* * *
My father left as soon as it was light to work with Ron at the tree nursery or translate at the hospital. My mother holed up at Jericho School for up to ten hours a day to grade papers. Rose and I distracted ourselves with friends.
Meadow, alone at the dining room table in our volunteer cottage, slid an X-Acto blade along a length of red paper, the knife’s edge slicing a thin ribbon. Red and gold curls from a fading perm brushed against her shoulders. She pushed them away from her face. Her lips pursed as she wound the curled paper tight around a pencil and tugged it loose, one edge crimped into a crease—the whorled petal of a quilled flower. Her forehead wrinkled as she eased the petal into a pearled dot of glue.
Crack.
At the sound of the explosion, her hand jerked. Glue smeared. The paper gummed into a tangle.
In that first startled split second, the brain cannot distinguish between the sound of a gunshot and the sound of a rock hurled against a tin roof. Both explode with the same sharp noise, which triggers the amygdala to flood the brain with adrenaline. The heart pounds. Lungs suck in air.
Meadow heard the rock clatter and bounce off the tin roof and fall into the garden. She processed it all in seconds. It was not gunshots, not this time. But her face was already flushed, her heart hammering.
She squeezed her shaking hands and reminded herself: It’s just a rock, just a stone skittering across tin. The door to the bedroom is closed. You can’t be hit if you’re sitting at the table. It’s probably just some kids at the water fountain trying to see what will happen if they hit one of the missionary houses.
She stretched her neck, eased out the kinks. Twelve years old. Coiled so tight. She picked up the ruined flower and tried to smooth out the paper, then set it down. Picked up the knife, held it between her fingers. A deep rattling breath. Slowly, everything became quiet again. Her fingers cut, curled, folded, glued, created. A stillness she could climb down into, hide in its ordered depths. This insignificant small loveliness, a paper-thin barrier of beauty to hold out the fear.
* * *
When the hospital itself was threatened with dechoukaj the following day, Dr. Hodges made the unprecedented decision to drive into Cap-Haïtien and phone the American ambassador. For weeks, he had been weighing the possibility that the upsurge in violence might indicate the beginning of a religious war, a modern-day Catholic crusade against Protestantism.
—I’m going to go in and try to pull the plug, he announced soberly to the missionaries who congregated outside the hospital office.
My father offered to go with him, but the Doctor cleared his throat and told him that he was needed to stay behind and hold things together. Barbara and Paul piled into the waiting vehicle to escort their father through the roadblocks while their brother David yelled after the retreating station wagon: How dare you call yourselves Christians when you turn to worldly authorities at times like these! You should be praying to God for protection!
Dr. Hodges lowered his chin. It was the first time in over thirty years that he had left the hospital during clinic hours.
In Vaudreuil, just outside of Cap-Haïtien, one of our friends, a missionary nurse, was in the midst of consulting with a patient when her Haitian colleagues ran over to alert her that Dr. Hodges had just driven past on a clinic day. Something awful must have happened in Limbé.
* * *
A hostile crowd had gathered in front of Belle and Paul’s house across the highway from the compound, and Belle placed an urgent phone call over the missionary party line to ask for prayer. My father, watching from the back gate of the compound, suspected that the local gangs weren’t quite bold enough to dechouke the home of a missionary, until pickup trucks started to arrive full of young men he didn’t recognize, who jumped down to swell the ranks. My father wanted to intervene, but David Hodges ordered caution.
My father returned home to eat lunch, but he couldn’t help feeling that perhaps he could forestall the attack. He talked his plans over with our cook, Anna Rose, who was washing dishes at the sink. When he marched out the screen door moments later, she threw down the dish towel and ran over to the school to tell my mother.
* * *
Inside the whitewashed walls of the missionary school, unaware of the tensions outside, our pencils ticked through world geography worksheets, geometry, social studies. If I had known that at that very moment my father was entertaining notions of heroism, I might have worried about him, but only my mother received the bulletin, and she promptly persuaded an entire classroom of nine- and ten-year-olds to get down on their knees and pray.
—God especially listens to the prayers of children, she explained, —so you need to pray extra hard.
* * *
My father, striding resolutely toward the back gate of the compound, did not know that Ron Smith, at the hospital tree nursery, had also reached the end of his patience. Each man decided alone to confront the growing crowd. Their paths converged as if led by unseen hands.
The Haitian yard workers had already gathered to watch the disturbance through the gate, and when they realized what my father and Ron had in mind, they tried to block their path. Drawn by the raised voices, Nancy and Steve James emerged from their quiet house to join the heated debate.
Steve was wary of being drawn into violence, even in self-defense. When an unseen assailant had slit the screen in his daughter’s bedroom and grabbed her leg, causing her to jolt awake with a scream, Steve had sat up for several sleepless nights in the vain hope of talking with the volè should he return. But neither Steve nor Nancy could deter my father or Ron.
The two nurserymen pushed open the gate and entered the highway. As soon as they reached the crowd, they were surrounded.
—We have no problem with you, Agwonòm Jon, a voice called from the back of the crowd. —Go home. This has nothing to do with you.
