The Boiling Season

by Christopher Hebert

  Mlle Trouvé reached the girl quickly, and it did not take long to soothe her. Holding the girl in her arms, she gently touched her head.

  “You’ll be fine,” I heard her say. “It’s just a scratch. . . . Just a scratch.”

  And soon the girl was smiling and holding on to Mlle Trouvé’s hand as they walked together over to the steps and sat down. In a moment, I was there as well, smiling down at the little girl, who suddenly stopped her breathless reconstruction of the fall.

  “Mademoiselle,” I said, turning to the young schoolteacher.

  She seemed surprised by my appearance. Wanting to assure her that there was no cause for alarm, I said, “I was sorry we didn’t have a chance to talk the other day. I looked for you after you left Hector’s.”

  She nodded.

  “I know how difficult this must be for you,” I said. “I understand. I’ve long thought that you and I have a great deal in common.”

  She looked up at me uncertainly, a question forming on her lips that she seemed unable to complete.

  “For the good of the children you have made incredible sacrifices. I have made sacrifices too.”

  “I see,” she said. An uncomfortable look came upon her face, and I noticed her gaze straying. Only then did I realize the children had stopped playing. Behind me on the grass they had assembled, listening in on our conversation.

  “Children,” Mlle Trouvé said, getting quickly to her feet, “it’s time to resume your lessons.”

  “I’m sorry if I intruded,” I said, watching as she led the children up the stairs to the casino.

  “Good-bye, monsieur.” She left me there with a quick, distracted wave.

  After she left, I remained out on the casino lawn a short while longer, replaying in my mind our clumsy conversation. Almost none of the things I had wanted to say had managed to leave my mouth. You and I have a great deal in common. She must have thought me mad. What I had wanted to say—what I thought she alone could understand—was that all the things we had endured were about to be over. The end was upon us. And it was time for us to decide what we would do. Hector and his followers had made their choice. If they wished to die here, taking their stand, there was nothing more I could do to stop them. But for Mlle Trouvé and the children and me it was not yet too late. Or so I hoped; I had wasted our best opportunity, and there was no way of knowing how much time we had left.

  I started off down the path, walking in no particular direction. It did not matter where I went; I just needed to keep moving, to retain what little momentum I still possessed.

  In that state I arrived at the pavilion. There I discovered that some of the women—Claire among them—had begun putting up decorations for the wedding, stringing up scraps of colored paper and the blossoms of the few flowers Hector’s followers had not already killed. They were the sort of impoverished adornments one saw in Cité Verd on such occasions, when the last scrawny chicken was sold off for a package of streamers and a few crooked candles. The sight reminded me of the scraggly shrubs Paul’s mother had planted outside their door, hoping to produce some small simulation of gaiety. I was happy for Louis and his bride. How could I not be?

  And yet, as I gazed upon the pavilion, what stood out the most was not the decorations but the peeling paint and the warped, weathered boards, the cracked slats of lattice and the vines choking every pillar. No matter how many times we cut them, the vines always grew back. And the fresh paint faded and the wood continued to rot. And I realized now—as I had refused to for months—that no matter what happened, Habitation Louvois would not be rescued. Never again would it be as it had been before. Who would be foolish enough to try, after all of this? There would be no more hotel, no more parties, no more photographers lying in wait beyond the gate. And I realized as well that Marc had been right all along: Madame would never again return. There was nothing for her to return to.

  I had been blind not to see it. I was probably the last to understand. Madame herself must have decided long ago. Possibly years ago. Possibly she knew even as she was leaving that last time, foreseeing what the future held. Or at least she had suspected it. She had cut her losses and slipped away, without even saying good-bye.

  Had she already forgotten us? All those letters I sent—how many had remained unopened? Perhaps at first she had read them dutifully, intending to respond, but over time they became nothing more than a painful reminder of what we would never have again. Were we anything more to her now than a figure in a ledger, long since written off?

  But the question that made me stop and rest in the shadow of the pavilion was this: What if we had not come here? What if M. Guinee had never brought me to this place, never shared it with Mme Freeman? Would Dragon Guy and Hector still have found it? Would they have known it existed? If Madame and I had never built the hotel, would the forest have remained as it was, untouched, unseen, a permanently preserved memory of our past? Maybe it would have gone on forever, like the story my mother had passed on to me. If so, that meant it was not Dragon Guy, but Madame Freeman and I, who were responsible for the destruction of Habitation Louvois. The things we had done to save the place had ensured its ruin. Did that mean we were somehow responsible for all these lives, too? If so, that was another burden Madame had excused herself from bearing; she had left it entirely to me. But what more could I do than I had already done?

  After dinner, I did not go up to my office, as was my habit. Instead, I went out to the terrace overlooking the pool and breathed in the still evening air. I was out there a long time, and I could not remember when I had last felt such calm. I felt as if I had been freed of some enormous weight. I no longer had to worry about disappointing Mme Freeman. I no longer had to worry about anything. All that was left was for me to do as she had done and take leave of the place. I still hoped Hector and Mlle Trouvé might come with me. Who knew what lives they might have ahead of them, if only they could start over somewhere else? But regardless of what they decided, I knew I must go.

