Serpents in the Sun

by Cave, Hugh

  Presently a private road, created by the builders of Le Refuge, appeared on the right. And at the end of it was the beach little Carita loved to play on.

  Beaches were to be found everywhere in Haiti, of course. The tourist in his Port-au-Prince hotel might complain at having to drive too far to get to one, but an adventurous soul eager to explore the country would be overwhelmed by their number and their beauty. This one near the little north-coast village of Bayeux was not as long as some. Not as hard to get to. But with its fine golden sand embraced by headlands that would have inspired an artist, it was one of the loveliest. At its edge, handsomely white against the sea's deep blue-green, stood Le Refuge.

  In the unpaved parking area were seven cars. "Seven!" Lee exclaimed. "Carey, more and more tourists are renting cars in Port and driving up here. Isn't that great?"

  On walking into the lobby they discovered that more and more were arriving the more usual way, too—flying from Port to Cap Haitien and being driven here in the hotel station wagon. The place was nearly full, Roddy proudly told them.

  It was more than three months since Lee had seen her brother. After the initial embrace she stepped back to look at him. Something had brought about a change in him, she decided. A change for the better. He looked happier, more fit. At thirty he stood so proudly straight that he seemed to be actually as tall as the husband who stood beside her, though she knew Carey was an inch or so taller. And Roddy's eyes today were a sparkling blue beneath that shock of copper-red hair.

  One of these days, inevitably, he was going to meet some woman who would find those good looks irresistible. Some woman who would be charmed by the Roddy temperament, which was happily halfway between her own brashness and Cliff's caution.

  "I'm putting you in one of the cottages," Roddy said.

  "Good! Thanks!" There were four cottages in addition to the main two-story building. The hotel itself was of concrete-block construction, stuccoed; the cottages were of wood and the Aldreds liked them better—especially Carita, who was always excited when visiting Le Refuge and enjoyed the extra freedom a cottage allowed her.

  "But first I want you to meet someone."

  "Meet someone?" Carey echoed. Fond of Lee's older brother, he too had been sizing up the new Roddy, professionally noticing a slight nervousness and wondering what lay behind it.

  "Come, please, all of you." With Carita holding his hand and trotting happily along beside him, Roddy led them to his first-floor suite behind the office. When he knocked on his own door and waited for an answer instead of simply opening it, Lee looked at him with a frown.

  The door opened. A woman about Roddy's age, or a few years younger, stood there smiling at them.

  "I want you to meet Olive Frazer." The touch of nervousness was now in Roddy's voice, Carey noted. "Olive, my sister Leora, her husband Dr. Carey Aldred, and their daughter Carita."

  The woman was pretty, Lee decided. Nowhere near as pretty as the only other woman her brother had been close to—Heather McKenzie—but certainly not unattractive. Too small, of course. When he had an arm around her, as he had now, they didn't look right for each other at all. Good Lord, she couldn't be more than five foot three and he was six one! But this was no mere friendship. The look on Olive Frazer's face made that immediately clear.

  "Come on, this calls for a drink and an explanation," Roddy said. "Rita"—his name for Carita—"you go look where your coloring books are. You'll find some new ones." In the handsomely furnished living room, to which they followed him, Lee found a pitcher of Barbancourt rum punch already waiting on a cocktail table. A smiling Olive Frazer served while Carita sat happily on the floor in front of the bookshelf and proceeded to surround herself with coloring books and crayons.

  "Olive came here just after your last visit a couple of months ago." Seating himself in an easy chair, Roddy beckoned her to come and sit on the arm of it, then put an arm around her waist and proudly looked up at her face. "She came on vacation with a girlfriend from New York City. I mean they were both from there."

  "We shared an apartment in New York, and were looking for a different kind of vacation," Olive said.

  "Her friend left when the vacation was over. I persuaded Olive to stay awhile longer at my expense. As you can see, she's still here."

  "He can't get rid of me," Olive said.

  "I don't want to get rid of her. Not now. Not ever."

