The Boiling Season

by Christopher Hebert

  It was just the two of us, with our backs to the door. The children were huddled at the other end of the room, crouched behind the bar. Although the electricity had been shut off, there was enough light coming through the windows that I could just make out our surroundings. Mlle Trouvé and her students had made themselves at home here. The roulette table was piled high with books. There were balls and toys in the craps pit. In the center of the room they had cleared a space to sit on the floor, pushing the blackjack tables up against the wall.

  Mlle Trouvé closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the door. All her breath escaped in a long, exhausted sigh.

  Out on the grass I could hear the chink and rattle of guns and gear as the men took up positions. An indecipherable squall of noise burst from a radio not far from the window.

  I put my hand on her shoulder. Up and down it surged.

  “All we need are some desks,” I said. “We’ll have ourselves a proper school.”

  Beyond the walls of the casino, men squawked at one another through the static, relaying orders about what was to be done. I could only hope that someone among them, either the men outside or the men at the other end—was holding the map I had drawn in Paul’s office, an exact replica of the one I had made shortly after Dragon Guy appeared here, and that he saw that the building he had surrounded was the one they had promised to preserve. I had given them everything else. This was what they had given me.

  I said, “I’ll buy the books myself.”

  Mlle Trouvé was silent. Suddenly I realized how quiet everything had grown. There were still occasional pops in the distance, but outside the window I could hear two birds chittering to one another in the trees. It was over. It was done. And this was my compromise, one that I hoped my mother and father might both accept: the charred remains of an idyllic past, along with the promise of something better to come.

  As for Mme Freeman, there was nothing to say except that what was lost had never really been ours to begin with.

  “The children will have a home here,” I said. “They will be safe. And so will you.”

  Beside me, Mlle Trouvé was crying.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  In the morning the army was still removing bodies. I was afraid to look too closely, for fear of whom I might see. The soldiers ignored me. They seemed not to see me at all. It was my life’s role to be always invisible.

  They did not bother to wash away the blood. They did not sweep up the bullet casings. They had no interest in the scraps and junk Hector’s men left behind. They were careless even about the weapons. In their hurry, they barely seemed to notice the estate at all. Or at least what was left of it. They had taken to its ruination with glee, breaking every window they saw, kicking in every door, blowing holes wherever they could, smearing the walls with blood. Now that the battle was over, they were ready to forget.

  An officious-looking man with a blunt chin and shiny shoes was overseeing the cleanup with an air of impatience. When I asked what would happen when they were done, he gave me a curt glance and said, “I don’t intend to wait around to see.”

  “But what about me?” I said.

  “What about you?” And he turned to catch a passing soldier, into whose ear he commenced yelling orders.

  When I went to find them, Louis and Lulu were gone from the cavity behind Villa Moreau. There was no sign that anyone had trampled through the trees and underbrush to get to them. All I could do was hope they had found their own way out.

  As I made my way along the path, I passed several of Hector’s men handcuffed in a row between two armed soldiers. Among them hunched the colonel, his eyes no longer so cold and clear. His eyebrow was stiff and streaked in crimson. Around his neck was a long, curving gash. The string of seashells was gone.

  “What do you think of your gardens now?” he slurred through a swollen mouth.

  The soldier walking alongside him raised his rifle and struck the colonel between his shoulder blades. He staggered on the stones, and I reached out to keep him from falling. But he would not accept my hand.

  I did not begrudge him his anger, but neither did I see any need to offer a defense. I had done what I could. We had men enough who had dedicated their lives to destruction. We had far fewer who had ever committed themselves to saving anything.

  Some shots rang out from the direction of the preserve, and the soldiers hurried the prisoners up the path.

  The door to Madame’s villa was closed. The courtyard was strangely peaceful. It seemed to be the only place other than the casino that they had left untouched. The guards and thugs were gone now. Only the stage remained, looking like something constructed for some itinerant piece of children’s theater.

  Inside, all the shutters over the windows were closed, and the darkness felt wet and heavy. With no fresh air to lead the way, the sticky tobacco smell still lingered above the table. Everything about the place felt trapped. In the center of the room, above the chaise where he had briefly lain like a pampered king, Hector hung bound and gagged. They had wrapped the rope around the mount of the ceiling fan.

  The plaster above was filthy with muddy prints. I could think of any number of people they might have belonged to. Soldiers under orders from President Duphay. Or the colonel and the rest of the flunky high command, who had no further use for him. His was a sacrifice everyone demanded—even Hector himself.

  I had not wept at the death of my father. I had not wept at the death of M. Guinee. I had not even wept over the tragedy that had befallen Senator Marcus, for whom I had such great respect. All of the tears I had stowed away I left at Hector’s feet.

  I cut him down myself. It was not easy. It had taken several men to get him up there, but I could not bear to let anyone else touch him. On Madame’s bed I laid him out. I took off his soiled clothes and washed him. He seemed so much smaller now, so much more like the boy I had known. And yet I was surprised at how well he filled out my suit. With the necktie tightened and the collar closed, he was perfect again.

