Haiti Noir

She complied. After they had both snorted their dose of coke, they felt like the world was at their feet. Paola quickly fell into a deep sleep. Dread Lanfè then remembered that he had Fanfayon’s finger in his shirt pocket. He couldn’t fall asleep with a dead man’s finger on him. He got up, took the finger, tried once more to take the ring off it, but didn’t succeed. That ring could very well bring him a nice bundle of dollars. Dread Lanfè knew how to recognize gold. He put the finger on the dressing table, in a china glass. Paola would see the finger when she woke up. Lanfè didn’t care. It would only add to his charm. He tossed his shirt over on a chair and came back to lie down next to her. He tumbled into a heavy sleep, disturbed by the impression that a foreign body was crawling over his chest. He knew it was the finger when he felt the ring rubbing against his skin. He screamed and sat up on the bed, gasping, his body drenched in sweat. Thinking that maybe some horrible creature had slipped in next to him, he jumped out of bed. But he couldn’t find anything suspicious. The finger was still on the dressing table. He managed to convince himself that it was just cocaine playing tricks with his mind.

“What’s the matter?” asked Paola somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “A bad dream.”

“Come back to bed. Come closer to me.”

Dread Lanfè went back to bed. He held her tight, seeking comfort and safety in the warmth of her body, safety that only his mother, a peasant woman from Artibonite, could give him when he was a child. He was unable to go back to sleep. The nightmare just caught him like that, while he was still awake. He felt the finger on his thigh, climbing up, lingering over his navel. Dread Lanfè got rid of the intruder with an abrupt swing of his hand. He heard the finger falling on the floor and immediately trying to climb back onto the bed. Terrified, he jumped up and rushed to the dressing table. The finger had disappeared. Terror took hold of him like a gust of wind carrying a dry leaf away. He grabbed the machine gun he had placed underneath the dressing table. In the semidarkness of the bedroom, Dread Lanfè heard the finger climbing on a chair. Like a madman, he opened fire, unleashing an infernal racket. Paola woke up screaming, just as the finger jumped on Dread Lanfè and clung to his chest like a devilish bloodsucker. Without meaning to, Dread Lanfè pulled the trigger of the machine gun again. A hail of bullets brought Paola down. He dropped the gun in an attempt to snatch the finger from his chest. A demonic laughter rang in his ears. The finger was growing, transforming into a hideous, slimy creature with a cold and scaly body, a body that was coiling around his. Dread Lanfè tried to shout. He died without even realizing it.

When the police, alerted by the neighbors, burst into the bedroom, Dread Lanfè was lying on the floor, his body all dislocated. Paola was naked on the bed, her corpse riddled with bullets. The magistrate had not yet arrived for the report. The inspector who was leading the police squad gave the order to cover the foreign woman with a sheet. The officer crossed himself in front of Dread Lanfè’s body. He knew him well, for he had met him many times at the dictator’s place. While searching the room for possible booty, he discovered the finger on the dressing table, hidden behind a bottle of perfume. The ring immediately caught his eye. Surreptitiously, he grabbed it and slipped it quietly into his uniform pocket. The inspector knew a fence who always gave him a good deal. He didn’t pay attention to the finger, which was already on the move.

PARADISE INN BY KETTLY MARS

Gokal

Translated by David Ball

It was pitch-black out when I reached the town of Gokal. We were in the rainy season and the humidity grabbed me by the throat through the open window of my car. All I could see were a few little houses shrouded in darkness and an occasional dog prowling around. I was looking for the Paradise Inn.

At the very end of the main street, to my left, I could see a light. A house was floating in the surrounding darkness like an ocean liner cruising through the sea at night. A rectangular one-story concrete building in no particular style, a few yards back from the main street. No garden in front, just a few agaves growing in the midst of the gravel. A loud neon sign was blinking mauve letters inside an orange circle: Paradise Inn. What a pretentious name for such a godforsaken place.