Behind the Mountains, page 7
LATER
In afternoon homeroom, Mr. Marius asked about my day. It was not nearly as frightening as I’d expected, I told him, even though I really didn’t know what I had been expecting.
The bell rang and the way everyone ran out of the school, you would think there was a flood or a fire.
LATER
I walked around for what felt like a thousand years, looking for the bus. I went down one street, which then led to another and another. Every building, large and small, looked the same to me, from the corner stores with their shutters raised, to the supermarkets with spaces for cars out front.
Every face that passed me seemed distant, and even if people were willing to help me, I would not have known how to ask for help.
It was cold and my feet were beginning to feel numb. I felt like Galipòt, looking for his fourth leg. I understand now what Manman meant when she talked about being lost in the city. I felt as though I was looking both for my new home as well as for myself.
After all, who was I, here without my family, without the father who had sent for me and the mother and brother I had come with?
I was trying to find the school where I had started out. I was sure once I got there, things would seem better.
I had made no friends at school. I know this should not be a surprise on the first day, but I had hoped that someone would volunteer to look after me, show me—not just tell me—where things were and what to do. This is what I would have done if a new pupil had arrived from New York at the school in Beau Jour.
As I walked down yet another street, I began to blame Papa. Why had he left it up to me to find my way home? On my first day, at that? Maybe he didn’t love me after all.
It was getting dark. I was shivering. I had been walking for so long I couldn’t tell what time it was. Some of the blocks I walked up and down were desolate. Others were filled with people walking home. Some of the buildings had barred windows, through which I could see people cooking and watching television. I wanted so badly to be inside, anywhere inside, where it was warm.
I thought of the money Papa had given me to take a taxi in case I got lost. How was I to find a taxi? Papa had not shown me how to identify the taxis. Would the word taxi be written in bold letters on the side of the cars?
I remembered Moy holding out his hand for taxis in Port-au-Prince and I held out mine, too. As I stood there with my arm extended, people stopped to look me over, then continued on their way. Maybe I looked too young to be calling a taxi. Perhaps you had to be an adult to be in a taxi here. I am not sure a taxi would have stopped for me in Port-au-Prince, either.
Finally, a black car stopped. The driver rolled down the window and asked me something in English. I handed the driver the piece of paper Papa had given me. The driver said something that sounded like a command, which I did not understand. He repeated it a few times, his voice growing louder each time.
I did not move. The driver got impatient, handed me back the paper, and drove away.
On the paper, along with our address, Papa had written his telephone number at work. I would need to find a telephone. Why hadn’t Papa shown me how to use the public telephone?
A woman walked past slowly, staring at me. At first she went by like all the others but then took a few steps back until she was standing right next to me.
She asked me a question in which I recognized the word “problem.” I yelled out, “Telephone” a few times until she pointed at a public telephone across the street.
I waited until the light was green and walked across to the telephone. The woman followed me there. I lifted the receiver and dialed the telephone number on the paper. I heard a cold voice, like a machine speaking, and hung up.
The woman took the piece of paper from me, removed some coins out of her own pocket, dialed the number, then handed me the headset.
The phone rang and rang, but no one answered. Papa was probably home, or on his way there. I did not know the telephone number at home. Papa had not written it down, probably figuring that neither Moy nor Manman, who were at home, would be able to help me if I got lost.
I was back where I’d started.
The woman looked down at me, perplexed. I said the word taxi and pointed to the address on the paper.
She walked me to the street corner and held out her hand until another car stopped. She and the driver exchanged a few words, then she read the address out to him from the paper.
She looked back at me to confirm the address after she read it, then she paid the driver with money from her own pocket. I tried to offer her the money Papa had given me, but she shook her head and said, “No.”
She opened the door and waited for me to get in the car.
I said, “Thank you,” and slipped inside.
She closed the door, and slowly the driver pulled away.
As I looked back, she was still standing on the corner, watching us drive away. The driver took a turn and she disappeared from my sight. I pushed myself back in the backseat, grateful that I had run into her.
The driver was talking to me, but I understood nothing he was saying. He gave up and kept driving.
I soon found myself on a familiar street, on the block where we live. I let out a shriek of recognition when I saw our house. I thanked the driver and ran to our front door.
Manman looked worried when she came to the door with Moy beside her. “Hadn’t school let out long ago?” she asked.
“I was lost,” I said.
Papa was still not home from work.
