by Kyle Minor
Her daddy stopped going to work then. I called the boss who was an old friend and he said dont worry do you need money and I said we had some saved. He said if his daughter was in trouble overseas he would wait by the phone and they had sheet metal men to cover the hours dont worry. Sheilas daddy stopped sleeping in our bed. He went into that empty guest room and just sat there on the bed. I told him he was going to rot in there and not do any good. He said he was waiting for the next knock on the door with the sheriff or some missionary saying his daughter was dead. I told him dont talk like that you have to have faith. He got real cold then and said havent you figured out by now it doesnt matter how much faith you have the same bad things happen to Christians as pagans. I said I know I have seen the same things as you.
There was that knock on the door. It was a week later. I heard her daddy there in the guest room. He said shes dead our daughters dead. I said its probably some kids selling worlds finest chocolate bars for the school money drive trying to win first prize of a black and white tv. He said if its somebody in a suit then you will know.
Who it was was Leslie. Sheilas daddy said he wasnt coming out of the guest room. We all went in there and sat on the bed the three of us. Its bad news he said. She is dead, Sheilas daddy said. Leslie said no shes not but Samuel is. Sheilas daddy closed his eyes. He didnt make a sound but there was tears shooting down his cheeks. That son of a bitch he said. Leslie put his arms around both of us even though he was not a hugging man. We told him we ought to go down there and get Sheila. He said dont do it let her grieve the loss her own way let the authorities at the missionary bored handle sending her back who knows what shes liable to do in her grief if we show up there.
This made me angry. I am her mother. I am the one whos supposed to be with her when she is grieving. I dont care if shes in Haiti or Timbuktu or if the plane ticket costs three thousand dollars or you have to fly on the back of a bird. I said we are going its settled. Your sweet daddy said I dont blame you. He opened his billfold and gave us some money. We wrote some letters and sent them down with the missionary flights plane. We bought some tickets and went down there as soon as they opened the airport for comercial flights. There was a hundred people outside the gate wanting to give us a ride in their taxi which was probably a run down car or pick up truck. These people smelled to high heaven. They dont wear deodorant down in those places. We chose this one short little fellow who had all his teeth and spoke English. His name was something like Ornery but I dont think thats how its spelled. We asked him if he knew the Baptist Mission in Koulèv-Ville and he said he had a cousin who used to be a cook there.
He put us in his pickup truck all three of us in the cab together. The roads were terrible. People were walking between the cars in the streets trying to sell you things through the window it was terrifying. The buildings were all cinder block painted some god awful color pink or green or yellow sometimes with a picture painted on the side or some words in French. There was a lot of places that had been tore down very recently. You could tell because people were picking in them for food or whatever was inside, scavenging like vultures. What kind of country is this I wanted to know. I was so happy we had come to take our daughter home.
We gave the driver some money at the mission gate but he said it wasnt enough. We tried to haggle but he acted like he didnt understand and he kept saying I gave you the ride why wont you give me the money? Some other Haitians came around trying to sell us trinkets and paintings and others were saying you are thiefs. Finally a white man came out and saw us and said who are you and what are you doing here? I said we are the Brockens, our daughter lived here, she was Sheila Tillotson. When he heard that he took money out of his pocket and gave it to the driver and started talking to everyone in that Creole and some people were arguing but he sent them away and took us inside.
I need to make this long story shorter. This is supposed to be a letter about your daddy and I am going on too long about this but this is part of the story okay. They brought us out all this food but Sheilas daddy said he didnt want to eat anything in this god forsaken country he just wanted to see his daughter where is she. He went storming around yelling Sheila Sheila, and it took a while to get him calmed down. They took us back into a back room. I said shes not here. One of the women said no shes not. Where is she? The woman said she didnt know. Is she alive? These are the questions any mother would want to know. The woman said as far as we know. She was not un kind. She was trying to be calm but she was upset as us. Sheilas daddy said tell us what you know. The woman started to talk but the man said we just got there we should rest. Sheilas daddy grabbed him by the shirt and said you tell us what you know. The man put his hands on Sheilas daddys hands but what can you do? Sheilas daddy had sheet metal arms. The man said okay al right you tell him to the woman who I gather was his wife. The wife said I dont know how to say this but she ran off with this Haitian man Kinnel who was friends with Samuel. Shes been gone a few days and we dont know where she went. We didnt know this would happen we are so sorry. Sheilas daddy said this Kinnel is a black man? He is Haitian the woman said. Sheilas daddy said when you say run off do you mean escaping danger or site seeing or romantic or boyfriend girlfriend or get married? And the woman said theres no way to know for sure but we think romantic by now. Shes very confused shes been thru so much.
What was there to do after that but go home? We stayed the night in the mission but neither of us slept at all. In the village you could here some people singing hymns in that Creole. Even though it was Christian it sounded like the voices of the demon possessed. The whole country was infested. Somewhere out there I was sure Sheila was singing with them. She was turning into one of them and probably having babies with one of them or made one already because there is no birth control in that country for sure unless you are getting it from Americans and she was out there living like a savage. Her daddy said the same thing in the middle of the night. If she has any babys they are going to be black. That was his last word on the subject. He also said we are never going to see her again.
