“Was she in your church?” Avis tips the cup, watching the black slice of liquid.
“No.” He rubs his temples. “Not at all. She lived nearby. She was famous for her remedies. We were in a rough patch, very poor, near Fort St. Michel. Lots of beautiful old colonial buildings around, but our area—mostly slums—shacks without floors. The poverty was mind-blowing. No indoor plumbing—not even in the hospital—sewage in the street. Kids washing in the gutters. TB was everywhere. And lots of the people preferred the old ways of treatment.” His gaze moves from the cup to the feathery palms, the individual leaflets moving like fingers in the air.
Avis touches his arm and senses something dart through him, just beneath the skin, as if contact is unbearable. “Solange was different back then,” he says, his voice breaking into a tremor. He clears his throat and waits, then starts again. “Well, for one, she was married. To someone else, I mean. They had a beautiful little boy,” he says softly. “They were such a nice family—I used to see them. The three of them were always together. But in Haiti? In those days, there were militia—like street gangs. They took all the young men and boys—especially in the bad neighborhoods. The police were out of control. Either you had to go kill for someone or they would kill you. Not to forget about American contributions—backing dictators is such an efficient way to shred the fabric of a culture. The Haitians have never been forgiven for demanding freedom.” He carefully places the cup on the patio stone, as if that’s just where it belongs. The porcelain a grace note against the brushed stone. “During my time, rebels targeted the churches because they thought we had hidden wealth and that we hoarded food. Obviously, ridiculous. There’s always some theater of the absurd with these savage civil wars. It was something the boy soldiers told each other. In so many places, whiteness . . .” He holds out the back of his hand, tipping it up slightly so Avis can see the freckles and blue tracery of veins, “looks like wealth. But we didn’t have anything—no matter how white we were. I had to turn all sorts of people away—friends, neighbors. What option did I have? We couldn’t take everyone in—we could barely save ourselves. There was always shooting in the streets. Snipers and gangs, sometimes tanks came roaring up the lanes. Things just got worse and worse. I try not to remember too much. In Haiti, murder was very common—a pedestrian tragedy.”
Avis bends forward, carefully shredding a blade of grass into her lap.
He smiles. “You’d think I’d have been better prepared. I’ve lived in four different developing countries—I try not to look at the politics of the place. It’s always the same story at the root—colonialism sews its destructive seeds, and the more crowded the world gets, the more we destroy each other. People can’t afford much compassion.” He pushes forward in his chair, then stands and walks to the line of bamboo. “The thing about Haiti—with that sky and beach and mountains—from a distance, you think you made it to paradise.” He holds his hands over his face a moment.
“We turned people away every day—the church wasn’t any safer than any other place. Those soldiers—the boys—they had no respect for holy places. They’d lost the very idea of respect. Just like animals. Worse than. The things they did.” He lowers his eyes. “But one day Solange showed up.”
“Did you know her?” Avis clutches her elbows, now hunched over her coffee. “I mean—if she didn’t go to your church.”
“Everyone knew Solange. The doctors there were overrun, and missionaries—if they’re any good—they wear many hats. We kept supplies of rudimentary medicines locked away—aspirins, penicillin, insulin, mainly. Some of my parishioners . . . I think they spent more time napping than praying in our chapel.” He smiles thinly. “In any case—many, many people there—they just want bush medicine. They trust it. And Solange was brilliant—I saw it myself, with my own two eyes. I saw people recover from malaria, all sorts of fevers and skin conditions—that she treated. Those bush teas and poultices.” He holds on to one of the segmented canes, his expression lost and abstracted as if he hasn’t slept in days.
