GONAIVES HAITI
Nous ne vivons pas ici – nous existons – nous existons comme les chiens, “We do not live here – we exist – we exist like dogs,” observed Josef, more to himself than to the other men as he quietly finished his ten-hour work day. He squatted down to rest, before starting his four-mile cycle ride home.
His lean, muscular body was taut. His ebony skin glistened with the sweat sucked from his pores by the relentless heat and sun that had beaten down on him throughout the day. The beads of moisture had joined to form two rivulets that trickled between his eyes. They slowly followed the outline of his chiseled nose, coming to rest on the up-curve of his lips. He lifted the ends of his T-shirt and wiped his face with slow, deliberate strokes.
Comme les chiens, “Like dogs,” he quietly repeated. He thought of his work week – blisters, muscle strain, and a few miserable gourdes. Enough for food, which was plentiful. Never enough to get ahead and rise out of the poverty that seemed to be his lot. His cycle ride home in the dark was filled with anxiety. A meek man who always traveled unarmed, he was prey to the gangs who made their meager living by despoiling others.
Tonight he was lucky and made it home unscathed. He shared the cluster of shanties he called home with an assortment of relatives: his aging mother, a brother and sister-in-law, and their three children. The compound consisted of a jumble of low-slung wooden buildings in a yard fenced with sheets of corrugated iron. He arrived to find the family sitting and chatting around the glowing embers of the charcoal fire on which they had cooked their supper of rice and plantain. They usually ate together outside under the shade of the mango tree that grew in the yard. Josef loved his family, but today his heart was heavy. He barely nodded a greeting as he slipped into his own tiny shanty that held an assortment of worn and tattered books in the small cabinet, his only piece of furniture. He lit his paraffin lamp, and took out a large black-bound Bible, his constant companion for the past five years. Tonight he chose a passage that always salved his weary heart. He sat back on his heels and intoned the verses with fervor.
Le Seigneur est mon berger,
Je ne manque de rien.
Sur de frais herbages, Il me fait coucher;
Près des eaux du repos, Il me mene,
Il me ranime….
“The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He maketh me lie down, in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth….”
A cockroach scurried across the floor and disappeared under his bedroll. The distraction was enough for him to reflexively lurch forward and slam the bedroll with the palm of his hand, dropping the Bible in the process. He slowly lifted the cotton batting to check his accuracy and found the flattened remains of the cockroach on the dirt floor, its smeared innards impressed on the cotton batting. Josef grinned, picked up the Bible, reverently kissed its outer cover, and put it back in the cabinet. He carefully moved the cabinet to one side and lifted the reed mat on which it had stood. Underneath was a coffee jar, sunk in the dirt. He lifted it out and counted the contents – twenty five hundred Haitian dollars, about five hundred U.S. dollars. After five years of scrimping and saving, he finally had enough to get illegal passage to the States. Tomorrow he would get a tap-tap to Cape Haitien and catch the next boat taking illegal immigrants to the U.S.
CHAPTER 2
“I hope you’re ready for this, Elizabeth Bourke,” she said aloud to herself as she folded the letter. It was the sixth time she had read it.
Dear Mrs. Bourke:
The Ministry of Education for the Eastern Islands is pleased to offer you a teaching position. (She could recite each phrase by heart if necessary) We anticipate your arrival on September 6th 1996. (The day after tomorrow) The terms of your contract are ...
(Barely enough to get by on in Canada)
Two years ago she would have been really excited. Now she was not so sure.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Was that tired-looking forty–year–old face really hers? Those slow and brooding hazel eyes? She sighed, turned and looked out the window, surveying the empty pasture. The wild prairie grass was now coarse and stringy as it took on its autumn hues of brown and ochre. The clumped patches of uneaten vegetation were tell- tale signs of its former inhabitants: well-fed horses, who avoided manure-tainted forage. There was clarity in the air, suggestive of early snow. Images of snowdrifts and sagging fence wire flashed through her mind’s eye. She shifted her attention to the yard.
It was bare and free of clutter. The auction had made a clean sweep of the assembled pieces of garden and stable equipment that she and Matt had accumulated over the years. The once productive garden was now matted with vegetable debris. The raspberry bushes still flourished. They were the only evidence of the hours of laughter, work, squabbling, and love the two of them had shared. She twisted her plain gold wedding band and removed it, twirling it between her fingers with reverence and love.
“I wish you were coming, Matt,” she said softly. She went into the living room and curled up on a well-worn sectional, the one remaining piece of furniture. She looked around the bare room. The blank walls stared back at her. Smudges and marks recorded the minor altercations that had occurred over the years. The space felt hollow and empty. Not much living being done in this room anymore. A flood of emotion engulfed her. She cried. Loud and cathartic at first, then quietly, wet, salty tears washing down her cheeks. The flash flood had overcome her practiced defenses, had overflowed and eroded through scar tissue. She was not yet healed. When it finally subsided, she lay limp and lifeless, a spent salmon after spawning. She fell asleep.
He came to her in her sleep. Slipped in beside her. They nestled together in an S, gently jostled with each other as they had done for the past twenty years. Then they lay together motionless like a well-fitting glove. She was awakened by the ringing of the phone. He had already left. She was on her own again. It was the estate agent. All the papers had been signed; the sale was final. She would come and collect the keys later that afternoon.
At the airport, she had clung to her daughter while she issued a string of advice.
Finally, Michelle had broken from her mother’s clasp. “Mom, I’m almost nineteen. I’m a lazy bum, but I’ll survive. I’ve got it all figured out. I’m going to live on subs all week and make a heaping great pot of spaghetti and sauce at the weekends. Then, when I come and visit you at Christmas, you can indulge me with all my favorite dishes – deal?”
“Deal.”
Now the small twin-engine airplane swooped low over a sea of aquamarine and deep blue, startlingly clear and visible. As they approached St. Georges, Elizabeth spotted a wrecked wooden sailing sloop. She wondered how long the ancient vessel had been perched on the reef.