hyperbole. Understatement, if anything. But at the same time, I was infuriated even further by her invocation of some mysterious threat whose existence I was supposed to just accept without explanation.
“Are you still going to come with me tomorrow?” she asked eventually, in a dull voice. “Maybe you shouldn’t. You’re still recovering. Maybe it would be best for both of us to go back to our corners and think things over.”
I considered. And wondered if there was some other reason she didn’t want me to come. “No. I’m going. Jesse’s part of this too, isn’t he? And Anya?”
She didn’t reply.
I shook my head, angry and frustrated. “I’m tired. We’ve got an early flight. Let’s try to get some sleep.”
For days I had ached to hold Sophie in my arms, but that night we slept on separate sides of the Holiday Inn’s king-size bed. Despite our exhaustion we lay motionless, both awake, both silent, for a long time, before I finally managed to find a twisting path to sleep.
Chapter 22
As we swooped down towards Toussaint International I caught a glimpse of a colossal shantytown like a human ant farm crammed onto the spit of land between airport and sea. I had never before seen anything like that vast agglomeration of corrugated tin and mud. Haiti, by far the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere even before it had been devastated by 2010’s terrible earthquake, was the first real Third World nation I had ever visited.
I realized as we landed that if Jesse wasn’t waiting for us, we had no fallback plan. The thought was more than a little scary. This wasn’t travel as usual, that wasn’t a European or Japanese city out there beyond the airport: Port-au-Prince was a lawless metropolis seething with desperate people ruled by a corrupt government. There had been food riots here just last month. Anything might go wrong, and we were hopelessly unprepared if it did. Too late I began to kick myself for being such an idiot. I didn’t even know the names of any hotels, and Haiti was so behind the technological times that my new iPhone might not work here even as a phone, let alone an Internet device.
We descended from the 737 onto the tarmac. The blazing sun felt heavy, and the tropical air was thick and damp. The signs were in French. Like all Canadians I had studied French in high school, but I hadn’t tried to speak it in years. Fortunately, the woman at the immigration booth stamped our passports without asking any questions, and waved us on. We walked untroubled through Customs, past a forlorn souvenir stand, through double glass doors, and outside to a little walkway protected by a waist-high concrete wall.
It felt like being expelled from civilization into jungle red in tooth and claw. On the wall’s other side a hundred men in ragged clothes shouted and gesticulated as if warning us of imminent death. The only word of the cacophony I understood was “taxi!” One man actually reached over the wall to grab one of our bags, and I had to pull it away. The airport security guards looked amused and made no attempt at intervention.
The last thing in the world I wanted was to walk into that human maelstrom. I glanced at Sophie beside me. She too looked overwhelmed.
“Maverick!” a familiar and amused voice called. “Sophie!”
I looked and relaxed. Jesse stood near the end of the walkway, tall, dark, and rakishly good-looking, wearing a Sigur Ros T-shirt, expensive sunglasses, jeans with Chinese dragons painted on them, and, as usual, a wide grin that proclaimed
“You dive into a pool full of gravel or something?” Jesse asked me.
I had forgotten that my face was still marred by healing scabs and bruises. “Long story.”
A stranger might have heard that brusque exchange in lieu of salutations and concluded that we didn’t like each other. Jesse and I had been close friends for so long that we didn’t bother with greetings or other social lubricants.
“This is Zavier,” Jesse introduced our saviour. “Come on. We want to get off the docks by noon.”
The hug Jesse gave Sophie lingered a little, and I felt irrational jealousy surge within me, like lava in a long- dormant volcano, but squelched it violently. They had dated briefly, years ago, before she and I had met. Ancient history, no longer relevant. Zavier led us to a slightly scarred Land Cruiser armed with a cattle catcher and a six- foot whip antenna, ensured that all doors were locked, and conducted us into the retina-searing madness of late- afternoon Port-au-Prince traffic.
The city was all slum. Cratered, mud-puddled streets; packs of feral dogs atop waist-high mounds of trash; skeletal remains of ancient car crashes, thick with rust; stores with hand-painted signs, set in rotting concrete buildings; high walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass; abandoned piles of rubble. It was hard to distinguish between earthquake damage and hundreds of years of grinding poverty. But it was also far more colourful than I had expected. The streets were full of buses called
“It’s a dump, but you get used to it,” Jesse said cheerfully. “There’s some nice places. You go up to Petionville,” he gestured up a steep cross street, “there’s nightclubs, supermarkets, galleries, a couple of amazing French restaurants. But shit flows downhill.”
The traffic was intense but kept moving, in part because this theoretically two-lane road supported at least three lanes of vehicles. Every taptap overflowed with ragged passengers, and we passed crowds of pedestrians, many barefoot. Many turned and stared at us. I tried to interpret their expressions. Curious? Jealous? Hateful? I couldn’t tell. I had never seen such hopeless poverty. I couldn’t imagine what people who had spent their whole lives trapped in its quicksand might think of us.
“Is it dangerous?” Sophie asked.
Jesse nodded. “Can be. Petionville’s OK, but you wouldn’t catch me in Cite-Soleil at night. At least not without Zavier.” Zavier’s grin shone. “There were food riots last month, Because the government’s cracking down on the ports to look good for the DEA.” Sophie and I exchanged a quick look. “Idiots. So now it takes a month to bring any imports in. There’s rice literally rotting on the docks. Meanwhile Haiti can’t feed itself, because it doesn’t produce enough, because fucking government price controls give farmers no incentive.” He shook his head in disgust. Jesse had been a libertarian/anarchist since I had known him; he hated all governments everywhere, and everything they represented.
We reached a UN checkpoint, where blue-helmeted men with light brown skin inspected our passports and Zavier’s paperboard ID card. Shortly afterwards we entered a region of high fences and warehouses, some watched by armed security, some rusting and abandoned.
“So-called peacekeepers,” Jesse muttered. Zavier grunted with contempt at the word. “Brazilians. Only thing they’ve done for this country is ensure full employment for prostitutes.”
“You know what your problem is, Jester?” I asked. As teenagers we had watched my dad’s tape of Top Gun to death, and the code names ‘Maverick’ and ‘Jester’ for each other had stuck. I had always liked them, because they made him the sidekick and me the hero. “You have a problem with authority.”
We turned another corner and suddenly the turquoise Caribbean lay before us, beyond a jumbled and crowded industrial complex of piers, docks, cranes and shipping containers, all surrounded by chainlink fence topped with razor wire.
Jesse turned and grinned at me wolfishly. “Wrong way round. Authority has a problem with me.”
I helped carry supples – groceries, cases of Prestige beer, water containers, bits of hardware – from the back of the Land Cruiser down to the docks. My feet hurt, but not badly. The boat that was our destination was a forty- foot-long flatbed with a big motor on one end and a canopy in the middle, crewed by a middle-aged Haitian and his teenage assistant. It stank strongly of diesel.
“Where’s the Ark?” I asked.
“Out there.” Jesse waved vaguely. “We hardly ever bring her in. Too much paperwork. Easier to call these boys on the satphone. Wilfrid the water taxi, eh?” He clapped the captain on the back, and got a grin in return.
“Should we get our exit visas from the harbourmaster or something?” I asked.