SHE COLLECTS A TRAY from the kitchen: arranges almond and mango cream puffs, brown sugar lace cookies, and miniature napoleons of vanilla and guava: fleeting breaths of pâte à choux and buttercream that dissolve in single bites. She places the tray on the low table between the folding chairs and pours fresh cups of coffee, aware of a kind of transaction taking place. He gazes at the plate of pastries, murmurs, “I couldn’t—I haven’t had any appetite . . .” But he picks one up, admiring the gem-cut layers of the napoleons. He places it in his mouth and Avis watches his lips tremble, his eyes close, the corners damp. He opens his eyes, staring at the plate, some desire settling into his posture. “I’ve never told this before—not to anyone—none of this story.” He touches a cream puff and studies it as he speaks. “But there’s no point to clinging to old secrets.” He glances at Avis. “If there’s anything left of my faith, it’s my belief in confession.”
Avis doesn’t respond, hearing a wisp of her mother’s laughter.
Matthew shifts the plate of pastries carefully on the table, not quite pushing it away. Finally he says, “Believe it or not, Solange offered herself. To me. She came and told me that—in exchange for her son’s safekeeping at the chapel, she would spend the night with me. As many nights as I wanted. That’s how she put it. She was desperate by that point. I’d heard stories about women bargaining this way, with their bodies—I was so mortified and sad for her and it was strange because you also think of such odd things at times like that. I remember noticing how well-spoken she was, how fine her English was. Well-educated.”
He smiles, very slightly, at his coffee. “Obviously I said no. But Solange—” He shakes his head, smiling more openly now. “She really was something. Magnetic. She is who she is. Completely. I said both her son and husband could come work in my vegetable garden and sweep out the church. I thought perhaps if we took them out of the streets during the day the army would let them alone. Extend at least some symbolic protection of the church over her family.”
Avis holds a sip of the warm coffee in her mouth for a moment, testing its bitterness before she swallows. “Did it work?”
Now his smile is automatic, vacated. “He disappeared. We heard later the husband was killed in the street fighting. That’s what we heard. The rebels were trying to oust the president—poor Artistide. They were wild savages these guys—bloodthirsty, murderous. Underwritten by the Americans. They didn’t care who they shot at.”
Avis’s throat feels dry; she studies the white star at the center of the coffee. “Her son—what happened?”
His eyebrow lifts. “He came to me. A very dear boy. One of these children who’d held on to their sweetness. Oh, a troublemaker too. He broke things and made a mess. Didn’t matter. I became very fond of him . . . But he was only with us a few weeks. I should have let him spend the nights at the church. I didn’t think.” He hits his palm slowly, over and over, against the corner of one temple. A fragile, measured ritual. “No one could believe how terrible it would get.” Now he looks directly at Avis. Avis drops her gaze: her hands go still on her cup. “He disappeared too,” he says. She thinks about Solange talking about her son, saying, I left him.
Matthew re-clasps his hands. “Antoine. She never talks about him. They must’ve killed them—the husband and the boy. Did I already say that? She came back to the church again maybe two or three days after the boy disappeared. She was in shock. We didn’t talk about her husband or the boy at all, though. They were two among hundreds. I think we talked about the garden. I wasn’t entirely sure why she had come. Now I think she just wanted to be someplace quiet. She started to bring her herbs and transplanted clippings into my garden. She made her bush teas and dispensed them there, at the church. The fathers would’ve been horrified.” He smiles. “And she offered herself to me again, for some reason, even though her—incentive—to do so . . .” He lifts his hands.
Avis feels a queasiness—soul-sickness—begin to steal ove
r her. Her palms feel damp. She picks up one of the lace cookies, examines the filigree of chocolate, replaces it, clears her throat. She will remove the tray and thank him for coming, before he can say any more. But he raises his head as if he can will her to listen. “I didn’t want her to stay—I swear—I argued with her! I told her to go home—every night I told her. It got to be too dangerous for her to go home. The rebels took over our street and there was shooting every night, tanks rolling over houses, tearing everything up. It was beyond deafening—a maelstrom. We were under siege. You can’t imagine the feeling that you can’t leave your house—that even your home is dangerous.”
Avis feels a feverish shame creep over her skin, knowing she has to listen. She nods slowly, releasing the tea tray. She makes herself ask, “So . . . she stayed?”
