by Tatjana Soli
“You must have spilled some of your drink. There was a stain on the back of the couch.”
“I don’t know,” Claire said, digging into the bowl of beans. She, too, had learned the art of not answering.
“Jean-Alexi doesn’t scare you,” Minna said, a statement rather than question.
“Should he?”
“He needed a job. A place. Only for a little while. I needed to repay him a debt.”
Claire stared at her plate. “But you’re supposed to be looking out for me, too. Are you?”
“His wife and daughter are gone away. Macheted by bandits. Their faces taken off.”
“Oh.” This explanation stripped off her anger. Claire wondered if this explained the wildness she saw in his eyes.
“He is a lost man.”
When Jean-Alexi finally appeared from the barn, he and Minna exchanged angry words rapid-fire in a patois French Claire couldn’t understand, but she smiled up into his face, ignoring his dirty hands as he touched the food, the reek of his unwashed body. Away from him, Minna paradoxically appeared timid, subservient; in front of him, she became defiant, combative.
The women made small talk while Jean-Alexi wolfed down his food, ignoring them.
“Enough woman talk.” He shoved his chair back with such force it banged against the wall behind him. The room shrank as he rose to his full height. He seemed like a caged animal indoors, not-of-his-place. “Go make us coffee.”
“I think later—”
“Go!” he yelled, and Minna flinched as if he had hit her, bowed her head, and left them alone. Paralyzed, Claire felt her heart press against her lungs, her breath come in shallow spurts.
“I told Maleva here, it be a good thing if you sign over the farm to her. To make the working of it go fine.”
“Why do you call her that name? That’s not her name.”
“She take good care of you, non? Better than that worthless family of yours.”
Claire processed that her family had been discussed between them, judgment passed. Something terrible was dawning on her, a pressure behind her eyes that made the objects in front of her swim—Jean-Alexi’s face distorted into a fun-house mask. “It’s not my farm to give.”
“There’s ways, lady. Anyway, Maleva alone in the world like you.”
Finally something from him she could grab on to, control the direction of the conversation. “Tell me. She won’t.”
But he shook his head, determined on his own narrative. “The ways I see it, lost got to help the lost in this world.”
“Yes.” She couldn’t help but agree with him. His power both attracted and terrified her. How could an innocent girl such as Minna hold out against the likes of a Jean-Alexi? “Is that what you two are doing? Helping each other?”
“You got it wrong, lady,” he said, coming up close. “I am not lost. I am one of the conquerors of this world. Don’t forget it.”
“You won’t let me forget it, will you?”
“There’s work to be done.”
“The farm belongs to my husband’s family. I’m calling him to come meet you.”
“No need. I just passing through. Don’t want any trouble for Maleva, do you?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, but he smiled, picked his teeth, and walked off. A terrible, strutting little rooster.
Minna came out, watched him walk away, shaking her head. “The devil must have his little day…”
* * *
The next days passed in a game of cat and mouse, Jean-Alexi conducting business out in the barn on his cell phone, coming into the empty house only for meals. During those meals, he always waited till Minna was out of the room, then broached again the subject of signing over the ranch. It did not seem possible that Minna was unaware of these efforts, and Claire put it to delicacy on her part to refuse to acknowledge them.
When she was alone with Minna, she pleaded that he be sent away.
“Got to be careful what genie you let out of the bottle,” Minna said. “Jean-Alexi goes the opposite way he’s told.”
“He’s asking me to sign the farm over to you.”
Minna bit her lip. “That’s his making. I was foolish calling him. He’s too lazy to work the farm. He’ll be moving on.”
“But why did you call him?”
“Why? Why?” Minna mocked her. “He’s home. He’s familiar. No matter how bad, he knows me. You can’t escape your history.”
* * *
Now it became clear to Claire that the elixirs were doing the opposite of what they once had, now the cause of her tiredness, but she did not exactly blame Minna for this, figuring instead that in her zeal for Claire’s health, she was unaware of the side effects and maybe even desiring them. Perhaps Claire was safer asleep, out of the range of Jean-Alexi and his obsessions. Nonetheless she went on a campaign to dump the drinks when the two were out of sight. Her strength built, and one morning, feeling the strongest yet, she dressed before Minna came into the bedroom.
“I’m going to visit Mrs. Girbaldi.” It came as a shock how long it had been since she had talked to her old friend, or Forster for that matter.
Minna quickly shut the bedroom door. “Not a good idea.”
“I’m tired of being shut up in here.”
“Don’t make him angry. For me.” Genuine fear was in her eyes.
Claire was so pleased that Minna was finally talking truthfully to her, acknowledging the reality of their situation, that she hardly comprehended the admission of the danger they were in. “Tell me, what’s going on?”
“I made a mistake, calling him. He wants more than he’s owed. That’s where my money went.”
So that was the explanation of the mystery. “You only assumed he’d help. All alone in this country,” Claire said, already on her way to making excuses for her. “You forgot not all people are like you.”
“Once he realizes there’s nothing more to get, he’ll leave.”
“We must get rid of him,” Claire whispered. “Police?”
