Mischa Berlinski - Peacekeeping

A week later Terry was in charge of a special unit doing close personal protection, officially training the PNH who would be assigned to protect VIPs, in truth, the judge’s shadow himself — and those days, Terry barely saw Nadia: she seemed to flit around the background of the judge’s existence like a fawn. Terry was a deer hunter, and he knew that you don’t see the does like you saw the bucks. He’d be watching baseball with Johel on the big screen and she’d be listening for the voices of hunters in the glades, those strange green eyes sweeping the room side to side. It took a long time, maybe months, before she could just sit in a room with Terry and be still — we’re not talking anything else, brother, but sitting in a room. How many words did they say to each other in all that time? Two dozen? How many smiles? One, two, at the most? If you were a different man than Terry, you might have thought she just didn’t like you. But Terry knew just who she was right from the start; he had seen it too many times not to understand it.

Here was a woman who was frightened for her life.

Driving patrol, lying on his cotton mattress, or swimming long sea laps down at the beach, he was thinking about Nadia, what it was like when she and the judge were alone together, what they talked about, what they did. How she felt when she saw his big body coming to her in the night. What Terry always knew, what made him a good cop, was that you could feel this way and the other way all at the same time; he knew that we all could feel this way and the other way all at the same time. Son of a bitch had it coming; worst thing I ever did was shoot that son of a bitch. I’ll hate that cunt until the day they put me in the earth; how could I have done that to the woman I loved? The judge was the best man he ever met, and sometimes he thought the bastard was like one of those creeps who preyed on small children.

No doubt in Terry’s mind he’d give his own life to protect the judge’s.

No doubt in Terry’s mind the judge could make a difference around here.

No doubt in Terry’s mind that Nadia was with the judge because she had nowhere else to go.

Nowhere else to go —that’s just one of those phrases Terry had never thought about until he got to Haiti. An American always has someplace else to go. That’s what it means to live in a big country. Big country is a big way of looking at the world. Haiti was the first time Terry ever thought about life in a little country, like living in someone’s armpit, tight and narrow and hot and hairy. Terry got up in the mountains, looked out at the sea: that was the prison wall, right there. One goddamn hill after another, all of them leading to a place like this place. Nadia couldn’t get past that wall. Where was she going to go? Some other nasty-ass butt crack of a Haitian village? Port-au-Prince? The Dominican Republic? Live in some Santo Domingo whorehouse, selling herself? She had the judge. That was all she had. Judge plus Nadia equals Ongoing Life. Nadia minus judge equals Death. That was the simple pair of equations that governed this lady’s existence.

And believe it or not, Terry had been determined not to touch her, determined to be good. Good husband, good man, good friend. Once in his life, he wanted to do the right thing by everyone — by Kay, by his family, by the judge, by himself, by the hungry kids with red hair. Just look himself in the mirror and know that he could tell his story straight-up to a stranger on the street.

But then came Tuesdays, when the judge’s maid washed the laundry out on the back terrace of the concrete house and hung the laundry on a line. The house overlooked the Caribbean, and Terry would sit out there with the judge in the evenings, watching the sun set in the direction of Jamaica and drinking a Prestige, utterly and absolutely soul-struck by the sight of Nadia’s underwear swaying and sashaying and cavorting in the breeze, simple white cotton women’s panties and bras, stroked gently by the wind.

And still he wanted to be good.

For four months he tried to be good, and when you had it like he had it, four months is a long time, brother. In four months, how many times did the two of them talk one-on-one? Maybe twice. Once, in the kitchen, Terry was making rum cocktails. “Do you want one?” he asked. “I don’t care,” she said. “Then I won’t make you one.” “I want one.” “Then cut up some lemons.” That was conversation number one, reproduced verbatim, interrupted by the lumbering bigfoot presence of the judge, wanting to know if Terry had heard the latest from Les Irois. Terry turns around, and she’s gone. Terry had to cut that lemon himself. No rum sour for her.

What you got to understand is that Terry loved them all — that can happen too. Loved the judge like a brother and Kay like a wife and Nadia like a woman. Those long drives up into the mountains, the judge and Terry had talked about Nadia, the way they talked about everything else. That’s when Terry started to fall in love with Nadia, just from hearing Johel talk about her. The judge had come back to Haiti determined to save and reform her, turn her into a solid citizen. Johel knew she was an intelligent woman: sometimes he’d tell her things about the law, and she’d tell him things back that’d make him think long and hard. So the first step was going to be to school her. Second step, teach her a trade or open a little business. Last step of the program, she’d be a free and independent woman. Only thing was, the judge had failed to consult Nadia. She wasn’t interested, not at all. Didn’t want to make plans. Didn’t want to go to school. What do you want to do? No answer. Are you sad? No answer. Happy? No answer. Johel got so frustrated he’d shake, trying to talk to her. Then he’d see her taking a shower, hear her singing, she’d come to bed. So soft, so gentle. Remember that he loved her. Man, she drove the judge crazy. You couldn’t fight with that woman. Reason with her, and she’d just stare at you. She was unhappy, she’d just leave. She had a cousin who lived near Carrefour Charles, she’d head up there like a runaway slave. No cell phone reception. Stay there until the judge himself hoofed his way up the mountainside to get her. Johel went a day without her, it was like his heart was breaking into shards of glass. Only place he ever saw her relaxed was up in the village. Watching over her cousin’s kids. Every day in the church singing. Making music. Carrying water. Washing clothes at the river. She said she hated the village, but Johel saw a calm in her up there. That was where she belonged. What was she doing with him ? What was he doing with her ?

(And Terry knew, not knowing how he knew, what it was to wake up first thing in the morning to that big, unshaven face. The judge never talked to her; he talked at her. Came back at night, that mouth opened and shut and opened and shut and opened and shit and Nadia — she didn’t understand a word. Words just didn’t stop. Johel and Nadia played off each other like this: he talked&talked&talked, and Nadia could see all the while right into his jealous heart — because nothing that the judge felt or wanted was a mystery to her. No woman who had been pawed and loved and struck by as many men as Nadia could fail to understand a man’s heart. Terry imagined Nadia telling herself to be grateful that she wasn’t still in prison down in Florida. Then Nadia starting to wonder what the difference was. Terry could imagine how once a week the judge climbed on her. That big body riding on her, smelling like onions. Grunting. Sticky. The judge eating, just eating and eating and eating. She wanted to wear pretty things, the judge saying no. She wanted to go to Port-au-Prince, the judge saying no. She wanted to dance, the judge not able to keep his feet in line, move her around right.)