He sits back on the folding chair. There is his off-kilter smile again. “When the fighters occupied the street, she slept in the chapel for a week. I stayed in my room on the other side of the wall. We listened to the tanks thundering, keeping everyone awake, till we were just so exhausted we all just learned to sleep through it. The gardener left and then the housekeeper ran away. Solange put on the woman’s clothes and decided that would be her job. We nailed the doors to the chapel shut, but Solange begged me to leave the little stained-glass windows uncovered. And, you know, through that siege? Not one window damaged.” He stares at the pastries. “Little miracles, right? Something to live for?” He seems to be mocking himself, but his smile fades. “After a couple of weeks of sleeping in the chapel, she came to my room. Like when she’d first arrived. I’d turned her away the first time, but you know . . .” He displays his palms. Something about the man seems innocent to the point of bafflement. “I felt truly helpless. We gave each other some comfort. I like to think we did. Of course I loved her—whether I wanted to or not. Sometimes I wondered if she’d put one of her hexes on me. I’d never been in love before and it was such a specific pain, so sharp, like someone had to be jabbing needles in a little doll.”
“Then you decided to come back to the States?” Avis interrupts: she doesn’t want to hear about how good or comforting Solange was.
The man rubs the inner creases of his eyes, his face pouched and swollen with shadows. He picks up the lace cookie Avis had touched and eats it, then two more. “Years ago, I had a church in South Florida and a couple of my parishioners were from a wealthy old family here. I traveled to the church offices at Port au Prince and called them to beg for help. I didn’t care what happened to me but I was so afraid for Solange. I had to get her out of there.” His voice diminishes. “The family rented the house for us. That’s our backyard, right through the trees.” He points.
“I know.”
He nods and holds the smooth chair arms. “She likes to work outside. I can never get her to come in. Even when it’s like this—like a jungle. This heat. I want to move us up north—I’ve been trying to get reassigned. Someplace like Vermont. I don’t know if she’d like it,” he adds hopelessly. “Now of course, I don’t even know—” He breaks off.
Avis leans forward on the chair, wooden slats digging into the back of her legs. “She didn’t leave a note? No warning at all?”
He reaches into his blazer pocket and withdraws a white legal-size envelope. He flicks it with the tops of his fingers. “This is from INS. It came the other day in the mail. Someone tipped them off. We were traveling so quietly. We moved a couple of times after her visa ran out, but I thought we’d be okay here for a while. I needed more time to get things in order—we’d applied for sanctuary status, but that was rejected. Maybe I kept her too isolated. My parish here doesn’t even know that we’re married.”
Avis watches the way his fingers run along the outer corners of the letter. Already it looks grubby.
“I promised Solange we’d be okay. I said I’d go talk to them, that we’d just move again if we had to. I’d thought she seemed fine at the time.” He holds his hand out, fingers extended. “Calm. She made dinner. I had my arm around her shoulders when we fell asleep last night. I woke at four a.m.” His face slips.
Avis lowers her eyes, breathing shakily, slowly.
“She’s always been so talented at hiding what she feels. Never seen anything like it. I’d never dreamed she would run away. She has no family in this country. No friends. She’s totally dependent on me. I had to take her shopping. She wouldn’t wear the new clothes I brought her—just the rags from the housekeeper. It was like she was biding her time. Just waiting.” He lifts his eyes to Avis. “I’m so afraid she’ll try to go back.”
Avis feels cool throughout her body, thinking of the last things Solange said to her.
When he finally rises to go, he stops by the front door and holds out his hands to take hers. “Forgive me, please, for unburdening myself like this. In my line of work, it’s usually the reverse. I feel embarrassed.”
“I’m sorry not to be of more help,” she murmurs. “I’m just sorry.”
“This is the first time I’ve been able to speak—openly.” He closes his eyes and squeezes her fingers; for one awful moment, she believes he’s about to cry. He opens his eyes again. “I’m certain that the son and husband were killed. It’s absurd to think otherwise. If you’d been there you could have seen for yourself. Just one ongoing massacre. If only we could have seen the bodies. She might have had some relief.”
