Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti (51 page)

All eyes on the dock turned to the woman being pulled away. From the sellers to the linemen and sailors on nearby boats, all simply stood watching this abduction play out.
They know what’s happening. They’ve seen this happen before.

Libète was torn herself, frozen in her indecision. She could rush onto the ferry to evade her pursuer, or run to aid the Nurse. Both were bad choices.

— Someone do something! she screamed. Someone help her!

The Nurse fought, and fought hard, but was soon overcome by her abductor. Still no one moved.

Libète ran onto the ship and wove in and out of the passengers. Her pursuer shouted after her, telling her to stop and ordering those on board to halt her, to take her, to hold her.

None did. They simply stood, gawking as the scene played out before them.

Libète tried to watch while gaining ground, running along the wide deck till she reached an iron stairwell to the upper level. Her pursuer grew closer but struggled to pass through the deck’s crowded spectators. It looked like some purposely obstructed the path.

Once on the top deck, Libète spared several seconds to look out and see what had become of the Nurse. The captor continued to hit her, beating her into the ground.

— Do something, someone, Libète entreated. Please!

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement, one of the machann women who sold food to travelers from her stall. Libète turned back to see her pursuer closing in, about to scale the stairs himself.

She looked about for a weapon and tore into a nearby bag of onions left unattended. She took them in turn, taking careful aim at the man as he ascended the stairs, missing with her first volley. He was nearing the top, and she re-armed herself frantically. She threw again, this time connecting hard with the man’s head, and he struggled to keep his balance. She wasted no time. Rushing over before he had time to react, she kicked his face, sending him crashing back to the bottom of the staircase where he hit his head hard.

She checked on her friend. To her surprise, she saw the vendor berating the captor as he wailed upon the Nurse, cursing him and spitting at him.

— She is a healer, the lone vendor yelled. And you beat her! That woman has treated me! She has cared for me! Don’t you hit her again! Don’t you do it, you dog!

The man kept pummeling the poor nurse, who still struggled valiantly to resist. Other women dropped what they were doing, overcoming their spectator’s inhibition to join their friend in opposing the abuse.

— Help her! Libète shouted. Help her! Don’t let them do this!

Others joined, men too, shouting at the man until he realized that an angry mob had surrounded him. A sudden lurch shook all the passengers. The ferry had begun moving, pulling away from the dock in order to escape the gathering storm.

Similar things now befell Libète’s own pursuer. Passengers had encircled the man, still reeling from his fall. They lifted him up and tossed him overboard, cheering as they did so. Others all over the ferry erupted in cheers at the move before everyone shuffled and moved throughout the boat, hoping none of Dumas’ loyal spies noted their defiance.

Shocked, Libète turned again to watch as the crowd on land led entirely by women began to assail the dock-side attacker. They pulled at his clothes and yanked his hair until he fell to the ground, struck down by their blows.

Moments later, the ship still pulling away, she saw some of the crowd had extricated the battered nurse from the mess and moved her to a white speedboat used for passage between La Gonâve and the mainland. She moved to the back of the ferry to watch more closely, wondering what they were doing with her.

— They’re taking her away, getting her out of here, one of the passengers standing next to her remarked.

A few men on the dock began pooling their money, emptying their pockets.

— What are they doing? Libète asked.

— They’re paying her way! said another, a middle-aged woman. That’s wise. She’ll have no place on the island now. Dumas would get her anywhere she’d go, that’s for sure.

— That won’t work. Dumas has his men on the other side, too. They’ll be waiting.

— The coast is long. They won’t be so stupid as to drop her at the pier, the woman retorted. The first passenger gave an acquiescing nod.

— But that leaves you, said the woman, looking warily at Libète. You’re going to have to get off this boat without them catching you.

Libète looked up and then around at the others on the upper deck. She noticed for the first time that all their eyes now lay nervously upon her.

The truck shoots down the narrow road toward the gunfire. She is driving fast, too fast for one who has never before sat in the driver’s seat.

Bondye, protect me, she says aloud. Jezi, help me to stop this before another life is taken. Bondye, protect me…she says again, over and over.

Tires set ablaze form a line blocking the road ahead, and muzzle flashes illuminate two listless bodies upon the ground. She slows, swerving to avoid them. Looming large and with sweeping floodlights, she sees two of MINUSTAH’s hulking armored vehicles stationed around the bend. Soldiers peek out of the top, firing machine guns indiscriminately into the hastily constructed roadblock and houses, the two sources of opposing fire.

A bullet collides with the front end of the truck with a deadening thump. More soon follow and Libète ducks.
They think
  
I’m more
  
police coming to fight!

She slams the brakes down. Without a seat belt, she’s thrown forward into the steering wheel and reels for a moment as the truck screeches and veers to the right. Dazed, a thought shoots through her mind, cutting through her immobilizing fear.
Get out!

She pops the lock on the door and rolls out of the truck and onto the ground. Even though stopped, the vehicle’s transmission makes it creep forward at a lurch, drawing more fire from the youth on its slow advance. She crawls away as it presses weakly against the wall of a nearby house, its engine sputtering and whining before finally succumbing to the damage.

