Heading South

by Dany Laferriere

  A Small House on the Side of the Blue Mountain

  THREE DAYS AGO, Rebecca, her husband and their three children (twin girls who are ten years old and a boy who is eight) arrived in Port-au-Prince. They’re from London, where her husband runs an art gallery. Their friends call her Becky.

  Becky is tall and blonde with a somewhat severe face. She has small breasts. Years ago she was a champion discus thrower.

  Becky rides on the weekends on their large estate on the outskirts of London. Her family also owns vast lands in Australia and a huge house in the centre of the oldest part of London. Her father, a former officer in the Royal Navy, is also an accomplished athlete. Becky received a Spartan education. She wears jewelry only on rare occasions (a pearl necklace that her mother gave her as a wedding gift).

  Everyone agrees that Becky is a good person. Stalwart, honest, old-fashioned. The typical British sporting type. She met her husband at a vernissage—she’d gone there with a woman friend—and they were married six months later. Rebecca Hunter has just turned forty, and this trip is, in some ways, a birthday present.

  BECKY WANTED TO bring the children despite her mother’s insistence that she keep them with her in London.

  “Becky, don’t you think John would like to have you to himself, without the children, just this once?”

  “Don’t argue, Mother. I’m bringing the children. They’ll love the ocean. They’ll have the mountains and the sea.”

  “Becky, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough: there are times when a woman simply has to be a woman.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Her mother looks her straight in the eye.

  “Becky, you are forty years old, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Of course I do, Mother. It’s just that I have no interest in being alone with John.”

  The older woman seems about to run her hands over a small African statue of a man with pronounced Negroid characteristics, but changes her mind at the last minute. Her hand remains open but still, a sign of her own nervousness.

  “You don’t love your husband?”

  “That’s not the point, Mother.”

  “He neglects you.”

  “Mother, when are you going to understand that such things don’t interest me in the least?”

  The mother takes several quick steps about the room before turning again to her daughter.

  “You prefer women?”

  “What are you talking about, Mother!”

  “I know what I’m talking about. You can be frank with me.”

  “No, Mother! I am not even remotely interested in women.”

  “Well, then, in whom are you interested?”

  “I keep busy with the children, with the horses, with visiting my friends in the country. That’s what I like doing.”

  “And your husband?”

  “My husband is my husband.”

  “I’m going to tell you this for the last time, Becky: we women are much more complicated than you seem to think. In any case, you’ll see for yourself . . .”

  Becky looks at her for a moment. They are standing at the centre of the great hall in the Hunter house in London, surrounded by life-sized African statues, huge elephant tusks, some quite frightening Beninese masks, hunting trophies and magnificent warrior lances belonging to Colonel Hunter’s famous collection.

  “Well, I must run, Mother. I still haven’t bought the children’s bathing suits . . .”

  “Bon voyage, my dear.”

  “It’s only for eight days, Mother. You’ll see the kids again soon enough. I promise I’ll take good care of them.”

  THE CHILDREN DIDN’T sleep for the entire flight. They were disagreeable the whole time, and Becky had to get cross with them several times. John-John wanted to go to the toilet no fewer than eight times, his revenge for having to sit still, which he hates more than he hates broccoli. Each time, Becky had to go with him. As for John, he sat reading The Economist throughout the whole flight. The twins never stopped bickering. By the time the airplane touched down in Port-au-Prince, Becky was exhausted. A bus was waiting to take them (and several other of the passengers) out of the capital, to a picturesque little village they had chosen from a tourist brochure.

  “Look, Mother,” cries John-John. “The houses all look like they’re made for children.”

  “No,” John mutters. “They’re made for tourists.”

  “Would you please keep your cynicism to yourself, John,” Becky all but snaps at him.

  “Look!” cry the twins in chorus. “The sea!”

  The bus has taken a road that cuts through dark-brown land above a turquoise sea. On the opposite side of the road, a field of sugar cane stretches to the horizon. A light breeze teases dust into the air, preventing the driver from going too fast. They pass a black-clad woman walking behind a donkey.

  “Look!” cries one of the twins. “A donkey!”

  In the distance they can see the blue mountain. With a small house on the side.

  “I could easily live here,” Becky sighs, “in that little shack.”

  Her husband gives the house a brief glance.

  “Not me,” he says dryly.

  “I wasn’t thinking of you,” she murmurs, as though speaking to herself.

  Another moment and the bus pulls up in front of a small hotel sitting lopsidedly beside the road.

  “It looks like a primitive painting,” says one of the twins.

  THEY UNPACK QUICKLY. The children have a light snack, and then everyone lies down for a nap. Except Becky. Oddly enough she no longer feels exhausted, despite the extraordinarily lengthy and trying trip. After long deliberation she chooses a yellow dress and a pair of white pumps in which to go exploring. The hot air hits her square in the face, but she feels fine, so far from London. The more she walks, the less tired she becomes. Suddenly she feels she could walk like this without ever stopping or retracing her steps. At a crossroads she comes upon a man who appears to be having trouble with his horse.

