by Otto Penzler
Simone served the others as well—perhaps this was an aftersupper ritual—then seated herself. “Now, Miss Gilbert, please tell us how Tina regained her memory. If it won’t tire you too much.”
She told them how Dr. Robek had hit on the idea of reading map names to Tina and how, on hearing the name Bois Sauvage, the child had snapped out of her long lethargy. “Like Snow White waking up when the prince kissed her.”
They smiled.
“Then she remembered her own name. If, of course, Tina Louise Christine Anglade really is her name. We can’t be sure until I get her to Bois Sauvage, can we? Or even if that’s really where she came from.”
The oldest sister, frowning deeply, said, “Bois Sauvage. Isn’t that up in the mountains near the Dominican border?”
“According to the map, yes.”
“How in the world will you get there?”
“I’ve been promised a guide at Trou.”
“But you can’t drive to such a place! There aren’t any roads.”
“I suppose we’ll walk, or ride mules. I really won’t know until tomorrow.” Kay waited for them to sip their coffee. “Now will you tell me something, please? How did Tina come into your care in the first place? All we’ve ever heard is that she was brought to you by a priest.”
“By Father Turnier,” Simone said, nodding. “Father Louis Turnier. He was stationed at Vallière then and had a number of chapels even farther back in the mountains. We have a picture of him.” She put her coffee mug down and went briskly, with robe swishing, to a glass-doored bookcase. Returning with a large photo album that smelled of mildew, she turned its pages, then reversed the book and held it out to Kay. “That’s Father on the right, in front of the Vallière chapel. Those big cracks in the chapel were caused by an earthquake just a few days before this picture was taken. Can you imagine?”
Kay saw a husky-looking white man with a cigarette dangling from his lips. French, she guessed. Most of the white priests in the remote areas were French. He wore no clerical garment; in fact, his shirt was neither buttoned nor tucked into his pants. The way he grinned at the camera made her instantly fond of him.
“He was coming back from some far-off chapel one day,” Simone said, “and stopped at this isolated native caille beside a little stream. He had never passed that way before, he said, but a landslide had carried away part of the usual trail and forced him to detour. He was on a mule, of course. And the animal was weary, so he thought he would just stop and talk with these people a while.”
Kay gazed at the photo while she listened.
“Well, there was the child lying on a mat inside the caille, and the people asked Father to talk to her. She had wandered into their clearing a few days before and couldn’t remember who she was or where she had come from.”
“I see.”
“That photo shows you the kind of man Father Turnier is. He ended up staying the night there and deciding the child must have been through some really traumatic experience and ought to have help. In any case, she couldn’t remain there with those people. They didn’t want her. So at daybreak he lifted her up on his mule and carried her out to Vallière, still not knowing her name or where she came from.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, he kept her there for about three weeks—he and young Father Duval who was stationed there with him—but she didn’t respond as they hoped, so he brought her here to us.” Sister Simone paused to finish her coffee, then leaned toward Kay with a frown puckering her pretty face. “You haven’t found any reason for her lapse of memory?”
“None.”
“On hearing the name of her village she just suddenly snapped out of it?”
“That’s what happened. We’ve always thought there was nothing much wrong with her physically. Of course, when you brought her to us she was underweight and malnourished—not your fault; you didn’t have her long enough to change that,” Kay hurriedly added. “But she seemed all right otherwise.”
“How strange.”
“I wonder if her people in Bois Sauvage have been looking for her all this time,” Ginette said. “It’s been how long? Father Turnier had her for three weeks. We had her a month. You’ve had her for nearly six months.”
Simone said, “It could be longer. We don’t know that she went straight from her village to that caille where Father found her. Maybe that journey covered a long time.” Life was full of puzzles, her shake of the head said. “Miss Gilbert, we can only bless you for taking her home. None of us here would be able to do it, I’m sure. But have you thought of leaving her here and having us send for the father in that district to come for her?”
“Father Turnier, you mean?”
“Well, no, it wouldn’t be Father Turnier now. He’s no longer there.”
“It would be someone Tina doesn’t know, then?”
“I’m afraid so. Yes.”
Kay shook her head. “I’d better take her myself.”
All the sisters nodded and looked at her expectantly. It was close to their bedtime, Kay guessed. She rose.
“I’d better make sure Tina is all right, don’t you think? She has nightmares sometimes.”
“And the headaches, poor thing,” Simone said.
“Like this morning. Well then—until tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” they responded in chorus, and little Simone added, “Sleep well, both of you.”
Kay climbed the stairs. As she went along the corridor to their room, she heard a drumming sound overhead that told her the rain was still falling. Please, God, let it stop soon or those mountain trails will be hell. The room itself was a steam bath. Tina slept with her face to the wall and her arms loosely clasping an extra pillow.
In no time at all, Kay was asleep beside her.
WEARING A MUCH-PATCHED carpenter’s apron this morning, Emile Polinard stepped back to look at a table he was working on. It was a large one of Haitian mahogany, crafted to order for a wealthy Cap Haitian merchant. The time, Emile noted, was twenty past eight. The rain had stopped just before daybreak and now the sun shone brightly on the street outside the open door of his shop.
