Red Jacket

by Mordecai, Pamela;

  Charlie is counselor in other matters too, especially when time comes for a dust-up with the powers-that-be in the matter of Vie MacMillan, a PhD candidate whom she’s mentored in a small way. Vie has been assigned a thesis examiner against whom she’s previously filed a sexual harassment complaint. He gives her an excellent report, but threatens to destroy it unless she withdraws the charge.

  “Don’t let them disturb your serenity, sweet lady,” Charlie advises. “If you plan to pursue a career in the region, think about what you do carefully. Black backra massa have long memory, just like the white one. Whatever you do, if you decide to resign, write on paper, and make clear why you’re doing it.”

  She resigns but, against Charlie’s advice, gives no reason why. Is it going to be something that she’ll regret in time? She doesn’t see how. She’s kept her own counsel, and it is a matter of principle. Nor is it selfish. Rather it concerns a vulnerable person for whom she feels some responsibility. If humankind has sunk into lawlessness, murder, and war, it’s because people don’t keep faith in small things. It’s the plantation all over: the mighty doing things because they can. Frantz Fanon would weep, for in this case, though the powerful and powerless are all descendants of slaves, the mash-down is just as callous.

  She leaves in time to be back in Ann Arbor for Christmas. Charlie takes her to the airport, saying he will call her from Lafayette, where he’ll be with his parents for New Year.

  She hasn’t been able to afford weekly calls to Mary’s Haven from St. Chris during the two and a half years she’s been there, although she continues to write Phyllis. Daphne has been her source of up-to-date news. She reverses the calls to her grandmother, but often, when she calls, Daphne is out. When she does get her, the reports of Phyllis’s health are not especially encouraging. She is still progressing, but very slowly.

  Once she is back in Michigan, pinning down Daphne is easier, and she is glad to hear that Phyllis’s news is good. She is still in Cohasset, but almost fully recovered. Since the community at Mary’s Haven is on retreat over Christmas, Grace is to call her in the New Year. Which she tries to do, on New Year’s Day and a few times after that, but with no luck.

  “Probably gone for a walk,” Sister Mary Clement’s wobbly voice says every time. “She likes that, whatever the weather. I’ll tell her you called.” It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t talk to Phyllis. If she is well, that is forgiveness.

  Not everything is well, though. Andrew Shelton, econo-metrician on her committee, takes issue with some of her stats, and there are harsh exchanges between him and her supervisor. Grace is puzzled by Andrew’s ill will, which is in sharp contrast to his original helpfulness. Then she remembers that early on he asked her to his apartment to “discuss her statistics” — ha-ha — more than once. On further reflection, it occurs to her that she has also talked about Charlie’s helpfulness in perhaps over-enthusiastic terms. Still, it is hard to imagine that he is being mean because he is jealous. It is weird and very troublesome.

  In the middle of the wrangling, during the course of which Andrew becomes more and more unpleasant, Grace has a dream. She is back in Wentley. It is Christmastime, and she is baking at the Williams’s next door. (Because there is no oven in their lean-to kitchen — only a small kerosene stove — when they bake, they borrow the Williams’s stove.) It is a blue December day, cool breeze blowing up the frilly curtains in the small, blue kitchen. Grace is making a cake, about to break three eggs into the batter. She puts down her wooden spoon, and takes up the first egg. As she breaks the shell, it turns into a miniature Fillmore Buxton, his foul face filling up the round rim of the bowl, his body shrinking down into the batter. With a sneer, she flicks her wrist and mashes him in, and then takes up the second egg, which becomes an equally ugly Andrew Shelton. She cracks him too, blending blood, bones, and bits of body parts into the mix. Reaching for the third egg, she forces herself into wakefulness and sits shivering, never mind the day is already warm, and dry retching into the nightgown she is clutching in front of her mouth.

  “It’s only a dream, sweet lady,” she imagines Charlie soothing. “You’re annoyed with those men. It’s good you can resolve it in a dream.”

