I try to open it before realizing I need the secret code. Numbers and letters. We try everything: his birth date and his different given names, my birth date and my pseudonym. My uncles give me all sorts of possible leads, even the date their childhood friend met a violent death. As a last resort, we try his last telephone number before his mind went adrift. Nothing works. In the end, the employee returns, and we have to put the suitcase back. I could not have taken it with me without first answering a battery of questions that would have unmasked me. I slip the suitcase back into the safety deposit box. The employee closes the great vault of the Chase Manhattan Bank behind us.
My uncles stand in disbelief
in front of the iron door.
I feel light
not having to carry such weight.
The suitcase of aborted dreams.
One of my uncles, the youngest,
suddenly takes me by the arm.
We almost slip on the wet pavement.
Your father was my favorite brother.
He was a very discreet man.
With each of us he maintained
a separate relationship.
Even if he always refused to live with us
he was very present in our lives.
In his own way, he concludes with a wink.
We choose a booth near the window in a restaurant that smells very strongly of fried food, where my father would eat his breakfast in Manhattan. The young waiter rushes over. Can we still have breakfast? my Uncle Zachée asks. We serve breakfast twenty-four hours a day here. And we always will as long as someone in New York wants bacon and eggs and home fries. My Uncle Zachée motions me over. He wants to introduce me to the owner’s wife who knew my father very well. She has very white arms, a little mustache and that light in her eyes. Your father ate lunch here every day. I wouldn’t let him pay once I knew his story. I couldn’t have every exile eating here for free — you can imagine how many there are in New York. But his journey reminded me of my husband’s. Both of them were journalists and ambassadors before they got crossed off the list. My husband was ambassador to Egypt and Denmark. At first they talked about foreign policy the whole time. That was my husband’s passion. I bought this restaurant so he could meet friends from his country and talk politics. Your father always went to the cash before he left. He never took my generosity for granted. I would refuse but he insisted. I handed him back his money as if I were giving him his change. He stuffed it in his pocket — not the type to count it. Did he even know what I’d done? She laughs softly. I didn’t do it out of pity. It was mostly for my husband. I knew your father would never come back if he thought he wouldn’t be allowed to pay. So I arranged it so we’d meet at the cash. And your husband? That’s him by the window. Sometimes he’s okay, sometimes not. He’s been expecting your father all week. I can’t bring myself to tell him he’s dead.
I was four or five
when my father left Haiti.
He was in hiding more often than he was at home.
Here is the man at the origin of my life
and I don’t even know how he tied his tie.
In the stifling loneliness of exile
one day he had the grand idea
of entrusting a suitcase to the bank.
I picture him strolling through the streets
after having put in a safe place
his most precious possession.
The suitcase was waiting for me.
He had faith in his son’s reflex.
What he didn’t know
(shut up, you can’t teach a dead man anything)
is that destiny is not passed on from father to son.
That suitcase belongs to him alone.
The weight of his life.
Last Morning
I don’t know why
this morning I have such a desire to see
my friend Rodney Saint-Éloi at 554 Bourgeoys Street.
Appreciate the irony of this street name
for a modest left-wing publishing house
in the working-class neighborhood of Pointe-Saint-Charles.
Waiting for me at the top of the steep staircase
Saint-Éloi and his wide smile
with a salmon cooking over low heat
on a bed of thin slices
of onion, tomato, lemon and red pepper.
Hanging on the wall the luminous poems
of Jacques Roumain, the young man who sang
so sadly of the fall of Madrid
with a feminine elegance
that reminds us of Lorca.
Here we are sitting,
Saint-Éloi and me.
Face to face.
Both of us from Haiti.
Him, scarcely five years ago.
Me, nearly thirty-five years back.
Thirty endless winters separate us.
That’s the hard road he’ll have to take.
He arrives just as
I’m leaving.
He’s starting
as I finish.
Already the next generation.
So much time has passed.
One day, before him
will stand another man
who will resemble him
like a younger brother.
And he will feel
the way I do today.
The red sofa where this tall dark-haired girl is sleeping so soundly. The night was eventful. Several empty wine bottles, a make-up case, a black-and-yellow bra. The remains of a meal still strewn across the table. Spices in small bottles. Towels on the bathroom floor. Dirty dishes cluttering the sink. I step onto the little balcony that overlooks the grassless yard. The life of an intellectual in a working-class district.
Tiga paintings on the walls. A photo of the poet Davertige (light-colored suit, black bowler hat, big smile) in the vestibule. His smile beneath the pain of a dandy at rest reminds me of my father. Scattered here and there, the most recent books published by Mémoire d’encrier: between the sheets, under the bed, on the fridge, in the bathroom, even on the range where a Creole-style chicken is simmering.
Exile combined with cold
and loneliness.
One year, in those conditions, counts as two.
My bones have dried out from inside.
Our eyes tired from seeing the same scene.
Our ears weary from hearing the same music.
We are disappointed at having become
what we have become.
And we understand nothing
of this strange transformation
that has occurred without our knowledge.
Exile in time is more pitiless
than exile in space.
I miss
my childhood more intensely
than my country.
I am surrounded by books.
I am falling asleep on my feet.
In my dream I see
my father’s suitcase
tumbling through space.
And his judging eyes
turning slowly in my direction.
One last look out the airplane window.
This cold white city
where I’ve known my strongest passions.
Now ice lives inside me
almost as much as fire.
Part 2. A Return
From the Hotel Balcony
From the hotel balcony
I watch Port-au-Prince
on the brink of exploding
by the turquoise sea.
In the distance, the island of Gonâve
like a lizard in the sun.
That bird that crosses
my field of vision