by Ted Oswald
Today, she and Jak compete to see who can hold their breath the longest, but Jak has stopped the game. He never wins.
This round, Libète hovers just beneath the surface of the water. She clasps her nostrils just below where a pair of goggles digs into her face.
Though she doubted the existence of mermaids, she nevertheless hoped she might spy one under the water. They supposedly dragged the drowned–including her ancestors cast over the bows of slave ships–down to new life in the underworld beneath the sea. Fishermen swore they saw them all the time, and to Libète it seemed the sight of the supernatural might make all of this mess of a world actually make sense. Until recently she had believed there was a certain teleology to everything. Despite the past’s massive heartaches, she believed all things were progressing toward a more peaceful and more just future for Haiti, and for herself. If there was no shadow realm, no existence or rest after death, no God, the flagrant injustice of the world would simply be too much to bear. It would lead one to despair . . .
A thought occurs and it is mad.
It would be a test. A small one. Maybe if she let herself go just a bit, let a little air escape her lungs, a little water come in, she could fool one of the sea maidens into showing herself. Just a little . . .
She lets her lips slip open, just barely.
A gargantuan splash broke the water’s surface, followed by thick arms wrapping around her and a tug upward. She burst through the barrier between the world below and the world above.
She cursed and thrashed.
— Calm down, calm down! Laurent shouted.
— What the hell were you thinking? She extricated herself and spun before battering his chest. Are you thinking?
— I thought you were drowning! he hollered. Jak ran out of the house. The juices he had gone inside to retrieve splashed all over as he coursed toward their shouting. I thought you needed help! Laurent said.
She shrieked, ripping off the goggles and throwing them at him. She climbed out of the water and walked toward the house, vitriol dripping from her lips. Laurent muttered too as he left the sea and held out his arms to let the water sop off. He next sat and peeled off his penny loafers before looking at his watch closely to see if it was waterlogged. He swore.
— Is she okay? Jak asked.
— She’s an ingrate is what she is. Laurent trudged off.
Délira stands before Libète in the gray-block church as Reginald Honorat speaks the liturgy into the air, lifting scriptures from their tattered pages so that the words flutter up to roost in the hearts of their hearers.
Délira holds her child. Delivrans’s eyes peer over the edge of his mother’s shoulder. His round and pleasant face is shadowed by a low brow that makes him appear as if he is skeptical of everything the preacher recites. Libète smiles. His face reflects her heart.
The decapitated lizard, of the same family as the baka found under Dorsinus, had been a cruel warning. Magdala tried to dismiss it as an accident: its head was surely severed by the chop of a hoe.
Libète disagreed.
She had tended to the small garden the day before, and hadn’t used a hoe on it for a long while. The body was placed there. Why? To tell her she was being watched? That she was a stranger? That accusations against her weren’t forgotten? To Libète’s dismay, word swept through Foche about the headless creature–gossip surely spread by the culprit.
Libète watched the old lay priest as his book seemed to weigh down his hands. He gave a speech on the rite of baptism without even looking at the words. Can he even read them? The audience’s tightly drawn faces and absent stares made it clear the speech had been repeated many times over at many similar gatherings over many years. Only Délira stood entranced, and she hosted a wide smile and light in her eyes. She gently rocked her increasingly fussy baby.
Reginald produced a glass chalice from his satchel, and an assistant filled it with water boiled to such an extent as to confer holiness.
— Délira, what name do you give your child?
— Delivrans.
— And what do you ask for your child?
— Baptism.
— You’re going to bring this one up Catholic?
She nodded.
— And where’s his father?
— There is . . . none.
An anonymous cough rose up from the back of the church, followed by another’s disapproving grunt. Délira looked so very sad standing there alone, Libète thought. She moved a step closer to her friend.
With a sigh and a tightening of his lips, Reginald reached for the chalice after anointing Delivrans’s head. You’re going to renounce Satan from here on out? He signaled down low, to her pelvis. Keep things closed tight? he whispered.
She nodded bashfully.
— Say it aloud, for everyone.
— I will.
Reginald closed his eyes and began a recitation:
Powerful Bondye, Jezi’s Papa,
by water flowing and the Sentespri
you made free from sin all sons and daughters
and handed them all new life to put on.
Put your Holy Spirit over them
to lead them.
Give this one smarts and wisdom,
level thinking and a brave heart,
a spirit of know-how and big, big respect for You.
Give them open eyes to see what You made.
We ask this in the name of Jezi.
Libète watched, but did not listen.
She still struggled to understand why the dead lizard had been left. She had been so careful to not stand out these past months. It’s that you stay, Magdala had said. That’s the ‘why.’
