The Comedians Page 5

  He said, ‘You’ve lived in Port-au-Prince. You must know some of the big boys there?’

  ‘They come and go.’

  ‘In the army, for example?’

  ‘They’ve all gone. Papa Doc doesn’t trust the army. The chief-of-staff, I believe, is hiding in the Venezuelan Embassy. The general’s safe in Santo Domingo. There are some colonels left in the Dominican Embassy, and there are three colonels and two majors in prison – if they are alive. Did you have introductions to any of them?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said, but he looked uneasy.

  ‘It is well not to present introductions till you are sure your man is still alive.’

  ‘I have a chit from the Haitian consul-general in New York recommending me . . .’

  ‘We’ve been at sea three days, remember. A lot can happen in that time. The consul-general may have sought asylum . . .’

  He said as the purser had done, ‘I wonder what brings you back, conditions being what they are.’

  The truth was less fatiguing than invention and the hour was late. ‘I found I missed the place,’ I said. ‘Security can get on the nerves just as much as danger.’

  He said, ‘Yes, I thought I had had my fill of danger in the war.’

  ‘What unit were you in?’

  He grinned at me; I had played a card too obviously. ‘Oh, I was a bit of a drifter in those days,’ he said. ‘I moved around. Tell me, what kind of chap’s our ambassador?’

  ‘We haven’t got one. He was expelled more than a year ago.’

  ‘The chargé then.’

  ‘He does what he can. When he can.’

  ‘We seem to be sailing towards a strange country.’

  He went to the porthole as though he expected to be able to see the land across the last two hundred miles of sea, but there was nothing to be observed except the light of the cabin lying on the surface of the dark swell like yellow oil. ‘Not exactly a tourist paradise any longer?’

  ‘No. It never really was.’

  ‘But perhaps a few opportunities for a man of imagination?’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘The kind of scruples you have.’

  ‘Scruples?’ He looked out into the rolling night and he seemed to be weighing the question with some care. ‘Oh, well . . . scruples cost a lot . . . Why did you suppose that nigger really wept?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘It was an odd evening. I hope we do better next time.’

  ‘Next time?’

  ‘I was thinking of when this year ends. Wherever we may be.’ He came away from the porthole and said, ‘Oh well, it’s time for shut-eye, isn’t it? And Smith, what do you suppose he’s up to?’

  ‘Why should he be up to anything?’

  ‘You may be right. Don’t mind me. I’m going now. The trip’s over. No getting out of it now.’ He added with his hand on the door, ‘I tried to cheer things up, but it wasn’t much of a success. Shut-eye’s the answer to all, isn’t it? Or that’s how I see it.’

  CHAPTER 2

  I WAS returning without much hope to a country of fear and frustration, and yet every familiar feature as the Medea drew in gave me a kind of happiness. The huge mass of Kenscoff leaning over the town was as usual half in deep shadow; there was a glassy sparkle of late sun off the new buildings near the port which had been built for an international exhibition in so-called modern style. A stone Columbus watched us coming in – it was there Martha and I used to rendezvous at night until the curfew closed us in separate prisons, I in my hotel, she in her embassy, without even a telephone which worked to communicate by. She would sit in her husband’s car in the dark and flash her headlights on at the sound of my Humber. I wondered whether in the last month, now that the curfew was over, she had chosen a different rendezvous, and I wondered with whom. That she had found a substitute I had no doubt. No one banks on fidelity nowadays.

  I was lost in too many difficult thoughts to remember my fellow-passengers. There was no message waiting for me from the British Embassy, so I assumed that at the moment all was well. At immigration and customs there was the habitual confusion. We were the only boat, and yet the shed was full: porters, taxi-drivers who hadn’t had a fare in weeks, police, and the occasional Tonton Macoute in his black glasses and his soft hat, and beggars, beggars everywhere. They seeped through every chink like water in the rainy season. A man without legs sat under the customs counter like a rabbit in a hutch, miming in silence.

