The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “A white lady.”

  “Where did you talk to her?”

  The boy looked over his shoulder, toward the entrance to the square. “Just there, on the Avenue Victor Hugo.”

  “Show me!” Medlin stuffed the newspaper into his pocket and urged the boy to run.

  The Avenue Victor Hugo was the main thoroughfare. Though the sun had yet to peek over the highland behind the town, the street was packed. People rose early enough in the tropics anyway, Medlin knew, but the people he saw now looked as though they were up late rather than early. They looked the way he felt, unrested and dirty. No one in the town could have slept much with all the fireworks. There were numerous white faces among the darker ones, none of them the right face. But Garrick did waft on the dirty air. He tried to hold on to her. It was like trying to grab a small wind-borne scrap of paper.

  “Crazy woman,” he muttered, “crazy goddamn old woman!”

  He whipped out the newspaper and opened it furiously. It was a broadsheet called Les Colonies, dated Samedi 3 May 1902. A banner proclaimed this to be an extraordinary edition. There were no photographs or other illustrations.

  Written in dark pencil in the upper righthand corner, above the logo, was, See Mme Boislaville—G.

  The boy was still at his side. Medlin said, “Do you know where I can find a Madame Boislaville?”

  The boy nodded happily and said, “She is my aunt,” and set off at a trot down the Avenue Victor Hugo. Medlin called him back and said that he had hurt his leg and could only hobble. The boy led him at a more considerate pace onto a side street. Medlin found himself surrounded by food shops and cafes. Only a few shopkeepers had taken down their shutters today, and they were being overwhelmed by impatient-looking customers. The babble here had a hard, argumentative edge to it.

  Halfway down the street, the boy stopped before a yellow two-storied building with blue trim. Its shutters were closed. The boy pounded on the door with his small brown fist.

  The voice within was a woman’s. Medlin didn’t have to understand the words to get the meaning: Go away! The boy pleaded. There was silence from behind the door for a moment, then the sound of a bolt being drawn. The door opened wide enough for one eye to peer out.

  Remembering his manners, Medlin said, “Madame Boislaville, I presume,” and gave her the merest suggestion of a bow.

  The space between door and jamb widened. Madame Boislaville was tall, limber-looking, mocha-colored, of indeterminate age. She could have been twenty-five or forty. She said, “You are the friend of Madame Garrick?”

  “Yes. My name is Medlin. Your nephew here—”

  She looked down at the boy sharply. He was almost squirming. He said, in French rather than creole, so that Medlin would understand, “Madame Garrick promised that I would be paid to bring this gentleman here.”

  “And Madame Garrick,” the woman retorted, also in French, “undoubtedly paid you herself, Symphar. You wicked boy, go home to your poor mother. She must have work for you to do. Or perhaps she will just give you a good beating. Go!”

  Foiled, wicked Symphar ran away.

  “Come inside quickly, Monsieur.” Madame waved him in with urgent gestures and slammed the bolt behind her with obvious relief. It took Medlin’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the gloom, and then he saw that he was in a cramped and dimly lit cafe. Garrick had been here. As palpable as shadow, her trace enveloped him. She had been here recently, had lingered here, had touched or been touched by Madame’s hands, had … had what? He looked around, not quite hopeful or expectant, not quite fearful, not quite knowing how he might feel if he were to see her. Chairs sat legs-up on tables. The only person in the room besides Madame and himself was a mulatto girl who stood by a curtained doorway that separated the serving area from the rear of the building. She looked about as old as the boy. She was eyeing him watchfully. Then a stooped, ancient woman holding a ratty broom appeared behind her and made to put an arm around her—protectively, he thought, until the child evaded the embrace and darted behind the bar. The woman muttered harshly and glared at Medlin as though something were all his fault. She began scratching in a corner with her broom.

  Madame had cleared off a table and invited him to sit. He could not help sighing as he did so.

  She said, “Are you hungry, thirsty? Would you care to rest?”

  “I am very thirsty.”

