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

The following day, after work, I picked up my son from the house of my mother, who was kind enough to look after him while my wife and I worked. Once at home, I fed my son and put him in his chair, then started on a special dinner for my wife. I stewed some lobsters in a special rum-raisin sauce I had concocted, baked some sweet potatoes, then boiled some corn on the cob.

When my wife walked into the house, she was taken by surprise. The living room and the kitchen were lit with vanilla-scented candles, and the sensuous melodies of Miles's "Porgy and Bess" resounded within the walls. Speechless, my wife smiled from ear to ear, hugging both me and our son.

Unfortunately, we would never be that happy again. On the twenty-ninth, Miles died, and on the thirtieth the military coup in Haiti finally took place. I was devastated. During the first week of the coup alone, the Haitian military murdered eight hundred people. My friends at the Boston Lavalas Committee and I began organizing and participating in marches and demonstrations in front of key governmental buildings in Boston as well as in front of the United Nations Headquarters in New York and the White House in Washington, D.C. A week into the coup, I was spending more time traveling and in meetings than I ever had in my married life. My wife did not like it and so our marital quarrels became more common and it took much longer for us to reconcile.

Two weeks after our son's birthday and roughly a month after Miles's death and the coup, my wife suggested that we separate. More than feeling sad and guilty for having imposed my political activities on our marriage, I felt horrible about the idea of no longer being close to my son, or being unable to see his gradual growth over the years. I knew that I was a good father and was constantly striving to become a better one, for which my wife had praised me. However, I could not stand by and watch what was happening to my country and remain apolitical and silent. If only my wife had been more supportive, I told myself, perhaps our marriage would have been saved.

When I realized she was serious about me vacating the house, I thought, rather than completely giving up on the marriage, it would be better to stay away for a couple of days in order to rethink all that was happening. I was in a state of shock. It was as if I were holding a handful of sand and watching each grain slip from my grasp.

One Friday afternoon, after my wife and I had been apart for awhile, I found myself at the Magazine Street Beach on the left bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, watching the ducks on the dock seek shelter before sunset. I sat on a three-by-four-foot rock that once served as a boat anchor as a few kayakers loaded their kayaks on top of their cars. The wind turned from brisk to chill as it got dark. I sat there with my eyes closed and listened to waves rolling onto the shore. I felt like those ducks, seeking shelter in the fleeting glory of a sunset that would never be again. To my surprise, Soochi walked up from behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders. She offered me Miles's last recorded CD, Doo-Bop.

In 1994, after three years in exile in the United States, Aristide was finally able to return and resume his presidency in Haiti. During his exile, I went through a painful divorce and custody battle that nearly bankrupted both my wife and myself. I soothed my own unhappiness and personal pain by becoming even more deeply involved in political meetings, marches, by reading and writing my poetry with a fervor that I believed would someday contribute to saving my country.

After Aristide's return, with more time to ponder all that had taken place, I had to finally admit to myself that perhaps one's country, one's idealism and dreams should not take precedent over one's life. My marriage, like most people's, had not been perfect; however, my political activities had certainly accelerated our separation and eventual divorce. Many of the men I have attended political meetings with and have been at demonstrations with have spent countless hours in court, or in counseling trying to salvage their marriages or attain visitation rights to see their children.

As sorrowful as this is, I still ask myself whether our sacrifices have really contributed to any permanent changes for Haiti. Frankly, I am not sure. Can we say that all women in Haiti are safe because we no longer have wives? Can we say that every Haitian child will grow up happy, well-fed, and educated because we can now only see our sons and daughters on alternate weekends? I have spent many days and nights crying over the fact that I can now see my only child, my beloved son, at the end of the week.

I wish I could say, like Miles, that my political and personal life has been one of "few regrets and little guilt." But that would not be the case. If anything it is full of regrets and a lot of guilt. But only about that particular period in my life. These days, though I must redefine my vision of happiness, I am happy. If I were to relive all this again, I would tread with more caution and never for one second lose sight of the fact that more important than anything else, I have a son to be a father to.

I was looking for Columbus, but I knew that he would not be there. Down by the shore, Port-au-Prince exposed its wounds to the sun; and Harry Truman Boulevard, once the most beautiful street in Haiti, was now a patchwork of potholes.

The boulevard was built for the bicentennial celebration of Port-au-Prince, which Truman helped finance right between his launching of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the start of the Korean War. Now it looked like a war zone with no memory of the celebrations of which it had been the center. Only a few of the statues erected for the occasion remained. Its fountains had dried up under two Duvaliers. Its palm trees had shrunk as Haiti had itself. I turned in front of the French Institute, a living monument to the impact of French culture on the Haitian elites, and drove toward the U.S. Embassy, a center of power of a different order. Above a mountain of sandbags, a helmeted black G.I. watched nonchalantly as a crowd of half-naked boys bathed in a puddle left by yesterday's rain. He had probably come with the occupying forces that helped restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994. The story I was looking for went back nine years earlier.

I drove by.

I stopped the car at a safe distance from the embassy and started a slow walk on the boulevard. On the buildings around the post office, conflicting graffiti asked the U.S. forces both to stay and to go home. I spotted a statue lying behind a fence across the street. A peddling artist stood next to it, selling paintings and crafts. I greeted the man and asked him if he knew where the statue of Christopher Columbus was.

I had vague memories of the statue. I only remembered its existence from my adolescent wanderings. The few images I could summon came from Graham Greene's The Comedians. It was under the watchful eye of Columbus that the heroes of that story, later played by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, consummated their illicit love. But the bust on the grass was no Columbus. The painter confirmed my doubts. "No," he said, "this is a statue of Charlemagne Peralte."

Peralte was the leader of a nationalist army that fought the first occupation of Haiti by the United States in the 1920s. From the pictures the Marines took of him after they had crucified him on a door, I knew he was a thin dark man. The bust on the grass was visibly that of a white male, rather stocky. "You're sure this is Peralte?" I asked again. "Sure this is Peralte," replied the painter. I moved closer and read the inscription. The sculpture was a bust of Harry Truman.