Mischa Berlinski - Peacekeeping

“Remember Black Hawk Down ?”

The next day, Terry took Kay to the beach. “You’re going to love it. It’s the best thing about this place,” he said. He’d been swimming every day after patrol for a couple of weeks now, and the regular exercise was starting to loosen up his back.

About halfway between the Uruguayan military base and the airport, the beach was just longer than a football field, covered in all the debris and muck the people of Jérémie threw in the ocean and allowed to drift ashore: plastic bottles and tin cans, old shoes, plastic bags, the occasional rubbery remnant of some late night faire l’amour . The garbage skeeved Kay, but past the dirty shore, the water was as beautiful and limpid and as green as one could possibly imagine in a tropical beach, the temperature of a lukewarm bathtub, fringed by high, tumbling cliffs.

There was some kind of sunken ship or submarine about ten minutes’ swim from the shore — just a turret perched a couple of feet above the low tide. Terry told Kay a story about that submarine. He said that in the war a German pocket U-boat ran aground there, manned only by a crew of three. The Germans came ashore, took one look at this lush land of brown rivers, gentle breezes, and pliant women, and decided to make for themselves a separate peace. The story seemed improbable to Kay — but she later found out that the town doctor was a guy named Schmidt. On his wall was a black-and-white photo of three white men, arm in arm.

Kay swam and then sat on the turret of the submarine, splashing her feet and looking at Terry. She had always loved to watch him exercise. He cut across the bay with an efficient, muscular crawl, his elbow coming up sharply to his ear, full extension through the elbow and wrist, reaching with his fingertips, breathing only every third stroke, covering distance swiftly and effortlessly. While Terry swam, Kay daydreamed about the house she’d put up on the big bluffs overlooking the sea. If she could do it all over again, she often thought, she’d have developed property. That’s where her real passion lay, in making beautiful things. She couldn’t believe such a spectacular spot was undeveloped, just ten minutes from the town center, ten minutes from the airport, and two minutes from a white-sand Caribbean beach. Maybe, she thought, Spanish Colonial, with a red tile roof and thick white walls, the house cleverly designed so every room had sea breezes and a view over the open water. She thought of white curtains flapping crisply, and white cotton sheets …

Terry and Kay fell into a rhythm that week, their happiest in years. During the days he worked, leaving the house while she was still in bed. Kay read through the morning or did yoga, following videos on her laptop. She sunbathed a little. Then she walked down the white chalk airport road, past Mission HQ, and all the way up the big hill to the Bon Temps, where she had lunch. It was a very strange feeling for Kay to be the only white woman on the streets. As a teenager, she had been friends with one of the few black kids at her school, a pretty girl named Nina. Nina had told Kay that it was exhausting just being different all day, even if most people were nice. Now Kay thought about looking Nina up on Facebook and letting her know that two decades later, she finally understood. In the afternoon she took a motorcycle taxi back to the house: she hadn’t been on a motorcycle in decades, and these rides, weaving around donkeys and bumping over rocks and potholes, felt as forbidden and thrilling as when she was a teenager riding home on her high school boyfriend’s Yamaha. When Terry came home, he would take her swimming, and they would make dinner together, cobbling together whatever ingredients she found in the market.

Later, Terry and Kay would have a nightcap on the roof of the house. The evening breeze carried hints of honeysuckle, jasmine, lilacs, and passionflower. Bats flashed from tree to to tree, and vast hordes of slow-waltzing constellations danced across the night sky. Later the moon shone so brightly she could see her own sharp-edged shadow. She was happy.

The night before Kay was scheduled to go back to Florida, she and Terry fought. She had planned a romantic evening for her last night in Jérémie, but as soon as she saw him coming home from work, his face drawn tight with anger and irritation, she knew that he was in a lousy mood. He banged around the kitchen, ignoring the pretty dress she had put on for him, muttering to himself until she finally asked him just what was his problem. Terry told her that Marguerite Laurent had passed him over for another decent job, this time as reports officer, a desk job that would have taken him off the patrol roster and given him some time to rest his aching back. When he’d complained, Marguerite Laurent said, “If you’re not physically fit for duty, you should consider your future in the Mission.”

“What you got to understand is that this woman is a world-class ballbreaker,” Terry told Kay. “She’s had it in for me since the day I showed up.”

“What do you think her deal is?” Kay asked, still hoping to jolly him into an acceptable mood.

“Who knows?” Terry said. “She’s Queen Marguerite, and if you don’t lick the royal boot, you get patrol.”

“Are you the only one who has problems with her, or does everyone else get along with her?”

“What are you trying to say, Kay?”

Kay lost her patience. “I’m just saying that I’ve seen this play before. The set was all different, and they changed the lady playing the bitch, but otherwise, same actor, same text.”

Kay and Terry looked at each other. The thing about being married all these years was that they could have the fight from start to finish, soup to nuts, Alpha to Zulu, without saying one more word. The minute that followed might have seemed to an outsider like nothing more than an attractive couple on the threshold of middle age sitting quietly, but to Kay and Terry, the air was thick with attack, counterattack, defensive parries, sly, stinging remarks, and wounded feelings. There was no need to say another word because they’d said all the relevant ones so many times before. Kay knew that Terry was thinking that he was in Haiti because of her, because she’d driven the family finances off a cliff with her ice sculptures and soft sheets and investment-grade apartments; and Terry knew that Kay was blaming him because she’d given him the best years of her life and she’d come out of it with nothing more to show for it than a persistently bruised heart and debt. Soon the fight degenerated from grievances to assaults on each other’s character. Kay said out loud, “Should we open a bottle of wine?” But Terry heard Kay denounce him as his own worst enemy — it was funny, wasn’t it, just how many people seemed to have it in for Terry. Kay told Terry that he’d had opportunity after opportunity over the years and he’d gone out of his way to blow them. And you know why? Because you’re frightened, Terry. You’d rather destroy something before it gets going and blame Marguerite Laurent or Marianne Miller or Tony Guillermez than try and fail. You’re a coward.

Kay had meant to make Terry angry, and she had succeeded, but she winced when he told her that she was spoiled. She hated the word “spoiled,” with its suggestion of rot and age; and she thought to accuse anyone who had worked as hard as she had over the years of being spoiled was so unfair. The truth is , she told Terry, is that you think anyone in a good mood is spoiled. Maybe Marguerite Laurent should be considering your mental health issues, Terry, not your back problems. Anyone who isn’t miserable, in your book, is spoiled. Maybe if I was a quadriplegic begging on the streets of Calcutta I’d have the right to smile, but otherwise, I’m a spoiled brat. You can’t stand it that I’m not depressed.