A Wedding in Haiti (10 page)

But the unforgivable affront to this French woman is that I should speak to her in English. Does she have any vacancies? She does not speak
anglais,
she tells me in
français,
shaking her head emphatically. So I switch to Spanish. Another adamant head shake. No Spanish either. “
Votre ami,
Madison Smartt Bell,” I say in desperation, playing my last card. Again Madame Myrième shakes her head. She does not know anyone by that name.

Once again, Homero comes to the rescue. Some years ago, he was sent to France on a three month coffee-analysis course. Although it’s now a little rusty, he used to be fluent in French. He pronounces Madison’s name so it sounds French. Madame’s face opens up. She repeats Madison’s name so it sounds even more French. Of course, she has rooms for us.

Madame directs one of the porters to show us what’s available for our approval. Is she kidding? Clean rooms with bathrooms and hot water, electricity, a ceiling fan, an air conditioner, cable television, and a French chef down in the dining room. Of course, we’ll take them! Bill hands over his VISA—Madame will accept credit cards from the English-speaking world: eighty-five dollars per room, continental breakfast included. We follow our porter with his fistful of keys, each one attached to a wooden bar with the room number carved in it. On the second landing, Bill and I pick two side-by-side rooms, so that Piti and Eseline can be next door. We’ll be able to help with the baby as well as with any instructions on using the facilities in their room. Given the way they’ve been glancing around, big-eyed, I have a feeling that neither has ever worked the buttons on an air conditioner or cruised the channels on a cable television with a remote control.

We agree to all meet down at the restaurant ASAP, as the porter has informed us that it closes at nine, fifteen minutes from now. Bill quickly showers and heads downstairs to the restaurant. I’ve told him to order for me. I really don’t care what it is, as long as it’s vegetarian and preceded by a glass of wine. A tall glass of white wine. As I’m undressing, I realize what I’ve been smelling on my clothes: champagne from the baptism Bill gave the whole congregation in trying to uncork the bottle. Another reason Madame might have been looking askance at me: I reeked of alcohol.

Once I’ve turned the shower off, I hear the baby crying next door. Poor Eseline, I think, needing to relax and recuperate. The crying goes on and on, finally turning that corner from the wailing of hunger to the shrieks of rage. I dress and hurry over—the door is unlocked—to find the baby on top of the bed all alone. Just then, Piti comes running into the room. It turns out that down on the main floor, Madame heard the baby crying—I said she didn’t miss anything—and went over to the dining area to inform the parents.

“Piti, you left the baby alone?” I’m ready to give him a parental lecture, but I look at his round, worried face and think, Give the poor guy a break. He has already had a hard day, including scoldings from six predicators and a pastor. Besides, he is a new father, having just met his baby daughter a couple of weeks ago. What does he know about raising kids? Even Eseline, who has a four-month lead on child-rearing, thought it was okay to leave Loude Sendjika alone, with no pillows barricading her in the center of the bed and with the door closed, so they couldn’t even hear her crying.

Piti and I go down to the restaurant together, the baby in my arms. Madame looks up, and I can see it in her eyes: she still hasn’t figured out our story. But then, I haven’t figured out hers either. How did a middle-aged French woman end up in Cap-Haïtien with her son, the chef?

For now, she has closed the record book and has a fresh drink before her. Maybe she has had a long day herself.

“
Bonsoir,
Madame,” I say. She nods in reply as I pass by.

Why wine was invented

Everyone in our party is already seated at the table and served with drinks, tinkling with ice. I find my spot beside Eseline, who seems baffled by the amount of dinnerware and silverware before her. She follows my lead in everything but ordering. She’s no vegetarian, and she must be starving. Homero translates the menu for all of us. The dishes sound very French: lamb with prunes on a bed of couscous; rabbit in a burgundy sauce; grouper with a puree of potatoes and a garnish of mango; a crepe topped with vegetables sautéed in butter, the sole vegetarian option.

Piti orders the goat and looks over at Eseline, no doubt thinking she will follow suit. But Eseline insists on the grouper, a surprising choice, given that grouper is a saltwater fish, and she has lived all her life in a landlocked area of rural Haiti. Even Piti questions her. Is she sure she wants the fish? Eseline nods, without hesitation. Maybe, she once ate fish when she visited Gros Morne, or she has heard of it and would like to taste it. A food associated with travel, excitement, a world beyond her life in Moustique. I recall arriving in New York City as a ten-year-old and feeling that way about grilled-cheese sandwiches and apple pie à la mode. This is what TV families ate. My husband would say that, as a vegetarian, my culinary tastes have not advanced much since then.

Part of my frustration with not speaking Kreyòl is that I can’t talk with Eseline about all that is happening to her. (Just as I’ll never know Madame’s story for lack of French.) What does Eseline think of this place? Why did she order the grouper? What is she feeling? She has been stony-faced all day, uttering only a handful of words, mostly in a whisper, directed solely at Piti. More troubling, she seems disinterested in her beautiful baby. Recalling the parting scene with her sister and the long carsick ride, I imagine Eseline is still in shock. So many drastic changes have come her way in the last twenty-four hours.

But she perks up when the fish arrives. A quick study, she easily negotiates both fork and knife, eating up the uncharacteristically (for French cuisine) large portions on her plate. The table falls silent, everyone busily, happily eating away. Periodically, Bill and Homero break the silence, exclaiming over their wonderful dishes.

