Half the Day Is Night

by Maureen F. Mchugh

  She sighed. “We could end up standing here for an hour if they’ve just started a sweep.”

  The boy who stopped them looked maybe nineteen, with the smooth skin of a young man. Under his lifted visor he had the look David associated with the military: youth and exercise and steady food. Like the young people at the security check in Marincite, except that this boy wore crisp blue and white fatigues rather than maroon and cream. “Excuse me,” the boy said, “can I see some identification?”

  They passed over their smart cards and the boy dropped them in his reader, then used the image to check, im against face, all six points. Like the port, David thought, so thorough. He consciously loosened his shoulders.

  “Is it a bomb threat?” Mayla asked.

  “No ma’am,” he said. “An arrest. But we don’t know if the suspect is here to place a bomb or not, so we are being very careful. Could you stand over there for a moment?”

  Mayla seemed to find it normal. This country was crazy, David thought. They stood over at the side of the entrance. How could these people live this way? he wondered. He watched as two men and a woman saw the team and hesitated. It was obviously irritating to have to stand around and wait. He wished they could wait outside, particularly if they thought that someone might be placing a bomb. Then it occurred to him that in a structural sense there really was no outside in Julia. The doors didn’t make so much difference. The three people stopped and the woman said something to one of the men. “What can I do about it!” the man said. The third man hung back a bit.

  They came down and presented their IDs. The woman was tiny and dark, with a triangular face. African, he thought. Maybe she was Haitian, some Haitians were as dark as Africans. Just because he had been in Africa he thought she looked African. She was angry about something, refusing to talk to the man she was with except in clipped monosyllables. “How long will this be?” she asked the boy in blue and white and he shrugged. He thought she sounded African, but he still had problems with the way the air mixture distorted everything.

  “You’ll have to wait over there,” the boy said, pointing at where Mayla and he were standing.

  “I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight,” the woman said.

  Northern Africa, he thought. She didn’t look like the blacks he’d fought with in Anzania.

  “Over there,” the boy said.

  She still wanted to argue but the boy shrugged his rifle around and clicked the safety.

  He looked at the rifle and then at the woman. The rifle didn’t seem to matter to her, but she grimaced and let the man she was with pull her towards the side.

  It did not feel dangerous, exactly, surely the boy was just trying to put her in her place, and yet it did. Africa, and rifles in the hands of very young men. After the way things had gone with the telltale, Caribbean Security forces made him nervous.

  “Identification,” one of the blue and whites said to the man, who had not really been with the couple. At least, now he did not seem to be with the couple, but before, when David first saw them, he thought that they had been. Not because they were talking, or even walking exactly together, but not walking separately. But now it seemed that they did not know each other.

  This country, it made him see plots everywhere. Like Tim’s diving lesson.

  The man handed the blue and white his smart card and the boy dropped it in the reader. David put his hand on Mayla’s arm and pulled her further back. He didn’t know why, perhaps it was the sound of the safety on the rifle when the boy had been talking to the woman, perhaps it was thinking about Africa, he didn’t know.

  The boy grabbed the man’s arm and wrenched him around, letting the reader swing on his belt, “DON’T MOVE! NOBODY MOVE!”

  The young man said. “There’s been a mistake—” Always, the same thing they say, he thought, mistake.

  “AGAINST THE WALL, MOTHERFUCKER!” the boy shouted, and the other officers were shoving him, too, and the man panicked, swung out. One of them slammed his head against the wall, it made that hollow melon sound, and then they hit him in the kidneys with their rifle stocks.

  The young man’s nose was bleeding and he was dazed. Blue and whites came running. Blue and whites everywhere. David was backing up, pulling Mayla with him. The young man disappeared in a crowd of blue and whites. At the edge of the blue and whites stood the African woman and her man. They were not backing up, they were watching, their faces blank. The woman had the man’s arm, her fingers straining the fabric of his sleeve.

