.”

  Adam ran a finger under his collar, loosening his tie. “No, Your Honor.”

  “In that case, take your seat. Let’s begin.”

  Adam folded into his seat, flustered. But he quickly regained his composure and popped back up. “My apologies, Judge, but I do have a preliminary motion. I would like to request a postponement. As Your Honor is well aware, we’re under siege with the large influx of boat people. I have not had adequate time to prepare this case.”

  Renée sprang out of her seat. “We object, Your Honor. It is our contention that Mr. Hartmann had more than enough time to prepare—certainly longer than my client and I have had. It is unconscionable to subject Rose Fleurie to any further delay in the determination of her asylum application.” Renée took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “In addition, Your Honor, we respectfully request that you direct Mr. Hartmann to cease using the derogatory term boat people.”

  “She crashed here on a boat. What the hell else do you want me to call her?”

  “You little—”

  “Silence.” Judge Hirabayashi didn’t raise his voice, but the command was unmistakable. He turned sharp dark eyes on Adam then Renée. “This is a courtroom not a playground. I trust both of you can comport yourselves accordingly?”

  “My apologies, Your Honor.” Renée felt like a third grader who had been sent to the principal’s office.

  Adam said nothing until Judge Hirabayashi shot him a glare. “I apologize, Your Honor.”

  “Good.” The judge folded his hands on the table and continued. “Now let’s set some ground rules. Mr. Hartmann, you will at all times refer to Ms. Fleurie by her name or as petitioner. Is that clear?”

  “It is, Your Honor,” Adam mumbled grudgingly.

  “As for you, Ms. François,” Judge Hirabayashi turned to her, “perhaps you can dial the righteous indignation down a bit. What did we learn as kids? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Right?”

  She gritted her teeth. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  He nodded at her, his eyes not unkind. “On to the present motion. Mr. Hartmann, my understanding is that you’ve been detailed here to handle the influx of people seeking asylum. You have no other responsibilities. Are you suggesting you are incapable of doing the job?”

  Adam stiffened. “Certainly not. I’m merely stating this is an important case for the administration. People at the very highest levels are focused on what we’re doing here.” He gave the judge a knowing smirk. “In light of this, I believe we should proceed with caution. Dot all our i’s and cross our t’s, so to speak.”

  Renée dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and felt rage course through her. Adam was not so subtly reminding the judge of the political nature of the Haitian refugee crisis, as if that were more important than the legal merits. She started to say something, but Judge Hirabayashi beat her to it.

  “Son, we’re lawyers. We’re here to do right by the law not by politicians. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.” Adam seemed to realize that he had overplayed his hand and quickly sought to regain lost ground. “I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise, Your Honor.”

  “Good, then maybe we can finally get started.” Judge Hirabayashi turned to his clerk, “Call the first witness.”

  The law clerk left the room and returned moments later with Dr. Cosgrove. Renée threw Adam a quick glance to gauge his reaction, but his face was inscrutable.

  After the law clerk swore in Dr. Cosgrove, Renée made her way to the makeshift witn
ess stand. “Doctor, there’s been some concern about what happened to those who shared Rose Fleurie’s boat. Have you had an opportunity to review the autopsy report?”

  Dr. Cosgrove looked impressively serious in her white dress uniform with her hair slicked back. “I have.”

  “What are your findings?”

  “It is my expert opinion the people on that boat died of seawater poisoning.”

  Renée cast a sideways glance at Adam, she wanted to witness the moment he went down in flames. His face remained expressionless. “What is seawater poisoning, Doctor?” she asked.

  Dr. Cosgrove launched into a detailed scientific explanation. Renée could see the judge’s eyes glaze over. She quickly intervened. “What you’re saying is that the victims drank ocean water, which interfered with the body’s regulatory system. Is that correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  A look of compassion laced with horror settled on Judge Hirabayashi’s face. “What’s your evidence?” he asked before Renée could follow up.

  Dr. Cosgrove turned to him. “Your Honor, we had a death among the migrants two days ago. The patient in that case died conclusively of seawater poisoning. When I reviewed the autopsy reports regarding the drowned migrants, I noted several similarities between my patient and the victims on that boat, namely the condition of their lips, mouth, and tongue—all of which evidenced severe dehydration.

  “Furthermore, the autopsies were completed here on base, thus I was able to track down additional blood samples. I tested those samples for the estimation of urea, creatine, uric acid, and gamma glutamyl transpeptidase. The results proved conclusively that the victims died of kidney failure, which is a known result of seawater poisoning.”

  The judge nodded. “Anything further, Counselor?”

  Renée thought about raising the water temperature issue, but decided to deal with it on rebuttal. Better to see where the cross-examination led before delving into that thorny issue. “No, Your Honor.” She walked back to her seat and flashed Adam a triumphant smile. He barely glanced at her.

 

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