Disastrous Passion: the book

Chapter Fourteen

April 9, 2011 at 8:21 am (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 14

Jean-Philippe’s feet felt like lead, his lungs felt like they were burning. At the end of the block he stopped, pressed himself against the wall and then peeked, furtively, around the corner. All clear. He looked back and motioned to Fakhria to follow. Her dark eyes were wide with fear and her hand trembled as she touched his elbow. “Promise me that if I don’t make it, you’ll be the one give the news to my grandmother. She always loved you…” There was urgency in her voice. He wanted to hold her, to tell her that he loved her more than life itself, to assure her that everything would be alright. He wanted to tell her that he’d meant every single word whispered into her ear during their passionate interlude the night before. But there was no time. The sounds of small-arms fire, once distant, now seemed to be growing closer. He could just make out voices, too, indistinct and still far behind. But coming closer with each passing moment. Dawn had almost fully broken, now.  Another quick peek around the corner. The street was still empty. “Cherie, we must go. Now…”

Jean-Philippe sat bolt-upright, suddenly wide awake, drenched in sweat, his pulse racing. Through the open double-doors he could see that the sun had set. The warm glow of Tiki lights at the beachside restaurant and bar not far away dappled the palm fronds, swaying gracefully in the soft tropical breeze, which framed his view of the water. He could hear mellow jazz faintly over the sound of the waves rolling gently along the beach at “Dreams Palm Beach Punta Cana.”

His watch read 7:45. How long had he slept? Jean-Philippe cursed himself silently. For drinking too much in the middle of the afternoon, for falling asleep with his door open. For being vulnerable. For not being able to get Fakhria out of his mind, even after so many years, even now with Mary-Anne’s face also haunting him during those liminal moments between sleep and awake…

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Chapter thirteen

April 5, 2011 at 5:52 am (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Finally!

Mary-Anne let her head fall back against the headrest of her car seat, closed her eyes and inhaled. The smell of exhaust and hot pavement under a sweltering Caribbean sun had never been sweeter. Traffic was hell as usual, but at least they were crawling forward. Crawling towards the airport where she would catch the UNHAS plane to Santa Domingo.  

Six days of clean sheets, hot showers, a room to herself, the beach, the pool, snorkeling, good food and sleep, sleep, sleep. She had it all planned out:

Step one: Take a long, hot shower and wash all the grime from the past six weeks off.

Step two: Repeat step one

Step three: Soak for an indecent period of time in a bubble bath

Step four: Rub lotion all over dried out skin

Step five: Full body massage

Step six: Manicure and pedicure

Step seven: Good meal with a salad and a glass of cold white wine (don’t tell Sam’s Purse colleagues about this part…)

Step eight: Sleep for as long as she wanted between smooth sheets. Absolutely no alarm clock and definitely not one set for 5:15.

Step nine: Put on her bikini (Jim-Bob would never have approved), slip on a sundress, a beautiful flower in hair and go play in the sand and sea

Step ten: Repeat previous steps as desired

One day last week Mary-Anne had actually written out her ten step plan in an attempt to raise her flagging spirits.  The original piece of paper was tucked away in one of the many pockets of her cargo pants. She couldn’t wait to feel like a woman again…instead of an NGO woman.

“There are three kinds of women in the world: beautiful women, ugly women… and then there are NGO women.” She couldn’t help smiling remembering Randy’s favorite joke – one he told often, whenever there was a new face in the Sam’s Purse relief office near the logsbase.

NGO or not, She was going to be all woman on this break. A clean woman who smelled good and whose face was not caked with dust!

Mary-Anne had never looked forward to something as much as she looked forward to this break. She had a few Patricia Cornwell crime novels, her iPod and her computer. But only to watch movies and maybe play a little Wordscraper on Facebook. No work! Mary-Anne had promised herself.

The vehicle ground to a halt. Nothing was moving except a few pedestrians who were progressing considerably faster than the traffic. Mary-Anne watched a man with one leg hop past the vehicle on a pair of crutches and head down the hill. They were definitely not moving fast. Amos glanced at her.

“No worry, Mary-Anne. You will fly today.”

He pronounced her name the French way, Marie-Anne. The way Jean-Philippe did. But she didn’t want to think about Jean-Philippe—the continual ache in her heart was enough. She didn’t want to think about what she felt about him. It was too complicated, too painful and she was too tired. But every time she closed her eyes she’d see the sharp line of his jaw, his green eyes and that inevitable pull towards him. She knew he would hurt her badly. Men like that viewed women the way she viewed a hot tub—a pleasant way to relax. She knew she had to stay away from him as a moth knows it much stay away from the flame.

Do moths actually know that? she wondered idly. They always go to the flame….

They were halfway down the hill near the Hotel “Paradis”. Boy that place was a hole! Mary-Anne and some of her team had stayed there in the early days of the response. The joke was that rooms were available by the hour…as were some of the staff.

A big white van was trying to pull out of the filthy, narrow road that wound between broken walls to the Paradis. The driver managed to get halfway out onto the road but a tap-tap accelerated forward just in time to cut off the van, which sat helplessly at an angle halfway across the road. Traffic began piling up around it and horns started honking and voices started shouting, “Idiot!” “Souse’ Zozo!”"Vas te faire foutre!”  and the inevitable Quebecois “Away ostie!”