  A familiar figure forced his way towards me. As a rule, he haunted the airfield, and I had not expected to see him here. He was a journalist known to everyone as Petit Pierre – a métis in a country where the half-castes are the aristocrats waiting for the tumbrils to roll. He was believed by some to have connexions with the Tontons, for how otherwise had he escaped a beating-up or worse? And yet there were occasionally passages in his gossip-column that showed an odd satirical courage – perhaps he depended on the police not to read between the lines.

  He seized me by the hands as if we were the oldest of friends and addressed me in English, ‘Why, Mr Brown, Mr Brown.’

  ‘How are you, Petit Pierre?’

  He giggled up at me, standing on his pointed toe-caps, for he was a tiny figure of a man. He was just as I had remembered him, hilarious. Even the time of day was humorous to him. He had the quick movements of a monkey, and he seemed to swing from wall to wall on ropes of laughter. I had always thought that, when the time came, and surely it must one day come in his precarious defiant livelihood, he would laugh at his executioner, as a Chinaman is supposed to do.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Mr Brown. How are the bright lights of Broadway? Marilyn Monroe, lots of good bourbon, speak-easies . . . ?’ He was a little out of date, for he had not been further than Kingston, Jamaica, in thirty years. ‘Give me your passport, Mr Brown. Where are your luggage tickets?’ He waved them above his head, pushing through the mob, arranging everything, for he knew everyone. Even the customs man allowed my baggage to pass unopened. He exchanged some words with a Tonton Macoute at the door and by the time I emerged he had found me a taxi. ‘Sit down, sit down, Mr Brown. Your luggage is just coming.’

  ‘How are things here?’ I asked.

  ‘All as usual. All quiet.’

  ‘No curfew?’

  ‘Why should there be a curfew, Mr Brown?’

  ‘The papers reported rebels in the north.’

  ‘The papers? American papers? You don’t believe what the American papers say, do you?’ He leant his head in at the taxi door and said with his odd hilarity, ‘You can’t think how happy I am, Mr Brown, to see you back.’ I almost believed him.

  ‘Why not? Don’t I belong here?’

  ‘Of course you belong here, Mr Brown. You are a true friend of Haiti.’ He giggled again. ‘All the same many true friends have left us recently.’ He lowered his voice just a tone, ‘The government has been forced to take over some empty hotels.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’

  ‘It would have been wrong to let the properties deteriorate.’

  ‘A kindly thought. Who lives in them now?’

  He giggled. ‘Guests of the government.’

  ‘Do they run to guests now?’

  ‘There was a Polish mission, but they went away rather soon. Here comes your luggage, Mr Brown.’

  ‘Shall I get to the Trianon before the lights go out?’

  ‘Yes – if you go direct.’

  ‘Where else should I go?’

  Petit Pierre chuckled and said, ‘Let me come with you, Mr Brown. There are road-blocks now between Port-au-Prince and Pétionville.’

  ‘All right. Get in. Anything to avoid trouble,’ I said.

  ‘What were you doing in New York, Mr Brown?’

  I replied truthfully, ‘I was trying to find someone to buy my hotel.’

  ‘You had no luck?’

  ‘No luck at all.’

  ‘No enterprise in such a great cou
ntry?’

  ‘You expelled their military mission. You had the ambassador recalled. You can’t expect much confidence there, can you? My God, I completely forgot. There’s a presidential candidate on board the boat.’

  ‘A presidential candidate? I should have been warned.’

  ‘Not a very successful one.’

  ‘All the same. A presidential candidate. What does he come here for?’

  ‘He has an introduction to the Secretary for Social Welfare.’

  ‘Doctor Philipot? But Doctor Philipot . . .’

  ‘Anything wrong?’

  ‘You know what politics are. It’s the same in all countries.’

  ‘Doctor Philipot is out?’

  ‘He has not been seen for a week. He is said to be on holiday.’ Petit Pierre touched the taxi-driver’s shoulder. ‘Stop, mon ami.’ We hadn’t got as far yet as the Columbus statue, and the dark was rapidly falling. He said, ‘Mr Brown, I think that I had better go back and find him. You know how it is in your own country – one must avoid giving a false impression. It would not do for me to come to England carrying an introduction to Mr Macmillan.’ He waved to me as he went away. ‘I will come up presently for a whisky. I am so glad, so glad, to see you back, Mr Brown,’ and he departed with that air of euphoria, based on nothing at all.

