Rocks in the Water, Rocks in the Sun: A Memoir from the Heart of Haiti

by Vilmond Joegodson Déralciné

  Lorès followed his instructions. He went to Saut d’Eau. There were not yet roads, so he had to take the mountain paths. When he arrived, he went directly to hang the sack and then went to his mother’s house. At midnight, he was sleeping in his mother’s house and he almost missed the rendezvous. The lwa appeared in the dream of a cousin of Lorès who was sleeping in the next room. He heard her talking in her sleep and awoke. Immediately, he remembered his rendezvous and went to Govri. Before he left, he told his mother where he was going. He went to see what the lwa had in mind, not to accept whatever it was. He knew what the lwa had done to his mother and his uncle, Deland. He knew the danger.

  In the backpack hanging from the orange tree, he found bottles, handkerchiefs of various colours, a wand, two chachas, and money. Immediately, he set it on fire. Something began to move inside the burning backpack. Lorès felt a transformation. A kind of paranoia overcame him. His mother and other members of his family had followed him up to Govri to watch over him. When they saw that he was struggling with a lwa, they began to chant Christian hymns to undermine the lwa’s power. Then they took Lorès to his mother’s house.

  Back at his mother’s house, the lwa seemed to be winning. The lwa feed upon the weaknesses of humans. Only a powerful faith can hope to defeat a determined lwa. The first evidence that Lorès was being taken over came when his grandmother, Suzanne, approached him. She wrongly judged that he was winning the battle until he kicked her harshly. Then he hit his sister in the stomach. Things were deteriorating quickly.

  The others started to cry and scream. They had seen this before with Deland. It was the same lwa. The family had a choice: it could accept the situation and return to the lwa or renounce the lwa for good. The first option was inertia, the second required enormous strength of will. No weakness can exist in a spirit that chooses to fight the lwa. Neither choice was attractive. If you accept to serve the lwa, it will eventually destroy you. If you fight it, it will never leave you alone. It will persecute you, your family, and your descendants forever.

  The family decided to fight. They took Lorès to live in a church in Bourdon in the capital. He never left the church for a moment for three months. Finally, the lwa left him for the time being. The lwa was not finished. Lorès lives with the knowledge that he is targeted.

  When I arrived back in Delmas 19 from Canaan, I told Fédrik my good news. We made plans to go together to Canaan one month later to see if we could find a plot of land for him.

  When the day arrived, Fédrik and Annie and I took a taptap to Canaan. Annie would see for the first time the plot I had purchased and Fédrik could explore the area.

  Annie complained as we climbed the hill under the eternal sun, much as I had. But also like me, she had a change of heart when we reached the crest of the hill where we would build our home. The breeze was still blowing, diminishing the heat. She said, “Okay, I see. This is truly Canaan,” pointing under our feet to the property that I had staked out. “This is the land of milk and honey, surrounded by desert.”

  Fédrik and I started to trace the perimeter with a pickaxe that I had borrowed from Jelo. We put up a little tent made out of plastic just to signal a human presence and intention. Meanwhile, Annie pulled out weeds. The perpetual breeze erased the terrible heat that we had felt while climbing the mountain. We had lucked into a natural air conditioning that would be a blessing in the future.

  While we were working, the friend of Lorès arrived. I paid him the remaining 2,000 gourdes ($50 US) outstanding on the property. He said that he had one more plot of land close by that he needed to sell to have enough money for his marriage. We looked at it. I tried to negotiate for Fédrik. He said that he wanted 2,000 gourdes for it, but I talked him down to 1,000. I had only 500 left, which I gave to Fédrik. The balance was due in two weeks. He would have to get the second half from Franchesca to buy the property.

  chapter thirty

  MY MARRIAGE WAS OFFICIAL. Now I had to prepare for it. Normally, in my country, when parents enter into an agreement regarding the marriage of their children, things become very serious. Every minor problem becomes a droplet in a river that rages forward. Nothing can stop it. Calm comes only when it reaches the sea. I would reach the sea on 1 October. Until then, the river would rage.

