No.
There’s one.
Which?
The one above the shop. Grabow’s whore, Claude said. You’ve heard about her, the Haitian girl he keeps there.
Yes, certainly. But that’s not for you, boy. She’s not for Haitians. Grabow, he keeps that girl for his friends and for the fishermen. If you walked in there and asked for the girl, he’d throw you out, if he didn’t feel like turning you over to the police. Or beating on you. He’s bad, that one.
Well, Claude said, no matter. I’m not going to town for a whore.
You’re not going to town at all, François said.
Claude stood up and stepped out of the lean-to into the bright sunlight. Of course I am, he said. Give me the water, he said, pointing with the machete at the jug.
Slowly, the old man reached over and handed up the plastic container. Claude took it and tipped it up and drank, spilling water in glistening sheets down his bare chest and shoulders.
Vanise did not hear him enter the room, and when she saw him she did not at first recognize him, for somehow in the intervening weeks his face had changed. His chin line was sharper, his features had lost a boy’s softness around the cheeks and brow, and his hair had bushed out, so that he looked older, stronger, more dangerous, and for a second she thought he was a man sent up from the bar by Grabow.
As soon as she recognized him, however, she was afraid. Go away, Claude! she said. You must not be here.
He smiled. The man didn’t hear me. He’s drunk, out front at a table on the street, playing dominoes with friends. I came in the back way. Besides, he said, I’m not afraid of him. Claude was wearing his short-sleeved shirt and thin, tattered trousers and was barefoot. He carried his machete loosely at his side, as if it were a plaything.
They sat down on the bed and talked in whispers, Vanise asking questions, Claude telling her about the Chinaman and the marijuana fields and old François, and also telling her about the Haitians he had found living right here in Elizabeth Town and in the bush nearby, whole communities of them, he said, many of them working in the kitchens of the hotels and in private homes as gardeners and maids.
She did not seem impressed or even surprised, which disappointed him. There was even a société here, he told her, a hounfor with many houncis performing all the services for the loas, and although he himself had not yet been to any of the services, he said, as if apologizing, he soon would go. He wished to make an engagement with the loas, he explained somberly, so as to get them over to America, which he now knew was not very far from here. Every day there were boats going across to Florida with Haitians on board, boats operated by Americans who knew how to carry you over to Miami itself, where there was a whole city of Haitians living in their own houses just like Americans, with automobiles and plenty of food to eat and nice clothes to wear.
She knew about the boats, she said, and how close America was. She told him about the Jamaican, Tyrone, who worked on a boat for a white American, a fishing boat they used for carrying over Haitians, as many as ten and twenty at a time, Tyrone had told her. Tyrone’s job was to round up the Haitians. The white man just drove the boat.
But it costs lots of money, she sighed. Too much.
How much?
She wasn’t sure. Hundreds of dollars, however.
Claude asked her about the baby. Where was Charles?
She explained that Grabow made her sleep the boy in the storage room next door.
Claude asked her to bring him so he could visit with him.
No, no, she said. He’ll wake up and maybe cry, and then Grabow will hear from downstairs and come up and find you.
That’s all right, Claude said. Are you his slave? He looked down at her carefully. She, too, had changed. It was as if the dark, hard thing, like a piece of coal, that had always been at the center of her mind had been heated with too hot a flame and had become a cinder that finally had crumbled to ash. He noticed the slight swelling and discoloration around her eyes and cheeks that he knew came from beatings, and her mouth, which used to be firm and tautly held against her teeth, seemed loose and slack, with all the old, familiar, irritated tension gone out of it, and all the force as well.
They both heard it at the same time, the clank of metal as Grabow drew down the shutters and closed the shop for the night.
Go now! Vanise whispered, her eyes suddenly wide with fear.
Claude stood and made for the door, but she stopped him with her hand. No, you can’t! He sleeps in a room downstairs, he’ll hear you.
Claude turned to her. Why do you stay? You can leave too, he said. Come with me.
No. I can’t.
Why? What can he do? Just leave with me now, you and Charles.
He’ll beat me. Or he’ll do something bad to Charles, give him over to the police so I’ll never see him again. Something bad will happen! I know it!
Won’t the loas protect you?
The loas are angry with me, she said. So I must stay here.
Claude grabbed her by the arm and wrenched her toward the door. Come! Wake Charles and bring him. We’ll leave here together. I know a mambo, the Chinaman’s woman. She’ll help you feed the loas and make a new engagement. I have some money, enough for a service. I can pay for it.
When he pulled open the door and stepped into the dim, narrow hallway, Grabow was almost at the top of the stairs. Their eyes met for an instant. Grabow took one more step, and Claude swung the machete, slicing the man across the midsection, opening him up like a piece of fruit. The man’s eyes, suddenly wild with horror, bulged and rolled, as he realized what had happened. As if he had a bellyache, he clasped his hands to his stomach, and they filled and overflowed at once with blood. He flung himself back against the wall of the corridor and stared open-mouthed at Claude, who swung again, an overhand chop across Grabow’s shoulder, slicing muscle and tendon all the way through to the joint. The man’s lungs instantly filled, and blood poured from his mouthful of scarlet teeth, and he went down.
Claude stared at the man’s body, and with both hands raised the machete over his head, held it there, then slowly brought it down to his side. He sucked in his breath, a loud, chugging intake of air, snapped his head to the right, and almost falling, turned away from the corpse and stumbled back through the open door to Vanise’s room.
She had hidden herself in the far corner behind the dresser, crouched down near the floor, and she had not seen, but she knew what had happened, and she moaned quietly.
Stop that! Claude hissed. Stop!
Slowly, she rose and faced him. He was shuddering, as if a cold wind had blown over him, and he looked like a little boy again, about to cry. Beyond him she could see Grabow’s feet, like two chunks of wood. She took a step toward the door and stopped. Is he dead? she asked.
Claude could make no words. He nodded his head up and down.
Vanise took the boy’s hand in hers, and still watching Grabow’s feet, as if she expected them to move, she said, He’s dead? You know that?
He’s meat! Dead meat! he cried, and he yanked his hand away. Now, he croaked, now you can leave here!
No! No, they will find us and kill us for this! Where can we go now?
His arms at his sides, the machete still in his right hand, dripping blood onto the floor, Claude moved away from the door, as if offering it to Vanise and inviting her to step through. America, he said.
She placed her hands over her eyes like a blindfold, shook her head slightly and took her hands away. Then, without looking at the boy, she said, Do you know how to find this hounfor?
Yes.
You know the mambo? And you have money?