Dancing in the Baron's Shadow (11 page)

The warden looked him over from head to toe with disdain. Nicolas drew a deep breath. He smelled the warden's spicy cologne. Oscar's plump fingers rested on the desk, and Nicolas noticed the scabs on his knuckles. A gold ring on his index finger flashed in the light.

A sharp howl came from close by. Nicolas couldn't stop himself from looking around, his eyes wide with terror.

“You hear that?” The warden was now grim. “That's the sound of cooperation.”

Nicolas realized that everything was calculated here. The tiled floor increased the resonance of guards' boots in the hallways. The torture chambers were kept close so prisoners could hear one another howl. All of it was designed to instill terror in every prisoner in Fort Dimanche all the time. It was a product of Duvalier's sick, complex mind, and it was effective. He stared at the warden's mouth. He wished for the ability to punch this man precisely there, to knock out a few of those mocking gold fillings.

Oscar grabbed a folder from the stack next to him and thumbed through a ream of typed pages.

“You're a very interesting man, Nicolas L'Eveillé,” Oscar said. “Very intelligent, very educated. You've been told why you're here.”

Nicolas gritted his teeth but said nothing. The law, which he had taught for so many years, scrolled its statutes in the back of his mind, all of it meaningless.
What lies have you been teaching?
asked a horror-stricken voice inside him. The warden scanned the documents slowly, quietly. Nicolas realized it was his manuscript.

“You seem to know me well,” Oscar continued. “You've been taking notes on my comings and goings, my personal transactions. Did you personally know the communist traitor Jacques Stephen Alexis?”

“No, sir,” Nicolas muttered.

Oscar stared back, his face blank.

“You're plotting to overthrow this government,” the warden stated simply, as though describing a physical characteristic.

Before Nicolas could protest, the warden grabbed another sheet of paper from the folder and pushed it across the desk.

“Do you recognize this? This signature here? Do you know who that is?”

Nicolas leaned in. He let his eyes skim the paper, and the words that jumped at him were primarily legal in nature, mostly jargon. Then he saw the words “high treason” and the names, typed in all caps: “GEORGES PHENICIÉ, JEAN CICERON FAUSTIN, NICOLAS L'EVEILLÉ.” His blood froze in his veins. At the bottom of the page, the warden pointed at a signed name that was now vaguely familiar: Philippe Joseph.

“Now who could that be?” Oscar asked.

Nicolas couldn't find the words. Everything he wanted to say seemed pointless in the face of this absurd reversal of fortune. All of this was happening too fast, and for what?

“Thankfully, your ex-student is a true patriot,” the warden added. “His allegiance is to our father, Duvalier! Philippe Joseph had the good sense to denounce you.”

Nicolas had lost all feeling in his legs and wrists. The name Joseph still drummed in his head. The officer at Casernes Dessalines, the one who processed him. His name was Joseph, wasn't it?

“He told us you were a
kamoken,”
the warden said, putting the form back in the folder. “He was right. We have found the black-and-white evidence,
noir sur blanc.
His Excellency has already heard of this. There is a penalty against all traitors.”

“How does my writing make me a traitor?”

Oscar slammed an open hand on the table. The lamp vacillated, the desk shook, and the orange bulb flickered.

“You will not speak unless I tell you to, do you understand me?”

Nicolas stared into the warden's eyes. There was nothing to see there, except hatred.

“I am in charge. Not you. You are an enemy of the state,” Oscar bellowed, slamming the desk again. “From now on, you will be treated as such, you piece of shit. Writing propaganda against the republic is betraying Duvalier.”

Nicolas held still, trying desperately to calm his rapid heartbeat.

“And you were packing your bags, ready to flee. That's because you know you're guilty. You're a rat, a traitor, a coward!”

The warden pushed his chair back and stood up. Quickly, but expertly, he smoothed his uniform with both hands. Nicolas got a good look at his broad head and bull-like shoulders. There was no question he was a strong man. Nicolas thought he would destroy his desk and chair with every touch.

“People like you disgust me!” Oscar spat on the ground. “Who do you think you are, challenging me like I'm some sort of imbecilic pawn? I despise you elitist bourgeois, getting fat in your luxurious dining rooms and feeling indignant that you're not in charge. You have no idea what life is truly like. You look down on everyone, and you think that gives you the right to spy on me?”