  She looked away, looked back at them. She looked at Mayla, who was watching the blue and whites. She looked at Mayla a long moment. David wondered what she was thinking, maybe she did not even realize she was looking at Mayla.

  He looked at her, and she glanced at him and looked away.

  It was almost an hour later when they finally got their smart cards back. A different officer dropped them each in readers, “Ms. Ling,” he said, and handed her hers.

  “Mr. Dai.”

  To the African woman he said, “Ms. Clark?” Odd name, David thought, maybe they are married? But the man’s name was James.

  * * *

  They walked back to the parking, to the shining little black car. He was edgy. Paranoia, he thought. The sound of the safety, the age of the boy, the African woman.

  “Clark,” he said. “Is it a common name, in Haiti?”

  Mayla was not paying attention and he had to repeat the question. “Not that I know of,” she said.

  So the woman was not Haitian, he thought. Maybe she was from a different island. Maybe she was not African, he had trouble with voices here.

  The car park was not very big and it was only half full, most of the vehicles were motor scooters, parked all in a row. The Skate was parked beside a delivery skid, invisible from where they came in. But it was there, snug and polished. David found the keys and heard a cry. Small and animal, nearly soundless.

  A child, an infant, he thought, and looked up at Mayla. She was looking at him, waiting. “Did you hear it?” he asked.

  Before she answered he heard it again. Not a baby, a kitten, from close by. The sound was so helpless it hurt his chest.

  He crouched.

  The kitten was tiny, hunched next to the wheel. David clucked with his tongue and it mewed again.

  “What is it?” Mayla asked.

  “A kitten,” he said. He wished that it would come out, if the driver of the skid didn’t hear it, it would be crushed. “Where are your people?” he asked.

  “What?” Mayla said. She crouched down. “I don’t see it.”

  “There,” David pointed.

  “Ah,” Mayla said. “Pobrecito.”

  Yes, poor thing, stuck down here. Caribe seemed an unnatural place for a kitten, never able to sit in the window in the sun.

  It took a few tentative steps, its tail a bottle brush. Out in the light it was gray with dirty white paws and belly. It was skinny and filthy. Little refugee. Its eyes had little tiny sores, flea bites? Suddenly it sat, scratched its ear vigorously and shook its head. Ear mites, he thought.

  “Where does he come from?” Mayla asked.

  “Nowhere,” David said. She stood. The kitten scuttled sideways and went back under the skid.

  “Is there someplace we can take him?” David said. “You know, people who take care of animals with no people? A société for animals?”

  Mayla didn’t know of such a place.

  David clucked again and the kitten mewed. It came a few steps and mewed again, tiny teeth and an astonishing pink mouth. He clucked and wiggled his fingers.

  Stiffly the kitten approached him. He coaxed closer, moving his fingers just out of reach, and the kitten stretched to sniff, stopped nervously, came another step—David snatched it up. It grabbed his jacket.

  “You’ll probably catch something,” Mayla said.

  “I already have,” he said and grinned. He felt absurdly pleased with himself. The kitten clung and mewed.

  “Wh
at are you going to do with it,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Maybe I will find someone to take it. A société for animals.”

  She shook her head, “You keep him in your apartment,” she said.

  “Just for a few days,” he said.

  “Right,” she said.

  But she held the dirty little thing on her lap while he drove home.

  “What will you call it?” she asked.

  “I should not give it a name,” he said, “I want to give it to a place where they will take care of it.” They would probably kill it, he thought, but that would be better than leaving it to die of neglect. He could not keep it, he was leaving.

  “You have to call it something,” Mayla said. She was teasing, she was saying that she didn’t think he would give it away.

  “Call it Mephistofele,” he said. “From the opera,” he added.

  “Well,” she said, “he probably will turn out to be a little devil.”

  He was pleased that she knew the name. “Ah, non,” he said, “I was thinking, he will never see the sun.”

