Haiti Noir

I can’t wait to tell Miranda the whole story, to see the look on her face when I say, Guess what? My grandmother knew Zora Neale Hurston. She helped her when Zora came to Haiti and wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God. She’s that Lucille, the one in Tell My Horse. My grandmother. This must be the reason she visited me in my dreams. To show me this.

It’s three in the morning by the time I drift off, lulled halfasleep by the farmers’ vigil. First the murmured Latin phrases, the Gregorian chants from nuns in sky-blue habits who came by bus for the march. Then the soft acoustic guitars of troubadours in straw hats, their lyrics as sweet as the wild honey from the bees of Papay. Dawn approaches, and for the first time in my life, I hear gospel music in Creole.

“We need to love one another other,” a woman’s voice sings, soaring and fading, trying to sow love in the dusty path of death.

We have two SUVs for the long ride back to Port-au-Prince, because some people from this center are coming with us. And, of course, Miranda is in the other van, so my story will have to wait. Despite the warnings not to march, the people voted to go ahead. Alexis’s eyes are calm but red-rimmed when he shakes our hands and thanks us for coming. He kisses Miranda on both cheeks and they look right into each other’s eyes. Am I out of it or did something happen between them? It’s true I didn’t see her much last night. Who cares? I feel triumphant this morning. Nothing can bother me now.

Alexis tells Manuel and the other driver to be careful. I take my seat of honor in the front, next to Manuel. Our two SUVs are whisked through the gates that quickly close behind us.

We’re stopped by uniformed men who, after peering into the cars, brusquely wave us on with their guns. I’ve never seen so many people with guns. We pass a village perched on the edge of a steep cliff. Below is the Lac de Peligre, the Lake of Danger.

Manuel is telling us how Americans created the lake in the 1950s to stop up Haiti’s largest river, the Artibonite, the lifeline for this region, known as Haiti’s breadbasket. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers planned the dam. It was supposed to be a development project that would bring electricity to millions. In Port-au-Prince, assembly plants and agribusinesses, along with some lucky families, did receive electricity. But upstream, peasants from the valley who used to live alongside the river ended up fleeing with whatever they could carry. These were the “water refugees,” whose pastel dwellings cling hopefully to these cliffs. I peer down at the charred skeleton of a truck at the bottom of the ravine. A tiny swerve in the wrong direction. That is all it took.

In the departure lounge at the airport, I hug Manuel goodbye.

“Don’t forget to plant a tree,” he says smiling, holding me a fraction longer than I expect. He seems kind of sad to see me go, or am I just imagining things? I watch him walk away. He does not turn around or look back. I line up to take my seat next to Miranda.

Good morning, friends, says the e-mail from Alexis the day after the march. It is with a sense of great urgency that I write to you today to denounce the vicious attacks that took place yesterday in Hinche against peasants leaving the Congress.

Alexis describes how, after dropping us off at the airport, Manuel turned right around to return to Papay. He was driving alone, hoping to make it back in time for at least part of the march. Near that turnoff by the Lac de Peligre, he was flagged down on the road. Perhaps he thought he could help, or maybe he recognized someone. In any case, a few witnesses said Manuel got out of the SUV and was quickly surrounded by a group of young men with guns. They forced him into the backseat. The white SUV sped off. Manuel hasn’t been seen since.

WHO IS THAT MAN? BY YANICK LAHENS

Saint-Marc

Translated by David Ball

Who is that man? Orelus thought about it every day. Several times a day. Every night. For almost ten days now. He’d tried an infusion of soursop leaves, as he had every other night to calm himself down. Nothing helped. It was close to half past midnight and he couldn’t manage to fall asleep. To make things worse, it was particularly hot that night. Stifling. In this town of Saint-Marc, flat as a cassava. Flat as the palm of your hand. Who was that man sitting next to him in that SUV barreling toward Port-au-Prince? A trip that had turned his life upside down. Who was that man? He probably had a wife and kids, a mother.

Orelus flapped an old school bag in the air, first near his face, then around his left shoulder, and finally over his right shoulder. Despite the repellent coils to drive off the mosquitoes, they still made their usual rounds and were whining away relentlessly at his ear. So Orelus kept trying to chase them off by shaking that old satchel. It didn’t work. And it was hot enough to fry an egg-or your skin. Orelus had to get out of bed and sit right next to the window with the hope of getting some relief, and maybe, in the silence of the night, finding an answer to question that haunted him: who is that man?

His wife Yva was fast asleep, exhausted. She’d just gotten up to give her daughter a bottle, then went right back to sleep without even realizing how uncomfortable it was, what with the heat and the mosquitoes. Yva didn’t complain. Yva rarely complained. And luckily didn’t ask too many questions. Which was quite convenient as far as that incident was concerned-the incident that still made him shiver sometimes, just thinking about it. Orelus looked at his daughter Natasha for a moment. She had come into his life a year ago and he’d promised himself he would give her a better life than his own. That incident had made him even more determined. And he could see the scene of her birth at the hospital once again. Since from now on everything was connected.

In his mind, Orelus went over that day, the third of July, for the nth time.

Just like every month, he was getting ready to leave for Port-au-Prince and go to the main office of the health organization he worked for, to turn in his report on the assignment he’d completed over the past month. He had visited every corner of the main towns of Bas Artibonite and meticulously filled out the questionnaires: Age, sex, number of children, marital status, date of last visit to doctor, declaration of illnesses, etc. He had slept very late the night before, in order to file the papers according to the organization’s guidelines. His employers liked him, and Orelus was very much attached to his job, which not only allowed him to feed his family (the beginning of dignity), but to pay for his younger sister’s computer studies and be generous to strangers who’d been pummeled by misfortune. His compassion had saved him on that third of July. It made him all the more aware of his own good fortune and he had no desire to lose it.

He’d had a hard time waking up that day and had almost run to the station where the trucks left for Port-au- Prince. They were all full already, and time was passing. He looked desperately at his watch several times. Then a friend he hadn’t seen for a few years walked over and jumped for joy when he spotted Orelus. Pierre had left Saint-Marc for the United States when he was a teenager. His school friends heard from him once or twice, then silence. Orelus was sociable and liked companionship. They embraced each other with mutual warmth. They exchanged the usual questions friends ask after a long absence, but Orelus couldn’t help looking intently at the trucks to see if luck was smiling on him at last. Pierre asked him what was making him so impatient. When Orelus explained that he needed to get to Port-au-Prince for his work, Pierre told him not to worry. A friend was going to drive to Port-au-Prince that morning and he was alone. Pierre called that friend on his cell and the man agreed to take Orelus with him. Orelus thanked Pierre warmly for putting an end to his anxiety.

Ten minutes later, Orelus was comfortably seated in a brand-new SUV with four-wheel drive. He immediately stopped worrying. He exchanged a few words with the driver, whose name was Dudley and spoke Creole with a strong English accent. Although the guy was driving extremely fast, Orelus was so relieved that with the help of the air conditioner, he dozed off after the first few minutes. He remembered being suddenly awakened by the squealing of the brakes on the asphalt and realizing that the driver had just dodged a truck speeding in the opposite direction. Orelus promised himself not to fall asleep anymore. He tensed up a bit. All the more so as he noticed Dudley glancing constantly at his rearview mirror, trying to keep the car behind them from passing. Orelus knew those drivers-all too many of them-who staked their honor on the wrong things. And risked their lives for totally childish reasons. He said to himself he’d rather get there fifteen minutes late, but alive. Orelus told Dudley in a tone neutral enough not to offend him that he wasn’t in that much of a rush and it would be a good idea to let the impatient