Over the Waters

by Deborah Raney

  Brightly painted tap-taps, Haiti's version of the taxicab, cruised by, their sides serving as canvases for vivid, artsy paintings and scrawling Creole calligraphy. The drivers tooted their horns capriciously, and looked as if they were having a contest to see which of them could cram the most people--not to mention chickens, pigs and goats--aboard. Many of the tap-taps carried an overflow of passengers perched precariously on their rooftops.

  Valerie peered out the van's window at the primitive panorama, feeling as though she had gone back in time. An unexpected sense of adventure welled up inside her.

  As the Volkswagen slowed to a crawl in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, Betty Greene turned to lean over her seat, providing a colorful, rambling travelogue. Valerie took in the bustling, ever-changing kaleidoscope of scenery with her mouth agape.

  In this part of the city the streets were lined with simple buildings that appeared to be cobbled together with cement blocks, sheets of tin and whatever other materials were at hand. Many of the primitive shops had open doorways, and every available space seemed occupied by a business of some sort. Several proprietors' kiosks were no more than blankets spread on the sidewalk, on which they displayed their wares--plucked chickens, fish, beads, hats and sandals and heavy bunches of bananas displayed on cane poles.

  At one street corner, two young boys hawked bottles of soda, the clickety-clack of a bottle opener against glass creating their own advertising jingle. A woman balanced a heavy pitcher and a collection of battered tin cups on a tray. "She makes her living selling water by the cup," Betty Greene said. "And whatever you do, don't ever buy from her."

  "Why?"

  The older woman chuckled. "Didn't anyone tell you? You'll need to drink bottled water. Your stomach won't be accustomed to all the bacteria beasties here."

  "Oh. Of course." Valerie had read the warning in the information she'd been sent, but her mind was spinning, trying to take in everything at once.

  She turned her gaze back to the city streets outside the window. Every pedestrian and many of the bicyclists carried personal cargo of some type. Gaunt burros served as beasts of burden, clopping along beside women and children who balanced baskets and plastic buckets gracefully atop their heads. Their containers overflowed with anemic-looking fruits and vegetables, grains and bread. Water sloshed from some of the buckets.

  Goats and dogs seemed to roam the streets freely. Once, when traffic came to a standstill, Valerie looked down a narrow alleyway to spy a pig rooting in a garbage heap swarming with flies. Beside the pile of decaying refuse, a stunning magenta bougainvillea bush blossomed.

  As they neared the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, the landscape changed. Here the countryside was stark and barren. Scruffy palm trees poked up occasionally amid the rubble and rubbish that littered the terrain, but the earth was brown and devoid of grass.

  Valerie was tempted to let the desolate landscape paint her attitude with the same drab brush, but then she started watching the pedestrians who seemed to be everywhere. The Haitian people were the flowers on the landscape, more than making up for any appearance of dreariness. Their garments were in brilliant reds and yellows, rich purples and aquas. They wore tropical prints and paisleys together in pleasantly clashing combinations. And the wide smiles the children flashed punctuated their musical chatter.

  Once, when they slowed to let another vehicle pass at a crossroads, several young boys clambered onto the back bumper of the Volkswagen and peered in through the windows. She waited for the Greenes to stop and reprimand them, but Pastor Phil drove on, gunning the engine as though he had no clue of his stowaways. Valerie held her breath as the boys rode several hundred feet before bailing off as the van picked up speed.

  The Volkswagen bounced along for another twenty minutes, then turned sharply onto a street that would barely have classified as an alley in Kansas City. Pastor Phil slammed on the brakes, and Valerie gasped and grabbed the back of the seat as they narrowly avoided running down a teenager balancing a wheelbarrow filled with cinder blocks. The boy merely laughed at the close call, and bumped his cargo on down the lane.

  In her mind, Valerie composed an e-mail to Will: Dearest Will, I've discovered an adrenaline rush better than anything you've ever experienced. So there! Nanny nanny boo boo. She smiled at the childish thought, but she suddenly missed Will dreadfully. She wondered what he was doing right now. Had he thought of her as often today as she'd thought of him?

