Dancing in the Baron's Shadow

by Fabienne Josaphat

  He heard a pop outside the window. Nicolas jumped and peered through two louvers. Something had hit the shutters, something thrown. A stone, possibly. His eyes adjusted gradually, and he could make out the branches of almond trees swaying eerily over the hood of his car. A distant streetlight cast a bright glow on the sidewalk. Nicolas pushed the louvers wide open and looked at the fragile stems of garden roses that held their weight against the quiet breeze and the sleeping anoles.

  Nothing moved in the night. He must be getting paranoid. Probably just blind bats dropping cachiman fruits on the house midflight. Then, just as he started to close the shutters, a shadow streaked through the garden. It headed for the gate. Nicolas’s blood ran cold. He opened the shutters wide again. Yes. A silhouette was stepping over the bougainvillea bushes. A man.

  “Hey!” Nicolas shouted.

  The intruder reached the wall surrounding the property. The gate was padlocked, and he tried to hoist himself over the edge. Nicolas fumbled around under his desk. His fingers found the release and the hidden drawer popped open, revealing a space where he kept his notebook and a blue pouch. He unwrapped the fabric with trembling hands and emerged from under his desk with the Colt .45. The thing seemed to grow heavier each time he held it, especially when he cleaned it under Eve’s reproachful eye.

  As he left his study and rushed past the bedroom door, Eve’s head popped out, her eyes panicked. “I heard something. What is it? Why aren’t you in bed—”

  “Get back in the room and stay inside!” Nicolas pushed past her as she gasped at the gun he held, running to the front door, bumping into the console table and rattling lamps and framed family photographs.

  With a grunt, he unbolted the door and ran to the veranda. The warm midnight air coiled around his knees and ankles. He stood there in nothing but his robe and a pair of leather slippers. He caught his breath and stopped for a moment, looking. Was the man still here? There he was, pulling himself over another part of the wall. Nicolas raised his gun to eye level. “Stop! I’ll shoot!”

  The silhouette fell over the other side of the wall, landing with a thud.

  “La police!” Nicolas yelled. “Police! Au voleur! Thief!”

  Heart pounding, he shouted with all the air left in his lungs. He had to alert the neighborhood! He had to scare off the intruder.

  A car door slammed, and an engine sped off furiously into the night. The dogs of the neighboring homes howled and barked in concert. Windows lit up, silhouettes ushered behind curtains, residents carefully avoiding exposure. Nicolas looked around to be sure that there was no one else stalking the house. His hand was still wrapped around the handle of the Colt, his finger resting against the trigger guard, as he’d been taught to do.

  As dawn lit up Turgeau, the police came to inspect the garden. Nicolas was annoyed when they said the crime had already been committed, so they wouldn’t come out till curfew was over.

  “I don’t think the intruder or his accomplices would stick around for you to come inspect my garden,” he said. “I’ve already looked. No one is here!”

  Eve tried to placate him, and he kept quiet, allowing them to look for evidence. Maybe the intruder had dropped something. Maybe he was trying to break in. Who knew?

  The neighbors asked questions Nicolas was unable to answer. Nothing was stolen, nothing was missing, no door was broken, no harm was done, and there was no conclusive report to be written. His next-door neighbor, Monsieur Pierre-Louis, a retired airline pilot, called him over to the fence that separated their two houses.

  “Neighbor, is everything all right?” he asked. “You know we should look out for each other. If you need anything, let me know.”

  Nicolas nodded thankfully. Yet, as the officers left and the neighbors shook their heads in sympathy, Nicolas was filled with a fear and unease he knew would haunt him for days. Who was the true suspect here? When he invited the police into his home, when they took their time wandering the grounds, staring into the windows of his study, were they really searching for clues about the intruder or were they curious about something else? Nicolas shook his head in regret. He shouldn’t have caused a scene, shouldn’t have called the police. If he wanted to get his family safely out of Haiti, he would have to be smarter than that.

  SIX

  The couple that hailed him on the Bicentennaire wharf was laden with souvenir bags brimming with wooden sculptures and hats.

