Paradise Interrupted

by Penny Mickelbury

  What was immediately clear was that despite his age, Toussaint Remy was as physically fit as any man half his age, though she wouldn’t dream of speculating what that age might be. Hell, she thought, men a third his age couldn’t climb in and out of truck engines with such agility. And climb in and out of the engines he did, coaxing the two dump trucks to ignite briefly when he poured gasoline into their distributor caps, and insisting, with a gnarly finger pointed at her nose, that “his” trucks indeed would “catch fire and hold.”

  Carole Ann asked him if he wanted his old job back and he looked at her as if she were crazier than he’d originally thought her to be. He didn’t have a job, he told her. He helped out LeRoi because he liked him, and because, the old man said, he liked trucks and engines. So then she asked him if he wanted a job, the job of being in charge of all the engines and teaching some of the young men how to take care of the engines. The old man’s watery eyes narrowed and he squinted at her. “I don’t like that panty-waist of a president,” he said.

  “Then we won’t tell him,” Carole Ann replied, and the old man’s sustained cackle, revealing his almost toothless mouth, told her she’d just made her first hire. Then, she thought with a sinking feeling, how would she explain all this to Roland Charles? Hell, for that matter, how would she explain Roland Charles to Toussaint L’Overture Remy? If he thought Philippe Collette was a panty-waist, what would he make of the Minister of the Interior? She was wondering when Paul Francois arrived with two men in tow. She hurried over to him.

  “Do you speak island French, Paul?”

  “Certainment,” he answered with an elaborate shrug. “I live on the islands where people speak island French.” And when she finished explaining about Toussaint Remy, he grinned widely, slapped her on the back, and hurried over to the old man, who was sitting inside the raised hood of one the dump trucks. heir conversation was spirited and became more so when the two workers Paul had brought joined in, and she didn’t understand a single word until Paul yelled over to her. “Hey Boss! Is it all right if Luc and Jean become Monsieur Remy’s first pupils?”

  “Sure, as long as losing them from the road crew doesn’t put that work behind schedule.”

  “Au contraire! They’ll be bringing us a backhoe and a dump truck! We’ll finish the damn road ahead of schedule!”

  She shared their enthusiasm, then sobered. “Do me one favor, Paul? Ask the guys to keep this to themselves until I have a chance to talk to my employers.”

  Paul sobered, too. “Do you think there’ll be a problem? Will they resist?”

  “Oh, no,” she replied, more off-handedly than she felt. “I’ve just got to figure out how to ask them if I can do this instead of telling them that I’ve done it.”

  And before she could stop him, Paul told the men what she’d just said, and raucous laughter and cheers followed her out of the dimly-lit warehouse into the bright sunlight.

  Roland Charles couldn’t stop preening. The story she’d told Philippe made it seem as if the entire plan was the brainchild of the Interior Minister, though she’d been prepared to claim ownership had the president been displeased. On the contrary, he was so grateful he was beaming. To not have to beg Hubert de Villages for his backhoe or import one from another island was a gift from heaven! the president exclaimed. But the ribbon on the present was being able to demonstrate to Henri LeRoi supporters that he, Philippe Collette, would indeed be president of all the people! He actually rubbed his hands together and danced a little jig when Carole Ann suggested that perhaps she and Roland Charles should sit down and draw up job descriptions with salaries attached.

  Later, when they were alone together in his office, Roland Charles gave her a sly grin and extended his hand to her. “I’d certainly rather play on your team than on the opposing squad, Miss Gibson. Well done. I’ll draft the job descriptions and have something ready for your review early next week, if that’s acceptable?” And when she nodded, he continued, “And I intend to track down every piece of equipment and every tool belonging to this government. And I will learn every inch of this island.” Carole Ann couldn’t think of anything to say, so she offered him her hand again and headed for the door. He stopped her before she could cross the threshold. “By the way, Miss Gibson, island French was my first language. I’m looking forward to meeting Monsieur Remy.”

