Eden was working at the Citadel in the merciless glare of the afternoon sun, under a pure blue sky in the northern highlands. He was supervising a group of laborers, fifteen in all, who were hard at work on the pavilion footings. It would be a temporary shelter while they were renovating the centuries-old collection of rooms that the government had given them for the orphanage.
Their first pour of the day had taken its sweet time to set in the cool morning air of the northern highlands. They were pouring the second and last batch now, just before quitting time. Slow-setting concrete was fine by him; he’d never poured any before, much less worked with a set of blueprints. He was faking it, and all the workers knew it. They also knew that air temperature had almost nothing to do with how fast concrete set. It was all in the mix, and they had Bishop Lomani pay for a blend that was slow enough for them to work at a leisurely pace. They weren’t lazy by any means, but white men from the north had no idea just how debilitating it was to work in Caribbean weather, even in wintertime. It wasn’t like Florida, or even Louisiana. A Caribbean island was a different world with its own climate and pace.
Eden’s ineptitude didn’t matter to them. They were beholden to him, and to all the missionaries, for the steady work they had brought to their highland village. There was enough to do at the mission to get them through the rest of the winter, and that was a Godsend. And although the priests were amateurs, the locals were not. They had all built their homes out of concrete and cinder block, so they knew exactly what they were doing. Masonry was in their blood. They were going to make Bishop Lomani think that Father Eden was a screaming genius, whether the young priest could read a set of plans or not. None of them could either, and their houses could stand up to hurricanes better than the ones in New Orleans, so who needed building codes and who needed plans? They would take care of Eden just as Eden was taking care of them.
Their women and some of their children had come up the mountain with them, to watch them work and to make their meals. They sat on the chairs and crates they brought along, gossiping amongst themselves as they watched their men working. The children ran around playing soccer and making up games, but they knew how far they could stray. Ghosts roamed the ancient Citadel, even during the day. The children stayed nearby and in plain sight, where it was safe.
The Haitian nuns were busy in the old kitchen trying to get it clean, and one of the priests was trying his hand at fixing the plumbing, but thus far a satisfactory solution eluded him. Almost a week had gone by, and they were still cooking under the stars.
Although it was Tuesday, Eden still missed not having Sister Nancy’s traditional dinner of chicken and dumplings on Sunday night. The other priests were from Canada, two were from Dominican Republic, and all the nuns were Haitians, so he and Bishop Lomani were the only ones at the mission who carried a Norman Rockwell vision of Sunday dinner in their heads. As they feasted on the boiled green bananas mashed with butter that Father Ortiz made that Sunday morning, it finally dawned on Eden that not only was he in a foreign land, but that he was actually living there and not just visiting. The land wasn’t foreign; he was.
Eden glanced at the audience of village women and smiled at them; all the women smiled back. They knew why he was looking their way. Thalia Rose had come up the mountain with them. She had been appearing at the marketplace lately. The selection of produce was so much better in their village, she told them. So was their selection of priests, they whispered to each other.
She smiled at Eden, and he quickly turned back to his work. He wished that he knew what his workers were doing, and he hoped they were doing it right. He grew antsy watching them, and wanted to make himself useful.
A form was slowly giving way, distended by the weight of all the wet concrete it was holding. A hammer was lying on the ground and some nails were scattered in the dirt. Eden put the plans down and tried his hand at bracing the form, running a scrap of two-by-four across the form and nailing it to the top of each sideboard. He made one side secure, but on the third strike of the hammer to secure the other side, he whapped his thumb something fierce.
“Jesus Ch – !!” he hissed, and jumped to his feet, jamming his thumb in his mouth as much to shut himself up as to soothe the pain. The workers glanced at each other and grinned. They heard what he said as plain as day.
The women were too far away, but they could tell exactly what happened, and they could deduce precisely what he must have said. They covered their mouths to keep from laughing out loud. Eden peeked at them, his thumb still in his mouth. The children thought he looked like a baby, and burst out laughing. They mimed him and showed each other their pained expressions, and their mothers didn’t bother to hush them up.
Thalia caught Eden’s eye, and licked her own thumb with a wet, languorous tongue. His thumb instantly felt better. He was amazed, but he attributed the relief to a warm stirring of lust that circled his heart, moving closer and closer like a band of marauding savages. He felt his ears flush, a sure sign that he was embarrassed, but somehow he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. It was as if they were all alone.
He drew his thumb out of his mouth and licked it, mirroring her. The women sitting on the lawn with Thalia smiled. They could see the magic she was weaving.
Thalia had made friends with the women over the last few days, coming up in the bus with them each morning and then walking up the mule trail, chatting and watching the work to pass the time of day. The women found the attraction between her and the priest a great source of cheap entertainment, and they welcomed her into their circle although they were still unsure which village she was from. Somewhere near Cap-Haitien was all they knew, and Thalia wasn’t one to divulge details. She seemed to enjoy being a mysterious, beautiful woman, and her air of confidence lent credence to their suspicion that she must be possessed of a great deal of power. Power in Haiti could run deep and dark, and now that she had insinuated herself into their circle, they felt it best to just let her be and watch whatever developed, until they could learn more about her.
In a dense stand of trees behind the women on the lawn, a Haitian man, tall and powerful, was watching Thalia and Eden. He, too, saw the magic that the young woman had over the priest. He saw the priest’s burning desire as plainly as a mystic could see his acolyte’s aura. Day by day, the man knew that she would draw Eden ever closer. But he would be on watch. He would be there when she finally captured the priest, no matter how long it took. He would wait. He had all the time in the world.
The women knew he was there, and they ignored him. He was probably crazy, or just retarded. Perhaps he was a zombie. There were several in the area, but they mostly kept to themselves. They lived in and around the graveyards, but they could range far and wide if their masters sent them on an errand. Most of them were simply doomed to wander like ghosts at a party, and they did no harm if people kept their distance and didn’t rankle them. Like bums, they were invisible to the general populace, unless their craziness drew too much attention or demanded a response. This one, the poor thing, just lurked in the trees all day and watched Thalia, but that seemed completely unremarkable to them. A beautiful woman was a sight to behold, and he was a man. He seemed harmless enough.