Butterfly's Way: Voices From the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (20 page)

ADIEU MILES AND GOOD-BYE DEMOCRACY

Patrick Sylvain

Prior to mid September 1991,1 can honestly say I was a happy man. I was twenty-five years old, an activist, a teacher living in Avon, Massachusetts, a recently married poet, and my son, Kamil, was soon to celebrate his first birthday. In addition to all of this personal bliss, it was the first time in the history of my country that a democratic government, led by a popular nonconformist priest named Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had been elected.

Unfortunately, my own exhilaration and Haiti's jubilee was only to be a temporary affair. On September 29, 1991, I was heading to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to do a poetry reading when all of a sudden, a solemn voice from National Public Radio came through my car radio announcing the death of my favorite trumpeter, Miles Davis. I immediately pulled over and rested my head on the steering wheel, having flashes of my father, reminding me that Miles had spent some time in Haiti. Before long, my body started shaking and I knew that something else was about to go wrong. I found myself crying as I drove toward Harvard Square to visit a friend before my reading.

Soochi was a young Chinese-American woman who was finishing her B.A. at Harvard. She and I often spent hours discussing philosophy, literature, and music. That Saturday evening, she was working at one of the Harvard offices, and I needed her cheerfulness before doing the reading.

As soon as I arrived in her office, she asked me in the softest, gentlest voice, "Have you heard?"

"Yes," I said.

She walked up to me and embraced me as if to say that everything was going to be all right. The way she hugged me was not sexual, but it was the first time that we had held on to one another in that fashion. Abruptly, the image of my wife came rushing through my head. I asked Soochi if I could use her phone to call home.

When my wife answered the phone, I informed her of Miles's passing and told her that given the circumstances, I felt heavy-hearted about the reading.

"Why don't you come home?" said my wife. "I don't know why you sacrifice yourself so much for those things; you are not even getting paid. By the way, a certain Yvon called, he said it was urgent. Listen, we miss you. Come home soon."

After I got off the phone, Soochi offered me a cup of hot chocolate and suggested that I write down my immediate thoughts on Miles. She slipped Miles's CD,
So What?
on the office CD player and walked out of the room. Inhaling the hot chocolate aroma, I wrote what became the last five lines of my poem "Adieu Miles."

I stumble onto a key
and the man with the horn
turns his back
and walks away
his trumpet blows tears.

When Soochi came back into the office, she sat down next to me to read what I had written. She effortlessly kissed my left eye and then my forehead. I knew that I was crying again when I tasted my own tears.

I moved away from Soochi to return my friend Yvon's call.

"It's going to happen for real now," Yvon said. "There's going to be a coup in Haiti."

I excused myself and thanked Soochi for her kindness. Outside, I sat in my car for a minute and wept some more. I felt like I was buried in a barrel of hot molasses. After more than two hundred years of struggle, Haiti was heading for further disaster and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It was as if we had a preordained rendezvous with Lucifer.

I had been in Haiti only a few weeks before, for the two-hundredth anniversary of Bois Caiman, the 1791
Vodou
ceremony that had launched the Haitian revolution. With Aristide's election still recent, my fellow countrymen had seemed extremely joyful, almost intoxicated with happiness. In retrospect, I thought, maybe the country had been too consumed with euphoria and had forgotten about the constant menace of our military coups.

During the Bois Caiman commemoration festivities on the lawn of the national palace in Port-au-Prince, a few tipsy soldiers had vowed that there would never be another coup d'etat in Haiti. Gladdened by their resolve, I had embraced them in camaraderie, feeling reassured that they had absorbed the spirit of revolution that rang over Bois Caiman that night long ago, when slaves had dreamt of creating a nation, vowing to always live freely in it or die fighting for it.

Later that same night, with the soldiers' voices still ringing in my head, I had met with Manno Charlemagne, a Haitian singer and activist who had achieved national-hero status in Haiti due to his protest songs. Manno, a friend and mentor, sang against the rule of the
tonton macoutes
in Haiti and the meddling of the United States in our national affairs. That night, Manno told me that he knew that then Vice President Dan Quayle had been meeting with high-ranking Haitian military officers and that since the American government— particularly the Central Intelligence Agency—was unhappy with Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a coup was in the making.

In spite of Manno's warning, I decided to indulge in the pleasures that my country could still offer: beach parties, jet skiing, nightfall skinny-dipping. The next Saturday, just before sunset, I—along with eight friends and family members whom I had not seen in ten years of voluntary exile—rented a small boat and rowed south towards Le Lambi while feasting on baked lobsters, conch, and homemade liqueurs. We sang, joked, and laughed as though it were our last night on earth. On the shore, some of our poorer compatriots cursed at us while others sang along and laughed at the jokes that our loud voices carried across the water.

When we docked in Le Lambi, we spotted a group of men lounging on the beach with prostitutes. At one point, Roland, one of my friends, recognized someone I had grown up with as a child in Haiti and shouted to him, "Hey Jean, tonight is your last night to have sex before the coup."

On the way back, every time we passed by a group of people, we loudly announced to them that there might be a military coup that night. Even though I was laughing, it still disturbed me that we had become a culture so accustomed to military coups that they could so easily become the subject of sad jokes.

When I returned home to the United States, my wife had wanted to know how the country was and how it seemed like the future was going to be. Her memory of Haiti was very limited. She had left there for Belgium when she was eight years old and a few years later had moved to Massachusetts, where we had met almost two years before.

The night of my return, I put our son to bed sensing a silent tension between us. My wife didn't like that I was gone so much, leaving her alone, however briefly, with our infant son. Besides, she thought Haiti was now a dangerous place, where I could have gotten hurt or killed.

To avoid an argument, I kissed my wife and son good-night and went to my office in our house cellar to drown all life's uncertainties in Miles's music until I fell asleep.

My wife's unhappiness about the trip did not last very long. Soon we were once again telling each other jokes and flirting as though we were still courting. And of course our son was always there to increase our delight.

Two days before the coup was to happen, however, on September 27, I received a phone call from a friend of mine, a key political player in Haiti, who informed me that the wheels were now in motion to unseat President Aristide. My friend requested that I alert the members of the Boston Lavalas Committee, a pro-Aristide coalition, that something big was about to happen.

After that phone call, my wife expressed her concern that I was going to be consumed by long political meetings, protests, and demonstrations that would take away from my time with her and our son. Even though she was concerned about Haiti's future, it was our marriage and our family that she wanted to protect and save. That night, after countless hours on the phone, I was assured by friends in Haiti that the coup had been stopped even before it could happen, the situation was under control, Aristide and the people had maintained power. As soon as my wife realized that things had returned to normal in Haiti, she became more affectionate toward me. It looked as though I would be staying home with our family, not out protesting the abrupt end of a fragile new democracy.

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.