by Maryse Conde
Since the idea didn’t exactly appeal to her, I explained I owned a hotel that I had inherited from my uncle, Azzouz, with a bank account, which although considerably diminished was still a tidy sum.
“If you come with me,” I assured her, “you can have and do whatever you like. You’ll be a queen. We’ll leave Haiti together,” I promised.
“Together! Why on earth would we do that?” she asked unkindly.
“Can’t you see I love you, I adore you, and I want to marry you?” I stammered. “It’s my one and only dream.”
“Are you mad?” she burst out. “I’ll never marry an Arab!”
“Why not? What have the Arabs done to you?”
Lost in Haiti, I had forgotten about the prejudice that was commonplace throughout the world.
“They’re terrorists!” she raged. “Look what they did in New York! Look what they’re doing in Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, and just about everywhere else.”
I could have continued the discussion. Which is better: a terrorist who fights for an ideal or a drug trafficker who spreads death for personal profit? But I was too upset by our conversation and fled without further ado. Naturally, I later returned to the attack. I’ll spare you the endless hours of negotiations and consultations I spent during the following weeks. Finally, I achieved what I had planned. Cuca left The Garden of Eden, under false pretenses, since the residents were not free to come and go as they pleased. We had to outwit the two tough guys wearing sunglasses and looking like Tonton Macoutes who were constantly on guard at the entrance. She came to meet me on the Champ de Mars. On arrival at The Cedars of Lebanon, she made a face. Situated in the very middle of the Delmas neighborhood on a noisy thoroughfare, it could not rival the aristocratic munificence of The Garden of Eden. Furthermore, the electricity had been out for two days and the heat was stifling. I didn’t despair, however; I would manage to win Cuca’s affections. I had so much love stored up. Isn’t love contagious like a fever?
Alas, who can predict what tomorrow will bring, especially in countries in such permanent convulsions as ours.
It was then that the French and the Americans who, as a rule, don’t get along very well, agreed to force the President, whom they themselves had protected and reinstated, to pack his bags and quit with no hope of ever coming back. They pulled out of their hat an interim president, who was in charge of organizing new “democratic elections.”
Such a forcible removal would not have had any more impact than past political events such as déchoukaj, coups d’état, or strong-armed abdications if it hadn’t triggered an outburst of popular fury. Rightly or wrongly, many people liked the deposed president and rebelled against the foreign interference. From one day to the next it became extremely dangerous to leave home. Armed gangs were stationed at the crossroads and shot haphazardly at passersby. Kidnapping became a terrible and regular occurrence. Thugs took individuals hostage and killed them if a ransom wasn’t paid. There was no counting the number of celebrities murdered, their faces published in the daily obituary columns. As if I were responsible for the awful situation, Cuca refused to open her door to me. I would slip notes under the door to see if she needed things, but she never answered. Sometimes when she deigned to come down to the dining room, I fussed around her, but she pretended not to see me. When I asked Jahira and Myriam—the two little Haitian girls I had adopted and put at Cuca’s service—what she did all day long locked in her room, they invariably replied, “She cries.”
I can’t say how long this intolerable situation lasted.
I was at the end of my tether when the United Nations decided to dispatch a contingent so as to reinstate a semblance of order in the country. I therefore received a registered letter bedecked with seals and stamps from the Ministry of the Interior informing me that the hotel’s fifteen rooms had been requisitioned in order to house the soldiers of the MINUSTAH force. It included a list of the soldiers who were to present themselves. Most of the contingent was comprised of soldiers from Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Peru. My heart jumped for joy, not only for thinking of the income I was going to collect, but also for a very different reason. Cuca’s isolation would be over. These soldiers could speak to her in Spanish, her native tongue. Brandishing my letter like a standard of victory, I ran up the stairs and drummed on Cuca’s door. She finally emerged, half-naked because of the suffocating heat. My blood began to boil in my veins and I had trouble hiding my erection.
“So what?” she said without the slightest interest once she had read the letter. “Soldiers. A pack of brutes who are only good at firing blindly into a crowd. We have nothing in common to say to each other.”
I was disappointed.
Nevertheless, when the soldiers arrived, she was downstairs in the dining room, eating her breakfast.
But I can see you are smirking. You can probably guess the rest of the story. Don’t blame me for being so naive. I had never been in love before, never had dealings with women. I had no idea they were packed with the powerful attributes of deceit and wickedness. Cuca not only made love to all the Spanish speakers, she sold her sexual charms to any MINUSTAH soldier who wanted her and transformed my respectable hotel into a bordello. The worst occurred when I caught her arranging rendezvous with a former client of the Garden of Eden by the name of Ruddy Télémaque, who could be seen coming and going in her company. Since the President’s downfall, it was rumored his life hung by a thread, but he still looked dapper, surrounded by a crowd of bodyguards armed with Kalashnikovs. I didn’t dare criticize her and endeavored to grin and bear it. I took my frustration out on the hotel and restaurant; I could no longer put up with the place and tried to sell it. Alas, nobody made an offer and here I’ll stop my tale of suffering and humiliation.
