A Wedding in Haiti

by Julia Alvarez

  The cry goes out that we have arrived. Men and women stop what they are doing—carrying firewood, making fires, cooking, ironing, braiding hair, sweeping, preparing coffee—to look at us. A pack of children, always the best alarm, like geese in a barnyard, race down the side hills but brake to a stop ahead of us. It’s as if we are the wedding party.

  Piti comes bounding out from the back of Eseline’s house in a white T-shirt to greet us. It’s already eight thirty, and he is not even dressed. The wedding is obviously delayed, though Piti assures us that as soon as the pastors arrive, it will begin. There is no sign of the bride’s family, and Eseline herself is off at a neighbor’s house being dressed.

  Piti calls a diminutive older couple to come forward. His mother and father, he says, introducing them to us. I embrace the thin, kerchiefed woman, whom I’ve been imagining for years praying for her son in a far-off land.

  From the introductions that follow, I know that Piti’s father has at least one other wife present, though I don’t know if this is a subsequent wife, an ex-wife, or both wives are current. There are many sisters and brothers, half brothers and sisters. It’s difficult to keep everyone straight, especially when we don’t speak Kreyòl.

  Piti disappears to get dressed, and Pablo and Charlie wander off to visit with friends. Eli and Homero and Bill and I are left with the rest of the mostly female guests, none of whom speaks Spanish or English. We glance around, not wanting to be too obtrusive, though, of course, that’s impossible. Every person with whom we make eye contact offers us his or her seat, cleaning off the spots they have vacated with facecloths, which seem to be what is used here for handkerchiefs. I respond to every look or nod with a smile like a dignitary’s wife at a function, whose only role is to look friendly.

  Several of the children are openly curious, pointing to one or another of us: Bill with his silly hat, Eli with his red hair, me with the fancy outfit and impractical sandals. One little boy stares with big, astonished eyes. When I approach him, using my rudimentary French, to pronounce myself votre amie (“your friend”—at least I think that’s what I said), he bursts into tears and runs to the safety of his mother’s lap. “He’s probably never seen a white person before,” Bill guesses.

  I’m intrigued by the motley dress of the gathering, which actually seems right in keeping with our own group’s varied wear. Many of the women are in housedresses; some in what look like summer nightgowns. One of Piti’s sisters wears a flashy shirt blazoned with a huge motorcycle and a straw hat with four plastic leaves pinned in front. Another woman has on a bright pink dress and a tiny evening purse of faux leopard skin. The female dress code seems to be to wear the best you’ve got, including some favorite accessory: a straw hat, a handbag, a beaded necklace. In contrast, most of the men are casually dressed in T-shirts, pants, and cutoffs, except for the two suits, status symbols for sure.

  While we, the women, and some older men sit, waiting, many of the young men crowd around a card table placed smack in the center of the path to the house. A domino game has been going on since we arrived. The players, who are sitting down, rotate with those standing, with no break in the playing. In fact, the game will continue throughout the wedding, the only concession being that the table will be moved out of the way to a shady spot under a mango tree.

  Eseline’s house seems to be the center hub, with paths like spokes leading off to other family houses. Down one of those paths, a woman approaches, bearing a small table on her head. The sunken top of the table is actually a canister with refreshments, which I assume will be served at the wedding. But, in fact, this turns out to be the cash bar: warm sodas, two boxes of cigarettes, penny candy, and a large jug filled with a drink no one buys, perhaps a home brew for nonevangelicals.

  As for complimentary wedding refreshments, a woman comes out of Eseline’s house with a laundry basket full of chunks of bread, which she forks out to anyone who approaches. Her red T-shirt reads ANGEL, a halo above and a wing on either end of the word. Another woman in a housedress with a kerchief tied around her head pours coffee from a white kettle, then washes the used and soon-to-be-recycled cups in a plastic basin. Mostly men and elderly women avail themselves of their services. The few young women who approach do so shyly, murmuring apologetically as if embarrassed to be enjoying other women’s hard work when they themselves are fit, able, and female.

