God Loves Haiti (9780062348142) (8 page)

Damn right, she thought.

Natasha was only two days removed from a walk down the aisle with the most eligible bachelor in town, the president of the republic. Since their first date at the opening of the Orphan Art Gallery in Carrefour, he'd repeatedly told her that for the rest of his natural life his business would be the business of securing her health, wealth, and happiness. To love her to death. Everyone told Natasha that the President went to great lengths to impress her, shocking lengths in fact. Even now, during her ill-timed fit of buyer's remorse, her husband was too busy being good to her to notice. He was multitasking, executing a slight of hand that would soon allow them to escape his duties to Haiti and hand her a posh life in Tuscany. On the other end of his cell phone was his longtime right-hand
man, Reginald Leglise. Reginald was a source of good humor and as reliable as the sunrise. The President had charged him with securing the final details from US Embassy officials on everything from the President's retirement cash flow in his Swiss bank accounts to hotel reservations to the day's flight schedule. Port-au-Prince to Florence. Nonstop. Sweet.

Stay on them, the President said. Don't let them out of your sight until you hear from me and I tell you we landed safely in Italy. All that is mine here will then be yours, old friend, as promised. No, not the National Palace. Very funny, Reginald. Thanks, I needed that. You're right. I have been through a lot in recent weeks. This deal took a lot out of me. It's a beauty though, isn't it? My best ever. What can I say? It's not like we had a pension system here to take care of me after my last term ended. Our people hate to pay taxes. They miss out on so much, the poor fools.

Natasha generally admired her husband's ability to make people feel sorry for him when they shouldn't. Not today. Today, the absence of scruples in his charm made her feel ordinary, small. A silver-tongued coward's plaything. Marie Antoinette with a melanin overdose. Natasha never felt ordinary with . . . she still dared not speak her ex-lover's name. His smirking ghost stood by her side, staring. Seeping courage from her. Natasha felt her grip on the world crumple in shades of bright green and yellow like a cubist painting. If . . . he . . . was unmuted,
Natasha knew, her ex-lover would tell her the old man was unworthy of her, that he was a lousy president who had barely scratched the surface of possibilities of carrying out his great responsibilities as leader and protector of the dignity of their people, even in tasks as easy as rebuilding an airport with American Airlines' money. He'd describe to Natasha the myriad ways the airport could and should have been better than it had been. And she would see the possibilities for transformation and improvement come alive in her mind's eye. Then she'd reach for a sketch pad and start drawing images, a story that would come to her first as a low tickle in the bottom of her heart and then as a burst of rainbow-colored flavors in her creative id that she would need to tamp down over days to create a memorable and pleasant painting or sculpture. She was never too sure if these bursts of brain-frying inspiration happened because of the power of his words and ideas or the curves of his lips and the sparkle of his confident dark-brown eyes when he talked and touched her, or touched her while talking to her. He always touched her whenever she was near, lightly, sharply, sometimes pointedly, always possessively, intensively, and suggestively. His whole body spoke to hers whenever possible. Tickling bursts of excitement would fill her with each contact, almost literally lighting her up. When they went on walks during escapes to Wahoo Bay Beach. When they had dinner in his house on Place Boyer or in her room at the National Palace. (He often ate
fritaille
, a local mixture of spicy fried pork
or goat chunks, plantains, and turkey, brought from the streets; she often ate a three-course meal prepared by the President's ageless and spice-loving chef.) In a voice that seemed incapable of a yellow note of doubt, he often described in thrilling detail how the surrounding architecture, traffic, economy, foreign policy, art and music, constitution, infrastructure, agriculture, one arcane law after another, could be improved, tweaked, just so to make all Haitians' lives better. Socialism mixed with a correct dose of capitalism ain't that hard, he'd say. We just have to get over our commitment issues first. That boy had no sense of jobs and process and politics. But, man, could he talk up dreams.