One morning when Juan Garcia, an officer from the MINUSTAH, came to see her, he found Cuca’s room empty. Where could she be? Assisted by Jahira and Myriam, we searched the house from top to bottom. But it was evident Cuca was nowhere to be seen.
The mystery only thickened.
Her clothes and toiletries had been carefully left in the cupboards and drawers. The only item missing was a large striped canvas bag where she had probably placed her money and jewels. Could it be a robbery, followed by a kidnapping then a murder? Such a practice was common at the time. Juan Garcia wanted to alert the police when an idea struck me. Cuca had gone back to the Garden of Eden to take up her former job. I dashed over. It was that time in the afternoon when the sun locks you in a siesta and everyone was asleep. Not a single car of a client was parked outside. I approached one of the Macoutes stationed at the entrance.
“I would like to speak to Madame Buch.”
They had obviously received orders and he immediately replied, “She doesn’t want to see you.”
Then they shoved me brutally away. Since I insisted, they hit me. I returned to the attack the following day. One of them took out a razor blade from his pocket and threatened me.
“If you come back here again, I’ll kill you!” he barked.
I no longer tried to force my way into the bordello. In my despair I contacted some of the airlines who had resumed flights. But they all refused to give me their passenger lists.
I almost went mad. My nights were swarming with nightmares. I dreamed I had found Cuca again. I took delight making love to her passionately. I turned round to get my breath back and realized I was hugging a body in a state of decay whose stench clung to my nostrils.
Sometimes I thought I recognized Cuca in a passerby and I would follow her. Once a woman led me into the filth and poverty of the Saint-Soleil shantytown. She entered a hut made of corrugated iron and I waited in vain in a heap of garbage for her to come out. Another time I was waiting at a crossroads when Ruddy Télémaque’s Mercedes drew up, recognizable by his driver’s burly physique. A woman whose face was covered with a veil was sitting inside. I was sure it was Cuca. I t
ried in vain to open the car door and hammered on the window. The car drove off and I ran after it like a maniac. Naturally, I couldn’t catch up.
There was, of course, one solution that would have saved me from madness. Leave. Leave Haiti for the US and swell the number of Arabs who have already piled in. I have a friend, Djamel, who grew up with me on the sidewalks of Beirut and who now lives in Eugene, Oregon. Apparently, it’s a beautiful region. He’s got a good job and is married to an Iranian. Despite the hatred people have for our race and religion, and the violent acts committed against us, he’s not unhappy. I could register at the university and study Creative Writing, as they say in the States. Perhaps I’ll achieve my dream and become a writer. But it’s strange, I’ve lost all interest, as if between Love and Literature, between Living and Writing, I’ve already made my choice.
Be patient. If I’m taking too long, it’s because the worst is yet to come and I’m scared to get there. Everyone knew that Ruddy Télémaque was one of the drug barons and that thanks to this trade he had accumulated millions of dollars. The American government swore to bring about his downfall and since its agents never gave up, they eventually caught him red-handed. He was forced to flee the country and a private jet was waiting for him at Cap-Haitien, ready to take off at any time of night or day.
He vanished then into thin air with his accomplices. Among the group was a young woman from Santo Domingo whom the journalists didn’t identify. But I recognized Cuca. The plane left for Argentina or Chile, nobody knew for sure. Shortly afterwards, the military invaded The Garden of Eden, chased the girls out onto the street, and threw Madame Buch into a prison where she probably still rots.
And that’s my life. Tell me what I should do, if you can.
-
AS A MARK of disapproval, Thécla took her time before revisiting her son in a dream. And when she did appear, it was to let fly a volley of stinging barbs.
“And there you are, the three of you, three men, three widowers you might say, all in mourning for their loved ones. I suggest you live together and form a colony. It would be just like you to be the spiritual head. Besides, you’re the oldest.”
“A colony!” Babakar exclaimed, at a loss for words every time his mother poked fun at him. “What would we call it?”
“The colony of the inconsolable widowers, for instance. Or better still: the colony of the new world. That sounds good. All three of you have different identities: an Arab, a half-Creole West African, and a Haitian. You’ll have created a new humanity: a mankind without the Europeans, without the Conquistadors and Colonizers, without Masters and Slaves and the Exploited. You’ll be able to recreate a world that’s more just!”
She uttered this last sentence before disappearing in a fit of laughter.
Babakar remained, eyes wide open in the dark, meditating on his life that was taking shape.
He had listened to Fouad’s story with great interest. It did not exactly resemble his as Movar had claimed. At most, they were two variations on the subject of violence and displacement, variants of a pattern that was becoming increasingly commonplace. Both of them had been carried away by a spiral of events beyond their control and which in the end had swallowed up what they cherished the most.
It was silly but he would never have imagined that one day he would become close friends with a Lebanese, even though Fouad was not really Lebanese. There was a Lebanese quarter in Bamako: two or three residential streets lined with opulent-looking houses built with concrete. The ground floors housed flourishing stores that sold mainly fabrics. No credit signs were posted loud and clear. When he used to walk past with his mother, she would declare contemptuously, “Those people are exploiters, filthy capitalists, leeches that live off the backs of our people. There’s a lot of them in my country too!”
