no dialectic, no contrasts, no time, no reference points, no
contradictory inclinations, no everyday-rhythmic-organic-urge to
expand, no impatient temperament getting in the way, no
interminably long roads, forests and thickets.
And,
most liberating of all,
no impossible dreams—that everyday struggle to overcome social
injustice and inequality of opportunity.
When the i who stands before you here withdraws.
Sleep without dreams. There’s just black and the i that i am, is lost.
No witnesses to find me and define me narrow.
The narrow that’s daylight black.
The narrow that’s flat.
One-dimensional.
A shadow.
Where i come from, All is one.
And that oneness is as black as the center of the sun.
As dynamic as the silence of celestial inspiration,
compassion, love, peace, death.
When everything drains off me, All is empty,
wide and deep as my crown chakra
and as black as the known cosmos.
i’m learning to accept i’ve been lost for longer than i can know.
THE MISSION
BY MARIE-HÉLÈNE LAFOREST
Bonair
(Originally published in 2002)
Rusted wheels, half-buried copper caldrons, and a windmill’s sails still lay about Bonair, remnants of the distillery which had once been the center of life in the village. Six huts crowded in the clearing while several more stood along the trail made by horses, donkeys, and the barefoot people of Bonair.
“A white man’s coming, a white man’s coming!” A boy ran, firmly gripping his oversized shorts at the waist, jumping like a kid goat over the rocks on the trail, whizzing past the huts. “A white man’s coming!” he yelled, reaching his mother pounding corn in a tall wooden mortar. The corn chaff rose above her head like golden dust and the deep, low thumping stopped.
“Alone?” she asked.
“No, with a priest,” the boy answered.
“A priest?” Lumène’s eyes opened wide. There hadn’t been any foreigners in Bonair since Pè Milcent was shipped out of the country four years ago. Chef Section came with the order one morning: all foreigners must leave Haitian soil within forty-eight hours. The converts assembled outside Pè Milcent’s shingle house. When he stepped out in civilian clothes, carrying a small bag, two women flung themselves at his feet. “Don’t forget us, Pé.” “Pé, it’s goodbye then.” Pé Milcent, too moved to speak, shook hands, patted heads, and left. Lisette, his housekeeper, got the sheets and towels he didn’t have time to take to the Sisters of Mercy in town. He must have arrived home safely; otherwise, they would have heard that he was dead or in jail.
Lumène resumed her pounding, rhythmically marking time until the priests reached the bend in the trail. Two men in their late twenties, in gray suits with clergyman collars, approached. The light-skinned one had square shoulders and a thick mustache; the darker one was smaller, with a smiling face.
“Chef Section’s not here,” Lumène said without looking up.
“Do you know where he is?” The clergymen stopped.
“He’ll be here soon, at three o’clock.”
The clergymen went back on their steps to wait for the rural guard in the shade of a tamarind tree.
“She knew where we were headed,” the lighter man smiled.
“Where else could we be going?” the darker one said.
“Chef Section wasn’t there, was he?” a man called out from the porch of his hut.
“He’ll be back at three,” the clergymen answered.
“Yes, he’s usually back at three. Yes . . . you can come sit over here.” John set two chairs against the wattled walls of his hut. Blotches of white glared in his hair as if he had just whitewashed a house. He stretched his long legs before him, ready to make conversation.
“You’re priests from Port-au-Prince?”
“We’re from the Pentecostal Church.”
“Oh, Baptists, Protestants. There was a Baptist church here once, before Pè Milcent came. They were here when I was this tall, still in short pants. No one here is old enough to remember. That’s why my name is John, after Pastor John. My mother was baptized in the river behind Chef Section’s house. Pastor John, afraid of the water spirits, stood on a big rock to dip my mother’s head in the water. He began to build a church down the road over there. He made some nice songs. God is everywhere . . .” John intoned, tapping his foot.
A breeze blew and stirred the leaves of a silk cotton tree. The clergymen looked up. Calabashes with offerings swung from the branches. John stopped talking, turned left and right, scrutinizing the sky.
“Then we had a Catholic priest called Pè Milcent . . .” he continued.
