Raymond found his place at the table, next to Eve. Who was he fooling? This charade of not believing in anything better, this resignation to a vie de misère, it was a lie. Raymond was intensely aware of this as Eve filled his goblet with passion fruit juice and her gold ring caught the ceiling light. He wanted this, all of it, the luxuries in life: the brushing of the soft tablecloth against his legs, the slam of full cupboards doors, and the humming of an electric refrigerator.
As they ate without saying much, he listened to the ambient noise around him. Utensils scraped differently against ornate porcelain plates than against his cheap aluminum back home. As Raymond reached for a serving spoon, he realized that the apparent inconvenience of having to stand up and reach around the glass candlesticks and crystal water pitcher would always be an extraordinary privilege for someone like him.
Raymond lifted his eyes and saw Eve watching him. Next to her, his brother ate without a word, but with the subtle pout of a man savoring lobster with distinction, knife and fork poised, methodical. Raymond himself chose to forgo the knife, stabbing at his food and simply pressing down on the crustacean’s shell until it gave.
The baby sat on her mother’s lap and Eve attempted to feed her a mouthful of rice. She squinted at Raymond. “Aren’t you hungry?”
He’d been picking at his food, his appetite dulled with the first cold blow from his brother. “I’ll take some of it home, if you don’t mind,” he answered. “For the kids. Yvonne struggles terribly with the cost of food these days.”
“It is outrageous,” Eve said, and nodded. “How can they expect the malheureux to afford a single cup of rice with this inflation? I’ll fix you a plate for them, of course. How are the kids, anyway? Do they have what they need for school?”
Eve bounced the baby on her knee and Raymond nodded politely.
“They’re fine,” he said.
“Good, because I told Yvonne last time I saw her that my friend owns a shoe store downtown. All she has to do is tell the staff that I sent her and they’ll give her a great discount.”
“The man says they’re fine!” Nicolas’s voice cut through the room and Eve lowered her eyes once more.
“Leave him alone and mind your own business,” Nicolas added.
Eve waited for him to begin eating again and glanced at Raymond.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
“Yes,” Raymond answered. “I’m just a little preoccupied. I have a little problem with my car. I’m going to have to get it fixed up.”
Raymond watched his brother spear a large chunk of beef with his fork and chew it slowly, saw the veins in his temples dance. Finally, he cleared his throat softly, still staring at his plate.
“What’s wrong with it?” Nicolas asked.
“The car?” Raymond said. “Could be the transmission.”
“Could be?”
“I can fix it myself, but I’m going to need to buy the part,” Raymond said. “Could run me about five hundred.”
“Five hundred?”
Nicolas finally looked up and stopped chewing. It was Raymond who avoided eye contact this time. Asking for money was bad enough, but lying wasn’t something that came easily to him. He decided to tell the truth.
“Also, I need to get it repainted. I ran into some trouble with the Tonton Macoutes yesterday.”
Nicolas nearly dropped his knife and fork, and Eve froze. Even the baby stopped fidgeting. Raymond had never seen his brother like this, his black eyes staring at him so fixedly. He’d seen him afraid before, like when he panicked when they got lost together in the fields, or when their father passed away, or when Eve was in labor. But never quite like this.
“What are you saying?” Nicolas said.
“This family asked me for help yesterday evening,” he said. “They were banging on my window. The Macoutes were after them, so I had to do something.”
Amélie banged a spoon on the edge of her mother’s plate, jolting the tense adults.
“Turns out it was Milot Sauveur and his family,” Raymond added, as if this fact would somehow alleviate the gravity of the situation. He looked at them, but Eve and Nicolas were still staring back like a pair of stunned birds.
“Come on, you know—Milot Sauveur?” he repeated. “The journalist from Radio Lakay who went missing?”
Raymond fought the urge to get up and walk out. He hoped his brother might still be reasonable and come through for him. He’d been on edge all morning, looking over his shoulder, praying he wouldn’t be pulled over. He had removed the red ribbon from his rearview mirror so he wouldn’t be pegged as a taxi driver, but the problem with that, of course, was that no one hailed him for a ride. The whole thing was a disaster.
“They had a baby,” Raymond said. “What was I supposed to do?”
“What did you do?” Nicolas asked, his voice hollow.
“I told them to get in and the Macoutes chased me around Cité Simone,” Raymond said. “They thought they could catch me, but they didn’t know who they were dealing with. I know every dark alley in Port-au-Prince, so I stepped on the gas and…”
Eve groaned softly, dropping her head as if she’d been struck.
“Did they get your license plate?” Nicolas asked, his voice burning.
“I don’t think so,” Raymond said. He squeezed the handle of his fork.
“You don’t think so?” Nicolas echoed, nodding repeatedly as he made his point. “What if they did? What if they find you? They could show up any minute. Are you a complete idiot? You’re endangering us just by being here.”
“They didn’t see it, okay?” Raymond dropped his fork.
The table wavered slightly between them. The goblets of fruit juice and ice water sweltered in unison. Raymond took in the raw cotton of Nicolas’s shirt, the stiffness of his collar, the perfectly trimmed Afro, and the elegant sideburns. In the corner of his eye, there were the red nails of this woman he sometimes longed for, the trophy child, the glass and the gold.
“Relax,” Raymond continued. “I know what I’m doing. I always do. You should know that.”
“This isn’t child’s play,” Nicolas spat.
“Do I look like a child to you?” Raymond replied.
“You’re going on and on about knowing your back alleys like it’s something to be proud of,” Nicolas said.
“I’m not ashamed of what I do,” Raymond responded calmly.
Eve gulped some cold water as the brothers stared each other down. Raymond felt his jaw twitch. There was so much he wanted to say to Nicolas, but what was the use? This was his house, after all. Raymond was only a guest who had come to beg. The whole thing was a bad idea in the first place. He didn’t want to fight, but he also didn’t want to put up with this kind of condescension from his brother.
“You don’t see how what you did was wrong?” Nicolas said.
“I saved their lives! Since when is that wrong?”
“Very noble, but what’s wrong is when you jeopardize the lives of others