Blood and Belonging

by Vicki Delany

  We sped through the streets. Lights glittered in the rain. Our tires splashed through quickly forming puddles. There are no sewers here. In many places, the road was awash.

  Continuous chatter came over the radio. The helicopter had to land, as the winds were too strong. The boats reported dangerously high seas. Officers were getting into place. The United States Coast Guard could send a ship if needed. The ambulance had been put on notice.

  “We won’t approach until the boat’s almost onshore,” Summerton said as he drove. “Some of the people will jump the minute they see us, even if they’re twenty miles out at sea.”

  A boat waited for us at the Marine Division’s dock in Long Bay. The police launch was a sleek blue-and-white thing with three powerful outboard motors. A white dinghy was tied to the back. Summerton jumped out of the SUV, and I followed. A red ambulance pulled up. Sandy waved at me from the passenger seat. Boats tied to the dock tossed like wild horses. Summerton jumped nimbly on board. I hesitated. My heart pounded. I’m from the mountains. I’ve never been too comfortable on boats. Summerton reached back and hauled me aboard. A uniformed woman stuck her head out of the pilot’s cabin. “We have to go, sir. The mast has broken. They’re floundering and taking on water. They won’t make it to land.”

  Summerton swore. Engines roared, and we slowly backed away from the dock. We didn’t go slowly for long. The moment the craft was clear, it leaped through the waves. A wild horse given its head.

  “Full lights,” Summerton said. The ocean surrounding us lit up. It was, I thought, a terrifying thing. And we were only a few yards from shore. The water surrounding this island is very shallow. Shallow, that is, compared to the ocean’s depth. Lights were converging as other boats fell in behind us. Rain fell steadily, and I was drenched to the skin in seconds.

  The woman threw me an orange vest. “Get a jacket on, whoever you are,” she said. That’s what I think she said anyway. The wind tore her words away.

  I was happy to comply.

  The boat climbed over waves the size of mountains. It crashed down into deep valleys. My stomach rose into my throat and stayed there. I prayed that I wouldn’t disgrace myself by spending the raid hanging over the side. I closed my eyes. That made it worse.

  “There it is,” Summerton yelled.

  Lights picked up a scene out of hell. The single-masted boat wasn’t much bigger than our launch, thirty-five feet maybe. It was packed with scores of people. There wouldn’t even have been room to sit. It didn’t have an engine. The top half of the mast had snapped off in the wind. The remains of a gray sail hung in tatters. Water poured over the gunwales. The boat had tilted dangerously to one side and was sinking lower even as I watched. In the water, arms and legs thrashed and heads bobbed. People were screaming. More were leaping off the boat all the time. There must have been almost a hundred people, either clinging to the sinking craft or trying to swim. In the unlikely event we’d be able to get them all aboard, we’d sink ourselves.

  “More boats are coming,” Summerton said to me. Then he raised his voice. “Try and get a rope out to the sloop. Drop all the life preservers and spare jackets we have.” I heard screaming close to me. I peered over the side. A man was kicking and splashing beside the boat. His eyes were round white balls in a black face. He was as big as I am, maybe bigger. No way could I pull him up and over the side. “Go to the back. It’s lower at the back.” I pointed and yelled in French. He continued thrashing. His head went under. It came back up. I glanced around for something to throw him. Nothing. Anything that would float had been thrown overboard. I tore off my life jacket and tossed it over the side. He saw it coming, grabbed for it. His flailing hands found it, and he clutched it to him.

  I was aware of more boats arriving, of life rafts being lowered into the water. Summerton was shouting into the radio. He waved his hands as if whomever he was speaking to could see him. Lightning flashed overhead. It showed an ocean full of terrified people. The refugee sloop was now half-submerged. It wouldn’t last much longer. A woman clung to the shattered mast with one hand. She held a screaming child in her other arm. It was a girl, dressed in a white dress with cheerful pink trim. Tattered remains of pink ribbon were in her hair. A thin man stood beside them. His arm was around the woman, helping to support the child. He turned his head to look at our boat.

  Jean-Claude.

