The World is Moving Around Me (4 page)

The Parish

We had to make a long detour to reach the Delmas highway. I opened the envelope and found a picture of the Virgin inside. On the back, in pencil, in a trembling hand, it was written that this image had been blessed by the priest of Altagrâce, the church my mother has attended since the family moved to Delmas. It's more difficult to adapt to a new church than a new neighborhood. When we were in Carrefour-Feuilles, she went to Saint-Gérard. She knew the church well, since it was the same one she attended when we lived in Lafleur-Duchêne, though we were a lot closer to Saint-Alexandre. She went to mass at Saint-Gérard for more than thirty years, which helped her get to know her neighbors. People meet at the market or at church. At first, she had all sorts of complaints about Altagrâce—even the priest's accent exasperated her. She didn't like the poor people there; they were too aggressive compared to the Saint-Gérard parishioners. But now she couldn't picture herself anywhere else. You should have heard her heart-felt hallelujah when I told her Altagrâce had been spared. I have no news about Saint-Gérard, but people say that Carrefour-Feuilles is in ruins.

Trouillot's House

We get to Lyonel Trouillot's neighborhood. A group of people surround the car. They're shouting and waving their arms. Finally I understand that someone is hurt and needs to be taken to the hospital immediately. Trouillot solves the problem by finding another car. The noise fades. We move slowly toward the house, since people keep hanging on to the car doors to give us news of the neighborhood. We sit in the small yard of a modest house. Plants growing everywhere. I breathe easier. A short time later, the oldest of the Trouillot brothers makes an appearance in a chair (he has trouble walking). He is set down next to us so he can be part of the conversation. Smiling as always, because nothing can get him down. Michel-Rolf Trouillot is the author of the first history of Haiti written in Creole:
Ti dife boule sou istoua Ayiti
. I met him in Montreal when he was working on the book. He was teaching in New York at the time. He couldn't believe that there were no works of history in Creole, the language the slaves used to express themselves, the very ones who struggled to turn the colony into a country. For him, that was the whole point. He didn't see Creole as the language of the heart, whereas French is supposed to be the language of the mind. Everyone knows Senghor's formulation: “Emotion is black, and reason, Hellenic.” Trouillot's view of Haitian history is Marxist. I remember those debates that dominated the 1980s. I can still see him leap to his feet to clarify a point of history and advance his Marxist vision of events. He wasn't always this old sage who is sitting to my left, a peaceful smile on his lips. A shame that his health problems have kept him from continuing his research with the same intensity. We discuss what has happened, while all around us, people are running every which way as if we were in a war zone. Our calm attitude, which is only superficial, is designed to show others who are watching us from a distance that the situation is in hand. As they talk about this and that, the Trouillot brothers keep an eye on what's happening. There's a car that can take injured people to the hospital, but no driver. The yard seems to be the headquarters for neighborhood operations. Coffee shows up at the same time as the driver who heads for the hospital after downing a cup that will keep him from dropping from starvation on the way there. The coffee also helps us keep hysteria under control and makes our actions more efficient. The district is heavily damaged, but still, laughter can be heard. As we leave, we go past the Université Caraïbes that one of the Trouillot sisters is keeping alive single-handedly. It is nothing but rubble now. Dozens of casualties, they say.

The Hôtel Montana

Police are blocking the road to make way for an enormous crane that is trying to reach the Hôtel Montana perched on the top of a steep slope. A man running with sweat and covered in dust comes up to the passenger side of the car. I scarcely recognize the director of the Institut français who impressed me with his passion for turning young people into readers. Now he is part of the rescue team working on the hotel up ahead. I stayed there at the beginning of December. I can scarcely imagine the disaster. All this effort to save the Montana, while right next to it people are pleading for help. Is it to bury the dead or save lives? I have no idea. A man standing next to the car remarks, without too much bitterness, that there's more here than the Montana. But it's the place where big contracts are negotiated and important political decisions made. The favorite hotel of the international stars who have gotten interested in human misery. Humanitarian organizations send their people to stay there. And since most journalists (especially the ones from TV) have made the place their headquarters for years, you can imagine the enormous coverage the Montana is enjoying. It's true, there are a lot of dead (and a few survivors) in the ruins of the hotel that collapsed in the first few seconds. The crane that was blocking traffic has finally started climbing toward the top of the slope, and we're waved through.

