by Ted Oswald
It was a small wooden figurine. The rooster.
She followed and drew nearer to the tarps. The low, rasped singing grew in clarity.
Félix pulled aside the hanging plastic.
Before them sat Dorsinus, sitting upon a crate, whittling away, singing his song, defying death.
Passed Through the Ground
Kote zonbi konnen ou, li pa fè ou pè.
Where the zombie knows you, he won’t frighten you.
The wind whips their faces, the bike growls, but Libète shouts anyway. Curiosity pries her from her silence.
— Where’d that money come from?
— I told you. He bellows to be heard. I can’t tell.
Her eyebrow arches. Well, what’s it for then? What are you saving it for?
— You think I was hiding out in a shack for months for my own good?
She scratches her cheek. It was clear “yes” was the wrong answer. Your family?
He sneers.
— All just for Jak and I? But . . . why?
He looks at the open road. I chose shadows so you could be in light.
— Nonsense, she says.
He releases the gas and pulls hard on the brake till the bike skids into the shoulder, kicking up a spray of thick dust.
— Look, Libète says. I appreciate your help, but I never asked you for this. Not then, not now.
He spoke in quiet, quiet words. I lost everything for you. My career. My rank. My home. His eyes seared her. My good name. So I changed. Everything. All because you pushed me to act that night.
She felt sympathy, but this cauterized into something like indignity. Justice demanded Benoit be arrested, she said. Dimanche–the one you say is gone–cared something about that. That little girl tugging at his sleeve only reminded him. Libète picked at a bit of foam liner on the sidecar.
— It makes the consequences no less severe. His breathing was hard, and she wondered if he might hit her. All I had, over all of my years of work, was my authority. And that’s gone.
There was nothing more to say, and he started the bike again. They rode in silence for a time before he squinted. He saw a line of distant forms that looked like a shifting mirage. His jaw tightened. Get ready, he said. He slowed the bike, but did not stop it.
— For what? Libète moved her hand, unshielding her eyes.
— Police inspection. A checkpoint.
— What if it’s them?
— I know.
— Can we turn around?
He shook his head. Whether police or our pursuers, they’d know we’re trying to avoid them. We turn, and they’ll be after us. Dimanche reached into a side bag and handed her something heavy, wrapped in a chamois cloth.
— Is this – she slipped her fingers along its burnished metal – is this your gun?
— Just in case.
— Keep it yourself. I don’t touch these things. I’m nonviolent! she said, puffed up.
He forced it into her left hand. Hide it! Hide it!
She wanted to debate further, but there was no time. They’d meet the roadblock in less than a minute. Her heart thumped madly. She put her right hand over her chest in a futile effort to calm it.
There were three men in police uniform at the checkpoint. All wore camouflage in various shades of swirling tan. Kneepads, heavy vests, black helmets, guns slung about. They looked like the UN troops in Cité Soleil, but were clearly Haitian. The policeman in the middle of the road finished searching the back of a walk-in truck bed that had lost one of its two doors. With the bike’s approach, two officers who had been leaning on a beat-up white sedan had been brought to attention. They reached for weapons–a shotgun and a machine gun–and stood a few feet behind the middle officer.
— Give me your ID and registration.
Dimanche reached into his bag and rifled around. When he took more than a moment, the two policemen raised their weapons. He withdrew a small ID card, surely falsified, and a paper copy of the motorcycle’s title. They lowered the guns.
— Everyone’s jumpy today. Who’re you after? Dimanche asked the policeman. The man answered with a grunt. Libète held the gun in between her legs and grasped it for some sense of security. She looked ahead, her eyes fixed on the road that would soon leave level ground and climb upward, into the mountains.
The policeman looked at the card closely. Another vehicle, a taptap full of passengers, had pulled into line.
— Can I have my ID back?
— No. Drive over there and kill the engine.
— Ah, is that really necessary? My daughter and I are just on a drive home from Mirebalais, and there’s no need to point your guns at us. This is nonsense. We’re going.
The first officer raised his gun.
— Get off! Now!
Two vehicles now waited in the checkpoint queue. All their passengers’ eyes were curious and watching.
— All right, all right, Dimanche said, reaching for the keys. Ah, I forgot! The starter isn’t working. This thing, if it turns off, it won’t go again. I’ve got to keep it on or . . .
The officer, in a flash, rammed the butt of his rifle into Dimanche’s head and sent him spilling to the ground. He rose, staggering to find the three armed men arrayed about him, ready to shoot.
Libète takes a step closer to the living dead.
Dorsinus. In the flesh.
Brik kolon brik, the man sings, Brik kolon brik. The lyrics are nasal, caught up high in his nose.
She had seen Dorsinus lying dead on the road.
His empty eyes, his neck twisted, his face distressed.
They had buried him!
Félix circled the old man. Dorsinus continued his whittling, taking no notice of the youths. His singing skipped from verse to verse:
Little bird where are you going?
I am going to Lalo’s house
Lalo eats little kids
If you go she’ll eat you too
Brik kolon brik, he sings again, Brik kolon brik. Libète knows this song, etched into the minds of Haitian children. She joins him, harmonizing softly.
