Blue Darker Than Black

by Mike Jenne

  “How did you manage that?” asked Henson, whacking an iridescent green fly perched on his forearm. As he brushed away the flattened pest, it was immediately replaced by two more.

  “I was suspected of moving some illicit cargo, if you know what I mean. They could never make a smuggling rap stick, so they just nailed me on a string of safety violations.”

  Hearing his name shouted from the crowd, Taylor smiled and waved at a pair of elderly Americans who were obviously missionaries. Turning back towards Henson, he said, “I wasn’t being nosy when I asked if you were from the States. It’s just that I’ve been down here long enough to see most people come and go at least a few times, and I just didn’t recognize you.”

  “No problem. Look, once I settle in, I’ll be shopping around for a small building to work out of, maybe a truck, odds and ends like that. Any ideas?”

  Taylor nodded. “Well, personally, I like to stay close to my plane. Spare parts are hard to come by down here, so I don’t like things to come up missing. I have a shed out by my airplane, on the south end of the airport.”

  Henson nodded. “That’s how I like to work also. Once I find a suitable place, I’ll probably just string up a hammock and stay there. In the meantime, do you have any suggestions for lodging? Any decent places to eat?”

  “There are a couple of really good hotels in town. The Hotel Roi Christophe is top of the line and relatively affordable. The local grub is really good, but they don’t consistently enforce sanitary standards, if you catch my drift. Avoid the mom-and-pop bistros that cater to tourists.”

  “Inflated prices?” asked Henson. “That’s common with tourist traps.”

  “Yeah, but that’s only part of the problem. They’ll serve you up a heaping plate of gristle and rice dressed up as haute cuisine, and then you’ll spend the next few days camped on porcelain. My recommendation is to hire yourself a cook if you’re going to be here a while. The fresh fruits and vegetables are really good, and they’re safe if you give them a thorough scrub, but I would be cautious about eating any meat.”

  A throng of barely clothed ebony children scurried through a gap in the flimsy barriers. With their hands outstretched, the waifs flocked around the Americans and cried out, “Blan! Blan! Blan!” A Haitian soldier shooed them away, swatting a couple with the butt end of his M1 rifle.

  “Blan?” asked Henson. “That sounds almost like “blanc.” That’s French for white.”

  Taylor nodded. “Correct. Blan is Haitian Creole for white, but it’s also what Haitians call any foreigner, regardless of their skin color. You had better get used to that notion quick, because if you think your black skin will yield you any special treatment here, you’re mistaken.”

  “Interesting,” noted Henson, shoving his suitcase forward with his foot. “So how do you get on with the missionaries? You don’t strike me as the religious type.”

  “It’s not unlike any other business,” replied Taylor, lighting a cigarette. “You just have to know who you’re dealing with. Most missionaries are very practical people, and they recognize that they would be between a rock and a hard place without my services, so they don’t waste a lot of time beating me over the head with a Bible.”

  Taylor continued. “We occasionally have some hardcore Southern Baptists come in here, and they can be a pain. They swing in here preaching fire and brimstone, quoting the book of Leviticus at every turn, and they have it in their heads that they’re going to change this place for the better. The first thing they intend to do is to expunge voodoo from the cultural landscape.”

  Henson laughed. “Voodoo? Now, we’re talking. Man, I grew up in New Orleans. There’s nothing you can tell me about voodoo that I don’t already know.”

  “Trust me, it’s not the same thing,” asserted Taylor. “Not by a long shot. Down here, voodoo is not just a few fakers in fancy shops selling trinkets and potions to tourists. It’s deeply engrained in the Haitian culture. It comes from their African traditions. Voodoo is a powerful force in this country. If you don’t understand that or can’t at least appreciate it, you might as well climb back on that plane and head back to Miami.”

  “It’s that serious?” asked Henson, shooing away an aggressive mango vendor.

  “Yeah. If you’re going to work here, you have to understand the linkage between the people and voodoo. This might strike you as a bit odd, but Haitians are a deeply religious people. The population is roughly ninety percent Catholic, but they’re also one hundred percent voodoo. A lot of missionaries just can’t comprehend how the two things can exist simultaneously. They can’t comprehend how the average Haitian can tank up on rum on a Saturday night, participate in a voodoo ceremony at the local peristyle, and then appear for Mass on Sunday morning. I guess the simplest explanation is that they’re hedging their bets by covering all the spiritual options available to them.”

