The drugs were useless. Increasingly, Deland was too weak to even begin his day.
The fever intensified and sapped the strength from his arms and legs. He did not want to give in. Rather than sleep on the sewing table where he wanted to be working, he tried to sit in a chair. He would try to stand up, holding onto the walls for support. The effort to show how well he was, however, had the opposite effect. It only highlighted to everyone that Deland was a very sick man.
Deland had always been strict with us children. He insisted that, regardless of how desperate the situation in the country had become, his children do their best to find honest work. In Simon, he watched others choose to follow dangerous and criminal paths, since the respectable path led surely to misery. He insisted that we work honestly no matter how discouraged and how frustrated we became. Now, however, he could not be a model for his own advice. He was unable to work. For Deland, the inability to work as a tailor to keep his family alive was the most degrading blow of all. Deland believed that working hard toward a better future would bring it into being. His lack of health and inability to get treatment undermined his own beliefs. What happens when you can’t work?
Deland lived flush up against the road — rather, the alley — that led through Simon. Before the earthquake, there was a wall that assured his family some privacy. Now, only a sheet separated him from the neighbours passing by. When the sheet came down, Deland watched all that was taking place. Unable to work, he sat and watched the people pass. He listened as they explained to him what was happening in Simon. He despaired. What would become of Simon? What would become of Haiti? What would become of his children?
It hurt to see him fall into despair. If Haiti had no future, then Deland had no meaningful past.
chapter twenty-one
THE EARTHQUAKE CHANGED all of Fédrik’s calculations in the Dominican Republic. Suddenly, saving money was of secondary importance. He thought of his mother and brother and of Franchesca in the factory. He knew little about what was happening in Port-au-Prince. He decided to take what he had made and return home. He and Franchesca, in any case, would have to discuss how to respond to the new crisis together. The earth had shaken up everyone’s plans.
First, he bought some things to surprise Franchesca and his mother and some mechanic’s tools for his brother. He found a bus driver whom he paid to smuggle him into Haiti. The bus driver had agreements with the border agents. He paid them to overlook passengers like Fédrik.
Still in the Dominican Republic, the bus driver stopped to pick up another passenger. When he did, a group of Dominicans ran out of the forest with machetes and guns and boarded the bus. Three of them trained their guns on the passengers while two others started to shake everyone down. They took everything that the passengers had. They even took the new pair of boots that Fédrik was wearing, leaving him barefoot. The driver then crossed the border and drove the passengers to Port-au-Prince. Fédrik had not been surprised to be robbed. He had always heard that the Dominicans were crafty thieves. But he was shocked to see the state of Port-au-Prince, reduced to dust and rubble. It was now two weeks after the earthquake.
Fédrik walked barefoot to Delmas 33, the home of his cousin Mme Bolivar. In the circumstances, there was nothing unusual about a young man walking kilometres barefoot. Once in Delmas 33, he tried to find a pair of shoes. Then, he went in search of Franchesca. It was difficult to distinguish one pile of rubble from another in the neighbourhood of her aunt’s home. His heart beat faster as he approached her place, fearing that he would discover the worst.
Finally, he arrived at her aunt’s home. All around, the little houses of cinder blocks had collapsed. Most of the walls and ceilings had tumbled, but the outline of Franchesca’s was still evident. What was left was not secure, but they continued to live there for lack of an alternative. Her cousins told him that Franchesca was back at work in SONAPI.
He was relieved to find her alive, but disappointed to hear that she was working as usual in a city destroyed. How could business go on as before in this state of disaster?
He waited all evening to see Franchesca. When she arrived, they were ecstatic to see each other alive and well. Seeing Fédrik allowed Franchesca to forget about the earthquake for a minute. The sight of his face filled her with hope.
They could not tell each other all the news at once. Franchesca related how, when the earthquake struck, she had been finishing work in the factory. Everyone took the first rumblings to be the result of the big trucks that used to lumber into the Industrial Park. But when the earth shook, the tables overturned, the walls fissured, and things started to fall. Everyone ran for the doors. Ran for their lives. Some injuries occurred when people stumbled under the stampede of everyone racing away from the high walls. In relating her experience to Fédrik, Franchesca appeared to be reliving it, so excited was she to see him. There was so much to share about so many things. Each story was fuelled by curiosity about questions not yet asked and answered.
Fédrik listened to Franchesca. Each of her words was filled with hope. He thought she would explode with excitement. But he knew that underneath her happiness was the presumption that he had returned with a fortune. When she spoke of SONAPI, he knew that she was imagining that she would never see it again. His news felt like a hammer that would smash a joyous moment.
Fédrik feverishly searched through all his experiences for something that would make Franchesca happy. But every path led to the robbery. He was about to dishearten Franchesca who was so in need of hope.
“Oh Fran, we have gone through so many hard times together. We have crossed rivers and borders, and escaped the wrath of God. When I arrived in the Dominican Republic, I found Haitians who have lived in hiding for generations. They were like another species. Their skin was blacker than black. They had no razors and so their beards grow naturally. They play hide-and-seek with the Dominican authorities.”
