Heading South (2 page)

Bring her down now, or let her go? I hesitate. Absolute power. Gently, I press my lips to her neck.

“Don't worry, Madame Saint-Pierre, I'll tell my mother you were here.”

She finds the strength to turn the doorknob and leave, moving like a sleepwalker. Slightly hunched, her eyes almost wild, she flees. I watch through the window as she gets into her car. It's obvious she isn't going far.

MY MOTHER COMES
in like a gust of wind shortly after the departure of Madame Saint-Pierre. It was a good thing I didn't push things too far.

“Madame Saint-Pierre just left.”

“Did you tell her I went to see a sick friend?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Did she wait a long time?”

“Twenty minutes or so.”

“Dear God! She's a very busy person, but I couldn't leave Chimène . . . Do you at least know who she is?”

“Of course . . . She's the principal of Maryse's school.”

“Ah, so you know. I'm astonished. You always seem so . . . vague about things . . .”

“I know a lot more than you think, Mama.”

“Good. You were polite to her, I hope? She's an important lady. Your father knew how to behave in a lady's presence. He had good manners . . . I can tell you that! Were you good to her?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“You do understand, don't you, Fanfan, that it's thanks to her that your sister is going to that school? It's lucky for us that Maryse is there . . . Of course, if your father were here it would be different, but he's not here and I have to do the best I can by myself. It's a good thing he bought me this Singer sewing machine, otherwise I don't know what I'd do. Madame Saint-Pierre is a godsend to this house. Your father must have sent her to us. Wherever he is, I'm sure he's looking after us . . .”

“Is that why you spend all night sewing dresses for Madame Saint-Pierre without being paid a cent . . . ?”

My mother turns angrily to me.

“How do you know that? You mind your own business, young man, if you don't want a couple of good smacks.”

“But that woman is taking advantage of you, Mama.”

“What do you know about life, that you can talk to me like that? If you can't mind your tongue, you can at least wait until you've lost your baby fat before you start having opinions about what goes on in this house. You understand me?”

I stand up to be closer to the door, ready to take off in case there's an explosion. Normally, my mother is a calm person, but she can fly into unpredictable rages at times.

“I'm only saying what I see, Mama. That woman takes advantage of you.”

“Without Madame Saint-Pierre, Maryse would not be going to that school.”

“I don't see how that school's any better than the lycée. Either way she'll get through her finals with her eyes closed.”

“Who's talking about finals?” my mother shouts. “I'm talking about the kind of people she meets at that school, thanks to Madame Saint-Pierre. And if I choose to do her a few favours . . .”

“But Mama . . .”

“This discussion is over!”

She comes towards me. A little slip of a woman (my mother is much smaller than I am), she still intimidates me more than anyone else I know. I've never met anyone with more strength of character, or more courage.

“If I have to kill myself on that sewing machine, you two are going to graduate from good schools. As your father wanted you to.”

She looks me straight in the eye as she speaks. Her eyes are smouldering. Madame Saint-Pierre is from France, but she came to Port-au-Prince so long ago, before I was born, I think, that by now she seems to have taken on all the cruel customs of Haitian high society. I suppose she might have found it difficult, at the beginning, the way our middle class is so dismissive of those who have no money, no name, no power. But today she's an influential member of the golden circle. In any case, our system has come down to us from slavery days, when we were a colony. That's why certain Europeans slide so easily into the Haitian mud. I know that because I never skipped a single class given by my history teacher, Mr. Zamor, whose vocabulary is so colourful, and the tone of his voice so impassioned, that his is the only course I ever stuck out from beginning to end. It's true, though, that I've always been fascinated by social interactions. Power, money and sex, as my history teacher would say; that's the infernal trinity that drives all men. When you understand that, gentlemen, you understand everything. Love, you ask? he booms in his thunderous voice. Hey, we're only talking about serious things here . . .

MY SISTER COMES
home and installs herself in the easy chair next to the window.

“I'm exhausted,” she says, staring up at the ceiling.

“Go take a shower, dear,” my mother says.

“That won't make my hunger go away.”

“You didn't eat there?” I ask her.

“Oh, they offered me all kinds of things, but I told them I wasn't hungry . . .”

“That's misplaced pride, Maryse. You were there helping them do their homework.”

“We were working together . . .”

“Don't give me that, Maryse, you spend all your time helping those people do their homework.”

“I'm telling you, we work together.”

“Come off it, Maryse, you go there to help them do their homework. You don't even need a teacher to figure out the answers.”

“No, but I do need friends.”

“If they're such good friends, how come you don't eat with them?”

“Because I don't want them to think I have some ulterior motive in going to see them. Why do you refuse to understand, Fanfan, that these people are simply my classmates? Whether they're rich or poor, friends are friends. And anyway, they've never once made me feel that they're richer than I am. I've even lent money to Marie-Christine.”

“It's all show, Maryse. When the fun and games are over, by which I mean when your final exams are done, they'll all go back to their own social class.”

She gives me a lingering, sidelong glance.

“That's all you see, isn't it? Sometimes I think you've already gone sour. And I don't understand why you're like that. You don't owe anything to anyone.”

“Let's just say I've never let myself owe anything to anyone.”

“But where does it get you, hating people like that?”

“It isn't that . . . What are you talking about? You sound like someone else when you talk like that.”

“What is it, then?” she says sharply, with her patented frown of disdain.

“I simply want to know what kind of world I live in, Maryse. I want to know how it works . . . I'm sure there's a trick to it, and I want to know what it is. That's all.”

My mother comes into the room with a huge bowl of cornmeal mush and a large slice of avocado, which she sets on the table after pushing back piles of catalogues and bits of cloth.

“Mama, why do you choose to pay such a high rent that we're practically starving to death instead of moving to Tiremasse Street, where we could maybe save a bit of money?”