  We drove on. I asked the driver – he was probably a Tonton agent, ‘Shall we get to the Trianon before the lights go out?’ He shrugged his shoulders. It was not his job to give away information. The lights were still burning in the exhibition building used by the Secretary of State, and there was a Peugeot parked by the Columbus statue. Of course there were a lot of Peugeots in Port-au-Prince, and I couldn’t believe that she would be cruel enough or tasteless enough to choose the same rendezvous. All the same I said to the driver, ‘I’ll get out here. Take my luggage up to the Trianon. Joseph will pay you.’ I could hardly have been less prudent. The colonel in charge of the Tontons Macoute would certainly know next morning exactly where I had left the taxi. The only precaution I took was to see that the man really drove away. I watched the tail-lights until they were out of sight. Then I made my way towards Columbus and the parked car. I came up behind it and saw the C.D. number plate. It was Martha’s car and she was alone.

  I watched her for a little while without being seen. It occurred to me that I could wait there, a few yards away, until I saw the man who came to meet her. Then she turned her head and stared in my direction; she knew that someone was watching her. She lowered the window half an inch and said sharply in French, as though I might be one of the innumerable beggars of the port, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ Then she turned on her headlights. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘so you’ve come back,’ in the kind of tone she might have used for a recurrent fever.

  She opened the door and I got in beside her. I could feel uncertainty and fear in her kiss. ‘Why have you come back?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose I missed you.’

  ‘Did you have to run away to discover that?’

  ‘I hoped that things might change if I went away.’

  ‘Nothing has changed.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s a better place than most to miss you in.’

  ‘You weren’t waiting for anyone?’

  ‘No.’ She took one of my fingers and twisted it till it hurt. ‘I can be sage, you know, for a few months. Except in dreams. I’ve been unfaithful in dreams.’

  ‘I’ve been faithful too – in my way.’

  ‘You needn’t tell me now,’ she said, ‘what your way is. Just be quiet. Be here.’

  I obeyed her. I was half-happy, half-miserable, because it was only too evident one thing hadn’t changed, except that now without my car she would have to drive me back and run the risk of being seen near the Trianon: we wouldn’t say good night beside Columbus. Even while I made love to her I tested her. Surely she wouldn’t have the nerve to take me if she were expecting another man at the rendezvous, and then I told myself that it wasn’t a fair test – she had nerve for anything. It was no lack of nerve that tied her to her husband. She gave a cry which I remembered and stuck her hand over her mouth. Her body lost its tenseness, she was like a tired child resting on my knees. She said, ‘I forgot to close the window.’

  ‘We’d better get up to the Trianon before the lights go out.’

  ‘Have you found someone to buy the place?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  In the public park the musical fountain stood black, waterless, unplaying. Electric globes winked out the nocturnal message, ‘Je suis le drapeau Haïtien, Uni et Indivisible. François Duvalier.’

  We passed the blackened beams of the house the Tontons had destroyed and mounted the hill towards Pétionville. Half-way up there was a road-block. A man in a torn shirt and a grey pair of trousers and an old soft hat which someone must have discarded in a dustbin came trailing his rifle by its muzzle to the door. He told us to get out and be searched. ‘I’ll get out,’ I said, ‘but this lady belongs to the diplomatic corps.’

  ‘Darling, don’t make a fuss,’ she said. ‘There are no such things as privileges now.’ She led the way to the roadside, putting her hands above her head and giving the militiaman a smile I hated.

  I said to him, ‘Don’t you see the C.D. on the car?’

