The Gospel of Trees

by Apricot Irving

  * * *

  With our parents gone, my sisters and I were ushered down the narrow sidewalk to our volunteer cottage by chipper, dependable Mary Hays, Meadow’s middle school teacher—she of the curly bob and the determined dimples, which she still managed to coax out, for our benefit, even as she sat at our dining room table to write a note to our parents:

  4:30 pm Friday

  Jon & Flip—Due to rumored trouble, women and children are leaving the compound. We have taken Apricot, Meadow & Rose with us to the Seminary. You are more than welcome to join them there. We, in the meantime, will do our best to keep them safe & occupied. Hold firm! Mary

  We were instructed to fill an overnight bag. My hands shook as I peeled photographs from the wall. What would you save if you had five minutes before your house burned to the ground? It sounded like an icebreaker question from youth group. I took my journals (of course); makeup; a few favorite items of clothing; a photograph of Peter on top of Dancor, one of me and Olly sticking out our tongues at the camera, and one of my sisters leaping off a waterfall; my Bible.

  I kept my voice deliberately calm, like the grown-ups’, when Meadow asked: But what if they don’t make it back in time?

  I answered with undue confidence. —Everything is going to work out; they will be fine.

  Meadow added a postscript to the note that Mary Hays tucked into the door: P.S. Mom we have your diary & photo album.

  The other kids were already milling around the front porch of the Hodges house as we hugged our bags and waited for further instructions.

  The rumors were growing: Someone had seen the body of a headless man being carried through the streets. The phone lines had been cut at Baptist headquarters in Cap-Haïtien. Pastor Tomas had received death threats if he showed up to preach at the Limbé Baptist church on Sunday.

  Steve and Nancy stood next to each other, their calm interrupted by an unspoken question: Will you still be here tomorrow? Asia and Andrew clung to their father, four arms circling his waist, not wanting to let him go.

  The high school boys, both Hodges grandsons, had no intention of missing the fight if there was to be one. Ryan’s jaw was set. His adopted sister, Angelina, beat her fists and howled, furious that her mother and brother were not coming with her. Susan had also refused to leave the hospital, although she, too, was sending her children away.

  Cars filled unevenly and bags were shoved onto laps as mothers made sure they knew exactly where all of their children were.

  Manno leaned against Casso’s car, the keys clinking in his hands. He had driven over to help talk us through any threats we might encounter along the way. He was risking his life for ours. I felt ashamed that I had misjudged him.

  We were the last to leave. Manno took the wheel, next to our fearless youth group leader, Kathy Brawley; Mary Hays, my two sisters and I squeezed into the back. I wondered briefly if we should have grabbed Mom’s camera, but it was too late now, the car thumping down the rutted dirt road, past neighbors who leaned back on their porches to watch us leave. My father had already told us some of the accusations being made about the missionaries: We were greedy foreigners who only wanted to steal from Haiti; we had made ourselves rich by their suffering.

  I hugged Rose on my lap. I had forgotten how small she was—barely four and a half feet tall, her clear eyes taking it all in. Meadow huddled between us, her hands like ice. Every bounce of the shocks startled her.

  And then we saw it—the blue station wagon. We leaned out the windows and waved frantically to flag them down. My mother leaned across my father in the front seat, looking windblown and surprised after their rushed beach trip.

  Her smile faded as soon as she heard the news. My father, to no one’s surprise, said that he would stay with the men. My mother would hurry home and pack; she’d meet us over at the seminary as soon as she could get there.

  —Don’t forget the passports! Meadow called after them as the station wagon pulled away.

  * * *

  My mother found herself standing in front of the refrigerator, staring blankly at our carefully stockpiled mozzarella and yogurt. Faced with the possibility that the house and everything in it might be gone before the night was over, her foxhole realization was a defiant commitment to happiness: We should enjoy life more!

