The Comedians

  ‘You’ve got a different scent.’

  ‘Luis gave me this for my birthday. I’d finished yours.’

  ‘Your birthday. I forgot . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Joseph is a long time,’ I said. ‘He must have heard the car.’

  She said, ‘Luis is kind to me. You are the only one who kicks me around. Like the Tontons Macoute with Joseph.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Everything was just as before. After ten minutes we had made love, and after half an hour we had begun to quarrel. I left the car and walked up the steps in the dark. At the top I nearly stumbled on my suitcases which the driver must have deposited there, and I called, ‘Joseph, Joseph’ and no one replied. The verandah stretched on either side of me, but no table was laid for dinner. Through the open door of the hotel I could see the bar by the light of a tiny oil-lamp, like the ones you place beside a child’s bed or the bed of someone sick. This was my luxury hotel – a circle of light which barely touched a half-empty bottle of rum, two stools, a syphon of soda crouched in the shadow like a bird with a long beak. I called again, ‘Joseph, Joseph,’ and again nobody answered. I went back down the steps to the car and said to Martha, ‘Stay a moment.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I can’t find Joseph.’

  ‘I ought to be getting back.’

  ‘You can’t go alone. Don’t be in such a hurry. Luis can wait a moment.’

  I mounted the steps again to the Hotel Trianon. ‘A centre of Haitian intellectual life. A luxury-hotel which caters equally for the connoisseur of good food and the lover of local customs. Try the special drinks made from the finest Haitian rum, bathe in the luxurious swimming-pool, listen to the music of the Haitian drum and watch the Haitian dancers. Mingle with the élite of Haitian intellectual life, the musicians, the poets, the painters who find at the Hotel Trianon a social centre . . .’ The tourist brochure had been nearly true once.

  I felt under the bar and found an electric torch. I went through the lounge to my office, the desk covered with old bills and receipts. I had not expected a client, but even Joseph was not there. What a homecoming, I thought, what a homecoming. Below the office was the bathing-pool. About this hour the cocktail guests should have been arriving from other hotels in the town. Few in the good days drank anywhere else but the Trianon, except for those who were booked on round tours and chalked everything up. The Americans always drank dry Martinis. By midnight some of them would be swimming in the pool naked. Once I had looked out of my window at two in the morning. There was a great yellow moon and a girl was making love in the pool. She had her breasts pressed against the side and I couldn’t see the man behind her. She didn’t notice me watching her; she didn’t notice anything. That night I thought before I slept, ‘I have arrived.’

  I heard steps in the garden coming up from the direction of the swimming-pool, the broken steps of a man limping. Joseph had always limped since his encounter with the Tontons Macoute. I was about to go out on to the verandah to meet him when I looked again at my desk. There was something missing. All the bills were there which had accumulated in my absence, but where was the small brass paper-weight shaped like a coffin, marked with the letters R.I.P., that I bought for myself one Christmas in Miami? It had no value, it had cost me two dollars seventy-five cents, but it was mine and it amused me and it was no longer there. Why should things change in our absence? Even Martha had changed her scent. The more unstable life is the less one likes the small details to alter.

  I went out on to the verandah to meet Joseph. I could see his light as it corkscrewed along the curving path from the pool.

  ‘Is it you, Monsieur Brown?’ he called up nervously.

  ‘Of course it’s me. Why weren’t you here when I arrived? Why have you left my suitcases . . . ?’

  He stood below me looking up with a sick expression on his black face.

  ‘Madame Pineda gave me a lift. I want you to drive back with her into the town. You can return on the bus. Is the gardener here?’

  ‘He go away.’

  ‘The cook?’

  ‘He go away.’

  ‘My paper-weight? What’s happened to my paper-weight?’

  He looked at me as though he didn’t understand.

  ‘Have there been no guests at all since I left?’

  ‘No, monsieur. Only . . .’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘Four nights ago Doctor Philipot he come here. He say tell nobody.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘I tell him he no stay here. I tell him the Tontons Macoute look for him here.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He stay all the same. Then the cook go away and the gardener go away. They say they come back when he go. He very sick man. That’s why he stay. I say go to the mountain, but he say no walk, no walk. His feet they swell bad. I tell him he go before you come back.’