  “May I help you?”

  The man turns quickly and looks at her, this stranger, before going back to struggling with the animal.

  “Let me do it,” she says in a voice that commands authority.

  She takes the horse by its head and, stroking it, removes the bit that has become wedged in its mouth. It takes her at most ten seconds. The man thanks her curtly, removing his hat, then turns and lets the horse run off towards the mountain.

  Becky returns to the hotel. The red sun is already half-submersed in the sea.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Becky wakes before the others and goes downstairs to take her coffee before the dining room fills up. An enormous woman with a perpetually smiling face is waiting for her.

  “Madame Hunter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Somebody left this package for you last night.”

  “But I don’t know anyone here.”

  “A man who says you helped him with his horse.”

  “So I did. He didn’t seem too happy about it.”

  “He’s always like that.”

  “Ah,” says Becky, her interest aroused, “you know this man?”

  “I’ve seen him around. I don’t know his name. He never speaks to anyone. They say he comes from a village in the northern part of the country. They’re a proud people up there.”

  “What’s he doing down here?” Becky asks, a little sharply.

  “I don’t know . . . Nobody knows . . . Look, madame, you can see his little shack from here . . .”

  “Which one?”

  “That one . . . he built it himself, barely a month ago. Around here, when a man builds a house, it’s usually for a woman.”

  “Oh?”

  “But he doesn’t have a woman,” the innkeeper adds, wearily.

  Becky opens the package.

  “Oh!” exclaims the innkeeper. “Those are scented herbs.”

  She takes a handful of the herbs and pre
sses them to her nose.

  “Smell them,” she says. “They smell awfully good.”

  Becky finds herself suddenly inundated with the aroma of the Caribbean.

  “Whatever am I going to do with them?” she says, her voice at once delighted and astonished.

  “Put them everywhere about yourself, madame . . . In your bath, in your room, on your bed, on your clothes.”

  “But why did he give me this gift?”

  The fat innkeeper bursts out laughing. Her whole body shakes.

  “Here, when a man gives you scented herbs, it means he wants you . . .”

  “Wants me for what?” Becky asks, panicking slightly.

  “He wants you, madame.”

  She continues laughing. Becky gets up from the table a bit shakily, like an inexperienced boxer who’s been rabbit-punched just as she turned to the referee.

  THE LITTLE TRIBE spent the day at the beach. They sang all the way back to the hotel.

  “What the devil does he want, I wonder?” John mutters sullenly.

  “Who?” asks Becky.

  “Him, he’s been following us. He seems to want to talk to you.”

  “Maybe he wants something . . .”

  “He doesn’t look like a beggar or whatever they call them down here,” John says. “And I don’t like the way he smiles,” he adds.

  “I don’t know him,” Becky says, almost casually.

  “I’m going to ask him what he wants.”

  “Oh, leave him be, John.”

  “What he wants,” she thinks, and the thought frightens her, “is your wife.”

  AS SOON AS they enter their room, Becky calls out:

  “Everyone in the shower, and be sure to wash your hair thoroughly.”

  “Yes, Mommy,” says one of the twins. “Salt water is bad for your hair.”

  “You’ve told us often enough,” says the other one.

  “I don’t like you being so sassy,” Becky says in mock anger. “John-John, try not to get sand everywhere.”

  “But Mommy . . .”

  “No ‘but Mommy,’ please. I have a terrible headache . . .”

  “Come on, Becky,” says John. “Relax. We’re on vacation.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Becky spits at him. “With your nose stuck in a magazine all day.”

  The children decamp to the bathroom.

  “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing. It’s just seeing your face. It depresses me.”

  “Why? What have I done?”

  “Nothing . . . I’m just having one of my migraines.”

  “Is it your period, dear?”

  “Damn it, John!”

  THE CHILDREN APPEAR to have finished their showers.

  “I want you to tidy up the bathroom . . . I don’t want to find hair all over the place, do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Mommy,” in chorus.

  “Dry your hair thoroughly, and when you’re finished you can run me a bath.”

  “If it’s all right with you,” John says, “I’d like to take a shower first.”

  John heads for the bathroom. Becky stares at her shaking hands. “Good Lord,” she thinks. “What’s come over me?”

  “Bring me a comb and a brush and I’ll do your hair now . . . John-John, dry yourself properly, you’re not a baby anymore . . .”

  John-John’s sad look. Three days ago Becky would have taken him in her arms and consoled him. Now she is unmoved. And John-John senses the change: he dries himself methodically without taking his eyes off his mother.

  “That enough. Go get dressed now. And no squabbling, you three!”

  John’s voice from the bathroom. And the sound of his electric razor.

  “Would you like me to run your bath, my dear?”

  Becky decides not to answer him.

  “I asked if you still want to take a bath.”

  Silence.