  She caught a ride to the seminary with the last departing vehicle and stayed awake for hours, getting down on her knees throughout the night to pray and beg God to protect those who were still at the hospital. Saturday morning, she dashed off a worried update to Grandma Lois:

  I have passports, tickets, money and little else. Last night, Mary, Laurie and I kept up a prayer vigil, taking turns getting up to pray by the hour through the night. We haven’t heard any news yet.

  There’s no trouble in Cap or the seminary so we’re safe and well. We’ll keep you posted.

  Can’t tell you any news about Jon.

  Love, Flip

  The letter slipped out on the missionary plane before we learned that everyone was fine—no attack had come in the night.

  Bright morning sunlight filtered through the windows of Mary and Kathy’s cottage on the seminary campus as I folded my journal open on my knees and tried to write. The crowded living room didn’t have the serenity of the roof of the school. There were tea bags drying from a string for reuse, and my sisters were sprawled out on the couch with books—but I was glad for the quiet interval to clear my head.

  In Limbé, we had been scared for our lives. Bewilderingly, just four miles away, all was calm, all was bright. The campus we had been so eager to escape only months before was virtually untouched by threats of violence.

  My mind kept trying to bend around the apparent contradictions: Was Limbé simply a powder keg, as the Hodges family believed, or was there something about the hospital’s relationship with the community that had contributed to the crisis?

  * * *

  Kathy Brawley announced later that afternoon that she was going to drive into Cap-Haïtien to make sure all the other missionary evacuees had heard the good news that everyone on the compound was safe. It didn’t take much persuasion to agree to join her.

  The Mont Joli Hotel had donated a dozen free rooms to the missionary families, so we swam and drank Cokes and made a holiday of it. What I remember most about the evacuation is the konpa band that played beside the pool on Saturday evening, and how eleven-year-old Fabienne, whose father had left her in Susan Smith’s care, shimmied and twirled and was scolded by the missionary wives. I tried to convince the other teenagers to go swimming at midnight, but my mother said she was too tired to supervise.

  * * *

  The attack on the hospital never came. Pastor Tomas preached on Sunday to an overflowing crowd at the Limbé Baptist church. The threats evaporated with as little warning as they had arrived. Perhaps the prayers had worked their magic, or—as my father wanted to believe—the silent majority in Limbé had decided that enough was enough.

  My father spent one more night at Belle and Paul’s house, then came to look for us at the seminary only to discover that we’d left to join the pool party at the Mont Joli. Exasperated at our self-indulgence, he drove back to the compound and left us to figure out our own way home.

  * * *

  When we finally returned to the compound after two nights away, it felt like waking from a dream. We did not know how to speak of the evacuation, even among ourselves. We had been baptized into the same fear as our neighbors, the ones who had no option to leave, and there was something in those murky depths that we were eager to forget. Whatever fear or grief we felt, we buried deep.

  I berated myself for having been so foolish as to believe that we were really in danger. Despite our assumptions, it seemed increasingly clear that the story did not really revolve around us. We had leaped so quickly into that old, tired role: the beleaguered whites surrounded by a rioting black mob. But we had misread the cues. Our need to see ourselves as benefactors—without whom the Haitians, impoverished a
nd hopeless, were doomed to live in darkness—was outdated at best. Why would Haitian visionaries and entrepreneurs settle for menial entry-level jobs in a missionary hierarchy that would never let them rise to the level of their giftedness? We, too, were responsible for this unraveling.

  We had all participated. Aristide, proclaiming the gospel of justice and the gospel of dechoukaj at the same time. My father with his gospel of trees. The Hodges family’s unswerving allegiance to the hospital. So many saviors ready to die for their causes.

  Always it was the same: We placed ourselves, like heroes, at the center of the story. As if it was our destiny to save Haiti. What we couldn’t seem to understand was that Haiti needed our respect, not another failed rescue mission.

  * * *

  I taped my pictures back up on the wall of the bedroom, then sat down at the table in the corner and tried to write.

  My mother, disappointed that we had not been evacuated all the way to Idyllwild, had already grabbed her lesson plans and headed for the school. Meadow found a book. Rose pedaled off on her bicycle. My father disappeared to the Doctor’s study to talk politics.