Fédrik prepared Franchesca for the bad news while Franchesca waited for Fédrik’s good news. He continued, “When I was in Haiti, I never liked cooking. But there, I had to spend a week cooking for those Haitians. Sometimes we were forced to pick up everything, including the hot pot, and run from the soldiers.” Franchesca did not yet register enough pity. He continued, “It was amazing, Fran — after a few weeks, I started teaching them karate so that they could protect themselves from the Dominican thugs. Our Haitian brothers were really proud of me. For once in my life, I felt really important.… I had to put one of the bullies in his place. But he reacted by offering me a real job driving a kind of tractor.”
Franchesca beamed. But Fédrik started to see that he was digging his own grave deeper with each new adventure. “So, you see why I had to spend so long there. I went through all of this because I only wanted to free you from that job. Unfortunately, because of the earthquake, I had to take what I had earned and buy some things and hurry back to you.… I bought you a beautiful bracelet, an expensive necklace, and a watch. I bought tools for my brother and a beautiful dress for my mother. Just the kind that she always wanted. And I treated myself to a sturdy pair of boots. After all of that, I managed to leave the Dominican Republic with enough money for you and I to get passports and visas to return legally. I made friends there so we could be legitimate temporary workers. Then, I was able to buy a ticket on the best bus that comes to Port-au-Prince. In the bus, even though all the Haitians were sad about the earthquake, they were all happy to be alive and able to bring things home to help. We had almost arrived at the border, when the bus driver stopped to take on a passenger. Behind him, four others charged into the bus with rifles. No one had a chance. They threatened to kill us all. The first one to resist would be killed … I thought of you and how hurt you would be if you had to receive the news that I had been killed by thieves. I thought to myself, ‘Be careful Féd, because you know that Franchesca would far rather have you back safe and sound than have a bunch of material things and a pile of money. Better to let them take everything — e
ven the boots that I liked so much — just to get back alive.’”
Franchesca stared with wide-opened eyes. Her mouth too was open but no words came out. After she had digested the story and its meaning, she dropped her head in her hands.
Fédrik understood that the hope that had rested upon Santo Domingo was lost. He had known for some time, but Franchesca had to catch up with him all at once.
After a long silent moment, Franchesca said, “I would rather have died than have to continue in this country. Things were already intolerable. Now, they’re worse. And now I have no hope for anything to change … except for the worse.… Why did you bother coming back? You just bring more misery with you.”
Fédrik said, “No, Fran! Don’t say that! Try to remember why I went to the Dominican Republic in the first place. That hasn’t changed. The Dominican thieves are just obstacles in the way. They haven’t changed my heart. I will still work to make us a better future. Please don’t give up.”
“You speak of hope, Féd, but I don’t see it. Our only hope is death — to escape from all of this.”
“Is this what you call courage? We need courage to face these problems. What kind of hope hopes for death? Maybe it’s not our fate to go to the Dominican Republic. Maybe it’s somewhere else. Maybe it’s right here in Port-au-Prince,” he said. “Maybe, we’ll find some magical spring that allows us to forget this past.”
Franchesca replied, “What are you talking about? A magic spring?! If there is anything magical in Haiti, it’s going to destroy us. Each day for me is like the one before. And they all stink. How can I forget the past? It’s just like the present!”
“Are you telling me that there are no happy moments in your life? Nothing but misery?”
Franchesca protested, “Nothing but! Think about you. I was proud to have a fiancé abroad. I thought that you were going to change things. But here you are — even worse off than when you left. Is this a happy moment? My happy moments were the ones when I hoped for something better. You have brought a magic spring all right. Your news makes me forget about that hope. Stop this talk about magic springs. Let’s get real.”
Fédrik arose, disappointed. He was deflated to hear that Franchesca was discounting all that he had done, as if he were a ne’er-do-well. He had been proud of his achievements in the Dominican Republic, however modest they may appear to some people. But to have Franchesca call him a romantic and unreal was a harsh blow.
Fédrik left, dejected. How could he help Franchesca out of her funk? How could he avoid falling in himself?
chapter twenty-two
MME BOLIVAR WAS WORKING in the Ministry of Culture when the earthquake struck. She heard a loud noise. The ministry is in the city centre. The area can be violent sometimes, with gangs and police exchanging fire. But she heard something that she couldn’t identify. She heard something big fall. When she left to see what was happening outside, the ministry started to collapse. She was barely out of the doorway when the room behind her caved in. It was then that she understood what was happening. She was still on the second floor. Below her, on the ground floor, she heard people screaming. Blocks of concrete were falling all around her. Somehow, she tumbled onto the courtyard without being injured. Others were around her, trembling.
In front of them, the office of the minister had not yet fallen in completely. The ceiling had collapsed in part, but was still standing. The minister called to a young employee. She said to him, “I forgot my briefcase on my desk. Could you go in and get it for me?” He obliged the minister and entered the building that others had just escaped with their lives. The ceiling that hadn’t yet fallen had been waiting for the aftershock that came at that very moment. It fell upon the obedient employee. He didn’t know that his wife was dying at that moment in another part of the city. Their four children lived, orphaned that night.
