There is a Land (A Libète Limyè Mystery) (3 page)

— But what gives you the right to make such pronouncements?

Remi waved off Laurent. Just because I live in the US doesn’t mean I can’t give an opinion. You and I both went abroad for our studies, Laurent.

— Ah, but one of us stayed on the other side
.

— Laurent, calm down. He’s a guest, Moïse interrupted. Leave this bickering behind.

Laurent puckered his lips and poured himself another glass of wine. But Father, surely I can say what I will, no? We can’t silence debate, can we? Your words, Libète, from the radio show, no? To silence me would be a
crime
.

Libète cleared her throat to speak.

— The Truth defies all silencing, Jak blurted. That’s what she said.

—
La Vérité!
Ah, yes. Ha! Is that with a big
V
or little
v
?

— The big one, Libète hissed.
Oh, how this man tests my patience. If he wasn’t a relation of Steffi’s . . .

— Why don’t you let these things rest for now? Stephanie said without losing her composure. She placed her hand on her older brother’s wrist. Tonight is a celebration, no? A new year on the way? Her eyes pleaded.

Laurent looked at her blankly before turning back to Libète. I’ve heard your “truth,” my esteemed guest, and I find it lacking.

Stephanie rubbed her temple and sighed.

— Heard it many times before, Laurent continued. On the lips of my students, ever so naive, decrying the way things are. Neo-Marxist mumbo jumbo. Progressive claptrap. Religious pandering. It’s as dated as Jesus’s cross, Marx’s corpse. He paused, then smiled. Obama’s hope.

Libète clenched her teeth. You ridicule our struggle? Jak’s and mine? Our organizing?

— Dress-up theater, Laurent said.

— Back off, Laurent, Stephanie said.

— You’re no better, Steffi. Haiti’s poet laureate who pens a couple of angsty verses about changing the world. Writes a few stories. Your solutions to our society’s ills?

— What’s come over you? Leave this alone, Remi said. Stephanie looked to Moïse at the head of the table, imploring him to intervene.

— Am I the only one ready to say that this world is broken? Laurent asked. Just simply, irredeemably broken? To be able to look down at this mess of ours and see there’s no fixing it?

— I know what’s true, Libète said. I’ve seen it. I know it.

Laurent replied with a roll of his eyes. What do you
really
know?

— Love. Love is true. And I know myself. What’s inside me.

— Ha. Ha ha! You claim what the greatest minds have sought and never found.

— Great minds and empty hearts go together.

— To
know
yourself,
ti fi
? Laurent broke from his French to utter “little girl” in Kreyòl. The words stung. Laurent proclaimed, Be wary all, when we’re guided by the truth of fourteen-year-old girls!

— Even if I don’t know myself, I certainly know what
you
are. An ass! Libète said, pointing her fork at him.

Moïse chuckled at the name-calling. Stephanie and Jak nervously played with the steamed vegetables on their plates. Remi watched Laurent slack-jawed.

— Only you could take a terrible evening where we’ve all been frightened out of our minds by what took place over the radio and
choose
to make it worse, Remi said. To see noble actions and challenge them as empty! You, Laurent,
you
are a frightened little boy without an ounce of this girl’s courage!

— Ah,
ad hominem
, the refuge of the feeble-minded and limp-tongued. Don’t worry. At least you two have company. Not knowing who you really are, Laurent said, turning back to Libète. It’s as common as cholera these days. All the same, I know
what
you are. You’re a symbol. But dear child, before life sweeps you away, remember that symbols bleed and break just like the rest of us. You’ll learn soon enough that the call to do something simply for the sake of doing something accomplishes
nothing
. Just talk to those past generations of true heroes who have struggled valiantly and squandered much. My esteemed father, perhaps?

— Laurent! Moïse finally bellowed, slamming down his hand. Enough. This is beyond good humor.

Laurent raised his hands, and his palms faced the company. Forgive me, father, he said with great sobriety. I know not what I do. He chortled.

