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Those Dead People to Whom I Spoke.

Getchens Mathurin

Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-3527-5

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

To those friends who are ahead of me for eternity following the earthquake in Port-au-Prince on January 12^th, 2010.

‘’As for man, his days are as grass:

as the flower of the field, so he flourishes.

For the wind passes over it, and it is gone;

And the place thereof shall know it no more. ‘’

The Holy Bible (1)

‘’The book of life is the supreme book

That we cannot close or open to our choice.

The endearing passage does not read twice

But the fatal slip turns on its own.

We would like to go back to the page where we love

And the page where we die is already under our fingers.’’

Alphonse de Lamartine (2)

Presentation.

It seems we often feel more satisfaction talking about those enchanting souvenirs, those events whose remembrance is sometimes enough to revive moments of happiness, rather than those stories that are only the memory of suffering. Those whose only reminder could mobilize a river of tears. But many people would suggest it is better to be aware that misfortune exists, and its probability of realization is equally shared among all of us. My readers would surely agree that our state of mind needs to connect to the world like it is verily.

I would like to tell you a story about the love shared between two great lovers. Or maybe the success of a fiery young man who has set out in search of happiness and found it in the most spectacular way. These stories would surely fill you with this particular happiness common to so many readers because they would remind you that you too can succeed in your love, you too can achieve success in your professional life. A life whose path is wonderful, where everything is fine, where luck remains with man, where the gods towards him act favorably. I would love to tell a story that shows everything goes well in a perfect world because I acknowledge the truth as a reader, we are sometimes looking for a form of satisfaction of our happiness, a pleasure given through the imaginary of our reading. A world like we wish it all is easier to be found behind the pages of a book than behind the realities of the real world so unfair and unbalanced. Why not choosing to be a part of an imaginary world? Or, at least, embracing the side of the true world where everything seems to be perfect?

Yet life invites us sometimes to remind others that suffering is a human condition we cannot ignore. We are more human because we do face danger, sickness, and even death. Life encourages us to share the pain we have suffered. It urges us to let others know what we have experienced in one day, in a week, in a year, even in our entire life. It pushes us at times to share some misfortunes that hide behind a fragile existence. Perhaps because a man's path is not completely closed to the fate of the rest of men...

Acknowledging this is, in my view, wisdom. Ignoring it is a lie that one makes to oneself, even a danger. The daily tells us there are many unpleasant surprises in this existence. So many troubles that disturb situations of happiness or, at the very least, the calm in which we evolved until then.

This was the case in an evening when everything was going well until in the greatest astonishment the earth under our feet began to tremble and make enormous dance steps. It looked like it was about to be overthrown. What happened to us as person with body, spirit, and soul as a result of such a strange event? What has become the physical envelope of the human being? What happened to our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters? And those friends we did not have any news of? What happened to life?

The reader is here invited to join my thoughts to return to this evening when pain, suffering and death have enveloped men and women in distress. At a time when we, humans, under the blue of the sky, no longer knew on which foot to dance. Returning not because we liked this afternoon, enjoyed it well. Returning not because the reader will appreciate it, but because certain experiences become a part of us, influence our character as a person, and contribute to the evolution of our perception of life. Returning because, as is often rightly said: ''The pain of a man is that of every man and the death of a man is that of the whole human race.''

With my loneliness as my only companion, I had engaged in a deep meditation in my room in Brooklyn on the afternoon of January 12^th, 2011 marking the first anniversary of the powerful earthquake of January 12^th, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A disaster that took the lives of more than two hundred thousand people. I was then lost in my thoughts, far from my native land at this moment of sad reminiscences.

I imagined what my way of life had once been: university ‘activities, church ‘responsibilities, job’ performance, family ‘duties in the context of the social reality of my country of origin. I saw in my mind this old childhood friend with whom so many complicities have been shared and sealed in my memory for ever. This friend whose education and behavior had been a part in the formation of my character but now were gone. With him - or at least his image- I lived in a certain way because no one can escape his/her childhood. With the reality of dead I also lived because it comes a certain time in our life when death is no longer a speech, a philosophy, but a personal matter that we are dealing with.

