The Boiling Season (16 page)

Afterward, I went over to shake the priest's hand, thanking him for his kind words.

“Your father was a good man,” he said, distractedly nodding at the others as they went by. “He deserved our respect.”

“He would have been pleased with the service.”

“I'm glad,” the priest said. “Speaking of services, I hope we'll be seeing more of you.”

Just then an arm fell around the priest's shoulder. He looked over, and there was Paul, smiling back at him as if they were old friends. Of all the things I had seen in recent days, this was the most odd and incongruous. This was the same priest who—when we were children—had written sermons inspired by Paul's many and various sins. All of that animosity had disappeared.

With a practiced ease, Paul folded several bills into the priest's hand, and the two of them exchanged kisses on the cheek.

T
he morning after his burial, I sold my father's shop to a newlywed couple for half what it was worth, and late that night I was back at Habitation Louvois. At that hour I had to pay twice the usual fare to go so far up into the mountains, but I would have paid anything. As much as I could, I encouraged my thoughts to race toward the work left to be done on the estate, hoping I might forget what I was leaving behind. Not my father, but certainly my father's world.

* * *

Without the hotel to return to following my father's funeral, I do not know how I would have gotten through the devastation. And yet the hotel was not without its disadvantages. As I looked upon our progress, feeling the end come ever closer, I could not help but think with sadness about the people who would never know what we had accomplished. M. Guinee would never get to see the place he himself had made possible. And my father died without understanding why I had made this my life. And then of course there was Senator Marcus, who would never know that so many of his dreams for the island were finally coming to pass. But there was one exception—one person whose memory brought me comfort.

When I first arrived here, nothing had grieved me more than the thought of my mother and how much she would have loved this place that I would never get to share with her. But over time, as I began to feel more at home, I came to see her presence in the things around me: the flowers and trees and the carvings in wood and stone made by long-dead craftsmen whose equals the world would never again know. In fact, I saw now that Habitation Louvois brought my mother and me closer than we had ever had a chance to be in life. I felt I knew her better now than I had ever known anybody.

D
uring the final week of construction, Madame's investors returned, and she spent her days rushing around the grounds like a woman half her age. I think she needed to feel that no detail, however insignificant, was escaping her attention.

The investors were staying at the Hotel Erdrich, and the afternoon the last of the tables were installed in the casino, Madame brought the three men to the estate. Perhaps as a testament to how civilized the island had become, the large man had left his safari clothes at home, opting instead for a light summer suit. The four of them went off alone on a tour, Madame nervously clutching her walking stick—which she had recently begun to favor—too high above the ground for it to be of any use.

I was standing by the front desk when they returned, perhaps half an hour later, ascending the stairs near the tennis courts, the three men in the lead. Madame's stick dragged at her heels as she followed behind them. I could not tell if she was defeated or relieved, but as she passed me on her way up the stairs to her office, she managed a smile to let me know that all was well.

That evening, our new chef—an acquaintance of Michele's—prepared his first meal in the new kitchen, and Madame and the three investors settled in the restaurant for a feast of twelve courses. Afterward they went out to the pavilion, where a band awaited, and Madame and the large man in the light summer suit danced until the last of the ice in the servants' buckets had melted, and then they went to the club room for one last, unchilled drink.

Chapter Eleven

D
espite our preparations, no one was quite ready when the first guests arrived. For me it was not a matter of things we had neglected to finish; I had simply lived alone for so long I had perhaps forgotten how to be decorous. Instead of plumbers and carpenters getting in the way, suddenly it was ladies and gentlemen trailing porters overloaded with luggage. In all my time in the service of Senator Marcus, and even during my stays at the Hotel Erdrich, never had I seen such luggage—leather so thick and shiny it seemed almost alive.

As I watched our guests arrive—nearly one hundred of them in two days—I wondered if they had traveled here together; they seemed remarkably well acquainted, calling out to one another by name and trading flamboyant kisses when they intersected in the lobby. I imagined an enormous ship adorned with thick red carpet and polished brass fixtures transporting them around the world, from port to tropical port—dining with the ship's captain at the head of a table long enough for all of them to sit together. I tried to imagine myself there with them, but I was not so naïve as to believe they would accept me as one of their own. Not yet, but I could see the distance between us closing.

Although we had gone to great lengths to anticipate every problem that might arise with the opening of the hotel, there remained one troubling detail we had been largely powerless to address. In the nearly two years since the first shacks had appeared to the west of the estate, they had quickly grown from a small cluster to a sprawling ghetto, complete with a squalid market. As before, most of the new residents continued to be migrants from the countryside who had been squeezed out of the capital's overcrowded slums or came here hoping to escape the violence. For each one of the factory jobs made possible by the new hydroelectric dam, there were at least a hundred untrained peasants. The other ninety-nine ended up here: Cité Verd. A name so false it rose above irony to cruel mockery. Never was there a place less bestowed with green.

