A Rendezvous in Haiti by Stephen Becker Page B

brows rose.
    Boniface suppressed a cough. He choked, wheezed, swallowed and hawked vigorously. He tried to spit politely.
    â€œCalm yourself,” Boniface said.
    Blanchard said, “I’m calm. You calm these others.”
    â€œAny man has a right to debate,” Boniface told him, “but you are the only blanc in the gaguerre. It makes a difference.”
    â€œI have been the only blanc at more than one cockfight.”
    â€œBut consider: you are an outsider and you lay down the law! Perhaps the goosing was to throw a match, and the throwing was to settle a family feud; perhaps lives have been saved. Or would have been, without your interruption.”
    Blanchard did not speak. The crowd too was silent now; not hostile, only curious. A cock fluttered, and screeched rudely. The mist of clairin and smoke, the flickering lamps, the silver blade: Blanchard stood alone, on this other planet. Finally he said, “Yes. I understand,” and to Marius, “Pardon, mon vieux, pardon.”
    Boniface said, “V’là, Marius. The blanc apologizes and knows better now.”
    Marius grumbled.
    â€œMore heart, more heart,” Boniface insisted. “A handshake, now.”
    They complied: a loose West Indian handshake. The crowd murmured. A man shouted, “And the birds? And my wager?”
    â€œWell done, Marius,” Boniface said, and Marius nodded, neutral, no harm done and the quarrel ended. He turned back to the business of the evening.
    Boniface spoke quietly. “Now, mon cher. Shall we go to my loge? It seems to me we might profit by a conversation.” He raised his voice: “On with the main! Drink up!”
    These welcome instructions were acknowledged by happy shouts, while Blanchard and Boniface strolled back to the loge.
    They sat on the floor of the small wooden shack, backs to the walls, and sipped at clairin. “We heard about Deux Rochers,” Boniface said. “It must have been a glorious moment.”
    â€œIt was,” Blanchard said. For some moments they listened to the boisterous crowd, the shrieks of encouragement and groans of dismay. It was not the walls that vexed Blanchard, but the ceiling: he missed the cold remote stars, the endless free fetches of nothing. “It was. There are not many of them.” He had no friends; Boniface and Martel were as close to him as any men—not close at all; Boniface enjoyed the ruses and schemes, while Martel … He tried to recall the friends of his youth, and all he could evoke was the bare house, woodsmoke, desolation, the river and ponds iced solid and the sides of pork like marble in the shed.
    â€œWe know the Marines,” Boniface said. “We can deal with the enemy.”
    â€œWe!” This fat civilian. “We could drive them into the sea,” Blanchard said, “with better organization and real discipline. If I could shoot a few cowards. Good God, what has he got for an army? Bandits! Superstitious idiots! Women! Greedy Domingans! He calls himself a general—do you know that he has a soft heart? Fleury can be a lot crueler. That’s another thing—Fleury hates me. Or so I hear. You know about that?”
    â€œI do know. He hates most blancs. But faction is a worse problem. Batraville in the south, Savoie in the north—too many generals, too many kings. So you took leave without permission?”
    Blanchard scoffed. “And I won a victory without help. And I haven’t been paid for some time. I want some action,” he said, and now there was passion in his low voice. “I want money, I want an army, I’m tired of leading a mob and I’m tired of taking orders.”
    Boniface dipped into a shirt pocket and came up with a packet of cigarettes. He offered them. The cigarette papers were a golden-tan in lamplight. Blanchard raised the cigarette in salute and thanks.
    Blanchard knew he would cough. He did cough, and when they saw the blood on the