Unpacked Boxes

Port-au-Prince, Haiti

This sun, this glaring midday sun. The moment Madam Pierre-Louise stepped onto the roof, a basket of wet clothes on her hip, she could feel herself burning up. In a way, it was her own fault. She had gotten into such an argument with her son Julien while trying to help him unpack that she had forgotten all about the laundry. She was born and raised with this heat, but in the middle of the day, at her age, it was like the sun wanted to permeate each and every one of her bones. Even in all this wind. Se sa Ayiti ye, was all Julien would say. That was what he had said yesterday about the crowded tap taps, the mud cake diets, the overflowing trash, the orphans without a home in all this empty space. She did not want to debate such things with Julien, who in the last year after coming back from abroad had become not only a foreigner, but the blandest of blan, and was making it clear that were it not for the sudden restrictions that forced him to repatriate, he would have remained happily overseas. She did not want to think about it. Taking care of a full grown man while her husband was busy working at the hospital was like having a second job. She just wanted to hang the clothes then move on to the next pressing question: what was for lunch, poulet or griyo?

    But it was hard to pin the clothes on such a blustery day. The wind had swooped in from the Caribbean and was gunning for Madam Pierre-Louise’s blouses. No matter how many pegs she used, she had the sense that if she were not there to watch them, they would simply blow away. She knew how much Julien prized these clothes, fetched from the rich side of the world, and how much Julien would complain if the wind bequeathed them to the streets. She told herself she would hang some of them here and put some of them on the rack in her bedroom, but by the time she had organized the clothes, it seemed that the wind had stopped. 

    In the still air the sun felt even hotter, causing the creases and cracks in the stucco of the nearby houses to glisten. These Haitian kays had a peculiar time of beauty, the spick and span of houses made white simply due to the years gone by in which they had not seen a fresh layer of paint. Madam Pierre-Louise was struck by a strange and irresistible sense that too much time was passing. She was not one of these Haitians who lolled about outside the boutiques and waited for the day to end. In the end she made the decision to hang all of the clothes in the sun, then she climbed back down with her weak and scarred knees to the first floor, where she found Julien lazing in his favorite spot—the couch—unpacking books from a box. Madam Pierre-Louise didn’t like how quiet it was, so she turned on the television.

    “Do you need the television on all the time?” Julien protested.

    “It will do you good to hear the pastor speak,” Madam Pierre-Louise insisted. “Especially after yesterday.”

    She didn’t want to think about yesterday anymore, so she turned up the volume. She did not know the name of this pastor. He was new, at least to the program, but his bald, wrinkled head gave him a seasoned look. He was giving a sermon on Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, but before Madam Pierre-Louise could make out a word of it, Julien reached for the remote. She grabbed it and kept it close to her chest. Julien could have taken it if he wanted, but instead he finished emptying the box then took it outside and left it in the street. 

    Madam Pierre-Louise stared at Julien’s books on her table.

    “Victor Hugo,” she said. “We had to read him in school. I think he was part Haitian.”

    “He was part black, not part Haitian.”

    “ He had a fighting spirit. That is Haitian enough.”

    “It isn’t as simple as that,” Julien said. On the TV the pastor said that neither the sexually immoral nor the idolaters, neither the adulterers nor the homosexual, were meant for the Kingdom of God. Julien went to fetch another box from his room. As someone who loved so deeply, and felt the things he felt no matter what, Madam Pierre-Louise knew something in Julien had been stung, and that this was what motivated his fidgetiness. He came back and dropped two boxes onto the sofa. Madam Pierre-Louise pointed to the television.

    “Listen well,” she said. The pastor was saying that those who did wrong were not meant to receive love, and this was simply the way it was, and it had its own truth, that there was only so much one could test the patience of a loved one. Bonds between people were like a rubber band; they could take so much, but after a point, they would snap.

    “Turn it off,” Julien said. Madam Pierre-Louise refused. The pastor reiterated that anyone who made amends could return to the Kingdom. Such was Jesus’ promise. There is a place for even the worst of sinners in the eyes of God.

    The power went off, as it was wont to do. Madam Pierre-Louise said, “You have won this battle,” and Julien, much like he would as a little boy, jokingly pumped his fist in victory. Just like the first two boxes, the third one was full of books. Madam Pierre-Louise chuckled and said, “I guess you will have all the time to read them now.” Julien didn’t respond, so she asked, “Did you learn what you wanted to from reading them?”

    Julien looked up and said, “Everything I know about myself and the world comes from books.”

    Madam Pierre-Louise smirked. “And yet you forsake the one book whose pages contain the whole truth.” 

    “I used to have a friend from India,” said Julien, picking a book from the box. “He showed me this book. It is called the Gita. It has much more in it than your book.”

    Madam Pierre-Louise didn’t know much about books from India, but she knew enough to disagree. “If God made people in India say the same thing as people in the Middle East,” she argued, “then it is God’s word and no one else’s.”   

    Julien had nothing to say to that. Madam Pierre-Louise noticed it was time to start on lunch, which was more important to her than this debate. She had plenty of pork in the fridge, and with the electricity off, she thought it best to cook as much of it as she could, along with the cabbage from the day before. So griyo it was. 

