“Stop embarrassing yourself. Renée won, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Man from INS
The scent of flowering cacti after a long dry season perfumed the air. It had a curiously earthy aroma, like wet dirt mixed with the acrid sting of chlorine. Eyes closed, still half-asleep, Renée inhaled deeply. It smelled of Rose’s kitchen on the day she had healed her ribs. The thought was enough to snap her eyes wide open.
She was lying in bed, while fat drops of rain pelted her window. It was raining!
Like a child, she leaped out of bed and ran to the balcony, still in her pajamas. She stepped into the storm, opening her arms wide, laughing. Instantly, she was soaked. The water was cool and refreshing. She stood there for a long time until the wind picked up, chasing her back inside.
As she showered, dressed, and wrestled her hair into a ponytail, she couldn’t help but wonder how the rain would impact the two camps. Would the tents hold up? Would the Porta Potties overflow? Or would the refugees find themselves trading one set of problems for another?
She’d go to the camps after her meeting with Captain Mason. It was her last day on Guantanamo, and she would spend it signing up as many clients as she could. She’d worry about how to finance their lawsuits when she got back to Boston.
The only thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn’t sacrifice anyone for “the greater good.” If Fabrice and the Haitian Resource Council wouldn’t fight for everyone, she would.
She hummed absently as she left the room. Only later did she realize she was humming the tune to Kem Pa Sote.
“Get your hands off me.” A woman’s voice rang out, sharp and demanding.
“Why are you keeping me out? Is someone in your room?”
“I can’t stand jealousy, chéri. It’s so boring.”
Renée looked down the corridor and saw Gigi pushed up against the wall. Adam Hartmann’s pudgy body blocked her escape and stopped her from moving even an inch.
“Please, honey,” his voice was now cajoling, “I just want us—”
Renée didn’t let him finish. She was on him in an instant, twisting his arm behind his back, pushing him away with the heel of her shoe against his ass.
“What the hell!” Adam spun on his heels to locate his attacker. “What do you want? I’m talking to my fiancé.”
“Is that what you call it?” Renée demanded. “I call it an assault, and I’m betting the MPs would agree with me. Want to find out?”
“It’s all right, Renée.” Gigi stepped between them. “Adam and I are having a slight disagreement, that’s all.”
Renée stared at her friend, her eyes searching for the telltale signs of violence. Gigi was dressed in a red silk robe, cinched tightly at the waist, and her hair fell in long, messy waves down her back. Her lips were pouty and her eyes heavy-lidded with sleep. She had the languid air of someone who had just rolled out of bed after a long and satisfying night.
“He can disagree all he wants, but he needs to keep his hands to himself.”
“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” Adam demanded. He too looked as if he had just climbed out of bed, but his night couldn’t have been a good one. He wore yesterday’s suit, now wrinkled and stained, and his hair desperately needed a comb.
“It’s fine,” Gigi said to Renée. “I’ve got everything under control.”
Renée eyed Adam carefully. “It doesn’t look that way to me.”
“No one asked you,” Adam snapped. “I’ll teach you to mind other people’s business.”
He stepped forward. Renée jabbed him in the throat, and he went down on one knee, gasping and choking.
“Why did you do that?” Gigi said. “I told you I’d handle this.”
“He had it coming.”
“Please leave us, Renée. You’re only making things worse.” Gigi bent to help Adam, but he wrenched his arm away and stood on his own, coughing spasmodically. The hand at his throat couldn’t hide the red spot that was already spreading.
Without a word, he charged at Renée.
“Stop it!” Gigi screamed.
A second later, Adam was writhing on the floor, clutching at his throat.
Renée watched him gasp for air, a satisfied smile playing at her lips. She had wanted to do that for a long time. “It’s not so fun when a woman fights back, is it?”
Adam could only heave and groan a nasty reply.
Gigi knelt by his side. “Chéri, I’m so sorry. Can you breathe? Do you need a doctor?”
“No,” he croaked, brushing her hand away as he tried to scramble to his feet. But his shaky legs wouldn’t hold him, and he staggered before managing to right himself.
“You should see to that little injury. I can highly recommend Dr. Simmons,” Renée mocked.
Adam stiffened, glaring at her. “You little bitch. You’ll pay for this.” He stalked off before she could reply.
Gigi turned on her. “Do you realize what you’ve just done?”
“You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore.” Renée tried to put a comforting hand on the other woman’s shoulder, but Gigi shrugged her off.
“Leave it alone. You’re going to ruin everything.” Gigi stepped into her room and slammed the door in Renée’s face.
Renée took the stairs down to the lobby, hoping she would run into Adam Hartmann. She had a score to settle with him, and that tussle in the corridor was just the beginning. He needed to understand that Gigi was no longer his punching bag. As for Gigi, she needed help. She was looking for salvation in the arms of a sociopath. Men like that didn’t understand love; they knew only how to inflict pain.
She was no psychologist, but even she could see Gigi was using Adam Hartmann to wrestle her demons. It had to stop.
