God Loves Haiti (9780062348142) (2 page)

Go away!

Natasha, it's OK.

Go away!

Shhhhh,
chérie, Calme-toi
.

Go!

Ça va. Ça va
. I'm here.

With wild eyes, Natasha turned around to see the face of the man who was rescuing her. It was the president of Haiti, her husband. His clothes were wrinkled and ashy with dust. Yet he looked good . . . not good, but almost. He looked younger than his sixty years, young and fresh. His arms were unusually strong. He held her. He held her. He held her like he never did before. In the past, when he'd try to hold her, she used to wince. In the palace, in his bedroom, anywhere. The few times they'd touched, he was rough or scared. A bundle of nerves. He might have been a virgin before they made love. If she didn't want to protect his pride, she would have asked him. Protecting his pride. That's what she felt her role in his life was to do.
She thought that's why God had brought her into his life. So she could care for a man in need, an old man triple her age who had outgrown the pretense of invincibility men Natasha's age cling to. Natasha could care for someone instead of waiting for a prince charming to take care of her. Lord knew she benefited from the distraction.

Back then, sculpting crucifixes made of trash and assorted debris along Avenue Lamartinière was all that kept her busy. She sculpted morning, noon, and night. It was an obsession. They were pretty and funky, the crucifixes. She liked them and occasionally carved smiles and frowns and, controversially, glee in the dying Jesuses' faces. She sculpted Christ on his cross in different sizes, colors, and materials, and she put them up against walls with the help of strangers and kids. At some locations, folks were inspired to light candles on the ground near her crucifixes. She'd hang back and enjoy the serenity of the scene. Fireflies would come around to dance with the flames. Sometimes people took the crucifixes down overnight. Often they stayed up for days, even weeks. Whenever they disappeared, Natasha hoped they ended up in places of pride, in a family's shack or a villa in the hills. That's how she came to meet the President.

How much do you want for that one? a voice said to her one night. She was standing on the street admiring a particularly cheerful rusty expiring Jesus. This Christ was particularly heavy. The two boys who had been assisting her, Toto and Rodrigue, were exhausted. It was late; the
black night's chill drew close. The voice belonged to a dapper little old man leaning against a black Mercedes flanked by four armed men dressed in black and two smaller Asian soldiers wearing blue helmets that were a size too big.

It's not for sale, she said.

Is that a political decision? the old man said. Because there were five of them being sold in front of my house this week.

Really? she said. That's not supposed to happen. They're not for sale. They are gifts to the community. Where do you live?

The National Palace, he said.

Natasha took a step back.

S
he proved to be a lousy girlfriend and wife, but she tried hard to protect his feelings as best she could. His work was difficult and he was terrible at it. He let her sit in on meetings in his office at the National Palace. And what she saw and heard was not pretty. Just a couple of weeks ago, on January 1, Haitian Independence Day, he had to postpone attending his nation's birthday celebration at the National Cathedral because of a last-minute summons from someone called the special envoy. The special envoy worked on a military base. It was near the national airport, on the road to Tabarre. She never saw such a base before. The entrance was six meters from
the street. African and Asian and Latino soldiers wearing blue helmets stood guard in front of the entrance. The base's walls were painted off-white and sky blue. The walls were tall and topped with brand-new and thick barbwire that sparkled in the sun. The creamy blue wall with its crown of metal thorns stretched as far up the street as Natasha could see. Across the street, young men and women stood by booths, selling trinkets and artifacts of the folksy kind aimed at tourists. White Range Rovers, military buses, and trucks with the letters “U” and “N” painted black on their doors streamed in and out of the base. The base looked like a world unto its own, Natasha thought. How could such a military base with its posh and mysterious ecology hide in plain sight in the middle of Port-au-Prince?

