The Boiling Season (13 page)

“Have it your way,” he said as he spun unsteadily on his heel. “You can tell it to the police.”

Watching him stride back up the path, I was sorry I had not struck him when I had the chance. What was it about living under tyranny that encouraged even imbeciles to turn into petty tyrants themselves? I wondered if President Mailodet was pleased to know how many pretenders he had inspired.

After the young man had gone I remained there for another few minutes, trying to coax my heart back into my chest.

When I stepped back inside, I discovered M. Guinee was awake. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to make so much noise.”

“You should go,” he said softly. “I appreciate your coming.”

I went over and kissed him on the forehead. “I'll be back.”

T
he next day, I could not get away, and hardly a minute passed when I did not worry about my old friend. The day after that, the rains were terrible and it was impossible to go outside.

But the following day was sunny and clear, and I went to find the doctor. As it happened, he lived not far from my father. His house had two rooms, and in a chair in the first sat a pregnant woman with a little girl on her lap, whose twisted jaw hung partially open. The place was a mess, even worse than the doctor's clothes. How desperate would you have to be, I wondered, to allow such a man to stick his dirty hands in your mouth?

I heard a rustling in the corner. A dented brass birdcage was wobbling from a hook in the ceiling. Inside, a dingy, hunched red parrot shuffled awkwardly along its perch, watching me with its one good eye. The other was just an empty socket, and the bird's expression seemed understandably bleak.

An old woman in a brown frock parted the curtains. “The doctor is ready now.”

“I must talk to him first,” I said, pushing past her.

The nurse tried to stop me, but I had no time to waste.

The doctor rose from his stool when he saw me come in. There was blood on his shirt and his arms and his fingers.

“We must bring him to the estate,” I said. “He can rest there.”

The doctor hung his head wearily. “He can't be moved. Even carrying him, he wouldn't make it out the door.”

I had not come all this way to be told no.

I handed the doctor all the money I had, just as I knew my father would. “Get an ambulance. I'll be waiting.”

T
he lunch rush at the Hotel Erdrich was no longer what it once had been. Glancing into the dining room as I hurried past, I saw only a third of the tables filled. In the hall outside the entrance, where in years past lines had often formed, a waiter with his tray pressed to his side ran a finger along the arm of a chambermaid, who coyly twisted a towel with her long, thin fingers. She looked up as I went by, and the waiter shot me a glance full of venom, warning me not to interrupt.

There was no sign of the manager or his underling. Aside from the lovers in the hall, no one saw me make it out back.

M. Guinee was asleep, and he did not awaken as I came inside and closed the door. His breathing was labored and uneven, his skin cold and slightly gray. And yet, I thought he looked relatively peaceful. Ill, certainly, but perhaps it was not as bad as the doctor said. Who knew what kind of schooling the man had. To dress so raggedly and work in such filth, how good could his training possibly be?

What I saw in M. Guinee did not look like death to me.

I
was eight years old when my mother passed away, and for all but a few hours of her illness I had refused to leave her side. My father had tried to keep me from her, no doubt wanting to shield me from her suffering. But I had not understood, and I wanted to be near her. Even at eight I was no stranger to the disease. I had lost a cousin and one of my aunts to malaria, and I had known others who had contracted it and recovered. But it had never occurred to me that such a thing could strike my mother, the person I loved best in the world. Nothing bad could ever happen to her, because then who would take care of me? It was impossible. That was what I told myself as I watched her sweat and shake, barely able to open her eyes. And then, after a few days, the convulsions and the vomiting set in, and I told myself she was purging herself of the disease, even as her sisters and aunts and neighbors swept in and out of the room, clutching compresses and herbal remedies that made the entire house reek of wretched things.

And where had my father been throughout all of this? He was trying to get the drugs—the real medicine, he said—that he had heard could save her. He went all over the city, to the hospitals and clinics, demanding the pills. Eventually he got them, but not in time. Or maybe he could not get enough. Or maybe they had taken his money and given him something worthless instead.