  ‘It’s the hell of a mess for me to come back to,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to him. Which room is he in?’

  ‘When I hear the car, I call to him – Tontons, get out quick. He very tired. He not want to go. He say “I be old man.” I tell him Monsieur Brown he ruined if they find you here along. All same for you, I say, if Tontons find you in the road, but Monsieur Brown he ruined if they catch you here. I tell him I go and talk to them. He go out then quick quick. But it was only that stupid taxi-man with the luggage . . . So I run tell him.’

  ‘What are we going to do with him, Joseph?’ Doctor Philipot was not a bad man as government officials go. He had even during his first year of office made some attempt to improve the conditions of the shanty-town along the waterfront; they had built a water-pump, with his name on a stamped cast-iron label, at the bottom of the Rue Desaix, but the pipes had never been connected because the contractors had not received a proper rake-off.

  ‘When I go in his room he not there any more.’

  ‘Do you think he’s made for the mountain?’

  ‘No, Monsieur Brown, not the mountain,’ Joseph said. He stood below me with his head bowed. ‘I think he gone done a very wicked thing.’ He added in a low voice the inscription on my paper-weight, ‘Requiescat In Pace,’ for Joseph was a good Catholic as well as a good Voodooist. ‘Please, Monsieur Brown, come with me.’

  I followed him down the path to the bathing-pool in which I had seen the pretty girl making love, once, in another epoch, in the golden age. It was empty of water now. My torch lit the shallows and a litter of leaves.

  ‘Other end,’ Joseph told me, standing quite still, not going any nearer. Doctor Philipot must have walked up to the narrow cave of shadow made by the diving-plank, and now he lay in a crouched position below it with his knees drawn towards his chin, a middle-aged foetus ready dressed for burial in his neat grey suit. He had cut his wrists first and then his throat to make sure. Above the head was the dark circle of the pipe. We had only to turn on the water to wash the blood away; he had been as considerate as possible. He could not have been dead for more than a few minutes. My first thoughts were selfish ones: you cannot be blamed if a man kills himself in your swimming-pool. There was easy access to it direct from the road without passing the house. Beggars used to come here to try to sell trumpery wooden carvings to the guests swimming in the pool.

  I asked Joseph, ‘Is Doctor Magiot still in town?’ He nodded.

  ‘Go to Madame Pineda in the car outside and ask her to drive you to his house on the way to the embassy. Don’t tell her the reason. Bring him back – if he’ll come.’ He was the only doctor in town, I thought, with the courage to attend even a stone-dead enemy of the Baron. But before Joseph could start up the path there was a clatter of footsteps and I heard the unmistakable voice of Mrs Smith. ‘The New York customs could learn a thing or two from the men here. They were very polite to us both. You never find such courtesy among white people as you do with coloured.’

  ‘Look out, my dear, there’s a hole in the path.’ br />
  ‘I can see well enough. There’s nothing like raw carrots for the sight, Mrs . . .’

  ‘Pineda.’

  ‘Mrs Pineda.’

  Martha brought up the rear carrying an electric torch. Mr Smith said, ‘We found this good lady in the car outside. There seemed no one around.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’d quite forgotten you were going to stay here.’

  ‘I thought Mr Jones was coming here too, but we left him with a police officer. I hope he’s not in trouble.’

  ‘Joseph, get the John Barrymore suite ready. See that there are plenty of lamps for Mr and Mrs Smith. I must apologize for the lights. They will come on any moment now.’

  ‘We like it,’ Mr Smith said, ‘it feels like an adventure.’

  If a spirit hovers, as some believe, for an hour or two over the cadaver it has abandoned, what banalities it is doomed to hear, while it waits in a despairing hope that some serious thought will be uttered, some expression which will lend dignity to the life it has left. I said to Mrs Smith, ‘Tonight would you mind having only eggs? Tomorrow I’ll have everything organized to suit you. Unfortunately the cook went off yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t bother about the eggs,’ Mr Smith said. ‘To tell you the truth we are a little dogmatic about eggs. But we’ve got our own Yeastrel.’

