by Ted Oswald
— There’s nothing wrong with it, Davidson. It was no accusation. I know you care about her and I’m sorry she’s gone. Now that we know for sure what they face—this slavery—it’s a bad thought.
— I don’t want to talk about it anymore
— Then we won’t. She tore another bite.
They walked, his shoes clip-clopping on the pavement stones and her bare feet padding along softly. Before long, the faint sounds of the rally grew louder until they were engulfed in throbbing sound.
— I’m late! he shouted to Libète over the revelry, his brow furrowed. I’ll meet you afterward and we’ll go to my place! Straining to hear him, she nodded. Davidson rushed to the stage to join the other campaign workers. She glimpsed Touss leading them in tossing shirts and food into the audience and shuddered before moving through the throngs of people to her rearward post to watch the rally unfold.
The DJ was finally wrapping up his routine.
— I know why you’ve gathered! I know why you’re truly here. It’s not the dancing. No! It’s not the music! No, no, no. It’s because we are here to…change…Haiti!
The crowd erupted in cheers.
— It’s true! Have you seen any other candidate who has your interests at heart? Who comes to Cité Soleil and says “You are my sovereign people! You are the foundation on which I build everything!”?
NO! they roared.
— That’s right! And that’s why we’re here—to hear from our candidate and pledge our support!
Again the applause came. Libète felt discomfort clawing at her, feeling as a lone Voudouist must when alone in a room of professing Protestants.
Her view of things was strained, but she could make out Benoit taking the stage as the applause and cheers surged to even greater heights. She turned to a nearby wall and looked at his handsome smiling face and almond skin, plastered to the wall twenty times over. She heard Dimanche’s words replay in her head and crossed her arms.
He stood for a time without speaking, his arms raised in the air as if he was trying to catch the people’s praise and put it in an invisible basket. He finally motioned them to quiet, and began his speech.
Hello, my friends! Hello! It is one of the greatest pleasures of my life to be with you this afternoon. It’s true. And I am a fortunate man. A blessed man. I have a comfortable life. I have a lovely family. I’m a man of business. I’ve dined with presidents and celebrities alike. But I don’t say these things to boast. Never!
Many others like me have chosen to hide in prosperity and call it that. Unlike them, I have developed a deep pain in my heart. It started as a pinprick when I was a little child, seeing those my age begging in the streets. The prick became a jab when I grew older, moving through school and university while most of my peers never saw a classroom. By the time I took over my family’s businesses, the pain had grown to a stab, as I witnessed my brothers and sisters who slaved away like our fathers and mothers from long ago. I have seen your suffering and asked, “What can a single, simple man like me do about it?” I have wrestled with that question for a long, long time.
When the quake came, equipment in my factory fell upon me. My life nearly came to an end that day, just as you were broken and battered and saw loved ones slip away. But for me, I count my experience a blessing! It sounds crazy, but it’s true! As I came closer to death than ever before, God finally gave me the answer to my longing, to my fundamental question. I had to do all that I could, use all that I have been blessed with, to help Haiti, to help you, my people!
It was like a religious conversion, my friends. I realized because I had been blessed with much, I had to turn around and bless others. I could not wait any longer for change.
I decided to raise the wages at my factories. No longer was it about putting money in my bank account but putting it into your hands! My friends in business said I was crazy, but I told them I was crazy to close my hand to my workers when their families suffered!
You all know that in Haiti, politics is a sickness. You know the symptoms. When you become a politician, your memory becomes very short. You can’t seem to remember what you promised people the day before. Suddenly you forget how to drive an old car and must hire someone to take you from point A to point B. Your backside becomes very sore and you can only bear to sit in a leather chair and sleep on a feather mattress. Instead of one-star Barbancourt, your throat is only soothed by five-star and French wine. It is a very strange sickness, this “politics.”
So why do I wish to enter this world? Because, my friends, I have been immunized by my experiences and convictions! Nothing will make me waver from them! I have repented of my past apathy, like a born-again Christian, and I will not forget my conversion when I am announced as your new Senator!
I know what many of you think. Can we trust you, Benoit? I understand you have been disappointed by others. You have been lied to, beaten, and broken by those in power. They come through during the campaign, but do you ever see their faces again? They won’t even walk the streets in which you live! But I am here with you! Where they might visit you on your doorstep, I will enter and dine with you. Where they do not care about your poverty, I will give you jobs! In me, you have an advocate who will not, who cannot, forget you! Truly, you are mine and I am yours! And together we will make a new Haiti!
Chanting broke out. Benoit pou Pèp la! Benoit pou Pèp la! He stepped down into the crowd as the booming music resumed, flanked by two hulking bodyguards. He began shaking hands and talking with the people below.
Libète was torn, swayed by his way and manner, his commitment to the people of Cité Soleil. Other candidates had been run out of Bwa Nèf, and she had seen it herself. It took nerve to come here. She was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Still, in the back of her mind, Elize’s refrain sounded: “question, question, question.”
