God Loves Haiti (9780062348142) (6 page)

Have you seen your mom in heaven? Does my grandfather walk with a limp up there too? Dad can't be dead, can he? Pétionville, I've heard, was spared by the quake. Shit, I should go check up on him. And mom too. If they're alive, they're probably worried sick about me. They approved of you, you know. I was only messing with you when I told you dad didn't like you. I suspect they liked you because they knew you wanted to leave here permanently and they wanted me to leave too. They worried too much about my safety. They should have worried about my heart breaking. I loved you so much.

        
GOD IS ON LINE ONE

I
n the thirty-sixth second, the earth stopped shaking, and a fog of dust fell like gentle snow on Port-au-Prince. On the ground of the airport's tarmac an old man in a torn suit lay flat on his back and performed snow angels in the dust with a big grin on his face. Of all the Haitian reactions to the earthquake, his will be the most scrutinized. His will be considered by millions of observers the world over as a call to arms or a call to surrender, or a reminder that death and life go on, and that life on earth was meant to suck, even when it seemed as though it could not suck worse than it did on the thirty-sixth second after the thirty-five-second tremor in Port-au-Prince that January afternoon. Slowly, oh so slowly, his eyes opened and took in . . . snowflakes? No, these flakes were small and dry. They caused the old man's eyes to itch and his grin, which was stupid but involuntary, to fade. The picture of grim determination, he rose on his elbows then
to his feet, patting dust off his suit jacket as he went along. Near him a plane stood in an unflyable position. The airport's tower, as far as he could make out, had crumbled into itself, sending heaping chunks of red-and-cream concrete sprawling all the way to his tasseled loafers. The air smelled of brimstone. His throat felt choked. The first notes of the melody of his voice escaped him. However, a nauseating group of moaning voices belonging to others rose faintly, like mist, in the distance, the first sounds he'd heard since the sound of his voice got completely bossed by the mysterious force that ejected him off the airplane's steps. Above, the sun shone a hazy white light. Yet he felt cold. Am I dead? he thought. Before the old man could raise a hand to shield his eyes from the white sunlight, which had grown intense and was causing his head to throb, his vision blurred. He rubbed his eyes, hard, then a vision, dream, or nightmare appeared to him.

The scene was lit like the eye of a hurricane in a film, bright but surrounded by a cold darkness and winds that roared. A tall, bearded man stood behind a lectern. Behind the man the President saw the entrance to what looked like paradise: one of Haiti's idyllic beaches, like at Club Indigo, the kind of inheritance taken for granted by locals throughout the Caribbean but beloved by northern-dwellers. You never love something more than the moment you believe it to be lost. The President suddenly yearned to run and throw himself at full speed into the warm and blue sea that was his birthright. In front of him,
however, was a line of about forty men, roughly the same size and age, but with different cuts of hair and clothes, reflecting different periods in Haitian history, from the Napoleonic era to the twenties to the bespectacled fifties to the guayabera-shirt eighties. The men were short and twitchy, and humbly looking at the ground or at the sky around them without saying a word.

A Napoleonic-costumed man was the first to meet Saint Peter. A hush fell over the group. The President started to recognize these guys. They were his predecessors. All of Haiti's dead presidents! He saw all the other presidents take a step back and work hard to pretend to ignore the conversation the guy in front was having with their maker. Saint Peter was in a foul mood.

Dessalines, is it? he said. Looking at your ledger here, I see some truly remarkable achievements. You were a general in an army that fought and won a great war to bring freedom to slaves. Slaves! Saint Peter looked at the tall, dark man with the kind face standing behind him. The man nodded his approval. There are few acts we care for more than the emancipation of slaves. Freedom to choose your fate is Our Father's greatest gift to man and woman. You did Him proud. Your countrymen had been slaves for centuries. Centuries! My word. The odds! The courage! Dignity is the highest and one of the greatest gifts you could give your fellow man.

But . . .

But?

Jean-Jacques Dessalines hesitated.

But what? Saint Peter intoned. The plaza got really warm.

But, Mr. Peter, I don't feel worthy of heaven.

With a weary look on his wizened face, Saint Peter said, And why is that, General Dessalines?

