Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti

by Ted Oswald

  — So you told him where I live?

  — No, Gracita said. I lied, said I didn’t know.

  — Why?

  — I didn’t think he was up to any good.

  — But why would you look out for me?

  She sighed. Look, Libète. I don’t like you. But we’re both from Bwa Nèf. We need to watch out for one another with everything going on. It seems like you’re at its center.

  —Mèsi, Libète murmered.

  Gracita nodded. Just be careful, she said before running back to Rit and Therese, leaving Libète to wonder where Jak was and what would happen should this dark man find her.

  **

  After more fruitless searching for her friend, Libète decided to try one place she was always reluctant to visit: Jak’s home.

  It was a desperate and dilapidated structure, seeming capable of collapse with a mere push, though it had weathered years of tropical storms and hurricane winds. A lean-to shelter, it consisted of a sheet of corrugated aluminum propped up against the large wall of a U.S.-financed community toilet built some years ago, disused since MINUSTAH troops shot it up. The only things supporting the sheeting were two wooden poles pushed into the soft ground, latched to the metal with a few strands of fraying rope. Jak always sought places to sleep away from here, even preferring the open air. This was not because of the cramped quarters, but because his grandmother, his sole family member in Cité Soleil, was utterly insane.

  Libète nervously approached and saw the frail woman seated on a fold-out stool in front of a tiny stove. She was fanning charcoal embers to roast two ears of corn. She and Jak had scraped by day-to-day and year-to-year thanks to the kindness of neighbors who gave what rice or beans they could spare. She was harmlessly senile when Libète had first come to Bwa Nèf. This was not so any more.

  — …I will not do it, I will not! she shouted vociferously at some unseen villain. She spun abruptly, her attentions fixed upon the small girl walking timidly toward her. You! Who are you?

  — Grann, it is me, Libète. Jak’s friend. I’m looking for him.

  — Who is Jak?

  — Your grandson.

  — Ah, I had a grandson. In another life. That was before I spent my days digging the Panama canal.

  Libète had no idea what addled visions occupied the woman’s mind.

  — No, no. You have a grandson, in this life. He’s called Jak.

  — The malaria—those damned mosquitoes killed so many in Panama. So, so many.

  — Grann. I need Jak. Have you seen Jak?

  The old woman’s face crinkled further. Shut your mouth you insolent child! You speak directly to a queen when I must give you permission to speak!

  — A queen?

  — I am the crowned queen of Belgium, you fool. And the king as well. I am both, was both, am both, in other lives, and this one. That is to say I am both.

  Libète’s fragile state cracked further. She gripped the side of her dress in her fist. You’re crazy! You hear me! You make no sense!

  — You wretched, wretched girl! she shouted. It’s your fault. You! Your fault!

  Libète calmed for an instant. What are you talking about?

  — Lopital! Lopital! My Jak, you wretched little bitch, he is in the hospital, this morning, because of you and your meddling.

  — The hospital? Grann, is he really there? Or are you imagining things?

  — Didn’t I say as much? Are you deaf, you stupid girl? Get out of here you brat, you bitch, you have caused me such pain, oh, like a knife, slowly peeling back my skin!

  Libète rushed to the woman, shaking her. What happened to him? Tell me what happened!

  — I will not. I will not do it!

  Libète’s patience was at an end. She kicked over the small stove, sending corn and embers flying. The old woman looked at her, her lip trembling furiously. Anger soon turned to quiet sobbing and she pushed Libète away.

  — I am sorry, I am sorry, I am so, so sorry, Grann.

  She tried to collect the charcoal, corn, and her own composure.

  — Forgive me, please, I was wrong for doing that, forgive me, Libète pleaded.

  — The boy’s leg, the old woman choked out through her tears. A man. Came in the night.

  — Yes?

  — He destroyed the boy’s leg.

  **

  Libète finds Jak conscious at St. Sebastian’s hospital, a Catholic-run institution in Project Droulliard.

