Serpents in the Sun

by Cave, Hugh

  One man, his arm wrapped with what appeared to be a blood-soaked hotel towel, lay unconscious only a few feet from the bougainvillea hedge behind which Roddy and Dela crouched. On the ground near him, even closer, lay an Uzi he had apparently dropped when he passed out.

  With a finger to his lips Roddy warned his companion to be quiet, then dropped flat on the ground and wriggled forward under the hedge. Even if those awaiting his coming had been sober, it was unlikely that any of them would have seen his hand reaching out for the weapon. With infinite care, lest its owner be only in a drunken stupor and not truly unconscious, he curled his fingers around the barrel of the gun and drew it toward him.

  "But there are too many of them!" Dela Basile whispered in alarm.

  "So we wait."

  "Wait for what? You must not go in there!"

  "It will soon be dark." And there'll be a moon tonight, his mind added.

  He continued to lie on the ground, and told his companion she must do the same. There was little chance they would be discovered while waiting; the Tontons were well supplied with liquor from the hotel bar, and only occasionally did any of them look toward the road as if remembering what they were there for. While waiting for darkness, Roddy used some of the waiting time to make sure the Uzi was in working condition. With the Tontons so fond of them, those deadly firearms were fairly common in Haiti. For a time he had even owned one, having acquired it second-hand from a hotel guest who could not pay his bill. Olive, hating weapons of any kind, had persuaded him to get rid of it.

  Soon after six o'clock, darkness blurred the figures in the hotel yard and Roddy rose to his feet. "Wait here for me," he whispered to the woman at his side. When she tried to stop him, he stubbornly shook his head. "No. I must find her. Wait here."

  "But they will see you!" she breathed.

  "No, they won't. I'm going in through the kitchen."

  Gun in hand, he bent low and ghosted along behind the hedge until he was opposite the rear of the hotel. The moon had appeared, but the hotel grounds were still dark enough for him to cross twenty feet of open space and reach the kitchen door without being seen. As he made his way through the structure, sections of floor were still warm under his feet and some of the burned furnishings still smoldered. But interior concrete walls had saved the building from total destruction. Some rooms were less damaged than others.

  He found Olive where Dela had said he would find her, and with a shaft of moonlight slanting through what had been a window there, saw clearly how she had been murdered. Saw, too, that her rings were gone and her earrings torn from her ears. For some reason the fire had not reached her; even the carpet there was largely intact. When he had knelt beside her for a moment, he rose with tears streaming down his face and went into the bathroom. There he stripped the lined plastic curtain from the shower stall.

  Carrying it back to the living room, he laid the curtain on the floor beside his wife and gently rolled her onto it. With strips of a sheet from the bed they had so long shared, he tied both ends of the improvised body-bag. Then he struggled to his feet with the wrapped body limp over one shoulder and the Uzi in his right hand again.

  He almost wished, as he made his way back to Dela Basile with his burden, that one or more of the drunken men in the hotel yard would confront him, so he might have to use the weapon. None did, though when Dela saw what he carried she had to clap a hand to her mouth to suppress a scream that might have brought them running.

  "The boat you mentioned," Roddy said. "Take me to it now, please."

  Again she knew footpaths through the jungle of trees and underbrush in which Le Refuge had always been only an oasis. As he followed her, the weight of his wife's body made his shoulder ache and constantly renewed his rage at what had been done to her. Once he stopped, swung himself around with the Uzi in position to fire, and came close to sending up a yell that would have insured pursuit. But Dela read his thoughts and whispered, "Mon Dieu, m'sieu! Non!" and the moment passed.

  Moonlight lay like snow on the water when they reached the big black rock where the boat was tied. Standing there with his burden, gazing out to sea, Roddy felt he was gazing into infinity. Suddenly he knew what he must do—and going back to the hotel for some kind of bloody revenge was no longer part of it.

  Handing the gun to Dela, he stepped forward and laid the body of his wife in the dugout as gently as he might have put down a sleeping child. Then he searched the beach for heavy stones, found two that would serve his purpose, and carried those to the boat. While Dela watched in silence, he untied the foot of the body-bag, inserted the stones, and refastened the bag.

