Heading South

by Dany Laferriere

  SHE WAS SO caught up in these thoughts that she hadn’t noticed a curious exchange taking place out on the verandah.

  She listens.

  “No, Miss June, I don’t want to lose my work. We can’t do this . . . If Madame finds out, she’ll send me packing . . .”

  “There’s no one here,” June says dryly.

  Christina is already bathed in sweat. June, her daughter, is forcing herself on a man. On their servant. Christina crawls across the floor to the window. Slowly, without making a sound, she raises her body. Cocks her head. Finally, she sees Absalom. He is lying on his back, and June is sitting astride him. A slight wind stirs the leaves of the magnificent tree that completely hides the verandah from the view of the neighbours.

  Calmly, June removes her blouse. Absalom keeps his eyes tightly shut. June’s firm breasts. Their rosy tips: erect and stiff. Christina feels her skin prickling. With a shiver she thinks: “My daughter is in heat.” And she watches, fascinated. The whole game in slow motion. Time slackened. The terrific concentration in her face. June, her June, is coolly pulling Absalom’s trousers down to his knees. Now there she is avidly seizing his white-hot penis and sliding it peremptorily under her skirt. At the moment of contact she briefly closes her eyes. Her red tongue comes out to moisten her lips. And she settles herself astride Absalom, hard, without a sound. Time suspended. Her nostrils flare and contract, flare and contract, quicker and quicker. Time halted. And then the orgasm. Brutal. Christina watches her daughter’s pleasure, hears her squealing like a mouse caught in a trap. It seems to go on interminably. And at the precise moment when it appears to be over, it takes on new life. She comes again. An invisible bird calls from the leaves of the mango tree. June is riding Absalom like a stallion, galloping him. She comes again, her mouth open this time. She howls. A sound that could be either pleasure or pain. And again it starts. Desire seems to have given her fresh energy. An animal trying to bite her own tail. Desire at fever pitch. A strident cry, as though she wants it to end but can’t bring herself to stop. She is galloping, faster and faster. Higher and higher. For a fraction of a second Christina sees her pubic mound. Beads of sweat on her worried brow. Her serious little girl. Her lips parted as though she is making a tender and prolonged recitation. As though she is praying. Christina is crying softly. This life (Absalom’s penis) thrust into her daughter’s belly. A few jerking movements. She rears. Her breasts point to heaven. Mouth twisted. Long groans. She wants to shed her skin. The pain. More spasms. And everything stops. Her body lying stretched out on Absalom’s. Resting. An occasional shudder. Like a fish out of water. And then, with a sound like that of a marine mammal, her body begins to move again. Gently. This intolerable gentleness. Suddenly her eyes open wide, like those of someone waking up from a terrible nightmare. More sharp groans. And then she is screaming. Her body stiffens into a perfect arc. The veins stand out on her neck. “She’s going to hurt herself,” Christina suddenly thinks. But on her face there appears a pleasure so intense, so violent, so naked, that Christina lowers her eyes. A private moment. “I’ve never known anything like that,” she says to herself, sliding to the floor. She lies there crying for so long she eventually falls asleep, curled up in the fetal position.

  Christina is startled awake when she hears Harry’s car in the drive. Her immediate thought is that Harry must on no account find June in such a position. She tries to calm herself enough to risk raising her head to look out the window. No one there. It’s as though nothing has happened. She hears Harry climbing the stairs. And Billie Holiday’s passionate voice (“Strange Fruit”) coming once again from June’s bedroom.

  Woman of Prey

  THIS MORNING I have to go meet a young musician at his house. He’s seventeen (same litter as me) and has just put out his first album. Denz asked me to check him out. He wants to work with him. He must be good if Denz is taking such an early interest in him. Usually Denz waits until someone has two or three albums out before he bothers to consider them anything more than a greenhorn. I’ve also read about him in the media. According to the influential music critic Gérald Merceron, who is also a good friend of Denz’s, by the way, this Jude Michel dude is the most original lyricist to have appeared on the scene in the past thirty years, by a long shot. Say since Ti Paris (the alcoholic bard). No one knows hardly anything about him except that his mother died of uterine cancer when he was six, and he never knew his father. He lives with his old aunt in Poste-Marchand, one of the more populous quarters in Port-au-Prince.

  “Excuse me, sir, but I’ve been wandering around in this area for a half an hour now, and . . .”