  In the courtyard near the laundry, they had built a fire, an enormous one with flames feeding off limbs and trunks it must have taken several men to carry. To the side, with their backs against the door of Mona’s kitchen, three men were pounding on drums, and I stood for a while on the path, watching the dancers lose themselves to the deadening beats. At least some of Hector’s army, it seemed, had been given the night off. Was the battle going so well for them that they could now take turns fighting?

  In the middle of it all, like totems unsure of their purpose, stood the lovers, Louis and Lulu. The young man did not see me; he could see nothing but the glowing flesh of his bride-to-be. Indeed, she looked lovely, like a woman ready to embark on some bold new adventure. Perhaps it was for the best they had no idea what lay ahead of them. I was not going to be the one to spoil the moment.

  It was time to head back to the manor house. I had one last piece of business to attend to, one last letter to Madame to finish, one final request. I did not need much. Just some kind of work. And a visa. I had enough money left for airfare. For Hector and Mlle Trouvé too, if they would come. How could Mme Freeman refuse, after everything we had been through together?

  But as I turned to go, I happened to see a familiar face peering out from between the flickering peaks of fire. Mlle Trouvé’s expression was odd, both intimate and cold. It was as if she had been expecting to find me here, as if she had heard my thoughts, as if we had come by mutual agreement, so that we might have a moment to speak in private about some vital business. Despite the party going on around her, she seemed completely alone, standing with her arms folded across the front of her faded dress. For whom but the two of us could such a celebration have afforded privacy?

  She watched me as I made my way through the crowd. In a moment I was at her side.

  “I’m sorry if I interrupted you today,” I said. I was relieved by the lack of anger on her face. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just that I cannot help but feel that Dragon Guy and Hect
or have forced our fates together.”

  The schoolteacher continued to stare into the flames.

  This was the closest I had ever stood to her, the clearest I had ever seen her face. For the first time I noticed the soft, faint, delicate hair outlining her cheeks and jaw.

  “We have very little time left,” I said. “We’re all in great danger.”

  She gave me what I interpreted as a cautious nod, and I was about to go on, to say the other things I needed to say, when something happened for which I was wholly unprepared.

  She smiled.

  And not just any smile—it was beatific. It unfolded like a gift. Mlle Trouvé had surprisingly small, neat teeth, like a child. And the smile so warmed me that for a moment I managed to forget that it made no sense, that there was nothing in what I had said that should produce such happiness.

  I could have watched her like this forever, letting the fire consume itself and the coals cool to ash and everyone in our midst evaporate along with the smoke. The world could produce only one such smile, and it was hers.

  And my heart fell a little bit when her lips came together once again.

  “I’m ready,” she said. “We have come so far. We are not afraid to die.”

  It was dark and the trees wore bibs of smoke and the manor house was huge in the shadows. “It’s okay,” I said. “I know you’re not one of them. I’m not either. I’m like you. I’m on your side.”

  Finally she turned to look at me squarely, and only then did I feel she truly saw who I was. I could see her considering what I had said, and I hoped she could find a way to trust me, that we could return again to that smile.

  And then her mouth fell open again, and I saw the gloss of her tiny teeth.

  That was the moment something hit me from behind.

  My head whipped back and I stumbled forward, falling just a meter from the fire. When I got up again, my hands and knees were covered in ash.

  “Forgive me, monsieur,” came a man’s voice, laughing somewhere in the crowd.

  I turned, trying to find him, and then I was struck again, and again I fell toward the flames.

  A different voice this time, from a different direction. “Clumsy me.”

  A foot came down on my back as I tried to get up.

  The laughter spread, and I felt bodies closing in on me from all sides. Then I heard another voice—Mlle Trouvé’s—yelling at everyone to get away. She grabbed my arm and pulled me up.

  We met with little resistance as we pushed our way through the crowd.

  “Going so soon, monsieur?” someone called after me. “Just when the fun was getting started.”

  We did not stop until we reached the manor house pool. There Mlle Trouvé released my arm. “Go,” she said, giving me a push. “You have to go.”

  “We must stick together,” I said. “That’s our only hope. Please trust me.”

  “Why can’t you understand?” Anger was scrawled across her face. The flames leaped behind her, punctuating her words. “I do not wish to be saved.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  All along the road to the capital burned-out chassis mingled with garbage, and no one seemed to notice them. It was as if a car were just another useless nothing someone might indiscriminately let slip from his pocket.

  Our progress was slow. The bus was constantly stopping to maneuver around another barricade of twisted furniture and melted tires.

  I got off at the central market. The taxi drivers stirred without urgency as I approached their waiting cars. The man at the front of the line had a neck like a broomstick and an equally skinny mustache. Opening the back door to his car, I announced I was going to Lyonville. Before I could get in, a man dressed in khaki pants and dark sunglasses came forward, placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “I’ll take you,” he said.

