chapter 17h 

(The Infarct) 

Moïse Berri 

and the Reconstruction of the Haitian 

Space Agency 

by Jude Jarda 

17h 
The Infarct 

Edmondine Belhumeur is in a very bad mood. She has been experiencing hot flushes to her face and is fairly convinced that her sugar and blood pressure levels have dropped way below normal. She just crossed the Flager Memorial Bridge in a dirty taxi with no air conditioning, squeezed between her butler, Guillermo, and a judicial adviser she just recruited in front of the unemployment office of Little Havana. The latter accepted to work for Edmondine in exchange of the Tahitian pearl necklace she was wearing. 

The wife of Ulysses Hercules shows up on Seagate Road, in Palm Beach, Florida, so she can settle the record straight on the subject of her marital status, and also to consolidate her current financial situation. Like it is stipulated in her prenuptial agreement contract, adultery constitutes a valid reason to obtain a divorce and to get close to fifty per cent of the couple's matrimonial heritage in any American Court of Justice, especially the ones located inside the Bible Belt. According to Edmondine's mother-in-law, Eudoxie Angelique Legitime, her husband had been leading an active double life behind her back for a long period of time. That shocking revelation put Guillermo in a very delicate position, because the Mexican butler was fully aware of the extramarital affairs of his boss. He was well paid to keep it quiet though. To show his neutrality, Guillermo insisted on paying for the plane tickets from Chicago to Miami. That way, he saved his completely broke employer from the humiliation of asking for a personal loan. 

Grandma Legitime, her gardener, Alejandro and her reptile pet, Mr. Norbert, are sunbathing around the pool, a glass pitcher filled with sangria nearby, a joint in each hand, enjoying the sound of a water-resistant CD player blasting some old school roots reggae music. Edmondine opens the gate of the backyard and starts ranting about her spouse's strange behaviour almost immediately. Guillermo and the lawyer stay behind, visibly embarrassed and looking sorry. Grossly, Edmondine's intentions are merely to prove that the infidelities of Ulysses Hercules are not affecting her. She wants to let everybody know that she had enough of that crazy family, and that she does not owe anyone anything. Insulted by the cold indifference and the condescending look on Eudoxie Angelique's face, who keeps savouring her drink and smoking her pot with a hypocritical smile, Edmondine decides to go further in expressing her rage. She adds a couple of unfounded accusations and highly defamatory comments about her husband's relatives, expecting to hurt or to, at least, make the old lady react a little. 

