by Robert Stone
"You're so strong," Sister Margaret said. "So clever. Keep your eyes on heaven. Their power will fall away." She took Lara's hand and whispered something, a phrase that might have been Gaelic or Creole. "The Woman's Blessing on you. She crushes the serpent underfoot."
"I shall be happy," Lara said. "I feel it."
12
THAT AFTERNOON Lara and Roger drove over to the Bay of Saints to visit the lounge and try to get a measure of the situation. The only guest in the hotel was an elderly Dutchman named Van Dreele who had observed the elections for the European Union and was following through with a report on their general effects. Van Dreele always stayed at the Bay. It was far from the capital at Rodney and mainly lacked the working faxes and armies of rent-a-cops available down there. But the food was good and Van Dreele had his own reliable sources of information. Every second day he would be driven the length of the highway in one of the blue and white UN cars to have a look at the capital and the lay of the land between. It was easier to sort things out at the Bay.
When Roger and Lara arrived at the hotel patio they found Van Dreele busily lining up his apéritifs. He had been in Rodney the day before, and all morning e-mails had been arriving threatening his life.
"Threats here used to come with a headless rooster in a burlap bag," he told Lara. He was taking lunch in flip-flops and an outsized yellow bathing suit. "Now one gets an e-mail."
"Which is worse?" Lara asked him.
"Harder to delete a chicken," Van Dreele said, stroking his tragicomic mustache. "Of course things were more prosperous then. No one has roosters to spare these days."
"Is Social Justice going to take over?"
"Junot and the Americans. This time they'll make the vote stick. But the junta will do what they always do."
"And you'll stay through it all?" Lara asked. She restrained a lick of his wild white beachcomber's hair. Sunbleached locks fell over his wide forehead.
"Anyhow, I'm too old to be afraid. This is what I tell myself."
"Don't take them personally," Lara said.
"They're against my person," the Dutchman said.
The threats promised what was piously called in Haiti, whence the style had originated, "Pére Lebrun," and involved being burned alive. It was hard to be dismissive of them at any age, and Van Dreele was a brave man. Some said he had made it his business to atone for the Dutch at Srebrenica.
Madame Robert, a local woman who had progressed from assistant chambermaid to housekeeper, came over to tell them that the press would be visiting. A young American reporter named Liz McKie, a Miami feature writer and specialist on the area, had made a reservation and hoped to join them.
"McKie?" Lara asked. "Isn't she the one we don't like? Did you know she was coming?"
Roger nodded.
"Miss McKie and the Bay are not friends," he said. "However, she's the companion of Eustace Junot."
She tried without success to call Junot from memory, but he had left St. Brendan's before her time, a scholarship winner, packed off to prep school in the States.
"Eustace is the man charged with Americanizing the Defense Forces. So turning his good friend away is not the thing. Anyway," Roger said, "you may find her fun."
"I find her attractive," Van Dreele said. "I tried to hire her as an assistant, but unfortunately Eustace found her. He's going to be our local André Chénier. Toussaint. Bolívar. She will commit it all to history."
"I suppose we don't have to comp her?" Lara asked. "She's not a travel writer."
Roger shook his head. "On the contrary. We set them up for Miss McKie."
Lara thought about it. "You know," she said, "Francis has a way of undercooking goat that's really disgusting. Maybe we should gut one in her honor."
"Francis's goat is lovely," Roger declared, "and I'm going to miss it. No, Miss McKie is a fucking ascetic. She gets too hungry for dinner at eight. She stays in the lowest hippie hovel in Rodney. Freddy's Elite."
"All the hip white kids used to stay there."
Roger nodded bitterly. "I should know, sweetheart."
"No kidding, Rog. You picked up white boys at Freddy's? That's a switch. Who paid?"
"Sometimes," Roger said with a sigh, "the trade was distinctly rough."
"At least," Lara said, "she didn't invite us there."