  To Dela's surprise he then untied the other end of the shower curtain and drew it back, but not far enough to expose the face of his wife—only enough for him to cut a curl of her hair with his jackknife. Putting the hair into his shirt pocket, he closed the bag and turned to gaze thoughtfully at Dela.

  "I know a man in Port-de-Paix who runs a coastal trader between there and Port-au-Prince. He will help us. Do you think we can paddle that far?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Would you like to go to Port-au-Prince with me? I can borrow some money there from my sister to give to you. And La Petite Directrice will probably give you work at the school where your son works."

  "Yes. Oh, yes! There is nothing left for me here!"

  "Come, then."

  He held the canoe while she stepped into it and took up a paddle. When in position himself, he put his own paddle against the black rock and gave the craft a push that sent it swirling out from shore. Then for hours, with almost no talk, both of them concentrated on putting Le Refuge—and that part of their lives—behind them.

  The moon swung through the sky, casting its light down on a calm, glittering sea and long lines of silver where gentle waves broke on shining beaches. At times the land was dark and empty; at other times, clusters of lights on shore told them they were passing the seacoast villages of Le Borgne and Anse-a-Foleur and Bonneau. As the market town of St. Louis du Nord fell behind, Roddy said, "I think this is the place, Dela. Will you help me, please?"

  Since their departure from the hotel beach Dela had wondered when he would force himself to say goodbye to the third person in the boat. Now she stopped paddling and went to him on her hands and knees. Together they lifted the wrapped body onto the gunnel and balanced it there.

  For a few seconds Roddy knelt with his arms around it and his eyes closed. Dela saw his lips silently moving in what she guessed was a prayer. She, too, silently recited one, asking Agoue, the god of the sea, to protect the woman they were sending to him. The sea whispered softly against the boat's sides. The moon looked down on what was happening.

  At last her employer opened his eyes and nodded to her, and together they eased the wrapped body into the water. As it slowly disappeared from sight, Dela watched the face of her companion. Not all of him, she guessed, would continue on from this spot to their destination. A part would forever remain here.

  "Thank you, Dela." Roddy reached for his paddle. "We can go on now."

  "M'sieu, why did you wait so long to do that, may I ask?"

  He looked at her in sadness. "Well . . . there was no way we could have taken her with us, and this seemed a meaningful place to say goodbye. It was about here, you know, that Columbus lost his Santa Maria."

  BOOK TEN

  1986

  With the new year almost a month old, councils of strategy had become almost weekly occurrences at the Aldreds' Pétionville home. Whenever he could, Carita's embassy man, Vernon Jansen, took part in the discussions, adding inside knowledge of recent events to the sometimes less reliable tales told by some of Carey's patients. He was present again this evening, along with Carey, Lee, Carita and Virgilie. Dinner over, coffee was being served in the living room.

  Seated beside Carita on the sofa, Vernon answered a casual question at some length, as he usually did. "Well, people are desperate, you know. When Duvalier rigged the plebiscite last Ju
ly and claimed he had ninety-nine percent of the vote, their last hope for a change went out the window and they knew it. Then when those demonstrations were broken up in Gonaives and Cap Haitian—school kids murdered just for walking around with protest signs, for God's sake—the handwriting was on the wall for everyone to see. You've seen the Christmas statement put out by the Catholic Bishops, haven't you?"

  "'Say no to lies, yes to truth'?" Carey said. "Yes, we've seen it. Am I right in thinking it was meant as a response to the radio news blackout? Seems to me that when the government shut down the radio stations—"

  "The Bishops probably had more in mind than radio blackouts," Vernon said. "Their message accused the government of some pretty heavy crimes, you know. Torture, violence, hatred, injustice . . ." The embassy man had a habit of finishing sentences by spreading his hands, palms up, in a gesture that said, "Well, you know what I mean." He did that, and then added, "There have been more demonstrations, in case you haven't heard. Not only in Gonaives and Cap Haitien but in Jeremie, Cayes, Leogane, many of the smaller towns. People are paying a fearful price for speaking out against the regime."

