The Ladder
We slowly got to our feet like zombies in a B-movie. I heard cries from the courtyard. The buildings at the rear and to the right had collapsed. These were apartments rented by the year to foreign families, most of them French. Two teenage girls were in a panic on their second-floor balcony. Very quickly, people looked for a way to help them. Three men took up position at the foot of the building. Two were holding a ladder. The young man who’d had the intelligence to go looking for the ladder climbed to the top. The older girl managed to step over the balcony railing. She made it to the ground. Everyone gathered to help her. The young man climbed up the ladder again to bring down the younger girl, who refused to leave the building. She insisted on waiting for her mother. No one knew there was a third person up there. The rescuers worked silently, sweating. They had to act fast because the building, on its last legs, could come down at the slightest vibration. The teenage girl screamed that her mother was inside. She had tried to escape down the stairs and had gotten trapped. The girl was crying and pointing to the spot where her mother had disappeared. From the garden, we watched the girl who believed that if she came down, we’d forget all about her mother. Everyone was working feverishly since the earth had trembled again. The mother managed to free herself by breaking a window. She rushed to her daughter who still refused to climb down until she did. Only when her mother was on solid ground did she accept the ladder.
A Small Celebration
A woman was pacing with a crying baby in her arms. I took him and tried rocking him. He stared up at me with his dark eyes like a frightened mouse. His attention was so intense it intimidated me. The woman told me she was his nurse. His parents were at work. She had just finished giving him his bath when the room started rocking. She kept running into the walls, but never let go of the baby. She tried to leave the building through the stairway. It was blocked. She went back to the room and managed to balance the baby on the window ledge, then slipped down to the balcony of the floor below. Then she climbed on a chair to get the baby who, miraculously, had not moved, as if he understood the gravity of the situation. Once she had him in her arms again, he began screaming as if he were being thrust into boiling water and had been going like that for the last two hours. His parents arrived in a panic. I could scarcely imagine their fear as they drove here. They left the car doors open in the middle of the street. The nurse gave them their baby and they danced with a wild kind of joy, holding him close. An aftershock interrupted their small celebration.
The Hotel Employees
Impeccable in their uniforms, the hotel employees never lost their composure. There was a little panic at the beginning, but mostly from the guests who were running in every direction. Some had to be rescued from their rooms because they refused to come out. They were found walking in circles or sitting on their beds with stunned expressions. I watched the staff do everything possible to provide a decent level of service. Maybe the fact they had a function to fulfill helped them walk straight, while the guests went staggering past. As soon as someone was hungry, they would arrive single file with platters of hors d’oeuvres that they lined up on a broad table. They were expecting a reception in the big meeting room by the restaurant. The food was ready. Now we could enjoy it. Near the low gate that led to the tennis courts where we had taken shelter, the security guards stood. They did their best to reassure the customers. I say customers rather than tourists, since the latter are rare in Haiti. Instead, you find members of the many NGOs that have sprouted up over the last decades, sun-tanned journalists who haven’t gotten around to leaving the island and foreign businessmen talking in low voices over breakfast with Haitian politicians bathed in sweat. In the garden, the hotel owner went by, inspecting the damage. Walking slowly, his face care-worn, he seemed lost in thought. I’d have given anything to know what was going through his mind. The damage was not just material. In less than a minute, some saw their lifelong dreams go up in smoke. That cloud in the sky a while back was the dust of their dreams.
The Bathroom
I imagine the fear of people who were in the bathroom when the earthquake struck. Everyone was caught off guard, but those who were in the shower must have experienced pure panic. You always feel more vulnerable naked, especially covered in soapy water. A lot of people, in their hurry to get out, left the water running.
Objects
The enemy isn’t time, but all those things we’ve accumulated with the passage of time. Once we start collecting, we can’t stop. Every object demands another. That’s the portrait of a life. They’ll find bodies by the door. A suitcase next to them.
Where Are You, Honey?
It’s very rare for all the members of one family to be together in the same place, at the same time, in a big city. Especially at 4:53 in the afternoon. People have left work, but they haven’t gotten home. No one can be completely sure where the others are. In a family that’s trying to make ends meet, if the mother is in one place, the father is somewhere else. Never both in the same spot. The children hang out after school. Only the grandparents are at home. All around me, people were shouting into their cell phones. “Where’s your brother? Where’s your sister? Mama, answer me, please! Where are you, honey? Have you talked to the kids? Where should we meet?” The conversations ended with the shouted observation, as if the other party could hear, “The line’s gone out!” They tried to borrow someone else’s phone. The problem was widespread. They paced, feverishly pushing buttons on the slender object that could put them in touch with someone close to them. Picture an entire city where everyone is trying to find a family member or a friend. They shout louder and louder into their phones. They hear the other person less and less. They lose patience. People are concentrated on their personal dramas. Language is whittled down to the essential. Then comes silence.
Night
Most residents of Port-au-Prince spent the first night outside. The previous nights had been chilly. This one was warm and star-lit. I hadn’t slept outside since childhood. Lying on the ground, we felt each of the earth’s convulsions in our very being. Our bodies were one with the ground. I was pissing against a tree when my legs started trembling: the impression that the earth was shaking. I walked through the garden, amazed to see that the most fragile flowers were still hanging from their stems. The earthquake attacked what was hard, solid, what could resist it. The concrete fell. The flowers survived.
Time
I never knew sixty seconds could last so long. And that a night could be endless. No radio: the antennae have fallen. No TV either. No Internet. The cell phone network is gone — though we had time for a few quick calls to the people who matter most to us. A strange moment when we realize we’ve lost the ability to contact people far away from here. All those wires that link us are cut. We can communicate with those immediately around us, who can hear our voices, but no one else. Human time is now contained in the sixty seconds that the first violent tremors took to change our lives.
Place
When it happened, people were scattered here and there: at home (the grandparents and the sick), at school (those slow to leave because class ended an hour earlier), at work (the best employees are often the last to clock out), in the supermarkets (those who have steady pay), in the outdoor markets (no danger for anyone there), in the streets (more than half of the population). An enormous number of people were caught in the monstrous traffic jams that paralyze Port-au-Prince during rush hour. The uproar suddenly stopped at 4:53 in the afternoon. The fateful hour that cut Haitian time in two. We gaze at Port-au-Prince with the stunned air of a child whose toy has just been accidentally stepped on by an adult.