God Loves Haiti (9780062348142) (3 page)

Did, did I hurt you, ma'am?

It was the medic. So cheerful.

Why, she said, Why are all these planes coming here? What happened? Natasha pointed to the sky. A smoky black curtain of night had fallen. You could hear the drone of the planes' engines. You could see the blinking
red lights as some of them weaved between clouds. You couldn't see them, though. You felt them. You felt them in your bones.

That's help, cheerful medic said.

Seeing the alarm in her eyes, happy medic softened his voice. There was an earthquake, he said. He was about her age, but he tried to speak to her like one would speak to a child. She didn't like him.

We estimate the earthquake may have destroyed over seventy percent of the buildings in Port-au-Prince, he said. The epicenter was near Carrefour and Léogâne, which are now completely destroyed. The earthquake measured seven point zero on the Richter scale. The force was unheard of for the capital city of a country, particularly a country as small and densely populated as Haiti. We're afraid thousands of people may have died. Most buildings were flattened or damaged. Even the National Palace and the cathedral. I'm so sorry. We only have aerial and satellite shots of the city so far. In the coming days, hopefully things will reveal themselves to be better than we fear.

The National Palace? she thought, feeling a sharp pinprick in her heart. Alain! She had bid her ex-lover a final farewell in her room in the National Palace that morning, leaving him trapped and helpless. At once, Natasha felt every ounce of energy leave her body. Dante was wrong, she thought. This is what hell is like. In hell, you're alive but everyone and everything that you love is dead and destroyed, and you don't know what to do or say. Dante
didn't get it. You had to die or receive this kind of news to truly glimpse hell. Hell to the exiled Florentine was mere homesickness. Hell, Dante, is the physical destruction of your entire hometown, and the death of your lover by your own hands. Natasha, who fancied herself a capable artist in the best traditions of Florence, suddenly could not imagine how art or poetry could come from people who even once in their lives felt the blackness of death so completely envelop them. It's like being buried alive. Thousands dead. Alain! She wiggled some toes to make sure she was still alive.

She was,

Merde
.

On the bright side, the medic continued, taking a break from dressing her wounded legs, we're here.

The bright side!

He waved his hand to show off the buzzing activity around them. An army base had spontaneously developed near the debris of the national airport. On the horizon of the black sky, a swarm of helicopters, airplanes, and parachutists choked off views of the emerging silver moon. On the ground, things felt lively, even chipper. Soldiers built tents of various sizes, including a large cafeteria, which reminded Natasha how hungry she was. There were civilians in cargo pants and, oddly, hiking boots and even sandals. Their pale faces ranged from middle-aged to impossibly young. They looked scruffy, bespectacled, and keen. Humanitarian aid workers. Had to be. The rest
of the foreigners seemed to be mostly military. The military men and women were unlike the soldiers Natasha was accustomed to seeing around town. For one, they sometimes wore non-combat uniforms and carried small guns. They were bright-eyed, open, and friendly while going about their work. This operation seemed to involve a lot of talking into headsets and cell phones and staring at bright laptop screens. Energetic medics fanned out to help the bleeding Haitians who walked on hands, bellies, and feet toward them like believers to John the Baptist on the river Jordan.

The sight that soon riveted Natasha was that of her husband, the President, leading. Of all things. In the middle of a circle of the most grizzled members of the international rescuers, the diminutive fat man seemed to be in charge. Under the yellow lights of military trucks and ambulances, he was absorbing information from engineers and air force commanders and firemen with brand-new tool belts. He kept a thoughtful hand on his chin. He fired questions back at them with orders, directions, and times for follow-up meetings. When he was done talking, the men—and they were all men, a fact that saddened Natasha—dispersed briskly, checking their watches. They seemed keen on doing a good job for Haiti after a disaster whose proportions Natasha found hard to grasp and difficult to even imagine without going glassy-eyed to the point of feeling faint and sleepy.

Are you OK? the medic at her feet said.

She'd forgotten he was there.

