“No, I was dreaming.”
He shook his head. “Eyes open,” he said. “And we asked you in Creole.”
Henri was shaking my shoulder. “Miss,” he said. He pointed to the bow. “Florida.”
I sat up and stretched my legs out. I’d been dreaming again about Solange. She kept crying out, Help me. It took me a few seconds to get her voice out of my head. I tried to stand and realized I hurt in every part of my body. The woman who had undressed me earlier arrived with my shorts and T-shirt. They were stiff with salt, but nearly dry. Once I had dressed, Henri motioned for me to follow him. When I stood, I saw the bright lights of the Florida coastline no more than a mile off our beam. Henri led me through all the people sitting, sleeping, but mostly standing and staring at the lights. At the bow of the vessel, he introduced me to a distinguished-looking gray-bearded man who stood staring at the lights.
"Papa, ici c’est La Sirene.”
The older man was wearing a dark shirt buttoned to the neck. He nodded and shook my hand, then turned to his son and acted as though I were not there. While they spoke to each other in Creole, I searched the coastline for a familiar landmark, trying to figure out where we were. Finally, I spotted the Hillsboro Light to the south of us. We would be off the coast of Deerfield Beach, then. I was amazed that the Coast Guard had not yet intercepted us. It looked to me like the boat was making a good four to five knots through the water, and we were headed straight for the beach.
“Henri, can you tell your father that there is a harbor entrance back to the south of us. It isn’t very far.” The young man translated what I said, and then the older man spoke to him at length, frowning and ignoring me.
“My father says if we go into the harbor, they will only send us back to Haiti. He says we will land on the beach.”
I could see even from as far out as we were that there was surf breaking on the beach, swell left over from the weather system that had passed over us. The hotel lights lit the mist from the breaking waves. I’d seen boats go on the beach in weather like this, and it wasn’t a pretty picture. “Henri, tell your father that people will get hurt and drown if he beaches a boat this size.” Again, he translated, and again the father was very emotional in his reply, but he would not look at me.
“My father says everyone on the boat agrees. We didn’t come this far to look at the sand and trees of Florida and then get sent back to Haiti. We come to stay, even if some die getting there. Some will live, and they will be free.”
I looked around me, and I saw weak, sick, tired adults, some teens, and a few younger children. “Do any of these people know how to swim?” I asked.
“Few,” Henri said. “I do. I lived in Miami for two years, and I learned to swim in school.”
“Good. Henri, will you tell your father that I am a trained lifeguard, and I am the captain of my own boat, a tugboat. If he will listen to me, maybe nobody will get hurt.”
The old man looked at me for the first time, and I saw questions in his eyes. He was trying to decide whether or not to believe me. I held his gaze, willing him to trust me. Finally, he nodded.
“Okay, Henri, this is what we’ll do.” I explained to him that we would have to get just outside the surf line and then sail parallel to the coast, luffing the sails until we felt a big set of breakers pass. We’d then make our turn and try to sail in on the smaller set. The point was we didn’t want the boat to broach, or turn sideways and roll over while surfing in on a wave. The shore was so close. This section of the beach was where the private homes north of Hillsboro ended and condos began. The swim ashore would be nothing for me, even as exhausted as I was. That beach was life and liberty and happiness for the folks on this boat, and it was very possible some of them would not make it.
The sky was just starting to lighten along the eastern horizon when we tightened the sheets and felt the wind begin to push us onto the beach. Some early-morning beach walker whipped the T-shirt from around his shoulders and waved it at us, swinging it round his head. I wasn’t sure what he was signaling, if he was saying come on or go back. The first couple of waves passed under us as mere ripples, barely lifting the heavy island boat. It was the third wave that came and lifted our stern, and when I looked at the old man, I could see that though he gripped the wheel, he had lost all steerage as we started to surf toward the shore. I clutched the pouch at my neck and figured it couldn’t do any harm to ask La Sirene once more to watch out for us, to help us make it ashore.
The old boat must have had a nice long keel on her, as we held a steady course and made it through the surf without broaching. It was only when the bow grounded that the stern swung around, and the whole boat rolled onto its side. We had grounded on a sandbar about forty feet from the beach.
People were scrambling everywhere. Many had been thrown off the boat when she rolled. Children were crying, and I heard splashing and saw folks running up the beach in every direction. I jumped off the boat and was surprised to find the water nearly over my head. Many of the smaller people on board would need help getting to shallow water. I ferried children and women to where they could reach shore. The waves continued to roll in, battering the sick and the weary even when they’d found bottom under their feet. Many jumped off the boat and went straight down and had to be plucked, sputtering, from underwater. My body ached in every fiber, and each time I turned back toward that listing wreck, I thought my arms would not be able to grasp another person. On my fourth trip, I carried in a little boy, no more than five years old, and looked around for an adult to take charge of him. I was startled to look up and see Racine Toussaint standing there at the water’s edge, holding up the hem of a long black dress.
“I’ll take him,” she said, reaching with one arm.
Someone a few feet away shouted something in Creole, and I felt the temperament of everyone change. Racine took the child, turned, and without another word disappeared into the darkness. Beyond the sand, I saw blue and red flashing lights, and I knew that some would get caught, but others still might make it away. I stayed in the water until the last person was off the boat and clear of the breakers, then I swam away from the wreck down the beach to where a small unit of condos had a back door onto the beach. To the east, the sky had turned a whitish blue and the clouds on the horizon looked like ash-covered charcoal with the glow of the occasional burning ember shining through. I exited the water, not sure I had the strength to stand, and staggered right into the building. No one paid any attention to me. There were far more Haitians than there were cops on the scene.
I walked through the condo lobby, down the driveway, and out to A1A. I could still see blue flashing lights to the south, so I turned north and began walking along the highway toward the city of Deerfield Beach. I was gauging the distance to a small minimart where I might locate a telephone when an older-model station wagon pulled up alongside me and stopped. I bent down to look inside the dark car, but before I could make out the identity of the driver, I heard Racine Toussaint’s gravelly voice say, “Get in.”
XXX
Racine drove north until she found a driveway large enough for her to be able to make a U-turn in her big station wagon. She paused before pulling back out onto A1A and sat looking at me in the dark car.
“I lost her,” I said, my voice breaking with emotion.
Racine reached over and placed her hand on my arm. “Yes, I know.”
“She’s in terrible trouble.”
“Tell me what happened.”
I swallowed hard to try to get the tears under control. The place where Racine’s hand rested on my arm grew warm, and when I placed my hand on top of hers, I felt a sense of relief flow through me, knowledge that I was not alone in this. “We had moved her to this condo on Hollywood Beach, thought she would be safe there, but when Rusty and I went out to dinner, she must have hidden in the cabin of his boat. She followed me.” I went on to explain all of it—the boat trip on the Bimini Express, the camp on South Bimini, Malheur, the encounter with Joe, and getting rescued by the Haitians.