Island on the Edge of the World

by Deborah Rodriguez

  “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you as well,” her mother replied before turning to Senzey.

  “I am Senzey,” was all the girl said.

  “Senzey and Lizbeth are trying to find out what happened to a baby,” Charlie explained eagerly.

  Her mother eyed the two women, confused.

  “It’s Senzey’s baby. Lizbeth’s son was the father.” Charlie waited for her mother’s response.

  “You need to explain, dear,” Bea prompted. “You see,” she continued without giving Charlie the chance, “Senzey was talked into leaving her baby at an orphanage, with the promise that she could come back and get him, if and when she had the means, and the will. But there’s some confusion about where that boy is.”

  “And if he—”

  Senzey was interrupted by Lizbeth. “Be positive, Senzey. Remember what that nurse said.”

  April’s caution was obvious as she answered, her eyes remaining on Senzey. “It’s a tricky world, the orphanages here.”

  “Yes, but you said you know—” Charlie said.

  “Hold on. I’m not saying I can’t help, but we have to be careful. Let me make some calls.”

  “Calls?” Lizbeth said. “I’m sorry, I don’t know about y’all, but in my way of thinking we oughta be out there banging down some doors.”

  “But it is impossible,” Robert said as he joined them. “Do you hear what is going on out there?” He nodded toward the gates at the bottom of the hotel’s driveway. The shouts and honking horns had become punctuated with sporadic popping gunfire, and the air had turned thick with the smell of burning rubber. “And from what I have heard, it will only become worse throughout the day.”

  “He’s right,” April said. “But I think I can at least start trying to track this baby down over the phone. I know a lot of people. Let me see what I can do.” She turned to Senzey. “What is his name, and how old would he be now?”

  “Lukson. Six months and five days,” the woman answered in a heartbeat, her eyes cast downward toward the floor.

  “And what does Lukson look like? Do you have any photos?”

  She shook her head. “I have no photo. But I will never forget his face. He had a little bit of hair on his head, like his father’s, soft and light. Light-skinned, and blue eyes.” She pointed to Lizbeth. “Like his grandmother.”

  Charlie watched as her mother pulled a pair of reading glasses from her bag and began to furiously scroll through the contacts on her phone. Part of her wanted to grab the woman from behind and give her a huge hug, but it was the other part—the one that couldn’t yet let go of the story she’d been telling herself for years—that kept her rooted to her chair.

  The table became silent as April made her first call. Charlie could hear the forced charm behind her mother’s words, spoken in Creole. She tried to figure out how the conversation was going from Senzey and Robert’s reactions, but their faces weren’t revealing a thing. The only thing she recognized was Lukson’s name.

  “I told him I was calling for Jim,” April explained once the call was complete. “I said that he needed to locate a baby named Lukson, and told him his age, what he looked like. I said Jim had someone who had deep pockets, someone who had interest in the boy. I’m not sure he believed me. But anyway, he claimed to have no knowledge of Lukson.”

  They sat as April went through several more of these calls, one right after the other. The response was always the same. The discomfort around the table was growing thick, like the smoke spilling from the streets.

  “Shall we move inside?” Robert suggested to Bea, including Senzey and Lizbeth in his invitation. “The air is perhaps a little fresher in there.”

  Charlie mouthed a silent “thank you” to him as the four of them rose from the table.

  “It’s risky, Charlie,” April said after they were gone, finally putting down the phone. “Every call I make is going to raise suspicion. If that boy is as valuable as I think he is, with his light skin and blue eyes, whoever has him is going to do everything they can to keep him hidden. A lot of these folks know each other. And word travels fast.” Her eyes darted toward the street, as if she could see what was happening through the thickness of the wall. “If these damn protests would just stop already … I feel like we’re racing against the clock. They’re going to start moving that kid around like a pawn on a chess board.”

  “But won’t the riots keep ‘them’ from getting out there as well?”

  “Probably. But somebody’s bound to call Jim, if they haven’t already. And once he gets his antennae up, who knows what will happen?”

  “Maybe we should just get going sooner, rather than later, like Lizbeth said.”

  “Or maybe I should.”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Charlie said. “You think I’m going to let you go so easily, after all I’ve been through?”

  “I’m sorry, Charlie. I know it’s not going to be easy for you to forgive me.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not ever going to forgive you if you go out there and get yourself killed.”

  Her mother closed her eyes and then opened them again, as if she had offered a quick, silent prayer of thanks. “Look,” she said, taking Charlie’s hand. “We’re stuck here for the time being, so we’ll have to take the chance and see what we can uncover with some more calls. It’s a gamble, but it’s better than just sitting around. I have a boatload of names and numbers in here.” She held up her phone. “Somebody has to know where that child is. I’ll just have to be as careful as I can not to raise any red flags.”

  And with that, April dived back into her pursuit. Charlie left the veranda to go inside and check on Bea and the others. Charlie spied a pitcher of rum punch in the center of their table. Robert winked in her direction.

  “Any luck?” Lizbeth asked eagerly, her eyes red from the smoky air.

  “Not yet.” Charlie struggled to sound positive. “But she’s still trying.”

