Nadia didn’t say anything. Kay had been right: she had beautiful eyes. Their color gave her skin its hint of greenish pallor. I didn’t know what she was thinking; I thought of her vacant expression in the meat market, her face and hair coated in blood. Nadia’s eyes gave away nothing but that long-ago liaison between master and slave.
Kay said, “Did you know it’s my birthday? In my country, when somebody has a birthday, we say ‘Happy birthday’ and give them a kiss.”
“Happy birthday,” Nadia said. “I am very contented for you.”
“And when is your birthday? When it’s your birthday, we can have a party.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Honey, everyone has a birthday. It’s written on your passport. It’s written on your birth certificate. I don’t believe—”
I interrupted her. “Kay, did you say you were thinking of going to Africa in the spring? To see the elephants?”
“Well, everybody has to have a birthday. That way we can have a party for Nadia, and if someone’s not having a good time—”
“After dinner, let’s hear some African music. Or see some African art.”
Kay stopped herself. She was thinking of getting angry — you could see it building. But the spark wouldn’t catch. From the far end of the table, there was her husband’s bullying voice. He had his arm around a colleague. I heard, “This motherfucker — this guy—” Then I heard Johel saying, “Wait — wait — what you mean is—”
Kay picked up her knife and inspected her reflection. She pouted at herself. Then she excused herself to go to the bathroom and walked off singing, “It’s my party and I’ll pee if I want to — pee if I want to.”
When she came back, she was happy again. Baker the diplomat asked Kay if she wanted to hear a funny story.
“I’d love to,” Kay said.
“This is a true story,” Baker said.
“Of course it is,” Kay said. “I bet you’ve never told a lie in your life. You’ve got that kind of face.”
“So we give out visas, that’s what we do all day, and the truth is that most folks who want a visa, we say no.”
“That’s cold,” Kay said.
“You don’t know the half of it. Listen to the story. The way it works with visas is that applicants have to prove to us that they’re not going to live in the States.”
Now Nadia was looking at Baker. I had thought the language was too difficult for her, but she was staring at him, her brilliant eyes not blinking.
“Basically, you have to prove you’re not broke. Show us a bank account, show us a house, show us a job. And that’s not easy to do. Nine out of ten applicants we turn down.”
Kay had a little smile on her face, waiting for the punch line.
“So one of my colleagues gets this applicant. Lady makes an appointment, shows up at the window, pays her hundred dollars, and wants a visa. Neatly dressed older lady, says she works at American Airlines, wants to visit her kids in Boston. And for whatever reason, my colleague — we call her Permission Denied, she’s such a hard-ass — Permission Denied doesn’t believe the story. The letter from the employer looks strange, the bank account is nearly empty, et cetera, et cetera. Decision is final. No appeals.”
Baker paused for a second as the waiter delivered the appetizers.
“So a couple of weeks later, Permission Denied is ready to go back to the States on vacation. She gets herself to the airport, waits in line, and who’s standing there behind the counter but this lady, the one who got her visa denied. Permission Denied is sweating bullets just because this is so awkward. And this lady, sugar wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Doesn’t say a thing. ‘Enjoy your flight, ma’am.’ Permission Denied thinks everything will be fine, just until the moment she’s getting on board the plane, when American Airlines security stops her. Seems she’s been flagged on the No Fly List. And she’s sputtering how she works at the American embassy, et cetera, et cetera. She makes such a holy scandal they bring out the head of airport security.”
“Don’t tell me—,” Kay said.
“You got it,” Baker said.
“Really?” I said.
“She turned him down for a visa too.”
“Oh, no!” Kay said.
“You know what the lady at the counter, the first lady, said?”
“What?” Kay said.
“She looks at Permission Denied and says, ‘I didn’t want to take my vacation in Port-au-Prince either.’”
“Oh, that’s too good,” Kay said.
“True story.”
Now it was our side of the table that exploded in laughter. Soon all of us were telling jokes. The only one who wasn’t laughing was Nadia. But Kay was happy again, as all the men — Baker, LBJ, and me — placated her and made her laugh.
It didn’t seem like cruelty to ignore Nadia, maybe even a kindness. She did not look bored. She stared at her husband. From time to time her face would attract my eye, and my glance would linger on her high cheekbones, her tiny ears, and her sculpted lips. Later, when the judge excused himself and went to the bathroom, I do not believe that Nadia’s eyes wavered for even a fraction of a second from the pathway leading to the main building in which the toilets were located; and she seemed to respire shallowly until the very instant he returned to the table, where he leaned his big body over hers and whispered in her ear. Whatever he said produced a wan smile. Then he sat down again at the far side of the table.
Baker whispered to me, “Is that Madame Mireille?”
I followed his glance across the room to a distinguished lady in red crêpe de chine, the only woman at a table of older men.
“What are you two talking about?” Kay asked.
Baker said, “Not so loud, she’ll hear us.”
“Who?” Kay asked, her voice inexplicably louder.
“That’s Madame Mireille,” I said.
“Where?”
“That lady. That’s her.”
Our heads all swung around like spectators at a tennis match, and then people at neighboring tables followed our glance.
“She doesn’t look like the posters,” Kay said.
Madame Mireille’s face, admittedly somewhat younger, was on electoral posters all over the capitaclass="underline" she had been a losing candidate in the last presidential election, a partisan of the mulatto urban economic elite. The posters had yet to be taken down. Her husband had been president in the late 1980s before being deposed; on his death a few years back, she entered politics herself. She had lost the election very badly.
“She’s a brave woman,” Nadia said.
Her voice surprised me.
Kay said, “I never understood that, how some women go into politics when their men die. If Terry died, it’s not like I’d see it as a career opportunity.”
Then the waiter came back. Now we had had sufficient time to consider our choices, and the process of ordering was efficient. It was interrupted only by Nadia, who had not looked at her menu. Instead she insisted on interrogating the waiter on her choices. And I understood that she could not read the menu.
Kay must have noticed the same thing. “The fish is so good,” she said. “They make it with this beurre blanc white sauce and—”
Nadia continued to interrogate the waiter.
“The last time we were here, I loved it,” Kay said, as much to me as to Nadia. “I’m just not getting it today because sometimes I need meat, you know? If I don’t eat a steak once a week, I feel faint. Terry says I’m a natural-born carnivore.”
The waiter in his pressed white shirt and tuxedo jacket seemed to be losing his patience.
“Fish is good,” he said.
“See?” Kay said. “You’ll love it.”