“We have to talk to Papa about doing this differently,” she said, “so you don’t get lost again.”
LATER
When Papa came home I told him what happened. He said he was sorry he had not made better arrangements for me to get home, but he appeared a little angry and disappointed in me, too.
It wasn’t anything he said, just the way his face looked, tightly drawn and strained. Perhaps we, especially me, were going to be more of a burden to him than he had first thought.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3
Papa drove me to school and picked me up. He said he would do that every day now, until I felt I could take the bus home by myself. This meant some adjustment in his afternoon work schedule and I felt bad for that.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 4
I still don’t have one person to talk to at school. None of the students have approached me and I am too shy to approach them.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 5
Tonight while I was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to understand my homework, Moy walked over and gave me a gentle tap on the head like he used to in Beau Jour.
“How are you getting along?” he asked.
I told him I was not doing so well. I was having trouble with the lessons and I didn’t have any friends.
“Tell anyone who makes friends with you,” he said, “that your brother is a very good painter and if they become your friend, he will paint portraits of them, their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, their sisters, their uncles, their aunts, their grandparents, their godparents …”
He listed every possible family connection until we were both laughing too hard for him to continue.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 7
At Moy’s suggestion, I spent the whole weekend reviewing everything we have studied in class since I started school. I think if I review the week’s lessons thoroughly every weekend, I might be able to keep up.
Handsome and clever, too, that’s Moy.
MONDAY, JANUARY 8
Manman started work today in one of Franck’s restaurants, the same one where Papa works. She will be cooking in the kitchen. She seemed happy to leave the house, even if the work is only part-time for now.
She will be home by the time I return from school every day.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 9
Manman likes her work. I am so glad. I just hope she can control the stove at the restaurant. She still has trouble controlling the one we have at home.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10
Moy has taken up running. Every morning, he gets up, puts on his exercise clothes, and goes running in the cold.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 11
Mr. Marius put me together with someone today. (I think he felt sorry for me.) She is Immacula Cadet, a soft-spoken girl, whose best friend is Faidherbe, the boy who always wears his shirts buttoned up to the top. Immacula wears only black clothes, as though she is mourning the death of a loved one.
After the morning homeroom, Mr. Marius called us both outside and said he noticed from our address cards that we lived in the same neighborhood and that perhaps we should take the bus together.
Immacula asked how come she hadn’t seen me at the bus stop in the afternoons. I said my father picked me up after school and dropped me off in the morning, but I wanted to learn to take the bus by myself.
Mr. Marius asked if she could help me do that and she said yes.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12
I told Papa I found someone to help me with the bus and would like to try it again. He said if I really wanted to, I could.
Papa will still take me in the mornings on his way to work, but starting next week, I will come home on the bus with Faidherbe and Immacula.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13
Moy is painting again. When he paints inside the house, however, the smell makes our eyes water, so even though it’s cold outside, he has to open all the windows.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 14
The weekend lesson review is a great success. I am starting to make a little more sense of my classes.
MONDAY, JANUARY 15
No school today. Our American history teacher, Mr. Casimir, had told us that it is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.
Martin Luther King, Jr., he told us, was a man who dedicated his life to fighting for the rights of Black people in America. Even though we were not born here, he said, it is thanks to the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others like him that we are able to go anywhere we want, shop in any store, and go to any school.
I am going to make it a point to learn more about Martin Luther King, Jr.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 16
Immacula didn’t come to school today. Faidherbe came up to me and told me that Immacula had called him on the telephone yesterday and had asked him to take the bus with me.
LATER
I took the bus home with Faidherbe. It was even more crowded than a camion in Léogâne, completely packed with kids from our school and another school nearby.
Faidherbe and I somehow found a pole to hold. Each time the bus stopped, which was often, we were pulled forward, pounding into someone else.
I was happy when my turn came to get off. I left Faidherbe to continue his ride. The bus stop is around the corner from our house, too close for me to get lost.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17
Immacula is back. She did not volunteer anything about her absence yesterday. However, at lunchtime, even though I was not trying to listen, I overheard her and Faidherbe talking about Immacula’s mother, who, it seems, spends a lot of time working as a home attendant for other people and very little time at her own home, which leaves only Immacula to take care of her younger sisters.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 18
Tonight after supper, Papa made us sit around the radio to listen to the farewell speech of the outgoing president of the United States, President William Jefferson Clinton. (This reminded me of listening to election reports on Tante Rose’s radio in Haiti.)
