A Song for Bijou

by Josh Farrar

  Meanwhile, Ira and Maricel are bobbing their heads up and down, sharing a pair of headphones like DJs. They exchange a look with Jou Jou, who is nodding along with them. “One … two … three … four!” my brother calls out to them.

  And out of nowhere, a song comes booming out of the sound system, perfectly matching the raboday tempo.

  “Yes!” Alex yells.

  “Perfect!” Jou Jou adds a loud, fast drum fill, using both sticks on the rada now.

  “What is this?” I ask Mary Agnes, who, flushed with the dancing, is red as an apple.

  “It’s a new mash-up, by DJ Riplo,” Nomura says.

  I wonder if this DJ Riplo maybe has some Haitian blood in him. “It’s great,” I yell. “What’s it called?”

  “It’s called ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’!” Mary Agnes says, bringing me in close for a hug so tight I almost fall over. Nomura laughs so hard, his glasses fall off, and he scoops them up quickly before any of us enthusiastic dancers steps on them.

  Alex and Jou Jou are trading fills now, soloing over the track that booms out across the gymnasium. In the crowd, I can see the shadowy outlines of parents and kids spilling from the bleachers to the floor. Everyone is dancing now, singing to the raboday.

  Then, something funny happens. It is like I am watching a video, and someone has slowed everything down—the rhythm of the raboday, the motions of the dancers, even the spotlights that sweep across the stage—so that I can see every bit of movement in this enormous room, frame by frame. As if something, someone is telling me, Bijou, pay attention. This is for you. Make sure not to miss anything.

  I turn around and smile toward my brother, but he is so into the music, he doesn’t even notice. Alex, too, has his eyes closed, concentrating hard on the rhythm. Who ever thought I would meet an American boy who would have such a natural gift for rara music? It is like a small miracle.

  Then Alex opens his eyes, notices me, and smiles. I cannot help but laugh, and Alex cannot, either. He leans his head back, looks from me to the ceiling and back, and shares this private moment with me. All the while, he never loses track of the raboday.

  Looking out across the gym, I try to find Tonton Pierre and Auntie. The lights are so bright, there is no way for me to see them, even with this power I suddenly have, this ability to slow down time. Still, though, I know they are out there, somewhere, and that they must be enjoying this moment as much as I am. How could they not? A whole school—two schools!—dancing to the music of our people.

  This is when I realize that the voice I’m hearing, the one telling me to watch, and notice, every single thing that is happening, urging me to store these details in my memory forever, belongs to Maman. She is the one helping me to see, and feel, and understand.

  Maman is gone, but she is here.

  In me. In my brother. In my aunt and uncle.

  Maybe even, a little bit, in Alex.

  “How awesome is this?” screams Mary Agnes.

  “It’s awesome!” I yell, using another American word I learned on Tous Mes Enfants. “Totally awesome!”

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Amy Ellenbogen, Toni Cela, Fabienne Doucet, Jeremy Robins, Lois Wilcken, Morgan Zwerlein, Gina Vellani, and everyone at the Church Avenue Merchants Block Association (CAMBA), my endlessly supportive agent Marissa Walsh, and two inspiring editors, Stacy Cantor Abrams and Mary Kate Castellani, whose insights surprised and delighted me, and made this book so much better.

  Author’s Note

  In 2007, I got a chance to see a great documentary film by my friend Jeremy Robins called The Other Side of the Water: The Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn. The movie tells the story of Djarara, a Flatbush, Brooklyn-based group that, over the last two decades, has revolutionized rara music in their adopted country, winning scores of American fans in the process.

  At the time, I lived in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn—Alex’s neighborhood in A Song for Bijou, just a stone’s throw away from Flatbush. Watching the film, I was amazed that these great musicians were reinventing their culture less than a mile away from my house. How could something so exciting be happening almost literally in my backyard, without me knowing a thing about it? I didn’t forget about Djarara. These musicians, their struggles and triumphs, stayed with me long after the lights came up and I walked out of the theater. (And while I didn’t know it yet, the character of Jou Jou would be based on some of the young men I had “gotten to know” in the movie.)

  Three years later, when the earthquake struck Haiti, millions around the world were spellbound by the tragedy. And as I followed the story along with everyone else, I couldn’t help but think of the tens of thousands of Haitians living right here in Brooklyn and the devastating impact the event must have had on their families back home.