The sliding door on the side of the van opened up and a man with a baseball cap jumped out and moved into the centre of the road. The figure seemed oblivious to the expletives being hurled at him. He held one hand raised firmly in front of him, trying to stop the oncoming traffic.

Mary-Anne did a double-take. It was Jim-Bob.

* * * * *

Jean-Philippe shifted his head slightly so the shade of the palm tree fell more directly across his fake Ray-Ban shades from Jakarta.

Mon dieu, this felt good!

He took another swig of the ice-cold Presidente beer placed strategically in the sand next to his hand. Punta Cana had a long stretch of reef—kilometres of it, in fact. Though he’d heard snorkeling wasn’t that good in this particular spot, he had seen a string-ray along with all the brightly colored fish that snorkelers in these tropical waters usually saw.

Just being out in the water, with the sun beating down his back, diving low to check out the reef–it had been just what he needed. He was going to scuba at some point, but for now, Jean-Philippe was giving himself time to unwind. Based on experience from past disaster responses, it would take a few days.

He was thinking about picking up one of the cuties he saw last night at the bar to complete the experience. His looks had always attracted female attention so he knew it wouldn’t be difficult. What was difficult was an unfamiliar hesitation, a visceral, indescribably reluctance to act. But why?

Mary-Anne. It was the first time since… Beirut… that a woman had gotten under his skin. It had vexed him then, and it terrified him now. Maybe if they had actually finished it that night in the jeep, he would have been able to move on. Maybe this was just because she was the first woman who had turned him down. But why had she turned him down? She clearly wanted him. She had initiated it all that night…and then run out of the car just when things were starting to get interesting.

A sip of Presidente. Then a long swig drained the bottle. Jean-Philippe craned his head around and motioned to the bar tender.

She was annoyingly unpredictable, that Mary-Anne. He had seen the unmistakeable open longing in her face as she gazed at him that night at the MSF teamhouse party—a look that caused… almost pain deep in his chest. What was wrong with the girl?!  He definitely needed a distraction.

“Would you like another drink, Señor?” a low, sensous voice startled Jean-Philipped back to the present.

He looked up into a pair of sparkling dark eyes with long, thick eyelashes, big soft lips stretched into a sexy smile, all framed by an oval face. A shapely, orange bikini-clad, waitress with skin the color of WSB held out a tray with a new bottle of Presidente.

Distraction had arrived right on time.

“Señorita, you will join me?”

* * * * *

Mary-Anne couldn’t believe she was really there.

The flight was short. She had watched Haiti fall behind, its land now dotted with bright blue and white tarps. As the Cessna “Caravan” left Port-au-Prince and flew across ragged hills that had been stripped of every green thing, she looked out the small window and pondered. One half of the island—Haiti—abused and destroyed while the other—Dominican Republic–was covered in thick vegetation. She remembered what she had heard about the brutal Dominican dictator, Trujillo, and how his oppressive regime was in part, responsible for the green she could now see. The man had killed people at the snap of a finger, but God help anyone who cut down a tree without his permission!

And then… there she was, her taxi pulling up to the front of the “Dreams Palm Beach Punta Cana.”

It looked gorgeous. Too gorgeous – Mary-Anne felt almost guilty to be checking into such luxury. But as she handed her passport over to be photocopied and wrote “NGO – humanitarian worker” on the “Occupation” line of the hotel registration card, she knew that it was exactly what she needed now.

When she walked into her room, Mary-Anne burst into a spontaneous little dance.

The large doors, framed by thick cream curtains, opened directly on to the beach. A small veranda looked out on turquoise waters, and a few steps led down to perfect white sand, framed by palm trees from which hung a colorful hammock. There was a little canoe pulled up on the beach. The huge bed was covered with a luxurious white cover and a bright blue runner, hibiscus flowers had placed artistically on the mountain of overstuffed pillows.

Mary-Anne ran into the bathroom and squealed out loud with delight. It was bright and open and a giant tub with jakuzi jets sat under a large window that looked over frangipani trees. The scent from the flowers filled with room. A sense of delight, mixed with exhaustion long held at bay, but now released swept over her.

“Wheeee!” Mary-Anne stripped off her cargo pants and dusty t-shirt, and turned on the shower.

Step one of her relaxation programme had begun!

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Chapter twelve

April 3, 2011 at 4:08 pm (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 12

There was no delicate way to put it: Artemis Bridgette Hallertauer was horny.

She was fifty-two (fifty-three in six weeks, if one was to get technical), divorced for five years, the last four-and-a-half of which had been spent cloistered away in the barricaded UN compound in Islamabad. The divorce had been ugly, and she’d intentionally taken one of the most sexually inactive posts in the entire UN network (junior staffers in Afghanistan got more action than even the head of mission in Islamabad) in hopes of recovery. But now, almost five years of relationship detox later, her complexion pale from long hours under flickering fluorescent lights, bored to tears (UNDP in Pakistan = a slow death by extreme boredom), and less than a week in to her redeployment in Port-au-Prince, Artemis was, in a word, horny.

