When Death Comes for You

by Marjorie Florestal

  Okay, maybe she was a little jealous, Renée conceded with a silent laugh.

  Two women walked by with a group of children in tow, and she found herself trailing along behind them. There were about twelve kids chattering and laughing, obviously excited. One of the women, a young mother, carried an infant in her arms, while the older woman busied herself counting heads.

  Renée felt a pang of longing. She missed her daughter. Marie-Thérèse was only six years old—younger than this crowd, who looked to be around eight or nine—but one day, she would be off on her own school field trips. Renée smiled at the thought.

  The headcounter said in an unmistakable teacher’s voice, “Please settle down, children. It’s time to begin our lesson.”

  The children gathered in a semicircle around the two women. Renée found herself edging closer, eager to hear the lesson.

  “GTMO is America’s oldest overseas military base,” the teacher said. “We leased this land from Cuba in 1903, so how many years have we been here?”

  “Eighty-nine years,” the children replied in unison.

  “Very good,” the teacher said. “In return, we pay the Cuban government four thousand dollars every year, just as we agreed in our treaty.”

  A burly little boy called out, “Mrs. Herman, if I had four thousand dollars, I would buy ten Fort Bravo playsets, and ten Crash Dummies, and lots and lots of candy. What do Cubans buy with all that money?”

  Mrs. Herman looked slightly uncomfortable. “Actually, Christopher, the Cuban government has refused to cash our checks.”

  “Why?” a little girl with a red ponytail asked.

  “Because they don’t like the terms of our agreement, Isabel,” Mrs. Herman replied. “But fair is fair. Both sides voluntarily signed the treaty, so we should both live by its terms.”

  The lawyer in Renée cringed. It was a stretch to call Cuba’s acquiescence to the terms of the Platt Amendment voluntary. For one, the United States was the occupying power at the time—albeit a “friendly” one whose intervention had ended several years of armed conflict between Spain and the Cuban rebels. For another, the Americans refused to grant the island independence unless Cuba agreed to the perpetual lease of Guantanamo, and other provisions equally dismissive of Cuban sovereignty.

  “Why don’t Cubans like us?” asked another little girl. A breeze tickled her hair, sending the ends of her cornrowed braids flying.

  Mrs. Herman shook her head. “They do like us, Lydia. We have been friends of the Cuban people for a long time. We helped them win their war of independence against Spain back in 1898.”

  “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain,” Christopher shouted.

  The kids snickered. Isabel, the redheaded girl, spoke up. “Mrs. Herman, Christopher said a bad word.”

  “Did not!” the wounded Christopher replied. “My dad taught me that.” More childish laughter followed.

  “That’s enough,” Mrs. Herman said, her stern tone immediately restoring order. “We don’t usually like to use that word, but in this case, Christopher is right. That was our slogan during the Spanish-American War. Can anyone tell us what it means?”

  Lydia, the little girl in cornrows, promptly said, “President McKinley sent the USS Maine to Cuba to save the Americans who lived here. This was when Cuba was fighting Spain for independence. But Spain fired on our ship for no reason. And almost everybody died. We got so mad, we went to war with Spain. We won.”

  “Exactly,” Mrs. Herman said. “For three years, we took care of this island in the name of the Cuban people until they were ready to rule themselves. We love the Cuban people, and they love us. Our problem is with the Cuban government.”

  “My daddy says Mr. Castro wants to hurt us cuz we won’t leave GTMO. Is that true?” Isabel asked, twisting a strand of her red ponytail around her finger.

  Mrs. Herman knelt until she was eye level with the little girl. “No one’s going to hurt us, honey—our boys won’t let them. And we’re not going anywhere. We’re doing very important work here to support our troops, the Cuban people, and people all over the Caribbean. Just look at what we’re doing for the Haitians. You should be very proud of your daddy.”

