Edwidge Danticat - The Butterfly's Way - Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States

My grandmother had always shown me photos of my great grandfather who was practically white. She told me while combing my hair that she had a near ancestor who'd fought in Napoleon's army. My aunts and uncles and I have always had white friends. Some have intermarried. I look at my folks' meticulous photo-documentaries of my birthday parties, which were always exceptionally multicultural. I know that they didn't orchestrate this universe for me. It's hard figuring out what my people think of the Man because no one ever said a word to me until recently.

My hippest aunt and I were munching on sushi once. She reported that there were pretty harsh rumors circulating in the family about the fact that I only date white men. Only? was my response. It was the same tone I'd used toward my grandmother when I had my hair braided (and when I went natural). She'd asked me on both occasions: "Do you think you are an African?"

"I am just me," I said, sensing that I was never going to make her happy.

I have to say there is something so surreal about having your lover reach over to you in fascination and ask can he touch your kinky hair or tell you that he has never dated a black woman before. There is something cruel and unforgiving when your lover leaves you because he secretly doesn't know how to take love to the marriage point because of the possibility of beige babies. Or because his family is truly irked by you. And there are a lot of utterly disturbing things men have told me like, "There's nothing hotter than a bald black woman giving me head." (I was not bald!) Or, "I find how dark you are really sexy."

Still, I have trodden very foreign territories. I have had blue lights dimmed and Donna Summer played by boys who listened to Rundgren when disco was the shit because they thought it was appropriate. I was told in bed by a French man that I called to his mind Lauryn Hill-but more sauvage . But I have also known sweetness. You know, when it all comes down to warmth and eyes staring into each other. So for all these convoluted reasons, I apologize to the tall lanky writer who loved me so very hard he broke both our hearts. He was so country club that I could not hold his hand on 14th Street because I was freaked out by our juxtaposition. Like many black women with their white boyfriends-I didn't want to draw attention. I averted my glance, especially in Brooklyn.

A couple of years ago my therapist, who happened to be white, asked me why I didn't choose someone else to spill my guts to. Presumptuously, I believed at the time that she was titillated by my dating practices. I probably gave her some song and dance then. It hardly seemed an issue to be tortured by. A boyfriend I accused of fetishizing black women told me point blank: "Some men like blondes!" But there were so many whom I wouldn't really touch or kiss in public because I found it exhausting. I felt similarly about seeing a therapist who looked like me. That I would be outed before one of my own seemed like something terrible. It is hard to understand why I lived in so much conflict. I guess I looked back with my psychologist at a stereotypical history of strong Haitian women who emasculated their men and what-not. But I think it's all bullshit now. I open my bedroom door just a crack to the public. Let the people stare because the people have to see me for who I am. Used to feel like a crumbling fortress with Haitian-Black-American rubble falling fast and fragmenting into a billion little pieces. But no more.

One of the great men of my heart was an entertainment industry bigwig. And I loved his world because I felt free and safe in it. It was my girl-child fantasy. In a larger-than-life kind of life, you can swing whatever way you want because people are gonna give you respect no matter what. Illusory? Yes. But this idea made me stronger.

I used to hate that black male celebs could flaunt their white girlfriends and wives, while you rarely even heard about a black actress's love life. I do thank this man for our romantic dalliance. When he broke my heart, I didn't suddenly become paranoid about the great divide. He had been my closest intellectual and emotional mate. When he left my life, I noticed, like a fool, finally, that pain is just pain. He had once made the most tender observation: He was standing somewhere watching an attractive white man with dreadlocks play with his two cafe au hit babies. He was so enamored with this vision of what he saw as a real option for himself. When we were together, it didn't occur to me that I was an object of conquest or desire. I now open myself to the universe for a true soul companion.

Sure I want a lover who can dance konpa , who's read Baldwin and Achebe and Toni Morrison. I want to say something scandalous about what sends my pulse racing, like tan lines and good diction. I cannot say who fits this bill or what he will look like. But at my shrink's suggestion and for my own peace of mind-here is a note to the man I will always love most.

Dear Daddy,

I am told many black women are attracted to men who are the opposite of their fathers. But I don't believe this because I think you and I are so much alike. You are my most treasured model of humanity-loving and complex. No kind of man represents stability or real love better or worse than you do. Just like you, I've always wanted family and community to see me how I want to be seen. So I have unpacked a bit of my emotional baggage. Above are some things about me I want you to learn. I don't doubt that you accept me, I have never worried much about the world doing so. Thank you for letting me be myself.

It's been seven years since I have been home. I would run a thousand miles now to reach that man who sits on his little wooden stool, day after day, under the scorching Haitian sun, to sell his art in order to buy more supplies with which to quench the undeniable thirst in his heart. Under the cacophony of shrill voices and riotous laughter at Mashe Petyon, the marketplace at the center of Petionville, the artist would spend hours watching the vendors and their customers haggling over the price of sugar and bread. Then, with unchallenged genius, he would wave his brushes across the canvas to capture their movements: the fine lines around the women's eyes, the tiny beads of sweat on their brows.

It would thrill me to join those three sun-baked women, barefoot in one of his paintings, as they wash their clothes in a placid brook surrounded by gigantic mapou trees and emerald shrubs. I should have been there, at that perfect moment, when the artist painted blue-and-gold water that made concentric circles around and around the women's ankles, the skirts twisted to one side and tucked into waists to stay dry. Only the heartbreaking melodies of Pierre Cine's acoustic guitar could describe the emotions invoked by the way the scarves are wrapped around the women's heads in hibiscus greens, yellows, and reds.

I would give anything to place my bare hands on the majestic coconut tree that dominates the canvas; its deep green leaves reaching toward the cloudless blue sky, streaked at the horizon with purple, saffron, and amber. At the heart of the shrubs looms the painted shadow of nightfall. Atop it all is a single hut that has one window, one door, and an unseen breeze that gives the thatched roof a permanent sway above which seven black birds hover. Forever.

My friend, who just returned from Haiti, tells me there are few trees left in the mountains; no more lush shrubbery. She says the brooks are parched, leaving rocks buried beneath burning heaps of refuse and mud. The roads are narrow and jagged; many lead to nowhere, and the stench in the streets surrounding Petionville's cemetery is unbearable.

It's been seven years since I have seen my home. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I envision myself lying on the naked earth inside of my great-grandmother's peristil , a modest structure of concrete and clay. The walls of the main room are murals dedicated to ancestors and various lwas , the memories of whom must never fade. To the right is Our Lady of Czestochowa; the black virgin has three vertical scars on her cheek. She is holding a child. "That is Ezili," my great-grandmother told me in a hushed voice. "She is the vengeful mother. She will leave you alone as long as you don't bother her child. But touch her child the wrong way, and you will pay." Then my great-grandmother began to sing the same little song I catch myself humming sometimes: "Ezili, they say you eat people. How many have you eaten? Those who speak well, my eyes will protect. Those who speak ill, I will devour."