Heading South

Traffic

THE HIBISCUS HAS been practically empty for the past two hours. There’s no one in it except Albert and two young, uniformed waitresses. The tourists have all left. Ellen is the last to leave the hotel (her face set, wearing sunglasses and a small black dress). Albert drives her to the airport. They maintain a weighty silence during the drive, which Ellen breaks only when she has passed through immigration. She is curious about a remark the inspector made to her.

“He said, ‘A tourist never dies.’”

Long silence.

“What did he mean by that, Albert?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, madame.”

“For once, will you call me Ellen? Please?”

After a pause, Albert at last looks at the tortured mouth that has been speaking to him.

“Be seeing you, Ellen.”

“Goodbye, Albert.”

He observes the stiffness in her neck. She doesn’t like where she’s going, he can see that. In a sense, it’s her past that awaits her.

SAM AND MAULéON have been in a secret meeting all morning. Sam is a vulture, only seen when something has already died. Without wanting to make too much of it, Mauléon knows that in this case, what has died is the dream that kept him from caving in when he lived in New York. Today, his dream is a putrid corpse. Which is why he’s had Sam in his hair for the past two days. And today the man’s made an unacceptable offer. Mauléon tries to stave him off, but Sam has him by the throat. There’s no way out. If he turns the offer down, he could lose everything and go to jail (the only option left to him). He feels his brain being constantly bombarded by a stabbing pain. Then, suddenly, the pain lifts. It’s as though he’s stumbled into the eye of the storm. A heavenly peace settles on him. He hears divine music. And for half a minute his strength comes back in full force; he sees that there is still a way he can hang on to the Hibiscus. Which, of course, in reality, is pure fantasy.

“You’ll see, Mauléon. It’ll take a while, but I’ll get this place up and running again. I told you the hotel business was volatile. You can’t blame yourself, you made a superhuman effort. . I’ll have to change the name of the place, as you know. I’ve been thinking of an English name, the Yellowbird. It’s the title of a great little folk song Harry Belafonte made famous a few years back. What do you think? I can’t keep your staff, either. I’ve already got too many people working at the Marabout. On the other hand, I need a reliable man around here. And the only one who fits that description is you. I’ll be spending most of my time at the Marabout’s casino for the next few months, and I’ve got this little nightclub in Delmas that’s sucking me dry right now. You’ll be my right arm here. I know you, Mauléon, and I’m convinced you’re a man of your word. What do you say?”

“Thank you, Sam,” Mauléon says, with a knot in his throat, “but I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. .”

“Surely you’re not going back to New York?”

“I don’t know. . I’m not sure of anything anymore. .”

“Don’t lose faith, Mauléon. . You’re like a rock to me. . Take my offer. . We’ll come to terms and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Hearing him, Mauléon smiles to himself. He knows the old shark will never add so much as a dollar to his offer.

“Well, you know, Sam,” he says, “one owner should never work for another owner. . That’s what the judge told me. .”

“What judge?”

“Judge Mauléus. My father.”

“Ach, Mauléon, your father’s days are long gone. . It’s not like that anymore. The country’s changed. A man’s got to survive. And he can’t if he doesn’t have a job. There’s nothing wrong with working for me. You’ve worked for enough people in New York.”

“Sam, you know, this land has been in our family since Independence. General Pétion conferred the development rights to it on one of my ancestors. And here I am, selling it. But there is one thing I’ll never do, and that’s work on this land as an employee. I will not be a subordinate on Mauléus soil.”

“All you Haitians, you’ve got too much pride. That’s what keeps you from getting ahead. .”

“I can’t argue with you there. At my age, people don’t change, Sam. .”

Sam laughs heartily. A fat cat’s laugh.

“Well, then, let’s shake and be done with it. . You’ll always be welcome here. . Will you have a drink with me?”

“I don’t drink.”

“But it’s a significant occasion.”

A beat.

“All right, I’ll have a small one. .”

“Albert!” Sam calls out suddenly. “Bring me two glasses and a bottle of rum. .”

HARRY COMES IN with a group of young Haitian women, all friends of Tanya’s. They gather at the far end, close to the water, where they can get their legs wet when a large wave comes in. They laugh as they take off their shoes.

What we are seeing is a kind of revolution. Instead of a crowd of white, middle-aged women clustered around a young, black Adonis, we have a clutch of young, black women accompanied by a white man of a certain age.

A waitress comes up to them.

“We’ll have the grilled meat, lots of it, and a bottle of ‘saddled-and-bridled.’”

The young waitress isn’t quick enough to hide her astonishment. “What’s wrong?” Harry asks.

She starts to laugh. Harry smiles. The girls around the table cry out shrilly every time a wave comes up to their ankles.

“Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

“No, sir. . It’s just that I didn’t know whites knew about ‘saddled-and-bridled.’”

“I’m Haitian.”