Being able to move about, outside the compound, more or less freely, without the mandatory and almost-impossible-to-miss light-blue UN combat helmet and Kevlar vest (“aim just below the blue helmet” was the rueful humor of older, more cynical UN staff) felt like freedom. And the opportunity to rub shoulders with NGO guys, tanned, gaunt and dusty from the field, made Artemis’ temperature rise. She pictured a tall, lean aid worker in faded khaki cargo pants and an NGO-logo golf shirt – something evangelical… someone she could corrupt… maybe ADRA.. or Church World Service…  He’d stride into the UNDP container office, take off his sunglasses and ask for the “Senior Programme Advisor” (her). She’d flutter her eyelashes. The chemistry would zap and sparkle…

“Madame, here is the logsbase.” It was her driver. Artemis jolted back to the real world, adjusted the strap of her “Timbuk 2” satchel, stepped from the white Landcruiser and walked towards the large gravel carpark.

* * *

Randy had had it up to here with the early recovery cluster meetings. Honestly, what was there to talk about with early recovery in month four on a disaster this big? It was a whole lot of wankery (using British slang made him feel more… international).

He pushed his way through the back door of the tent. The same dude as last time, with the same IOM namebadge, was going laboriously through the minutes of the previous meeting. Very little of importance had been discussed, and absolutely nothing of importance had been decided. This whole “cluster mechanism” thing was a total waste of time. People were dying. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but still… they should be out actually doing something. Let the interns “coordinate.” Randy was a “do-er.”

The minutes of the last meeting having been read, the discussion turned to Cash For Work. Specifically, the question of whether or not, and if so at what level to standardize the Cash For Work day-wage. It was a heated discussion. Someone with a very heavy French accent was holding forth about how the day-wage needed to be high. Higher than the nominal pre-earthquake day-rate for unskilled labour. High enough to keep the smaller, less competitive, fly-by-night NGOs from competing. The focus needed to be on high quality, very specific projects with clear, measureable outputs. Just because it was a disaster zone didn’t mean it would be acceptable to cut corners on quality or do Cash For Work willy-nilly.

A woman with a maple leaf logo on her T-shirt was disagreeing. Vehemently. The day-rate needed to be low. Low enough to ‘achieve broad-based short-term coverage’.. There was enough need and enough potential labour force to go around. Why limit the pool of participants? Besides, they were talking about smashing cement with sledge-hammers, separating out the rebar, and carting it all away by wheelbarrow. Or maybe picking up trash around the mouths of rivers. The emphasis now should be on getting people working and getting the mess of Port-au-Prince cleaned up. Quality assurance was not that deep. Set the day-rate low and get it done.

Randy yawned. The tent was hot and stuffy, and the smell of grungy aid workers mixed with ambient diesel exhaust into a catharsis-inducing cocktail. A helicopter buzzed the logsbase at what sounded like about 20 meters – conversation inside the tent stopped momentarily, then resumed. Randy’s eyelids drooped.

Then he was suddenly alert. That chick with the UN cap and namebadge was totally checking him out.

*

Artemis smiled to herself. The cute guy with the “Samaritan’s Purse” golf shirt had noticed her. She pretended to look away, to pay attention to a meaningless argument about Cash-For-Work. Set the day-rate, already. Set it at or incrementally higher than the local nominal pre-disaster rate. That was how it always went down. Why waste everyone’s time in an argument that everyone already knew the conclusion to? Amateurs.

She shot a sideways glance back at Mr. Sam’s Purse. He was looking at her. She raised an eyebrow, gave her best “shy smile”, and then looked quickly down, blushing. He looked, what, ten, twelve years younger than her? Perfect.

Less than a week in and Port-au-Prince was already loads more fun than Islamabad…

* * *

Get through this afternoon, the evening… and then R&R!

Mary-Anne was counting down the minutes, at this point. It was the mad, last-minute scramble to clear a mountain of admin work off of her desk before hopping onto a UNHAS flight to Santo Domingo. There had been a momentary twinge of disappointment when her booking showed her on a 15-seat Cessna “Caravan” – she’d hoped to get a ride on a helicopter – but in the end simply getting to Santo Domingo, and then on to “Dreams Palm Beach Punta Cana” was all Mary-Anne really cared about.

It could not come soon enough.

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Chapter Eleven

March 28, 2011 at 4:06 pm (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 11

“Oh my!”Jim-Bob heard Susie murmur just next to him. “Oh my, just look at that.” She was shaking her head, moving her poufy hair heavily from side to side, and holding a chubby, pale hand over her open mouth. He looked past her through the dirty window of the van that had picked them up. A messy conglomeration of blue, white and grey shacks filled the right side of the road.

“Shacks” was a generous word for the ugly mess tarps of and poles that made up the camp. The view was temporarily blocked as a tap-tap covered in a gaudy painting of the Virgin Mary with the words “Meet Your Maker” in bright turquoise splashed across the top of her head squeezed into the narrow space between their van and the curb. The vehicle was open in the back and sides and had two long rows of seats facing each other. It was packed tight with people. A goat hung upside down-silent and still–it’s feet tied to the roof.

It was all so unAmerican! So… exotic!

He had made it. He was here in Haiti. A local church had helped them find rooms in a hotel—appropriately named “Paradis”. He wondered if it would be on the edge of the bright blue water they’d flown over.

Here he was in a van, in Haiti. Haiti! He couldn’t get over it. Jim-Bob leaned back and allowed himself to daydream.