  There was a brief silence. Then, no longer smiling, the woman from New York looked from Lee to Carey and said hesitantly, "I hope—I hope you both—" and was silent again.

  Lee had been gazing at her brother. Loving him as she did, she had not found it difficult to understand what Olive saw in the broadness of that Roddy smile, the brightness of those blue eyes. Putting her glass down, she rose from her chair and went to her with both arms extended. Olive stood up and they hugged each other.

  Carey, too, went to her and embraced her. When he and Lee had returned to their chairs, Roddy burst into talk again.

  "Having Olive here has made a big difference to me, let me tell you. Most of our guests are couples—I guess you've noticed that—and I was beginning to feel like someone the world passed by. Along with that, I was buried in paperwork and sort of praying that if the right someone ever did come along, she'd be the kind of gal who could be a partner, so to speak. And that's what olive has become—a partner."

  Olive's laugh was low-key and easy. Still seated on the arm of his chair, she touched him on the hand. "He means I help with the books."

  She was a graduate of Columbia, Roddy told them proudly, and a writer.

  Lee said quickly, "A writer?" and Carey glanced at her, thinking of how she had quizzed him about Pilate for the book she someday hoped to write about Haiti.

  "I do books for young people. I sold the first when I was in college and have been doing them ever since."

  "Oh." Lee nodded. "I was just going to ask how you could simply stay here in Haiti if you had a job in New York. But a writer can work anywhere, can't she? Still . . . how about your apartment?"

  "Sharon's already found another roommate. It was easy. We had friends standing in line. And she's already mailed me the few things I needed and the novel I'm working on."

  "Which I had to steer through the douane here when they arrived," said Roddy with another grin. "And believe me, until you've dealt with the jokers in a Haitian customhouse, you don't know the meaning of frustration. I swear they read the whole manuscript to be sure it wasn't some kind of plot to dispose of Duvalier."

  "Do you like Haiti, Olive?" Carey asked.

  Olive took time to think while the others, all but little Carita, gazed at her and waited. Then, carefully, she said, "So far, the only part I've seen except this north coast region is the capital. Sharon and I spent a few days there in Port-au-Prince before flying up here. I liked some parts of that, but there seems to be so—such a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and some of the poor have to live in such awful squalor." She shook her head. "Please excuse me. I have no right to criticize when I know so little."

  "Would you believe this lady?" Roddy said quietly—and it was not a flip remark, not meant to be funny. "Here I was, trying to seduce her with a beautiful beach, tennis, even a dandy little nine-hole golf course, and all I could get her to talk about was the poverty in the capital.”

  Which is one of the reasons you’re in love with her, isn't it, old buddy? Carey thought.

  It was a lively weekend. There were, of course, the usual trips to the beach, where Carita loved to romp on the sand and search for shells. Saturday morning, expecting to be soundly trounced, Lee and Carey played a few sets of doubles with Olive and Roddy and, surprisingly, won more than they lost.

  "You'd think Olive and I would be better at this by now, with courts right outside our window," Roddy said. "But we haven't had time to play. With the hotel so nearly full all the time now, we've been too busy."

  "How do you account for the sudden popularity?" Carey asked. "Le Re
fuge is being talked about. Look at Olive; she heard about it at the Ibo Lelé, of all places."

  Olive nodded. "Which is a little like opening a book by Stevenson and reading that Conrad is an exciting author too, isn't it? And the ads Roddy places in the travel magazines are helping. Trouble is, if things get any better, we'll have created a monster. Help is so hard to find here."

  "Because most of the help has to live nearby?" Lee said. "We met a woman on the way here who said she's asked for work and you told her she lived too far away."

  "It's a problem," Roddy said. "But I've bought an acre of land just down the road and we're building a place for the help to live in. It's the only solution. I have to provide rooms in the hotel for a few key people, of course—my assistant, the chef, a night man—but we need more help and simply can't find any more who live within walking distance."

  Lee said quickly, "Would you have a job for the woman I just mentioned? The one who asked for work when you first took over here?"

  "We might. What's her name?"

