“What do you see?” Sherry asked.
Carol looked silently out the window. They crossed an arched bridge; a boy was wading through water, hands full of net, a rope to a wooden rowboat clenched between his teeth. Several middle-aged men wearing only shorts sat on the bank smoking cigarettes and drinking rum, pointing at the boat, telling the boy what to do.
“There are buses and pickup trucks with canopies over benches bolted to the bed; they are taxis, but the people call them tap-taps. When you want to get off you tap against the side of the truck,” Carol explained. “We are behind one now, a bus painted red and yellow—someone sprayed graffiti across the side.”
“What does it say?”
“Bondye si bon, God is so good.”
“There are houses?”
“They are plastered and mostly windowless. There is a white man painting a garage full of chairs, missionaries. You smell the market?”
Sherry smiled and nodded. It was impossible not to smell the market.
“There are murals on the walls. Haitians like color, yes, Colonel?”
The colonel nodded mechanically.
“A procession of women in light-colored dresses, something religious, no doubt, everything in Haiti is religious. There is a fire ahead.” Carol leaned forward, craning her neck to see from the opposite window. “An old car and tires, smell the rubber? The smoke is black. Some men are chasing a dog with a stick.”
It took four hours to reach the town of Port-à-Piment. They passed marshes that reeked of methane gas, rolling brown hills that looked like the badlands of the American Midwest. There were treeless plains and standing green water swarming with clouds of black mosquitoes.
The doors of the homes in Port-à-Piment were splintered by hammers and boots from police raids long past. Bullet-pocked walls were crumbling to reveal magazines and old newspapers used to form the plaster. The stench of human waste in the open gutters followed them everywhere. Houses in the southern peninsula had twice been underwater from Hurricanes Noel and Dean; the sewers ran free and wells would have been contaminated.
Carol Bishop sat next to Sherry, wondering if Jill had been on this very road. It was quite likely, she thought, there were only two main roads that extended to the ends of the island, one north and one south.
She remembered Jill as a tiny girl on her lap in the nursery of their home in Chicago. She remembered a girl in pigtails on a porch swing, on a log tube in Disney World, holding her hand at her grandmother’s funeral.
Out the window she saw a smiling girl in a filthy dress playing with a hula hoop and two boys swatting with sticks at the roof of a car buried in the mud. Others only stared at the traffic, taking particular interest in the white women in the jeep going by.
Port-à-Piment had more than its share of ramshackle churches and missionaries. Old men stood in the doorways talking to old women with wet eyes. There were tents and signs and crosses planted everywhere. All the world’s religions seemed intent on converting the destitute population, and indeed the people of Haiti were transformed to Catholics and Baptists and Mormons for a day. They got their candy bars and hot dogs and marshmallows, sometimes clothing from collection boxes around the world. But when the sun began to set they were voudons once more. Voodoo was the only constant in their lives. Only voodoo had never criticized or subjugated or abandoned them.
“Incredible,” Carol Bishop said.
“Haiti?” Sherry asked.
“It’s utterly sad.”
“We will fuel in Port-à-Piment if either of you needs to relieve yourself,” the colonel said.
The streets were quiet under a three-quarter moon, trees wilted from the scorching afternoon. They passed between blue and yellow homes, watched by big eyes behind small hands that were curled over banisters of second-story porches. Stray dogs roamed deserted streets; the smell of the sea was heavy with fish.
They stopped at an old Texaco station and saw a military truck parked off to one side. The bed of the truck was crowded with solemn-looking men wearing black. Two of them were inside the garage.
The last stretch of highway to Tiburon hugged the rugged coastline. To their north was a rock wall that formed Morne Mansinte, to their south the glassy black surface of a moon-splashed sea. There was no traffic on the road in either direction, but Carol Bishop kept turning to look over her shoulder. The truck full of men bothered her. They weren’t policemen, she knew. Was she mistaken or had the colonel nodded to one of them while he was fueling the jeep?
