Heading South

by Dany Laferriere

  BRENDA

  I’m going to tell you what happened the first time we came here, my husband and me. I wanted to wait a bit before opening up to you like this. If my husband were here, he’d say: “Brenda, you’ve never kept a secret longer than a day.” But that’s not true. There are many things about me that he doesn’t know, and that he’ll never know. That no one will ever know. Well, you, but it’s not the same with you. I don’t know you. It’s good to talk like this to someone you don’t know. I get the feeling you’re very young to be doing this; this kind of thing requires a certain amount of experience. I’m not finding fault or anything, but back home, inspectors are usually older men. And I also don’t see what use all this information will be to you. I must admit that I’m still a bit surprised, even though, as you reminded me, each country has its own ways. It’s also true that people who come from rich countries tend to want to impose their ways of doing things. I apologize again for getting mixed up in things that don’t concern me. I usually avoid politics like the plague . . . Well, to get back to my story, it all started when my husband took pity on this young man who hadn’t had anything to eat for two days. A young man from Ouanaminthe, a small village in the north. You must know him, surely. His name is Legba. His mother called him that because it seems he was the first of her children to survive after six miscarriages. The name suited him. In any case, my husband asked him to join us at our table. Albert—that’s the maitre d’ at the hotel—he wasn’t all that pleased. My husband told him that if we’re paying for a room we can invite anyone we want to our table. And my husband added in a lower voice, so only Albert could hear him, that he wasn’t going to let any nigger stop him from doing what he wanted. That’s the way he talks, my husband, but he isn’t racist or anything. In our town that’s how everyone talks about black people. Anyway, Legba came over and ate with us at our table. He didn’t look like he was more than fifteen years old. Right off I noticed his gleaming white teeth and his radiant smile. My husband told him he could order anything he liked. I’ve never seen a human being eat so much in my life. When he went to the toilet, my husband said, “He’s a nice young man.” Albert was still making signs to us to get rid of the boy, but my husband pretended not to notice. From the first, Legba made me think of a lost dog. Anyway, he wasn’t bothering anyone, because that day we were the only guests in the dining room. But even if there had been others it wouldn’t have made any difference to my husband. Methodists are like that, they’ll walk all over anyone who tries to stop them from doing what they think is right. Not me, I was born Baptist. I only became a Methodist because of my husband. But in some ways I’m still a Baptist. I would have found a way to get food to Legba without offending Albert. But my husband isn’t like that. Like I said, he’s a Methodist. Sometimes I think people shouldn’t marry outside their religion.

  ELLEN

  If I had my way I’d rid the Earth of everything that’s dirty, and there’s more of what’s dirty here in this town than anywhere else I’ve ever been. So why, dear God, did you plant, in this dungheap, a flower as radiant as Legba? I turned fifty-five last month. I can tell you there are worse things in life. And this young man is as beautiful as a god. Do you think I could find anyone like him in Boston? Don’t tell me I could because I’ve been in every bar in that snobbish whore of a town a hundred times, and believe me there is nothing in the North for women over forty. Nothing, nothing, nothing, you bunch of bastards!

  SUE

  People bring their illusions with them when they come to Port-au-Prince. Even Fat Sue. There is sun here. Fresh fruit, grilled fish, the sea.

  And I have a lover.