Van Dreele stood. They could hear a car pulling up in the hotel's turnaround.
"I don't want to talk to the press," the Dutchman said. "And McKie is a minefield. By the way," he told them as he went out, "Junot's secured Rodney and the whole south part of the island. His troops will be up here in a few hours and they have some American support units. Also Special Forces with the forward elements."
"That means," Roger said, "we'll have a lot of hungry ex-soldiers up this end of the island. This is where they'll hide out." He waved cheerfully to Miss McKie, who was coming up the stairs. "We've got to get over to the lodge and get this over with. Things are coming unraveled on this island republic."
Lara gripped the table. "We have to get there by nightfall," she told Roger. "For retirer."
"I've hardly forgotten," Roger said. "We'll deal with McKie and go."
She meant the ceremony for John-Paul.
Miss McKie had worn khakis and sandals to join them, along with a navy blue T-shirt and a knit sweater against the night breeze. She was pretty; her slim neck and delicate features made her look like a dancer, but she was not tall. The candlelight at the table suited her. She appeared very much at home, which was not what Lara had expected.
"I'll never recover from the beauty of this place," McKie said. "I won't forget it."
"And now," Roger said, "you have attachments here. The Caribbean moon makes all irresistible." He was referring to Eustace Junot.
"I understand your father was Roger Hyde, the novelist," McKie said quickly. "That true?"
Roger smiled as though he were listening to something far away, hearing different words.
"All that old-time swashbuckling stuff, right?" McKie persisted. "The gallant South. But you didn't live here or in the States?"
"We lived in Cayoacán," Roger said. "Down the street from Trotsky."
McKie gave him a long-toothed smile. Then she turned to Lara, looking her over somewhat impolitely.
"I understand you teach political science at Fort Salines, Miss Purcell."
"Call me Lara."
"Do you deal with the modern history of this island? The corruption and poverty?"
"I'm afraid we can't stay long, Liz," Lara said. She brushed her shoulders and tossed her head as if she were cleansing herself of Liz McKie's effrontery. "We haven't time for the grand historical questions."
"My questions," McKie said, "are all about modern history. Independence to the present. May I ask a few?"
"We're afraid," Lara said, "your close connection in the Social Justice Party—and the Defense Forces—would shade your interpretation. And we have an engagement tonight."
"Actually," Roger interrupted, "if I were you, I would get back to my friends."
"We inherited a historical situation here," Lara said. "We all did. Everyone. We're in business here, we have been for two hundred years. We pay a decent wage for a day's work. Higher than any of the offshore American or European companies."
"Is it true that you're involved in moving drugs to the United States?" Liz McKie showed the same smile.
"There's never been a drug case connected with St. Trinity," Roger told her. "Not one. All local business people are accused of it. Whereas American-owned companies are said to be pure. Why is that?"
"Informed people say it. They say there's a political dimension."
"Do you want to stay here for the night?" Lara offered. "The roads will be troublesome if you're traveling after dark."
They got her in her car and under way. Her driver was one of Junot's American-trained soldiers, and he looked worried as he drove out of the hotel's turnaround. Miss McKie sat in front, beside him.
"A
stupid waste of time," Roger said when they too were back on the road. "We've got to get the shipment out whether the Colombians have arrived or not. The pilot's been standing by."
"Waiting for darkness," Lara said. "Same fellow I came in with?"
"Truly," Roger said, "I try not to distinguish one from the other."
"I won't ask you about drugs," Lara said.
"You needn't. People don't understand how it is."
"No?"
"You know," he said when they had left the road and were struggling along rainforest track, "we also have a reputation for not moving drugs. At least we used to. We're in the arts business primarily. People ask us about emeralds."
When the quick darkness fell, the drums began.
"I'm hopeful, you know," Lara said. "I have a blessing and I'm determined that nothing go wrong."
Manhandling the wheel, Roger glanced over at her and smiled.
"What?" she asked.