The speech was simultaneously translated into Creole by a broadcaster on the Haitian radio station. The words I remember most are:
“In our hearts and in our laws, we must treat all our people with fairness and dignity … regardless of when they arrived in our country.”
I felt as though he was talking about Manman, Papa, Moy, and me.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 19
When I woke up this morning, I heard music coming from the kitchen radio. The radio was louder than usual. From the kitchen doorway, I saw Manman and Papa in each other’s arms, dancing. They both seemed embarrassed when they saw me watching. I wish Moy could have seen this, too, but he was out on an early-morning run.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 20
We listened to the inaugural address of President George W. Bush, the forty-third president of the United States. It was also translated into Creole by a Haitian broadcaster.
Again, I picked out my favorite part:
“America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.”
MONDAY, JANUARY 22
Mr. Casimir discussed President Bush’s speech in class. I was pleased he chose to talk about the same part of the speech that had stood out for me.
This led to a discussion about what Haitians have contributed to this country.
I was surprised to learn that a man who was born in Saint-Marc, Haiti, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, was the first settler in an American city called Chicago. I also learned that a great naturalist, John James Audubon, was born in Les Cayes, Haiti, on April 26, 1785.
As a French colony, Haiti did a lot of commercial trade with the United States. Haitian volunteers fought along with Americans in the Siege of Savannah during the American Revolutionary War. One of the volunteers was Henri Christophe, who later became king of Haiti.
In 1803, after the French grew tired of fighting the Haitians, who were eager for their independence, the French sold 828,000 square miles of land to the United States, from the western banks of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, nearly doubling the size of this country. Mr. Casimir said that Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of America, declared that the Louisiana Purchase would have never happened were it not for the courage and resistance of us Haitians.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23
I went to the library and made a copy of one of Mr. Audubon’s drawings for Moy. It is a painting of a beautiful bright-red flamingo. Perched on the edge of a sea cliff, Mr. Audubon’s flamingo looked as though it could have been painted on a tap tap.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24
As we waited for the bus together this afternoon, Immacula and Faidherbe tried to outdo one another with scary stories about the school, which they wanted to share with me, they said, as cautionary tales.
This was another version of Mr. Marius’s welcome presentation, they said, the real thing.
Immacula told me how some of the kids at school were in gangs, which were differentiated by colors.
Faidherbe told me that it was best to avoid wearing either red or blue so I would not be mistaken for a member of either the Bloods or the Crips gangs.
Immacula told me how two years ago, after a night basketball game, a student from our school had stabbed a player from another team who died on the way to the hospital. Faidherbe said that was why his family did not let him take part in any after-school activities.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 25
I finally got a letter from Thérèse. She had not yet received mine but had gotten my address from Tante Rose so she could write to me. She promised to write again but did not put a return address.
Thérèse’s mother, like many poor mothers in the provinces, has decided to send her to live with a family of a man her mother sometimes sells vetiver to in the market in Léogâne. The man’s family lives in the capital and he has taken Thérèse to work at his house, promising to send her to a better school than Madame Auguste’s.
This doesn’t sound good. Most girls who end up in this kind of arrangement never go to school. They work from morning to night, waiting on the families, cooking and cleaning, and the families rarely spend money on their education.
Tante Rose was involved in this same kind of arrangement when she was my age. My grandparents—Tante Rose and Papa’s parents, the ones she had lit the candle for on All Saints’ Day—had sent her to the capital to work for a family of a coffee speculator her mother had met in the market in Léogâne. The coffee speculator had promised to send Tante Rose to school in exchange for Tante Rose’s working at her house, but she never did.
She and her husband threw Tante Rose out of their house when their son, who was ten years older than Tante Rose, attacked Tante Rose and she complained to them.
Tante Rose was too ashamed to return home, so she went to an orphanage and offered her services there. She worked for school fees and that’s how she got her education.
Tante Rose was very lucky. Perhaps Thérèse will be, too. But for every story like Tante Rose’s, there are thousands of girls who end up alone in the city with nothing.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26
I am starting to understand my lessons a lot better now. I even got an 82 percent on an English spelling test. I had memorized those words as though they were pictures and reproduced them on the page exactly the way I saw them in my head.
Immacula, Faidherbe, and I now study together during our lunch hour and this helps me a lot. I write a list of questions, and whatever I don’t understand, they explain to me.