  "I think he's scared," Virgilie said. "Who but a frightened man would order schools closed?"

  Carey said quietly, "A patient of mine—a hounan—told me the man has actually talked with his voodoo priests about how to put down the unrest that's becoming so rampant. I wonder what they told him." He reached for a piece of paper on a coffee table beside his chair. "And listen to this statement from the Medical Association." His gaze skimming the page, he translated into English some of what was on it. "'At . . . peaceful demonstrations . . . acts of brutal repression have been committed . . . the Haitian Medical Association . . . deplores these arrests . . . losses of human life . . . It . . . condemns these acts of brutal and inhuman repression . . . especially of youth, innocent, without defense . He put the paper aside. "And the medics aren't the only ones condemning him. The Human Rights League, the Catholic Church, the Protestants—others, too, are daring to speak out."

  Lee said, "You know what's happened to the price of food, I suppose." With a wry smile she turned to the tall, clean-cut young man who would be her son-in-law. "But embassy people don't spend much time in the Iron Market, do they?"

  "We know what's going on. So long as the country people are afraid to come into the city with food, prices will stay high, too."

  Carey said, "Our cook went to the market here this morning and had to pay a small fortune for almost nothing. She wasn't lying about it, either. Tina doesn't lie."

  "It's an old political ploy in this country, you know." Vernon shrugged. "Driving up the price of food when you want a change of government, I mean."

  "Old?"

  "People at the embassy tell me it happened back around 1950, too. That time, country women bringing farm produce to town in baskets on their heads—the women we call Madame Saras now—were actually seized on the road at night and spirited away. Some were even murdered. They soon got the message and stayed home, of course, and the price of food went out of sight." He glanced up at a painting on the wall. "The American author who lived in this house at the time—the fellow who painted that picture—used it in a novel he wrote.

  Lee said, “Well, everything’s out of sight again. Duvalier’s people may be forcing the regular stores to stay open, but you can’t buy much. Do you know, too, that many people are leaving this country? It may soon be another case of ‘Will the last one leaving the island please turn out the lights.’”

  Vernon Jansen looked the obvious question at her.

  “That’s what the bumper stickers said in Jamaica just before Michael Manley was voted out.”

  “We don’t have many lights here to put out, I’m afraid,” Vernon said. “But you’re right. Some of the country’s best people are jumping ship.” Leaning forward on the sofa, he frowned at Lee and Carey. “By the way, have Roddy and Olive had any trouble at Le Refuge?”

  Lee said, “We talked to them at Christmas but haven’t been able to reach them since. Their phone’s probably out; it often is. But we’re worried, yes. Or at least we’re beginning to be.” The ringing of the telephone in the hall interrupted her. “Excuse me,” she said and got up to answer it.

  The voice that responded to her “Hello?” was Roddy’s. “Lee, listen,” her brother said. “There isn’t time now to explain, but I’ve just arrived from Port-de-Paix by boat, with Dela and we’re at the American embassy. Can you or Carey come get us?”

  “You’re here?” It was too much for Lee to absorb all at once. “But how? Why? Roddy, I don’t understand—“

  “Just come and get us. Please.” The voice sounded old. “Can you?”

  “Of course!”

  “Right away?”

  “Yes, yes. Right away.”

  Lee hung up and ran into the living room. “It was Roddy. He’s at the embassy. He wants us to come for him.”

  The others looked at her in astonishment. Carita said, “What in the world is he—“ but was interrupted by her fiancé, who quickly stood up and said to Carey, “You and I, Carey. If he’s running from something, we’d better use my car.”

  “Right.” Carey looked at Lee. “Now don’t be alarmed, love. It sounds strange but if your brother’s at the embassy, he’s at least safe. We won’t be long.”

  The dashboard clock said five after nine as Carey backed his car out of the driveway and sent it purring toward the Port-au-Prince road. The big open park in front of the church was deserted; few people ventured out after dark these days. “If we’re stopped by some drunken Tonton, wanting a ride somewhere, better let me do the talking,” Vernon warned. “They know me.”

