Island on the Edge of the World

by Deborah Rodriguez

  Charlie herself felt more alive than she had in years. During the drive through the city she’d noticed her heart quickening to keep pace with the pulse of the crowd, her eyes darting from person to person with envy at the sight of the beautiful faces and wide, easy smiles. And the way the Haitians walked! Especially the women. Even the youngest girls exuded a surety and pride in their straight-backed posture and long, even strides, as if sending a message to the world, loud and clear, that they were a force you couldn’t mess with.

  Charlie marveled at the cleanliness. Not in the streets, of course, where you couldn’t ignore the Styrofoam and plastic and paper and who-knows-what-else pushed into piles in a lame attempt to keep the filth somewhat contained. What impressed her was the fact that, despite all the garbage and exhaust and rubble and dust and heat, the people of Port-au-Prince managed to keep their clothes looking crisp and spotless. Even the color-coded uniforms of the kids pouring out of schools seemed as though they’d just come out of the wash, the trousers and skirts neatly pleated, flouncy ribbons shiny and firmly planted in the hair of the girls. She could never manage to stay as neat as that as a child, not in the sweat of the jungle. She found herself smiling at the memory of her mother taking her down to the river for a bath, where she’d allow Charlie to jump right in with a bar of soap, clothes and all. Some evenings, they’d bring inner tubes to use as floats, and drift together under the full moon, making stories out of the formations of the stars that seemed to live so close to Earth.

  Charlie listened to the cacophony of horns outside the hotel’s wall and tried to imagine how her mother survived the free-for-all that was Port-au-Prince after being so isolated in the Amazon, where they were an hour and a half away by plane from the nearest town of any kind. She’d never forget the first time she, her mother, and Jim took off from the edge of civilization into the sky above pure rainforest, with nothing below them but trees and waterfalls and rivers, until they landed at the tiny mission base, with only one other mission family and a handful of tribespeople to greet them.

  Their move to the jungle hadn’t been terrible, at least not at first. Charlie was too young to look upon it as anything but an adventure. And what an adventure it was. Dropping from the trees with a splash into the mighty river, learning from the local boys how to fish and hunt—at first just for lizards and small birds, and later alligators, wild pigs, monkeys and capybaras, anything that could be considered dinner. It wasn’t long before she became a true tomboy, an accepted member of the ragtag gang of kids who made the riverbanks their playground.

  Back then she had been blissfully unaware of the dangers that came with the life they were leading. Of course, she learned early on to jump out of the water, fast, if she cut or scraped herself on a rock. The piranhas were quick to converge on the weak or injured, but they usually didn’t bother with just anyone, unless blood was drawn. And most of the insects were simply an annoyance that they became used to, though everyone knew to avoid the bees, the scorpions, and the 24-hour ants, so-named for the full day of excruciating pain you’d suffer from one of their stings. The snakes were another story again.

  But for Charlie, the real danger was within the walls of their jungle home. It was the growing sickness in her stepfather’s mind—a toxic combination of ego and anger—that had shattered her family into a million pieces.

  After depositing Bea’s suitcase on the veranda of the hotel and making her way back down the long flight of wooden stairs to the taxi, she hoisted her own duffel onto her shoulder with a groan. The thought of Jim had suddenly turned the paradise she’d arrived in into a darker, more foreboding place. In and out. That’s what she’d sworn to herself, what she’d maintained to her grandmother. In and out. She’d do just what she came to do, and before you knew it they’d be heading back to sleepy, foggy Carmel, to the little world of Bea’s Hive.

  6

  The spongy wood of the worn stairs beneath her feet made Bea feel as though she were descending on marshmallows. She held tight to the dusty railing, the chipped paint rough and bumpy against her hand.

  “Six more to go,” her granddaughter said as the bannister made a tight U-turn on its path from the upstairs rooms down to the hotel’s main floor.

  “So is this place a dump, or what?” Bea called back over her shoulder.

