The Boiling Season

by Christopher Hebert

  One afternoon a few weeks before the opening of the hotel, I went to see Madame in her office, wanting to share my concerns. As loath as I was to be the bearer of bad news, I could not afford to repeat the mistake I had made years ago, failing to warn her of potential dangers.

  “Just to be safe, I thought I should mention it,” I said, closely attuned to any sign of anger. “Maybe it will turn out to be nothing. But I worry about having so much squalor so close by, and the effect it will have on the hotel and the guests.”

  Madame sat at her desk, thoughtfully folding her hands together. “I know what you mean.”

  “I apologize for raising this now,” I said. “It all happened more quickly than anyone expected.”

  “They can’t be moved,” she said with a sigh, “so for now we’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. I did the same.

  “I would be grateful to you, however,” she added as she turned toward the window, “if you would continue to monitor the situation for me.”

  “Of course.”

  She tapped a finger against her cheek. “Something like this requires the eyes of a native, someone sensitive to the ways of his people.”

  “Certainly, Madame. Although”—I hesitated as I moved toward the door—“I would never consider these to be ‘my people,’ exactly, and perhaps I don’t know them as well as—”

  “You know what I mean.” With a stiff, false smile, she showed me we were done.

  Since there was no way to reach Habitation Louvois from the port or the airport without having to pass by Cité Verd, we had to do what we could to minimize the shock. After our conversation, Madame ordered the street-front houses painted, the colors coordinated by the hotel’s interior designer. But not even a rainbow of reds and oranges and yellows and blues could hide cheap concrete and rusted sheet metal. It was embarrassing to imagine our guests’ first impression upon seeing the gawking peasants standing along the road in their rags.

  Yet I had to admit that this too was part of what made Habitation Louvois so astonishing a sight, for having cleared the gate and begun the descent down the drive, one felt as though one were on a bridge to another world. It had been nearly eight years since Madame had purchased the estate, and even I—despite having been here every moment since—found the transformation incredible. I could not get enough of the look on our guests’ faces, the same expression—as if it were a mask they took turns wearing—of awe that such a place as this could exist. They had traveled around the world, visiting places I had only read about. Madame had visited them too, and she knew there was nothing anywhere as beautiful as Habitation Louvois.

  On the day the last of these initial guests signed the ledger, M. Gadds—whom Madame had hired to manage the hotel—showed me their names, appending to them the details he was aware I did not know: he was a famous actor, she a world-renowned singer. There were painters and poets, businessmen and brokers. There was a tennis player, a producer, and many more about whom he could say only, “And she—she is very famous,” without being able to say precisely what she was famous for.

  And then M. Gadds showed me the ledger where he tracked future reservations. He turned page after page. There seemed to be no end in sight.

  “How far in advance does this go?” I asked.

  “That was for this year.” He put the ledger down and picked up another. “This one is filled up for next year.”

  It was only then that I truly began to understand what we had made, that this was to be not just another resort, a place like countless others that travelers looking to get away might choose. For the people in the ledgers, choice had nothing to do with it. We were an essential stop on their migratory path. And perhaps that was why Madame was able to get away with charging what she did. Hundreds of dollars every night, an amount someone like my father would find inconceivable. But some of the guests, those whose presence Madame wanted to ensure, were staying for free. She had even paid their airfare.

  “It’s an investment,” M. Gadds told me. “The whole world will be watching to see who comes.”

  Madame and M. Gadds had been working for months on a guest list for the party to commemorate the opening. In addition to the guests in residence, Madame had invited dignitaries from every foreign embassy, every man of note from our own government, and members of the island’s most prominent families. The first invitation had gone to President Duphay himself, and Madame had been ecstatic to receive, via the president’s personal messenger, a gracious note of acceptance.

  In the week leading up to the party, even the chambermaids came to life. Rather than loitering in doorways, chatting to one another with dust cloths over their shoulders, they could be seen scurrying along the paths with piles of fresh linen.

  Madame had hired a woman from the States to oversee the party preparation. Together with Jean, our new chef, she coordinated a buffet of local dishes.

  “They can get caviar anywhere,” Madame said. So instead we would have chicken and rice and beans and roast pig. A long table was set up by the manor house pool for the food and the champagne and the crystal bowl of rum punch. Workers strung the trees with lights, and the gardeners—having seen to it that the grounds were immaculate—dedicated themselves to gathering flowers, which a florist from the capital arranged into native bouquets. And a band came to rehearse in the pavilion, and the party planner from the States personally saw to training the waitstaff.

  The night of the party, the three white men, Madame’s investors, appeared in tuxedoes. Soon the local guests began to arrive. I stood for a time watching an almost unbroken string of headlights bob down the drive. Black sedans, parked nose to tail on the lawn, reflected the moonlight on their shiny hoods, making the grass appear like a glassy pond. A constellation of lit cigarettes showed where the chauffeurs had gathered, shooting dice near the stables.