An hour later they were there, the breathtaking harbor, a field of stars that stretched from mountain to sea. Carol described the moonlight ripples, the masts of small wooden boats gently rocking in the surf. The village was dark and shaggy with thatched roofs. Torches flickered at the water’s edge as fishermen speared pan fish.
The jeep turned into the village, its headlights lacerating the serenity. The colonel braked at the end of a street, jumped from the vehicle, and began to hammer on doors. Candles were lit behind curtains. A few electric lights came on. Sherry could hear unintelligible voices, the colonel’s loud rebukes.
After almost twenty minutes passed, the colonel marched back out of the shadows, pulling himself behind the wheel, and jerked the jeep irately through a three-point turn to head back to the main road, where they continued west half a mile and turned up the side of the mountain.
He was out of character, Sherry thought. His impatience seemed less about helping them to locate the family than apprehension. He did not seem like a man in control.
The sea quickly fell away behind them, headlights wavering between the mountainside and a black bottomless void to their right.
Carol looked back once more in the direction of the coast and this time saw the pair of tiny headlights eight or ten miles behind. Someone was coming from the direction of Port-à-Piment, where they had just fueled.
“They are at the dead man’s cleansing,” Colonel Deaken said into his rearview mirror. “The houngan’s temple is behind a cemetery on the mountain. We will be there any minute.”
The sparse lights of Tiburon on the coast were dizzying from the height of Carol’s passenger window. The road had many switchbacks and blind curves. It climbed through wisps of fog to an eerie, treeless summit. Sharp silhouettes of the jagged rocks poked through, pockets of lingering condensation.
A large black cross appeared before them, posted between squat thorny trees. Horned skulls hung from the bare branches.
“What are they?” Sherry heard Carol ask.
“Goat heads,” the colonel interjected.
“Their skulls, they are hanging from the trees,” Carol explained to Sherry.
The rotted wooden gate of a cemetery came up on their left. There was an arch over it and crude tombstones and crooked stick crosses behind. On a hill behind the cemetery was the silhouette of a shantytown. Behind the ramshackle buildings was the orange glow of a fire. Smoke on the fog was bitter and acrid. The sound of drums permeated the night.
Half a dozen battered cars were parked in a clearing.
“We will have to walk in from here,” the colonel said, swinging the jeep around and parking next to them. “There is a path over there.” He pointed in the direction of his headlights before he turned off the igntion.
An old woman walked out of the darkness. She was holding a smoldering cigarette in a hand with two fingers. She looked at them a moment, then started down the road, vanishing into the night.
Sherry exited the vehicle and Carol took her arm.
They followed the colonel to the path and climbed it toward the shanties. The drums beat steadily in the distance, Sherry could make out voices now.
There were coffins leaning against one of the shanties, one painted black was five feet tall, the other no larger than a baby.
“I can see it now. The temple,” Carol told Sherry. “It’s a wooden structure, but there are only three walls. There is a pole in the center of the floor, people are sitting outside on the di
rt looking in. There is a body on the floor, a man’s body, and he is naked but for underwear. An old man is kneeling in front of him. He is wearing blue jeans and a red shirt. He has a red kerchief around his neck.”
The drums stopped. The people turned to look at them, a few wandering away, escaping into the shadows.
“Tell me more,” Sherry urged.
“The walls of the temple are painted light blue like a robin’s egg, there are murals drawn on the walls, a large black eye looking down from the heavens, a child wearing a crown, fish, and colorful dancers. There is a big black man with no face who holds the earth in his hands. There are flags everywhere, colored patches of cloth tied to the trees, to the posts and frame of the building, all different, some green, some red, some yellow.”
“Who is this man?” the colonel barked, the heels of his boots striking hard across the wooden floor of the temple.
“Pioche,” the old houngan answered. “His wife”—he introduced a heavy-set woman sitting next to him—“and his daughter; and who are you?”
“Colonel Deaken, Police National,” he retorted.
“It’s him,” Sherry whispered. “Pioche.”