The awful panic in Minna’s eyes was something Claire had never before witnessed. “Please, for me, no. They will take me to prison, too. Or send me back. Give me time. If you care anything.”
“So it was all a lie? Jean Rhys, Cambridge?”
“Would you have allowed me in any other way?”
“That’s not true.”
Of course she was right. The beautiful false life had sanctified the skin color. As if poverty and misfortune were contagious. Claire thought of fate—the one that killed Josh and brought her cancer, but also the one that insured each of her children would not be born in want. Minna more beautiful and shining than most babies, but of course that didn’t count. The world shunned those born in misfortune. The unfairness of it shamed Claire even now as she suspected she might be made victim of the victim.
* * *
Claire sat on the porch. Minna was in the kitchen, satisfied she had won Claire’s obedience. Still Claire wanted to test the boundaries of the situation. She refused to feel fear, and in fact Forster or the police were only a phone call away. Unattended, she started to walk down the driveway. Quickly, Jean-Alexi was at her side. Confirmed, the realization that it had come to a kind of velveted house arrest.
“Where we going, lady of the house?”
“To visit a friend.”
“That’s fine. But don’t you be complaining.” He touched her elbow.
“Don’t ever touch me!” She looked down and saw his dusty, cracked bare feet. Calloused feet unused to shoes, used to hardship, backbreaking labor. Feet that told of chasms of life experience between them.
“Or I call the police and tell them about our little Marie. She ever tell you about the Florida woman? Stealing from her?”
“I thought you cared about Minna.”
He laughed in her face. “Only a rich person can afford to think like that.”
* * *
That night, Minna and Claire sat alone in the empty living room, candles
throwing monstrous, grasping shadows across the ceiling from the winds. “Tell me about this woman in Florida,” Claire started, interrupted by a banging on the door. They looked at each other in confusion and dread, neither of them daring to move.
“Mom! Mom, you there? Anyone home?” Lucy’s voice.
Both women scrambled to their feet; Minna raced to the door and threw it open.
“Surprise!” Lucy said, her arms full of flowers and presents. She looked more gaunt than before. Dark circles under her eyes and unwashed hair screamed relapse.
Claire’s heart buckled at the sight of her. “Why are you here?”
“I promised I’d come, didn’t I?” Lucy walked in and looked around. “Remodeling?”
“Things are complicated right now.”
Lucy put her hand on Minna’s stomach. “Oh my God, I had no idea! You both are just glowing. Mom, you look so much better.”
“Oh, baby.” Claire hugged her, then hugged her tighter. In some strange corner of her mind, the situation had remained an experiment until now. Lucy changed the rules.
Steps behind them, and Jean-Alexi was sprawled across the doorway, arms folded over his chest, head wagging. “Kisa ou ap fe isit? What do we have here?”
Lucy and Claire broke apart in their embrace. Instinctively Claire stepped in front, partially shielding Lucy from his sight.
The answer out of her mouth sticky, reluctant. “My daughter.”
“What a beauty,” he said.
“This is my cousin,” Minna said.
Lucy blushed and ducked under her mother’s arm, walking over to him. “So nice to meet you. We love Minna.”
“Oh, come closer,” he said, and swallowed her in a big, long-armed embrace that almost took her off her feet. “It’s all family here, love.”
* * *
Despite Claire’s misgivings, the next few days went by in an almost celebratory atmosphere. Now Jean-Alexi abandoned the barn and his cell phone and spent time in the house. They ate meals together, island music playing, and he flirted shamelessly with Lucy. Claire saw another side of him, the raconteur, spinning one charming story of their life in the islands after another. Was it possible that she had overreacted? That the solitude and her sickness and the drugs had deluded her mind? Or was he cunning enough to insure his safety by attaching himself to what she loved most in the world?
* * *
“So were you at Cambridge also?” Lucy asked.
Jean-Alexi closed his eyes to slits, staring into the candlelight, chewing thoughtfully. “No. My part of the family wasn’t the fancy one.”
“What is the name of your village again?” Lucy asked.
“Jérémie,” Jean-Alexi said.
“Isn’t that in Haiti? Not Dominica,” Claire said.
Minna said nothing, simply got up and cleared the table. The reproach clear. What was Claire trying to prove? If she caught him out lying, would she throw Minna into the street? Would she call the police? What, exactly, did Claire want? Did she want to be begged? Did she want to be the all-merciful Claire? Did she want to be the savior, to be responsible for another human being’s fate besides her own? Or was it simply hurt pride that Minna did not believe in her enough to tell her the truth?
“What you got to understand is that we’ve got family scattered all along the islands.”
“Tell me about you two as children,” Lucy demanded.
“All the women were in love with Jean-Alexi,” Minna said. “That time on the beach…?”
Jean-Alexi threw his head back in a howling laugh. “This is a story you must hear. This is my little Maleva.”
As they both took turns telling the story of the coins and the boys and Minna’s death order, they all laughed. Claire watched, mesmerized, as yet another Minna emerged than the ones she thought she knew or had imagined.
“The taffy,” Minna said, chuckling, dabbing tears from laughing so hard. “Remember that dried bit of taffy you gave me? I didn’t realize you had stolen my coins.”
“Those were your dues for protection, little sister.”