  She doesn’t agree. It is as alive and urgent as the current nasty heaving of her stomach. Worse, she is far too satisfied cracking the two egg-men, watching their innards fall into the bowl, grinding them into the gross mixture. It is more than just outrage. Maybe she should get dressed and head for Emergency Psych at the University Hospital right away, where she will say — what? “I just had a nightmare, on the basis of which I’ve concluded I’m crazy?”

  She decides to take one of the tranquilizers she always has on hand because she hates to fly, and hope it will put her to sleep. She’ll figure it out tomorrow.

  In the end, with the other committee members bullying Andrew a bit, they all agree on changes, and she revises and hands in the dissertation. By then, the dispute has taken so long to sort out, and been so traumatic that a letter comes from Cohasset before she manages to reach Phyllis.

  Mary’s Haven

  Easter Day

  30 March 1986

  Dear Grace,

  How are you? I hope enjoying a rest after all the hard work. Well, here I am, back pon spot! I’m so grateful to you for all those letters, and sorry not to have answered. Happily, I can now explain my prolonged retirement from the world. I’ve had a psychotherapist these past four years. When I began to have some world-class nightmares and was screaming in my sleep fit to wake the dead, not to mention the folks here, the sisters arranged for me to see her. She’s been immeasurably helpful! It was her suggestion that I cut off contact with pretty much everyone till we agreed I was ready for the world again. So in addition to working on my body, they’ve been helping me fix my miserable soul.

  Much of what I’ve grappled with is the result of situations in my childhood and adolescence. It’s not just having a baby when I wasn’t quite thirteen. There were plenty other things and it was well time that I sorted them out. One thing I know now is that it’s not enough to cope, make a go of it, indeed to even succeed brilliantly. You need to believe that you are a good, worthwhile person. I pass that on for what it’s worth.

  When I was finally more or less functional, I asked the nuns here if I could help in any way and they let me slowly get back into the rhythm of work. It’s admin, like what I did in New York. The difference is this big, old residence by the sea is a beautiful, restful place, far from hassle and botheration. Whether winter or summer, good or bad weather, it’s utterly peaceful. I’ll get back to New York in time, but not just now.

  Daphne tells me you are set to get through your final PhD exam with flying colors. If you tell me the big day, we’ll send up a noisy prayer from here.

  Time for Mass! I hope you make good choices about the paths to pursue now you have the papers you need. The Holy Spirit will guide you. God bless. Much love. Big hug.

  Phyllis

  P.S. Bet you thought I’d forgot! I hope you had a wonderful birthday! We prayed for you especially at mass and I played the flute for the first time in a long time!

  She defends her dissertation on 21 May. Charlie, back in St. Chris since the end of April, comes armed with champagne and the offer of a job in the Haiti project.

  “Exactly who am I working for, Charlie?”

  At first he’d understood that the Centers for Disease Control were running one arm of the project, with sideways money from the National Institutes of Health. Now he was saying, “I believe that the CIA are on board as well.”

  “Don’t kid me, Charles.”

  “Sweet one, even I, chuckling Charlie, wouldn’t do that. I’m not certain, but I have to tell you what I suspect, don’t I? Duvalier is gone, but the new National Council is rickety. Their assembly is only just tackling the constitution, and our friend Father Aristide and the youth of Ti Legliz, his little church movement, are making the establishment nervous. At the best of times there’s no
t much in the world those CIA goons don’t stick their fingers into.”

  It isn’t unlikely. Haiti is always more or less uneasy.

  Charlie assures her that, as long as they are cautious, level headed, and sensible, they will be safe. She joins the project in January 1987.

  On 19 April, Easter Monday, Charlie leaves for the office early. He is opening the locks on their door when she wakes, aware of a queasy belly and a funny taste in her mouth, migraine symptoms she hasn’t had in a long while. The taste is different this time, though, like ashes. She slips into a robe and makes it outside in time to call goodbye as he enters the long grass that swallows the track going downhill to project headquarters. The blades shush as they bend and rise, mimicking his answering wave. Then, like a sea anemone’s tentacles, they sweep him in. No one ever sees him again.