  BRENDA

  My husband and I got into the habit of having every dinner with Legba. He seemed shy at first. Every night we’d spend hours talking to him about his life, his family, his future. It’s like we adopted him, and he seemed to have accepted us, too. One day we suggested he join us for an afternoon on the beach. My husband knew an isolated spot. The three of us were stretched out in our bathing suits on this enormous rock, facing the sun. Legba’s body fascinated me: long, supple, delicately muscled. His skin glowed. I could hardly take my eyes off him. I drank him in, trying not to be too obvious about it. It didn’t take long for my husband to notice the state I was in, though, and when Legba got up to walk lankily down towards the water, my husband gave me a wink that I took as a kind of permission. When I pretended not to understand what he was on about, he told me straight out that he didn’t have any objections to me giving in to my obvious inclinations. I tried to look offended, but just then Legba came back and my husband only had time to whisper, “I want you to.” I was totally taken aback by his behaviour; it was the first time he’d ever acted like that. I completely lost my head. Legba was lying beside me on his back, with his eyes closed. I didn’t dare look his way. My husband elbowed me and made me look at Legba’s young, almost naked body. So I let my eyes travel over his flat, sleek stomach, his long legs, his bathing suit with its enticing mound. From then on I was in a kind of trance, hypnotized by Legba’s firm yet trembling skin. I was irresistibly drawn to this body that seemed like it was being offered to me on a platter. My husband took my hand and guided it towards Legba’s torso. When he let go, my hand fell on his chest and I kept it there. Legba briefly opened his eyes and then shut them again. Encouraged, I moved my hand down to his stomach. I felt an incredible thrill of pleasure travelling up from the young man’s soft skin through my fingertips. My hand was trembling. I tried to stay calm but couldn’t. Legba didn’t move a muscle. It was as though he was making me a gift of his body. I slid two fingers under his bathing suit and took hold of his penis, which quickly began to harden in the palm of my hand so that it poked out under the string of his bathing suit. Seeing his black cock, so long, so tender, made me completely lose control of myself. My lungs were on fire. I felt waves of heat flooding between my legs. I feel awkward telling you about such an intimate experience, but believe me, it’s been two years and I haven’t been able to tell a soul, and yet I’ve relived each moment a thousand times in my head. I remember each second as though it had happened yesterday. I’m not ashamed of it anymore. I am a very sensual woman. I hadn’t known that about myself, but now I totally accept who I am. I’m a good Christian, but why else had the Good Lord put me in this degrading situation? I had absolutely no control over my desire. It was as if someone had thrown gasoline over my whole body and then lit a match. I tried, oh yes, I tried, but I couldn’t stop myself. I turned into a sexual animal. Look at me—even telling you about it I’m breaking out into a sweat. (There is a long pause.) Do you want me to go on with my story? All right, but I still don’t understand how it’s going to help you find the man who did this. Yes, you’re right, man or woman. I’m a bit lost, I’m afraid . . . Oh yes, with his arms lying by his sides, Legba was barely breathing, but regularly. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was coming our way, then I gently spread Legba’s legs apart and knelt between them with my face above his penis. I took it in my mouth. I breathed up and down its length, covering it with my saliva. Then I took it into my throat as far as it would possibly go. When I couldn’t stand it any longer I sat up, took off my bathing suit, and impaled myself on his rod. It tore so deep into me I couldn’t hold back a howl. It felt like it was piercing me all the way up to the middle of my chest. I hadn’t even recovered from the shock of it, the pain and pleasure all mixed together, before I started going up and down on him. He was breathing harder now, almost panting. But still he didn’t move. My husband was lying right next to us, taking it all in. His eyes were riveted on the long, black sword that was splitting me in half. I was going faster and faster, knocking my forehead against his chest, making his cock go in farther, deeper. I think I was crying out constantly. The sight of his young body drove me even crazier. Finally I felt powerful jets of hot sperm deep inside me. They went on and on. I came, too, almost at the same time as him, completely out of my mind. I clutched at his fresh and
fragile chest like a woman possessed, and jammed myself one last time on his cock, as deep as I could get it in, and held it there for a long time. He opened his eyes. He was as exhausted as I was. His eyes were red and timid and a bit frightened. Moved by a wave of gratitude, I threw myself on him, kissed him everywhere and cried like a baby. It was my first orgasm. I was fifty-five years old . . . I feel so tired now. Would you mind if I went and lay down for a bit . . . ? Thank you . . .

  ALBERT

  I was born in Cap-Haïtien, in the northern part of Haiti. My grandfather was also born there. You may already know this, but my whole family fought against the Americans during the occupation of 1915. I come from a long line of patriots. My father died never having shaken a white man’s hand. For him, whites were lower than monkeys. Whenever he saw a white man, he used to say, he always wanted to turn him around to see if he had a tail. My grandfather didn’t even go to that much trouble. As far as he was concerned, a white man was an animal, pure and simple. He’d say “the whites,” but he was talking mainly about Americans. Those who dared invade Haitian soil. The supreme insult. A slap in the face to a whole generation. I came to work in Port-au-Prince when I was twenty-two, after my father died, and got a job in this hotel right away. If my grandfather knew that his grandson was serving Americans he would die of shame. This new army of occupation isn’t armed, but it has packed its suitcase with a scourge much worse than cannons: drugs. The Queen of Crimes, and she always comes with her two sidekicks: easy money and sex. There’s nothing here, sir, that hasn’t been touched by one or the other of these plagues. There was a time when we had morals. Now I look around me and I see that everything has come crashing down. I look at our customers, respectable women who twenty years ago, when I first started working here, would have been with their husbands. And what do I see? Lost women, animals lusting after blood and sperm. And whose fault is it? His, the master of desire. He’s seventeen years old, he has eyes like glowing embers, a perfect profile. Legba: the Prince of Storms.