The drums were louder and closer. They heard the ogan, the metal roarer, lay down a commanding beat and the other drums fell into line around its tempo.
"You're so like him."
"Ah," she said happily. "Twins in the mysteries."
"I hope nothing goes wrong," Roger said. "I hope you see him."
13
THE PILOT was a Colombian-born Basque named Soto. Until learning to fly a few years before, he had been partners with his brother in a wholesale electronics business. The business had thrived but he had found the life boring.
As darkness came down on the mountains, he stood by the wooden benches outside the lodge, smoking, listening to the drums. He knew Lara slightly from the short deadhead flight down from Vieques. He had delivered a new plane from the dealer, a lovely Beechcraft that pleased him, evoking Bogey and Ilsa at the Casablanca airport. The plane that he would fly north was fueling on the edge of the canefields surrounded by armed men. Colombians and other off-islanders had replaced the local security, in which the higher-ups were losing confidence. It was a good plane, a Cessna 185 taildragger of the sort useful for rough-and-ready takeoffs and landings, worked on that morning by an expatriate Cuban mechanic who had a little cigarette and rum factory outside town.
"Sit if you like," Lara told the pilot. She was preparing herself for the ceremony that was under way in the hounfor and she had been trying to stay out of his way. The sound of the drums had brought him over. He looked from the drummers toward the ruinous lodge building.
"It's strange, this."
She shrugged. He took out a pack of cigarettes and offered the opened pack to her. She declined.
It was strange there even to those who had seen a great deal. The lodge was a nineteenth-century building of stucco and brick, with a tall steeple and three Ionic columns in front. Above the formal entryway were painted the vevers of the gods around the Masonic square and compass. It stood in what was now an abandoned village of Haitian-style thatched houses. The canefields around it had been cut back to provide a grassy landing strip, at the far end of which was a low tin-roofed machine shop, painted in camouflage colors.
"It's how it is here," she told him.
The hounfor, the temple where they would reclaim John-Paul Purcell, was pitched against one wall of the lodge building. It was constructed of leaves and branches. At its center, running from the earth floor to the thatched roof, was a wind-twisted snakelike pole called the poto mitan, representing the serpent of wisdom, Dambala, whose sinuous form connected earth and heaven.
The pilot gave her a knowing grin. She had no idea what the look conveyed. Some kind of grim complicity, taking no comfort and expecting none in return.
"Buena suerte," she said, smiling.
He was flying north this time. Roger had decided to send everything out before the island dissolved in chaos, with the Americans and their friends closing down airspace.
From the hounfor, Lara recognized the words of the rosary in Creole, sung against the iron meter of the ogan, a plow beaten into sounding shape. The opening of the prayers to the Virgin were chanted by the mambo, a market woman by day, priestess of the night now. As the crowd chanted the response, the beat of the seconde took up its place in the prayer.
From across the field, she watched the pilot toss his final cigarette and cross himself. She had seen the boarding gesture many times before in that part of the world, and she rather adored it—the operatic heroism of certain of the pilots, lean solitaries in the inimitable Spanish mode. Though they always seemed to toss the cigarette at the nearest fuel line, their blessing enclosed a small moment of humility before they mounted and went forth. The Yankee pilots did it differently: their heroic model was Chuck Yeager, their style was conventional—another day, another dollar.
The Cessna taxied out to rising drums, turned and headed for the dark horizon. Two burning barrels marked the end of his runway. He cleared them and disappeared.
Then the drums seemed to stop. She turned to the hounfor and saw the people as they turned toward her. The dancers had slowed to the iron beat of the ogan. The mambo called to her softly.
"Madame." Fires burned before the ascending serpent.
