The Boiling Season (14 page)

Only once the sensation had passed did the understanding come, gradually and at first uncertainly. I had not foreseen that such a moment would remind me of my mother, and how much I missed her. More than I had ever allowed myself to say. It was not for her alone that I had come here, but how could I not feel sorrow at the thought of her never getting a chance to know?

And then Mme Freeman reached out to take my hand and I, lightheaded and trembling, brought her hand to my lips and gave it a kiss.

* * *

The workers were not all the same as the ones we had hired before, but it nevertheless felt very much like a homecoming. This time there were even more of them. There was more of everything. So extensive were the plans for expansion that the chief engineer and M. Laraque, the architect, decided they would need to set up temporary quarters. We arranged rooms for them upstairs in the manor house, along the corridor where Madame and I had our offices.

In the library they unfurled the blueprints. To me they were indecipherable, nothing but lines and smudges. Even if I had understood, I suspect Madame would have been unable to stop herself from explaining them to me, such was her excitement.

Given the difficulty of the terrain, she said, M. Laraque had been forced to place new villas wherever he could, and it was this necessity that led to the step-style effect on the jungly hillside. She showed me where each would go; the villas would be clustered in groups of three and four around central swimming pools, arranged in such a way that each would be isolated from its neighbors. Every villa was to be unique, its dimensions determined by the lay of the land both beneath and around it, but all would contain luxurious bedrooms, baths, and dining and sitting rooms, as well as private terraces.

“Like mine,” Madame said with a wink. “But mine will still have the best view.”

And then there were the attractions: the pavilion would be torn down and rebuilt, expanded to include a bar and a bandstand. Next to the pavilion would be the casino—the best on the island—and then the discotheque, designed to be identical to a famous one in the States that Madame spoke of in reverential terms. The tennis courts were to go adjacent to the manor house, just past the drive, on the flattest piece of land on the estate. The new restaurant, conceived as an addition to the manor house, would have two dining rooms, one inside and one out, the former with stone walls and a stone bar, the latter open on three sides, the roof supported by plaster columns. Next to it would be the back terrace and the manor house pool.

On the second floor, workers were going to knock down walls in order to create larger spaces for Madame's office and for an office with an adjoining bedroom for the hotel manager. At this stage, Madame said, delighted at the degree to which they had worked out every detail, M. Laraque and the engineer would move out of the manor house and into separate villas, as would the interior designer Madame had hired to furnish and decorate the entire estate.

“Of course,” she said, patting my arm, “you won't be disturbed.”

And then there were the gardens. Madame was ecstatic about the gardens. They would be planted in the vicinity of the manor house, with paths connecting them. She wanted an orchid garden and a cactus garden, and the fountain near the pavilion was to become a water garden.

“I will supervise the plantings myself,” she said, eyes turning electric with the thrill of it.

A
lthough the new construction was far more extensive than the earlier renovation, the work was estimated to take less time to complete, just under two years. It seemed starting fifty or so small buildings from scratch would be easier than repairing two very old and very large ones.

Except for a few month-long absences when she had to attend to business at home, Madame was at the estate throughout the construction. She was thus able to take upon herself many of the responsibilities I had held during the initial renovations. All problems—architectural, financial, disciplinary—came to her, and she dispensed with them with the ease of someone who had been making important decisions all her life. Seeing her like this often brought to mind memories of Senator Marcus, and for the first time since my conversation with Michele not only did I not push such thoughts from my mind, I allowed myself to feel genuine hope that I might see him again. If President Duphay was as good a man as Mme Freeman said, there would be nothing for President Mailodet's old enemies to fear. Back they would come from exile and from hiding. I could even imagine Senator Marcus regaining his seat in the legislature. All could be as it was before. It was not far-fetched to imagine Senator Marcus and Mme Freeman becoming friends. I could see Mme Freeman seated at the Marcuses' dining room table, discussing the future of the island with ministers and bankers. He might begin playing his Wednesday tennis matches here, rather than at the Hotel Erdrich. I would see to it that the courts would satisfy even the minister of health.

It is hard to remember a time when I was happier than when we were building the hotel. The telephone system was working, tourists were arriving, and nowhere was there any trace of President Mailodet's security forces. Everything we had worked for was coming together, and anything we might imagine seemed attainable. Even in the midst of the construction the estate became more beautiful by the day.

From month to month, I watched the villas rise, each one perfect and distinct. And when they were whole, it was Madame who gave them names: Villa Bardot, Villa Bernhardt, Villa Moreau . . . There were more than forty of them, each named after one of Madame's favorite actresses.

I spent my time going from place to place around the estate, watching what the various crews of men were doing, the masons and carpenters and gardeners. I was sorry the days passed so quickly.

In retrospect, I realize the days not only went by quickly, they went by without my taking much note of them. Weeks and months melted away, and I managed to forget that anything else existed. The estate was itself an island, and I its oldest inhabitant. I had been here before anyone, even before Madame. How could it be that I was born anywhere but here?

And in time I forgot the single most important thing I had pledged to do.

I was in my office one afternoon, taking a rest from the relentless activity below, when I heard the blast of a car horn coming from the top of the drive. I assumed it was just another delivery of building materials.

Standing at the gate was perhaps the last person I expected to find there. I barely recognized Paul, dressed in a crisp blue button shirt and pressed tan trousers. Except for the sunglasses, he looked like a boy dressed up for his First Communion. Behind him a weathered black sedan idled roughly. There was a man behind the steering wheel whom I had never seen before. The butt of a pistol rose just above the dashboard, tucked into his shoulder holster.

“This is quite a surprise,” I said, trying and failing to read the awkward expression on Paul's face.