  I began to imagine the intersecting lives of Bijou, a strong and determined survivor of the quake, and Alex, a shy Brooklyn boy who can’t possibly understand what Bijou has been through, but wants to try. There was no real story yet. All I had was an idea about a relationship between two seventh graders that survives despite peer pressure, cultural prejudices, and a hundred and one misunderstandings. And also, I had a title, A Song for Bijou. I’m not sure why, but the character name and the title came almost immediately. I didn’t have a clue how this “song” would fit into the story, but I liked the sound of the title, and it stuck.

  When it came to the actual story, it wasn’t too tough to write from Alex’s perspective. My own childhood was a bit like his—I grew up with a single mom until I was eleven, and I went to a school almost exactly like St. Christopher’s (although we weren’t lucky enough to have a sister school just a few blocks away!), so it wasn’t difficult to imagine the mixture of admiration, respect, and confusion that Bijou would cause in him. But to be able to write from Bijou’s point of view, I knew I’d need to spend some time with people who had lived a life similar to hers. Over the next few months, I spoke with Haitian and Haitian American women, eager to know about their experiences living and going to school in New York City.

  Two of them, Toni Cela and Fabienne Doucet (who kindly allowed me to use her last name for Bijou), helped me to understand the experience of a newly arrived seventh-grade girl whose country and culture seem so often to be ignored, misunderstood, or feared. Both Toni and Fabienne are educators now, and they’ve dedicated much of their careers to understanding the lives of young people. I read their academic writing with great interest, but the personal stories they shared with me had an even greater impact on A Song for Bijou.

  When I met with Toni, she told me about a funny instance of the word “Haitian” being misunderstood as “Asian,” which I thought would be an amusing way to show Alex’s ignorance of Bijou’s cultural background. Toni also explained that spending time with a boy would have been next to impossible for a girl like Bijou, because until adulthood, girls are rarely more than a few steps away from a family member, teacher, priest, or other authority figure. I wanted to portray this as realistically as possible, but it posed a problem: if Bijou wouldn’t be allowed to hang out with Alex, how would they ever get to know each other? And if my two main characters weren’t able to spend time together, did I really have a book at all? The only solution was for Bijou and Alex to both become very creative, even deceptive, in order to be together. They’re good, honest kids, but they want to get to know each other so badly that they’re willing to bend a few rules along the way. I’m not saying lying to your parents is a good thing, but a fib or two in the service of love is a time-honored tradition that probably started a few thousand years before Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet.

  When I interviewed Fabienne, she told me she had learned English in Haiti largely by watching All My Children on satellite TV, and I found that detail too irresistible not to use for Bijou. More importantly, speaking with Fabienne influenced my decision that Bijou would be from a middle-class family—in Haiti, they would be called bourgeois—rather than a poorer one. While t
here are many different kinds of people from different economic backgrounds in Haiti, most Americans assume that all Haitians are desperately needy. This stereotype is one of many that Bijou confronts throughout the book; like so many newcomers to America, it is very hard for her to be truly seen by the kids she meets at her new school. Fabienne helped me to understand that.

  Later, Gina Vellani, who coordinates the English as a Second Language instruction for thousands of Haitian students every year at Flatbush’s essential resource center, CAMBA, allowed me to visit classes held on Church Avenue, just blocks away from Bijou’s home in the book. While listening to Haitian ESL students introduce themselves and describe their lives in the English phrases they had learned only a few weeks earlier, I furiously scrawled notes on their diction and pronunciation. I also paid close attention to the way they dressed and used some of these details in describing Jou Jou and his bandmates.

  Finally, I was aided greatly by a talented drummer in the Haitian tradition, Morgan Zwerlein, and a Brooklyn-based musicologist and musician, Lois Wilcken. Morgan helped me learn just enough hand-drumming technique to imagine what it would be like for Alex to study with Jou Jou. Lois helped me to understand the Haitian music scene in Brooklyn and told me all about the history of the Gran Bwa on the southern tip of Prospect Park, where anyone who wants to see some real-life rara should go on a Sunday afternoon between April and November. You will never forget what you see and hear there.

  Also by Josh Farrar

  Rules to Rock By

  Copyright © 2013 by Josh Farrar

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  First published in the United States of America in February 2013

  by Walker Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.

  E-book edition published in February 2013

  www.bloomsbury.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,

  Walker BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Farrar, Josh.

  A song for Bijou / Josh Farrar.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventh-grader Alex Schrader’s life changes when he meets Bijou Doucet, a Haitian girl recently relocated to Brooklyn, and while he is determined to win her heart

  Alex also learns about dating rules and Haitian culture.

  [1. Interpersonal relationships—Fiction. 2. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction.

  3. Preparatory schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Haitian Americans—

  Fiction. 6. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F2432So 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012027537

  eISBN: 978-0-8027-3395-5 (e-book)