The young waitress laughs again. Tanya turns around sharply, as though stung by a wasp. Harry is flirting with the little tramp. That’s the problem with whites, you have to watch them all the time. They can’t seem to get it into their heads that there is also a social hierarchy among blacks. Waitress, heiress, it’s all the same to them. An all-inclusive racism. Everyone is equal and everyone is welcome. When in fact they’re not interested in anyone.

“I’m thirsty,” Tanya calls to the waitress. “Go get me a Coke. . Go, go, what are you waiting for?”

“I’m going to take everyone’s order at the same time.”

“What? What are you telling me? I tell you I want something, and you tell me I can’t have it? You go get me a bottle of Coke, and then you come back to take their orders.”

“Well,” Harry cuts in, “it would be simpler if. .”

“You!” Tanya says to Harry. “Your job is to pay.”

Harry shuts up. The waitress goes back to the bar.

“Never do that to me again, you hear?. . Are you with me or with her? Because I can leave right now if you want, but as long as I’m sitting at this table, I’ll make the decisions, not her. .”

“You Haitians are so hard on each other.”

“And you Americans aren’t? When your wife’s at the Bellevue Circle, is it her or the waitress who gives the orders? Would you have the nerve to try to pick up a waitress if your wife were there?”

But now Tanya realizes her mistake. Men like Harry are always trying to pick up waitresses, right under their wives’ noses. It’s their favourite sport. Harry’s laugh puts Tanya back in a good mood.

ALBERT IS STILL totalling the bar receipts when the inspector comes in.

“So, that’s it?”

“Yes, sold this morning,” Albert replies without looking up from his precious maroon ledger.

“I just saw Sam. . What about you?”

“Going home to the Cap. My mother is getting on. She’s been living with my sister since my father died. I’ll take her back to her own house. It needs some work done on it. Roof needs repairing. And I’ve still got a few old friends down there.”

“You guys from the provinces, I envy you. . You can always go back to your childhood. .”

“Maybe, but I feel like my life is here in this hotel. . If I hadn’t come here, I thought of becoming a sailor. I love the sea, foreign countries, languages. That’s something I really like. . When you come right down to it, this hotel has been the boat I didn’t take. . Where are you with your inquiry?”

“Everyone’s gone home. . And I’m not in Criminal Investigation anymore.”

“Who took your place?”

“André François. You know him, he’s the one who. .”

“I know him well. . So where are you now?”

“I’ve been sent to help out Yves Nelson at the Department of Commerce. I’ve worked with him before, he’s a good man, but I’d rather spend my time conducting inquiries. The chief said to me the other day that I’d be happy conducting inquiries until the whole force went bankrupt. Really, I don’t know what he meant by that, because I only earn a small salary and I pay most of the expenses of an inquiry myself. .”

“Will you take a glass of rum? It’s the last time I’ll be able to offer you one. .”

“Of course. . Here’s to you, old brother. .”

The inspector studies the golden liquid in his glass for a long time. Night is beginning to fall. A red sun slides gently into the Gulf of Gonâve.

“Did you finish your inquiry?”

“What do you mean by finish?”

“Did you arrest anyone in the end?”

Silence. The inspector’s glass is refilled.

“Now that you mention it, no. I never found out who was guilty. . It’s hard when you hold an inquiry meant solely to find a guilty party. I met a lot of guilty parties in the course of my inquiry, but none of them were the one I was looking for.”

“Did you arrest them anyway?”

“No. . it’s against my code of ethics. I know there are other inspectors who find things out along the way, but I have a problem with that. .”

“You mean to tell me they shouldn’t act on what they find out?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned, no.”

“What if they’re important discoveries, of great benefit, like Fleming when he discovered penicillin when he was looking for something else?”

“If that’s not what he was looking for, then he shouldn’t have to tell anyone about it. From a strictly ethical point of view.”

From the other end of the bar comes the low sound of Harry’s laughter and the high shrieks of girls being tickled.

“Your new clientele?”

“He’s a friend of Sam’s.”

“I know who he is,” says the inspector. “He’s the American consul. Yves told me about him. He’s in the business of trafficking passports to any crook who’ll supply him with girls. Yves has had to go see him a few times at his cottage in Mariani.”

“So, if you found proof positive of something like that, for example, are you saying you wouldn’t arrest him?”

“I’m not in the Morality Squad. That’s Gérard Henry’s division. .”

“But you just said he’s trafficking in passports. .”

“Did I say passports? Sorry, I meant visas. . I told Yves there’s nothing illegal about it. A consul has the right to issue visas. It’s up to him if he wants to open his country’s door to every asshole in Port-au-Prince. If it were the other way around, that’d be different. .”

“The other way around?”

“If someone was getting his jollies by issuing Haitian visas to every scumbag in New York, then I’d step in. . As far as I’m concerned, what goes on in that cottage is private business. . Anyway, to be honest, I’ve got to say I prefer less complicated cases. .”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. . Spend some time with Yves at Commerce, I guess, and if it turns out that that’s not my bag I might try taking my chances in Montreal. I’ve got a cousin up there. .”

“You’re still young enough to take on something like that. .

Me, I’m going home. .”