Bay of Souls (15 page)

"Yes, I'm saying goodbye to it all, sister. I won't be coming back."

"Well, you know I'm surely sorry to hear that now," said Sister Margaret. "I thought when I heard you were coming home to us ... I thought what stories she'll have to tell. And there'd be something to do in the evening besides watch American rubbish on telly."

Tea arrived in its good time, hauled rather than carried upstairs by a petulant and out-of-breath teenager, overweight and surly.

"I hoped you'd come and teach here again," the sister said. "Now that you'd seen the world."

"How nice that would be," she said. "No, I've taken a job in the States. Political science."

They both watched the panting servant girl withdraw.

"You should have gone to medical school," the nun said. "You might well have done."

Lara smiled. "You had my life planned."

"I passed the time planning your life, Lara." She seemed really to be weeping. "Don't worry, it was a good life I planned you." Outside, the boys shouted again. Lara was touched, only for a moment, with grief and regret. It seemed she must be picking up the old woman's mood swings. Grief, regret and fear too. "Well now," said old Sister Margaret, sniffling aside her disappointments in Lara, "political science, is it? And in the States."

"I wasn't doing anyone any good in Africa."

"But you were! You were needed."

"I was a Soviet agent, sister."

Sister Margaret Oliver looked around to see if they had been overheard.

"Is that a joke?"

In fact, Lara couldn't help laughing. "It's true. Desmond Jenkins recruited us. My husband as well."

"You shouldn't say such things, dear. This government is run by the CIA." Margaret Oliver had a second look around. "Ever since the Yankee intervention. You could get thrown in jail."

"I'm sure they know all about me, sister. And you too," she said, meanly teasing. Outside, there was another cry of "Goal!"

"What?" demanded Sister Margaret. "What, me?"

"I'm joking, sister. They're really not that efficient. People who studied in Cuba are back in the government now."

"Dr. Desmond Jenkins," Sister Margaret said, "was honored everywhere. All over the Third World. Even in America. I can't believe he was a spy."

"He wasn't a spy, sister. He was an agent of influence. He helped the Russians to look good in the English-speaking world. He was paid for it. And for exposing the Americans."

"Exactly," the nun said. "Exposing them, so they called him a Communist, as they always do."

"Well," Lara said, "Jenkins did better out of it than poor Laurent and I. We were supposed to be agents of influence as well. But we lived on our university salaries. Old Desmond had his tax-free honoraria and lecture fees."

She told Sister Margaret a bit about her divorce.

"We were fond of each other," Lara explained. "But half the time Laurent was assigned to the Francophone countries there, and I had the English-speaking ones."

"He's older than you," Margaret Oliver said equitably.

"Yes," Lara said, "there was that."

"How is it," the nun asked after a moment, "how is it, considering, that the Yanks will give you a visa? And a teaching position."

It was a sly question that involved some compromises and complications. Lara gave her the simplest answer.

"Mum was American. So am I, sort of. I was born in New Orleans, so I have an American passport. Kept it up-to-date but never traveled on it in Africa. You can use a UN diplomatic passport there if you know how it's done. Desmond taught us."

In fact they had both defected from Desmond Jenkins's Bolshevik fan club. Her husband had gone to the French secret service, Lara to an American foundation. Jenkins had died teaching in America, a high-living gay deceiver of most uncertain allegiance, passed away with the Cold War. Practically, Lara thought, the week the Wall went down.

"So," she asked her old teacher, "is history God's will?"

"God's plan is what we are measured against," said the nun. "History is what we perpetrate, God help us."

They sat listening to the play outside.

"Do you believe in
les mystères?
"

"That is theirs," Sister Margaret said unhappily. She nodded toward the field where the boys were playing. "It's not for us when we have ... all that we have. Our religion and our knowledge."

"Only theirs?"

"They are old—very old things," Sister Margaret said after a moment. "They are left over from Creation. From darkness, almost."

"Almost? Are they wickedness?"

"Not wickedness," the nun said. "In the darkness, for them to find their way. Everything leads to light."