  He lays on a bed with thin white linens in a large ward filled with other sick and injured souls. His body is bruised, and an immense cast has engulfed his left leg, running from his heel to his hip. Regardless of what she says, Jak turns his face from her.

  — Jak, please, she pleads. What happened to you? No one here can tell me.

  He finally turns his head, his eye and cheek swollen and black, locking eyes with her. Suddenly, she can’t help but look away herself.

  — I will tell you. But then you must go.

  She gulps. Whatever you want.

  — A man came, pulled me out of my house. His speech is monotone, each word like the dull beating of a tired drum. I was asleep. I tried to yell but he covered my mouth and I could not do it. He beat me until I could not make a sound. He snapped my leg with his bare hands. I summoned everything inside me and screamed, just once. A neighbor came calling, Mesye Jeune. He scared the man off. He would have killed me if Jeune had not come.

  Libète covers her mouth with her hand in horror.

  — I am so sorry, she whispers.

  She knows immediately that this is her fault too, that Jak was another casualty on an ever-growing list of people Libète’s actions had ruined.

  — I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Now go.

  — But Jak—

  — Go.

  — But I can’t—

  — Leave me.

  She had never seen him exhibit such quiet anger. She stepped back, nearly stumbling, before taking several bold and determined steps away from his bed and out the ward. By the time she reached the dusty road outside, she could save face no longer.

  She crumpled on the side of the road and cried.

  The fighting in Bwa Nèf finally stopped. The radio tells anyone who will listen the “official” story of the December 22 U.N. raid in all its euphemistic glory.

  The “operation” in Bwa Nèf and Drouillard, it is explained, was an anti-kidnapping effort, meant to open up the main road leading to Bwa Nèf in the “fiefdom of the Belony gang” and “restore order.” There is no mention of the deaths of civilians and innocents, only “criminals and their supporters.” The language and logic of violence is a perverse one, its lexicon lacking the word “truth.”

  As Libète stepped out of doors, the stories heard in the street were different. Some said that the U.N.’s justification was a tank set ablaze by protesters (the U.N. denied this). Bullets—errant or deliberate, no one knew—had punctured cisterns and water pipes, and there were already shortages as people queued up for hours. She looked upon the ground and saw countless bullet casings the UN’s 50-mm machine guns spewed out and left behind. Still feverish and reeling from the murders outside her door, she shook her head.

  People were still bringing out the dead and injured though no one had yet claimed San Figi. In fact, not a single neighbor could recall seeing the woman before. She and the dead youth, a boy named Guillaume, had been scooped up by volunteers, their corpses taken away to rot in the morgue. They left behind patches of dried blood, and Libète took it upon herself to scrub them away, the closest she could come to laying San Figi to rest.

  While finishing the strenuous work, she looked up to see Davidson coming down the lane. He was harried, but relieved to see Libète appeared well.

  — Davidson! We were worried!

  — I know—I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner. How is manman?

  — She’s alright, sitting inside, crying a bit, then praying a bit, then crying some more. Your papa is with her. Dav
idson nodded. How are you? Where have you been? she asked.

  — Things got crazy over on the south side where I got stuck at Lolo’s. There was a massive shootout that woke us up, out near that tall empty store Belony uses at the edge of the grasses. The U.N. rolled up in their tanks, surrounded it, and just started letting loose. They were the first shots fired—as far as we can tell they set the whole thing off.

  The little girl shrunk, fearing what Davidson would say next.

  — We watched it all happen, knowing that whoever was inside was getting ripped to pieces by those machine guns. Lolo and I went over this morning and checked it out, before anyone took the bodies away. The building is falling to pieces now—probably hundreds, thousands of bullet holes. We looked inside, and man, it was a bloodbath. Turns out it was six of Evens’ people, from over in Boston, even one of his big lieutenants.

  Libète tried to hide her dismay. It was certain. Evens’ men! The Dominikèn! The Peace Meeting!

  — Was Touss there? she blurted out. Is he one of the dead?