The President had to show ID to get in. Twice. After the car glided through the hive of military activity, they reached a leafy street. The man they had come to see greeted the President and the first lady near a garden outside his office. He had silver hair, a pointy nose, and white hairy eyebrows reminiscent of Santa Claus, and he wore a tie, a tan suit, and brown shoes. He spoke Spanish to a well-dressed and fresh-faced assistant on his right. He spoke perfect Haitian Creole to the well-dressed and fresh-faced assistant on his left. To the President, he spoke the most
chaleureuse
and mellifluent French. The man was short, shorter than the President; his enthusiastic handshake almost made the President lose his balance. After
the President introduced Natasha to him, the silver-haired man known as the special envoy bowed courteously. Then he told Natasha to wait outside. The President said nothing. He hadn't said anything since the small humiliations began piling up that morning. He seemed to have nothing to say now. He couldn't even look Natasha in the eyes, so Natasha spoke up.

It's OK, honey, she said. I need some coffee anyway. I think I saw a cafeteria around the corner.

In rapid-fire Spanish, the special envoy ordered one of his assistants to accompany Natasha.

Afterward, during the tardy ride to a ceremony in Fort Dimanche, the gulag-like prison that had emerged as a powerful symbol of the perverted form of justice occasionally practiced on the island, a heavy silence wedged the first couple apart in the presidential car. The President and his wife stared out of their respective windows, as if they were each seeing Port-au-Prince for the first time. Stray dogs, colorful shops, barefoot children, muscular men in finely pressed shirts, big-breasted women in tank tops fanning themselves, ever-present potholes, an ocean-blue sky flecked with rice-white clouds. Natasha had to cling to the handle in the car to survive the car's dips in and out of the giant potholes. With no warning, she began to sing, softly.

Hark! the herald angels sing

Glory to the newborn king

Peace on earth and mercy mild

God and sinners reconciled.

The President laughed.

Very funny, the President said.

So what gifts did the special herald come bearing for our forlorn nation-state?

The President shrugged.

Who was this special envoy anyway?

Our international banker.

What?

Look around you, Natasha. The armored car you're in is a gift from the Canadian government that no local mechanic can maintain, so the special envoy provides the mechanics. You've seen my bodyguards, right?

The President raised his voice, a rare event.

They may be Haitian, but the government doesn't pay their salaries. We can't afford to. The special envoy does. He leads something called the United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti.

Stabilize? Stabilize us from what imbalance? How exactly are they stabilizing us?

Only they know. Do you know how many soldiers work for me in the Haitian army currently?

Zero?

Zero. You know how many soldiers with blue helmets the special envoy has working for him currently in his army in your beloved pearl of the Caribbean?

No.

Twelve thousand.

No way! Twelve thousand! Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a greater armed force—

—than the national police force. I know. We have seven thousand police officers. They are poorly trained, underfinanced, and short fifteen thousand men—

—and women.

And women. Yes. A country this size should have three times more cops than it does, according to the Swedes. They tell me these stats without giving me the resources to change the situation, knowing full well we can't generate the resources on our own. For example, the international community took our army away from us years ago.

Why can't we have a new one?

The President got irritated.

We can't, OK? We can't.

Natasha grew irritated too. The car had rumbled off Boulevard Toussaint Louverture and into the Carrefour Trois Mains roundabout. She stared at the tips of the fingers on the golden statue of big hands holding a globe in the wan morning sun. The fingers were rotten with rust.

The President continued his lament.

Meanwhile, the special envoy back there has an army, a good one too. With all their small Asians, skinny Africans, and bronzing Brazilians, these blue helmets may look like a ragtag outfit. But do not underestimate them. They benefit from state-of-the-art facilities and weapons.
Stuff Haitian soldiers couldn't dream of. Most of them have seen action in some of the worst wars around the world, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo.

So now they're in big bad Haiti? Doing what? Defending us against a potential invasion of transforming warrior robot cars? Natasha sucked her teeth. You're too impressed by these foreigners and their guns and money, she said. You're not scared of them, are you?

Lower your voice, he said.

You are scared!