  She returned to her own office buoyed and confident, for a change that her work in Isle de Paix was on the right track. She looked at her watch: After five o’clock. She still had time to inspect the now-empty office that would become police headquarters in two days when David Messinger and Yvette Casson and ten new recruits arrived. The cops would share space in a renovated building with the also-newly rejuvenated Tourist Bureau on the edge of Government Square.

  It was Jake who had argued that having the police in the same building with the Tourist Board would comfort tourists and inspire confidence in the island’s safety, and he had been absolutely correct. Even though the cops hadn’t arrived yet, the activity in and around the building had increased dramatically. Carole Ann strolled down the street, aware that the energy was shifting from the frenetic day time crowds to the more relaxed mood of sundown and evening. Some early diners, already dressed for the evening in island-casual silks and linens, passed in and out of the boutiques or sipped rum drinks under brightly colored umbrellas on the patios of the restaurants. Within the hour, dinner would be in full swing. She looked up at the old stucco building, painted pale yellow and glowing as if lit from within in the late afternoon sunlight. ISLE DE PAIX BUREAU OF TOURISM read the letters of inlaid stone and shell at the top. And beneath, in smaller letters of the same construction, BUREAU OF ISLAND SECURITY.

  The glassed-in front door bore gilt-edged letters again proclaiming this to be The Bureau of Tourism and again, beneath these letters, an arrow and the words POLICE DEPARTMENT ENTRY AROUND THE CORNER. Carole Ann walked around the corner to face a similar glassed-in door upon which, is simple, black, block letters, were the words, ISLAND POLICE. PLEASE COME IN. She unlocked the door and entered a large, square room with windows on one side, a wall-sized map of the island on the opposite wall, and a map of the Caribbean sea and its islands occupying a quarter of the back wall. The rest of the space was taken up by a row of file cabinets with a fax machine on top of one and printers on top of three others, a scheduling board, and a door which led to a hallway. The first door on the right was the office of the chief of police. Carole Ann opened the door and looked in. It was fully furnished: Desk, chair, work table with four chairs, a huge bulletin board, three tall file cabinets, a computer, a telephone, and a fax machine. The room was large enough that it did not feel cramped or crowded, and bare enough to permit the new chief to impose her own personality.

  Across and down the hall from the chief’s office was the cops’ combination toilet/locker room. Carole Ann had lost the argument for providing public toilet facilities. Jake’s view that the only members of the public needing toilet facilities inside the police station would find them in the cells, prevailed; and newly built on the rear of the hundred-year old building was a two-cell jail with a toilet in each cell, and an enclosed shower stall. Philippe Collette didn’t like having to admit it, but the jail was a necessity.

  Isle de Paix was a large island with a deep harbor and a magnificent beach and coral reefs for diving and good restaurants and lodging to accommodate a range of budgets. The Minister of Tourism was getting the word out that this little bit of paradise no longer was governed by a dictator, and tourists were returning in droves, in turn, attracting an influx of workers from the other islands. Add to that the annual Carnival, and there existed the possibility of a variety of misbehaviors that would benefit from a strong law enforcement presence, as well as jail cells.

  Out front, in the main room, were half a dozen desks, all with phones, though all the phones would not function for at least a year. She picked up each phone in turn and found that none of them worked now, which meant that none
of the computers worked. She sighed but did not despair; after all, it wasn’t Monday yet. There was a lot of open space in the room, and lots of light; Jake had insisted on it. It would, he said, allow the cops to make the room what they needed it to be, and light and space would make the public feel comfortable and welcome. Carole Ann looked around and felt good about what she saw. There certainly was sufficient space here for the new chief and the first ten officers, and by the time the other fifteen cops came on board a year from now, the new police building would be built and this would be the Ville Paix Precinct.

