Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti (3 page)

Libète runs through the streets of Bwa Nèf. She searches faces for someone on whom she can unload the burden of the deaths.

There is a lady selling
pen
and peanut butter in front of her small cinderblock house, and a carpenter making a small cabinet under a tree across the way.
Not just anyone will do.

She continues on at a mad, reckless pace.

Should she try to find Claire’s family?

No
,
I don’t know where they live.

The police?

They are too far.

Her aunt?

She would be worthless.

She rounds a corner onto Impasse Sara, her bare feet thumping against the grey brick road.

People’s eyes follow her. Children, smaller than her, stop their games and watch her pass in alarm. She looks down and notices her torn dress covered in dirt and blood and understands why.

She turns off the main road and runs down a row of homes, a left here, a right, another left and near collision with a mason, grey with concrete dust. She runs familiar paths that she and Jak often speed down, but still does not know where she goes or whom she seeks.

Davidson.
The thought explodes into her brain. Her cousin.

He knew her.

His friends knew her.

They will be close.

They can get others.

Sweat dripped down her face. She slowed to assess the best course to reach her cousin, took two gasping breaths, and careened off again, straight, left, through the hole in the wall, through the children’s ball game, past the line of patients waiting at the clinic, a hop over the sewage canal, duck under the hanging laundry, left again, through the wall, onto Impasse Chavannes and…

She looked around at the people on the busiest street in Bwa Nèf, all familiar to her but none her cousin. Libète prepared to stop and cry out her news before finally spotting Wadner, one of her cousin’s friends, talking to Therese, a teenage girl Libète didn’t like. She ran to him.

— Where’s Davidson? she blurted out, short of breath. The two turned to look at her. His squinty eyes registered surprise as he looked her up and down.

— There, he responded cautiously. In the cinema, with Yves, watching football.

Therese gave Libète a sneer and Libète gave her one back.

— Thanks, Wadner, Libète muttered.

— What’s the matter?

She hesitated.
He was friends with Claire, too. I could tell him.

— Bad news. You’ll find out soon, she said a bit too ominously, running the thirty meters to the old clinic-turned-cinema.

Wadner shook his head. What a strange girl, he remarked.

— She’s a bitch, Therese replied.

Libète crashed through the door to the “cinema,” flooding it with light. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom and see what was really just an open room with a bulky television used to screen football games and dubbed films. All of the patrons shouted and swore, blinded by the blast of light interrupting their match.

She gasped for air before shouting. Shut up, all of you!

She spotted her cousin seated two rows back.

— Davidson! Claire and Gaspar were murdered!

Libète wakes up to darkness and the sound of a motor running in the distance. She is not at home.

She did not know why she ran when her mother trembled and fell permanently asleep, but she did. Marie Elise tried to pursue her, but the woman’s old legs and the black night permitted Libète to slip away.

She fled to the one refuge she knew.

The cicadas’ music had quieted, leaving only the sounds of falling water and the puttering motor growing louder, closer.

Libète sat up on the large rock. The moon’s pale glow cast strange shadows about her. Rubbing her eyes, the weight of reality came crashing in.

She’s really gone. And I’m alone.

The sound of the motor cut out. Libète assumed it was a late night mototaxi, taking customers down the winding ridges and bumps of poorly carved roads to Anse-à-Galets, the main city, to then climb upon a ship and make the passage to the mainland. Boarding the first ferries meant setting out at ungodly hours. Libète had never ridden down to the dock or made the trip across the water—only heard those who did when they passed by.

When she climbed palm trees she could see
Sen Domeng
, a fabled mainland shared by
Ayiti
and its fractious neighbor, the
Repiblik Dominikèn.
The mountains she witnessed on the other side were so high, so
vast
, even from afar. She couldn’t help but wish to visit one day.

Visitors returning to their ancestral homes on La Gonâve often wore new suits and dresses that shamed those on the island. They brought cameras, and mp3s, even phones with cameras. Neither she nor her neighbors could afford such things.

But any dreams of leaving were now dashed.
I’m going to live in this forest for forever
. Maybe she would go back in secret and steal the goats, shepherding them so that they would be her family, and she would only appear to other people when she needed to sell one at market, and everyone would think she was a ghost or spirit and forget about her entirely, and she would never say a single word to anyone ever again, except “mèsi” to the customers who bought her goats—this was to be her future. It was a sad one, but she had already…

— LI-BÈ-TE!

A Voice called her name, hard and masculine. She shuddered.

— Come out!

She bolted in surprise, sliding down the side of the boulder and disappearing into a crevice between rock and wall. She tried to stifle her breath and peered out to glimpse the owner of the Voice. The darkness made it impossible.

— I don’t have time to search you out! the Voice rumbled.

The particular tenor finally registered, though the man’s face was still unseen.
It’s Limyè! Marie Elise must have called him after I ran!

Officer Limyè was the local police, responsible for their entire area. He was big, and shaped like a stone-hewn statue.

— I have something to tell you, Libète. So come out! It’s important.

I—will—not! He can talk all night if he wants. He’ll never find me. I’ll disappear before he takes me.

She saw him growl and curse in frustration. He faced away, mere feet from her hiding place.

— I know your mother is dead, Libète. I’m — he paused — very sorry. She was a good woman. He said this last part quietly. But you need to come out now! She wouldn’t want you to hide.

He may be right but I don’t care. It’s my choice.

— I know you’re here. I have something to tell you—about your father. And I can only do that if you stop these games and
come out
.

