Читать книгу The Roving Tree - Elsie Augustave - Страница 11

Chapter 3

That a lie which is all a lie may be met and

fought with outright,

But a lie which is part a truth is a harder

matter to fight.

—Lord Alfred Tennyson

Iris!”

Whenever I heard that tone in Mom’s voice, I knew she meant business. I rushed up the stairs and tried to think why I was being summoned. Maybe Madame Glissant told her I didn’t turn in my book report on time, or she may have found out I ate a slice of cake before dinner, or that I went to bed last night without brushing my teeth.

“I called Dr. Connelly today,” she said as soon as I entered the dining room. “What exactly did he say about Haiti that upset you?” She sat down at the head of the table, across from Dad and next to my godfather Latham, who had come over for dinner. I stood there with my arms hanging loosely, unable to move or to speak, feeling like I was in front of a jury. Dad pulled back a chair next to him and invited me to sit.

My heartbeat accelerated as I realized the seriousness of the situation. I was unsure of why I had accused Dr. Connelly of saying Haitians were devil worshipers, other than the fact that I didn’t want to go back to his office. I had thought a simple twist of the truth would go unnoticed and would allow me to have my way, just because I despised how his questions made me feel. I dreaded the soul-searching process that meant thinking about a past that I wanted to forget. My eyes traveled from Mom to Dad, then to Latham, trying to decide which of the three could be a possible ally. Their impassive faces revealed nothing.

I heard Mom say, “We’re concerned about what you told us that Dr. Connelly said.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I responded, as I tried to think of a way to get out of this situation.

“Let’s begin with your telling me again what Dr. Connelly said that offended you,” Dad suggested.

“I don’t remember his exact words. Something about Haitians being devil worshippers,” I blurted out for the sake of consistency, though I was aware it wasn’t all true.

“What exactly did he say?” Mom insisted. She leaned back and peered at me with a dubious gaze, and waited for an answer.

“I don’t remember,” I said in a faint voice, having noticed the tension showing on her face.

“When your Dad told me what you said happened in his office yesterday, I called Dr. Connelly for clarification. Apparently you have taken his words out of context.”

“I didn’t mean to.” My voice trembled and echoed guilt.

The room grew so quiet I could hear myself breathing. The questioning gaze persisted on their faces until Latham, who had not said a word thus far, spoke.

“Maybe Iris didn’t understand Dr. Connelly’s words.”

“Let’s hope that’s what it was,” Mom said without conviction. Anger suddenly covered her gentle face as she let out a moan of anguish and reached for the coffee pot on the table. Sadness had replaced the usual softness in her eyes. A pearl of tear found its way to the corner of her eye. She got up and left the room without drinking her coffee.

Latham’s eyes sent a message of sympathy. Though maybe it was pity. I’m not sure. Nonetheless, I was grateful that he had come to my aid, as he had so often done in many ways since the day after I arrived in the United States, when he showed up with his arms filled with clothes and toys, announcing that he was my godfather. I vaguely recalled seeing him with the Winstons when they came to Monn Nèg. What I did remember about him was that although he had the same skin color as the people of Monn Nèg, he couldn’t speak Creole. I had smiled broadly when I saw him again, happy to have someone who reminded me of the familiar faces I had left behind.

The conversation we had that night left a hollow feeling in my heart that grew deeper and larger as the days went by. Thinking I had betrayed Mom and Dad, I was embarrassed and tried to avoid them as much as possible. I spent more time in my room, grateful that only two weeks earlier they had given Cynthia and me separate bedrooms. This went on until they summoned me one Saturday afternoon after ballet class.

“We need to talk.” Mom crossed her legs and asked me to sit next to her on the sofa.

“What did I do now?” I asked grumpily.

“I don’t like the tone of your voice, young lady,” Dad cautioned.

I relaxed a bit, hoping the conversation that had not yet begun would soon be over. The fearful, gnawing feeling inside me quickly melted, and I told them I was sorry.

“We would like to know why you’ve been avoiding us,” Mom said.

I wiped my moist hands on my skirt, and felt a throbbing sensation in my heart. I blurted out that I did not want to go back to Dr. Connelly. “I don’t like the way he makes me feel,” I explained.

“That’s still no reason to stain someone’s reputation,” Mom scolded.