All the while I had been sneaking in to sit at my mother's side and hold her frigid hand and tell her stories. I recall feeling as though the most important thing in the world was that I keep talking, and the thing I most clearly remember talking about was a carved wooden butterfly we had seen at the market only a couple of days before. A tiny, fragile creature smaller than the palm of my hand, and yet incredibly detailed and painted a deep, ruddy orange. My mother had held it for a long time, marveling over the delicate trio of small silver dots accenting each wing. She had told the woman selling it that the butterfly was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and I remembered how sad she had looked when she handed it back, how much she would have liked to make a home for it on the high shelf in her bedroom where she kept the few other precious things she owned, pictures and several pressed flowers and a small gold locket she had once found on the street. But such a purchase was the kind of indulgence my father would never allow.

Sitting at the edge of her bed as my mother shrank further and further from life, I told myself that if only I could get that butterfly for her, everything would be okay.

And so one day when the fever briefly broke, I slipped away and went to the market. I had no money, of course, but I thought there had to be something I could offer in exchange. All I could think about—and the way I remember her still—was how she looked that day at the market, holding the butterfly, how happy it made her just to touch it.

But that day the old woman was not at the market. No one had seen her. And that evening my mother passed away as I clung to her arm.

Even now there was a part of me that thought there must have been something I could have done to help her. Perhaps not the butterfly, but something.

On M. Guinee's walls hung a crucifix and several icons of the saints in cheap balsa-wood frames. There was the virgin in a long, flowing dress, glancing bashfully to the side. Another wore a disheveled cloak slipping off one shoulder, a smooth yellow flame circling his head like a bonnet. Was this Saint Jude? He had always been one of my father's favorite saints. I was surprised they had this in common. My father loved nothing more than a lost cause, but from M. Guinee I would have expected something more hopeful.

“Come to my assistance in this great need—” Standing beside M. Guinee's bed, I repeated the words over and over again, wishing I could remember the rest. Would it really have been so difficult to listen to the sermons, instead of simply letting them wash over me? Why had I not done as my father asked, just this once?

And then it came to me: “that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities and sufferings, and that I may praise God with you always.”

How strange that in all the times I had visited M. Guinee here, I had never noticed the icons. Looking around now, I saw other things too: a wrinkled photo leaned against the base of the lamp on his side table. I did not recognize the woman, but the young boy was obviously his son. The eyes could be no one else's. Why had he never shown this to me? I had known he had a wife, but I could not remember him mentioning her name. Of his child I knew only that he had died, but not the cause. I had told M. Guinee everything about my family, but only now did it occur to me that I had learned almost nothing of his life. All we had ever talked about was the estate. Was it that I had never asked about anything else?

Why were these things so easy for everyone else, that came so hard to me? It had been M. Guinee who chose me, and not the other way around, but still I had never meant to be so poor a friend.

The darkness and quiet of the room made me sleepy, and I sat down in the chair beside the bed. I was sitting there still when I awoke sometime later to find the doctor bent over M. Guinee's bed, his ear pressed to my old friend's chest.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

I scrambled up from the floor, grasping the doctor by the arm.

“I'm sorry,” he repeated. “You did everything you could.”

“No,” I said. “Everything is fine. He was fine just a minute ago.” I looked at my watch. How was it possible that three hours had passed?

The doctor smoothed out his dirty, rumpled sleeve. “Sometimes a minute is all it takes.”

I
n the morning I alone accompanied the body to the cemetery, where the priest was waiting to say a few words. It was just the two of us and the two men with shovels, lurking impatiently a few paces away. Even though the hotel was almost empty—the reporters having left long ago—no one who worked at the Erdrich was permitted to attend. Their time was too precious to be wasted.

It had never occurred to me that M. Guinee might have no one else but me.

The diggers came, and the sound they made was like drumming, until the dirt muffled everything and soon there was nothing left of the hole.

* * *

There were times I felt like a ghost, alone in the abandoned estate. The only reminder I had that I myself was still among the living was the echo of my footsteps as I walked the vacant corridors. In the days following the funeral, I spent my time fighting off cobwebs and rearranging mementos from M. Guinee's life—his balsa wood saints, his virgin, and of course his key—which I displayed on the shelves in my office.

I found comfort wherever I could. I took long walks, exploring the grounds more thoroughly than I ever had before. I discovered two of the natural springs M. Guinee had told me about and several of the places in the preserve where the fruit trees grew. I went twice a week to gather what I needed.

I saw no one. I talked to no one. In my solitude, I spent a great deal of time thinking about M. Guinee and Senator Marcus, but most of all I thought about my father. It had been more than four years since I had asked Paul to keep an eye on him, and Paul had made good on his pledge, sending me regular updates and calling when the phones were in order. My father was still in relatively good health, but there were greater and greater limits to what he could do on his own. Whenever I did make it back home, generally for just an afternoon, my father spoke of Paul as if he were the son my father had always wanted.

