I knocked on the green door, wondering if my decision to come alone had been wise after all. Why would the card of the woman who lived at this address be on board the
Miss Agnes
? But then that is why I was there: to find out if Solange was on that boat. To find out something that would help her stay in the United States.
The place was too quiet. The sound of the traffic out on Dixie and Atlantic was the only noise. For a moment I thought I heard drums from inside the house, but then the amplified voices of angry rappers blasted from a bright orange Impala lowrider that cruised by, the gold rims glinting, the bass booming into the yard and seeming to fill the air with threat. Two muscular young black men in matching white undershirts, flashing gold in their grimaces, glared at me as they rolled by. I faced the street, keeping my eyes on them, refusing to turn my back. There was a slow-mo cinematic quality to the moment, like a high-noon face-off, the only element of speed being my pulse, which had kicked into overdrive.
The door swung inward behind me, and I spun around, my hands rising in the automatic self-defense posture I had learned from growing up with older brothers. The man standing in the doorway was no more than five feet four and impeccably dressed in dark slacks, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a dark bow tie.
“
Bonjour
,” he said, showing a wide mouth of crowded white teeth. His skin was the darkest black skin I had ever seen, but his hair, what little remained in tufts behind his ears, was bright white. “May I help you?”
I stuttered at first, my mind still not disentangled from the menacing Impala. “There was, out there...” I turned around and looked at the street, but there was no sign of the car. “I mean, uh.” I turned back to face him. He was smiling patiently. “Forget that. Let me start over. The reason I’m here is because I have this boat, a tugboat, and I found this little girl yesterday. You might have heard about it. See, I was looking around the
Miss Agnes
and I found this card.” I held out the salt-stiff piece of cardboard. He looked at the card and said “Oh” in a very high-pitched voice, as if he had been startled by something. It was a funny sound, and I let loose with a matching shrill laugh.
“Please,” he said, showing me his crooked teeth again, then he bowed his head and stepped back. “Come inside and we will talk.” There was music in the way he pronounced the English words. I had heard Creole accents that were harsh and difficult to understand, but this little man sounded more French.
The room I entered was furnished simply, a living room with a threadbare green couch and armchair, and on the far side a yellow Formica dinette set that looked as though it dated back to the
I Love Lucy
era. The walls were painted with vibrant colors, each one different—yellow, teal, and coral—and one wall was covered with paintings. Through a door, I could see the kitchen with an industrial-size galvanized sink and huge pots and pans resting on the drain board. He pointed to the couch and waited until I was seated before settling into the chair. The silence stretched out as we sat, each of us waiting for the other to begin. I turned the card over and over, my fingers holding it gingerly by the outer edges. Finally, he reached out and took it from me and then offered me his hand. His skin felt cool and dry.
“I am Maximillian Toussaint. Please call me Max.” He smiled and bowed his head low, revealing the shiny black dome fringed all the way around with delicate cottony filaments. From behind, I imagined his head looked like a dark mountain peak half shrouded in clouds. “Racine” —he held up the card—“is my wife. However, she is very busy today. She cannot see visitors.”
“My name is Seychelle Sullivan.”
“I am pleased to meet you. Would you like some coffee or a cold drink?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” I smiled and looked around the small room. On the wall behind him there were primitive paintings of country and city scenes, but each one was crowded with brightly costumed people and animals. There was something about the perspective in the paintings that made them seem very otherworldly. I noticed, too, that some of the people in the paintings wore strange costumes, and masks with horns, and they carried whips. In other paintings, wild animals, from zebras to giraffes and tigers and parrots, all frolicked in big, leafy jungle scenes. Against the wall behind Max’s chair was a sideboard covered with a strange assortment of colorful scarves or flags and what looked like large gourds decorated with paint and beads.
“Have you ever been to Haiti, Miss Seychelle?”
His question startled me. I realized that I had been staring past him.
“I’m sorry. No, I’ve never been.”
“It is a very poor place, this is true, but it is also home to some of the happiest people on earth.”