  “Doesn’t sound like things are getting any calmer out there.” Bea waved an arm toward the front of the hotel.

  “It probably sounds worse than it really is,” Charlie said, just as a volley of gunfire erupted in the distance.

  She went back outside to her mother.

  “Non. Wi. Li se pou Pastè Jim,” was what April was saying, her nose wrinkling and her eyes scrunching closed, as if she were worried about the response her words might bring. “Mèsi, mèsi.” She slammed the phone down onto the table. “I think the word is out,” she said. “The minute things get quiet, that baby is going to disappear into thin air, not that we even know yet where he’s going to disappear from.”

  “Isn’t there anyone? What about those baby-finders?”

  April shook her head. “They’re not about to give away anything. They were paid to do a job. And I’m sure they’re not going to do anything to jeopardize their future employment.”

  “They should be arrested.”

  April snorted. “If only. Unfortunately, that’s not the way things work around here.” She turned her head to the sky beyond the wall, as if the answer might be found in the clouds. “Wait!” She suddenly grabbed the phone. “There is a guy I haven’t tried, a young volunteer who’s been around a while. He bent my ear one day over how disgusted he was about the conditions of the orphanage he was working in. About how he was going to try to do something about it. I warned him how hard that might be but, of course, I encouraged him. I know he’ll remember me. Let me try.”

  Charlie listened as April furiously poured Senzey’s story out into the mouthpiece of her phone. Then she saw her mother break into a grin.

  “He is? You’re pretty sure? Uh-huh.” She motioned to Charlie for a pen. Charlie ran in a flash to the front desk and back. “Okay. Thanks. I will. Bonswa. And be safe.”

  “Bingo,” she said to Charlie. They rushed inside to the others to share their news.

  “I can’t guarantee it’s him, but it’s worth a shot, isn’t it?” April seemed almost breathless.

&n
bsp; “Yes!” A rare flash of hope crossed Senzey’s face.

  “It may not be easy,” April added.

  “Who needs easy?” Bea asked.

  “These places can use all sorts of tricks when it comes down to making money.”

  “Don’t think you can scare us off that easy, woman.” Lizbeth stood and planted her hands onto her broad hips.

  Charlie’s eyes went wide. Gone was that Texan mouse they’d come across in Miami airport. In its place was a fiery tiger, as pushy as any self-respecting grandma had a right to be.

  “Mark my words, y’all,” she said as she focused her eyes on each of them, from one to the next. “We’re gonna get that child back, come hell or high water.”

  37

  The memory that came to Charlie was as vivid as a big-screen, high-definition movie. She was seated in a kitchen chair, her mother standing behind her trying to tame her unruly curls, when a tribeswoman showed up at their door.

  “It is time,” said the woman, who—like all the tribeswomen—looked to Charlie like a cat with whiskers, with sticks poking out of the piercings that ran along her lips. Another birth was about to occur in the village. Charlie’s hair left half-combed, her mother grabbed her medical kit, and, with Charlie following behind, walked out the door.

  It was a normal course of events in their household. Charlie’s mother had taken it upon herself to attend all the births, and had recently started to bring Charlie, who was probably no more than nine years old at the time. It will be good to have your help, her mother had told her.

  Charlie had been alarmed at first, hearing the sounds that emerged from the center of the communal round house, behind the wall of women, their painted bodies shielding the actual birth from view. But while the one giving birth screamed and wailed with pain, the others acted as though it were a party or a sporting match, shouting their encouragement and support as the baby was pushed from its mother’s womb. Luckily, April usually stayed in the background, there in case of emergency only. Charlie would grasp tightly at her hand, her eyes half hidden behind her mother’s arm. But it wasn’t long before she became used to the ritual, fascinated by the way the baby would be roused by a gourd full of water being poured over its tiny body, and how the mother would suction its nose and mouth using her own mouth. April had taught her that the people of the jungle did not believe that a baby was a real person until someone, usually the grandmother or mother, gave it its first touch, sharing their spirit with the newborn and making it human. Charlie always held her breath at that part, having learned that if nobody picked up the baby quickly enough, there would be the possibility that an evil spirit—in an attempt to enter into the tribe’s world—would jump into the infant’s body.

  On the particular day that Charlie was remembering, something else altogether happened. She heard the familiar shouts from the crowd as the baby emerged, and peeked around her mother for a sight of the child. Then she heard the newborn’s cry. But the women protecting the birth from view hadn’t budged. And instead of shouting out their encouragement, they seemed to be whispering among themselves, their eyes dark with concern. Then Charlie heard a second cry.

  Her mother turned to her and told her to go home. Tell Jim I’ll be home soon, she said. Charlie started to protest, until she saw the look in her mother’s eyes.

  The next part of the memory was hazier. That same night, she’d fallen asleep before her mother’s return. She was woken by her stepfather’s ranting, which wasn’t unusual. Normally she’d just cover her head with a pillow and try to go back to sleep. But this time she could swear she was detecting the sound of a baby whimpering between Jim’s shouts.

  “It’s none of our business,” she heard him yell as his fist hit the kitchen table.

  “It is our business, Jim. Every human life is our business.”