  "We're almost there." Betty Greene's voice broke through the encroaching loneliness, reminding her that she had made a decision--one she knew was right. She would not look back.

  The Volkswagen turned onto an even narrower lane and drove alongside a high cement block wall. Excitement rose in Valerie. She could scarcely believe she was here. A bright sign announced Orphelinat d'Espoir.

  "Hope House is here on your right," Pastor Greene said, glancing at her over the back of the driver's seat. "You can see that you will be safe here. The gates to the compound are always closed and locked."

  He turned into the drive, announcing their arrival with three sharp blasts on the horn. Behind the bars, a Haitian man trotted toward them and swung the gate open.

  Something on the top of the wall flashed and glimmered as the sunlight caught it. Valerie realized with a shiver that the top of the wall was embedded with metal spikes and razor-sharp shards of broken glass. Her excitement turned to alarm. What have I gotten myself into?

  She thought the same thing that night as she settled into the nine-by-nine-foot room that would be her home for the next two weeks. She pulled back the thin blanket on her cot and was startled by what seemed to be an entire colony of tiny black ants. Ants she could handle, but as she brushed the insects from the sheet, her eye caught movement on the wall above her bed. She stifled a scream and rubbed her arms vigorously, trying to banish the goose bumps that had risen there. A pale-brown lizard scurried up the wall--to join his much larger cousins, she was sure.

  She shook out her bedding and checked the cot one more time for ants. Then in one smooth motion, she yanked the chain to switch off the light, and dove under the covers, her heart beating like the bongo drums she'd heard in Brizjanti. In spite of the stifling heat, she pulled the blanket into a tight tent over her entire body--taut enough, she hoped, to deflect any lizards that might decide to drop in on her during the night. "Lord," she whispered into the darkness, "you're going to have to help me here."

  Never had she received such an expedient answer to prayer. The next sound she heard was the chorus of half a dozen roosters and a donkey's brassy bray. She rolled onto her back on the creaky cot and peered out the low window. The sun was just peeking over the eastern wall of the courtyard. It shone a thin sliver of the most lucent orange she'd ever seen on the whitewashed cement walls of her room. Checking the floor and the ceiling above her for lizards, she threw her legs over the side of the cot and slipped into her sandals.

  She pulled the string that hung from the bare lightbulb overhead, but nothing happened. Remembering the caveats on the Internet about Haiti's unpredictable electrical service, she rummaged in her bag in the half light until she found a blouse and a wrinkled but clean cotton skirt--her only change of clothing.

  The bathroom was just down the hall from her room. She opened the door a crack and looked out into the shadowed hallway. It was empty. With her clothes and the few toiletries that had made it in her carry-on bags, she headed for the shower.

  A few minutes later, with a wary eye out for lizards, she stepped into the tiny shower stall and turned the rusted handles. A dribble of cool water trickled out. She waited for a full minute for the water to get warm, but finally conceded that it was as warm as it was going to get. Abandoning the idea of shampooing her hair, she washed and rinsed quickly under the chilly stream, and hurriedly dried off. She dressed and brushed her hair into a ponytail before heading back down the hall to her room.

  Betty Greene had warned her that breakfast was served at six-thirty sharp. Already she
could smell bacon frying. She wondered why no one else seemed to be stirring. She made her bed, and unpacked her bag, arranging her things on the narrow shelves behind the door.

  She took a deep breath and stepped into the courtyard.

  "Good morning!" Betty Greene's cheerful voice floated on the morning breeze. Valerie looked up to see the pastor's wife leaning from the loggia that ran around the second floor of the dormitory. "Did you sleep well?"

  "Like a baby, thank you," she called up. "I can't remember the last time I slept so well." She was surprised to realize it was true.

  "Breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes. Why don't I show you around the rest of the grounds."