I opened the gate and he stepped through, and when he reached out to embrace me I was more than happy to receive him. Maybe it was just because of how well things had been going, but I was genuinely pleased to see him. In that moment, an unexpected visit felt like a delightful treat, and I was already imagining all the things I would show him.

By now it had been close to five years since I had asked him to keep an eye on my father. Although I had been back to the neighborhood periodically, Paul and I had seen little of one another. Most of our contact recently had been over the phone, calls that invariably consisted of him shouting over a background cacophony of strange industrial sounds—heavy clanks and thuds and a chorus of other voices almost as loud as his. Paul had moved out of his mother's house and found a place for himself slightly higher up the hill in Lyonville, making it that much harder for me to see him even when I was able to get away for a visit. He knew that for a long time I had been planning on an extended stay with my father and that the sudden change of affairs on the estate had made that impossible. Since then I had been forced to count even more on Paul. I had been assuming that the arrangement suited the two of them just fine; Paul got to pay back even more of his debt, and my father got the company he preferred.

“He's going to be someone important,” my father had informed me on more than one of our infrequent afternoons together. Since when, I was always tempted to ask, did criminal behavior meet your criteria for success? Either my father remained ignorant of the source of Paul's increasing power and prestige, or he chose to ignore it. Whichever it was, he was clearly willing to give Paul the latitude he had always refused to give me.

When Paul removed his glasses, I saw that his eyes bore an unaccustomed somberness, like a child experimenting with the mannerisms of an adult. “I wanted to be the one to tell you,” he said.

So this is how it happens, I said to myself, and all that time came rushing back. My legs lost their grounding, and I felt myself begin to crumble. Just then Paul came forward and put his arm around my shoulders.

“I was just about to visit him,” I said, my voice thin and hollow. “I had it planned. I was going to stay for a week.”

Paul squeezed my shoulder. “There's no way you could have known.”

“I asked him to come here. I begged him. He was too stubborn.”

“You did everything you could.” Paul's tone offered no reproach, but I did not need one to understand I had finally failed my father in the most unforgivable way of all.

P
aul stood on the balcony, talking to me through the open jalousies as I packed a change of clothes. A light breeze swept through, carrying with it the dissonant percussion of countless different construction projects.

“I had no idea you'd done so well for yourself,” he said. “My God, look at all that. And these women—these maids in their little skirts!” He let out a slow whistle. “You must be taking them by the dozen.”

I continued to fold a shirt into my bag.

Paul glanced at me over his shoulder and gave a snort. “Tell me at least one of them.”

I rolled my socks into a ball.

“I don't get you,” he said. “You're not a bad-looking guy. Why are you so afraid of girls?”

“I'm not afraid,” I said.

“What is it, then?”

I looked around the room, trying to figure out what else I might need. “We just don't have anything in common.”

Paul threw his head back and laughed. “All of them? You don't have anything in common with a single one of them?”

“You'd know better than me,” I said. “You're the one they talk to.”

Paul gave a defeated shrug and turned back to the railing. “It's incredible. You have your own fucking kingdom. This place makes Duphay's house look like a chicken coop.”

In the corner of my eye I saw him watching me. I was surprised that his mourning had suddenly turned so lighthearted. Then again, Paul had never been able to maintain a facade of seriousness for long. It did not matter to him that I was in no mood for talking.

“Have you been to the president's house?” I asked.

He winked. “You're not the only one moving up in the world.”

“None of this is mine,” I reminded him. “I just work here.”

“You have to start somewhere.”

I could see he was determined to keep the conversation going. “Like with bathroom tissue?”

He laughed, loudly and generously. “Exactly.”

It was disorienting to have him in my rooms, talking and joking as he used to, while at the same time he was someone entirely unfamiliar. The old Paul had been complicated enough, but this new one thoroughly baffled me. I was grateful that he was here, even for his efforts to cheer me up, but his heartiness and newfound confidence made it feel as though he had gone from childhood friend to rich, chummy uncle.

As we made our way down the stairs, he eyed the floor with satisfaction. “I see you've made good use of that polish.”

“And we have enough left,” I said, “to last a thousand years.”

Paul's driver got out to open our doors. I thanked him, and he said nothing in return. I wondered if he was under orders from Paul to remain invisible in the presence of important passengers.

Paul made no effort to introduce us. Whatever understanding there was between them seemed to require no direct communication. Without need of instructions, the driver turned around and headed back up the drive and onto the road. He knew exactly where he was going; within a few minutes it became clear that I did not.

After about a kilometer, the driver turned off the main road onto a small unpaved side street. We were still close to the estate—indeed, I guessed we were only just past the western wall—and I was surprised by the number of houses here. Not just the dozen or so I had been aware of, but hundreds. And those were just the ones I could see. Farther down the hill, connected by twisting dirt paths, were hundreds more. Though to call them houses was an act of charity. They were little more than dingy shacks patched together from concrete and metal scraps. Together they looked like a pile of tin cans tossed inside a dirty cardboard box. There were even a couple of small shops, or so I gathered, spying as we passed an assortment of dirty black-market goods through a few open doorways. And yet I could not comprehend why people would choose to move here. Other than clear ground, what did such a squalid place have to offer?

“Where did all of this come from?” I asked. “Last time I was here there were just a couple of shanties.”

“You've been busy,” Paul said. “It's all gone up in the last year or so.”

“Why would anyone want to live here?”

Paul smiled playfully. “Disappointed that you won't have the place to yourself anymore?”

He may have been joking, but it was true. The remoteness of the estate was a large part of what made it so appealing. Its purity came from having remained so untouched. The last thing we needed was more people to threaten its fragile existence.