  “Have you changed your mind, or do you still want a bath?”

  “Damn it, John!”

  “Can I not even talk to you anymore?”

  “I have had it up to here with your stupid questions!”

  “I’ve never seen you behave this way before. Are you nervous about something?”

  Becky tightens her grip on the comb and brush to stop her hands from trembling. She exhales through her mouth, a thin stream of air.

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “By whom would I be?”

  “What a question!” John exclaims, laughing.

  An embarrassed laugh.

  THREE SMALL RAPS on the bathroom door.

  “Who is it?” she says dryly.

  “It’s me, Mommy,” comes John-John’s small, frightened voice.

  “Come in, sweetie.”

  John-John opens the door and remains in the doorway, his eyes filled with tears.

  “What is it, John-John?”

  “You don’t love me anymore.”

  Becky isn’t prepared for this stab in the back.

  “Why do you say that? It’s just that Mommy’s tired.”

  John-John’s sad, closed expression.

  “You don’t love us anymore.”

  “But what makes you say such a thing?”

  “You’re not here . . . You’re not with us . . .”

  “But look, here I am, sweetie! How can you say such a thing? Whatever do you mean?”

  John-John remains silent, having nothing to add. He has said everything. Now there is only his limitless sadness.

  “Come here, my sweet, come and give Mommy a hug . . . There, can you feel Mommy’s here now?”

  John-John smiles.

  “It smells good in here, Mommy.”

  “It’s these scented herbs, my little sweetie-pie.”

  “Am I still your sweetie-pie?”

  “Of course you are, my darling . . .”

  AT LAST BECKY is alone. She thinks about what her mother told her about the fact of being a woman. A woman alone with a man. With a man who wants her. She also thinks about the little house on the side of the blue mountain.

  She feels like a traveller who, after an absence of many years, has finally come home. Having seen all the wonders of the world, the only thing that still has the power to move her is her little house.

  Becky finds herself wondering if perhaps nature has nothing to do with things that happen on the surface. Things like colour, race, nationality, class, social structure. It does what it does. Deep below appearances. Unconcerned with surfaces.

  She feels that everything is pulling her away from John, pulling her towards this man whose name she doesn’t even know. Could this be possible?

  Maybe people’s names are also meaningless? Nature is deaf, dumb and blind. Then why did it put me in London and give me blonde hair and green eyes, if, in reality, I’m nothing but a simple peasant from the south of Haiti?

  Nature makes no reply to that question, either.

  JOHN SENSES THAT Becky is no longer beside him in bed. Without opening his eyes he runs his hand over her cold pillow. “She’s probably in the bathroom,” he thinks. When they were first married she would often spend a large part of the night sitting on the toilet seat, holding her head in her hands. When he would ask her what she was doing she would invariably reply that she couldn’t breathe lying next to him.

  “My darling, do you not feel well?”

  No response.

  “Shall I fetch a doctor?” he would ask, wondering where on earth he would find a decent doctor at that godforsaken hour of night.

  Now he asks himself why on earth they are not taking their vacation in Rome, or Madrid, or New York, or even Kingston. Becky is right, when it comes down to it: he doesn’t involve himself enough in such matters. He goes along with things too mechanically. Just now, for example, he’s asking the same questions and pulling the same answers out of the same old bag of tricks he’s been using for more than twenty years. He really thinks he’s lost his taste for risk.

  Moments later he
is still wondering if he should get up or go back to sleep. He decides to get up.

  “Becky! What are you doing?”

  The children are sleeping on the floor in their blue sleeping bags. John remembers buying them on a rainy day in London. John-John looks like a little pageboy he saw a few years ago in the Prado. He glances tenderly at the two girls. They look like Siamese twins, curled up together like that in one sleeping bag. He goes downstairs, telling himself there is no need to hurry. The fat innkeeper is already calmly sipping a cup of coffee.

  “Would you like a cup, monsieur?”

  The smell of coffee and the weak morning light fill the tiny room with a degree of intimacy.

  “I’m looking for my wife.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “Yes,” the fat woman replies tranquilly. “She asked me to tell you.”

  “Ah! I should have guessed. She’s gone for a walk on the beach,” he says, feeling some colour come back to his cheeks.

  “No, she went off towards the mountain . . .”

  “Do you know which side?”

  “Yes,” says the fat woman in a neutral tone that he finds almost alarming.

  “You have the advantage of me, madame,” John says, in his British tone of voice.

  He is no longer a frightened man; he is now an Englishman talking to an inferior.

  “Come over here, monsieur,” says the innkeeper with a tiny smile on her lips, a smile that is all but invisible to the naked eye . . . “Do you see that little house up there?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s where you will find your wife.”

  John blanches.

  “What’s she doing up there?” he cries out, then immediately regains control of himself.

  “When you go up the road, turn right and take the first path you see on your left . . . Are you with me, monsieur?”

  “Yes,” he says, his voice level.