Wade Davis - The Serpent and the Rainbow

There were at least four preparations that could be used to make zombis, and for the proper amount of money I could obtain them all. It was a substantial sum. I called New York from Max Beauvoir’s phone and received instructions to buy one powder, and if it worked on laboratory monkeys, I could return to purchase the others. I returned to Simon and halved the price. He agreed, and I gave him a deposit. He told me to meet him in the north in three days, then he left.

Our meeting had lasted scarcely longer than the time of my long-distance call, but my impression of Herard Simon carried well into the night, until it kept me from sleep. Outwardly, he seemed calm, almost sluggish, for long ago, the angles of his body had disappeared beneath a mountain of flesh. But like the Buddha he resembled, his corpulence had a purpose; beneath it there was something at once terribly wise and terribly savage, like the soul of a man who has been forced to kill. Nobody told me until much later, but already that night I knew: in meeting Herard Simon, I had met the source.

“It was hard-hit,” Rachel said. Her words took in all the confusion of dust and rubble that was Gonaives. The power was out, and in the darkness the city looked unnatural, its buildings half-abandoned, yet its streets alive with people. In the market the drifters and sellers huddled around small fires, their children in clumps. Everyone seemed to be living outside, like survivors camped atop a ruin.

“They closed the port,” Rachel said.

“When the road went through?”

“Before. Duvalier wanted everything in the capital.”

“So all the business left?”

She nodded. “Turn here,” she said suddenly, and we veered onto a gravel road riddled with potholes. “It used to be in Gonaives that if you were black, the mulattos wouldn’t sit beside you.”

“Duvalier changed that?”

“The revolution did. Now there’s hardly any mulattos left here.”

“That’s convenient,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing. Say, have we been here before?”

“You don’t remember?”

Then I did. Even in the darkness you couldn’t miss the mermaid swimming along that blue-and-green wall. The woman who ran the Clermezine nightclub, and who had expressed such a low opinion of Ti Femme, was the wife of Herard Simon.

I swung abruptly into the short drive, and for an instant the beam of the headlights froze the same amorphous group of idlers against the gate of the compound.

“Hélène’s away on pilgrimage, but Herard’s probably here.” Rachel started to say something to the men sitting around, but then stopped, hesitated, and, grabbing her cigarettes, stepped out of the jeep. She drew several of the youth toward her, and then quite deliberately asked one of them for a light.

Once back in the jeep, she said, “He’s not in. They say he had business.”

“Where would that be?”

“Anywhere. Maybe in town. Sometimes he hangs out by the waterfront. What shall we do?”

“Wait.”

I pushed open the door, propped a foot on a hinge, and settled back. Some of the youths gathered around. You could tell they were thirsty, so we shared what was left of the rum. It was good to watch the bottle pass around. That’s a special thing about Haiti—everyone loves to drink, but you never see anyone drunk.

We chatted away for a while, but gradually they drifted back to the gate, finished with us and ready to sink back into their nightly routine.

“Strange,” Rachel said once we were alone. “Did you notice the one on the left, the one that lit my cigarette?”

“You recognized him?”

“Not at first. Then I remembered. He was in L’Estère with Narcisse’s sister. I’m certain.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“He’s from here. The question is, what was he doing there?”

It was about nine when a slim figure slipped up to the side of the jeep and startled Rachel. Without identifying himself, he said quietly, “The commandant is waiting at his place.” Then he walked away.

“The commandant?” I asked as we pulled out of the drive.

“Everyone calls him that. He used to be head of the militia, the VSN.” She used the official acronym for the Ton Ton Macoute.

“Of Gonaives?”

“No, all the Artibonite.”

“When was that?”

“Right at the beginning. He’s retired now, but he still runs things. My father says that his people have been watching us since you arrived.”

Herard Simon didn’t have a lot to say. He sat alone, on the porch of a simple dwelling, absentmindedly brushing the flies away from his face. We shook hands at my initiative. Sometimes, when strangers meet because they must and nothing is said, the silence is honest. But here it wasn’t. It was a statement of his authority, and I had to struggle against an urge to crack it. When he finally spoke, it was with a voice that placed a shell of double meaning on every word.

“What do you care of zombis?”

“I’m curious.”

“Curious? You pay all this money because you’re curious?”

“Someone else pays.”

“The juifs [Jews]. Of course, you are not one of them. They send you because they won’t do the work. And who will make the money?”

“From what we have arranged, it seems that you will,” I said, ignoring his swipe at Kline and my other backers. It went on like this for some time, he asking all the questions, baiting me with his knowledge of my past.

“The blancs are blind,” he said, “except for zombis. You see them everywhere.”

“Zombis are a door to other knowledge,” I said.

“To death and death alone!” he exclaimed in a suddenly strident voice. “Vodoun is vodoun, zombis are zombis.” His calm returned just as quickly. “So,” he said, “you have seen Narcisse.”

“Yes, and his family too.”

“Well?”

“He lives.”

“Yes, one who comes from the ground can be quite normal. But tell me, blanc , if you were a woman, would you ask him to dance?” That cracked him up, and once again I heard that rasping laugh.

“They say he’s got a lawyer, and he’s trying to get back his land to work it again.” This made him laugh again, even harder. “This man Narcisse is half-intelligent. As if he can get protection in the capital from his own people.” He turned to Rachel. “Beauvoir! This is enough. Bring yourself and this blanc malfacteur back in the morning. Then we will begin the work.”

That night, while Rachel and the others at the nightclub slept, I lay in bed struggling for an answer that would explain it all. It hadn’t surprised or worried me that Herard Simon knew so much about our activities; they hadn’t been secret, and there were any number of obvious sources of information. What concerned me was the man himself. I couldn’t let him be. And I had barely met him, that was the extraordinary thing. He had that kind of presence, a charisma hot to the touch. There was something frightening about him, a latent violence that was both ancient and tribal. It seemed as if he bore within him the exploding energy of an entire race; as if his skin, stretched so thin over his massive body, lay ready to split, to release some great catastrophe of the human spirit. He exuded power. I felt it that night, as I had when we first met, and I would experience it again the following morning.

The party from Petite Rivière de l’Artibonite arrived just before noon, but the reputation of their region preceded them. Among other things, I had been told that there was scarcely a bone left in their public cemetery. They were five. The two riding in the cab of the pickup, one wearing an army uniform, had the bearing of officials. The three in the back had the look of mountain peasants. The scalp of one of these was dotted with furry patches—an occupational hazard, I was told, of the malfacteur, the one who grinds the powders.