  I nodded toward the broomstick-necked man. “I’m perfectly content with him.”

  “You’ll come with me.”

  It would have been wrong to say he was rough, but he was unequivocal as he led me—never letting go of my shoulder—to his car, farther down the line.

  The new driver had a mustache too, but his sprouted heavy and wild. Even without being able to see his eyes, I knew it was me he was watching in the rearview mirror. The merengue on the radio was almost too low to hear.

  At the very bottom of the road into Lyonville we encountered the first of the checkpoints. The two guards, both wearing army uniforms, sat in old wooden chairs in front of a gate adorned with fawning posters of President Duphay. Cradling their guns with a gentleness I doubted even their girlfriends knew, the soldiers came around the sides, and one of them flung open my door.

  “Out,” he yawned. He smelled faintly of tamarind as he led me over to the garden wall at the side of the road, jamming the hollow opening of his gun barrel into the back of my head. I wished I could close my eyes, but I was afraid the things I might not see would be even more unsettling than the things I could.

  The driver lit a cigarette as the other soldier climbed into the backseat of the car. “Did you see the end of the match?”

  “I don’t want to hear about it,” I heard a muffled voice say.

  Chuckling, the soldier at my back clunked the heavy steel against my skull. I gritted my teeth and waited for the sting to pass. “He lost a bundle.”

  “A goal like that,” the driver said, “I’d give both my legs to be able to make a ball do that.”

  Crawling backward out of the car, the other soldier rose too quickly and the roof clipped the hat from his head. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you lost money on it.” He picked the hat up from the dirt with a frown, smacking it several times against his thigh.

  The driver dropped his cigarette, grinding it out with his shoe. “How about paying the toll so we can get on with it?”

  I reached into my pocket and brought out my money. I was in too much of a hurry to argue. “How much?”

  The man with the gun to my head slid the bills from between my fingers, taking every last one. “That should be enough.”

  There was no point in objecting. The driver was already whistling himself into his seat.

  Back on our way, we soon passed the road leading to my old neighborhood. I wondered what it looked like now, whether it too had been besieged. I was tempted to ask the driver to go back, if not to my father’s shop then at least to the cemetery. I should not leave until I had a chance to say good-bye to my parents. I felt I owed them an explanation, perhaps even an apology. They needed to know this was simply a world that had no place for me. I had never belonged here, and now that Habitation Louvois was lost, I never would. I was sorry to have to leave them like this, knowing I would probably never come back, but it was the only thing left for me to do.

  Even for that short detour, though, there was no time. I could no longer see the capital below. The air had grown cooler. We had already passed the road to Senator Marcus’s old house.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” I asked after we had passed the third checkpoint and continued climbing.

  “Of course.” The driver’s voice betrayed offense at the suggestion that he might be lost. “You’re going to Paul’s house.”

  He must have seen the surprise on my face.

  “Everybody knows Paul,” he offered in explanation.

  The car lunged forward. I was thrown back against the seat. The driver pitched back too, his arms stiff as branches.

  Up we sped along the narrow street. Around a bend he swerved to dodge a pothole, and I hit the door with the full force of my body. Face pressed to the glass, I saw three girls in blue-checked school blouses standing at the curb, and my eyes were drawn to the white ankle socks so bright above their black leather shoes, and then to their faces. As I flew past, one of the girls—the tallest of the three—met my eyes, and I hung on to them as if they were the last living thing I would ever see.

  The windows in the front were open and the wind stuffed itself into my mout
h like a gag. The engine raced, and I could see a needle on the dashboard quivering in the red.

  “What are you doing?” I finally managed to yell.

  But the car was already slowing down.

  We stopped in front of a low, whitewashed wall overhung with bougainvillea. Through the bars of the gate I saw a sprawling white house that looked like something from a magazine: airy and modern, with a terra-cotta roof and windows arranged asymmetrically in seemingly every available space. Between the trees flashed ribbons of blue sky. Somewhere beyond the endless patchwork of windows was a cliff overlooking the capital.

  “Tell Paul that Céline says hello,” the driver shouted before squealing out of sight.

  There was no bell, but I had been waiting only a moment when a man wearing a holster over his white polo shirt passed through the front door and the portico.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I have an appointment with Paul.”

  He spun around wordlessly and began walking back up the drive. I saw him unclip a radio from his belt. There was a burst of static and then a voice at the other end. The conversation ended without a clear sign of what was going to happen. The man waited back under the portico, leaning against a pillar, thoughtfully turning the pages of a newspaper, as if his principal duty were to monitor the daily events of the world.

  Finally the voice came over the radio again. An alarm sounded and the gate clicked open. The man put down his paper and nodded for me to follow.

  In the marble foyer a muscular young man wearing a thin, violent smile and pink tank top stood waiting. “This way.”

  An arched ceiling reached high above the lengthy hallway, edged with a delicate floral motif. We passed a vast polished ballroom and a brightly upholstered sitting room. A woman’s touch was everywhere apparent.