Father Eden was shopping for produce at the open-air stalls along the dirt road that ran through the village. The Citadel loomed over the agricultural valley like a hulking sentinel. He had been up there working hard all week, coordinating construction with Bishop Lomani and Father Casper, who grew up in a family of stonemasons. This was his first visit down the hill by himself. It was a chance to practice his French and to get away from the clatter of the cement mixer.
The vendors were particularly cordial to him and chatted him up in slow, carefully enunciated French, helping him learn new words as they bantered and bargained with him. The newly arrived priests had become overnight celebrities, and the locals beckoned Eden to their stalls as much to be seen with him as to get his business.
The women doing their morning shopping whispered and gossiped, boldly watching the good-looking man in white as he jovially fumbled his way through his first shopping spree in Haiti. It was clear that he was happy to be there. They didn’t sense that he was patronizing them, like so many of the American hippies and tourists who passed through on their way to the Citadel. He seemed to feel right at home. Their children left their sides to scamper around him and he soon became the focus of a ragtag flock, vying amongst each other to carry his purchases as he drifted from stall to stall.
Thalia Rose was shopping for fruit, but it was the off-season and nothing seemed to satisfy her. She briefly paused at each stall and took in the display, but whatever she was looking for was better than anything they had to offer.
The vendors drank her in as she approached to linger over their offerings, before moving down the row of stalls. The Taino Indian bloodline was strong in her, setting her apart from most other Haitians, and the women of the village felt their faces flush with jealousy, watching her walk among them. Thalia wore a diaphanous sundress, but the young woman could have stopped traffic wrapped in a burlap bag. What was she doing out here in the middle of nowhere, the women wondered, making them feel worthless and distracting their men?
As far as they knew, she lived somewhere farther downstream, in one of the lowland villages. Perhaps she came from around Sans-Souci, but no one was really sure. Some of them had seen her on the coast, in Cap-Haitien, and they assumed that she was married to wealth or that she soon would be, or that she would run off to the city to become a model or a kept woman. None of them expected her to appear at their rural marketplace to do her shopping. The men were delighted by her appearance, but the women weren’t nearly as enthused.
Thalia blithely tuned out the undercurrents as she moved from stall to stall. She had her own distraction to occupy her. She wanted to get close to the priest.
Eden spotted her in the crowded street behind him. He kept stealing looks at her when he could get away with it unnoticed. Somewhere far back in his mind he realized what was happening to him, but he tried to ignore it. As he meandered from one stall to the next, chatting with the vendors and entertaining his host of children, the truth was becoming more difficult to dismiss. It wasn’t quite to the point where he felt he should pray for guidance, but with each passing moment the time was drawing closer, and so was the woman. As much as he tried, he found that she was too difficult to ignore.
Holding a mango up to admire it in the sunlight, he glanced past its golden-green skin and saw that she was looking directly at him. She smiled, and went back to browsing over a mottled collection of bananas.
He looked back down to the pile of breast-sized mangoes on the vendor’s table before him, chastened by a sudden and powerful twinge of guilt. The light was perfectly fine under the awning; there was no need to do what he had done.
The vendor knew it, too, but he dismissed it as a bit of comedy and laughed. The children joined the old man, but Eden knew that the laugh was on him. He had responded to temptation, and was sorely tempted to do it again.
It felt good when she smiled at him. He hadn’t felt that way in a very long time, although he knew that it was always there, just below the surface, waiting for the proper stimulation. And here it was, like a warm breeze arising out of nowhere.
“Allo,” she said to him in a soft voice, almost a whisper, and he turned to her in surprise. She was standing right beside him. How she got there, he hadn’t a clue.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle...” He trailed off nervously as his French suddenly failed him.
She smiled and continued in English. “My name is Thalia Rose.”
Eden was relieved; he had been struggling to converse with someone, anyone, all morning, and wasn’t sure of half of what he was saying. With her, in particular, he didn’t want to misspeak. He knew he was on fragile ground. They both knew it.
“Father Eden,” he said, with a self-conscious little bow. “Jean Paul Eden.”
“A beautiful name.”
“As is yours, Mrs. Rose.”
“Miss.”
Eden smiled. “Miss Rose.”
“Thalia,” she corrected him further.
“Thalia...”
She smiled back and pointed to the Citadel, high on the mountain. “They sent you here?”
“I asked to be sent, to build the orphanage.”
That intrigued her. “You asked to come here?”
He nodded. “My mother grew up in Haiti. I wanted to trace my roots.”
“Perhaps I can help you,” she suggested with a delicate smile. “There is much to discover in Haiti.”
He felt himself blushing and looked down, unsure of how to respond. He could sense where their conversation was heading, and he felt as if he was being gently drawn into a gravity well toward a warm, delicious center.
“Thank you for coming to us,” she said. “I know you will do many wondrous things.”
He looked back to her, and felt that he should at least make a gesture of resistance. “The Lord guides my hand,” he told her. “I am here to do His will.”
Her eyes sparkled, and her lips curled into a bewitching smile. “And what is His will, Father Eden? Can we ever really know what He wants us to do, when He works in such mysterious ways?”
“His task is to show the way. Our task is to learn it.”
“And there is so much to learn in this short life of ours.”
“A never-ending quest, Miss Rose.”
She smiled again. “Thalia, please.”
“Thalia...” He repeated, and smiled in return.
She laughed, and he blushed again, realizing that he was actively flirting with a beautiful young woman in a wispy sundress, and probably not another stitch on her body.
She took a step closer and smiled. “Let me show you the real Haiti.”
He tried to back-pedal, but the fruit stand was directly behind him and the children laughed as he bumped into it. Thalia Rose was a force of nature.
“That would be lovely, Thalia,” Eden said, and she smiled at him again.
“Lovely Thalia,” she echoed, teasing him. “I like the sound of that.”
The vendors were watching them, and so were the children. The women were going about their business, but they were watching as well. They could all see what was developing between the two.
Thalia was used to people watching her, but she sensed that Eden wasn’t. She took a demure step back, preparing to go. He wasn’t quite sure what to say, but he somehow sensed that everything had already been said.
She turned to leave, and as she walked away she smiled at him over her bare shoulder.
“My door is always open,” he found himself saying, before he could stop himself. Her smile widened in acknowledgment, and his eyes widened in surprise at his own boldness. That made her smile even more.
He watched her walk into the morning sun, her dress gently swaying with each step, and he saw that he was right. She wasn’t wearing a stitch underneath.