Lost in her thoughts, Natasha hadn't realized she had been moving forward, gliding toward the plane against her will. The President's entourage subtly pushed her from behind, as they were wont to do, toward her husband, who was still talking on the phone but waiting for her. The white heat and the noise of the revving jet engines licked her face. The black droning sound and the smell of the exhaust pummeled her. The combination made Natasha dizzy. The moment, this dream-concretizing climax, felt ephemeral. Like she was about to wake up where she was born, in a roofless orphanage, naked, afraid, hungry, but pugnacious.

Really, why does the memory of the most painful moment of my life go together with my love for that guy? Really, God, what's that all about? Is that more proof that
I need to get away from him and his country as quickly and as far away as possible? The beginning thump of a throbbing headache emerged. Natasha thought of the unsolvable paradox of love and regrets. Love did have its upsides, she conceded. The feeling triggered a swelling and crashing of warm waves of emotions inside her. The waves grew stronger, especially now that the old man who was now her old man, a husband she liked but did not love, was living up to his promise to sweep her off their godforsaken island, inspiring her to inch closer to loving him, or at least to the point where she began experiencing glimmers of love's cousins—affection, tenderness, awe, faith—toward him, but not quite love, for she was naturally frugal with her love, nipping it in the bud early and often in her young life except once. It's not like she had much choice. The young man's presence in her life seemed to ignite her life, as if she didn't exist without his attention. The connection felt normal and permanent and urgent. Permanently urgent. But it doesn't have to be a relationship, the chorus of prostitutes who lived near the orphanage had told her. These girls told her to remember that she was unusually pretty and charming and quick. It was her duty to use those God-given gifts to marry up, for richer and older wealth and security, and this young man, smart as he was, dashing as his military-perfect posture made him seem to be, and wealthy and honest as his square and steady gaze promised he could become, was no more richer than us whores today, and
not worth too much of her time. He could be your lover, they said,
ton petit ami
, but never anything more, not even her boyfriend, and that would be OK. Her meager origins made it so. Haiti's hardships ratified it. Provided you were tough enough to walk away from him for good within a minute of landing a rich man, you could play around with him, they said. That's what these attractive girls expected from their future and demanded Natasha expect from hers. The mythical rich man who erases all deprivations. The girls were mostly newbies in a self-defeating game, but they were diligent about what passes for its learned wisdom. They alternated between recruiting Natasha and advising her to be smarter than they were about love, sex, and men. Natasha took their sisterly advice with a grain of salt. Today, while wallowing in guilt in the glow of her lottery ticket of a husband, she realized how closely she had actually followed the whores' script. She remembered, also, that her new old man was human too and also haunted by his childhood's deprivations. At this delicate hour of his life, Natasha would do well to behave like a supportive wife. She scolded herself to get it together.

Natasha's parents, for the brief years she knew them, were big on confessions. They weren't the first parents in their neighborhood to give their adorable five-year-old daughter away to an orphanage in hopes she'd get to eat at least one meal a day, but they may have been the first parents to not promise they'd come back for said daughter after they got back on their feet. In their small apartment
in the Fort National neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, her mother often told her that nothing good ever came to beggars whenever Natasha begged her parents for things, like food or water, or a toy to play with. Her mom, who'd given birth to her only child in the same orphanage she had been born in about sixteen years earlier, said no. No. Every. Single. Time. Her mother was an authority on begging, for she was a beggar,
une professionelle
. So there was no point in begging God, Maman scolded. Few men and women in the history of the world had begged God for mercy and better fortunes than her good, Catholic people had for the last five centuries. Look what that's gotten you? If you want something, her mother said, you better not even whisper it to your so-called God, not if you really want it. You think I'm bad, but no one says no more consistently than Him.

Compared to my mother at my age, my present situation was not that bad, Natasha thought. The tarmac, the achingly blue sky, the private jet, the blue-helmeted soldiers, the sweltering heat, her wide-backed, soft-chinned husband, the look of envy in the eyes of the men who were his staff and friends, and the chirpiness of their other halves—but the torment of guilt would not disappear. Jesus, all that Catholic schooling, all those Masses, all that Bible reading and gospel singing, all those paintings, and only now, as I am about to betray my one true love, as I am about to prove my ignorance of the meaning of love, of You, my Lord, only now do I finally get it. I was supposed to love him for love's sake.

