Dancing in the Baron's Shadow Read Free

Finally, the taxi lost itself in Port-au-Prince’s dense traffic and crowds, the streets clogged with merchants, business owners, and motorists. Everyone rushing to get home. The smell of diesel and muffler fumes hung thick in the air over Boulevard Harry Truman.
    Raymond drove reflexively, brilliantly. In fact, all his adult life, Raymond had seen cars before seeing people. In his mind, life itselfwas like a fast car. He’d spent most of his waking time inside vehicles, bent over engines, fixing and oiling auto parts.
    He shifted gears at the Bicentennaire road, leaving behind the wharf, the cruise ships, the monuments, art galleries, and empty tourist shops.
    It was just after seven now, and the peddlers and street vendors had already packed up for the night. The Rue du Magasin de l’Etat was still and silent, save for a few stragglers flirting with the danger of breaking the fast-approaching curfew. Raymond picked up speed again. He wouldn’t make it home in time if he didn’t get these people out of his car. This was madness. Pure insanity. He had his own family to think of, and if he got caught in the streets past eight o’clock, he might never see his children again.
    He leaned back and felt his sweat-soaked skin clinging to his shirt. “We lost them.”
    The sound of his own voice startled him. He glanced in the rearview mirror—his mysterious passengers sat stiff as statues against the scorching vinyl, the child still crying and the woman patting his back to soothe him.
    â€œLook, I don’t know who you are or what you did, but we’re coming up on Portail Léogâne,” Raymond said, glancing over his shoulder. “That’s where you get out.” “Thank you, brother,” the man said.
    Raymond caught a glimpse of the man’s face in the mirror. He was staring up at a slice of sky through the window. The man seemed almost sedated, his frightened eyes shrinking slowly as he took the time to breathe. Their eyes met in the mirror. “Thank you.”
    Raymond looked away. That voice. Where had he heard it before?
    Portail Léogâne sprawled before them, bubbling with curfew’s chaos. It was a transportation hub that Raymond was all too familiar with. The trucks and buses sped away from the curb at full speed, zooming past Raymond’s Datsun in a blur of hibiscus reds and canary yellows, their frames lacquered with biblical paintings, portraits, and quotes from Scripture. The driversparked along the sidewalk honked impatiently under a row of palm trees, their horns blaring “La Cucaracha,” weaving yet another song into the street’s antic brouhaha. Street vendors swarmed through the parked cars, sandal-clad feet stomping against the hot asphalt, headed home with their products tucked away in baskets atop their heads. Others were still brave enough to linger behind, raising oranges and roasted peanut toffees to the windows, desperate for one last sale. “ Bel zoranj, bèl chadèk! Beautiful oranges, beautiful grapefruits! Won’t you buy a dozen, darling? Good prices for you, pratik !”
    A mother grabbed her daughter’s arm and ran across the street in pursuit of a southbound bus. Raymond honked his horn at a vendor, and the old woman scrambled to move her straw basket as he pulled to the curb. Finally, the Datsun came to a halt.
    â€œWe’re here,” Raymond said quietly over his shoulder. If there were Tonton Macoutes at the station, Raymond was certain he and his passengers would all be apprehended.
    A bus loomed over the little cab, and its driver stretched his neck out a window and bellowed, “Move your bogota, man! You’re blocking me! I need to get out of here!”
    Raymond raised his hand to placate the anxious driver as his passengers were scrambling out. At Raymond’s window, the man’s hands trembled while he dug through his pockets. “God bless you,” he