— You’ve always pushed when you should have pulled, Stephanie said under her breath. Taken instead of given. She crossed her arms.

— Always, Remi added.

Laurent’s face soured into a sneer. The wine, it speaks too much. He crumpled his napkin and pushed out his chair from the table. Will you excuse me, dear guests? Today has been
quite
the day: a sad punctuation mark on another pathetic year. And I . . . I have a cigarette that must be smoked with utmost urgency. He stood to his full height and strode toward the door.

— Laur-
ent
, Stephanie said, halfheartedly. Don’t do this. He paused at the dining room’s arched exit, inclined his head, and pushed forward.

— He’s never made good dinner company, Moïse said, stirring his rice with his fork before taking a small bite.

— Aw, I hate those intellectuals. Like having a PhD permits Laurent to be a prick! All talk, all criticism, nothing useful! Blah, blah, blah.

— Elize had a Ph.D., Jak said.

— Elize was
different
, Libète said, reflecting on her departed mentor. A different breed from
him
. Bleh!

The two leaned against the veranda’s railing and looked down from Boutilier on Port-au-Prince below. The Martinette estate was practically palatial, gleaming white, and stunningly lit. The puttering of the electric generator that made their evening possible could be heard coming from whatever corner in which it was tucked away.

— Moïse is nice enough, Jak added. He was a professor.

— He’s the same, as far as I’m concerned. Just sitting there. Taking it all in through those wine-lidded eyes.

— He’s written some good books. Steffi’s let me read them. I think you’d like them. He’s against the state of things. Very antiestablishment.

— Look around, Jak. Someone living in a place like this, allied with people like
us
?

— Well, Steffi respects him. I won’t judge him.

Libète arched an eyebrow. Maybe Steffi is the same. Growing up in a home like this. There’s no way to avoid having privilege infect you.

Jak stood up straight. Watch yourself, Libète. You know better.

She looked away and scratched the stone with her half-bitten fingernail. Jak was right, of course. Her life had been transformed the day she met Stephanie, just as Stephanie’s was changed when the Martinettes took her in decades ago. I’m sorry, Libète said. Today hasn’t gone like I thought it would.

He looked back down on their city. You were wonderful–on the radio.

Libète flashed a smile. I was, wasn’t I? She rested her elbow up high on Jak’s shoulder and listed into him as she’d done since they were small. She let her eyes furtively slip down to the other end of the veranda where Remi and Stephanie talked alone. Moïse had retired after another glass of wine.
The conversation
, he had said,
has been too vigorous for me
. He had bid them
bonne nuit
.

She watched Stephanie laugh and sway, her winning smile on full display; Stephanie did not usually allow herself to be so unguarded. She reminded Libète of one of her school peers shamelessly flirting. Libète didn’t like the association.

Jak stood straight as a sentry at Libète’s touch, proving a willing prop in Libète’s eavesdropping. She noticed he smelled of citrus, a cheap cologne he’d adopted as of late. Though he had grown taller, his slight build and short stature seemed fixed, as though his sole chance to thrive had come and gone. His bad leg had kept him from most sports, leaving him to exercise his mind. In that regard, Libète had found, he remained unmatched.

— What do you think of Remi? Libète said, still stealing glances. The children had only seen him twice before, both times around the holidays when he returned from the US to visit his family in Haiti. Jak shifted Libète’s elbow and peeked at Stephanie and Remi as well. He caught a whiff of Libète’s hair, and its sweetness stopped him cold. He forced himself to pay attention to the adults and noted their postures that were so open and friendly. He unconsciously copied Remi’s pose.

— He seems like a
bon
nèg
, Jak said, a good guy.
A lawyer who actually cares about justice,
Steffi called him. He seems a rarity.

— Not that stuff. I mean, what do you think
she
thinks of him? Do you think they . . .

— It’s obvious, wi?

