My name is Bobo, he said. We mean no harm. We were sent here by a friend of yours. He wanted to make sure you get the best medical help possible for your injuries.
Funny, Alain said. I feel fine.
But your leg, sir.
Alain’s leg was indeed getting worse. Walking hurt more than usual. And now that Alain had finally washed himself, the funny smell coming from his knee seemed more ominous. Gangrene, possibly. Like in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”
Who’s this friend of mine who sent you? Alain said, though he’d kind of guessed his benefactor-enemy’s identity already. What’s with the guns? Friends don’t threaten to shoot friends where I’m from.
The guns are a simple precaution, sir. Your benefactor is an important man who would rather remain anonymous for the moment. Please come with us now. All will be explained to you in the car.
Is that so? Where would you be taking me for treatment?
Miami, sir.
Despite his common sense, Alain laughed in Bobo’s face.
Jackson Memorial Hospital!
If that’s the nicest hospital in Miami, then yes, sir, that would be correct.
I haven’t been there in years. It is a nice hospital, but there are better ones. All right, Mr. . . . what did you say your name was again?
Bobo.
Bobo. Of course, Mr. Bobo. The leg is probably killing me, so I will happily take up your boss’s generous offer for help. Besides, I could use a break from Haiti, and Miami is especially nice in the winter. But I can’t leave with you right this moment.
Mr. Destiné. . . .
Don’t get me wrong, Mr. . . .
Bobo.
Right. Bobo. Sorry, I’m terrible with names. I’m not being a smartass. It’s just that I have an immediate engagement. See that man over there? Not the white man, though I’m sure your boys here recognize him. The man next to him, the one in the red suit. He is about to get married now, and I’m his best man.
A wedding? Here?
I know the refugee camp leaves something to be desired when it comes to glamorous occasions. The wedding will take place at the cathedral. Isn’t that great?
But the cathedral was heavily damaged by goudou-goudou. Isn’t holding a ceremony there dangerous?
Bobo, my man, isn’t love dangerous anywhere? Look where it’s got me!
Bobo almost smiled. His gunmen grinned.
Alain didn’t know where the big balls he was displaying had come from. Was a death wish still lurking in his subconscious even though he was convinced the bonhomie of Place Pigeon had helped him out of his depression? He pressed on.
Fellas, I can’t leave with you now, because my absence would draw a lot of attention your way, and I’m sure you don’t want that. Around twenty thousand people are coming to the wedding. Basically everyone around you is invited. They would notice the absence of the best man. So here’s what I propose: Why don’t you guys come to the wedding with me as my guests? Afterwards, you can take me to the airport for a one-way trip to Miami. I could use a vacation. It is a one-way flight, isn’t it?
I’m afraid so, Bobo said.
Perfect! Alain said. It’s settled.
I have to double-check with my boss, but yes, I think this should work.
Have your boss meet us at the cathedral! He’s invited too. And why not? We are going to celebrate the love of a man and woman before God. I have a feeling your boss is a fan of such events.
Bobo and the guys looked at Alain like he was nuts, then they looked at each other to confirm that, yes, the guy was crazy but not much of a threat or a flight risk. He could barely walk, much less run. D’accord, Bobo said.
Put those away then, Alain said, pointing to the guns. Come with me.
And come they did, following Alain to his tent, graciously accepting introductions to Philippe, Hollywood, and Xavier as acquaintances of Alain’s who happened to be in the neighborhood. Xavier gave them the side-eye. He suspected something bad was going on. Xavier tossed Alain a look that said, I hope you know what you’re doing, and Alain nodded yes, he did. Meanwhile, the fat guy, Bobo, was on a BlackBerry, typing furiously. His BlackBerry beeped right back, startling the big guy, who, in turn, startled everyone around him.
Everything all right? Hollywood asked Bobo.
Yes, he said. Looking at Alain, Bobo said, Our friend will indeed join the ceremony, by the way. He was in the neighborhood.
Briefly, a look of absolute terror passed across Alain Destiné’s face.
