The Boiling Season (21 page)

The guards looked at the gardeners and then at their feet.

“Do not test me.”

T
hat night I called a meeting of the day-shift staff. For once, they all showed up on time, squeezing into the largest of the servants' quarters. I was aware that the silence of so many people crammed into so small a space could only mean the story of what had happened to the gardeners had spread. Who else could have spread it but the guards?

Not only did I not mind, I was glad.

“I trust,” I began, “that all of you have heard about what happened here today. Let me assure you that the same will happen to each and every one of you if I hear even a single word about gangs or guns or security forces or resistance or anything else. We are running a hotel. What do you think will happen if the guests hear you?”

Someone in the back murmured, “They wouldn't understand what we're saying anyway.”

“Who said that?” I shouted, and everyone fell silent again. “One more outburst, and I will fire every single one of you. I could stand outside the gate, and within five minutes I would have a replacement for every person in here.” I paused to let that sink in.

“Our guests understand more than you think,” I continued. “They may not understand the words, but they don't have to. All they need is to see the whispering, and they will know something is wrong. That's all it takes. As soon as they start thinking something is wrong, it's over. Think about that,” I said. “Unless you wish to join the ranks of the starving and unemployed, keep your thoughts to yourselves. I want to see nothing but smiles.”

I dismissed them then, pleased with their quiet and orderly retreat. I did not care if they liked what they heard—I needed only for them to absorb it, and I had no doubt they had.

That night I could not sleep, and in the morning I met with the smaller night-shift staff and told them the same thing I had told the others. They made no outbursts and offered no complaints. They had already been warned.

I was aware that for the next several weeks everyone on the staff did whatever they could to avoid me, but I was everywhere, making my rounds at all hours of the day and night. My ears were attuned, and I heard nothing more about any resistance in Cité Verd.

For a time, it almost seemed as if things were finally settling down again, and I looked forward to the day when we could return our energies to running the hotel, instead of constantly managing crises. Still, I was not so foolish as to think our troubles were past. As was always the case, as soon as one thing was dealt with, something else—something even worse—came along.

It was late July when the warnings first began appearing in the newspapers and the radio. A tropical storm was moving in from the southwest. With its torrential rains and gale-force winds—phrases that quickly became as familiar to our guests as “gin and tonic” and “white wine spritzer”—it had already decimated several other islands in its path.

If nothing else, the storm gave the staff something new to worry about.

We took precautions, stocking up on supplies and testing the generators. But despite our assurances that Habitation Louvois was perfectly safe, most of our guests insisted on cutting their visits short.

For those few who stayed, it was as we had expected. The first hour or two, each drop of water felt like a bucket, and the winds bent the trees as if they were drinking straws. But the floods went right around us, leaving us unscathed. Aside from some minor damage to the roof of the guesthouse and a few of the villas, the estate survived perfectly intact.

But while we were strong enough to withstand the storm, Cité Verd was not. All those shacks built of nothing blew away even before the worst of it hit. With no vegetation to hold down the soil, the hillside streets of dirt became an ocean of mud, and who knows how many people washed away. There were estimates of anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred. No one knew. How could they? These were people who had been like ghosts even when they were alive.

It did not take long for the murmuring to return. On the streets of Cité Verd there were protests and clashes with the security forces. Not just gangs this time, but old women and children and everyone else as well. They blamed it all on President Duphay. As if there were something he could have done—some vast umbrella he could have held above them until the storm had passed.

For our part, we were able to make it clear that despite whatever problems existed elsewhere, Habitation Louvois remained open for business. With few exceptions, the guests who had been waiting for the skies to clear hurried to claim their villas. Within a week of the storm, everything at the hotel was back to normal.

Everything beyond the gate, however, continued to grow worse, especially the constant clamoring in Cité Verd. More than once, M. Gadds had to phone the office of the minister of tourism, complaining of blocked streets that threatened to keep guests from reaching us. Each time, M. Rossignol proved himself as good as his word. The security forces came through and cleared the way.

But no matter how hard we tried, there were some things we could not shut out. Late one night in the second week of August—six months after all the trouble started—I awoke to the pops and cracks of gunfire.

Given how routine the sound would later come to be in my life, it seems odd to remember that initially I did not know what it was. Yet even as I got out of bed and went to the shutters to listen for the laughter of late-night revelers uncorking champagne, the rigid fear in my body told me it was something far more sinister.

If the guests heard it that first night, they said nothing. In the morning, wearing sunglasses as they sipped sparkling wine and orange juice, they grumbled about their losses at blackjack and craps. Perhaps the casino had muffled the sound. Or perhaps the vast quantities of rum they had been drinking had allowed them to sleep more soundly than me.

I knew the same could not be said of M. Gadds. He had heard it all, and throughout the morning just the sound of silverware clattering in the kitchen was enough to set him on edge.

The following night, everything was back to normal, and yet the memory of what I had heard refused to leave me. It was as if some part of me already knew what was about to happen and wanted the rest of me to be prepared for when it did.