Your daddy was very good to us after that. He had the ladys at his church cook us meals in a rotation one for every day of the week for a month and bring them to us so we didnt have to worry about the cooking. He visited with Sheilas daddy and he said dont listen to the poison those old bitties are spewing. Just because they go to church doesnt make them spiritual. No person in their right mind can blame you for what choices she has made. If any body is responsible it is me Leslie Ratliff I should of not taken those kids down there my old friend was a snake and I should of known it I should of kept him away from her I should of been more aware. Sheilas daddy said no its not true. What a girl learns about love she learns from her daddy. Theres something I did wrong and I should of known it when. Even those early signs I had a chance. That red lipstick and those hoop ear rings and those short skirts. I said your not leaving this house done up like a two bit whore but I could of put my foot down more. I could of got out the belt or the switch like the bible says spare the rod or spoil the child but I couldnt bare to do it not when she was little and not now and now I am paying the price you sow what you reap. Your daddy was so compassionate he said no no thats not true I have been a principle for many years now and you see all kinds of kids good and bad from all kinds of families good and bad and you know God forgives sins and there is still time for Sheila I knew her she was a good girl even if she had a wild streak. He said you know the story of my wife who left me for the navy captain. She may be a kept woman but I know in my heart God will bring her back to me. She is still my wife in the eyes of God. God will forgive my wife and I will forgive my wife and she will come back to me. And God will forgive Sheila and you will forgive Sheila and she will come back to you. Then we will all sit down and kill the fatted calf and feast like in the story of the prodigal son your family and mine all of us together. The day is coming you will see.
Every Saturday they had this same conversation. Then one Saturday there was
some news from the mission. Some body had creeped back from the provinces and said Sheila was dead and they buried her in a family crypt somewhere. They werent telling where. She had got sick and died and everyone was afraid because she was white. There was some debate about whether to send news but finally they did send it out of a heart for her family. But you tell me. If they really had a heart for our family they would say where she died and where she was buried so we could go get her. Those people. But it never happened. We dont know where she is and we dont know if she had any babies. They would be our grandbabys. I would take them now even though they might be black. They would be black but they would still have Sheilas face and some of her features. I would love them the same as I loved her. I am not prejudice. I would raise them to know the lord and go back to church and never let them wear any thick makeup or jewlry. I would work as hard as I had to so I could send them to Good Shepard Academy and give them a good education because its so important. But every day I think they dont even know English and probably cant read or do basic math. That just galls me every day. They are alive and carrying her blood I know it. They will never know my name or that I am there grandma.
If you think it was hard for me you should of seen Sheilas daddy. He lasted 18 months after that. Massive coronary. His heart just exploded. There was surgery but it was to late. The only person who came around after that was your sweet daddy Leslie Ratliff. Oh was he a friend to me. We sat a part on the couch and watched television and some times went to the movies one time he even took me to the musical play Fiddler on the Roof. Lonely days were made less lonely even doing things like watching the Kentucky Derby on tv or baseball then making cookies or sometimes he would help repair the toilet or any thing else that was broke. One day I said to him why dont we get married. We love each other in the right way and never did any thing un toward. We could make a life together. I said I made my peace with my daughter is never coming back. I said your wife is never coming back to you either. He said she is not dead. I said I know but she might as well be dead to you. He said I trust the lord. Well I admire him for that but as you know your momma had made her choices and they were ever bit as binding as the ones Sheila made. But your daddy was not scared off. He kept visiting just as a good friend and I was respectful to the love he still had for your mother and he was respectful to me and treated me like a dear sister in Christ even though I had stopped going to the Baptist church because of those bitties and there gossip.
One thing I never said to your daddy because I never blamed him was how different life would be if no body had invented the mimeograft machine. It was that mimeograft machine that brought home the paper that convinced all the parents to send their children to Haiti instead of Europe. And it was the mimeograft machine that brought the copy of the letter from that terrible Samuel that Sheila always used to sneak off and read and help her fall in love some more and go down the wrong path. Thats something I think about all the time. I was thinking about it today. I was sitting on the bed in that guest room your daddy helped build. Sweetheart was barking. The rest of the house was so quiet I had to go turn on the tv to keep me company. Its what made me think of writing you the letter. I was thinking about that mimeograft machine and it got me thinking of your daddy. He was so special. Every body must of told you by now but I wanted you to know how much he meant to me being here for me in my darkest hour. I wish he would of known God doesnt always answer prayers the way you want him to. Maybe you could of been a daughter to me. I couldnt take the place of your real momma or your daddy and you couldnt take the place of my Sheila but we could of still been like family to one another. Maybe theres still time.
VI.
Günter Maier, Director, The Committee for Haitian Reforestation, Pétionville, Haiti, to Angela Lopez, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, March 19, 1995.