  “I have just the thing for it.” She turned and clapped her hands and called out a name, Elizabeth. The girl popped up behind the bar, listened to brief instructions, disappeared again. There was a clink of glass, and she emerged around the end of the bar carrying a small filled tray. She kept Madame between Medlin and herself as she set the tray on the table. She was as wary as a half-feral cat, ready to bolt at the first hint of danger from any direction. Her gaze was steady and expressionless, and he could tell from the way she held her head that she was listening with one ear for the old woman. He could only guess the nature of that disagreement. It occurred to him that because he was white, male, and a grown-up, she probably believed him capable of anything. He gave her what he intended as a friendly smile. She responded by scurrying away into some back room.

  Madame filled a glass with clear liquid, added syrup from a little pitcher and a bit of lime peel, and gave the mixture a quick stir. She set the glass before him with an air of supreme confidence in the efficacy of its contents. He took a cautious sip. It was basically rum, and went down pleasantly. He took a second sip. It went down very pleasantly indeed, washing away the taste of sulphur, soothing his throat.

  Go easy on this stuff, he warned himself. His tolerance for alcohol was low. He made a heartfelt sound of delight and gratitude for his hostess.

  She looked pleased by it and said, “Your friend has arranged for your food and lodging here. She paid me for a week in advance, paid for everything. Now sit and rest. I will have a hot bath prepared for you while you eat,” and with that she turned and spoke in rapid-fire creole first to the girl and then to the old woman. The girl nodded obediently and disappeared.

  The old woman shook her head and went on fussing in the corner. When Madame spoke to her again, with somewhat of an edge in her voice, the old woman turned and made a short reply. They began to argue as though they had been at it for years and could take up their dispute wherever they had left off last time. His eyes had adjusted to the light in the place, and he thought that he detected a slight but certain resemblance between the women. The older one could have been the younger one’s mother or grandmother. Whatever their argument was really about, he realized all at once that he had become part of it, for the old woman was gesturing at him with her broom as she screamed at Madame. Madame pointed in his direction as well, and then enumerated unguessable points on her long fingers. He found being argued about in a language he couldn’t understand more than a little scary.

  At length, the old woman was in such a fury that she left words behind. She gargled a cry, dropped the broom, raked the air over her head with two bird-claw hands, and stormed into the back. A moment later, the girl came out in a hurry, carrying another tray.

  Medlin said, “I am sorry, I have come at a bad time,” and reluctantly started to get up.

  Madame held up her hand. He settled hopefully back into the chair. “Do not trouble yourself about that old woman,” she said. “She is a superstitious country woman, very ignorant. She thinks all whites have the evil eye.” The way she said it suggested to him that she herself thought some whites might have the evil eye. “She came here when the mountain began to erupt. She thinks whites are to blame.”

  The girl had placed the second tray on the table. From it, Madame set warm bread and a bowl of steaming gumbo before him. He put his faith in inoculations and tasted the gumbo. It was delicious. He said so at once.

  Madame smiled for the first time. She had a big, pleasant smile. Medlin found himself thinking that much of the best of African, European, Asian, and Amerindian faces had collected in her features. />
  “There is not much food here now,” she said. “This ash, aiee, it ruins everything! We did not open for business today because we have nothing to serve—only enough for ourselves and you. I did not believe Madame Garrick. She said there would be shortages because of the mountain.”

  She seemed about to leave him to eat in peace. He said, “An extraordinary person, my friend. When did you see her last?”

  “It was two mornings ago, Friday, just after the mountain began to erupt.”

  “Did she say where I may find her?”

  “She said that she would call for you here.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She asked if I have relatives living elsewhere on the island. I told her that everyone on Martinique is related, except for the freshest arrival from France. Even then, I told her, they say it is only a matter of time.”

  Medlin laughed along with her. “What did she say to that?”

  “Oh, she laughed, Monsieur, she laughed the most wonderful laugh.”

  She smiled at the memory of that, and Medlin thought, Garrick, you old charmer. Then Madame became serious.

  “But then,” she said, “she told me that if I have relatives in the south, I should give some thought to visiting them. She told me that the mountain is going to destroy the town.