  Grace spends the worst six weeks of her life alone in their small house, waiting for news of Charlie, forcing herself to work, downing pills so she can sleep at nights. When no news of him interrupts her tremulous vigil, she starts to look for him herself, until she is expressly forbidden, the order pronounced with menace by the blue-eyed, crew cut ex-marine who is in charge of security at headquarters. Josée, their translator, must have told him. Grace’s Kwéyol isn’t good like Charlie’s, and so she asked Josée to come with her to help her search.

  Then, for the second time in her life, she has an attack of migraine in which pain comes packaged in total blindness. After she has lost vision for three days, she panics. It makes no sense to stay in Haiti and risk complete physical and psychological breakdown. She’ll be of use to no one then, least of all herself. Charlie alone has understood her, and loved her for who she is. And Charlie is gone, victim she is sure of some calculated or accidental act of lethal violence — it hardly matters which.

  She decides she will make a place inside, a special space for Charlie, and put him away there. She will ration her thoughts about him because not to do so will be to risk total disintegration. She packs a few clothes, gives away most things, heads back to Daphne in Edison. Charlie’s death is Papa God’s coup de grâce. He shouldn’t expect to hear from her anytime soon.

  MARK

  32

  Coming to Order

  This afternoon, even the subdued banter that council members normally bring into the meeting is absent. Not that they’re a drab and sober lot, but close to year-end they’re tired from travel, the pressures of island politics, the burdens of teaching and administration. Still, that is life in these parts, and these fellows get good money for dealing with it and plenty of perks.

  He puts down his papers and looks around for Celia. She’s on the other side of the room, in animated conversation with another admin officer. She will come over to him shortly, passing along any new information, conveying last-minute apologies for anyone delayed or unable to attend.

  But she isn’t the person approaching him. It’s the principal, Gordon Crawford, skin bloodless, grey pupils skittering like marbles across the whites of his eyes.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Mark! They’ve killed him!”

  “Killed who? Who’s killed who?”

  “Langdon. They’ve shot him!”

  “Langdon? Who’s Langdon, Gordon?”

  “Shit. Fucking place’s turned into Jamaica. Jesus Christ! I need a drink.”

  “Gordon, get a hold of yourself. Who’s this who’s been shot?”

  “Edwin Langdon. The Minister of Education.”

  Gordon says that, because the minister has been shot dead, the vice chancellor, who is talking to the Office of the Prime Minister, will be late. Based on this communication, council will decide whether graduation on Saturday should proceed. Edwin Langdon is not a friend, but he is, or was, in the first batch of students that Mark taught and was someone he had worked with often. If there’s such a thing as an honest politician, the deceased is that.

  “Who shot him? Anybody have any idea?”

  “Just happened on his way here! Jesus, I’m cold. Mark, you don’t carry a flask, do you?” Mark shakes his head, surprised at the younger man.

  “All the same, you’re a rum man,” Crawford babbles on. “Can’t think how you drink that rot-gut.” Mark doesn’t appreciate the remark, not because it says his taste in liquor is suspect, but because St. Chris rum is superb.

  “So the police have no idea ...”

  “Of who? Naaah, don’t be stupid,” Crawford cuts him off. “How could they? Of course, that slut in the admin office is saying it’s Langdon’s wife.”

  “You mean she’s been killed, not him?”

  “Good God, no, man. Use your head. It’s him that’s dead all right. Flap-mouth was saying his wife knocked him off or arranged for it.”

  Mark decides that, even in the circumstances, he can’t excuse the principal this degree of, to put it kindly, informality. “Gordon ...” His voice portends.

  “What?”

  “Restrain yourself.” He’s never known anyone who died by anything more violent than a road accident. He doesn’t fear death but he does fear dying, if that makes sense, and a bullet doesn’t strike him as a bad way to go.

  “Why don’t you take five in the chancellor’s suite and have a nip of brandy? Here’s Celia.” He beckons her. “She’ll see you in.”