When she was unable to rattle off the Catholic prayers there were murmurs that only fueled suspicions about the baka. It was Magdala who recommended Libète go through this bit of ceremony in the hope it might convince Foche that Sophia was a good Catholic who wouldn’t dabble in bakas and other dark arts. Libète at first balked–though generally ambivalent toward all things religious these days, her Protestant roots ran deep. Please, Magdala had asked. Convince them. For me.
Libète acquiesced.
She looked up from her musing just in time to witness Reginald say, Then I baptize your child in the name of the Father. Of the Son. And of the Holy Spirit. He poured the water three times, anointing and then wiping the child with a white cloth. Amen, he said. Finished.
Delivrans had given a cry at the water’s touch. Délira’s tears mingled with the holy water in the basin on the floor. Délira smiled, kissed Delivrans, and her joy spread through the congregation’s members. She whispered sweet words into the child’s ears and cupped his head. My jewel, my gem, my prize, she said quietly. Libète, standing close to her now, could overhear. She smiled herself.
— Sophia, you may come.
Libète nodded and stepped forward.
— My child, are you ready to proceed with your confirmation?
— I am.
— Very good. Reginald again let his eyes slip closed. He reached far back in his mind to pull out the required words.
— Can I say something first? Libète said.
The preacher, pulled from his trance, was caught by surprise. It’s, uh, unusual. But you may. If you must.
— Right. She turned to face the assembly, and made a point to silently lock eyes with every person, every soul. It took a full minute.
— I thank you for welcoming me into the fold. Foche is my new home, and I am grateful for it, and for you all. Libète felt confusion set in; these words she had prepared somehow felt . . . sincere. Not forced at all! An impossibility!
There was little time to let the thought linger. She scanned the audience again, wondering if she had missed the one for whom she looked. Her face stiffened on noticing two of the private security guards who hovered at the door to the church with shotguns slung over their shoulders. She kept looking. No, she was certain now. Félix had not come.
She turned back
to the priest, and he began to speak:
Remember you have been given a spiritual seal,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of good judgment and courage,
the spirit of knowledge and reverence,
the spirit of holy fear in Bondye’s presence.
Guard what you have received.
Bondye has marked you with his sign;
Jezi has confirmed you
and has placed his pledge, the Sentespri, in your heart.
And with that he anointed her forehead with oil in the shape of a cross.
Reginald smiled. You are welcomed, Sophia, into this church, into this community, and into Bondye’s open arms.
Her lips parted, and she raised her hand to them in shock. Despite her knowledge, her doubts, and the fact this act was empty, in the moment, she felt an impossible wash of peace that had been absent for so very long.
Another week passes.
Libète spends only an hour or two out of her room each day. It is a sort of vague protest against being in Jacmel, in this house, and under Laurent’s supervision. She sleeps. She writes in her notebook. She reads. She cries.
Jak and she play card games, dominoes, chess, but these diversions are fleeting. Libète is always distracted. All of her moves are defensive, and Jak routs her easily. She has always been a sore loser, but something is changed. There’s new fear wrapped up in each and every match, and each mounting loss seems to chip away at some greater sense of identity. Jak lost on purpose once, but it ended poorly when, after a moment of pleasure, Libète realized what he’d done and cast the board and game pieces across the room, only to then slam the door behind her on a dumbfounded, cowering Jak.
Stephanie was supposed to have returned by now. Libète had written a catalog of the harsh things she would say to the woman, but superstition made her feel like this act might be behind her delayed return. One day Libète pulled Stephanie’s first collection of verse from a bookcase downstairs. Published while Stephanie was still at university, the poems are beautiful and return time and again to themes of the world’s stupid brokenness and the impossible hope that manages to break through its cracks. Libète hated them.
And then there is Laurent.
He and Libète rarely talk. He moves mostly from his bedroom to a locked hallway chamber that he enters and exits discreetly, often in an alcoholic fog. Libète notices him swim in the ocean early every morning for a half hour as she is going to sleep, and this timing is unfortunate. Laurent is most sober when he exits the water, and yet they never cross at these times.
Few requests are made of Libète–the maid tends to most matters of cleaning, though Laurent insists that he, Jak, and Libète eat dinner together. Libète assumes this is some vestigial habit from his own troubled upbringing in the Martinette home, and after protesting at first, she now suffers through it night after night. The meal is inevitably takeout from the corner restaurant, and their menu was already growing stale. At first the three would sit in silence around the table, the tension thick, but this unnerved Jak. Often he begins repeating trivia he’s learned from haphazard explorations of Wikipedia or his reading of the day’s news.
— Martelly got a new law passed. And there’s word overdue elections will finally be scheduled.
Tines pierced food.
