Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti (15 page)

The blan nodded, feigning understanding where there was none.

The days run together.

Libète lays facedown on her sleeping mat and sweats heavily, even though it is early morning. It is the third one that she has been here.

The wound on the back of her head sings the most intense, operatic songs when touched. Even when left alone it causes lancing pain inside her head, making her stomach nearly rend itself in two.

But she is getting better. Physically, at least.

After the fight, she was expelled from her new school. This blow equaled the one to her head. Her Aunt was furious, but not because her “daughter” was injured. When she confronted the parents of cruel Rit, Libète thought it was to stand in her defense. She actually demanded payment for the spoiled school clothes. When confronting Pastor Lucien, Libète thought it was to ask for her reinstatement. It was actually because he refused to return her tuition fees.

Her Aunt did not speak to Libète in the days after. It was Davidson who, looking upon her wound, took her to the local free medical clinic run by foreigners. The doctor gave her some small pills and told her to come back the following week. Her Aunt muttered that she would have gotten around to taking her.

— I will send you to school again, Aunt Estelle had said, her first words spoken to Libète in the two days after the fight. But you will wait a while. As punishment. And don’t think I can get you in as good a school. Lucien’s was the best in the area. After the Catholics’, of course. It will be hard though. No one will want you now after what you’ve done.

No one will want me
. The words echoed in her head.

She resented herself and everything else about this horrible, dry, treeless, miserable, motherless place. She hated most of all knowing that her tormentors, the true culprits, were laughing at her absence.

Libète moved from her mat and decided today would be different than the previous two. Her Aunt had stepped out to get some sacks of rice for the day’s menu. She ate some stale bread left on the table for breakfast, took her pills, and sat outside their front door in the shade.

The row of blue houses was bustling, and she was pleased to see neighbors enjoying life more than herself. Mesye Charles kissed his wife goodbye for the day, Laurent passed down the row with a wheelbarrow full of cement, and young Madeline bounced her smiling baby in her arms. Each had waved or greeted Libète warmly, and this made her feel as if the world had not—counter to her Aunt’s words—disowned her.

She could see far down the lane that Jak was running about with a boy his junior. They were pulling a string tied to a plastic Tampico bottle repurposed into a toy car.
How sad
, she thought,
that only the littlest children play with Jak
. She then realized not even little children played with her.

Jak saw her and paused. He lifted his hand in a faint wave. She waved back before looking away, remembering her Aunt’s order to stay away from the boy. Jak returned to his play.

She had faded memories of Jak jumping into the fray to stop the fight when no one else would.
This is stupid
, she grumbled.
I have one friend who stands by me and my Aunt keeps him away.

She stood up and walked intently down the row toward Jak. He stopped again, nervous this time, flinching under her stare.

Libète hugged the small boy, tears welling in her eyes. Mèsi, my friend. Mèsi.

**

She brought Jak back to her deserted home for a meal.

— Don’t worry about her, Libète had told him. She’s gone for the afternoon. And I don’t care what she thinks anymore.

Libète had seated Jak at their table, bringing out dish after dish of leftover chicken, plantains, and rice, serving him with heaping spoonfuls. The mound on his plate grew higher till it was more than he could ever gorge himself on in a sitting.

— I think that’s enough, he said.

She looked at him mid-scoop and shrugged.

— Suit yourself.

She dropped the dish, letting it clatter onto the table before making one last trip to a counter to collect a knife, a long, sharp-pointed one with a fat blade. She laid it on the table and rested her hand upon it, giving Jak a tight-lipped grin. He smiled back, no time for words between mouthfuls.

It was the sound of a key turning, slow and hard, and the creaking door that made him stop. His eyes shot to Libète, grains of rice clinging about his gaping mouth. Libète looked cold, her eyes fixed on the door. Her Aunt pushed through the doorway, streaming sweat, reclaiming a forty-pound bag of rice from its rest on the ground and holding its twin steady on her head.

Upon seeing Jak, both bags dropped to the floor with a deadening thud.

— What is
he
doing
here
?

Libète stood up, erect, her eyes fusing with her Aunt’s.

— Answer me!

— I asked him to come. Libète spoke with quiet, measured words.

— Into my home? You trample upon my rules again? You vile, ungrateful
bastard!
She advanced toward the middle of the floor, her step faltering under her swinging weight. In a fluid motion, Libète reached for the knife, its point squarely aimed at her Aunt.

The woman seized, an incredulous laugh forced to fit through her pursed lips.

She took another step.

— Don’t. Don’t come closer.

— I–I will kick you out so quickly! You’ll rot in the street like this boy, bake in the Sun until your flesh melts off! The pigs will eat your remains and vomit you—

— Shut up.

— I will not! She lifted her flabby arm to hit the girl, daring another step forward.

— Shut UP! Libète screamed banshee-like, as only small children can, and jabbed with the knife, furious tears spilling onto her cheeks. Her Aunt recoiled at the sudden move, sparing herself from a sure cut.

Jak was a spectator, disbelieving the scene playing out before him. Estelle stumbled backward, colliding with her back to the wall, her face inscrutable but for eyes that shouted fear.

Libète advanced with the knife, slowly, dreadfully.