Libète smiled, but her smile drooped, giving way to sadness. What’s happening, Jak? To us?

Jak sputtered. With a shock, he pulled back, straightened his tie. What do you mean?

— Laurent, I hate to say it . . . but was he right? What
are
we doing? Who are we?

Jak sighed, immeasurably relieved at her question’s turn.

— We’re . . . where we are.

— But in a place like this? Eating like queens and kings with lawyers and poets and intellectuals, up in Boutilier? So far from Cité Soleil, from tent cities, from the real world . . .

— It’s only a meal. You don’t lose who you are, what you’ve experienced, just because of what’s on the surface.

She sighed, recalling how this day had begun in a not-so-unordinary way. She awoke at her boarding school. Ate a full meal. Studied, even though it was a day off. Forced herself to pray. Served at the hospital. Played football. Then was whisked away by her guardian to be featured on a nationally aired
radio show
? She was somehow a public figure leading a mass of disaffected, slum-dwelling youths in between school hours? It was unreal.

— But when you wade into privilege enough, doesn’t it make you something else? she asked.

— I can’t say. I look at you and see, well, you.

— And I look at you and see you.

They both smiled.

A phone rang, shouting for attention from the other end of the veranda. It was Stephanie’s ringtone. Libète saw the faces of the two reunited friends dampen, like a cloud bank crowding out moonlight.

Steffi’s face fell as she answered.

Something’s wrong, Jak said. The children approached warily, mirroring Remi’s concern.

— What is it? Remi mouthed. She held up a forceful finger.
Gerry
, she whispered. She strained to listen to the torrent of Kreyòl pouring from the phone.

—
Wi, dakò, wi, wi . . . Orevwa.
She put her phone down.

— What’s wrong? Libète said.

— We need to go.

— Tell us what’s wrong! Libète blurted.

— That was Gerry. The studio was broken into. Ransacked. A group of thugs. Gerry’s producer – she shuddered – he was beaten to a pulp. The assailants wanted the tapes–

— The tapes? Of the show?

— But there were none. No recordings to give. They don’t keep them.

— But why would anyone care about that show, grisly affair such as it was? Remi asked.

— The Numbers
, Libète and Jak said in unison.

The Land, Dark and Close

Jan ou vini se jan yo resevwa ou.

The way you come is the way you are received.

Komisyon pa chay.

Messages are not burdens.

He watches her from the woods.

Gawking, listening, stretching his neck. Prowling into the light with the grace of a vulture two days out from its last meal. The man steps closer.

He is so very, very still. Facedown. Or is it a she?
the watcher wonders. Her hair is uncovered, closely cropped.
Definitely a she
, he decides. She is out under the blazing Sun and full sky. Her bare feet still touch the water. Her deflated book bag lies next to her. He sees the dirt and rock of the river bank scattered where she crawled and notices that her torso does indeed rise and fall, rise and fall.

He slips close and takes her bag gingerly, his eyes locked on her as he rifles through its contents. A soggy bread crust. Clothing. A drowned composition book with pages and pages of slightly blurred ink that mean nothing to his illiterate eyes. A mostly punched blister pack of pills.

He is not happy. This take is nothing, nothing at all.

He spreads the bag open once more and puts his head in deep, like a showman between a lion’s jaws. He recoils, dropping it all. Could it be? he murmurs aloud. He reaches in again and extracts a pigeon with a small band around its sagging foot. The creature is dead.

The man throws the bird into the water. Too far gone to eat, he says under his breath.

A loud bray arises, and the man leaps into action, shushing and cursing and shushing the beast.

And then comes the groan, from the ground, from the girl. She stirs.

He moves quickly, taking the bag, then dropping it, then grabbing it again, then preparing to run and make an escape. She makes another sound, a curious one. Sneezing? Sniffling?

This girl, who has clearly cheated death, is awake. And crying.