  I tried to explain in a letter to Peter that it all felt rather like a strange dream: half a nightmare and half a normal afternoon; “on vacation,” I suppose.

  Hearing a knock at the door, I set down my teal green fountain pen to answer it. A woman holding a bundle of cloth stood next to her husband. They were looking for my father. I couldn’t understand everything they were saying—they wanted money?—so the woman pulled aside the fabric to show me. In her arms she held a dead baby.

  I understand now that she must have been in shock, just as I was still in shock, but we had no words between us to express this. I stood frozen on the patio. Even in English I wouldn’t have known what to say. A child had just died. What words, in any language, could be offered?

  I fumbled an apology and ran to find my father. I wished later that I had given them my favorite black scarf, the one with the silver and gold threads, to wrap the child’s body.

  My father, once he realized what had happened, grabbed the car keys and drove the family back to the seminary to spare them a crowded tap tap ride. He explained to me that the baby had died of dehydration from diarrhea before they even arrived at the hospital.

  I sat back down at the desk feeling suddenly shaky; my own fears overshadowed by this far more staggering loss.

  Oh Peter, isn’t anyone going to cry for that baby? Can anyone die unnoticed? It’s not right! I’m so sick of this stupid, heartless world! What is the point in it all?

  When the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning against Haiti, shortly thereafter, the Missions Committee at the Idyllwild Bible Church wrote to assure us that if we wanted to leave early, they would support whatever decision we made. We know this must be a hard time now and very scary. You are in our hearts and prayers.

  My father’s summary was terse: Things have been a little quieter. The hospital continues to function as usual. We’re fine.

  * * *

  After the evacuation, life on the compound resumed as if it had never taken place. My mother taught third-grade math and spelling; my sisters and I bent over our homework. My father took us on evening walks through Limbé, which had been transformed, in our absence, into a parade route.

  For Aristide’s upcoming inauguration, light poles and fences had been swirled in flowers and streamers. Tables and chairs were set up to welcome the new president. Pebbles, limes, rice hulls, flowers, and soil had been artfully arranged in front of the houses. Women swept their dirt courtyards into billowing clouds of dust. Even the tree trunks had been stripped of their branches—butchered, my father noted scornfully in his journal—and dressed in festive whitewash. Kids with drums and shakers sashayed down the newly level streets, paved with load after load of donated gravel (the owner of the gravel pit being careful not to protest).

  The neighbors seemed to have forgotten their former animosity toward us—or had I only ever imagined it? Perhaps even during the evacuation there had been those who were worried on our behalf. The world was full of kindness and beauty; it was also full of hurt and anger and revenge. I couldn’t make assumptions. I would have to figure out how to read each person’s eyes and gestures to decide when it was safe to trust. Life was even more complicated than I had realized.

  * * *

  On the long-awaited day of Aristide’s inauguration, my father was one of the few from the missionary compound to attend the official ceremonies in Limbé’s town square; the rest of us celebrated with an all-compound wiener roast.

  My mother led everyone in singing praise songs on her autoharp, then sat under the trees with Milos, Steve, and Nancy to talk about the importance of prayer during these hard times.

  My father explained in a letter to the grandparents that Aristide had announced in a press release that he had conducted a wedding between the army and the people, and no more blood should be shed. It all sounds wonderful, my father noted dryly, but there are some real skeptics among us.

  * * *

  There wasn’t much to be done besides put one foot in front of the other. There were still trees to plant, patients to treat, lesson plans to organize. My mother spent most of February distracting her students with Valentine’s Day activities. Her class decorated cards for sick families in the hospital, complete with cookies that she and Rose got up at six a.m. to bake and decorate, each heart frosted with pink lemon icing. (Rose and I also left anonymous secret-pals gifts for a few of the volunteer nurses, but when they heard rocks hitting the walls and the sound of running feet, they were too terrified to open the door; my father had to go over and explain that it was just us.)