Nightingale eats breadfruit
Rolling, rolling I come from the village
All birds fall in water
Dorsinus looks up at her from his whittling. His eyes see but do not see. A smile curls at the corner of his mouth.
Lady, please dance with me, he sings to Libète.
Sir, I am too tired, he sings to Félix.
Sir, I am too tired, he repeats.
— A zonbi, Félix whispers.
Libète nods.
She has never seen a zombie before, not in person. Rumors of them swirled in Cité Soleil, but they were often stories whipped up to scare children.
— I should have known, Félix says. He curses.
Libète’s lips purse. What do you mean?
— He paid my ransom. Spoke against all that’s going on here.
— You think the Sosyete would do this?
— I don’t know. I just know they can.
They took in the pathetic man. His clothes were tattered and caked in mud. His hair and beard were clumped with thick clay. He smelled terrible.
— His ti bon anj has been stolen, Félix added. He has no reason left.
People had bifurcated souls, as everyone knew: the gwo bon anj, and the ti bon anj. Félix and Libète saw proof before them that with the latter gone, only the last flickers of the divine spark that all people have remained.
Félix bristled. The Sosyete threatened me with this. If I broke their order. Being made a zombie, that’s their greatest punishment. Worse than death.
Libète had her doubts about zombification. She had heard different, less spiritual explanations. Carefully measured toxins administered to make the victim appear dead. Once raised–dug up– another drug makes him docile and dulls his mental faculties. In effect, making a perfect slave.
— What if it wasn’t a punishment? Libète offered. It could be, but . . . what if there’s anot
her purpose? Look at him. His hands. They’ve had him here for months. He’s been digging, Félix. He’s been digging.
Félix wasn’t following. He wasn’t able to move past the state of the man who had exchanged fates with him.
Libète looked past Dorsinus to the grounds that the university had been so careful to conceal from prying eyes. Look at how deep they’ve gone, she murmured. It was a pit of profound darkness. Just look!
Félix did. The gash had long, long ladders going down, and there was tall machinery that looked powerful. Pumps. Cranes to raise and lower materials. Under the constructed shed structure she could see what looked like some sort of large pool.
— Félix, we’re so foolish. If we had thought about it, if we had considered all they were taking away . . .
— What do you mean?
— They aren’t recovering the past. Of course not. They started by searching. Surveying. Sampling. This . . . is the beginning.
Félix was trembling. What are they doing to our ground, Libète? What do you mean?
She raised her hand to her forehead. It’s so obvious. This, this is no university. Félix looked terrified. These men, whoever they are, have come to loot. They have come to plunder. They have come to steal.
Libète cannot breathe. The air, it does not come.
Dimanche staggers with his hands raised. Blood runs from a gash on the side of his head.
The one in the road keeps his gun trained on them. The first driver in line honks, but the trailing policeman holds up a hand that tells him to wait. The bike sits rattling, and Dimanche is tight with anger. Next to his size, these men, whoever they are, look like teenage boys dressed in costume.
— Turn the bike off, one says.
Dimanche doesn’t move.
— Turn it off.
Dimanche does, hooking eyes with Libète. Libète shrinks to nothing. The officer thrusts his gun’s barrel into the back of Dimanche’s head.
— Get against the car!
Dimanche moves slowly and plants his hands on the unmarked vehicle. Libète squirms, drenched in her own sweat. One of the officers looks at her through his balaclava’s eye slit. There is more honking.
— Let us go! shouts a taptap passenger. Don’t keep us here! We don’t care for any of this! We’re just trying to–
The policeman aims his gun at the vehicle, and all complaining stops.
The thought of falling into these men’s hands dredges memories most unpleasant:
Stolen by night most black
Bullet’s sharpness slipping through flesh
Death, in my hand, pointed at another
One of the men patted down Dimanche while the one with the shotgun held it to Dimanche’s back. The third turned and stood watching it all, the barrel of his gun pointing downward.
— Search the bike, one said. And the girl. Libète clenched the pistol grip.
They will not take me.
Libète pulled the nickel-plated thing from its cloth, taking it in.
Death, in her hand . . .
. . . They will not . . .
. . . pointed at another.
She stood in the sidecar, unnoticed. She raised the gun, unnoticed. She roared.
— Get down on the ground, you bastards! I’ll blow your heads off! I’ll blow them off! She fired the gun with a wince and shattered the car’s back window. The pistol’s recoil nearly unbalanced her.
The men’s faces showed flashes of reflexive thought, wondering if she had meant to hit them. Truthfully, she didn’t know whether she had.
Two dropped to the ground as ordered. The one who pointed the shotgun at Dimanche did not. She fired toward the ground near his feet. He gave a yelp and slid against the truck. She had hit his ankle. Dimanche grabbed the man’s shotgun in an instant and aimed it at him.
— No! Libète shouted with a shock of repentance. Dimanche looked at her. He was utterly claimed by rage. The one Libète shot gave a fearful screech. His blood was starting to flow.
