The young pharmacist with icy hands
recommended Buscopan
and amoxicillin three times a day.
Next door I bought a bottle of water
and began the treatment immediately.
I run to the hotel bathroom and settle in comfortably. I might be in for quite a stay. I look around and on the window ledge I discover an old issue of
Historia
that tells me everything about Himmler's ascension through the Third Reich and the court rivalry, at the end, when they were done in like rats in the bunker. It was understood that the war was lost when Nazi officers started dressing without first taking a shower. I thought of my teenage years, when those stories fascinated me, which threw my mother into despair since she was scared silly of everything that had to do with politics in any form. Strangely she stopped worrying about me once I published my first article in
Le Nouvelliste.
It was a long literary commentary about
Ficus,
a novel that had just come out. In any other country, literary criticism would not have been a dangerous vocation, except for the risk of getting slapped by a parlor poet offended by some unflattering comment about his latest volume. But not in Haiti. My article provoked two reactions that were decisive for my career. The first came from Professor Ghislain Gouraige, the author of the monumental
History of Haitian Literature (from independence to the present)
that we studied in school, and who congratulated me for the originality of my opinions even as he pointed out a dozen errors of fact. That was followed the same day by a summons to the barracks of Major Valmé. According to established criteria, I had arrived.
My mother, trembling but determined, accompanied me to the office of the fearsome Major Valmé. I was exceedingly calm. The Major called for a coffee for my mother but did not allow her to attend the interrogation that was to be “a friendly conversation between two true lovers of literature.” My mother insisted, but the Major asked a non-commissioned officer to look after her. All this kind attention, instead of reassuring her, only increased her anxiety. But the conversation with the Major went well and did not go much beyond the subject of literature. As for the novel by Rassoul Labuchin, his opinion differed from mine. For him, Labuchin's real project was not literary but political. Did I know that the author had spent time in Moscow? And that he was the confidant of the communist writer Jacques Stephen Alexis? In my opinion, General Sun, My Brother by Jacques Stephen Alexis is one of the most beautiful novels in Haitian literature. Quite spontaneously he replied that his preferences leaned toward Romancero aux étoiles. Mauriac was his favorite writer. Mauriac's description of the bourgeoisie of Bordeaux reminded him of his own adolescence in the provinces. He ended the conversation by congratulating me on my “clear and readable style so unlike the usual Haitian manner.” I was impressed by the man's elegance and culture, though I did not forget that he ran Papa Doc's torture chambers. At times we heard screams coming from nearby rooms. Still, I continued to believe that literature would save me from all harm. On our return, my mother, too overwrought to ask me what was said in the office, took me out for a sandwich and a Coca-Cola and even wanted to buy me cigarettes. I wrote a literary column in the weekly Le Petit Samedi Soir until my colleague Gasner Raymond was murdered by the Tonton Macoutes on June 1, 1976, on the beach at Léogâne. I went into exile immediately afterward, in Montreal.
Learning of my intestinal misadventures
the hotel owner advises a rigorous diet.
I should stay in my room for the time being.
If only to be close to the bathroom.
Bored with the prison of my room,
I go down to the hotel bar.
A little
TV
perched on a shelf
is broadcasting the funeral of that young musician
killed last night in a car crash.
People are no longer used to
death by natural causes
if a spectacular collision
can be considered
as a natural not a political cause.
I read in the paper
that there were five of them in the car
but we'll remember the one whose
fiancée killed herself when she heard the news.
To remain in popular memory
events must have brutal connections.
Love riding on death.
It's true I pay attention only to the
apocalyptic images that cross my field of vision.
I don't listen to rumors and I'm indifferent to ideology.
Diarrhea is my only involvement
in Haitian reality.
From time to time the old servant woman, not as old as the owner but more workworn, brings me a very bitter liquid to drink. The older the women are, the more unpalatable their remedies. The owner whispers to me to pour it down the sink and go on taking my medicine. She recommends restâthe country won't disappear in a week. How can I explain to her that time has become an obsession for me? We are not living in the same time frame even if we are in the same room. The past, though it defines how we make sense of the present, does not have the same weight for everyone.
I turn in circles in this room.
My security perimeter
is shrinking ever smaller.
I'll write a book about life
around the hotel.
A man by the hotel entrance
looks at me a while
though he can't quite remember who I am.
He reminds me of someone too.
It takes us five minutes to
bring blurry images from the past to the surface.
To think we were inseparable at one time.
We smile, then say goodbye.
As if we had never seen each other.
The only way to preserve the little that's left.
This narrow street
was a wide avenue
in my memory.
Only the thick bougainvillea bush
remains the same.
I used to hide behind it
to watch Lisa who
I was already in love with.
I notice that some details
change into emotion
depending on the color of the day.
I see yellow like a drunk man.
That's the state of someone with a fever too.
I make myself a rum punch and lie down.
In the darkness, I feel a hand on my forehead.
I pretend to sleep.
The two old ladies are close by.
They evaluate the situation.
Nothing too serious.
The fever has broken, one of them says.
I hear them go slowly down the stairs.
Galloping Rain
Suddenly the first raindrops fall and everyone runs for shelter under the marquee of the Paramount movie house. For a while, the guy at the ticket counter must think that Godard has become the star of Port-au-Prince. Once the danger passes, I am the only one who stays to watch
La Chinoise
in the giant theater filled with red staved-in seats.
After the film, I want to walk in the rain.
Up ahead, kids dance
naked under a curtain of water.