He walked toward the door, rolling his sleeves up to the elbows. Nicolas tried to breathe, but he couldn't. He tried to turn
around, but he was bound too tightly. Tears of frustration welled in the corners of his eyes.

“You are a threat to this nation, and this government has no tolerance for it. There is no place for your behavior in our society.”

Nicolas saw the warden remove his watch, fold its leather band, and slide it inside his pocket. There was a brief silence in which the warden seemed to compose himself.

“Of course, sometimes some people need to be reminded of that,” Oscar continued. “So we help them, you see. We correct their behavior.”

Nicolas knew begging wouldn't help, but still, he stammered, “I—I have a wife and child. Please, you must listen to reason.”

The warden approached quickly from behind and gripped his shoulder with a large, icy hand.

“You have no family now,” he said, squeezing Nicolas's clavicle. “You are nobody. There is no reason for nobody.”

The warden stepped away. Nicolas's head pivoted, trying to track Oscar as he walked toward a wooden armoire in the corner of the room. He opened the door and reached inside, and when he turned around, the hair on Nicolas's body bristled.

“I am innocent,” he said. “You can't do this. Please, for the love of God—”

“God?” Nicolas heard him snicker. “In this room, God is dead, Maître.”

The warden brandished a black club, its varnished shaft catching the light. He motioned for the Macoutes.

“
Flanke l' sou djak!”

Nicolas's cry died in his throat. The men kicked the chair forward and his head hit the edge of the desk. He gasped for air, his skull buzzing. They untied him. Hands grabbed his wrists and squeezed as they secured a metal rod behind his knees and at the top of his forearms. His chest and ribs burned in pain.

“Please,” Nicolas implored. “Please, don't—”

He wondered if his pounding heart would stop dead, like a broken clock.
It would be better,
he thought.
Please God,
he prayed.
Please.
Nicolas turned his head and made eye contact with the warden. Oscar's eyes were dead. He was caressing the club with his fingers, admiring the finish before smacking it against the palm of his hand.

“When I'm through with you,” the warden said, “you'll be singing Duvalier's praises.”

The warden approached and Nicolas, undone, vomited on the floor. Yellow bile splattered on the desk and on the warden's shoes. Nicolas kept his head down, embarrassed and paralyzed with fear.
Joseph.
Yes, he knew a Joseph, a student, that limping young man who'd recorded him in class and followed him to his car. He whimpered a stupid prayer as the warden's hands tore off his underwear.

He was naked when the warden's teeth sank in his flesh. He gasped with both pain and shock and let out a scream. The warden was on top of him, and there was blackness, a sickness, a wave of rage against his own helplessness. When the club penetrated him, his entire being convulsed. He tried to scream again, but a sudden silence deafened him. He went limp.

When Oscar finally pulled away, he wiped the club against Nicolas's skin and exhaled. Nicolas gritted his teeth, but more pain was coming. The club came down like a machete hacking away at cane stalks in the fields. The blows fell on his bones as if to crush them one by one, as if he were being tossed between the jagged wheels of a sugarcane mill. The agony rippled across his neck and head. There was nothing left to do now but to hope for death.

Raymond knew Eve had fallen asleep after they'd passed Portail Léogâne and merged onto Route du Sud, southbound. Glancing back, he saw her head resting against the window, her forehead smudging the glass. Amélie was asleep on her chest, rocked by the motion of the car. Raymond was desperate himself for rest, but didn't think of stopping. His head still hurt, but the air got cooler the farther he drove into the southern mountains. His
hunger pangs had subsided, but his stomach was now gurgling uncontrollably.

Raymond weaved in and out of traffic, ignoring the irritated drivers honking their horns after him. No one seemed to be tailing them. Perhaps they were safe. He wedged his Datsun between two large public transportation trucks painted in bright reds and yellows. Men and women sat in the open backs, hanging on to straps like smoked herring in the blazing sun. Some men clung to odd parts of the vehicle to avoid falling off onto the road.