Dimanche kicked the others’ guns away and moved to the side of the car. He fired into one of the truck’s tires with a deafening sound of shot flooding rubber and denting the hubcap. The car slumped. Pump. He walked to the other side and burst the other tire.
— Get their guns.
Libète tensed, coming back to her senses. She hopped down and grabbed the pistol and rifle and returned them to the sidecar. Dimanche moved to the truck’s hood and fired again into the car’s engine for good measure.
— You bitch! the shot one yelled.
She bristled. She wanted to walk over to him. She wanted to look into his eyes. She wanted to end him. Her shoulders slumped, and she shuddered.
Dimanche ran back to the bike, adding the shotgun to their cache. Within moments they were off.
Her adrenaline pumped. She could not look away from her guardian and the fury that hovered over him.
Again, the question rose: What are you, Dimanche?
But with it came a new question too: And what am I?
They have come to loot. They have come to plunder. They have come to steal.
The thoughts fall into place. How had she not seen it? How had Foche not? A benevolent university. Men coming and going. Working day after day for months. Armed guards in their midst. Ha!
— From the beginning, they’ve lied to Foche, she said. They’re here for gold!
— Gold?
Libète’s thoughts kept coming to her. The realizations flow.
She remembered the news stories, gleaned over the months hiding away in Jacmel. Gold was found in the north of Haiti, she told Félix. People always thought that it was here, but it wasn’t confirmed till recently. When companies started exploring.
— How . . . do you know all this?
— The whole country knows it. At least the parts connected to the rest of the world! It was on the radio. Online. In the news! I remember now, I remember! President Martelly had the government passing out permits to foreign companies who paid up. It all happened behind closed doors, and the senate finally put a stop to it. A halt on all permitting until the process was opened up. Until they had an idea who was getting what. Companies could prepare to extract, but not actually take.
She held her hand to her head, dumbstruck. Twenty billion, Félix! They think there’s that much gold in the ground here in the north! Who knows how much they might have found here!
— But if it was stopped, how could this be?
Libète chuckled at his naïveté. This is illegal. Whoever is behind it, they’re trying to get a head start on the gold rush. Hide what they’re doing and then slip out of here. She was getting louder as her realizations rolled on, dangerously so. Exploration before exploitation! These bastards!
— Maybe they’re good? Félix said, hoping. These people, they’ve given us good things.
— They hand out some seed, cap some springs. They’re just giving Foche breadcrumbs to keep us in our place. Keep us from asking questions. While they strip our wealth from beneath us!
— Strip?
— You don’t know? Of course you don’t. How would you?
— What are you saying?
— Gold mining. They’re starting here, keeping it small to keep from getting noticed. But when this really starts, when it’s too late, they’ll have torn up these fields and disappeared. Already they want the Common Plot. Our water will become ruined. I’ve seen pictures, Félix. Pictures! Everyone will have to leave. Foche won’t exist.
— But Janel wouldn’t let something like this happen. She wouldn’t agree to this. Neither would the Sosyete!
Libète couldn’t piece it together either. Janel must not know the truth. The Sosyete must not . . . no, no, they do! They must have handed Dorsinus over to them! Put him in the ground, then dug him up. He’s a slave doing this work! Look at him. He’s only able to do the things he’s done his entire life. Mining. Whittling. I’m sure they have him working down there, or up above. Maybe letting him become poisone
d by the mercury used to separate rock from gold.
Félix was bewildered. The land . . . not the land . . . not Foche. He grabbed Dorsinus’s face and looked into the man’s empty, empty eyes. Now he really can’t see. Can’t understand a thing. Poor, poor man.
Félix wept.
As Libète comforted the boy, she whispered into Dorsinus’s ear. You must awaken, dear man. You must come up out of this and regain yourself. He finally stopped his singing, and smiled. Was there some recognition there? He feebly handed her the half-finished bird. She took it. Her own eyes watered.
Félix ripped himself away and reclaimed his machete. He ran at the machine on the edge of the hole. He didn’t know what its different components did, yet he started slashing at a set of hydraulic hoses, bursting some smaller tires at its base.
— Félix! Please, no!
He upended a boxy generator so that it fell into the deep wound drilled into the earth. The clatter rose and escaped. There were new sounds from outside: voices, barking. Lights played across the tarp cover. Libète looked on in horror.
She sprinted for him, pulling him away from the damage he wrought. They slipped out the other end of the tent and into the open night air, leaving Dorsinus behind to sing his endless song.
As they speed away from the checkpoint, Libète begins hyperventilating.
— What are we going to do, Dimanche? What are we going to–
— Calm down!
He cranks the accelerator hard, and it sounds as if the bike cries out in its exertion. The vehicles that had paused behind them at the checkpoint are distant, but moving again. Libète wonders if the men–certainly not police–have commandeered them.
— They’ll be after us for sure! She had to shout to be heard. Maybe on those trucks!
Dimanche nodded. We need to get rid of the bike. And these guns. Here, up ahead. At the bridge, throw them over.
— All of them?
— Keep the pistol, he said. She nodded. He slowed, and she tossed them into a spindly, shallow waterway below. Libète saw two children watching from the bank as they washed. She worried they might retrieve them and hurt themselves.