  Renée watched the exchange and wondered how she would answer questions like that when her own daughter was old enough to ask. What would she tell Marie-Thérèse about the thousands of Haitians who risked their lives on the open sea to find safety? She couldn’t tell her little girl that her mother had sat idly by and done nothing. She wanted her daughter to be proud of her.

  She felt a prickling on her skin and looked up to find the young mother glaring at her. Renée offered a friendly smile, but the woman’s scowl only deepened. She whispered something in Mrs. Herman’s ear, and her grip tightened on her child until the infant began to cry.

  Renée beat a hasty retreat, putting as much distance between herself and the young mother as she could. That was odd. As a mother herself, she understood the importance of being cautious around strangers. But the woman seemed more angry than concerned. It was as if she knew Renée—and hated her.

  Someone tapped on her shoulder, Renée spun around to defend herself.

  “We’ve got to go,” Gigi said, her eyes worried.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a riot.”

  “On the Cuban side?” Renée asked in shock.

  Gigi shook her head. “On base.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I Am Not Afraid

  The noise at Camp Bulkeley was deafening. Move. Back away from the fence. Now! Now! Now!

  A battalion of two hundred soldiers dressed in full riot gear swarmed the ten-foot fence cordoning the refugees. The soldiers moved as a single entity, their faces obscured by helmets and visors as they barked out orders. Guns lay holstered at their hips, but each held a baton at the ready.

  Across the fence line hundreds of refugees sang, their voices at once plaintive and defiant. Kem pa sote, woy! Kem pa sote, woy!

  At least a dozen Haitian boys scrambled up the fence. They were mostly shirtless—their narrow chests glistening with sweat, their heads wrapped in damp white towels to fend off the sun’s heat. They stopped short at the very top of the fence where the gleaming edge of razor wire stood as a silent but effective barrier.

  Down below, the crowd banged on pots and pans, cheering and dancing to the improvised beat.

  “Mon Dieu,” Gigi said.

  Renée was more prosaic. “What set them off?”

  “You mean being locked up like animals isn’t enough?”

  Renée was stung by the venom in Gigi’s voice, but all she said was, “I mean why now? Why today?”

  “They’ve got nothing left to lose.”

  Someone brought in a megaphone, as if the problem had simply been one of sound amplification. Now the commands boomed through the air.

  “Migrants, move away from the fence. Go back to your tents. Do it now!”

  “Kem pa sote,” the crowd sang in reply.

  “What are they singing?” Renée asked.

  “I am not afraid.”

  Renée shook her head. “They should be afraid. Those are real guns.”

  Gigi turned on her with eyes blazing. “Don’t you know anything about your own culture? It’s a protest song.” She glared at Renée a moment longer, then shrugged in defeat. “Forget it. You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I might not know what you’re talking about, but I do know this could get ugly. Fast. We have to do something.”

  “We?” Gigi sounded the word on her tongue, then shook her head. “The guards won’t let you anywhere near the camp.”

  “Tell them I’m with you,” she urged. “They won’t turn back the UN.”

  “And then what? How will that help the refugees? You don’t know these people. You don’t speak their language. You don’t understand the first thing about them.”

  Renée was more than a little hurt by Gigi’s attack. “I want to help,” she sa
id softly.

  “You can’t. You’re not Haitian, remember? Only your parents were.”

  “But I—”

  “Go back to the hotel,” Gigi said. “You’ll be safe there.” She turned before Renée could respond and headed straight into the throng of visor-clad soldiers, flashing her badge as she went. A moment later, she was being escorted into the camp.

  Renée watched her disappear into the crowd. Gigi was right—she couldn’t possibly be of any use to these people. She didn’t speak their language. She didn’t understand the culture.

  She should go back to the hotel where she belonged.

  Even as the thought surfaced, Renée angrily pushed it away. Damn Gigi. Damn this infernal island. She hadn’t traveled fifteen hundred miles to be anyone’s bystander.

  She moved toward the fence, but a hand clamped down on her shoulder, halting her progress.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  It was John. She nearly sagged against him in relief. “I want to help,” she said.

