Heading South (7 page)

“To the Bellevue Circle.”

“I hope you're a member, otherwise they'll kick your ass out of there . . .That place is like a fortress for the bourgeoisie, and they guard it very jealously, my friend . . . They'll card you . . .”

“I got an invitation.”

“Oh, well, that's different . . .”

“What's the matter, Fanfan? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“If you want my advice, my friend, take off that suit, which you have obviously rented for the occasion.”

“But it's a good suit. You said yourself I look like a prince.”

“Rule number one: don't dress like a prince when you're going among princes. You can't compete with them on their own ground.”

“Okay, I understand . . . How do you know so much, anyway? You've never been invited into a rich person's home.”

“I've prepared myself for that eventuality . . . And I'll give you some more advice, too: pretend to be honest. Don't try to hide anything. You're a poor man and they're rich, that's all. You could be introducing them to a whole new universe . . .”

“Look, Fanfan, I'm not going there to seduce the entire middle class. I'm going to meet a girl . . .”

“What I said goes for any and all occasions, my friend . . . See you around.”

DOORMAN AT
the entrance.

“You ain't a member.”

“I'm a guest of Hansy's.”

“Wait here.”

He's gone for several minutes (I hope the barman didn't forget to warn Hansy), then comes back with a man who looks like a perpetual smiler, obviously a bon vivant.

“This guy says you invited him.”

“Charlie! Charlie, my old buddy! What are you doing standing here at the door? Hey, Muscle,” he says to the doorman, “don't you recognize Charlie? He won the German tennis championship, first Haitian to ever place in the top ten . . .”

Muscle gives Charlie a dubious look. He must be used to Hansy's shenanigans.

“Don't listen to him,” Charlie says quickly. “I don't even know him. A friend of mine”—he didn't want to betray the bar-man—“ asked him to invite me, seeing as I'm not a member.”

This time the look Muscle gives him contains a degree of astonishment. Hansy laughs so hard his sides are aching.

“What a kidder,” he says to Charlie, clapping him on the back.

Hansy shows Charlie around the club for a few moments. One of the morning's players, the brunette bombshell, comes up to them.

“Thanks for encouraging me this morning,” she says with a slight American accent. She gives him a long, languorous wink.

“Don't mention it,” Charlie says calmly, “I like the way you play . . .”

“Really? You have no idea how happy that makes me! Thank you so much.” And she continues on her way, smiling.

“What did you say to her? I've never seen June so excited before . . . Did you see that wink she gave you?”

“She's a nice girl.”

“What? A nice girl? She's marvellous, my friend. She's the most beautiful woman I know.”

Hansy seems on the point of bursting with excitement.

“Don't mind me,” he says, “I get like this . . . I'm hypersensitive, you see . . . But June . . . I've never seen her like this . . . And you take it so . . . casually . . . Oh, I see, she's not the right gender for you, is that it?”

Without Charlie being aware of it, someone has come up to stand beside Hansy.

“Hansy, darling, what are you doing, talking to this imbecile?” “Who do you mean, Missie?” Hansy says, looking frantically about.

“The idiot standing in front of you, Hansy.”

“Him? Do you know him?”

“I saw him this morning.”

“Ah!” says Hansy, laughing. “It was you playing June, was it? Florence called me to say June absolutely wiped the court with someone this morning, but she wouldn't tell me who it was . . .”

“Oh, stop it, Hansy. As for him, I don't know how he got in here, but . . .”

“He's here as my personal guest . . . a dear friend . . . Let me introduce you . . . In the left corner, Missie Abel, tolerable as a tennis player but intolerable off the court . . . And in the right corner, my good friend Charlie . . . Let the games begin . . .”

“I don't know where you dig up your dear friends, Hansy, but for heaven's sake you don't have to drag them in here . . .”

“I don't think I need to mention that no holds are barred.”

“At any rate,” Charlie says evenly, “I don't like bottle blondes. ”

“What! Me, a bottle blonde! You're out of your mind! You don't know what you're talking about! You see, Hansy, I told you he was an idiot.”

“And worse than bottle blondes,” continues Charlie, “what I dislike even more are real blondes who never stop bragging about it.”

Missie's mouth drops open.

“I'm going to get a whisky, Hansy,” Charlie says. “Do you want a drink?”

“I'll have the same,” Hansy replies. “What about you, Missie?”

“What?” says Missie.

“Do you want something? Charlie's getting the drinks.”

“No,” she says, barely managing a whisper.

Missie still seems to be suffering from shock.

“Technical knockout,” Hansy says, ending the bout.

“DID YOU SEE HANSY?”
asks the barman.

“Yes, sir.”

“And how did it go with her?”

“The trap has been baited.”

“Let me buy you a drink . . . What'll it be?”

“Two whiskies. I'll pay for Hansy's.”

“Hey, now, you're not going to let yourself pay for these rich gents, are you? They're very good at that game . . . I'll give you two whiskies on the house. I'll put a little water in the bottle and keep it under the counter until the end of the evening, say around three in the morning, when all they'll taste is the fire . . . Don't worry, I've been here twenty years. I know the way things are around here. I served the fathers, and now I'm serving the sons.”

Charlie goes back to Hansy, who is standing beside the battered old piano.

“No one but Jacky Duroseau can play this thing now. He completely wrecked it by pouring whisky all over it. When he drinks, he thinks the piano should drink, too. He's supposed to play every Saturday night, but he only shows up when he feels like it. Once he came on a Monday . . . You've brought me a drink. Thanks, Charlie.”

“No problem . . . I didn't pay for it. The barman wouldn't take my money.”

Hansy looks at him strangely.

