by Maryse Conde
“I’m only doing my job,” Babakar protested. “A doctor’s job is to try and conquer suffering and death.”
During the conversation, Monsieur Saint-Omer promised a subsidy from the municipality for the orphanage, but nobody ever saw the color of his money.
In his new job, Fouad became increasingly indispensable to Babakar. He was not only in charge of the kitchen together with Myriam, preparing one hundred and fifty meals a day, but he also had to deal with the medications dispatched by charities and which were being spirited away, misappropriated, and resold for three times their value, since history was repeating itself, here as in Eburnéa. You could find the drugs for sale in the markets or, even more surprising, in stalls along the roadsides. Fouad had established a network of connections from the time when he owned The Cedars of Lebanon. Not only did he teach Babakar to differentiate between genuine and fake drugs—i.e. those which are harbingers of death—and to distrust the disreputable, dubious, even dangerous, suppliers, he was also in charge of procuring food for La Maison since the basic necessities cost a fortune. At the crack of dawn Babakar and Fouad would go down to the main market in Port-au-Prince, a genuine, strong-smelling Babylonian shambles where everything was on sale: exaggerated and exuberant naive paintings; embroidered tablecloths and napkins; sculptures carved in black-grained, dark-brown wood; polished and hollowed-out calabashes; spices; overripe fruit; meat swarming with flies; and glassy-eyed fish. Groups of gangling individuals wearing odd woolen bonnets pulled down to their eyes would be touting their powders:
“Gade, gade ki jan li blanch, ki jan li fen!”
“It’s poison!” thundered Babakar, outraged. “It’ll kill a baby in its mother’s womb!”
“Forget about it,” Fouad whispered. “Stop acting like Don Quixote. You know full well they don’t care a shit.”
In one corner of the market, hundreds of men and women were lining up in front of the tables where public letter writers were scribbling out their appeals for help from more fortunate relatives working from the four corners of exile. Fouad was friends with one of them, Dorismond, who could speak a bit of Arabic as he had lived in Dubai.
“Asalam aleikum,” he exclaimed with brio.
He took offence that Babakar also quite clearly knew the greeting.
“You’re not an Arab!” he protested. “You’re as black as me. Who taught you that?”
Babakar calmly, with the disagreeable impression he was talking about someone else, explained he was a Muslim.
As for Movar, he was back in his element. He was doing the work he loved and was once again a “Governor of the Dew,” clearing the surrounding land and unearthing the hidden stream of a gully. With no notion of civil engineering, he had made an irrigation system. The soil now produced tomatoes, lettuce, eggplants, peppers, and all sorts of peas and beans, for Movar claimed in all seriousness that you can’t eat properly without rice and beans:
“Pa gen bon manjé, si pa gen diri ac pwa kolé.”
As for Jahira, without asking for anyone’s permission, she left the publicity agency, where she was bored to death eight hours a day, and devoted herself exclusively to Anaïs. As she was a happy, cheerful person, constantly joking, her good humor was contagious and gradually the baby became less somber and her eyes speckled with gold.
One late afternoon, coming back from his garden, Movar went into the office where Babakar was poring over his accounts and announced, “Tomorrow I’m seeing Sô Fanfanne.”
Babakar was used to hearing him talk in riddles and, without looking up from his bills, asked absentmindedly, “Who is Sô Fanfanne?”
“She’s the one.”
It was exasperating, but Babakar didn’t lose patience. “Which one?”
Movar made up his mind to give an explanation. “She’s the one Neighbor Céluta said would be the best person to help me.”
“Help you do what?”
Movar then gave him such a reproachful look that Babakar recalled their conversations when the nights were pouring with rain: Haiti is a place unlike any other. Here, death doesn’t exist. Everyone is mixed up and you never know who is alive and who has passed on.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Babakar offered, so as to be forgiven.
“Yes,” Movar requested, adding sadly, “since Fouad doesn’t want to come.”
