are Germans, remember?”
No doubt Gurt was more current in tradecraft, Lang thought. He had completely forgotten creating a legend, the practice of leaving a series of believable clues supporting whatever identity one was using. More often than not, no one would be checking. But if they did, they would only confirm what they had been led to believe.
“Here.” Gurt was proffering five ten-dollar bills.
“Fifty, all right. How big a bill did you change?”
“A hundred. I wanted to make sure we were remembered as having euros, not dollars.”
“Lucky for us the Turks and Caicos’s currency is the dollar.”
As the cab drove away, Lang turned to look through a very dirty rear window. The man in the guayabera and the man in the uniform were dividing the money.
The road was a series of interconnected potholes, any one of which could have snapped the Ford’s axle had the car been moving faster than a quick walk. A power line followed the road, periodically hosting clumps of purple orchids contrasting with the mean-looking scrub at the base of the poles. On the right, an emerald surf licked at a litter-strewn beach. Offshore, the sails of small fishing boats darted back and forth across the mouth of the bay. To the left a series of mud and daub huts faced yards of bare dirt surrounded by ragged, waist-high fences of prickly cactus. Lang was puzzled at both the choice of material and the lack of height of the cactus. Then he saw a pig with a stick tied horizontally around its neck, a stick too long to squeeze through the perimeter.
The Haitians might be poor but they didn’t lack ingenuity.
A flatbed truck rumbled past, its muffler not even a memory. The sides were wooden slats painted with religious motifs and idealized scenes from Haiti’s tropical forests, or what was left of them. People sat on benches running lengthwise, clutching squawking, flapping chickens or small pigs. The top was a pyramid of less-valued cargo: cardboard suitcases, furniture and bunches of both green and ripe bananas.
Tap-taps, Haiti’s only public transportation.
The cab crossed a filthy creek that fanned out to make a small, gooey delta of mud and sand on the other side of the road. Mud huts with tin roofs shouldered each other to the waterline, many covered with a spiderweb of drying fishing nets. Scattered in the few available spaces, a few boats lay on their sides while owners and their families caulked or painted. The odor of open sewer filled the car, and Lang was appalled to see malnourished naked children playing in the very muck that was causing the smell.
Then the car was passing one- and two-story buildings painted every color imaginable. The predominant scent now was of charcoal coming from small braziers, around which squatting people cooked things Lang thought he would prefer not to recognize. All the women wore skirts, not a pair of pants among them. The street was crowded not by automobiles but by people, chickens and hand-drawn carts on truck tires. The impression was one of constant motion.
Then the taxi was headed up a steep hill, leaving the town’s noise, sights and smells below. Halfway up, the car stopped, its engine revving furiously.
“What’s the problem?” Lang asked.
The driver got out, motioning Lang to do the same. Warily, he noted the car was in park, the only thing preventing Gurt and the taxi from a quick and uncontrolled return to town. Unwilling to trust the antique’s transmission, Lang motioned her to get out, too.
The driver came around the car, waving his hands “no.” He then indicated that he and Lang would push. And that is how Lang and Gurt arrived at the Mont Joli Hotel, with Gurt riding like an elegant medieval lady in a sedan chair and Lang and the driver behind, pushing for all they were worth.
In the lobby, an open, airy room finished in what Lang guessed was native mahogany, a young woman imprinted his credit card.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Lowen,” she said, using the name on the passports in lilting English, “but I do not speak German.”
“Just as well. Give me a chance to practice my English.”
After establishing the room rates at seventy-five dollars a night if paid in dollars rather than euros, she handed him a key. “Enjoy your stay.”
“What happens if I want to pay my bill in gourdes?”
From her expression, he might as well as well have suggested a particularly deviant sex act. “Gourdes?”
“Your national currency.”
She ran a hand across the bottom of her chin, still agitated. “Er, it is our national currency, yes, but I know of no hotel that will accept it. If you wish…”
Lang waved a dismissive hand. “No problem. I was just asking.”
She watched Gurt and Lang follow a porter toward their room. When they turned a corner, she pulled a cell phone from the pocket of her skirt and hit speed dial.
“ Oui? ” a male voice answered.
“We have some guests at the hotel,” she said in Creole, bending over the desk to make sure those guests were out of earshot. “Guests with German passports.”
There was silence on the other end.
“I do not believe they are German. His English is American. You wanted to know…”
“ Merci.”
The other end of the conversation went dead.
Mont Joli
Cap Haitien
An hour later
Lang stood on the balcony outside his room, waiting for Gurt to get dressed after the shower they had shared. Immediately below him was a sparkling blue pool surrounded by grapefruit, oranges and limes dripping from trees. A huge ficus was draped in white orchids whose roots were exposed to the moist air that sustained them. The bloodred petals of a poinsettia the size of an oak reflected in the still water. Below the pool, the ground dropped off in a steep cliff to meet the sea. Turning to his right, he could see part of the town and the sweeping coastline of the bay against which it had been built. The height muted the sounds and, thankfully, the smells.
Now what?
Miles had wanted them to come to Haiti, land here on the north coast and look around a day or so before driving to Port-au-Prince if they found nothing here. Looking for what?
Miles had been less than specific: take note of anything amiss, anything unusual. Not very helpful in a place where natural beauty contrasted so sharply with the ugliness of a poverty-stricken population. It was all unusual. Everything grew in profusion, yet the people were starving, if what Lang had read was true. The flowers, the beaches, the majestic mountains rivaled anything Lang had seen in the Caribbean, yet tourists stayed away because of what was perceived as political unrest.
Gurt came up beside him, her hair still wet and gathered in a bun. “Is beautiful, no?”
Lang noticed she had changed into a skirt out of respect for the natives. Extending an arm around her waist, he pulled her up beside him. “Is beautiful, yes.”
For a moment neither spoke. Then Lang pointed toward the range of jagged mountains behind the town. “What is that?”
Gurt squinted. “I see only mountains.”
Lang took her by the shoulders, positioning her so she could look down his arm as if it were a gun sight. “Right there, on top of one of the peaks.”
“You mean the little square knob?”
Lang nodded, gratified she could see it, too. “Yeah. What do you suppose that is?”
“A mountain?”
“When’s the last time you saw a perfectly square mountain peak?”
“It might just appear square from this angle.”
He took her hand. “Let’s go down to the town and look around.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think I saw all of it I wanted on the way up here.”
Lang chuckled. “Hey, you’re the one that wanted to come to Haiti.”
She sighed. “OK, but just for a short while. It is hot here.” She pointed. “Down there, hotter.”
On the way to the road up which Lang had pushed the taxi, Lang stopped at the desk.