  Si ou pa pwason, ou pa dwe antre nan nas — if you aren’t a fish, you shouldn’t enter the net.

  Once the date was set, everyone left the details up to me. They had to prepare their clothes and remember the date, but my head was exploding with all the things that I was responsible for. The problem was that I didn’t have any money whatsoever.

  Deland knew my state: no home, no money, no job, and no possessions. The news I brought him, however, reminded him of his own impotence. There was nothing he could do to help. My marriage made him feel worse about his own life. He looked for some way that he could be of help.

  Deland said, “I will take care of making your marriage suit.”

  Although I knew that he couldn’t work, his determination to do this touched me. He was weaker each day, but he assured himself that he would find the strength to succeed.

  He had two potential fabrics: one grey and the other light chocolate. I chose the cafe-au-lait fabric.

  He said that he and the mother of Annie would need to meet to discuss the marriage. Since Annie was still living in the home of her elder sister, I gave her 2,000 gourdes ($50 US) so that she could pay for the little celebration to mark the nuptials. Only her sister knew that the money had come from me. For me, it was a way to save the honour of my family. I wanted to encourage Annie’s family to receive Dad and also to hide the fact that my sick father couldn’t receive anyone in his little collapsed home in Simon.

  Deland arrived at Annie’s family with my brother James and a longtime friend who, like him, had lost her spouse in 1999. He bought two apples on the way to offer to Annie. The meeting began very well. All of Annie’s family was impressed by the obvious fact that Deland was a poor but humble and decent man. It was through judging the quality of my father that they began to categorize me. Especially Annie’s mother changed her attitude.

  We prepared one table so that the two families could eat together. I took some pictures with my camera. I took this encounter to be a preview of the marriage.

  I had taken three steps now toward the marriage. I had two months to prepare. Two main problems remained. We had no place to live and we had no furniture. Both problems needed to be resolved.

  Mme Bolivar already understood the situation. She suggested that we take a room in her home after the marriage until we could find a place to settle. She knew that I had a plot of land in Canaan and that I intended to build our home there. That would be expensive and, as everyone knew, I had no way to begin building a home. I told her that I would reflect upon it. Now, I knew that at least I would have a room. But I had to make our furniture.

  When I had been hospitalized in Lakou Trankilite, a brother from my church used to come to visit me every day. I asked him for his advice. He advised me that it would be best to keep a healthy distance from the family. Living with my in-laws, he cautioned me, was a minefield. We would be like children in their home. Moreover, our lives would be an open book. As I listened to him, I became more and more anxious. Better to suffer in silence in the present to ensure a decent future. I started to fear that, poor as I was, I might condemn my future family to the life of paupers. How could I avoid sinking my family into the same misery that my father and my neighbours in Simon knew? Which choice would lead me where? How was I to know?

  Tout otan tèt ou poko koupe, espere met chapo — as long as your head isn’t chopped off, you can hope to wear a hat.

  He made a proposition. He said, “My uncle rents several rooms in Delmas 33. Each room goes for 24,000 gourdes ($603 US) a year. I could rent one to you for half the normal rate for a year. Even though you have the look of a youth, as soon as you marry, you will be categorized as a ‘citizen.’ You will have to fulfil your re
sponsibilities. After a year, you may be in a position to take care of your family. Don’t begin your marriage by demonstrating weakness. If you start by demonstrating independence, it will be easier for you to continue on that route. The first step should lead in the right direction.”

  Although I didn’t have the money to rent the room even at the discounted rate he offered me, I agreed to his proposition. Somehow I would find the money in time. Now, I focused on the furniture.

  I mulled over this new problem while staring blindly into the rubble of the main house that had collapsed on the grounds where I lived in Delmas 19. My initial idea to recuperate the big doors and cupboards and transform them seemed the best option. I had already begun the process the day that we were sure that Annie was pregnant — the day I told Jelo.

