The Dew Breaker

As the title indicates, this part takes us from the end of the Duvalier regime to the present day (at least the present of the novel’s writing). It is narrated in the first person with past tense, as a sort of memoir. The narrator and his mother are hiding under a cot in their house at the start of the story. Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier and his retinue have left the country with American help very recently, and the country is in turmoil. On a more personal level, the narrator knows that a crowd rampaging nearby is searching for a man named Regulus, the father of the narrator’s best friend Romain. As a low-level thug of the Duvalier regime, Regulus has enjoyed dominating his neighbors but must now flee for his life.

Along with his mother, the narrator lives in close company with a servant girl named Rosie and his cousin Vaval. By the population density, we can tell this story takes place in Port-au-Prince. The most important citizen in the narrator’s neighborhood is Monsieur Christophe, who owns a water pumping station and profits from supplying people with public water. Rioters have opened all of the station’s valves, and the narrator enjoys thinking about Christophe’s resulting losses.

Christophe emerges and enlists the narrator to help shut off the main valve. The narrator feels compelled to help, especially due to the urging of his mother (an entrepreneurial single mother who sells various items on the street), who often receives cheaper water from Christophe than their neighbors. But the narrator, wanting to find his friend Romain, makes his escape during the effort to shut the valve.

The narrator finds Romain and at this point pauses in telling the story. He explains that he is writing in 2004 while in bed next to his wife. His name is Michel, and he intends to record his experience for his unborn son.

Michel resumes his narrative, describing Romain as a self-educated young intellectual who often quotes Voltaire and Socrates. He does not believe that things in Haiti will improve with a new government. He has stolen his mother’s supply of money and intends to escape along with Michel. As a first step, they take a cab to a hotel. It turns out that Romain orchestrated this intermediate step to encounter Christophe. Christophe, Romain reveals, is Michel’s father. Although stunned by this revelation, Michel confesses that he is not completely surprised. Romain persists in his plan to escape while Michel returns home.

There is gunfire as Michel and his mother go to sleep that night. When they awake the next morning, they learn that Regulus was confronted by a mob and shot himself in the head to escape capture. Michel closes the story by explaining the fates of the others: Romain disappeared, his mother later died of heartbreak from loving Christophe, and Christophe remains alive in the present.