There could be no doubt that Paul was serious about repaying the debt he felt he owed my father. But while it eased my mind that he was there to help, it did nothing to ease my guilt over not being there myself. As Paul's debt to my father shrank, mine grew. I had already decided that M. Guinee's passing should serve as a reminder of the importance of maintaining ties, even ones that sometimes felt impossibly strained.

Despite what my father might think, I had not abandoned him.

“Despite the sadness I have experienced,” I wrote to Madame, “I continue to feel only hope and optimism about our undertaking here. We will fill the holes left by this loss with something new, something that will outlast us all.”

* * *

Two weeks after M. Guinee's funeral, I received a delivery from the capital. Inside the truck were several tables Madame had ordered almost a year before, at a time when she still believed this would be her second home. Despite the optimism I had alluded to in my letter, the arrival of the furniture was a depressing reminder of all that had changed. The driver was a man who had brought us wood and bricks many times during the construction, and this was the first time he had been back since we finished the work. As we walked one of the tables up the winding staircase to the second floor of the manor house, he could not stop commenting on everything he saw.

“Is that real marble?” he said. “Is that crystal?”

Each time I nodded, thinking how hard it had become to appreciate these things now that it seemed no one but me would ever get to see them.

At the top of the stairs we rested. Noticing the silence for the first time, he asked if I was here alone. I told him I was.

“Well, maybe that will change now,” he said, offering me a cigarette. I declined.

“Why would that change?”

He shook out the match, considered dropping it on the floor, and then thought better of it. “I expect a lot will change,” he said, “now that he's dead.”

“Who is dead?”

“But don't you know?” he said, pushing out a cloud of smoke. “President Mailodet.”

Chapter Ten

G
iven her background, it was perhaps inevitable that Madame would come to realize the financial potential of the estate. It was likely, in fact, that she had known all along and was merely waiting for the right opportunity. But I do not think it vain to believe the work we had done to restore the place played the greatest part in showing her what was possible, that within the walls of the estate we could build a sanctuary.

The same day I learned of President Mailodet's death, I sat down to write Madame a letter, eager to tell her the news. But the reply I received, a week later, was not the ecstatic one I had expected. Everything I had been able to tell her, she already knew. And I immediately began to fear that following my earlier failure, she had decided to seek out a more reliable source for information.

It was clear, in fact, that Madame knew more of the details than I did. Not until I read her letter did it even occur to me that I had forgotten to ask the deliveryman how the president had died. I had simply assumed an assassin had finally caught up with him, or that he had been cut down in the midst of a bloody coup, as had been the case with so many presidents past.

Only thanks to Mme Freeman did I learn that, being as defiant of history as he was of everything else, President Mailodet had the audacity to die in his bed. Before doing so, however, he was able to push through one last constitutional amendment, this time granting himself the power to name his own successor. The man he chose was named Duphay. For quite some time, that was all I knew about him, all I cared to know.

But that spring, after almost a year of silence, I received a second letter from the States. In it Madame mentioned encouraging news she had been hearing about our new president. In his very first speech, on the day of his inauguration, M. Duphay had boldly announced the end of the “revolutionary phase” begun under President Mailodet. His role, he said, was to usher in a new era of democracy.

Madame also made references to a great number of other things I knew nothing about: a new airport, new roads, plans to complete the construction of the hydroelectric dam, a project begun and then abandoned more than ten years before, which promised to supply us—for the first time—with dependable electricity. It was also from Madame that I learned that the independent newspapers and radio stations had been restored.

But Madame remained cautious. She was not going to take a chance on coming back until she knew for sure the danger was over.

Over the next year, I received occasional letters. Her tone remained optimistic, but she continued to avoid setting a date for her return.

Despite what was happening in the capital, life for me remained the same. I had the maintenance of the estate to keep me busy. So busy, in fact, that I was able to visit my father even less often than I had before. For months I had been planning an extended visit, perhaps as long as a week, during which I would help with the shop and lend a hand with anything that might need to be done. It was time for him to see that Paul was not the only one eager to be of assistance. It had occurred to me that the shop could do with a fresh coat of paint, and there was quite a bit left over from the renovations at the estate that I was sure would not be missed.

