The Boiling Season (9 page)

Although no work was done on the estate on Sundays, I was seldom able to get away. There were always matters for me to attend to. Having no car, I had no easy way to get to my father's shop. Nevertheless, once a month I woke up early and caught the bus from Saint-Gabriel. By now most of the roadblocks and obstacles thrown up during the recent strikes had been cleared away, making the drive at least bearable, if not pleasant. After transferring to another bus in the capital, I could reach my old neighborhood just in time for church. But in order to get on the return bus, I had to leave before the neighborhood gatherings.

I think it was in large part because of the infrequency of these visits that I began to notice differences in my father. One afternoon I arrived to find him slumped on his stool, struggling to catch his breath.

“What happened?” I said, rushing to his side.

He waved me off, but several moments passed before he was able to tell me he was all right. Eventually I got him to explain what had happened.

He had woken up that morning with the idea that he should rearrange the shelves of his shop. Just before I arrived he had begun taking down some of the boxes and tins, but he had not gotten far. Knowing his stubbornness, I was glad he had been wise enough not to try to push himself further.

“You have to take it easy,” I told him.

“And who,” he said raspily, “is going to take care of the store while I'm sitting around with my feet up?”

“I never said you shouldn't take care of the store. But why did the shelves need to be rearranged? Why was that so important?”

“Because that's the way I wanted them.”

We continued to argue throughout the day, finally coming to an agreement that he would avoid any physical labor not strictly necessary. It became clear, however, that we had different definitions of what qualified something as necessary. For my father, anything he might decide to do was by its nature necessary; otherwise, he argued, why would he decide to do it? All I had accomplished was to convince him not to do things he would never have wanted to do in the first place.

“I've been thinking,” I said that afternoon as we sat quietly together in the yard, he on an old wooden chair and me on an overturned pail. “You should come to the estate. You could sell the store and come live with me. I'm certain Mme Freeman would not mind. There would be plenty of work, if you wanted to have something to do.”

It was a still, quiet day. Next door a young woman was clearing brush from around her house with a bamboo rake.

My father looked at me as if I could not possibly have meant what I said. “What makes you think I want to leave?”

Across the street two small children—a boy and a girl—squatted in the dirt beside a muddy ditch full of mango pits and orange peels and sewage. They appeared to be rooting for some kind of treasure.

I said, “I thought it would be nice for us to be together.”

My father's arms settled across his chest like a wave dissipating into the surf. “We're together now.”

“We would be together all the time. Besides,” I said, “it's not safe here.”

“I've lived here forty years.”

“But things are getting worse.” I could not fathom how he failed to see it. “It's filthy. And there are more guns than ever.”

My father smirked. “Do you expect me to be afraid of my own neighbors?”

“I'm not talking about your neighbors. I'm talking about the entire city. The thugs. The police. The army. They would just as soon shoot you as anyone else.”

“Let them. I'm not leaving.”

“I don't understand,” I said, rising to my feet. “What do you think you owe this place? Look,” I said, pointing to the children, who were now poking at something at the bottom of the ditch. In their concentration they looked like doctors performing some delicate surgery. “Look how disgusting it is. You cannot possibly tell me things aren't getting worse.”

My father shook his head. “You start hanging around with rich people, and suddenly the things you've known all your life aren't good enough for you anymore.”

“Why should I not offer you something better, if I can?”

In the corner of my eye I saw one of the children across the street rise with a joyful cry. Holding the stick far out in front of him, he carefully turned, as if he were in danger of losing his balance. The little girl shrieked and started to run, and the boy with the stick came chasing after her, laughing as he leaped across the open drain at the roadside. Only now could I see that the weight at the end of the stick was a dead rat.

“You deserve better than this.”

He gave another shake of his head. “Not if I'm the only one who gets to enjoy it.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, sitting down again in defeat. “The only way you'll come is if I invite everyone else?”

He thought about that a moment.

“Yes,” he said. “Then I would come.”

I
had hoped a walk would help me clear my thoughts, but on a street such as my father's it was impossible to find any peace. The houses were piled up next to one another like discarded boxes, so tightly it felt as if not even air could get between them. It was difficult to breathe, let alone think. If I had not gotten away when I had and found sanctuary at Habitation Louvois, I knew I would have grown just as bitter as my father. His bitterness I understood, but I could not fathom where he found this sense of loyalty, this absurd principle he alone upheld. While everyone else around him did whatever they could to look out for themselves, my father clung to his idealism. It was as if he saw something noble in suffering and the unending struggle. What was noble for him was for me deadening. I knew my mother, if she had lived, would have come to see it that way too.

Everywhere overhead sagged knotty twists of power lines. No one here could afford electricity, so they stole it instead, tapping into taps that had already been tapped. It was a wonder the entire place had not burned down. No doubt my father saw the twisted wires as further proof of his neighbors' solidarity.

A man leaning on a low cement wall in front of a windowless house nodded as I went by. He wore a clean white shirt and pressed black trousers. On one of his feet I could see a newly soled shoe. We were just three doors down from my father, but I had never seen the man before. The distant, thoughtful expression on his face gave the impression of someone who knew he did not belong here. Like me, I thought, he must be visiting. Perhaps he had family here, too.

He nodded and I nodded back, and then I found myself wondering if maybe I knew him after all. He could have been someone I had met at the Hotel Erdrich. Or was it somewhere else?

Without meaning to, I stopped.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello.”

“How are you, monsieur?”

“Fine, thank you,” I said. “I was hoping to get some fresh air,” I added. “I had forgotten how little there is to be had here.”

“Oh?” He pushed himself away from the wall, brushing the dust from the seat of his pants.

“Have we met?”

He shook his head. I was surprised by his certainty.

“I'm here visiting my father,” I said.

