“My stepfather.”
“I see.” The pastor took her arm, his hand on her elbow. “Please, have a seat.” He led her to the last in a row of whitewashed pews, taking a seat beside her. “And how is Pastor Jim?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him in nearly ten years.”
The pastor nodded slowly. “And your dear mother? How is she getting along?”
“I’m not sure.”
Now his eyes widened.
“Actually,” Charlie continued, “that’s what I was hoping you could help me with. I’m trying to find her, my mother. I need the location of my stepfather’s mission.”
Pastor Samuel cocked his head. “His mission? He has no mission. Your stepfather is no longer with our church.”
Charlie’s first reaction was a stab of satisfaction. She knew Jim’s arrogance and intimidation would catch up with him sooner or later, that he’d get himself booted from the one job that made him feel like a king. But then, at the thought of her mother cut adrift from the church community, a panic set in, and with it the fear of never being able to find her again.
“What do you mean ‘no longer with the church’?”
“Your father—I mean, your stepfather—has chosen other ventures to devote himself to.”
“Like what?” Charlie couldn’t imagine the man without a Bible as his shield.
Pastor Samuel didn’t answer. Instead he lowered his eyes to the red and white checkered floor and left them there, as if he were contemplating a chess move.
“When did this happen?”
“It seems that he started, after the earthquake, to make the acquaintance of some …” He hesitated. “He was involved with some people who had access to the money that was coming into our country.”
“And?”
“And their activities were not exactly the kind of things the church supports.”
“So he got kicked out?”
“No. That is not what happened. The church urged him to go back to the States for a sabbatical, to take some time to refresh after so many years in the field. But he refused.”
“And then they kicked him out?”
The pastor shook his head. “We all agreed that him leaving would be best.”
“But are they even still here, in Haiti?” Charlie could hear her voice cracking, the way it did when things seemed to be falling apart.
The pastor nodded. “Yes, as far as I know they are still here.”
“Can you tell me where?”
“The last I heard, they were living at a place I think he is calling the Freedom Farm. Wait, no. Farming for Freedom. That is it. Up north. I can give you directions to get you close to there.”
Charlie was surprised at the relief that flooded through her. “That would be great,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Just a minute.” The pastor left through the double door, the harsh afternoon light flashing across the room as it swung open and shut.
Charlie slumped forward on the hard wooden bench, her head coming to rest in her hands. The brief moment in which she thought she might not ever see her mother again had brought out something deep inside her that she’d thought was long gone, something she’d fought back so many times that she’d assumed it had been vanquished for good. It was as though a hole in her heart had opened and shut just like those heavy church doors, her love for her mother flashing in and then out again, like a ray of light from the searing Haitian sun.
She shifted positions to ease the pressure on her tailbone. How could anybody last through a sermon on these things? she wondered. Was being uncomfortable a requisite for piety?
So she’d check out this Farming for Freedom thing, whatever that was. She’d determine that her mother was okay, as she was sure she was, and she’d go back to Carmel with Bea, and life would go on as it had before. She’d survived ten years without her mother just fine, and she’d survive dozens more, God willing.
She turned her eyes to the huge wooden cross at the front of the church and chuckled a little at her uncharacteristic use of the phrase. God willing. It was as if religion was seeping right back in through her skin by her mere presence here.
The pastor returned with a map he’d drawn on the back of a used school worksheet. “Here is where you should go,” he said. “When you get to here,” he pointed to a spot on the map, “turn left. Then stay on the road for an hour. Then you will get to a place with lots of trees, a tire-fixing place, a lotto place, and a solar phone-charging place. At this market town is where you turn for the property where your stepfather is.”
Later that evening, after Bea and Lizbeth had settled in for the night, Charlie returned to the empty veranda with her laptop, switching from table to table along the length of the porch until she found a spot with decent internet reception. Only Stanley remained, working the late shift, perched on his tall chair against the wall like a sleepy sentry guarding a castle. He roused himself to bring her a small glass of rum, then nestled back onto his roost.