  “Holiday Inn, please!” the man declared, squeezing his frame into the small backseat.

  In the rearview mirror, Raymond caught a glimpse of their milky arms and necks, now red from sunburn.

  “Holiday Inn, Champ de Mars!” Raymond confirmed as he stepped on the gas.

  “Yes, and doucement,” the man pronounced with awkward inflection. “Take your time, we like to look out the window. Understand? Drive slow? Please?”

  “The scenic route then,” Raymond said.

  They were American, a rare breed these days, and a blessing. Americans weren’t visiting as much, and the hotels were barely scraping by. Raymond recognized the language, of course, and he understood it some, but he didn’t speak much. His favorite tourists were the Scots, though he had no idea where Scotland was located. He liked the lilting brand of English they spoke. It was endearing and friendly, what little he understood. The French were easier for Raymond to understand, and he could answer in short, broken French phrases. With Americans, Raymond felt at ease. They appreciated a good time, at the disco or the brothels, and most days he was happy to drive slowly for them. But today, driving extra slow probably wasn’t wise. Nor was speeding. He’d gone out this morning with his heart in his throat, checking his mirrors for incoming Macoutes, his head scrunched down between his shoulders. The facts were simple and conflicted: in order to avoid the possibility of being recognized and arrested, he needed to not drive the cab until he could change the plates and possibility repaint it. But unless he drove the cab, he’d never be able to afford to do those things. As usual, Raymond didn’t really have much of a choice.

  At least the Americans were a welcome surprise. The only time Raymond felt like he had any inkling of power was when he had foreigners in his car. Foreigners found Haiti special and intriguing. They peppered him with questions about poverty and politics, thrilled by their own boldness. Raymond knew corners of the city the tour guides didn’t dare visit, and he made sure his passengers got an eyeful of the real Haiti. So what if it was just an exotic diversion, a spectacle of wealth, poverty, beauty, decay, and chaos that they put into their scrapbook of world travel? So what if he let their imaginations run wild as he drove them through slums and alleyways? Why not razzle-dazzle them if it was a way to share forbidden knowledge with the outside world?

  The tourists he drove now wanted to see the sapphire sea unfurl as they left the cruise port behind. But he wanted them to see Haiti as a living entity, not a tropical getaway. When he’d arrived in the city twelve years ago, Raymond sensed that his talent for navigation would save his life and quickly turned from fixing cars to driving them. He’d watched from behind his windshield as Port-au-Prince morphed from a quiet, peaceful, prosperous city into a buzzing beehive, and now he knew the city as well as a professional guide. In better days, when Magloire was still president and the tourists still came, he would marshal his limited English to teach them all about this small, complicated world. And earn extra tips for his family, he thought, Yvonne’s thin face in his mind’s eye. But today, with these Americans, Raymond didn’t have it in him. He still trembled when he thought of the Macoutes, how he’d almost left his children fatherless, his wife destitute.

  Raymond picked up a little speed. He needed to make as much money as he could before curfew. Plus, driving too slowly might call the attention he so feared. Still, he didn’t drive as fast as he wanted to, knowing that his passengers needed time to ogle exotic paintings and leather sandals and masks for sale, strung along fences around the parks. They pointed at monuments of mermaids and civic fountai
ns, and when Raymond passed the casinos, the man pulled out a camera and snapped photos while his wife clutched her shopping bags on her lap.

  “Très joli,” she said to Raymond, mimicking her husband’s bad French good-naturedly.

  As they sat in traffic near the parliament, she smiled under her large hat when Raymond pointed at pyramid-shaped structures rising from the ground. He smiled back. Raymond always used the same smile with the women tourists. It was both innocent and flirtatious—carefully calibrated to flatter without causing offense to either the woman or her male companion.

  “Musée du Panthéon National,” Raymond announced.

  “Ah, museum?” the husband asked.