  Charlie laughed. “I wouldn’t call it a dump. I’d call it—charming, interesting, a place with character.”

  “In other words, a dump.”

  “Give it a chance, Bibi. It really does feel like your kind of place.” Charlie took her arm and led Bea out into the open air, some sort of veranda by the feel of the hard tile below and the anemic breeze from fans above. “TripAdvisor gives it three and a half stars,” her granddaughter said. “The Abernathy is sort of famous, you know.”

  “And so was Jack the Ripper.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Bibi?” Charlie helped her grandmother to a tall-backed wooden chair. “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to go back upstairs and rest a little more with Lizbeth?”

  “I’m fine,” Bea snapped back, wiping the sweat from her cheeks. The truth was that she was anxious, and a bit frustrated. She’d got this far in her plan to reunite Charlie with her mother, and now all the girl seemed to be interested in was babysitting some widow from Texas. She’d even promised to get a translator and a car for the next day, to drive the woman to her son’s apartment. First things first, Bea had wanted to shout. But she didn’t, and so here she was, facing a day of being left behind while her granddaughter got herself all messed up in somebody else’s business.

  It was obviously a stalling tactic. Bea understood that. She shared the girl’s apprehension at the thought of seeing her mother and dealing with that despicable man again after all these years. The last thing she wanted was for her granddaughter to get hurt even more than she already was. Healing those wounds was the whole point of this adventure, after all; recovering that sense of wholeness and security that Charlie was so obviously lacking. At least she’d had the love of her mother to keep her grounded during all that time in the middle of nowhere. Being tossed out alone into the big wide world had turned the girl into a nomad. It was clear that she was struggling to settle in at the salon with Bea. What concerned Bea even more was the struggle Charlie might be facing long term, the struggle to find peace within herself while she remained crushed by the void created by her mother’s absence.

  As well as obvious, Charlie’s latest attempt at avoidance was also brilliant, as Bea would have a hard time calling her on it. How could she question a show of empathy?

  From the moment Charlie had started working in the salon a year ago, Bea had tried to instill in her granddaughter the code every good hairdresser knew to follow. No matter what, you needed to act as though you cared, as if all those sagas you listened to day in, day out were the most fascinating, most gut-wrenching, most tear-jerking stories ever. You had to keep track of the names of the cheating husbands, the dying dogs, the ungrateful friends. You had to ask about the illnesses and the aches and pains, about the troubled kids and the aged parents. It was all part of the job. And it was okay to really care, to a point. But that’s it. Because if you let yourself get too sucked up into everyone else’s problems you would drown in a sea of sorrow, not to mention the valuable time it would take away from your work. And though Charlie hadn’t much patience for the gossip, when push came to shove, her empathy could be off the charts. Bea chalked it up to her strange childhood, growing up among people whose lives were so harsh, so raw. It seemed to have saddled Charlie with a worldview that made the pain of others very real, as opposed to some distant tale observed through a TV screen.

  “This is a great spot for you, Bibi,” Charlie said. “Really interesting. Lots of weird art around, kind of primitive looking. Plenty of room to sit. Looks like the perfect place for people to gather.”

  “It’s dead as a doornail right now, though, isn’t it?” Bea could detect the sounds of engines revving and ho
rns honking, people yelling to one another out on the street. But there was neither a single human voice, nor the clink of a fork, nor the rattle of an ice cube, nor the scrape of a chair leg to be heard around her.

  “Maybe it’s too early for service. Let me see if I can find someone to get you a drink.”

  Bea swatted at a bug that was tickling her arm and settled back against the chair. She had to admit, at least to herself, that this ghost hotel actually gave off a surprisingly good vibe, or juju, or whatever they called it here. It was almost as though she could feel the presence of all the guests who had stepped across its creaky floorboards before her. These old walls must have seen quite a lot in their day, Bea thought, as she breathed in the heaviness that signaled the promise of rain.