She made it to the lobby with no sign of Adam. Like most bullies, he had turned tail and run at the first taste of his own medicine. Renée stood there for a moment considering her options.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” the desk clerk asked with a warm smile. She was another Jamaican woman, short with a figure that used to be called “pleasingly plump.”
“Did you see a guy come down here—pale with dark hair and a wrinkled suit?” Renée asked.
“The man from INS?” The desk clerk’s lips curled in distaste. “Yes, ma’am, he just left.”
“I found him harassing Ms. Bienaimé. I’d like you to make sure he’s not allowed back in this hotel.”
“I’ll tell the manager,” she said, already reaching for the phone. “We’ll see he doesn’t bother Ms. Gigi.”
Renée walked off with a wide smile. She didn’t know if the desk clerk’s obvious disdain for Adam was personal or because he represented the INS. For most immigrants, an INS officer was as popular as the tax man in April. Either way, Adam Hartmann would not be bothering Gigi under this desk clerk’s watch.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
To Victory
Renée stepped outside to find low-hanging clouds circling the sky. They painted Guantanamo in a moody shade of blue-gray that felt oddly comforting after the unrelenting sunshine. The rain had died down to a drizzle, but the wind was stronger than ever. It flapped at her pant legs and swirled around her with an insistent demand for attention. She spotted John’s jeep and made a dash for it, scrambling inside on the heels of a particularly strong gust. She laughed as the wind whipped her hair, releasing it from its bun.
“You’re in a good mood,” John said as they drove off.
It was true. Things were finally looking up. “I’m going to miss being escorted everywhere,” she said, giving John a wide smile. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into moving back to Boston?”
He snorted. “I’ll check with my superiors.”
Her first appointment was with Captain Mason. When she walked in the reception area, Liz Albright looked up with those lost puppy eyes. “Is John with you?”
“He went to check on his family.” John had said nothing
to her about that, but it gave her great pleasure to remind this woman of his marital status.
Liz’s eyes hardened, now more viper than lost puppy. “Today’s your last day, isn’t it?”
“I’ll be back.”
“Really?” She seemed genuinely surprised. “Don’t you have a family?”
“Thank you for your concern, but my family will be fine.”
Liz casually swept a tendril of blonde hair behind her ear. It must drive men wild when she did that, Renée thought cynically.
“It’s a shame John won’t be available next time to act as your little driver,” Liz said.
“How do you know?”
“I have a lot of friends on this base. Something tells me he’ll be very busy when you return.”
She was glad this woman was showing her true colors. It was best to deal with a viper out in the open. “He’s a married man.”
“Exactly. I don’t want this little friendship of yours to tempt him into trouble.”
“You’re his protector?”
“I’m his—”
A door swung open, and a line of uniformed men filed past Liz’s desk. The secretary composed her features in a mask of professionalism and said, “Captain Mason will see you now.”
Renée could almost feel the barrage of daggers flung at her back as she made the short trek to the base commander’s office.
Captain Mason stood on the far side of the room next to a well-stocked mini bar and held up a glass. “Care for a drink?”
She was about to turn him down—noon was at least an hour away—but she heard herself say, “I’ll have what you’re having.”
He arched a brow, clearly surprised. But he didn’t say anything as he poured colorless liquid into two tumblers and strode over to her. He handed her a glass and gestured for her to take a seat while he stationed himself behind his desk.
“To victory,” he said, raising his glass in a toast.
“Victory?” She shook her head. “Rose Fleurie might be going to the States, but thousands more will remain behind. It doesn’t feel like much of a victory.”
He swirled the liquid in his glass. “In my experience, Ms. François, it is best to savor the small victories. Otherwise, life becomes a senseless march into the abyss.”
There wasn’t much she could add to that, so she swirled her own glass and took a sip. Heat barreled down her throat and landed in a fiery ball in her gut. Tears sprang to her eyes. Then the coughing started. It felt like she was trying to expel her organs from her body.
“Too much?” A mischievous smile played on Captain Mason’s lips.
“What is this?” she wheezed.
“Clairin. Haitian moonshine. My wife introduced me, and now I find it a guilty pleasure. But it’s not for everyone—you might prefer a soft drink.”
“This is fine.” With a faint shiver, Renée forced herself to finish the rest of her clairin. The heat was still there, but at least she didn’t disgrace herself by coughing up a lung.
She put the empty tumbler on the desk and stared at Captain Mason. “Is that why you helped Rose Fleurie? Because of your wife?”
He swallowed his drink in a single gulp. “How did you guess?”
“That you are Rose’s champion?” Renée shrugged. “It was easy enough. You’re the only one with the authority to assign her the things she’s gotten—her own house, additional food rations. It was either you or Vodou.”
His lips twitched. “I had nothing to do with that rumor, but it certainly worked to my advantage. It kept people from asking difficult questions.”
“I have some of those. Are you willing to answer them?”
“Ask away.”
Renée plunged headlong into the abyss. “Why Rose? There are thousands of refugees here with stories at least as compelling, so why single her out?”
“You have a theory, remember? My wife made me do it.”
