The Boiling Season

by Christopher Hebert

  “Today,” Hector began, “we have lost something great.” I was surprised by the sound of his voice, coarse and deep and confident. But there was no denying that it suited the somber expression on his face. “But if you came here to mourn,” he said after a suitable pause, “you have come to the wrong place. Dragon Guy was a brave soldier, the most courageous among us. And I know all of you loved him like he was your brother. He was your brother as much as he was mine. But we are at war, and there is no place in war for sentiment.”

  Around me, I saw many of the men and women sharing glances, but no one was willing to risk so much as a whisper. “This was not our first loss,” Hector continued, and as an afterthought he raised his fist into the air. It was an odd moment for such a gesture, but he appeared to have little idea what else to do with his hands. “It will not be our last,” he added. “Many of our comrades have been killed. But I ask you to remember this: for every blow we’ve suffered, we’ve dealt two in return. That’s how it is when the weak fight back.”

  As his eyes swept the crowd, I felt a strange unease come over me. Where had he found these words?

  “They are strong,” the boy added with another pump of his fist, “only when the fight is easy. Our courage increases their cowardice. That is why even though the man who calls himself our president can offer pay and uniforms and weapons, it is our army, not his, that continues to grow. Look around you. Look into the face of your neighbor.” Everyone around me did as he commanded. They were transfixed. “That is the face of a soldier. That is a face François Duphay fears. Even those who once said it was impossible to fight back have joined us now. And we hold out our arms to welcome them. It is never too late,” he thundered, “to join the side of the right and good.”

  As the aphorisms continued to fall from his lips, my bafflement grew. I could more easily believe he was somehow reading these words—despite his still almost complete illiteracy—than that he was making them up. What had happened to the boy I knew?

  “There has never been a time when we’ve needed them more than we do now. M. Duphay understands that desperation is a poor battle companion. He knows that if he does not crush us now, we will crush him. From this day forward, all our efforts and all our energy must be focused on the fight ahead. We have God on our side, we have right on our side.” He clenched his arms and brought together his fists. “We have everything we need.”

  Even as his voice rose and swelled, it was lost in the storm of cheers. Hector stood at the very edge of the stage, his face displaying none of the fire of his words. It was as if he were not aware that it was he everyone was applauding. But I knew that was not so. This platform, made of scrap boards and bent nails, could just as convincingly have been made of marble and topped with a golden throne. Despite his conviction and bearing, I could imagine him practicing his proud, expansive beneficence before Madame’s gold-framed mirror. His eyes gave away the rest: the quick, subtle scanning of faces, searching for proof that the crowd had embraced him. And as his eyes traveled in my direction, glancing from man to man, I thought to climb down from the bench and lower my head, slipping unseen behind someone else. But when the moment came, I froze. His eyes locked on mine, and mine locked on his, and both of us wanted to look away, but neither of us could. So long were we stuck together like that that others in the crowd began to turn their heads to see what it was that had stolen Hector’s attention. Were they simply curious? Was it jealousy?

  The letting go happened in an instant. Suddenly aware of the attention he was attracting, Hector tore his eyes away and raised his hand. The applause, which had only just begun to wane, roared again. Hector lowered his arm and took a step backward, and there to meet him was René-Thérèse, wearing as usual her red head scarf. In her outspread hands she held a bright yellow garment, which she proceeded to drape over Hector’s shoulders, affixing the corners of the cape across his throat with a familiar brooch. And as Hector turned to walk away, he glanced once more in my direction, bestowing me with something between a wink and a smile. Then he disappeared back into the villa, the cloth of one of Madame’s favorite dresses billowing slightly behind him.

  Just like that, the day that had begun in sorrow for everyone but me had completed its reversal. Yet whereas I had worked to guard my optimism, the men and women surrounding me in the courtyard saw no such need. That which they had lost—even things that could not be replaced—Hector had somehow given back.

  How was it possible? How was any of this possible? Could that really have been Hector, the boy who ran my errands, the boy I was teaching to read? How could such a transformation happen? And how could they so readily embrace him, offering up their allegiance? Did they imagine the mere fact of their shared blood meant that Hector and Dragon Guy were one and the same? Could they not see he was just a child? Or were they desperate enough to have accepted anyone who happened to step onto that stage?

  I did not go looking for Marc. There was no longer any point. Hector had seen to it that there was nothing I could say now to convince anyone to leave. Was that it, an opportunity that lasted no more than an hour? Had that really been my only chance? And how was it possible that, given the same chance, a boy could turn himself into a king? Could it really be that I had misjudged him all along?

  A hand fell on my shoulder. René-Thérèse, her face proud and regal again, looked down at me from her great height. She took hold of my wrist. “Hector would like to see you.”

  This, our second walk together through the villa paths, passed in silence. I had no words to offer her for Dragon Guy. What was there to say to someone mourning a loss you yourself did not regret? And besides, why should she not offer her condolences for what had been visited upon me? The way she looked at me, courteous but cold, made it impossible for me to know whether she had come to realize it was me she had escorted that night so long ago. And even if she had, would it have given her cause for anger? There had to be a code for forgiving someone so soundly defeated as me.

