The Clearing

by Dan Newman

  “CID?” asked Nate.

  “The Criminal Investigation Division. De task force within the police department responsible for dis kind of investigation.”

  Nate nodded, and something in his memory squirmed.

  “Anyway, de De Villiers had most of de police force up there day and night, combing through the rainforest, looking. And eventually dey found him, or at least what was left of him. Two weeks will almost completely destroy a body in de tropics—never mind de animals and de other things.

  “When de CID found de remains, Mrs. De Villiers insisted on coming out to Ti Fenwe, and it was in the middle of the night, too, but she was determined to see her son. De constables tried to stop her, I mean, dat body in a very advanced state of decomposition an’ had been partially consumed. But don’t no one say no to a De Villiers.

  “And so Mrs. De Villiers go and see her son, or what was lef’ of him, and me think she simply could not bear it. She’d been looking for dat boy all these weeks, her little boy with blonde hair—and what she found was a nightmare.” Smiley shook his head in reflection, and then tipped the bottle to his lips.

  Behind him, dotted on the hillside, lights began to flicker to life in the small houses made of wood and tin. “In her grief she apparently swore she would take revenge if she found someone had caused her little boy’s death. Here,” he said, pulling a photocopy from the document pile on the table and passing it to Nate. It was a copy of the front page of The Voice from 1976, with the bold headline: I Will Take a Life in Payment. It also had a small, grainy picture of Collette De Villiers. It was a posed shot from another time, and in it she was calm and composed. It seemed to jar with the headline. Nate was transfixed by the words. It felt like Collette was speaking out directly to him across the years. Finally he placed the sheet down, and without realizing it Nate gently brushed his hand against his hip, as if to dislodge something unwelcome that had stuck there.

  Smiley hooked a finger into his collar and tugged at it gently, then went on. “Dey sedated her, took her back to Castries an’ she was hospitalized dat night. After dat she was jus’ plain inconsolable. According to daughters of one of their housekeepers from back den, Mrs. De Villiers began walking the house in a constant state of panic, calling out for Richard. This went on for days, weeks. In the end the family flew her out to de US, to some clinic where she dun stayed for ’bout a month. When she come back dey said she was a ghost. She would never speak. Never cry. Barely eat. What was it dem said? She was like a blank page.”

  “And the rest of the family?”

  “Dey took it hard, too. And there was a bad patch for dem after that. They were caught up in désann asou pwi—you know, like um, a price slide. Nutmeg, copra, bananas—it affected a number of the staples of their export business, and I think de family’s net worth really shrunk. Many De Villiers properties around de island were sold off, a few of their smaller businesses closed, as well as a couple of de big ones—a banana plantation in the south near Vieux Fort, and the Slips.”

  “Slips?”

  “Dry docks. You know, where you can pull your boat out de water for repairs to de underside. It was good business for De Villiers because their slips were de only ones in the Windward Islands large enough to pull out the expensive pleasure craft that sailed ’round here. Apart from DV Dry Docks, the next closest were six hundred kilometers away in St. Kitts. So they commanded top dollar for services.”

  “So why’d they get rid of it?”

  “Hmm. Cash flow, perhaps. Maybe somethin’ else. All up, things went from bad to worse for de family, and in…” he paused and reached for the envelope between them and fished out a single sheet. “Ah, here it is. In December of 1977, Mrs. De Villiers killed herself.”

  Nate did not know this, and the news stopped him cold. The information was more than thirty years old, but it struck him like breaking news hot off the press. It made him feel small and awash with well-aged guilt. “I had no idea.” In his mind he saw endless bouquets of yellow flowers, candles in brass holders and rows of dark wooden pews. The images were borrowed from other funerals, and brought with them a sadness he recognized all too well.

  “Yeah man, it was a bad time for de De Villiers for sure. She lef’ behind a husband, but him now loss both a son an’ a wife. He a shell of a man today. Never recovered himself.”

  Smiley’s words landed like medicine balls on Nate. Was this really possible? Could so much destruction come from that one foul moment in the forest? And the echoes had rung out across oceans, across time, and were drawing parallels that were almost too much to bear. He could feel the sadness coming back, unfurling inside him in dark canvas sheets that would blot out the light.

