Dany Laferriere - The World is Moving Around Me - A Memoir of the Haiti Earthquake

The Return

My sister called to say that Aunt Renée had died. I bought a plane ticket to Port-au-Prince for the next day. I moved from the virtual to the real. From the TV bombarding me with images to reality into which I sink like quicksand. My heart stops as we land. Loads of American planes on the runway, as if the country were occupied. Out of the window, I see blue tents just about everywhere. People won’t stay in houses that might be dangerously weakened. If they have to sleep inside, they leave their doors open and their belongings close at hand. They’re ready to run at the slightest alert. The fear of being caught in their sleep by a strong tremor has made them as nervous as a sprinter waiting for the gun in the race of his life. It would be too simple if they had to worry only about saving their own lives, but there are kids, the sick, and old people. The city’s eyes are red from lack of sleep. Still, I expected the population to be more impatient. But here I am, in a city of calm.

The Last Doctor

I watch my mother putting the utensils back on the shelves. The tablecloths in the drawers. The baskets, blue and pink plastic, carefully lined up on the counter. She insists on doing the household chores even though she has a wound on her right leg that won’t heal. Her doctor died in the earthquake, and she needs a new one fast. It’s not easy, since everyone wants an appointment. People injured in the earthquake have priority, especially those in danger for their lives. Last month, so many arms and legs were amputated that could have been saved in other circumstances. Now, people are afraid of this bush medicine where everything is done at top speed. At the beginning, there weren’t enough drugs, especially antibiotics, and doctors feared gangrene like the plague. A good number of Haitian doctors became unavailable; their own families needed their help. Then there were the ones who were injured or killed. What can you do but turn to Jesus, the only real doctor, as my mother says, whose clinic is open day and night. It’s remarkable that Haitians aren’t cursing God for this endless river of misfortune. Are they too weak or too resigned to find the energy to shake their fists at the sky? They do it sometimes, in their way. My sister told me that one of her girlfriends, who used to go to mass with her every morning, hasn’t gone since January 12. “Why not?” my sister wanted to know. “It’s up to Jesus to come and visit me — he needs to ask forgiveness.” That made everyone laugh but my mother.

The Energy of Things

In this city, people bring everything outside every day. Since every house is also a store, in the morning they set out the merchandise on the sidewalk. When evening comes, they bring it all back in. They even bring in the counters on which the merchandise is displayed. It’s amazing to see how many things can be stowed in a tiny house. In the empty streets at night, all you come across are large skeletal dogs.

A Feminine Universe

It took four heart attacks to kill Aunt Renée. The woman looked so frail, but she resisted and fought till the end. She always did her exercises until she was physically unable to. Nothing that happened in the house escaped her radar. Often, in the afternoon, she would sit on the gallery with my mother. Now my mother seems more fragile than ever. Over the last years, I’ve lost three of my four aunts. Of the women, only the youngest is left, Aunt Ninine, and the eldest, my mother. I told Aunt Ninine that a duel was brewing between her and my mother, between the youngest and the oldest. My joke turned Aunt Ninine gloomy. Of all my aunts, Renée was the most secretive.

The Guilty Party

My sister, my mother, and I slept on the gallery. Last month, the women were sleeping on mattresses in the yard. They suspect that’s what finished off Aunt Renée. That, and the lack of care. Before the earthquake, medicine was hard to find. When you went to the hospital, you had to bring your own. In this country, you don’t go there until the pain becomes unbearable. Otherwise, you don’t consider yourself sick. It’s better not to be sick if you can’t pay for the medicine. That way, you go from being in good health to being dead. Illness is a luxury you can’t afford if you don’t have the means. So you die without ever having been sick. Death is always sudden. Since that kind of death has no scientific explanation, it becomes mysterious. Finally, we have a guilty party: the earthquake. On its slate, besides all those who perished in the rubble, we should add everyone who died from lack of medical care. The months following the event were so hard that people died of hunger and cold. The nights weren’t warm enough for frail constitutions. Like Aunt Renée’s.

On the Gallery

Yesterday evening, my mother’s face was dark with sadness. Her foot had swelled up again. I put her legs on a pile of pillows and went and sat on Aunt Renée’s narrow bed. My mother closed her eyes. She’s not afraid of pain; immobility is what frightens her. She’s never stood still in her life. I did what I do every time: I slipped a 100 -gourde note under Aunt Renée’s pillow. My mother opened her eyes, saw me, and smiled. The last time I was in this room with Aunt Renée, my nephew came and got her for her bath. She lay light and smiling in his arms. Once so prudish, she wasn’t afraid to be seen naked. I heard voices. My female cousins had arrived to discuss the funeral. We sat on the gallery. Should there be a mass in Creole, French, or even Latin? My mother came out and joined us. One of my cousins insisted on Latin because it’s more prestigious. But the choir was quickly rejected because it’s too expensive. We decided a soloist would do just as well. There’s one woman who sings very well, but her price is out of reach. One of my cousins went to school with her younger sister. We quickly gave up on that idea because, ever since she’s become a star, the TV follows her everywhere. Impossible to imagine a camera at Aunt Renée’s funeral — she who, all her life, avoided making any noise at all. My sister thought that discussing these kind of details was too painful when people were still searching for their families in the wreckage. One of my cousins replied that the earthquake didn’t kill Aunt Renée, and that my sister shouldn’t mix things up. My mother, her eyes still closed, began to murmur Aunt Renée’s favorite prayer: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” I remember the intensity with which Aunt Renée would say “and delivereth them.”

A Young Christ

A large portrait of Christ on the gallery. It hung in my brother-in-law’s school that collapsed in the earthquake. While he was transporting everything he could save in a truck, the portrait dropped onto the street. Someone found it and took it home. A passerby told my brother-in-law what had happened and pointed out the person’s house. It took a lot of negotiations to get the portrait back. My mother has always liked this particular portrait of Jesus with his clear eyes and little pink mouth. Wavy hair cascading to his shoulders. His well-tended beard, strangely split in the middle. The index finger of his right hand strokes a flaming heart girdled by a crown of thorns. A soothing light forms the background. My mother looks that way every time she sits on the gallery.

The Street-Corner Prophet

Just about everyone wakes up together in Port-au-Prince with the early morning sun. I go and brush my teeth in the yard. A light breeze carries an aroma of coffee. My sister wants to go food shopping, and I go along. People still greet one another like before, despite the trials of daily life. They sleep next to their houses. I see tents everywhere. A group of young students chatting under a tree. Everyone else hurrying to work. The camp on my left occupies a soccer field. Already sweating, adults emerge from the tents, holding the hands of their children swathed in colorful uniforms. Well-groomed, white socks, and polished shoes. Two men prepare to cross the street with a mattress on their heads. My sister slows to let them go by. This is new, I say to her; people never used to brake for pedestrians. My sister smiles. Red light. A man next to the car is shouting: we haven’t seen anything yet, the end of days is near. Only the blind can’t see the signs. A man walking by asks him ironically what the next step is going to be. A tsunami, he says very seriously. But before that, he adds, we’ll have another earthquake two times stronger and three times longer than the last one, and it’ll knock everything down and help the tsunami wipe out all trace of our existence here. This land doesn’t belong to us. We’re just renters. The owner lives upstairs, he says, pointing to the sky. And he’s disappointed with our behavior. Instead of thanking him, all we do is fornicate and backbite. We don’t have to pay rent; all he asks of us is to recognize him as our Lord and God. Instead we’re too busy worshiping the Golden Calf. A few people stop to listen to him, mostly women. Green light. The car pulls away, leaving the prophet to gesticulate under the lamp post.