Haiti Noir

I’m sitting in my father’s chair-a tattered and tired office chair that I’ve lugged to the porch. It is showing its age: scarred faux leather, armrests sprouting prickly stuffing, scents of Papa in the fabric. Half shaded by an acacia tree, I am sipping rich, dark café au lait, scattering a bit on the ground first, just like my father does, to feed our ancestors. The air is soft with breeze and sweet with roasting coffee, the few clouds in the sky moving like fishing boats out on the Caribbean Sea. The voices of the neighborhood rise and fall in spurts. Outside the prisonlike gates of my parents’ house in Kenscoff, young girls balance buckets atop their heads, up and down the graveled roads. Sun-wrinkled women sell huge mangoes and homemade peanut brittle, while boys in cutoff jeans run in circles with makeshift kites or push around trucks made from plastic bottles.

Papa struts from the house. A dark beard nearly covers his entire face. This angled face is also mine. Only fear and distance make it seem less familiar. My father’s hair is still wet from the shower. His I-am-home clothing is worn and comfortable: a stretched-out sweater, blue chinos, and old wool socks. The skin crawls on the back of my neck and the pit of my stomach crashes into my pelvis. My father’s presence always makes me uncomfortable. He’s more of a jailer than a father. I don’t like his grim outlook on the world and the way he tries so hard to make a father and daughter out of us when we are in fact complete strangers.

He walks around behind me in his cramped, thin shoes, places his hands on the back of the chair, and asks, “What are you doing, Magda?”

I can’t see his face now but I know his eyebrows are furrowed in curiosity. I take a deep breath, push my wild furious loathing into a soft, horrible place inside myself, and I swallow. “Thinking,” I say.

He sits in the rocking chair next to me, elbows on knees, with his whiskered chin in the palms of his hands, and sighs. Then he picks up the magazine I have been reading, clutches it in his calloused and rough hands.

“I don’t think a girl should be allowed to go to nightclubs until she’s eighteen,” he says.

I nod my head up and down, like a bobble doll, pretending to be interested.

Papa looks at me. “You don’t like me much, do you?”

I raise my shoulders in annoyance. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

He takes a deep breath. “What if I let you go out with your friends tonight?”

Just like that. My life in Kenscoff becomes a dazzling succession of house parties, balls, gaieties, not only night after night, but also sometimes an afternoon gathering at one house followed by an evening party somewhere else. I dance, sing, and drink toasts with cheap beers. I wear trendy wide-leg jeans, white denims, belly shirts of neon colors, dresses with abstract, multicolored designs. At seventeen, I feel like I’m running my own show. I understand what it means to live at the rainbow’s end and have its colors shimmer about me.

Tonight, Lakoup Nightclub is crowded, noisy, and literally vibrating with the beat of music blasting through large speakers. The air itself is alive with energy, the crowd abuzz with anticipation. I walk into the music, into the shadows, and the hot, sticky night presses against my skin until perspiration beads my upper lip. People line up three deep at the bar, in the rez-de-chaussée of the old gingerbread house. The bartender is chatting with a woman. “What is so dreadful about your hair that someone would call it dreadlocks?” she asks.

I don’t know the number of gourdes required for a Coca-Cola or a Prestige beer. I let the sexy bartender get me a cocktail “on the house.” I explore the dark, empty rooms upstairs. I walk out on the balcony, the den of iniquity, where a couple is smoking something with a peculiar smell. The girl laughs and reaches up. She slips her hand under the boy’s blue shirt, up near the collar. Her hand is moving, rubbing the boy’s neck. They’re in search of privacy, but I just stand there. Then the couple leaves and I’m alone, under the stars, sipping my cocktail, watching people dancing downstairs, in the yard.

From the balcony, I can see the band in the backyard. Lead singer Michel Martelly’s voice is strong and unlabored even when reaching for notes in the upper registers. I love the grainy vocal quality that lends the band a tortured but familiar sound, as if one were remembering a bad day. Martelly keeps listeners hanging on every phrase, awaiting the next pause or streak or curve.

“Hello,” a voice says behind me.

There’s something boyish about the man standing there- the dimples and the apple cheeks. His hair is wild and shaggy, as if the wind has been playing with it. He’s probably in his late twenties, handsome, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist.

“Do you want to dance?” he asks.