Haiti Noir

Gaspard’s eyes dropped from the woman’s fancy hairpiece to her pricey open-toed sandals and bright red toenails. “She’ll grow,” he replied.

“I can’t afford to wait for her to grow.” The woman headed for the narrow doorway.

“No problem,” her father said, following her out.

Claire allowed them the breezy darkness outside and moved closer to one of the moths circling the kerosene lamp.

“Why would you want to give your child to me?” she heard the woman ask her father over the loud sound of the evening waves.

“I am going away,” he said, “pou chèche lavi, to look for a better life.”

“Ohmm,” the woman groaned a warning, like an impossible word, a word she had no idea how to say. “Why would you want your child to be a rèstavèk?”

“This is what would happen anyway,” her father said, “with less kind people than you if I suddenly died. I don’t have any more family here.”

Her father put an end to the woman’s questioning by making a joke about the mayor’s victory and how many bad speeches Gaspard would be forced to suffer through if he remained in town. This made the woman’s jingly laugh sound as though it were coming out of her nose. Reaching closer to the kerosene lamp, Claire expertly captured a spotted tiger moth between her palms, not sure whom she wanted to imagine it to be, the fabric vendor or her father.

The good news, though, was that this would be the only day her father would do this for a year. The rest of the year, he’d act as though he would always keep her, letting life go on as usual. During the week, she’d go to the Protestant preschool where she had received a charity scholarship, requiring her father to only pay a few Haitian dollars a month. At night, she would sit by the lamp and try not to be distracted by the moths as she recited the alphabet out loud. He would enjoy the singsong and her hard work and would miss it during her holidays from school. The rest of the time, he would go out to sea at the crack of dawn and always come back with something for her to eat. He’d talk about going to work in construction or the fishing trade in the neighboring Dominican Republic, but he would always make it sound as though it was something the two of them could do together, not something he’d have to abandon her to do. But as soon as her birthday would come, he would begin talking about it again, chèche lavi, going away to make a life for himself, placing her with someone, finding her a family. His and his dead wife’s relatives, whom they’d left behind in the hills, had it even harder than he did. Rather than a nearly barren sea, they had the dry eroded earth to contend with and already too many mouths to feed. If he died they would take the girl, but only because they had no choice, because that’s what families do, because fòk youn voye je sou lòt. We must all look after one another. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

That night after the fabric vendor left, colorful sparks rose up and filled the night sky before fading and plummeting into the sea. With cannonlike explosions, the mayor was celebrating his victory with fireworks. Still lying on her foam mattress as her father snored on his across the room, Claire couldn’t help but feel like she was the one who’d won.

The day Claire Limyè Lanmè turned five was a Sunday, so she and Gaspard walked to the beach in the morning, watching a sandy pool that had formed, where a group of children splashed inside a ring of brown water then plunged into the sea to rinse themselves. Claire wore the pink muslin sundress, which Gaspard had ordered made for her in the same color and style but a slightly smaller size the year before. The afternoon air felt sticky on her skin as though they were trapped in one of the many humid air pockets where the sea breeze met the stifling heat of the town. Moving away from the beach, Gaspard motioned toward town. Even before they turned their backs to the sea, Claire knew that, just like the previous year, they’d be visiting her mother’s grave.

The main road was crowded with pedestrians either dodging or hailing moto taxis and tap taps. Gaspard held his nose up and sniffed the air, breathing in the scent of soft tar on an asphalted stretch. Raising his arm to respond to the occasional greeting, he kept walking at a steady clip, daring her to keep up. Passing a Vodou temple with pictures of Catholic saints doubling as lwas, he pointed out, just as he had many times, the glowing face of a pale Mater Dolorosa and said, “The goddess of love, èzili Freda, your mother liked her.”

Claire had never seen a picture of her mother. There were simply none. If not for the class portrait at the Protestant school, which her father had not purchased, there would be no pictures of her either.