The driver came around the car, waving his hands “no.” He then indicated that he and Lang would push. And that is how Lang and Gurt arrived at the Mont Joli Hotel, with Gurt riding like an elegant medieval lady in a sedan chair and Lang and the driver behind, pushing for all they were worth.
In the lobby, an open, airy room finished in what Lang guessed was native mahogany, a young woman imprinted his credit card.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Lowen,” she said, using the name on the passports in lilting English, “but I do not speak German.”
“Just as well. Give me a chance to practice my English.”
After establishing the room rates at seventy-five dollars a night if paid in dollars rather than euros, she handed him a key. “Enjoy your stay.”
“What happens if I want to pay my bill in gourdes?”
From her expression, he might as well as well have suggested a particularly deviant sex act. “Gourdes?”
“Your national currency.”
She ran a hand across the bottom of her chin, still agitated. “Er, it is our national currency, yes, but I know of no hotel that will accept it. If you wish…”
Lang waved a dismissive hand. “No problem. I was just asking.”
She watched Gurt and Lang follow a porter toward their room. When they turned a corner, she pulled a cell phone from the pocket of her skirt and hit speed dial.
“ Oui? ” a male voice answered.
“We have some guests at the hotel,” she said in Creole, bending over the desk to make sure those guests were out of earshot. “Guests with German passports.”
There was silence on the other end.
“I do not believe they are German. His English is American. You wanted to know…”
“ Merci.”
The other end of the conversation went dead.
Mont Joli
Cap Haitien
An hour later
Lang stood on the balcony outside his room, waiting for Gurt to get dressed after the shower they had shared. Immediately below him was a sparkling blue pool surrounded by grapefruit, oranges and limes dripping from trees. A huge ficus was draped in white orchids whose roots were exposed to the moist air that sustained them. The bloodred petals of a poinsettia the size of an oak reflected in the still water. Below the pool, the ground dropped off in a steep cliff to meet the sea. Turning to his right, he could see part of the town and the sweeping coastline of the bay against which it had been built. The height muted the sounds and, thankfully, the smells.
Now what?
Miles had wanted them to come to Haiti, land here on the north coast and look around a day or so before driving to Port-au-Prince if they found nothing here. Looking for what?
Miles had been less than specific: take note of anything amiss, anything unusual. Not very helpful in a place where natural beauty contrasted so sharply with the ugliness of a poverty-stricken population. It was all unusual. Everything grew in profusion, yet the people were starving, if what Lang had read was true. The flowers, the beaches, the majestic mountains rivaled anything Lang had seen in the Caribbean, yet tourists stayed away because of what was perceived as political unrest.
Gurt came up beside him, her hair still wet and gathered in a bun. “Is beautiful, no?”
Lang noticed she had changed into a skirt out of respect for the natives. Extending an arm around her waist, he pulled her up beside him. “Is beautiful, yes.”
For a moment neither spoke. Then Lang pointed toward the range of jagged mountains behind the town. “What is that?”
Gurt squinted. “I see only mountains.”
Lang took her by the shoulders, positioning her so she could look down his arm as if it were a gun sight. “Right there, on top of one of the peaks.”
“You mean the little square knob?”
Lang nodded, gratified she could see it, too. “Yeah. What do you suppose that is?”
“A mountain?”
“When’s the last time you saw a perfectly square mountain peak?”
“It might just appear square from this angle.”
He took her hand. “Let’s go down to the town and look around.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think I saw all of it I wanted on the way up here.”
Lang chuckled. “Hey, you’re the one that wanted to come to Haiti.”
She sighed. “OK, but just for a short while. It is hot here.” She pointed. “Down there, hotter.”
On the way to the road up which Lang had pushed the taxi, Lang stopped at the desk.
The same young woman looked up. “May I help you, Mr. Lowen?”
“A question. Actually, several. First, what’s worth seeing down in the town?”
She pursed her lips in thought. “I recommend the marketplace. You will see all sorts of native foods and goods. You might also want to look at the church. The carved wooden doors are considered to be works of art. And speaking of art, you will find a number of art shops.”
“We were on our balcony and I noted the mountains south of town. There seems to be a square structure of some sort on top of one of them. What is it?”
Her face screwed up in thought. “A structure? On top of one of the mountains? You must be mistaken. There is nothing in those mountains other than a few mud huts.”
“As I said, it just looks square,” Gurt added.
Hand in hand, Gurt and Lang stepped from the area of the desk into the searing sunlight on the road. Immediately, a group of four or five men who had been sitting in the shade of a mahogany tree jumped to their feet and came trotting over.
“Need guide?”
“Very best guide, sir, madam.”
“Show you Cap Haitien? Five dollar, American.”
Lang had heard about these “guides.” A tour of the local area was their secondary function. The primary duty was to keep at bay the child beggars and overly aggressive vendors that swarmed the few tourists like flies to rancid meat. He selected the youngest of the group. A man-boy, really-whose legs were visibly twisted by pellagra, polio or some other symptom of dietary deficiency and the country’s lack of health care. Only two canes allowed him to walk, an exaggerated swagger that was painful to watch.
“How much?” Lang wanted to know as the other candidates sullenly retreated back to the shade.
“Five dolla, American.”
That seemed to be the standard price.
“What’s your name?”
“Paul.”
“OK, Paul, what are you going to take us to see?”
“We go market, church.” He nodded toward Gurt. “Then lady shop.”
Despite the horribly malformed legs of his guide, Lang was having to walk quickly to keep up with Paul, whose adeptness with his walking sticks would have been admired by a Special Olympics athlete.
Lang touched his arm, stopping him about halfway down the hill and pointing. “Paul, can you see that square thing on top of the mountain?”
The afternoon haze made the mountains little more than shadows but Paul immediately saw what Lang was talking about. “Citadelle.”
“Citadelle?”
Paul nodded vigorously. “After French leave Haiti, Henri Christophe no want them to come back. Build Citadelle.”
“Ah,” Lang exclaimed. “So, it’s a fortress of sorts.” He looked closer. “But what is it, twenty miles away? It could hardly protect the town from that distance.”
Paul treated Lang to a grin. “Christophe not defend town. Plan was to burn it and all crops, then go where big French guns could not reach: top of the mountain, where he could exist with five thousand people for a year, block mountain pass to interior of country. You want to see? I can arrange.”
Sound military strategy, Lang thought. Leave the invading French with nothing but ruins, nothing to sustain their army that they hadn’t brought themselves. “Yes, I’d like that. But, Paul, is this Citadelle something everyone around here knows about?”
Paul studied Lang’s face for a second as though he thought Lang might be joking. “Everyone know about Citadelle, yes.”
“OK. How do we get there?”