“Eddy. My name is Eddy.”
Charlie nodded. “Tell me, Eddy, is the pastor’s wife around?”
Again the guard shook his head. “No. Madame April had to do some errands in the city. She will be back later also.”
Charlie looked down at her watch. “Well, you see, here’s the thing. I’m supposed to be back in Port-au-Prince for a meeting with my bosses in a couple of hours, so I really can’t wait around.”
“You should come back tomorrow.”
“I’d love to, but that’s just not gonna work. I’ll be flying out first thing. So this here is my only chance.”
Eddy thought about it for a few seconds. “I do not think it is possible. We do not usually see visitors here. The pastor, or his wife, will maybe be back soon. You can wait.”
Charlie frowned. “You know, Eddy, as much as I’d like to see them, I just can’t take the chance of missing out on my meeting. It’s really important. In fact, we’re going to be talking about this very place, about how much we can afford to give to Pastor Jim next year. I’m sure he’d be extremely disappointed to hear he’d missed an opportunity to show off his wonderful project to a donor.”
Charlie felt bad for lying to Eddy. The last thing she wanted was to get anybody in trouble. But now that she was here, all she wanted to do was take a quick survey of the place, find some evidence of her mother’s well-being, and report back to Bea without ever having to face Jim or her mother.
The guard removed his baseball cap and wiped his brow with his forearm. Charlie followed his glance down the road, praying not to see an approaching car.
“Let me try to call him,” he said, beginning to punch in the number.
“No, no.” Charlie waved a halting hand in his direction. “No need to bother him. I’m sure the pastor’s a very busy man. Honestly, I promise this won’t take long. I just need a quick peek.” Again Charlie flashed her famous smile.
“Pastor Jim does not answer.” Eddy shoved the phone back into his pocket.
“You know what he’d say,” Charlie urged. “You know how important this place is to him, how much he relies on his donors to help this dream come to life.” She swept her arm majestically across the horizon, as if there were a grand palace before her eyes instead of a dusty driveway leading to who-knows-what.
Again the guard hesitated. “I don’t know—”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” she insisted. “In fact, Eddy, I will be sure to mention you in my report, to let the pastor know just how helpful you’ve been.”
Charlie’s pulse quickened as she saw the guard’s eyes soften slightly. “Okay,” he said finally, as he pushed a button that caused the gate to slowly swing open with an electric hum. “I will give you a tour. But we will make it quick.”
“Thanks.” Charlie began to follow him up the long, pebbled driveway as the gate closed itself behind them. “I’m sure your boss, and my boss, will both appreciate it very much.”
The first thing Charlie noticed was the smell—a mix of barnyard and sewer that hit her like a punch in the face. She held a hand over her nose as they neared the closest structures to be seen on the compound, a cluster of shacks with rusting tin roofs.
“What are those?” she asked.
“That is where our people live.”
“The dormitories?”
The guard didn’t answer. As they approached the buildings Charlie began to see just how dilapidated they were. Many appeared as though they’d collapse with one swift breeze. Some lacked roofs altogether, instead relying on tarps to provide shelter from the sun and rain. There were no real doors, just bent pieces of corrugated metal, or hanging blankets, or nothing at all. And everywhere, goats and chickens picked through piles of trash, and pigs wallowed in mud puddles the size of small lakes.
“Is there running water? Electricity?”
“There is a pump. I will show you.”
She followed him down a rutted path that led away from the shacks, stopping in front of a roofless concrete enclosure divided in two by a crumbling wall.
“This is our bathing facility,” he explained. “One side for the men, the other for the women.”
“You have women here, too?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And children, too?”
Eddy shook his head. “The pastor, he says this is not a place for children.”
She followed him around a bend in the path, where two shirtless men were taking turns swinging their blades at the twisted trunk of a leafy green tree, its gnarly roots seeming to be clinging to the ground for dear life. Behind the men was a graveyard of stumps beneath a tangle of dismembered branches.
“That tree’s so beautiful. Why are they cutting it down?” she asked.
Eddy didn’t answer.
“Is it sick or something?”
The guard was already ten paces ahead of her as the tree fell, its leaves shivering as it hit the dirt with a crack. Charlie scrambled to keep up.
“Where is everybody?” she asked as they continued down the path.
He pointed to a distant field, half green, half bare, where Charlie could barely make out the dozens of tiny figures, bent with their backs to the midday sun.
“Those are the students?”
“Those are our farmers, not students. Their job is to cut the sugarcane and strip the leaves. Then it will be chopped and put into piles,” he explained. “It will be sold to make rum.”
“So you call them farmers?”
“Yes, of course. They work the fields.”
“But they also attend the school, right?”
The guard looked confused.
She gestured to a low, rectangular building that seemed somewhat sturdier than the rest. “What’s that?”
“That is the church. Where Pastor Jim gives his sermons,” Eddy said with some pride.
“So the classes are held there as well? Or are there separate classrooms?”
“Classes?” Eddy stiffened. “I think it is time for you to go, to get to your meetings, am I right?”
“Are they being paid for their work?” Charlie persisted.
“Everyone receives a bed to sleep in, and plenty of food to eat,” he said as he started back toward the gate, his manner now abrupt.
