Brief Encounters With Che Guevara_ Stories - Ben Fountain [60]
Syto, he was happy, sure. But mainly he just wanted to go home.
Lulu laughs at him sometimes. He’ll be sitting there watching Syto, then for no apparent reason he’ll break up laughing and say, “I still can’t believe it.”
“Believe what?” Syto asks.
“Nothing, brother. You’re just funny, that’s all.”
In some ways life is easier, though filled as always with worry and risk. Everyone in Trois Pins has a new house now, concrete-block structures with running water and stout zinc roofs that purr in the rain. After several weeks in her new house, Esther started to hum, and lately she’s been singing in a close, cautious voice; the change, as Lulu predicted, has done her good, though Syto knows he has to be patient. Most of their neighbors have new boats as well, with big outboard motors that boom them along, but Syto kept his old gaff-sail rig. He doesn’t do so much fishing these days, anyway. Every month Nixon sends him money from the Texaco station they own together, more money than Syto could earn in a year of fishing. He turns over half to Esther, and most of the rest he gives away or spends on ceremonies for his lwa.
So life is easier, but Syto knows he can’t relax. From time to time Land Cruisers ease by his house, and at night the American helicopters buzz Trois Pins as they head out to sea—they shoot at the go-fasts now, the marksmen dangling from the hatch with their high-powered rifles, though lately the go-fasts are shooting back. Syto knows their nightly flybys are a message, just as he knows Michelet will take him if he gets a chance. And while he has no knowledge of the classified files in Langley, Virginia, concerning the drug-running franchise of one “Cito Charle,” Syto nevertheless suffers sometimes from “eyes,” the general fretfulness and anxious feelings you get when too many people are talking about you.
He doesn’t doubt that sooner or later they’ll come for him—the Americans, perhaps, or the gangs or the cops. Meanwhile Syto watches his back, and at night he thanks God for another day of life and prays for the soul of his daughter in heaven. The last time Marie-Lucie appeared in his dreams, she was fourteen or fifteen, a trim, pretty girl wearing loafers and the plaid uniform of the École Supérieure. She had books and a looseleaf binder in her arms, and she smiled at Syto as she entered the yard.
“How is school?” Syto had called to her in the dream.
“I’m studying mathematics!” she answered brightly.
“Mathematics!” Syto cried, impressed. Marie-Lucie joined him under the almond tree, and Syto was happy while they sat together looking through her books, even as he realized it was no more than a dream.
The Lion’s Mouth
Jill arrived at the Royal Sierra every evening around six, took a stool in front of the TV at the open-air bar, and passed the time watching the news and quietly drinking herself stupid while Starkey did deals out on the terrace. In the last few weeks this had become her favorite thing to do, watching cable news and drinking while the day faded out, feeling Starkey at her back like a snug bedfellow. She had a theory about this, a half-serious notion that she could sense his presence without turning to look, as if he gave off a subtle heat or smell to which she’d grown peculiarly attuned.
“Kushay-o, Miss.” Bazzy was dressing a tray of drinks with pineapple and cherries, smiling as Jill slid onto the stool. She was a good customer—patient, soft-spoken, pretty, white. A friend of Starkey’s. It was like being a member of a club.
“How’s the body, padi?”
“Not so bad. Way you-sef, Miss?”
“Not so bad. Can I get a rum-cola?”
“No problem, Miss.”
A breeze like moist velvet blew off the ocean, and for several minutes after sunset the sky filled with brilliant silver blue light, as if rinsing itself of the day’s corrosive