After finishing our main course, Eseline and I forego dessert and head upstairs, leaving the men behind. Our eyelids have been drooping, and Ludy is fast asleep in my arms. Outside her door, I wait for Eseline to unlock it before I hand her the baby. But instead, she takes her baby and hands me the keys. Suddenly, it strikes me: Eseline probably has never had to unlock a door before. Once she is safe inside her room, I go next door to mine and after a quick brush of the teeth and splash of water on my face, I hit the bed. I fall asleep instantly—that deep, profound sleep of childhood, before the worries set in, when you waded into bed and soon were in over your head.

Some time later (an hour, fifteen minutes?), I hear Bill enter the room, or at least I think it’s Bill. (I once read an unbelievable tabloid story about a woman who sued a man for making love to her “under the pretense of being her husband.” He had stolen into her bed one night as she slept so soundly that she claimed she could not tell the difference. After this night in Haiti, I can believe this woman’s story.) So deep and restful is my sleep that I forget about tomorrow’s border crossing, the mosquito bites that might bring on malaria, the coffee we drank that was made with water that might not have been brought to a boil or boiled long enough.

In my humble, culinarily compromised estimation, this soporific, lightening-of-the-load effect is why wine was invented. I can just imagine what Madame Myrième and her chef son would think of my opinion.

August 21, going home

Breakfast at Hôtel Les Jardins de L’Océan

I love waking up by the sea. The ocean is so much like the waters of sleep that the day ebbs into your dreams before your eyes are even open.

First, you smell it: a salty, nostril-flaring smell as if the earth itself is giving off perspiration. Then, you hear it: a lapping sound on the shore, the tinkling of rigging hitting against the masts of small boats. The sky outside the high window seems to have soaked up the ocean’s deeper, dreamier blue.

Only one cloud stains the dreamy blue sky of my day: we will have to cross the border in a few hours, and no matter what Piti keeps saying, I don’t think the guards will take our word that Eseline is his wife, and Ludy, his baby. And besides, wives and children still need their own documents. If it were not so, all poor men with visas to wealthier countries would be polygamists.

On the way down to breakfast, I stop to tell Piti and Eseline to meet us in the restaurant. They are sitting on the edge of their double bed, looking small and frightened, their suitcase packed at their feet, the baby in her arms. I wonder how long they have been waiting for one of us to come get them. There is a stuffy smell in the room. I look around. The windows are closed, and neither the overhead fan nor the air conditioner has been turned on. In the bathroom, the toilet has not been flushed. It’s my fault. I was too tired last night to do for Eseline what Charlie did for us in Moustique: a crash course on using the amenities in the room.

Downstairs, Madame Myrième is already at her post, record book open, the three cell phones lined up next to the calculator. “
Bonjour
, Madame.” This time I get a
bonjour
back.

Over toast and jam and eggs, and watery American coffee that has Bill shaking his head (“They should go to Moustique to learn to make coffee!”), we discuss the day’s plans. We have to cross the border before it closes at five p.m., but maybe we should spend part of the day sightseeing? Once the colonial capital, Cap-Haïtien is steeped in history: the slave revolt that eventually freed the colony started in nearby Bois Caiman during a Vodou ceremony, so the legend goes. It’d be gratifying to tour the area with Piti and Eseline, who haven’t seen much of their own country. And it is their honeymoon!

But talking it over with Homero, we change our minds. Today is Friday, market day at the border. Huge crowds move back and forth between the two countries, buying and selling everything from clothes to car parts to sacks of carbon to bottles of rum to cell phones to farm produce and animals. The bad side of all this commotion is that traffic virtually stops. Pickups, donkeys, wheelbarrows, carts, as well as men and women bearing loads, inch across the bridge. The good side is that during the height of this consumer chaos, the guards don’t bother to check documents. But as closing time nears, security clamps down. Every vehicle, every pedestrian is scrutinized. It is best if we go in the middle of market day, and perhaps,
ojalá,
keep your fingers crossed, we will get across the border without being stopped.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Besides, how can any of us enjoy ourselves sightseeing while the worry hangs over our heads about what will happen at the border in a few hours? More and more, I am feeling caught in an old story, this time involving a Haitian, not a holy family, and on an island in the Caribbean, not a desert in Judea. But it makes sense that if a redeemer for the poor, the helpless, those at the margins were to come round again, he would choose the most impoverished country in the hemisphere to be born in.

A good cup of coffee, some Dramamine

Before we leave Okap, we decide to take a spin around town.
Spin
is actually not a word to use in connection with traffic in Cap-Haïtien. During the workday, it’s difficult to move with ease: huge trucks stop two, three deep to unload their cargo; wares are laid out on sheets that extend into the street itself; pedestrians wind their way among stalled vehicles, pushing wheelbarrows or carrying loads on their backs. Brightly colored tap-taps, the little pickup trucks that serve as Haiti’s main means of transport, display their curious names above their windshields in Kreyòl, French, English. How do the owners decide what to call them? I wonder. Some I can guess:
PASSION, GOD BLESS, MERCI JÉSUS, TOUT EST POSSIBLE,
but what about
ILLUSION
or
MAMMA MIA
or
RABBI
or
KREYÒLA
? And wouldn’t an owner worry that he’d scare away potential passengers with a name like
DEZESPERE
, Despair?

I keep snapping pictures from the pickup. But every time I put down my window, a merchant approaches, even if I shake my head no, as if what I might not want from ten feet away will become irresistible when it’s in my face.