Home Fires

REFLECTION 5: The Ride Back

The goats and sheep and hogs are still abroad, though the maiden and her bananas are no longer to be seen. Was she at the temple? I doubt it, but it is certainly possible. There were a great many people there shouting and jumping, forever standing up and sitting down. She may have been among them. She may have danced with us. Or not.

The man who barred Achille’s way was dead. So Achille says, and I believe him—or at least, I believe that he believes he’s telling the truth. The dead man stood behind him, taller than he, to make him stand still. What fear had the dead man of Chelle’s bullet? He was already dead.

Or at least, believed he was.

Our headlights show us animals, first a dog in the road, then a goat. There is something Satanic about goats, and there was something very Satanic about this one, with its beard and S-shaped horns. How easy it would be to think the ceremony Satanic, though there was no invocation of Satan. Only strange but unforgotten African gods. There were holy cards in Tante Élise’s house.

Can God hate people so cheerful in their poverty?

Chelle, her head upon my lap, snores softly, stirs, and sleeps again. Achille is asleep in the front seat. From the jump seat, Vanessa stares out at the night in silence. Neither of us wish to wake Chelle. Certainly I do not.

* * *

Don, she whispers. Don … Then something else; I catch the word dead, but nothing more. Is Don dead? I hope so.

She bought Vanessa a little automatic, a thing like a piece of jewelry. Silver-plated, I think, though it might be chrome. If I were to see it in sunlight I might be able to tell, or so I think. She said it was old but could not have fired more than two hundred rounds in all its many years. Vanessa fired it at a tree—seven shots.

Seven of us were present, Tante Élise said. Chelle, Vanessa, Achille, Tante Élise herself, the dead man, and me. She must have counted our driver as well though he was asleep in his taxi, so far away that the shooting did not wake him.

I will stop the driver when we reach the summit, but only if Chelle is awake.

Vanessa went to this side of the mountain and followed the sound of the drums. Went how? Followed how? I would have assumed that the social director would remain aboard, as perhaps she did until Tante Élise came for her.

Achille has his hundred noras. He will attach himself to us, if he can. And I will scrape him off, unless I find him useful.

Of what use he might be once we leave this island, I cannot imagine.

Vanessa leans back. Her eyes are closed. Does she sleep? I would be wise to sleep, perhaps, if I can. Will I drop Chelle … if I do?

* * *

Drums in my dreams. Drums and dancers? Was the ceremony a dream, too? The blood and the dying, gasping animals? Does Chelle have a gun, and Vanessa? Chelle’s will be in her purse, surely. It has fallen to the floor. When I try to reach it, she stirs. Do her eyelids flutter? It is too dark to see.

At the summit, I will tell her I want to get out. My legs must rest from her weight for a while.

And I want to look at the stars.