Dear Haiti, Love Alaine

by Maika Moulite

  Your best friend that you’ve clearly forgotten about,

  Tatiana

  Andres Venegas Heading to Haiti for Beauparlant Showdown

  By Colt Rivers, The Capitol Post

  The plot thickens between besieged cable talk show host Celeste Beauparlant and Florida senator Andres Venegas. The embattled senator is still under fire with constituents for possibly misusing party funds. But with no indictable evidence, Venegas is free to serve his term and run for reelection.

  He is expected to announce his candidacy for a second term in the coming months, but his most recent declaration has all but confirmed the inevitable.

  “After much prayerful consideration, I have decided to make a trip to Haiti and return to my roots,” Venegas said in a press release.

  In the late eighties and early nineties, Venegas’s father, Andres Venegas Sr., was the United States ambassador to Haiti, where Venegas spent much of his formative years. The trip is seen as a shrewd move to ingratiate himself with South Florida’s Haitian American community, which once loved him for his ties to the poverty-stricken island. His last official visit was in response to the earthquake that claimed the lives of more than an estimated 200,000 people and left almost 1.5 million homeless.

  The Capitol Post has also uncovered that Venegas and Beauparlant attended sister schools in Cap-Haïtien. The pair presumably remained close before their public falling out. Recently obtained files show that both were early investors in PATRON PAL. The thriving app company is worth a purported $10 million and was created by Estelle Dubois, Beauparlant’s twin sister and Haiti’s Minister of Tourism.

  Two months after her on-air meltdown, Beauparlant remains with her sister. CP is working to verify accounts suggesting she is suffering from a neurological disorder, possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

  Friday, February 12

  From: Alaine Beauparlant

  To: Tatiana Hippolyte

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Hey Girl!

  Hi Tatiana,

  I guess word has finally gotten out... What you read is right. My mom has Alzheimer’s. I’ve avoided speaking to you these last few weeks because I haven’t been able to process exactly how I’ve been feeling about all of this. If I’m being honest with you (and myself), I was sort of hoping that if I didn’t talk about it at all, it would just kind of go away. But it’s getting harder and harder to avoid.

  The other night, we had a dinner for my grandmother and my whole extended family was there. And, out of nowhere, Mom lost it. She started yelling about something that must’ve happened decades ago. While everyone else was confused, I was terrified. It scared me senseless to watch her fade away like that. One second we were giving toasts and the next I was shouting my mom’s name to bring her back to us.

  The worst part was when she came to; she looked so embarrassed. Can you believe it? She has a medical breakdown and isn’t even sure what she said, but because of how we were all staring at her, she could immediately tell that something was wrong. The idea of her thinking that we were pitying her...

  I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for her. I’ve been researching the disease to get a better understanding of everything, but there’s so much that doctors don’t know. Some people deteriorate fast while others can stick around for a while. And there’s no telling which side of the coin you’ll land on until it stops spinning. What kind of life is that for anyone?

  I can’t just stand by and watch as everything falls apart for her, Tatiana. Do you remember when I told you about my family curse? Well, I’ve learned more about it and I’m going to try and break it. Maybe this is just a wild shot in the dark, but if there’s a chance that I might be able to bring my mom back to the light, then I’ll take it. Wish me luck.

  —A

  Saturday, February 13

  The Life and Times of Alaine Beauparlant

  The next morning, I quickly got dressed to head to Roseline’s house. My mom always said, “Never turn down a potential scoop,” and if Roseline was the key to potentially breaking this curse, then I was determined to meet with her about it. I wore a short chambray dress with large pockets, the small piece of paper that she had given me with her address tucked safely away. I didn’t want my mom to know where I was going, so I left before she even woke up. She’d gone to bed early the night before, quieter ever since she’d read online that Andres had the cojones to announce a trip to Haiti. I wouldn’t have been able to sneak away without Tati Estelle’s help.

  “I know Celeste wouldn’t approve,” Tati Estelle said when she walked into the kitchen as I finished drinking a glass of orange juice before heading out. “But if I don’t let you explore this, I will never forgive myself. And since I won’t be here anyway, I know Roseline will show you better than I could ever tell you.”

  “You won’t be here? Where are you going?”

  “I have to do some traveling for PATRON PAL, but I’ll be back before you know it. Don’t worry about leaving your mother alone. She and Jacques have already scheduled a crepe-making contest that will likely take up the entire afternoon.”

  Clearly my aunt had planned this all out, so I nodded and gave her what I hoped was a brave smile.

  She pulled me into a hug and said, “Whenever the truth is hidden, it always finds a way to come back and bite you. No matter how pure the intentions were. Try to keep that in mind.”

  She wouldn’t elaborate when I asked her what she meant. Instead, she told me that the family chauffeur would be parked in the driveway to take me to Roseline’s house at 6:00 a.m. sharp.

  I sat silently in the car as Fernand sped through the empty streets. He tried to chat with me at first, asking how I liked Haiti so far. Whether I missed my home in the States. I guess my short answers and distracted tone must’ve given him the message that I didn’t want to talk, because the rest of the ride passed by with no more conversation. I was lost in my thoughts.