  ‘And I have my Barmene,’ Mrs Smith said.

  ‘Just a little hot water,’ Mr Smith said. ‘Mrs Smith and I are very mobile. You don’t have to worry about us. You’ve got a fine bathing-pool here.’ To show them the extent of the pool Martha began to move the ray of her lamp towards the diving-board and the deep end. I took it quickly from her and turned it up towards the fretted tower and a balcony which leant over the palms. A light already glowed up there where Joseph was preparing the room. ‘There’s your suite,’ I said. ‘The John Barrymore suite. You can see all over Port-au-Prince from there, the harbour, the palace, the cathedral.’

  ‘Did John Barrymore really stay here?’ Mr Smith asked. ‘In that room?’

  ‘It was before my time, but I can show you his liquor bills.’

  ‘A great talent ruined,’ he remarked sadly.

  I couldn’t forget that presently the light rationing would be over and the lamps would go on all over Port-au-Prince. Sometimes the light was out for close on three hours, sometimes for less than one – there was no certainty. I had told Joseph that during my absence ‘business’ was to be as usual, for who could tell whether a couple of journalists might not stop for a few days to write a report on what they would undoubtedly call ‘The Nightmare Republic’? Perhaps for Joseph ‘business as usual’ meant lights as usual in the palm trees, lights around the pool. I didn’t want the Presidential Candidate to see a corpse coiled up under the diving-board – not on his first night. It was not my idea of hospitality. And hadn’t he said something about a letter of introduction he carried to the Secretary for Social Welfare?

  Joseph appeared at the head of the path. I told him to show the Smiths to their room and afterwards to drive down town with Mrs Pineda.

  ‘Our luggage is on the verandah,’ Mrs Smith said.

  ‘You’ll find it in your room by now. It won’t stay dark much longer, I promise. You must excuse us. We are a very poor country.’

  ‘When I think of all that waste on Broadway,’ Mrs Smith said, and to my relief they began to mount the path, Joseph lighting the way. I stayed at the shallow end of the pool, but now that my eyes were accustomed to the dark I thought I could detect the body like a hump of earth.

  Martha said, ‘Is something wrong?’ and flashed her light up towards my face.

  ‘I haven’t had time to see yet. Lend me that torch a moment.’

  ‘What was keeping you down here?’

  I let the torch play on the palm trees well away from the pool as though I were inspecting the light installations. ‘Talking to Joseph. Let’s go up now, shall we?’

  ‘And run into the Smiths? I’d rather stay here. It’s funny to think I’ve never been here before. In your home.’

  ‘No, we’ve always been very prudent.’

  ‘You haven’t asked after Angel.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Angel was her son, the unbearable child who helped to keep us apart. He was too fat for his age, he had his father’s eyes like brown buttons, he sucked bonbons, he noticed things, and he made claims – claims all the time on his mother’s exclusive attention. He seemed to draw the tenderness out of our relationship as he drew the liquid centre from a sweet, with a long sucking breath. He was the subject of half our conversations. ‘I must go now. I promised Angel to read to him.’ ‘I can’t see you tonight. Angel wants to go to the cinema.’ ‘My darling, I’m, so tired this evening – Angel had six friends to tea.’

  ‘How is Angel?’

  ‘He was ill while you were away. With the grippe.’

  ‘But he’s quite better now?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s better.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Luis doesn’t expect me as early as this. Nor Angel. I’m here. We may as well be hanged for a sheep.’

  I looked at the dial of my watch. It was nearly eighty-thirty. I said, ‘The Smiths . . .’

  ‘They are busy with their luggage. What’s worrying you, darling?’

  I said feebly, ‘I’ve lost a paper-weight.’

  ‘A very precious paper-weight?’

  ‘No – but if a paper-weight’s gone, what else has gone?’

  Suddenly all around us the lights flashed on. I took her arm and wrenched her round and moved her up the path. Mr Smith came out on to his balcony and called to us, ‘Do you think Mrs Smith could have another blanket on the bed, just in case it turns chilly?’