  “I know,” the man says grumpily. “This is the sixth time you’ve passed in front of my door.”

  “I’m looking for a guy named Jude Michel . . . Do you know him?”

  “No . . . I don’t know any Jude Michel.”

  “He’s a young musician . . .”

  “Ah, you mean Dodo, Sylvana’s nephew . . . What’s he done? I know his aunt, she’s a respectable lady . . .”

  “He’s just put out a fine first album.”

  “Ah, that good-for-nothing . . . Now that Sylvana’s sick and can’t take care of him anymore, he’s going to go to the dogs. He never did want to stay in school. Sylvana sent him to J.B. Damien to learn a trade, and do you think he was able to stick it out for a single course? Do you know what lengths that woman had to go to to get him admitted into that school? They only take a few students every year, but it’s an excellent school. I got a nephew went to it, and he’s doing pretty well for himself today.”

  “I gather his mother is dead,” I say, taking out my notebook.

  “Forget it!” he says, contempt in his voice. “I don’t talk to cops or journalists.”

  “I’m just doing some research for a history paper.”

  “Ah, well, how would I know? Still, I don’t like people writing down what I say . . .”

  I put my notebook back in my pocket.

  “That’s more like it . . . He’s Lumane’s son, Sylvana’s little sister . . . She was a fine singer, but she died in the darkest misery you can imagine. And so when Dodo started showing an interest in music, Sylvana did everything she could to keep him away from it . . .”

  “What kind of guy is he?”

  The man seems taken aback by the question.

  “He’s a fine, upstanding young man, but like I said, that’s no way to make a living.” He pauses. “At least, not in Haiti.”

  “Do you know what they said about him in Le Nouvelliste the other day?”

  “No, I don’t,” the man says dryly. “I don’t read the paper.”

  “They said he was the most original musician to come along in thirty years. You have to go all the way back to Ti Paris . . .”

  “Ah! Ti Paris . . . I like Ti Paris. He’s a real song-man. He didn’t give a damn about nothing, except music. Music was his whole life. His songs go right to my heart . . . I remember he said in one of his songs that he was always drunk, (“Ev’ry day I drinks away”), which is not a word of a lie, I know that for a fact.”

  “You knew him well, then?”

  His face takes on a nostalgic look.

  “For sure I knew him. In them days we used to go to the same joint: Chez la Mère Jeanne. Oh boy, the food was terrible there. But there was this young waitress, firm breasts, a real saucy one, she was, but beautiful, beautiful, my friend.”

  He spends some time thinking about her.

  “I even think . . . I’m not sure . . . but I think she had a kid by Ti Paris . . . That Ti Paris, he had eleven kids by seven different women. He loved women, and they returned the favour . . . That was his downfall, I guess . . . Them three things always go together: women, music and booze . . .”

  “What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you done a few things you regret in your life?”

  The man looks me in the eye like someone on the verge of making a terrible confession
, but then he draws back.

  “Who hasn’t? That’s all I’ve got to say . . .”

  “Jude Michel’s address . . . A friend of mine wants to work with him.”

  “Work? Dodo doesn’t know the meaning of the word . . . Scratching away on a guitar, I don’t call that work . . . All right, go down to the crossroads, then turn left and keep going right to the end of the dirt lane . . .”

  “And then?”

  “Then you’re there. You can’t miss it.”

  A TALL, THIN young man opens the door and shows me into a tiny, overheated room. An old guitar on the table.

  “I guess I’m not the first journalist”—I decided to pass myself off as a journalist—“to come here to waste your time . . .”

  A candid smile flutters across his sensual lips.

  “You’re the first and will probably be the only.”

  “But you got such a great write-up by Gérald Merceron in last weekend’s paper.”

  “Monsieur Merceron showed it to me before it came out. I was pretty happy with it . . .”

  “Ah, so you know him?”

  “He gave me a lot of advice when I was putting the album together.”

  “So how do you feel?”

  “Sad . . .”

  “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night . . . My heart was pounding like anything.”

  “And you have no idea why?”

  “To tell you the truth, no.”

  “It’s always like that when something important happens,” says a calm voice from somewhere behind me.

  I turn around a bit quickly. A very elegant lady is sitting in a dark corner of the room. Huge eyes, refined hands, the same age as Madame Saint-Pierre. She opens her Gucci handbag (the famous golden G) and takes out a slender cigarette holder.

