Mischa Berlinski - Peacekeeping

Dr. Philistin had accompanied Maxim throughout his political career. Both were men of the Left, firmly convinced that the only solution to Haiti’s poverty and backwardness was in an ideology of their deriving, which they called Caribbean Socialism, hashed out by them in a hundred letters when Maxim was in exile. The chief tenet of their philosophy was a conviction that the river of wealth, so long flowing from the Haitian peasantry to the Great Powers, needed to be rerouted in the opposite direction, avoiding the bloodsucking mulatto elites like Andrés Richard. When Maxim returned from exile, Dr. Philistin had encouraged him in his political ambitions and then had revealed himself over the years a shrewd, well-informed adviser. It was Dr. Philistin who had the unfortunate duty of informing the Sénateur that Andrés Richard had decided to invest his resources in Johel Célestin’s campaign.

Dr. Philistin told me that he had never seen the Sénateur so agitated as that night at the Boucan Grégoire. The Sénateur’s bladder was spasmodic when its owner was anxious, and the Sénateur excused himself to the toilet three times even before the main course arrived. Then he sharply reprimanded the waiter when he allowed a few drops of the wine to stain the tablecloth. A telephone rang too long at a neighboring table, and the Sénateur’s face curled into snarl. Only the doctor’s calm hand on the Sénateur’s forearm had prevented him from confronting the offending device’s owner.

“I am being devoured alive by gnats!” the Sénateur exclaimed.

The judge was not the Sénateur’s only opposition in the coming election. A dozen candidates had presented their credentials to the electoral authorities. There was Emile Villesaint of the old Villesaints — he ran in every election and was always opposed, as in this election, by his daughter Emmanuelle. Old Emile must have been pushing eighty and Emmanuelle fifty: they lived in Miami and flew back to Jérémie just for elections. There was a Protestant preacher named Erasmus Callisthenes, who, it was said, could preach the Gospel twenty-four hours straight. Thibault Antoine Erick of the well-known clan out of Dame Marie was in the race as part of a wager with his brother-in-law: three hectares of arable land said he could take ten thousand votes. A lady doctor from Jérémie whose intentions were said to be honorable registered herself at election headquarters surrounded by a hundred children dressed in white.

But the judge, Dr. Philistin reckoned, was certainly Maxim’s chief opposition. That was the significance of Père Samedi’s defection. That news had infuriated the Sénateur. The notion that years of friendship be tossed aside for — for what ? Père Samedi had not so much as called the Sénateur to explain himself. It was not only the loss of the priest’s solid block of votes, it was the signal it sent to the Sénateur’s other allies that the old man was weak.

Dr. Philistin was too politic to remind the Sénateur that he had predicted the priest’s treachery. The priesthood, he had long insisted, was a reactionary force.

The doctor studied his friend’s face. It had never been a handsome face, but its blunt, large, ill-proportioned features had communicated that unbridled energy, that enthusiasm for this curious business of being alive that was the essence of Maxim Bayard. He could remember Maxim’s first campaign all those years ago. Mon Dieu , the man was tireless: up at dawn, out on foot, stopping at every hut and hamlet, shaking hands, kissing ladies — and with every footfall so gaining in strength and energy that Dr. Philistin had to actively dissuade him from campaigning through the night as well, for fear of disturbing his constituents. The Sénateur had been determined to meet each and every voter and present his vision of the socialist paradise the Grand’Anse could become. Two or three hours of sleep a night, often on the floor of some peasant’s hut, half a mango for breakfast, a boiled banana for lunch: that was all the Sénateur needed as he marched across the great Grand’Anse. He had won that election in a landslide.

This evening, though, there was no doubt: the Sénateur was tired. Dr. Philistin noticed him yawning. This was not Maxim. At one point during the meal he closed his eyes and held very still. His skin had the pallor of ash.

“Are you sleeping at night?” the doctor asked.

“A few hours.”

“When was the last time, my friend, that you saw the inside of a doctor’s office?”

“Are you proposing to bleed me, Doctor, or apply leeches?” asked the Sénateur.

No evidence could dissuade Maxim from his intimate belief that the leaf doctors in the hills were infinitely more capable healers than the doctor and his white-coated peers. There was a variety of yam that grew in the Grand’Anse, the so-called English yam, that was said to enhance the virility of men and give to all and sundry the energy of a young ram. It was in a daily boiled English yam as a cure-all that the Sénateur reposed his confidence.

Dr. Philistin wondered how the Sénateur and his English yams would navigate their way through two rounds of fierce campaigning should the Sénateur fail to win a majority in the first round; and given Andrés Richard’s support, along with the defection of Père Samedi, it was hard to imagine the Sénateur winning outright in the first electoral turn. Even as the judge’s financial position had solidified, the Sénateur’s had weakened: with the mayor of Les Irois in prison, the river of money that flowed from Colombia to the Cold Land had shifted course to the Département de Sud, where the Sénateur and the people of the Grand’Anse were not in a position to profit. Perhaps, Dr. Philistin reckoned, the Sénateur’s energy and money would tide him over for the first round. But a second round of campaigning would double his expenses.

By long-standing convention, the men did not discuss politics until they had arrived at the digestif. They traded recollections of their youth and discussed literature. Both men felt the absence of Père Samedi keenly. The Sénateur was drinking an aged sipping rum, thick like syrup, full on the palate, a belly warmer of a rum.

“It is an insult,” he finally said.

“Have you met this judge?”

“He speaks with an accent.”

“But he’s popular.”

“If I give a child nothing but bonbons and chocolate, I will be popular. But it will not produce a healthy child. We have yet to arrive, Doctor, at the stage of social evolution where our citizens are able to discern a true friend from a friendly face. I will never cease to be amazed at how devious, how cynical our enemies are.”

The Sénateur swirled the amber liquid in his glass.

“I tell you now, Doctor, I would welcome retirement. If a suitable man were to oppose me, I would gladly step aside. I have a little piece of land near Dame Marie, and I can see in my mind’s eye a cottage with a garden. I would grow bananas and paint, and in the afternoons I would nap. Do you know, my friend, the last time that I permitted myself the luxury of an afternoon nap?”

Dr. Philistin said, “You’re not obligated to fight this election.”

Maxim’s eyes narrowed to slits. His face colored.

Dr. Philistin could read the Sénateur’s thoughts. Other men of the sénat , even men of lesser stature, hardly bothered to campaign, so assured were they of their constituents’ devotion. The Sénateur was sure that he would be in this position also, had this foreigner, this blan , this intriguer not arrived.

There was something unseemly about the endless traipsing on the hustings. He had done so much already. Hadn’t he brought in the Cuban doctors? Was he not responsible for the solar streetlights in so many villages, which allowed the village children to study at night? The fishing boats at Dame Marie were his creation, the dispensary in Beaumont, the corn mill in Carrefour Charles. To how many of his citoyens had he offered his personal assistance? The line of peasants outside his door was proof that he lived his creed: a man of the Grand’Anse had only to give his hand in friendship to the Sénateur to receive an embrace. Dr. Philistin knew that the Sénateur believed himself to be more than a mere politician: he was the creator of a social system . He had found a way to transform the isolation of the Grand’Anse to wealth: men and women merely had to ask him for assistance, and money that would have otherwise lingered in the Cold Land was theirs.