Mr. Clarinet

"You were taking Charlie to see a voodoo priest on his birthday?" Max said, sounding more surprised than he actually was. The local religion was well entrenched in the Carver household. He remembered how defensive of it Allain had been.

"I'd been taking him to see Filius once a week every week for six months."

"Why?"

"Filius was helping us—Charlie and me."

"How?"

"How long have you got?"

"As long as you need," Max said.

Francesca checked Max's watch. Max inspected the amount of tape in his machine. It was a two-hour cassette, almost through on the first side. He fast-forwarded it and turned it over. He hit RECORD as soon as she started speaking.

"Charlie was born in Miami on September 4, 1991. One of the nurses screamed when she saw his face. It looked like he'd been born with a pitch-black caul, but it was only his hair. He was born with it all, you see. It sometimes happens.

"We came back to Haiti three weeks later. The country was then run by Aristide—a kind of mob rule masquerading as a government. A lot of people were leaving. Not just the boat people, but the rich, all the business brains. Gustav insisted on staying put, even though Aristide had twice singled us out in public speeches as white people who'd 'stolen' everything from the poor black Haitians. Gustav knew Aristide was going to get overthrown. He was friendly with some of the military and he was just as friendly with some of Aristide's key people."

"He gets around," Max said.

"Gustav subscribes to the 'Keep your friends close, your enemies closer' maxim," Francesca said and then met his eyes and held them for a moment. Max sensed her probing him.

"Aristide was overthrown on September 30," she continued. "Gustav threw a party that night. Aristide was meant to have been assassinated, but there was a change of plan. It was a happy party, nonetheless.

"Charlie was christened a month later. I knew something wasn't right with him from the very beginning. When I was a teenager I babysat my nephews and niece when they were babies and they were very different from Charlie. They were responsive. They recognized me. Charlie wasn't like that. He never looked at me directly. He never seemed particularly interested. He never reached out to me; he never smiled. Nothing. And—here's the odd thing—he didn't cry."

"Not at all?"

"Not ever. He made sounds—baby sounds—but I never heard him cry. Babies cry all the time. They cry if they wet themselves or poo themselves. They cry when they're hungry. They cry when they want your attention. Not Charlie. He was very very quiet. Sometimes it was like he wasn't there.

"We had a doctor checking up on him every week or so. I mentioned it to him, the boy's silence. He joked and told me to make the most of it, that it wouldn't last.

"But, of course, it did. Allain told me not to worry, that Gustav himself didn't start talking before he was almost four."

Francesca stopped and lit another cigarette. Max was getting used to the smell.

"Actually, I say Charlie wasn't responsive, but he always smiled at Gustav. And I heard him laugh too whenever the old man pulled faces at him or tickled him. They had a real bond. Gustav was really really proud of Charlie. He always made time for him. Took him with him to the bank a few times. Sat with him at night, fed him, changed him. It was very touching, seeing them together. I'd never seen Gustav happier. He isn't too good with his other grandchildren. Not as attentive. Charlie's his only grandson. I think he wants to die safe in the knowledge that the family name will be preserved, live on. He's old-fashioned, but this whole country isn't much more advanced than him."

Max poured himself another cup of coffee. The first had chased the tiredness out of his bones and out from behind his eyes.

"So, this—Charlie's condition—was playing on your mind when you went to see the voodoo priest? It wasn't about you at all, was it? It was about your son. You thought something was wrong with him, so you took him to the priest for an opinion?"

"Yes and no. It's not quite like that. Charlie had a thing about his hair…"

"I saw the picture," Max said shortly. "Him in that dress."

"He wouldn't let anybody cut it…"

"So your husband explained," Max said disgustedly.

"We really had no choice. People were making Charlie's life a misery."

"Was this before or after you put him in a dress?" Max said sarcastically.

"That was for his own good," Francesca insisted testily. "You know that Charlie screamed anytime someone went near him with a pair of scissors?"

"Yes, Allain told me."

"Did he tell you how he screamed? It wasn't a baby's scream, or even a little boy's scream. It was pure pain—this blood-curdling, earsplitting screech. Imagine a cave of screeching bats. People said they could hear it two miles away."