That's my husband, she said, pointing to the President, a bit surprised at how easy it was for her to utter those words for the first time. Was that pride in your voice, Nat? she thought. Is it because the President looked and behaved like he had grown a foot taller since disaster struck? Like he was the president of a nation, a leader of free men and women and children in need of wise leadership? She remembered stories of girlfriends who were actually annoyed after a boyfriend acquired a shot of self-confidence from a success or an event unrelated to being with them. Pity had been Natasha's default mode for men and their delusions of control . . . until today.

I know, the medic said.

You know what? she said.

I knew he was your husband.

Stop, she said.

What, did I say something wrong?

No, no, you've done a good job. I feel fine. Why don't you go help that lady over there with the baby? I need to go talk to my husband, if you don't mind.

D'accord
, he said in French to please her.

It worked.

The President stood alone in a spotlight from trucks and ambulances, lights that had been turned into makeshift streetlights. He was on a new phone. The deep creases in his furrowed brow suggested he was receiving bad news. In the past, during these moments, he would
stand with his back bent and a pleading look on his face, a cue for Natasha or Reginald, his assistant, to have at the ready a soft chair for him to sit on and a stiff glass of rum for fortification as soon as he got off the phone. They were meant to help refill his spirit, since the effort of not having answers in the face of the enormous problems around him taxed his intellectual and emotional capabilities. Oh,
ce peuple
, he would say afterward,
Ils me laissent à bout de force
.

Tonight, he stood erect while wearing a broken watch, one suede loafer, and a ruined suit jacket with only one sleeve left. Not to mention having what looked like a broken jaw. He stood erect but his face and spirit radiated empathy. Compassion. Generosity. Why now? Finding the courage gene at the one moment in his life when he would be forgiven for not having any. Who was this man? Natasha thought, while limping toward him.

His lined yet newly youthful brown face broke out in a wide smile when he turned to her.
Mon amour
, he said, before wrapping her warmly in his arms. He was calm and steady, and he hugged her exactly how she needed to be hugged. She let herself go like a basket case again.

What are we going to do? she asked him once her sobbing had slowed to a stream. For the first time in her driven and imaginative young life, she really had no idea what to do next. We sleep, he said. Tomorrow will be a better day. It has no choice.

He led her by hand to their new home, a tent on the tarmac. It was military green, about two by four square
meters. It featured a cot, a foldable chair, and a table with a small lamp. I'll sleep on the floor, the President said. The pre-earthquake President would have tried to sleep on the cot with her or have made a lame joke about having to give up the cot. This new President sat her down on the cot gently. When he tried to pull away from her, she tugged at him, and, instead, he sat close to her. Natasha held on to the arm he had around her.

Reginald is dead, he said.

Natasha stared at the floor of their tent. It was made of the same plastic material as the walls. The tent's lamp worked. How'd that happen? Her eyes trailed all the cables running through the tent. There were quite a few.

Marcel, Marie-José, François, Philippe, Jean-Yves, Yves-Antoine, Elias, all dead. Dozens of party members, dead. For Jean-Francois, it was almost worse. The twins died with their mother. The school walls crushed their car as they prepared to drive away. My house is gone. No one can find mother.

Outside, all the other tents around them had yet to go dark. The Americans were too busy to sleep yet. There was a buzz worthy of the Marché de Fer on a Saturday morning—construction machines drilling, orders being given, yes-sirs being answered. The President continued: You can almost hear all the wailing going on in the country, can't you? Everyone, absolutely everyone, on the island lost something today. I bet the diasporas are going mad with worry.

You believe they know already? Natasha said.

For sure, the President said. In the first hour, it felt like I spoke to more journalists than I did military rescue personnel. It felt like the country now has more foreign journalists and aid workers alive and kicking in it than healthy Haitians.

Healthy Haitians? What the hell are those? I've been looking for that breed for over twenty years. I thought they were extinct. Didn't the Duvaliers kill them all off?

No, I think it was the Americans.

Yes, the Americans. During the occupation, right? Fucking Americans. What else can we blame them for?

The earthquake?