Charlie was disgusted, though not surprised. The place looked nothing like what she had seen on the Farming for Freedom website. The place was a scam, her stepfather a fraud, no better than a slaveholder disguised as a man of the cloth. But almost worse was the fact that her mother was obviously complicit in such shameless deceit.
“But wait!” Charlie called after the guard. “I haven’t seen the pastor’s house. I’m sure our people back home would be curious to see how he lives. And I’m sure he’d want to show it off to them as well.”
Charlie’s heart was pounding against her ribs. She had to get out of this place. She had come with no plan, had never really expected to get this far. If she could just get a quick look at the house, maybe take a photo, perhaps give Bea some sense of her mother’s well-being, that would be enough. She wouldn’t even have to leave a note. Her mother would never have to know she’d been there.
The guard sighed and turned, and motioned for her to follow him down a hill, away from the squalor and stench of the sorry living quarters. Here the vegetation turned lush, with palms and pines and banana plants living side by side, blending together to shelter the path as they descended further and further away.
“There is the house.”
Eddy pointed ahead, where, sitting smack in the middle of a pristine, freshly mowed lawn, behind a white picket fence, was a tidy stone house with lace curtains in the windows and a chimney up one side. Without the tropical heat to remind her, she might have thought she was back home in Carmel.
She approached the cottage with trepidation, as if Jim and her mother might suddenly appear in the doorway. But the place was still. Then she noticed the garden—a meticulously manicured patch of color, bursting with what looked li
ke irises, birds of paradise, hibiscus, oleander, and other even more exotic plants whose names she did not know. It was stunning. The hand of her mother was unmistakably present. She remembered how, in the jungle, her mother—frustrated by the insects and ants chewing up her garden and carrying it off leaf by leaf—learned to grow orchids in the trees. She’d mount the flowers onto the trunks by attaching them with cotton string, which would eventually disintegrate, leaving the blooms clinging safely to their hosts, far above the clutches of nibbling predators.
“The pastor’s wife,” she asked the guard, “is this her work?”
“Yes.” Charlie noticed a smile creep onto his face. “Madame April is a good gardener. I see her here sometimes, digging in the dirt, pulling the weeds and cutting the bushes.”
“And how is she?”
“How is she?” He raised his eyebrows beneath the brim of his cap, obviously perplexed by the question. “Madame April, she is a fine woman, very kind.”
Charlie felt a twinge in her chest. But, of course he would only say something like that. Who was paying the guy’s wages, after all? She took out her phone and snapped a couple of photos before hurriedly following him back up the hill. Passing once again by the tumbledown shacks, she snapped a few more.
“No pictures!” Eddy barked. He hustled her back down the driveway to the gate, arriving just as a canary-yellow 4x4—with tinted windows, a snorkel running up its side, and a Farming for Freedom logo plastered on its door—came roaring to a halt.
Charlie froze as heavy cowboy boots hit the gravel, one by one.
17
“I tell you, the guy was downright obsessed with genitalia,” Bea said, laughing, as she filled Robert in on her afternoon visiting the Atis Rezistans with Lizbeth. The three of them were sipping rum punch, snacking on fried akra and spicy pikliz while waiting for Charlie to arrive back at the hotel for dinner. Bea used a napkin to dab her bare arms, slick with the smelly insect repellant she’d learned, the hard way, to apply before each foray onto the veranda. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained ominously dark. She pulled her thin scarf tight around her neck in anticipation of the next downpour.
Lizbeth seemed jumpy, as if the air were filled with tiny electric charges that only she could feel.
“Who will join me in another rum punch?” Bea offered, listening for Stanley’s shuffle.
“Perhaps we should order our meal,” Robert suggested.
Bea agreed. She appreciated how long it took the kitchen staff to prepare an order. Everything made from scratch. Not a thing going to waste. And besides, there was absolutely nothing wrong with a good, long cocktail hour, in her opinion.
“What about Charlie?” Lizbeth asked. “Shouldn’t we wait?”
“She’ll catch up with us. It’ll be fine,” Bea insisted.
“Your granddaughter is not back yet?” she heard Stanley ask. “There is a big storm coming, and sometimes the roads get flooded.”
“She’ll get here. I know my Charlie. A little water won’t stop her.”
“How can you be so sure, Bea? Why, if it were my grandchild—” Lizbeth stopped mid-sentence, as if the word had frozen her tongue.
“I am somewhat concerned too, Madame Bea,” Robert added. “I know how these roads can be. And if there is any problem, her phone will have no service out there. Perhaps I should find somebody here with a car and go look for her.”
“We should have never come here anyway,” Lizbeth added. “Not a one of us. Not you, not me, not your granddaughter. Y’all should do like me and just pack up and head home first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Would everybody please relax?” The vibe at the table that night was making Bea crazy. Both Robert and Lizbeth seemed particularly on edge. “If something happened to Charlie,” she said, “I would know.”
“How can you say that, Bea? How would you know?” Lizbeth swatted at a mosquito buzzing around her head.
“I know things.”
“Well, I know things too. But that doesn’t make me a psychic.”
