There is a Land (A Libète Limyè Mystery) (36 page)

Félix was possessed by the voice. Its call pulled him from the relative safety of the perimeter, and he moved step by step toward the camp’s center.

—
What are you–

But Libète could not risk another word. She paused, dallying on the outside, furious at Félix for taking such a foolish risk. She saw him, his machete drawn up while he dug around in his pocket. Libète rushed to catch up, watching what he withdrew.

It was a small wooden figurine. The rooster.

She followed and drew nearer to the tarps. The low, rasped singing grew in clarity.

Félix pulled aside the hanging plastic.

Before them sat Dorsinus, sitting upon a crate, whittling away, singing his song, defying death.

Passed Through the Ground

Kote zonbi konnen ou, li pa fè ou pè.

Where the zombie knows you, he won’t frighten you.

The wind whips their faces, the bike growls, but Libète shouts anyway. Curiosity pries her from her silence.

— Where’d that money come from?

— I told you. He bellows to be heard. I can’t tell.

Her eyebrow arches. Well, what’s it for then? What are you saving it for?

— You think I was hiding out in a shack for months for my own good?

She scratches her cheek. It was clear “yes” was the wrong answer. Your family?

He sneers.

— All just for Jak and I? But . . . why?

He looks at the open road. I chose shadows so you could be in light.

— Nonsense, she says.

He releases the gas and pulls hard on the brake till the bike skids into the shoulder, kicking up a spray of thick dust.

— Look, Libète says. I appreciate your help, but I
never
asked you for this. Not then, not now.

He spoke in quiet, quiet words. I lost everything for you. My career. My rank. My home. His eyes seared her. My good name. So I changed. Everything. All because you pushed me to act that night.

She felt sympathy, but this cauterized into something like indignity. Justice
demanded
Benoit be arrested, she said. Dimanche–the one you say is gone–cared something about that. That little girl tugging at his sleeve only reminded him. Libète picked at a bit of foam liner on the sidecar.

— It makes the consequences no less severe. His breathing was hard, and she wondered if he might hit her. All I had, over all of my years of work, was my
authority
. And that’s gone.

There was nothing more to say, and he started the bike again. They rode in silence for a time before he squinted. He saw a line of distant forms that looked like a shifting mirage. His jaw tightened. Get ready, he said. He slowed the bike, but did not stop it.

— For what? Libète moved her hand, unshielding her eyes.

— Police inspection. A checkpoint.

— What if it’s them?

— I know.

— Can we turn around?

He shook his head. Whether police or our pursuers, they’d know we’re trying to avoid them. We turn, and they’ll be after us. Dimanche reached into a side bag and handed her something heavy, wrapped in a chamois cloth.

— Is this – she slipped her fingers along its burnished metal – is this your gun?

— Just in case.

— Keep it yourself. I don’t touch these things. I’m nonviolent! she said, puffed up.

He forced it into her left hand. Hide it! Hide it!

She wanted to debate further, but there was no time. They’d meet the roadblock in less than a minute. Her heart thumped madly. She put her right hand over her chest in a futile effort to calm it.

There were three men in police uniform at the checkpoint. All wore camouflage in various shades of swirling tan. Kneepads, heavy vests, black helmets, guns slung about. They looked like the UN troops in Cité Soleil, but were clearly Haitian. The policeman in the middle of the road finished searching the back of a walk-in truck bed that had lost one of its two doors. With the bike’s approach, two officers who had been leaning on a beat-up white sedan had been brought to attention. They reached for weapons–a shotgun and a machine gun–and stood a few feet behind the middle officer.

— Give me your ID and registration.

Dimanche reached into his bag and rifled around. When he took more than a moment, the two policemen raised their weapons. He withdrew a small ID card, surely falsified, and a paper copy of the motorcycle’s title. They lowered the guns.

— Everyone’s jumpy today. Who’re you after? Dimanche asked the policeman. The man answered with a grunt. Libète held the gun in between her legs and grasped it for some sense of security. She looked ahead, her eyes fixed on the road that would soon leave level ground and climb upward, into the mountains.

The policeman looked at the card closely. Another vehicle, a
taptap
full of passengers, had pulled into line.

— Can I have my ID back?

— No. Drive over there and kill the engine.

— Ah, is that really necessary? My daughter and I are just on a drive home from Mirebalais, and there’s no need to point your guns at us. This is nonsense. We’re going.

The first officer raised his gun.

— Get off! Now!

Two vehicles now waited in the checkpoint queue. All their passengers’ eyes were curious and watching.

— All right, all right, Dimanche said, reaching for the keys. Ah, I forgot! The starter isn’t working. This thing, if it turns off, it won’t go again. I’ve got to keep it on or . . .

The officer, in a flash, rammed the butt of his rifle into Dimanche’s head and sent him spilling to the ground. He rose, staggering to find the three armed men arrayed about him, ready to shoot.

Libète takes a step closer to the living dead.

Dorsinus. In the flesh.

Brik kolon brik
, the man sings,
Brik kolon brik.
The lyrics are nasal, caught up high in his nose.