I killed too many people to feel worthy of heaven, sir. I even had women and children killed after we won the war. Rage and darkness won me over for too long, long after I think I should have let it go. I couldn't let it go. How could the Father forgive me? I lost my head and couldn't turn the other cheek.

Then Dessalines began to cry. His sobs echoed across all the way to the President at the back of the line.

Do you know how you died, General? Saint Peter asked.

I don't know, sir. Last thing I remember is that we were near Pont Larnage and there was an ambush. My cortege was surrounded. Lots of voices screamed confusing and contradictory orders at me. Stay inside! Come out! Show your face! Stay quiet! A bunch of arms broke inside and reached for me. Then the world went black. I don't know for how long. The first light I saw was the one that led me to your feet.

I'll say, Saint Peter said. It probably wasn't a good idea for you to name yourself emperor of Haiti a few years into your presidency. The people were still angry at the French emperor.

I know.

Emperor!

I know, I know.

That politically tone-deaf move made you a dead man walking thereafter. The last thing your people wanted so soon after overthrowing Napoleon was another emperor.

Sigh.

What your people need is someone in charge of a government, autocratic or not, who serves their needs, dignity, and children first. Any form of government that did just that would do. Do you want to know who had you killed?

No.

Really? It would be no trouble for us. We can introduce them to you right now. Your killers, by the way, hacked your body into multiple pieces. The woman who collected your dead body for a proper burial had to make multiple trips.

No, no, thank you. I don't want to meet my Judas.

Good answer. Now, would you please step aside for a minute while we hear your successor make his case for heaven? You look disappointed.

I thought you'd send me straight to hell.

Why, you're in a hurry! It's eternity. Hell, or heaven, for that matter, is not going anywhere. You and your people present us with a complicated case. We could use more time and evidence to deliberate before making our decision on your fates. Your inability to collectively band
to develop that pretty island caused millions of people to needlessly suffer malnutrition and other cruel forms of death for generations. Sending people to hell when they had resources and know-how to save or improve millions, and in some cases, billions of lives on earth but failed to do so out of a smallness of spirit, a self-centered form of evil, is easy. You people, on the other hand, lived in hell already, the hell of slavery followed by a hellish poverty cocreated by your unforgiving former slave-masters. Your poor judgment still came down to vanity, an excessive amount of amour propre. Remember the first of the Ten Commandments, General Dessalines?

Er, no.

Of course you don't. It's “Thou shall not have other gods before me.”

I believe you are mistaken, sir. I had no other God before God, Dessalines said. I bowed to no man!

Sure, you did, Saint Peter said, you worshipped yourself more than you worshipped God.

In the back of the long line of dead Haitian presidents, the last President swallowed hard. He watched his predecessors face Saint Peter one by one and come up wanting. Dessalines was followed by one of the men who may have had him killed, Henri Christophe, then Alexander Pétion, Jean Pierre Boyer, Charles Rivière-Hérard, Philippe Guerrier, Jean-Louis Pierrot, Jean Baptiste Riché, Faustin Soulouque, Fabre Geffrard, Nissage Saget, Sylvain Salnave, Michel Domingue, Pierre Boisrond-Canal, Joseph
Lamothe, Lysius Salomon, François Légitime, Monpoint Jeune, Florvil Hyppolite, Tirésias Simon Sam, Pierre Nord Alexis, François Antoine-Simon, Cincinnatus Leconte, Tancrède Auguste, Michel Oreste, Oreste Zamor, Joseph Davilmar Théodore, Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, Louis Borno, Louis Eugène Roy, Sténio Vincent, Élie Lescot, Franck Lavaud, Dumarsais Estimé, Paul Eugène Magloire, Joseph Nemours Pierre-Louis, Franck Sylvain, Léon Cantave, Daniel Fignolé, Antonio Kebreau. To a man, they told Saint Peter to send them to hell. They could have been better men, they said. Then, one step ahead of the President came the turn of the so-called devil himself, President Dr. François Duvalier.

The man standing in the shadow behind Saint Peter cleared his throat. Peter looked at the diminutive and bespectacled dictator like an old acquaintance. Duvalier, he said. Let's look at your ledger, shall we?

The day got considerably warmer.

