Christina is startled awake when she hears Harry’s car in the drive. Her immediate thought is that Harry must on no account find June in such a position. She tries to calm herself enough to risk raising her head to look out the window. No one there. It’s as though nothing has happened. She hears Harry climbing the stairs. And Billie Holiday’s passionate voice (“Strange Fruit”) coming once again from June’s bedroom.
Woman of Prey
THIS MORNING I have to go meet a young musician at his house. He’s seventeen (same litter as me) and has just put out his first album. Denz asked me to check him out. He wants to work with him. He must be good if Denz is taking such an early interest in him. Usually Denz waits until someone has two or three albums out before he bothers to consider them anything more than a greenhorn. I’ve also read about him in the media. According to the influential music critic Gérald Merceron, who is also a good friend of Denz’s, by the way, this Jude Michel dude is the most original lyricist to have appeared on the scene in the past thirty years, by a long shot. Say since Ti Paris (the alcoholic bard). No one knows hardly anything about him except that his mother died of uterine cancer when he was six, and he never knew his father. He lives with his old aunt in Poste-Marchand, one of the more populous quarters in Port-au-Prince.
“Excuse me, sir, but I’ve been wandering around in this area for a half an hour now, and. .”
“I know,” the man says grumpily. “This is the sixth time you’ve passed in front of my door.”
“I’m looking for a guy named Jude Michel. . Do you know him?”
“No. . I don’t know any Jude Michel.”
“He’s a young musician. .”
“Ah, you mean Dodo, Sylvana’s nephew. . What’s he done? I know his aunt, she’s a respectable lady. .”
“He’s just put out a fine first album.”
“Ah, that good-for-nothing. . Now that Sylvana’s sick and can’t take care of him anymore, he’s going to go to the dogs. He never did want to stay in school. Sylvana sent him to J.B. Damien to learn a trade, and do you think he was able to stick it out for a single course? Do you know what lengths that woman had to go to to get him admitted into that school? They only take a few students every year, but it’s an excellent school. I got a nephew went to it, and he’s doing pretty well for himself today.”
“I gather his mother is dead,” I say, taking out my notebook.
“Forget it!” he says, contempt in his voice. “I don’t talk to cops or journalists.”
“I’m just doing some research for a history paper.”
“Ah, well, how would I know? Still, I don’t like people writing down what I say. .”
I put my notebook back in my pocket.
“That’s more like it. . He’s Lumane’s son, Sylvana’s little sister. . She was a fine singer, but she died in the darkest misery you can imagine. And so when Dodo started showing an interest in music, Sylvana did everything she could to keep him away from it. .”
“What kind of guy is he?”
The man seems taken aback by the question.
“He’s a fine, upstanding young man, but like I said, that’s no way to make a living.” He pauses. “At least, not in Haiti.”
“Do you know what they said about him in Le Nouvelliste the other day?”
“No, I don’t,” the man says dryly. “I don’t read the paper.”
“They said he was the most original musician to come along in thirty years. You have to go all the way back to Ti Paris. .”
“Ah! Ti Paris. . I like Ti Paris. He’s a real song-man. He didn’t give a damn about nothing, except music. Music was his whole life. His songs go right to my heart. . I remember he said in one of his songs that he was always drunk, (“Ev’ry day I drinks away”), which is not a word of a lie, I know that for a fact.”
“You knew him well, then?”
His face takes on a nostalgic look.
“For sure I knew him. In them days we used to go to the same joint: Chez la Mère Jeanne. Oh boy, the food was terrible there. But there was this young waitress, firm breasts, a real saucy one, she was, but beautiful, beautiful, my friend.”
He spends some time thinking about her.
“I even think. . I’m not sure. . but I think she had a kid by Ti Paris. . That Ti Paris, he had eleven kids by seven different women. He loved women, and they returned the favour. . That was his downfall, I guess. . Them three things always go together: women, music and booze. .”
“What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you done a few things you regret in your life?”
The man looks me in the eye like someone on the verge of making a terrible confession, but then he draws back.
“Who hasn’t? That’s all I’ve got to say. .”
“Jude Michel’s address. . A friend of mine wants to work with him.”
“Work? Dodo doesn’t know the meaning of the word. . Scratching away on a guitar, I don’t call that work. . All right, go down to the crossroads, then turn left and keep going right to the end of the dirt lane. .”
“And then?”
“Then you’re there. You can’t miss it.”
A TALL, THIN young man opens the door and shows me into a tiny, overheated room. An old guitar on the table.
“I guess I’m not the first journalist”—I decided to pass myself off as a journalist—“to come here to waste your time. .”
A candid smile flutters across his sensual lips.
“You’re the first and will probably be the only.”
“But you got such a great write-up by Gérald Merceron in last weekend’s paper.”
“Monsieur Merceron showed it to me before it came out. I was pretty happy with it. .”
“Ah, so you know him?”
“He gave me a lot of advice when I was putting the album together.”
“So how do you feel?”
“Sad. .”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. . My heart was pounding like anything.”
“And you have no idea why?”
“To tell you the truth, no.”
“It’s always like that when something important happens,” says a calm voice from somewhere behind me.
I turn around a bit quickly. A very elegant lady is sitting in a dark corner of the room. Huge eyes, refined hands, the same age as Madame Saint-Pierre. She opens her Gucci handbag (the famous golden G) and takes out a slender cigarette holder.
“I was telling Jude before you arrived not to make such a fuss about it, because it’s perfectly normal. It’s too much emotion in too little time.”
“You’re right,” I say.
“And of course,” she adds in a whisper that contains all the sensuality in the world, “Jude is so young. .”
“Excuse me, ma’am, I don’t mean to shake you up, but would you mind telling me what you think of his album?”
“What I think of his album?” she says, with a pretty laugh. “Well, I think Jude has a devastating talent.”
“Do you have a favourite cut?”
Silence.
“‘Crazy About You.’”
“Why’s that?”
“I find it orgasmic.”
“Ah! And the rest of the disc? What do you think of the musical arrangements? I have a good friend who does arrangements, too. .”