“Can I give you a hug?”
She put her arms around me.
“I’ve prayed a lot for Haiti. And I’m still praying. What a disaster! If there’s one country that doesn’t need misfortune, it’s that one.”
She held my hand. Her eyes were on mine. I felt her gentleness.
“I’m not going to claim I sent money to Haiti. I don’t have enough for that. But I’ve prayed a lot for the Haitian people. Proud, clean people who don’t deserve such a fate … I wonder how they get along.”
“They do everything possible to live as long as possible.”
“I understand … I have nothing to give, like I told you. Except my heart.”
“That’s a lot, madame. Your gift will be delivered. I’ll see to it myself.”
She took me in her arms again.
Calvary Mountain
Our cook lives on Calvary Mountain. To return home after work, she has to walk a good twenty minutes to get out of Delmas 31 where our house is, then she waits for a tap-tap on the highway that will take her to Pétionville, in front of place Saint-Pierre, and from the square, she walks the rest of the way. On rainy days, like today, my sister drives her home. Instead of staying inside and watching the rain fall, I go with them. The city is under water. The wind is at gale force. The vendors we drive by are soaked to the skin. They climb the slope, their eyes closed against the pelting rain that punishes their faces. We reach Calvary Mountain. This is the first time that I’ve come up here. I get a sick feeling every time I come close to the cliff. I’ve always associated this region with the ladies who sell us those fat onions and juicy carrots that smell of the rich earth. In fact, this is the richest zone in Haiti — unless there’s one richer that I don’t know about. I’ve never seen so many magnificent villas. Giant pine trees surround them or stand on either side of the entryways like faithful sentinels. A feeling of peacefulness holds sway here; it makes you want to die. You have to keep reminding yourself that you’re not on the shores of Lake Geneva. I’m not envious, actually, and I don’t care about other people’s wealth. I haven’t internalized the class struggle, but here I’m really astounded. And to think my cook lives next to such abundance. Every day she walks through this district and goes down to work in the heart of Delmas. And never a complaint. She thinks that’s as normal as the rain pelting the roof of the car. Most of these houses are empty. Their owners spend part of the year in Italy and part in England or somewhere else. I’m not criticizing their lifestyle (I travel a lot myself), but the fruit rotting on the ground and the empty rooms are a shame in a city where the majority of the population lives in precarious conditions. On the way back down, we go past the camp on place Saint-Pierre. When you think that the people who live here get hit with a downpour almost every evening and that the wind sometimes blows away their tents. And that every morning luxury automobiles from Calvary Mountain (a calvary for whom?) rush past them, driving children to school. I wonder if those children ever ask their parents about how the other children (it’s the same word for both groups) live, the ones they see emerging, fully dressed, from that anthill. Maybe no one sees what’s so obvious. But I’m sure that kids pick up on the situation right away. It’s not surprising that some leave home as soon as they can. Some kinds of pain can’t be silenced with drugs.
Living Together
I wonder what happens in those tents that have sprung up everywhere. How do people manage to preserve their private lives? Do men who snore too loud have to sleep during the day to keep from waking everyone up at night? People are experiencing a dual misfortune: individual (they have lost friends and family) and collective (they have lost their city). How do they find a way to mourn their dead when it’s so difficult to find a moment to yourself? It’s easy to imagine idyllic scenes under starry skies, but where do people actually make love? In thickets, where cries of pleasure won’t be heard. They say that in some camps, there’s an empty tent with a sign that says “For the moment.” A way of having a sweet interlude in a discreet setting. We know that neither fear nor pain nor indigence will keep desire from flowering. It doesn’t take very much: the bend of a neck, eyes that linger — and everything changes. It’s the only thing that can get our minds off a difficult situation. And how is food shared with new neighbors? Does family hierarchy continue in a tent city? Living in a group requires constant discretion if you don’t want to offend other people. The poorest are ahead in this game, since they’re used to rubbing elbows; they’re not afraid of touching each other. Some individuals feel physical revulsion at the idea of rubbing up against people they consider lower class. It’s possible that an unexpected situation, if it lasts long enough, will cause major changes in people’s lives.
Reading in a Tent
For adults, it’s desire. For kids, reading. A child lost in The Three Musketeers isn’t living in a tent. He’s in a Dumas novel. A life of adventure. Galloping through the night. When he gets tired, he stops at an inn and wakes the innkeeper, who was sleeping next to the missus in his nightcap. He sits down before a copious meal after ordering a bale of hay for his horse, which has been sent to the stables. It is no easy task, for the roads are not safe. Suddenly, he is surrounded by a group of masked riders. Just as d’Artagnan is about to unsheathe his sword, he hears a voice that is too familiar and too shrill to be Milady’s. It’s the young reader’s mother calling him for supper. She smiles when she sees her son come running with a book under his arm.
The Prodigal Son
I went back to the Hôtel Karibe, where it all began. The feeling of returning to the scene: one foot in the past (that vibration again) and the other in the present. Which has me shaking a little. I didn’t go through the front door for fear the return would be too sudden. I chose the side entrance, the exact spot where I met Saint-Éloi who had just arrived on that January 12, about 3:30 pm. The conference room wasn’t too badly damaged. I went through the courtyard. The rear façade of the hotel has been repaired. I stepped onto the tennis courts where shadows once moved. The swimming pool, its surface unmoving. The garden with its flowers that withstood the earthquake. In the restaurant, I came upon the owner who hugged me passionately. When I congratulated him for not having lost his cool during those difficult days, and most of all for having stayed with his guests when he could have gone home to sleep, he told me confidentially, “Instead of destroying me, the tragedy gave me the energy I needed to do better.” Just then the waiter appeared, the same one who was serving us just before the earthquake. The plump man was wearing the same warm smile he’d never lost, even at the worst times of the crisis. I reminded him I was still waiting for a lobster, and that he had gone to get it when the earthquake struck. He gave me a sly smile, then disappeared into the kitchen. I was talking with a chambermaid when he returned bearing a lobster. So fast? He’d wanted to surprise me and sent the order as soon as he saw me come through the gate. We laughed. I was moved. I sat down at the table where I’d been on January 12, when disaster visited us, and this time I was able to enjoy my lobster in peace.
The Tenderness of the World
Wherever I go, people speak in low voices. Their conversations are cut with silence. Eyes averted, they reach for my hand. Through me, they hope to speak to the island that has been wounded, but has escaped its isolation. People ask me for news. They quickly realize they are better informed than I am. I removed myself from that poisonous buzzing, better to preserve the images that burn inside me. On the first night, that little girl who was worried if there would be school the next day. Or the mango lady the following morning, sitting on the ground, back against a wall, with her pile of mangos for sale. When people speak to me, I see in their eyes that they are addressing the dead, while I am clinging to the slightest crumb of life. But what really touches me is how moved they seem by their own emotion and how they hope to keep it with them as long as possible. They say one catastrophe replaces another. Journalists can go prospecting elsewhere, but Haiti will continue to occupy the heart of the world for a long time to come.