Fouad had, in fact, made no attempt to hide what he thought of this magical-surrealist bric-a-brac that Babakar was not entirely impervious to, given his mother’s family history. Yet the next morning, to everyone’s surprise, he got behind the wheel of his van, which still bore the lettering The Cedars of Lebanon: Sophisticated Mediterranean cuisine.
Sô Fanfanne and her assistant, Juana, in charge of lighting the candles during the séances, serving tea in the waiting room, and eventually massaging any customers who so desired, lived in Léogâne. This small town, a few kilometers away, had been the scene of Charlemagne Péralte’s rebellion, which had defied the Americans. At the entrance a notice recalled his martyrdom to visitors, as well as stating the following:
Stéphanie Lebrun alias Sô Fanfanne
Clairvoyant and medium
Internationally famous
Having practiced in the USA
In the city of Brooklyn
In the state of New York
While Fouad made an obvious show of leaving, Movar and Babakar piled into the stifling waiting room where already half a dozen customers were passing the time. After a lengthy wait, Sô Fanfanne made a theatrical entrance. She was a very lovely woman of around forty, squeezed into a tight-fitting, blood-red dress, with a kerchief of the same color tied around her forehead. She spoke American, since she had left Haiti with her parents when she was a child and studied accountancy at Medgar Evers College. That was where she forgot all her French and, she lamented, where she met a Senegalese man whom she had unfortunately married.
“The Senegalese! Oh, my God! They’re the worst of all!” she exclaimed.
Before locking herself away with Movar, she suggested Juana give Babakar a massage. He accepted, recalling his stays in Segu where his grandmother’s masseuses would arrive with their ointments and essential oils. The masseuse who took care of him there was called Mariama, and her oddly rough and gentle hands spread a diffused pleasure throughout his body that made him feel ashamed.
While lighting the candles that wafted a strange smell, Juana inquired whether life was treating him well. What could he reply to such a question? Life is a lame shrew. Babakar stammered out a “yes” and lay down on a bench. While Juana’s hands gradually kneaded him, he got the impression he was leaving his mortal coil. It was as if the good and the bad thoughts he had felt were being lifted out and he was becoming lighter and lighter, ready to dance like a speck of dust in one of the sun’s rays, swept away like a wisp of straw, one particle among many others. The session lasted about an hour. Afterwards, he staggered out, stricken by that agreeable sensation of having broken the moorings that tied him to this earth. Fouad was waiting for him and reading a newspaper.
“They’ve assassinated another Lebanese minister!” he announced in low spirits. “More riots, more blood and dead. This time there’s no mention of Israel; they’re accusing Syria.”
Babakar was at a loss for words. All this killing, which constantly plunges the same region into perpetual mourning.
“In moments such as these,” Fouad continued. “I worry even more about Zohran. I’m sure he must be mixed up in all that.”
As for Babakar, he tried not to think of anyone as a way of preserving himself from grief and remorse. When the memory of Hassan emerged out of the mist of the past, he would vigorously suppress it. The only image that never left him was that of Azélia. She was displayed at the back of his memory like a tapestry he could not unhook.
Movar finally appeared, escorted by Sô Fanfanne chattering away and k
issing all three of them as if they were old friends. Apparently, her kiss was of no comfort to Movar, whose juvenile face, usually lost in thought and smiling, remained blank.
“Did it go well?” Babakar asked.
“No!” Movar replied soberly.
“Why? What’s the matter?” Fouad insisted.
Instead of answering, Movar sought refuge behind a deep silence which no question managed to break.
At present, the shawl of the night wrapped itself around the shape of everything, merging contours into a brownish halo. Only the stars sparkled clear and bright. On the terrace of Building A, Jahira and Myriam were on the lookout for their return.
“Ou té wè li?” they both shouted to Movar.
“Non, mwen pa té wè li,” he replied somberly.
And without saying one word more, he went up to his room.
They stared at each other petrified, then both repeated in unison: “Li pa té wè li!”
Fouad shouted at them angrily. “It’s not surprising Movar didn’t see her! Stop this nonsense. A dead person is gone forever. FOREVER. Once death has passed, there’s no question of seeing anyone again.”
