trees and telegraph poles, the rims of satellite dishes and filaments of TV aerials poked over, but there was nothing else to see. Max guessed the houses were bungalows or single-story buildings. He heard the furious sniffing of dog snouts under the gates, sucking up their smell through the gaps, breaking them down into familiar and unfamiliar. None of the dogs barked to alert their masters of strangers in their midst. That's because, Max knew, they were attack dogs. They never made a sound. They let you come all the way into their terrain, too far in to get back out, and then they went for you.
The mop-man eyed them as they approached, not once stopping what he was doing. Chantale nodded and greeted him. The man didn't reply, just looked them up and down through slitted eyes and a scowl, his body language oozing tension.
'I bet he's got Syrian roots,' Chantale whispered. 'He's washing the street with mint and rosewater. It's a Syrian custom, meant to ward off evil spirits and attract good ones. There was an influx of Syrian merchants here about forty or fifty years ago. They opened these little boutiques that sold everything to the poor. Every morning they'd sweep the street around the shop and douse it in herbal potions to bring them luck, prosperity, and protection. A few of them obviously got it right because they made a lot of money.'
The Rue des Ecuries was the cleanest street Max had seen in Haiti so far. There wasn't a scrap of garbage anywhere, no stray animals and vagrants at the sides, no graffiti on the walls, and not a single crater or pothole in the road, which was immaculately paved with gray stone. It could have been any quiet, prosperous, middle-class side street in Miami or L.A. or New Orleans.
Max banged on the Thodores' gate four times, as Mathilde had asked him to. Soon after, he heard footsteps coming from behind the wall.
'My name's?'
'Mingus?' a woman asked.
A dead bolt snapped back and the gate was opened from the inside, groaning horribly on its hinges.
'I'm Mathilde Thodore. Thanks for coming.' She beckoned them in and then made more infernal sounds as she pushed the gate shut. She was wearing sweatpants, sneakers, and a loose Bulls T-shirt.
Max introduced himself and shook her hand. She had a firm grip that went with her direct, almost challenging stare. Had she smiled more, she might have been an attractive, even beautiful woman, but her face was hard and unyielding, the sort of mien you develop after seeing too much of the downside of life.
They were in a small courtyard, standing a few feet away from a modest, orange-and-white bungalow with a sloping tin roof, half hidden by untended bushes. A thick palm tree grew tall behind it, draping the structure in a blanket of yellow-dappled shade, while off to the right stood a swing, its chains rusted solid. Max guessed Claudette had been an only child.
Then his eyes fell on two bright green dog bowls set out near the swing, one holding food, the other water. He looked back, toward the wall, and found a big, house-shaped kennel.
'Don't worry about him. He won't bite,' Mathilde said, noticing Max staring at the kennel.
'That's what they all say.'
'He's dead,' Mathilde answered quickly.
'I'm sorry,' Max offered, but he wasn't.
'The food and water's for his spirit. You know how this country runs on superstition? We feed the dead better than we feed ourselves here. The dead rule this land.'
* * *
Inside, the house was small and cluttered, the furniture too big for the available space.
The walls were covered in photographs. Claudette was in every one?bright-eyed, open-mouthed baby pictures framed and hung on walls, pictures of her in her school uniform, snaps of her with her parents, grandparents, and relatives, all of their faces orbiting hers like planets in a solar system. She was a happy child, smiling or mugging in every picture, the center of attention in group shots?physically and photogenically, the eye of the camera drawn to her. There was a photo of her standing outside the Miami church with her uncle Alexandre, which looked like it might have been taken after a service, because he was in his robes and there were smartly dressed people in the background. There was another of her standing next to a black Doberman. At least a dozen showed the girl with her father, whom she seemed to favor in both looks and with the lion's share of her affections, because she didn't smile so broadly or laugh at all in the few snaps of her and her mother.
The couples sat on opposite sides of a dining table. Caspar had given his guests a nod and a quick grip of the hand when they'd walked in, but he hadn't so much as said a welcoming word.
He didn't take after his brother. He was short and stocky, thick arms, bulky shoulders, neckbreaker hands lashed with veins, flat, wide fingers. His manner was gruffness skirting rudeness. His hair, thinning on top and cut low, was more salt than pepper. His face?far more forbidding than his wife's, starting to droop at the jowls and pool under the eyes?coupled with the way he was grinding his teeth, gave him a passing resemblance to a pissed-off mastiff. Max placed him in his midforties. He wore the same clothes as his wife, who sat next to him, drinking a glass of juice.
'You Bulls fans?' Max asked them both but looked at Caspar, hoping to break the ice.
Silence. Mathilde prodded her husband with her elbow.
'Lived in Chicago sometime,' he answered, not making eye contact.
'How long ago?'
No answer.
'Seven years. We came back when Baby Doc was overthrown,' Mathilde said.
'Should've stayed put,' her husband added. 'Come back here, want to do some good, bad's all that happens to us.'
He said a little more but Max didn't catch it. He had a gravelly voice that buried more than it carried.
Mathilde looked at Max and rolled her eyes, as if to say he was always like that. Max guessed then that Claudette's disappearance had hit him the hardest.
He found a picture of father and daughter, both laughing. Caspar looked younger there, his hair darker and fuller. The picture wasn't that old, because Claudette looked as she did in the shot her uncle had given him.
'What else happened to you?'
'
'It hasn't been good for us here,' Mathilde quickly picked up. 'Caspar used to be a fireman in Chicago, then he had an accident and got an insurance payout. We'd been talking about giving it up in the States and coming back here, so when we got a chance we thought let's go for it.'
'Why did you leave Haiti?'
'
'Why did you want to come back?' Max asked. 'Chicago's not a bad place.'
'What I been tellin' myself every time I
Max laughed, more out of encouragement than mirth. Caspar dead-eyed him back. Nothing was shaking him out of his grief.
'I think we both grew up in America with this sense of loss for what we'd left behind,' Mathilde explained. 'We always called this place 'home.' We had all these really fond memories of old Haiti. Especially the people. There was a lot of love here. Before we got married we swore we'd come back to live here one day?we swore we'd come 'home.'
'We used some of the insurance money to buy into a store opposite a gas station, selling cut-price food and basic essentials to the poor. People didn't like us coming over here and just opening up a business and making money. They've got a word for us here. They call us 'diaspora.' It used to be an insult, like we'd chickened out, turned our backs on the country and only came back when things were good. Nowadays it's just another word, but back then?'
'Then it was all we heard,' Caspar interjected. 'Not among the everyday people?they were always cool to us, kind folk, mostly. We had a good relationship with them. Way we operated wasn't too different from the way Koreans operate in the black neighborhoods in Chicago?employ a few locals, treat 'em well, be respectful to everyone. We had no problem there at all. But the ones like us?with the businesses, our peers and neighbors?we lived up in Petionville then?they made it clear they didn't like us around. Called us all kinds of trash. See, the only way they woulda respected us was if they'd known us all their lives.'
'So we ignored it and kept ourselves to ourselves, worked hard, treated people as best we could. After a while we moved down here. It was better. Our neighbors are people like us?immigrants, outsiders,' Mathilde said,