But first there was an emergency rewiring project that needed to be completed in the lower north wing of the manor house. We had initially anticipated that it would take no more than a week or two, but that was before the electricians discovered the problem extended into the second floor as well. I had no choice but to put off the visit to my father until they were done.

Although I still spent most of my time alone, I was no longer as isolated as I once had been. There were more carts and donkeys outside the gate than ever. Even the occasional car and bus. But more significant than any of that was the cluster of shacks that had begun to appear at the western edge of the estate. It seemed to me an odd place for a person to choose to settle. I could not imagine what about that parched, treeless valley might seem inviting. President Duphay's recent pledge to entice new factories to open in the capital had apparently unleashed a torrent of desperate peasants from the countryside, and I feared many of them were ending up here, hoping to escape the overcrowded slums closer to the city.

For now, the trees and the wall kept them from spoiling our view, but nonetheless I could see only trouble coming from their proximity.

In the late fall, after the rains had ended, a crew of men from the capital came to fix the road, and the only bus service available to me was temporarily suspended. Once again I had to put off my plans to see my father.

* * *

The day after I received Madame's note that I was to ready the guesthouse, the money she had wired arrived. I spent it as she instructed, hiring the necessary help—a chambermaid, a man to straighten up the grounds, a footman, and a chef.

It was a week later, and I was standing on the steps of the manor house, when the taxi came down the drive. As I watched the space between us close, I felt a sense of calm descend upon me. One at a time they stepped out of the car, Madame and the three white men she had described in her letter.

“It's a wonderful airport, isn't it?” she asked, glancing nervously from one to the next. “So new, so clean?”

Overwhelmed by everything around them, the three men seemed not to hear.

It had been three and a half years since I had seen her last, and I was surprised to find Madame so unchanged. Her hair was different; much of the remaining gold had given way to grayish white, and curls had come to replace the waves. Soft, shiny bangs swept over her brow. In her mid-fifties now, she was still fit and trim, and her face was aglow. Maybe it was just the excitement of the moment, but she seemed more youthful and vibrant than ever.

From a few steps away I watched as she directed the men's attention to one or another feature of the landscape. They were trying to follow the trajectory of her finger as she pointed here and there, but I could tell they found it impossible to keep up. At last I was able to witness someone else seeing the place as only I had been able to see it before.

“Down there,” Madame said, gesturing vaguely beyond the guesthouse. “They will all go there. There will be paths connecting them. And the trees will provide privacy.”

It seemed an eternity before she finally took note of me and came over to shake my hand. But the smile she brought along with her made the wait worthwhile.

“How wonderful, wonderful, it is to see you again,” she nearly sang.

“Madame,” I said, regretting we had to break our grasp, “it's a delight.”

The first of her companions, a dignified gentleman with gray at his temples, blew out his cheeks in response to the heat that greeted him. He and the second man had come attired in dark, heavy suits poorly suited to the climate. The third was a man of considerable girth, who wore a tan linen suit and a pith helmet covered in matching fabric. In a schoolbook I had read as a child there had been a photo of a man dressed like this stalking tigers in the jungle. I feared this man had come seeking some similar sort of adventure. The outfit may have looked absurd, but he wore it with conviction, and I could see he was a man who committed to endeavors either wholly or not at all.

As the three men looked out over the grounds, I could feel their eyes seeking out the flaws, and it pleased me to think that though they would be here several days, they would be unable to find a single detail we had neglected; they could have months, and still they would find nothing.

After lunch, Madame took the three men on a tour of the estate, briefly inspecting the manor house, the guesthouse, the pavilion, her own private villa, and the various outbuildings, including the servants' quarters and the stables. They walked the gardens and as far as the top of the stone steps leading down to the preserve, which was as close to the forest as they were willing to go.

During the three days that followed, I saw little of Madame and the three men. Each morning they came to the manor house, and Madame received them in her office upstairs. Somehow the time I spent waiting for them to emerge for dinner seemed longer to me than the three years of silence and solitude leading up to this.

The meals were lavish affairs, expertly prepared. The chef was a man I had met years before, when he worked for an accomplished surgeon who was a friend of the Marcuses. We were both so busy with the arrival of Madame's guests that it was difficult to find time to talk, but that first afternoon I stopped briefly by the kitchen while he was preparing dinner.