  Raymond nodded and braked gently, allowing them time to take a closer look and snap a photo. A sea of children in blue school uniforms flooded the steps, trailed by a handful of teachers, also in uniform. Raymond hoped that one day his kids would get to see the national treasures that the children of the rich took for granted. Right now, they were too young to make much of the museum. He still had to help them butter their bread and hold their hands when crossing the street. Suddenly, he was shaken with regret at not chauffeuring them to school this morning. Instead of letting them crawl in the old, peeling backseat of his car, Yvonne had insisted that she’d walk them over before work. “You have enough troubles as it is,” she’d whispered, glancing at the Datsun with a peculiar avoidance in her eyes. “You need to stay home and focus on getting your car fixed up.”

  Raymond had kissed the children good-bye and then paced his kitchen for an hour before deciding that he had no choice but to work.

  Two pedestrians hailed Raymond’s taxi and he let them in, grateful for the extra fare. One squeezed in next to the tourists, and the other sat in front next to Raymond.

  The Datsun passed the Palais National.

  “Faculté de Droit. Law school. My brother teaches there.”

  “I’m sorry?” the American man asked, incredulous. “He’s a lawyer?”

  “A lawyer?” The wife’s eyes bulged disbelievingly. The other passengers grinned at her surprise.

  “Yes,” Raymond confirmed without elaboration. “A law professor.”

  The couple rode in silence for a little ways, digesting this news. The other passengers signaled their stop and paid Raymond before hopping out.

  “That’s so interesting,” the wife said.

  In the corner of his eye, Raymond saw a blur, a dark shadow moving across his windshield. He braked just in time, his tires screeching against the curb. The black Jeep drove past slowly and he caught a glimpse of men in uniform, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses, their faces devoid of emotion, the barrels of their guns pointed always at the world. Raymond swallowed hard. He hadn’t seen the Macoutes. In fact, he’d nearly plowed into them.

  The Americans gasped. “There they are,” the man whispered knowingly. “Papa Doc’s enforcers. The Tonton Macoutes.”

  “Oh my goodness!”

  The Macoutes scanned Raymond, their expressions glacial in the sunlight. Raymond nodded and waved in apology, seeing the submissive gesture reflected off their sunglasses.

  “Is it true they put rubber tires around you?” the husband asked. “Burn you alive?”

  “Stop it, Bill,” the wife scolded.

  Raymond took a deep breath and cruised slowly across the intersection.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  He had to maintain his composure. He couldn’t let fear take control of him. The husband started in with questions that made him increasingly nervous—not all Americans were innocent, he knew—and in his voice, Raymond thought he detected a note of amusement. His wife simply averted her eyes and waved her fan.

  Just as they pulled up to the hotel, the husband asked if laws still mattered much in Haiti, and Raymond responded by announcing the fare loudly. The tourists paid him and jumped out. All around them, cars were honking, and buses loaded and unloaded right there in the middle of traffic. Raymond pocketed his money and sped away, his heart racing.

  Sweat pooled on Nicolas’s forehead and in his sideburns, and he pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his brow. Overhead, the ceiling fans spun quietly, barely dissipating the tropical heat. His mother always said, “Santi bon koute chè.” It takes a lot of money to look like a million bucks. Nicolas L’Eveillé stubbornly weathered the heat of his classroom in a fine suit, and the female students admired his refined taste in pinstripes, charcoal grays, and navy blues, his rich mauve ties and gold cuff links. The male students studied his shoes and tried to memorize the style, the fit, the color, the stitching, the leather Eve had the maid polish each morning.

  But nerves exacerbated his sweating this morning. He didn’t know how the students would receive his lecture.

  “Turn your books to page two hundred and sixty, where we begin our lecture on the penal code.”

  Some students scribbled furiously as he began, but others eyed each other quizzically. A hand shot up in the air.

  “Maître? What about the lecture on human rights? The one from last week?”

  Nicolas maintained his composure, but beneath his stoic appearance, he was crumbling. “We have to catch up with the curriculum. As I was saying, the law penalizes people who may or may not be criminals, but those people will one day be your clients regardless. You will have to represent them.”

