Robert Stone - Bay of Souls

A big young cane cutter approached. "Hey mon, you got somefin' for me, yah?" " Lajan, blan, " another kid called. Patois hung at that end of the island. Her part. Who? Lara, her name was Lara. Her soul had belonged to Marinette, as his to Ghede, the Baron Samedi. There was a race and he had run it. She was gone.

He had wads of dollars and local bills. He straightened them out, flexed them with an appealing snap and delivered. He half shouldered his way through the crowd, a discreet, polite and most accommodating way of shouldering. The handouts worked somewhat; by the time he was out of bills he was among the losers and runts who had been forced to the rear and had nothing to play against his fear except their need and desperation. These were not to be despised, because he had survived the blocu. There had not been much tourism on the island for years, and the hatred of the islanders had cooled somewhat.

Walking beside the potholed road, he was never alone. The drums kept him company. Figures passed him, some moving so quickly he might have been standing still. From the darkness people shouted his name. Voices addressed him as Legba; sometimes he thought he was wearing a stovepipe hat. On his chin he felt the fringes of a false beard.

There was a car behind him sounding its horn. He moved farther off the road, but after the car had eased past it stopped for him. It was a Mercedes, the sleek fender covered in red dust. An island soldier was driving it and there was a soldier with an automatic rifle beside him.

The rear door opened and Michael saw a long-legged olive-skinned man with a neat mustache settled in the back seat. He was in uniform; his collar was adorned with the red tabs of a senior British officer. It was Colonel Junot, the administrator of the new order, graduate of Fort Benning and veteran of Grenada.

"Spare yourself, Ahearn," the colonel said. "I'll take you where you're going. Oh me," he said, seeing Michael's spattered trousers.

"No," Michael said. "I've worked it out."

The colonel reached out patiently and took him by the arm. "Yes, yes, worked it out, very good. Here, come take a ride with me."

So Michael got in and the soldier handed him a Miami Herald.

"To sit on," the colonel explained. They followed the road along the Morne until they were driving far above the ocean, with the stars overhead and a risen moon at the edge of the sea's dark horizon. Low clouds dissipated against the jutting rocks below the road.

"Too bad, you can only get the view here by daylight, Ahearn. This is one of the great views of the Western Hemisphere. The French wanted to fight the Battle of the Saints here. On that bay!" He pointed into darkness to the right. "Well, you can't see it now."

When they had gone a little farther, Colonel Junot said, "Dutch Point! Lovely peninsula. I suppose you know we haven't been having many visitors recently. It's our somewhat violent political situation. Social unrest, you see."

"Yes," Michael said.

"Well, here's a secret. The cruise line companies use Dutch Point all the same. They just don't tell their passengers where they are. They tell them it's Point Paradise. Where could be sweeter? Mum and Dad and the wee bairns go to Point Paradise, wot? So close the bloody roads to the point, and put a skirmish line of about a hundred-fifty rent-a-cops to seal it off. Let a couple of colorfully garbed vendors and a steel band through. Good, isn't it?"

"It's good thinking."

"Yes," Junot said, "good thinking on the part of the cruise lines. Paradise Point. Bloody tourists disport themselves in the surf, no idea they're in between a Glock and a griddle, I mean a hot spot. No, they're in Paradise. If we had those rent-a-cops stand down, the bastards would think they'd died and gone to hell. They'd experience some social tension."

"You're taking over, aren't you, Colonel?"

The colonel shrugged modestly.

"Will you continue the Paradise Point tradition? With the cruise lines?"

"Certainly," the colonel said. "But one day we won't have to build paradise with rent-a-cops. With luck — and, unfortunately, a little discreet repression — we'll have good old paradise back all over the island. Paradise, paradise! Upscale, upscale!" The colonel laughed and sighed.

"I'm afraid for my friend," Michael said. "Lara Purcell. I left her behind. I'm afraid they may hurt her."

"I know your story, Mr. Ahearn. I know you're a thoughtful man, friend of herself. Well, you don't have to worry. Because everything is under control, including the lodge. And she will be safe, I can promise you. So you don't have to worry. Understand?"

Michael said nothing.

"How'd you like to live in someone else's paradise?" the colonel asked.

"I can't imagine it."

"Think of it as a misfortune. A huge fucking pink misfortune."

"I guess I don't understand," Michael said. "I haven't been here long."

"Yah, man. But I think you understand, eh? I would be surprised if you don't have a piece of the picture."

The road headed down toward a concentration of light at what appeared to be the end of the island. The mass of land gave way to an expanse of rolling moonlit ocean; just short of the waves were fields outlined in geometric patterns of red and white light.

"We don't have a choice, do we?" the colonel said. "We've inherited bloody paradise and now we've got to live by selling it. Paradise and every naughty little thing." He leaned back in the seat and slapped Michael on the knee.

"Oh yes, we have all those naughty things they want and don't need. The drugs, the coffee, the chocolate, the rum and the orange-flavored booze, the tobacco, the girls and the boys. Shouldn't have them. Bad for you. Live longer without them but they're oh so nice, yes, indeed. How you want them all. And that's our fortune."

The car passed a checkpoint at the approach to the All Saints Bay international airport. There were soldiers everywhere in the uniform of the island's new army. The soldiers took a look inside the Mercedes and waved them through.

"Hands across the sea, right!" Colonel Junot declared. "You get to Washington, say hello to my friends. Tell them I want my medal from the President! Soldier in the war on drugs!"

The car stopped and the driver came around to let Michael out. He stepped out of the air conditioning and into the warm ocean breeze.

"Soldier in the war on ganja. Soldier in the war on cocaine. That's right! Soldier in the war on sugar and sweeties. And the war on rum. The war on cee-gars. The war on fancy jewelry. The war on screwing and gambling and general do-badness. You tell the President that the armies of Paradise salute his tall fine figure and the war on everything is going great. Tell him I knew his daddy and I want my medal."

Michael had only the shoulder bag he had taken from his hotel room. He moved among the watchful soldiers toward the wooden terminal. Beside it, a DC-7 stood with its engines running, attended by half a platoon of American Special Forces soldiery in green berets. He went into the harsh fluorescent light of the terminal building. The young Cuban American woman at the commuter airline's desk checked his ticket. There was a mirror in the wall behind her desk and he could see that he did not resemble Ghede. But the Baron was waiting for him at the Emigration window, where a customs official was flanked by supportive soldiers. The Emigration man was Baron Samedi.

"You got to have your pink form," Baron Samedi said. "Otherwise you can't fly."

Michael checked his pockets twice. He checked them again. He searched his shoulder bag several times. He could not find his pink form.

"For God's sake," he told Baron Samedi.

"They got no special rules for you, mon," the Baron said. "Either you give me your pink form or get out of line. There are people behind you."