  "Her little boy's name is Lucien and he's blind. Her name—"

  Looking annoyed with herself for not remembering, Lee turned to her husband. "Carey?"

  His memory always made her envious. "Dela Basile," he said.

  "Basile?" Roddy echoed. "Yes, of course. Her husband was a woodcarver, killed in Port-au-Prince by one of Papa Doc's goons."

  "That's the one," Lee said.

  "She's been here asking for work more than once. And, yes, I think we can use her as soon as the new building is finished. Lord knows she needs a job of some kind, with her man murdered and a blind son to look after. I'll get word to her."

  "We'll be talking to her on our way home," Carey said. "Lee and I are hoping we can persuade her to let us take the boy to the school for handicapped children. We'll tell her to come see you again. Okay?"

  "Okay, Carey. Good."

  It was Sunday afternoon. Olive had taken Carey down the road to show him the building under construction—a motel-like affair with eight units in a row, each with its own front door opening off a long, covered veranda. At Le Refuge, Roddy talked to Lee in the lobbywhile guests came and went. The guests were mostly young and attractive, Lee noticed. Almost without exception, they greeted Roddy in passing, as though her handsome brother were an old friend.

  "Lee, tell me something." He had just returned a greeting, and now a frown replaced his smile. "I want Olive to come with me to Glencoe for Luari's wedding. If she does, how do you think Mom and Dad will take it?"

  They were seated in two of the lobby's easy chairs, with a lamp between them. Electricity for Le Refuge was provided by a diesel power plant like the one at Glencoe, but larger. With her elbows on her knees, Lee leaned forward, matching his frown with one of her own.

  "How will they take your living with her without being married to her? Is that what you mean?"

  "You know them, Lee. They're pretty old fashioned."

  "Yes, I guess they are. That doesn't mean they'd be rude to Olive, though. They would never be that."

  "They wouldn't have to be. If I take her and they disapprove, she'll know it in a minute. You know what the biggest thing has been about her meeting you and Carey?" Lee waited. "The way you both got up and went to her and put your arms around her. We talked about it last night. She said shealmost broke down and cried, it made her so happy to be accepted that way."

  "We talked last night, too," Lee said. "Weboth like her very much, Roddy. Very, very much. Take her to Glencoe with you. As a matter of fact—" With her head tipped a little, she frowned at him in silence.

  "As a matter of fact, what?"

  "If the two of you love each other as much as you seem to, why not make it a double wedding, Roddy?"

  Roddy opened his mouth. He closed it. "Hey," he said softly, drawing out the word.

  Monday morning, on their way home, Lee and Carey stopped at the home of the blind boy. Carey opened the gate that had not been closed before, and with Carita between them, holding a hand of each, they approached the door. Carey knocked.

  What happened then was proof that some of the good things in Haiti were still the same despite the unhappy changes wrought by the man who now occupied the National Palace.

  The door opened. "Bon lour, commere, honneur," Carey said.

  "Bon lour, misie, respect," replied Dela Basile, completing the ritual. "Please come in. Let me make coffee for you and your lady."

  They entered and were invited to sit. While the woman hurried to make coffee, Lee told her what Roddy had said about giving her employment. There were tears in her large dark eyes when she brought them what were undoubtedly the only two coffee cups in the house, one cracked and the other chipped, on a handsome, hand-carved mahogany tray.

  "Your husband made this?" Carey asked, admiring the tray. She nodded. "It is the only thing of his that I have left. I have had to sell everything else."

  "It's beautiful. If you had to sell it, how much would you ask?"

  "I don't want to sell it, m'sie."

  "I know. But if you had to?"

  "Fifty qourdes, perhaps?"

  Ten dollars, Carey thought. In the Stateside shops where Haitian mahogany trays of this quality were sold, it would probably be priced at fifty dollars or more. From his billfold he took paper money totaling fifty qourdes.

  "No! Please!" Dela Basile protested.

  "I only want to buy the tray and leave it with you, commere, not to take it away with me. I would not like to think you might someday sell it to someone else. Do you understand? Take the money but keep the tray for me in remembrance of your husband."

