The questions they asked him at these signings were always the same. How did he do his research for his book? How did he manage to hide the manuscript for so long? Could he speak more about the efforts of others to topple Duvalier? What had happened to the other prisoners in Fort Dimanche? And mostly, what they really wanted to know: What about Raymond? What had happened to him? Nicolas wished he knew.
Raymond had disappeared off the face of the earth. Nicolas spent his nights wondering where his brother was, whether he’d been caught by the Tonton Macoutes. Maybe he’d been killed and thrown into a ditch. Sometimes he grew angry—at Raymond for lying to him and at himself for not doing more.
“I should have insisted he get on that boat with me,” he said to Eve on nights when she tried to console him. “I should have put my foot down. I can’t close my eyes without seeing his face, but I’m so afraid I’m going to forget him.”
Nicolas looked into the audience tonight and surprised himself by saying those very words in French. The Haitians in the audience held perfectly still, while the other attendees nodded with assumed empathy, as if it made sense to them.
“My greatest fear is that one day I will wake up and forget,” Nicolas said. “Forget my brother’s face, forget his stature. And I fear for my daughter who will grow up not knowing or remembering her uncle, how brave a man he was.”
Nicolas stopped himself. He’d said enough to an audience of strangers. What he didn’t say was how often he looked at that photograph from his old office, of him and his brother at his First Communion. Eve had saved him when she’d grabbed it, along with the research notebook full of clippings. He couldn’t have rewritten his book without both of them.
Nicolas signed copies of the book and made small talk. He was tired and his collar was damp with sweat.
“It’s very brave of you to write this book,” said a Haitian woman, holding her book open for him to autograph. “I hear Papa Doc was furious when he heard about it.”
Nicolas shrugged.
“My brother was brave,” he said. “All I did was write.”
When the last guests trickled out of the bookstore, Nicolas wiped his forehead and swallowed his last sip of water. The manager said he would call a car to drive him back to his hotel.
“Thank you,” Nicolas said. “I’m much obliged.”
He gave a few copies of the English version to the manager and kept a few for himself. He stacked them on the table and gathered his briefcase, paying no mind to the man who’d approached. He thought longingly of his hotel room, of the hot shower and soft bed.
“Taxi pour monsieur?”
Nicolas recognized the accent. Haitian. He could smell the man from across the table. He exuded a familiar, warm scent of sweat and leather. Nicolas looked up.
It took him a moment to focus, then another to recognize who it was. Nicolas’s knees nearly gave out. A brown face was staring at him, lit with a mischievous smile. The eyebrows and temples were peppered with gray. The frame seemed smaller. But he was the same, he was alive. He was here.
“Raymond!” Nicolas’s voice broke and he stepped back, knocking over the chair behind him. This was not possible. Nicolas wondered if he was having a heart attack.
Raymond’s eyes were veiled with tears. Words eluded them both as they took each other in, hearts pounding.
“Raymond?” Nicolas repeated. “Brother, apa se ou vre? You’re really here?”
Nicolas reached forward, squeezing Raymond’s warm, dewy flesh in disbelief. This was not a dream. This was not another false alarm, like all those times he thought he’d seen a man who looked like Raymond in odd places, like the subway or in front of Amélie’s school. How many times had Nicolas stopped in his tracks and called out his brother’s name?
Today, it was really him. Raymond grabbed Nicolas by the wrists and the brothers locked in an embrace. Nicolas dug his fingers into Raymond’s shoulders and sobbed without reserve.
Finally, Raymond stepped back and smiled. Nicolas’s skin rippled with goose bumps. He watched the tears stream down Raymond’s cheeks and began to nod. Now that they’d found each other, he wouldn’t let go. Never again.
Raymond’s eyes were red and his lashes wet. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and looked over his brother from head to toe.
“Little brother? Is that you? Where have you been?”
Nicolas coughed and tried to swallow the knot in his throat. His head ached with a powerful, joyful migraine. He let Raymond squeeze his biceps and examine him, just like he used to do when they were younger, to make sure Nicolas was unharmed, intact, still strong.
“It’s me,” Nicolas managed, wiping his tears away.
“Yes, of course. Of course.”
“I thought…” Nicolas found his voice. “I thought you were dead.”
There was so much to say, but where to begin? He’d been so angry at Raymond for so long, and he had questions. Raymond must as well.
“All these years, and I never heard from you,” Nicolas said.
Raymond nodded. “It’s been a long journey, brother.”
He launched into his tale quickly, scrambling to get an explanation out at once.
Life, Raymond told him, had been more than merciful. After losing his family, after Fort Dimanche, after saying good-bye to Nicolas, and after what had happened in the sugarcane fields that day, he knew life was speaking to him, screaming in his ear: “Live, Raymond. Live.” So he willed himself to live.
He pocketed the warden’s money and crossed over the border to find his brother, but Nicolas was long gone. It seemed the Dominican Civil War had frightened off him and Eve, and Raymond thought he’d lost them for good. When the newly elected Dominican president Joaquín Balaguer promised to send Haitian refugees back to Duvalier, and the panicked rebels vanished into thin air, he had to think quickly. What could he do? Return to Haiti? Or go elsewhere?
“I would rather die than risk ever going back to Fort Dimanche,” Raymond said.
