Russell Banks - Continental Drift

What should we do? Vanise asked.

Follow them.

But you heard …

No matter. We’ll follow them. We can’t stay here, he said.

Our clothes, Vanise said, looking suddenly confused. Our bundle, it’s down there. We left it down there.

No matter. It’s better not to carry anything. Like them. Come, he said, grabbing her hand. Come! and he pulled her from the cabin, over the rail to the pier and quickly away from the boat, where the captain stood in the bow, hands on hips, watching.

The white man came forward and joined him. It’s pathetic, ain’t it? He flipped his long hair away from his face and lit a cigarette.

The captain nodded. Dem Haitians, mon, dem worse’n Jamaicans. Live like dogs, mon. Tou cyan deal wid ’em like dey was normal people.

The white man smiled as if the captain had told a joke. Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth, though.

2

It was late, after midnight, and the area around Bay Street and Rawson Square, downtown Nassau, was nearly deserted. Across the harbor on Paradise Island, however, and out along Cable Beach and east on Montague Bay, hotels and casinos were bustling with noise and bright lights as cars and blatting motorcycles pulled up and departed and sunburned white people laughed and danced, drank and gambled happily through the night.

The three Haitian men, Jules leading them by about a half block now, turned right at Bay Street and headed for the quiet, locked-up center of the city, past exclusive shops that hid behind iron grilles to Rawson Square, where the darkened straw market and Prince George Wharf were located. Taxis, like seabirds, swept in along Bay Street to the square, looped toward the harbor and discharged half-drunk ladies and gentlemen beside the Scandinavian cruise ships, then hurried back out to the hotels and casinos for more.

Claude, as he and Vanise came off the pier onto Bay Street, caught sight of the last of the three men. There! he said, and he started walking quickly, pulling Vanise along behind. At the square, Jules turned left down a quiet side street and walked casually, as if heading home from a long day’s work at the straw market, past the post office and courthouse. Palm trees shuddered overhead in the light offshore breeze, and the narrow, wet street below, shiny as polished ebony from the recent rain, reflected back streetlights and lamplit second-story windows.

Then Jules was leading them uphill, away from the harbor and the downtown area, around Shirley to East Street, with the top of the hill and a water tower in the east silhouetted against a pale, peach-colored glow from Montague Bay and the Fort Montague Hotel beyond, past old pink limestone houses shuttered against the night, until at last, beyond the city, Claude and Vanise were sweating from the effort of keeping up, out of breath, and then — as the street became a darkened road leading south from Nassau and as one by one the Haitian men ahead of them disappeared into the gloom — they grew frightened again, alone in darkness, lost.

They stopped. Behind them were the lights and streets of Nassau, the hill outlined sharply against the sky, the water tower, the harbor, boats moving in and out; ahead of them, a soft, enveloping darkness that had swallowed the three Haitian men whole and was now about to swallow Claude, Vanise and Charles as well. They could feel the rough limestone road beneath their feet, but did it narrow to a pathway, did it suddenly loop to the left or right, was there a cliff at the edge of the road, a wall, a prickly hedgerow? The sky was clouded over here, remnants of the squall that had passed over them at sea; there was no moonlight, no stars.

Charles squirmed in his mother’s arms and whimpered.

Shut up, Claude whispered, and Vanise stroked the baby’s face and soothed him.

Claude could hear the men now, could hear their hard shoes crunch against the roadway and their low, melodious voices as they spoke to one another and now and then lightly laughed. He took hold of his aunt’s sleeve and led her as if she were a stubborn child. Don’t be scared, Vanise, he said in a low voice. Les Invisibles are with us, always, everywhere. Even here.

Up ahead, Jules suddenly stopped the others. Silence , he commanded, and they listened carefully. It’s someone walking behind us, he whispered. Come, stand off the road a ways and wait for them to pass by. Moving with care, the three felt their way to the side of the road and into the stony ditch beyond, where they crouched down to wait.

Shortly, Claude and Vanise drew abreast of them, and then, when they had passed a few steps beyond, stopped.

What is the matter? Vanise asked.

Shhh. I can’t hear them now.

They have flown away, she said.

Suddenly, the men were beside them. Boy, Jules said, you are like a dog who won’t stay home.

Claude said nothing. The baby started to cry.

We’ll go back, Vanise said.

No, Claude said.

Go back to the city, one of the other men said. Someone there will take care of you.

The police, Jules said, and laughed.

The baby was crying loudly now, squirming in his mother’s arms. Claude reached over and took the child, hitched him against his hip, and the child automatically clung to the boy and quieted down.

Go now, go on back, the man said again.

No, Claude repeated.

Yes, we’ll go, Vanise said, her voice tight and high with fear.

No, Claude said. He took a step away from the man, and Vanise followed.

What shall we do with them? one of the men asked.

Jules sighed heavily. When we come onto houses or a village, he said, or if an automobile comes, we must separate as we did back in the city, so that no more than one of us can get caught by the police.

Fine, the man said. But what about them?

Where we are going, Jules said to Claude, there is no place for you. We cannot help you. Do you understand me?

Yes, Claude said.

Then go back now. You will do better in the city, where there are many strangers. No one will know you are Haitian.

No, Claude said firmly.

I’ll make him go back, the other man said, and he stepped toward Claude and reached for the boy’s shirt.

Never mind, Jules said. He drew the other man back. I thought you liked the pretty boy, he said.

Ha. Only at sea, he said, laughing. He’s white man’s meat now. We have all those Bahamian women to choose from. We don’t need to fuck a pretty little boy or a Haitian whore.

Jules turned away and started walking. Don’t be so sure, he called back. Those Bahamian girls get one look at you and they’ll run in the opposite direction. He laughed and walked on.

The others ran to catch up, joking and teasing, talking eagerly now about women. Claude, with Charles on his hip, followed. Come along, he said to Vanise.

Slowly, in silence, she came up behind him and walked there the rest of the way.

In a few hours, they reached Elizabeth Town, a village on the south coast with one street, a half-dozen sandy lanes and a cluster of pink, cut-limestone cottages roofed with thatch. Spreading from the north side of the village, like a junk-strewn backyard, was a shantytown, corrugated tin shacks and buildings that were little more than huts made of scrap lumber and cast-off sheets of iron. The narrow lanes were deserted, and except for the dim glow of a kerosene lamp behind a window here and there, the town was dark. The sky had cleared, however, and now Claude and Vanise could let themselves hang back a ways from the other Haitians and still see to follow them as they cut through the sleeping village to the shantytown beyond.

They saw Jules walk boldly up to one of the shacks facing the lane, where he knocked against the door once, then a few seconds later, again, and a third time, until at last the door opened a crack. Jules exchanged words with the person behind the door, and then the person closed the door, while the three men waited in silence outside. A few moments passed, and the door opened again, and the men passed into the house.