I did not have long to wait.

Two nights later, at an hour when even the most committed gamblers were asleep in their beds, I awoke to the stuttering crackle of machine guns. I could do nothing but listen as everything we had worked so hard for fell apart.

This time, Madame, down in her villa, heard it too. When I saw her at our bench in the preserve the next morning, she looked as though she had also been up all night.

“They attacked one of the newspapers,” she said. “The security forces burned it down.”

As always, she wore a yellow dress, but this one appeared unusually faded. Madame looked older, too. But then I realized it was just that she had not applied her makeup that morning. I was surprised to see what a difference it made. There was almost no color in her cheeks, and her eyes were nearly lost within the encircling creases. The fingers fretting in her lap bore chipped polish in pomegranate red.

“I thought all of this was behind us.”

“M. Rossignol will fix it,” I said.

Madame sighed, shaking her head at the trees. “You were right—you said there would be trouble.”

It was kind of her to say, even if it was the sort of thing I could feel no satisfaction in being right about. More than anything else, I was simply glad she was once again looking to me for advice.

Together we got up, and in silence I walked her back to the manor house.

T
hroughout the rest of the day, despite her claims of optimism, the strain of smiling began to seem as if it were more than Madame could bear—as if the fragile scaffolding holding up the corners of her mouth might at any moment collapse.

At dinner, a guest who had stayed with us several times—a writer traveling with a male companion—stopped me as I was on my way to the storeroom to ask if what he had heard about the assassination of an opposition leader was true.

“Certainly not,” I said. It was the first I had heard about there even being an opposition. “The reports are always exaggerated. There's really nothing to worry about.”

That night, the gunfire unfurled in one tremendous, interminable explosion. For twenty minutes it rumbled without cease. Closing my eyes, I focused my ears not on the battle but on the sounds of doors and shutters opening and closing down below and voices in English asking each other what was going on.

In the morning, the writer and his companion were gone.

Chapter Sixteen

T
hey appeared first in the register as thin black pen strokes discreetly paralleling the rule on the page. The lines were so subtle, it was as if we were not supposed to see them there, our eyes drawn instead to the prominent names beneath. If you looked quickly, you might think nothing had changed. So too in the restaurant, where unless you stopped to count you might not notice there were fewer tables than before.

In their individual stations, the staff must have noticed other differences. The dishwashers went through their work more quickly than before. The laundresses needed fewer lines to hang the sheets.

The villas surrounding Madame's were the first to be taken out of use. They were the most out of the way, the least likely to have their vacancies noticed.

A few weeks later, we closed up four more.

There were one or two maids who got sick or pregnant. That still left us with far too many. We had no choice but to start letting them go. So too the gardeners and chauffeurs and houseboys and waiters.

It was not long before the lines in the register were replaced with blanks. By late October, six months after Mlle Miller's visit, we had more empty villas than full. In light of what had happened since, even M. Gadds had to recognize that the part I had played in that incident no longer mattered.

I
was on my way out of the manor house when I saw the taxi arrive. I do not know what it was that made me stop. Taxis were not an unusual sight, although it is true that by this point it had become rare to see one bringing passengers to us, instead of simply taking them away. We were down to a half dozen guests. I suppose a part of me had begun to wonder if there would be any more.

I was standing on the bottom step as the car came to a stop. The driver got out first and removed a suitcase from the trunk. Then he opened the rear door, and out stepped M. Swallows. Gone were the shorts and the toucan shirt, gone the safari gear, gone the white linen. This time he wore a dark, heavy suit. Somehow he was not sweating. There was a new fierceness about him, a look that suggested he would not allow something as banal as heat to distract him from whatever purpose had brought him here.

As he climbed the steps to the manor house, he did not once turn around to look at the grounds. He made not even a cursory glance toward his investment.

“What are you waiting for?” he growled as he passed me.

Upon reaching the lobby, he immediately ascended the stairs to the second floor, and I could only assume he knew Madame would be awaiting him in her office.

M. Gadds had let the last of the porters go. In their place, I picked up M. Swallows's suitcase and brought it inside.

That evening, despite our vacancies, M. Swallows declined his former accommodations in the guesthouse, preferring to stay at the Hotel Erdrich. I later heard he remained in his room all night, not even venturing downstairs for dinner. He checked out early the next morning, mumbling to the porter, the desk clerk, the doorman—to anyone who would listen—that this was a godforsaken country and that he would never again return.

T
he day of M. Swallows's departure, Madame called me to her office. Even as she gestured for me to sit, she was turning her back to look out the open shutters. The view appeared to do nothing to settle her nerves.

“I'm leaving,” she said.

She turned to look at me then, and just as quickly she glanced away. “Tomorrow. I have no choice.”

“I understand.”

“I have urgent business at home.” She was frazzled, turning around and around, unable to decide what to look at, what to do. “I've put it off for too long. I have to go now.”

“I understand,” I said again.

She walked over to her desk and idly picked up a pen. Then she put it back down. “Don't worry,” she said without conviction.