Carol squeezed Sherry’s hand, biting back tears.
“We must be careful, do you understand? We don’t want to scare them.”
“Yes,” Carol answered. She understood well.
“I’ve brought someone to look at this body. It is police business,” the colonel barked. “Move away.”
“Let him stay,” Sherry interfered. “I want him to help me.”
There was a moment of silence, the colonel shrugged as if indifferent, then turned and marched away.
“He’s blind,” Carol said in awe. “The old man. He can’t see.”
“That should make it easy.” Sherry smiled and squeezed her hand.
Bodies parted as Sherry walked forward. “How far is he?” she asked.
“Ten feet. The ground is level in front of you.” Carol stepped forward and pivoted Sherry’s shoulders. “The houngan is straight ahead—the body is lying horizontal in front of him.”
Sherry walked straight and confidently ahead as the crowd continued to part for her. She could smell the sweat, the rum and tobacco, the decomposing body in front of her.
Sherry spoke first. “Tam-Tam Boy?” she asked.
“Kisa,” the old man said cautiously.
She had a fix on him now, stepped forward several feet, and knelt on the floor, edging forward until her knee found the side of Pioche’s lifeless body.
“My name is Sherry Moore.”
“What do you want, ooman?”
“I came here to learn something from you.”
Tam-Tam Boy turned his face upward in the general direction of the ceiling.
“Dere is no ting to learn here.” He shook his head.
Sherry leaned forward and whispered. “There are things you know.”
Carol watched the colonel leave. He was on the path leading back to the cars.
“Tricks,” the houngan said. “You want a charm, a spell. Dis,” he said angrily, “is a funeral, ooman.”
“I know,” Sherry said softly. “I need to know what he told you.”
“He be dead, ooman,” the houngan snorted.
“But you hear them speak, don’t you?” Sherry said quickly. “They talk back to you, don’t they?”
Tam-Tam Boy smiled. “You tink me a fool.”
“Quite the contrary,” Sherry said. “I talk to them too.”
The old man sighed tiredly, looked about, seemingly ready to stand. A sheen of sweat over his face glistened in the light of the fire, a stubble of gray beard against his crinkled black skin. He leaned forward suddenly.
“You talk to the dead,” he said contemptuously.
There was every possibility the houngan was a fraud, Sherry knew. Or that he actually believed in what he did, both encouraged and empowered by these people’s superstitions. There was also a possibility that the houngan was telling the truth. Who knew that better than she? How many people had doubted her over the years? Not that it mattered. The purpose of her visit was to lay a hand on the body, that was the goal here, and to achieve it she needed to keep the houngan talking.
“In truth, they do not speak to me,” Sherry admitted, “but maybe you can understand what I’m saying. If I touch them, if I hold their hand, they show me pictures of where they have been, of what they were last thinking. I was hoping you would tell me what this man told you, or maybe it is possible you see the pictures, too.”
“I am blind,” he said contemptuously, starting to rise.
Sherry could smell rum on his breath, the hint of spicy cologne.
“As am I,” she answered.
The old man stopped, his milky dead eyes meeting the barrier of darkness between them. He sat back down. “Please,” he said. “Sit.”
Sherry carefully lowered her body.
The houngan reached across Pioche’s body to touch her face, his fingertips finding her cheek. Sherry leaned forward, letting him trace her nose, then Tam-Tam Boy flattened his hand and covered Sherry’s face. He spread his fingers across the mounds and valleys, her nose, her chin, her forehead, her eyes.
“I am sorry to interrupt you, Tam-Tam Boy,” Sherry said. “I am sorry to interfere with this man’s funeral, but time is important and I have come to ask a favor.”
“Which is?” the old man said.
“I need to know where this man was when he died.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Take him hand,” he told Sherry.
Sherry found it quickly, bloated and cool, skin loose but oily, not dry; something had been used to preserve his body.
She squeezed it gently.