Am I losing my mind as punishment? And you, the silent ghost, what are you looking at? Could you please tell me what to do, you mute fool? My parents would have something useful to say during this crisis. But they've been gone awhile now, haven't they, God? Since you took them from me for no good reason, how about imparting a girl with some wisdom in this crossroad?

You know what, maybe I'm already sorted. I may actually love this fat old man. Maybe the feeling is so strange and novel and awesome, and its capacity to make me feel drunk, selfish, and even self-mutilating is so intense that I dare not say the name of the emotion even to myself, for surely love could bloom from the gratitude I feel towards him. Yes, love could. It could spring from such a well, slowly but worthily, unlike
coups de foudre
and the black rages they alternate and die with. Yes, love could. Unless hate came first.

Natasha? her husband said, snapping his fingers and nudging the girl out of her agita. The ghost of her great love blinked out of existence.

The President held his hand out to her. Natasha's new husband had the unwelcome habit of asking her to hold his hand whenever he wanted to reassure himself of something or whenever he felt her attention slipping away from him, like a father to a child. Like a child, she hated this request. She hated it when boyfriends her age did it. Today a lover forty years her senior was doing it. Sure, he had put a ring on it, but come on. His fingers were big, brown, and
hairy, like a bear's, but with white hairs. Natasha couldn't help but throw up a little in her mouth.

Come, he said, poorly feigning patience.

With that simple word, the young girl lashed out at her husband, though she stood still on the tarmac with her mouth closed. Only her unblinking, unsmiling eyes, big, brown, and catlike conveyed her indignation. Was that an order? Who does he think he is? She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. I can't believe he did that, right here, right now.

The couple was walking toward a gleaming private jet for a one-way flight to Florence, Tuscany, Italy, in other words, heaven on earth; that is, if, like Natasha, you are a painter with fantasies of becoming an all-time great Catholic artist, like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Dante, even though Dante was a writer and not a painter. Natasha had loved Dante and all things Florentine since she'd stolen and read front to back and back to front a beat-up copy of Dante's
Divine Comedy
in Monsignor Dorélien's library when she was kid. Heaven and Florence, Dante's hometown, were Dante's obsessions. They slowly became Natasha's too, in no particular order. The irony that the
Divine Comedy
was a long poem about acute homesickness by a man who hated life in exile, and here she was, hoping for happiness in exile, was lost on her. The whole point of her marriage was to give her the freedom to fly off the island to live a life of adventure of her own choosing and not of fate's.

A memory of a recent night with her husband wafted before her eyes. So bold and proud in public, he was meek and anxious sexually, more often doomed than not. She looked at her husband with a flash of charitable eyes. Yes, he still had that damn hand thrust at her without even bothering to get off his stupid cell phone. Maybe he sensed her communion with the ghost of the young man he'd stolen her from. His professionally honed ability to read people frightened her. It sometimes seemed as though he could read minds. Still, he was about to give her Tuscany. That should buy him some consideration. He was old, so he should be allowed to be old-school. His manners, like the suede loafers he favored, were dainty and chivalrous. Where the young girl had seen imperiousness, a dash of guilt from her emotional betrayal of him made her see charm even though the white shirt, light blue suit, and purple pocket square he wore were jet-setish and goofy. Oh, the international headlines the next morning were going to be cruel.

Mr. President? she said. Did I do something wrong?

Come now, sweetheart, he said. That's no way to talk to your husband. How many times have I told you to call me Jean? You have that right now, you know. You are my wife. You are no longer the girl working in that awful orphanage. I'm no longer the president of Haiti. As of this morning I gave up the job, remember? I threw it all away for you, my love. In fact, once we get on that plane, I'll have the UN PR guy send a press release out telling
the whole world that I shall be known henceforth as Mr. Natasha Robert. Your name will be my name. That's my new name. Do you like it? I like it. I think it has a nice ring to it.