  She looked at him oddly. Foolish thing to say, she lived here, she didn’t see the sun much either.

  * * *

  At Mayla’s request, Tim took him to get some clothes. They went into a part of town where he had never been. Here the traffic was all motor scooters and bicycles, and they had to park the car and take escalators and walk.

  The air was damper here and didn’t smell right. David found he kept taking deep breaths. The shops were all small. The shop where Tim took him to buy clothes was a deep narrow place that had once been a restaurant. The flash unit and grill were gone, but the counter and stools were still there and the counter was piled high with stacks of sweaters. The Indian who ran the shop bobbed along behind them.

  “Tights,” Tim said, “for him.”

  “Sirs,” the Indian said, “what size?”

  David didn’t know, sizes were different here. He gave his inseam in centimeters and the shopkeeper turned to the wall of shelves and rifled through neatly folded stacks of tights. “Sirs, will you be wanting the new colors? I have bright colors, all very popular.”

  He gestured towards the wall opposite the counter where shelves were stacked high with neatly folded pairs of tights. Two columns of tights were vivid rainbows: rose madder and cobalt blue and bright hard yellow.

  Tim grinned. “No, I don’t think so. Just black and gray.”

  Three pairs of black, three pairs of gray. And sweaters.

  David went into the dressing room and tried on tights. They looked cold, the outside was some slick, rubbery-looking material. But the inside was soft, like chamois, and warm. He found a pair of gray that fit. They were wonderful, so much better than pants.

  He eyed his reflection. The dressing room was barely big enough to turn around in, but he could still see the effect. Embarrassing. He had not really paid much attention to the way other people looked in divers’ tights. Except for at the bank, where the men wore suits, most everybody on the street seemed to wear them.

  He had legs like a chicken. Tim did not have legs like a chicken, Tim had broad, strong legs like tree trunks. He did not relish the idea of wearing these around Tim. He considered critically, did they show his bad knee?

  Probably, he thought, and sighed. Still, they were warm. Vanity or comfort? Everybody wore them.

  He bought a gray pair and a black pair. And four sweaters: a dark green, a navy blue, a kind of olive green and a red one. The last because the red looked so warm. He also bought a pair of sandals. Nobody wore shoes, shoes looked foolish with tights. He stood there in his new tights and the olive sweater, feeling foolish, and tried to sort through the maze of Caribbean currency.

  So Tim was amused, he told himself.

  Still, on the street with his purchases he felt a little less conspicuously foreign. Tim walked fast, took long strides, and he had to work to keep up. The sandals had no backs and there was a knack to keeping them on; if he wasn’t careful he would walk right out of them.

  Silly to buy clothes when he wasn’t going to stay here. Which made him think of the kitten. It was a bother. He had looked in the directory for a place for animals but there was nothing. But he couldn’t take it back to France. It would cost so much. He supposed he would have to have it put down.

  Poor little refugee.

  Tim would be pleased to know he didn’t plan to stay although mostly Tim ignored him. Even walking down the street, Tim paid no attention to him. Like the way he used to ignore his little sister when he was a kid. Or when he was in Blacksburg, and he and Thieu used to run around and ignore his younger cousin. Maybe he could fly to Blacksburg when he left Caribe, see his aunt and uncle and run around a bit with Thieu. Thieu was married and had two, or maybe three children. He would like to see his cousin’s children.

  It might be awkward. He would write his aunt and ask for Thieu’s address.

  “To call the United States,” he asked Tim, “is it so expensive?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve never called the U.S. Why would you call the U.S.?”

  “I have family there,” David said. “I thought I would like to go see them.”

  “It probably isn’t that expensive. Have you talked to Mayla about time off?”

  “No,” David said. He didn’t think he should say to Tim that he was leaving, he didn’t think Mayla wanted Tim to know. Then again, Tim might be a little easier to live with if he thought David was leaving.

  Silence might be best.