  ‘And can’t you see,’ she said, ‘that he can’t read?’ He felt my hips and ran his hands up between my legs. Then he opened the boot of the car. It was not a very practised search and it was soon over. He cleared a passage through the barrier and let us go by. ‘I don’t like you driving back alone,’ I said. ‘I’ll lend you a boy – if I’ve got one left,’ and then after I had driven half a mile further I went back in my mind to the old suspicion. If a husband is notoriously blind to infidelity, I suppose a lover has the opposite fault – he sees it everywhere. ‘Tell me what you were really doing, waiting by the statue?’

  ‘Don’t be a fool tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m happy.’

  ‘I never wrote to you that I was coming back.’

  ‘It was a place to remember you in, that was all.’

  ‘It seems a coincidence that just tonight . . .’

  ‘Do you suppose this was the only night I bothered to remember you?’ She added, ‘Luis asked me once why I had stopped going out in the evening for gin-rummy now the curfew had lifted. So next night I took the car as usual. I had no one to see and nothing to do, so I drove to the statue.’

  ‘And Luis is content?’

  ‘He’s always content.’

  Suddenly, around us, above us and below us, the lights went out. Only a glow remained around the harbour and the government buildings.

  ‘I hope Joseph has kept a bit of oil for my return,’ I said. ‘I hope he’s wise as well as virgin.’

  ‘Is he virgin?’

  ‘Well, he’s chaste. Since the Tontons Macoute kicked him around.’

  We entered the steep drive lined with palm trees and bougainvillaea. I always wondered why the original owner had called the hotel the Trianon. No name could have been less suitable. The architecture of the hotel was neither classical in the eighteenth-century manner nor luxurious in the twentieth-century fashion. With its towers and balconies and wooden fretwork decorations it had the air at night of a Charles Addams house in a number of the New Yorker. You expected a witch to open the door to you or a maniac butler, with a bat dangling from the chandelier behind him. But in the sunlight, or when the lights went on among the palms, it seemed fragile and period and pretty and absurd, an illustration from a book of fairy-tales. I had grown to love the place, and I was glad in a way that I had found no purchaser. I believed that if I could own it for a few more years I would feel I had a home. Time was needed for a home as time was needed to turn a mistress into a wife. Even the violent death of my partner had not seriously disturbed my possessive love. I would have remarked with Frère Laurent, in the French version of Romeo and Juliet, a sentence that
I had reason to remember:

  ‘Le remède au chaos

  N’est pas dans ce chaos.’

  The remedy had been in the success which owed nothing to my partner: in the voices calling from the bathing-pool, in the rattle of ice from the bar where Joseph made his famous rum punches, in the arrival of taxis from the town, in the hubbub of lunch on the verandah, and at night the drummer and the dancers, with Baron Samedi, a grotesque figure in a ballet, stepping it delicately in his top-hat under the lighted palms. I had known for a short time all of this.

  We drew up in the darkness, and I kissed Martha again: it was still an interrogation. I could not believe in a fidelity that lasted for three months of solitude. Perhaps – it was a less disagreeable speculation than another – she had turned to her husband again. I held her against me and said, ‘How is Luis?’

  ‘The same,’ she said, ‘always the same.’ And yet I thought she must have loved him once. This is one of the pains of illicit love: even your mistress’s most extreme embrace is a proof the more that love doesn’t last. I had met Luis for the second time when I was among the thirty guests at an embassy cocktail party. It seemed to me impossible that the ambassador – that stout man in the late forties whose hair gleamed like a polished shoe – did not remark how often our eyes met across the crowded room, the surreptitious touch she gave me with her hand as we passed. But Luis kept his appearance of established superiority: this was his embassy, this was his wife, these were his guests. The books of matches were stamped with his initials, even the bands round his cigars. I remember him raising a cocktail glass to the light and showing me the delicate engraving of a bull’s mask. He said, ‘I had them specially designed for me in Paris.’ He had a great sense of possession, but perhaps he didn’t mind lending what he possessed.

  ‘Has Luis comforted you while I was away?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and I cursed myself for my cowardice in so phrasing the question that her answer remained ambiguous. She added, ‘No one has comforted me,’ and at once I began to think of all the meanings of comfort from which she might choose one to satisfy her sense of truth. For she had a sense of truth.