Bea had been in rare form during dinner. Charlie hadn’t seen her that animated in a long time. Sure, she was always funny, but not that funny. And Charlie was pretty certain it wasn’t the gin and tonic talking. She seemed to know everybody, greeting the entire staff and each of the handful of guests by name, introducing Charlie as “my wonderful granddaughter” and Lizbeth as “my dear friend”. Bea just somehow seemed more alive, as if the place had erased years from her life. Not a bad trick for someone who’d spent the entire day sitting in a chair.
Dinner—cabrit en sauce for both Charlie and Bea, with Lizbeth playing it safe and choosing pasta for the second night in a row—had been accompanied by a spectacular thunderstorm. As they waited for the cooked-to-order meal, munching on akra—fritters made with malanga, a starchy root vegetable—Charlie filled in Bea and Lizbeth on her visit to the church. If her grandmother had the same first reaction as Charlie to the news of Jim leaving the church, she hid it well. There was no satisfaction at his downfall. Instead she focused on encouraging Charlie, and on the tender chunks of goat swimming in citrus on her plate. Bea downed the meal with gusto before calling it a night.
Now Charlie sat alone under a full moon that had appeared from behind the retreating clouds, her laptop open and waiting. Farming for Freedom. She recalled the way Pastor Samuel had said the name. He might as well have used air quotes. What the hell was her stepfather up to, anyway? She carefully typed in the letters, taking a sip of rum as the browser struggled to connect.
The name was condescending, or ironic at best, considering how the Haitians had already fought hard for, and won, their own freedom way back when, without the help of anyone. They’d talked about that over dinner, after Bea had told them about the Frenchman she’d met that day, and about the Haitian saying he’d shared with her. How did it go? I will be like Mr. Jean-Jacques, or something like that. Anyway, it was clear to her, even after only a couple of days in Haiti, that this was a proud country, not one whose people needed to turn to someone like Jim for liberation. And from what, exactly, was he promising freedom? she had to wonder.
As the website resolved onto her screen, Charlie scrolled past the huge red “giving” button and went straight to the photos. There was an empty classroom, with neat rows of desks facing a shiny blackboard. And a field, where a handful of teenage boys were crowded around a man in khakis and cowboy boots crouching down, pointing to the soil, a man she recognized as Jim. Here at Farming for Freedom, the text read, our goal is to provide the keys to a better future for those lacking resources, by providing meaningful skills through a comprehensive education in sustainable agriculture.
Not terrible, thought Charlie as she scrolled down further. There were more pictures with captions: a composting project, a solar-powered pump designed to bring water to the fields. She scrolled past bundles of sugarcane, and a pile of smooth red peanuts newly harvested from the earth.
Then she reached the bottom of the page, and came face to face with
her mother, her smile as wide as those of the students surrounding her. Charlie’s fingers remained frozen on the keyboard, her eyes locked on the image before her. She leaned in closer to the screen, searching for clues. Her mother looked just fine, standing tall and still thin, her strawberry-blond hair streaked with a little gray, the crows’ feet springing from the corners of her eyes a little deeper, the freckles a little darker, but there seemed to be absolutely nothing wrong with her, as far as Charlie could tell.
I should have just googled Jim’s name before I came down here, Charlie thought. It had never occurred to her that he’d even have an online presence, always having lived off the grid in the past. She could have simply shown all this to her grandmother back in Carmel, and they would have left it at that. Maybe, she thought, she might still be able to do that—she could convince Bea that everything was fine, and she could return home without her ever having to see that man again, without having to face the woman who had erased Charlie from her life.
A warm wind kicked up from the garden below as Charlie closed her laptop. She took another sip of rum and sat back in her chair to watch as a gecko scurried down a post, in search of a mosquito or two for a midnight snack. Then she closed her eyes and listened to the rustling palms speaking of yet another storm to come.