Yes, the fucking earthquake. How do you think they caused it? The testing of new nuclear bombs by American submarines operating in the bottom of the Caribbean Sea

Good one. In fact, it wasn't even an earthquake. It was some new-style nuclear bomb experiment. They were aiming for Venezuela and the missile landed here.

Can't get nothing right, those Americans.

Yeah. But they're great at racking up civilian casualties, though. You gotta give them that.

We mustn't make light.

You're right. It's too early.

Yes, too early. Think about all those people out there who lost their homes. They don't have tents.

Is it too early to think about sex?

Sex?

You know, sex. Birds and bees. Sweat. Screaming at the end. I heard sex could be useful during national emergencies.

Emergency sex?

Yes. The idea came in the president's manual. I think it may actually be a clause in the constitution.

It's one of the Ten Commandments too.

Could be. You're my connection to the divine. If you say it is, then it must be so.

It's the eleventh commandment. It was in the small fine print that no one bothers to read. God slid that in there past us.

No pun intended?

No pun intended!

All Haitians are dead, and there's only us left. What to do?

Commence repopulating?

Commence repopulating. Immediately.

Hey, be careful with the legs. Fragile merchandise. Handle with care.

Be careful with my head. Very tender.

Which one?

They giggled. They embraced. They fell asleep. The President and his wife did not make love that evening.

        
WELCOME TO PLACE PIGEON

T
he morning after the earthquake, to the surprise of most folks in Haiti and around the world, the sun rose over Haiti, as it had since the dawn of time. Pulsing, brilliant, and warm, it shone over the land like glorious yellow candlelight with a special affection for Caribbean islands. The sun over Haiti the day after the earthquake lodged in a clear sky so blue the Caribbean Sea seemed to reach up and merge with it. The air, too, retained its customary light fragrance. The freshness of the air inspired roosters to sing their hearts out, and sing they did that morning, determinedly, robustly, and with pride. The island was still above water, and palm trees felt cool enough about this state of affairs to cock their long, leafy crowns just so. The morning brought rising heat. And the warming of the ground beneath his buttocks spurred Alain Destiné into another attempt at holding on to his consciousness. Squinting and rubbing his eyes, Alain briefly ignored the
sharp pain spreading throughout his body to take in his surprising location: one of the parks across the street from the National Palace. Alain saw his car. To his astonishment, the car hung about ten meters in the air, impaled on the statue of a woman holding a pair of pigeons. The statue gave the park its name, Place Pigeon. Pigeons liked the homage and congregated there regularly en masse. Before the park became the site of his seemingly impending doom, Alain had liked Place Pigeon too. Back when he dated unmarried women, the young bachelor took dates on strolls through this park after an evening at the movies at Le Capitol, the nearby theater. The couple would be wearing their Sunday best and talking breathlessly about the baroque drama of the kung fu films they'd seen. Young lovers in Port-au-Prince had been doing so since his father's and his grandfather's eras. Following tradition always made Alain happy. He had a lifelong thing for Haitian society's old-world notions of honor and gallantry. You're so old-fashioned for a boy, the women of various ages he courted often told him. He knew he had them once they said that. For women, he'd learned at a precocious age, liked to be wicked with boys their parents and the rest of the world found nonthreatening.

Still, Alain wished he were anywhere else on earth than Place Pigeon at that moment. A creak and a soft tilt downward from the Chevy suspended in the sky snapped Alain's attention to the very real possibility of his sudden death. More daydreaming and you're dead, Alain, and suicides
aren't allowed into heaven, remember? Blotchy red against the vast blue sky, the car seesawed casually. Under the car's shadow, Alain tried to calculate how much time he had to crawl away before a breeze caused his car to fall on his head. Not much, he correctly concluded, especially considering that Alain and the car had likely been in their respective positions since the previous evening. Death was imminent. Shit. Death was imminent yesterday afternoon too, Alain thought. What in God's name happened? One minute I'm driving slowly on rue St. Honoré, and the next minute, buildings started tumbling on people as if they were made of cards. The car turned into a flying carpet, and then, then . . . I'm waking up in a park, like a bum, hurt in places I didn't know my body had, and the car is still in the air, but now suspended from above as if it were passing judgment on my life.