Libète had already pulled herself up from the ground and dashed behind a wall, hearing at least two shots narrowly miss her. She peeked out from behind her cover to survey the scene.

The other police truck, the one she had heard was ambushed, had been repositioned in the middle of the road. Other debris and tires, lit and burning brilliantly with their ebony smoke billowing sky high, were packed tight with the shot-up truck, creating a bottleneck that the two U.N. vehicles could not easily navigate away from. By crashing her own truck, Libète had inadvertently blocked the road from the other direction and the foreign troops were effectively corralled.

Libète tried to gather what MINUSTAH’s targets were. The main one seemed the barricade itself. The machine-gunners were high enough up on the vehicles that they could shoot at and over the improvised wall so that anyone trying to retreat would surely be shot in the back. Their other target was a nearby house that Libète saw gunfire spray from in spurts, peppering the broadsides of the trapped vehicles. Troops fired back through narrow slots in the side of the vehicles’ armor, just wide enough for their guns’ barrels to protrude.

Libète cursed to herself.
How to stop this?
She ran around the house she hid behind, passing through back alleyways until she worked her way to the house in which the young fighters were holed up. She could hear guns firing from inside and knocked hard on a locked back door.

— Open up! she called. I need protection!

The door popped open an inch. What are you doing here? said the voice coming from the inside floor. Libète squinted, looking down and trying to make out the speaker. The room was faintly lit by a flashlight pointing upward in the corner of the room.

— Bondye! Davidson? Is that you?

She already knew the answer to her question. Unbelievably, her cousin lay prone on the floor, cowering in his stained and torn campaign clothes. There were two others also on the ground at the front of the house, taking turns putting their guns up to the iron barred windows and firing blindly at MINUSTAH without exposing themselves. The high-caliber bullets had ripped through the brick and plaster at the front of the house, filling the room with a haze of thick dust.

The door opened a little more. We were hoping for more men! Davidson shouted, more guns, more ammo! Touss was supposed to—

A bullet ricocheted and made him flinch, prompting Libète to drop to the ground herself.

— You’ve got to listen to me!

— I don’t have time for this!

— It’s all a fraud! You’ve all been set up by Touss and Benoit, sacrificed for their sake.

— What? I told you I can’t listen to your shit now!

— Shut up! she shouted. You are going to die for
nothing
if you don’t leave now. Tell the others, this is your chance to escape.

— We can’t! We’ve got to draw their fire away from the barricade or else those guys are dead!

— How many are back there?

— Living? I don’t know. It started out with twenty but as soon as they saw what they were up against, most deserted. Probably just a few now.

Libète let out a string of profanities.

— It was going well until Touss got hit.

— Touss is dead?

— I don’t know. More bullets tearing into the house interrupted them. Maybe. He was running around, like a crazy man, like he was invincible. He’s bleeding out there. We can see him from the front.

— Davidson, I’m begging you. This has to stop, and you can help end it by leaving.

She could see in her cousin’s eyes that he wanted to flee. But what can we do? Our friends are trapped back there—Yves even! He and I—we were assigned to be point men for this ambush because we knew Bwa Nèf best.

— You two are idiots! You lured the cops here and brought this to our home?

— I know, but—

More bullets pierced the walls, breaking through the cement brick like it was cardboard.

— Shit, shit, shit! one of the gunmen shouted from the front of the house. I’m shot!

— This has to stop, Davidson. Before any more die!

— What are we going to do with you? says the middle-aged woman, the words falling slowly like water dripping from a faucet.

All who watch the girl are quiet, the dull rumbling of the ferry’s engines filling the gap. No one else on the boat speaks—Dumas’ eyes and ears could be anywhere.

— Turn her over to them, said one voice. We don’t need this trouble.

— How can you say that? said a man in rounded glasses and a sport coat. She’s a small girl. Would you give over your daughter to them?

— She’s not my daughter, sneered the first.

Libète clung to her black plastic bag, holding it tight.

— Hide her, said another, someone unseen from the nearby staircase. Sneak her off the ferry.

— Yes, we must protect her, said an old man.

— Dumas will find a way to get her and we’ll all be in trouble. I’m telling you, this is a bad idea, said the dissenter.

— And it’s a bad idea for you to say another word, snapped the middle-aged woman. Or you’ll find yourself overboard with the other one.

She was tall and looked down at Libète from high up, like she was rummaging in Libète’s soul to see what she’d find, to see if the risk was worth it.

— No, we can’t hide her, the woman said. Everyone here will know where she is and someone — she glowered at the dissenter — would surely tell them.

Libète’s heart sunk low.

— No, the girl will walk off this boat with the rest of us.

Hope sprung up in Libète, but the woman’s idea was met with an uneasy silence.

— You know why? the woman said, louder than before. We saw what happens back there when we stand together. Instead of them pushing us around, we can push
them
around. Because we are
strong.
Because we are a
force
. Dumas cripples us all with fear. I don’t want to let him do it any longer.
We
can’t let him do it any longer.

— There’s good reason to fear! said a new voice.