Let it go.

Lord have mercy, why are you scared of these people?

You don't know what you're talking, Natasha. You don't know these people.

What's to know? They spend more money on weapons than food and medicine. That says all I need to know about them. After that, what makes them special? They put their pants on one leg at a time like us. They bleed like us. Get hungry like us. One thing you have that they don't is that you are Haitian and they are not. You were democratically elected to lead this country. Twice!

You don't know what they can do, the President whispered. You don't know what they have done. You just don't know.

What don't I know?

You just don't know.

Well, tell me then.

You just don't know, he said.

Then the President began weeping. Oh Lord, Natasha thought. He had his back turned to her. The limo was dark. She noticed the smell of vanilla for the first time. Nice move, driver's wife, she thought. The President was looking at his hands. His head hung low. For once, Natasha didn't judge the old man or calibrate how she should react to him. She did what felt natural. She slid across the seat in the back of the limo and she hugged him. He embraced her with the grip of a drowning man, tearing her blouse a little. The President sobbed like a child on her shoulders. Fat tears streamed from his eyes and down her back. They gave her chills.

Sweetheart, she said, if I agree to marry you, can we leave for Italy, like we've talked about, as quickly as possible?

Yes, he said, after a pause. Thus, the rescued became the savior.

Are you sure you can walk away from the presidency?

Yes, he said. It's just a job. It's not like it was a vocation, like you and your art. This country took every ounce of everything I have for sixty years. It's past time I left it to the young turks who want to run it so badly. Like that Destiné boy.

Natasha closed her eyes. She held on to her husband with both hands. Dug her nails into his back. Her heart palpitated like a leaf in a hurricane. Alain, she thought. She bit into the President's shoulder. What will I tell Alain?

L
ess than two weeks later, the apocalypse landed on Haiti. Alain Destiné, at first, was the furthest thing from Natasha's mind. No man ever held Natasha as firmly as the President held her on the tarmac after the earthquake. Natasha had never before found herself needing to be held so much in her life. She stood in a white fog under a sad sun on a shattered airport's tarmac on a dog of an evening. She couldn't see. She couldn't hear. She couldn't understand what had happened, why everyone around her was dead or broken or bleeding. Or where her future went. She felt as though God had swept down and withdrawn all love from around her. She felt cold, man. Freezing. But here was this man, her husband, the weakest man she'd ever met. He was keeping her upright because her legs were failing her. He seemed the picture of good health. His arms felt firm, like bent steel, around her waist. The man she believed was a big baby with a job that was way too big for him was, in her most freaked-out hour, strong and confident and capable of holding her up, nursing her toward feeling confident she would actually live to find out what happened to the world.

You're alive, Natasha babbled. You're alive!

Yes, the President said, and not the worst for wear either, all things considered. Come on. You're hurt. We have to get your injuries checked out.

With alert eyes, a becalmed Natasha sat on a stretcher and drank slowly from a bottle of water. A cheery blond
medic worked on her bleeding knee and twisted ankle. Is this OK? he said very politely each time before he touched her knee. She barely spoke or understood English, but she could get his drift and nodded. A scene developed around her as a pink dusk fell on Port-au-Prince. Americans. They were everywhere. They were blond, or of African descent; some of them even were women. In her short time in the art world in Port-au-Prince, she'd already learned to tell the difference between Americans and Europeans, no matter their ethnic origin. They walked into rooms differently and made eye contact differently when they spoke, especially to locals like her. These were definitely Americans, and they were fluttering down from the sky, like dollar bills in her dreams of massive wealth. The soldiers, and these were definitely military personnel, wore airplanes on their uniforms and jumpsuits. They surrounded the President, making presentations, explaining action plans. There was a group hunched over laptops. They spoke to the heavens. They guided airplanes, helping them find landing patches on the ruined tarmac. There seemed to be a backlog of airplanes trying to land in Haiti. This scared her. She bit her lower lip.