  ‘I’ll have one sent up, but it won’t turn chilly.’

  ‘It certainly is a fine view from up here.’

  ‘I’ll turn out the lights in the garden and then you’ll see better.’

  The controlling switch was in my office and we had almost reached it when Mr Smith’s voice came again. ‘Mr Brown, there’s someone asleep in your pool.’

  ‘I expect it’s a beggar.’

  Mrs Smith must have joined him, for it was her voice I heard now. ‘Where, dear?’

  ‘Down there.’

  ‘The poor man. I’ve a good mind to take him down some money.’

  I was tempted to call up, ‘Take him your letter of introduction. It’s the Secretary for Social Welfare.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, dear. You’ll only wake the poor fellow up.’

  ‘It’s a funny place to choose.’

  ‘I expect it’s for the sake of the coolness.’

  I reached the office door and turned out the lights in the garden. I heard Mr Smith say, ‘Look there, dear. That white house with the dome. That must be the palace.’

  Martha said, ‘A beggar asleep in the pool?’

  ‘It does happen.’

  ‘I never noticed him. What are you looking for?’

  ‘My paper-weight. Why should anyone take my paper-weight?’

  ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘A little coffin with R.I.P. stamped on it. I used it for non-urgent mail.

  She laughed and held me still and kissed me. I responded as well as I could, but the corpse in the pool seemed to turn our preoccupations into comedy. The corpse of Doctor Philipot belonged to a more tragic theme; we were only a sub-plot affording a little light relief. I heard Joseph move in the bar and called to him, ‘What are you doing?’ Apparently Mrs Smith had explained their needs to him: two cups, two spoons, a bottle of hot water. ‘Add a blanket,’ I said, ‘and then get moving to the town.’

  ‘When shall I see you again?’ Martha asked.

  ‘The same place, the same time.’

  ‘Nothing has changed, has it?’ she asked me with anxiety.

  ‘No, nothing,’ but my tone had an edge to it, which she noticed.

  ‘I’m sorry, but all the same you’ve come back.’

&nb
sp; When at last she drove away with Joseph I went back to the pool and sat on its edge in the dark. I was afraid the Smiths might come downstairs and make conversation, but I had been waiting only a few minutes by the pool when I saw the lights go out in the John Barrymore suite. They must have taken the Yeastrel and the Barmene and they had now lain down to their untroubled sleep. Last night the festivities had kept them up late, and it had been a long day. I wondered what had happened to Jones. He had expressed his intention of staying in the Trianon. I thought too of Mr Fernandez and his mysterious tears. Anything rather than think of the Secretary for Social Welfare coiled up under the diving-board.

  Far up in the mountains beyond Kenscoff a drum beat, marking the spot of a Voodoo tonnelle. It was not often one heard the drums now under Papa Doc’s rule. Something padded through the dark, and when I turned on my torch I saw a thin starved dog poised by the diving-board. It looked at me with dripping eyes and wagged a hopeless tail, as though it were asking my permission to jump down and lick the blood. I shooed it away. A few years ago I had employed three gardeners, two cooks, Joseph, an extra barman, four boys, two girls, a chauffeur, and in the season – it was not yet the end of the season – I would have taken on extra help. Tonight by the pool there would have been a cabaret, and in the intervals of the music I would have heard the perpetual murmur of the distant streets, like a busy hive. Now, even though the curfew had been lifted, there was not a sound, and without a moon not even a dog barked. It was as though my success had gone out of earshot too. I had not known it for very long, but I could hardly complain. There were two guests in the Hotel Trianon, I had found my mistress again, and unlike Monsieur le Ministre I was still alive. I settled myself as comfortably as I could on the edge of the pool and began my long wait for Doctor Magiot.

  CHAPTER 3

  I

  FROM time to time in my life I had found it necessary to provide a curriculum vitae. It usually began something like this. Born 1906 at Monte Carlo of British parents. Educated at the Jesuit College of the Visitation. Many prizes for Latin verse and Latin prose composition. Embarked early on a business career . . . Of course I varied the details of that career according to the recipient of the curriculum.