  The old doors were going to open onto my new life. When I had recovered a decent quantity of wood from the wreckage, I sat down to take stock. I calculated that I would be able to build a china cabinet, a coiffure, a bed, and two night tables. I should have also considered crafting a dining room table and chairs. However, after I had been to see the little room in Delmas 33 where we would be living, I concluded that there was not enough space even for the three pieces.

  First I disassembled the doors to recuperate the planks. Then I joined the planks together to trace the new furniture. Soon, I had traced the bed and two night tables, the coiffure, and the base of the china cabinet. For the upper part of the china cabinet, I would probably need to buy new planks. But the collapsed house had been very generous. Through its death, it was offering me new life.

  Although the planks recovered were sometimes banged up, I had in my mind a way to build the new furniture so that it would appear even more expensive than the imported pieces that the Haitian bourgeoisie buys in the best stores in Petionville. Not only would my furniture be more attractive, but I would be able to build it to a much higher standard. The bourgeois look only for appearance. My furniture would be both beautiful and well crafted.

  I didn’t have good tools to continue the work. I had no electric tools, for example. But, then again, Delmas 19 had no reliable electricity. So, I used what I had: a handsaw, a plane, a few screwdrivers, a chisel, a hammer, a clamp, a drill press, and a coping saw. These were the essential tools to craft by hand all I wanted.

  I wanted my furniture to speak. My philosophy teacher had recounted a story of Leonardo da Vinci. After he had completed his portrait of Moses, he struck the canvas, ordering the portrait, “Speak! Speak to people!” Me too, I always tried to infuse life into my creations so that they could speak for themselves. After my work as a craftsman was complete, they would then live on their own.

  The pieces soon began to take on their life. Maybe because the banged-up wood was now considered worthless, I treated it with the greatest respect. I was able to recover some door frames that had remained more or less intact. I carefully took the nails out of them. I then took the plane and removed all of the parts that were scratched, crushed, or dented.

  As the local people saw me taking the planks out of the rubble, they assumed first that I was going to use the wood for fuel. When they saw me caressing the planks, stroking them carefully with my plane and organizing them in a tidy pile, they started to say — not for the first time — that I had lost my mind. The same people who were now mocking me would someday congratulate me on this furniture.

  I took some of the thicker planks. They had been a closet on the main floor that the doctor had used to store medicine. To protect the medicine, they had been made out of madriye, thicker than the other planks I recovered. I decided that they should be used for the bed, to make it stronger and more durable. I joined pieces together so that I could trace the design that I had in mind. I used a hand drill to connect the planks together with dowels. Then I glued and clamped them together and put them in the sun to dry. While they were drying, I started on the other pieces.

  I took some pieces of plywood that I had recovered from a clothes closet to trace the coiffure. It was more complex. The two sides would close so that Annie could lock them. When unlocked, they opened up on each side. Each would have shelves where she could store perfumes and things. The doors had to be attractive whether opened or closed.

  The next morning, I traced the form of the bed on the madriye. On the top of the headboard, I traced a heart in the wood. Then, I took another small piece of wood to trace an identical heart. I glued them together so that the heart would appear to have depth. I traced the form of the headboard into the wood, all to accentuate the heart at the centre. Then I took a piece of oak that I had recovered to trace the border of the bed. Oak is easier to sculpt. I would sculpt the artistic designs upon it, including the heart in the top centre and then, at the end, attach it to the headboard. Within that border of oak, I sculpted the words Ouvres ton cœur à Jésus, open your heart to Jesus. In the place of the word “heart” was the symbol I had drawn.

