Read Online In Darkness by Nick Lake - Free Book Online Page B

Toussaint, too, and would spout shit about him all the time. It’s cos of that, I think. It’s cos Biggie told me Toussaint’s story, that’s why I’m dreaming about him. But I’m not convinced. I know dreams and that didn’t feel like one, and anyway, there was more detail in that dream than Biggie ever told me. I think of the burned smell of that corn, which I put out with my coat, and the sound of people hacking at a door with axes, and the feel of an ivory-handled pistol in my hand.
    No, I think. I’m just going mad, that’s all. It’s the darkness and the smell of death. Mouri pourri, I think. Then I giggle.
    I thought the worst thing would be to survive. Now I realize the worst thing would be to survive but to no longer be myself. If they dig out a madman from this hospital, then I haven’t really survived: I’ve died and come back as a zombi.
    Don’t go mad, I think to myself.
    That makes me giggle again. I pinch my arm, where the bullet went in, and that makes me scream.
    — Don’t go mad, I say.
    Good.
    I can still speak.
     
     
    I saw two men killed before I was eleven years old, and my papa was the first. This was a long time ago – 2003, the tenth of February. I was eight. It was, like, a year after me and Marguerite found the baby.
    Papa was a fisherman, you could say – he shared a boat with another man from the Site. It brought him piti-piti money, but enough to send us to a small school.
    Manman told me afterward that Dread Wilmè wanted to pay for our education, but Papa wouldn’t agree – he thought that someone like Dread Wilmè would want something for his money one day. He was right. I know these things now.
    At this point, I mean in 2003, Dread Wilmè was in charge of the Site. Dread Wilmè was a big strong man with dreads down to his shoulders. If Dread Wilmè caught a man stealing, he’d cut off his hand. If he caught a man raping, he’d . . .
    You understand.
    Dread Wilmè was an old chimère, a drug dealer who had become so powerful he was like a mayor – in one part of the Site anyway. But he got his guns and some of his money from Aristide, to protect the Lavalas supporters, so really it was Aristide who was in charge of the Site; Dread Wilmè was just someone who did Aristide’s work for him, who kept his people safe. Only no one had jobs still, and no one had any money. So it seemed like not very much had changed, and people were starting to complain about it. There were rebels who tried to fight the government and assassinate people. Most of these rebels lived in the Site. So Aristide gave guns and money to Dread Wilmè to make his own private army and keep control of the slum.
    In the end, though, he was only able to take control of half of it – the other half was controlled by the rebels who lived in a part of the Site called Boston. These two gangs, Dread Wilmè’s and the rebels, they were always fighting, always shooting one another. At the same time, the attachés were coming into the Site and killing people.
    Dread Wilmè began as a chimère and he ended as one. But he built schools, too. He paid for people to go to the doctor. Nothing is as simple as it seems, you’ll come to see that. What’s for sure, though, is that Manman and Papa did not agree about Aristide. Papa didn’t like him – he thought he was as much of a robber as the French and Americans he hated so much. I would hear them arguing about it, and I always tried to block it out, cos I didn’t really understand anything apart from that they were angry.
    The week before Papa was killed, there was a big disagreement between him and Manman. It was cos of me and Marguerite. I mean, it wasn’t our fault, but it was cos of something Manman had done with us that Papa found out about. Actually, it was something she had been doing for a while. It was just that Papa didn’t know about it.
    Till that day.
    Till the week before he died.
    I don’t know if Manman has ever forgiven herself for that.
    Thing