Mischa Berlinski - Peacekeeping

Dr. Philistin stared at Maxim’s face as it hardened into resolution. He had not understood his friend’s mood. What had seemed indecisiveness was merely a moment of reflection. What had seemed exhaustion was a husbanding of strength. What had seemed defeat was a prelude to victory.

There comes a time in a statesman’s career, the Sénateur told the doctor, after so many trials and such great successes, when it was appropriate, dignified even, that he stand before his public and, like a father to his wayward children, declare, “Take me as I am: you’ll find none better. No man will ever love you more. We are as one, my children — joined in heart and soul. I am your voice and you my lungs. I merit your fidelity and you merit my leadership. Together we shall endeavor onward!” That was all the campaign a great man required.

The Sénateur’s glass was empty. He gestured to the waiter to bring him another. The Sénateur seemed restored to vigor. He sat tall in his seat, his face flushed with color. Then he explained his plan to Dr. Philistin.

Perhaps, Dr. Philistin thought, there was something to the English yam after all.

* * *

Dr. Philistin told me that he and the Sénateur stayed up late that night planning the campaign to come: what towns and villages were vulnerable, who remained solidly in the Sénateur’s camp. Where the traitors were likely to be hiding. Who was faithful, and who was weak. How much support could they count on from the president. What would be the role of the scoundrels in the United Nations Mission? Money: Could they count on the usual arrangements? Were additional funds necessary?

At the conclusion of the evening, the Sénateur took his old friend’s hand. The Sénateur was a larger man than Dr. Philistin, and his thick, callused paw swallowed up the doctor’s wiry fingers.

“ Mon vieux , I have been haunted by a dream. I am standing on a hillside watching birds fighting. What could such a dream mean?”

“I’ve never understood dreams,” murmured Dr. Philistin.

“I have understood the dream to mean that there are perils ahead. It is for this reason that I wish to ask you an immense favor. I have been to a lawyer and prepared a final testament. May I mention you as a legatee?”

Dr. Philistin was shocked. He loved the Sénateur, but he had not realized that the Sénateur loved him also.

“I would be honored,” he finally said.

I watched Dr. Philistin stand up from the couch where we had been sitting. He told me that the Sénateur had bequeathed him Michel Dumartin’s final painting, the last in the triptych Andrés Richard so fervently coveted. The first painting had depicted the realm of the underworld, the second terrestrial life. This painting portrayed Paradise.

This was a landscape of heaven. It looked a lot like Haiti, a place of color, light, and shadow. Heaven was a banquet, a table so long it curved around itself like a snake. You could have spent all day looking at that painting, picking out the faces, identifying those lucky enough to eat from the good Lord’s pigs, yams, crabs, and mangoes. A dark-skinned Jesus sat at the head of the table, laughing uproariously at the story Moses was telling. All manner of saints and prophets were eating and drinking, slapping each other on the back, flirting and kissing, dancing to the music of angels, and enjoying a nice long break from all the troubles they had endured below. Adam and Eve were fighting, and I figured out why: Adam’s hand was on Erzulie’s behind. Children played under the big table; a few of them were dancing on top of it. Toussaint L’Ouverture was in the crowd, being served his plate by Napoleon Bonaparte. The table was long enough for ordinary people too, and after staring awhile, I saw the lady who hacked up my goat meat, and the motorcycle taxi drivers who camped out on the Place Dumas, and Micheline, the woman who squeezed our juice. The only face I couldn’t find in that crowd was mine.

I was drinking my juice and watching a spider devour a fly when Toussaint Legrand showed up one sultry August morning. I had harbored an ambition of working that morning, a project not compatible with the presence of Toussaint on my terrace. I could smell the stench of Lightning, Toussaint’s new cologne, at once spicy and sweet and altogether nauseating. I tried to ignore him in the hope that he would grow bored and go away. I got up and fetched myself another glass of juice, not offering him one. He stared at me somberly. The spider had completed its breakfast, and now it settled into immobility. I picked up my book and began to read, but the words refused to form sentences. When I looked up, I noticed glistening teardrops rolling down Toussaint’s cheeks. Toussaint in tears made me think of ice cream on the sidewalk, the last day of summer, and the mocking laughter of pretty girls.

Then, in his incongruous, improbably deep voice, Toussaint told me that the Conseil Electoral Haïtien* had published that morning the final ballot for the upcoming election. He had heard the announcement on the radio. Johel’s name had not been listed as a candidate for the office of sénateur from the Grand’Anse.

“It must have been a mistake,” I said.

For the first time in our relationship, Toussaint looked at me with the cynical eyes of a grown man.

A little later, Kay called. She was waiting for Terry and the judge at his campaign headquarters.

“Come on down, will you?” she said.

“Is anything wrong?”

“I just want to see a friendly face.”

I had seen Jérémie only hours before the anticipated landfall of a Class 3 hurricane, and the town had remained unfathomably calm. There had been no lines to buy water; the families who lived on the banks of the river, which would rise if the hurricane hit and drown them, stayed right where they were. The women shopped, the men played dominoes, and the children went to school in their bright uniforms even as radio forecasters predicted imminent doom. But the townies were right: Hurricane Gilda changed course at the last minute and blew harmlessly out to sea.

Now the moment was different.

There was a corner of the Place Dumas where the marchandes who came down from the mountains sat. I bought some mangoes on my way to campaign HQ.

“A pile of problems today,” said the lady who sold bananas.

“Always a pile of problems. The good Lord will save us,” said the mango lady.

“They eliminated Juge Blan.”

“Juge Blan won’t accept that,” said Banana. “People won’t accept that.”

“Juge Blan won’t accept that at all,” said Mango resolutely.

“The Devil’s motorcycle never breaks down,” said Banana proverbially.

Mango nodded. Then she said, “Juge Blan, he saved me one time.”

“Didn’t know that.”

“It’s true, it’s true. Juge Blan didn’t help me, my little one would be in the coffin today.”

“Didn’t know that.”

“Juge Blan put money in my pocket when he had the fever.”

“Didn’t know that.”

“People will take the streets today for Juge Blan.”

“The Devil’s motorcycle,” said Banana, putting her bananas back in the basket. “A pile of problems.”

Campaign HQ, when I eventually arrived, was packed: the usual gang, but others also, people I had never seen before who had come to the office that morning out of solidarity with the judge. The big room with its impermeable cinder-block walls was hot and smelled of old sweat. People had been there since the night before, when the CEH held its press conference.

I found Kay sitting at her desk, her back to the wall, headphones on, watching a video of blond yogi performing a series of unnatural complications. Kay’s hair was matted with sweat.