THE VOODOO WEDDING
Not far away, on the corner of rue Borgella and rue Montalais, the president of Haiti was fuming in a limousine. He was sitting still, not moving forward fast enough, something he’d grown to hate doing much of since goudou-goudou. Cedric, how much longer are we going to sit out here? he said to the driver. I’m not getting any younger, you know. His limousine had been stuck in traffic making the short drive from the Champ de Mars plaza to the National Cathedral for over an hour. The thick crowds filling the streets on this earthquake victims memorial day were indifferent to his plight, and the President began feeling like the car was some sort of prison cell. After all, he’d started the day by spending a couple of hours stuck in traffic on his way to the Champ de Mars from the airport to make an appearance at the national memorial services. Mass grief had drowned out his speech. The crowd gave the impression of barely noticing he had made one. All their eyes seemed closed; their thoughts were elsewhere. Singing. Watching God, not another piddling politician. No doubt they were busy visualizing their lost loved ones and their own places in heaven next to them. Elysium fields and all that. On the podium, he was meant to appear humble and at one with them, but he struggled. He seemed beside the point, and the feeling made him uncomfortable. Who prays for me? he thought. Who weeps for me, huh? I’ve been working hard days and nights for you all. While you’ve been on your knees praying for help and begging for handouts, I’ve been working my ass off trying to make the help and handouts possible. Not all of them, but some of them. Most of them. It was difficult, lonely work. But gratitude rarely came his way. Not this day. And not ever, really. For not even his cabinet—kids he practically parented—could bring themselves to say Good job, Mr. President. Thank you, sir. No, all they could do after he walked out of one of those endless, if successful, meetings with narcissistic foreigners, feckless local businessmen, overbearing journalists, and angry mayors, begging for aid, patience, coordination, generosity, and communality, was give him a look that said, If that’s the best you can do, it’s not enough, but we’ll make do. Then they went about their business. They moved on to the next item on their agenda for him. Sitting in the backseat of a car that should feel good, since it was air-conditioned and the heat outside was no joke, the President shook his head. You should feel better about your lot, man. Why can’t you? This is your finest hour as a human being and a public servant, and you can’t appreciate it. Your wife will. She gets your challenges. She gets you. She gets how much you love your people, and how hard you work for them. Journalists who cozy up to you claim they get it, swear they get it, occasionally report about it like they get it. But they don’t get it. How can they? How can they understand what its like to be a leader who constantly has to negotiate on behalf of a resource-free yet proud people with the resourceful and haughty? Heads, you lose. Tails, you lose. Scientifically anyway. As my beloved Natasha helped me see, my job is an art, not a science, and in art, you are never wrong, you never lose, your existence makes you a winner, your work is victory herself. Sure, there was a marketplace, and there were critics—where aren’t there critics?—and reputations could be constructed and made golden, and golden reputations unspooled purse strings, but the artist was never wrong; neither was she often right; but that was not the point of art, art existed in a place beyond right or wrong, rich or poor; so does life, for that matter, in many ways, if the Bible or Haitian history is to be believed. The point of art, as Natasha saw it, in music, poetry, painting, sculpture, arc
hitecture, literature, film, was to be there. To exist. To have been born and held. To have been nursed and breast-fed.
Man, I can’t wait to see that girl again, the President thought. It’s been too long.
Outside, above his car, the brilliant sun howled. Lycée Pétion, his alma mater, stood near. His parents getting him into that school was one of the first great miracles of his life. He was glad the school was still standing after goudou-goudou and could soon become functional again. Its fortunes were better than that of its old rival, College Bird, down on nearby rue du Centre. That esteemed school’s walls had been cracked throughout its skeleton by goudou-goudou. Its thick white columns seemed one good breeze away from tumbling onto themselves. Who knew how long it would take for that place to become safe enough for innocent students in their checkered yellow-and-white-and-blue uniforms to prowl its halls again? Bobo had told the President to come to meet them at the National Cathedral because his problems with Natasha were solved. The President saw their coming reunion this afternoon as an opportunity to renew their relationship with each other in front of God, a sort of renewal of their vows.
Cedric, I’m going to walk, the President said.
The heat was mean. The crowd around the cathedral was stiff, probably too hurly-burly for UN security protocols regarding the President’s safety. He didn’t care. Nobody noticed him. He looked up to the towers of the cathedral and used them as a beacon while threading along the potholed pavement with the masses. From their chatter, the President learned a wedding was about to take place in the cathedral. A popular young man from a refugee camp was about to take his first bride, the first marriage anyone could remember happening in Port-au-Prince since the earthquake. What an amazing thing indeed, the President thought.