  “Gin and tonic.” Her granddaughter delivered the drink with a small thud. “The quinine in the tonic is good for malaria. Which reminds me, don’t forget to take your pill. I’m going to check on the arrangements for tomorrow, then head back upstairs to finish unpacking. You okay down here?”

  Bea took a sip of the tall, icy cocktail, delightfully strong. She shrugged her shoulders, still not quite ready to concede her growing fondness of this place to Charlie.

  “Okay then, Bibi. I’ll be back down soon to join you for dinner.”

  Bea settled in with her drink, her eyes cast toward the mass of green beyond the boundaries of the veranda. Haiti. The very sound of it conjured up images of jungle drums and magic potions, like in those old zombie movies. And, of course, all those dictators and coups, all the corruption and greed. She could still picture the face of that crooked Papa Doc, with his little black glasses, and his chubby playboy son practically sitting on his knee like a ventriloquist’s dummy. The nightly news had always portrayed the country as a pitiful cesspool, its people as victims of violence and crime, poverty and disease. And those commercials with the poor, wide-eyed, tiny orphan children who could be fed for just pennies a day. It got even worse after the earthquake—all those camera crews tripping over each other to capture lifeless limbs sticking out from beneath piles of rubble, the tattered tent cities clawing at the hills, and the people covered with dust wandering around the city like, well, like zombies.

  She remembered the earthquake being the talk of the salon. It seemed like the whole town was scrambling to figure out how they could help: car washes, bake sales, food drives, all raising money for one organization or another. Everywhere you turned, there was someone with a hand out for the earthquake victims in Haiti. Bea didn’t mind. It was good for the town to look somewhere beyond its own nose, for folks to have something to be up in arms about other than illegal bonfires on the beach or the “unsightly” moss sprouting from the roofs of the shops downtown.

  However, it wasn’t long after the disaster, maybe five years later, before the conversation took on a more reproachful tone. All that money, where did it go? What good has it done? It wasn’t a bad question. Bea knew there’d been billions of dollars given for relief efforts. But the way people talked made it sound as though the Haitians had been blowing the cash betting on horses and bingeing on caviar. That, or burning it for fuel. Bea suspected the truth had more to do with the system, with the ones doling out the money rather than the ones who were supposed to be receiving it.

  Bea’s vision grew suddenly darker as a gust of wind barreled across the veranda. The rain started in a rush, as if someone had turned on a faucet full-force, muting the sounds of the city beyond, sending the temperature into a glorious nose-dive. The roof above offered shelter from the deluge—until it didn’t. Bea scooted her chair over a bit to avoid the drip-drip-drip that was turning her silk turban into a soggy mop.

  From behind her came the sound of leather soles on the tiles, one hitting hard, the other dragging behind. “Please, I will help you,” she heard a man say, his soft, accented voice fighting with the racket of the rain. Bea felt two rough, dry palms against her skin, gently lifting her out of one chair and leading her to another, further back from the rain. Then the man left, only to return shortly after with a fresh drink and a towel.

  “It will happen each night,” he said. “It is the rainy season for Haiti.”

  Bea loved it. So much more dramatic than the fog back home, which crept in unannounced and lingered far too long, like an uninvited guest. This weather had a purpose, a job to do. She breathed in the sweet smell of wet soil.

  “My name is Stanley.”

  Bea held out her hand. “Bea. Pleased to meet you. You work here?”

  “I have worked at the hotel for twenty-five years.”

  “Tell me, Stanley, does it ever pick up around here?”

  “Pick up?”

  “I mean, do you get more business, more guests? It’s so quiet.”

  “Well, that depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “It depends on what is happening.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If there is a lot of unrest with the people, then the journalists come.”

  Bea nodded.

  “If there is an election coming, then the politicians come.”

  “I see.”

  “When there was the earthquake, then everyone came.”

  “And now?” Bea had to practically shout to be heard over the strengthening storm.

  “Nothing is happening now.”

  “What about tourists?” Bea tried. “Do you get them?”

  “Not so many, anymore.”