  I didn’t know if Roseline knew that I was aware of what my grandfather had done to her. I didn’t know what to say to someone after something so terrible had happened. No matter how long ago it had been. And especially when that something terrible was caused by a person who was related to you. Even though I never knew my mother’s father, I still couldn’t help but feel guilty about what Roseline went through. Would she look at me and fear that I had the capacity to be just as cruel? I hoped with all my might that she wouldn’t.

  Soon we arrived in front of Roseline’s house, a small shack at the end of a block. I’d followed the names of the roads as we drove past them, but still did a double take to confirm that the tiny house was hers. It dawned on me then that the address she’d given me was for the house she’d grown up in before her mother died, not whatever home she had upgraded to since then. She’d kept it, even after all these years of starting a new life with Pierrot. Each house was crammed beside the next, red, green, blue, and yellow boxes fighting for a place on the side of a steep mountain. I crossed the short yard and hesitated as I lifted my hand to knock on the bare wooden door. It had been a mistake to come. Did I really want to know more about such a terrible time in my mom’s and aunt’s lives? In hers?

  Too late.

  The door creaked opened. Roseline stood before me, looking lovely even in a plain, lily-white dress. She was not as dressed up as she had been for my grandmother’s birthday celebration, but somehow she looked even more regal. No one would confuse her with a restavek ever again.

  “Alaine,” Roseline said. “You made it. And right on time!”

  “I gave up CPT for New Year’s,” I blurted.

  “CPT?”

  “Just a dumb joke about black people always being late.” This was going well.

  “Ah. Do you always keep your promises?”

  “I try to.”

  Roseline pulled me into the house, waving hello to Fernand before shutting the door b
ehind us. The interior was dark, the drawn shutters preventing the morning light from poking through. Two wicker chairs were parked on either edge of a small wooden table. Atop the table sat a bottle of Florida water and another of rum, a box of matches on a clean white plate, and a small mortar and pestle. A thin sleeping mat was off to the right side of the room, with a very flat and lumpy pillow rolled into a ball on top of sheets that were carefully tucked over the makeshift bed. On the wall above the mat hung a brightly colored screen print of a woman with two scars on her face holding a dagger in one hand and a baby in another. A large crown sat perched atop her head, her unsmiling gaze piercing through me. I turned away, a slight shiver racing down my spine. Across the room was a door that led to the back of the house, where food was probably cooked outside.

  “How was the ride?” Roseline asked as she looked from the woman in the image to me and ushered us over to the two seats. “Are you hungry? You must be hungry. Let me get you something to eat. Is coffee okay?”

  Roseline didn’t know where to put her energy. She fluttered around the small house gathering plates and forks and knives, asking me questions without even trying to listen to my answers. The briny smell of smoked herring spaghetti wafted toward my nose when she stepped out of the back door and returned with large plates piled high with food. She placed the pasta before me in one graceful swoop. A second later, a platter of peanut butter and kassav, one of my favorite breads made from flattened dried cassava tubers and shredded coconut, followed. She walked in and out, returning each time with more food—sliced mango, diced papaya, a pitcher of soursop juice, a pot of coffee. Finally, Roseline sat down and helped herself to some of the meal. When I finished making my plate, she looked at my portions and clicked her tongue. I didn’t bother protesting as she added two more heaping spoonfuls of everything and slathered peanut butter onto my pieces of kassav. In true Haitian form, I was going to leave her house three sizes bigger than how I came in.

  “Everyone I know seems to eat Tony’s peanut butter,” I said, motioning toward the glass jar labelled Tony J. Manba. “His business is really booming! Did you know that he’s trying to branch out to all of Nord? I hope it works out for him. He seems like a good man.”

  “Yes,” Roseline said. She picked up the jar and inspected it as though for the first time. “He is a gifted farmer.”

  “I’ve literally grown up on his peanuts. Tati Estelle sends this stuff to me in the States by the boxload.”

  “How nice of her,” Roseline said.

  I’m the queen of filling dead air. It was a gift passed down to me by my mother. But believe me when I tell you I was stumped by what to say next. We both knew I hadn’t come here to drone on about peanuts. I wasn’t just BS-ing a missed assignment (sorry, Sister Wagner). I wanted to say the right thing, not just anything.

  Roseline eventually put down her spoon.

  “You remind me of your mother when we were girls.”

  I inhaled sharply.

  “I don’t get that as often as you would think,” I said.

  “Oh, she was more serious of course. But just as headstrong. I can sense your independence.”

  I nodded as I chewed on a mouthful of spaghetti, praying she would continue.

  Roseline took a sip of soursop juice and sighed deeply as she placed the glass on the table. “I’m sorry to bring you here,” she said, gesturing across the small house with a sweep of her arm. “But it’s the only place that I knew where we could sit and talk freely. This is the only home that I grew up in. I closed myself off by the time I was brought to the Dubois family. I didn’t grow there.”

  “Did you ever get to spend time here before you left?”

  “I tried. There isn’t much to this room, but it belonged to my mother. Before she died, she told me to return so I could remember all that she ever taught me,” she said.