  John shook his head. “No civilians. Only critical personnel’s getting into the camp.”

  “I can interpret.” The lie slipped out unexpectedly.

  “You speak Kreyòl?”

  She nodded and fought the urge to blink or look away.

  John stared at her for a moment. “We need more interpreters.”

  He walked her to the front of the fence line. A moment later, Renée heard the metal gate clang shut behind her. She suddenly found herself on the Haitian side of an invisible line that had divided her world since childhood.

  She took a few steps into the crowd. No one was paying attention to her. They were too busy singing and dancing their defiance. She made her way past the gatekeepers and ducked into one of the tents. Flies swarmed all around, their constant buzzing a nerve-racking distraction. Cots stretched from end to end, leaving just a few bare inches to move around. A line of thin white sheets fluttered from the rafters, creating a makeshift zone of privacy. Someone had tied plastic garbage bags to the sides of the tent to keep the rain out, although a good rain might have washed away the stench. It smelled of outhouses and stagnant water.

  She felt a tug at her pant leg and looked down to find a little girl at her side. She couldn’t be much older than Marie-Thérèse—but that was where the similarities ended. Her daughter was soft and round and playful, while this little girl was lean and full of hard edges. Her dark eyes had seen too much to ever be called innocent.

  “Are you the American lawyer?” the little girl asked in perfect English.

  “I am.” Renée knelt to speak to her tiny interrogator. “What’s your name?”

  “Lucie.”

  “How old are you, Lucie?”

  The little girl held up seven fingers.

  Renée smiled. “And where did you learn to speak English?”

  “An American church lady came to our town. She taught me.”

  “She would be very proud of you, but I don’t think it’s safe for you to be out here alone. Where’s your family?” Renée asked, hoping Lucie was not one of the hundreds of unaccompanied minors who’d made the treacherous sea voyage alone.

  “My parents want to talk to you,” Lucie said. “Please come.” She pulled urgently on Renée’s arm.

  There was nothing to do but follow her. They went down row upon row of tents until the blaring megaphone and the singing faded to a distant hum. Renée followed the nimble-footed Lucie, trying not to faint from the heat—or the smell.

  “Hurry,” Lucie urged, practically dragging Renée by the arm. They finally ducked into one of the tents.

  An old man leaped up, naked and toothless. “Sa w’ap fè la?” he shouted.

  Lucie shooed him away like a pesky fly, urging Renée forward. Several cots down, she stopped and said, “These are my parents, Pierre and Yvette Destin.”

  Renée smiled uncertainly at the man and woman who stood up to shake her hand. He was in his midthirties, thin with sunken cheeks and dull eyes. She was slightly younger and also lean, though not gaunt. Her eyes were at once wary and hopeful.

  Pierre said something to his daughter, who translated for Renée. “We saw you yesterday. You were helping Madan Fleurie. Papa wants to know if you can help us too.”

  “I can try,” Renée answered honestly. “What happened here? Why are they protesting?”

  Lucie did not wait for her father. “We are angry because the soldiers treat us like bad people. They come here before the sun is even awake. They make us stand in line, and they search our things. They say we break the rules and that some of us are troublema—” Lucie’s brows furrowed in concentration. “Trouble—”

  “Troublemakers?” Renée offered.

  Lucie nodded. “Yes, troublemakers. And we can never leave camp, unless it is to get our vaksen.” The little girl made a stabbing motion on her forearm.

  Renée thought for a moment. “You mean shots? Your medical shots?”

  Lucie nodded again. “The soldiers come with their guns, and they take us for our vaksen—our medical shots. Then they bring us back here to wait. But they never tell us why or for how long. We just wait.”

  “I can speak with the marines to find out what’s going on,” Renée offered, but Lucie shook her head.

  “That is not why we need you,” she said. “Papa wants to know if you can help us get to America.”