  ELLEN

  When the police found his body on the beach one morning, they immediately assumed that a drug deal had gone wrong. They didn’t give a shit about the delinquents. Legba was what they call well-known to the police. He sold drugs to everyone on the beach. You don’t think for one minute that the Port-au-Prince police, one of the most corrupt forces in the Caribbean, would waste time investigating the death of a young prostitute, do you? You’ll have to excuse me, I’m used to saying what I think. That’s why I don’t really understand what you’re doing. You say you work for a self-regulating department? Criminal Investigation Services, is that what you called it? I don’t know what good that can do now that Legba is dead. And I also wonder why you are so interested in such intimate details. I know it’s probably none of my business, but you’re going about this inquiry in a very strange way, sir. What else do you want to know? . . . Yes, he was a hoodlum, but Lord, was he good looking! What’s more, he knew how to make love to a woman. It’s true, he could have got what he wanted just looking like a young god, and as far as I’m concerned that would have been enough to make me happy. I could have spent hours just looking at him. He could do whatever he wanted with me. And in that he was indefatigable. I mean, think about it: I spent eighteen years in the best universities in the States learning the best ways of improving my quality of life on this planet, and all that time all I really needed was an adolescent here in Port-au-Prince. He played my body like a guitar, and believe me, he knew how to handle his instrument. There were times when I thought I was going to die, I kid you not. My body felt completely drained, as though he’d pumped everything out of it. He could bring me to orgasm almost without touching me. Me, who had always intimidated American men, who are supposed to be the most powerful men in the world, at least in terms of economic and political power, and here I was completely in thrall to a boy in Port-au-Prince. With him I was no longer Ellen the Cynic, I was a little twit who wanted nothing more than to be touched in the right places. And he knew them all, by instinct. The first time I laid eyes on him, down by the hotel, I was afraid of making a fool of myself; after all, I was in my fifties. And I wet myself. I had to go up to my room to change. I stood in front of my mirror and masturbated, thinking about him. He had such an insolent mouth, and my God did I want that mouth. I dreamed about him caressing me with his hands so often that when he finally did touch me it was like we’d always been lovers. But what I wanted most, what gave me the highest orgasms, was to have his long, fine penis in my mouth. I would wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night. By day it was different, I could be Ellen the Cynic, able to thumb my nose at the rest of the world. My punching bag at the time was that fatty, Sue. I didn’t care at all that she was fat, but I could never understand why she would choose Neptune when Legba was available. I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now. How could she not get down on her knees before such a black sun? To me, anyone who feels nothing in the presence of such beauty is dangerous. Of course, if she had once dared to look at Legba I would have scratched her eyes out.

  ALBERT

  One day I came upon them by the stairs. She was hanging on his neck and complaining that he was driving her crazy. You know who I’m talking about? That intellectual from Boston, the one with her nose always up in the air. Legba wasn’t saying a word, as usual. His face was blank. He knew how to drive that kind of woman around the bend. She was crying like a teenager who’d just lost her first love. Yes, sir, as I’ve always said, it’s the cynics who are the hardest hit.

  BRENDA

  I always try to speak well of people, but since you asked me what I truly think, I have to admit that Ellen isn’t a woman, she’s a bitch in heat playing at being an intellectual. She was lost the moment she first laid eyes on Legba. Really, it was disgusting to watch. People like her don’t know the difference between sex and love.

  SUE

  It’s true, Brenda is very discreet. She’s not one of those women who show their emotions. Her face is always calm. I would never have known what she was going through if she hadn’t confided in me. That day she seemed totally lost. I’d never seen her like that. She came into my room, which she’d never done before, and she said: “I can’t do it anymore, Sue. I think I’m going to kill him, and then kill myself.” Coming from Brenda, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t even know who she was talking about. I vaguely thought she was talking about her husband, because I knew they weren’t getting along very well. I thought that that was why she’d come down here on her own this time. That’s what I thought, anyway. Until she admitted to me that she was in love with Legba. How a woman like Brenda, who is so serious, such a devout Christian, could fall in love with a little gigolo like him was beyond me. He acted like a prince because this German woman had given him a gold chain that he wore around his neck like a leash. A pitiful little drug dealer. Surely you know he sold cocaine on the beach? Since his death the other young prostitutes have vanished into the woodwork. I haven’t seen one of them on the beach. Gogo, Chico, not even the handsome one, Mario. All gone off somewhere, like a cloud of flies attracted by the smell of a fresh corpse. Anyway, when Brenda came out and told me point blank that she was in love with the little rat I had the surprise of my life. But there’s no point going on about it. People’s feelings are part of life’s impenetrable mysteries, I must have read that somewhere. Oh, I stopped wondering about life a long time ago. I take things as they come. Brenda told me that Legba had stopped coming to their rendezvous, and she couldn’t stand the pain of it any longer. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t eat. All she could think of was him. And he couldn’t care less about her. The only thing he was interested in was money. She spent the whole day in her room, she said, bawling her eyes out under a pillow. She couldn’t go on living like that. She was talking quietly, sometimes so low I couldn’t understand half of what she was saying. Just saying his name, over and over. “Such pain,” I thought. There’s nothing I can do for her. She�
�s the only one who can control her destiny. That’s just the way it is. I suggested she take some tranquilizers, and she just looked at me in alarm, and I knew she’d already tried that. That’s when I realized that if Brenda was confiding in me it could only mean one thing: she wanted me to stop her from committing a crime. Of that I am certain.

  ELLEN

  I love love so much—love or sex, I don’t know which anymore— that I’ve always told myself that when I’m old I’ll pay to get it. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. That boy was Satan personified. The Prince of Light. But the kind of light that can kill you. He showed me what hell was like. I’d never been afraid of suffering, but this was too much. I’d given him everything. In return, he’d humiliated me in ways I’d never imagined possible. He dragged me through the mud. I took it all. It makes me laugh, now, the way Brenda goes around acting like the weeping widow. I’m the widow. Brenda couldn’t have known a hundredth part of what I had to put up with just to be near him. The flames of hell. Imagine a young, arrogant kid like he could be, with a woman of my age. Can you even imagine what it would be like with him and his friends? There’s Ellen Graham, the hag. But time heals all wounds. Brenda spends her days in her room, crying. Me, I don’t cry.