Dimitry Leger - God Loves Haiti

Where are you, baby? You should be here, he thought.

For the first time since the earthquake, he thought of the woman he loved, the same woman who, when they last saw each other, seemingly an eternity ago, locked him in a closet and said good-bye to him. It was never meant to be for us, was it? Alain could now begin to concede.

Dr. Mariana was the least Latina-looking Mariana Alain had ever met. She had red hair, green eyes, freckles, and a nose too big for her face. She turned out to be the leader, or at least the spokesperson, of this troika of saviors. They came from the Canadian Red Cross; they were student trainees on a mission of observation only, but the scale of the disaster had forced them into duty. She said there indeed had been earthquake. In turn, Alain played translator, relaying the information to the crowd as loudly as he could. They nodded at the news with no emotion. An earthquake?! Of course! Only God could test us like that, their faces said. Fuck God, Alain thought. Xavier looked up at him, again, as if he’d read his mind, as if to tell him that resistance was futile. The earthquake was massive and unprecedented, Mariana said. The earthquake originated somewhere between Carrefour and Léogâne and caused extensive damage, destroying most homes. Even the United Nations lost its headquarters and dozens of staffers. The event made headlines around the world, and the world had responded with an outpouring of sympathy and support for Haiti. Billions of dollars were being gathered. An unprecedented collaboration between American military forces and charities from everywhere had been working all through the night to stabilize the situation and bring medical and other aid to everyone. The only reason Marianna and her colleagues were already in place was because they were in town attending a workshop at the Canadian Embassy when the earthquake struck. After a night of caution, they came out first thing in the morning to do reconnaissance for a damage assessment report.

As if she anticipated his next question, Mariana announced that the President was alive. The plane he was to take at the time of the earthquake was destroyed, and the President was bruised but alive and kicking. He was working closely with the United Nations and the international community in a temporary office near the airport to get help to Haiti as quickly as possible. And the first lady? Alain asked. Everyone looked at him like he was crazy, like, Where did that question come from? Alain squeezed Xavier’s shoulder during the silence that preceded Mariana’s answer. No news on the first lady, Mariana said. Pauvre diable , an elderly woman standing next to Alain said.

Alain went light-headed and his knees buckled. Little Xavier held him up until a couple of older guys noticed and came to help. To everyone’s surprise, Alain pulled himself out of his fainting spell. Fine, he said to no one in particular, let’s be grateful for what we still have. Our president is alive and doing his part. Let’s do our part.

He ordered the able to help the weak stand and form a line to receive basic care from the nice Canadians. More Canadians came, and they came with the good stuff. For lunch, the refugees ate crackers and drank a sip of water. When dinnertime came, they ate the same things. Be grateful, Alain said to everyone as he helped distribute the food. Be grateful.

Over the next couple of weeks, Alain slept a dreamless two to three hours a night on a military-gray cloth covering a piece of cardboard in a tent pitched on a grassy patch in the park. After the blue embers of dawn filtered through the tent’s seams, he sprang up, sat, and listened to the sounds of the new world he had come to inhabit in Park Pigeon. A dog sniffing about. The clang and hiss of a giant pot being cleaned by Yanick, the camp’s designated chef. The soft hiss of a child pissing. The boy Xavier had refused to stray more than a meter away from Alain since they’d met. Pre-earthquake, Alain had greeted new days with as many push-ups and sit-ups as he could muster no matter where he was. Today, he barely had enough energy to keep his eyes open. One of his legs was broken and without the benefit of casts was healing in all sorts of ugly shapes. His washboard abs, which used to give him a boxer’s confidence that he could bounce back from any punch, were gone. Aches and inertia made Alain move like an old man in the days after the earthquake. He was wasting away and uninterested in doing anything about it, not even going home to Place Boyer. Instead, he lay awake on his cardboard for as long as he could until just the second before his new buddy, Philippe, the diminutive, cornrow-wearing leader of their refugee camp, who, it should be said, had turned out to be an even better leader in disaster relief than Alain was, came looking for him.

Alain was embarrassed by the brokenness of everything. The simple fact that Philippe did not look like he wanted to flee and find a corner in which to vomit at each sight, smell, and sound of their damaged compatriots in the refugee camp, as Alain did, kept convincing Alain that he was truly weak but should at least stick around to help. So he lay in his hot tent, wondering how he could die in a way that Xavier, Philippe, and their new dependents would forgive him for. He assumed no one suspected his posttraumatic stress disorder was leading him to contemplate suicide. He wrongly suspected that no one would care if he died. So many people had died in the quake and daily in the camp, how many tears could anyone muster for a cripple’s parting, even if he was useful as the camp’s resident translator? The problem was, life in the camp, ironically enough, made suicide fairly difficult. With Philippe softening aid workers with his soul brother — community leader act, Alain worked as a closer, hammering out arrangements with aid agencies to secure his little community precious necessities like food, water, hygiene kits, tents, his-and-hers toilets, separate men’s and women’s showers, and even lamps and lights to scare off potential rapists, thieves, and demons in the wee hours. Alain’s ability to glad-hand and fake a condescending, look-at-these-poor-unlucky-Haitians, aren’t-we-noble nod with the fey Canadian or haughty Frenchman or perky American in charge was offensive, but it translated into supplies for the families of Park Pigeon, so no one called him on it. The work still added to his depression, though. Under little Xavier’s ever-present and ever-watchful eyes, Alain was careful to stay upbeat and solution-oriented. His compassion cup ran over — when in public. He had always been a good actor. Everyone, especially the foreign visitors, seemed too preoccupied and overwhelmed by Haiti — All that natural and stunning beauty! All those vacant, shocked faces! All those glistening bodies! The Middle Ages — level misery! — to scratch his smiley surface to see the morbidity that had spread over his soul like a cancer. These people never asked the obvious questions — You’re from Place Boyer, what are you doing here? Place Boyer was unaffected by the earthquake, why don’t you go home? Why are you still living in a tent? Isn’t it dangerous here? — and Alain didn’t have to figure out an answer.

Place Pigeon and the surrounding parks along the Champ de Mars teemed with thousands of earthquake refugees. They lived five or more people to a tent fit for two. They were cramped, tired, hurt, grieving for all the people and things, a world really, they had lost during the thirty-five-second earthquake. How can an event be so short and cause so much damage? People talked about that day, that quake, and their terror all the time. Oh, there were cries for help everywhere. All the survivors remembered hearing them as they made their way, or were made to make their way, out from under tons of rubble. But you had to ignore them, didn’t you? Or you were made to ignore them by the sheer scale of your powerlessness, your infinite meekness? I can’t believe we got to live.