God Loves Haiti (9780062348142)

by Leger, Dimitry Elias

  He ambled the car out onto rue St. Honoré. The time, late afternoon, was a rare one for him to be leaving the National Palace. Since his girlfriend had moved in there a couple of months ago, he entered and left mainly in the wee hours, like a thief, though he felt as if he was the only person to lose something after each clandestine visit. Traffic on rue St. Honoré was light. Even foot traffic. A bank of narrow, aluminum-roofed shacks in varying shades of green featured their usual array of activities. One was a restaurant. Next door, an old man sold soda. The ubiquitous cell phone dealer stood under a red umbrella. They are the new cocaine, these cell phones, Alain thought. If prostitution is the oldest profession, telecommunications is the newest profession. Natasha was right. I need to get my head into these new businesses. A huge woman with broad shoulders swept away dirty rainwater trapped in the backed-up manhole in front of her house. She did it so determinedly. Her face wore the gravest concentration. The two girls jumping rope around her should be more careful, Alain thought. Their mother spent so much energy sweeping the floor she seemed to have none left to keep an eye on her bored daughters playing in one of the busiest streets in one of the most crowded cities on earth. All that garbage. Her broom was too small.

  The way the house then toppled onto the woman and the girls happened in slow motion. Alain saw the house and the house next to it and the house next to that one and most of the other houses on the street tumble onto the street, the people, and the passing cars. The odd thing was that Alain Destiné found himself watching houses fall and people die while high off the ground. His car was . . . flying. What the fuck! Alain’s car had been catapulted into the Caribbean sky by an invisible and powerful force. The force had turned his Chevy into a flying carpet of sorts, a rusty red Haitian-American combo of the sort of magical melding of adventurous and funky transport mechanism that had tickled him pink in the stories of Arabian nights his father read to him as a child. From the sky, strangely, Port-au-Prince looked uncommonly beautiful. He hadn’t visited Paris yet, but surely Paris couldn’t be as beautiful as his hometown, this jewel of the Caribbean, this diamond in the rough, when viewed from the driver’s seat of a car launched two hundred meters above sea level. Awesome. Natasha, he thought, I have got to show her this.

  During the car’s descending arc, death jabbed Alain in the ribs.

  Oh my God!, Alain screamed. He saw the National Palace collapse into itself like a wedding cake stepped on by an invisible giant toddler.

  Oh. My. God.

  He gripped the steering wheel as the car nose-dived toward the earth.

  THE COWARD

  When Natasha Robert began walking up the stairs to the private jet minutes before the earthquake, hand in paw with her husband, she looked like she was walking slowly. In truth, she was being dragged. Gently and discreetly, but pulled against her will all the same. Her resistance was palpable to her husband. She felt like the puppy the President had had as a boy, the one he found wounded on a dusty road one morning and was determined to nurse to health and keep happy for no damn reason other than the belief that a puppy this cute deserved a better life than the one fate had on the table. Eventually the boy who would become president and the bleeding stray dog had tugs-of-war all the same, mainly when the boy was ordered to kick the dog outside so he could do his homework. Accustomed to his owner and savior’s love, the dog grew scared of the world outside the house. He rarely ventured outside without his master, so getting him to go out and have fun was a chore the President took pleasure in. At Toussaint Louverture Airport, five minutes before the devastating quake, the president of Haiti interpreted his new bride’s resistance as a replay of his beloved Fox’s bad case of nerves. Like that puppy, few things had ever worked out for this girl in her young life in this country where few things, if anything, ever worked properly, except for love and death. (Tax collecting didn’t work; trust him, he tried.) Not that the President felt he should be held even partially responsible for this tragic state of affairs. We inherited a bad hand and are doing the best we can with it. That’s the only explanation he had for Haiti’s seemingly unstoppable decline from the pearl of the Caribbean during the colonial era to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere postindependence. In his sixty years, he had yet to hear a better explanation.

  The President stepped down a few steps to retrieve his nervous bride, reaching first for the tips of her fingers. Her hands were appealingly soft but wet with sweat. They were clammy and cold too. Natasha looked smaller and browner than usual, but she was still beautiful. So gorgeous, in fact, that his heart skipped a beat when she returned his gaze. After all these months he was as surprised as anyone by how she still took his breath away each time her eyes met his. His cheeks felt flush. He wished this would stop happening. Will it ever? I’ll have the rest of my life to find out, he thought, a thought that made the old man turn serious.

  We should get going, he said. Let me tell you a story.

  Natasha Robert and the President were now standing in the shadow of the jet, which was embossed with a giant American flag. The President stood on a step so he could be the same height as Natasha and look her in the eyes. The soldiers who had escorted them to the tarmac of Toussaint Louverture Airport were off a ways, standing under the airport tower’s shade, chatting among themselves. His posse kept a respectful distance. They knew not to be close enough to eavesdrop but he knew they heard every word anyway. These people had ears like bats.

  I know what you’re thinking, the President said. Long pause. Natasha looked up in surprise and pursed her lips. She wished she could melt into the asphalt.

  What? she said. What did you say?