“You always tell the truth, don't you? Around here everybody pretends . . . They even pretend to be rich, when in fact most of them are on the verge of bankruptcy . . . Don't you worry about old Samson, he'll top the bottle up with water. He thinks no one knows about it, but in fact everyone's figured out his little game. No one but ninnies buy drinks here after two
AM
. . . You see how they're looking at us? It's because they've heard about our little scene.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you just shut Missie's mouth for her. It appears she has locked herself in the john. I also told them about June. You know who June is, don't you? She's the daughter of the American consul. Not bad for a guy who isn't even a member of the Circle. As far as I'm concerned, you are a prince among men. Even Muscle is impressed, and no one impresses Muscle. He came up to me a while ago and asked me if it was true that you're a German tennis champion. Don't you realize what a stir you're creating? In one day you've made the inaccessible June lose her head and sent the acid-tongued Missie packing.

TEN MINUTES LATER.

“Missie is outside, Charlie. She wants to talk to you.”

“No problem.”

They go out.

“It's all your fault, Hansy,” Missie says, just short of tears.

“What happened?”

“Everyone is saying I'm fighting with June over this . . . imbecile. You have a wicked, wicked tongue.”

“Would you be good enough to tell me why you called me out here?” Charlie asks politely.

Missie turns on him.

“I want you to go back in there,” she says breathlessly, “and tell everyone that I have absolutely no interest in you whatsoever, and that I do not intend to fight over you with June.”

“You'll have to run all that by me again, because I didn't understand any of it. And you talk too fast,” Charlie adds with a half-smile.

She glares at him angrily.

“I could never feel anything for a person like you.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hansy asks.

Charlie signals to him to stay out of it.

“But Hansy, I don't even know him. He isn't a member . . .”

“No, I am not a member of your charmed Circle. I know that. My mother is a governess and my father is a gardener . . . In other words, they're servants . . . They work not far from here . . .”

“And you dare to come in here?”

“Missie!” cries Hansy. “Don't you see how exceptional this fellow is? You're right, he's not at all like us. He has no desire to hide his origins, or his identity . . . There's not a single member of the Circle who hasn't been vague about his life from time to time. We're always lying about something, hiding our suffering, our desires, our fears . . . A man who can proclaim his agony like this fellow does is a prince, I tell you, a prince.”

“Will you please leave us alone, Hansy?” Missie says.

Charlie and Missie watch Hansy move off towards the brightly lit building.

“Do you know why I'm here?”

“No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me,” Missie says, resuming her customary ironic tone (“acid-tongued Mis-sie,” as she is known).

“I happened to be in the area, and I saw you crossing the street, on your way to play tennis. And I said to myself, ‘That's her. I want her. She's the one!' That's the only reason I came here tonight.”

Missie looks at him, nearly choking.

“Me! You! Why?”

“That's the way it is. I want you . . . I want to hear you moan . . . and I will . . .”

Missie continues staring at him, transfixed.

“I'm in no hurry,” Charlie says calmly.

And he leaves. Before Missie can even think of anything to say, he's at the gate of the Bellevue Circle. The meeting place of the privileged youth of Pétionville. Missie feels that she can no longer stop herself from retching. She bends over between two parked cars and vomits huge, yellow streams on the green grass.

She stays outside for a long time, watching the others dancing. She sees Hansy come out to look for her, but really, she doesn't feel up to talking to anyone. She runs between the luxurious cars parked anyhow on the lawn. She wants nothing more than to go home and shut herself up in her room. She hears Hansy calling, over and over. “That asshole has made me run away from my own friends twice in one night,” she thinks, continuing to flee. A luminous white dress in the moonlight. Just before reaching the villa, she stops one more time to throw up.

TWO O'CLOCK
in the afternoon. Someone knocks on the door to Charlie's miniscule room.

“Come in, it's open.”

Hansy comes in.

“What did you do to Missie?”

“What are you talking about?”

“She's gone completely bonkers . . . She came to my place at nine o'clock this morning . . . Nine o'clock! I was barely awake! She wanted me to find you. We looked everywhere. I don't know what happened between the two of you, and it's really none of my business, but I think it must have been serious . . .”

“Where is she, Hansy?”

“She's downstairs in the car. I'll go tell her to come up, shall I? I'll stay down there.”

Charlie dresses hurriedly. He starts tidying up the room, then changes his mind at the last moment. He decides to wait for Missie sitting on his narrow, iron bed.

She comes in.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Excuse me for bothering you at home like this, but I didn't sleep last night.”

“Ah!”

“I don't understand what right you have to think of me that way,” she says coldly.

“And that's why you came here, so I could explain it to you?”

A long moment of silence.

“It's because I'm afraid of voodoo.”

He bursts out laughing.

“Is that it? Really?”

He laughs again, falling back on the bed.

“No,” he says, “I don't use voodoo for things like this.”

“What, then?”

“It's a question of blood.”

“Blood?”

“Yes. My blood wants to mingle with your blood.”

Missie's lips begin to tremble.

“I don't understand.”

“What I mean is that it's out of control . . . It has nothing to do with religion, or race, or even sex.”

“Well, if that's true, then it has nothing to do with me, either,” she says, moving towards the door.

“If it had nothing to do with you, you wouldn't have come here.”

She stops suddenly, like someone who has been shot in the back just as she was about to rush down the stairs.

CHARLIE IS LYING
on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He can lie like this for hours.

“Can you lend me ten bucks, Charlie?” says Fanfan, coming into the room.

“Where do you think I could get hold of ten bucks?”

“Come on, Charlie, this is serious. I'm caught short. I'll pay you back first thing next week.”

Charlie gets up and opens a drawer.

“Here. But you absolutely have to pay me back on Monday.”

“Thanks, old pal, you've saved my life . . . By the way, how did things go last night at the Bellevue Circle?”

“As you suggested, I played the sincerity card, and so far it seems to have worked . . . I met that girl, Missie Abel . . .”