Could it be true?
He had uttered some of the only words that could make her consider giving herself up.

— I will take you to him, but you must first come out!

This offer brought maddening hopes and fears. Maybe she wasn’t alone in the world! But why had manman never made her father known? He could be a very bad man, or one who had hurt manman very much.

She balanced a life in the wilds of La Gonâve with her goats against another where she found a lost father and a new home. The goats came up lacking.

I must know what’s been kept from me.
She stepped out from the crack.

— Who is he then? she said timidly.

Officer Limyè turned, surprised. The side of his face was temporarily lit by moonlight streaming through palm fronds and branches, enough to make out his hard features. He looked her up and down with sad eyes, and in the Voice spoke a single word that made her tremble.

**

Libète rode on the back of Limyè’s motorcycle, clinging to him. The
moto
’s headlamp was the only light around, speeding her home to a new life she no longer wanted.

“
Me
.” That’s what Limyè said to her. She had lost a mother and gained a father in the span of a few hours. Her weary mind was unable to comprehend this.

The row of five homes was dark, no reassuring lamps in windows. Limyè carried a flashlight that guided them to her front door. They found Marie Elise asleep in her mother’s cracked plastic chair. An old sheet covered manman.

Limyè knocked on the doorframe with the butt of his flashlight. Marie Elise stirred, found a match, and lit a small gas lamp on an adjacent crate.

— Mèsi
Jezi
! Marie Elise exclaimed at the sight of the two. My dear, we’ve found you! I worried so much!

Libète approached the woman who offered a hug.

Limyè, still cold like stone, had not uttered a word the entire ride back. Libète clasped onto Marie Elise around the waist, who in turn placed a leathery hand upon her head, stroking her small braids. Libète buried her face in Marie Elise’s side, unable to look at her father.

— Did you tell her?

Limyè nodded.

— So what happens now? You’re taking her home, no?

He shook his head. No.

Libète felt the old woman’s body tense.

— What do you mean? There is no one besides you.

—
Egzakteman
. She has no one.

— But how could yo—why is—

Libète felt as if she was an unseen ghost. Marie Elise could not settle on any words.

— She is going away. To my sister’s.

— Your sister? Where is that?

— Cité Soleil.

She gasped. You’re sending her
there
? Away from La Gonâve? Away from what she knows?

— I did not ask for
her
.

— But you got
her
mother pregnant. You left them to fend for scraps and for us to care for her and Libète while you forced your way into others’ beds, impregnating half the island! You probably gave her the illness that killed her! You stupid, selfish prick! Her rage threatened to spill over like a neglected pot of boiling water.

Limyè was not amused. He walked up to the woman, grabbed the side of her face in his right hand, and pushed her head back, forcing her to fall clattering back into the chair. Libète scurried under the table and shook like an insect waiting to be crushed.

Marie Elise, stunned, let loose a wail and Limyè shrank back, nervous about who might hear the cries.

— Shut
up!
came the Voice. I have decided already. It is best for her, and her aunt will take her.

— I’ll take her! Marie Elise shouted. Limyè, do not steal her from the only people who care for her!

This scene didn’t make sense to Libète. Leaving La Gonâve? An aunt? In Cité Soleil? Her father was as cruel as she had feared.

— It’s final. Finished. She is going by the first ferry.

— That’s in a few hours!

— She’s only here to collect her things.

— You can’t do this!

— I can.

— I won’t let you!

His eyes flashed, body rigid and inflexible. He held out his massive hand, index finger pointed right between her eyes.

— Woman, if you say another word I
will
break your jaw. The girl is leaving. If you want to help, gather her things. Otherwise, go. I’ll take her to meet the taptap.

Marie Elise bit her lip but failed to stifle her tears. Libète began crying too.

Limyè stepped outside to wait.

— You two have fifteen minutes, he called. The truck will be here in twenty. He sat on his parked motorcycle and lit a cigarette.

Marie Elise staggered about the small quarters in disbelief. She scoured for something in which to place Libète’s things, settling on a burlap sack. She filled it with the few clothes and possessions she could fit: underpants, a dress, two T-shirts, a small mirror, a carved wooden cross mounted on the wall, and two bananas for Libète to eat on the journey. She pulled Libète from under the table and took her outside. The girl fought her grip.

— Please, no, no, no, please no, don’t make me go, Marie Elise, please I’m so afraid, please no—

— My dear girl, you must be strong. I do not want this for you, but you must stand tall for your mother, and for me.

Libète was crushed. It was final, then. Fighting more was too exhausting a prospect, and she wept bitterly.

Marie Elise took her out to the motorcycle by the hand, helping boost her up onto the back of the bike as her tears flowed. Marie Elise placed the full bag between Libète’s front and Limyè’s back before he kicked the moto to a start, revved the engine twice, gave a disingenuous thank you to the woman, and set off.

— Libète, Marie Elise called out, almost inaudible over the bike’s roar. Know that you were, and are, loved greatly!

**

They met the pickup at its stop. Libète boarded dutifully, climbing in the truck bed to join an older man outfitted in a dignified suit and a peasant woman with a white T-shirt, headscarf, and colorful skirt to match. The three were the first passengers.

Limyè spoke with the driver and made arrangements for him to purchase Libète’s ferry ticket upon reaching the dock. He then turned to her, sitting on her sack and against the back of the cab. He spoke quietly so the others couldn’t overhear.

— I’m sorry for your mother, and for sending you away. I do not want you to suffer here and your aunt will take care of you, give you clothes, send you to school, that kind of thing. It will be better.