  — What would make you ask such a thing? No, Libète, just Evens’ men. Hard to make out their faces though. He grimaced. There’s no way I’m getting in with any of those gangs—I don’t want to meet an end like that.

  Davidson squeezed Libète’s shoulder before stepping into the house.

  Libète felt faint. Touss must have tipped the U.N. off! And she had been used by Touss to lure the men to their deaths in that old building, now their tomb.

  Bondye, she prayed breathlessly, wiping her burning forehead with her wrist before recoiling at the sight of her own hands. They, like her dress, were covered in blood and water.

  Leaving the hospital, Libète flees to her fort and remains there even now. It is an impossibly long day, stretching and blurring just as when her mother died and she was first brought to Cité Soleil.

  This building is many things to her.

  It was a store some years before, then a memorial for the five young men and one woman cut down there three years earlier. She had tried to reclaim it, to make it a place of laughter and escape. But now, miserable in its damp cold, she realizes that the fort remains a place of death. First brought upon others when trying to save herself those years before, death and despair are visited upon others again when she tried to vindicate the murdered. All in the name of good, all for the sake of the dead.

  It is a horrible place, but also her place.

  She stands and trudges through the wet marshlands, crossing the wide open expanse and the sea of rubbish deposited there. The Sun continues shining flippantly, ignorant of the dank anger inside her soul. Crashing into the tall reeds, she thrashes about and tears through them as if they are sworn enemies till she finds the spot, that vile, damned spot where it all started.

  It looks as it did when she dreamt of it those few weeks prior.

  She collapses and weeps bitterly, for the dead, for all who she had hurt or caused to be hurt, for her beloved mother, her absent father, and the pain of life in Bwa Nèf. Tears flow like a relentless, untamable river, wetting the same dirt and mud that previously absorbed Claire’s blood.

  She next curses San Figi, that spirit whose haunting plunged Libète on this horrible course. God comes next, and she blames him for her pain, pounding his hard earth and ordering him to trade her worthless life and soul to make amends, to save Lolo, to heal Jak.

  She is shocked to hear a reply.

  — You shouldn’t curse your maker moments before you meet him.

  She bolts upright, certain she now faces the man Gracita described a mere 15 feet away. He smiles, broad and perverse.

  — You’ve come to kill me?

  He nods, taking a step forward. You are a very interesting girl, Libète.

  She takes one back.

  There is a vague sense of recognition, something about his voice and movements, baited hooks trying to lure past memories to the fore.

  — Ah, so you recognize me? I’m not surprised, not at all. I see your mind working, behind those wide, pretty eyes.

  Another step.

  — Still can’t place me?

  He begins to sing a familiar chorus, his eyes locked on hers:

  My hat fell off!

  My hat fell off!

  My hat fell off!

  Whoever is in behind me

  Please pick it up for me.

  The realization is like a key turning in the lock of a door.

  — I remember, she mutters. In Wharf Soleil. You followed Jak and I and Dionald. Walking past us through the fog—you’re the drunk man lost in his song.

  — Bon travay, good work! I knew it would come to you. You’re a smart one, after all. That much I’ve learned.

  — And you’re a bastard, she spat. Though fear gripped her, nearly made her double over, she could not help but rage. With that stupid grin on your face, you murdering sanmanman. You’ve been following me again, haven’t you? Hiding in the shadows like a roach?

  — Watch your mouth. I was going to let you live until you meddled too much. You should have let things play out like they were meant to. This wouldn’t have to happen.

  — Claire and her baby would still be dead. And you’d be walking around without fear of getting caught.

  He laughed.

  — Fear? Whom do I fear? Corrupt police? Two children? I fear nothing, no one. I make others fear.

  — I’m not afraid! Of course she was, but the wrongs done at this man’s hands empowered her.

  — Is that so? He pulled out a knife from behind his back, its blade glinting in the Sun. Libète shuddered, and the man relished it.

  — You’re going to cut me? Like you cut Claire, eh? Like Ezili Dantò was slashed?