  A few at a time, the other guests made their way from the villas to the manor house, attired in silk and satin. There was a casual grace to them, as if they were unaware of what was happening here—as if they had stumbled upon the party by accident. The locals, on the other hand, appeared stiff in their suits and their punctuality. I watched the two groups merge and then separate, gravitating toward their own kind. The patio began to look something like a chessboard, alternating clusters of light-skinned visitors and dark-skinned island dignitaries.

  Unlike the rest of the staff, outfitted in identical uniforms of red and black, I was given a tuxedo with a white jacket. It was yet another welcome sign that my days of passing out drinks were far behind me. I was free now to walk among these men and women not as a servant but as someone equally worthy of respect.

  Madame, in an elegant yellow gown, was leading tours of the estate, down the lighted paths to the villas and the garden and the pavilion—where the band played merengue—and the casino and the discotheque and the manor house and back to the pool, where the waitstaff stood by with ladles of punch. In between excursions she mingled near the verandah, where she could keep an eye on the incoming cars. I knew she was nervous that it was getting late, and there was as yet no sign of President Duphay.

  Yet even with the absence of the president, the gathering did not lack for luminaries. I was told the prime minster was in attendance, as was the secretary of the treasury.

  Standing beside the marble fountain that lapped into the pool, I was drawn into conversation with a distinguished gentleman of perhaps sixty, who introduced himself as Justice Charles. His beard was elegantly streaked with silver.

  “A judge?” I could not hide my delight.

  In response he grunted and gave the bottom of his glass a swirl.

  “It must be extremely difficult to become a judge.” I was eager for him to understand that I was not unfamiliar with his profession.

  “I suppose so,” he said with a yawn.

  How pleased my father would have been to see how far I had come.

  I said, “I am the man
ager of Habitation Louvois.”

  At that, Justice Charles turned toward me with a grin. “You work here, then?”

  “Why, yes,” I said with pleasure, as he draped his arm around my neck. “I helped to build everything you see.”

  He gave me a nod and squeezed my shoulder.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Excellent.” And with a quick glance to ensure we were alone, he led me a few steps away.

  “Maybe you could tell me,” he said, leaning in toward my ear, “where a man might go for a special treat?”

  “Well,” I said, lowering my voice until it matched his, “what kind of treat did you have in mind?”

  “So many lovely women,” the judge said with a wink. “But it’s so hard to tell which ones are available.”

  Just then—at the worst possible moment—I spotted one of the houseboys cresting the top of the stairs. A look of panic was on the boy’s face, and he was heading straight toward me.

  I tried to wave him off, but the moment he arrived, he reached out to grab my arm. “Monsieur,” he whispered hoarsely, “Monsieur.”

  I did my best to pull away, but the boy would not let go.

  “Would you pardon us for just a moment?” I asked Justice Charles. And then I dragged the boy a few steps away. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  “You have to come,” he said, oblivious of my anger. “You have to come right now. There’s trouble at the gate.”

  I turned toward the judge in embarrassment. “I’m terribly sorry,” I said. “It seems they cannot do anything without me.”

  The judge raised his glass to his lips, allowing a single ice cube to slip past.

  “I’ll be back in just a moment, and then we can finish our discussion.”

  With a flick of his wrist, he signaled that he understood.

  I grasped the houseboy by the sleeve, leading him up the stairs. I said, “This had better be important.”

  The moment we reached the drive, I could hear the trouble for myself, a vast commotion of voices up above us.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Villagers.”

  “How many?”

  He paused, struggling to come up with a number.

  “What do they want?”

  From where they stood, I doubted they could see much—the floodlights around the pool, perhaps, and the strings of white bulbs swaying from the trees. Did they really have nothing better to do?

  We found the guards crouched in their booth, passing back and forth a bent cigarette. For a moment they seemed to consider springing to their feet and pretending I had not caught them hiding here. But then they appeared to remember what was happening outside and decided it was wiser to stay where they were. What did they think would happen, with a wrought-iron gate between them and the crowd?

  “Get up, you cowards!”

  From the counter above their bowed heads I picked up one of their flashlights. The metal felt slick in my hand, and I realized I was sweating.

  Despite the moon and the lamppost, shadows prevailed. At the gate I could detect movement, but the forms were a blur, like animals camouflaged under a cover of trees. But there was no cover, just a jumble of bodies, a mass of arms and legs and heads and torsos that appeared to have fused together. It was as if all of Cité Verd had descended upon us. So many eyes were on me as I approached that I did not know where to look.

  Above my head I raised the dark flashlight, aiming it at the sky.

  “He has a gun,” someone shouted.

  “He’s going to shoot.”

  As the message traveled backward into the crowd, panic spread with it. There was a frantic scramble as the people in front tried to flee—but they continued to be pressed forward by the people behind them.