“When did Pastor John go away?”
“Oooh . . . a long time ago. I tell you, all the people you see around here weren’t even born back then. He left one Easter Sunday. The rara bands were out every night, dum-tum, dum-tum, bamboo sticks, drums, dum-tum, dum-tum. On Holy Saturday everyone was out dancing. No one was under the arbor to pray. After that, he left. You can’t serve God and Satan . . .” John pointed to the path with his cane, interrupting his talk. “I think he’s coming.” He sucked his teeth, like everyone in Bonair did every time they saw Chef Section. They had found out he was trying to get a pistol from the Macoutes in town. But what for, they asked themselves, to shoot one of us?
Through the heat, the clergymen saw the thin guard in a blue denim suit with large silvery buttons waddling toward them, feeling his whip. He cracked it in the air, the sound sharp like a single gunshot. They rose to meet him, followed him, watching his uneasy steps in the shoes he’d worn to town.
“Want to build a church, eh?” Chef Section asked.
“Apparently there is an old house . . .”
“The priest’s.”
“If we could rent it . . .”
The priest’s house, with a slanted roof and a porch, was built like those of the better-off country folks’ on the main road. The rains had washed away the paint, but the jalousies, which opened in long painful creaks, had kept the water out. Small rodents had left their black trails in the two rooms. The men agreed on a price.
The next morning the two pastors arrived on foot carrying two duffel bags, a broom, and a pail.
“What good will these poor pastors on foot be to us?” the people of Bonair whispered, remembering missionaries in Land Rovers, who carried their trousseaus in trunks like young brides. They grew perplexed as they watched Pastor Ben: a white clergyman drawing water from the well in the garden, scrubbing the porch on his knees.
Pastor Ben sat under the tamarind tree to wait for the wooden floors to dry. He smiled to himself as the branches swung their lacy leaves above him. He drew out a penknife with a shiny blade to shave a few sticks; green flakes curled around him. He threw the sticks in the air, stood up, and stretched his arms. He strolled in the garden, pulling a blade of grass, stooping over, feeling the coppery soil through his fingers. The sun, setting for the night, found him reading out of a small book, the breeze blowing through his hair on the front porch. When it was too dark to see, he went inside. On the bare floor that night, he lay, head resting on his folded arms, as if he were on a sandy beach, the rustle of geckos and lizards through the tall grass keeping him awake. He savored the smell of cut green wood and loosened soil. He had planned so long for this day.
Ever since the massacre at Caserne Dessalines five years ago, he had thought of nothing else. At the time, he was a medical student in Paris. A group of men assaulted the barracks next to the presidential palace. They were caught. Duvalier displayed their mutilated bodies to the public. By decree, all schoolchildren were taken to the square to see the fly-ridden, foul-smelling corpses.
The trip back to Port-au-Prince was the longest he had ever embar
ked on. To elude Duvalier’s spies, he went through Madrid, Mexico City, Pointe-à-Pitre, waited there three days before flying to Port-au-Prince. When he stepped out of the plane, a wave of emotion swelled inside him. He didn’t expect the dry heat to smell of his childhood, of his summers in a mountain house, of geranium bushes and fig trees. He clutched the small Bible with one hand and fingered the silver cross on his chest with the other. The first local member of the secret Committee for Freedom, Pastor Paul, met him. The Church of Hope was about to begin its activity.
He had three sermons written on the theological virtues to ease the rural population into his teachings. He would have to deliver them like someone who has recently learned to speak Creole. He was determined to be patient; after all, Fidel Castro had lived two years in the Sierra Maestra. The Church of Hope would gather enough followers from within the country to fight the dictator. He had a mission. He had returned to free the country and its peasants, the most oppressed of the oppressed. The sun rose so early that it was already day and he had not fallen asleep.
The rattle of a vehicle stopped all activities in Bonair the next morning. Springs, mattresses, chairs, and boxes in its bed, the pickup truck, Pastor Paul at the wheel, jostled about. When it became clear that they were bringing Pastor Ben’s furniture, the hoeing and weeding resumed. From a distance the people saw the pastors extend the beams of the porch, hammering and clobbering. They laid straw mats for the shade and hung a kerosene lamp from the porch ceiling. At dusk Pastor Paul drove away, leaving Pastor Ben alone.