The referendum is in: I will not be visiting North Carolina anytime soon. The Americans give with one hand and take with the other. The sticking point is the guns from El Salvador. They held me for three days and since there was nothing for me to say, I said nothing, and they fed me well enough and gave me a blanket, and I slept like a baby. Eventually, our good friend Nils came down with three men from the German embassy and a Dutch diplomat and three Haitian lawyers, and the good American colonel declared me a free man, but a Jeepload of American soldiers knocked on the door at committee headquarters yesterday and served papers saying I was hereafter barred from flying into Miami or any other port of entry to American soil. I wanted to grab these men by the shoulders and shake them and say, who do you take me for? I’m one of the good guys. I did say to the one, “Have you been to La Saline?” He said he patrolled the road by the market almost every day. I told him to get a good look at that filthy maze of shelters and shanties, imagine some reckless poor man with fifty fresh dollars in his pocket and a rocket launcher on his shoulder. “Look past his shoulder toward the sun,” I told him. “There you’ll see the flight path of every American Airlines flight that ever landed in Port-au-Prince.” He didn’t say anything, but he blinked his eyes a few times. I’d heard the stories. He was probably in a convoy some time that took sniper fire right around the same place. I’m sure he was wondering the same thing I was wondering: What was his government thinking, restoring that crazy communist priest to power? Remember the idiom you taught me that evening in Boutilliers, when we were sipping clairin on that strip of grass overlooking the orange-and-silver glinting of the sun off the rooftops at dusk? “The inmates are running the asylum”? This is what I wanted to say to him, but I was angry, and my mind was full of anger-fueled idioms of every variety—French, Spanish, Creole, German, Dutch, Italian. My English was not close enough at hand, and I could not summon the words I needed to say: You don’t take the guns from the good people. You take the guns from the bad people. Or: The last thing this country needs is a democracy. What this country needs is an iron-fisted benevolent dictator. Somebody who will protect the businesses and protect the port and build roads and build up the banking system. Somebody who will refuse to accede to the tyranny of poor people whose every action seems calculated to keep them poor forever. Let me tell you something your professors in North Carolina won’t like, Angela: Poor people don’t want not to be poor. Poor people just want everyone else to be as poor as they are. That’s where we’re headed as soon as the Americans leave, I’m afraid, unless our dear president turns out to be a more accommodating fellow than he has proved himself to be in the past.
I wish that was the strangest thing that happened yesterday, but you did your time here. You know how it is. Yesterday we drove to resupply the safehouse in D_______. Sometime around noon three teenage boys came up the street dragging a blue blanket. The blanket was heavy with something. They moved like they were running from something. A second group of boys came yelling. They were carrying machetes and swinging them above their heads. We closed and barricaded the door and watched on the security monitors. The first group of boys dropped the blanket and fled. The second group stopped at the blanket. They kicked at it and poked at it with their machetes. For a while they stood over it and consulted one another. No one who passed on the street looked at them or what they were doing. I had never seen these boys before, but how often do I get to D_______?
After a while we heard the voice of a man screaming. The sound he made was terrible, animal. When his body appeared on the monitor, it matched his voice. It was a wiry, haggard body, muscled and too lean. The man was tall but hunched. He had an overfull beard that curled at its ends. When he came into the frame, the boys began to shout at him and raise their machetes, but they backed away. Then, from the distance, came gunshots. The boys and the man fled alike. We left the video monitor, then, and went into the back of the safe house, where we could achieve a greater distance from the gunshots. We waited until the shooting ended, and then we waited some more.
When we returned to the front room, we looked again
at the monitor. The blanket was still lying on the ground, but it no longer carried its burden. Nils asked if the videotape was still running. I checked, and it had ended. We took the tape from the recorder and put it into the VTR in the back room and rewound it. There we saw the men with the guns run past the blanket and past the front of the building and out of the frame. Then we saw the concrete shop and the machine shop across the street taking bullets from both sides of the frame. Two groups of men were shooting at each other. The shooting went on for some time, but not for as long as it had seemed to go on when we were waiting it out in the back room. When it was over, a little boy who could not have been more than seven or eight years old came into the frame. He walked directly to the blanket. His back was to the security camera. We saw him bend down over the bundle and reach in and grab something and begin to pull it out. Slowly—for this child, it was an effort—he came away pulling a pair of arms, a woman’s arms, by the hands and wrists. Nils said, “Is that a white woman?” and when her head came briefly into the frame, the hair did not appear to be the hair I had seen on the head of any Haitian. “Maybe she’s Levantine Haitian,” I said. “Maybe she’s Lebanese.” There was no way to tell for sure, the quarterframe picture was so blurry.
The little boy dragged the woman’s body out the right of the frame, in the direction of the alleys where the squatters have built. Perhaps it was not advisable for us to do what we did, but we opened the front door and walked in the direction from where the boy had come. We walked toward the squatter houses, but when we reached them we did not go any farther. It did not seem wise to go any farther.
When we returned to the safehouse, we watched the tape again and again, but we could not come to any agreement about the woman—was she Dutch? was she Lebanese? was she one of those mythical Polish Haitians everybody’s heard about but nobody’s seen?—except that surely she was dead. And who was the child? And why was he taking her?