  Charlie remembered her surprise at the sound of April standing up to her husband. She also remembered waiting for the sound of the slap that was bound to follow. But this time her mother did not back down.

  “Just because it’s always been done this way doesn’t mean it’s right. You, of all people, should understand that, trying to get these folks to believe in what you do, instead of what their parents and grandparents and those before them have been taught.”

  “I’m not saying it’s right,” he bellowed. “I’m saying we cannot risk the anger of this community. You know how they feel about twins. I will be blamed for every single bad thing that happens in this place for as long as we’re here.”

  “I am not letting this baby starve. Think about what the Lord would have to say about that, Jim, about me, about you, knowing that you have the blood of an innocent child on your hands, a child that has been left in the jungle to rot or be eaten alive.”

  Charlie did not sleep that night. She didn’t remember how the argument ended, but she could still picture rising the next morning to the sight of her mother cooing over the tiniest creature she’d ever laid eyes on. It looked like a baby bird that had fallen out of the nest. She watched as her mother dipped a finger into a pot of warm milk, pressing it gently to the newborn’s pale lips.

  “You try with him,” she said, standing so Charlie could take a seat next to the crate her mother had lined with soft blankets. Charlie was dying to ask what had happened, why this child was here, under their roof, instead of with his own mother. But April looked as though she were about to drop from exhaustion, so Charlie remained silent as she tried in vain to get the infant to open his tiny mouth.

  “They think twins are a curse,” her mother said, as if reading her mind. “So one is abandoned, for the sake of the community.” Her mother began clearing the table of Jim’s breakfast dishes as she spoke, her face clouded with sadness. “If a person tries to touch it, feed it, or help it in any way, they say that the spirits will cause trouble for the entire village—sickness, drought, death.”

  “How did he get here?” Charlie asked, stroking the infant’s soft head with one finger.

  “I waited outside the round house until after dark, when I saw his mother leaving. I followed her into the jungle. She didn’t know.”

  Charlie recalled how she’d felt at that moment, picturing her mother bravely defying her own husband with her actions, risking the fury of the entire community to do what she knew was the right thing. But in the end, the baby didn’t make it. April had spent days doing her best to nurture the infant, patiently trying to get him to eat, silencing his weak cries to hide his presence from the outside world. Charlie did what she could to help, taking a shift during the day so her mother could sleep. Jim, of course, knew what was happening, but his pride made him pretend the child didn’t exist. When the baby died, it was only Charlie and her mother saying prayers beside the tiny grave tucked away under a tall palm tree deep in the jungle.

  That was the mother Charlie saw sitting in the passenger seat beside her now, leading their little group through the narrow backstreets of Port-au-Prince with the confidence of a four-star general. Lizbeth and Senzey chattered nervously in the back seat, their voices tinged with apprehension.

  It was a lucky break for all of them that Jim was away, having left that morning for some business in Les Cayes, about a four-hour drive from Port-au-Prince. Still, it wasn’t until after sunset that they finally dared to leave the hotel. Though things appeared to be slightly calmer, some of the streets were still blocked. Things could flare up at any time, Robert had warned as he saw them off at the hotel. But April did not feel it would be wise to wait any longer.

  They stood behind her as she knocked on the door, first gently rapping, then pounding harder with her fist. The door opened a couple of inches to reveal a pair of eyes peering out at them, then quickly closed. The women all looked to April.

  “Just wait,” she said, her gaze remaining fixed on the door.

  And then the door opened again, this time wider. A thickset Haitian man in a short-sleeved shirt and creased linen pants greeted April. He seemed taken aback by her pr
esence.

  He checked his watch. “What are you doing here so late at night, Mrs. Clark, and in the middle of all this unrest?” he asked, his concern a thin veneer masking an obvious discomfort with the situation. “Is there something I can do for you?” His lips curled into a tight smile.

  “I think maybe there is. May we come in?”

  One look at the others behind her and the smile melted away. “Of course, of course.”

  The orphanage was quiet, the children who lived there no doubt already in bed. Charlie could see Lizbeth’s shock at the sparseness of the place.

  “I’ve been told that perhaps this woman’s child is here,” April said.

  His eyes darted to Senzey. “I do not think I know this woman.”

  “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean her son isn’t here.”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “She left her child with a couple, a man and a woman, who were to bring him to an orphanage. She signed the papers. I think this is the place.”

  Now he shook his head.

  “A baby. Six months old.”

  The man didn’t budge.

  “Lukson,” Charlie said. “His name is Lukson.”

  “Perhaps he is being called another name now?” the man said, pulling at his collar, clearly becoming uneasy.

  “You do have a couple of infants here, if I recall, don’t you?” Charlie’s mother asked.

  “It is hard to know. Sometimes the children are moved around.”

  “You are the director of this orphanage, and you can’t keep track of the children in your care?”

  “So much trouble for one little milat,” he muttered.

  “So you do know who he is.”

  “I did not say that.” He looked away. “It is just that I—”

  “Well, if you do know where that mulatto, as you call him, is, it’s best you tell me right now. You see, Pastor Jim wants the baby reunited with his mother.” April pointed to Senzey. “Immediately.”