“Really? Why do you say that?”
“Because it is so. Americans have so many things, and they are not happy. Haitians have nothing, and yet they still laugh and dance and sing.”
“But you live here, not there.”
“Ah, yes.” His eyes really did seem to twinkle. “I can have a full belly and still have Haiti in my heart.” He chuckled but said nothing more.
“I just came to ask you some questions. About this little girl. I promised I would help her. There’s nothing for her back in Haiti, no family. She’s better off here.”
“But of course. I will be pleased to help,” he said, scooting forward to sit on the edge of the chair.
“Do either you or Racine know anything about the boat that sank a few days ago coming into the Hillsboro Inlet? You know the one I’m talking about?”
“Yes, yes, I heard about that. Very tragic. Especially for the children, the little girls.” When he said those two words-—
leettle gerls
—he sounded just like Maurice Chevalier.
I pointed to the card. “Do you have any idea why your wife’s card would have been on that boat? That’s where I found it.”
He shrugged. “Madame Toussaint is very well known in the Haitian community. She is a force, as you say in America, for justice for the Haitian people.”
“Are you saying she helps illegal immigrants?”
“
Non
, not at all. Racine obeys all the
lwas
." He threw back his head and laughed.
His accent was strange, and it grew heavier when he didn’t want me to fully understand him. I suspected that Max was not about to confide in me. “Yesterday, when I found this little girl, Solange—uh, I don’t know her last name. Anyway, she was floating out in the Gulf Stream in this half-sunk wood boat, and I think she might have come from the boat that sank, the
Miss Agnes
."
“Yes, yes.” He nodded and flashed his teeth. “I heard about this also on the radio. The little Earth Angel girl.”
“That’s right. I want to see if I can find her family, her father. There was a woman in the boat with her, but she was already dead. Solange says her name was Erzulie, or something like that.”
When I said the name Erzulie his eyes grew big and round, but it was as though a shade had lowered. He leaned forward. “What did the child say the woman’s name was?”
“Erzulie? Maybe I’m not pronouncing it right.”
He got up then and began pacing back and forth in short, little mincing steps and then spun around. “You really must talk to Mambo Racine. Erzulie? Does the child know what she is saying? What will Racine think of this? She is with her initiates, though. Would she want me to disturb her?” He was talking to himself, not expecting any answers from me. He continued to mutter, then he stopped abruptly and faced me. “Can you return tomorrow? You must speak to Racine. Bring the child with you. In the evening, at, say, seven o’clock?”
I understood only about half of what he was saying. I thought I might have better luck with his wife. “Yeah, I can try. And if you learn anything that would help Solange in the meantime, please, let me know. I don’t want to see this kid sent back to Haiti with no parents.”
“
Oui
, it is a hard life there for a child.”
“She said she doesn’t know her mother, but her father is an American. I’m trying to locate him, and I’m trying to find out if she and this Erzulie woman were on the boat that sank, the
Miss Agnes
. If you or your wife know any of the refugees who made it ashore off that boat, please, have them contact me.” I took one of my business cards out of my shoulder bag and handed it to him. “This is my card for my business, Sullivan Towing and Salvage. You can reach me at that number or just leave a message, and I’ll call you back. Could you ask around for me?”
“Certainly.” He stood next to me and was obviously herding me toward the front door. “I will ask, and you will return tomorrow night, correct?”
“Okay.” I smiled and turned and was almost out the door when I remembered one more thing. “The little girl, Solange, she said a word I don’t understand. Maybe you can help. She pointed to herself and said something that sounded like
restavik
What does that mean?”
Again, a darkness flitted behind his eyes, but he covered it quickly with a gentle smile. “The word comes from the French words
reste avec
, which means ‘stay with.’ In Haiti, many families are very poor, and they send their children to stay with another family, to work as unpaid domestics. They are called
restaveks
. Some people think this is very bad, they call it child slavery, but in Haiti, it is the custom. Your little friend is how old?”