The man is struck. Vulture no more, he puts the bag down definitively, and approaches the girl.

He reaches out to touch her, wondering momentarily if his touch might break her. When he grows closer, he makes out the faintest of words escaping her chapped lips, repeated over and over as if in dazed prayer:

Dieudonné
, she sounds,
Dieudonné,
she sounds,
Dieudonné,
she sounds,
Dieudonné . . .

They leave the Martinette home immediately. Though the clock creeps toward midnight, all hope and enthusiasm for the new year and its new beginnings are vanquished.

With the hosts already asleep, the three exchanged hasty good-byes with Remi and the house staff and began the long, lonely ride down the winding mountain road. The air they shared in the rickety Land Rover was heavy. Steffi, though tired, drove at the frenzied speed of her thoughts. Jak somehow fell asleep. Libète looked at him jealously.

The radio caller.

Libète rested her head against the window, feeling its dull vibrations rattle her skull.

Killed, for . . . what?

Tòti’s illuminated dashboard clock clicked past midnight.

Numbers? Of all things, a life lost over numbers?

The digits were spoken in a breath and then . . . gone. What purpose was a message if its meaning went unexplained? As far as she was concerned, the caller’s death was for nothing. This saddened her greatly.

Wan road lights streamed past as they reentered the city. Others who had left parties and clubs in the hills were also descending back into the world, the real one, full of tent dwellers in between collapsed structures, roaming youth, and finally, the sea of glinting tin-roofed shacks: Cité Soleil, her home.

Everything beyond Cité Soleil’s boundaries was so unnecessarily complicated. In Cité, she spoke about compassion and love, rattled off proverbs like a sage, criticized selfishness, and railed against power.
Raising the consciousness
, as she called it, came so very easily. Outside Cité’s thirty-four sections, cynicism crept in. It sucked the hope and power right out of her words until even she doubted.

When they reached St. Francis Boarding School, Stephanie flicked the headlights on and off, and a night watchman, their grizzled friend Véus, stirred. He pulled open the tall iron gate. His shotgun hung tiredly from one hand.

Stephanie pushed Tòti through the gate’s threshold.

—
Bonswa
, Madanm Steffi, Véus said through a smile missing a few teeth. A long night, eh? He gave a wink.

The flirt,
Libète thought.
He has no idea all that’s on our minds
.

— Good night to you as well, Steffi said, forcing a smile. Mesye Véus, I’m pleased to see you, but some bad things have happened. I will explain more tomorrow when I return. I need you to show extra
prekasyon
these next few days. The rally is tomorrow. Make sure these two are protected, you hear?

Véus straightened up at the charge.

— Anything for you, Madanm. No harm will come while I’m on watch. He gave a humble salute. Steffi nodded gratefully and pressed the accelerator.

— Ah! But wait! he said. There are more gifts left for our
Ti Pwofet
!

This was his pet name for Libète: the Little Prophet. She perked up. Gifts! Give them to me! Libète shouted from the back seat.

— Manners, Libète.

— Sorry, Steffi. Mesye Véus, I would greatly appreciate it if the items left in my honor would be turned over to me.

Véus grinned again. But of course. A card, it looks like, and a bag of
dous makos
.

Steffi rolled her eyes and let a chuckle escape her lips. The goods changed hands, and Libète began to slip her hand into the bag to tear off a piece of the sticky-sweet candy.

— Not now, Libète. Save it for tomorrow.

Libète opened her mouth to protest but decided it was not the time.

—
Mèsi
, Véus. We appreciate you.

— My pleasure, my pleasure . . .

As they idled in the courtyard between dormitories, Jak and Libète popped their doors’ locks.

— Are you sure you two are all right here?

The children looked at each other before turning to Stephanie and nodding in unison.

— This is home, Jak said. This is safe.

— That’s right. Happy Independence Day, Steffi.

— And happy birthday to you, Libète.

The girl grinned. Why, thank you, thank you very much.