  The drawers of the dresser were empty. Despite his ascension, Hector had never acquired anything more than the red-and-white jersey he had been wearing ever since the day I first met him. Even before I opened the wardrobe, I remembered it was empty. I had seen for myself, on the day of his coronation, that Hector had purged his brother’s unused shirt, the only item either of them had ever hung there. There was, he said, no place for sentiment. And yet I opened the door anyway, somehow knowing exactly what I would find. Standing on a chair, I reached directly for the very top shelf. Stuffed into the back corner, where no one who was not looking for it would ever see, was not only the shirt, but also the filthy linen suit. All of it folded as poorly as any boy would.

  In the back of the jacket were two singed and bloody holes.

  And on the very same shelf, tucked into the same back corner, was the dirty, creased children’s book from which Hector had been learning to read. In it was a scrap of torn paper with which it seemed he had marked his place. He had very nearly reached the end. I opened it up, and there was a passage underlined in lead: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” There was no way of knowing, just by looking at the line, who might have drawn it. Hector? The child who had left the book behind? But if the scrap of paper were there to mark the passage and not Hector’s place in the book, did that mean Hector had finished it? The pages toward the end were as dirty as the rest, but it was impossible to know for sure.

  I fanned through the rest of the pages, but I saw no other markings. Until, that is, I went to close the book, and then I happened to notice, on the inside of the back cover, a wild mess of scribbling. I immediately recognized his handwriting. There were some of the words we had practiced making together: book, pencil, brother, tree, desk, chair. But also some words I would never have taught him.

  And last of all, on the bottom, were two names. His and mine.

  I decided, then, that he had finished the book. How could he not, given
his determination? And the thought brought me comfort. Even if the story was as silly as it appeared to be, I liked to think he carried it with him throughout this ordeal, and that it reminded him of what we briefly had.

  I placed the book upon his chest, and on top I folded his hands.

  Around the bed I scattered the rest, whatever remained of Mme Freeman’s belongings: her photographs and books and even her bottles of perfume. And against the headboard, behind Hector’s head, I leaned Mme Louvois’s painting. It seemed fitting that the general’s wife should be the final witness. Present at the start of all of this, and now also at the end.

  The flames were still small when I walked out the door, but by the time I reached the drive there was smoke in the sky overhead.

  Mona had finally left the kitchen. I found her in Raoul’s villa, sitting beside him on the bed.

  “Well?” I said.

  The two of them looked up in silence, their faces worn blank with weariness. I could not imagine what I must look like. Dragon Guy’s shirt hung from me like a tablecloth, wet with sweat and soil. There would be a great deal more of that to come. All those piano pieces and antiques in the guesthouse, previously crafted into beds and gurneys, need now face their final transformation. Wood and nails. That was all we required. We would have more desks than even Mlle Trouvé and her students could fill.

  I said, “There is a lot of work to be done.”

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a great many thanks to my indefatigable agent, Bill Clegg, to my brilliantly insightful editor, Terry Karten, and to some wonderful readers who helped make this book what it is: Augustus Rose, Genevieve Canceko Chan, Peter Ho Davies, Michael Knight, and most of all, Margaret Lazarus Dean, without whom there would be only paper and ink.

  My family and friends provided love and support throughout the long writing process. For their encouragement, counsel, and assistance I especially want to thank Sharon Pomerantz, Patrick O’Keeffe, Raymond McDaniel, Lynne Raughley, Valerie Laken, Julie Barer, Shaun Dolan, and Sarah Odell.

  I owe gratitude as well to the teachers and mentors who provided guidance and inspiration along the way: Eric Horsting, Jacqueline Spangler, Eileen Pollack, Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, and Charles Baxter. And, going all the way back to the beginning, Deborah Weiss.

  About the Author

  CHRISTOPHER HEBERT graduated from Antioch College, where he also worked at the Antioch Review. He has spent time in Guatemala, taught in Mexico, and worked as a research assistant to the author Susan Cheever. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, and was awarded its prestigious Hopwood Award for Fiction. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with his son and wife, the novelist Margaret Lazarus Dean.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Credits

  Cover illustration © Mark Owen/Arcangel Images

  Cover design by Christine Van Bree

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Although inspired in part by some actual events, the characters, places, and incidents presented here are products of the author’s imagination.

  THE BOILING SEASON. Copyright © 2012 by Christopher Hebert. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  A number of facts and several lines of dialogue appearing in chapter 11 are borrowed and/or adapted from the article “A New Retreat for the Rich—Surrounded by Tumbledown Shacks,” published in the New York Times, January 6, 1974.

  Faustin Charles’s poem “Sugar Cane” appears with permission of Peepal Tree Press and is published in Children of the Morning: Selected Poems (Peepal Tree Press, 2008).

  FIRST EDITION

  EPub Edition MARCH 2012 ISBN: 9780062088536

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hebert, Christopher.

  The boiling season : a novel / Christopher Hebert.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-06-208851-2

  1. Caribbean Area—Fiction. 2. Political fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.E727B65 2012

  813'.6—dc22

  2011021510

  12 13 14 15 16 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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