  Nicolas turned to the blackboard and scribbled the name of a case study in large letters. It would be foolhardy to venture into anything as incendiary as human rights right now.

  At two o’clock, the students still hadn’t shut their notebooks. Nicolas scrutinized the auditorium, scanning for a face or two who would protest his new lesson, but found none. Nicolas had a reputation for being an eloquent and passionate orator. Students and professors alike referred to him as “Maître.” Unlike most professors at the Faculté de Droit, Nicolas was not dictating or regurgitating doctrine. He had ideas. Loud ones. Borderline dangerous ones. Lately, straggling students on their way out of other classes would huddle by the windows and doors of his lecture hall, eavesdropping through the open louvers. They’d whispered to each other. “Maître L’Eveillé is crazy,” they’d say. ‘He makes sense, but he’s crazy.”

  Nicolas’s greatest fear was that his students—that the entire next generation—would transform Haiti into a nation of obedient sheep. Sometimes he couldn’t resist pushing the bounds of his lectures in an attempt to shake them from their complacency.

  “Before long, they’ll probably rewrite the history books,” he’d complained to Jean-Jean once. “I know it’s risky, but it’s my duty to teach my students something about their country before it’s too late.”

  But now, with his family’s life on the line, he had to show more restraint.

  He glanced at his watch. “Next week we’ll pick up where we left off.”

  Nicolas himself exited with the clamoring students, swallowed up by the swarm. He’d gotten used to this strange intimacy, the whirlwind of young people’s hair pomade, cologne, and rapid chatter. He could see the unruly hairs on the napes of necks, the sweat-stained collars, the modest jewelry.

  The crowd spilled into the courtyard. Nicolas inhaled the fresh air and made his way beneath a canopy of bougainvillea. He’d first sat in this courtyard years before, a fresh-faced student trying to escape his loneliness with a book. Today, he followed the cobblestone paths past a monument he didn’t dare look at: a bronze bust of Papa Doc. Nicolas heard someone call after him.

  “Maître! Wait!”

  He turned around and saw a young man racing to catch up. He was limping, his face contorted in a grimace. Nicolas wasn’t sure he recognized him, but with at least eighty students in each class, that wasn’t unusual.

  “I really was hoping you would finish last week’s lecture on censorship and human rights. It was very interesting.”

  The young man waddled alongside Nicolas, huffing. He was short and stout, with a large chest and square shoulders. In one hand, h
e carried a black notebook and a legal pad, and in the other, a tape recorder. Nicolas felt for his keys and kept walking toward the campus gates.

  “For instance, what did you mean the other day when you said we were being censored?” the student asked.

  “What did you think I meant?” he asked, taking quick steps toward the parking area.

  “I’m not sure,” the young man said. “Were you referring to the government’s crackdown on communism? Because that’s what it sounded like.”

  “I never said that.” Nicolas glared at the student.

  They arrived at the sidewalk. Behind them, the university’s white walls loomed under a blue sky. A string of cars parked along the curb made it difficult for Nicolas to spot his own vehicle. Students rushed past them, weaving through traffic and hailing tap-taps and taxis, which serenaded them with honks and street music.

  “Because communism is a disease,” the student said. “That’s what His Excellency says. We are to eradicate it from our midst. Don’t you agree?”

  Nicolas spotted his car. He stopped just inches away from it and turned to face the young man, the hairs on his neck bristling. He saw the tiny beads of sweat glued to the student’s forehead.

  “What is your name?” Nicolas asked.

  “Philippe Joseph, Maître.”

  “Tell me, Joseph. What is it you’re after?” Nicolas asked, wanting to dive into the Peugeot. “You want me to talk about communism? You want me to lose my job? Is that it?”

  The young man faltered. “I’m sorry, Maître—”

  “I never once said a thing about communism,” Nicolas said. “That’s something I know nothing about. So what do you want exactly? You want to teach the class for me? Is that it?”

  “Well, no—” Joseph answered.

  “Do you know you can get yourself in trouble that way, talking about communism?”