  “I was telling Jude before you arrived not to make such a fuss about it, because it’s perfectly normal. It’s too much emotion in too little time.”

  “You’re right,” I say.

  “And of course,” she adds in a whisper that contains all the sensuality in the world, “Jude is so young . . .”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, I don’t mean to shake you up, but would you mind telling me what you think of his album?”

  “What I think of his album?” she says, with a pretty laugh. “Well, I think Jude has a devastating talent.”

  “Do you have a favourite cut?”

  Silence.

  “‘Crazy About You.’”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I find it orgasmic.”

  “Ah! And the rest of the disc? What do you think of the musical arrangements? I have a good friend who does arrangements, too . . .”

  “Denz.”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t,” says Jude, “but I really like his work.”

  The woman stands up abruptly.

  “Excuse me, but I must go . . . Jude, I’ll come by to pick you up around seven tonight.”

  A whiff of Nina Ricci.

  “WHO WAS THAT?” I ask.

  “I don’t know . . .” Jude lets out. “She showed up yesterday morning, and she’s been back every two hours since then.”

  “Do you know what she wants?”

  “I don’t know that, either . . .”

  “No idea?”

  “Well, yeah, but I’m a bit afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Of her . . . I don’t know what’s happening to me. Barely a week ago I couldn’t imagine anything like this, and now, all of a sudden, everyone wants to meet me. But it isn’t me who’s changed . . .”

  He stops and holds his head in his hands.

  “What do you want from me? I can’t understand a thing . . . She’s beautiful, rich, she knows everyone, and here I am with nothing. I live in Poste Marchand with an old, sick aunt. I don’t know what there is here that a woman like her would find attractive.”

  “Your talent. There are some women who only get turned on by new talent.”

  “What talent?” he says, banging his head against the wall. “I steal things from here and there: rock, jazz, rara, konpa direct, Spanish music . . . I didn’t invent a thing.”

  “Maybe, but it makes a good sauce.”

  He stops pacing the floor and stares at me fixedly, his face looking feverish.

  “It’s funny you should mention sauce. I’ve always been interested in cooking, but for some reason my aunt has never wanted to teach me.”

  “But music is a lot like cooking, isn’t it, Jude? Oddly enough.”

  His eyes light up.

  “Maybe that’s it!” he exclaims. “I like talking to you . . . I don’t even know your name . . .”

  “Fanfan.”

  “I didn’t sleep all night, Fanfan. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that woman. I felt like I was caught in a funnel. And now I don’t know whether I was dreaming or wide awake.”

  “You must be tired. I’ll leave now so you can get some rest.”

  “But you came all this way . . .”

  “I just came to tell you that Denz would like you to drop by some time.”

  His face lights up.

  “I’d like to meet him. He’s been my idol for such a long time. He does cool arrangements,” he says with a feeble smile. “It’s just that my aunt is sick. I have to look after her.”

  He takes up his guitar and begins to play one of his tunes, then puts the instrument back on the table.

  “She said she’ll come back to get me at seven o’clock, about, but I’m sure she’ll be back before that. If only I knew for sure what she wanted from me. My head hurts, like someone’s been sticking long, thin needles right through my skull . . . You’ll come back? We could talk some more. I feel a connection between us . . .”

  “Yes, I’ll come back another time,” I say, heading for the door.

  As I’m about to go through it I turn and see him already stretched out on his iron cot. On his back, arms crossed over his chest and his mouth sagging open. Exhausted.

  Outside, the strong smell of garbage goes right to the back of my throat. I didn’t get a good look at the quarter on my way here, so I decide to walk around a bit, taking a different route back. Just after I turn my second corner I see a new Mercedes parked under a tree. It’s her! He was right. She shoots me a cold glance, as though she’s never seen me before. She has the shut-down look of a bird of prey on the point of making its fatal swoop. Fatal, that is, for the rabbit. The minute I reach the car it begins to roll slowly down to the house of the young musician whose talent the critics have unanimously declared to be the hope of our generation.