12
Charlie stabbed her fork into the shiny brown mound on a plate in the middle of the table. Pain patate, Mackenson had called it. Haitian sweet potato pudding. He’d been excited to see it on the menu here at the Hotel le Président. “Yum,” she said, her mouth still half full. “You gotta try this.”
Lizbeth nodded absentmindedly while Mackenson wiped off his knife with a clean napkin and carefully sliced the dessert into thirds. Charlie scooted herself further under the umbrella to avoid the sun’s midday wrath. Beside them, the glassy blue surface of the hotel pool beckoned convincingly. It was nice to take a meal somewhere other than at their own hotel, Charlie thought. She hadn’t realized that practically nobody went out at night in Port-au-Prince, which was certainly going to put a damper on their culinary adventures. Mackenson seemed to be enjoying himself as well. His plate was as clean as one straight off the kitchen shelf. And he’d been absolutely right about the passion fruit juice. Amazing.
But Lizbeth had been quiet throughout the entire meal, picking at her food, understandably disappointed by the news at the front desk that Senzey no longer worked at Hotel le Président. The desk clerk knew nothing about her whereabouts. However, she told them, there was another worker who had been close to Senzey. Perhaps she knew something? She’d be done with her shift in about an hour. They were welcome to wait.
When they saw a girl descending the stairs to the patio, none of them took much notice. She looked so young that Charlie assumed she was a teenager out to lunch with her parents. But then she approached their table, addressing Mackenson.
Lizbeth perked up at hearing the name “Senzey” coming from the girl’s mouth. “This is her friend?” she asked out loud. “Is this girl even old enough to work?”
Mackenson pulled up a chair for the girl, who he introduced as Guerline, and ordered her a Coca-Cola. Charlie and Lizbeth waited as they chatted for a while in Creole. Charlie noticed the girl smirk a little when Mackenson asked her a question, gesturing toward them as he did.
“Guerline says she has been working all her life,” Mackenson explained. “She came to this hotel after escaping the home of her cousins, where she was working as a restavek.”
“A rest-a-what?” Lizbeth cocked her head, as if she hadn’t heard right.
“A restavek. In English it means something like ‘stay with’.”
“And what does a ‘stay with’ do?”
“Actually, it is very sad. Many poor parents, especially in the countryside, send their children to live with family, or sometimes strangers, to do work for them. They are sometimes only five or six years old. They cook, they clean. For no money. They are just allowed to sleep and eat in the home, even if the bed is only rags on a floor and the food is scraps from the family’s meal.”
“Do they go to school?”
Mackenson shook his head. “No, not usually.”
“How in heaven’s name could a parent do that to their child?” Lizbeth’s eyes were glued to the girl.
Charlie noticed Mackenson stiffen in his chair. “Many parents cannot afford to educate all their children,” he answered, with an odd snippiness in his tone. “But these types of parents,” he added more gently, “they also cannot even feed them. And they do not always know if their children face abuse or mistreatment once they are in their new homes.”
“Poor darlings!” Lizbeth clucked. “I’ve a right mind to take this one home with me right now.”
The girl was listening eagerly to Mackenson’s telling of her story. “Guerline says she stays here now, in a small room, and works at the hotel. She takes classes in the mornings, with the money she earns. The people here are okay. She says Senzey was watching out for her, before she left. She showed her how to draw, and was teaching her some English. Guerline says Senzey knew what it was like to be a girl alone.”
“Doesn’t Senzey have any family? Where are her people?” It was no wonder she glommed onto Luke, Lizbeth thought.
Mackenson relayed Guerline’s answer to Lizbeth. “She has only one sister. Darline.”
“And where is Darline now?”
Mackenson asked. “She says she is here, in Port-au-Prince. Down in Cité Soleil. Senzey and her sister do not get along, they are not the same.”
Guerline tapped Mackenson on the arm, with something to add.
“Sometimes, she says, Senzey would go to stay with her sister, but most of the time she stayed here, at work, closer to the place where she was taking classes. Then she started staying with your son.”