I reviewed these houses, in front of me, collapsing as if I was a part of a casting for a science fiction movie like 2012. I revised in my mind this colleague lady who, like me, had worked in the Protocol Office of the Haitian Chancellery. While she was sitting at the front desk waiting for her spouse to pick her up, the locals had collapsed on her. The husband had been late that afternoon and the event had surprised the unlucky wife on the ground floor of the Department of Foreign Affairs. The building had been completely destroyed. I saw in my mind the wounded who had forcibly taken the Foreign Ministry bus that I had been on that afternoon, begging the driver to take them to a hospital. Some had dislocated limbs, others had crushed flesh... and all were covered in blood. I reviewed the roads blocked by electric pylons, electrical wires crossing here and there, concrete walls, tree branches... I was thinking about my colleagues who, like me, had tried in vain to contact their families. The phones were dead in the same way as humans... I was getting off the bus and did not know exactly where I was. The dust that rose high in nature and the radical change in the surrounding environment had left me in great confusion. The scale of the disaster and the astonishment took possession of us: the dead before our eyes, the wounded who were in a close proximity.

The employees, who had abandoned the bus taken by force by so many wounded, forced to walk back to their homes, were therefore obliged to observe the damage... to see paths littered with corpses... and the wounded who were screaming for help... The small pools of water that usually soiled so many streets of Port-au-Prince had been replaced by a river of blood on this funeral afternoon. The streets were then reddened, the nature dark. Suddenly, each tree wore a bleached, white-powdered garment to the point of extravagance. Cries of distress filled the whole capital, but no one represented a great support for the other, since each was under the weight of pain; each had its own burden.

And here I was on the road with one question: "Will I find my wife and daughter alive?"

I reviewed, in this afternoon of meditation and reflection, these people whom I had personally known and who were no longer... I was thinking about this friend with whom I had come a long way after a monster traffic jam that had held the passengers in distress in the neighborhoods of Martissant... He and I had abandoned, on a night out, this public transport bus trapped in the waters following a light autumn rain. This friend died on the steps of his house, running to meet his mother just returned to her vacation from New York. I saw in my mind those mothers swept away by the pain, those fathers who were scrambling to try to pull their children out of the abyss of the rubble... I imagined the fate of the rector of the Faculty of Applied Linguistics dying while teaching on this afternoon. Together with his students, including a friend of mine, they were entered the afterlife and their bodies remained under the debris of the collapsed building for a while. I saw these dead brothers of my religious congregation whose mortal remains were struggling to find a tomb. Most of them were forced to return to the dust in the simplest and, as a result, the most despicable way. It is so unwise so many times we take our life as granted. So foolish we are living with the feeling that we will be there on earth forever and ever. We forget this simple and meaningful teaching of the Holy Bible. ‘’ You are dust and to dust you shall return.’’ (3)

I cannot resist sometimes shedding a few tears in the absence of my wife and daughters. Alone in my room, I let go of my emotions a little, because no one would be there to remind me that crying or moaning is cowardly, as Alfred de Vigny would have pointed it out. I, moreover, do not really have trouble expressing my feelings. I belong to those who laugh at the right time and cry when needed. But it is often said that a man should not cry, which places me at times in a conflicting situation with my emotions.

Suddenly came to my mind this friend whom I had loved and who was not indifferent to me. This young girl, who had greatly pleased me and whose only official relationship with my then fiancée, my wife now, had been the obstacle preventing us from going any further. I thought of her and the great silence that now weighed on her existence. I realized that her activities on Facebook were dying even though she used to be very active. She who liked to change her profile very often, added photos to her album, posed like a movie star and exhibited to the world her great Creole beauty. My quiet life and my loyalty to my wife had led me to forget the queen of beauty, to ignore her in a certain way. My commitment to the beautiful and good woman who would become my wife had not allowed me to approach Sophia, to have any romantic relationship with her.