He releases her hands. “There were nights when the fighting died down and then there was such a silence. It seemed like you could hear the land and the ocean breathing, exhaling, if it doesn’t seem too strange to say. There were nights . . .” His voice falters and he clears his throat briefly. “Sometimes we heard knocking. There were nights that we could hear a child out in the street crying, Maman, Maman!” His voice is soft and light. “Over and over, just like that, so sweet. You couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl. Solange became certain it was Antoine. Of course it wasn’t. There were so many orphans—everywhere. I wouldn’t let her go outside to look.” Head lowered, he lifts his eyes, their singed edges, to Avis. “It was the most dangerous at night. Do you understand? There were snipers. There were children with guns. They would use a crying child as a trick, to lure people out of their hiding places. But still, Solange screamed at me. She beat me with her fists like a man. I didn’t let her go.”
Avis stands. She picks up the plate of remaining pastries, takes them into the kitchen, spills them into a paper bag, and brings them to the man. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice jumping. She isn’t sure what she’s saying to him. It occurs to her that he asked almost nothing about her friendship with Solange. Now she just wants him to take his terrible stories and go.
He mumbles his thanks again and leaves her a dingy business card. “In case you happen to hear something.”
AVIS WATCHES THE MAN'S form diminish as he moves up the street, the neighbors’ lawns dark as old emeralds. She remembers how she dreaded sleep in the months after Felice left. But her dreams were light and oddly pleasant—heartbreaking only upon waking. There were certain things she couldn’t say or think or hear in those months. Like daughter or child. Or lost. That was the worst of all, a sliver of metal under her breastbone. She woke from dreams in which she said it over and over, as if she were squeezing it from her body. She remembers the way she felt when she finally understood that Felice was not going to return, the sense of leadenness, the elemental weight of it filling her bones.
She gravitates to the French doors, studying the scenery behind the glass. Her gaze falls on a pile of weeds heaped up on the patio and she remembers that Solange had told her they had some sort of special properties—like a witch’s herb. The air riffles around her and it takes some minutes for her to remember why it feels so different. That quiet. There’s a crosshatching of faraway bird cries and distant lawn mowers, last-minute yard work before tomorrow’s storm. She finds she needs to sit down, flat on the cool rock. It feels as if steam is rushing through her body. She scoops up the piles of leaves So
lange had left, gathering them into her lap. Her cell phone is in the front pocket of her cook’s pants: she extricates it, her fingers tremble, misdialing until she remembers the speed dial. Pound sign. Three. A string of red ants cuts jaggedly across the stone, inches from her. She watches them in a trance, then scans the thickets of palms that border their property. Voice mail picks up. Peering through the scrim of trees, she glimpses the curved iron door of the birdcage standing open. “Stanley,” she says to the machine. “Please. I’d like to come see you.”
She hadn’t felt—not in this immediate, personal way—just how much colder and sharper things could be, how planets could snap out of their orbits, how frigid, wasting blackness could come in a tide, erasing everything.
Felice
THE LOW CAR TURNS OFF ALTON ROAD ONTO ONE of the narrow numbered streets perpendicular to the ocean. Felice slides onto her back to gaze out the rear windshield. Usually the night sky is full of streetlights and sea mist, but once they turn, Felice notices a new clarity to the night; every scrap of cloud has dissolved and instead there are perfect constellations and a single red-white point of light sailing past like a space station.
It occurs to Felice that something about this man reminds her of Mr. Rendell. She wonders if she went with him tonight to take one last spill into her childhood, the sweet fever of old fear, making her feel so alive, sparkling. Everything smelled sharper and sounded clearer and the stars seemed to pop right out of the sky in those days. The smell of disinfectant and chalk and rosin and old instruments and Mr. Rendell’s piney aftershave all made her feel awake and alert. They roll up to Ocean Drive and Marren doesn’t bother with parking. He just stops in the street and puts on his flashers. “The cops know me.” He slings a forearm back over the headrest and studies Felice. “So come on, fairy princess, we’re here.”
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