Dimitry Leger - God Loves Haiti

Reginald is dead, he said.

Natasha stared at the floor of their tent. It was made of the same plastic material as the walls. The tent’s lamp worked. How’d that happen? Her eyes trailed all the cables running through the tent. There were quite a few.

Marcel, Marie-José, François, Philippe, Jean-Yves, Yves-Antoine, Elias, all dead. Dozens of party members, dead. For Jean-Francois, it was almost worse. The twins died with their mother. The school walls crushed their car as they prepared to drive away. My house is gone. No one can find mother.

Outside, all the other tents around them had yet to go dark. The Americans were too busy to sleep yet. There was a buzz worthy of the Marché de Fer on a Saturday morning — construction machines drilling, orders being given, yes-sirs being answered. The President continued: You can almost hear all the wailing going on in the country, can’t you? Everyone, absolutely everyone, on the island lost something today. I bet the diasporas are going mad with worry.

You believe they know already? Natasha said.

For sure, the President said. In the first hour, it felt like I spoke to more journalists than I did military rescue personnel. It felt like the country now has more foreign journalists and aid workers alive and kicking in it than healthy Haitians.

Healthy Haitians? What the hell are those? I’ve been looking for that breed for over twenty years. I thought they were extinct. Didn’t the Duvaliers kill them all off?

No, I think it was the Americans.

Yes, the Americans. During the occupation, right? Fucking Americans. What else can we blame them for?

The earthquake?

Yes, the fucking earthquake. How do you think they caused it? The testing of new nuclear bombs by American submarines operating in the bottom of the Caribbean Sea

Good one. In fact, it wasn’t even an earthquake. It was some new-style nuclear bomb experiment. They were aiming for Venezuela and the missile landed here.

Can’t get nothing right, those Americans.

Yeah. But they’re great at racking up civilian casualties, though. You gotta give them that.

We mustn’t make light.

You’re right. It’s too early.

Yes, too early. Think about all those people out there who lost their homes. They don’t have tents.

Is it too early to think about sex?

Sex?

You know, sex. Birds and bees. Sweat. Screaming at the end. I heard sex could be useful during national emergencies.

Emergency sex?

Yes. The idea came in the president’s manual. I think it may actually be a clause in the constitution.

It’s one of the Ten Commandments too.

Could be. You’re my connection to the divine. If you say it is, then it must be so.

It’s the eleventh commandment. It was in the small fine print that no one bothers to read. God slid that in there past us.

No pun intended?

No pun intended!

All Haitians are dead, and there’s only us left. What to do?

Commence repopulating?

Commence repopulating. Immediately.

Hey, be careful with the legs. Fragile merchandise. Handle with care.

Be careful with my head. Very tender.

Which one?

They giggled. They embraced. They fell asleep. The President and his wife did not make love that evening.

The morning after the earthquake, to the surprise of most folks in Haiti and around the world, the sun rose over Haiti, as it had since the dawn of time. Pulsing, brilliant, and warm, it shone over the land like glorious yellow candlelight with a special affection for Caribbean islands. The sun over Haiti the day after the earthquake lodged in a clear sky so blue the Caribbean Sea seemed to reach up and merge with it. The air, too, retained its customary light fragrance. The freshness of the air inspired roosters to sing their hearts out, and sing they did that morning, determinedly, robustly, and with pride. The island was still above water, and palm trees felt cool enough about this state of affairs to cock their long, leafy crowns just so. The morning brought rising heat. And the warming of the ground beneath his buttocks spurred Alain Destiné into another attempt at holding on to his consciousness. Squinting and rubbing his eyes, Alain briefly ignored the sharp pain spreading throughout his body to take in his surprising location: one of the parks across the street from the National Palace. Alain saw his car. To his astonishment, the car hung about ten meters in the air, impaled on the statue of a woman holding a pair of pigeons. The statue gave the park its name, Place Pigeon. Pigeons liked the homage and congregated there regularly en masse. Before the park became the site of his seemingly impending doom, Alain had liked Place Pigeon too. Back when he dated unmarried women, the young bachelor took dates on strolls through this park after an evening at the movies at Le Capitol, the nearby theater. The couple would be wearing their Sunday best and talking breathlessly about the baroque drama of the kung fu films they’d seen. Young lovers in Port-au-Prince had been doing so since his father’s and his grandfather’s eras. Following tradition always made Alain happy. He had a lifelong thing for Haitian society’s old-world notions of honor and gallantry. You’re so old-fashioned for a boy, the women of various ages he courted often told him. He knew he had them once they said that. For women, he’d learned at a precocious age, liked to be wicked with boys their parents and the rest of the world found nonthreatening.

Still, Alain wished he were anywhere else on earth than Place Pigeon at that moment. A creak and a soft tilt downward from the Chevy suspended in the sky snapped Alain’s attention to the very real possibility of his sudden death. More daydreaming and you’re dead, Alain, and suicides aren’t allowed into heaven, remember? Blotchy red against the vast blue sky, the car seesawed casually. Under the car’s shadow, Alain tried to calculate how much time he had to crawl away before a breeze caused his car to fall on his head. Not much, he correctly concluded, especially considering that Alain and the car had likely been in their respective positions since the previous evening. Death was imminent. Shit. Death was imminent yesterday afternoon too, Alain thought. What in God’s name happened? One minute I’m driving slowly on rue St. Honoré, and the next minute, buildings started tumbling on people as if they were made of cards. The car turned into a flying carpet, and then, then… I’m waking up in a park, like a bum, hurt in places I didn’t know my body had, and the car is still in the air, but now suspended from above as if it were passing judgment on my life.

Judging the man-sized hole in the windshield, Alain at least understood how he came to be separated from the car. Time to move your ass, man, Alain thought. Then he discovered he could not move his legs. Alain couldn’t even feel his legs. Merde , he thought. Must worry about that later. After crossing himself, he dug his fingers as deeply as he could into the ground, then he pushed himself backward with all his strength. Grunting up spittle, which dribbled down his suit, shirt, and his pants, Alain pushed and pushed, but he did not move one inch. A light breeze. In the air, the car squealed. Its fender aimed squarely at Alain’s groin, a prelude to one of the worst fender benders a man could imagine. Come on, Alain, he said. Allez . Push yourself, man. Alain grunted. Bouge ton cul . You can do this. Alain pushed. He pushed and pushed and pushed some more. Small progress: the car’s fender now aimed for his knees. Before he could push again, a stronger wind swept through Place Pigeon, and the Chevy came tumbling down from the hands of the statue. Mother of Christ! Alain said. No! No! No! No! he screamed. The car landed with a thud and sprayed metal and glass in a shriek of twisting steel. Fortunately for Alain, terror had given him the last burst of strength he needed, and he had used it well, pushing himself out of harm’s way, a full three meters from where the car crash-landed. Alain had moved so fast that his ass burned, a trail of dust hovered in the air. Out of breath and coughing, Alain stared at the car with fright. No, he said one more time. Then he passed out.