  “You have ten seconds to clear away,” I shouted.

  There were screams and scuffles and pushing in every direction. Coming closer, still wielding the flashlight, I saw faces jammed up against the bars growing twisted with desperation.

  As I began to lower the flashlight, an elderly woman threw herself against the man behind her, trying to get him to move.

  When it was over, more than ten seconds had passed, but no one among them had bothered to count. Huddled together across the road, stretching down toward Cité Verd as far as I could see, they looked to one another for confirmation that they were safe now. There must have been hundreds of them, young and old. As if standing at the end of a drive were the most fascinating opportunity ever presented to them.

  “Not a word of this to Madame,” I said to the houseboy. “Just let me know if they return.”

  “As for you,” I said to the guards, “if I have to do your jobs for you again, you’ll be joining them. Do you understand?”

  With pitiful nods they showed they did.

  As I hurried back to the pool, I wondered what I would have done if they had refused to move. The advantage of dealing with people like these was that they were easily fooled. But there was a danger as well—one never knew what they might do. Even the most well-trained dog will sometimes bite. President Mailodet had understood this better than anyone, and perhaps that was why his first response had always been brutality.

  My greatest fear, upon returning to the party, was that word of what was happening at the gate had already reached the guests. To my added distraction, I could find Justice Charles nowhere. My only consolation was that our conversation, however brief, appeared to have made just as big an impression on him as it had on me.

  Beside the buffet, a thin white man in wire-framed glasses was talking with a tall blonde in a bib of diamonds. “I can’t stand the poverty back home,” the man was saying, “but at least here they can always pick fruit and vegetables if they get hungry.”

  The woman nodded in agreement. “It’s tropical poverty as opposed to cold poverty. In a place like this you hardly even feel it.”

  A heavyset mulatto in a tuxedo leaned in behind the woman, skewering a shrimp with a firm, sharp jab. His thin, elegant lips were perched upon a long, prominent chin, and when he smiled he looked like a tulip blossoming. He swirled the shrimp in a pot of sauce. “If we are to postpone indulgences and luxury until the very last person on earth is fed and clothed,” the man pronounced in heavily accented English, “it would be a very boring world indeed.”

  Thinking of the people I had known growing up, I nearly added that it would be a world in which no one would bother to feed or clothe himself, preferring to depend on handouts.

  At the other end of the patio, Madame came walking up the steps from Villa Bacall, the remains of what must have been a small tour group trailing behind her. As she passed in front of one of the floodlights, I noted with worry the flush in her cheeks. She was carrying on a distracted conversation with the man walking beside her. In a few more steps they reached the pool, and the man suddenly turned in my direction. The moment I saw his face, I knew he was someone I had met before, but I could not place him. He was short and well rounded across the middle, looking weary and curiously uncomfortable, as if uncertain of the company in which he found himself.

  For several minutes, I watched the man from afar. He kept tugging at the sleeves of his tuxedo, as if they were trying to escape to higher ground. Madame was called away, leaving the man standing by himself, surrounded by men and women in conversation, none of whom appeared to invite his participation. A waiter balancing a tray of glasses filled with punch stopped to offer the man a drink, and the man watched as the waiter lowered his tray. He took a long time considering the punch, staring blankly at the glasses, so long that the waiter’s arm grew tired and he needed to use the back of a chair for support. When still the man was unable to decide, the waiter selected a glass for him, brusquely raising the tray back above his shoulder and rushing off.

  Alone again, the man lifted the glass and took a small, indifferent sip. As he looked around at the crowd gathered on the patio, searching, it seemed, for a familiar face among these strangers, his eyes met mine. He lo
oked at me as he always had, with condescension and a touch of boredom. But then in an instant—it must have been the moment he recognized me—the look turned to trepidation, and I saw just how badly the minister of health had aged.

  He looked away from me then, reaching out for the elbow of a small mulatto woman who at that moment came up beside him. His wife was not a particularly attractive woman, but she had a kind face and she glanced up when he touched her, her fingers brushing against his. The gesture, it seemed to me, was meant to be comforting, and there was more behind it, I guessed, than I would ever know.

  “Monsieur.” The same houseboy reached up to touch my arm. Did he have no idea how to comport himself around superiors?

  “What?”

  He froze at my glance.

  “What do you want?” I repeated, losing patience.

  He was almost breathless. “The president is here.”

  The motorcade was still winding its way down the drive when I reached the front steps of the manor house. A few dozen people had gotten there before me, including some of the foreign guests, who stood in a clump, chatting with bored, lazy gestures, uncertain why they were there, regretting now that they had followed the rest of the crowd.

  There were three cars traveling together down the drive, identical black sedans as graceful as cats. They slowed so gently—in perfect unison—that it was impossible to tell when they finally stopped moving. Even the foreigners halted their conversations.