Mischa Berlinski - Peacekeeping

That was how I thought of her thereafter — not as Nadia, but as the lady who passed out in the market — until I saw her again that evening at the Boucan Grégoire, trailing two steps behind her husband as they threaded their way through the crowded terrace.

And now she seemed to me a beautiful woman. Perhaps it was a matter of her hair: tonight she wore her hair in long cornrows, which she pulled back into a loose ponytail; what had been to me before a bony face with a high forehead and sharp, jutting cheekbones now seemed feline and dramatic. I had not noticed how lovely her mouth was, her fine lips sculpted. When I had seen her before, she had been dressed in jeans and a tank top that only emphasized how thin she was — her jutting collarbones, her arms as thick at the bicep as at the wrist. Tonight she wore a red dress that I knew without knowing why was both stylish and expensive. She looked as if she had spent her afternoon being groomed. She balanced easily on a pair of high-heeled sandals. Now her skinniness was like the weightlessness of a fine-boned bird. Her fragility, which before had suggested sickliness, was made delicate and desirable by the expensive room she was in.

As Johel led his wife in the direction of our table, he stopped at other tables. Nadia arrested every eye in the room. The judge shook men’s hands and gripped shoulders; women stood up, and he gave them kisses. People were pleased to see him. He was dressed, like the other men in the restaurant, in a well-pressed white shirt and blazer, and in this room his fatness, which in Jérémie seemed like superfluous bulk, now seemed masculine and important. As I watched him maneuver his way through the room, his notion that he could be a politician seemed less absurd to me. He had acquired grace and poise. The people he greeted were people with whom he was intimate and familiar. He had left Haiti as a child, but the portion of his family that remained was of old and established Port-au-Prince stock. Now I saw that his return to Haiti had been like a tributary branch of a river returning to broader waters.

Soon they were at our table, and here the judge was also at his ease. He knew some of the people, and others he didn’t. To Kay he said, “You look marvelous. I can’t believe you’re turning twenty-five. Happy birthday.” Then to Terry, who had stood up and walked around the table to shake his friend’s hand, he added, “Well done, brother. Well done.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, but Terry seemed pleased by the compliment, which seemed to evaluate positively every facet of Terry’s life. Johel shook LBJ’s hand and said, “So you’re the famous LBJ.” He kissed the French epidemiologist on the cheek. When he came to me, he said, “Brother, what a beautiful surprise.”

As he moved around the table, he introduced his wife, keeping his hand low on her back. She didn’t smile, and her voice was so quiet as to be almost inaudible. When I was introduced to her, she showed no sign of recognizing me. Her eyes drifted down to the tablecloth. Her handshake was fragile, and when I stepped forward to kiss her on the cheek, she stood absolutely still, as if I might be provoked and bite her.

Now there was a problem. The table was too small to accommodate easily the newcomers. We had already been seated elbow-to-elbow. It would have required rearranging the entire group to place two plates side by side. So chairs were moved, and the waiters somewhat clumsily inserted a pair of plates in the remote corners of the table, one plate between Kay and Baker and the other on the far side of the table, near Terry.

“Nadia, you want to sit with your husband, don’t you?” Kay asked. “Or do you mind sitting next to me?”

Nadia looked in the direction of her husband, who was talking to Terry. It was obvious that she did want to sit with him. But she said, “No, with you is fine.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t hear you.”

“It fine with you,” Nadia said.

“It’s fine?”

“It no problem.”

Kay’s buzz was fading, and she had turned surly.

Her glance strayed from me to the judge to Nadia to the table, then lingered over the large terrace filled with others just like us, enjoying the last of a long evening before going out to confront the hungry children on the street.

The rumors had persisted: my friend Toussaint Legrand, who had access to subterranean rivers of rumor, told me that when the judge was in Port-au-Prince, as he sometimes was, Terry’s car could be seen parked outside the judge’s house in Calasse. Yet that seemed natural enough to me, hardly dispositive. I thought of what Terry had told me: “If you ever hear a noise outside the house at night, just give me a call.” Here was a woman — you had only to see her slender, haunted face to know — who heard many noises at night.

“Oh, good. I’m glad it’s not a problem to sit with me. I hate to make problems.” Kay took a sip from her glass and added, “But we can make a place at the other end of the table, if you’d like. Near the boys.”

Kay was speaking quickly. She didn’t care if Nadia understood her. She wanted me and the other men to understand that her pride had been offended: she had been relegated, at her own party, to the corner of the table reserved for women and children. The center of gravity — the stories, the jokes, the masculine drama — was now at the other end of the long table.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Kay said. “Don’t worry.”

“Who?” Nadia said.

“Your husband. He’s not going anywhere. He’s right there next to my husband.”

Nadia didn’t say anything. Kay had been right: she had beautiful eyes. Their color gave her skin its hint of greenish pallor. I didn’t know what she was thinking; I thought of her vacant expression in the meat market, her face and hair coated in blood. Nadia’s eyes gave away nothing but that long-ago liaison between master and slave.

Kay said, “Did you know it’s my birthday? In my country, when somebody has a birthday, we say ‘Happy birthday’ and give them a kiss.”

“Happy birthday,” Nadia said. “I am very contented for you.”

“And when is your birthday? When it’s your birthday, we can have a party.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Honey, everyone has a birthday. It’s written on your passport. It’s written on your birth certificate. I don’t believe—”

I interrupted her. “Kay, did you say you were thinking of going to Africa in the spring? To see the elephants?”

“Well, everybody has to have a birthday. That way we can have a party for Nadia, and if someone’s not having a good time—”

“After dinner, let’s hear some African music. Or see some African art.”

Kay stopped herself. She was thinking of getting angry — you could see it building. But the spark wouldn’t catch. From the far end of the table, there was her husband’s bullying voice. He had his arm around a colleague. I heard, “This motherfucker — this guy—” Then I heard Johel saying, “Wait — wait — what you mean is—”

Kay picked up her knife and inspected her reflection. She pouted at herself. Then she excused herself to go to the bathroom and walked off singing, “It’s my party and I’ll pee if I want to — pee if I want to.”

When she came back, she was happy again. Baker the diplomat asked Kay if she wanted to hear a funny story.

“I’d love to,” Kay said.

“This is a true story,” Baker said.

“Of course it is,” Kay said. “I bet you’ve never told a lie in your life. You’ve got that kind of face.”

“So we give out visas, that’s what we do all day, and the truth is that most folks who want a visa, we say no.”

“That’s cold,” Kay said.