“Did Guerline know Luke? Ask her if she knew my son,” Lizbeth pleaded.
The girl smiled at the mention of Luke’s name. He used to come to the hotel to eat, she said. That’s how he and Senzey met. After a while, she seemed to always be with Luke. That is, until she came back.
“Did she say why she was back?” Charlie asked.
The girl shook her head. Apparently Senzey came back angry—and very sad. And she was no longer talking about Luke, would not even allow anyone to ask about him. Did they want to see where she and Senzey had lived together?
Mackenson tucked the box of Lizbeth’s leftovers under his arm, and the three of them left the shade of the patio to follow the girl upstairs to the hotel. The place was really quite lovely, Charlie thought, beautifully landscaped. Tree branches heavy with breadfruit and mangoes, bougainvillea spilling over the terraces, palms casting shadows across the broad driveway. As the girl led them through the kitchen, Charlie nodded and smiled, saying “bonjou” to the workers scrubbing the last of the lunch dishes, their sweat mixing with the suds in the deep sinks. Behind the kitchen was a tiny, windowless room, barely big enough to hold the three single beds lined up one against the other. Lizbeth stood in the narrow doorway, speechless.
“Poor girl,” Charlie said, wiping her brow. “It’s like living in an oven.”
“I’m sure it is better than where she was living before,” Mackenson said. “And here, there is nobody to bother her. She is safe.”
Charlie could only imagine what went on in those homes. It was outright child slavery. And in a country where so many had proudly fought for, and won, freedom from slavery. It made absolutely no sense to her.
Guerline eased her way around the beds and pointed to a row of small paintings tacked to the wall. “Senzey,” she said, gesturing for the women to come closer.
Charlie was blown away by what she saw—tiny, intricate brown figures, dozens of men and women set against the backdrop of a two-dimensional city teeming with life. You had to practically squint to see the detail. There were five paintings in all, each one an urban explosion of vibrant reds and cobalt blues, lush greens and sunshine yellows.
�
�Senzey did these?” she asked, running a finger lightly over the rough surface of a lively market scene.
The girl nodded. Mackenson stepped in for a closer look.
“Wow. These are incredible, aren’t they, Lizbeth?”
Lizbeth nodded, her curious eyes moving from one canvas to another.
“So why did Senzey leave here?” Charlie asked.
The girl shrugged, as if the answer were an obvious one. They weren’t going to let her stay here, she told them. But she wasn’t sure where Senzey went. Charlie couldn’t take her eyes off the paintings. They were so joyful, so romantic, as if they were telling the story of a city seen through rose-colored glasses.
If they did find Senzey, the girl continued, please tell her hello. The last time Guerline had seen her, Senzey was not looking so good.
13
Mackenson picked up his pace as he weaved through the labyrinth of narrow roads, his feet kicking up dust and pebbles with every step. The sun was nearly set, and he was anxious not to be out here after dark, when the sounds of gunshots and shouting between gangs kept many, like him, behind closed doors. Charlie and Lizbeth had wanted to come with him down to Cité Soleil to look for Senzey’s sister, but he had insisted that he do it by himself. There were too many places a car could not pass, and even in the streets where driving was possible, a strange, new car with blans inside would draw attention he did not want. It is my neighborhood, he told them. I know it well. It is better I do this alone.
He had thought he would go in the morning to look for Darline, but one look at Lizbeth’s face told him he could not wait. She seemed to be in so much pain over this search for the girl. The sooner the woman understood the truth and accepted what Senzey was, the better, in his opinion. But then a vision of the paintings they’d seen in the little room behind the kitchen at the Hotel le Président came to his mind. Who was this girl who could create something like that? And, of course, he thought, there was also the baby. No matter what type of girl the mother turned out to be, the baby would be Lizbeth’s own flesh and blood. And that was something he knew a person could not turn their back on.
Island on the Edge of the World Page 7