    As the smell of spiced pork began to fill the kitchen, Madam Pierre-Louise noticed Julien standing at the sink. “Too hot?” she asked.

    “Oui, tres chaud,” Julien admitted. Madam Pierre-Louise remembered how the first thing that was like a blan in her eyes was how he complained about the heat. You expect me to manage in this house when you don’t even have AC? His father and mother had given him a personal fan—an expensive one, at that—but it wasn’t enough. Madam Pierre-Louise would hear him wake up in the middle of the night to take a cold shower, or head up to the rooftop to bask in the cool midnight breeze. She also remembered his arms and shoulders covered in mosquito bites, the malaise of sleeplessness in his body, and yes, the exhaustion from too much heat. It had been some weeks, so he had gotten a little used to it, but he still couldn’t handle it like a true Haitian.

    Madam Pierre-Louise got a small towel from the bathroom and dampened it with water. She put it on Julien’s forehead, and then she put it on her own. With age, the heat was affecting her more than she would like to admit. Haiti was a difficult country, but there were ways to deal with things as long as one was smart. There were worse things than heat. What bothered Madam Pierre-Louise more was seeing her neighbors feeding their grandchildren breadfruit straight from the peel, teaching them how to play osselets on the street corner, or showing them how to ride a bike. Sweet, innocent grandchildren—something Madam Pierre-Louise most likely would never have.

    “What’s wrong?” Julien asked, and Madam Pierre-Louise tried to perk up for the sake of appearance. “Nothing,” she said, but everything in every direction was wrong between them, no words could hide that, and so she laughed after she said that. 

    “What?” Julien pressed.

    All Madam Pierre-Louise could say was. “Anyen, anyen meme.” Then she added, after a long silence, “Life is funny.” Julien nodded, but with a gravitas Madam Pierre-Louise could not understand. That was another change she had noticed in her Julien; the average Haitian may have been through a lot, but they never acknowledged it, and they tried hard not to take it seriously. Julien no longer possessed this sense of humor. But then again, neither did his parents.

    Madam Pierre-Louise did not like the feeling and wanted to break it. “You remember when you were a little boy, and we would take you to play football. Yes, just like yesterday, how awful you were. No wonder you hated it. No, ma mere, you will say, don’t talk about such things, they will make me angry. But, remember, during those games, you met a boy you liked, a good friend, the only boy friend you had at that age, and you would sit on our porch and you would play jacks. In fact, I found a picture of it just a few months back. Let me find it.”

    Julien protested. Madam Pierre-Louise only had one photo album containing all the pictures of Julien’s life, and it had been expensive, so she kept it,  a prized heirloom, in a certain corner in the cabinet. Unlike the other books in this cabinet, this one did not have a patina of dust, nor did it have that musty smell. Madam Pierre-Louise thought it was in the third or fourth page on the right-hand side, but that was a picture of her and Father on their wedding day. “No, not this one,” she said. The picture ended up being on the thirteenth page, far from where she remembered it being. 

    “Perhaps you want this,” Julien said, rummaging through the box between his feet. He pulled something out from under the books. It was a picture album—his own. And in it, on the first page, was the picture of the three of them, the one that she had wanted.

    “Anyen,” Madam Pierre-Louise gasped. “You found it. Look at that smile. So wide, so happy. I think there’s not another picture in which you look this good.” 

    Julien saw it as a challenge, and he was flipping through the pictures in the album to see whether or not that was the case, but it did not take him long. “As raison. C’est clair.” 

    All the while Madam Pierre-Louise smiled, and said, “I can’t believe you kept an album like this. I would have never expected it.”

    Julien looked away. A lifetime of pain was sparkling in his eyes, but Madam Pierre-Louise did not want to impinge. She flipped through the album that he was holding and found another picture. “Hey! This picture, right here. Look.” Two boys stared directly at the camera, sitting on the ground, the same scorched ground that all Haitians knew, but on it were the five wooden jacks, and leaning over them two boys, well-dressed, sporting the biggest smiles you’ve ever seen. Madam Pierre-Louise said, “I don’t even remember who this boy is.”

    “He lives here,” said Julien. “He was one of my best friends.” He stole the picture away from her and put it in his chest pocket. 

    “Where are you taking it?” Madam Pierre-Louise asked. But Julien made no reply. 

    The electricity had come back on. She heard the pastor’s voice once more. After making light of the power cut, he returned to his message; he reminded everyone what Corinthians said. There were people who did wrong, and did wrong almost gleefully, and they were the people who were the last to be trusted. The pastor once more pointed out those who were the worst of sinners; they were the prostitutes, they were the adulterers, and they were the homosexuals. The pastor was listing ways in which they made life hard for us, and reiterated that they were the worst of the worst. Never trust a swindler, an adulterer, or a homosexual, he warned. Then he put his speech on hold and let the choir start their gospel.

    Madam Pierre-Louise and Julien looked at each other. The filling from the pillow was falling out and lay in a pile on the floor, next to Julien’s box. “I have a lot of things to unpack,” said Julien. “Are you going to help me or not?”

    She wanted to listen to her son, but the pastor’s words smothered and drenched.