“Which one is your father?”

I pointed back in the direction from which I had come. “The shopkeeper.”

The man gave a knowing smile. “Ah, I've heard a lot about you. You're rebuilding that old estate.”

“How did you know?”

“He talks about you all the time.”

“Really?”

“Of course. If you have a son moving up in the world, you don't keep it secret.”

He stood at the side of the road, and I stood in the middle. Between us remained an awkward distance good manners dictated I should cross, but my feet felt too heavy to move. I could not believe any of these words had come from my father.

“Well,” he said. “I don't want to keep you.” He turned away, back toward the house. “I'm sure you have important things to do.”

I understood then, as I should have from the start, that the house was his and that the clothes, which were so much nicer than his neighbors', were merely part of a uniform. That was why he had looked so familiar. With his cap and his jacket, which he must already have hung up inside, he would be identical to the dozens of chauffeurs I used to encounter each day while out on business with Senator Marcus.

“And I hope you find your fresh air,” I heard him mumble.

I had offended him, and perhaps I deserved the mocking tone, but I could not understand why it was so hard for anyone else to see all the things that were wrong here.

Paul's mother's house was the same cinder-block square as my father's. But she had done her best to enliven the unpainted cement, planting two scraggly green shrubs in the hard earth outside her door. She had painted the plywood covering her windows blue, a hopeful approximation of the sky.

Inside, there were cartons everywhere, stacked to the tin roof along every wall. Paul's mother sat on one in the center of the room, hunched over a steaming bowl. Another carton served as a table.

Paul was sprawled in the corner, his legs buried in a mound of metal canisters. As he jumped to his feet, the canisters spilled across the floor.

“Alexandre! It's about time you paid us a visit,” he cried, opening his arms as he rushed toward me.

I had to look carefully around my feet before taking a step. “I see business is expanding.”

“You never believed me.” Paul grinned, gesturing around us with satisfaction.

“If it gets any better,” I said, “you'll have to sleep on the roof.”

Paul gave a generous laugh. “We should be so lucky.”

His mother blew a cool, tired breath into her bowl. “I can hardly wait.”

Begging her pardon, I asked Paul if we could go outside to talk. I could no longer stand being in that cramped space.

“I need to ask you a favor,” I said once we were out in the yard.

“Sure. What do you need?”

I started walking, and he followed me back up the street toward my father's shop. “I need you to check in on him,” I said. “He needs help, but he's too proud to ask for it.”

A smile unfurled on Paul's face. “Of course!”

I had expected him to be willing to help, but I was surprised by how eager he seemed. Knowing Paul as well as I did, I could not help feeling suspicious. He had a knack for working the angles. But what sort of angle could such a request possibly offer?

“You know how stubborn he is,” I said.

Paul gestured for me to say no more. “You don't have to explain. This is the least I owe him.”

“There's nothing you owe either one of us,” I said. “This is a favor.”

“No,” Paul said, “it's a debt.”

“A debt?”

“You've seen how well business is going,” Paul said. “Those boxes in the house, that's just part of it. There's more. Lots more.”

I resumed walking. “I'm glad.”

“Everything is about to change,” Paul said.

“I'm happy for you.”

The way he looked at me, I could tell he thought I was being insincere. But in fact I meant it. We were both doing well, and that was no small thing. I still could not agree that the risks he was taking were worth it, but I knew there was no longer any point in trying to change his mind.

“What is it now?” I said. “Shaving cream? Razor blades?”

Taking me by the arm, Paul stepped into my path. “I don't think you understand. I'm being serious.”

“As am I.”

“I'm saying it's time I paid him back.”

“Paid whom back for what?” I still could not figure out where he was heading with this, and I was growing tired of guessing.

“Your father.”

“Why?” I said. “Has he been helping you sell your shoe polish?”

Paul looked stunned. “I thought you knew.”

He could tell by my irritation that he had been mistaken. “Knew what?”

Paul scratched his cheek and raised his eyes briefly toward those wires dangling eerily above our heads. When finally he turned back to me, his expression was uncharacteristically grave. “You don't know about the money?”

“What money?”

“Every week,” Paul said. “For food or whatever we needed.”

He was still looking at me as if at any moment he expected me to confess that I knew more than I was letting on. “What are you talking about?”

“Your father.”

“Are you saying my father gave you money?”

Paul responded with a nod. “Ever since my father left. I thought you knew.”

“
My
father?”

“Your father.”

“That's impossible.” It was not that I doubted my father being capable of such a gesture. But how could something such as this have gone on for so long without my knowing?

“But that was”—I had to stop and count—“almost twenty-five years ago.”

“My mother didn't ask,” Paul said. “He just gave it to her. Your father is a good man.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know.”

We were almost at my father's door, and I was the one who made the move to press on. And yet, as each step brought me closer, I felt at even more of a loss. I was not angry—I was baffled. What was I going to do when we got inside? What was I going to say? All I had planned was to tell him that Paul was going to lend him a hand. Instead I found myself in the middle of a family secret that apparently everyone had known but me.

We walked in, and my father was lying on his bed in the dark. He heard our shoes skating on the dusty floor and opened his eyes. Turning his head, he looked at me and then at Paul, and his expression was no different than it had ever been. Why had he not told me? It was like so much else with my father. He was as protective of his deeds as he was of his thoughts and feelings. So too the motivations that fueled them. He was a devoutly religious man, but even his moral code was something I had never heard him discuss. Unlike politics, religion was not forbidden in his presence, but neither did he encourage it as a topic of conversation. He had little tolerance for righteous speech divorced from righteous acts. Was that it, I wondered? Was helping Paul and his mother a simple act of Christian charity? And his refusal to take credit an effort to ensure the purity of the gesture? Even with him sitting before me, I understood it would be impossible ever to know.