  “I’m afraid many of them know me too,” Carey said. “At least they know I’m a doctor.”

  “Good. Then I’ll say we’ve got an emergency at the embassy and I had to come and get you.”

  But no drunken Tonton materialized. In fact, the downhill road to the city was nearly as deserted as Pétionville, though in normal times traffic on it would have been heavy. The city, too, was ominously quiet.

  "There may be some new trouble brewing," Carey speculated.

  "You suppose it's something Roddy might be mixed up in? He didn't come here by sea just for a boat trip, you know."

  "Carey, it's like this most of the time now. You haven't been out much at night."

  At the edge of the bay Vernon turned along Truman Boulevard.

  Odd, Carey thought, that the Haitians should have named a road after an American president; but then, without American money, the country would have collapsed long ago, wouldn’t it? As the car swung into the embassy drive, its headlights picked out two figures, one short, one much taller, standing in front of the building.

  Carey reached behind him and opened a rear door. The two hurried forward, Roddy's hand on Dela Basile's elbow. As soon as they were safely in, with the door shut, Vernon at once put the car in motion again.

  "Is someone looking for you?" Carey asked anxiously. "Is that why you didn't let us know you were coming?"

  The voice that had seemed so old to Lee on the phone replied wearily, "It's a long story, Carey. Can it wait a bit?"

  "Of course, if you're in no immediate danger."

  "Well . . . I don't know that we're in danger here. Are Tontons still stopping cars?"

  "Yes, they are. But now and then the shoe's on the other foot. Sometimes their cars or Jeeps are stopped at roadblocks and tipped over or burned by angry mobs who've had enough of it."

  "They killed Olive."

  "What?" Carey said in disbelief.

  "They killed my wife and burned the hotel down."

  "Oh my God, Roddy. No!"

  "It's true. They would have killed me, too, if Dela hadn't got me away." With the cutting edge of the horror now dulled by time, Roddy spoke in a monotone almost empty of emotion. "They looked for me for days while I was waiting for my friend in Port-de-Paix to get back there with his boat. He'd gone to Cap Haitie
n in it. His woman took Dela and me in and hid us while we waited, or we probably wouldn't be here now. But, God, it was nerve-racking. The bastards had found my car and were combing the whole area for me. They were so close at times, we felt sure they'd find us." In the same monotone he added, "But I don't suppose I'm in any danger here unless . . .

  "Unless what?" Vernon said.

  "Well, if some of them stop us just to be nasty and then decide to question us . . . Anyway, thank God you were home when I phoned. I didn't dare take a taxi—you never know who's a Tonton any more—and walking was out of the question."

  As the car climbed back up to Pétionville, passing only one other machine en route, Roddy filled in the details of his wife's death and his flight from Le Refuge. He explained why after reaching Port-au-Prince at last, he and Dela had walked from the dock to the embassy to use the phone there.

  "I suppose there are other phones I could have used," he said, "but I don't know the city the way you people do. And I thought if you weren't home and I couldn't locate you, we'd at least be safe waiting for you at the embassy."

  In Pétionville the four in the car held their breath when, too late to turn in by the market for an alternate route home, they saw a man in a blue shirt standing under a street lamp. Carey was reminded instantly of the painting on his living room wall, done by the American author. The man under the street lamp in the painting had been holding a guitar, though, and this one, obviously a Tonton, held one of the machineguns that seemed to be the Tontons' trademark.

  Would the fellow step out and stop them? He watched the car coming and seemed about to, then changed his mind. Vernon drove the car on by, past the church, and took a left turn to be out of sight before the man could change his mind.

  At the house, Roddy and Dela Basile told their story to the others, this time in all its grim details, while listlessly trying to eat food that Lee insisted on serving them. They had been well fed on the voyage from Port-de-Paix, Roddy protested in vain. "The north hasn't had the shortage of food you say you're having here. But then, everything in Haiti happens first in Port-au-Prince, doesn't it?"