  If the road gets cut through and paved. If the new government center gets constructed. If the president doesn’t get nailed first. For that matter, she thought, if I don’t get nailed first. What if the intruder into her home last night had not been Denis St. Almain? Or suppose Denis St. Almain really was a drug dealing murderer? Dammit, she needed somebody to talk to about the island, about the people, about what went on when the tourists weren’t watching. Somebody on this island had killed two cops and nobody wanted to talk about it.

  She left the empty police station, locking the door behind her, and looked again at her watch and then at the western sky. There was time for a quick shower and a change of clothes and the drive out to Armand’s, before darkness descended, to tell Paul Francois and the mechanics-in-training that their work was sanctioned. She was glad that she’d parked the Jeep behind Government House, instead of at home; she didn’t feel up to the three-quarter mile trek. She finally was feeling the effects of last night on her mind and the morning’s physical activity on her body, not to mention the adrenaline generated by the afternoon encounter with Toussaint Remy at le gare, and she smiled inwardly as she realized that she’d come to think of the place as a garage instead of a warehouse. She also realized that she was anxious to learn what success the old mechanic had had coaxing life into the moribund engines. In truth, she admitted, that was her real reason for the trip to Armand’s.

  The Jeep bumped up the rough road, bouncing her around inside, making her bless the seat belt that kept her from feeling completely like a pinball. All the roads into Little Haiti and the other communities, she knew, were like this one, and while it was a nice note to his overall reform package that he planned to have these ruts paved, President Collette would do well to make that plan a priority. At the very least, she thought, the bulldozer could be brought in to smooth out the ruts; the pouring of asphalt could happen later.

  That’s what she was envisioning when she pulled into the crushed shell and gravel apron that was Armand’s parking lot. Paul Francois’ pick-up was there; she hoped that Luc and Jean were with him, though she realized that she didn’t know enough about island protocol to know whether the men would be drinking together or merely drinking in the same bar. She opened the door and immediately removed her sunglasses. This was not Aux Fruits de Mer. It was both dark and smoky within, and she stood in the doorway for a couple of seconds to allow her eyes time to adjust to the dimness. She was glad she’d changed into more casual attire; the silk ensemble she’d worn earlier, though quite dressed down for a job in what would be comparable to the Executive Office Building back home in Washington, would have screamed “out of place” here. And Lord knows she didn’t want to feel any more out of place than she was.

  “Over here!” Paul’s voice called out over the reggae blaring from the jukebox, and she followed the sound and spied him at a corner table in the rear of the room with the three mechanics. Half the eyes in the room had followed the direction of her gaze, and an almost imperceptible path was cleared so she could make her way back to Paul’s table. The place was more crowded than yesterday and, she thought, the energy slightly less hostile. Or was that merely wishful thinking? Paul was dragging over a chair from an adjacent table as she approached, and the four men scrunched themselves closer together at the small table to make room for her. She greeted each man by name and was greeted, in turn, with two smiles, a seated bow from the waist, and a half salute. Luc jumped up to get the beer that she requested, and Jean went in search of a bowl of plantain chips. They returned almost immediately and she thanked them and took a long quaff.

  “Well? Good news or bad?” Paul asked, a smile in place but wavering, ready to widen or droop as necessary.

  “Monsieur Remy is the new chief mechanic for the Ministry of the Interior and these gentlemen,” she nodded toward Luc and Jean, “will be his first apprentices.”

  The grin widened and, in rapid-fire island French, Paul related to them what she’d said. The two younger men released simultaneous and spontaneous whoops of delight, and Toussaint Remy beamed. He said something that Carole Ann did not understand and Paul began to translate but the old man stopped him and spoke again, very slowly this time. Carole Ann leaned in close. He bestowed blessings on her and on her children and on her children’s children, for many generations to come. He was grave as he spoke and she was grave as she thanked him for his blessing. Luc and Jean stood and grabbed their beers. They shook her hand and hurried off toward the other side of the room.

  “By nightfall, everyone in Little Haiti will know what you’ve done. But tell me, how did it happen? Was it difficult to convince the Minister and the President?”