  “Okay. So what about missionaries, those kinds of people?”

  Stanley laughed. “A few. Most of them do not really like it here.”

  “Why not?”

  “They think the hotel is full of Vodou.”

  “And is it?”

  Whatever the man’s answer was, Bea never heard it. It was lost beneath a boom of thunder accompanying a flash of lightning so bright that, for a minute, she thought she could see again.

  7

  Lizbeth was standing at the bottom of the stairs wearing a turquoise visor that plastered her hair flat onto her head, with her purse strapped snugly across her ample chest, when Charlie pulled up in a rented white Mitsubishi—a tank of a car that made her feel like a trucker behind the wheel. “Everything okay with my grandmother?” she asked out the lowered window.

  “Bea’s just fine,” Lizbeth answered, pointing above her, toward the veranda. “I left her parked up there talking with some folks from England, with a big old cup of coffee and breakfast on the way. Have you tasted the coffee here? That coffee’s so strong it’ll walk right into your cup.”

  Charlie noticed Lizbeth’s brows raise almost imperceptibly at the sight of the dark, handsome man in the passenger seat. She waited as the woman let herself into the back of the car and fastened her seat belt. “This is Mackenson,” Charlie said. “He’s going to be interpreting for us. Mackenson, this is Lizbeth.”

  Mackenson twisted around and offered Lizbeth his hand. “It is good to meet you.”

  “Pleased to be making your acquaintance as well,” Lizbeth answered politely as they shook.

  Charlie turned the car around and headed back down the driveway. In the rearview mirror she could see Lizbeth gaping at the field of sculptures standing at attention as they passed. “What do you think?” she asked her.

  “I think they should put some fig leaves on those things!”

  “They are the loa,” Mackenson told her. “The spirits.”

  “Look like demons, if you ask me.”

  “See over there.” He pointed to a sculpture in the far corner of the garden. “That is Èrzulie Dantòr. The Black Madonna.”

  Charlie glanced at the life-size figure draped in tulle, her skeletal face frozen in a grimace under a metal crown, a rotted rubber baby doll nestled in her arms.

  “And do you see this one?” Mackenson pointed toward a squat carved figure on the lawn, basically two legs and a skull with a battered top hat almost as tall as the statue itself. “That is Baron Samedi. He is the loa of death
and sexuality, and keeper of the cemeteries.”

  “Well, I don’t give a lick if they’re barons or goddesses, saints or sinners,” Lizbeth said. “I still don’t want to be looking at their hoo-has.”

  Charlie laughed as she waved to the guard and pulled the car out into the street. She was in awe of how alive the city was at this early hour, as if no one had slept at all. People were marching behind wheelbarrows stuffed with everything from mangoes to car batteries. A woman glided by with a bowl of bananas balanced perfectly on her head, followed by a man with dozens of brooms resting on his head, one arm holding them in place, the other swinging back and forth as if he were simply taking a leisurely stroll down a leafy boulevard. She braked for a young man draped in power cords and adaptors and boxes with dials, like a walking electrical store. Everybody everywhere seemed to have something to sell. Already the streets were lined with open umbrellas that were emblazoned with Digicel and Natcom logos, men and women settling in underneath them for the long day of commerce ahead.

  “Can they make a living doing that?” Charlie wondered out loud.

  “Yes, it is possible,” Mackenson answered. “My mother was a seller. She had six children, and sent all of us to school, by herself. I have one sister, she is a nurse. Our brother, he is a priest, back in my countryside, where I grew up.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Lizbeth said. “She raised y’all by herself? How on earth did she manage? When did your father pass?”

  Mackenson didn’t respond.

  Charlie shivered, the relentless blast of air-conditioning sending goose bumps crawling up her pale arms. As they slowed to a stop in the morning traffic, she cracked open the window to allow some warmth to enter, and with it came the odor of diesel and smoke, as well as the sight of a street vendor balancing an impossibly huge wire basket on his head.