Dany Laferriere - The Return

In a moment it will appear,

bringing the world to life as we watch,

the star that novelist Jacques Stephen Alexis

called General Sun, My Brother.

The only reason to wake up in so poor a place.

Every detail I notice

that others do not see

brings fresh proof

that I am not of this place.

I long for the coolness

of primitive dawn.

I would like to lose

all awareness

of my being

to blend

into nature

and become a leaf,

a cloud

or the yellow of the rainbow.

We piss, my nephew and I,

off the edge of the cliff.

Two continuous streams.

Pure arcs.

A slight smile on both our faces.

I hear a man singing

but do not see his face.

Someone tells us he is crippled

and never leaves his room.

A song so desperate

it has lost all humanity.

The coffee arrives. The taste of Césaire immediately comes into my mouth. Césaire who spoke of “those who explored neither the seas nor the sky but those without whom the earth would not be the earth.” Now they are walking past me, in this little market that’s slowly coming to life.

People here are not

in the habit of complaining.

They have the ability to change

all pain into song.

The tobacco the women

chew at noon

shaded by their broad hats

makes the bitter taste of life tolerable.

I slip the old water-warped copy

of Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

into my nephew’s bag.

We need it before we leave.

Not when we return.

In his own way, he seems very happy with this trip that has helped him understand the difference between the big city and peasant life. But I can feel he is beginning to miss his friends from university and wants to be back in the urban dirt and violence. That’s what he’s made of. A person doesn’t change his nature in a few days.

In the end I decide to go ahead on my own. With no other protection than the blood that runs in my veins. I give the rest of my money to Monsieur Jérôme who refuses it at first, but I convince him he will make better use of it than I. Two letters hastily scribbled on the car’s burning hood. The longest to my mother and the other to the former minister who willingly let me use his car. A final hug for my nephew and I climb into this shuddering jalopy, with my black hen as sole companion. Destination Baradères, my father’s native village.

I watch the Buick 57 pull away in a small cloud of dust as I negotiate the fare with the driver. You were in good company, he tells me with a conspiratorial smile. My nephew and the minister’s chauffeur. That’s what you think, but I recognized Zaka. Zaka, god of peasants. How did you recognize him? A throaty laugh that signifies the end of the conversation. I find a spot in the back of the truck.

Sacks of green bananas.

Cans of oil.

Coal and flour.

Chickens, goats and even a donkey.

A fat man snoring in the back.

Rumbling breath issuing from the bottom of his belly.

I banish all reflection

even the most intimate

and give in to the embrace of this crowd

where the boundary between man and animal

is so narrow as the truck

makes its way through the arid landscape.

A soft voice behind me. A woman in black whose husband has just died. The mother and the son lived in Brooklyn, though the father stayed in Haiti. She tells her story. The first time she saw him was at the door to the lycée. Her girlfriends made fun of him. But he was so sweet she immediately fell in love with him. He was shy, even in their private life, and he remained that way till the end. He was a delicate man. He died of throat cancer, without a complaint. His name was Séraphin.

The coffin is at the back. Securely tied to a bench. Taking up space for six passengers. Since he is dead the widow paid for four seats only. She wouldn’t have had to pay anything if she had agreed to have the coffin tied to the roof of the truck. She decided, whatever the price, Séraphin would not ride up there with the dust and the goats and the chickens. They would make their last journey together.

His young son is wearing a white shirt

and a black tie.

His head leans on his mother’s shoulder.

Somber and silent.

I hear a lady whisper,

“The spitting image of his father.”

She knew him well.

Actually, I’m in the same situation.

Except I have no body with me.

And almost no memory of the departed.

This journey is to bring him back

to his village that I will be discovering at the same time.

A funeral without a body.

A ceremony so intimate

it concerns only me.

Father and son, for once,

alone face to face.

To disappear without a trace.

Or anyone to remember you.

Only a god deserves such a destiny.

Here is Baradères in the rain.

It’s been raining for two days.

Water rises fast here.

Houses on stilts.

The truck turns carefully behind the church.

We come upon a modest cemetery

under water where small golden fish

swim into the cavities

of freshly buried bodies.

A small group is waiting

at the foot of the tall cross.

Soaked to the skin.

The gravity of death.

The boy in the black tie

is not so sure he wants to get out of the truck.

He doesn’t know all these relatives

who have stepped out of another age.

Or this town drowned by the rain.

Or this cemetery where his father will be buried.

In Brooklyn it’s hard to imagine Baradères.

In every cemetery there is

a large black cross by the gate.

And an empty grave that belongs to no one.

That’s where Baron Samedi lives,

that funereal and dissolute god

who is the guardian of the cemetery where

no one may enter without his permission.

We stroll along the brightly lit streets

of the world’s great cities

with our urbane airs and our educated politeness

not knowing that our lives are filled

with secret feelings and sacred songs

we have lost somewhere inside ourselves

and that resurface only at funerals.

We have two lives.

One belongs to us.

The other belongs

to those who have known us

since childhood.

The mother’s tongue.

The father’s country.

The son’s bewildered look

as he discovers in a single day

his own legacy.

They rush the coffin

toward the far end of the cemetery.

Past the last graves with flowers on them.

A few stones this way and that in the tall grass

where fat pink fish swim.

The best spots, by the entrance,

are reserved for those who

have never left Baradères.

This wild kid who wreaks

havoc in Brooklyn

suddenly discovers

his origins

in a lost village.

He bends over to catch bare-handed

a pink fish with an electric charge.

It sends him hopping on one foot.

The fish makes its getaway

to the sound of the laughing crowd.

I stand at the edge of the group

to attend the ceremony,

not wishing to disturb them.

No one seems to notice I am there.

That’s what they want me to think.

I have learned how discreet

people are in this part of the world.

A man comes up to me, his formal manner from another era. It would give us great pleasure were you to remain with us afterward, he tells me. Later I learned he had worked for UNESCO as a translator and after he retired, he returned to live here. The continuous movement between urban and rural worlds strengthens the bonds between culture and agriculture.