  Back at the courtyard, the crowds had already dispersed. Alone in front of the door, a fat, shirtless man wobbled out of his wicker chair. When he stood, he was even taller than René-Thérèse. There was no mystery about his function. Without needing to be asked, I turned toward the wall and raised my arms.

  “Is this really necessary?” I asked.

  “After what happened to Dragon Guy,” René-Thérèse said blandly, “we can take no chances.”

  Having found nothing of interest in my possession, the thug stepped aside.

  René-Thérèse pressed her fingers into the small of my back. “Go ahead.”

  Like a cat in repose, Hector lay sprawled on Madame’s chaise longue, the ceiling fan spinning effortlessly above him. I felt as if I were watching some crude parody of ancient Rome—an absurd emperor lost in self-reverence. Yet it was just as he said: there was no trace of sentiment. No sign of Dragon Guy. Even his brother’s unworn shirt was gone from the wardrobe. There was nothing about Hector that did not belong here, and yet it appeared he had changed neither himself nor the room. All of Madame’s belongings remained. It was as if the people in her photographs had become Hector’s friends, Hector’s family. There had never been a Dragon Guy. Still in its spot on the wall across from the sofa, Mme Louvois’s painting somehow appeared more brightly lit than ever before. Had the evening sun that had been fixed above the bay for nearly two hundred years circled round to midday? What would Mme Louvois have thought of all of this? I imagined she might have been pleased—in a wicked sort of way—to see that her husband, having lost his island, was now losing his home as well. But what about the general’s servants—his wife’s models? Would they have welcomed Hector as their king?

  “How did you get it to work?” I asked.

  As if half asleep, Hector slowly turned his head and glanced up at the ceiling. Such problems as a lack of electricity could not be made to concern him. “You can’t expect us to tell you all our secrets.”

  For the first time I notice
d we were not alone in the room. In addition to René-Thérèse there was an older man sitting at the table. He had eyes like melting ice cubes, cold and remarkably clear, with a faint halo of light, piercing blue. Around his neck he wore a string of white seashells. I had never seen him before, but I had the distinct impression that he knew me.

  There was one other person, too. At Madame’s desk a young woman was hunched over a tablet of paper. The scratch of her pencil was almost as steady as the fan.

  “Good afternoon, Mlle Trouvé,” I said.

  Her pencil came to a sudden stop. “Shall we continue, sir?” she said, turning to Hector. “We were almost done.”

  Hector rolled back onto his side, head propped up on his folded arm. “Where did we leave off?”

  Mlle Trouvé lifted the page. “ ‘I’m giving you one last chance to retreat.’ ” Her voice was tired and flat.

  Hector closed his eyes. I thought I saw his lips move, silently repeating the words.

  René-Thérèse sat down on the sofa, leaning back and folding her long, thin legs beneath her, like a deckhand stowing unneeded sails. From a basket on the end table she selected a mango. As I watched her work at the peel, I realized she looked less like a widow than like a bored, idle girl.

  “Just leave it there,” Hector said, nodding decisively. “There’s nothing more to say.”

  With Hector’s eyes still cast upon the ceiling and René-Thérèse’s on the fruit, Mlle Trouvé looked to the man in the shell necklace, who in turn nodded his assent. Only then did Mlle Trouvé put down her pencil, making it clear whose opinion it was that mattered.

  With a long, creaking stretch, Hector rose from the chaise longue. René-Thérèse had worked the skin from the fruit and Hector sauntered over to her, snapping open the blade of a knife he had hidden who knew where. The mango lay cupped in her open palms, and Hector lifted it with a stab, raising the slippery fruit to his lips.

  And then he turned to me with a smile. “It’s good to see you again, monsieur.”

  At the desk, Mlle Trouvé was collecting her things. I scanned her face for traces of the shame she must have felt at being used like this. Even I was surprised they could be so crass, exploiting the most moral and intelligent person they could find. Then again, given their success with Hector, why should they stop there?

  The young woman’s expression was perfectly blank, as if her greatest wish were to pretend none of this were happening. I could not blame her.

  “Is this some sort of joke?” I said, shifting my gaze back to Hector. “Your brother is dead, and this is how you behave?”

  Hector blinked for a moment in silence, as if struggling to get his eyes to focus. “This is no time for sentiment—”

  “I heard that already,” I said, gesturing toward the stage. “But you seem to have plenty of time for acting like a buffoon.”

  Mlle Trouvé started toward the door, and for a moment I considered following her.

  Instead I took the rest of them in, one at a time. “Pardon my saying so, but you are fools. All of you.”

  René-Thérèse and the man in the shell necklace received the news with curious indifference. All they seemed to care about was Hector’s reaction. As if the boy and I were opponents on opposite ends of a tennis court, they turned to look at him. The ball was his now. They wanted to see what he would do with it.

  There was no wicked return. No dramatic backhand. It was as if the ball had struck him square in the chest. Watching Hector’s face fall, I realized it was more true than ever that I was the only one who truly cared for him. Army or not, I was all he had left.