The two sisters didn’t bother to reply. Jahira informed Babakar of Ti-Son Meiji’s visit. Estrella Ovide, Reinette’s sister, was staying in her palatial residence on the outskirts of Jacmel, and that was where he could see her.
Jahira held Anaïs by the hand and tried to guide her first footsteps. As headstrong as ever, Anaïs refused to obey and toddled off on her own, fell down then picked herself up. Once again, seeing the two together, despite his instinctive feeling of jealousy, Babakar couldn’t help remarking how the child was blossoming thanks to Jahira. He began to compare them to a picture of Virgin and Child painted by one of the numerous local artists.
Around midnight, Movar reappeared on the terrace where Fouad was reading excerpts from an anthology of Palestinian poetry. His swollen eyelids and red eyes were telltale signs he had been crying.
“Sô Fanfanne,” he declared, launching into Creole, “told me what I had feared. Since Reinette’s body had been removed, she was unable to see where Reinette was. She looked everywhere. There are seven savannahs for the deceased around the globe. If by magic they take you too far nobody can track you down.”
“Movar, I’ve already told you to stop this nonsense,” Fouad said, exasperated but trying to keep calm. “You’re just making yourself worse. Your Reinette is dead and buried.”
-
THE FOLLOWING WEEKEND, everyone set off for Jacmel.
Once you’ve gone through Saint-Soledad and Port-au-Prince, you take the southern route. But north or south, the desolation remains the same. You begin to regret the bustling chaos of Port-au-Prince. The traveler is confronted with lunar-like expanses hollowed out by huge craters. Where are the inhabitants of these ghostly villages abandoned to Heaven and Earth? Boat people drifting over the seas and oceans of this world seeking a place to drop anchor and survive? Migrants spurned and twisting their tongues over a foreign language? Not a single human silhouette could be seen in the streets, ablaze with light and swirls of dust. Cut to the heart with pangs of anguish, we witness helplessly the suffering of a land. Who owned these cattle, all skin and bones, grazing here and there on the remaining sprouts of brownish grass?
Except for Babakar, as nervous as a betrothed waiting for the visit of his fiancée, everyone was asleep in the car. They could have been kept awake given the state of the road, which narrowed to a strip riddled with potholes as deep as craters upon which the wheels of the car spun in thin air. Despite these difficulties, the driver, hired along with the vehicle, drove at full speed with an expert hand. So as not to disturb the sleep of his passengers, he had turned the radio down low and, over the faint sounds of Carimi, he asked Babakar where he was from.
“Moun ki peyi w ye?”
When Babakar explained he was a foreigner, a Malian, the driver launched bravely into French and claimed, “In Haiti now, it’s worse than when the Duvaliers were in power.”
“I can scarcely believe it,” Babakar exclaimed. “At least there’s a bit of hope.”
“Hope for what?”
Babakar didn’t know how to respond to such a frank question.
The driver persisted. “Have you heard about the Chimeras?”
Yes, he had—Chimeras, Patriots, they were all the same. Flung into the same breeding ground of exclusion and poverty, and capable of inflicting tremendous damage for the same reasons.
“They’re the worst of all,” the driver declared. “Worse than the zinglindos, worse than the Macoutes.”
He suddenly interrupted his diatribe and braked so abruptly that the car swerved and woke everyone up. Anaïs began to cry. Across a bend in the road, a crude roadblock had emerged built of tires and planks that were still smoldering. A dozen youngsters without uniforms, but heavily armed, were standing guard with a threatening air. Who were they? What was the name of their group? Did they belong to the formidable Chimeras? Or were they, on the contrary, henchmen of the interim government? Babakar would have been incapable of telling what camp they belonged to. The one who seemed to be the leader broke away and came forward. He was not much older than his comrades, but stood out from the rest by his confident, if not arrogant, looks. He was handsome under his Bob Marley-like ginger-colored dreadlocks, which came down to his shoulders. He walked over to the car, made an impeccable military salute, and in a French that was just as impeccable, declared, “I’m Captain Dalembert from Commander Henri Christophe II’s Special Forces. Where are you going? And why?”
