Read Online Dancing in the Baron's Shadow by Fabienne Josaphat - Free Book Online

and by now, she was used to him returning home from his brother’s house silent, stewing, rehashing threadbare arguments in his mind.
    â€œGod will provide for us,” she muttered as she drifted off. “Don’t give up hope.”
    What does God know of our suffering, he wondered, or our hope? Hope was a luxury, nowadays. Haitians liked to believe that I’espoir fait vivre— where there is hope, there is life—and that you could survive on hope alone, but there was a breaking point.And Raymond had to admit that he could not survive as a taxi driver. Sometimes he wished he had stayed in the village, kept their parents’ house, and farmed the land. But the exodus of villagers to Port-au-Prince had swept him up. He needed to make a life for himself and his family, and there wasn’t much money in fixing up cars in Saint-Marc, nor in rice harvests. Breakneck inflation kept the working class on the edge of starvation while the bourgeois like his brother were starting to import luxury goods. There was nothing left for farmers to do. Yvonne could barely afford rice these days, much less meat. In the darkness, he shook his head, eyes still wide open.
    What does God feel about all this? Raymond felt as if God had stopped listening, up there, wherever there was, but quickly regretted his blasphemy. Losing faith was not an option. After all, God had enabled him to be alive so far, and given him such blessings: a beautiful family with a devoted wife, gems for children. He turned to look at her sleeping face.
    He silently thanked God for that day in the city when they’d met, and that he hadn’t had the heart to let her stand there in the rain. She’d just finished her shift at the Karibe Hotel. Her dress was soaked, and she had to get to her next job in Martissant. He flirted with her the whole way, because he liked the way her red dress clung to her small body, wet with rain, and how she never looked him in the eye when he joked with her, but instead looked away with an amused smile.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” he asked. “Mine is Raymond. Raymond L’Eveillé.”
    She laughed. “You’re chatty, aren’t you? And fresh too.” He pressed until she gave in and told him her name. He was there to pick her up again that night, surprising her as she walked through the hotel gates after another long shift.
    â€œLet me give you a ride home,” he said to her.
    â€œYou just give out free rides, huh? You’re just generous that way?”
    Lying next to her in the darkness, Raymond shuddered. Where had all their flirtation and joy gone? A few days after they met,he’d driven her to the Champ de Mars and bought her a fresco. They made love in his car. A few weeks later, he told her he wanted to marry her and she said yes.
    â€œWhat are you thinking of?” Yvonne asked. So she wasn’t asleep.
    He stared at the ceiling. The starlight outside his window spilled over his tired face and he held himself as still as he could, hoping she would leave him alone. She reached out in the dark and touched his bare chest. Her palm was hard but warm, and although he’d grown accustomed to the sweltering heat in the room, he felt flames where her fingers grazed him. She felt for his heartbeat.
    â€œIt’ll be okay, Raymond,” she said.
    Raymond closed his eyes and felt his body sink deeper into the mattress, against the springs, and prayed for sleep to take him even as he felt disgusted by her words. Nothing was going to be okay and she knew it. Still, Yvonne curled up against him. Her breath melted into his ear, and he felt something inside unfurl. She leaned in, seeking his lips in the dark, but all he could do was squeeze her arm in response.
    â€œWhat’s that sound?”
    Yvonne stopped and listened, her head cocked against his shoulder. Raymond thought he heard a whimper. No, it was a voice. A woman’s voice, calling in the night.