The rain gallops toward me.
I hear its music.
An emotion that rises up from childhood.
I go to those kids
playing soccer
in the rain.
Time is fluid.
It's not that easy
to be in the same place
as your body.
Space and time united.
My mind begins to find rest.
Recovered is the primitive energy
I thought I'd lost
and the wonderment
I felt so long ago
watching the red top
that consumed my childhood
as it turned so fast before my wondering eyes.
Early in the morning
the little girl tries
to light the fire
to make the coffee
that will begin the day
for so many.
We climbed and climbed
the flank of this deforested mountain.
Our necks sweaty.
Noon beating in our throats.
Then at the summit, we discovered
the sea languorously
stretched out along the bay
like a courtesan
on her day off.
Nature immobile.
The sky
the sea
the sun
the stars
and the mountains.
I'd see the same thing
if I returned in a century.
I stand for a while
in this fine drizzle,
my face lifted to the sky.
Naked children from nearby streets
come and encircle me
as if I were a strange apparition.
I speak to them in Creole but that doesn't work.
Their astonishment keeps me at a distance.
That's when I understand
that speaking Creole is not enough
to become a Haitian.
In fact it's too vast a name
to apply to real life.
You can be Haitian only outside of Haiti.
In Haiti people try to find out
if they're from the same city
the same sex
the same generation
the same religion
the same neighborhood as others.
Those young boys who danced naked
in the rain, I decide
as I go back to the hotel,
did not want any adults to join their game.
Childhood is an exclusive club.
A Carefree Young Woman
I arrive at the hotel completely soaked and find my sister deep in conversation with the owner. We go up to my room so I can change. She stopped by after work to check up on me because my mother was starting to worry. In a dream she pictured me in some danger. That's because now I'm in her sensitive zone. During the years I spent in Montreal, she never seemed so concerned as she is now when I'm only ten minutes away. You're wrong, my sister tells me, she's been worrying ever since you left. I'll go see her tomorrow. My sister isn't fooled by my mother's subtle emotional blackmail. She knows her well. She has to come home at the same time every day, otherwise my mother gets it into her head to go looking for her in the streets of Port-au-Prince. How do you search for someone in a city of more than two million? My mother does just that. And nine times out of ten, she'll find my sister.
One of my aunts told me that back when my father was still there, my mother was a carefree young woman. Capricious even. She lost her job after her husband left. She expected as much, but she always thought she'd find something in the private sector. But the dictator had erased the line between public and private. There was nothing but Duvalier, everywhere. Even behind closed doors. People whispered that he could hear what was being said in the bedroom. All territories belonged to him. That was the beginning of my mother's long descent. It took decades of anxiety, frustration, humiliation and daily struggle to turn this proud and resistant woman into the fragile, worried little bird she has become.
My father always wanted my mother to join him. Despite her wild need to see him again, she did not want her children to grow up in exile. She wanted to give us a sense of country. One night when I was sleeping near her, I heard her murmur in a soft voice that she'd love to touch his face one last time. My father's features were imprinted on her retina. She missed the weight of his body. She held fast for nearly half a century, divided between her man, her children and her country. She had all of them at once for only a brief time.
I can't seem to have a personal conversation with my sister. We understand each other too well. I can follow the arc of her life even if I don't know the events that shape it. Our relationship moves between the closeness of our adolescent years and the distance forced on us by exile. A good deal of that oscillation is due to the fact that we didn't spend our childhood years together. She stayed in Port-au-Prince with my mother, while I was sent to my grandmother's in Petit-Goâve. We spent our nights telling ourselves stories. We go about it differently. She tells; I analyze. I give importance to a minor event by tying it to a chain of events that are just as minor. I believe that stories aren't necessarily big or small but that they're all linked together. The ensemble forms a hard and compact mass that we can call, for convenience's sake, life.
My sister and I form a single person. The only thing we can't share is my father. I've always suspected her of hoarding images of my father in action. If anyone could remember his face, it would be her, even if she's a year younger. I was in Petit-Goâve when my father was in Port-au-Prince. He lived with my mother and my sister in a big wooden house on Magloire-Ambroise Avenue. My sister was three years old and I was four. She's always maintained she can remember my mother's voice when she was nursing her. And I've always been the only one in the family who believes her. As for me, I remember nothing, except what my mother has told me. Knowing my sister's exaggerated sensitivity to detail and absolute olfactory abilities, I'm willing to bet she remembers my father's smell. We can't speak of his death because we shared nothing of his life.
Aunt Ninine takes me aside. She carefully closes her bedroom door. We stand in the middle of the room. Suddenly, she attacks. You have to save Dany. I have to save myself from what? I'm talking about your nephew, you have to save Dany. From what? You have to do something for him. I don't understand. He has to leave this place. We decide people's destinies here? He's twenty-three years old but his opinion doesn't count. His life doesn't belong to him. He absolutely has to leave this place, my aunt repeats. What's the point, I think, if it only means returning thirty-three years later like me? My mother comes into the room wearing her mischievous smile. Aunt Ninine immediately begins talking about her health. My mother can feel that something is going on and she leaves us to our discussion. I head for the door to escape what's coming. Just as I'm about to cross the threshold, Aunt Ninine grabs me by the arm. Something tells me that, even if my nephew's future is important for her, it is not her only concern. Zachée called about your father. Your mother needs your support now. Even if he did disappear, your father was the only man in this house. Her way of blaming me for my absence these last few days, or would that be the last three decades?