Thus, according to Edmondine, all the members of the Legitime family are sociopathic monsters and they all make her puke, beginning with her neurotic impotent husband she describes as an impulsive liar, a thief and a coward. “How many secrets can a household keep under the carpet and for how long?” she asks. Edmondine then starts to denunciate the implication of Ulysses Hercules in the Chicago Outfit and his dubious relation with William Anne Dumortier, aka Willy Bossal, practically the private owner of Gônave Island. She also brings up the bribing system implanted by Ulysses Hercules to control the ports of Miragôane and Petit-Gôave and his iron grip on customs clearance in these two communes. “What about Achilles Hector and his Emmy Award performance as an actor pretending to be a devoted man of the Church?”  Edmondine Belhumeur continues. “That evil manipulator is more of an atheist than Bertrand Russell himself; he is also a secret admirer of Richard Dawkins. His brother sells cars he would not drive; Achilles Hector sells a Jesus he believes that capitalists have invented to increase their revenues between Christmas and Easter. Pedro Francisco Maria Alvarez won a phenomenal amount of money playing the Powerball in Arizona. Achilles Hector came from the shadows and put his black widow's hands on him. The man now resides in a barrack filled with mold on a sugar cane plantation of Dajabón, in the Dominican Republic. Who owns that ranch, you may want to ask? Arcadio Enrique Jesus Mendes owns that sixteen acres ranch. That maniac is an associate of Ulysses Hercules. He imports stolen vehicles from Joliet, USA, and send them directly to shady armed factions anywhere in the Middle East. Mendes is also an important shareholder of the coffin manufacture that belongs to your brother-in-law, that bloodsucking Deodas Demosthene Legitime. Can anyone explain why Mendes, a former drug lord of Ciudad Juárez, figuring on the top ten list of the most wanted by the DEA, is involved in importing and exporting with a small artisanal coffin distributor from Montreal? Achilles Hector is always bragging about the academic success of his two daughters. If they're doing so well in school, what pushes Fredeline to work as a striper in a shabby strip club after class? And why did Delcine try to commit suicide on three occasions? Was it to escape her controlling father, who wants her to become a jurist, while she has been dreaming all her life of breeding horses on a collectivist farm? Let's not forget Jeanne d'Arc-Victoria. She arrived in West Hollywood with a suitcase filled with hopes and just enough funds to survive a couple of months. Thanks to her secret alliance with the Grosbois family, she now owns one of the biggest studio in Santa Monica and three residential towers in Marina Del Rey. Getting engage to the national president of the Filthy Cobras Motorcycle Club must have opened a lot of normally closed doors. Planning a marriage with the son of the biggest money launderer of New York City surely made it easier to obtain some interesting contracts. What about uncle Quick, Mister one thousand numbered companies? Everyone is aware that he is working hand in hand with the Kaliningrad Bratva and the Barons of Chihuahua. The Marseillan Camorrists calls him Javex, because everything he touches becomes pure and invisible in the eyes of the French government. And can the gala of the despicable souls walking on this planet take course in the absence of Leviathan in person?” Edmondine asks herself out loud. “Deodas Demosthene Legitime is the malevolent beast who sold to the best bidder, tons of United States Army's rejected and defective weapons to the wrong people in a great number of unpopular conflicts. He was implicated in wars raging in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, in Darfur, Bosnia and Chechnya. If his daughter, Evelyne Laure, chose to challenge the Himalaya without any preparation, it was solely to get some attention from him, to remind the jerk of her existence. It was in fact a call for help. Since her coming out, no one in this disturbed family has kept a healthy relationship with the poor girl. What a shame? Like if suddenly, all her being was reduced to her sexual orientation. I blame you, the Legitime clan, for the death of that promising young woman. I am going to fill up the divorce papers when I get back home in Chicago. I am going to prove to you, you old skank, that I am worth much more than you. Your incompetent son is going to end up in the streets when I'm done with him.” 
“You did not have to travel all the way from Chicago, you know?” the old lady calmly replies. “A telephone call would have been enough.” 
“I wanted to look at you in the eyes when revealing the details of the kind of divorce settlement I want to impose to Ulysses Hercules. I wanted to hear your heart break in half to the idea that I will soon become richer than you, you despising witch.” 
“You forgot to empty some of your venom on my deceased husband and on me, my dear. Would you like a drink or a puff of my blunt to revive your memory?” 
“Twenty-six times! That’s the exact number of times I have met you over the last twenty years. I have nothing to say about you, because you are a complete stranger to me. I don't know who you are. I just know that your old and that you're going to die sooner than later.” 
“Let's say that I am more foresighted than my little Hercules. After the divorce is concluded, you will get a toothbrush and some soap to clean the Augean Stables, my love. You see, besides his wardrobe, Ulysses Hercules owns basically nothing under his legal identity. Did I forget to mention the names of his three grown kids? I guess I did. Well, all his fortune is lawfully listed as theirs.” 

Edmondine Belhumeur suddenly feels an unbearable pain deep into her chest. She was obviously not prepared to absorb such an unexpected piece of information. She first thinks that this sudden ache in her thorax is caused by emotions, and that it will soon pass. So she keeps her concentration on the profound hatred she has for her mother-in-law. What Grandma Legitime just revealed to her is pretty devastating. The discomfort behind her sternum persists. The pressure on her rib cage does not improve and the cramp is getting sharper. 

“That sorceress just put me in cardiac fibrillation,” Edmondine concludes. “If I can get a bit closer and grab that old bag's neck, we will be even.” 

The side of the pool is slippery. Edmondine falls in the deep section, where the water is darker. The incident is funny at first. Everybody laughs. Everyone looks at the irritated woman, desperately fighting her way out of the water for a minute and everyone chuckles. But when they watch her go down to the bottom of the pool, her eyes wide open and her right hand under her left breast, the wings of a fly can be heard. The mouth of Edmondine Belhumeur is open and seems to spell the letter O. All the witnesses of the ongoing drowning frown and put themselves in decision mode. Like most people born close to the ocean, Edmondine never learned how to swim. She is dying right in front of them. Guillermo would like to save his boss, but he doesn't want any picture of him on the front page of the Palm Beach Post. An undocumented migrant, who entered the country illegally twenty years ago, using a catapult, saves an American citizen from certain death. Not good. Not good at all. Alejandro just paid 185 dollars for his manicure and pedicure special with Yin-Yang motifs on the big toes; and Mrs. Huang does not reimburse. That's not going to happen. The judicial adviser just remembered the fifteen reasons why he is not allowed to work in South Carolina, Georgia and the Floridian Peninsula. The three men hesitate to jump in. So Eudoxie Angelique Legitime puts out her joint, thinking about the consequences of a person drowning in her pool on her insurance fees next year. She dives in, but complains in her head that she must be the only grandmother of Palm Beach, who will be forced to use the CPR lessons of Doctor Stewart on a woman she doesn’t even like.