The door swung inward behind me, and I spun around, my hands rising in the automatic self-defense posture I had learned from growing up with older brothers. The man standing in the doorway was no more than five feet four and impeccably dressed in dark slacks, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a dark bow tie.
“Bonjour,” he said, showing a wide mouth of crowded white teeth. His skin was the darkest black skin I had ever seen, but his hair, what little remained in tufts behind his ears, was bright white. “May I help you?”
I stuttered at first, my mind still not disentangled from the menacing Impala. “There was, out there...” I turned around and looked at the street, but there was no sign of the car. “I mean, uh.” I turned back to face him. He was smiling patiently. “Forget that. Let me start over. The reason I’m here is because I have this boat, a tugboat, and I found this little girl yesterday. You might have heard about it. See, I was looking around the Miss Agnes and I found this card.” I held out the salt-stiff piece of cardboard. He looked at the card and said “Oh” in a very high-pitched voice, as if he had been startled by something. It was a funny sound, and I let loose with a matching shrill laugh.
“Please,” he said, showing me his crooked teeth again, then he bowed his head and stepped back. “Come inside and we will talk.” There was music in the way he pronounced the English words. I had heard Creole accents that were harsh and difficult to understand, but this little man sounded more French.
The room I entered was furnished simply, a living room with a threadbare green couch and armchair, and on the far side a yellow Formica dinette set that looked as though it dated back to the I Love Lucy era. The walls were painted with vibrant colors, each one different—yellow, teal, and coral—and one wall was covered with paintings. Through a door, I could see the kitchen with an industrial-size galvanized sink and huge pots and pans resting on the drain board. He pointed to the couch and waited until I was seated before settling into the chair. The silence stretched out as we sat, each of us waiting for the other to begin. I turned the card over and over, my fingers holding it gingerly by the outer edges. Finally, he reached out and took it from me and then offered me his hand. His skin felt cool and dry.
“I am Maximillian Toussaint. Please call me Max.” He smiled and bowed his head low, revealing the shiny black dome fringed all the way around with delicate cottony filaments. From behind, I imagined his head looked like a dark mountain peak half shrouded in clouds. “Racine” —he held up the card—“is my wife. However, she is very busy today. She cannot see visitors.”
“My name is Seychelle Sullivan.”
“I am pleased to meet you. Would you like some coffee or a cold drink?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” I smiled and looked around the small room. On the wall behind him there were primitive paintings of country and city scenes, but each one was crowded with brightly costumed people and animals. There was something about the perspective in the paintings that made them seem very otherworldly. I noticed, too, that some of the people in the paintings wore strange costumes, and masks with horns, and they carried whips. In other paintings, wild animals, from zebras to giraffes and tigers and parrots, all frolicked in big, leafy jungle scenes. Against the wall behind Max’s chair was a sideboard covered with a strange assortment of colorful scarves or flags and what looked like large gourds decorated with paint and beads.
“Have you ever been to Haiti, Miss Seychelle?”
His question startled me. I realized that I had been staring past him.
“I’m sorry. No, I’ve never been.”
“It is a very poor place, this is true, but it is also home to some of the happiest people on earth.”
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“Because it is so. Americans have so many things, and they are not happy. Haitians have nothing, and yet they still laugh and dance and sing.”
“But you live here, not there.”
“Ah, yes.” His eyes really did seem to twinkle. “I can have a full belly and still have Haiti in my heart.” He chuckled but said nothing more.
“I just came to ask you some questions. About this little girl. I promised I would help her. There’s nothing for her back in Haiti, no family. She’s better off here.”
“But of course. I will be pleased to help,” he said, scooting forward to sit on the edge of the chair.
“Do either you or Racine know anything about the boat that sank a few days ago coming into the Hillsboro Inlet? You know the one I’m talking about?”
“Yes, yes, I heard about that. Very tragic. Especially for the children, the little girls.” When he said those two words-— leettle gerls—he sounded just like Maurice Chevalier.
I pointed to the card. “Do you have any idea why your wife’s card would have been on that boat? That’s where I found it.”
He shrugged. “Madame Toussaint is very well known in the Haitian community. She is a force, as you say in America, for justice for the Haitian people.”
“Are you saying she helps illegal immigrants?”
“Non, not at all. Racine obeys all the lwas." He threw back his head and laughed.
His accent was strange, and it grew heavier when he didn’t want me to fully understand him. I suspected that Max was not about to confide in me. “Yesterday, when I found this little girl, Solange—uh, I don’t know her last name. Anyway, she was floating out in the Gulf Stream in this half-sunk wood boat, and I think she might have come from the boat that sank, the Miss Agnes."
“Yes, yes.” He nodded and flashed his teeth. “I heard about this also on the radio. The little Earth Angel girl.”
“That’s right. I want to see if I can find her family, her father. There was a woman in the boat with her, but she was already dead. Solange says her name was Erzulie, or something like that.”
When I said the name Erzulie his eyes grew big and round, but it was as though a shade had lowered. He leaned forward. “What did the child say the woman’s name was?”
“Erzulie? Maybe I’m not pronouncing it right.”
He got up then and began pacing back and forth in short, little mincing steps and then spun around. “You really must talk to Mambo Racine. Erzulie? Does the child know what she is saying? What will Racine think of this? She is with her initiates, though. Would she want me to disturb her?” He was talking to himself, not expecting any answers from me. He continued to mutter, then he stopped abruptly and faced me. “Can you return tomorrow? You must speak to Racine. Bring the child with you. In the evening, at, say, seven o’clock?”
I understood only about half of what he was saying. I thought I might have better luck with his wife. “Yeah, I can try. And if you learn anything that would help Solange in the meantime, please, let me know. I don’t want to see this kid sent back to Haiti with no parents.”
“Oui, it is a hard life there for a child.”
“She said she doesn’t know her mother, but her father is an American. I’m trying to locate him, and I’m trying to find out if she and this Erzulie woman were on the boat that sank, the Miss Agnes. If you or your wife know any of the refugees who made it ashore off that boat, please, have them contact me.” I took one of my business cards out of my shoulder bag and handed it to him. “This is my card for my business, Sullivan Towing and Salvage. You can reach me at that number or just leave a message, and I’ll call you back. Could you ask around for me?”