  This nightmare for the De Villiers clan and the lengthy reach of an event thirty years in the past and on the other side of the world. Lives were still collapsing. And all he could think about was Cody. Smiling, beautiful Cody. For Nate, the pain was suddenly as sharp and as present as it had ever been.

  Smiley was still staring at the page in his hands, unaware of the effect it was all having on Nate. He went on. “How so many bad things can come in such a string, one after de other—it make a man wonder.”

  “Makes you wonder what?” he asked gently.

  Smiley arched his back and a series of small pops rippled through his spine. “Man, how long we been sittin’ here?” He reached up to his neck and loosened the tie, then pulled it free in a single motion. “Back at Vigie, you asked me about de Bolom. You called it, a kid’s tale?”

  “A fairy tale,” said Nate sheepishly.

  “Right, a fairy tale. Well, tell me what you remember ’bout this fairy tale. From when you were a boy here on dis island. When did you leave here?”

  “1976.”

  “Okay, tell me what de boy from 1976 remember ’bout dis Bolom.”

  Bolom. The word had such a powerful effect on Nate, something that he would forever associate with the island and the deep reaches of the forested interior. He thought about what he should tell Smiley, and wondered whether the telling of it would demean him in Smiley’s eyes and reveal him as just another gullible vwayaje, here for a week of sun and then gone. And if he did think that, would it matter?

  Bolom. Nate rolled the word through his head like a child fumbling with a marble set deeply in his pocket. The word had the usual effect, and within seconds he began to hear it. It evoked two sounds: one setting a hollow background note in the darkness, and the other, laid over it sharply, a staccato of intense and hurried footfalls from something solid, soft-footed and wild. He knew exactly what the first sound was—he’d seen it himself as a boy: hundreds of thousands of nutmegs, all wrinkled and hard like dried walnuts, laying in a sprawling, empty old attic on hard, wooden floor boards. Through them runs something unseen in the darkness. It is short, quick, and stocky, and while the sound of its footsteps are soft, presumably unshod, they land firmly. Almost arrogantly. And as it darts through the nutmegs they begin to roll, rattling along the wooden flooring in their thousands, sending up that singular note: an empty, soulless drone.

  And as it scurries through the attic, the nutmegs roll and roll and roll.

  5

  Island life for the expats was good. Very good.

  Nate’s mother came through from the kitchen carrying a tin tray crammed with Piña Coladas. She wore a bright orange floral print dress with a matching band in her hair, and swept a wayward lock from her face. “Refills!” she announced, and the crowd in the sprawling balcony area of her home rose with smiles and hurrahs from white wicker furniture, through a haze of blue tobacco smoke, to collect the icy drinks.

  The evening was humid, but the house was situated on the tip of Vigie, a headland that jutted out into the Caribbean and caught the cooling breezes that once propelled great Galleons and Men of War through the azure waters that the house now watched over. There were about thirty guests at the party: teachers, socialites, barristers and politicians. Bellbottom pants, space age polyester in br
ave plaid patterns, afro shirts, and wide swept collars—all were in goodly supply. On the record player, the Carpenters cranked out a fresh hit and told everyone they were On Top of the World and Looking Down on Creation, and indeed creation seemed to be listening.

  Moths fluttered in their thousands around Chinese lanterns, those rice paper lampshades that hung like glowing planets in every room, and in the darkness around the house a chorus of a million insects, frogs and toads kept rhythms of their own. Between the peep-peep of fruit bats, the chirping and clicking of umpteen yet-to-be discovered genera of insects, between the laughter, the sound of crushed ice and swizzle sticks and the spinning ’70s vinyl, the St. Lucian nights were thick and brimming with life.

  The kids darted in and out of the large balcony area, artfully breezing through the crowd of glowing guests, sneaking off with cans of beer and half-finished glasses of rum and Coke. They were barely noticed, and when they were, it was with a pat on the head in mid-conversation and nothing more. Talk among the grown-ups was of the QE2 visit set for the following week: who would be invited aboard, what dignitaries might hold a reception, and whether such rarities as potatoes, white sugar and fresh milk might surreptitiously find their way off the boat and into expat homes.