…a young girl was lying on a lumpy mattress, her long luxurious hair was pinned behind her head, the pin was ivory white and carefully carved by hand in the shape of a fish; a stone wall through a path into the jungle; an old wooden door, it had a viewing pane; the face of a young woman, she was Caucasian and her hair was dark and matted. There was a tattoo on her cheek, a skull wearing a top hat; an old man in front of a statue, he was wearing a straw hat; a young blond woman curled in the dirt; a kitten floating down a stream on a raft made of palm fronds; a pack of cigarette papers; a heavy-set woman in red shorts; a black man with one white eye; the spires of an old stone cathedral; the man in front of the statue again but he is framed in blue, it is a picture and he is taking the back off, the picture is crammed with money; a ladder in a stone walled cellar, holes drilled into the mortar in the walls; the black man with one white eye has a gun; blood on the toes of his boots; his hand touching the bottom of the old wooden door, painting a bloody streak with his finger; nothing more…
“He was killed by a one-eyed man,” she whispered, letting go of the hand.
“Yes?” the houngan said tentatively.
“He was thinking about a young black girl, she was lying down.”
“Wit long hair,” Tam-Tam Boy interrupted. “She use someting to hold her hair in di back of her head?” He listened carefully.
“A hairpin,” Sherry said. “It was white, long, with a sharp point at one end, carved like a jumping fish.”
“Him saw a cat,” the houngan said.
“On a raft made of leaves,” Sherry said.
“Dere is a picture.”
“Of a man in front of a statue.”
“Di frame is yello,” Tam-Tam Boy lied, cocking his head to the side.
“No, it is blue.” Sherry smiled, catching him. “Does his wife know what is behind it? Behind the frame?”
“Her know.” The houngan smiled. “I told her tell no one.”
Sherry reached across the body, touching the houngan’s shirt, finding his hand. “The old castle,” she said. “Can you tell me about it?”
“It is evil,” the old man said solemnly.
“I have seen it before,” Sherry said. “It is where this man was killed, isn’t it?�
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The houngan hesitated. “Contestus,” he whispered at last. “It is north of here.”
Sherry let out a deep breath. “There is a cellar beneath it, do you know?”
“A quarry,” Tam-Tam Boy said. “For mining marble.”
“Who lives there?”
“Tonton Macoutes,” he said contemptuously.
Sherry could barely hear the words.
“I don’t understand.”
“The boogymen,” he said. “Do not go there, ooman.”
Sherry nodded, squeezed the old man’s hand. “We are the same, Tam-Tam Boy,” she said. “You hear and I see.”
Tam-Tam Boy leaned closer, whispered softly, “I tell dem what I see. Dem like to hear their loved ones speak.”
Sherry smiled. He really was just like her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You are welcome, white mambo.” Tam-Tam Boy got to his feet.
Carol saw Sherry stand and turned to where the colonel had disappeared over the hillside.
Something was wrong. She felt it. Carol stepped forward toward the building, calling Sherry’s name.
Then she heard the engine, the sound of an approaching truck, and it was moving fast. People began to run toward the trees, there was a clamor of metal from the parking lot, tailgates falling down, men shouting orders, shapes appeared on the path by the shanties, you could hear their boots pounding, the rattle of small arms on slings.
“Kisa ou vie?” the old houngan shouted.
Carol grabbed Sherry’s arm, but Sherry pulled away, reaching to help the houngan out of the temple. “Run,” she yelled to Carol, but by then the soldiers were upon them.
Sherry and Carol were seized and pulled away from the building, each placed on a chair in handcuffs.
Carol watched in horror as a dark man with one eye approached and pulled a pearl-handled automatic pistol from his holster. “Her”—Bedard pointed at Hettie—“and the girl. Take them both.”
Soldiers ran up and put the women in chains.
“Him, too,” Bedard shouted, pointing at the dead man, and two more guards ran to carry away the body of Pioche.
Tam-Tam Boy looked at Bedard with his cloudy white eyes. “Kisa ou vie,” he repeated.
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