She turned again to a nearby wall plastered with Benoit posters and frowned. What could Dimanche know about him that others do not?
It is late. Libète and Elize sit in the darkness. The poet on the radio takes a long breath before reciting her new lines:
A man went searching for the Truth and could not find it.
He read through the daily papers,
But the Truth was not there.
He listened to every radio program on every airwave,
But the Truth was not there.
He spoke with the president, senators, deputies, and mayors,
But the Truth was not there.
He combed bank records and the state budget,
But the Truth was not there.
He sought out an audience with men of industry,
But the Truth was not there.
He looked to the homes of their wives,
But the Truth was not there.
He examined the guns of the police and peacekeepers alike,
But the Truth was not there.
He checked the bricks and mortar of the Citadel, the cannon of Fort Jacques, and the remains of the founding fathers,
But the Truth was not there.
He strolled the halls of the National Palace,
But the Truth was not there.
He climbed to the top of the National Cathedral,
But the Truth was not there.
He walked the streets of Port-au-Prince,
But the Truth was not there.
He went out, and visited Cap Haïtian, Gonaïves, Jeremie, Port-de-Paix, and St. Marc,
But the Truth was not there.
He scaled the peak of the highest mountain and went down to the lowest point of the shoreline.
But the Truth was not there.
He scoured, scavenged, hunted, pursued, rummaged, and chased,
But the Truth was nowhere to be found.
He came to a conclusion in his searching: you cannot find Truth in Haiti. The Truth has gone into hiding because he is afraid, knowing that if he shows his head, the powerful will cut it off.
So Truth has disappeared into
an impenetrable bog, clouded by lies, half-truths, propaganda, and doubletalk. And so the man feared that Truth had been lost forever, weeping bitterly for he did not know what to do without Truth to guide him.
But then the man remembered one place he had not yet searched.
He looked to the Pèp la, the People.
He saw their poverty that stripped them of dignity;
He saw their toil that exploited them;
He saw their illiteracy that crippled them;
He saw their empty stomachs that sapped them;
He saw their illness that killed them;
He saw their homes that leaked on them;
He saw their wounds as they lashed out at one another;
And though he had not seen the Truth face to face, he realized he had found true things in faces of the poor.
And those true things, while not the Truth, were enough to guide him on his way.
And so the wanderer said:
Woe be it to the men, women, and children of Haiti who never find true things.
Without them, they will remain lost forever.
The woman thanks the announcer, and the announcer thanks the audience, and Elize turns the radio’s dial until the room is newly silent. He sits, saying nothing. Libète watches him, waiting for him to remark on something, to pose a question, to make an observation. He utters nothing.
She wonders if it is some sort of test. I’ll outwait him, all night if need be.
His mouth stays shut. As she waits, her mind wanders.
Lionel was already back in Twa Bebe, occupying his tent again. Libète had to watch him come and go, utterly unrepentant. In her mind, he had slit his wife’s throat. The thoughts made her temper simmer and then boil.
— Who are you, Elize? What are you? she blurted out. You say these things to me, these big words, these big ideas.
He looked at her in the dark.
— They sound nice, she said. Yet you’re grinding me into the ground with them. You realize that? You tell me to suffer for others. You live like a man who does not believe what he says he does.
— What…what do you mean?
— You say true life is found in the community. But you float on its edges! Do you have friends? One? The boko? Is he even a friend? You are hiding, I know it. But I don’t know from what.
— You don’t know what you’re talking about.
— Then tell me what I’m talking about! I give you my whole story—I am an open book to you. But you, your covers are bound shut. I think you enjoy that all of Bwa Nèf thinks you’re a devil. You enjoy the company of pigs to people. Where is your sacrifice, eh? Your compassion? What are you doing to make Haiti better?
— Go then! he roared unexpectedly. He tried to rise up to add strength to his words, but his body failed him. Titid shot up from the ground, alarmed by the sudden movement and loud voices.
Libète shrunk back, never having seen Elize so provoked.
— If you think I’m a hypocrite, then leave me! he ordered. I won’t waste a moment more on an ingrate.
Libète considered apologizing but her anger was too palpable, surging to the ends of her body.
She rose up herself, a finger pointed at his face. “Question, question, question,” you always say, but when I ask you for the truth, well, that’s too much!
She stormed toward the door and turned.
— I will go, you old, sad, foolish man, and understand, I will never come back.
**
She thought of the poet’s words, fuming as she trudged home. What would it mean to leave this place? To seek Truth elsewhere?
What kept her here? Security? There was none. Family? They had all but abandoned her. Her relationships were like a deserted battlefield, marked by loss, dead bodies, unresolved conflict, and bitter truces. Would she even be missed if she vanished into the night?
She knew the answer, and it saddened her. There would be some regret, but life would push ahead as if she never existed.
Her mind went to the last of her buried money. The only things anchoring her were outstanding promises to the dead or nearly dead.
I’m not made to love or be loved, she mused, the thought a dagger to her heart.
She resolved that soon, very soon, it would be time to say goodbye to Cité Soleil forever.