On Sunday he lined up the foldable chairs for his first service. John limped to the porch-turned-church leaning on his cane. Following John’s lead, the people of Bonair hesitantly approached. To the few curious present, Pastor Ben spoke of his plans for a practical school, without slate tablets or books. He would teach them about growing and selling crops. The church garden would become the community’s, everyone sharing in the work and dividing the yield equally. The people were surprised that Pastor Ben brought seeds to sow, instead of used clothing and powdered milk.
In the coming weeks, Pastor Ben spoke of hope and charity, finding it difficult after that to write any more sermons. For fear of being searched at the airport he had taken no books and it was risky for Pastor Paul to travel with printed material. Every night he closed his doors early and wrote furiously. He was working on the theme of awakening.
Wake up, wake up to a new life, he wrote, the Kingdom of God is of this world. He said the words aloud and crossed out the last line.
Each morning he tended the garden, John in his trail, following him all the way to the riverbank where root vegetables grew.
“You like yam, Pastor Ben? Pè Milcent only ate potatoes,” John said.
“Everything that grows on this soil is blessed.”
“Pastor Ben, you’re not married?”
“Marriage would interfere with my mission.”
“Some pastors have wives. You’re not ready to start building the church? Chef Section asked me when you’re going to build the church. Pè Milcent used to go to town to buy bricks, planks, a little at a time.”
Pastor Ben suspected John was trying to tell him he found his behavior eccentric. He began to plan construction of the church. The news pleased his nine followers.
On Wednesday Pastor Paul came for him. They drove to Mombi to order cement, sand, and bricks. The following Monday, when they returned to town for trowels and plumb lines, it was market day. From the surrounding villages, people had flocked to Mombi to trade. Pastor Ben stood on the side of the road looking at the market shacks and at the masses of women squatting before their baskets. Unknowingly, his eyes became misty. He breathed in the smell of cod and herring, of pig’s feet and hot peppers. Gusts of pine wood fire and whiffs of fried pork filled his avid nostrils. He stood there, his thoughts going back to memories from his youth, his parents and their mansion, to scenes he had forgotten, hierarchies he’d felt vaguely uneasy about. He remembered the analyses of oppression and repression in a Paris university room with the men of his Communist cell. It was in Paris that he fully understood the society in which he had lived all his life and the mechanisms enacted to perpetuate economic and social injustice.
Seeing Pastor Paul struggling with a sack of rice, Pastor Ben stepped down into the market area to help him. Bending forward to grab the other side of the sack, his face neared that of a small woman selling rice who locked his gaze.
“Monsieur Michel,” she breathed.
He heaved the bag and hurried to the Church of Hope’s truck. His heart was beating fast, sweat ran down his face, his hand stroked his thick mustache, his mind in turmoil. The woman’s eyes had seen behind his mustache.
As planned, the two men met a Pastor Henri along the road. He was to bring them news from abroad. Pastor Ben could hear in Pastor Henri’s shrill voice that there was news, which he would later whisper inside the truck. The coded message was clear, the day had come.
* * *
Matilde knotted her rice in a burlap cloth and left the market. She had seen Monsieur Michel, but what was he doing there, dressed like a clergyman with a big brown mustache? She’d taught him to walk, taught him his first words, fed, washed, dressed him. She was his Mati. She couldn’t be fooled by his get-up. Madame Saint-Armand should be told.
With her market clothes on, her worn sandals flapping, and a pack of rice balanced on her head, she set off for the city. She waited on the road for a vehicle going to Port-au-Prince.
The dog began to bark when she arrived at the Saint-Armands’ gate. The yardman let her in and opened the front door, recognizing the woman who had raised five of the six Saint-Armand children. He led Matilde into a room where she sat under a photograph taken the day Michel left for France. She remembered how the Saint-Armands had talked about sailing to France to visit him. But when the time came, ships had stopped coming, curfews were set, properties seized, and she’d gone back to Mombi to watch over her plot of land.