  She knew what he meant. It was written in her face, and in the way her lips trembled as she thanked him.

  "Have you decided about Lucien?" Lee asked.

  She looked at the boy and nodded. He wore the same clothes he had worn on Friday, Lee noticed, but they were clean this morning. His face glistened. His hair had been brushed. "If you are sure my son will be loved," the mother said anxiously. "If you are sure I will be able to visit him."

  "I'm certain of both. And sometimes when we come here to see my brother at Le Refuge, we can bring Lucien to visit with you."

  "Then he can go, madame. Because even though I love him, I don't know what to do for him here." She went to her son and talked to him in a low voice while Lee and Carey drank their coffee. Surprisingly patient, little Carita stood silently beside Lee's chair, holding onto the back of it but gazing at the boy and his mother.

  Did Carita understand what was happening? Lee wondered. She was a bright child in so many ways. Perhaps she did.

  The homeward journey was uneventful except for a sudden downpour that turned the road into a sea of slop for a few miles. That sort of thing could happen in Haiti without warning,Lee now knew. You could be standing in bright sunshine, sweating, and watch such a squall race toward you. Before you could run for cover it might be upon you. Or, still drowningthe earth, it might suddenly stop before it reached you—perhaps only a foot or so away. Or it might suddenly stop altogether.

  She had arranged cushions in the back of the Jeep for Carita and Lucien. The two talked most the way. Keeping a constanteye on them, Lee noticed how quickly and easily Carita accepted the fact that her new friend could not see. When there was a lull in their conversationand she wished to say something, she invariably reached out first to touch him, and then waited for him to turn his head and look at her before she spoke.

  And on reaching Mont Rouis, they were lucky. The sister in charge of the school was there; they were able to deliver Lucien to her in person. Small, bright-eyed, everlastingly busy with the children in her care, the woman some affectionately called La Petite Directrice at once sat on her heels before Lucien and reached for his hands. She talked to him. By the time she rose to her full five-feet-four again, the boy was over his apprehension and brightening the yard with his smile.

  "Thank you for bringing him," the sister said to Lee and Carey. "We can do a lot fo
r him, I'm sure."

  Lee reached for her hands the way the sister had reached for Lucien's. This was a woman who, if told there was a handicapped child in some remote mountain village who might be helped, would climb into the school's Jeep and drive there to look for the youngster. If she couldn't get there on wheels, she would go as far as she could by Jeep, then borrow a mule at some peasant caille and finish the journey on muleback. In short, this white woman from Boston, Massachusetts was known, admired, and loved throughout all Haiti.

  5

  When it was over, Luari jokingly referred to it as "the day of the Siamese" or "Yum-Yum's day of glory." Actually, it was a three-day affair and Alison's cat had long been mistress of Glencoe in any case. It was just that her presence—and it was definitely a presence—was more noticed with the Great House so full of people.

  Lyle and Alison were there, of course. And Cliff and Luari. From Haiti came Lee and her Dr. Carey and Roddy and his Olive. Terry Connor, whose brother owned a recording studio was in attendance as well. Kim Tulloch, still energetic at ninety-five, had promised to stay at least a week.

  Ima Bailey was there, too—home from the hospital and cheerful again, but forced to spend most of her time convalescing while her friend Beryl Mangan ran the house. Two other Mango Gut women, wives of coffee workers, had come up to help out on these special days.

  On the day of the wedding still others came. Desmond and Mildred Reid. Calvin Bignall, the Wilson Gap shopkeeper who had brought Luari to Glencoe when fire destroyed her home and family. Terry Connor, the forester whose brother owned a Kingston recording studio. Tom Kirk, now not only the Bennetts' family physician but a close friend as well. And others.

  But it was, indeed, the time of the Siamese.

  Yum-Yum had been only a few months old when Kim Tulloch brought her to Glencoe as a gift for Alison. She was thirteen now and Glencoe belonged to her. There had been no kittens. Almost every peasant family in the district owned a dog. None had cats.