  At that moment a huge wave hit the sloop broadside. The child flew out of the woman’s arms. Jean-Claude grabbed for her, but he lost his footing as the boat buckled, and he missed. The girl dropped into the water. The boat rolled back, struggling to right itself. Jean-Claude and the mother were tossed over the other side.

  The child disappeared beneath the waves.

  “Shine a light over here,” I bellowed. I don’t know if anyone heard me over the noise of the storm and the panic. I hit the water. I might not like boats, but I can dive and I can swim. Fortunately, the child had gone in on the side closest to the police boat. I hoped Jean-Claude could swim. I couldn’t save them both.

  I only hoped I could save one of them.

  She was about twenty yards away. I rose from my dive into total blackness. Waves washed over me. Salt water filled my mouth and stung my eyes. I broke into a strong stroke, hoping I was headed in the right direction. Then the sea around me lit up. The tilting hull of the sloop loomed in front of me. I swept the sea with my arms and legs. People clung to the sinking boat. A person floated by, head down, not moving. I dove, hoping I could see something under the water.

  A flash of white, no more than a couple of lengths ahead of me. I surfaced, took a deep breath, propelled myself forward and dived again. My fingers groped, but all they found was water. I kicked harder. I brushed up against something firmer than water. I grabbed it and felt moving flesh. Pain flashed though my head as a flailing foot got me. I tightened my grip and kicked for the surface. The body I held was small and light. She fought me as hard as she was able to. My head broke the surface. A little girl, two or three years old, in a white dress with pink trim, was in my arms.

  “Mamma!” she screamed. I must have seemed as frightening to her as the ocean depths. She hit my face, tried to bite my arm. I didn’t try to soothe her. Keeping her head above water and myself from sinking took every bit of strength I had.

  A man grabbed at me. My head was pushed under. I clung to the child and kicked out. My foot hit something soft and yielding, and I was free. I rose to the surface, gasping for air.

  All around me, the sea was a boiling mass of panicked humanity. The sloop sunk slowly beneath the waves and was gone. I had to get away. Most of these people wouldn’t be able to swim. In their panic they’d take me down with them. I kicked hard. The child had stopped fighting me, but she hadn’t stopped screaming. I rose and fell on the waves. I managed somehow to stay afloat. I moved out of the circle of light cast by the police boats. We were alone on the wild ocean. We weren’t all that far out to sea. I could have swum to shore. If not for the shoes on my feet. If not for the raging storm and towering waves. If not for the child in my arms. I didn’t even know in what direction I was heading.

  “Mamma?” the child said.

  I thought of my daughters. I thought of Jenny. I looked into the girl’s wide black eyes. “You’re safe now,” I said. I don’t know if I spoke in French or in English. It didn’t really matter. I was talking to myself as much as to her.

  A light hit my eyes. A voice said, “Let me take her.” And the weight was gone.

  A hand closed over my arm. I blinked. A white dinghy bobbed in front of me. “I’ve got you.” The policewoman pulled. I kicked hard. I collapsed, half in and half out of the dinghy.

  “Whoever you are,” she said, “you’re a bloody fool.”

  NINE

  The little girl, too frightened to tell me so much as her name, lunged for me the moment I fell into the dinghy. She clung to me as I struggled to get us into the police launch. She kept her death grip around my neck when I tried to climb ont
o the dock. I was still holding her when I joined John Summerton in his SUV.

  He nodded to the little girl. Her head was buried in my shoulder. “You did good, Ray.”

  I touched the top of her curly head. A blanket had been placed around her thin shoulders. “Yeah.”

  The little girl was asleep by the time we arrived at the hospital. She didn’t wake as she was gently taken out of my arms.

  “Let me know if you find her mom,” I said.

  “I will,” Summerton replied. “Do you want me to take you back to the hotel now?”

  “Do you need an interpreter?”

  “It would be a help.”

  “Jean-Claude Savin was on that boat.”

  “Are you sure, Ray?”

  “I’m sure. I saw him go into the water. I’d like to find him. If he survived.”

