THE ARTICLE ON GANTHIER was finally published yesterday. Virulent and partisan, according to a journalist at La Voix du Nord, a radio station on the Duvalier payroll. Salnave called to inform me that Colonel Sony Borges himself had phoned the newspaper to hurl abuse at me.
“He wanted to talk to you. You weren’t there, so he spoke to the director. Everybody at the newspaper is terrified.”
“So the famous Colonel Borges called the newspaper. How odd: he could just as easily have come to my house, what with the goons up the street who’ve invaded the neighbourhood again. They’ve taken up permanent residence. Yesterday I counted four cars hidden in the trees. I can’t just run off into the mountains! The colonel knows where to find me.”
“We’ll have to be more careful, Mika.”
Another night of terror. Salnave told me this was coming, in a way. The nighttime phone calls started again. I spend the morning hiding in my room with the shutters closed. I’m chugging herbal tea, soursop and lemon balm. I sneak into Bé’s room.
“Believe me if you want,” she says to me in a low voice. “They want to scare us but they’re the ones who are shaking every night despite the absurd number of weapons they have stored under their beds. They draw their strength only from our faithlessness, Mimi, I’m telling you. And they’re afraid all the same.”
“But they have professionals backing them up, Bé, they have help, you know. American soldiers, French gendarmes from Melun. They’re up on all the new means of repression. They don’t have to be afraid. Certainly they’re less afraid than we are.”
It’s going to be a long day. I can’t shake the sound of the children when they were young enough to have fun in the garden, that vision. I used to watch them playing in the yard from the window while Bé looked after them.
My prayer this morning to a deaf, blind god: Keep me from all the tangled whispers, from these terrified voices. But it’s no use. These rumours about the death squads and the persecution seeps into everything now, the forever awful news are part of my world, they invade my space day after day. Relentless, like wardens, standing guard all around me.
Bé and I are having breakfast outside after she asked why we were hiding in the house. “It’s pointless. We’re in prison no matter where we go in this country!”
Since the beginning of the siege, I’ve spent countless hours going over the situation, and I still can’t see a way out, no matter how I look at it. I would have liked to have been able to talk to Soledad about this. She’s sharp and rational, and I often rely on her insights. Soledad, who decided at the age of nineteen to leave. From childhood she’d dreamed of spreading her wings, she said—somewhere else, toward the multiple lives she has led since she left—philosophy, dance, painting, so many other wonders.
When the phone rings, I’m stunned to hear Soledad on the other end of the line. Soledad, doing her best to pretend she’s not worried. She’s coming tomorrow, she’s on her way. For a second I’m unable to speak.
“Can you hear me? Mama, can you hear me?” she calls, full of apprehension.
I’m torn between yearning for the presence of my beloved child and the danger from which I must protect her. I have to keep her from coming.
“No, Soledad,” I stammer, “that’s not possible! There’s no freedom at all, there’s no way through.”
“I know, Mama, I know everything.”
Before I come to my senses—click. The earth opens up beneath my feet, and I slide toward the abyss.
How does she know, what does she know? I don’t recognize my own voice. I hear awful squeaks, little high-pitched cries. Where are they coming from? My chest? What a mess, good lord. I get up. My back is stiff, and I’m suddenly so cold. I pace nervously around the room, then I go hide in the study.
Should I call Charlot and demand that he intervene, call Soledad, order her not to come? This is going to end badly. Soledad can’t come back! I have to change her mind, to prevent her from coming here, no matter what. Things are getting worse: after the scandalous celebrations on October 22, all those who’d been brought from the countryside to boost the numbers were released all over the city. They sleep in the bushes, on people’s doorsteps, like animals. Some are breaking into people’s houses, they have guns.
Yesterday I had to go into town to renew a prescription. Valium for Bé, who isn’t sleeping at all. While I was talking to the pharmacist, a truck came racing down the narrow street and pulled up in front of the pharmacy, screeching its tires. The pharmacist tipped my tablets into the bottle. She had to start again, her hands were shaking so hard: she’d seen the men come in. The pills clattered on the metal counter; she counted them out again, and again they fell. Finally she slid the cork in the bottle, handed me the bag, and told me to come pay another time. I walked out of the pharmacy, my pulse buzzing in my temples, though the hum couldn’t drown out the beastly growls. One of the men went up to the counter, as his cronies—armed, of course—looked on. Behind the counter, the poor woman looked like she was about to pass out. “You old bitch,” the man barked at her, “can’t you see that your pills haven’t done anything for me? This sick thing you see here between my legs, well, I can make you eat it or shove it up your fat ass if you don’t give me some medication right away!”
Apparently, poor madame Dulot doesn’t dare close her pharmacy, she’s too worried about what they might do to retaliate. Every day, they come, grab something and leave without paying. The whole gang is trying to get to her husband, Ernest Dulot, who’s wanted by the squad bosses—Simon, Bertrand, Gracia, and Delva, Lolo something or other, and two others named Désinor and Novembre. They were all there yesterday, in the truck, around the corner. By rue Chaumont, near Jeanne’s place, the terrace of the Petit Café des Amis was crowded with armed men, their eyes hidden behind dark glasses. Noisy and reeking of alcohol, they were shouting at the top of their lungs, slamming dominos on the tables psychotically and passing around flasks full of rum. They say the café owner, Jean Toussaint, a peaceful man and father of five, was thrown in prison and murdered. Music in honour of the tyrant poured out of the café windows, poisoning the street and the whole neighbourhood.