—What do you mean this has nothing to do with me? my father argued as the crowd pressed in around them. —These are my friends. These are good people. Why are you doing this?
Pushing through the crowd to reach Belle and Paul’s gate, he felt a prick of metal against his neck. Knives flashed in raised fists. Then he heard someone say: Sonje sa yo te di nou. Remember what they told us.
The knife eased away from his throat. He tried to decipher what it might mean. Was someone else giving orders, stirring up the violence from afar?
Once the threats had been made, the collective appeared undecided about what to do next. There was no leader. The young men, teenagers half of them, seemed to be united only by their formless discontent.
* * *
Their frustrations were not unreasonable. The world they had inherited was far from just. Parents with subsistence incomes had made harrowing sacrifices to put their children through school, but still there were no jobs. Opportunities seemed to be given only to other people, in other countries, or to the privileged few, funded by foreign income, who hid in the mansions of Pétionville or behind walled compounds. Scarcity was a coiled snake that lunged at their heels. There seemed to be no future unless they could yank it out of someone else’s hands.
* * *
My father had little patience for this logic. If the protestors wanted a more just world, then they should do something about it, not just tear down the few people who were making a difference. They could always plant trees if they couldn’t think of anything better to do. But as the crowd pressed in around him, he paraphrased a line from Gandhi, frequently quoted by Steve James: If everyone demands an eye for an eye, where does that get us? We’d all be blind. We have to find a better way to solve our disagreements.
A few of the teenagers seemed to listen. My father wondered if their show of strength had more to do with some trumped-up political disagreement than a vendetta against Belle and Paul. The young men seemed less malicious than resentful, and my father was just beginning to hope that the standoff would deescalate when two new blan burst out of the back gate of the compound.
&nb
sp; Ron’s sixteen-year-old son strode up onto the highway with a stony look on his face, prickly for a fight, followed closely by David Hodges, who was yelling that my father and Ron shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place. The two nurserymen exchanged glances. There was no point in trying to push their luck.
As they made their way back toward the compound, more people began to gather around the perimeter, curious about this noisy street theater—blan against blan. In all the commotion, none of the agitators seemed to notice when Belle and Paul slipped out their front gate together, stepped away from each other, and walked separately along the outside edge of the crowd, to meet on the other side of the highway.
Only as the back gate to the compound opened and Belle and Paul made it safely inside did someone in the crowd point at them and yell: That was Paul! Didn’t you see Paul, why didn’t you get him?
Belle wondered afterward if the Lord hadn’t just closed their eyes (a miracle for which my mother’s class would have gladly taken credit).
Belatedly, the young men seemed to remember their lost purpose. A few grabbed rocks to hurl at someone or something. Others rolled a few small boulders onto the highway, but the energy had dissipated. The tap taps laid on their horns and swerved around the dispirited barricade.
* * *
Dr. Hodges’s trip to Cap-Haïtien to phone the Ambassador proved ineffectual. Belle and Paul spent the night on the missionary compound. While we slept, their house across the highway was broken into but not dechouked—nothing was broken or set on fire.
Dr. Hodges drove to Cap-Haïtien for the second day in a row, as the American ambassador had failed to take seriously his warnings about an impending religious war.
This time, two embassy representatives returned with him to assess the situation. My parents, along with the rest of the missionary adults, squeezed between the desks and chairs of the hospital office with their arms folded across their chests (we children were forcibly distracted at Jericho School).
The embassy men, clipped and professional, were blunt. —What if my superiors should decide that the best course of action is to evacuate all American citizens?
Paul Hodges spoke for everyone in the room. His usually confident voice seemed to crack with emotion. —We won’t leave. Too many people’s lives depend on us, and we couldn’t carry the guilt.
The embassy representatives reminded the missionaries that they could not guarantee the protection of any American citizens who chose to stay.
No one volunteered to leave.
The missionaries lingered outside the pharmacy to rehash the conversation. The missionary kids, finally released from mandatory distractions, tried to figure out what was happening.
I overheard the Doctor announce that never, in over thirty years, had it felt so dangerous to live in Haiti.
* * *
My mother whisked out of the meeting in surprisingly good spirits, all things considered. There seemed to be something exhilarating about having taken such a courageous stance—setting aside thoughts of personal safety for the betterment of others. When my father and Herb Rogers decided to sleep at Belle and Paul’s house to try to prevent another break-in, my mother encouraged him to go. Meadow demanded: But how do we know that we will be safe?
—That’s just what the embassy people asked! my mother laughed, surprised. —But Meadow, God is watching over us! He has his angels protecting us right now!
She drew her daughter into the curve of her shoulder. Meadow did not relax.
I couldn’t work out whether the threat was real or imagined. I had long ago dismissed the Hodges family as histrionic, though I was beginning to second-guess myself; my parents, on the other hand, seemed to have the remarkable ability to stare danger straight in the eyes and not even recognize it.
I took a deep breath and glanced at Rose. Whatever fear we felt, we had learned to tamp down tight.