  Madame Phil, as the children called Pastor Phil's wife, hurried down the steps at the corner of the building and met Valerie in the center of the courtyard. "I see you found something to wear."

  Valerie tugged at her rumpled skirt. "Yes, I had a change of clothes in my carry-on bag. But I'm afraid I should have asked to borrow an iron."

  The older woman waved her apology away. "You look lovely. We'll have the girls wash your other clothes so you'll have something fresh tomorrow, and maybe we can find one more outfit." Madame Phil fingered the fabric of Valerie's sleeve. "This is pretty. It looks home-sewn."

  "Thank you. I made it."

  "You're a wonderful seamstress. I know just where to put you to work."

  Valerie perked up. "Oh, you have sewing that needs done?"

  "Mending mostly. I hope you won't mind."

  "Oh no, I'd love to do that. I...I've been a little worried about what I would do here. I'm not exactly a jack-of-all-trades, but sewing I know. I've been sewing since I was a little girl."

  It was true. Since her first year of a middle school life-skills class when she discovered how smoothly a sewing machine handled under her touch, she'd made almost all her own clothes. When she'd started high school, most of the girls in her class wouldn't have been caught dead wearing something homemade, but she was proud of her fashions and had briefly considered a career in fashion design.

  And then, when she was sixteen she'd happened across a pattern at a garage sale for a frilly sundress, toddler size two. She paid ten cents for it and took it home and made the sweetest little dress from the lime-green gingham-check scraps of a skirt she'd just finished for herself. She'd attached a ruffled eyelet slip to peek out from beneath the little dress. And she'd spent half her allowance on some tiny lemon-, lime- and orange-shaped buttons to trim the bodice.

  That little dress was the first thing she'd put into her hope chest. A familiar ache of longing camped in her chest.

  "Come, I'll give you the tour." Betty Greene's words startled her back to the moment. The older woman led the way through the courtyard and to the lawn behind the main dormitory.

  Though the grass was sparse and brown in spots, several high palm trees provided some shade. Beside a low out-building, several fat brown hens scratched in the dirt.

  "The younger children take turns caring for the chickens and gathering the eggs each evening," Madame Phil said.

  "Those eggs have carried us through some lean times."

  Valerie had to hustle to keep up as the older woman led her around the outside of the U-shaped dormitory.

  "We have seventy-four children here right now--about twenty more than Hope House really can accommodate, but we're not as overcrowded as some of the children's homes." A softness came to her face and she smiled at Valerie. "My dear Phil would die before he would turn away a child in need."

  Valerie had seen that same look in Pastor Phil's eyes when he talked about his wife on the ride from the airport and when they were helping Valerie get settled in her room last night.

  The ache tightened in the region of her heart. Would there ever be a man whose eyes would hold such tenderness for her?

  Chapter Ten

  Brizjanti, Haiti, January 14

  The cock-a-doodle-doo of a rooster edged out a nonsensical dream, and Valerie stretched and rubbed her eyes as a lemony slice of sunshine pierced her window shade. She swung her legs over the side of the cot and was halfway to the bathroom when she realized she hadn't given the lizards or ants a thought.

  She smiled to herself. Three days had flown by in a whirlwind and Valerie had grown accustomed to sharing her room with a few creepy crawlers, and she rather liked being awakened by an alarm clock that crowed.

  She had yet to retrieve her lost luggage from the airport, though Pastor Phil suspected it was there. They just needed to find time to go pick it up. But the older girls had loaned her a couple of skirts and she was surprised to find how little she could get by with.

  Time seemed suspended in this corner of the world. There were moments when Valerie felt she had been in Brizjanti forever. After that first day, she had scarcely given her aborted wedding or William Concannon a thought. The effort to translate and learn the Creole language kept her mind in constant knots. And Pastor and Madame Phil kept her busy with a list so varied she never knew from one moment to the next if she would be mending little shirts and dresses, slicing mangos, painting cement blocks or changing diapers. And she was loving almost every minute.