It was hard to feel reassured when she could not bring herself to look me in the eye.

“We'll get through this.”

“Of course,” I said, daring the faintest of smiles.

Something came across her face, something that I thought looked a little like hope.

B
y now, our only remaining guests were an American couple on their honeymoon, who for the last three days had crept about the otherwise empty estate as if afraid of being seen. They had arrived warily too, and I could not help wondering if their presence on the island was some sort of accident, as if they had climbed aboard the wrong plane and had no idea where they had landed.

M. Gadds had dismissed all but a few members of the staff. The chef had obtained a visa and fled to the States. With the gunfire in Cité Verd getting worse each night and the bodies more plentiful in the streets each morning, I believe the only thing keeping the American couple here was fear that what they might find outside the hotel would be even worse.

Finally, on the day after Madame flew back home, it came time for the American couple's departure. That morning, the last remaining gardener carried their bags up from their villa. M. Gadds, who at this point was serving as desk clerk, settled their bill. I do not know why it was that so many of us happened to be in the lobby just then—one of the chambermaids paused on her way out to the laundry room; Georges and the sous-chef who had taken over the cooking stood watching in the entryway to the restaurant.

The American couple were clearly uncomfortable with all the attention. The woman was small and skinny; there was almost nothing to her. Even her hair was thin and light, as if she were wasting away before our eyes. Her husband, a tall, lanky blond, spoke to M. Gadds in barely above a whisper.

Judging by the contortions of the woman's lower lip, she seemed to find the presence of the staff almost menacing, but M. Gadds made no move to dismiss them. Nor did things improve when the couple went outside to get into the idling car. Everyone followed, gathering at the top of the steps as the gardener loaded their bags into the trunk. The other remaining chambermaid appeared just then on the lawn by the tennis courts, as if summoned.

As the gardener came around to the side of the car where the American couple was standing, the poor woman seemed to tremble. The gardener opened the back door, and when he did so, the woman let go of her husband only long enough to sweep up the back of her dress and duck inside.

The gardener let himself into the front seat. In the absence of anyone else to do the job, he was chauffeur as well. We watched as the car made its way up the winding drive, but it was not the grand exit I believe many of us were expecting. At the top, the gardener had to stop, for there was no longer a guard to open the gate. And once they reached the street, I imagine the American couple were disappointed to discover they still were not free. After pulling the car forward a few meters, the gardener had to stop the car again and go back to close the gate behind him.

And then the car was gone, and when I looked again, the rest of the staff had already dispersed. M. Gadds was back inside, rummaging around behind the front desk. I watched him lift the guest registry, which had been lying open atop the counter, and close it, sliding it onto a shelf beneath the counter. Without a word to anyone he went upstairs to his office.

As I made my way across the lobby, the sous-chef called out to say that my lunch would be ready in a moment. In the restaurant, one of the regular tables had been set.

“Here you are, monsieur,” Georges said, placing a small vase of lavender orchids in the center.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It comes compliments of M. Gadds.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“We prepared a special lunch for you.”

“I'm perfectly content to have lunch in my office, as usual.”

“I understand, monsieur,” he said, gesturing at the table he had set so carefully, “but since it was M. Gadds's idea . . .”

“Why would M. Gadds suggest such a thing?”

“You would have to ask M. Gadds,” Georges said as he headed off to the kitchen.

A moment later he was back, carrying a silver tray loaded with dishes.

“This can't all be for me?” I said.

“It was M. Gadds's request.”

“I cannot eat all of this,” I said. “Take some of it to the others.”

One by one, Georges removed the dishes from the tray, setting them before me.

“But there are no others, monsieur.”

“I meant the staff, Georges,” I said, beginning to lose my patience. “I realize there are no more guests. There's no reason I should be the only one eating.”

“I understand,” Georges said, “but of course they're gone too.”

“They haven't gone anywhere,” I said. “M. Gadds is upstairs. I saw the others outside not five minutes ago. Call them in. We'll eat together.”

“I don't mean to contradict you, monsieur,” Georges said. “I too saw them just a few minutes ago, but they've left. M. Gadds went upstairs to gather his belongings. The others did the same. Madame gave the orders. She was kind enough to provide a month's wages.”

“That can't be,” I said. “She would have told me.”

Georges was untying his apron. “Will there be anything else before I go?”

“Won't you eat first? There's so much food.”

Taking off his apron, he folded it once, draping it over the back of the chair beside me. Empty-handed, he walked toward the lobby.

It occurred to me then that this was just a joke, that everybody was somewhere outside, waiting to spring upon me and have a laugh at my expense. If Madame had made such a decision, I would have been the first to know. I was her confidant, her friend, her adviser.

I reached the drive just in time to see Georges close the gate behind him and pass out of sight beyond the wall, heading toward Cité Verd.

The casino and the pavilion were empty. Up and down the paths and staircases connecting the villas I saw no one. Only a little more than four years had passed since the hotel had opened. Petals and leaves had already begun to collect in the pools.