Just after midnight, with my father across the highway at Belle and Paul’s house, my mother’s confidence began to waver. My sisters and I had finally fallen asleep, but a barking dog had jolted her awake. She got up to write in her journal at the dining room table, her bare feet on the concrete floor. Jon told me more gory details of things that are taking place in Limbé. Supposedly Haitians like empty houses to destroy.
She described the meeting in the crowded office and a Bible study that Milos had led several nights earlier.
We often cause ourselves more pain by trying to avoid suffering than if we accepted the suffering itself. I fancied we couldn’t label anything as “suffering” because we were to consider it all joy when we faced trials. It’s given me words to understand myself better.
I just heard a gunshot. It’s hard being away from Jon.
No attack was made on Belle and Paul’s house during the night, although my father and Herb got up every time they heard a noise to check the windows and doors. Paul called at eleven p.m. to say that he had just seen fifteen men wearing the red armbands of the Duvalier secret police destroy a house with machetes, but the only thing my father saw was the full moon cutting long shadows across the deserted streets.
* * *
The following morning, as implausible as it might seem, having been awake half the night to prevent a friend’s house from being dechouked, my father took a trip to the beach. It was not exactly an impulsive decision, though perhaps it lacked foresight. For months, he had been corresponding with a forester friend in the States whom he had worked with in the early 1980s, though they had not seen each other in years. The Webbs had left Cap-Haïtien abruptly during the post-Duvalier upheaval (they had lived with their children in a lovely but isolated home at the top of a long winding road without a good escape route), and after their sudden departure they had never returned, although they had remained in touch with friends in Limbé.
When the Webbs booked a Caribbean cruise that would stop for one afternoon in the north of Haiti, a flurry of letter writing ensued. Once the plan had been set in motion, even after weeks of political upheaval and dechoukaj, my parents didn’t know how to call off the reunion. Also, they were optimists.
The morning the cruise ship was due to arrive, the day after the visit from the embassy personnel, my mother taught school as usual and lined up a substitute for the afternoon so she could have lunch with her friends. My father drove to an implausibly serene white-sand beach called Labadie.
With its nonnative palm trees and orderly blue and white deck chairs, Labadie is a meticulous fabrication. The cruise ships that docked in Cap-Haïtien in the early 1980s had rerouted their itineraries after Haiti became unfavorably linked with the AIDS epidemic, but to this day, regardless of political upheavals, epidemics, and earthquakes, cruise ships drop anchor at Labadie because armed guards ensure that the artificial paradise remains inaccessible from the Haitian side. Attractions have grown to include a 2,600-foot zip line and a roller coaster, and tourists are discouraged from wondering exactly where they are in the Caribbean. The official website lists the peninsula only as Royal Caribbean’s private destination: Labadee, Hispaniola—a misnomer as old as Columbus. Haitian artist friends who sold handcrafted wares at the “native market” were advised not to advertise that Labadie was, in fact, on Haitian soil, as its disease-ridden, dirt-poor reputation was not considered conducive to the shopping experience.
My father, as planned, met the Webbs at the beach. Leaving behind the gated paradise for Limbé was, predictably, a jarring reminder of the economic uncertainties that still gripped Haiti, but the reunion was nevertheless a fond one. On the compound, hugs were exchanged and children exclaimed over. We had just sat down to lunch around the Jameses’ dining room table when gunshots erupted. The Webbs blanched. They had already lived through more violence than they cared to remember.
My mother felt sure they were overreacting but didn’t know what to do. She sent my sisters and me back to our classrooms at Jericho School; my father put the Webbs in the back seat of the car; and away my parents raced in
the direction of the cruise ship.
I do not remember if I felt afraid. There had been so many gunshots already. But I did understand that it would take them several hours to return from Labadie. And I had not forgotten the warning from the embassy personnel.
My father, behind the wheel of the station wagon, took note of a group of young men who seemed to be gathering by the water fountain as he drove out of the hospital gate. He glanced back at them in the rearview mirror; there seemed to be something disorganized but troubling in their manner. It wasn’t until after my father had turned right onto the highway that a whistle blew and the men began to hurl rocks and bottles at the hospital walls.
* * *
My parents and the Webbs, en route to Labadie, passed an embassy vehicle full of what they assumed must be representatives from the American consul, followed soon thereafter by a truck full of Haitian soldiers in riot gear barreling toward Limbé. My father pointed out thick black smoke from what appeared to be burning houses when they crossed the bridge over the Limbé River. They did not turn around to figure out the nature of the disturbance.
From the windows of Jericho School, it was hard to tell exactly what was happening. We learned later that the embassy men had arrived to a barrage of broken glass. Soldiers succeeded in dragging several of the agitators to the Limbé prison only to find that the prison itself was under attack. The crowd refused to disperse even after warning shots were fired. Threats reached Dr. Hodges that the hospital would be dechouked by nightfall.
This time, when embassy personnel strongly encouraged the voluntary evacuation of all American citizens, the Doctor agreed that it was time to send out the women and children.
The Gospel of Trees Page 23