On virtually every burner a pot was simmering. The stovetop was ablaze. The counters balanced pyramids of vegetables in a rainbow of colors. Amid the chaos he seemed perfectly at home, enveloped in a crisp, white apron.

“It's good to see you again, Michele.” I offered him my hand, but he indicated with a wave that his was dirty.

“I'm glad you were able to come,” I said. “I could think of no one better.”

He gave me a nod of thanks, selecting a peeled potato from a bowl beside the sink.

“How have you been?” I said. “What have you been doing since I last saw you?”

He shrugged. “The same.”

The hand holding the knife moved like a hummingbird's wing. The potato collapsed in shreds.

“But you have a new employer?”

“Yes, of course. But they're abroad.”

With the back of the knife he scraped the potato into a bowl and went back for another.

“I was wondering,” I said hesitantly, “whatever happened to your former employer, the doctor?”

Michele gave a distracted shrug. “I haven't seen him since I left.”

“But is he okay?” I persisted.

“Why wouldn't he be?”

He turned around to attend to some onions sizzling in a skillet, and for a moment I considered giving up. The part of me that felt an obligation to ask had lately lost almost all of its ground to the part of me that did not want to know. But I was here and I was speaking these words, I reminded myself, so that I could know I had tried, so that it would be okay hereafter to let it go.

“How long ago did you leave him?”

Michele paused to wipe his hands on his apron. “Six or seven years. Something like that.”

“That's about the time I left Senator Marcus.” To my surprise the name caused no change in his expression.

Again, a single swipe of the knife pushed the fresh slices into the bowl. As he reached for another potato, I moved around the counter until my shadow fell across his cutting board.

“By any chance,” I said, “did you happen to hear anything about Senator Marcus? Have you ever heard your new employer speak of him?”

Michele looked up impatiently. A drop of potato juice slid down the blade. “What would I hear?”

“I just thought—”

“If you'll excuse me,” he said, moving to the stove, “I still have a lot to do.”

With a nod, I turned to go, my relief far greater than my disappointment.

F
rom the kitchen that evening it was impossible to see or hear how Madame and the three white men were doing. The moment he returned from the dining room, I pressed the footman for details.

“What are they talking about?”

“How should I know?” he said, brushing past.

“You told me you knew some English.”

Back turned to me, he picked up another dish.

“Do they seem happy?” I asked.

“They don't seem angry.”

O
n the morning of the fourth day, the car that had dropped the three men off returned for them, and as soon as they were gone Madame shut herself up in her villa. I did not see her for two more days.

They were two of the most difficult days of my life. I had grown accustomed to living with a body of water between us. A few mere footpaths, however, proved almost unbearable.

Michele's employer was returning from abroad, and he had to get back to the capital. From then on the chambermaid took responsibility for our meals. Each morning, afternoon, and evening she left a tray outside Madame's door.

I passed the second day of Madame's absence working in the vegetable garden I had recently begun planting. I was already preparing for what I assumed was to come—for Madame to go back home and for me once again to be left here alone. I would be disappointed, of course, but a return to normal would at least mean that I could finally pay that long-overdue visit to my father.

When the chambermaid came that evening to tell me Madame was waiting for me in her office, I assumed it was time to say good-bye.

“I wish to thank you,” Madame said, even before I had closed the door behind me. She was standing beside the open jalousies, looking out upon the pool below. She seemed unusually anxious, and I wished she would sit down.

“I must confess,” she said, “there have been times when I feared the best we could ever hope for was to keep the place from crumbling any further.” She gestured for me to join her, and together we walked out to the balcony.

I was so nervous my hand streaked sweat upon the railing.

“But you haven't just halted the destruction,” she said, “you've actually reversed it. The men who were my guests these past three days couldn't believe what a paradise it is. Even more than I'd described.” Madame smiled. “Today I've received word that they've agreed to invest in us. Do you know what this means?”

I was afraid to guess.

“We will have our hotel,” Madame said with a sigh that seemed seven years in the making. “It will be like nothing this island has ever seen. The Hotel Erdrich will be a mere country inn by comparison. People will come from around the world. And I couldn't have done it without you.”

I knew in an instant that this was the moment and these were the words for which I had waited my whole life. It all seemed so familiar, just as I had imagined it. And that was why I could not explain the feeling suddenly coursing through me—not the elation I had expected, but a strange kind of sadness.