Mr. Clarinet

As they climbed the stairs, Max noticed that the walls were hung with framed photographs, some black-and-white, some dated, some sepia-toned, all of them hard to properly discern in the light that seemed to get dimmer the farther away they got from the floor, despite their relative nearness to the skylight. One photograph in particular caught Max's eye—a bespectacled black man in a white coat talking to a group of children sitting outdoors.

"Papa Doc—when he was good," Chantale said when she noticed what Max was looking at.

The girl led them to a room whose door was wide open. Inside, it was pitch-black. Still smiling, she took Chantale's hand and told her to take Max's. They shuffled in, seeing absolutely nothing.

They were taken to a couch. They sat down. The girl struck a match and briefly lit up the room. Max caught a short glimpse of Dufour sitting right in front of them in an armchair, a blanket over his legs, looking right at him, smiling; and then it went dark as the match subsided to a small flame which was transferred to the wick of an oil lamp. He couldn't see Dufour anymore, which wasn't a bad thing, because the little he'd seen of him hadn't been pleasant. The man reminded him of a monstrous turkey, with a long and sharp nose that seemed to start from right in between his eyes, and a loose and floppy pouch of flesh dangling under his lower jaw. If he wasn't a hundred years old, he couldn't have been far off.

The lamp gave off a feeble, bronze glow. Max could see Chantale, the mahogany table in front of them, and the silver tray bearing a pitcher full of chilled lemonade and two glasses with blue patterns around the middle. They couldn't see Dufour or anything else of the room.

Dufour spoke first, in French, not Kreyol. He explained, in a voice so soft it was barely audible, that he knew only three words of English—"hello," "thank you," and "good-bye." Chantale translated this to Max and asked Dufour if he objected to her being there as an interpreter. He said he didn't and addressed her as "mademoiselle." For an instant, Max got a glimpse back into another era, when men touched their hats, stood up, pulled out chairs, and opened doors for women, but the vision was quickly overtaken by present concerns.

"I'm sorry for the darkness but my eyes no longer see like they did. Too much light gives me terrible headaches," Dufour said in French, and Chantale translated. "Welcome to my house, Mr. Mingus."

"We'll try not to take up too much of your time," Max said as he set his tape recorder and notebook and pen down on the table.

Dufour joked that the older he got the smaller things became, remembering an era when tape recorders were cumbersome reel-to-reel players. He told them to try the lemonade, that he'd had it made for them.

Chantale poured them each a glass. Max was amused to see that the designs on the glasses were oriental ones, showing men and women in various sexual positions, some commonplace, some exotic, and a few requiring the suppleness of professional contortionists to pull off. He wondered how long it had been since Dufour had had any sex.

They made small talk as they sipped their drinks. The lemonade was bittersweet but very refreshing. Max tasted both lemon and lime juice mixed together with water and sugar. Dufour asked Max how long he'd been in the country and what he thought of it. Max said he hadn't been in Haiti long enough to form an opinion. Dufour laughed loudly at this but didn't define his laughter with a quip or a retort.

"Bien, bien," Dufour said. "Let's begin."

Chapter 23

MAX OPENED HIS notebook and pressed RECORD.

"When did you first meet Charlie Carver?"

"His mother brought him to me a few months before his disappearance. I don't remember the exact date," Dufour said.

"How did you meet her?"

"She found me. She was very troubled."

"How so?"

"If she hasn't told you, neither can I."

His response to the latter had been polite but firm. There wasn't much life left in Dufour but Max could detect an iron will propping up his crumbling body. Max was playing the interview like a conversation, keeping his tone neutral and his body language relaxed and friendly—no arms on the table, no leaning forward, sitting back in the couch: tell me everything, send it my way.

Chantale was the opposite, virtually coming off her seat, as she strained to hear the old man, because the little that remained of his voice faded in and out, rising, when it did, to no louder than the hoarse hiss of hot grit hitting a snowbound road.

"What did you make of Charlie?"

"A very clever and happy boy."

"How often did you see him?"

"Once a week."

"The same day and time every week?"

"No, they changed from week to week."

"Every week?"

"Every week."