  Meanwhile Piti’s plump baby is brought out for us to meet. Loude Sendjika, I’m told, when I ask for her name. Perhaps affected by the same terror of white skin as the little boy, she starts bawling the minute she is laid in my arms. It could also be that I’m holding her in the nursing position but have nothing to offer her. A young woman lifts her from my arms and starts nursing her. Throughout the long wait and ensuing ceremony, Loude Sendjika is handed around to whatever lactating female is close by, a great way for moms to help out the indisposed bride.

  Where is the pastor?

  It’s already after nine, and the pastor has still not arrived. Piti comes from the back of the house to check on us. The worried look in his eyes has intensified. We learn why the wedding wasn’t in Bassin-Bleu. The pastor refused to marry the couple inside a church, because, with a four-month-old, Piti and his girlfriend had obviously had relations. Instead he consented to perform the ceremony at the bride’s house. But maybe he has changed his mind?

  Another person who has not shown is Leonardo. I worry that he decided to stay away after his altercation with Bill last night. More likely, he’s making the most of his short visit. Homero mentioned an attractive young woman, joining the joyous reunion last night, a little boy and girl at her side. Maybe Leonardo is married, the spaghetti to be shared between wife and mother? At any rate, he will be returning to the Dominican Republic after a couple of weeks, using the smuggler’s route—the reason he might have needed the extra cash.

  We’ve about given up wishing the pastor would get here. But then, like the old fairy-tale warning, Be careful what you wish for, here come not one, but two, then three, and finally four more, seven pastors in all, dressed in black suits, white shirts and black ties, bearing Bibles. It turns out that only one is the pastor, the others are “predicators,” members who preach and sing and share pastoral responsibilities. Accompanying them is one woman, dressed similarly in a white blouse and black skirt, the pastor’s wife. All I can think of as they each come down the path and enter the house, nodding their greetings left and right, is: This is going to be a long service, with lots of preachers wanting to put in their word on the word of God.

  The wedding ceremony

  Finally, with less fanfare than I expected, Piti is coming down the dirt path with his beautiful bride in full regalia: a full-length long-sleeved white gown with a long train and a bouquet of artificial flowers. Behind her is Pablo, the best man, and behind Piti is an attractive woman in her forties whom I at first assume is the bride’s mother. But it turns out she is Eseline’s baptismal godmother. Eseline’s mother will not be attending the ceremony. She is too broken up about her daughter’s imminent departure, so we are told.

  We proceed inside the small house whose front room has been emptied. A white sheet covers the dirt floor; another is draped over the two chairs for the bride and groom. Two other chairs have been set up behind these, also covered with a white sheet, for Bill and me, the godparents of the wedding. I take a seat behind Piti, and Bill behind Eseline, but the pastor summons Pablo to correct the error: the godmother must sit behind the bride and the godfather behind the groom. I’m a little surprised over the exactitude of these ceremonial details in such a rough-and-ready place.

  The pastor, predicators, and closest family members find their seats on the benches and chairs lining the walls. Everyone else takes turns gawking through the four windows and doorway. Intermittently, the faces change. Someone else is given a turn to watch a part of the ceremony. The only problem is that such clustering at all apertures cuts off the ventilation and flow of air for the rest of us inside.


  The ceremony starts unpleasantly with bride and groom being reprimanded for having had relations before marriage. They must endure public humiliation as each predicator opens his remarks with a finger-wagging, punitive tone that even I, with not a word of Kreyòl, can tell is a scold.

  But finally, the tone shifts. The pastor, who looks like the oldest of these elders, keeps his rebuke brief. I wonder if it’s the old good cop / bad cop routine, and before their arrival, the pastor told his predicators: “Give them hell! And leave the rest to me.” He begins by calling out chapter and verse to one or another of his predicators, who finds the passage in his Bible and reads a sentence or two at a time. The pastor repeats the passage, then he’s off, spinning stories, enacting examples, delivering cautions that often bring the house down. Every once in a while, a grinning Piti repeats a phrase to Eseline, wagging his finger at her. No doubt we’re deep into St. Paul and his admonitions to wives to submit to their husbands, no questioning them when they say we are moving to la République in a couple of hours.

