Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

Watching Dr. Traboulay’s back, Roy got the revolver and cell from the glove compartment. He dropped the cell on the seat and pocketed the gun. Fiona noticed the gun and gave Roy a questioning look. “Just to be safe,” he whispered.

She slipped an arm around Roy’s as they joined Dr. Traboulay, who raised his stick at the ruins. “Allow me to tell you something about this restaurant. It was at the height of its popularity in 1960, shortly before Marlene Dietrich came out with, ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ I remember... memories are everywhere you turn. Too many for me now, though.” Dr. Traboulay sighed, began again: “I was a waiter, had started working here in the mid-1950s, when I met Dr. William Smith at the bar one afternoon. Quite by chance we spoke about hummingbirds, about the fauna and flora of the island. He hired me as his assistant the following week. The restaurant gained some notoriety when Ernest Hemingway visited one evening. He was on his way back from Peru. Very decent to me he was! He asked many questions about the island, its natural history. He was returning to Cuba, and when I asked if he was sympathetic to Fidel Castro, he smiled and said yes, it was time. Sure enough, four years later — confusions within confusions.” Dr.Traboulay waved a hand past his head. “There was a picture of Ernest and his wife over the bar. I have never met such a free spirit. There was something remarkably human, good about him — and, as I learned after his death, something mean and cruel. People were so eager to judge his character. His work suffered as a result. Is nothing sacred? Sad the way he died. But they say there’s nothing quicker than a gunshot to the head. Is that not correct?” His tone was somber. He looked at Roy.

An early evening cool encircled them, a wind fresh with earth and sea, flowing down from the green mountains. The tall grass swayed. The haze of gray-white light over the gulf was gone. The horizon of sea and sunset was shades of gray, pale blue, and gold, with hints of lavender. Far to the south, pulsing out of the almost purple late-afternoon land, orange flames from the oil refinery became visible; they seemed to be tongues lapping through from another dimension, like devils testing a new frontier. All was quiet. The Baptist bells had subsided as the dusk deepened. The sounds of dogs were softer, more intermittent. The scent of wood smoke and kerosene was gone, breezed away. The certainty of night came upon them. Roy sensed something of what the conquistadors must have felt during their first nights on the island: the absolute promise of an infinity of tomorrows, to which no one would belong, of course — but the conquistadors would not have thought that; they had believed themselves righteous men, engaged in an ordained enterprise, one commandeered by Her Catholic Majesty, and, therefore, approved by God. All the world’s tomorrows belonged to them.

“Are either of you partial to oysters?” Dr. Traboulay was regarding the ruins sadly, lost in his own thoughts. Fiona, trying to enjoy the view, had shifted closer to Roy.

Roy said, “I imagine most people are.”

Dr. Traboulay, moving his head slowly from side to side, said, “They tasted better in the days of the restaurant, more like a clean sea.” He held up his hand, curling the fingertips to caress his palm as he studied them. “The sea bed, actually. In the days of this restaurant, we had such oysters. They had more life then. The salt was better.”

“Do you still eat them?” Fiona asked. “There must be somewhere the sea is still okay.”

“Yes, but... but... it is not the same...” He tapped the side of his head. “It is horrible, sometimes, to know things. I learned too much. The British were great collectors of knowledge. And they shared it with me. But then came independence, and — and — it was good. Yes, it was. But only for a while, only for a while. The new rulers came to hate everything, including the knowledge on which my profession is built. To them it was colonial knowledge, you see. They hated it all, especially with the oil boom. There was nothing we could not buy. They set me up at the university; they ruined my life. I was a flaneur in my profession, in the strict French sense. Then, almost overnight, the nation — if that is the right word for a place like this — became a flaneur in the strict English sense. And so we remain, lapsing, a ghetto country, adrift and in awe of Almighty America when it pleases us. And so,” he waved at distant hovels in the valley, at the sea changing into a last shade of blue like the night, and the orange tongues of flame, brighter now, in the far south of the island, “we remain slaves, occasionally bringing a glimmer of amusement even to the most liberal eye.” Dr. Traboulay shuddered and slapped his matted head repeatedly as if trying to shake out something inside. Again he reverted to local dialect. “It have too much thing inside this head. Mankind is a sinful beast, yes.” He moved toward the bushes from which he had emerged earlier. Roy watched, hands in pockets. “Excuse me,” Dr. Traboulay said, “I must visit my aunt. I shall return shortly.” He nodded and disappeared into the tall grass.

“We should be going soon, I guess,” Roy said, relieved.

“It’s odd, but I think I’d feel better about that poor man, about the world, if I knew he was really angry about something. It’s so sad to be damaged like that.”

“Maybe he was angry. A long time ago.” Roy, hands still in his pockets, gazed at the distant gulf. He thought Fiona would question him, but she didn’t.

Suddenly Dr. Traboulay reappeared. He went to the rock wall, hoisted himself up, and sat. Then he bowed his head, clasped his hands, and began to mumble. Before him the gulf reflected the deep clear indigo of the evening sky. Lights in the valley showed, little pieces of brightness cluttering their way down to the capital, down to the sea; and there, except for the ships in the harbor and beyond, these ships like signals of isolation, they stopped.

“He’s praying,” Fiona said. She blinked several times, then wiped her eyes.

The cell chimed. Roy went to the car and answered, leaning against the car door, watching Fiona to his left in front of the ruins and Dr. Traboulay some ninety feet ahead on the wall. Freddie’s voice was crisp, more alive than earlier.

“Boss,” Freddie said, “Souza call. He head hot. Like jumbie hold him.”

Roy swallowed. “I’m listening.”

“Miss Fiona do something. He in a state.”

“A little misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about. I’ll see about it.”

“Better hear this first,” Freddie said, his voice rising. “Souza say you don’t want to know what Miss Fiona really wrap up with.”

Roy tried to think. “Tell him not to be concerned. I know what he’s worried about, and I’ve checked it out. All harmless.”

Fiona began walking over to Dr. Traboulay. A strand of her hair lifted by the wind caught the last light and curved around her face, across the tip of her nose. She stopped near the doctor, leaned against the wall, and spoke. Roy could not hear her.

“Well, boss,” Freddie said, “that is you and he business.”

A pause.

“You know I will help you how I could,” Freddie continued. “But is only so far I could go, you understand. Me and the fellas watching out for you, but Souza like he watching everybody these days. Best thing to do now is get the lady out fast.”

Roy coughed, thinking.

“Boss?”

“You have anything on a Dr. Traboulay? Vagrant fella, educated, maybe mad?”

“I hear about him. They call him Watchman, for all them watch on his hand. Know the time all round the world. He does be all about, but he in North a year now. He know plenty thing, like history nuh, and about bird and animal. It had a fella like that in the Bahamas fifteen years ago. He cause plenty trouble. Fockin’ man was suppose to be blind, yes, but he was workin’ for the DEA. Anyhow, Souza calling you just now, eh.”