  He did not like secrets. “I do not know if I will take the job,” he said. “You know, this is a probationary period. Maybe at the end I will leave.”

  Tim frowned. “What’s wrong with the job?”

  “I am not suited, I think,” David said.

  “It’s a good job,” Tim said. Which was beside the point.

  They got on the escalator. The escalators were awful, dirty and graffitied and this one smelled of smoke on top of a strong odor of urine. At the top of the escalator was a shed that sold sausages. Coals glowed in the bottom of the grill. David thought that fires were illegal in Caribe because they ate up oxygen and put a further burden on the air purification systems.

  A whole family seemed to live in the shed: father, mother, a girl about six or seven, and a naked, potbellied little boy no more than three. The little boy had a dirty cord tied around his ankle to keep him from wandering. Flat mestizo faces watched people get off the escalator. Nobody seemed to buy. The little boy alone seemed unconcerned, he stood on a pink blanket gone gray with grime and cooed and crowed to himself.

  This country could not take care of its people, there wouldn’t be a société for animals. Maybe not even veterinarians. What to do with Meph? He could not just abandon him, it would be cruel, but if there was no vet.… Could he kill the kitten himself?

  There would have to be a vet. Some people, like Mayla, they would have a pet, wouldn’t they?

  “Is it Mayla?” Tim asked.

  “What,” David said.

  “Why don’t you like the job?”

  “I don’t like this country,” David said. A half-truth.

  Tim seemed to relax. “Yeah,” he said. “I can see that. The place is a mess, isn’t it. But Mayla is all right. Sometimes she doesn’t know what she wants, you know.”

  David didn’t know, but he nodded.

  “Sometimes, she gets me so mad I don’t know what to do with her. She changes her mind. One minute she likes you, the next minute she doesn’t. I think it’s because part of her is North American, like her family, and part of her is Caribbean, and the two sides are at bloody war half the time.”

  “Why do you stay?” David asked. The question he had been wanting to ask.

  “I don’t know,” Tim said. “I went to Belize and was there for awhile, and then she asked me to come back and she offered me this goddamn job. And then she decided she was mad at me and she wanted to get rid of me. I figure she’ll change her mind aga
in.”

  David did not think so but he didn’t see any need to voice an opinion.

  “Besides,” Tim said suddenly, “Sometime in your life you gotta stick to something, you know?”

  A strange statement that left as many questions as it answered. How had he known Mayla before he went to Belize? Why had she asked him to come back?

  If David stayed, would she change her mind about him, too?

  One more reason why he did not want this job.

  * * *

  It was the easiest job he had ever had. He took Mayla to work, picked her up in the evening. Sometimes he did the grocery shopping. Most of the time he spent in his room, with the kitten, Meph.

  In the afternoon, when she wasn’t working late, he got to the bank half an hour early and sat in the Skate in the parking, reading. He should have been reading English, to improve. But he didn’t like reading English, he read it slowly. The university bookstore had some French novels: Camus, Sartre, Gide, Heureaux. He found a copy of L’Etranger (which struck him as an ironic book to sell in a foreign country). He couldn’t say he really liked the book, but he had spent over a month in a hospital in Algeria after he had been wounded in Anzania and he liked the descriptions of North Africa, even though he had been in In Salah, in the middle of the desert, rather than Algiers, on the coast.

  Someone tapped on the glass. Two people were standing there, a man and a woman. He opened the door wondering if he was late? But it was not yet five, not quite time to go upstairs to get Mayla. Something was wrong with Mayla?

  The woman said, “Are you Jean Dai?”

  “Yes,” he said. She said “Jean” the way they said it in France, not the way they said it in the States. Nobody ever called him “Jean,” except people who didn’t know him and got his name off of records, like in the military or on the first day of school.

  “Could we talk to you?” she asked.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, “but we would like to discuss some business with you.” She was familiar, but he couldn’t place her, from the bank, maybe?