  Loude Sendjika is present, happily sucking away at some young mother’s breast. She is dressed in one of those overly frilly dresses that must be prickly and hot, and a knit cap that surely makes her even hotter. The outfit is a robin’s-egg blue, which seems a favorite shade in this area of rural Haiti: the color of many doors and shutters, of shirts and skirts and blouses, and most pervasively of the clear, endless summer sky above, which hasn’t sent down any rain in two months.

  At some point between feedings, Loude Sendjika starts to fuss. I entertain the mischievous thought of handing her over to the bride to clap to her breast, in defiance of all the scolding predicators. But the bodice of Eseline’s gown is a tight fit. And sitting behind her, I can see that she has been stitched inside a gown that is actually several sizes too big for her. It turns out to be a rental, the dress that all the young girls in the settlement have gotten married in. One size fits all, indeed.

  The best part of the ceremony, especially for those of us who don’t understand Kreyòl, is the singing. Since there are no hymnals, and most of the people gathered here could not read them anyway, one predicator or another calls out the words, and then the gathering sings them, phrase after phrase, beautiful harmonies, hypnotic repetitions, and cycling of voices. The choruses seem to go on forever, as if everyone is reluctant to leave the enchantment of the music.

  The classic moments of weddings are here—the slipping on of rings, the exchange of vows—but with slight revisions: Piti slips a ring on Eseline’s finger, but he does not get one. Later, Piti will explain that he could only afford one ring. At first, Eseline’s family had insisted on earrings as well, and this actually became a deal breaker that delayed the wedding for months. Finally, her family relented. I’m left wondering if my petitioners in Bassin-Bleu were in a similar pickle and had to produce a piece of jewelry to some demanding relation.

  As for the vows, instead of one summary vow, repeated by each partner, the pastor reads an endless list, after which each must repeat, “Wi pastè” (“Yes, pastor”). Piti’s voice is confident and resounding, Eseline’s barely a whisper. The ceremony finishes with both bride and groom kneeling on the sheet, embracing each other, while all the predicators stand and lift hands, calling down blessings on the new husband and his wife.

  But the ceremony is not over yet. A bottle of champagne is brought out and placed on a small stool in the center of the room. I’m puzzled, since Piti’s evangelical religion does not permit drinking. But again, the champagne turns out to be another import from traditional Western weddings: not quite a toast but a ceremonial drink to seal the marriage. As the godmother, I’m supposed to open the bottle, but I struggle without success.

  Bill steps forward to help me, intending to give the cork a mere twist, so I can do the rest. But the minute he turns the cap, the cork pops out and a spume of champagne sprays half the room. Whatever that means in the iconography of wedding symbols (robust sex, many children, a fountainhead of blessings), the baptism of champagne brings on a burst of laughter. A tray of four glasses is held out to me: I pour the groom and his bride each a drink, and then two others, which turn out to be for us, the god­parents. Bill and I take dainty sips, not sure if we’re meant to pass our glasses around to the assembled party.

  By now, we are sweating profusely, and although there have been resounding amens and a concluding hymn, no one makes a move to go outdoors. In fact, the bride’s father stands, inspired, to address the new couple. He is a tall, thin man, dressed in what look to be his work clothes. Since Bill and I can’t understand him anyway, we slip outside.

  Later, Piti will tell us that Eseline’s father was full of sincere congratulations. This was a big change. Earlier, his future father-in-law had been understandably dubious about this young man who had gotten his daughter pregnant. Who knew what Piti had been up to, so many years away in another country? All that time, making real money, and he couldn’t buy his bride a set of earrings! But when the community learned that Piti’s American friends and former employers were coming all the way across Haiti for his wedding, Piti’s social capital shot up. His father-in-law now feels secure entrusting his eldest daughter into his hands. This alone is worth the trip to Piti’s wedding.

  How do you say good-bye in Kreyòl?

  Soon after her father’s address, the bride makes the rounds outside, kissing everyone, accepting their good wishes, and saying her good-byes.

  Piti does not accompany her. No longer at the mercy of the pastor and predicators, he takes off to settle some last-minute business. He returns in street clothes, suitcases packed, ready to go. Eseline is hurried away by her godmother to change. But before we depart, the families insist: we must eat.