So he made the decision he’d never wanted to make: he jumped aboard a tugboat filled with refugees and made it to the Bahamas, where the captain helped him doctor papers and find work. Raymond got a driver’s license and a taxi permit. He was now living in Nassau, staying well under the radar of the authorities.
“You’re driving taxis,” Nicolas said. Of course.
Raymond nodded. Nicolas sensed the hesitation there. This had always been a point of contention between them, this job that Raymond had done all his life. Nicolas felt his lips part and stretch into a smile.
“You are amazing,” he said.
Raymond asked about his niece and about Eve. It was evening now, and outside the bookstore window, the streets filled with people headed to clubs and restaurants. Nicolas told the manager he didn’t need to call a car.
“I have a ride,” Nicolas said.
Nicolas grabbed his briefcase with one hand and his brother’s arm with the other.
“I’m very thirsty,” Nicolas said. “We could both use a drink.”
“I know a place,” Raymond replied.
Out on the curb, the air was spiced with sea salt, wild flowers, and notes of perfume from the hair and scarves of tourists strolling by. The brothers walked past blocks of colorful shops and boutiques like crayons in the dying sunlight.
“Look at this country,” Nicolas muttered. “It’s so much like home. The sun, the people. How I miss Haiti.”
Raymond glanced at him. “We can’t go back.”
“I know,” Nicolas said. “But sometimes I feel like I’m dying a slow death, dying of a broken heart. Like I’ve been forbidden to see an old lover.”
“Always the poet,” Raymond said.
Nicolas chuckled at first, then heard himself laugh. Raymond squeezed his shoulder.
“We can only move forward now,” Raymond said. “I’m saving money I confiscated from that swine Oscar, to go to Miami.”
“Miami?”
“My kids are there.”
Nicolas gave a start, and his lips trembled in disbelief.
Raymond smiled. “I found them.”
He’d never stopped calling Madame Simeus, his old landlord. And eventually Yvonne had contacted her to say they were safe.
“The U.S. Coast Guard rescued them and now they are political refugees,” he said.
Raymond paused for a moment, and Nicolas imagined he was pondering the perils of their journey.
“They’re with her uncle,” he said.
Nicolas nearly laughed again with relief. Raymond said he was going to get to Miami to see them, maybe find a way to persuade Yvonne to come to the Bahamas. She wasn’t convinced yet.
“Places have a way of changing people,” Raymond said. “She’s found where she wants to be. I just want to see my kids.”
“Maybe I can help,” Nicolas said. “We’ll talk about it over drinks.”
They came to a stop in front of a small car, a powder-blue Nissan.
“Is this you?” Nicolas turned to Raymond. His brother’s chest was puffed outward, eyes glinting with pride.
“This is me,” Raymond said. “My taxi.”
They looked at the car, how clean it was, the leather seats like new, the body waxed and shiny. Nicolas looked at the reflection of his brother’s face in the glass. That was what he’d missed for so long.
“Can we go for a drive?” Nicolas asked.
Raymond stared at him. Nicolas had never driven with his brother before.
“Now? Are you sure?”
“I’d like to go for a drive.”
Raymond nodded. He tried to open the back door but Nicolas was already climbing in the passenger seat. Raymond, stunned, wiped away a tear before shutting the door. As he came around the vehicle and sat behind the wheel, Nicolas glanced at him but said nothing. He waited for Raymond to smile back.
The brothers relished the silence between them, and Nicolas rested his head against the seat. Raymond expertly pushed down on the clutch, put the car into gear, and began to drive.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not be possible without so many people: My agent Charlotte Gusay, for believing in me and in this story, and for fighting tirelessly on my behalf. I’m thankful for her encouragement and that of her team at the Charlotte Gusay Agency. I’m grateful for her emails and phone calls that always light a fire under me. She is amazing at what she does.
My brilliant editor, C.P. Heiser, for helping me see the light at the end of dark tunnels when editing, and shaping the novel into what it is today with intensive labor; thank you to Olivia Taylor Smith and Amanda Armstrong, and the wonderful team at Unnamed Press for publishing and designing such a perfect cover for this book.
The MFA program at Florida International University, and the professors who taught me everything I know about writing, specifically my mentor on this project, Dr. Les Standiford, who taught me to “get the duck out of the bottle.”
Professor Lynne Barrett, who taught me what plot really is, and whose advice was truly helpful after the writing process.
The voices that helped me hash out minute details about Fort Dimanche: the indomitable Jean Mapou, for patiently talking to me and sharing his personal experiences as a survivor of Fort Dimanche, and reading through the early draft process; historian Anthony Georges-Pierre; the writings of Fort Dimanche survivor Patrick Lemoine, the writings of journalist Bernard Diederich, the writings of Elizabeth Abbott, and the writings of Gerard Pierre-Charles. Their works are a goldmine of historical events during this infamous era.
My writing hero Edwidge Danticat, for her support of this novel, and Katia D. Ulysse, who spoke prophetic, hopeful words still toll in my head.
To my solid workshop team lead by my dear friend and writer extraordinaire Corey Ginsberg, for offering honest and crucial feedback and helping me through the agony of editing. I am so lucky to be in the midst of such genius.
And thank you to the one person who is certainly fatigued by now with this story but never tells me he is (not to my face, anyways): my husband, Gordon K. Merritt.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fabienne Josaphat received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Florida International University. Dancing in the Baron’s Shadow is her first novel. She lives in Miami.
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