Automatic fire echoed off the range of the Anse Chastenet.

"The thing is," Lara said, "I'm involved. It was John-Paul. He always felt like a twin to me. He confined my
petit bon ange.
You know, he had the powers of a
houngan.
He pledged my soul to Marinette."

Marinette was a figure of rage and violence. Not a god but a woman who had lived once. A terrible godlike raging woman. She belonged to
petro,
which her brother had favored, the violent side.

"Did it change you?" Sister Margaret asked.

"I feel her. I feel without a soul sometimes."

"God will help you if you ask. God is stronger than these spirits. They're like the
sidh,
as we have at home."

"Anyway," Lara said, "I go to the
retirer
the next few nights. And I hope that ... it will come back. You know how hard it is to talk about this. You can't explain it to people. I've tried."

"You're so strong," Sister Margaret said. "So clever. Keep your eyes on heaven. Their power will fall away." She took Lara's hand and whispered something, a phrase that might have been Gaelic or Creole. "The Woman's Blessing on you. She crushes the serpent underfoot."

"I shall be happy," Lara said. "I feel it."

T
HAT AFTERNOON
Lara and Roger drove over to the Bay of Saints to visit the lounge and try to get a measure of the situation. The only guest in the hotel was an elderly Dutchman named Van Dreele who had observed the elections for the European Union and was following through with a report on their general effects. Van Dreele always stayed at the Bay. It was far from the capital at Rodney and mainly lacked the working faxes and armies of rent-a-cops available down there. But the food was good and Van Dreele had his own reliable sources of information. Every second day he would be driven the length of the highway in one of the blue and white UN cars to have a look at the capital and the lay of the land between. It was easier to sort things out at the Bay.

When Roger and Lara arrived at the hotel patio they found Van Dreele busily lining up his apéritifs. He had been in Rodney the day before, and all morning e-mails had been arriving threatening his life.

"Threats here used to come with a headless rooster in a burlap bag," he told Lara. He was taking lunch in flip-flops and an outsized yellow bathing suit. "Now one gets an e-mail."

"Which is worse?" Lara asked him.

"Harder to delete a chicken," Van Dreele said, stroking his tragicomic mustache. "Of course things were more prosperous then. No one has roosters to spare these days."

"Is Social Justice going to take over?"

"Junot and the Americans. This time they'll make the vote stick. But the junta will do what they always do."

"And you'll stay through it all?" Lara asked. She restrained a lick of his wild white beachcomber's hair. Sunbleached locks fell over his wide forehead.

"Anyhow, I'm too old to be afraid. This is what I tell myself."

"Don't take them personally," Lara said.

"They're against my person," the Dutchman said.

The threats promised what was piously called in Haiti, whence the style had originated, "Pére Lebrun," and involved being burned alive. It was hard to be dismissive of them at any age, and Van Dreele was a brave man. Some said he had made it his business to atone for the Dutch at Srebrenica.

Madame Robert, a local woman who had progressed from assistant chambermaid to housekeeper, came over to tell them that the press would be visiting. A young American reporter named Liz McKie, a Miami feature writer and specialist on the area, had made a reservation and hoped to join them.

"McKie?" Lara asked. "Isn't she the one we don't like? Did you know she was coming?"

Roger nodded.

"Miss McKie and the Bay are not friends," he said. "However, she's the companion of Eustace Junot."

She tried without success to call Junot from memory, but he had left St. Brendan's before her time, a scholarship winner, packed off to prep school in the States.

"Eustace is the man charged with Americanizing the Defense Forces. So turning his good friend away is not the thing. Anyway," Roger said, "you may find her fun."

"I find her attractive," Van Dreele said. "I tried to hire her as an assistant, but unfortunately Eustace found her. He's going to be our local André Chénier. Toussaint. Bolívar. She will commit it all to history."

"I suppose we don't have to comp her?" Lara asked. "She's not a travel writer."

Roger shook his head. "On the contrary. We set them up for Miss McKie."

Lara thought about it. "You know," she said, "Francis has a way of undercooking goat that's really disgusting. Maybe we should gut one in her honor."