  “Do you not understand what will happen?” I said. “President Duphay knows you’re here. They will come. You have children here. And women.”

  A sneer slid across his face. “You’re just afraid of what they’ll do to your precious estate.”

  In fact, it was only then that I realized I had not been thinking of the estate at all; I had been thinking of Hector.

  I came forward and grasped his arm. “Please,” I said. “Don’t do this.”

  Hector lowered his eyes upon my hands as if they belonged to a leper. “What do we have to lose?”

  “Everything,” I said. “We will lose everything.”

  * * *

  Below my balcony Hector’s army assembled at dusk, and I do not know how so many men managed to make so little noise. It was as if they were gathered for prayer, rather than battle. And indeed, standing at the front of his nearly three hundred troops, Hector bowed his head. His men did the same.

  And then Hector lifted his eyes, and he touched his hand to his heart. “Tonight,” he shouted, and his voice seemed to catch. “Tonight,” he tried again, “we will turn the moonlight red.”

  Tonight they did not march up the drive. Instead they rushed past Hector like a waterfall over a precipice, screaming for blood.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  In the morning, on the grass around the guesthouse, too numerous to count, lay the bodies of the injured and the dying and the dead, with nurses scurrying from one to the next in a futile effort to tell them apart. The men who were still among the living clung to their comrades’ sides, offering encouragement and bonhomie. It was strange how even the faces of the grievously wounded cast a determined peacefulness, as if desperate to prove how pleased they were with how things had turned out. Despite the carnage, the mood was almost gleeful. It was just as Hector had said: for these men, bloodshed had become an end in itself. They were content to keep on fighting until everyone and everything was dead.

  A young woman with dreadlocks and a baby on her hip told me where to go, pointing down the path. Second on the right.

  The sun had only just risen and the courtyard was empty, but I could hear voices coming from inside one of the villas. A man came out and emptied a tin cup into the dust, scratched his crotch, and then went back inside.

  The villa I was looking for was the farthest from the path. The room was badly lit and became more so as my body blocked out the scant bit of rusty light that had been sneaking in the partially open door. Raoul lay on his back in bed, his unbuttoned shirt twisted and bunched around his waist and arms.

  I knocked, and his eyes fluttered open. He struggled to rise up on his elbows.

  “Who’s there?” he said hoarsely.

  “It’s me.”

  He pivoted slowly, laboriously swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “What time is it?”

  “Early.”

  “Is there water?”

  On the desk stood a crystal vase smudged with dust and fingerprints. I poured the last of the water into a cup.

  Hunched forward over his knees, Raoul gripped the side of the bed with both hands. He let go with one to take the cup. He drank slowly, but still some of the water dribbled from his mouth.

  I placed the cup back on the desk, and when I turned around again I saw him struggling to get up.

  “Take my hand.”

  His body felt as slight as a blanket. As I helped him up and guided him, arm in arm, toward the door, I marveled at the ease with which we were able to slip into this intimacy, as we never had before. With everything else that had changed, perhaps it was only natural that this would too.

  Once outside, he paused to catch his breath, leaning against the patio wall with his eyes closed.

  “This sort of thing is meant for younger men.”

  For a moment I did not know what to say. I was quite certain those were the first words he had ever volunteered in my presence.

  “That’s true for both us,” I said.

  His expression was dubious. “You? You’re still a young man.”

  “I wish I felt that way.”

  “Look at me.” He scratched his white-whiskered chin with his sleeve. “This is what an old man looks like. Do you feel like this?”

  If I told him sometimes I did, I knew he would not believe me, and I was not about to put so unprecedented a conversation as this at risk.

&nb
sp; He pointed toward the corner of the patio, where two bedraggled chairs squatted side by side in the shade.

  “They’ve been working you too hard,” I offered as I helped him over, curious to see if he would continue.

  Settling into the chair, Raoul chased away a yawn.

  “Do you know,” he said sleepily, “I’d never been in one of these before. The whole time I was working here, I never went inside. A glance through the doorway once or twice. That was all.”

  “You could have,” I said. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.” Perhaps a lot would have been different, I wanted to add, if you had ever bothered to speak.

  “Do you ever think about what it would have been like to be one of those people? Lying about all day like a lizard. Nothing to worry about but that your skin didn’t burn.”

  “I know what it was like,” I said. “I was there.”

  He rolled his head toward me, squinting in my face. “I mean what it was like to be one of them, not just to see them.”

  “It was paradise.”

  “Was it?” He seemed not at all convinced. What did he know of paradise?

  “You’ll never understand what a paradise it was.”

  He leaned back and closed his eyes, as if he were trying to conjure it up in a dream. I was almost sorry to have to interrupt.

  “Raoul,” I said, “I need your help.”

  He opened one eye cautiously.

  “Talk to Hector,” I said. “He refuses to listen to me.”

  “What am I supposed to talk to him about?”

  “He’s making a terrible mistake,” I said. “He’s going to get hurt. He’s going to get all these people killed.”

  Raoul shared a bemused smile. “What did you expect him to do?”