Russell Banks - Continental Drift

She explained that Grabow made her sleep the boy in the storage room next door.

Claude asked her to bring him so he could visit with him.

No, no, she said. He’ll wake up and maybe cry, and then Grabow will hear from downstairs and come up and find you.

That’s all right, Claude said. Are you his slave? He looked down at her carefully. She, too, had changed. It was as if the dark, hard thing, like a piece of coal, that had always been at the center of her mind had been heated with too hot a flame and had become a cinder that finally had crumbled to ash. He noticed the slight swelling and discoloration around her eyes and cheeks that he knew came from beatings, and her mouth, which used to be firm and tautly held against her teeth, seemed loose and slack, with all the old, familiar, irritated tension gone out of it, and all the force as well.

They both heard it at the same time, the clank of metal as Grabow drew down the shutters and closed the shop for the night.

Go now! Vanise whispered, her eyes suddenly wide with fear.

Claude stood and made for the door, but she stopped him with her hand. No, you can’t! He sleeps in a room downstairs, he’ll hear you.

Claude turned to her. Why do you stay? You can leave too, he said. Come with me.

No. I can’t.

Why? What can he do? Just leave with me now, you and Charles.

He’ll beat me. Or he’ll do something bad to Charles, give him over to the police so I’ll never see him again. Something bad will happen! I know it!

Won’t the loas protect you?

The loas are angry with me, she said. So I must stay here.

Claude grabbed her by the arm and wrenched her toward the door. Come! Wake Charles and bring him. We’ll leave here together. I know a mambo , the Chinaman’s woman. She’ll help you feed the loas and make a new engagement. I have some money, enough for a service. I can pay for it.

When he pulled open the door and stepped into the dim, narrow hallway, Grabow was almost at the top of the stairs. Their eyes met for an instant. Grabow took one more step, and Claude swung the machete, slicing the man across the midsection, opening him up like a piece of fruit. The man’s eyes, suddenly wild with horror, bulged and rolled, as he realized what had happened. As if he had a bellyache, he clasped his hands to his stomach, and they filled and overflowed at once with blood. He flung himself back against the wall of the corridor and stared open-mouthed at Claude, who swung again, an overhand chop across Grabow’s shoulder, slicing muscle and tendon all the way through to the joint. The man’s lungs instantly filled, and blood poured from his mouthful of scarlet teeth, and he went down.

Claude stared at the man’s body, and with both hands raised the machete over his head, held it there, then slowly brought it down to his side. He sucked in his breath, a loud, chugging intake of air, snapped his head to the right, and almost falling, turned away from the corpse and stumbled back through the open door to Vanise’s room.

She had hidden herself in the far corner behind the dresser, crouched down near the floor, and she had not seen, but she knew what had happened, and she moaned quietly.

Stop that! Claude hissed. Stop!

Slowly, she rose and faced him. He was shuddering, as if a cold wind had blown over him, and he looked like a little boy again, about to cry. Beyond him she could see Grabow’s feet, like two chunks of wood. She took a step toward the door and stopped. Is he dead? she asked.

Claude could make no words. He nodded his head up and down.

Vanise took the boy’s hand in hers, and still watching Grabow’s feet, as if she expected them to move, she said, He’s dead? You know that?

He’s meat! Dead meat! he cried, and he yanked his hand away. Now, he croaked, now you can leave here!

No! No, they will find us and kill us for this! Where can we go now?

His arms at his sides, the machete still in his right hand, dripping blood onto the floor, Claude moved away from the door, as if offering it to Vanise and inviting her to step through. America , he said.

She placed her hands over her eyes like a blindfold, shook her head slightly and took her hands away. Then, without looking at the boy, she said, Do you know how to find this hounfor ?

Yes.

You know the mambo ? And you have money?

Yes. Some, a little.

We must go there, then, to the mambo . Wipe the machete on the bed, she instructed him calmly. I’ll make up a bundle for our clothes and Charles’s blanket, and I’ll wake Charles. We can leave by the back door downstairs, and no one will see us, she said.

Claude nodded and obeyed.

Vanise tied some clothing in a towel and left the room for the baby. Look in his pockets, she called back. He always had plenty of money late at night. Be careful not to get any of his blood on you, she warned.

Claude stepped back to the hallway, and without looking at the man’s face or his huge wounds, carefully searched Grabow’s trouser pockets and came away with a fat roll of bills, which he showed to his aunt as she came out of the storage room, her half-awake child slung against her hip and her bundle grasped firmly in her other hand. She looked over coolly at the money and said, He must have won at dominoes tonight.

She dropped the bundle at Claude’s feet and took the money from him and stuffed it into the front of her blouse. Carry that, she said, and she stepped with care over Grabow’s legs and moved quickly into the darkness of the stairway and down. Claude picked up the bundle with his free hand and followed her.

4

A few miles west of Elizabeth Town, the road dips and slants toward the sea before it makes the bend at Clifton Point and curves back along the north side of the island to Nassau, and from the road, the land on both sides seems empty, save for the dense brush that grows to the edge of the pavement. The bougainvillea, cassia trees, mahoe and annatto, a tangled weave of flower, thorn and hardwood, rise up like a hedgerow and block the human life and cultivation that go on there from the sight of passersby — tourists in rented cars, teenagers on motorbikes, policemen from Nassau in their Toyotas, air-conditioned tour buses filled with peering, pink-skinned ladies and gentlemen from the continent.

North of the road and beyond the dense underbrush, the land rises, the topsoil thins out and short, reddish pine trees take over, with occasional bayberry and myrtle oak interspersed among the pine. This area is called the Barrens, and except for the sight and roar of the jets coming in and taking off from the airport a few miles north, one could be in the wilderness. The air is usually still here, no land breeze, no sea breeze, and the sun beats down with belligerent intensity on the heads of solitary men and boys who cultivate secret marijuana patches throughout the Barrens, hauling water in barrels and buckets long distances by hand and pickup truck over rocky paths and narrow trails from as far away as Lake Killarney beyond the airport and the ponds and marshes east of Elizabeth Town.

Also here among the pine trees are small vegetable gardens planted and tended by whole families, people from the outskirts of the towns, squatters and shack people, whose lives are official secrets. They are off-islanders, most of them, illegal immigrants from Haiti, wandering foreigners whose presence on the island is officially forbidden and unofficially tolerated, for they provide a considerable part of the huge, underpaid, unprotected labor force that is required by the tourist industry on New Providence. They wash the dishes, scrub the pots, clean the toilets, clip the grass and haul the trash for the managers of the enormous glass, steel and concrete hotels and casinos in Nassau and along Cable Beach and Paradise Island, working twelve-hour days and nights six and seven days a week for wages acceptable only to someone who would otherwise starve. They perform these tasks with gratitude, good cheer and alacrity, for in Haiti, they would have no choice but to starve.