  “Makes sense,” noted Henson. “I’ll try to keep an open mind about it.”

  Taylor stepped closer, lowered his voice and tersely asserted, “Let me warn you: While you’re here, don’t run afoul of the voodoo people. A lot of what they do is homegrown hypnotism mixed in with hocus pocus fakery, but there’s a few of them that conjure up some powerful magic as well. If you hang around long enough, they’ll make a believer out of you.”

  “So the voodoo doctors run the show?” asked Henson.

  “Houngans. A voodoo priest is a houngan. A voodoo priestess is a mambo. A houngan or a mambo oversees the rituals at a peristyle, which I suppose you would call a voodoo temple. A bokor is a houngan who practices black or evil voodoo. The most powerful houngans are the houngan asogwe, who are kind of like high priests. Some houngans are also loup-garou.”

  “Loup-garou? I know that word. It’s French for werewolf.”

  “Sort of,” said Taylor. “But here, loup-garou means shape-shifter. A loup-garou is someone who is able to change into another form, like a snake or a bird. Anyway, to answer your question, the houngans control the people, but even they fear the Tonton Macoutes.”

  “Tonton Macoutes?”

  Taylor subtly motioned towards two hulking Haitian men lurking in a corner. Dressed in dark suits with open collars, the scowling men wore mirrored sunglasses and carried identical bags slung over their shoulders. “The Tonton Macoutes are secret police who answer only to Papa Doc Duvalier,” he explained. “He’s granted them blanket amnesty for any crimes that they commit, so they’re none too shy about abducting or torturing anyone who might be an enemy of Papa Doc. Everyone fears the Tonton Macoutes, even the Fad’H.”

  “Fad’H? What’s that?” asked Henson.

  “Fad’H. Forces Armées d’Haïti,” explained Taylor. “The Haitian military. Anyway, Tonton Macoute literally means Uncle Satchel. It’s from a folk tale where a boogeyman prowls the streets after dark. If he catches a kid out late, he stuffs them in his satchel and the kid is never seen again. And that’s pretty much how they conduct business.”

  “I’ll watch my step.”

  “Do that,” advised Taylor. “See how heavy those satchels hang? They all tote an Israeli Uzi submachine gun and a short machete in their bag. If they ever snatch you up and start hacking into you with the machetes, then you’ll be begging for the Uzis in short order. And there’s more.”

  “More?” asked Henson.

  “Yeah. Most Haitians believe that the Tonton Macoutes have been granted special voodoo powers that make them even more potent than a houngan asogwe. They believe that the Tonton Macoutes can take possession of a person’s soul and leave them to walk the earth as something less than human.”

  “A zombie?” smirked Henson, rolling his eyes.

  Taylor closed his eyes and grimaced. “Yeah, Henson, you think it’s funny now. Wait until you’ve been here a while. You’ll probably be a little less skeptical then.”

  Henson looked furtively at the two Tonton Macoutes. One glared back, grinned menacingly, and then nudged his mirrored sunglasses down onto the bridge of his bro
ad nose. Despite the stifling heat, a chill froze Henson’s spine when he glimpsed the man’s intimidating eyes; they were jet black, both inert and vibrant at the same time, like a shark’s.

  Shuddering, Henson quickly averted his gaze, wondering if it was really possible that the man could wrest his soul from his body. Looking ahead, he saw a young woman behind a desk wave him forward.

  “You’re on deck, Henson,” said Taylor, offering a business card. “Come find me if I can ever be of assistance. Don’t bother with the telephones; they don’t ever work. Just flash my card to anyone at the airport, and they’ll take you to find me. Good luck.”

  Henson nodded and stuck the card in his shirt pocket.

  Sighing, Taylor shook his head. “Matthew, let me give you your first lesson about doing business down here in Haiti. These people have nothing, so anything and everything is of value to them. If someone hands you a business card, it’s a hugely significant gesture. It implies that they accept and trust you and want to establish a relationship. If you jam it in a pocket without looking at it, like you just did, you’re making a subtle statement on how little you respect them.”