  Between forays into the party to raid for booze, peanuts, and the ultimate prize, Bugels (crunchy, cone-shaped treats that Nate’s dad had flown in specially), the boys watched from the sidelines as they always did. Their spot was perfect: they sat in lawn chairs in the garden just beyond the circle of light cast by the house, and to anyone who looked their way, they were little more than shadows. The parties were every weekend, rotating from one expat’s house to the next, but Nate’s parents held more than their fair share—thanks to the ideal entertaining qualities of the house on Vigie.

  It was in a well-to-do part of the island, and the neighbors were people of influence. Behind them lived a judge. To their left, through the trees and hidden by gangly knots of hibiscus bushes down toward the water, was the Dutch ambassador. And behind him were four houses belonging to various members of the De Villiers family. All the houses in Vigie were well spaced, set on large plots of land and set among lush thickets of ever-blooming flowers and sweet-smelling fruit trees.

  The house was not the one originally issued by the government to the Masons, but Nate’s dad was well liked and well connected, and the right set of moves—and perhaps a few hundred well-placed EC dollars—saw the family ensconced in the beautiful house on Vigie.

  It was built on the site of a gun battery dating back to the 1800s, and the house itself was basically two large blocks—the bedrooms and the living room/kitchen area—set on a huge reach of polished flooring, then covered with an expansive roof. The structure was cut into the natural grade in the land as it sloped down toward the point, with the front of the house sitting up well above the grade to catch the sunsets. The net effect was that the house appeared to be one huge balcony, surrounded by polished teak banisters, and open to cooling breezes and breathtaking views.

  The lawn at the front of the house was dotted with coconut and mango trees, and came to a point a hundred yards further on where the Vigie headland ended and dropped off into the sea thirty feet below. From this vantage point, gunners of old could defend access to the harbor in Castries, lobbing cannon balls and musket fire on potential invaders. Now, all that was left was a cavernous gray concrete bunker, overgrown and filled with spiders and bulbous red hornets the boys called Jap Spaniards. Set back from that, toward the house on the flat, open lawn, was a huge circular pad of concrete where the big canon once sat. It was empty now, the gun long since removed, the only lingering threat now from lizards stalking their insect prey.

  The boys sat on the lawn chairs at the edge of the concrete pad, watching the party from the shadows. Nate put an elbow into Pip, and pointed at the bowl his mother had just set down among the guests. It was Bugels.

  “Oh, we have to get some of those!” said Pip, holding a half empty tin of beer. He didn’t like the taste—none of them did—but still they each held a tin, and occasionally made the gesture of lifting it to their mouths.

  “We’ve got no chance now,” said Nate, flicking his chin toward the large, sweaty man scooching forward in his seat and dipping his fist into the Bugels.

  “Aw, man,” said Pip. “I love those things.”

  Nate put up his hands to calm the little Dutch boy. “Wait,” he said. “Here comes Mrs. Patterson.” There was music in his voice.

  Mrs. Patterson was the kind of woman all the boys dreamed of. She was in her early thirties, heavy chested and always without a bra. She was the stuff of fantasy, commanding awestruck stares from all the boys. But her power was not limited to the boys alone; Nate noticed that she had an effect on all the party regulars—women, too. As she wandered back into the group he knew the odds of snagging a few Bugels were greatly improving. “Her drink’s on the guardrail on the other side of where everyone’s sitting. When she goes to get it, you go, Pip.”

  And, sure to form, all eyes followed Mrs. Patterson and her pendulous breasts. Without a word, Pip was up and running, and Nate watched as the small boy slipped quietly in and took not just a handful, but the whole damn bowl. At the guardrail, Mrs. Patterson leaned with her back against the teak, her hands pressed palm-first into the top of the railing. The effect was to push her elbows out past the line of her back, tightening the thin, white fabric of her blouse against her large, unrestrained breasts. Pip could have turned a cartwheel while stealing the Bugels and no one would have noticed. Mrs. Patterson, or more accurately, Mrs. Patterson’s boobs, were mesmerizing.

