At Monsieur Brunel’s borlette shop, there was a long line. Toussaint Legrand had told me that people were playing the lottery in record numbers that week, employing every numerological system they could devise, the numbers all originating somehow in either the name or the birth date of Johel Célestin. Then Toussaint asked me for money so that he could play the lottery himself, which I gave him.
* * *
The judge remembered something in the night, an incident from his childhood. When he was eleven and just recently arrived in America, he had been invited by a classmate, Reginald McKnight, to the public swimming pool. Johel, unusually for a Haitian kid, had learned the basic strokes in his home country, and he felt comfortable enough in the water that he could enjoy a summer’s afternoon horsing around and splashing in the crowded pool. But the afternoon turned nasty when Reginald McKnight and the other kids started jumping off the high dive and the judge, not realizing how high the high dive really was, had followed the boys up to the edge of the board, stared down at the water below, and froze. Kids down below were shouting, “Jump! Go! Move your fat ass!” The situation would have been all right if Johel could have just backed up and climbed down the ladder, but he couldn’t make himself do that either. That would have been humiliating. His fear of jumping and his fear of humiliation produced paralysis, and his body refused to move. He had never forgotten that sensation of being frozen on the edge of the board.
That morning, the judge no longer wanted to be the sénateur from the Grand’Anse. He tried to summon up the passion that had motivated him. He repeated to himself, “What we need is a road.” He tried to remember that good, strong feeling back in Jérémie when the crowd was chanting his name, the way it felt when the people said “We need a man like you, Judge.”
Terry was the first to see that the judge was off the reservation, mentally speaking.
“You got your game, brother?” Terry said.
The judge didn’t say anything — that said everything.
“They’re going to try and roll you,” Terry said. “You got to get your game face on.”
Still the judge didn’t say anything.
“Talk to me, brother. Let me in. You can’t back down now.”
But the judge didn’t feel that either — the connection with Terry, the way they used to feel driving down the back roads of the Grand’Anse. He wondered what Terry really wanted from him.
Later that morning, Terry drove Johel up to the residence of the SRSG, honked the horn twice, waited for the SRSG’s security detail to sweep the car for explosives. Then he pulled into the long driveway leading to the large white house.
Before the judge got down from the vehicle, Terry put his hand on his forearm. The look in Terry’s eyes was almost imploring. He said, “Nobody’s going to do this if you don’t do it.”
The judge started to say something, stopped, started again.
Terry said, “My daddy used to take me out camping up in Georgia, on the shores of Lake Lanier. That’s a big lake. Every spring, young birds would try and fly it.”
The judge rubbed his eyes, thinking, Young birds? Fly?
“And the birds, not all of them understood that you get to a certain point on that lake, you got to keep flying. You get past the halfway point, it’s shorter to wing it on over to the other side. Some birds don’t know that, they get tired, they want to fly back where they came from. But now it’s too far for them. On the way back, they fall into the lake. That’s where we are now, brother. We’re just about midway over that lake. And when all you see is water and your wings are tired, that ain’t the time to stop flapping.”
The judge was too tired to argue. He said, “Doing my best,” and got out of the car.
The SRSG was waiting for him in the foyer of the house. Ceiling fans stirred breezes down long white corridors.
“It’s good that you’re here,” the SRSG said. “I’m grateful that you’ve made time for me.”
The SRSG was small, an elegant man, lithe and controlled. The judge noted his handsomely groomed fingernails.
“Let me show you the place,” said the SRSG. The house was only a rental, but the SRSG took pride in it nevertheless. He led Johel from room to room: the drawing room, the gazebo, the music room, the dining room, on whose walls hung portraits of great Haitian statesmen. From time to time he pointed out a feature of the house — a picture on the wall, a sconce, the high arches — and the judge would nod appreciatively.
Eventually the SRSG led Johel to the dining room, where a table had been set for two.
“May I offer you a drink?” said the SRSG.
“Just water,” the judge said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” said the SRSG. “It’s certainly the easiest thing I’ve had to deal with in days.”
The SRSG chuckled wryly, as if to suggest that the riots, the seizure of CEH headquarters, and the paralysis of the nation were only minor inconveniences. He poured the glass for Johel with his own hands, his manner suggesting that he was both humble and proud of being so. Then he invited Johel to the table, which had been set with white linen.
“I was once a political man myself,” the SRSG said. “I was a candidate for the Parliament of Sweden three times.”
“Did you win?”
“Let’s just say I survived the experience. My wife likes to say that I’m too honest to be a politician. I lost all three times.”
The judge said, “So you entered diplomacy instead.”
“I have found honesty remarkably successful in my line of work. It’s so rarely employed that it stuns everyone.”
A waiter came in with a shrimp and avocado salad set in elegant geometrical patterns on a pair of small plates. The judge waited for the SRSG to reach for his fork, then reached for his own.
“I should thank you,” said the SRSG. “There had been talk of moving into a Mission reduction phase. I suppose now we’ll be able to fight that off another year. From a budgetary perspective, this couldn’t have been better timed.”
“You are honest,” said the judge.
“Too honest, my wife says.”
“Mine just complains that I’m too fat,” said the judge.
“It sounds like she and I share the same vice of speaking our minds.”
The SRSG chewed delicately and then continued.
“It’s a fine balance. If this country is too peaceful, they will eliminate our Mission. And if this country is too disorderly, I will be accused of incompetence. Neither is optimal.”
“Optimal for whom?”
The SRSG made his special noise, soothing, like the purring of a cat.
“For me! For me, of course! The president called me this morning. He wants to storm the CEH headquarters, and he wants logistical support from the Mission. I said, ‘Mister President, allow me to achieve a peaceful resolution to this crisis.’ And if I can’t, I’ll let him use my Brazilian APCs. Then he’ll owe me something. For now he wants something from me. The Americans want this to wind down calmly, I don’t know why, and now I have something to offer them also. All of this is very, very good for me.”
“I see why you didn’t make it in politics,” said the judge.
“I’m too honest.”
“These shrimp are rancid.”
“You see how lovely it feels to let an honest word escape your mouth?”