  “Thanks.” Henson pulled out the card and placed it carefully in his wallet. He stepped forward to the desk and tendered his documents to the woman. A listless Fad’H soldier, barely conscious in the infernal heat, lolled on a stool by the door. Two yellow chevrons, sewn sloppily on his uniform sleeve, identified him as a corporal.

  The woman compared Henson’s passport to a typewritten list of names. Turning her head, she nodded at the Fad’H corporal. Suddenly animated, he stood up and snapped his fingers. Two other soldiers whisked through the door and seized Henson by his upper arms, while another grabbed his luggage. Swiftly escorting him outside, they jammed him and his confiscated belongings into the backseat of a waiting Willys jeep.

  The jeep jolted into gear, and they left the airport grounds, heading roughly north on Highway Three. Henson had endured similar drills in other countries and had learned to remain calm and observant. In the week since Grau had directed him to come down here, he had studied Haiti, so he was relatively familiar with the geography.

  He had also read an old Marine Corps guidebook, published when the immortal leatherneck hero Chesty Puller fought here as a corporal in the early twenties. It contained a basic Haitian Creole translation guide that Henson had gleaned for rudimentary vocabulary. Now, he eavesdropped on the conversation between the corporal and the driver, diligently trying to pick out words and context.

  Nothing he had read could adequately convey the harsh reality and hopelessness of this place. The outskirts of Cap-Haïtien were dominated by sprawling expanses of slums. The people lived in squalor like he had never witnessed in Africa or elsewhere.

  Most of the dwellings were shacks fashioned of wood scraps and cardboard. Now and then he saw a corrugated metal roof, but more often the roofs were thatch. Naked children frolicked in puddles of fetid water; women knelt in the same stagnant pools to wash clothes, and Henson also witnessed others squatting there to relieve themselves. A noxious stench, a mixture of odors from charcoal cooking fires and heaps of rotting garbage, permeated the air.

  Shortly after leaving the airport, they came upon an accident that had brought traffic to a standstill in both directions. A porter had been pushing a massive cart, heavily laden with household goods—quite likely the entire furnishings of a modest middle-class home—when an axle broke, flipping the conveyance and scattering its contents. The porter’s arm had been fractured in the mishap, and a sliver of white bone poked out from a profusely bleeding gash in his right forearm. A cloud of black flies had already descended on the wound; the swarming pests jostled for their share of fresh blood and newly torn flesh.

  Residents of the surrounding neighborhoods converged on the scene. While none helped the injured man, most rummaged through the spilled goods. Cradling his shattered arm, the barefoot porter—who essentially hired himself out as a human truck, a common occupation in Haiti—pleaded for them to stop.

  Most of the looters were content to grab an item or two, but scuffles broke out over the more prized plunder. In the trickle-down manner of wealth distribution in an anarchic society, the strong took the choicest items from the weak, then the less-weak took from the more-weak, and so on and so on, until an uneasy equilibrium was reached.

  The traffic jam grew progressively worse as drivers and passengers left their vehicles to join the spree. The lanky corporal eventually grew impatient, cursed, and rushed into the swirling crowd. Prodding with his M1 carbine, he ordered the passersby to cease their pillaging and to push the broken cart off the roadway. Begrudgingly, they shoved it to the shoulder, and then the frenzy of looting and squabbling resumed.

  Carrying a box of silverware, the Fad’H corporal swaggered back to the jeep and climbed in just as traffic started to flow again. As they passed the derelict cart, Henson saw the hapless porter squatting by the side of the road, holding his broken forearm between his knees as he simultaneously wept and swatted at the merciless flies.

  As they surged past the aftermath of the accident and picked up speed, Henson’s attention was drawn to an incandescent flickering glow in the distance. As they drew closer, it grew so intensely bright that he had to squint and shield his eyes. Finally, he realized the source of the mysterious light. Two Haitian men had strung a pair of wires to a power line running beside the roadway and were using the bare ends to weld together pieces of a broken bicycle frame.

