Chapter Thirteen
L’Arbre Vie slouched on a corner in Little Haiti next to a shop with a long line of dried roots in the window. It looked like the whole row of buildings would have fallen down if it hadn’t been held up by so much bright yellow and red paint.
Deacon angled the car to the curb in front of the restaurant and as he put it in park, people were already smiling and waving at him.
Deacon shook his head. “No ghetto like this in the world,” he said. “You can walk the street at 3 A.M., dead drunk, and like as not they’ll give you a cup of coffee and call you a cab.”
“They know you here,” I said.
“Last year I kind of helped Honore out of a little bind. He’s important to the community here, so I guess they all remember me.” He chuckled. “Took them some getting used to. You got to realize that most of these people, cop means a ton-ton macout. They ain’t exactly in any hurry to call 9-1-1 when they got a problem.”
He opened the car door. “Let’s go see what Honore has on the menu today.”
The inside of L’arbre should have been dark because there were no windows. But there was so much bright paint on the walls—yellow, lavender, gold, red—that the place seemed lit up brighter than a ballroom.
Along one wall was a mural painted in that unmistakable Haitian style, primitive figures done in a sophisticated way. It showed a huge scene of Haitian life stretching from one wall to the other. In the middle was a
giant tree. Its roots went down into a hell with a top-hatted devil, its branches reached up to a pale God, surrounded by a saucer of golden light.
Wrapped around the tree was a snake, and all around were Haitians chopping wood, riding brightly painted buses, making love, dying, cooking and eating, dancing, building houses, fishing, tending animals, playing soccer. The painting took up the whole wall and dominated the room.
“Wow,” I said to Deacon.
“Honore did that,” he said. “That’s where the place gets its name.” He nodded at the large tree in the middle. “Tree of Life,” he said. “Luh Arbruh Vee-ay.”
“Deacon!” a happy voice called from the back. He pronounced it, “Dee-CONE.” A tall man, very thin and very black, rushed out of the kitchen and swept down on us.
Deacon took his hand and shook it, looking like he was doing it to hold off a hug. “How’s it going, Honore?” he asked.
Honore spread his arms wide. They took up most of the restaurant. “But now you have save my life, beautiful. Of course it is impossible to make any money with things as they are. But—” And he gave a shrug that said oh well, who cares, other things are more important, life is good, come on in, I have my health, and lunch is ready. It was an amazing shrug.
“This is my friend Billy Knight,” the Deacon was saying. “He has a couple of questions you might be able to answer.”
Honore held up a finger. “No,” he smiled. “You will not ask on an empty stomach. Come,” he said, and led us to one of the three booths, the one closest to the kitchen.
We sat. People kept appearing at the table and Honore spoke to them in Creole. One or two of them must have been working at the restaurant, because food started to appear very soon, in lots of small dishes, as if we were supposed to try a little of everything on the menu.
While we ate, Deacon and Honore traded news with each other and the parade of people that kept swinging by the booth. And then, almost like there had been some signal I couldn’t see, the food stopped coming and so did the people.
“Now,” Honore said. “I am happy to answer questions, Bee-lee.” It took me a second to realize that Bee-lee meant me.
“A friend of mine found a body in the Gulf Stream,” I said. “A Haitian refugee.”
“The Black Freighter,” Honore said.
I looked at Deacon. “I told you he’d know, buddy,” Deacon said.
“What’s the Black Freighter?” I asked Honore.
“First, it is my time to question. Are you investigating this also, Deacon?”
Deacon shook his head. “I’m sorry, Honore. I’m not allowed to get in on this. Officially, I’m just on my lunch break right now. And Billy is just a private citizen, asking a few questions.”
He studied me for a moment. “How much do you know about my country?” he asked me.
“It’s half an island. It doesn’t have any topsoil. The world’s first black republic. Um, Toussaint L’Overture. Papa Doc. Voodoo. I like the music.”
“Very good,” Honore said, making a face like he’d bitten something sour. “Few people know so much.” He waved a long, thin arm. “And yet this is almost nothing.”