  I just wanted to let you know that I understand how you feel, the President said. Back when I was your age, I got terrified when my dreams were on the verge of coming true too. Here’s how I developed the ability to overcome this fear. When I was a boy, my father used to take me fishing in a corner of the Artibonite River. My father was a farmer from Hinche who was said to own no land. My mother was a laundry woman. I didn’t care. Like every boy, I loved to hang out with my father without my siblings or mother around. Those mornings, honey-gold sunbeams bathed the green waters around us. The smell of jasmine enveloped us. Back then there were trees on the banks of the river in the country’s breadbasket. The trees were tall, leafy, and proud. Their branches and leaves opened their palms up to the heavens to drink in the sun’s life-giving rays with ivresse. The trees looked like they were praying. Photosynthesizing with God. The millions of people, small and needy, who reaped the benefits of the trees’ constant prayers knew well enough to thank the earth and God regularly for their existence.

  My father and I ambled down to the river most often on mornings when it was too hot for me to play football with my friends and too early for him to have worked through the night’s hangover. We sat in his small boat for hours. My father often slept during this time, but with his eyes open. I stared at the schools of fish swimming around us in the still river, and I imagined I had a machine gun to speed up their conquest. On days when I had problem that needed sorting, I asked my father for advice. I was a shy child. I stammered a lot. But, strangely, not when I spoke to my papa. I told Papi of a kid in school who I thought was a friend but who hurt my feelings by making fun of me. Recently, he had started taunting me by calling me Garcia, my middle name. In front of all our classmates, he kept saying that my name was Dominican and that I wasn’t really Haitian. I was a traitor, a spy. All the kids laughed at me. I hated it. I am Haitian, Papa, right? I said. I’m not a traitor, right? I would never hurt people. What was this boy talking about, Papa? I’m not Dominican, right? Even I was, all Dominicans are not spies and enemies, are they? What should I do about this boy? He bothers me nonstop, Papa. I’m starting to lose concentration in class.

  What?! my father said, startled awake. He coughed and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. He wore that pained look he got whenever he was confronted with unpleasant news. My father always looked lik
e he was easily wounded, for he was a thin man. Thin eyes, lips, hands, legs, and torso. People in our quartier called him Chinaman. The women loved him. They wanted to cradle his waifish frame. They liked his easy, lopsided grin. His head was clean-shaven yet gray at the temples. Raffish and handsome and somnolent, that was my father, the latest in a long line of easy-to-love men in our family that ended with me.

  What is the boy’s name? my father asked me that day in the boat. B-B-B-Bernard, I said. Bernard Métélus.

  Métélus’s boy? he said. You letting that little runt get to you? What’s wrong with you, son? Did you punch him in his face after he insulted you? Did you punch him and tell him that Dominicans and Haitians don’t exist? It’s one damn island, one country of people stuck on an island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. We’re the same squirrels trying to get nuts from the same stingy bastards.

  Non, papa, I said.

  Good, Papa said. What a fucking fool, that Métélus kid. Just like his father. Still. You’re better off keeping that to yourself. Better to make friends than enemies with him. Don’t let that anti-Dominican shit get to you, son. I gave you that name for a reason. The Dominicans are all right. Don’t let the loudmouths fool you. That doesn’t mean they don’t have their funny ways. Not too long ago, they had a president, Rafael Trujillo, a real asshole, who, on a whim, ordered his army to execute the Haitian population living in the borderlands we share with them. In a few months, the Dominicans killed somewhere between twenty to thirty thousand of us. Probably more. No one can ever tell how many Haitians are in any one place at a given time. We’re everywhere! Anyway, the Dominicans really got carried away with themselves that day. The soldiers used knives and swords. They didn’t spare women or children. You see, some Dominicans never got over the fact that their people are Haitian. African, Indian, with a dash of European. Haitian. The island was one country for a long time, for a longer time than it’s been artificially separated by the Americans. The propaganda that keeps us separated is ridiculous. Oh, we don’t share everything. Over there, they have a thing for Christopher Columbus that’s pretty embarrassing. No one else in the hemisphere likes that motherfucker. We prefer to celebrate the people who stood up to the Spanish conquistadors. Here, we love our African soul. Not in the DR. They love their Spanish roots. It’s no big deal. To each his own God be true, right? However, being mad at sharing our ancestry is like being mad at being called human. The human condition has no mysteries for us Haitians, does it, son? We take its best and its worst, with a shrug and a chuckle and a glass of rum. We’re tough hombres, foolish, maybe a wee bit crazy from the sun and sex, but we have good taste. We take the best shots from God and the devil on any given day and still we rise. My father chuckled. I didn’t understand all of what he was talking, but I got the gist of it.

  The Dominicans called the massacre El Corte, the cut. The sad event was also known as the Parsley Massacre from stories people told about how the soldiers made sure they killed defenseless Haitians and not defenseless Dominicans by accident—ah, the complications of fratricide. Trujillo had the soldiers hold up parsley sprigs to their potential victims and then ask them, What is this? If the potential victim said the word “parsley” with the wrong accent, off went her head. To illustrate the absurdity of it all, my father then said the word “parsley” with pitch-perfect Spanish and the widest, toothiest grin. A bit of drool dribbled down the corner of his mouth.