Claire was lulled against her doubt of the nature of the relationship between the two. Still, at other moments, she had an urge to pick up the phone and call the police. For what? He was a powder keg that might go off at any minute. She wanted him gone, but she was afraid for Minna’s sake. Now Lucy was involved. How to warn her away without frightening her and stirring Jean-Alexi’s wrath?
* * *
At night, Lucy slept with Claire in her room. They gossiped together like girlfriends, as they had so many years before.
“Why did you come?” Claire asked.
“I wanted to see you. And the gallery closed. Javier and I broke up.”
“It’s good you came home.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on here,” Lucy said.
Claire didn’t answer.
“Kind of a commune feel. That’s cool with me, but you don’t want Gwen to see this.”
“He’ll be leaving soon.”
* * *
During her days there, Lucy’s assuming normalcy affected the others to pretend the same. She plugged in the phones and called Gwen, told her about the charming Jean-Alexi, spent hours with him getting the irrigation lines back in working order. She convinced him to move the remaining furniture back in the house, assuming Claire had sold the rest, and Claire did not contradict her. She screwed in lightbulbs, found a used piano in the want ads to replace the one that was sold, according to Claire because it no longer held a tune.
Forster came over, and although he was unhappy about the state of things, Lucy and Claire’s acceptance made him hold his objections. Privately he told Claire he was starting the search for a foreman. In a few weeks if things didn’t improve, he would have the man replaced.
Once Claire caught Jean-Alexi and Lucy smoking a joint on the porch and giggling, stopping when she approached. Another time, she saw Jean-Alexi cup his hand over Lucy’s elbow as he talked to her. Was this another subtle threat? Seducing the daughter?
Another Jean-Alexi would approach Claire when she was alone. He came into her room, unbidden, late in the mornings and stood over her, businesslike and menacing.
“Time for you to sign, and I get leaving.”
“We don’t seem to be communicating. Ask Forster to give you his ranch.”
His face grew pained and tight. “I got things to do, people to see. Can’t spend much more time here.”
“That’s too bad. I’ll hate to see you go.”
“You have money in your bank account. Jewelry. How about a loan?”
“Can’t.”
He sighed, stretched, swayed his hips. “That’s one juicy daughter you have.”
Claire said nothing.
“Thinks I’m quite the man. I’m this close,” he said, pinching his thumb and index finger closed. “Told her I’m goin’ to perform a vodou ceremony. That got her hot and excited.”
* * *
Alone in bed, Claire stroked Lucy’s hair. “I don’t want you spending time alone with Jean-Alexi.”
“Oh, Mom.”
“I’m serious.”
“He’s fascinating.”
“He might be … he is dangerous.” Lucy’s face immediately dropped, and Claire recognized that long-ago look of fear in her eyes. Whatever Claire did, she needed to keep this from her, otherwise her distrust would give them away. “I just mean Minna tells me he’s a real ladies’ man. I don’t want you hurt.”
The furrow between Lucy’s eyes relaxed. She dropped her head back on the pillow. “Oh, Mom, I’m a big girl now.”
* * *
But the isolation of the house was getting to Lucy. “How about we go out for dinner?” she suggested.
“I miss Minna’s cooking,” Jean-Alexi protested.
“I’m sure she would like a break, too.”
“I’m fine,” Minna mumbled.
“You cook,” he said.
“Let’s all just go to a m
ovie or for drinks.”
“You and me go. Minna and Maman want to stay home and take it easy.”
Lucy hesitated. “That would hurt their feelings.”
* * *
The next afternoon, arguing could be heard from in the barn. Minna came in with a swollen eye, holding her stomach.
“What happened?”
She looked around the room, disoriented. “I tripped and hit the corner of a table.”
Neither Claire nor Lucy said a word, but Claire squeezed her daughter’s hand.
“Jean-Alexi has decided it is time for the ceremony.”
“Ceremony?”
Minna handed them a crudely lettered piece of cardboard.
YOUR INVITED TO A HEALING
FOR ERZULIE, SAMEDI, AGATHA,
N BRIGETTE POST YA TIME SOON
“All the spirits need to be thanked.”
“No, I don’t want to do that,” Claire said.
Lucy clapped her hands, relief on her face. “Oh, how fun. Can I help?”
* * *
Surprisingly many mirrors accumulate throughout a house over the years—in bedrooms, closets, and even in dark hallways to give the illusion of openness and size, to give onlookers time to organize the face they show to the world. Minna had returned the collection that had formerly been banished in the barn, and it felt like coming full circle, from being denied to being forcibly shown. The mirrors were spaced out along empty floors, substitutes for bodies of water, which attracted and reflected the spirit world. In addition to that, Minna said they were lucky to have the pool, especially in its new brown-green opacity, which reflected one’s face back as detailed as any mirror.
As Claire passed between the mirrors, she caught glimpses of her underneath self—rosy chin, delicate, short, curling hair. If one didn’t look too closely, she resembled the young girl she was when she first moved into the house, returning health giving her a false youth. When she crossed Minna alone, she hissed, “I know he hit you. It’s not just you alone now. Let me call the police. Or at least Forster.”