He was sitting under a tree on a small wooden stool. He was handing out generous bags of food to hungry Haitian women. Beautiful smiles lit up their faces and they said, “Mon dye va beniou” – May God bless you. Or at least that’s what he thought they said. He’d tried to learn some Haitian phrases before he came out but kept getting them mixed up. He smiled back and as they walked past, they gently touched his shoulder in gratitude. And then, Mary-Anne saw him. She was shocked that he was here, saw how grateful and happy the people around him were. She noticed how brave he was to come to this God-forsaken place—poorest place in the Western Hemisphere. A small child leaned against his knee. Mary-Anne would cry out, “Oh Jim-Bob! What a terrible mistake I made! Would you take me back, please?” She’d run over to him, wiping tears from her eyes, “oh babe!”

Jim-Bob opened his eyes. It was getting hot in the van. He looked out the window. They had barely moved 100 yards since the camp. He craned his neck and looked out the dirty windscreen. Traffic was jammed around a roundabout, vehicles kept trying to move in without letting anyone move out. For a while, Jim-Bob and the other passengers found it amusing.

“Lord have mercy, he did not just squeeze that jeep in there,” Susie exclaimed. “He is not trying to….oh my. Oh me ,oh my!” Her eyes formed perfect little “ohs”, matching her words, her poufy hair again shaking from side to side. She leaned forward a little and Jim-Bob saw a dark patch on the back of the chair where her head had been.  “We are never gonna get out of this one, Jim-Bob! There ain’t no place left to move!”

She was right.  Cars on the edges of the roundabout kept inching forward until they’d come to the side of another vehicle. Soon, the lanes of traffic began to resemble a parking lot at a Grateful Dead concert—post concert.  Cars faced every which way and everyone was honking their horns.

“Look, Jim-Bob!” shrieked Susie.

It was a sight worth seeing. Well, for about ten seconds. A truck piled high with sacks marked “USAID: From the American People” was at a complete standstill to the north of the roundabout. A group of young men were smashing the lock on the back door with a hammer. A crowd started to gether. They broke the lock and slid open the doors. The crowd cheered. The driver of the truck jumped out and wound his way through the stationary traffic on foot as fast as he could go away from the truck. A couple of the young men leapt nimbly into the back of the truck and began throwing sacks out of the truck. Some sacks landed on the road but most landed on the cars directly behind the truck. The hoods were getting dented and some of the sacks burst, spilling clouds of flour. People in the crowd were running up trying to grab the sacks, while the drivers of the dented vehicles cursed and shouted but also grabbing sacks and stuffing them into their trunks.

Haitian police appeared on foot and then the blue-helmeted MINUSTAH soldiers showed up from another direction. Camoflague appeared–it was soldiers from the U.S. military. They were all on foot. The crowd around the back of the truck began to run away. There was a loud ‘BANG!”

“Gunfire!” squealed Susie. But it wasn’t. Sounded like someone hit a car with a metal rod. The scene went back to being a giant traffic jam with three different sets of people giving conflicting orders. The Haitian police were trying to get one line of traffic moving while MINUSTAH, around the other side of the roundabout, was directing traffic in a different direction. The U.S. soldiers were moving out asking vehicles to back up. It looked like pure chaos. It was pure chaos.

Within the van, the excitement faded into boredom.  The van grew hotter and hotter.  The comments fizzled out. Jim-Bob’s troops were getting demoralised. Susie decided to do something about it.

“C’mon, y’all! It’s time to sing!”

The goat hanging on the tap-tap next to the van opened one eye as the strains of Abide with Me floated over his head.

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Chapter Ten

March 21, 2011 at 4:07 am (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 10

Jean-Philippe blinked his eyes against the late morning sun blazing through the branches of the frangipani tree. His head felt as if it was splitting open, his tongue was dry and swollen. He must have passed out and spent the night sleeping on the ground in the teamhouse courtyard.

“Merde!”, he muttered to himself as he struggled to his feet. The world seemed to spin sideways as he stumbled towards the teamhouse steps. Jean-Philippe could not remember the last time he had been this hungover… Phuket, maybe? Freetown? He fought back a wave of nausea. “Merde!”

As he collapsed onto his cot on the second floor of the MSF teamhouse, Jean-Philippe struggled to remember the events of the previous night. He had, apparently, lost his dark blue shirt at some point last night as he was naked from the waist up. He groaned and held up one muscled arm over his eyes to block out the light. He remembered a crush of people and loud music. He remembered sharing a stale Cuban cigar from “Giant Supermarket” with that guy from Oxfam… He remembered doing shots of tequila with Rolf…

Then it all came flooding back. Fabienne.

He remembered their crushing embrace, her hand working its’ way up his inner thigh, his lips pressed against hers. He remembered sinking to the ground in the shadows of the frangipani tree, her soft weight holding him down (not like he tried very hard to get away), the sweet smell of alcohol on her breath, her chest heaving, her impassioned moans of pleasure as their bodies entangled. After that, though, the memories were indistinct.

But there was one more memory. Mary-Anne. She’d looked beautiful, comely – actually – in an aid worker sort of way, of course, in her cargo pants and combat boots, slightly tipsy, exhaling through her nose the smoke of a bummed cigarette. He could still see her face tilted up to his with those brown, hesitant eyes that made him want to protect her. But he knew too of that smoldering fire that burned, hidden inside of her demanding something other than just protection. Last night he’d wanted to pull her to him, to brush back the wisps of hair from her face, to insert his tongue firmly between her tonsils. How had he ended up under the frangipani tree with Fabienne?