The ceremony for John-Paul was called in Creole wete mo danba dlo. She had never heard it referred to in English. In French it was retirer les morts d'en bas de l'eau. Its purpose was to call back the souls of the dead from Guinee, bring them back safely to a place of honor and to the aid of the living. One side of the temple consisted of rows of painted, inlaid jars in the brightest colors, the govi that would contain the ti bon ange of the reclaimed dead. Lara thought of it as her last chance to address her brother's restless spirit, and through him to regain her own soul.
"Madame Lara."
Lara went across the field to the hounfor, passed between the fires and stood by the poto mitan. The mambo fixed her with a steady stare as though willing her to understand more than could be said. She spoke in a Creole so accented that Lara could hardly make it out, a language different from that which she spoke every Tuesday and Thursday in the market. One of the servants from the hotel translated for her.
"Only the rosary tonight. Mr. John-Paul he is not coming. Not this night."
"Why?" Lara asked, addressing herself to the mambo.
"You will ask him tomorrow. He will come tomorrow night."
"Is there trouble?"
The mambo kept her in the beam of that unbroken stare for a moment and then took Lara's hand.
"No trouble," the old servant said, although the mambo had not spoken. "A good rosary tonight. Tomorrow a good passage."
Roger drove them back to the family house on the shore, a few kilometers south of the hotel grounds.
"It happens," Roger told her as they drove through the scrub. "You know John-Paul. Always the contrarian. You'll have to pay for another retirer les morts."
"Everything seemed right," Lara said.
Back at the house, Roger had a drink and Lara kept him company.
"Do you know more than you're telling me, Rog? If this was the date for it, why didn't they follow through?"
"Because it's dangerous."
"Why dangerous?"
"Dangerous to the ti bon ange. To John-Paul's soul." He seemed abstracted. He followed his rum with a second. "You know he has to be brought out of the sea. Out of Guinee. The soul is vulnerable in transit." He laughed and shook the ice in his drink.
"Why are you laughing, Roger?"
"I'm thinking of him there, Lara. I loved him. I'm not really laughing."
She watched him. He did seem to be laughing but she decided to take his word for it.
"The soul outside the body is always in danger," he told her. "Every religion says so. Now and at the hour of our death? The time of passage draws the enemies of the soul."
Lara thought of her own soul that must be out there as well, under the reef.
"Some Colombians are coming," Roger said. "I was really supposed to wait for their OK."
"I'm sure they'll approve."
; Roger refilled his drink.
"They're sending down Hilda Bofil. A definite pain in the privates. Very contentious woman."
"Roger," Lara said, "I'm sorry we got in the way of all this. You understand why I had to come."
Roger looked at her for a long moment and finished his drink.
"Sure, baby." He stood up and kissed her and went outside to the car.
Out over the ocean, the first devil came with a change in the color of darkness. The swell of the mountains fell away and the phosphorescent glimmer of the inshore bay spread out beneath him. Ahead was the monochrome presentation of the sea, without forgiveness. A towering black cloud rose above the island, snake-shaped. When the engine began to cough, his instrument lights flickered. When they settled down, he saw the manifold gauge flat and dark.
A failure of information, Soto thought, unknown things. Beautiful machine, what troubles thee? The devil.
When he moved the throttle forward and felt the machine dying in his arms, he tried to put her in a turn. Proclaimed by the dead instruments, the plane was enfolded in ignorance, a random object awkwardly placed in the sky. And he was another random object, aloft and stripped of power, afloat in silence as in the old dream of flying. The bad one.
He thought: The water! If it had been left unguarded, contaminated! Water, such a simple thing. He closed his eyes and put his arm across his face.
Two shrimpers working between reefs saw him hit and go down fast. There had been the usual calm engine noise of an ascending plane, then silence, and out of the silent fall the crash, a great violence of sundered metal connections, hissing, steam, a series of whirlpools seeming to set each other off. Shrimp vanished. The fishermen would swear they felt the shear of the plane's wings.
After Roger left, she could not sleep. For one thing, the drums did not stop when the ceremony ended; the sound of the rosary in the distance shifted into Creole, singing honor to the gods.