Dad leaned toward the coffee table. “That wasn’t very nice of you,” he said, resting reproachful eyes on me.

Tears of redemption rolled down my cheeks; waves of regret grew. A gush of sun penetrated the living room through the sliding windows, and Dad reclined in his seat. “The reason we took you to Dr. Connelly,” he said, “was so that you could understand your frustrations.”

Two weeks later, Dad accompanied Mom to an out-of-town conference, and Latham stayed with Cynthia and me. He picked me up from ballet class and dropped Cynthia at her music school before taking me for a snack.

“I heard Dr. Connelly is disappointed that you wouldn’t go back to see him,” he said, backing up onto the road.

“Mom told me.”

He looked over his shoulder. “I suppose you don’t want to reconsider.”

I turned to face the window. “Talking about these things makes me nervous,” I said in a soft voice.

“What things?”

“Things like my mother and about Haiti.”

“Why should talking about them make you nervous?” He stopped the car at a traffic light and searched my eyes. The light turned green; Latham shifted gears. He drove off the main road and then pulled into the parking lot of a stainless steel and porcelain enamel place with a red neon sign that read, Good Food Diner. We walked into the long and narrow room where customers were seated on stools mounted into the floor; at the end of the blue Formica service counter there were apple pies and cherry pies, chocolate cakes and pound cakes displayed in clear rotating cases. Hamburgers and hot dogs sizzled on a grill; french fries in a basket were lowered into hot boiling oil on a stove against the wall. Latham led me to a booth opposite the counter. I studied the menu, even though I knew I wanted a strawberry ice-cream soda.

“What are you and your daughter having today?” asked a blond waitress with a forced smile. I thought at the time that one of the things I enjoyed about being with Latham was that people didn’t stare at us as they did with my family.

“I heard about a Haitian dance class in the city that you might want to try,” he said, bringing a steaming cup of coffee toward his lips. “Margaret told me you used to love to dance to the sounds of Haitian drums,” he added, as he set the cup on the table. “The class is for adults but I spoke with the instructor, who has agreed to enroll you.”

“When is the class?”

“On Saturdays.”

“What about my ballet class?”

“What about it?”

“I guess I can go to the Wednesday class. Mom doesn’t teach on Wednesdays.”

The sounds of drums played in my mind; adrenaline flushed in my veins. Something beyond the physical occurred, pressing me to reconnect with the culture that only weeks ago had made me feel so ashamed that I had gotten rid of my mother’s picture, the only physical thing that connected me to my past. The thought of hearing sounds from my childhood in rural Haiti was suddenly like seeing and feeling the sun in the middle of a winter day.

* * *

On the following Saturday, Latham accompanied me to the dance class, a few blocks away from Times Square. As I climbed the wooden stairs leading to the studio that, later I found out, used to be a cosmetics factory. I imagined making Haitian friends who would tell me about Haiti and who would perhaps help bring back memories of a life I once knew.

Latham introduced me to the instructor, a short, dark-skinned man with a thick mustache, who wore a black tank top and a black leotard. “You go stretch now. Class begins in five minutes,” he said with a heavy accent. He then moved on to speak to the drummers. Latham waved goodbye and left me to my fate.

The only Haitians in the dance studio were the three drummers and the instructor, but they offered me no special treatment. As the drums rolled, I timidly began to imitate the instructor’s movements; but when the syncopated rhythm grew louder, a greater force prompted me to dance with surprising confidence. My body moved in an undulating motion, my back moved toward and then away from the unpolished wooden floor. When the drums reached a feverish beat, I entered a state of ecstasy.

* * *

I regularly attended the classes and continued to hope to make Haitian friends. Dancers came and went over the years, but no other Haitian person ever visited the studio. Eager to learn about the Haitian culture that I often heard described as exotic, the dancers who took the class were almost always white women in their twenties and thirties. For me, however, the classes became valuable to my understanding of my heritage, as the instructor introduced me to the richness of Haitian folklore and brought to life the circumstances of the survival of the Ibo, Nago, Congo, and Mandinga traditions on the island. I enjoyed hearing about the important role those dances played in major historical movements such as the slave revolts. I listened to the instructor talk about African spirits, like Ogoun Badagris and Damballah Wedo, who would descend into the soul of their Haitian children all the way from Africa, the magical place that had been an enigma ever since the girl in the cafeteria had said that was where people like me belonged. I began to feel closer to Africa, the place where most Haitian culture originated. When I danced to the rhythms of Africa, my soul found healing in a holistic manner that took me, each time, deeper into a level of consciousness and self-realization. The dance classes triggered an emotional and physical release that uplifted and energized me and allowed me to explore and accept the essence of my being.