"Francis's goat is lovely," Roger declared, "and I'm going to miss it. No, Miss McKie is a fucking ascetic. She gets too hungry for dinner at eight. She stays in the lowest hippie hovel in Rodney. Freddy's Elite."

"All the hip white kids used to stay there."

Roger nodded bitterly. "I should know, sweetheart."

"No kidding, Rog. You picked up white boys at Freddy's? That's a switch. Who paid?"

"Sometimes," Roger said with a sigh, "the trade was distinctly rough."

"At least," Lara said, "she didn't invite us there."

Van Dreele stood. They could hear a car pulling up in the hotel's turnaround.

"I don't want to talk to the press," the Dutchman said. "And McKie is a minefield. By the way," he told them as he went out, "Junot's secured Rodney and the whole south part of the island. His troops will be up here in a few hours and they have some American support units. Also Special Forces with the forward elements."

"That means," Roger said, "we'll have a lot of hungry ex-soldiers up this end of the island. This is where they'll hide out." He waved cheerfully to Miss McKie, who was coming up the stairs. "We've got to get over to the lodge and get this over with. Things are coming unraveled on this island republic."

Lara gripped the table. "We have to get there by nightfall," she told Roger. "For
retirer.
"

"I've hardly forgotten," Roger said. "We'll deal with McKie and go."

She meant the ceremony for John-Paul.

Miss McKie had worn khakis and sandals to join them, along with a navy blue T-shirt and a knit sweater against the night breeze. She was pretty; her slim neck and delicate features made her look like a dancer, but she was not tall. The candlelight at the table suited her. She appeared very much at home, which was not what Lara had expected.

"I'll never recover from the beauty of this place," McKie said. "I won't forget it."

"And now," Roger said, "you have attachments here. The Caribbean moon makes all irresistible." He was referring to Eustace Junot.

"I understand your father was Roger Hyde, the novelist," McKie said quickly. "That true?"

Roger smiled as though he were listening to something far away, hearing different words.

"All that old-time swashbuckling stuff, right?" McKie persisted. "The gallant South. But you didn't live here or in the States?"

"We lived in Cayoacán," Roger said. "Down the street from Trotsky."

McKie gave him a long-toothed smile. Then she turned to Lara, looking her over somewhat impolitely.

"I understand you teach political science at Fort Salines, Miss Purcell."

"Call me Lara."

"Do you deal with the modern history of this island? The corruption and poverty?"

"I'm afraid we can't stay long, Liz," Lara said. She brushed her shoulders and tossed her head as if she were cleansing herself of Liz McKie's effrontery. "We haven't time for the grand historical questions."

"My questions," McKie said, "are all about modern history. Independence to the present. May I ask a few?"

"We're afraid," Lara said, "your close connection in the Social Justice Party—and the Defense Forces—would shade your interpretation. And we have an engagement tonight."

"Actually," Roger interrupted, "if I were you, I would get back to my friends."

"We inherited a historical situation here," Lara said. "We all did. Everyone. We're in business here, we have been for two hundred years. We pay a decent wage for a day's work. Higher than any of the offshore American or European companies."

"Is it true that you're involved in moving drugs to the United States?" Liz McKie showed the same smile.

"There's never been a drug case connected with St. Trinity," Roger told her. "Not one. All local business people are accused of it. Whereas American-owned companies are said to be pure. Why is that?"

"Informed people say it. They say there's a political dimension."

"Do you want to stay here for the night?" Lara offered. "The roads will be troublesome if you're traveling after dark."

They got her in her car and under way. Her driver was one of Junot's American-trained soldiers, and he looked worried as he drove out of the hotel's turnaround. Miss McKie sat in front, beside him.

"A stupid waste of time," Roger said when they too were back on the road. "We've got to get the shipment out whether the Colombians have arrived or not. The pilot's been standing by."

"Waiting for darkness," Lara said. "Same fellow I came in with?"

"Truly," Roger said, "I try not to distinguish one from the other."

"I won't ask you about drugs," Lara said.

"You needn't. People don't understand how it is."