She stared at him for a moment. “The more I think about it, the less I’m persuaded by that idea.”
“Why? Seems logical.”
“Too logical. This feels more personal.”
He looked fascinated. “Go on.”
“You said your grandfather was stationed in Haiti during the American occupation?”
“That’s right.”
“That means your family’s link to Haiti predates your wife. I’m willing to bet your connection to Rose is through your own family.”
He gave her an approving smile. “My grandfather met the love of his life when he was stationed in Haiti. She was from a rich family, and her father didn’t think some American farmer from North Carolina was good enough for his daughter. He forbade the relationship, but that only hastened the inevitable. A year after meeting my grandfather, she gave birth to my father, Philip Mason.”
“Your father is half Haitian?”
“Technically, he was,” Captain Mason agreed. “But my grandfather raised him in North Carolina. As a kid, he didn’t know much about his Haitian heritage.”
“Your grandparents never married?”
He laughed, but it was not altogether pleasant. “No, they didn’t have a storybook ending. From what I understand, my grandmother wasn’t willing to give up her father’s money to live on love.”
“That must have been hard on your dad.”
“It marked him. For years, my father begged to meet his mother, but she wouldn’t agree until her own father had passed away. He met her for the first time when he was eighteen years old, and after that he spent several summers with her in Haiti. The last time he ever stepped foot on Haitian soil, he met the love of his life—a beautiful woman by the name of Rose Fleurie.”
“Rose is your mother?” Renée blurted, too stunned to be tactful.
He let out a bark of laughter. “My mother was a lovely woman from North Carolina.”
“Oh.” Renée couldn’t hide her confusion, but the base commander wasn’t a man to be rushed. He would do this in his own time.
“My father very much wanted to marry Rose, but he had a small problem—a fiancé back in North Carolina. He made up his mind to break it off with her, then he learned I was on the way. He couldn’t do it. He knew what it was like to be rejected by a parent. Plus, it was 1955. He didn’t want his child growing up a bastard. He came home, got married, and tried to be a good husband and father. He never went back to Haiti.”
“What happened to him?” Renée asked softly.
“Would you believe he died of a broken heart?” Captain Mason smiled wryly. “At least, that’s the way it looked to a seven-year-old boy. He came home one day complaining of a pain in his chest. He was dead a few hours later.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He nodded. “I was there, you know. On his deathbed. I never heard my father speak a word in any language other than English, but suddenly he was speaking fluent Haitian Creole. ‘Mouin remin-ou,’ he kept saying over and over. I wondered why he was speaking to my mother in this strange language. But then he called her name—Rose. I knew he couldn’t be talking to my mother.”
“What does Mouin remin-ou mean?” she asked.
“I love you.”
“Oh.”
He let out a soft grunt. “It hurt my mother so deeply, she ran out of the room. It was just me and my dying father. He turned to me and said, ‘You still have work to do.’”
“What do you think he meant?”
Captain Mason shrugged. “I didn’t think much about it at the time, but as I got older, I imagined he was telling me I had work to do to become a man, a good father—that sort of the thing. But in the last few months, his words have taken on new meaning.”
“Since you met Rose,” she said.
“Since I met Rose,” he agreed. “I had been to Haiti for the first time just a few months earlier. I watched my grandfather at the grave of his beloved. He got to be with her one last time before he died. I met my own wife on that trip. And then I looked on the coast guard’s manifest, and there was t
he name of my father’s first love.” He gave an embarrassed laugh before adding, “It almost felt like I was being given the chance to fix the sad history of the Mason men’s love life.”
Renée thought for a moment. “You were the one who made sure Rose got a lawyer and a hearing?”
He nodded. “I called in some favors in Washington. It was the least I could do for my father—and for Rose.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“It is I who must thank you, Ms. François,” he said with a laugh. “I thought you might shake things up around here, but I could never have guessed how much.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
A Few Questions
By the time Renée left Captain Mason’s office, the clouds overhead were an ominous gray, and the wind had picked up speed.
“Storm’s coming in,” John said as he navigated the jeep down the narrow strip of land between the sea and the endless desert.
“Will the tents hold up?” she asked with a worried frown.
“Don’t know. Camp residents have been moved from those temporary structures. Bulkeley folks are over at WT Sampson.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Rose too?”
He shook his head. “She refused, but the bungalow will hold out. Should be fine.”
“I’d like to check in on her when we’re done.”
He tipped an imaginary chauffeur’s cap as he steered the jeep into the parking lot. “At your command.”
WT Sampson Elementary was a hub of activity. Renée walked into the auditorium to find the room transformed. Cots lined every inch of space, and uniformed personnel moved around dispensing sheets and towels. Once again, the refugees were forced to create a temporary new home.
“I should help serve rations. You okay to find your way?” John asked.
She nodded and watched him walk off, then she turned to survey the mess of activity. Perhaps she had been too optimistic. How the heck was she supposed to find Lucie in this chaos?
A woman came up and kissed Renée on the cheek. “Meci, sè mwen,” she repeated over and over.
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