Around the same time, on the other side of the cathedral, Alain Destiné walked behind the soon-to-be married couple in a procession from Camp Pigeon. All the procession had to do was cross rue St. Laurent. The street was clogged with people. Alain thought he even saw a TV news truck. Curiosity seekers joined the proper wedding guests from Place Pigeon. They wanted to know who was getting married and why now. There was a sense that Philippe and Fabby were a bit oser to dare something as romantic as a marriage at a time when death and grief and embittering shock dominated conversation about Haiti in Haiti and off the island. Alain’s head was spinning. A spell of dizziness made the back of the heads of the lovers in front of him look like brown trees swaying between a molten sun in a hurricane. Just ahead the cathedral reared up as a final destination for the lovers, and the way things seemed to be going, the National Cathedral of Haiti could become Alain’s final resting place too. Two goons kept the barrels of their guns pointed into Alain’s lower back. This had the effect of making Alain walk on his tiptoes and feel like a man on a skewer. On his right, Hollywood Steve looked solemn, a look more appropriate for a funeral than a wedding. Maybe he didn’t want a stray television camera or cell phone to capture how happy he felt. He loved weddings. I can’t wait to get married again, he’d said more than once over dinner with Philippe and Fabby the previous evening. They were an inspiring pair. The couple was so in love, they looked invincible. On Alain’s right, little Xavier walked with his typically preternatural calm, gazing into the distance. Alain kept a hand on the kid’s shoulder, ostensibly so as not to lose the little guy in the surging crowds. In reality, he held on to Xavier for dear life, having long been seduced by the child’s talismanic presence. He regretted having lied to the boy earlier. He did not have a plan for getting himself out of the jam he was obviously in with these goons. He planned a Hail Mary. He was going to bet that no one could be mad enough to kill someone in a cathedral, not even a justifiably jealous husband and his yes-men. Alain smiled at the irony of an atheist like him hoping the depth of others’ faith in God would save his life. Such was the way of all atheists, he thought. No one’s an atheist in a foxhole, his NYU buddy Alex used to say.
Hey, where’s my best man? Philippe said, looking behind him for Alain.
Right here!
Swiftly, Alain bounded to his friend’s side, forcing the gunmen to hide their weapons.
At your service, he said.
In his red top hat and suit lined with sweat from the long walk in the late afternoon, Philippe glistened. He wore a pensive frown and told Alain that his fiancée felt nervous about the crowds at the church’s entrance. She worried whether the ceremony would start on time. The priest was a patient one, but he was old and sick. Say no more, Alain said. He took Fabby and Philippe by the hand and paused. Are you ready? he said.
Yes, they said.
Let’s go then.
Alain raised an elbow to knife through the crowd, a trick learned a dozen Carnivals ago. Excuse me! he said. Coming through! Coming through! The crowd parted. Pardon! The friends charged the barricades of rubble blocking their way into the cathedral.
They ran, they giggled. The bride climbed a pile of rubble, then threw her flimsy bouquet at Alain and herself at Philippe standing on the other side of the pile, inside the church. They were dreamers, like everyone else, everyone around them, on the streets, on the radio, on TV, like everyone who has ever looked to a church for respite or a skyscraper for work and a living. They all sought the same thing. Alain had thought he knew what miracle he was looking for all this time. When he saw her, he realized he’d had no idea. Natasha was standing in the room next to the altar in the bowels of the National Cathedral. She wore a nun’s robe and stood next to Monsignor Dorélien, who was going to perform the ceremony while holding on to a cane for what seemed like dear life. Natasha saw him first and stared with awe. The smile he saw on her face mirrored the one, a ballooning flash of joy, he felt explode on his own. Natasha’s alive! She’s alive! ALIVE!
