madman on their heels pass them. Taking advantage of that moment, when Dudley wasn’t paying attention, the vehicle went ahead and passed them and, to Orelus’s great surprise, swung a quick right and blocked their car.
Three men got out, each with a gun in his hand. The first came over to the driver’s door and aimed his 9mm at Dudley’s head. He made him get out and sit in the backseat. He then sat down next to him, against the left door. Orelus thought it was a classic attack by an armed gang, as happens sometimes on these roads-until the moment when Dudley said, “Elien, what’s happening?” And Elien answered, “You’ll find out what’s happening soon enough.” So Dudley knew them. This left Orelus completely at a loss.
The second armed man had already walked around the other side of the vehicle. He asked Orelus to move to the back of the car, pushed him in right next to Dudley, and sat down against the right-hand door. The third man got behind the wheel and took off fast. Orelus had the feeling he had landed at the wrong place at the wrong time, and with the wrong person. He also knew that people sometimes lost their lives because of such unfortunate coincidences. They weren’t far from Titanyen canyon: all the ghastly stories about the place came back to him. Titanyen, an isolated garbage dump where organized gangs and politicians got rid of their unwanted corpses. Orelus thought of his daughter who would never know her father, and his wife, left helpless.
It was eight a.m. Two trucks, one coming from Port-au-Prince, the other going to the city, sped by them without noticing anything. He was given the order to lower his head and not raise it again unless one of them asked him to. Orelus lowered his head. From the questions they asked Dudley in a threatening, cold, sarcastic tone, like killers in a movie, Orelus became acutely aware that not only was he caught in the middle of some dirty business- some very dirty business-but he knew nothing about it.
“What did you do with the packages that were unloaded at Fort-Liberte? Where’s the money from the sale of the merchandise? This is the last time you’re gonna enjoy yourself with other people’s money. The party’s over-got it, Dudley? Over. Because, you know, the boss, he’s not happy. Like, really not happy. You thought you could be a wise guy, well, forget it. Take a deep breath, because you don’t have long to live.”
Then Orelus remembered a piece of news that had made the headlines two months back: a plane crashed in the middle of the countryside in the Fort-Liberte area and two SUVs arrived on the scene a few hours later to take away the cargo. So he was caught in an affair involving the drug cartels.
When they asked Dudley who his companion was, he answered without a tremor in his voice: Orelus had nothing to do with the whole thing, a friend had simply asked him to drive the guy to Port-au-Prince, and that was it. He hardly knew him. Orelus thought he was home free until one of the three men observed that as he had seen everything, he was becoming a potential witness. Orelus didn’t hear any response from the two others. Since he couldn’t see them, he imagined they must have made simple hand gestures to decide his fate. Orelus had a strong urge to pee in his pants. But he held it in and decided he had to keep up his strength so he could explain himself when the time came.
After another ten minutes, the car turned off to the left. There was no more asphalt, just a bumpy road heading far into the countryside. Orelus prayed to God and invoked the eighty-third psalm. After the tenth invocation, the car stopped suddenly. The driver honked three times and a gate opened. Orelus had no strength left to pray. Entering a gated property meant it was all over for him. The driver of the car that had followed Dudley from Saint-Marc stood before the open gates and told the three thugs in Dudley’s car to get out. The men dragged Dudley with them. But in a burst of frantic energy, he decided to resist. They shoved him brutally to the ground and ordered Orelus to keep his head down. Orelus heard words being exchanged between these men, violent blows raining down on Dudley, the dull sound of a bullet from a silencer, and a noise like someone clearing his throat. Dudley made the noise twice. Then nothing.
When Orelus heard the steps of someone coming over to the car, he said a last prayer to God and commended his daughter to Him. As the man reached the car door, he ordered Orelus to lift up his head. Orelus obeyed and told himself he would not be weak: he would die with dignity. He raised his head and saw the man who had been driving the other car, and seemed to be the boss of the squad, make a little gesture of surprise. Then he said, “You don’t recognize me?”
Orelus shook his head; no sound could come out of his mouth at that moment.
The man went on: “Do you have a baby who was born fourteen months ago?”
Orelus nodded.
“Do you remember someone coming into the waiting room in the hospital that night and asking for money to buy medicine for his wife, who was at death’s door?” The event returned to Orelus’s memory. “You’re the only one who took out his wallet and gave me money. You forgot my face but I will never forget yours. Get out of here right away or you’re a dead man. Don’t ask me any questions. I’ll say you ran away.”
Orelus grabbed the few sheets of his report within his reach.
“Hurry up. If the others come back, you’re dead.”
A part of the health survey would have to be redone.
The stranger opened the gate and Orelus ran out and never looked back. He kept moving until he met a passerby and asked where he was. The answer: “You’re at Santo 19.” He asked where he could catch a tap tap and followed the man’s directions. He crossed through town in a mental fog as if he’d come back from the grave, from the other side of life.
When he got to the office, he collapsed and told his fellow workers every detail of his misadventure. They gave him unsweetened coffee and herb tea to calm him down.
In the truck bringing him back to Saint-Marc that afternoon, he resolved to say nothing to his wife. Women talk too much. Even the least talkative end up talking. The experience he had just lived through must not be known in Saint-Marc.
Orelus met Pierre four days later, and when his friend asked him how things were going, Orelus thanked him warmly for helping him get to his appointment in Port-au-Prince on time. Pierre left without asking any more questions, without any particular emotion showing on his face. Orelus listened attentively to the news on the radio, hoping someone would talk about the incident he’d just lived through. But no, nothing. Absolutely nothing.
That night, Orelus stayed up until almost two a.m. A light breeze was coming in from the sea. He eventually went to bed without having solved what would be the enigma of his life from now on. Who was the man he happened to get a ride with in that SUV going to Port-au-Prince?
MERCY AT THE GATE BY MARIE KETSIA THEODORE-PHAREL
The contrast of jet-black, knotted pubic hairs against the squirmy white objects confirmed for Moade, called Moah, that what she was seeing was not rice or lice, but maggots.
“Aunt Haba, do you think the man is dead?” Moah asked in a voice no more audible than the flapping of butterfly wings.
The hustle and bustle of the early-September morning in Croix-des-Bouquets was well underway. The man in question was lying still; his naked legs, naked ass, ashen penis, exposed for all of Croix-des-Bouquets to see. Moah lifted her gaze from the sprawling man’s scantily clad body and the tattered doctor’s lab coat. Leaves covered his forehead and hair. There was the matted fur of an unrecognizable animal next to the man. Flies swarmed the animal’s carcass.
Moah looked at her aunt who was wrapping her old, frayed scarf, the color of budding okra flowers, around her nose. Moah watched and admired her aunt’s long, slender fingers as Haba broke a stick from a nearby bush to poke the body. The man winced faintly. Haba flung the stick to the side and took a step back.
Slowly, a mud-clad hand arose from beneath the pile of leaves. It had a scar the size of a nickel between the thumb and the index finger. Another scar, like a miniature Earth, was centered in the middle of the man’s palm. The hand lifted up from the top of the body. Moah flinched as it flung the debris from the man’s face. Moah realized that her aunt had been squeezing her hand. She couldn’t feel her fingers. She looked at her aunt, perhaps for confirmation, permission, or condemnation; however, unlike Moah, Haba hadn’t focused on the dark patches of matted pubic hair. Instead, Haba noted the brown eyes sunk deep into the man’s head. Those eyes looked as if at
