There is a Land (A Libète Limyè Mystery) (23 page)

And then there is Laurent.

He and Libète rarely talk. He moves mostly from his bedroom to a locked hallway chamber that he enters and exits discreetly, often in an alcoholic fog. Libète notices him swim in the ocean early every morning for a half hour as she is going to sleep, and this timing is unfortunate. Laurent is most sober when he exits the water, and yet they never cross at these times.

Few requests are made of Libète–the maid tends to most matters of cleaning, though Laurent insists that he, Jak, and Libète eat dinner together. Libète assumes this is some vestigial habit from his own troubled upbringing in the Martinette home, and after protesting at first, she now suffers through it night after night. The meal is inevitably takeout from the corner restaurant, and their menu was already growing stale. At first the three would sit in silence around the table, the tension thick, but this unnerved Jak. Often he begins repeating trivia he’s learned from haphazard explorations of Wikipedia or his reading of the day’s news.

— Martelly got a new law passed. And there’s word overdue elections will finally be scheduled.

Tines pierced food.

Jak sighed, trying again. I found out how gold is pulled from mining tailings. Small operations use mercury, but big operations use cyanide to attract metallic molecules . . .

Knives scraped against plates.

Jak looked at chunks of
tassot
on his plate, searching for a topic that might inspire these two to talk. How is your writing going, Mèt Martinette?

— His name is Laurent. He’s not your professor.

Laurent eyed Libète. She’s right. I’ve told you. No need for honorifics here.

Jak nodded twice, beaming inwardly at the meager success of getting them both to speak.

— My writing. It’s . . . slow. Words flow, but they’re not particularly good. They invariably end up in the wastebasket. He tapped his finger and his knife bobbed in his hand. She looked him in the eye.

— That’s something new.

— What?

She spun her fork in the air, looking for the right word. Humility.

He raised his bottled soda in a salute.

— What are you writing about, anyway? She asked.

— My volume is entitled
The
Impossibility of Democracy in Haiti
.

She couldn’t help but snort. Really?

He took another bite. Really. It’s a survey of the politics since Duvalier left, and a forecast for the future.

— You make it sound like it’s a story with an ending. Democracy, true democracy in Haiti, hasn’t had a chance. Coups, outside interference. Haiti is moving forward whether you like it or not.

Laurent balked. Why? Because you say so? Because of your pretend legislature that trots out the same empty rhetoric I’ve heard since before Duvalier fell? The political game is set and rigged in favor of the powerful. They will never let the masses govern Haiti, not ever.

— So it should be allowed to remain that way? You’re resigned to it? You sound just like the elite you accuse. Obtuse, paternalistic, pessimistic–

— I write from a bottom-up perspective, my dear. Though I applaud your vocabulary’s reach.

— How can you purport to speak with such a voice?

He slapped his forehead. If only I’d asked you before writing three hundred pages on the subject! You could have saved me some grief! He took a swig of Coke. The system is fundamentally unjust. I’m merely calling it as it is, not peering out through rose-colored glasses. Hope is gone–nothing can be created from nothing.

They sat in silence.

— I’d like to read it, Jak said. It sounds . . . challenging.

— Why, thank you, Jak.

— I wouldn’t touch it.

— Thank you, Liberté. He always used the French pronunciation of her name.

— Eskize m. She pushed her chair out and left, ascending the stairs.

— They’re your dishes to do this evening, Laurent called, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice.

A door slammed.

— I can do them, Mèt Martinette, Jak said.

Laurent looked at the boy, lips scrunched. I seem to have forgotten that Coca-Cola, in its essential state, does not contain a drop of alcohol. He slid away from the table, on toward the bar in the kitchen.

Jak gnawed his meat in silence. It was tough, and a bit of fat stuck in his teeth that no amount of his tongue’s prodding could remove.

Libète comes upon the fortress as the Sun slides down and the day pales.

Magdala had prepared a special meal following the Sunday morning baptismal service, featuring tassot. The beef tasted delicious going down and brought to mind the past. Remembering was the opposite of what she’d longed for today.

— You there? Libète called to the old stones.

— I am, came the feeble call back.

— You didn’t come.

— I didn’t.

She grumbled but climbed the small mount anyway. She passed under the main arch and saw Félix reclining. She didn’t look at him. In fact, she looked everywhere besides at him and withdrew an old, loose-leaf page.

— What is that?

— A page.

— From what? He held the paper up close to his eyes, reading the header.
Bib La
, he said. The Bible? Where did you find this? Her mind flitted to the priest and the heavy, aged book in his hands. When she first met Jak in Cité Soleil, all those years before, he had some similarly plucked pages.

— The owner wasn’t using it, she said. So I borrowed it. For practice.

Félix began to read slowly where the page was marked:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

They sat with the words, and she wondered if they might be true, and if true, trustworthy.