“I’d say she’s nine or ten. She doesn’t know anything about her own mother.”
“She probably left home around age six or seven and now doesn’t even know where she used to live. The life of a
restavek
is not good.” He lowered his eyes, and all of the jolliness seemed to drain out of him. “Some say there are over three hundred thousand
restaveks
in Haiti today. That is not an aspect of my country that makes me proud.” He shook his head and shoulders, as if to throw off a weight, then sat up very straight. “You are right, Miss Sullivan.
Certainement
. She has no home to go back to in Haiti.”
When I pulled Lightnin’ into the parking lot at Broward General Hospital, it was past noon. Jeannie’s van was there in the visitors’ parking, as I knew it would be. I was glad to see a uniformed Fort Lauderdale police officer at the nurses’ station across from Solange’s room, even if he was in deep conversation with Jenna. I would have to thank Collazo.
Solange was sitting up in bed, cross-legged. Spread across the sheets in front of her were what looked like hundreds of colorful Lego blocks. She was so engrossed in her play, she didn’t notice me until Jeannie spoke.
“Nice of you to pay us a visit this afternoon.” Jeannie was, I assumed, sitting on the same yellow chair, but her bulk hid all evidence of it. Her reading glasses were perched down her nose, and a flowery-covered novel lay on her lap.
“It took me a little longer than I thought.” Solange looked up and attempted a shy smile. On the floor, I saw the basket of toys Jeannie had evidently brought from her boys’ room. In addition to the Legos, there were trucks, a couple of stuffed animals, and a few picture books. I thought of how nice it would have been if I had thought to bring the girl a toy, too, but it hadn’t even occurred to me.
“Collazo’s already been here,” Jeannie said. Then she chuckled. “He was really pissed off that she still wouldn’t say anything to him or his translator. He gave up after about twenty minutes. Said I should tell you he wants to talk to you, wants to know if she’s said anything.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I didn’t know if she was talking to you or not.” Solange watched Jeannie’s face, then turned to wait for my reply.
“That’s good.”
“Hey, it’s also true. And I did pass on the message that he wants to see you, so I’ve done my part.” She reached across and threatened to tickle Solange. “Right, kiddo?”
Solange grinned and covered her sides in self-defense. Evidently she and Jeannie had played this game before.
She looked like an entirely different child from the one I had plucked from the sea just twenty-four hours earlier.
“Have you talked to a doctor? Know anything about how she’s doing?”
Jeannie shook her head. “Aside from someone bringing her lunch and taking the tray away, I haven’t seen anybody. And, by the way, Solange did eat this morning, and kept it down, even though it was some kind of pukey-looking mystery meat. For what they charge, they could provide better food.”
“They probably wouldn’t tell us anything anyway. We’re not next of kin.”
“Ha! You want me to find out?” Not waiting for an answer, she heaved herself up from the chair. “I’ll be right back.”
I set my shoulder bag down on the rolling table that held a water pitcher, cleared aside some Legos, and sat on the foot of the bed. “Are you feeling better?”
She nodded slowly, her head lowered. She twirled one of her braids and played with the beads on the rubber bands at the ends. Someone had rebraided her hair and added the pretty beads. Everyone else seemed to know what to do for a little girl.
“I want to help you, Solange, but I need you to help me. Do you understand?”
She nodded again.
“What is your last name?”
Her eyebrows came together and her forehead wrinkled. Her lower lip jutted out.
“My name is Seychelle Sullivan. You are Solange ...” I motioned with my hand for her to fill in the silence.
She shook her head. “
Seulement Solange
.” She imitated my motion. “Solange ...
non
.”
“You don’t know your last name?”
Her shoulders lifted, but she kept her eyes lowered.
I switched tacks. “Can you tell me about the trip to America? Start with Haiti. Do you know the name of the town you lived in?”
“Cap Haitien.”
“Good. And you told me you lived with a family there, as a
restavek
.”
She lowered her eyes at the word
restavek
. It seemed to make her ashamed.
“Did you go to school in Cap Haitien?”