  “Do you believe her?”

  “I do not know. The mountain has not erupted since anyone can remember. It made some harmless puffs of smoke many years ago, when my grandmothers were young girls. But I do not know what to believe now. If you will excuse me, Monsieur,” and she moved away with a rustle of skirts.

  When he had finished eating, she reappeared and led him to a small, steam-filled room built onto the back of the house. Covered storage jars and other earthenware were ranked against the walls. There was a small hearth for heating water in one corner. The girl was pouring water from a large pan into a metal bathtub that sat in the middle of the floor.

  “Here are towels and a sponge and some soap,” Madame said, indicating each thing with a palm-up wave as she named it, “and here is a robe. If you will leave your garments outside the door, I shall clean them. It is a sin to work on Sunday, but you must have clean clothes.” She paused and stepped out of the way to let the girl pass with her empty kettle. “Do you require anything else, Monsieur?

  Medlin looked at her, was about to say no, said nothing. She was standing at the door, watching him, the fingertips of her right hand resting lightly against her sternum above the slope of her bosom. It was not a provocative stance, and yet he thought he saw something in it that was not a welcome and not a challenge, but only a look of expectation. Men always required something else. He could not help thinking of the whore on the Rue Syphilis, and it shocked him.

  “No,” he managed to say, “nothing else,” and waited too long before adding, “a good long quiet soak is all I need, thank you,” and felt like a complete idiot for the second time since he had arrived in town, “thank you very much.”

  “You are welcome, Monsieur.”

  Medlin stared at the door after she had closed it behind herself. Had he read those signals right? Had she been offering to let him—? Christ, no, surely not. If washing clothes on Sunday was a sin, what did that make—?

  No, surely not, surely not.

  A cheap cloth curtain covered the single window. He drew it aside and looked out onto an unpaved courtyard with a small fountain. There was a vegetable garden in one corner of the yard, and what he took to be a cooking shed against the near wall. Some dead birds lay on the ground opposite. Everything looked dingy. Flecks of ash still turned in the air.

  He let the curtain drop, and his fingers came away dirty. Ash seeping in through the space between window frame and curtain had collected moisture from the humid air in the room and settled on everything in a gritty paste.

  Medlin peeled himself to the skin. First taking care to empty the pockets of his coat, he neatly folded his outer garments, rolled his shirt and underwear into a bundle, and set them outside the door along with his tired-looking shoes. Then he eased himself into the tub. He had always believed that bathing was the benchmark of civilization. But for the thin scum of ash collecting on the surface of his bath water and the sediments of fine volcanic matter on the bottom of the tub, this could have been the best bath he had ever taken. Excepting that time when he and—what was her name? His thoughts abruptly veered back to the vision of Madame Boislaville standing at the door, waiting for him to say it, if she had in fact been waiting for him to say something.

  You’re imagining stuff, he told himself. One glimpse of the nightlife in Little Sodom, Little Gomorrah, and you think every woman in town’s for rent.

  But, he asked himself, did Garrick pay her to do that, too?

  What the hell, Med, Garrick’s crazy. She really is crazy, really has to be crazy to be doing what she’s doing, really is capable of anything, but this Boislaville woman’s a denizen for chrissake, be like screwing a ghost for chrissake, be like, and he forced the Madames Garrick and Boislaville from his mind for the moment and let the water claim him.

  When he began to doze, he got out of the tub, dried off, and put on the robe. It was clean but worn. It felt tight across his shoulders. His hostess evidently heard him thumping around, for now came a discreet knock at the door, and she said, “Monsieur enjoyed his bath?”

  He peered around the edge of the door at her and could not read her expression. There was in her voice no note of anything except professional solicitude. He began to feel ashamed of himself, and it confused him. She was only a denizen.

  “It was the most pleasant bath I have ever taken,” he told her.

  She gave a slight nod and led him upstairs to a small room with a cot, a table, and a chair. On the table was a metal washbasin containing a pitcher and a block of soap the size of a half-brick. There was a porcelain chamber pot beneath the cot. The door had no lock. She nodded at both shuttered windows.