Jak sighed, trying again. I found out how gold is pulled from mining tailings. Small operations use mercury, but big operations use cyanide to attract metallic molecules . . .
Knives scraped against plates.
Jak looked at chunks of tassot on his plate, searching for a topic that might inspire these two to talk. How is your writing going, Mèt Martinette?
— His name is Laurent. He’s not your professor.
Laurent eyed Libète. She’s right. I’ve told you. No need for honorifics here.
Jak nodded twice, beaming inwardly at the meager success of getting them both to speak.
— My writing. It’s . . . slow. Words flow, but they’re not particularly good. They invariably end up in the wastebasket. He tapped his finger and his knife bobbed in his hand. She looked him in the eye.
— That’s something new.
— What?
She spun her fork in the air, looking for the right word. Humility.
He raised his bottled soda in a salute.
— What are you writing about, anyway? She asked.
— My volume is entitled The Impossibility of Democracy in Haiti.
She couldn’t help but snort. Really?
He took another bite. Really. It’s a survey of the politics since Duvalier left, and a forecast for the future.
— You make it sound like it’s a story with an ending. Democracy, true democracy in Haiti, hasn’t had a chance. Coups, outside interference. Haiti is moving forward whether you like it or not.
Laurent balked. Why? Because you say so? Because of your pretend legislature that trots out the same empty rhetoric I’ve heard since before Duvalier fell? The political game is set and rigged in favor of the powerful. They will never let the masses govern Haiti, not ever.
— So it should be allowed to remain that way? You’re resigned to it? You sound just like the elite you accuse. Obtuse, paternalistic, pessimistic–
— I write from a bottom-up perspective, my dear. Though I applaud your vocabulary’s reach.
— How can you purport to speak with such a voice?
He slapped his forehead. If only I’d asked you before writing three hundred pages on the subject! You could have saved me some grief! He took a swig of Coke. The system is fundamentally unjust. I’m merely calling it as it is, not peering out through rose-colored glasses. Hope is gone–nothing can be created from nothing.
They sat in silence.
— I’d like to read it, Jak said. It sounds . . . challenging.
— Why, thank you, Jak.
— I wouldn’t touch it.
— Thank you, Liberté. He always used the French pronunciation of her name.
— Eskize m. She pushed her chair out and left, ascending the stairs.
— They’re your dishes to do this evening, Laurent called, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice.
A door slammed.
— I can do them, Mèt Martinette, Jak said.
Laurent looked at the boy, lips scrunched. I seem to have forgotten that Coca-Cola, in its essential state, does not contain a drop of alcohol. He slid away from the table, on toward the bar in the kitchen.
Jak gnawed his meat in silence. It was tough, and a bit of fat stuck in his teeth that no amount of his tongue’s prodding could remove.
Libète comes upon the fortress as the Sun slides down and the day pales.
Magdala had prepared a special meal following the Sunday morning baptismal service, featuring tassot. The beef tasted delicious going down and brought to mind the past. Remembering was the opposite of what she’d longed for today.
— You there? Libète called to the old stones.
— I am, came the feeble call back.
— You didn’t come.
— I didn’t.
She grumbled but climbed the small mount anyway. She passed under the main arch and saw Félix reclining. She didn’t look at him. In fact, she looked everywhere besides at him and withdrew an old, loose-leaf page.
— What is that?
— A page.
— From what? He held the paper up close to his eyes, reading the header. Bib La, he said. The Bible? Where did you find this? Her mind flitted to the priest and the heavy, aged book in his hands. When she first met Jak in Cité Soleil, all those years before, he had some similarly plucked pages.
— The owner wasn’t using it, she said. So I borrowed it. For practice.
Félix began to read slowly where the page was marked:
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem
, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
They sat with the words, and she wondered if they might be true, and if true, trustworthy.
— I thought you said you and God are done with each other.
She coughed. Folded the page. Sat up.
— I did.
She had taken this scripture on purpose. In the past it had been a comfort. She thought the words might spark some fleeting sense of faith, as had the confirmation, but it was as if the black text was engulfed by the page’s yellow. Like an incantation that had lost its magic.
— I did, she repeated. She reached for his wrist to place the page into his hand, but instead gave a shout.
— Bondye! What happened? She noticed his palm was wrapped in a strip of cloth darkened by drying blood. She began to unwrap it, and he let her.
— An accident. In the fields. With my machet.
It was a nasty cut, wide and deep. She noticed the remains of a shirt on the ground, streaked with mud and blood. I stumbled and rolled down the slope. I tried to grab for something and caught my blade.
Her upper lip curled. Maybe punishment for working on the Sabbath?
— Maybe.
— You know, if you had come to my confirmation, maybe this wouldn’t have–