She dismisses it at first, an unintentional bump from someone at the crowded rally—a slight nudge, interrupting her ruminating on Benoit’s speech. When pushed again, and harder, she spins, ready to scold the offender.
— Hello, Libète, he said in a small, familiar voice.
She is dumbstruck, staring at a ghost.
— What–what are you doing here? she rasped breathlessly, hope leaping in her heart.
Standing before her was Jak, dressed in his school uniform with a small vermilion backpack. He looked at the ground as he spoke. I heard…what happened to you, he said, his words lilting awkwardly. I hoped you would be here, and I came to check on you. And to tell you—
She rushed to hug the boy.
— Jak, Jak, Jak! Thank you my friend, thank you, Jak, thank you. Her tears could not be stopped. He cried too, quietly, and hugged her in return.
— Thinking of you, alone…I needed to come to you.
— It was horrible, Jak. I felt more lost than ever before last night. I was ready to die.
— I am sorry, Libète, so very sorry.
— For what? What did you do?
— My words. My actions. Everything. I shouldn’t have waited for you to be stolen before coming.
She bathed his shoulder with her tears. And I’m sorry, Jak. For the pain I’ve caused you, by my foolishness, and my pride.
— What you have done is forgiven.
— And what you have done is forgiven.
They pulled back from their embrace and grinned wide, wet smiles.
— It’s so good to be with you again, Jak. I’ve wanted this for so long. Dreamed of it even, but thought it could never happen.
He smiled again.
— I came to apologize, and to see how you are, but Libète, that’s not all. There is something else I have to tell you. Something else I haven’t been able to get out of my head.
— I don’t care, whatever it is, she said. Something broken has been fixed. That’s all that matters.
His smile fades and face turns grim.
— Libète, still you must listen to me. I have been thinking hard. He takes a deep breath, preparing to voice something she knows will be heavy. Libète’s own grin disappears, new fear creeping in.
Jak leans into her ear and whispers. I think I know who had Claire and Gaspar killed.
HOMECOMING
Joure kote ou prale pa kote ou soti
Curse the place you are going to, not the place you came from
Byen pre pa lakay
Close is not home
Though it is late in the day, the guard lets them through. Maybe he takes pity on the bedraggled girl in her frayed clothes? Or on the boy with his limp?
No, he lets them pass because the children gave him a soda, and $3.
Moments later, Lolo appears before the children, passing from dark to light. Libète can’t contain her excitement. She calls to him. His eyes widen at sight of the pair, and all three move to the room’s far wall, away from the others, the inmates and visitors.
— You won’t believe this! the girl proclaims.
— What? What is it?
— Go ahead, Jak. Tell him!
The boy is sheepish. He looks at wasted Lolo in horrified wonder. It is the first time he has seen him this way. He gulps.
— I think I figured it out.
— What? Lolo barked. What do you mean?
Libète couldn’t help but cut in. He’s figured out who killed them!
Lolo stepped backward, dumbstruck. He tried to speak but stammered, each sentence another false start. Tell me. What you know. His eyes carved into Jak, making the boy wince and look away.
; — Just start at the start, Jak. Libète placed an encouraging hand on his back.
— Well, we know who the actual killer was. Even though we don’t know his name. He came after me, and Libète, before dying in the quake. He wasn’t someone from the community—we had never seen him before. Well, we had seen him—he followed us, disguised as a drunkard when we went to Yves’ place in Wharf Soleil.
— Don’t get bogged down. Who is it?
Jak still looked to the floor and grimaced. Walking this path through his memory seemed to pain him.
— We also know he had a gun and a nice moto that we saw when he killed Officer Simeon. A pistol isn’t so very rare, but an expensive motorcycle is. It was a brand new Suzuki, an import. I remembered the type. And Libète took a watch from his wrist, worth a lot of money. He hid it high up his ratty sleeve, so people couldn’t see.
Jak gulped.
— And he told Libète he killed them for money. He was hired. Someone experienced in doing these things.
— Go on, Lolo said. He had closed his eyes tightly, shutting out the world to concentrate on Jak’s reasoning.
— Then there’s the way he killed her. He made it clear to cut Claire in such a way that it brought to mind Ezili Dantò—the seven wounds, the tongue cut out, the child in her arms—
Lolo cringed at the memory. Jak had finally looked up at him, but hesitated before pressing on.
— You see, he could have done this to make others believe it had something to do with Voudou, or that that the killer was crazy. We know he was not.
— When he tried to kill me, Libète blurted, he said it was a message. One meant for someone else. You told us yourself that Claire became secretive. She knew something!
Lolo’s eyes sprung open. It was because of the pregnancy, he said. It’s because she was ashamed.
— I agree, Jak said. But only in part. Being pregnant in itself doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to keep everything about the pregnancy so secret. There may have been shame, but why not tell a single person about Gaspar’s father? Why hide the pregnancy from everyone? She knew that as soon as the baby was born, everything would change for her. Either she knew something dangerous, or the baby’s father was a danger to her. I believe it was both.