She had seen Dorsinus lying dead on the road.

His empty eyes, his neck twisted, his face distressed.

They had buried him!

Félix circled the old man. Dorsinus continued his whittling, taking no notice of the youths. His singing skipped from verse to verse:

Little bird where are you going?

I am going to Lalo’s house

Lalo eats little kids

If you go she’ll eat you too

Brik kolon brik
, he sings again,
Brik kolon brik
. Libète knows this song, etched into the minds of Haitian children. She joins him, harmonizing softly.

Nightingale eats breadfruit

Rolling, rolling I come from the village

All birds fall in water

Dorsinus looks up at her from his whittling. His eyes see but do not see. A smile curls at the corner of his mouth.

Lady, please dance with me,
he sings to Libète.

Sir, I am too tired
, he sings to Félix.

Sir, I am too tired
, he repeats.

— A
zonbi
, Félix whispers.

Libète nods.

She has never seen a zombie before, not in person. Rumors of them swirled in Cité Soleil, but they were often stories whipped up to scare children.

— I should have known, Félix says. He curses.

Libète’s lips purse. What do you mean?

— He paid my ransom. Spoke against all that’s going on here.

— You think the Sosyete would do this?

— I don’t know. I just know they
can
.

They took in the pathetic man. His clothes were tattered and caked in mud. His hair and beard were clumped with thick clay. He smelled terrible.

— His
ti bon anj
has been stolen, Félix added. He has no reason left.

People had bifurcated souls, as everyone knew: the
gwo bon anj,
and the
ti bon anj.
Félix and Libète saw proof before them that with the latter gone, only the last flickers of the divine spark that all people have remained.

Félix bristled. The Sosyete threatened me with this. If I broke their order. Being made a zombie, that’s their greatest punishment. Worse than death.

Libète had her doubts about zombification. She had heard different, less spiritual explanations. Carefully measured toxins administered to make the victim appear dead. Once raised–dug up– another drug makes him docile and dulls his mental faculties. In effect, making a perfect slave.

— What if it wasn’t a punishment? Libète offered. It could be, but . . . what if there’s another purpose? Look at him. His hands. They’ve had him here for months. He’s been digging, Félix. He’s been
digging
.

Félix wasn’t following. He wasn’t able to move past the state of the man who had exchanged fates with him.

Libète looked past Dorsinus to the grounds that the university had been so careful to conceal from prying eyes. Look at how deep they’ve gone, she murmured. It was a pit of profound darkness. Just look!

Félix did. The gash had long, long ladders going down, and there was tall machinery that looked powerful. Pumps. Cranes to raise and lower materials. Under the constructed shed structure she could see what looked like some sort of large pool.

— Félix, we’re so foolish. If we had thought about it, if we had considered all they were taking away . . .

— What do you mean?

— They aren’t recovering the past. Of course not. They started by searching. Surveying. Sampling. This . . . is the beginning.

Félix was trembling. What are they doing to our ground, Libète? What do you mean?

She raised her hand to her forehead. It’s so
obvious
. This, this is no university. Félix looked terrified. These men, whoever they are, have come to loot. They have come to plunder. They have come to steal.

Libète cannot breathe. The air, it does not come.

Dimanche staggers with his hands raised. Blood runs from a gash on the side of his head.

The one in the road keeps his gun trained on them. The first driver in line honks, but the trailing policeman holds up a hand that tells him to wait. The bike sits rattling, and Dimanche is tight with anger. Next to his size, these men, whoever they are, look like teenage boys dressed in costume.

— Turn the bike off, one says.

Dimanche doesn’t move.

— Turn it
off.

Dimanche does, hooking eyes with Libète. Libète shrinks to nothing. The officer thrusts his gun’s barrel into the back of Dimanche’s head.

— Get against the car!

Dimanche moves slowly and plants his hands on the unmarked vehicle. Libète squirms, drenched in her own sweat. One of the officers looks at her through his balaclava’s eye slit. There is more honking.

— Let us go! shouts a taptap passenger. Don’t keep us here! We don’t care for any of this! We’re just trying to–

The policeman aims his gun at the vehicle, and all complaining stops.

The thought of falling into these men’s hands dredges memories most unpleasant:

Stolen by night most black

Bullet’s sharpness slipping through flesh

Death, in my hand, pointed at another

One of the men patted down Dimanche while the one with the shotgun held it to Dimanche’s back. The third turned and stood watching it all, the barrel of his gun pointing downward.

— Search the bike, one said. And the girl. Libète clenched the pistol grip.

They will not take me.

Libète pulled the nickel-plated thing from its cloth, taking it in.

Death, in her hand . . .

. . . They will not
. . .

. . . pointed at another.

She stood in the sidecar, unnoticed. She raised the gun, unnoticed. She roared.

—
Get down on the ground, you bastards! I’ll blow your heads off! I’ll blow them off!
She fired the gun with a wince and shattered the car’s back window. The pistol’s recoil nearly unbalanced her.