How Georges Died

There are cars in the supermarket parking lot. A dozen or so. We pull into a space. Inside, complete chaos. In the liquor section, half the bottles are on the floor. We walk on broken glass through a pond of red wine. The shelves are nearly empty. Saint-Éloi manages to get his hands on a few cans of sardines. We pick up a dozen bottles of water. People are chatting in line. No electricity: the clerk is concentrating on his little pad of paper as he tallies up the bills. Behind me, an overwrought photographer is announcing the death of Georges and Mireille Anglade. I saw them last night at the hotel where they were attending a private reception. Always that mischievous look in Georges' eye. Such warmth in the way he opens his arms to welcome you. Mireille waits patiently for Georges to finish crushing you against his chest by way of embrace. She is more delicate, with more nuances of feeling, but just as warm. A riddle of a smile. As always, Anglade was laughing, and every inch of flesh on his body danced. These last years, he had put all his energy into promoting the
lodyans
, the narrative form nearest, he maintained, to our way of seeing the world. He believed that Haitians are born storytellers who nowadays express themselves through writing. Recently he reread a good amount of our fiction (“from Independence to the present,” in his bulimic fashion) and discovered that our best writers are nocturnal storytellers. Our writing has its wellspring in that orality—that “oralature,” as he liked to call it. Georges was exaggerating, of course, but with such a good heart. The man had a kind of energy that could sweep you along like a wave. He loved endless discussions at the dinner table with good friends. A geographer who was also a politician, his true passion was literature. An incorrigible dreamer—that's what he was. I can't imagine him without Mireille. They died together.

The Sad-Eyed Young Man

Standing near the fence by the tennis courts, I see Chantal Guy come up. She's a journalist with the Montreal daily
La Presse
, and Ivanoh Demers, the photographer, is right behind her. They're both alive, and now they're inseparable. When I was lying in the hotel courtyard with everything moving around me, I thought of Chantal Guy. I'd insisted so much that she come here, even though she had her doubts. It's always difficult to convince people to come to Haiti. First they agree, because the country exerts a fascination. An intense exchange of letters follows, then silence. Friends and relations recommend against the trip. They go on Internet sites that portray an extremely dangerous place. Panic sets in. In the end, the answer is no. With Chantal, I did more than insist: I argued against each of her objections. For me, it was important for this delegation of Quebec writers to be accompanied by a good journalist. Besides, she's a friend. I've been living in Quebec for thirty-four years, I know everyone on the literary scene, I've read most writers working today, and I felt it was time that Quebec writers come and see how Haitians live in their own country. I don't think it's healthy to have a good friend who knows you so well, who has looked into the hidden zones of your life, but who has no sense of the country you come from. You don't get to know a culture by watching TV documentaries. If you want to get a real idea of things, especially for a journalist, you have to be on the ground. Smell the earth, touch the trees, and meet people in their natural environment. I'm not blaming anyone. I was just hoping for a dialogue between writers from Quebec and Haitian writers who represent the two largest French-speaking populations in the Americas. Chantal held out but finally agreed. And now the earthquake. That's why I thought of her at that critical time. Especially when I heard (that night there were so many rumors) that the Hôtel Villa Créole where she was staying was heavily damaged. And now here she comes, making her entrance like a Venus arising from the ashes with Ivanoh Demers on her heels. He looks ill at ease. Port-au-Prince was a revelation for Chantal. She used to be afraid of her own shadow, but now she's an intrepid warrior ready to face the fury of the elements. As for Demers, the photos he took that day made him the most famous photographer on the planet, at least that week. His pictures were published in papers around the world. And his moving photo of the young man lifting his eyes to us with a mixture of pain and gravitas will remain in our memories. The gentle light of his face conjures up the Flemish masters. Yet the photographer himself was torn between his sudden celebrity and the city in ruins, since one couldn't exist without the other. He shouldn't feel bad. His photo of the young man's gentle expression will last.