Jean-Philippe involuntarily cursed himself. Why? Why was he so smitten with this woman? He’d been with more disaster zone floozies than he could specifically remember, and a few he wished he could forget. Why couldn’t he get Mary-Anne off of his mind? Why did she unsettle him so?

Another wave of nausea, as he rolled from his cot and slowly crawled toward the bathroom.

* * *

Randy’s brown furrowed as he read the message from Sam’s Purse HR. “Unbecoming conduct”, it read, “and violation of the organization’s ‘no-drinking’ policy.”

He knew that the incident would probably not result in any concrete disciplinary action. He’d get a good scolding behind closed doors, a slap on the wrist. He’d probably be asked to take down the photos. But still, it was not the kind of thing he wanted to be known for. He was building a career in humanitarian work – he’d been called – and this was the sort of thing that could haunt someone for life if not managed properly.

Thank God the ones of Mary-Anne didn’t show her holding a beer or smoking, though she did look a little out of it. He didn’t want her to get in trouble because of him.

“Note to self”, he though. “Do not post pictures to Facebook while drunk.”

* * *

“Everybody! This way!”

Jim-Bob shouted as he made a quick count of the yellow T-shirts. Fifteen. Everybody’s here.

“You need this form filled out and ready to hand over.” He held up his own completed customs form for the group to see. Some of them nodded fervently and fumbled for pens in the travel organizers dangling from their necks. An overweight, 50-something man was turning red and sweating profusely. A teenage girl was trying to surreptitiously take photographs of the inside of the customs hall with her cell phone. They were not even out of the airport, and already the trip to Haiti was an adventure for the “Disaster Relief: Kentucky” team.

“Everyone have this form ready?” Nods all around on eager faces. Jim-Bob turned and led the way towards the customs desk at the Port-au-Prince international arrivals terminal. He could see the press of earnest, dark-skinned faces just outside the double-doorway.

“Haiti, here we come!” yelled one of the men in the back.

Mary-Anne, here I come mouthed Jim-Bob silently.

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Chapter Nine

March 11, 2011 at 10:54 am (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 9

“Almost done”, thought Mary-Anne. She had a full working day on Saturday and half a day on Sunday and then…

“I’m outta here and going to sleep sleep sleep!”

All Mary-Anne could think about was having a week of waking up late, lying on the beach and sleeping as much as she wanted. The bags under her eyes now seemed a permanent feature of her face. But in just two days she’d be taking the tiny UNHAS plane to Santo Domingo, where she had already booked a room online at the ”Dreams Palm Beach Punta Cana.”  “Beautiful! Gorgeous beaches…..fabulous food!” raved an online review. “I was treated like a princess!” gushed another.

It sounded like exactly what she needed.

“Let’s party tomorrow, Mally!” Randy interrupted her dreams of being treated like a princess on the beach. He was looking over at her from his desk three feet away. “C’mon! You’ve been here six weeks and haven’t gone to a single party yet.” Seeing her hesitation, he continued, “Mally! You’re leaving for R&R Monday! You can afford to relax for two minutes!”

“OK.” she consented. “I’ll go.”

Randy rewarded her with a big, happy smile. “Get out your little black dress and your high heels, girl!”

This will be awesome, thought Randy to himself: MSF had a reputation for throwing great parties.

* * * * *

Mary-Anne tied up the laces of her combat boots and took a last glance in the mirror. Her dirty-blonde hair was washed and curled wildly around her oval face.  A little mascara and eyeliner highlighted her eyes. She swiped a stick of Chapstick over her lips–who’d have thought to bring lipstick to a disaster? Bummer. She’d forgotten to ask Randy where the party was, but assumed it was one of the UN agencies. Mary-Anne wrinkled her nose at her reflection, popped a Tic-Tac in her mouth and walked out to the door to the white Land Cruiser, where Randy was waiting.

“Like the dress, Mally,” teased Randy, looking at her khaki pants and black T-shirt as she gracefully swung herself into the passenger seat. The engine roared to life and they started down the road, chatting amiably as Randy negotiated the dark but crowded streets that zigzagged up the hill, away from central Port-au-Prince towards Petionville.

The city lights spread out below them, twinkling through the night. Randy slowed down to turn into a steep drive and Mary-Anne cried out in horror, “What are you doing?!”

It was the gate to the MSF teamhouse.

* * *

Mary-Anne was through her third Prestige in almost no time. Standing with her back to the crowded room, she could feel the alcohol taking effect as she smiled brightly and flirting outrageously with Randy.  Even so she was still inwardly horrified at the thought of seeing Jean-Philippe and enduring his mocking gaze. She cringed at the thought of her humiliating behavior just a few days ago. She had thrown herself at a man who went through women faster than he went through jerry cans at an NFI distribution. If it hadn’t been for the vehicle that had interrupted them…

So she determinedly kept her back to the room and tried to look like she was having fun.

“I’m dying for a cigarette, Randy.”

“Stay here, I’ll get us some more beers and see if I can bum a couple of cigarettes off of someone,” said Randy, peeling himself off the wall and moving towards the coolers.

“Salut, Mary-Anne,” said a deep voice behind her. Mary-Anne flinched and turned around. Too fast, though, as she could feel the color rush to her cheeks and saw too that Jean-Philippe had noted it.