—
Bay kou bliye, pote mak sonje
, Libète recited. “The giver of the blow forgets, the scarred one remembers.” You know that one?

She took a step closer, the blade trembling in her grasp.

— I have all the scars. You have none.

Another step. Estelle winced.

— My mother dies and you turn me into a slave. “I give you clothes, I give you food, I give you a home” you say. So
what
, I say. You beat me when I’m too slow, when I’m too fast, when I drop something, when I pick it up! Her head seared from this exertion, Jak could tell, but she pressed on with her indictment.

Estelle slid down the wall, becoming a sorry puddle. She held her hands out to shield her from the knife, the words, the truth. Libète hovered just out of reach, the blade capable of cutting Estelle’s palms.

Estelle made to open her mouth, and Jak braced for a fury as he’d never before seen. He pictured Libète plunging the knife into her Aunt and her fat absorbing the blade then sucking Libète in until there was no girl at all, leaving only him and Estelle. Jak wanted to curl up under the table and die, on his own terms before Estelle could exact her revenge.

To his surprise, only a hiss escaped her lips.

The woman tried to speak again.

— But…I love you! I give you everything. Don’t you…don’t you see?

— You don’t! Libète spat. You don’t! I’m a toy dressed up, a doll for show!

Estelle balled her fists. Libète braced herself. Jak cringed.

She put the fist to her mouth and bit down, and she began to shake with low, quiet sobs. I am sorry, she mewled. I am sorry.

— In public I’m your daughter, in the house your dog! Libète barked. Jak saw her words did all the necessary cutting.

— I am sorry, she cried quietly, hiding her face, covering her mouth.

— You call Jak trash, but he treats me well.

— I am sorry, she said to the boy. Please, put the knife down. I repent, I repent before Jezi, forgive me!

Libète breathed deeply, the words loosening her anger’s vise. Reality came crashing in. To Jak, it seemed she saw the situation anew. A knife. In her hand. Aimed at another.

Libète unclenched the blade, and it bounced to a rest upon the hard ground.

— I’m…I’m sorry too, she said in a daze. That was a very wrong thing, a very bad thing to do.

She collapsed to her knees, reflecting her Aunt’s pitiable state. Estelle still shook, unable to take her hands from her face and be seen unmasked.

Libète wiped her tears with her wrists, terrified by this new and foreign anger.

She looked to Jak now, her eyes hollow. Jak could only look away.

Libète was thrown out the door of the school and told not to come back until she had “appropriate” shoes.

Now on Impasse Chavannes, she made as if heading home, wearing a scowl on her face. She ducked into an alley once far from school. Beyond watching eyes, her grin returned.

— Libète! Jak said in exasperation, calling out from behind a barrel used to hide. What took so long?

— Féthière is blind! She didn’t even notice my feet till I practically put them in her face.

Libète plopped down on an upended cinder block and opened her bag. She took out black-buckled school shoes and put them on, dropping the colored flip-flops inside.

— Let’s go.

The two rushed down a discrete path to reach Route 9 and board their first taptap in search of Lolo. One of the garish pick-ups soon came along, and the children piled in with four other passengers, setting off to a place neither had been before.

As she sat on one of the benches, her bruises smarted. The text message from Wadner’s phone, the fruit of her beatings, had vexed her and Jak for more than a day, but not longer. “
Follow Jean, who is brown, and he will cross Jean-Jacques. They always meet in a green house.
” She repeated it to herself each time, a reminder that her suffering was needless unless she could figure it out.

It was a code, of this they were certain. They also knew it couldn’t be too sophisticated because, well, Lolo and Wadner weren’t sophisticated. Jak had stepped into Libète’s house to check on her when her Aunt and Uncle were out. He soon took to reading the old newspapers and magazine articles pasted to the walls, a favorite activity. Before long his eyes settled on a map of Port-au-Prince’s downtown, and he spotted landmarks he had never seen with his own eyes. There was the National Palace, different government ministries, and famous streets of which he had only previously read their names. Champs de Mars, Ave. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Ave. John Brown…

It struck Jak like a bolt of lightning. It was so obvious, but only because Jak had taught himself colors in English.
Jean, ki se mawon,
the John who is Brown.

— Libète! Get over here!

Libète was reclining on the sofa in the living room.

— You’re making me get up with these aches? It better be worth it!

She edged over stiffly and found him with his finger to the map. He was tracing the streets carefully and soon saw as he expected.

— I’ve got it! Follow John Brown and he will cross Jean-Jacques! They’re talking about where the two streets meet! Lolo must be hiding downtown, somewhere near there—in a green house? That’s where we’ve got to look for him!

And on that basis alone they now did.

Once settled in the taptap, the other passengers gave the two children sidelong looks: her in school clothes but not in school, and Jak in a threadbare shirt and shorts. Detecting the stares, she blurted out, We’re going to visit our mother…at the hospital. It’s downtown, near Avni Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Can anyone tell us how to get there?

An older man with a network of hard lines criss-crossing his face spoke. You will have to stop at least two times and transfer before walking some distance to reach it.

Libète’s spirits sank, but she hid this from Jak. She had only borrowed (stolen, really) enough money from her Aunt for one transfer and then for the return trip. Twenty goud each, forty total. The prospect of being stranded did not appeal to her.