It was the same kind of truck Raymond had taken to get to Port-au-Prince the first time. Nicolas had been the first to leave l'Artibonite, and he'd caught a ride with a friend who owned a car, but Raymond had no friends with such resources. So he'd climbed up among sacks of charcoal, just like these people, hitching a ride to the capital. The passengers seemed unaffected by the rough conditions, their faces burning with hope for a new beginning. Raymond hadn't contacted Nicolas until he'd already found a place to stay and a job. He knew he'd have to distance himself from Nicolas and prove to himself that the trip to the capital had been worth it.

The tap-tap behind Raymond stepped on the gas and went around him, blasting evangelical hymns as it sped down the Route du Sud. The farmers huddled on the rooftop of that car were traveling with goats, and through his window, Raymond heard their screams, like human children in agony. The sound made Raymond's skin crawl. He wished he could roll his windows up to drown it out, but he had no air-conditioning and was relying on the pure southern air to keep them cool.

Raymond smelled the ocean, and out the window where Eve rested her head, he saw palm trees and a slice of azure shimmering in the sunlight. He knew this beach. This was where he'd gone looking for Yvonne and the children. Raymond looked straight ahead and kept driving. He couldn't think of them now. It would do him no good.

His limbs felt numb as he sped down the road, and his eyelids were heavy with sleep. Raymond was exhausted, but he had no
choice. He struggled to stay awake as he drove through green mountains, past open fields of sugarcane, rice paddies, and plantain trees in full bloom, their purple buds dangling over the fertile earth, pregnant with fruit. The hills that bordered the road soon parted to reveal Lake Miragoâne, a good sign of progress. He kept driving, hopeful. The village of Marigot, where they were headed, wasn't too much farther.

He pulled over at a gas station to refuel after a three-hour drive. They were in a small town near Jacmel. The attendant pumped his gas without a word. Raymond surveyed the area, watchful for police. He asked the attendant how much longer he needed to drive, and the young man shrugged.

“Where you going exactly?”

“Bainet,” Raymond lied, naming a city past his intended destination.

“Another hour or so, maybe.”

So Marigot was just minutes away.

As they arrived in Jacmel, the ocean unfolded before them. Eve rolled her window down to smell the salt air as the wind tossed the waves against cliffs and boulders. They passed the beach of Ti Mouyaj, and in the distance, Raymond saw a finger of land extending into the sapphire sea: Marigot.

A few minutes later, Raymond slowed down. He called over two shirtless boys who were selling freshly caught snapper by the side of the road. They held up their prize with pride and grinned, hoping Raymond was stopping to make a purchase. The fish scales caught the daylight like a prism.

“
Bèl pwason?”
the boys cried out. “Buy some fresh fish?”

“Where is the turnoff for Marigot?” Raymond asked.

Just a mile later, Raymond pulled into the small, sleepy community of Marigot. Yellow and red banners flapped in the afternoon breeze, and everywhere they looked, ribbons and signs clung to tree branches. A large banner floated overhead, announcing in painted letters, “
Fete Patronale de Marie Madeleine Pérédo à Marigot.”
Raymond drove carefully, noting the stares of passersby. They'd arrived during the annual festival for the
town's patron saint. The residents were still hoisting signs announcing the names of their local sponsors: mayors, doctors, and justices of the peace. Raymond knew most of those local leaders must hold a MVSN Macoute card. Duvalier's influence was everywhere and often felt through Macoutes appointed as
chefs de section,
or deputies, and local police throughout Haiti.

He turned down a narrow path that had not been paved. The sign at the entrance was hand painted, a red arrow indicating “
Plage.”
The gravel crunched under the car's wheels as they drove deeper into a small forest of palm trees bearing clusters of green coconuts. Through the palm fronds came glimpses of turquoise ocean. On both sides of the road, they passed women and children riding mules and pulling donkeys, balancing baskets of mangoes and avocados and cobs of golden corn on their heads, each one eyeing the car with curiosity.

Eve rolled her window down. “This is so beautiful,” she murmured. She turned to Raymond. “Is this where we're going?”

Raymond didn't answer, and when he approached the sea, he saw it: a blue adobe beach house with a thatched roof and red shutters like open eyes. Eve whispered something Raymond couldn't make out.