The Boiling Season

by Christopher Hebert

  When she moved in, more than a century and a half later, Mme Freeman took care to furnish the villa with restored pieces from the colonial period, including an armoire thought to have originally belonged to the general’s wife. But the object of which Madame was most proud was an original painting signed by Mme Antoinette Louvois, which hung in the sitting room. It was perhaps the only painting by Mme Louvois to have remained on the island after she and her husband fled. In delicate strokes of oil carefully turned and daubed to capture every realistic detail, Mme Louvois had re-created the very view of the bay one could see outside even now, and more than once during Mme Freeman’s absences I had carried the painting out to the terrace where Mme Louvois must have painted it all those years ago. To stand where the general’s wife stood and to see what she saw was to have been present at the birth of the nation. Some of the trees were different—old ones having fallen and new ones having taken their place. But the bay had not changed, although it was true that naval frigates, such as the ones in the painting, were long gone. By now so too were the ocean liners that had been anchored there just a few weeks before. Soon there would be no ships at all, except the occasional lilting barge bearing peasants and charcoal from the north. Whether or not it was a good painting, I was unqualified to say; I had no basis for making such judgments. But if the purpose of art is to make us feel pleasure and pain, then it was a very great work indeed.

  The night of the storm, while stranded in Madame’s villa, I spent a long time sitting on the sofa looking at the painting, and I thought how peculiar a coincidence it was, finding myself here in Mme Louvois’s former sanctuary on the very day our hotel came to its end. I wondered how Mme Louvois had felt when she learned her husband’s army had faced its last defeat, and if, as her maids loaded her clothes and jewels and paintings into crates to be hauled to the hold of the ship that would return her to her proper home, she felt any regret or nostalgia for what she was leaving behind. I cannot help thinking she truly did come to love the island, and perhaps she even loved some of the men who had sat for her and let her capture their likenesses on canvas. Perhaps that was why she had taken those canvases with her, so that she would be able to remember the men when she was back again in her own country and the island itself became a long-forgotten dream.

  I awoke the next morning with the sun in my face. I opened my eyes to find a woman standing above me, the jalousies open behind her.

  “I trust everyone is gone?” she said.

  The light at her back made her seem to glow. I gave no thought to answering her, for it seemed impossible to me that what I was seeing was real. Was she Antoinette Louvois, come to paint me? The woman reached out and touched my wrist, which dangled from the edge of the sofa.

  “I trust everyone is gone?” she said again.

  “They are.”

  She went out to the terrace and returned a moment later with her bags, and as she closed the shutters behind her, the light faded and I saw that it was Mme Freeman. Panic brought me to my feet, but I had only half risen when the pain in my head knocked me back down. From the bedroom, Madame called.

  “Is there anything to eat?”

  “I’ll bring you something,” I said, and I had just enough sense to grab the empty bottle as I stumbled outside.

  As one’s mind does in such moments, mine immediately sought to repeat the events of the last few minutes. But no matter how much I wished to be able to recall every nuance of Madame’s expression upon finding me on her sofa, I could not. I could only assume she had been furious. No doubt she had seen the bottle. And how could I explain about the storm of the night before, now that all trace of it had evaporated in the morning sun?

  I was still so upset and distracted when I reached the kitchen that I actually called out to Georges, and I felt a moment’s anger when he failed to respond.

  I was surprised to note they had taken care to clean up before they left. The pots hung from the hooks in rows above the butcher knives and ladles, which were themselves arranged according to size. Had this, too, been M. Gadds’s order?

  There was no food. This should not have surprised me, for I knew we had received no deliveries in days. But I was in no mood for more setbacks.

  On a table in the dining room I found the dishes Georges had brought me the day before, all of which I had left uneaten. Everything had spoiled.

  I had to make do with what I could gather outside, assembling a breakfast of mango and papaya.

  “I’m sorry,” I said when I returned to Madame, sitting at the table on her terrace. “We seem to have run out of pastries. And I don’t know what happened to the last of the coffee.”

  She regarded the tray with a flicker of displeasure.

  “There’s water in the pitcher,” I said apologetically.

  Madame seemed neither angry nor pleased. “Why don’t you sit down and have some of this?”

  Although I wanted nothing more than to join her, I suspected she would be more likely to forget the morning if I were not here to remind her.

  “I should get to work.”

  Madame poured herself a glass of water. “There will be plenty of time for work.”

  With her foot she pushed out the chair opposite hers at the table, and indeed, Madame seemed to believe what she said. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the terrace, looking out over the bay. Several times I went to fill the pitcher, but she would otherwise not allow me to leave her side, though neither did she seem to have anything in particular to say to me. Not once did she ask about my presence in her villa that morning. She gave every indication of having forgotten.

  As the sun touched the treetops to the west, she turned to me and said, “What should we have for dinner?”

  I recalled having seen one last chicken in the yard, and I told her about it, glad at last to have something to offer. “I’m afraid, however, that I’m not a very good cook.”

