The Roving Tree. Elsie Augustave
may be in my mailbox. I haven’t opened it in almost a week.”
“Why not?”
“All I ever get is bills.”
We took the number 4 train to Utica Avenue in Brooklyn. Approaching an old Gothic church, we saw hundreds of Haitians gathered on Eastern Parkway. A sea of black faces carried the original red and blue flag of Haiti in the chilly autumn air. “Hey, hey, USA! Stop supporting Duvalier!” they shouted. Drummers from my dance class joined by others were in the front row. They nodded and smiled when they saw me. The electricity of the booming sounds of their instruments intensified.
A Jewish lawyer for the Haitian refugees read a quote from Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus” carved at the foot of the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore . . .”
A brown-skinned Haitian priest with curly hair moved to the pulpit and began to speak. “Fellow Haitians and citizens of the United States, we welcome and thank you for being here tonight. To support the Haitian refugees is to support the ideology of justice this country represents.” With a white handkerchief, he wiped sweat from his forehead. “The American government has extended a welcoming hand to Cuban refugees. But Haitians, who took that same perilous trip across the sea, are imprisoned because they’re black, poor, and uneducated.” He paused. “Let us remind the politicians in Washington that if Haitians are poor and uneducated, it is because of the political system they fled.” The priest’s voice rose. “Doesn’t that make them political refugees, ladies and gentlemen?” Applause exploded, and the priest paused, waiting for calm to return. “We must inform the national and the international communities that Mother Liberty has denied Haitians their natural right to freedom in this land of opportunity.” Again, waves of applause roared across the church’s sanctuary as the priest stepped off the podium. Sweat glistened on his face.
The women, many of whom wore gold earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, served thick espresso coffee and meat, chicken, and codfish patties in a dark hallway seriously in need of a paint job. They talked with their hands, often breaking into laughter. As I watched them, I wished that I could talk to them about Monn Nèg. My mother’s black-and-white picture came to mind and a knot of regret tightened in my throat. I wished that I could reverse the irredeemable act. How I would have loved to have that picture to compare my mother’s features to the women at the church.
The religious and political personalities were no longer present, but many Haitian businesspeople and cultural leaders mingled and spoke about their dreams to return to Haiti without the Duvaliers.
Latham and I were preparing to leave when the dance instructor called my name. “Iris, let me introduce you to some people,” he said.
* * *
On a quest to connect with more Haitians I visited the Haitian book and record shop in Manhattan on Amsterdam Avenue near 85th Street. The owner, a bald, round-bellied man who had given Latham and me business cards at the meeting in Brooklyn, introduced me to his friends as a long-lost daughter of Haiti. He remembered I had told him I couldn’t speak Creole anymore and that I didn’t know any Haitians other than my dance instructor and the drummers. The men looked at me with pity, as though they thought I was deprived.
I listened to the men discuss Haiti’s latest political development. They spoke Creole laced with English. It vaguely reminded me of Monn Nèg and forced me to summon memories of the little girl I once was. Even though her presence in me was undeniable, a body of more recent experiences overshadowed her. I lingered in the store and browsed through books by Haitian writers. The owner recommended the novel Gouverneurs de la rosée by Jacques Roumain and recordings that introduced me to Ti Roro’s vaudou drums, Martha Jean-Claude’s lamenting voice, and the rhythms of Tabou Combo.
* * *
Months later, The Haitian Peasant Family and Spirits, the book Mom had researched in Haiti, was published. Although she had completed the manuscript years earlier, she waited for nearly a decade to find a publisher. Soon after its publication, Dad and I attended her lecture at Yale University. Cynthia was a sophomore at Princeton University and, as usual, she was buried in her books. Determined to make it to medical school, she didn’t want to take any time away from her studies. In fact, she almost never came home, except on major holidays.
Nearly one hundred people had gathered in the lecture hall to hear Mom speak. They were mostly from the anthropology department, the divinity school, and the Africana studies department.
She read from her notes. “Vaudou spirits share the life of a family that shows reverence to them, and they, in return, provide guidance and protection against evil intentions. Like Roman, Greek, and Egyptian gods, they have human flaws. They visit when summoned but can arrive unexpectedly to deliver messages. They may also appear in a person’s dreams, taking on a human or an animal form, or they may occupy the body of a person who becomes a horse that the spirit mounts.” Mom talked about my family in Monn Nèg as a case study, then took questions from the audience.
“Can one actually see the spirit ride the horse?” a white male student asked. His question prompted laughter from the audience.
“The spirit rides the horse’s mind and dictates the steed’s words and movements,” Mom explained.
“How do Haitians reconcile their Christian beliefs with pagan practices?” the same student asked in a more serious tone.
An older man commented that it would have been helpful to read the book before the lecture. The young man turned red; another man, who was sitting next to me, said to one of his colleagues, “Richard is a theology student. He has conservative views about non-Western religious concepts.”
More questions followed. Listening to the people in the audience discuss the culture of my birth made me want to remember my life in Monn Nèg even more, but my recollections remained vague. I wondered how the mind decided what to remember and what to forget.
Later that night in the hotel room, Mom stood in front of the dresser removing her eye makeup, while Dad laid on their double bed. I kept thinking about Mom’s lecture and what Dr. Connelly had said. “So, Mom, you actually believe in this stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“You know, the vaudou stuff.”
Dad put down the book he was reading. “Well, do you?” he asked her with a smirk.
“My job, as an anthropologist, is not to believe or to practice. It is to understand in a nonjudgmental manner those whose belief it is. The vaudou religion is, to me, as fascinating as Greek or Roman mythology . . .”
“Okay. We get the point,” Dad teased.
“Yeah, Mom. One lecture a day is enough.”
The three of us laughed, and I left to change into my nightclothes. I hated sharing a room with them, but I had joined them at the last minute. There was a big Yale-Princeton football game scheduled for the next day and there were no available rooms in the same hotel.
“What is my birth mother like?” I asked, while watching Mom brush her hair.
“Hagathe is a dignified and humble woman,” she answered. “We haven’t talked about her much since we noticed that her picture disappeared from your room.”
I sat down on the other double bed and thought aloud, “I wonder what it would be like to see her again.” I recalled the shame and resentment I felt the day I threw her picture away.
“We’ll visit her after you graduate college,” Dad said.
“Hagathe asked us to wait until you were an adult before bringing you back to Monn Nèg, but if you miss her, we can arrange a trip sooner.”
“It’s okay. I’ll wait,” I said, realizing I wasn’t so sure I wanted her back in my life. What if she wasn’t the warm and loving woman I wanted to believe she was?
Drifting