  As they rolled into Cap-Haïtien’s central district, the gray teeming squalor was supplanted by picturesque rows of quaint stucco buildings in peaceful pastel shades. It was as if a giant hand had neatly sliced blocks of ice cream—strawberry, pistachio, vanilla, peach—and fashioned an entire town from them. The streets were reminiscent of the whimsical images of Cap-Haïtien that Henson had seen in the tourist brochures.

  The jeep pulled into a fence-enclosed compound dominated by a stately white building. The Fad’H headquarters was guarded by at least two squads of soldiers; the stern-faced black troopers wore starched fatigues and whitewashed webbing, and were armed with vintage M1 rifles. The rifles’ wooden stocks glistened with hand-rubbed linseed oil.

  Henson’s two attendants gruffly pulled him from the jeep and brought him inside. “Colonel Roberto will see you, blan,” announced the corporal, nudging him down a hall and into an office. A wooden sign—hand-lettered in inlaid gold leaf—identified the office’s occupant as Colonel Roberto Hector Gonzalez, Commander of the Fad’H Northern District.

  It was a strange quirk of Haitian culture that while the nation was overwhelmingly populated by the descendants of African blacks previously enslaved by French plantation owners, its aristocracy was predominately of Hispanic or mulatto heritage. Just like so many glaring contradictions of this country, Henson found it puzzling that the slaves would cast off the yoke of one white oppressor only to be effectively dominated by another. After all, a prevalent joke—although not entirely humorous—was that the Haitian flag’s background was the same as the French tri-color, with the white part cut out, just as the revolting slaves had literally chopped the French out of Haiti in the early nineteenth century. But despite the traumatic excision of the French colonists, high offices and military ranks were rarely held by Haitians of African descent.

  The corporal shoved Henson into a wooden chair in front of Colonel Roberto’s large mahogany desk as the driver deposited his baggage on a table in the corner. Wearing an elegantly tailored dress uniform that showed not the slightest dampness of perspiration, the fastidiously groomed colonel was almost absurdly handsome, as if he were the thoroughbred product of countless generations of careful breeding.

  The Fad’H officer’s thick mane of black hair was meticulously combed, with not an errant strand to be seen, and the pencil-thin moustache that adorned his upper lip was absolutely symmetrical. Looking almost too perfect, like a malevolent version of Ricky Ricardo cast as a Latin dictator, he
probably could have made himself at home in any steamy, intrigue-festering banana republic in the western hemisphere.

  The corporal proffered Henson’s passport to the colonel, snapped to attention, saluted, and briskly exited the office. Colonel Roberto intently scrutinized the document and then removed a small ledger from a desk drawer. Still silent, he scanned a list of names in the ledger, obviously attempting to find Henson’s. Frowning, he slowly shook his head and laid the passport on his desk. “Just what is the nature of your business here?” he asked, getting straight to the point.

  Henson answered calmly, “I’m with Apex Exploration Services, based in Dayton, Ohio. We do exploration work for mining companies.”

  Henson then recited the cover story he had told so many times in the past few months, adding the embellishments specific to the local situation. In this instance, he described how Apex was on the hunt for bauxite, which was used to manufacture aluminum, and elaborated on how he intended to hire locals to assist him in the search.

  Roberto listened patiently to Henson’s explanation, then politely clicked his tongue and commented, “Ludicrous. There is nothing of value here. Nothing on top of the ground, nothing beneath the ground, nothing in the air or water. If there was, outsiders would have come and plundered it long ago. So, Henson, since you’re obviously trying to pass yourself off as someone innocuous, perhaps you should refine your flimsy story to fit the circumstances.”

  “It’s not a story, sir,” retorted Henson firmly but quietly. “I do work for Apex Exploration. If you wish, you can contact them in Ohio to verify my status. I am here to look for bauxite.”

  Roberto chuckled. “Let’s cut to the chase, as you Americans are fond of saying. When that plane comes in from Miami, every American who climbs off is either a tourist, a missionary or a CIA operative. I know that you’re not a tourist or a missionary, because you’re not whimpering or praying or demanding a lawyer right now. You’re much too sedate. So why don’t you just admit to working for the CIA, so we can establish a more cooperative relationship? I think that once you contact your superiors, you’ll determine that we share mutual objectives. Wouldn’t it be preferable to work in concert, instead of stumbling around each other?”