  Natasha, I could care less about history, not now and definitely not back then, the President said, holding Natasha’s gaze as steadily as he held her hands. In my teenage mind, the moral of the story he told me revolved around the magical powers of immortality conveyed from knowing the right way to say the right word, like “parsley,” at the right time. You could say my political career was born that day. I became a listener. I became a diplomat of sorts, a reconciler and not a fighter. A crowd-pleaser. A shit-eater. A winner. I got off that boat and went back to the neighborhood determined to become Métélus’s best friend. I wasn’t going to ask him to stop mocking me. I was going to make him like me so much that mocking me would come to seem a waste of his time. I was going to become useful to him, you see. And it worked! I rode his coattails to the presidency! Everyone wants to be liked and served, especially bullies. I didn’t want to be coddled by everyone like my father was, but I figured being inoffensively offensive in aggressive and hostile surroundings would spare me the worst of any situation. I was not a quiet boy or a choirboy. I could fake humor like the best of men. On my journey to manhood, I simply found the easiest way to eliminate obstacles was to listen, then seduce. Just so. Never too much. Too much of anything, especially words, ruined events, moments, made life unnecessarily harder. Live in the moment, but without excess. Have faith, have cool, have a ready modest smile. So when Métélus became president of Haiti, I was his right-hand man.

  Some of the people who were about to die during the massacre realized immediately what the murderous Dominican was asking of them with the parsley sprig facing them, father said. They would say the word the wrong way, realize their mistake, then try again quickly to get it right before the first blow fell on them. Sometimes they tried after the second or third blow too. It was always too late. There was no mercy to be had. You cannot take words back after they’ve been spoken, son, my father said. In my long life, I’ve seen his advice hold up well over the years. So, baby, as you embark on this adventure with me and you feel your nerves getting the best of you, just do what I do when I get confronted by a scary situation.

  What’s that? Natasha said.

  I say the word “parsley,” the President said. Over the years, the word became part incantation and part reminder for me to stay calm and careful in situations where most of my friends or competitors would panic. It was a way to remind myself that whatever odd situation I had gotten myself into was of my own creation and thus it was amply manageable. Natasha, sweetheart, you should have faith that much of the same is true for you. There is nothing bad that is going to happen to you as long as you are with me as we move around this planet. There’s no threat that you won’t have the power to handle whether you’re with me or not. Your will to power got you this far in life. I doubt you’ll face anything worse than the things you had to overcome already.

  In her heart, she knew he was right. Natasha felt her spirit swell with strength that she did not think she was capable of feeling. You really think so? she said, immediately regretting the girlish pitch in her voice.

  I do believe you will be fine, my love, he said. As long as you repeat the magic word after me.

  What’s that?

  Parsley, he said.

  Before she could react, his phone rang. The ringtone was unfamiliar to her. High-pitched. The President’s face grew dark. He turned away from her. A first. He usually liked to have her witness as he conducted the affairs of the state.

  A lot of people on the streets think us politicians are all crooks, he used to say. How could the people in charge of a country so poor have politicians as corrupt as vultures? What do they think we’re robbing? The place has nothing, absolutely nothing. So to prove the sincerity of my intentions, the President said during their courtship, I will be totally transparent with my business. You will see that I’m not a crook. I am conflict-averse and a terrible public speaker, but I am not a plundering president of Haiti like some of my predecessors. Not that I’m a saint or anything. But by the time I got to office, the national cupboard was basically empty. I hope you come to understand the limits of the powers of my office, of our nation. I hope you could grow to trust me.

  Natasha thought the man was crazy. Still, his generous and probably dangerous gestures had the desired effect on her. She grew to appreciate the privilege of bearing witness to the politics of their country as they happened in real time. Haiti’s sad state sickened her and made her want to flee the island in disgust more than ever. The place was a wreck, and Natasha was in no mood to be fascinated or philosophical about it. The view
from a front-row seat in the President’s office freaked her out instead of giving her the more common frisson of a rubbernecker. So now for the first time, as her commitment to him was about to reach a fraught climax, he wanted to keep a piece of his business secret from her. She was not going to let him. She walked up behind him and stopped just short enough to eavesdrop on his conversation.

  Yes, Mr. President, he said.

  Mr. President? she thought. This was the first time she had heard him speak English and call another person Mr. President. He had to be talking to the American president. That’s the only other president he’s ever referred to. Wow.

  To be honest, a big part of me feels relieved, sir, he said. You really believe my people will be proud of me for doing this? I’m impressed by how well you understand the Haitian people, sir. I’m sure the American people would also be proud to learn one morning that their president had overnight chosen to retire to the Italian countryside instead of serving their interests until the end of his mandate. You don’t have to threaten me, sir. I was just making a joke. I am fully aware of the fact that your predecessor had my predecessor exiled to Africa and banned from ever entering the Western Hemisphere. The Central African Republic. Not somewhere nice like Egypt or Gabon. Right. Yes. I understand. Italy is a much nicer place for me to start a family. I’ll have a nice trip, sir. Thanks for taking time from your busy . . . Mr. President? Mr. President? Mr. President?