“I’ve been thinking of you since… since the other night. How are you?” he continued. He looked unbelievably handsome. He was wearing a neatly ironed dark blue cotton shirt that stretched against his broad shoulders. A pair of soft, worn jeans covered his long, lean legs. His dark hair looked damp and he had shaved. She saw that he wasn’t quite as young as she had first thought, as there was a sprinkling of grey around his temples. Her lips parted involuntarily and she resisted a ridiculous urge press herself into the breadth of his chest and savagely pull his body against hers.

She finally summoned up the courage to look into his face and saw for an instant something unguarded in his eyes. But then he blinked and it was as if the shutters came down.  His lips curled into a mocking smile as he leaned very close and whispered against her ear, “Finished looking?”

Before she could speak, a hand clutching a beer pushed between them. “Look out everyone, beer coming through!” As Jean-Philippe stepped back abruptly, Randy handed her a beer and then gently placed a cigarette between her lips. “How’s that for service!” he exclaimed as he lit the cigarette for her. Placing an arm around her, he turned to face Jean-Philippe. “Hey, JP. I see you’ve met my girl, Mally.”

Jean-Philippe smiled slightly, “Indeed I have, Randy. Now please excuse me, I need to check on the supplies. With people like you around, I expect we’ll be getting low on the beer.” With a curt nod to Mary-Anne, he turned and made his way through the crowd.

The rest of the evening passed in a miserable haze for Mary-Anne. Her heart hurt. All she wanted to do was go home and sleep. Randy was dancing with a few people—a couple of guys and a woman, maybe from the German Red Cross. Mary-Anne pushed her way through the crowd and leaned against a low wall near the swimming pool. There were a few people hanging out in the water, laughing and splashing each other. Two guys (maybe IOM?) were trying to coax a couple of giggling and obviously intoxicated young women (maybe Oxfam?) out of their clothes and into the water. And it looked like a couple was seriously making out deep in the shadows of a frangipani tree. They’re snogging she thought, testing out British slang. ‘Making out’ sounds better, she decided, ‘snogging’ has a nasty sound to it.

She opened the page and saw herself (looking startled, and, to be honest, more tipsy than she’d have preferred) standing in front of the pool at the MSF teamhouse.  But it was the image behind her, in shadow of the frangipani tree that sent a terrible pain through her heart. The image–lit up clearly by the flash of Randy’s camera–of a couple intertwined, the man’s head bent over the woman’s, lips crushed against each other and every part of their bodies melded together in a frenetic passionate embrace.

It was Jean-Philippe and Fabienne.

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Chapter Eight

March 6, 2011 at 5:59 pm (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 8

Rev. Horace Earl Ulysses Thomas III straightened his tie, stood up and walked to the pulpit as the praise band held onto the final chord of “America The Beautiful.” The drummer rolled the crash cymbal while the enthusiastic young guitarist played drawn-out bluesy, pentatonic lick. One last thundering crash gave the old favorite a classic rock ‘n’ roll ending.

The congregation of the small, rural Kentucky church was on its’ feet, clapping and hollering “Amen!” An overweight woman in the front row fanned herself with a flowered hat and seemed to swoon. Someone reached out to steady her as she sat her rotund bottom back into the wooden pew.

The Reverend looked slowly around the room, pausing to look individual parishioners in the eye directly, for dramatic effect, and then quoted the words of the song:

“From every mountainside, let freedom ring!” He pounded his fist on the pulpit to emphasize the word, “freedom.” Several more “amens” and a “hallelujiah.”

“There are mountainsides where freedom doesn’t ring…” He went on. “There are mountainsides where death and destruction reign supreme. There are mountainsides where the Devil walks freely and openly, where our poor brothers and sisters are enslaved… enslaved and held fast by chains not of this world…”

Another slow look around the room, a scowl slowly darkening the Reverends’ face.

“There are mountainsides where people are suffering and dying, calling on the LORD for hope and salvation. And like the Macedonians of old, calling the apostle Paul, ‘come over to Macedonia and help us’, so are we being called now. Called to the shores of that desolate island of Hispaniola, called to minister to those poor, poor people of that cursed land, once more brought low by a terrible earthquake…”

He pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped his brow. A burly trucker with long sideburns and a checkered shirt hollered “Amen!” from the back row. The Reverend nodded approvingly.

“But we have heard the call of the oppressed who sit in darkness. We will turn neither deaf ear nor a blind eye…”

“Thank you, Jesus!” It was a matronly widow about a third of the way back on the right, a loud, “mmmm-HHmmmm!” as a rejoinder.

“As you good people know, we are changing this years’ mission outreach program. Instead of Jamaica, we will answer the LORDs’ call in Haiti!” A murmur ran through congregation. The Reverend looked disapprovingly over the top of his spectacles.

“Oh, I just KNOW you’re not afraid… I just KNOW you’re not too busy… I just KNOW you’re not saying ‘No’ to the LORD…” The burly trucker hollered another “amen” and the large woman on the front row fanned herself faster.

“Will we be like the patriarch Jonah? Do we need to spend three days in the belly of the whale before we heed God’s call? Or are we like the Apostle Paul?” 

Another pause. “They’re calling. Yes, they’re calling, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’” Three more “amens” and a “hallelujah!” He pounded his fist on the pulpit once more.

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” The Reverend was quoting the prophet Jeremiah out of context, but no one seemed to care or even notice.