Really, Duvalier said, do we have to? My ledger's negatives are no different than those of any head of state to face this lectern in the history of man. I confess freely to physically and emotionally destroying my enemies and other irritants, both to win power and to stay in power during my long rule. My country had the reflexive dislike of authority more commonly found among teenagers. They needed a president with a strong hand. Right, fellas?

The dozens of ex-presidents sitting in stands in nearby purgatory did not answer.

I killed men and women with my own hands and the hands of my armed forces, he said. Did I get any further than my illustrious predecessors in figuring out a form of government to take care of the needs of our nation's citizens? No. I couldn't decide between capitalism and communism. I dithered and failed to come up with a third way. The power to turn sand and gravel into bread and lettuce to feed our masses never came to me despite my prayers. My citizens ended up the poorer for it, though not as poor as they became under the incompetent fools who took over trying to develop the place after my death.

With that, François Duvalier turned around and looked at the President with more than a bit of disgust. The President felt his cheeks heat up. So many narratives, so many stories, so many faiths he clung to, shattered that instant. So many people told him and the world that François Duvalier was the anti-Christ, the worst man and Haitian to have ever walked the earth. He had lived the Duvalier era and survived and even thrived. But he felt its craven impotence in his bones. He saw it in the faces of his parents and neighbors and the widows and orphans of Duvalier's murder sprees. The man bathed the country with negative energy. Even artists and poets felt their talents wilt at the thought of facing the idea of Duvalier. Only Natasha, his brilliant and precocious child bride, had the courage and wit to take on the
diable
. When he saw her canvas titled
Duvalierism
—a white canvas painted thickly and slickly black, a Rothko without a halo's glow—tears streamed
down his face. He was speechless. And now here he was, listening to Duvalier himself make a credible case to Saint Peter for his access to heaven. I loved, Duvalier was saying. I loved my wife and did everything I could to sustain her love, to keep her approval, her pride, and her affection. We had only one boy, and I loved him like few other fathers loved their son. I loved him like He loved His son. Like Him, I bequeathed a kingdom to my son. Like His son, the great power and our world's great needs and flaws overwhelmed my son.
Peu importe
. I did my duty. I served my people as best I could. I fulfilled my duties as a loving father, husband, son, cousin, nephew, uncle, and citizen as best I could. I died in office in my bed, peacefully. Only six out of forty Haitian presidents can boast of such an accomplishment. I left my children a legacy of strength and wealth of resources that served them well for decades. Excuse my lack of modesty, Peter. It's an old man's habit. But I really do look forward to eternal life in heaven.

Peter's eyebrow shot up.

Oh? he said.

You've read my heart, Duvalier responded calmly. And you've read my press. Was the little patch of earth I was responsible for better off during my time there than after? It was, wasn't it?

Seemingly amused, Saint Peter asked, And what about the human rights you denied your citizens? The democracy you denied your country by staying in power for so long, and then passing governance over to your son as if it
were a vintage watch? What about the highly preventable poverty you allowed your people to sink into? What say you, doctor?

Riveted by Duvalier, a Dante verse floated through the President's mind. It had the melody of a Smokey Robinson song.

His face was the face of a just man,

So mild, if you looked no deeper than the skin;

The rest of his body was a reptile's . . .

Except in this vision, this glimpse of his future through the fates of his predecessors as they met their maker, the rest of the body of Duvalier that the President could see was that of a man, a small, stupid man.

On earth, Mr. Peter, the dictator said, the incentives weren't aligned right for me to do more than I did. I'm a simple man with simple tastes. I didn't travel much. I didn't want more from life than I had. I rarely ever left the palace, my home. I was a man caring for my family as best as I could, like all men try to care for their families. What did I care that the roads to Hinche or Jérémie were shit? What did I care that people couldn't vote, and the constitution was unreliable? Our education system was all right. They wanted to speak French. We gave them French. The people wanted to talk more than build. They wanted to study more than work. They wanted to pose more than serve. Talk, talk, talk, study, study, study. Dance, drink,
drink. Fuck. They got that. If they wanted more, if they wanted to serve the land that birthed and fed us, they would have worked, innovated, and developed it. They played the short game. They got the country they worked for. They had the ambitions of children, so we treated them like children. What are you going to do, send all of us Haitians to hell because we had the attention span and work ethic of an orgasm? You got to give me credit for never leaving. Not that they were doling out Mediterranean retirement plans back then.