Culture

Chantal Guy blurts out a question: what do I think of all this? She takes out her notebook. What is the value of culture in the face of disaster? Asking the question in a university classroom doesn't have the same resonance as it does here. I look around: it's easy to evaluate the situation. The conversations are lively. I hear laughter from time to time. People are looking for some way out. Which makes me think that when everything else collapses, culture remains. The people who are still moving will save this city. The crowd's appetite for life makes living possible in these dusty streets. I go back to the lesson of the old naïve painters who choose to show nature in its splendor when all around there is desolation.

A Man in Mourning

He is smoking on the street corner, near the art vendors who have started displaying their canvases on the walls again in the wind, heat, and dust. Very elegant in his fine black suit. A black hat. Unconcerned by the bustling activity around him. Unmoving, he lights another cigarette. Some people can keep their composure no matter what. I approach him. He offers me a smoke. We talk about this and that, avoiding the subject of the hour. Slowly I learn a little about him, and I understand he is far from being the dandy he appears to be. His mother died at the beginning of last week and he wasn't able to contribute to her funeral. His three sisters (they live in New York) paid all the expenses, even for his black suit. They were supposed to leave the day before yesterday, but they postponed their departure to buy him a barbershop that was for sale not far from here. He's a barber, but he can't seem to keep a job for long. His sisters thought it would be better if he were his own boss. This isn't the first time they've tried to help him out, but it's the first time his situation as a parasite depressed him to the point that he considered suicide last night. He lights another cigarette (I refused his offer) and we get around to the earthquake. He was here when it happened. He went home and discovered his house was completely destroyed and that his sisters were dead in the wreckage. He stares at the glowing coal of his cigarette a little too long. The pain I read in his eyes is so private I realize I'm intruding. I slipped away as he was taking another drag.

The Room

I decided to return to my room. The façade that overlooks the garden is badly cracked, but the hotel didn't collapse. Debris everywhere; there's no way of saying how bad the damage is. I go up the stairs to the third floor. From there, I can see that the lobby was wrecked. I continue my adventure without knowing what I'll find. So far, so good, but the hotel could cave in at any moment. I reach my room. The door is closed. I take out my electronic key. No chance it will work. The earthquake must have knocked out the electrical system. Besides, they cut the current to prevent fires. I slip the card in the slot. The little green light lights up. I walk inside. The room is intact except for the television set on the floor. I find my suitcase. The computer that someone lent me hasn't moved from the bedside table. My last two mangos are patiently waiting for me next to the computer. I grab everything I can. I picture everyone doing the same thing at this very moment, trying to save things that matter. Things that might appear useless to other people. I'd better not stay too long; just being here is a major provocation. When it brushes past, death leaves us in a frenetic state that pushes us to defy the gods. That explains this irresistible desire to lie down on the bed. I change my mind at the last second, realizing I'm doing something stupid. It might not be over. A new tremor could send the hotel crashing down. I don't even know how long I've been in the room. I've lost all notion of time since yesterday. I understand now that a minute can hold the entire life of a city. A new density for me. Finally I exit the room, leaving the door open, with the feeling the card won't work a second time.

The Opportunity

We were sitting under the trees when someone showed up with a bottle of rum and set it down in the middle of the table. Some people could find alcohol even in hell. He found this bottle in one of the cabinets in the bar. Apparently it's not the last one. The Gold Rush, all over again. It's the only weapon against the anxiety of the coming night. With a haggard eye, I watch the mosquitoes gather around the light, waiting to go on the attack. Their exasperating music hums in my ears. We drink right from the bottle and pass it around. Now is the time to try everything that good manners and hygiene teach us not to do. The warmth of the rum is good. We'd like to do something completely unusual, since this kind of situation won't happen twice. It was more acceptable last night than tonight, and tomorrow it will be too late. We will have recovered our wits completely. And we won't be just the few of us. Right now, everyone in this city is either dead, wounded, or saved by some miracle. Tomorrow, or even tonight, they will start arriving (are they already among us?), and we will lose our sense of collective madness. In any case, it's not over yet. The earth is still shaking. Two or three points higher on the Richter scale and we'll be cast back into a realm without time. I don't understand why we don't try doing something completely off the beaten track of everyday life. Nothing is holding us back. No more prisons, no more cathedral, no more government, no more school—it's the perfect opportunity to try something new. An opportunity that won't knock twice. The revolution is at hand, and here I am, sitting under a tree.