One Saturday, something unusual occurred. Something that became vital to bringing me closer to my journey, toward discovering and accepting my past, as it opened doors and connected me to the culture that suddenly seemed more accessible.

“Mademoiselle Iris,” said the dance instructor. It was the first time he addressed me after class, and I was surprised.

“Yes?”

“How old you now?”

“Seventeen.”

“I been watching you dance since you a young girl. I like your energy,” he drawled.

Happy that he had noticed me, I offered a broad smile and thanked him.

“How long have you been dancing with me now?”

“Nine years.”

“You master Dunham’s techniques.” He scratched his head and turned to say goodbye to the drummers who were leaving the studio with their instruments secure in army duffel bags over their shoulders. He turned to me. “Yes, you a good dancer now, old enough to join the company. We rehearse three times a week in Brooklyn. Is that okay?”

Although it sounded like a great opportunity to dance with professionals, I knew my parents would never allow me to join. They always made it clear that dance should just be a hobby and that I needed to focus on my schoolwork, especially since I was in my junior year in high school.

“It sounds really good, but I live in Westchester and I have a lot of homework.”

“Too bad.” He shook his head. “You coming to the meeting?” he asked, as I was about to push open the door to the dressing room.

“What meeting?” I took a few steps toward him.

“You didn’t get the flier I mailed you?”

“No, I didn’t.” I then remembered that Latham had used his address and telephone number when he registered me for the class years ago.

“There are some left in lobby. Try to come, okay?”

I looked through the piles of fliers and advertisements until I found the right one.

* * *

The double-glass door of Dad’s gallery opened to a vast room with a glossy wooden floor. Original paintings by contemporary African-American abstract expressionists Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, and William Johnson hung on the walls alongside works by Haitian artists, who represented a magical, colorful world in the folk art tradition. My attention was drawn to a bronze sculpture by Augusta Savage in the center of the gallery. On the pedestal was the bust of a young black girl with soft and curious eyes.

When he heard me, Latham, wearing a French beret, Levi’s, and a white starched long-sleeve cotton shirt, lifted his head from a Jacob Lawrence print of Toussaint Louverture that he had just framed.

“How was class?”

“We had a visiting master drummer today.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“Can you come to a meeting with me this evening?” I asked, watching him spraying and wiping the foam off the glass frame.

“What meeting?”

“A meeting about Haitian refugees.” I showed him the flier and told him about my conversation with the dance instructor.

“The flier 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 off to sleep, I summoned images of vaudou spirits visiting family members, as Mom had mentioned in her book. But none came to my mind, even though she had told me on our way to the hotel that I was present when a spirit came to visit my family. That night I dreamed I was kneeling in front of a body of calm, crystal-clear water. As I was about to dip my cupped hands in it, a woman dressed in white emerged from the bottom of the spring and rose to a standing position; a colorful arc of light reflected above her.

I awoke from the dream drenched in sweat, thinking that I had been the woman in white. I quickly dismissed the thought. How could it have been me when I was the one looking into the water?

Mom placed her book on her lap, peered at me, and quietly asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“You were asleep for less than an hour. What happened?” Dad asked.

“I don’t know. I’m all wet.”

“But it’s not hot in here,” Mom said.

Afraid they might take me to some other Dr. Connelly, I said nothing about the dream that left me with fear, yet coupled with serenity. It seemed odd that I would have those unusual dreams when I thought about my mother. It occurred to me that it was time to find out why I was with the Winstons.

Questions I had forced myself to dismiss suddenly began to haunt me.

“Why did my birth mother give me up?” I asked, pulling the cover up to my neck.

“There is no limit to a mother’s sacrifice to protect her child,” Dad said.

“Why did you adopt me?”

Mom abruptly sat up, her kind eyes focused on me as she spoke. Her eyes were wet with sadness and nostalgia, or maybe it was joy. I don’t know.