— I thought you said you and God are done with each other.

She coughed. Folded the page. Sat up.

— I did.

She had taken this scripture on purpose. In the past it had been a comfort. She thought the words might spark some fleeting sense of faith, as had the confirmation, but it was as if the black text was engulfed by the page’s yellow. Like an incantation that had lost its magic.

— I did, she repeated. She reached for his wrist to place the page into his hand, but instead gave a shout.

— Bondye! What happened? She noticed his palm was wrapped in a strip of cloth darkened by drying blood. She began to unwrap it, and he let her.

— An accident. In the fields. With my
machet
.

It was a nasty cut, wide and deep. She noticed the remains of a shirt on the ground, streaked with mud and blood. I stumbled and rolled down the slope. I tried to grab for something and caught my blade.

Her upper lip curled. Maybe punishment for working on the Sabbath?

— Maybe.

— You know, if you had come to my confirmation, maybe this wouldn’t have–

He tensed. Why would I go to an empty ceremony? You playing some part for all the world when you don’t even believe the words? You don’t mess with that stuff. God doesn’t.

She dropped his hand. Her face soured. Machete, eh? You slipped. You fell. I bet you were there again. On the other side of the ridge. Weren’t you? Watching them and their silly little dig and dreaming up all manner of evils!

— They have more machines there. They have big buckets with teeth, tearing at the earth. And they’re hiding it all with their tarps. They’ve even built some kind of shed.

— You and this land. It’s an obsession!

He bristled.

— Look at you, Félix! Wasting your life in this forsaken place. Why haven’t you gone the same way as the others your age who left Foche long ago? You’re smart. You could go anywhere and
chache lavi
. Cap-Haïtien. Port-au-Prince. You have a keen mind. A strong body. You could make something of yourself. Instead you lurk about with ideas of conspiracy bouncing around the insides of your hollow head.

— Why do you care what I do?

— If you have gifts you should use them! For others! To make a difference!

— We disagree. About what a difference is. When I work in the fields, when I coax and strain and struggle–and there is food I can eat, from my own hand, that gives me life, gives others life–

— You’re such a peyizan, a peasant. She said it like a slur. A world, out there, where you’re free to walk and you just let its good go unexperienced and its bad unrighted! Instead you hold onto Foche when it wants nothing to do with you.

— You don’t know what it is to be committed to a place. To a piece of the earth. You’ve never fought for a place.

If he only knew the foolishness of what he says.
She felt anger prickle behind her eyes, followed by her heart’s rising beat that muddled her thinking.

He continued. I say yet again: if you feel so strongly about insulting my home, then maybe you should go.

— But you know
I can’t!

— With you, all I know is how much I
don’t
know. Confirmed for a lie? Who you are, the real you? That’s the question I keep asking.

When she returned to the Dieudonné home the sky was purple with pillared clouds rising across the land. Libète could see a low light inside the house.

Why do I even bother with him?

Libète knew she could tell Magdala and Félix at least some of the truth. But when she had lost control of nearly every aspect of her life, holding tight to her secrets was her only consolation.

She and Félix had tried to calm down from their heated words but their tempers simmered too close to a boil. She left the ripped, worthless page with him and promised to bring back a balm from his mother. Infection was an inevitability with a cut like his.

— Madmwazel! Sophia! The voice came from the side, near the sentry tree. She squinted and saw that there, behind Saint-Pierre, stood a man. It was Jeune. He smoked a cob pipe.

She instantly transformed, hiding behind a smile.

— Ah! Bonswa, mesye. You’re here? Gracing our home?

His smile was wide and too practiced.

— I am. I came to congratulate you. You’re one with us now.

Magdala poked her head out of the house. Do you need food, Jeune?

No, no, just a few words of congratulation for the one set aside for God. Magdala nodded and went back inside.

He turned to Libète. Will you walk with me?

She wanted to scream, “No!” Of course, she said.

They began to stroll away from the house. Out of Magdala’s earshot, Libète was sure.

— So you’re a woman of letters, eh?

Libète inclined her head. I’ve never learned to read, mesye. Not even letters. I can only sign my name.

— Is that why you stole pages from Reginald’s Bible?

— You’re mistaken. I merely looked at the written word. It’s unbelievable to me that such beauty as what the preacher says can be in such strange shapes and lines. I took nothing.

He bit his lip, sucked his teeth, and looked at the vast mountain range before them.
I know you are all lies,
he whispered, still facing the sky
. And I
will
know who you are and why you’re really here.

Blood shot to her cheeks. She turned to walk away, and he grabbed her wrist.

Libète bristled. Take your hand off me or you’ll find a stump in its place, she said sweetly.

He smiled, tight and wide. He loosed his grip, and let her go.