Dimitry Leger - God Loves Haiti

The old priest was either completely daft, Natasha thought, or taking her to a deeper understanding of things than she could handle at her age and in her current frazzled state. Before Monsignor Dorélien could continue his sermon for one, a boom filled the room. A strong breeze from an opened-and-slammed door rushed in. Candles flickered. Dorélien gave Natasha the nod to go see who had entered the church. Natasha walked into the large main hall and stood next to the altar. For the first time in a long time, she felt no fear. One reason she’d sought refuge inside a severely damaged church despite public warnings for all Haitians to avoid going inside buildings before they were inspected by the authorities on account of the risk of aftershocks was because she secretly dug the idea of being killed by a cathedral’s tumbling walls. There was something artful about getting buried alive by a cathedral. Maybe even having her head crushed or heart speared by a toppled crucifix.

In the church that evening, however, Natasha was in no mood to die. She felt fine, with the first glimmers of inspiration for her life’s next act. A test? she thought. She liked tests. Miraculously, the tears that seemed permanently painted in the corner of her eyes had dissipated. She turned her back to the altar and faced… a mob. About twenty young men holding candles and megaphones and shovels in their hands stood at the end of the cathedral’s long hall. They looked to be in various stages of exhaustion. They were laborers, gravediggers, probably, and their day had been long. Once they saw her, they erupted in song. They sang a hymn of beauty and optimism with such vigor Natasha clutched her chest:

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made.

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee;

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee:

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander

And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;

When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur

And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,

Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;

That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,

He bled and died to take away my sin:

When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation

And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!

Then I shall bow in humble adoration,

And there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art!

The young men sang like angels. Their clothes stank to high heavens. Yes, they were gravediggers. The foul smell that came from their sweat as they sang confirmed it. Natasha had heard rumors about a group of men from the outskirts of Pétionville near a soccer field in a valley. After the earthquake, these men had organized themselves into a brigade that took charge of policing and protecting survivors living in camps and finding help. Incredibly, they earned people’s trust by burying, free of charge, the stacks of dead, often decomposing, corpses that littered the neighborhoods. We have to do it for ourselves was their motto. Their leader this night stepped toward Natasha, but not too far forward, for he knew he carried the stench of hundreds of dead bodies. Jean-Richard Souvenir, he said. Natasha hesitated to say her name. They might recognize it, and she’d jeopardize one of the myriad security protocols of the first lady of Haiti. Bah, they probably don’t read the papers much, she thought.

Natasha Robert, she said.

We’re sorry for disturbing you, madame.

That was some entrance.

We sing when we enter a room at night to let people around know we mean no harm.

Outside, the day had slipped into night without Natasha’s noticing. A full moon hung overhead, silver and cheesy. Natasha felt hungry and horny for the first time in a long time; the appetites of the normal had taken over her body where depression had ruled. Fleetingly, Natasha wondered what making love to twenty strapping young gravediggers in the church’s pews would feel like.

That hymn was written from a nineteenth-century Swedish poem, Souvenir said.

So they do know how to read, Natasha thought. Shit. They know who I am.

Come in, she said. Sit, sit. Make yourselves comfortable. You look tired. You must be exhausted. I’ll get you some water. I have no food, just some bread.

That’s OK, Souvenir said. We picked up some fritailles before we came. We don’t want to trouble you. We only wish to bunk for the night.

There are marchands de fritailles working already?

Yes, ma’am.

This was the first good news from the city outside the cathedral Natasha had gotten in days, too many days for her to remember. Small fried food stands were running! That’s terrific news. Was it possible that birds would soon start singing again, lovers start caressing and arguing, and live bands start inspiring slow-dancing to return as the national pastime? Over fried pork chunks, plantains, and sugared water, the men ate in silence and shared what they could with Natasha. When the first bellies felt satisfied, their owners began to banter. They joked about some of the most elaborate funerals they remembered. They talked of tombs that were bigger and more stylishly designed than many houses. How common it was to see a woman who lived in a shack be buried in a minicastle.

When Natasha chimed in, mouth full and fingers greasy, she wondered why, with all the funerals that were surely taking place around town these days, no one came to the cathedral for services. A silence fell with the thud of an iron gate. One man got up and walked away, disappearing into one of the pitch-black corners of the church. Another did the same. Many lowered their heads or looked away. Most looked to Souvenir to speak. The moment was awkward. You could hear rats skitter for crumbs across the marble floor.

First we tried to identify the dead, Souvenir said. His voice echoed around the church. We really tried, but there were too many. The smell was making everyone sick. It wasn’t just us. The government, business owners, everyone who owned a truck, it seemed, helped, pitched in, but there were too many corpses. Too, too many. The best we could do was keep a running tally on sheets of paper as we scooped corpses with loaders and deposited them in dump trucks.

Dump trucks?

Yes, dump trucks.

One of the men flung a beer bottle against a wall in disgust. Mon Dieu , forgive us, another said. Another crossed himself.

To be fair, some families did come retrieve bodies along the way, Souvenir continued. Those that could afford to bought pretty caskets and draped them with flowers. They drove their dead themselves to a crematory or family plots, God bless them.

Amen, said an older man sitting in the pew next to Jean-Richard Souvenir.

Those who had no money burned the bodies themselves, Souvenir said. Initially we tried to wrap all the dead tightly in pink and white sheets stripped from beds or salvaged from the rubble, and then carefully placing them on sidewalks for loading. Soon, even relatives who had spent days digging up their dead were too tired to care about what happened to them. They placed them on the sidewalks. We picked them up and went looking for places, and then we buried the bodies. We did what we could. It wasn’t pretty.

And some people criticized us for it, said the man who had walked away upon return. His face lit up close by yellow candlelight. Us!