The other employers in the courtyard looked at the minister when the tons of concrete collapsed upon the young man. She said, “Oh my God, he’s dead!”
Unable to bear the contemptuous gazes of the people around her, the minister instead removed herself from their company. The other employees spoke among themselves. “If that was my family, I would look for justice in the courts. She has destroyed his life for a sack of garbage.”
chapter twenty-three
AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE, there were thousands of individual crises of the dead and wounded. But for a moment, a window opened for me to see a different world. It was a world of humility and of sharing. People were sleeping under the same stars together. They were sharing what they had. It seemed that everyone had seen how vulnerable they were and they knew that they needed others to survive.
Rich and poor took up the same amount of space under the stars. For that moment, they didn’t need acres of land and, most important and atypical, they didn’t need a big home to show off. All homes were equally dangerous. Only crazy people entered houses.
We all heard the story of a rich man who was the proprietor of a big store. He was inside when the earthquake struck. He survived the shocks and the collapse of his store all around him, but was pinned under concrete. A part of the floor above him was held tenuously in place by a column that had not yet fallen, but that resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He watched people pass, people who were voluntarily rescuing those trapped in the rubble. He called out, “I’m here! Help!”
People stopped to survey the situation. They all came to the same conclusion: “We can’t come any closer.”
The man thought that money could solve his predicament, as it always had. “Just come to help. I’ll pay any price to whoever frees me.”
People looked and considered their options. Some realized that this could be an opportunity. Not one among the rescuers didn’t have dreams of improving their impoverished lives. This could be their great chance. But they were stopped, literally in their tracks, by the danger. They were all making the same calculation as the wealthy store owner: what is my life worth next to riches?
One common answer came from all the rescuers, “We’re sorry, sir. We’re going to look for a tractor. Only that could be of help.”
The man pinned under the concrete with all his stock around him saw that his wealth could not help him and could not buy others. The inevitable came to pass. A little tremor brought the remaining structure down upon him, putting an abrupt end to the rescue effort.
But there were other signs that it would take more than an earthquake to alter the social landscape of Haiti. For the kokorats, it was great fun to hear bourgeois families try to find a comfortable spot on top of rocks and potholes and dust. The earthquake had turned the social ladder upside down. The kokorats were on top. Why? Because what was unusual and difficult for everyone else — sleeping in the streets and living by one’s wits — was their normal life. They were already schooled in the life that was strange to everybody else. While the bourgeois families were sleeping in the open, the kokorats would collect the plastic juice containers that litter the streets of Port-au-Prince and pee-pee into them. They would put the lid back on and puncture it with holes. Then, they would squirt it all over the bourgeois families, “watering” their campsites.
The wealthy families would complain, but there was no one to listen. The kokorats were applying the same justice that had always been used against them: they had been there first, no? If the homes belong to the wealthy, the streets belong to the kokorats.
After a few weeks had passed, the spell was already broken. The window on a world of sharing and equality slammed shut. NGOs arrived with ration cards. Each neighbourhood organized a committee to deal with the crisis. The committees prepared lists of the people living in their neighbourhood. These lists could include the dead as well as the living, because each name represented the right to aid. The NGOs would give to the committees ration cards equal to the number of names on the list. Then the committees would distribute the cards to the people in their neighbourhood. The surplus cards could be sold or distributed under co
nditions agreed upon in advance. For instance, someone could get a card upon the condition that he or she share with the committee member whatever benefits it brought.
At first, the cards were given to everybody. One card for each person, male or female. But the NGOs saw the disorder in the distribution of relief. The stronger young men were always at the front of the line. The NGOs decided to give cards only to women. The moment the new system was announced, poor families all over Port-au-Prince conspired how best to exploit it. If the NGOs believed that men were brutes and women were angels, then they would play the part.
I knew a pregnant woman who had a family member on a committee who passed her a number of ration cards. Since she was very obviously pregnant, they gave her priority in the lineup. The MINUSTAH soldiers who guarded the distribution had no idea that this same woman appeared a number of times in the same line. Each time she received her ration of a twenty-five kilogram sack of rice, she passed it to a male relative to take to their shelter made of sheet metal in one of the camps that had sprung up after the earthquake. Then, she joined the end of the line to begin the process again, spending the day lined up while her relatives stocked their tikounouk. She spent all day long in line under a hot sun, without having eaten in the morning. Eventually, she fainted.
The MINUSTAH soldiers went to the fallen, unconscious woman and addressed the crowd, “Does anyone know this woman?”
Someone in line knew her. The MINUSTAH soldiers put the unconscious woman in their jeep along with the sack of rice that she had been waiting for. They asked her neighbour to join them to show them to her home. They followed her instructions to the tikounouk of the unconscious pregnant woman. The MINUSTAH soldiers entered the shelter with the woman, who was still disoriented. When they entered, they saw that the woman had arranged her big sacks of rice to make a mattress. The soldiers returned to their post with all of the sacks, except one. For all of the cases where such schemes worked more smoothly, the rice wound up on the black market, purchased by the poor and those who did not want to take advantage of the suffering of others. The system of aid continued to divide the population into poor and less poor.
Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun: A Memoir from the Heart of Haiti Page 18