In Darkness (35 page)
Authors: Nick Lake
But suddenly I smell something other than my sweat and blood. I can smell the outside, I can smell the real sea, far off.
I open my eyes.
I see people looking down at me, with wide smiles on their faces. There’s the sharp jaw of some kind of digger above me; it looks like a dinosaur looming above me, and I’m afraid of its teeth.
Someone’s crawling over the concrete toward me. Then hands are on me, lifting me up, touching me as if for luck.
Something unties itself inside me and floats loose. At the same time, something takes root inside me, or someone, I should say, cos I feel . . . I don’t know, but I feel that it’s the person who was in the dark with me, the person who was dying with me in the dark. I know deep down who it is, but I can’t say it even to my ownself, cos it’s insane.
I can read, I think. And I have feelings and a soul in my chest, and I can talk and laugh and cry just like a real person, and I’m capable of doing good things. I’ve fucked up in the past, oh yes, I know I have, but, Manman, I’ll try to make you proud.
I wonder again if Manman is still alive. I’d like to see her; I’d like to tell her I’m sorry, that I forgive her. Cos I understand, I really do. I understand why she did what she did, why she told me Marguerite was alive – it was to spare me that pain. She knew what Marguerite was to me, that she was one half of myself.
I’d like to accept from Manman the half of the necklace that she took from Marguerite, so I can wear both halves together, so she can see that I’m whole now, no longer half a person. I’d like to be hugged by her, to know that she will always be there, no matter what I’ve done. I’d like to know that she forgives me, too, as I forgive her.
But this isn’t gonna happen.
Manman is gone. She must be gone. I saw the way everything was destroyed.
Some of the rescuers, or whoever they are, they’re trying to talk to me. I can’t speak, though, not yet. I’m aware of people moving the stuff that’s weighing me down, then hands catch me under the armpits and lift me up, and I’m over someone’s shoulder and I’m being jolted as they carry me through the rubble. It’s still dark here, we’re still inside, or at least we’re still under all the stuff that fell and broke.
— Wait, says one of the blancs in French.
— What?
— There are a lot of people out there. They’ve been holding vigils for days. If we don’t prepare them, there’ll be a riot. They’ll see one boy and think there are more.
— Hmmm, says the first voice.
I’m set down on the rubble, still in the hospital, and I see the man who was holding me start to go out into the light.
Suddenly, I lose my shit. I don’t mean to, it just happens. I feel something snap inside me. I want to go with him, you see. I don’t want to be left behind in the darkness anymore. I start to scream and cry. My face is all wet. It’s seriously embarrassing.
So, the guy turns around and comes back to me. He bends down close. He says:
— Rete trankil, p’tit, rete trankil.
Maybe it’s cos he’s telling me to calm down in Kreyòl, maybe it’s cos he’s been kind enough to use my own language, or maybe it’s the way he bent down so gently, so sympathetic, I don’t know, but the important thing is I stop screaming. I manage to nod at him, like, OK, you go and come back for me.
— Bon, he says. Bon.
Then he really does go into the light, and he leaves me here. I want to follow him so bad. There’s, like, a glow of white around him, like the fuzz around the sun. When he properly leaves the inside and goes outside it’s like he just disappears, burns away into light. It makes me think of Marguerite, the way her frizzy hair merged into the daylight, the way you couldn’t see where she ended and the hot blur of the sun began.
From the stunning whiteness into which he’s vanished, I hear the blanc say:
— We’ve dug out one boy.
He puts a stress on
one
. I hear a couple of people make sharp sounds of happiness, but anpil more people cry and wail. I guess a lot of them are there waiting for people who aren’t boys – people who’re still under the rubble.
— He’s a teenage boy, about fifteen. We’re bringing him out. We’ve found no other survivors.
More crying now.
When the blanc comes back and picks me up again and walks us forward, I see the people who’ve started to rush into the building, the ones that the police and the blancs haven’t been able to hold back. Some are whooping with joy and some are crying. I see Haitians crouching with their hands over their mouths, tears running down their cheeks.
— Is anyone else alive in there? one of them asks. Did you hear anyone?
— No, I say. There’s no one.
There was, though.
There was someone else, but he’s me now.
The man carrying me stops to get his breath. We’re still inside, just. I’m gazing around me cos everywhere is twisted iron and shattered concrete, and I realize we’re in the lobby of the hospital when I see the broken glass from the front windows all over the tiled floor. There are anpil blancs here, too, in red helmets; I think maybe they’re firemen. I can just see through the hole where the doors were, and I perceive that the whole city has fallen down, that there’s only rubble out there, only trash. As I look round I see that I
did
float above the hospital, that the country really has been ruined, that everything I saw is true.
I feel tears coming down my cheeks. Manman, she can’t be alive, surely? But I’m alive. I’m alive, and I know I’ll look for her and maybe I’ll find her. I let my hand open and my half of the necklace falls to the ground; I don’t need it to be complete anymore, and so I leave it there among the other broken things.
It’s strange. I do this, and an image appears in my head. It’s the mural on the next street, the one on the morgue, of the girl being raised up to heaven, an angel’s hands under her. Only now, the face of the girl is Marguerite’s, the girl is Marguerite. There’s the sharp hotness of tears at the corners of my eyes, cos that’s what I want: I want her to be taken, to be held, to be embraced.
One of the blancs says:
— You’re very lucky, you know.
And I think, no, I’m not. Everything that matters to me is dead. Even this country is dead.
These blancs, they look very proud, though, so I try to smile, cos I know how much they love to help, how much they’re always helping, how they can’t just mind their own zafè and keep off our island. Look where their help got us; look at the mess we’re in . . .