His helper, 17-year-old Armand Cator, came from the back room and said, “I’ve finished the staining, M’sieu Polinard. Should I start on Madame Jourdan’s chairs now?” Armand was a good boy, always respectful.
“Do that, please.”
Glancing out the door at the welcome sunshine, Polinard saw a familiar vehicle coming down the street and voiced a small “Ha!” of satisfaction. He had been expecting it. To get from the church to the main north-coast highway, it would have to pass his shop. Hurrying out onto the cracked sidewalk, he waited.
Just before the jeep reached him, he waved both arms vigorously and called out, “Bonjour, good friends! Be safe on your journey!”
“Why, that must be Mr. Polinard,” said little Tina Anglade to Kay Gilbert. “That must be the furniture shop he told us about.” She returned Polinard’s wave.
Kay waved, too, but did not stop. They had got off to a late start again. She had overslept, and then the sisters had insisted on giving them a big breakfast.
The jeep sped on. Polinard stood on the sidewalk, hands on hips, smiling after it.
“You know those people, sir?” Armand asked from the doorway.
“Indeed, I do. They gave me a lift yesterday when the camion broke down. She’s a charming woman. And the little girl . . . well, Armand, there’s a curious story. You know what it means to lose your memory?”
“Huh?”
The jeep had disappeared from sight. Polinard re-entered the shop. “The little girl you just saw has been at that hospital in the Artibonite for a long time—months—because she could not remember her name or where she came from. She is such a bright child, too. But she has at last remembered and is going home.”
“That’s good.”
“Yes. Provided, of course, that what she told them is not just her mind playing tricks again. By the way, don’t you h
ave a pal who came from a place called Bois Sauvage not long ago?”
“Yes, sir, I do. Luc Etienne.”
“You see him often?”
“Two or three times a week.”
“Ask him, then—because I am curious—if he knows of a girl about eight or nine years old who used to live there until, say, six or seven months ago. Her name is Tina Anglade.”
“I’d better write it down.” Armand stepped to a bench and reached for paper and a carpenter’s pencil. “I may see Luc tomorrow at the cockfights.”
“You spend your Saturdays at the fights, risking your hard-earned wages on chickens?”
“Only a few cobs now and then. But Luc—now there’s a fellow who bets big and almost never loses. Everybody wonders how he does it.”
“I don’t approve of cockfights and wagering,” Polinard said sternly. “But ask him about the little girl, please.”
THE COCKFIGHTS ARMAND attended were held near the coastal village of Petite Anse, just east of the city. A fight was in progress as Armand approached. A white bird and a black-and-red one made the grey sand of the enclosure fly like rain as they tried to kill each other. Spectators leaned over the wall of knee-high bamboo stakes, yelling encouragement.
The white was getting the worst of it. Even as Armand located his friend across the pit, the battle suddenly ended in a spurt of blood. There was a rush to collect bets.
Armand worked his way around to his friend and was not surprised to find Luc Etienne clutching a fistful of gourde notes. Luc must have a sixth sense, he so seldom lost a wager! “Hi,” said Armand, grinning. “You’ve done it again, hey?”
Chuckling, the tall young man stuffed the notes into a pocket of his expensive, multicoloured shirt. He offered Armand a cigarette—another expensive item these days—and the two stayed together through the remainder of the morning. With his friend’s help, Armand tripled the money he had brought.
When at last they boarded a tap-tap to the city, Armand remembered to inquire about the little girl and consulted the paper on which he had written her name. “Did you know her when you lived in Bois Sauvage?” he asked.
The little bus clattered along the highway through shimmering waves of heat that rose from the blacktop. Luc gazed at Armand with an expression of incredulity.
Puzzled, Armand said, “What’s the matter? All I asked was if you knew—”
“I didn’t know her! No!”
“Well, don’t get sore with me. What’s wrong with you, anyway? I only asked because my boss told me to.”
The look of incredulity faded. What took its place was the shrewd one that appeared on Luc’s face when he was about to make a wager at the cockfights. “You say this girl is on her way to Bois Sauvage now?”
“That’s right. With a nurse from the hospital where her memory came back. That is, if it really did come back. You say you never knew her, so I guess it didn’t.”
“When do they expect to get there?”
“How would I know? They left here yesterday morning. All I want to know for M’sieu Polinard is, was there really a Tina Anglade in your village or is she going there for nothing?”
“She is going there for nothing,” Luc said, and then was silent.
Luc was the first to get off. For a moment he stood frowning after the bus as it went on down the street. Then he turned and walked slowly up a cobbled lane to a small house he shared with his latest girlfriend. The girl was not at home. Going into their bedroom, Luc climbed onto the bed and assumed a sitting position there with his back against the headboard and his arms looped about his knees. Then he closed his eyes and fixed his thoughts on a face.
Only twice before had he attempted this, and on both occasions he had only partially succeeded. The second time had been better than the first, though, so maybe he was learning, as Margal had predicted. Aware that he was sweating, he peeled off his expensive shirt and tossed it to the foot of the bed, then resumed the position and closed his eyes again. After a while the sweat ran down his chest in rivers.