“Matilde, what happened?” Madame Saint-Armand’s arms, which Matilde remembered being fuller, reached out to her.
“I didn’t have time to change,” Matilde replied, thinking of her clothes, but staring at Madame Saint-Armand’s gray suit, the color of mourning.
“Business bad?” Madame Saint-Armand asked.
“When they don’t take money from us every time we sell something, we manage.”
The two women drew long sighs. Madame Saint-Armand picked up her handbag. She was opening her purse to give Matilde money, out of habit.
“Madame,” Matilde waved a hand at her, “sit down, I have something to tell you . . . I saw Monsieur Michel. I called him, but he didn’t answer, but it was him.”
“Michel?” Madame Saint-Armand whispered. “Michel . . .” Sadness glazed over her eyes. “You saw Michel?”
“Madame, it was him,” Matilde repeated, lowering her eyes so as not to stare at Madame Saint-Armand’s distress.
There was silence.
“It couldn’t have been him,” Madame Saint-Armand struggled with the words.
“I, Matilde,” she hit her chest, “I wouldn’t recognize Monsieur Michel?”
Madame Saint-Armand nodded.
“Maybe . . . you’d better speak to Monsieur Saint-Armand.” She rose slightly from the chair and turned toward the wide staircase. “Frantz, Frantz!”
Matilde told Monsieur Saint-Armand that her eyes had crossed Michel’s. She went on describing his clothes, the clergyman collar, and the bushy mustache as often as the Saint-Armands asked her.
“Matilde,” Madame Saint-Armand hesitated, “we have no news of Michel . . . He left medical school six months ago.” She stopped and Matilde watched her shoulders sink. “No one has heard from him since,” she choked on the last word.
Matilde was in tears. She had not known. She had seen Michel and had not held on to him. There was nothing they could do at this late hour. The Saint-Armands would wait until tomorrow morning to drive to Mombi where
Matilde had seen him.
* * *
The people of Bonair woke up hearing a rustling at daybreak. A bad air is coming from the earth, John thought. It is a bad sign when the night breeze grazes the grass and does not reach the trees. A hiss cut through the dark. John groped for his cane. Flares lit up the dawn, a volley of shots, grenades exploded. Chef Section stormed out of his house to try out his new pistol.
The people of Bonair remained shut inside their huts and waited for the tremors to subside. When they glanced out, machine-gunned soldiers surrounded the area where the pastors’ house had been. The people gathered on the opposite side of the trail, slapping their cheeks in despair. They saw John walking through the rubble, trembling, stammering, while heading in the direction of the soldiers. A woman rushed over, clenched his hand, and drew him to where the population of Bonair crowded. The villagers remained silent, immobile, staring at the soldiers until the sun rose high in the sky.
Matilde and the Saint-Armands woke up at daybreak with a heavy heart. Unaware that Duvalier’s léopards had pounced, they set off for Mombi.
* * *
Fifteen years after Duvalier’s death, on February 7, 1986, his son, Baby Doc, fled the country. That day the people of Bonair renamed their village Pastorbenville.
BARBANCOURT BLUES (EXCERPT)
BY NICK STONE
Pétionville Square
(Originally published in 2007)
Max left La Coupole at around two a.m. The Barbancourt rum was making his head reel, but not in an unpleasant way. Booze had always promised to take him up someplace good only to fuck with his controls and leave him stranded midway, tasting the inevitable crash. This was a different kind of drunk, closer to an opiate float. He had a smile on his face and that good feeling in his heart that everything would be all right and the world wasn’t such a bad place really. The booze was that good.
Dark telegraph poles leaned out of the concrete, tilting slightly forward, toward Pétionville’s brightly lit center. The wires were slung so low and loose Max could have touched them if he’d wanted to. He was walking in the street, barely feeling his footsteps, bracing his body against the downward pull of gravity, which threatened to send him sprawling flat on his face. Behind him, people were coming out of the bar, spilling conversation and laughter, which faded to murmurs and splutters in the deep silence that confronted them. Some Americans tested the rigidity of the stillness with a one-off scream or shout or a bark or a meow, but the quietness sucked the noise into more silence.