  “And I’m not much of a butcher,” she said. “If you’ll do that, I’ll take care of the rest.”

  So I did as she asked, and I plucked the bird, too. By necessity her preparation was simple. In the herb garden behind the kitchen she picked sprigs of thyme and tarragon. With the chicken roasting in the oven she went back to her villa to freshen up. For me it was an occasion to get out of the clothes I had been wearing since yesterday. By the time she returned, I had set a table in the dining room, with a bouquet of her favorite bee orchids arranged as a centerpiece.

  “It’s been years since I did anything like this,” Madame said as she opened the oven, “but I believe it’s done.”

  “I have no doubt it will be delicious.”

  While I carved, she went to see what sort of wine we had left.

  For a meal assembled so quickly and with so little, it came out remarkably well. What the chicken lacked in seasoning, it made up for in tenderness. I complimented her.

  “Oh, I’m not helpless,” she said. “I know my way around a kitchen. I used to enjoy cooking quite a lot. But of course it’s hard to find the time. And since my husband passed away, I’ve lost my motivation. It rarely seems worth it to go to such trouble for oneself.”

  “I can see how that would be so.”

  “Have you never been married?” she said.

  “No.”

  Madame tilted the wine bottle over her glass, only to discover it was empty. Aside from the single glass she had poured me, which remained untouched, she had drunk the rest herself.

  “If you don’t mind my asking—,” she said.

  “You may ask me anything.”

  “I was wondering why you never married.”

  I had not been aware that my thoughts were drifting, but suddenly I felt my pulse quicken. “Married?” I said, and I shook my head, trying to dislodge the image that the word had planted there. And then I was instantly paralyzed by the thought that somehow she had seen it too. I did not mean it, I wanted to say. It was unintentional. Between Madame and me there could never—should never—be any such thin
g. I respected her more than anyone I had ever known, but we were partners in a different sense. Anything more was distasteful even to consider.

  “When I was growing up,” I said, “too many of the boys I knew wound up with wives and children without ever really meaning to. It just seemed to happen, and then they were trapped. Suddenly they had families to take care of, and they were stuck in the neighborhood forever. Or, in order to leave, they had to disappear, leaving their families behind. I could never do that.”

  “Maybe some of them were happy,” Madame said. “Maybe some of them didn’t want to leave. Maybe they liked raising families.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “My father never wanted to leave. But what kind of life is that?”

  Madame clenched her napkin and brought it up to her chin. “Maybe you’ll want to now, now that you’ve left and you have a new life. Maybe now you’re ready.”

  “Now there is more to do than ever. We have to be ready when the guests return.”

  Madame set her elbows on the table, folding her arms together. “Did you never wish for something more?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like some other sort of work?”

  “My father wanted me to be a lawyer,” I said. “Or a doctor. He wanted me to help people.”

  She smiled somewhat distantly. “I think you have. People need a place like this to come to. Even if they don’t come, they need to know it exists.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “although I don’t think my father would agree. He would have approved only if we had torn down the gate and let everyone in.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Back home we have a name for that sort of thing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Out of respect,” she said, “I’ll keep it to myself. It’s obviously not a philosophy I subscribe to, but I think people should be free to think whatever they want, however naïve it might be.”

  “I still loved him,” I said, “even though we agreed about almost nothing.”

  Madame’s gaze regained its warmth. “You’ve told me what your father wanted. What about you? What did you want to be?”

  “I never really thought about it,” I said. “I just needed to get away. Opportunities came, and I took them.”

  “And are you glad you did? Don’t say yes just to avoid hurting my feelings.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I cannot imagine things being any different.” And in truth just then I found myself wondering what it would be like if it could always be just like this moment, the two of us here together, enjoying what we had made. There need be nothing impure about it. Merely two friends who understood one another. We did not need guests. We both knew no one had ever been able to appreciate the place as she and I had.

  “You wouldn’t have chosen another path?” she said.

  I shook my head, sorry to have to abandon my reverie. “There was no other path. It was either this or the world I grew up in. I wanted something different.”

  Madame lowered her eyes, but there was no hiding the sadness they contained. “I wanted something different, too.”

  And then she placed her hands abruptly on the table, signaling a sudden change in conversation. She glanced toward the kitchen. “I don’t suppose there’s any coffee?”

  I shook my head.

  “You must think me a terrible coward for not being here yesterday.” She had turned away from me, as if she were speaking to the tapestry on the wall.

  “Of course not.”

  “It would have been too much,” she said. “I couldn’t bear to see everyone leave.”

  “You could have done no differently.”

  “My only comfort,” she said, “is that they’ll have no trouble finding work. Their experience here will be invaluable to them.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s getting late,” she said, rising suddenly from the table. “I’ve enjoyed our conversation. Tomorrow at eight I’ll take breakfast in my office.”

  And I found myself unexpectedly disappointed, as she crossed the lobby and stepped into the darkness, that she did not suggest that in the morning I should join her.

