“Well, what do you know!” Fanfan says sarcastically. “Who’d have thought you’d come all the way down here to invite us to your little beach party?”
“No,” Harry says deliberately. “I only want girls.”
“So?” Charlie yelps.
“So, if you agree to lend us some of your little friends. .”
“I don’t get it,” Charlie says.
“What don’t you get, Charlie? This gentleman wants us to lend him some girls for his friends. That’s not so hard to understand, is it? Sometimes you lend me your motorbike, don’t you. .”
“That’s not the same thing!”
“Well, we’re not talking about a motorbike, that’s true. We’re talking about that big, black car outside, which I suppose is his.”
“So what do we get in return?”
“I don’t know, Charlie. Why don’t you ask the man yourself. .”
“Right. . So what do we get in return?”
A long silence.
“You’re not about to tell me that you have a little present for us, I hope?” says Charlie.
“You might take that as an insult.”
“Yes, an insult,” Charlie nods. “We might feel deeply offended. .”
“Listen,” says Harry. “I could see that you both get an American visa.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
Harry smiles thinly.
“Don’t you worry about that. I have some friends who could look after it. .”
“Hey, I don’t even know who you are,” says Charlie. “Getting an American visa isn’t easy.”
“Don’t mistake us for a couple of imbeciles,” Fanfan adds.
Harry gives his characteristic laugh once more.
“There won’t be any problem. .”
“Okay,” says Fanfan, “we believe you. . Give us the visas, and we’ll get you the girls. .”
“Now who’s taking who for an imbecile?” Harry slips in.
They all laugh this time.
“Good, okay then. .” says Fanfan.
“Can I ask you a question?” Charlie says.
“Shoot.”
“With your loot you could buy all the girls you want. . Why do you want us to find them for you?”
“I’m not interested in whores! I’m asking only for normal girls. . girls who come from normal families, neither rich nor poor. . Normal girls.”
“What do you mean, normal girls?”
“Your sister, for example! He wants you to bring him your sister, Fanfan.”
Harry’s face clouds over.
“No, no, nothing like that. .” he says quickly.
“I was just joking,” Charlie says. They know what Harry wants.
All the same, Harry finds himself on slippery ground.
“Okay, I’ve got to go. . I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve organized one of my little parties. .”
“What about our visas?” Fanfan asks.
“You’ll get them after there’ve been a few parties. .”
“How many parties?”
“Let’s just say when everyone’s satisfied,” Harry says in parting, heading for the door.
“DOES THAT IDIOT think we fell for his story?” Fanfan says after a while.
“I think he’s serious. .”
“Why do you think that?”
“He works at the American Embassy.”
“Ah, does he?”
“I’ve seen him before, at the Bellevue Circle,” Charlie says. “He’s the father of one of the tennis players. A good-looking girl, June. .”
“Something about him gives me the creeps. . That laugh. .”
“Who set up this meeting?”
“Denz.”
“Denz!” Charlie exclaims.
“He told me there was some guy who wanted to talk to us. .”
“Did you know he was an American?”
“No, all I knew was that he was white.”
“So what do you think?”
“Nothing,” says Fanfan, shrugging his shoulders.
A Country Wedding
I’D COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN about the exhibition, the latest paintings of the artist Jacques Gabriel that are being shown in this tiny gallery in Pétionville. Even though my friend Carl-Henri has been going on and on about Gabriel for some time. Jacques this and Jacques that. To him, Jacques Gabriel is a kind of demigod: talented, modern, iconoclastic, liberated. He’s also possessed of a pair of finely tuned antennae when it comes to picking up the tiniest political nuances, a trait that served him well (living dangerously on the edge as he does) during the strange universe of the Duvalier years. He maintains a complex network of friends, scattered here and there around the world, who keep him in touch with the latest movements in art (although he remains faithful to the frigid surrealism of Max Ernst). And he seems able to cross the barriers of social class with ease. He is equally at home with the wife of the French ambassador as with the young prostitute he picked up in the Macaya Bar, and who goes everywhere with him. He treats the prostitute as though she were a grand lady, and the ambassador’s wife as though she were a prostitute. And both of them seem delighted by the novelty of it.
When I get there the reception (at least the official party) is over, but a few people (a restrained group of the artist’s personal friends and admirers) are hanging around on the sidewalk, in front of the gallery.
Carl-Henri welcomes me with a conspiratorial smile, and introduces me to Jacques Gabriel. Tall, shaved head, insolent mouth, a man who intimidates from the word go. But the next second he favours me with a warm look that makes me reconsider my first impression.
“The vernissage is over,” he says, brusquely enough.
“I didn’t come to see the paintings. .”
Carl-Henri turns pale.
“No?” says Gabriel, taken aback.
“I suppose I’m a bit old-fashioned. .”
“Meaning what?” Gabriel tosses back, his tone hard.
“Well, meaning I like to meet the man before I get to know his work.”
Gabriel looks at me in astonishment, then smiles.
“Me too! I’m the same way. . If I don’t like the man, I’m not interested in his work no matter how brilliant it is. . It’s a pleasure to meet a young man who knows how to think for himself. .”
“Now you sound like a old asshole. .”
Carl-Henri turns a shade paler. I feel sorry for his poor heart.
“Jacques,” puts in one of the women, “it looks as though you’ve met your match. .”
“Shut your face!” Gabriel bays at her. “And stop thinking with your vagina. . You couldn’t care less whether he’s my match or not. . All you want to know is whether you can take him home with you tonight. .”
“Oh! Jacques!” she says in her pretty, pouting voice.
Everyone laughs (even the woman who’s been attacked). The iconoclastic painter Jacques Gabriel has just used the old, tried and true trick of insulting a member of the bourgeoisie in order to bring the rest of the crowd over to his side.
“He’s not always like this,” Carl-Henri whispers.
“We’re going to Croix-des-Bouquets, do you want to come?” Gabriel asks me, almost defiantly, or at any rate in a tone of voice different from the one he uses to address the others, even Carl-Henri.
“I’ll come.”
A generous burst of laughter from the painter.
“Good, let’s go! Everyone to the cars. Carl-Henri, you,” (he nods to me with an irresistible smile) “Fifi,” (the little prostitute) “M.R.” (a Parisian journalist who is doing a profile of Gabriel for her magazine) “. . you all come in my car. The rest of you can make your own way there,” he adds, laughing.
Jacques Gabriel drives without the slightest regard for the rules of the road. Fortunately, we get through Port-au-Prince without incident, unless you count the daggers drawn between the journalist (very pretty, but a total snob) and the painter! The second car falls farther and farther behind.