  Next, I traced two night tables out of wood that I recovered from a buffet that had been crushed in the earthquake. It had once belonged to the mother of the old doctor and it had been of good quality. Now, I salvaged the parts that were not too badly deformed and prepared them for their next life as night tables. The main doors in the doctor’s home had window panes of glass built into the centre. When parts of the house came down, some of the glass panes had remained intact. They were perfect for the sliding doors that I wanted to build into the night tables.

  Now I traced the night tables with the coping saw. I made the tables with two levels. The top level was open so that we could place a lamp and other things that we would want close at hand. The bottom shelf would have the glass door. That way when our child started to crawl around, he or she would not be able to get into too much mischief. I used thick madriye to fashion four feet for each of the tables in the style of Louis XV.

  For the china cabinet, I could recover only enough material from what was left of the rubble to make the base. A china is divided into two parts: a base with drawers and a display cabinet above. I divided the base into three parts. The middle section had three drawers and protruded about five centimetres from the two side sections that each had cupboard doors. Most chinas were built on one plane. Since mine had another dimension, it took on a special character that gave it, literally, depth.

  I had to buy several planks of mahogany from some peasants to follow the same design in the display cabinet that I had built into the base. Someone who read the website that Paul had set up to keep people informed about my progress after the earthquake sent some money so that I could buy them. The display cabinet took a lot of work. I used the mahogany not only for the structure, but to sculpt attractive designs into the windows. I had to buy the glass for all three sides of the display cabinet. I was lucky that some of the small windows inside the doors had survived the earthquake. But all the other glass had been smashed. I needed to buy the glass shelves for inside the cabinet as well as three mirrors that I placed in the back. I bought some plywood to place behind them to protect them. I put a socket into the back of the china so that, if ever there was electricity all of the glass and mirrors would sparkle. Finally, my friend, who was an expert wood sculptor, wrote in mahogany, “Jesus love you.” I placed that on the top of the china that was already more than two metres high. That way, my china cabinet could always speak to people. Well, maybe it was grammatically incorrect, but it meant well, much like my sculptor friend.

  The sculptor was my old friend Molière who used to cook beans and rice for me when we were in primary school together in Site Limyè in Site Solèy. After the sixth grade, we went our different ways. But I had the good fortune to reconnect with him in Simon. He was working in the same shop that Deland had first sent me to as an apprentice furniture maker, where I was always hungry. Molière had become an expert wood sculptor.

  We caught up with what had happened to us since our childhoods in Le Progrès school. He told me that he had become enchanted by the woodcarvings of a loc
al artisan in Site Limyè. As is the case throughout Port-au-Prince, the artisans worked in the open because of the lack of infrastructure. A workshop is usually half indoors and half out, cobbled together out of sheet metal and spare boards. Molière often stopped to watch the sculptor carve life out of simple blocks of wood.

  Molière was always timid. But one day he asked the craftsman if he would show him how to sculpt in wood. The man said no. Time and again, Molière asked the same artisan the same question and received the same answer. One day, for some reason, the artisan agreed. Molière began his apprenticeship as a woodcarver.

  In 1998, Site Limyè prepared to celebrate the birthday of the parish priest, Père Volèm. The children were encouraged to present him with presents. Molière decided to sculpt the priest’s name in mahogany so that it could stand upright on a desk. So impressed was the priest by the creation that he asked to meet with the artist. Molière was aflutter at the prospect of so much attention from an important person. The priest told him that he showed great talent. He offered to pay the fees so that Molière could learn a vocation.

  “What would you like to learn?” the priest asked.

  Molière was overwhelmed and thought of all the vocations considered acceptable for the boys of Site Solèy.

  “Plumber,” he said.

  And so Molière entered the vocational school Saint Trinité where he learned the plumbing trade. After three years of hard work, he earned his license. He was a plumber. However, Port-au-Prince had few opportunities for plumbers. Those who worked were well connected within a small network that controlled the jobs. Moreover, Molière was the antithesis of a Haitian plumber. He is gentle, imaginative, and slight of build. Haitian plumbers cut quite a different figure.