And healthy and beautiful and wearing the one robe Alain suspected Natasha had dreamed of wearing all her life, a secret dream he knew she held without her ever articulating it. He smiled broadly at her with his entire face and body, his eye crinkling him blind. She did the same thing too, smile like a loon. Few people had ever seen Natasha Robert flash her full-blown toothy smile, and very few people had ever seen a young nun, in her nun robe, in a packed cathedral, abruptly stop nunning around to gasp and squeal, yes, squeal, at the sight of a young man. Alain swung Philippe and Fabiola toward Monsignor Dorélien—actually it was more like he flung them to the priest. They were practically airborne when they reached the front of the altar, and then, and then, and then, Natasha ran toward Alain, and Alain ran toward Natasha. Monsignor Dorélien looked up and said, Oh? Sister Hopstaken said, What? The crowd saw the young nun and the limping young man in the black suit hug each other with all their strength. They smashed into each other like atoms and they held each other tightly, tears running down their round cheeks. There was a tenderness to their embrace, a familial affection, onlookers were puzzled at first but they got it. They must be brother and sister. They must have thought each had died during goudou-goudou. Those types of reunions had been happening a lot all over Haiti since goudou-goudou. They didn’t make headlines, but they happened, and they were wonderful to behold. Some onlookers sensed that the electricity between the striking nun and the skinny man had carnal roots. Those particularly sharp onlookers included the president of the republic, the nun’s husband, and Monsignor Dorélien, the man who had led the nun through the Eucharistic gauntlet. The priest fixed the politician in the eyes and told him to be cool. Wait, he suggested, until he saw what happened next. What happened next was the squealing nun peeled herself off the handsome young man and touched his face and told him, I’m so happy you’re alive.
Me too, the young man said, and then the nun, composing herself with ceremonial solemnity, took a step back and said, I must return to work now. I hope you understand.
Surprise registered on the young man’s face, but then so did respect and love, so he said, I understand. Go do your thing. You look great.
Thank you, she said. You should take these.
Natasha gave Alain the keys to her car. It’s yellow and parked out in the back, she said. I saw Villard and Katherine earlier. They really can’t wait to see you.
Thanks, Alain said, then he, too, took a step back.
Natasha gave the President, who was standing nearby, an apologetic look. She bowed nervously and showed him her nun’s robe. He shook his head in amazement. Natasha summoned the warmth and resolve of Sister Robert and walked up to her soon-to-be ex-husband and whispered in his ear. In this robe and in this line of work, she said, I can best help you take care of our people moving forward. Your courage after the quake inspired me. You can retire in peace now, Jean. You did good. It’s my turn. My work has just begun.
The President shivered. No one had called him by his given name in a long, long time. Her tenderness moved him. So did her determination. He nodded his approval and said good-bye. Bonne chance, he said. On tient le contact?
Bien sûr, Natasha said.
In the pink Haitian crepuscule, everyone in the rubbled cathedral took his or her appropriate place, and the first wedding ceremony after the earthquake began. It went off without a hitch.
EPILOGUE
Eights months later, a thin child was born in Miami. The earthquake taught us to expect the unexpected in life, didn’t it? her mother told the child’s ebullient father, Alain Destiné, adding, He seemed to have decided that you deserved a parting gift. The father named the baby Phoenix. Her uncle Jean called her Rose after the Alan Cavé song. Yes, the name of this child conceived in Haiti and born nine months after the devastating Haitian earthquake was Rose Phoenix Destiné. Her American friends called her Nicky. Nicky grew into a thin woman who didn’t know much about her mother. She learned her father had lost the bottom of his right leg in a great earthquake in Haiti and was led to believe her mother disappeared around then too. Her grandfather and her grandmother from her father’s side visited from Port-au-Prince frequently to shower her with gifts. Like clockwork, every other weekend, even after she moved to New York City and then Paris to study art, Nicky had another visitor from Haiti, an aunty, her mother’s twin, her father said. The nun ostensibly came to teach Nicky catechism and art. After Nicky became a successful artist in her own right and settled down in Miami, the nun continued to visit her regularly. By then they didn’t talk art or religion much anymore. They took long walks and hung out on Lincoln Road. At night, they laughed at her father’s attempts at cooking Haitian cuisine. The day he died, Nicky lamented she was completely alone in the world, an orphan. The kindly nun squeezed her hand and said, Not as long as I’m alive. Natasha then told her daughter the story of the love triangle and the disaster that surprisingly made everything right. All Nicky appreciated from the secret history of her parents was that, finally, she had someone on earth she could call maman. Like her mother, she hated to be alone.
God Loves Haiti (9780062348142) Page 18