  She washed up under the lukewarm trickle from the showerhead, then pulled on her red gingham skirt and a white blouse, and swept her hair up into a high ponytail.

  She took her Bible and a notebook and climbed the narrow flight of stairs to the dormitory's rooftop. She'd discovered this quiet escape yesterday when she and some of the girls had climbed up here to scrub down the stucco walls of the dormitory with bleach. It was unpleasant and backbreaking work, but mold and mildew were a real problem in the humid climate, and Madame Phil was determined to win the war against it.

  A stairway offered easy access to the flat rooftop that afforded a view of the bay and the streets beyond the gates of the orphanage compound. She treasured the peaceful haven and was fascinated watching the buzz of activity below her as the Haitian people went about their daily routine.

  Beyond the eastern gate, several men unloaded cinder blocks and sacks of cement from a truck. A fine powder of cement dust turned their dark skins ashy. They laughed and joked as they worked, seeming to enjoy one another's company.

  At one doorway across the street, a mother stood on the stoop braiding a little girl's hair. Next door, a woman swept her front porch before taking the broom to the dirt road in front of her shack.

  To the northwest Valerie saw a boat in the bay. The sea looked inviting in the morning sunlight, but Pastor Phil had warned her the water was contaminated and full of rubbish.

  Valerie opened her Bible and read from the Psalms.

  But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say, "You are my God." My times are in Your hand...

  The words pierced her heart. She did trust in God. But sometimes it was hard to understand his intentions, his plan for her life. She read on.

  Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You.

  Could she truly place her life in God's hands? Even in the face of everything that had happened? She looked out over the walls of the compound and saw the dire poverty around her. She felt ashamed at her self-pity. Yes, she'd had a deep disappointment, humiliation even. But she wasn't the first woman to suffer a broken engagement. And she had endured nothing close to what the majority of people in this country experienced every day.

  But she was thirty-two years old. If God did indeed have a plan for her life, it was time she figured out what that was. Her job at the advertising agency would be waiting for her when she got back, but after the whole thing with Will she wasn't sure she could go back to "business as usual." She enjoyed her work as a sales rep, but she'd never intended to be there more than a few years. She'd only completed her business degree because it was something to do while she waited for the right man to come along. Will had taken his sweet time, and in the end, he hadn't been the right man after all.

  But
her job at the agency wasn't a calling. It wasn't even an avocation really. And wasn't she supposed to feel called to something--something that would make a difference?

  Will knew what he wanted out of life. His work with the kids at their church was what gave his life meaning. And the things he loved to do--the sailing and flying and extreme sports stuff--all meshed with his work with the kids. A perfect puzzle fit, one piece of his life snapping snugly into the next to complete the picture.

  Funny that she was the one piece that couldn't be plunked into Will's puzzle. She envied him. Why couldn't the pieces of her life fit so easily into place?

  She mentally stamped her foot like a spoiled child. She'd thought she had a calling. The things she desired weren't such difficult or unusual requests. A husband and children--God granted those to hundreds of people every single day. And she'd thought having a family was her calling. Why had God given her such a profound passion for children only to withhold what she wanted most?

  She'd wasted so much of her life filling a hope chest that was now empty. Her mind wandered over the years she'd spent cramming that trunk to overflowing with the baby clothes she'd sewn. Boy things and girl things, in all shapes and sizes. She'd figured if she was going to have twelve kids she'd need a lot of clothes.

  At night, in her bedroom, when the rest of the house was asleep, she would take each little outfit out of the chest, hold it up and picture her babies wearing it. She'd even prayed for them--her precious little future babies--that God would bless them and keep them safe.

  It seemed those prayers had all been wasted. Three days after Will broke their engagement, after they'd sent letters of explanation uninviting all the guests, after she'd boxed up all the gifts and got them ready to return, she'd taken everything out of that hope chest. She'd folded each little outfit neatly, and placed it in a cardboard box. Then she'd sealed it up--that box containing, quite literally, the last threads of her dream--and mailed it to her sister in Chicago.