  We are ushered into the back room where a card table has been set up. Women run back and forth from the kitchen hut, carrying in plates and utensils (fork or spoon—choose, you can’t have both). The food arrives piecemeal, as each dish is ready—for we are eating ahead of the guests. First comes a pot of rice with actual beans mixed in it, in honor of the occasion; a little later, some more bean sauce; then, the goat meat; finally, a bowl of steaming boiled plantains, as if someone over at the kitchen counted up all the dishes and thought: that’s not enough.

  Piti and Eseline, now in traveling clothes, are seated at the edge of the bed, the rest of us wedged in around the table. At first, Eseline just stares down at her plate, glum and disinterested. So many monumental events packed into one day! No doubt she has butterflies in her stomach. We all urge her to eat. There is a long road ahead. This wedding meal will have to serve us until we make Cap-Haïtien tonight. Later we will regret having encouraged her.

  One traditional wedding moment Piti and Eseline will forego is the cutting and serving of the wedding cake, actually three cakes. They are stacked one above the other on a wooden stand that has been wrapped in aluminum foil to make it look festive. It seems there wasn’t enough frosting to go around, because each cake has bare patches, discreetly turned toward the wall.

  Before we leave, two of the cakes are wrapped up in the stand’s foil: one for Piti to share with his bride, the other for Bill and me. This means the rest of the guests, about sixty people, are to share the remaining one, which just doesn’t feel right. Deep down, I do believe, we all know it stinks: the injustice of how the world’s goods are distributed. But this is one of those moments when I don’t have to speak the language to know that it would be an insult for me to refuse our hosts’ generosity.

  Finally, we are good to go. How do you say good-bye in Kreyòl? Orevwa, I’m told. Orevwa, orevwa, I keep repeating, as I hug Piti’s father, Eseline’s father, and Charlie, who will be staying on to eat with the other guests. Piti’s mother and I hold each other for a second longer than just saying our good-byes. How do you say: I have often thought of you? How do you say: I understand how hard it is to see them go? When we pull apart, both our eyes are moist. This is how you say those things that are hard to say in any language
.

  Bill and Eli and I take the lead up the hillside path. It is high noon. Stopping to rest on a hilltop, we can see the small house in the clearing, the guests gathering under the awning, beginning to be served their dinner.

  Below us, coming up the path is the wedding party: close friends and family accompanying the couple to the road where the pickup is parked. Pablo is carrying the suitcase in which the couple’s and the baby’s belongings have been packed. Another friend carries the two cakes, the third the bottle of champagne. In a pink dress with matching headscarf comes Eseline with her baby under a matching pink parasol. Bringing up the rear is her favorite sister, Rozla, the one who follows her in the family of six girls, one son. She is wearing a salmon dress that matches Eseline’s in every detail but color. The two sisters are the same build, the same height, similar features. In fact, an outsider who has yet to learn to look at people of a different race might mistake them for each other.

  At the road, the sisters embrace. As Eseline climbs into the pickup, stony-faced, her sister collapses, weeping at the foot of a mango tree. They have no idea when they will see each other again. How will they survive this cruel separation? Two sisters who have spent their whole lives together, “two lovely berries molded on one stem, . . . two seeming bodies, but one heart,” as Shakespeare describes that intense female bond in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is not just marriage that can make one soul out of two separate beings.

  Piti tries to comfort his new sister-in-law, then Pablo tries. There is no consoling her, so I don’t know why I even try. I put my arms around her, and even though she can’t understand my Spanish, I promise her that I will take care of her sister. No harm will come to her or to Loude Sendjika.

  Tomorrow, when we arrive at the border, without a shred of evidence that these are Piti’s wife and child, when we are frustrated with Piti for putting his young family and us in this predicament, when the most convenient thing would be to just give them some money and let them find their own way back to Moustique or across the river with untrustworthy smugglers at night, I will remember this promise to Eseline’s sister. I will not abandon them. Not that I could have done otherwise, even had I not promised. There is a bottom line below which you cannot go and still call yourself a human being.