Like everything his mother said, her words were engraved in his head. But this time, yellow card for Thécla! She should have been more wary of generalizations and understood that sides can change. The oppressed, as soon as they can, turn oppressors, and the latter often become victims. Almost thirty years later, Babakar realized that her words merely echoed popular prejudice. Fouad was the first to have given him the gift of friendship. Except for Hassan, whom he admitted he had been in love with, he had never had a friend. Not like Movar, the vulnerable protégé. Not like Hugo Moreno, the substitute for a father. But a friend. An equal. Someone who could poke fun at him, tease him, contradict him, and hang out with him.
“Let’s stop going through life looking like Knights of the Long Face. What we need are two pretty women with no qualms. There’s no lack of those!”
They soon became inseparable. Why? It was certainly not their religion that brought them closer. Being a Muslim, even in the midst of a crowd of Christians and voodoo believers, did not mean much to Babakar. The last time he had set foot in a mosque was in Segu with his grandfather. The imam had raged against those fundamentalists who shed blood and turn their backs on Allah’s message.
How can we explain the reasons for friendship? Or for love for that matter?
Surprise, surprise! Just when everyone had given up, Fouad found a buyer for The Cedars of Lebanon. The providential buyers were a couple of Americans, Mormons straight out of Salt Lake City. They intended to cancel the contract with the MINUSTAH since they detested international organizations and forces.
“They have no respect for God and merely make a mess of things wherever they go. What good are they doing in this country?”
The very thought of being scattered, of each going his own way, when they had begun to get along so well together, appeared unthinkable to the three of them. By common agreement, they decided to move to Saint-Soledad.
A few weeks earlier, in the stifling heat of late afternoon, they had bid farewell to Dr. Michel. The medical center was crowded with people drinking daiquiris and nibbling on hot pepper plantain chips. Babakar was dumbfounded by all these mulattoes come to greet one of their own. He had no idea there were still so many left in town. There was a time when they had been considered enemies. But the dark-skinned dictators who had succeeded each other at the head of the country had minimized their crimes and changed their status. Were they still motivated by a sense of caste? Where did they live? You never saw them on the streets, where you only rubbed shoulders with dark-skinned crowds displaying all the signs of misery: men shamelessly telling you their misfortune in the hope you’d be moved to pity and women displaying their rachitic children on the sidewalks; as well as children in uniforms marching to overcrowded schools where they learned nothing.
Hector introduced him to another mulatto wearing a white suit and with all the manners of an aging crooner.
“My cousin, Ti-Son Meiji, he knows everyone. He knew straightaway who this Estrella Ovide was. She’s the painter. But he can’t find her address since she and her companion have a dozen or more scattered all over the country. He’ll keep looking and let you know when he’s found something.”
Ti-Son took on cloak-and-dagger airs and lowered his voice. “Estrella Ovide, a real slut! Quite the opposite of her sister Reinette, an activist who was the companion of that journalist who was assassinated.”
Seeing Babakar look vague, he insisted, “You know, the one who got worldwide attention. An American film director even made a movie about him. Haven’t you seen it?”
Babakar shook his head by way of apology. Each to his own war and martyrs.
“I’ll find out where she and her lover, a notorious gangster, drug trafficker, and procurer when the mood takes him, are hiding. For the Americans he’s Public Enemy Number One—so you never know where they are exactly.”
As the weeks went by, Thécla’s mockery turned out to be true. It was well and truly a colony now. First of all, Babakar decided to rename the Center. Not because he was unfeeling toward the saint from Calcutta. For him, the name smacked of charity work and compassion. He decided t
o call it simply La Maison, giving it both a warmer and a convivial connotation. Each and every one allotted himself a permanent task much like a bee in a hive.
As head physician, Babakar resumed his position of authority and respect, which he had lost owing to his recent mishaps, and he flung himself into his job with delight. He was all too familiar with his patients, batches of young girls who had gotten pregnant by the ruffians of the numerous rival armed gangs or had sold their body for a few gourdes. They had often also been raped by American soldiers or by the MINUSTAH military who had not minded putting misery in their bed for a one-night stand. Under these circumstances, it was not surprising they were prepared to abandon their babies in the garbage bins and refuse heaps along the roads of Saint-Soledad. The newborns could be found half mutilated by the stray dogs along the former railroad, which used to trundle the sugarcane to Cap-Haitien. Babakar began to take them in and treat them and soon found himself at the head of an orphanage with about twenty babies. Come on now, there was plenty of room at La Maison.
Fouad grumbled. “What are you planning to do with all these children?”
“Would you prefer I left them to die?”
“They might be better off,” Fouad replied, revealing his brutal side.
In order to put his situation in order with the authorities, Babakar went to see the mayor at City Hall. Monsieur Saint-Omer had once been a notorious member of the Lavalas party. Companion of the president, now deposed and residing in a seminary, both defrocked the same year, he had saved his skin and his foreign bank account by also being the cousin of the present interim president. Consequently, whenever he said “My brother, the President” you never knew which one he was talking about. Nevertheless, he was a courteous and likeable sort.
“My brother the President greets you,” he announced with a broad smile. “He believes you have the heart of a true Haitian. The country will repay you.”