  When the big day arrived, I was over the moon when Agape Flights delivered a big red envelope addressed to me from Peter. Olynda followed me home to watch me open it.

  Valentine’s Day is the perfect time for people to express their feelings and not be shy. So here goes . . .

  I L . . .

  I LO . . .

  I LOV . . .

  I’m very fond of you.

  Isn’t it perfect? I gushed to my journal. He cares!

  In a rare show of emotion, even my father wrote an extra nice Valentine’s Day poem for my mother that year.

  Love was a powerful barricade against despair.

  A Medieval Feast in the New World

  Limbé, 1991

  SIX WEEKS AFTER the evacuation, we still jumped whenever we heard rocks hit the roof. The Hodges family decided that it was necessary to improve the hospital’s defenses.

  In the beginning, the compound had been demarcated from the town of Limbé by only a low hedge of rakèt cactus and a colonial dike designed to hold back the river in the event of a flood. Over time, the rakèt had been replaced by barbed wire, across which the local women hung their laundry. Following the evacuation, two tall metal gates went up, attended by guards. David Hodges ordered his men to construct a concrete wall around the perimeter.

  I was not a fan of the new fortifications, though the high school boys put me in my place whenever I tried to argue. I keep wondering what we are doing here if the compound is so locked up and isolated, I wrote in my journal. We on the inside are locked in, and those on the outside are being blatantly kept out. If we really are here as missionaries, to help the people, why are we devoting so much time and energy to keeping them out and making the hospital “safe,” or “defensible”? It’s like something is eating away at the heart, changing and distorting so that instead of helping we are isolating ourselves.

  Dr. Steve James, whose house faced the highway, directly across from Belle and Paul—and was therefore the most vulnerable to attack—was by far the most vocal opponent of the wall. He argued that the missionaries would send a troubling message to the people of Limbé if they built a wall to keep Haitians out. Steve advocated strongly that if a wall must be built, then at least the section behind his house should remain unfinished. He quoted Robert Frost: Some
thing there is that doesn’t love a wall.

  Good fences make good neighbors, Ron retorted, also quoting Frost.

  Eventually, the Hodges family acquiesced; the wall was built, but the Jameses’ house was protected only by barbed wire.

  On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, when the clinic was closed, Dr. Steve James would pull out his hand-powered lawn mower with rusty metal blades. He had asked the yard workers at the compound to please allow him to mow his own lawn, which he viewed as a monastic ritual, a practice to anchor him to earth: a concrete reminder that, as a physician, he was still capable of humble physical labor. He felt almost at peace as he pushed the querulous machine over the uneven ground, stooping to free a tuft of wiry Saint Augustine grass when it jammed in the blades.

  Sometimes, however, through the barbed-wire fence, strangers on the road cursed and spat, accusing him of deliberately hoarding his money because he refused to pay someone to do his yard work for him. Steve accepted the insults as an act of solidarity with his hero, Jesus the Man of Sorrows. Occasionally, strangers threw stones. His children, avoiding the drama in the backyard, stayed inside.

  * * *

  The missionaries, parents and children alike, were all teetering on the thin edge of exhaustion. High time, my mother decided, for a party. She had not forgotten her promise to herself during the evacuation: to enjoy life more.

  St. Patrick’s Day was a holiday not often celebrated in Haiti, but my mother has never been one to be deterred by lack of precedent. She had read about a St. Patrick’s Day–themed medieval feast in a Focus on the Family magazine (a tenuous connection, granted, but it sounded fun). My mother took the bare bones of an idea and breathed life into it—or rather, she was trying.

  Well past midnight on a school night, she leaned over our kitchen table to roll flatbread trenchers to use as plates and illustrated a long, winding scroll with the story of Saint Patrick, that famous long-dead missionary who had converted an entire island with a fistful of shamrocks. My mother’s enthusiasm, once aroused, was as irresistible as the Pied Piper’s flute, at least as far as children were concerned.