  — I may cut out your tongue, but not because of Ezili. Claire was killed because it had to be that way. And what world would it be for an infant without his mother? Better he should die, too.

  — But why?

  — Why what? Why did I do it? Money. Why did I kill her the way I did? She was a symbol. The cuts I gave her—Claire you said her name was?—were a message. She stole something and planned to talk about it. This upset some people. So she lost her tongue.

  — And life.

  He shrugged, taking another step toward her.

  — You come an inch closer, and I’ll kill you, Libète growled.

  He was taken aback at her bluster before chuckling. I can make this painful. More than it has to be.

  — You can kill me! Or try! she hollered. I don’t care anymore! I thought a devil had killed those two at first, mother and child, and I see I was right. You’ll burn!

  He said nothing else. His jaw was set, a scowl etched on his face. She turned, leaving her back exposed to the man, scouring the ground wildly as he continued stepping forward. Yes, that’s it!

  Scooping up a long stone, Libète turned and took quick aim, flinging it with perfect precision at the man’s face. He recoiled, stunned, pulling his hands and the knife toward his head. She took the moment to run toward him, closing the remaining gap and head-butting his groin. He tried to swipe down with the knife and catch her, but the intense pain grabbing hold of him caused his slash to miss. He crumpled to the ground, affording Libète the briefest window to flee.

  Harnessing all possible speed, she burst through the reeds. The closest structure was her fort, a waypoint on the path back into the edges of Bwa Nèf where there would be help. She careened about through the marsh as dark mud flung into the air, splattering her entire body. She afforded herself a moment to glance over her shoulder to see him pursuing her and closing fast. A horrible realization set in: I won’t make it to Bwa Nèf before he catches me!

  She neared the fort. Instead of pushing ahead and falling into his grasp, she began to scale an inner wall. She went up effortlessly, hands and feet instantly reaching for the toe and handholds she had used to climb hundreds of times before. She slipped through a hole in the ceiling. Her pursuer closed the gap between them and now, at the wall
himself, jumped to try to catch one of her scrambling feet. While his grasping hand missed by inches, her fortunes were still bleak. She found herself trapped on the second floor, looking down upon him through broken floorboards.

  — Bitch! he shouted, spittle erupting from his mouth. He assessed how to reach her and decided to pull himself up the way she had gone. She picked up broken pieces of cinder block littering the floor, chucking them at him as he drew closer. He cursed her again, his own adrenaline and anger deflecting the pain.

  She had to escape. There was a large beam that supported the floorboards beneath her feet running perpendicular to the wall she had just climbed. The beam still stood strong even though most of the floor had fallen away long ago.

  She crossed it, balancing, knowing that she was putting herself in a corner without an apparent way out. The man, now up and through the hole, stood fuming, looking at how best to reach her and wondering if the beam would support his weight. He started crossing himself, stepping gradually to maintain his balance. Libète looked for more things to throw, but found none. She had mere seconds before he would be upon her.

  She spotted the old window. It was reachable but required stepping out upon a slight outcrop and using it to hoist herself into the window frame and back outside. It would mean a painful drop and only a few seconds’ lead, but it was her last hope.

  She sidled along the wall, stepping on the outcrop to push herself up and into the opening so that her body, halfway through, was shaped like a horseshoe. The murderer crossed the beam and was nearly upon her.

  She scrambled, struggling to right herself in the window but unable to muster the needed strength. She knew the end was close and began uttering a prayer, surely her last, asking for final forgiveness of all of the wrongs she had visited upon others, her eyes squeezed tight as she waited to feel the knife plunge into her exposed back.

  The earth and everything upon it began to tremble. Almost as if all this evil was too much for it to bear. Her prayer ceased, her eyes shot open. The shaking made the man pause his pursuit, wondering if this was divine judgment. He dropped his knife and moved toward the closest wall as the shaking continued, clinging to it in hopes it might provide some support as the world around them began falling to pieces.