  “Celia,” he speaks before she does. “The principal is feeling unwell. Would you take him to Garvey, please? Organize a cup of tea?” He hopes Gordon notices that the nip has shape-shifted.

  Celia hands him several files.

  “For me? Thanks. I take it phones are in good working order?” He points to a red phone and a black one on a table immediately behind his chair.

  “Yes, sir. They were checked earlier.”

  “Very well. I’m going to start things off. I think it would be wise to have a car with a driver downstairs, just in case. Can we do that?”

  “I’ll ask admin to arrange it.” She reaches for the black phone.

  Council must still meet, if only to decide if graduation should go ahead. Several hundred people will shortly arrive in Queenstown. Indeed, they are arriving already. Preposterously, it’s Grace he thinks of, in Haiti for meetings, wondering again why she never answered his letters. Mona can’t come! The magic of the words envelops him, like the heat of liniment on aching muscles. “Mona can’t come.” Not in these circumstances!

  Of course he’s not just worried about Grace’s safety, and Mona’s, but about the safety of the families and friends coming for the ceremony. Most aren’t wealthy people. It’s a moment of triumph for them, dividend of many sweat-invested years. To be cheated of that is hard. Might there be some connection with the university, some mad student with a grudge? Nowadays, that’s what angry people do, grab a gun and shoot. At any rate, today the politicians, senior civil servants, academics, and other pukka sahibs can sweat a little to earn their bread.

  “Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for being on time. It’s as well, since our normally difficult circumstances have turned catastrophic. I’m distressed to have to inform you that Minister Langdon has been shot dead on his way here.”

  There are gasps, exclamations of horror. He allows a pause, seconds during which some gape, faces stung, others turn to jabber at their neighbours, so the noise increases. When some start to rise, he returns them to their chairs.

  “We will, of course, continue with council. Before calling the meeting to order, however, I would ask that we stand and observe a moment of silence out of respect for the Hon. Minister of Education. May his soul rest in peace.”

  In the silence, he peeps from under lowered lids, curious about whether any of these men has screwed Grace.

  Shifting feet and papers tell him the minute is up.

  “Sorry. Got distracted there. Please be seated.” He sits, pours himself some passion fruit punch and sips. The meeting will trundle on until late, no doubt reconvening tomorrow. He sets the glass down. Ice tinkles as the sun makes crisscross explosions in the crimson liquid.
r />   GRAMPS

  33

  Ralston

  “Beg you take it from me and rest it on the table yonder, Zeke.”

  Evadne stands in the doorway with a wooden tray on which there is a jug of lemonade and two glasses.

  “Take your time, Vads,” Ezekiel Carpenter counsels, taking the tray from her and settling it on the wrought iron table that occupies most of the length of the small verandah, commanding the space like an altar. He returns to give her a hand as she steps down from the polished wood of the parlour onto the shiny red-stained concrete.

  “I thank you for the help, Zeke. I am really very well indeed, except for this arthritis. It useful for predicting the weather, but when it ready, it transform me into a cripple. And God Almighty knows I already have troubles enough to cripple me!”

  She settles herself on a high straight-backed bench, at the same time waving him into an old-fashioned dark green verandah chair, its seat sloping down to meet a long angled back.

  “Maybe you best come to the troubles straight off, Vads,” Gramps begins. “Nothing to be gained by beating around the bush. We know each other too long. If Elsie was here, she would say, ‘No way to kill the chicken other than put the pan over the head and bring the knife down.’ ”

  “Is a hard thing for me to speak about, Zeke.” Evadne beats her fist on her small bosom. “I don’t mind money troubles, for I am accustomed to being poor, and in sickness, I pray for endurance.” She holds up her hands, the joints swollen, the fingers curling over. “When storm and hurricane come, I recall the Book of Job and know God is master and I bow to his will and the might of his sceptre. But when evil come as close to me as my family, when I see a viper in my bosom and don’t know when nor how it come to be there, I deem it hard indeed.”