The face was beginning to come, though, and there was a difference.
Before, the image had appeared only inside his head, in his mind. But not this time. This time the face of the bocor was floating over the lower part of the bed, out of reach.
“Margal, you’ve come!” Luc whispered.
The eyes stared back at him. No one but Margal had eyes as terribly piercing as those.
“I am not asking for your help at the fights,” Luc said then. “This time I have something important to tell you.”
The head slowly moved up and down.
“You remember that little girl, Tina Louise Anglade?”
The reply—“Of course!”—seemed to come from a great distance.
“Well, she is on her way back to Bois Sauvage right now. After she disappeared from Dijo Qualon’s house she could not remember her name or where she came from, but now she has remembered. A nurse from the Schweitzer hospital is bringing her home!”
The eyes returned his stare with such force that he felt they would stop his breathing. He heard a question and replied, “Yes, I am sure.” Then another question and he said, wagging his head, “No, there is nothing I can do. It’s too late. They left here yesterday morning.”
The floating image slowly faded and was gone. After a while Luc sank down on the bed and lay there shivering in his own sweat until he fell asleep.
II
Standing alone in a clearing, the house was a small one of wattle and clay, roofed with banana-leaf thatch. Only moments before, Kay Gilbert had wondered if her guide, Joseph, really had a stopping place in mind or was merely hoping to chance on one. Glad to have reached any kind of destination after so many hours of sitting on a mule, she gratefully swung an aching leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground.
And stumbled. And sat down hard on her bottom. And then just sat there with her arms looped about her knees, embarrassed at having made herself look foolish in the eyes of the man and woman who had just emerged from the house.
Joseph leaned from his mule to lower Tina to the ground, then leaped down himself and ran to help.
Joseph. Thank God for Joseph. She had encountered enough Haitian young men at the hospital to know the good ones. Clean, intelligent, mild of speech and manner, he was exactly the sort of guide she had hoped for. The corporal at the police post in Trou had produced him.
She had hoped to sleep in Vallière tonight. There was a church and the priest would put them up. The late start from Cap Haïtien had put that village out of reach, though. And the trail. The trail had been a roller-coaster that made every mile a misery.
Steady climbing was not so bad; you got used to leaning forward and more or less wrapping your arms around your mule’s neck. Descending was all right, too, after you accustomed yourself to leaning back, clinging for dear life to the pommel, and hoping to heaven the leather stirrups would not snap under the strain. But the constant shift from one to the other was pure hell, scaring the wits out of you while subjecting your poor tired body to torment. More than once she had envied little Tina, so confidently perched there in the crescent of Joseph’s sturdy arms without a care in the world.
As she sat on the ground now, gazing up at the man and woman from the house, Joseph reached her and began helping her to her feet. “M’selle, I know these people,” he said. “They will put us up for the night.”
He introduced the couple as Edita and Antoine, no last names. She shook their hands. They were in their late sixties, she guessed. Both were barefoot and nearly toothless; both wore slight facial disfigurements indicating long-ago bouts with yaws.
That curse was pretty well wiped out in Haiti now, thank God.
“Please go into the house,” Antoine said. “I will attend to your animals.”
“Wait.” No stranger must handle the brown leather bag! Lifting it from a saddle-bag, she slung it over her shoulder.
There were two small rooms. The front one contained four ho
memade chairs and a table; the other, a homemade bed. No connecting door. No kitchen. Cooking was done under a thatch-roofed shelter outside.
“You and the child will use the bed,” Edita said in a manner that forbade any protest. “My man and I will sleep here in the front room, as will Joseph. Joseph is my sister’s son.”
“Thank you.” It would not be the first time she had slept in a peasant caille. Nurses at the Schweitzer often did things their sisters in more advanced countries might think extraordinary. The bed could harbour bedbugs, of course. More likely, the swept-earth floor was a breeding ground for the little beasties called chigres, which got under your toenails and laid eggs there.
“Tina should rest before supper,” she said. “I’ll help you with the cooking, Edita.”
The woman seemed pleased. The child fell asleep as soon as she climbed onto the bed.
Supper was to be a chicken stew, Kay saw when she joined the woman in the kitchen. First, kill the chicken. Edita attended to that with a machete, then cleaned the severed head and put it into the pot along with the rest of the bird. Kay prepared malangas, leeks, and carrots. While working, they talked.
“Where are you going, M’selle, if I may ask?”
“Bois Sauvage. Tina lives there.”
“Oh?”
Kay explained, stressing the child’s loss of memory.
“Stranger things than that happen around Bois Sauvage,” Edita said with a shake of her head. “Do you know the place?”
“No. I don’t know these mountains at all. What do you mean by ‘stranger things’?”
“Well . . . unnatural things.”
“Voodoo?” Any time a country person talked this way, the underlying theme was likely to be voodoo. Or associated mysteries.
“I think not voodoo, M’selle. Rather, sorcery or witchcraft. Do you know about a man named Margal in that district?” More than yaws were responsible for the depth of Edita’s frown.
“Margal? No. Who is he?”
“A bocor. You know what a bocor is?”
“A witch doctor?” Admit you know something and you may learn more.