Americans invaded in 1994 they called the mansion-dwellers of Petionville MREs – morally repugnant elites – and Jean-Claude was classed among them.
Maybe that was why his brain had come up with the Secret Chamber, as a way to make amends. He could not imagine where else the idea could have come from: it seemed to arrive in his head fully formed, nothing to do with him.
The chamber was, in fact, a single-storey building, painted white. It looked like a glorified hut, no more noticeable than a bus shelter. Crucially, there were entrances on all four sides which were open at all times.
The system was simple. At any moment, the rich could come in and leave money inside the chamber. And, also at any moment, the poor could come in and take what they needed.
The beauty of it was its anonymity. The doors operated on an automatic-locking system that ensured only one person could be inside the chamber at any one time. That way a giver and a receiver were guaranteed never to meet. The wealthy would not know who had benefited from their largesse; the deprived would not know who had helped them. Port-au-Prince’s well-off would not get the chance either to lord it over their beneficiaries or to judge them insufficiently needy. And the city’s impoverished would be spared the sense of indebtedness that can make charity so humiliating.
The four doors were the finishing touch. It meant that there could never arise, not even informally, a givers’ entrance or a receivers’ entrance; it was too random for that. And so, if you saw someone walking in or out, you had no idea what kind of errand they were on.
There was only one more thing Jean-Claude had to do to make it work. He had to exploit a Haitian national trait, one that applied as much to the SUV-drivers of Petionville as the searingly poor of Cité Soleil: superstition.
He spoke to the healers and voodoo priests whose writ ran among the MREs, slipping a few dollars to those with a knack for spreading the word. Before long the wealthiest folk in Port-au-Prince came to believe that they would be cursed if they did not visit the Secret Chamber and do the right thing.
So Jean-Claude smiled as he stood inside the chamber now, looking at a bowl filled with US dollars as well as local currency and even the odd item of jewellery. Those outside assumed he was another visitor; his own role in setting up the chamber had remained unknown to all but the handful of holy men whose PR skills he had enlisted.
He was picking up a discarded food wrapper from the floor when the lights flickered and went off. With all four doors closed, the room was now in complete darkness. Jean-Claude silently cursed the electric company.
But it did not stay dark for long. Someone struck a match, just behind him. The power failure must have short-circuited the automatic locks, allowing this man to gain access.
‘I’m sorry, sir. Only one at a time, that’s the rule.’
‘I know the rule, Monsieur Paul.’ The voice was unfamiliar; speaking French not Creole.
‘Well, perhaps I’ll leave and then you can do what you need to do.’
‘For that I need you here.’
‘No, no. It’s all private and confidential, my friend. That’s why we call this the Secret Chamber. It’s secret.’
The match had burned out now, shrouding the chamber once more in perfect black.
‘Hello? Are you still here?’
There was no answer. Not a sound, in fact, until the gasp of Jean-Claude’s own breath as he felt two strong hands on his neck. He wanted to protest, to ask what he had done wrong, to explain that this man could take all the money he needed – there were no restrictions, no maximum. But the air would not come. He was rasping, a sandy, dry exhalation that barely sounded human. His leg was trembling, his hand clinging onto the forearm of this man who was strangling him.
But it was no good; darkness came upon darkness. He slumped to the floor. The stranger lit a new match, crouched down and closed the dead man’s eyes. He murmured a short prayer, then straightened himself up and shook the dust off his clothes. He headed for the door he had used to come in, taking care to reconnect the circuit he had broken a few minutes earlier. And then he stepped out into the night, anonymous and unseen, just as Jean-Claude Paul had intended.
Saturday, 8.49am, Manhattan
When they talked in the night TC had not been that interested in Yosef Yitzhok. She was focused on the rabbi and on everything that happened inside the classroom and later at the mikve. Now, though, she trained the full beam of her intellect on the encounter that had concluded Will’s brief and unhappy stay at Crown Heights.
‘You’re wrong about one thing,’ she told Will rapidly. ‘It doesn’t make sense for Yosef Yitzhok to have brought in the paper just to make the point that you work for the New York Times, and therefore they’ve got to be careful. They already knew you worked for the Times. They sent that very first email to your Times address. That much they had worked out. So as soon as they realized you were not Tom Mitchell but were Will Monroe, they knew exactly who they were dealing with. Beth’s husband. A reporter for the Times.’
‘So why did they have a copy of my story laid out? Why had Yosef thingy brought it in?’
‘You don’t know he brought it in. Might have been in there throughout.’
‘No, I definitely—’ Will stopped himself. After the Rebbe fiasco, there was nothing he knew for definite. He thought he had heard the arrival of a new person in the room, the rustling of paper and a row – but he had not seen that. He might have just got it wrong.
‘So what did Yosef Yitzhok – we’ll call him YY, it’ll save time. What did YY say to you outside?’
‘He apologized for what had happened inside. At the time I thought that was bullshit and I ignored it. But maybe that was his way of telling me he disagreed with what was happening. Maybe he’s a dissenter! Perhaps he can help. You know, from the inside.’
‘Will, I know you’re stressed out but we really have to keep it cool and calm. This is not the movies. Just tell me what he actually said.’
‘OK, so there’s the apology. And then there’s this stuff about my work. ‘If you want to know what’s going on, look to your work.’
‘Hmm.’ TC began pacing, stopping by a painting she had done of the Chrysler Building apparently melting in the twilight rain. ‘So he’s seen your story in the paper; he knows what you do. It’s possible he didn’t know that until that moment.’
‘I thought you said they knew the moment they emailed me.’
‘That’s true. They knew. The rabbi and whichever one of his techie helpers sent you the email knew. But this guy might not be inner circle. It may have been news to him.’
‘So it’s possible that he was steaming in there, warning them that I was a reporter and could make trouble.’
‘It’s possible. But something about it doesn’t feel right. If he’s in the room, he must be trusted enough to know what’s going on. It must be something else. But OK, let’s say you’re right. He doesn’t like what’s happening and so he breaks Shabbat to tell you urgently that you must not give up. Why would he do it in code? You know, foot runs?’
‘Just in case someone read it over his shoulder. Or saw it in his “Sent messages”.’
‘All right. I’ll buy that. And I suppose the thing he said to you last night – “look to your work” – is related. Perhaps he’s telling you to do what you do in your work: to keep looking, keep asking questions.’
‘I reckon that’s it. Don’t stop, keep probing.’
‘Good. So that’s what it is. OK.’ Will could see she was only partly persuaded. ‘What do