  We drove to the holding facility. The few women and children had been separated from the men. I spotted Jean-Claude the moment I entered the room. I walked toward him and held out my hand. “Jean-Claude. I’m Ray Robertson. From Haiti. We met at your brother’s graduation.”

  He nodded. His face was blank. His clothes were soaking wet, and he shivered despite the warmth of the tropical night.

  “Henri is here.”

  A spark lit up Jean-Claude’s eyes. “That’s good.”

  “I’ll talk to you when I’m finished here.”

  A guard led him away. The other men watched, their eyes full of suspicion.

  Long into the night, I tried to talk to them. I told them they were not under arrest. I said they would be sent back to Haiti soon. I asked who had sold them their passage. I wanted to know who among them had been in charge of the boat. No one said a word.

  I pulled Summerton aside. “Don’t make it obvious, but take a look at the fat guy against the wall. The one in the red shirt.”

  “Got him.”

  “No one will tell me who was in charge of the boat. But some of them, when they say they don’t remember, glance toward that guy. He makes them nervous.”

  “I’ll have a chat with him.”

  I went to the small room where they’d put Jean-Claude. He jumped up when I came in. “I don’t want to go back to Haiti.”

  I was really tired of dealing with this. “You have to and you will. And you can be damned glad you are.” I took a deep breath. “Sit down, Jean-Claude. I have something to tell you, and it’s not good.”

  I told him about his brother. He didn’t believe me at first. He didn’t want to believe me. Then his eyes filled with tears. I left him alone to cry.

  I gave him some privacy for a few minutes. And then I knocked on the door and went back in. “Robert Savin was a member of the PNH. He died in the performance of his duties. The police will help you. You can go back to school.” Actually, Robert had been on a leave of absence when he died. Acting without orders. If the authorities wouldn’t do anything for his only brother, I would. The kid would get one more chance. Someday he might know how rare that was.

  I gave Jean-Claude Pierre’s number and told him to call immediately after he arrived in Haiti. I promised to check up on him when I got back.

  “Thank you,” he said. He held out his hand, and I shook it.

  Summerton was outside, talking into his phone. The rain had stopped, and everything smelled clean and fresh. He put the phone away when he saw me.

  “Making progress?” I asked.

  “We might be,” he said.

  The policewoman who thought I was a fool came outside. “Hospital’s just called,” she said. “A woman off the boat was taken there. She almost drowned. She’s awake now, screaming for her daughter. Grace is the child’s name.”

  Later it was estimated that more than thirty people died in the sea that night. The sixty-one survivors were darn lucky the storm had hit them so close to a populated island.

  The red ball of a rising sun was peeping over the ocean to the east when Summerton drove me back to the hotel. “You’ve had quite the vacation,” he said.

  “Not what my wife planned,” I said.

  “You ever looking for a job…” He pulled into the long curved driveway. A couple of men were in the garden, weeding and trimming. No one else was around.

  “I might give it some thought.” I offered my hand. He shook it. I got out of the SUV and went into the quiet hotel.

  Jenny was in bed, but she woke as the door opened. She sat up. “Bit late to be out, isn’t it, Ray?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was still dressed in the clothes I’d worn to dinner. They were thick with salt and had dried badly. My face was scratched from little Grace’s struggles. A black-and-blue bruise the size of an egg was forming on my forehead. I’d gotten that from the man who’d tried to save himself by pushing me under. I’d bashed my right knee climbing into the police launch. It hurt like the blazes and caused me to limp.

  “Want to tell me,” she said, “what you’ve been doing?”

  I sat on the edge of the bed. I let out a long, exhausted sigh. Every muscle in my body ached. “I need to sleep, Jenny. Give me two hours, and we can still go to North Caicos.”

  “Tell me where you were.”

  “It’ll be in the paper this morning. An overloaded refugee boat from Haiti got caught in the storm. It sank. Many people didn’t make it. But some did. Police boats, coast guard, got to them in time. There was this kid. A little girl. Three years old tops. She wore a white dress with pink trim. She went into the water.” I rubbed my head. “I pulled her out.”

  Jenny climbed out of bed. She headed toward the bathroom.

