Later, Terry and Kay would have a nightcap on the roof of the house. The evening breeze carried hints of honeysuckle, jasmine, lilacs, and passionflower. Bats flashed from tree to to tree, and vast hordes of slow-waltzing constellations danced across the night sky. Later the moon shone so brightly she could see her own sharp-edged shadow. She was happy.
The night before Kay was scheduled to go back to Florida, she and Terry fought. She had planned a romantic evening for her last night in Jérémie, but as soon as she saw him coming home from work, his face drawn tight with anger and irritation, she knew that he was in a lousy mood. He banged around the kitchen, ignoring the pretty dress she had put on for him, muttering to himself until she finally asked him just what was his problem. Terry told her that Marguerite Laurent had passed him over for another decent job, this time as reports officer, a desk job that would have taken him off the patrol roster and given him some time to rest his aching back. When he’d complained, Marguerite Laurent said, “If you’re not physically fit for duty, you should consider your future in the Mission.”
“What you got to understand is that this woman is a world-class ballbreaker,” Terry told Kay. “She’s had it in for me since the day I showed up.”
“What do you think her deal is?” Kay asked, still hoping to jolly him into an acceptable mood.
“Who knows?” Terry said. “She’s Queen Marguerite, and if you don’t lick the royal boot, you get patrol.”
“Are you the only one who has problems with her, or does everyone else get along with her?”
“What are you trying to say, Kay?”
Kay lost her patience. “I’m just saying that I’ve seen this play before. The set was all different, and they changed the lady playing the bitch, but otherwise, same actor, same text.”
Kay and Terry looked at each other. The thing about being married all these years was that they could have the fight from start to finish, soup to nuts, Alpha to Zulu, without saying one more word. The minute that followed might have seemed to an outsider like nothing more than an attractive couple on the threshold of middle age sitting quietly, but to Kay and Terry, the air was thick with attack, counterattack, defensive parries, sly, stinging remarks, and wounded feelings. There was no need to say another word because they’d said all the relevant ones so many times before. Kay knew that Terry was thinking that he was in Haiti because of her, because she’d driven the family finances off a cliff with her ice sculptures and soft sheets and investment-grade apartments; and Terry knew that Kay was blaming him because she’d given him the best years of her life and she’d come out of it with nothing more to show for it than a persistently bruised heart and debt. Soon the fight degenerated from grievances to assaults on each other’s character. Kay said out loud, “Should we open a bottle of wine?” But Terry heard Kay denounce him as his own worst enemy — it was funny, wasn’t it, just how many people seemed to have it in for Terry. Kay told Terry that he’d had opportunity after opportunity over the years and he’d gone out of his way to blow them. And you know why? Because you’re frightened, Terry. You’d rather destroy something before it gets going and blame Marguerite Laurent or Marianne Miller or Tony Guillermez than try and fail. You’re a coward.
Kay had meant to make Terry angry, and she had succeeded, but she winced when he told her that she was spoiled. She hated the word “spoiled,” with its suggestion of rot and age; and she thought to accuse anyone who had worked as hard as she had over the years of being spoiled was so unfair. The truth is, she told Terry, is that you think anyone in a good mood is spoiled. Maybe Marguerite Laurent should be considering your mental health issues, Terry, not your back problems. Anyone who isn’t miserable, in your book, is spoiled. Maybe if I was a quadriplegic begging on the streets of Calcutta I’d have the right to smile, but otherwise, I’m a spoiled brat. You can’t stand it that I’m not depressed.
Had Terry’s phone not rung, the two of them might have continued to fight all through the evening. Even as they prepared dinner, they would have fought: the two of them were entirely capable of discussing whether the pasta was ready, whether the wine was sufficiently chilled, and what time her flight left the next morning in tones an outsider might have considered perfectly amicable, even as another conversation was conducted between them, no words employed, that was cruel and biting and true. The fight might well have lasted until that moment when Kay set foot on her plane back to Port-au-Prince and Miami, the whole otherwise lovely visit clouded by a sense of disgruntlement and marital unease, despite the fact that neither Terry nor Kay had said out loud so much as a single bitter word.
But at that moment Terry’s phone rang. He had the phone chiefly to communicate with Kay herself. It might have been the first time since she arrived that she heard its shrill ringtone. She startled slightly.
“Talk to me, brother,” Terry said.
Then Terry was moving quickly, listening and standing up at the same time, holstering his pistol. “I’ll be there in five minutes,” he said. “Get under the bed and stay away from the windows. Don’t go outside. I’m on my way.”
He slipped the phone into his pocket.
“Who’s that?” Kay asked.
“I’ve got to go.”
Kay could tell from the cast of his face that whatever was happening was serious. Something she knew about Terry, something she liked very much, was that he was extremely competent in an emergency. She trusted absolutely his judgment on important matters, matters of life and death: she knew in these moments not to interfere or question him. Then she could hear the siren of his patrol car screaming. She sat alone in the early-evening darkness, wondering what she would do if he never came home.
* * *
Terry first met Johel Célestin at Mission HQ when Johel came to give the UNPOLs a presentation on the situation in Les Irois. Presentations like the judge’s were a regular feature of UNPOL life, some speaker from Port-au-Prince or per diem king droning on monotonously for an hour or two about arrest warrants or the responsibilities of the local justice of the peace.
But Johel was a lively speaker. Terry admired a good orator, even if the oration was just a PowerPoint slideshow for a couple dozen UNPOLs. He appreciated that Johel switched between English and French, making sure that everyone in the room followed the complicated legal and political details. Moreover, Johel was passionate about his subject. Terry had been surprised how many people associated with the Mission, both Haitian and foreigner, seemed to speak from some dead-souled place of extreme boredom and cynicism. But Terry could see from the judge’s animated face and sharp eyes that the situation in Les Irois was keeping him up nights.
The dossier Johel discussed with the UNPOLs dealt with a recent spate of civil unrest in the small seaside town of Les Irois. The mayor of Les Irois, Maximilien “Fanfan” Dorsainville, had for many years enjoyed an intense and combative rivalry with another local politician, a fellow by the name of Hyppolite Aurélienne. Despite their differences, Mayor Fanfan and Député Aurélienne had maintained an uneasy truce, until sometime shortly after the most recent election, when Député Aurélienne achieved for his district a legislative coup, finagling a grant for the creation of a community radio station — the money a gift of the European people, part of a European Union democracy-building program. What Député Aurélienne did not mention to the Europeans was that the man who would own and run this radio station was none other than himself.