But no, I can’t hate them, cos there’s a woman in front of me: she’s shining a torch in my eyes, she’s using a bottle to drip water into my mouth – it tastes like everything good in the world – mangoes, bananas – and she has this T-shirt on, it says,
Médecins Sans Frontières
. This woman, she’s got blonde hair and blue eyes, fine blonde down on her ears. She’s the woman who took the baby from Marguerite all those years ago. She’s been here ever since, or she came back, I don’t know. But I don’t think she recognizes me. I understand, I don’t blame her for it, cos I’m covered in dust and dirt; I’m a dead person dug up and brought out into the light. So I just say to her what I wanted to say all those years ago.
I say:
— Your hair is amazing.
I say:
— Your ears are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
And she looks at me, like, what the fuck?
Then I hear this noise; it’s a noise I know so well, a voice I know so well. And I’m pushing past this woman, even though I love her, even though I love everyone here. Seriously, it’s like my whole heart is this shining ball of love in my chest, beating like the sun, a hammer that builds and doesn’t destroy.
And then . . .
And then . . .
And then I’m moving somehow, limping, following that voice. She must have heard when the blanc said that they dug out a boy; she must have been one of the people waiting, one of the people holding a vigil. I’m stumbling through the broken glass to the ragged hole and finally I’m in the open air and it fills my lungs and there’s a blue sky above and we’re in the light now, burning our eyes, tears streaming down our face, and I look over the road and . . .
. . .
. . . My breath stops in my chest, cos there’s my manman, screaming and screaming. But they’re not bad screams; they’re screams of joy. Then she’s running toward me and she grabs me, she swings me up, and she’s hugging me and hugging me.
And it’s OK, it’s good, it’s OK to touch me, cos I’m not Marguerite, I’m not Tintin; I have skin covering my body. I don’t have holes in me anymore. I’m whole and I have a soul entire inside me. I’ve lived and died so many times for this country, and there’s nothing that can get in and hurt me.
And I say:
— Manman. Manman, I love you. I kept shooting and I made a goal, but I’m not gonna shoot no more.
And she’s saying words all the time, too. Words like, love, my boy, love, words of fierceness, words of joy, love, love, love.
I think, yes, I was a zombi all along. I should not have been afraid to be a zombi, though, cos . . .
Yes, I died, over and over.
But now I’ve been reborn.
Yes . . .
Yes . . .
Yes . . .
I was in darkness, but now I am in light.
This is a work of fiction. While I researched this book, I am a novelist, not an expert on Haiti, and any errors are mine alone. I occasionally simplified and adjusted the facts to fit into the shape of the story. I suspect, however, that anyone reading
In Darkness
will be curious as to how much in it is true and how much is made up. The simple answer is that I believe that the book is true in essence. If you were hoping that some of the more unpleasant things you have just read were made up, then I apologize.
I did not invent the character of Toussaint l’Ouverture, and I have been faithful to his story, at least in spirit and in essentials. It was necessary to smooth out the history to some extent. For example, in this book I have ignored the issue of the Spanish side of the island (the modern-day Dominican Republic), with which Toussaint had a complicated relationship. However, the important things are true. Toussaint really did lead a slave rebellion at the age of fifty-four, defeating a major colonial power and freeing his people, even if only temporarily. He was a simple, uneducated man who achieved one of the greatest and least acknowledged military victories of all time. His character was, as far as we know, calm, wise, inspirational. He was betrayed in the way presented in this story, and he really did die in a French dungeon.
The ceremony at Bois Caiman did happen, though not much is known about it, and I have embellished the details for my own purposes. In reality, it was most likely an invocation of Erzili Danto, one of the most important of the lwa, to support the rebellion.
Shorty never lived, nor did his family. But Route 9 and Boston – and the war between them – are real, as is nearly every detail of life in Site Solèy. It is one of the poorest, most violent slums in existence, even more so now in the wake of the 2010 earthquake. It has frequently been named as the most dangerous place on earth. People really did, and do, eat pies made of mud, such is their desperation. Babies really were, and are, left to die on piles of trash. For years, the slum was virtually cut off by roadblocks and, especially during the bloody period in the first decade of the new century, the police and attachés were accused many times of shooting unarmed civilians during demonstrations and home invasions. Many residents simply disappeared, never to be seen again.
Dread Wilmè was a real person. He lived and died in much the way I have described: hailed as a hero by his supporters, who claimed that he provided security, education, and rudimentary health care in a place where the government provided none; vilified by the government as a gangster and a murderer. The truth, as always, is probably somewhere in between. Fierce controversy surrounds his killing to this day, and in particular surrounds the question of how many civilians were killed during the operation. His funeral was a lavish affair, attended by thousands and marked by speeches. As far as I know, it unfolded more or less as described, with Dread being pushed out to sea on a burning boat.
Finally, no work of fiction is an island, even a book that is set on one. I would like to thank Caradoc King, Louise Lamont, Elinor Cooper, David Fickling, Sarah Odedina, and Madeleine Stevens for all their help in constructing this story.
And I would like to thank you, too, for reading it.
Nick Lake
Oxford, 2011
NICK LAKE
was born in Britain but grew up in Luxembourg, where his father worked for the European Parliament. Nick works in publishing by day and writes in every spare moment he can find. In 2012, his powerful and moving novel
In Darkness
, about the Haitian earthquake, was published for adults and older teenagers, receiving huge acclaim.
Hostage Three
is his very different but equally powerful new novel for teenagers.
Nick lives near Oxford with his wife and family. His long commute to work gives his imagination time to explore places he's never visited.