  “Not at all, thank goodness. They were very receptive. Now, you tell me: What condition are those engines in? Will you be able to get anything running any time soon?”

  He drew his hands together as if in prayer and cast his eyes heavenward. “Toussaint Remy is a genius. The man is brilliant! To call him a mechanic is to cheat him. He is an engineer! He is a surgeon! He is a...he is...brilliant! It is as if he talks to engines. He studies them and listens to them and then studies them again before he ever touches them. They all will be up and running! All but the bloody school bus, which doesn’t have a bloody engine!” He actually looked offended at the bus’s transgression. Then he looked at Toussaint Remy and spoke to him and the old man blushed.

  “Will you ask Monsieur Remy for a favor? he new police chief will be in town next week. Any chance of having the cruiser ready for her?”

  Paul turned toward Remy and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped suddenly and whipped back around to Carole Ann. “Did you say her?”

  “I said her. Yvette Casson. What’s the matter, Francios, you got a problem with women on the job?”

  “Not any more,” he said ruefully, then turned to the old mechanic and posed C.A.’s question. The white head was nodding up and down and then it stopped. Carole Ann had heard the word, “femme,” and knew that Toussaint Remy now knew that the new island police chief was a woman. She wondered whether that was something that should be kept quiet, whether that was something that President Collette would want to announce at some special service or ceremony. And she may have just blown it.

  “Monsieur Remy says he hopes she’s like you and yes, he’ll have her car ready, and no, he won’t tell anybody that she’s a she— and neither will I— and he wants to know if you’re married.”

  She was still smiling when she walked out of Armand’s and into the velvety-smooth night half an hour later, though her good humor was tempered by the reaction she’d received from both Paul Francois and Toussaint Remy when she asked what, if anything, they’d heard about the shootings. The old man’s face closed up with tight finality and he shook his head back and forth as if warding off evil spirits. Paul Francois had shrugged and, while he’d heard the workers whispering among themselves, he didn’t really know anything. “And it’s not likely that anybody will tell me anything. After all, I am an outsider.” It was a feeling that she understood all to well. She left them with fresh beers and feeling good about themselves and stepped out into the night, almost bumping into half a dozen new arrivals. They all stepped aside to allow her to exit, and they all bid her good evening by name. She smiled greetings, bid them all a good evening, and walked out into the parking lot, grateful to have parked on the fringe.

  She turned the key and gunned the Jeep’s engine,
not minding that it was almost too dark to see the road or that she hit one rut and bounced up so high that she hit her head on the roof. Feeling good feels good, she thought, and she liked the feeling. Liked it that Luc and Jean had called out to her as she left and waved at her. Liked it that the people around them had smiled and waved as well. Liked it that a man of Toussaint Remy’s age and experience, not to mention his cultural background, respected her enough that he would accept a woman police chief based on his feelings for her. And the support of the island’s Toussaint Remys certainly would make Yvette Casson’s job easier, and make no mistake, the new chief had a tough job. Islands were paradise only in the tourist brochures. In order to prevent them from becoming hells, the people who governed islands needed for the tourists to see paradise, to experience paradise, for the seven or ten or twenty-one days of their visits. Which is why island presidents like Philippe Collette hired people like David Messinger and Yvette Casson. And Gibson, Graham International.

  She squeezed the Jeep into the Aux Fruits de Mer parking lot, turned off the engine, and sat there, savoring the final, dramatic moments of the sunset. Surely this was paradise! Nothing ugly should reside here. The Caribbean rippled gently, to and fro, reflecting the fiery red of the setting sun. Gulls dove and hovered and soared and screeched, contemplating dinner, and, far out, sails flashed white and fishing boats plied the waves, continuing the ancient ritual of bargaining with the sea, just as the gulls did. And then one of the loud, ugly jet skies screamed into the portrait, spoiling it and the fantasy. Yes, there was ugliness here. It took the form of jet skies and drug dealers: The new forms of ugly. Slave traders and rum runners and pirates were the old forms.