Bea laughed. “You never know, Lizbeth. Maybe you simply haven’t tapped into your powers. They say we all have the ability. It’s just that some of us choose to develop our skills, and others don’t.”
“What, Madame Bea?” Robert said. “Are you telling us that you are a seer?”
“These days they call us sensitives. Me, I like to think of myself as a plain old-fashioned psychic.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Bea heard Lizbeth say, not quite under her breath.
“That is very interesting,” Robert said. “And what is it that you are so sensitive about?”
Bea pushed her round glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Well,” she began, wondering how far she should take this. “I can read people’s energy. And, sometimes, I have dreams.”
“Ha! I can do that, too,” Lizbeth said. “It’s called intuition and imagination, where I come from.”
Bea shook her head. “This is different. Trust me. A whole other ball game.”
“So where’s your crystal ball?” Lizbeth teased.
Bea ignored the crack. “My real specialty is as a medium.”
“You’re trying to tell us you’re one of those folks who talks to dead people?”
“I communicate with people who have crossed over, and relay their messages to those who are still living.”
“Madame Bea, you are even more fascinating than I first thought.”
Bea lowered her eyes and pulled at one of her dangly earrings. “I don’t know about that, Robert. It’s just what I do. Something I was born with.”
“I’ve seen those psychics on TV,” Lizbeth said. “The way they get people to talk, the way they spit back whatever they’ve heard? And who’s gonna tell me they weren’t just told everything there was to know before those cameras started rolling?”
Bea shrugged her shoulders. “Nobody says you have to believe it.” She removed her glasses, and turned to Robert. “To be quite honest with you, Robert, I’ve been picking up on something all evening. In fact, I’m sensing someone standing beside you right now.”
“Remarkable,” he replied, almost in a whisper.
“Oh, please,” Lizbeth muttered.
“Is it all right with you if I pass on a message?”
“Go right ahead,” he answered.
Bea closed her eyes. The hum of the city beyond the wall filled the air as they waited.
“Someone with an M in their name is coming through. A soft-spoken woman. She says to tell you the pain is gone. A Marilyn? Marcie? A woman with long brown hair, hair that she wears piled up on top of her head. A very elegant woman, with beautiful hands.”
Robert was silent for a minute. “Marie-France. My wife,” he said softly. “She passed away three years ago.”
Bea should have known. The woman was as stunning as Robert was charming. What a couple they must have made. “She needs you to know she’s okay.”
“That’s incredible, Madame Bea.”
“She’s been with you, on your travels. She says to keep up the good work.”
Robert was silent for a moment. “Is that all?” he finally asked.
“A question for you, Robert. Is there something you keep finding in your luggage when you travel? Like a pebble or something?”
“A seashell,” he answered excitedly. “A small conch. I always wonder how it gets there.”
“Marie-France puts it in your suitcase, to remind you of the vacations you took together, at the beach.”
“Mon dieu.”
“And she’s asked me to tell you to please stop forgetting to water her plants.”
Now Robert laughed. “Astounding. Simply astounding.”
Bea took a deep breath, placed her glasses back on her face, and returned to her drink. After a few moments she turned to Lizbeth. “Now let me ask you something. Have you ever sensed Luke’s energy about you since he passed?”
“Oh, quit it, Bea. This is nonsense.”
“So there�
�s nothing strange you’ve ever noticed around the house, like objects moving, not being where you left them?”
“Of course I misplace things. I’m getting older.”
“That’s not what I mean. Think, Lizbeth. Think hard.”
“Well,” the woman finally said. “There is this candle, right in front of Luke’s picture on the mantel. Keeps going out. Must be a draft coming from someplace, but Lord help me, I haven’t been able to locate it.”
“That’s your son. Luke’s trying to communicate with you.”
“Now, come on, Bea.”
“I’ll stop if you’d like, but I’m feeling right now like he really wants you to acknowledge his presence. Shall I go on?”
When Lizbeth didn’t answer, Bea took it as a yes. “And he’s not alone, he’s coming through with someone else. He’s making me feel a ‘D’. A very strong ‘D’ is coming through. Who’s Darryl? He says to tell you thanks for sending him off with his nine iron.”
“My husband. Luke’s father. I told you his name was Darryl. We buried him with his favorite golf club. I probably already told you about that, too.”
“But he says he wishes you’d picked the sand wedge instead.” Bea couldn’t tell if the sound coming from Lizbeth was a laugh or a cry. “They want you to know that they’re together, and that they’re getting along fine.” She paused for a minute. “But it’s really Luke that’s coming through strong. He’s the one who wants to be heard.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Lizbeth said.
“He needs you to know that he felt nothing. That his passing was fast, and painless.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Lizbeth asked.
“I’m supposed to tell you that he knows you often wish it were you instead of him who had the accident,” Bea said. “He wants you to stop that. And he knows how hard you’ve been trying to cope. He sees you sitting in his room, on his bed, at night. He hates how difficult it’s been for you. He wants you to focus on the happy times you two had together.”
“You could say that to anyone, Bea.”
“But he’s aware of what you’re doing now,” she added, “and he wants you to know that he’s incredibly proud of you.”
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