He spoke directly to Babakar, staring him straight in the eye as if the others did not exist.
“We’re going to Jacmel,” Babakar replied.
Captain Dalembert raised his eyebrows as if such an idea were odd. “Jacmel? Why? What do you intend to do there?”
Babakar summoned up his patience, since you should always be patient with someone holding a gun—you never know when it will go off. He explained in all seriousness, “We intend to take a look at its artistic treasures.”
The captain interrupted him angrily. “You’re playing at being tourists in a country that’s at war!”
Babakar kept his nerve. “At war!” he exclaimed. “I had no idea the country was at war. With whom?”
“Yes, we are at war.”
“Against whom?” Babakar repeated.
Captain Dalembert stared at him in commiseration. “Against the lackeys of imperialism. We have only ever had one president who was on the people’s side. And you have seen how disgracefully he was treated by the West. They instated a puppet in his place. You think we are going to accept that?” Thereupon, he barked roughly, “Your IDs!”
“Why?” Babakar protested.
“We have to check you’re not in the pay of the Americans. That you’re not spies!”
Ridiculous! The youngsters came over and grabbed all the passports, separating the men from the women.
“Medam yo bô isit, gason yo bôt lôtbô!”
Then one of the boys grabbed Fouad by the arm while another clapped hands on the unfortunate Movar. Two others seized Babakar and the driver by the collar and held them in a stranglehold.
“I’m sorry,” Captain Dalembert said in a polite tone loaded with irony. “If all goes well, you’ll soon be off again and you can do as much tourism as you like.”
One of the boys pointed to Anaïs. “Chef, se yon tifi?”
Dalembert went and took the child in his arms, softly stroking her cheek. “Yes, it’s a little girl. She’s so pretty!”
As if she had understood his compliment, the child gave him one of her biggest smiles. This treason hurt Babakar no end.
“Sé ti moun aw?” Dalembert asked, turning to Jahira.
Babakar intervened vehemently. “She’s my daughter, Anaïs Traoré.”
>
But the brutes were already dragging him along with the three other men to a jeep, which suddenly lurched off, driving at full speed for a few minutes before stopping just as abruptly in front of a stone building. On the front an inscription was scrawled in black lettering: Headquarters of the Permanent Forces. Babakar had the familiar feeling of déjà vu. The young soldiers shoved their prisoners through a series of dark, half-empty rooms to a narrow gallery where the ceiling was so low that they couldn’t stand up, and padlocked the door. An impenetrable darkness set in while the foul-smelling air became rarefied. For the second time in his life, Babakar found himself deprived of his freedom without really knowing why. What had he done to deserve the same treatment twice? This time, not only did he feel he was being treated unjustly and incomprehensibly, but he was also worried about Anaïs. Never before had he been separated from her and in such terrible conditions. This separation plunged him into the depths of anger and despair. What did Captain Dalembert intend to do with a baby? His head was buzzing with the most unlikely ideas. In the darkness, Movar sought his hand and whispered, “You don’t need to be afraid. Here, a child is sacred. Nobody will harm her.”
Babakar didn’t answer; he didn’t have the strength. Suddenly, the driver began to cry: noisy, heartrending sobs interspersed with gulps and appeals to his maman.
“Shut up!” Fouad shouted. “You’re the only one blubbering whereas we are all in the same shit.”
Thereupon, he too burst into uncontrollable sobbing. “Every night, and yesterday was no exception, I dream of Zohran,” he murmured while Babakar crawled towards him and put his arm around Fouad’s shoulders affectionately. “He is lying on a bed. I think he’s asleep but when I look closer there’s blood trickling down his chest and dripping on the ground. He’s dead, DEAD! As he probably is in real life.”
“You must stop thinking of him like that,” Babakar begged him. “You don’t know anything of the sort.”
“I can’t help thinking it’s my fault; if I had helped him when he asked me, everything would be different.”