  “Oh,” Renée said, finally understanding. “I can’t promise anything.”

  Pierre tapped his daughter’s shoulder and launched into a rapid-fire conversation in Kreyòl, punctuating his speech with a few heavily accented English words. Renée understood INS, asylum, and little else. Her four years of college-level French were proving useless. Haitian Kreyòl might be related to the French language, but they were more kissing cousins than siblings.

  Lucie turned to her. “Papa was a farmer. He organized many of the other farmers in our town to support President Aristide. When the military sent Titide away, things got very bad for us.” She swallowed hard before continuing. “One day, when Papa was gone, the soldiers came to our house. They hurt Manman.”

  Renée saw the flash of pain in the little girl’s eyes. She felt an echoing kick in her own gut.

  “When Papa came home, we packed everything we could and got on a boat that very same night,” Lucie continued. “We were on the water for days and days. It was scary. We had no food and very little to drink. When we saw the American ship, we were so happy. We thought they had come to save us.”

  Yvette tapped her daughter on the shoulder and launched into a monologue. Lucie nodded, then turned to Renée. “Manman wants me to tell you that the American soldiers burned our boat and everything in it. They said our things were probably full of lice and that our boat was not worthy of the sea.”

  “Seaworthy,” Renée corrected.

  “Yes,” Lucie said, as if it was the same thing. “They burned everything—even the pictures Manman saved of our family.”

  Renée glanced at Yvette and saw a trail of tears roll down her cheeks. Pierre reached out and patted his wife’s hand, murmuring a few words of comfort.

  “But Manman was smart,” the little girl continued. “She saved some of our important papers in her . . .” Lucie searched for the right word. “In her tete?” she asked, patting her chest.

  “Breasts,” Renée said.

  Yvette added a few words, patting her own ample bosom.

  “Manman said, ‘Even the American soldiers are not so brave to search here,’” Lucie dutifully translated.

  Pierre and Yvette burst out laughing, and Renée couldn’t help but join in. There was something so beautiful about this family. In their darkest moments, they could still find the strength to laugh.

  “When the INS interviewed us, we showed them the papers,” Lucie said. “They told us we had a good case and that they would send us to Miami to stay with Manman’s cousin who owns a restaurant there. But they never sent us.”

  “Did
they tell you why?” Renée asked.

  Lucie turned to her parents, who launched into another round of Kreyòl. Finally, the little girl said, “The doctor told us Papa was sick. He had a virus, but they could treat it. It would take twenty-one days, and then he would be all right. Then they would send us to Miami. But it has been over a month now.”

  This sounded strange to Renée. If what Lucie was telling her was true, Pierre should have been one of the “screened-in” refugees sent to the United States to present his asylum claim before an immigration judge. Why was he still on Guantanamo?

  “Ede mwen,” Pierre begged.

  “Help me,” Lucie said.

  Renée couldn’t turn them down. “I’ll do my best.”

  “God bless you, sister,” Pierre said in heavily accented English. “Meci.”

  Renée left them, her mind spinning with questions and possibilities.

  Gigi stood just outside the tent. “You shouldn’t have promised to help him.”

  “Why not? He has an excellent case.”

  “He has HIV.”

  “What?”

  “Renée, this is Guantanamo’s AIDS Camp.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The First of Its Kind

  Renée downed the last of her Bud Light and tried to signal the waiter for a refill. It was no easy task. The Pearl Jam was bursting with marines and sailors all demanding their fair share of beer. The bar had a festive air. Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” blared from the stereo, though it was difficult to hear the lyrics over the drunken laughter. Someone had drawn the shades against the early-afternoon light and set out candles to burn off the cavernous gloom. It gave the kitschy decor a surprisingly warm glow.

  Of course, Gigi had managed to secure one of the much-coveted booths. They sat in relative comfort, drowning their sorrows in beer and peanuts.

  “An AIDS camp,” Renée said, still dazed by the news. “I can’t believe it.”