— Maybe we can go somewhere else for the rest of the school holiday, get away from all this heaviness? Stephanie said. Maybe the house in Jacmel?

— That would be lovely, Libète said.

They slid out the sides of the Rover and waved as Stephanie reversed out of the school grounds.

— Quite a night, Jak said. Libète gave him a quick hug. I’m glad I had you there with me through it all, Jak. You keep things sane. He smiled, grateful his reddening cheeks were hidden in the dark.

They split off, Jak to the boys’ wing, Libète to the girls’.

The dormitory was quiet. It was a large chamber with bunk beds lining the walls and usually housed girls from ages five to eighteen in its different sections. The majority who boarded were on scholarship from distant parts of the country, and most of them had left for the holidays. The poorest had already returned after Christmas celebrations for the consistent meals. Libète crept down the rows of bunks. She had no desire to stir the girls and recount the night’s events, decidedly more bitter than sweet.

Other students lived in the neighborhoods surrounding the school and streamed in each day for classes. Because Jak and Libète were orphaned and still refused to live with Stephanie outside Cité Soleil, Stephanie had lobbied the administration to secure them bed space in the dorms. Leaving school grounds at night was strictly against the rules, but Stephanie was a gifted advocate: her resolve, spiced with kindness and unselfishness, often prevailed. Special dispensations were common from the teachers, school staff, and old headmaster.

— Libète?

— Is that you?

— She’s back! Libète’s back!

Those in the bunks weren’t as asleep as they’d seemed. Clapping broke out. Libète smiled, giving up on her attempt at silence.
They waited up for me!
She soaked up the claps like rain on parched earth.

—
Hey! Hey, you all! Quiet down! shouted the night matron from where she slept in an adjacent room. There’s trouble for the next one I hear who makes a sound! Big trouble!

The applause cut, but the girls’ voices now traveled like wisps throughout the stuffy room.

—
Bon travay!

—
You were great!

Libète landed with a satisfied thud on her bunk.

—
Mèsi! Thank you all!

She smiled.
More bitter than sweet.
The story of her life.

—You really were wonderful, came whispered from the bunk above Libète’s own. A thick hand extended down.

Didi
. Her bunkmate and friend. Libète reached for the hand and gave it a loving tug.

— Thank you,
kè mwen
. My heart. Libète’s lips were not prone to such sentiment, but kind Didi merited it.

— You’re welcome,
cherie
. What are you bringing back this time?

— A treat. Here, I’ll give you some–

— What do you think I am? I brushed my teeth! Save them for tomorrow. I’ll enjoy the wait.

— Quiet down! the matron called.
Silans!

Libète stifled a laugh. They were opposites, she and Didi. Where Libète was lithe and comely, Didi was pudgy and homely. Libète would curse an offender with a blue streak, while Didi would offer a blessing.
Probably why we fit together so well
.

She put the dous makous in the gap between her mattress and the wall so that the matron wouldn’t happen upon it, and took out the card. This need not wait.

Libète strained her eyes in the low light streaming from the night matron’s room. With a finger’s slide she tore the envelope and pulled out a greeting card. It had two brown, cartoonish children with big, exaggerated heads as they held hands.
Bon Aniversaire
, it read, a birthday greeting.

She smiled, unfolding it to read the rough script inside:

Stay away from the rally,
she whispered aloud, surprised.
Enemies are close.

The girl awakens in the most unusual of states.

There is sweet singing there, the lone voice of a man rising up against the sounds of clanking metal and burlap rubbing against burlap.

But there is another sensation, more pressing: her body, contorted into the most undesirable of shapes.

Her sight comes next, but all she sees is her arms dangling in an indecipherable tangle of shadows upon the ground. She feels as if the Sun wraps her in a hot blanket.

There, in her memory’s haze, she recalls a heavy truck charging past, kicking up dirt and fury and making her cough, and children, children who sang sweetly.