Thus, I concluded she might have been one of those people who died in the terrible disaster of January 12th, 2010. Those people, most of whom had died slowly, sometimes making appeals for help to survivors— their voices could be heard and complained about, in suffering of course. Those missing persons from whom we had no news and who had obviously been taken with thousands other anonymous bodies to be thrown into this pit, in this isolated place called for example "Titanyen",(4) place in which, believe me sincerely, we are really nothing!

But I refused to let this dark idea get into my mind. From this supposition I distanced myself far away, thinking such a loss would be terribly unfortunate. Sophia (5) was among those people who we wish they would not return to the unpleasant condition of the dust of the earth, especially when they are in the prime of their lives and the beauty of their youth radiates like a star in a cold winter night and, indeed, offer to curious male eyes adorable shows. She was among those women one takes pleasure in watching, although they may represent the forbidden fruit. Sophia was very charming with elegant legs, graceful arms, nice and long hairs and a way of walking that brought out her adorable feminity. She also knew how to put colors together to dress in an original way where style was no less than an expression of a nice esthetic. With a body of a pleasant shape, from time Sophia appeared to be like an adorable and rare painting that any art lover would be willing to acquire for a great price.

I also told myself this is not only Sophia from whom I simply had no news. A classmate and good friend with whom I had spent my four years in social communication at the Faculty of Humanities of the University State of Haiti also remained in perfect silence. A disturbing silence. Gerard had been a great and faithful friend.

We know the disaster turned everything upside down. Indeed, driven by the psychosis of fear, a lot of survivors had dispersed, fleeing death and aftershocks that tore the bowels of the earth, also fleeing, in the case of those who inhabited coastal areas, such as me, the threat of water.

Thus, on the evening of that grim afternoon, when we had calmed down a little in our tents in the street that had become our common home, three men arrived breathless announcing to everyone that we had to move to avoid the wrath of the waters. "The sea," they said, "foams, rises and is about to move!" People knew what had happened in the Indian Ocean in 2004: an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, devastated India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Further back in time, but close in space, history had also taught how the city of Cap Haitian, the country's second largest city, had been submerged in the aftermath of the 1842 earthquake. (6) This is because, in the event of seismic faults under the ocean waters, the fact was quite possible. Eyewitnesses reported that the Leogane Sea had dried up for some time- to the point where people had been able to enter it to catch fishes, before returning in force to its ordinary limits. (7)

It is understandable that as a result of this announcement, many, if not all, survivors took babies and basic necessities to climb up to the heights, where the waters might not be able to reach them. After a little reluctance, at the insistence of my wife, I grab the Jeep Rider 4x4 which served as a transportable house and left for the mountains opposite, praying that these hypothetical waters would not reach the high places. It seems to me there are many trials in this life. In any case, the survivors of the January 12^th earthquake had to face a great deal of suffering, both physical and moral.

It was later we learned that the vagabonds who ran the news wanted everyone to go so far from their homes just to have the opportunity to steal their belongings. Residents who were already well bruised by this unimaginable disaster. Those material objects that became very despicable at a time when life was threatened every hour. At all times, under our feet, the earth was moving... We were then worried about life and not about useless objects. Those objects that nature in her anger carried away... At least once in our lifetime we are given the opportunity to better understand the teaching of the wise Solomon who reminded us in his time that: ''vanity of vanities, everything is vanity.(8) At a certain point we must keep in mind in front of the time everything and everyone will go away. The time will not go anywhere and, we, -people and artefacts- by opposition, are the one that come and go. With this in mind, the lesson of the preacher would allow us to reconsider the way we conceive what we own as wealth and the real place we suppose to put them in our life. Do I give my $ 1 million self-driving car more value than a human life? Does this car breath like a human? Does it have blood? The truth is we will not be able to enter in eternity with any of those material objects to which we have a so profound attachment. We will not have access even with our own humanity. That is why all is vanity. The survivors of the January 12^th earthquake learned this lesson in a pragmatical and hard way. Some events which we were a part change our conception of our relationship with our own mortality and wealth’ possession. Indeed, give us more wisdom.

