Nicolas met his mentor’s eyes, his heart swelling with hope. Georges coughed and glanced at the old man.
Jean-Jean lowered his voice. “I mean, I’ll see what I can do. But we will need a commitment from you, and a time frame.”
Nicolas’s eyes sparkled with gratitude. He opened the gate and let the Citroen roll out. Everything was quiet and still, and as Georges drove away, Nicolas watched the sun fall behind the mountains.
THREE
In times like these, Raymond found himself taking stock of the differences between himself and his brother. Raymond, like any good farm kid, could always dig perfect trenches in the soil, find his way home by the position of the sun, and synchronize the harvest with the moon. Later, he learned how to hotwire cars and siphon out fuel or coolant. Nicolas, on the other hand, was the one who wrote letters for the illiterate villagers and whose teachers wrote him glowing letters of recommendation to medical school in Port-au-Prince. When he didn’t get in the Faculté de Médecine, other letters won him a spot in law school and he accepted the privilege. Today, at thirty-eight, Raymond was different from Nicolas in every way. And that was fine by him. He knew that his talents were God’s merciful gift. If it had been Nicolas at the wheel earlier today, he would have never been able to find his way out of a convoluted shantytown like Cité Simone, much less lose the Tonton Macoutes. Then again, his brother didn’t have to deal with people like Madame Simeus.
“I’ll call the police,” his landlady threatened again as he hurried toward his little house. “And I’ll tell them your rent is past due.”
Madame Simeus’s voice croaked in the night like an old crow’s. Raymond bit his tongue. This encounter was the last thing he needed. He took a closer look to make sure she wasn’t sleepwalking again. Alas, no.
She extinguished her cigarette into a potted frangipani and blew plumes of smoke toward the garden. Her gold bracelets clamored around a bony wrist as she pressed the butt into the damp soil and hoisted herself up. When she moved into the light, he saw the bags under her eyes, her thin lips, her small body floating under a large housedress. She stood with her arms akimbo, like vulture wings.
“I’ll have it for you.” Raymond sighed wearily.
He was used to her threats. Madame Simeus regularly promised to call the police over late rent or his children making too much noise in the yard or when an item went missing in her home. He didn’t think she meant it, but he didn’t want to push his luck. Although perhaps the police would come and arrest Madame Simeus for wasting their time? He smiled at the idea.
She lived alone and spent most of her time in the garden, escaping the loneliness of her empty home. Her husband and only son had both died of typhoid back in 1960, months before Raymond had moved in. Spending time outside also allowed her to spy on her tenants and her neighbors. It gave her something to do. She knew Raymond’s comings and goings, and frequently offered unsolicited opinions.
“With the curfews and all, money’s been tight,” Raymond added. “Not many people are hailing cabs these days.”
“You’re three days late,” she reminded him.
“I’m good for it, Madame Simeus. You’ll have it. Good night, madame.”
Raymond hurried toward the back of the house.
“I don’t want to have to remind you again!” she shouted after him.
The evening air was heavy, and as he reached his door, he could still smell her tobacco. As much as he disliked her harping, she was right. This was the sixth time he’d been late. He didn’t like it, and he couldn’t stall her with excuses. She wasn’t interested in others’ problems. “If you can’t pay, you can’t stay,” she’d say.
When Raymond opened the door, two pairs of small arms threw themselves around his legs. “Papa’s home!”
Raymond let the children hold him for a while and pressed his hands against their small backs. It often struck him how small Enos and Adeline were. He knew they weren’t getting enough to eat, and he couldn’t get past the guilt he felt when he ran his hands along their backs and felt their bones. But he loved that their smallness was still a kind of innocence in a place where so much experience was painful. He bent over and kissed them on their foreheads. Adeline was six, Enos four, and they wore their smiles like torches, lighting up the dark corners of his heart.
“How was your day? Tell me, my little angels.”
He picked Enos up and walked over to the small kitchen table, his other arm wrapped around his daughter’s shoulders, the children clinging to their father like vines. As he sat down, the chair wobbled and shifted under his weight. Some nights, he came home with a piece of candy in his pocket, or gum, or dous kokoye, sweet coconut. Tonight he had nothing.
On the counter, his wife, Yvonne, had left bowls and basins filled with water they’d fetched from the back of the house. Dishes were piled up, glistening with dinner’s rancid oil. On the wall, there was a holographic portrait of Jesus—crucified and resurrected—and a photograph of his wife and children in Sunday church clothes, leaning against Raymond’s car. The wall calendar, still turned to January, featured a black-and-white photograph of Duvalier, lips curled in a devious smile, trailed by a gloved First Lady craning her neck like a condor.
Yvonne rushed out of the bedroom. “Where have you been? I was getting worried.”
In the dim light, her skin glowed as if lit from the inside, like a fanal, those festive paper lanterns. These days, she rarely greeted him happily with the children. Instead, she’d wait for him to come to the kitchen where, wiping empty plates, she’d complain about the price of rice, of shoes, of medicine, about the chronic pain that gnawed at her bones, about the heat that choked them all day and night. Even as they fell asleep, she repeated the familiar questions in the dark: “Must we live here forever? Can’t we have just a small, nice kay with trees?”
Right now, however, her face displayed genuine concern. Yvonne rested her hand on his head. “It’s really late,” she said.
“Have the children eaten?” he asked.
“You almost missed curfew!” She pulled away, yanked the kitchen towel from her waistband and threw it on the countertop. “Yes, they’ve eaten.”
She was scared. He recognized this, and still he said, digging through his pockets, “You don’t want to know what I’ve been through today.”
He shifted Enos onto his other leg and gave his earnings to Adeline, who handed the money to his wife. Yvonne stared at him for a moment, the way she always did when she couldn’t get a good read on her husband.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He nodded. She reached for his hand. Her palms were sandpaper rough, the result of years of handwashing sheets and towels in hotels with cheap, imported chemical soaps. He looked down and saw how the dyes had stained her nails, how the flesh was worn around the beds. Those hands had never been smooth. The very first time she’d held his face, he’d felt the damage of her life against his cheeks. He recognized the same toughness from his mother’s hands.
“Why are your hands shaking?” she asked.
“It’s been a long day.”
He put Enos down and asked the kids to go prepare him a bath. They grabbed a bucket and ran out, the back door slamming behind them. Yvonne counted the bills quietly.
“That’s all?” she whispered. “Thirty gourdes, Raymond. What am I supposed to do with that? That’s just enough for the kids’ tuition.”
“There’ll be more tomorrow,” he said.
She stuffed the bills into her bra, her eyebrows knitted into a frown. “Enos’s doctor bills keep piling up, and we must pay them.