  “If I hadn’t been there, Jenny, she would have died. Her name’s Grace.”

  Jenny turned back to me. The lines in her face were soft, and a smile touched the edges of her mouth. “I’ll run you a shower. Then you get into this bed and sleep as long as you like. If we miss the ferry, we miss the ferry.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Oh, Ray.” She took my face into her hands. Her eyes stared into mine. After a long time, she said, “If you didn’t care so much, I couldn’t love you as much as I do.”

  She brushed my lips with the lightest of kisses. And then she went to run me that shower.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my good friend and fellow writer Barbara Fradkin for giving this manuscript the benefit of her experienced eye. Also to Ruth Linka and the whole team at Orca for finding a place for Ray Robertson and the world he lives in.

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  An excerpt from Juba Good, a Ray Robertson Mystery

  I jumped out of the way of a speeding boda boda and tripped over a pregnant goat. The driver of the scooter yelled at me. I gave him a hand gesture in return. Not a good idea, in this town, at this time of night. But I’d had a rotten day and was in a matching mood.

  The goat I ignored. It was not a good idea to interfere with her. She was worth money.

  Juba, South Sudan. April. The dry season. The air red with dust blowing down from the desert to the north. Choking dust. Getting into everything. Me, coughing up my lungs half the night.

  At six foot three, I’m considered a big guy back home in Canada. Here, in a group of locals, I’m about average. Some of these guys—heck, some of the women—must be close to seven feet. Damn good-looking women though.

  My name’s Ray Robertson. In Canada, I’m an RCMP officer. In South Sudan, I’m with the UN. Our role is to be trainers, mentors and advisers. Help the new country of South Sudan build a modern police force.

  Yeah, right.

  I’ve been in the country eleven and a half months. Just over two weeks to go. First thing I’m going to do when I check into my hotel in Nairobi is have a bath. A long hot bath. Get all that red dirt out of my lily-white skin. Jenny gets in the next morning. We’re going to Mombasa. A fancy hotel. A week on the beach. Sex and warm water and clean sand. More sex. Heaven.

  I climbed into the police truck. I’d recently begun working with John Deng. He was a good guy, Deng. From
the Dinka tribe, so about as tall and thin as a lamppost. He didn’t say much, but what he did say was worth listening to.

  His phone rang. Deng spoke into it, a couple of short words I didn’t catch. He hung up and turned to me. His eyes and teeth were very white in the dark.

  “Another dead woman,” he said.

  “Damn.”

  Deng put the truck into gear and we pulled into the traffic. Think you’ve seen traffic chaos? Come to Juba. The city’s mostly dirt roads. Uncovered manholes, open drainage ditches and piles of rubble. Potholes you could lose a family in. Trucks, 4x4s, cars, boda bodas, pedestrians, goats, chickens and the occasional small child. Every one of them fighting for space, jostling to push another inch through the crowds. The roads have no street signs and few traffic signs. Which no one pays attention to anyway.

  We drove toward the river. The White Nile. The goal of Burton, Speke, Baker, the great Victorian explorers. The river’s wide here, moving fast. It’s not white for sure. More the color of warm American beer. Full of twigs and branches and whole trees trapped in the current. Plus a lot of other things that I don’t want to think much about.

  The old settlement’s called Juba Town. Disintegrating white buildings, cracked and broken sidewalks, mountains of rubbish. A crumbling blue mosque in a dusty square. Small shops selling anything and everything alongside outdoor markets hawking goods.

  In daytime, the streets are crowded. Soldiers in green camouflage uniforms. Police in blue camo. Adults going about their business. Bare-bottomed babies. Schoolchildren with scrubbed faces, clean uniforms and wide, friendly smiles. Honking horns, shouting men, chatting women, music and laughter.

  Now, at night, all was quiet. A handful of fires burned in trash piles that had spilled into the streets. Men sat in circles drinking beer. Women watched from open doorways. Above, thick clouds blocked moon and stars.

  A water station had been built close to the river. Blue water trucks lined up there during the day to get safe water. The street was a mess of deep puddles, red mud, rocks, ruts and trash. Not as good as some, better than most.