Fortunately, these criminals did not have the opportunity to carry out their crime. And the waters of the sea that were bubbling remained within their limits. It is true, as Jean Racine, the French writer, nicely expressed it: "He who puts a stop to the fury of the waters/knows also the wicked stop the plots." (9)

As a result of this natural disaster followed by other occasional misfortunes, many survivors left the Capital, moving away from the sphere of the epicenter of the earthquake, going to provincial towns or other countries for those who had the opportunity. They went in search of some rest. They went to a place where the earth under their feet seemed calm, where it was not willing to move again and again and again.

Georges was in my mind for quite a while. What could this great silence mean? He who knew by heart my Yahoo address! He who always greeted me in the moments when he felt distant to me? Precious minutes of telephone, at the cost of three gourdes (10) each, were sometimes used to inquire about my news in times when my existence was too silent for his liking. So, I had good reason to worry about my dear friend. Where could George have been?

Oh God! I exclaimed, what about Charlande? This friend from the period between youth and adulthood. This friend with whom I shared not only time but ideas, not only ideas but money, not only money but our fear of what the future holds for us as young people in a complex socio-economic reality. We used to meet not because of a physical attraction but because that is what true friend do. We sometimes met and by a nice improvisation debating about religion as social phenomenon; talking about these politicians who fail to define their political program and underlining the state of our literature with these writers who brilliantly published their novels, their poetry. We used to reflect about the true meaning of love and how changing is its face as time passed. Years had strengthened our relationship and we had respected each other. She had seen me go into the arms of another woman without raising an eyebrow and I had met her fiancé without being jealous in any ways. I used to go to her house in ‘’Carrefour Feuilles’’ at times. We shared a wonderful friendship and we did our best to see each other or talk to each other at reasonable intervals in order to preserve it.

But unlike Georges and Sophia, the Internet could not help me getting news from Charlande. She had never liked Facebook, which she felt was a snag of privacy and an opportunity for deranged minds to post nonsense in plain sight. Her Yahoo account! had even been disactivated, since it would have consulted it only every quarter of a century. Charlande gave the impression of not embracing modernity. More inclined to rely on nature, it seemed she was not able to understand the true usefulness of electronic and industrial progress.

I came to the resolution to send messages to these three friends. I would use Internet for the first two and the post office for the third one. I first entered Sophia Ducoste into the Facebook search page and a result appeared. No photo on her profile. Only a flower that welcomed curious guess like me. But someone with this name did exist and this was already a great source of happiness. However, I had to go a little further to see if the features displayed met the information of the person I had in mind. After all, many people have similar names.

This Sophia, originally from Port-au-Prince, was born on September 11^th. I couldn't know for sure if it was her or another one, the multi-level coincidences exist after all, but the date was a good sign for me since we used to celebrate her birthday when America commemorated the somber events of September 11^th , 2001. "If the account exists with shy, is her owner necessarily alive?" I asked. The only way to be sure about that was to sending messages. "But this person is already on my friends list!" I exclaimed. It was her, no doubt. So, I decided to say a few words to her, just to see if she would answer me.

Hello Sophia,

‘’I have not heard from you for years. And suddenly, I am deeply consumed in the desire to know what you become. Being able to read something from you would assure me that you survived the earthquake of January 12^th. I remember those days when our friendship was as beautiful as a spring flower... I know I was wrong not to try to contact you a little earlier. But you would understand how it is good to protect our family from all kind of moral hazard. I pray that you and your loves one are very well.

I beg you to answer me as soon as possible if you read this message.

Getchens,

Your great friend! ‘’

I refrained from using phrases like "I don't know if you're still alive," but it was this state of mind that consumed me. That was this concern that pushed me to send her emails. A week passed, two weeks and a month arrived, without me receiving any news from Sophia. "Is she angry with me because of my prolonged silence towards her? I thought. But if she were alive, she too would have tried to contact me to find out if I were part of the living souls. Unless she has learned it from a third party.

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