“Who lives on Tiremasse?” my mother says disdainfully. “Listen, Fanfan, if I ever move even one rung down the ladder, I'd get no more clients. Do you think my customers would follow me into that dangerous part of town? They wouldn't even go to Magloire Ambroise Avenue. They're too worried about their cars. And there's all that garbage on the street, and the mud, and the sickening smell . . . What kind of customers would I have then? Tell me. The kind who would want me make them a blouse for eight gourdes, that's who. Besides, your father wouldn't want us to live there . . .”

“My father is dead, mama.”

“He'll be dead when I say he's dead,” she shoots back, turning sharply towards me.

“Maybe I could find a job, Mama.”

“No, you are not going to work. You are going to go to law school, like your father wanted.”

“But Mama, my father is my father, and I am me . . . That makes two people.”

She looks fixedly at me as though she can see something or someone behind me.

“You sound exactly like him,” she says, her voice drawn.

“All right, you win. I'm going out.”

“Where are you going?” she asks, worried.

“To the Rex Café.”

“Will you be home late? The dogs are out in the streets these days.”

“I'm not afraid of the
tontons-macoutes.
It's them who're afraid of me.”

“Be careful, Fanfan!”

“Oh, he's just teasing you. Let him go, Mama,” my sister says, giving me a conspiratorial wink. “It'll be better here with just us two women.”

Give me some air!

I DROP IN
on Gérard, the museum guard, who owes me money. There are still a few people hanging around the main room. I've never been able to understand what makes people want to spend hours looking at bits of painted cloth hanging on a white wall. It would take me five minutes, if that. These people must have nothing else to do. I know life can be depressing at times, but not that depressing . . .

Chico motions for me to join him at the Rex. I cross the street in the direction of the café. People pass me without seeing me. In a hurry to get home. What for? I'd rather die than live such a shitty life. Going nowhere. Totally inert. I go into the Rex Café. The old Hindu is still behind the counter. He'll die behind that counter. I order two hamburgers and a glass of pomegranate juice. I'm down to my last three gourdes. Chico also orders a glass of juice. Broke again.

“Simone was here a minute ago. She just left.”

I shrug.

“How do you do it?” Chico asks me. “Get women to fall for you like that? It's unbelievable! She was barely able to sit still. I've known Simone for a long time, and I've never seen her like this before . . . She just met you last week, and she's acting like a drug addict who can't get a fix. Tell me your secret, master, I'll do whatever you ask . . .”

Laughter.

“You really want to know?”

“I do.”

“Your problem, Chico, is that you talk too much.”

“What? What am I supposed to do, take off my clothes, maybe?”

“Keep your mouth shut.”

“But Fanfan, if I stop talking, she'll leave.”

“You don't know that if you haven't tried.”

“It seems too risky to me.”

“She'll be quiet for a moment, and if she sees that you aren't getting up to leave then she'll start talking . . . As long as she opens her mouth first, then half your job is done.”

“I know myself, Fanfan. She'll take off the minute I stop talking.”

“You're right.”

He gives me a stunned look.

“Is that all you can think of to tell me?”

“Listen, Chico, to each his own. You, you're not a lover, you're a friend. A confidant. Women like talking to you. You make them feel better. Sometimes I even envy you.”

“You're making fun of me, you bastard.”

“You're right. Let's go to Denz's to listen to music.”

DENZ ALWAYS HAS
something new to listen to. He's just received an album by Volo Volo, a new group based in Boston. They really did a good job on it—each cut goes somewhere different. I think they're as good as Tabou, but as far as Denz is concerned, Tabou is still Tabou.

“Look, Fanfan, I admit this is a good album, maybe even a great album, but Tabou has put out a dozen albums that are just as good. It's always the same with you: whenever a new act comes down, you get as het up as a flea on a hot rock. Relax, man.”

Denz is a bit older than Chico and me. We call him the Godfather. He loves Marlon Brando. He's seen the Coppola film at least a dozen times. But it's only the music that interests him. He hardly ever leaves his place. Doors and windows shut. He spends his days listening to music in the dark. People (mostly musicians) come to him from all over. Sometimes girls from Pétionville come as well. Everyone thinks he's a genius. It doesn't seem to bother him much. As long as he can listen to his music without too much interference.

“Look, Fanfan, I've listened to this album more than a dozen times, and, like I say, it's very good, but before I can say that they really have guts I'll wait until they've put out at least a half-dozen albums. You see, for me it's endurance that counts.”

There's a knock on the door. Denz goes to open it.

“Hey, Denz!”

It's Simone. She comes straight in without even looking at me.

“Denz, can I talk to you?” she says, moving towards the small room at the back.

Denz mimes to us that he has no idea what she wants, but he follows her anyway. They stay in the room for a good twenty minutes. Finally Denz comes back in time for the final cut of the Volo Volo.

“Look, Fanfan, it's up to you to solve the problem.”

“What's happening?”

“It seems that Minouche went to Simone's place and tore a strip off her. I get the impression that it has something to do with you. Go in and see her, she's waiting for you.”

“It's just show, Denz. Simone is yanking your chain.”

Denz shrugs his shoulders.

“I don't know anything about women, you know? Go tell her what happened and let me listen to my music. I'd like to see how you get out of this one, anyway, just out of curiosity.”

“Denz, Fanfan couldn't care less,” Chico puts in. “He even enjoys seeing women fight over him.”

“Chico! Chico!”

Simone is calling him from the back room. Chico gets up quickly. I suspect he falls in love with all the women I get mixed up with. He goes into the room and comes out right away.

“She wants to see you.”

“Why didn't she call me herself ? She called Denz. She called you. I'm not going in if she doesn't call me.”