  After it had been clear all day, the evening sky brought with it a blanket of clouds. By the time night fell, the stars had disappeared, and even the moon was little more than a hazy suggestion of light. I washed the dishes, and afterward when I went outside I could barely see my way up the drive to the gate. Once there, I found the road equally dark. But I knew it could not be clouds obscuring the market, less than a kilometer down the road, nor the houses along the way. It seemed equally impossible that a blackout had struck everything but the estate. Almost nobody in Cité Verd had electricity to begin with.

  The only possible explanation was that they had extinguished their kerosene lamps and fires on purpose. I wondered if life had grown so dangerous out there that even people locked inside their houses found the greatest safety in not being seen, either in the flesh or as shadows.

  A curfew had been in effect for a couple of weeks, though I doubted it was necessary. Anyone with any sense did not need to be told it was unwise to go out at night. And anyone who did need to be told was unlikely to listen.

  Distantly from up the mountain road I heard an engine, a car coming slowly, its shocks straining over the gullies and ruts. It was an army jeep, and in the flare of the taillights as it passed I could make out a man kneeling in the back with a machine gun in his hands.

  No longer, it seemed, were the security forces fighting alone. Now the gangs of Cité Verd—the supposed resistance—had the army to contend with, too. Perhaps President Duphay had finally decided to bring an end to this foolishness once and for all.

  The jeep rumbled its way through Cité Verd. Not until its sound had faded did I at last hear footsteps on the gravel. On the far side of the road, walking in the black, I saw a figure too small to be a soldier. I called out in barely more than a whisper.

  The footsteps stopped. “What do you want?”

  “Over here,” I said. “At the gate.” The boy crossed the street tentatively, and when he reached the gate, I went into the guard booth and turned on the light. Though just a bare bulb, it was strong enough that I could see the boy’s dark face, and he mine. He was at most fifteen, wearing a red-and-white jersey.

  “What’s your name?” I said.

  “Hector.”

  “Hector,” I said, “I need you to run an errand for me.”

  He glanced down the road toward where the jeep had disappeared. And then he glanced past me to the manor house at the bottom of the long drive, drawn like a moth to the lights.

  “I need you to go to Etienne’s Bakery and pick up some croissants.”

  “Some what?”

  “Never mind,” I said, handing him a slip of paper. “I’ve written it down. Just give this to Etienne, and he will give you what I need.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Never mind. Afterward you must stop by the market and get a kilo of coffee. Here is the money, and here is the fare you’ll need for the bus. You must deliver it first thing in the morning. I will be waiting here at six. I’ll give you twice as much when you deliver it. If you do well, there will be other jobs.”

  Again the boy peered over my shoulder. “Do you live here?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’ll need to get an early start in the morning.”

  He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “What’s it like in there?”

  “If you do well,” I said, “I’ll show you some day.”

  “Show me now.”

  “It’s dark now. There’s nothing to see. Remember,” I said, “I need these things by six. No later.”

  That night, instead of sleeping, I waited for the army jeep to find its target. But for once all of Cité Verd lay in peace.

  In the unaccustomed quiet I unexpectedly found myself entertaining a peculiar thought. From the start I had wanted nothing more than for the turmoil to cease, and I knew only President Duphay could make that
happen. But I realized now that he could not prevail on his own. He needed the security forces, or the army, or both, to crush the resistance. But how could I align myself with the security forces, whose existence had caused me nothing but trouble? And the army? Success for them would inevitably be just another excuse for a coup. Who knew what even greater trouble that would bring. But was there more to hope for in the victory of a gang of peasants and slum dwellers? Not that I could see. The only truly acceptable ending was the impossible one—that somehow all three would manage to wipe each other out, leaving us in peace.

  The next morning at six, after gathering a small basket of fruit, I stood at the gate and waited. With every passing minute I felt a fool for having trusted a stranger—a boy no less—with such an important task. But what choice did I have?

  A market woman approached, balancing a basket atop her head.

  Did she have any coffee?

  No.

  Nor did the woman following after her.

  “Did you see anyone along the way with coffee?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “There’s some at the market.”

  But I could not risk leaving the gate.

  In a couple of minutes, two boys strolled by, one of them walking a bicycle with a bent front tire. I called them over and asked if they knew Hector.

  “We know lots of people,” said the boy with the bicycle.

  “Hector,” I said. “He wears a red-and-white jersey.”

  “Hector is his cousin,” said the boy with the bicycle. There were bruises all over his face and arms.

  “He is not,” the other boy said. He was tall and thin and covered with a pox of acne. “My cousin is in the army.”

  “He’s not in trouble,” I said. “I gave him money to buy something for me.”

  “I’ll buy it for you.” The tall boy took a step forward. “Give me the money. What do you want? I can get you a gun.”

  “No, you can’t,” said the boy with the bike.

  “I can too. From my cousin. He can get anything.”