  One Good Deed

  CHARLIE QUIT SCHOOL during second term for one very simple reason: he was too beautiful to spend the whole day cooped up in a classroom. Women had been after him for a long time. He was still a virgin when his geography teacher offered him a ride home and then took him to her house instead. Since then, Charlie realized he could get anything he wanted out of women. So what was the use of staying in school when real life was bustling out on the street? The sweet, ripe fruit of the tree of good and evil was dangling inches from his outstretched hand. And Charlie had a good appetite. All the girls adored him except one: his sister, who, curiously, was not particularly gifted by nature. Every time she bragged that she was Charlie’s sister, someone would always say: “But how is that possible!” After that, she changed tactics. Now she says: “Charlie may have looks, but I have intelligence.” But she might as well save her breath. Sometimes I think it best to just say nothing and give in to your fate. Charlie is beautiful, that’s all there is to it. There are those who reveal themselves to be beautiful only after you’ve looked at them for a certain length of time, and others who, as they say, have beautiful souls. At the risk of repeating myself, Charlie is beautiful, by which I mean that whenever he enters a room, heads turn: women look at him with an avidity bordering on
dementia (they literally devour him with their eyes), and men with a certain pique. A truly beautiful man is rarer than you might think. At first it was incredible. Charlie would scoop up any woman who gave him a certain come-hither look (and did they ever really look at him any other way?), so that his miniscule room on Christophe Avenue became a kind of bordello. A new girl would arrive as the previous one was leaving, still fixing her hair. Sometimes they met in his bed. These days, however, he’s being more selective. He’s been known to turn down a staggering beauty and go home with a woman who is more fun to be with, or who makes him laugh, or even one who is downright ugly but has a certain charm, or an interesting walk, or even one who seems to have accepted the fact that no one will ever be interested in her. When he goes to a disco, no one, not even Charlie himself, has the slightest idea who he’s going to leave with.

  BEFORE WE GO too much further, you should know that Charlie’s parents are poor but respectable. His father threw him out of the house the day he quit school. He went to live with one of his cousins in Carrefour-Feuilles. Said cousin being an Adventist preacher, very strict, who prayed every night at nine o’clock, went to bed at nine-thirty, and didn’t let anyone in after ten. After a month of this monastic regime, during which he believed he was going insane, Charlie moved in with a friend who lives in Pacot. This arrangement didn’t work, either, since the friend’s young wife fell for him in a big way, placing him in an embarrassing situation. He found himself stuck between a benefactor and a woman for whom he felt no desire whatsoever. One of the cardinal rules in the lover’s social code is: never live under the same roof with a woman you’ve turned down. Once again, Charlie had to pack his bags. Eventually he found the miniscule room on Christophe Avenue, above a shoe store. He’d kept in touch with his mother and sister, despite their being absolutely forbidden from contact by his father: no members of the family (including uncles, aunts, and cousins) were allowed to so much as speak to him. “I have only one child,” he was heard to say, watching Rachel do her homework. Ever since discovering the great injustice done to her by nature in the matter of aesthetics, she had sought solace in her studies (it could have been worse: it could have been religion). But since her brother’s banishment, Rachel has stopped hating him. Especially now that their parents are getting old. They still work in service for the Abels, a rich family that owns many houses, including the villa in Bourdon. Madame Abel picks them up in the morning and brings them back each evening (a job she never leaves to her driver). Work at the Abels isn’t all that demanding, except for the stairway that becomes steeper with each passing year. They are good Christians who treat their domestics charitably. As far as cooking is concerned, the ambassador (François Abel was the Haitian ambassador to London during the Second World War) isn’t hard to please. His menu hasn’t varied in twenty years, except that for the past two years he hasn’t drunk so much as a glass of water after six o’clock in the evening. What the ambassador brought back with him from London (apart from a box of Cuban cigars given to him by Winston Churchill during an unforgettable meeting) was a sense of discipline, sartorial elegance and a heightened respect for the individual. Charlie’s elderly parents are therefore treated with the same respect that the ambassador would accord to his colleagues, astonishing in a country where domestics are often treated like slaves. To Charlie’s father, it goes without saying, the ambassador is a living god. Work is evenly divided in the Abel household, where it is believed (as one believes that Jesus is the son of God) that England is the most civilized country on the planet. Charlie’s mother works inside (kitchen, cleaning and telephone), while his father looks after things around the yard (garden, garage, raising the gate whenever he expects the ambassador’s car to arrive). In this way the peaceful lives of these two couples (masters and domestics) have run for more than twenty years.