Chapters - Dead Love

8. Ghul-ish Thoughts (3...

I tiptoed into Lizette’s darkened bedroom, my mother’s room, one more chamber where she wrote and slept and wept away day after day of sorrow. I opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled out one of her sweaters. It was wine-red, not black like the short-sleeved crepe...

8. Ghul-ish Thoughts (2...

“You, skulking out there on the terrace, shut that door,” Mother’s friend said to the gardener. The friend was thin, pale and dark-haired like my mother. She wore a black suit, black hat, sheer black stockings, black heels. The gardener, a bony little man, nodded respectfully...

8. Ghul-ish Thoughts...

At his point I think I should tell you a thing or two about ghouls . . . or ghuls, as they are known in some parts of the world. I know about them from my mother’s books—the only part of her sizable estate that my father managed to miss. There were three small books on this...

7. Arnotine Ferucand (8...

They were ready to leave at five p.m. Two first-class seats had been reserved and that was a good thing, since the fat woman would not have fit into a coach seat. Ryu was worried, in fact, about getting her onto the plane. The desk clerk, whose name was Clément, was getting ready...

7. Arnotine Ferucand (7...

“Oh, now you’re in trouble,” roared the woman rubbing her blubbery jaw. “I’m gonna tell on you.” She settled herself onto the bed, which sagged wearily beneath her. “Turn on the air conditioning,” she ordered. “It’s hot in here.” It was 2:45 p.m. Ryu had already...

7. Arnotine Ferucand (6...

He had booked a room on the third and top floor of the balconied and turreted building and this, in light of the weight of his guest, proved to be a significant error. Not as large an error, however, as getting into a rickety old elevator with a 500-plus-pound woman. The elevator,...

7. Arnotine Ferucand (5...

The hotel was located on the corner of Rue Pinchinat and Rue Lamarre just next to Place St. Pierre in the slightly upscale suburb of Pétionville. The large woman by now smelled far worse than before and, upon entering the hotel, took to making antics and carrying on. The hotel clerk,...

7. Arnotine Ferucand (4...

The drive back to Port-au-Prince was repugnant. It was almost impossible to get the large woman into the car. Upon seeing her, the translator had crossed himself once, crossed himself again, and deserted at the first opportunity, leaving Ryu alone with the human hippopotamus for the...

7. Arnotine Ferucand (3...

“Yes,” said the large woman, poking at the body with her surprisingly tiny foot, “that is Arnotine. Ah, Ryu,” she continued in Creole, “you are disappointed, eh, and maybe a little confused?” “You speak Japanese,” Ryu reminded, hoping to persuade her into his language. “Sometimes,...

7. Arnotine Ferucand (2...

The bottom of things—at this point the fat woman raised her enormous bottom from a chair that looked as small as a bicycle seat beneath the grand expanse of her haunches. Standing on what seemed to be a pair of ridiculously small and inappropriately sized feet clad in red tennis...