One afternoon a few weeks before the opening of the hotel, I went to see Madame in her office, wanting to share my concerns. As loath as I was to be the bearer of bad news, I could not afford to repeat the mistake I had made years ago, failing to warn her of potential dangers.

“Just to be safe, I thought I should mention it,” I said, closely attuned to any sign of anger. “Maybe it will turn out to be nothing. But I worry about having so much squalor so close by, and the effect it will have on the hotel and the guests.”

Madame sat at her desk, thoughtfully folding her hands together. “I know what you mean.”

“I apologize for raising this now,” I said. “It all happened more quickly than anyone expected.”

“They can't be moved,” she said with a sigh, “so for now we'll just have to hope for the best.”

She pushed her chair back and got to her feet. I did the same.

“I would be grateful to you, however,” she added as she turned toward the window, “if you would continue to monitor the situation for me.”

“Of course.”

She tapped a finger against her cheek. “Something like this requires the eyes of a native, someone sensitive to the ways of his people.”

“Certainly, Madame. Although”—I hesitated as I moved toward the door—“I would never consider these to be ‘my people,' exactly, and perhaps I don't know them as well as—”

“You know what I mean.” With a stiff, false smile, she showed me we were done.

Since there was no way to reach Habitation Louvois from the port or the airport without having to pass by Cité Verd, we had to do what we could to minimize the shock. After our conversation, Madame ordered the street-front houses painted, the colors coordinated by the hotel's interior designer. But not even a rainbow of reds and oranges and yellows and blues could hide cheap concrete and rusted sheet metal. It was embarrassing to imagine our guests' first impression upon seeing the gawking peasants standing along the road in their rags.

Yet I had to admit that this too was part of what made Habitation Louvois so astonishing a sight, for having cleared the gate and begun the descent down the drive, one felt as though one were on a bridge to another world. It had been nearly eight years since Madame had purchased the estate, and even I—despite having been here every moment since—found the transformation incredible. I could not get enough of the look on our guests' faces, the same expression—as if it were a mask they took turns wearing—of awe that such a place as this could exist. They had traveled around the world, visiting places I had only read about. Madame had visited them too, and she knew there was nothing anywhere as beautiful as Habitation Louvois.

On the day the last of these initial guests signed the ledger, M. Gadds—whom Madame had hired to manage the hotel—showed me their names, appending to them the details he was aware I did not know: he was a famous actor, she a world-renowned singer. There were painters and poets, businessmen and brokers. There was a tennis player, a producer, and many more about whom he could say only, “And
she
—
she
is
very
famous,” without being able to say precisely what she was famous for.

And then M. Gadds showed me the ledger where he tracked future reservations. He turned page after page. There seemed to be no end in sight.

“How far in advance does this go?” I asked.

“That was for this year.” He put the ledger down and picked up another. “This one is filled up for next year.”

It was only then that I truly began to understand what we had made, that this was to be not just another resort, a place like countless others that travelers looking to get away might choose. For the people in the ledgers, choice had nothing to do with it. We were an essential stop on their migratory path. And perhaps that was why Madame was able to get away with charging what she did. Hundreds of dollars every night, an amount someone like my father would find inconceivable. But some of the guests, those whose presence Madame wanted to ensure, were staying for free. She had even paid their airfare.

“It's an investment,” M. Gadds told me. “The whole world will be watching to see who comes.”

Madame and M. Gadds had been working for months on a guest list for the party to commemorate the opening. In addition to the guests in residence, Madame had invited dignitaries from every foreign embassy, every man of note from our own government, and members of the island's most prominent families. The first invitation had gone to President Duphay himself, and Madame had been ecstatic to receive, via the president's personal messenger, a gracious note of acceptance.

In the week leading up to the party, even the chambermaids came to life. Rather than loitering in doorways, chatting to one another with dust cloths over their shoulders, they could be seen scurrying along the paths with piles of fresh linen.

Madame had hired a woman from the States to oversee the party preparation. Together with Jean, our new chef, she coordinated a buffet of local dishes.

“They can get caviar anywhere,” Madame said. So instead we would have chicken and rice and beans and roast pig. A long table was set up by the manor house pool for the food and the champagne and the crystal bowl of rum punch. Workers strung the trees with lights, and the gardeners—having seen to it that the grounds were immaculate—dedicated themselves to gathering flowers, which a florist from the capital arranged into native bouquets. And a band came to rehearse in the pavilion, and the party planner from the States personally saw to training the waitstaff.

The night of the party, the three white men, Madame's investors, appeared in tuxedoes. Soon the local guests began to arrive. I stood for a time watching an almost unbroken string of headlights bob down the drive. Black sedans, parked nose to tail on the lawn, reflected the moonlight on their shiny hoods, making the grass appear like a glassy pond. A constellation of lit cigarettes showed where the chauffeurs had gathered, shooting dice near the stables.