More “amens”, and a tattooed young woman in the middle of the left section stood up, hands in the air, shouting, “YES LORD!” More parishioners stood, more “hallelujiahs”, “YES!”s, and “Praise Hims”. The large woman in the front was fanning furiously by now, beads of perspiration visible on her neck and ample bosoms.

The Reverend mopped his forehead once more and then continued: “This year we will go minister to those oppressed by SATAN in Haiti!”The congregation was on it’s feet. “We will minister to those poor oppressed souls…” He turned around and gave a nod to the drummer who tapped out four clicks. The guitarist started a loud rock ‘n’ roll riff and was quickly joined by the bassist. The crowd was swaying now, everyone’s hands in the air.

As the congregation broke into a raucous rendition of “I Walk By Faith”, associate pastor (and son of the Reverend) James Robert “Jim-Bob”Thomas smiled to himself in the foyer.

He was going to Haiti.

He would see Mary-Anne.

She’d see that he could be a real man…

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Chapter Seven

March 1, 2011 at 7:17 pm (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 7

Jean-Philippe allowed Mary-Anne to press her full lips against his.  He hadn’t expected this. Indeed, for the first time in years, he found himself completely at a loss as to what to do with a woman who was in his arms.  Elle est naïve … comme une jeune fille. She doesn’t know what she is doing. A part of him tried to hold back. But then he breathed in her womanly smell and could restrain himself no more.

Gently, he flicked his tongue across her closed mouth. She didn’t move but stayed still with her eyes firmly closed. He ran his thumb gently across her cheek and softly, oh so softly! grabbed a handful of her hair. His tongue continued to tease her closed mouth, willing her to let him in.  With a small sigh, Mary-Anne succumbed, parting her lips hesitantly, giving him permission to do as he wished. Never before had she been kissed so thoroughly, so exquisitely. His tongue was everywhere, never too aggressive, yet unrelenting.  His lean hard body, his firm mouth and strong hands urged her to respond. Mary-Anne felt that every cell in her body was on fire, longing for more of him, for Jean-Philippe.

Moaning softly, she pushed back against him, pressing him back against the door as she leaned forward. Lying halfway on top of him, she ran her tongue along his neck–tasting salt and sweat–and then to his strong mouth. As she softly nipped his lower lip, she felt his hand moving down her back to cover her derriere, pulling her lithe body against himself.  Their bodies began to move, attuned to each other, rolling like the waves that moistened the golden sands of the glorious Haitian beaches.

In that instant, bright headlights cut through the darkness and lit up the inside of the vehicle as brightly as if it were day. Unthinkingly, Mary-Anne leaped back to her seat, panicked.

“Oh my gosh! They’ll see us!” she cried, lifting her arm to shield her eyes from the light.

“And if they do?” Jean-Philippe raised a sardonic eyebrow, sitting up a little. “You are a woman. I am a man. This is natural, non?” His gaze covered her possessively.

Monsieur LaRochelle has many friends in Haiti… Many women friends. Amos’ words echoed through her head.

“How many women have you done this with?” she asked, regretting the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. Her voice sounded shrill. She crossed her arms over her pounding heart.

“Mary-Anne. Relax. Come back here. ” he said in that familiar, low growl,  leaning forward to pull her back into his arms.

“No!” she pushed him away. “I can’t do this. I can’t!” She fumbled for the handle of the door. “I am not going to be just one of your many women!” stumbled out of the car and began running towards the dark gate of the team house.

* * * * *

Jean-Philippe sat very still, his heart pounding. He slowly reached for a Gauloise, bent his head and lit a cigarette. His hand shook ever so slightly. What the hell was happening to him? He was angry at her for running off, angry that his passion was left unsatisfied. But greater than that was the ache in her voice I am not going to be just one of your many women! Didn’t she realize that for some inexplicable reason she could never just be one his many women? Jean-Philippe exhaled slowly and started the Defender  and moved out into the dark Haitian night.

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Chapter Six

February 24, 2011 at 10:13 pm (Disastrous Passion) (Complications)

Chapter 6

Jean-Philippe reached over with one hand and turned down the volume of the VHF radio dangling from his belt, and then turned his attention back to the traffic. Two hours in traffic already, and barely out central Port-au-Prince. He jammed his foot down onto the brake pedal as a colorful “tap-tap” careened past, missing the front bumper of the white MSF Land Rover “Defender” by centimeters.

“Lunatics…”

He couldn’t believe it took so long to go anywhere. The road narrowed where a building had collapsed, spilling a mountain of broken concrete and twisted rebar over half of the road, but Jean-Philippe steered the Defender through without slowing, blaring the horn and motioning for pedestrians to get out of the way with his arm. Although there was no discernable boundary or change in landscape, Jean-Philippe knew he was leaving Port-au-Prince itself and entering Cite Soleil – one of the most notoriously dangerous places in all of Haiti – and he had no intention of sitting still in traffic, a lone “blanc” in an unnecessarily expensive vehicle.

He tried not to think about Mary-Anne, but couldn’t stop himself. How had the Sam’s Purse distribution gone? 82^nd Airborne should have provided good enough security, but Brazillian MINUSTAH… well, that was another matter…

* * *

Randy struggled to jump from the moving jeep when it slowed to take a corner, but the burly soldier to his right held him fast. “NO!”, the man shouted, gesticulating wildly. “You stay!” Randy struggled again, but the soldiers’ grip only tightened.

