A Rendezvous in Haiti by Stephen Becker Page A

drag us along?”
    â€œA demonstration of progress. Also, you paid for it. And your uniform will create good will among our upper crust, whom you are defending from soulless revolutionaries.”
    â€œYou’re making fun of everyone,” Caroline said.
    â€œYes. I’m sorry. I spend too much time in the company of God. It leads to snobbery.”
    â€œIs your Martel soulless?”
    â€œNot a bad question. Without a soul he would not rebel; but to rebel, one must sell one’s soul. He has sold his to that Fleury, up north.”
    â€œHow very Gallic: a French Lucifer. What color is Martel, of the thirty-two?”
    â€œQuite black, and his people are on the whole far blacker than the aristos here. Yet Fleury, his principal support, the Engels to his Marx, is an ivoire, a backwoods populist sugar magnate who yearns for the purest democracy. I believe shade is a matter of indifference to Martel; a useful weapon now, but he has promised himself and others to abolish those silly distinctions.”
    â€œNot Lucifer, but Robespierre.”
    â€œNo, not Robespierre either: Charlemagne. He was named—though I am not sure by whom—Charlemagne Masséna Martel. Martel was a great king, and Charlemagne was his grandson, and Masséna was one of Napoleon’s favorite marshals.”
    â€œHe was the Prince d’Essling,” McAllister told them, “and Napoleon said he was the Revolution’s favorite son.”
    â€œLe fils chéri de la … wasn’t it victory’s favorite son?”
    â€œWell, I don’t recall now,” McAllister said.
    â€œI’m impressed,” Caroline said. “You may ask me to dinner.”
    They had left the boulevard and now entered a flowered courtyard through a gateway in a stone wall higher than a man. In the courtyard buzzed a crowd of starchy, formal appearance, and at its deep end stood the school. There was an improvised stage, and before it stood some forty folding chairs of the kind McAllister associated with tent shows and Fundamentalist corroborees. Behind the school there seemed to be another street: roosters crowed, dogs barked. “Many of these guests are politicians,” Father Scarron said, “but the level of manners will be high. There will be no assassinations.”
    Caroline said, “The scents are wonderful.” Many of the women wore jewels and flowers. McAllister bobbed bows left and right. Men consulted in grave metropolitan French, with many a “formidable” and many an “évidemment.” A handsome bespectacled black-haired woman in a blue linen suit greeted them; Caroline recognized the anthropologist, whose name now proved to be, rather oddly, Langlais. Caroline asked, “I suppose this is a parochial school?”
    â€œWell, they all are, you see.” Madame Langlais seemed apologetic.
    Not so Scarron, who said, “And why not?”
    McAllister laughed. “Catholic or voodoo?”
    Madame Langlais said, “I wouldn’t joke about vodun.”
    â€œYes, I’m sorry, you’re right,” McAllister said. “I tell my own men not to joke about it. Some of them say they’ve seen files of zombies.”
    â€œNothing to do with vodun,” Madame Langlais said briskly. “Your men saw them in farm country?”
    â€œI suppose so, yes,” McAllister said.
    â€œWhat you call zombies are catatonic hebephrenics, touched in the head and very often kept on a doped diet. Malnutrition, cretinism, superstition—and a traditional source of slave labor. Horrible. Vodun, on the other hand, is a religion. A real religion.”
    â€œIndeed,” said Scarron.
    â€œFarm country,” Caroline said. “It sounds so peaceful.”
    â€œIt’s not dull,” McAllister said.
    Scarron asked, “When must you go back?”
    â€œDay after tomorrow,” McAllister said. “It’s just patrols.”
    â€œAnd