A few at a time, the other guests made their way from the villas to the manor house, attired in silk and satin. There was a casual grace to them, as if they were unaware of what was happening here—as if they had stumbled upon the party by accident. The locals, on the other hand, appeared stiff in their suits and their punctuality. I watched the two groups merge and then separate, gravitating toward their own kind. The patio began to look something like a chessboard, alternating clusters of light-skinned visitors and dark-skinned island dignitaries.

Unlike the rest of the staff, outfitted in identical uniforms of red and black, I was given a tuxedo with a white jacket. It was yet another welcome sign that my days of passing out drinks were far behind me. I was free now to walk among these men and women not as a servant but as someone equally worthy of respect.

Madame, in an elegant yellow gown, was leading tours of the estate, down the lighted paths to the villas and the garden and the pavilion—where the band played merengue—and the casino and the discotheque and the manor house and back to the pool, where the waitstaff stood by with ladles of punch. In between excursions she mingled near the verandah, where she could keep an eye on the incoming cars. I knew she was nervous that it was getting late, and there was as yet no sign of President Duphay.

Yet even with the absence of the president, the gathering did not lack for luminaries. I was told the prime minster was in attendance, as was the secretary of the treasury.

Standing beside the marble fountain that lapped into the pool, I was drawn into conversation with a distinguished gentleman of perhaps sixty, who introduced himself as Justice Charles. His beard was elegantly streaked with silver.

“A judge?” I could not hide my delight.

In response he grunted and gave the bottom of his glass a swirl.

“It must be extremely difficult to become a judge.” I was eager for him to understand that I was not unfamiliar with his profession.

“I suppose so,” he said with a yawn.

How pleased my father would have been to see how far I had come.

I said, “I am the manager of Habitation Louvois.”

At that, Justice Charles turned toward me with a grin. “You work here, then?”

“Why, yes,” I said with pleasure, as he draped his arm around my neck. “I helped to build everything you see.”

He gave me a nod and squeezed my shoulder.

“Excellent,” he said. “Excellent.” And with a quick glance to ensure we were alone, he led me a few steps away.

“Maybe you could tell me,” he said, leaning in toward my ear, “where a man might go for a special treat?”

“Well,” I said, lowering my voice until it matched his, “what kind of treat did you have in mind?”

“So many lovely women,” the judge said with a wink. “But it's so hard to tell which ones are available.”

Just then—at the worst possible moment—I spotted one of the houseboys cresting the top of the stairs. A look of panic was on the boy's face, and he was heading straight toward me.

I tried to wave him off, but the moment he arrived, he reached out to grab my arm. “Monsieur,” he whispered hoarsely, “Monsieur.”

I did my best to pull away, but the boy would not let go.

“Would you pardon us for just a moment?” I asked Justice Charles. And then I dragged the boy a few steps away. “What is it? What's going on?”

“You have to come,” he said, oblivious of my anger. “You have to come right now. There's trouble at the gate.”

I turned toward the judge in embarrassment. “I'm terribly sorry,” I said. “It seems they cannot do anything without me.”

The judge raised his glass to his lips, allowing a single ice cube to slip past.

“I'll be back in just a moment, and then we can finish our discussion.”

With a flick of his wrist, he signaled that he understood.

I grasped the houseboy by the sleeve, leading him up the stairs. I said, “This had better be important.”

The moment we reached the drive, I could hear the trouble for myself, a vast commotion of voices up above us.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Villagers.”

“How many?”

He paused, struggling to come up with a number.

“What do they want?”

From where they stood, I doubted they could see much—the floodlights around the pool, perhaps, and the strings of white bulbs swaying from the trees. Did they really have nothing better to do?

We found the guards crouched in their booth, passing back and forth a bent cigarette. For a moment they seemed to consider springing to their feet and pretending I had not caught them hiding here. But then they appeared to remember what was happening outside and decided it was wiser to stay where they were. What did they think would happen, with a wrought-iron gate between them and the crowd?

“Get up, you cowards!”

From the counter above their bowed heads I picked up one of their flashlights. The metal felt slick in my hand, and I realized I was sweating.

Despite the moon and the lamppost, shadows prevailed. At the gate I could detect movement, but the forms were a blur, like animals camouflaged under a cover of trees. But there was no cover, just a jumble of bodies, a mass of arms and legs and heads and torsos that appeared to have fused together. It was as if all of Cité Verd had descended upon us. So many eyes were on me as I approached that I did not know where to look.

Above my head I raised the dark flashlight, aiming it at the sky.

“He has a gun,” someone shouted.

“He's going to shoot.”

As the message traveled backward into the crowd, panic spread with it. There was a frantic scramble as the people in front tried to flee—but they continued to be pressed forward by the people behind them.

“You have ten seconds to clear away,” I shouted.

There were screams and scuffles and pushing in every direction. Coming closer, still wielding the flashlight, I saw faces jammed up against the bars growing twisted with desperation.