His thoughts were racing. Where was Mary-Anne? Was she okay? Had she been able to get into the truck before it left? The last he’d seen of her was a hint of dirty-blonde hair disappearing into the swirling mob as the distribution descended into chaos. Randy pulled the mobile phone from his pocket and dialed Mary-Annes’ number. His relief when the call was answered turned to sheer horror when the voices on the other end were aggressive, male voices shouting in Kreole. His heart stopped. What had happened to Mary-Anne?

Randy pulled the VHF radio from his vest pocket, switched to the open channel for humanitarian operations and screamed into handset: “Help! Somebody please help. Distribution gone violent in Cite Soleil. Humanitarian staff unaccounted for! … Repeat, white female humanitarian staff alone and in danger in Cite Soleil!

* * *

Jean-Philippe stabbed at the power button of the Defenders’ CD player with his right hand, and in the same motion turned up the volume on his VHF radio. The Venega Boyz disintegrated into silence, and the radio squawked: “..repeat, white female humanitarian staff alone and in danger in Cite Soleil!”

Suddenly alert, his mind raced. It could only be Mary-Anne. Blaring the horn once more, Jean-Philippe spun the wheel and pushed the accelerator towards the floor.

* * *

Mary-Annes’ feet felt like lead. She remembered Randys’ advice – “when you go to distributions, be sure to wear shoes you can run in…” – and wished she hadn’t worn her combat boots. Why hadn’t she listened? She knew that Randy wanted her, and she knew that it would never work out for them. He was too… just too simple and basic. She needed someone deeper, more complicated. But right then she would have given anything to see his smile, hear him call her “Mally” (where the hell did that name even come from, anyway?), feel his hand, possessively on the small of her back…

She stumbled again. She could hear the shouts of the young men chasing her. She felt a hand grab for her shoulder, but she shrugged it away. “It’s almost over…”

A horn blared. Loud. She heard the sound of a large engine revving, and then the scrape of tires grinding to a stop on gravel. “Mehhhrreee! Get in the car. NOW!!”

She turned toward the street and Jean-Philippe motioning to her through the open passenger door of a white SUV. Mary-Anne lept into the seat and slammed the door behind her. Jean-Philippe gunned the engine and accelerated down the street and away from the scene. As Mary-Anne fastened her safety-belt she could see in the rear-view mirror the crowd of Haitian men shouting and waving fists in the air after them.

Mary-Anne was about to gush her thanks to Jean-Philippe when he turned to her, his face red with anger. “Idiote! You stupid girl! You could have been killed. Or worse. It was your blind luck that I was here.” He almost spat the words out.

Her blood still thick with adrenaline from her near encounter, Mary-Anne faced him, eyes wide. “How dare you?!?”, she almost screamed. “I am here helping. It’s dangerous work, but someone has to do it. Someone has to get off the logsbase occasionally and actually give food these people.” A wave of righteous indignation swept through her.

What arrogance. What conceit. She longed more than ever to see Randy again.

Jean-Philippe turned the Defender down a sidestreet and continued. “All you little charities are the same…” He said with a sneer. “You come here, you think you can help. But you don’t bother to learn about the country. You don’t even speak the f-king language! You Anglophones. Incroyable! You think that because you are foreign, because you are American, people here will love you. You think all you have to do is show up and give things away. You don’t learn the right ways to do things. You’re naïve to the danger. You are unprofessional. You could have been killed back there…”

The traffic was less now, and the light was fading rapidly. Mary-Anne could see that they were on the outskirts of the city, sort of near the airport. Jean-Philippe was driving her back to the Samaritans’ Purse compound.

Stung by his harsh words, but unsure of how best to respond, Mary-Anne answered from her heart. “Not everyone can be a big and oh so mighty as MSF.” “At least we do a bit more than spend money on big teamhouses, get wasted at expat parties, and take advantage of poor, local women…” She managed a slight sneer of her own. “At least we go to coordination meetings…”

Darkness had fallen, now, and Jean-Philippe stopped the car. “Your compound is just there”, he pointed across the road and about fifty meters ahead. They were alone in the darkness. He leaned towards her and said in a hard, quiet voice:

“Next time I suggest that you stay inside the distribution site and evacuate with the rest of your team when they leave. If your little charity must insist on running distributions in Cite Soleil, then at least do the minimum to ensure your own safety. Your antics will hurt the entire humanitarian community”

Mary-Anne had had enough of his arrogance. She leaned towards him in the dark. “Next time, I suggest that you mind your own business. Our little charity could sure teach you a thing or two about actually caring for the poor”, she said hotly.

In that split nanosecond, Mary-Anne could sense something strange in the tension of the moment. Something unfamiliar, scary and erotic. Her pulse raced, and she could her face flush in the darkness. Without knowing why, she pressed her knees together.

Jean-Philippes’ face was only inches from hers. Without thinking, Mary-Anne reached around, pulled him to her, and kissed him squarely on the mouth. She could feel the stubble of his beard, taste a faint hint of tobacco, smell the musk of his sweat mixed with the dust of the field. She pressed her lips tighter. He did not try to pull away, but returned her kiss. She felt his hand, first on her upper thigh, then on her waist.

Her head swooned. Deep in her loins, Mary-Anne felt a tight, hot ache.

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