Chapter 12
Memory is deceptive because
it is colored by today’s events.
—Albert Einstein
Innumerable memories remained lost in the flow of time, swept away to an inaccessible place beyond consciousness. My eyes wandered toward a blossoming mango tree. Its green leaves moved to the rhythm of a soft breeze. Despite the light of day, everything seemed strangely blurred. The longing for the sight of Hagathe, her voice, her touch, the aroma of her bosom, continued to haunt me. My soul descended deeper into an abyss of unsolved mysteries.
The afternoon sun filtered through tree branches. I was lying on Lamercie’s mat of plantain twigs when a flashback sprang up as quickly as a flame from a struck match. Another fractured episode of the past flitted without being conjured, providing a faint glimpse of a scene, as images and words found their way out of my subconsciousness. The memory of the first time I saw John, Margaret, Latham, and Brahami suddenly came to mind.
Hagathe, Marie Ange, Magda and her children, and I strolled down the hill toward the river. The two women stopped to talk with people they met on the way, while we scampered around them. As usual, I was the object of attention because of my cinnamon complexion and thick, dark-brown hair. To counter the effects of the evil eye, Lamercie had provided me with protection in the form of special baths and colorful beads that I wore around my waist and underneath the dresses Hagathe made for me on her Singer sewing machine. We walked in a single file and stopped a few times to clear the slippery dirt road for the women and young girls who carried buckets and calabashes on their heads. There was no running water in the houses, but it was the rainy season and the river had overflowed with plenty of water to spare.
As I enjoyed the pleasure of being in the cool water and playing games that my older cousins had taught me, a boy raced down the hill calling out, “Manzè Hagathe, Manzè Hagathe!” The urgency in his voice echoed above the river’s constant symphony.
The boy whispered something in Hagathe’s ear.
“Grann Lamercie is up the hill waiting for me and Iris,” Hagathe told the other women, as she tied a bow at the waist of my dress with unsteady hands. She then told me, in a near whisper, that she wished she had brought better clothes for us to wear and a comb to fix my wild hair. She did the best she could, using her fingers and her hands, to transform my hair into two braids.
My thoughts began to spin like a wheel. Beads of sweat dripped from my brow as I tried to untangle the thread of memories, unable to recall what happened next.
* * *
Brahami’s driver brought Pépé back to Monn Nèg. As she left the jeep she announced that she had something to tell me. Making herself comfortable next to me on Lamercie’s mat, she said, “You remember the man who came to talk to you the day of the funeral?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“He’s a ruthless Tonton Macoute in Port-au-Prince. Papa recognized him.”
“The only way for most Haitian men to find a better life is to become a Tonton Macoute,” I said. “Papa Doc gives them no other choice.”
A line of tension appeared across Pépé’s forehead. “People aren’t allowed to criticize him,” she whispered, as if afraid to even say his name. “We could be accused of being kamoken and sent to jail.”
“What’s a kamoken?” I asked, trying to put thoughts of being locked up in a dung-plastered prison out of my mind.
“Anyone who is an enemy of Duvalier.”
“Let’s ask Marie Ange.”
She was peeling plantains under a breadfruit tree. When she noticed us, she asked “Sak pase?”
“Not much,” I said. “I just wanted to ask if it’s true your brother is a Tonton Macoute.”
“That’s what I hear,” she admitted. “People in Monn Nèg and in town are still talking about how he got rid of Vilanus, the country Tonton Macoute who made life miserable for us here.”
“So he’s a legend.”
Marie Ange straightened her back. “I guess you could say that.”
“What happened?”
She took a deep breath and set aside the calabash bowl where freshly peeled plantains floated in water.