  “Can this place help others...remember?”

  Roseline smiled sadly. “That isn’t quite how it works, Alaine.”

  “So you know, then?”

  “I wish we were not getting to know each other under these circumstances, but Bondye does as He pleases. It’s why I asked you to come to this sacred place.”

  “Why did you invite me here?”

  “We can help each other by helping the ones we love most.” The hairs on my neck stood erect. A proposition was coming.

  “Roseline, you’ve gotta tell it to me straight. What are you talking about?”

  “Estelle told me you’ve read Celeste’s diaries. You know what happened before. I’m saying we can fix it. For good.”

  “What has changed from then to now though? Why didn’t you do a permanent fix the first time?”

  “You have an honest face. I will tell you the truth—I gave up. I may not have grown at the Dubois house, but I did get smaller. Any chance she got, your grandmother would tell me about how Marie-Louise was cursed by Marie-Madeleine for not upholding her end of the bargain. For this, your line was cursed for all eternity. But after my body began to develop and she saw the way her husband looked at me, I became the curse.

  “Anyone else might think this curse business was just a story passed along to spook children. And yet, my own mother’s teachings remained lodged in my brain. ‘Never take words lightly, especially yon madichon.’ Words make us. They destroy us.

  “That day Celeste, Estelle, Jules, and Andres made their way to me... It was the first time I couldn’t hear my mother’s voice here. I slapped something together. When they stood at my doorstep, I couldn’t turn them away, especially when the whole thing was my idea.”

  “How’d you figure out what went wrong in the ceremony after all this time?”

  “I got more in tune with my mother’s work and have had years to think about it at a distance. Your mother is suffering today because Estelle did not finish gathering her portion of the required payment. I specifically warned them that no hesitation would be tolerated. Her moment of doubt tainted the whole process, and to make up for this, soil must be collected from four times as many prominent spaces. Ideally, Estelle’s direct heir would make this collection. But since Estelle has no children, you are the closest kin. The basic premise is still right—the best way to break a curse is to counter it. But, if my suspicions are correct, then your father, aunt, and, yes, Andres are at risk as well. Money, love, and power will be ripped from each of them without your help.”

  A shudder raced down my spine as Roseline spoke. But a thought occurred to me that I couldn’t overlook. I hated myself for asking but needed to find out. “How did Gregoire die?”

  “I can’t explain that, because I don’t know.”

  “It just seemed so...sudden.”

  She didn’t break our eye contact. “He was the monster, Alaine. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t need to when he lived on cigarettes, rum, and fried pork.”

  Fair enough.

  “When Gregoire died, I didn’t think. I escaped.” Roseline’s eyes appeared glazed like marbles, her mind far away from where she sat with me. “I came back to this house with the few possessions I had. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my freedom. I had no skills besides cooking and cleaning. I wasn’t ready to explore my mother’s gifts. But I remembered the Giraud family. I overheard one day that they needed someone to look after the house, so I went. If I brought misfortune upon them the way that I had your mother’s family, then I would know that the curse really did lie within me.”

  “You didn’t truly think that, did you?” My heart ached for teenage Roseline.

  “You believe a lot of silly things when you’re broken. I eventually figured out that I was not the curse, that it was something within your family’s blood. Meanwhile, your mother sent me money each month from her allowance, but I was too proud to use it.”

  “You just kept cleaning the Girauds’ house instead?”

  Roseline nodded. “Th
ey were fine enough... But their son, Pierrot... He helped put me back together again. We took to each other like nutmeg in kremas. Our love felt right and we wanted to get married quickly.”

  “How did everyone take that?” I asked, remembering what Félicité had told me at dinner.

  “They were all against it. His parents used our age as an excuse, but I knew it was me. Celeste was the only one to send a gift.”

  My heart glowed knowing my mother had gone against family politics. I knew what Tati Estelle’s beef was with Roseline, but I was still disappointed in her.

  “Have family gatherings since then been...awkward?”

  “We don’t get invited to many.” Roseline chuckled. “An unforgivable amount of what needs to be said among family always remains unspoken. Yet I prefer it that way.”

  “So it’s just been you and Pierrot against the world?”

  “Our life is rich with friends and neighbors. This little one,” she said as she patted her bulging belly. “We’d given up, but it was the greatest shock. I’m asking you to do this not only to help your mother, but to protect my child, since he or she will also be a descendant of Marie-Louise Coidavid through Pierrot.”

  Maybe this is what my mom felt like when she agreed to give Roseline’s idea a shot the first time. I pled with the universe that something good would come of this and also realized that there was no way that I could look into Roseline’s hopeful eyes and say no.

  “I’ll perform the ritual,” I said, my voice stronger than I felt.

  With no hesitation, Roseline leaped from her seat and got to work, gathering ingredients and supplies for what looked like a tea and leaving them to boil. She held open the front door so that I could follow her outside, where she pointed for me to scoop my own pile of dirt into a small bucket. When I was done, we went back inside to sit at the table where we had eaten just a moment ago. Roseline positioned her seat across from mine and reached out to squeeze my hand, gratitude written across her face.