  “More dust gets in with the shutters closed than light gets in with the shutters opened.”

  Small wonder, Medlin thought. There was no glass in the windows, an ideal arrangement for the tropics unless there happened to be a nearby volcano pumping out schmutz.

  The woman made a furrow in the thin layer of ash on the tabletop and showed him her gray fingertip. “It is impossible to keep house. I had the girl clean here just this morning. I shall bring your clothes as soon as they are clean.”

  “Thank you.”

  The room was an oven. As soon as Madame left, he opened the shutters of both windows in the, as it turned out, vain hope of getting some air to blow through. The windows faced north and west, and from them he could look out on the street in front of the Boislaville establishment and also see the volcano and roadstead. The volcano seemed to doze fitfully. The sea looked lead-gray and sluggish.

  Garrick, he thought, Garrick, what are you up to?

  Garrick had never been one to do anything just for the sake of doing it.

  Medlin sat on the sill and unfolded the newspaper again. By the poor light of the ash-veiled day he began to read, impatiently at first, then more intently and with deepening disbelief.

  Yesterday the people of St. Pierre were treated to a grandiose spectacle in the majesty of the smoking volcano. While at St. Pierre the admirers of the beautiful could not take their eyes from the smoke of the volcano and the ensuing falls of cinder, timid people were committing their souls to God.

  It would seem that many signs ought really to have warned us that Mount Pelée was in a state of serious eruption. There have been slight earthquake shocks this noon. The rivers are in overflow. The need now is for the people outside St. Pierre to seek the shelter of the town. Citizens of St. Pierre! It is your duty to give these people succor and comfort.

  Because of the situation in the hinterland, the excursion to Mount Pelée which had been organized for tomorrow morning will not leave St. Pierre, the crater being absolutely inaccessible. Those who were to hav
e joined the party will be notified when it will be found practical to carry out the original plan.

  There was a burst of complaint from the street below. He looked down to see a fistfight in front of a shop two doors away. No one moved to stop it. An aproned man with an alarmed expression stood to one side, making pushing gestures with his hands and volubly exhorting everyone to go away. The bystanders ignored him. Most of them watched the fight. Perhaps half a dozen separated from the crowd and coalesced into a discrete group that moved with stunning suddenness into a vegetable shop across the street. Medlin saw no signals exchanged, no indication that the people knew one another; looting was an idea whose moment had come. There were shouts and crashes. The group emerged and turned into its constituent strangers, who ran away clutching handfuls of vegetables as though they were trophies.

  The idea caught on. Other shops were raided. Some raiders began to tear shutters off the closed shops. Medlin noticed a couple of men look speculatively at him and at Madame Boislaville’s closed shutters. One of the men took a step forward, and Medlin slipped a hand into the pocket of the robe, wrapped his fingers around the butt of the revolver, wondered if he could actually bring himself to use it on anyone except Garrick.

  Another thought intruded on that one: could he do even that?

  Now a squad of soldiers appeared. It was met by distraught shopkeepers, who jabbered in creole and French and pointed accusingly at individual onlookers. One of the accused, a burly mulatto, answered by raising a yam to his mouth, biting into it defiantly, and chewing with exaggerated gusto. The lieutenant was distracted by shopkeepers’ hands on his lapels. The enlisted men behind him clutched their rifles, looking uneasy.

  Medlin started to close the shutter, then stared. From the volcano an enormous black cloud was spreading across the sky. He watched, alarmed, as stuff began to rain from the cloud’s underside. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed an object flashing downward at terrific speed. An instant later—before he could turn his head—the object struck the eaves of a nearby roof, shattering tiles and spraying the street with ceramic shrapnel. Below his window, accusations broke off in yelps and screeches. He slammed the shutter and rushed to close the other. He listened unhappily for a time, sitting on the cot, yawning in spite of himself. Finally, he stretched out and fell asleep so fast that it was like blacking out. The last thing he heard was the sound of church bells punctuating the clatter of falling pumice.