  “Tete en pain! Now that’s a pair of tits!”

  Nate and Pip almost shrieked at the voice behind them in the darkness. It was Tristan, of course, and he had already drunk one of the beers the boys had liberated from the party and was in the process of finishing the second. Once he had recovered, Pip thrust the Bugels in front of Tristan without question, an offering, really, and the big thirteen-year-old mashed his fist into the bowl. Nate scrunched his face up. “Come on Tristan, quit it. Those things are like gold.”

  Born on the island, Tristan was a white St. Lucian. He was descended from generations of French landowners stretching back to the days of buccaneers and tall ships bristling with cannons as the English and French fought for control of this sparkling Caribbean jewel. His family, and others like them, had become the island’s wealthy, owning huge plantations that grew bananas, nutmeg, coconuts, and dozens of other crops—just as they had for hundreds of years. His life was one of privilege, although to look at him in his cut-off jeans and sleeveless top, you’d assume he came from much poorer means. “Why do you guys love these things?” he said, emptying a crushed handful into his mouth. “Salty fuckers.” Tristan took the bowl and ate another handful. Pip reached for some and Tristan simply waved him away.

  Even at night, Tristan wore no shoes, and Nate could see in the half-light that the soles of his feet were black and cracked, hard as shoe leather. He watched as Tristan assumed possession of Pip’s lawn chair, and felt a small prick of annoyance at the way the little Dutch boy squatted dutifully beside him. Pip was a genuinely nice kid, and being Nate’s neighbor the two had struck up an easy friendship. But it was different whenever Tristan was around; Pip’s personality seemed to shrink in Tristan’s shadow, and Tristan knew it, too.

  Still, like all the other kids, Nate acknowledged that Tristan had something that none of the others had. There was no name for it at their age, but they all recognized it, and fell in line behind Tristan whenever he was around. It was that way for all the kids. Well, almost all.

  “Tristan, give the garçon his crisps,” came yet another voice from the darkness. This time all three boys jumped and at least two of them yelped—loud enough to draw a handful of quizzical glances from the party.

  Richard stepped into the light and laughed. He was the youngest of the group, and all the boys smiled when they saw it was him.r />
  “Richard, you doofus!”

  “Jeez—you almost killed us!”

  The undersized blonde ten-year-old smiled brightly and shook his head. “You’re a tough bunch.” He looked at Tristan and then flicked his eyes only briefly at the bowl. It was enough. Tristan sucked air in through clenched teeth to produce a brief squeaking sound—an iconic island gesture of displeasure called chups—and then roughly pushed the bowl into Pip’s hands.

  Nate felt a pang of satisfaction but let it go as quickly as it came. Tristan could be an ass sometimes, but he was still an okay guy. And he always had interesting things on the go. Nate looked at him and noticed the boy was wearing a homemade slingshot around his neck: the Y of a branch, a leather pouch and two rubber strips cut from an inner tube. And when Tristan noticed Nate looking, he casually swung it over his shoulder so that it dangled out of view behind his back. Nate pretended not to care, but what he really wanted was to hold it, maybe even try it out.

  “What took you guys so long?” said Nate dismissively. “The party’s half over.”

  Tristan was watching Mrs. Patterson, his eyes locked on her while he spoke. “Maria’s having a sleepover. We had some watching to do first.” A moment later Tristan and Richard dissolved into a fit of half-stifled giggles.

  Nate raised his eyebrows. “You guys were spying on your own sister?”

  Tristan objected. “Hey, it’s Richard’s sister—she’s just my cousin.”

  “Oh, that’s so much better,” said Nate.

  “You’re both perverts,” said Pip. And then, “What did you see?”

  “Smokes,” said Tristan.

  Pip’s face folded in confusion until he realized Tristan was watching the party again, and a box of cigarettes in particular. They belonged to Sweaty Scoocher, and sat on a side table at the very periphery of the party, not far from the shadows hiding the boys.

  Nate threw up his hands. “Don’t do it, Tristan. My mom will freak if she catches you stealing. She’ll call your Dad for sure.”