Haiti Noir

One of the neighbors, a bony pale-skinned man, whose elderly mother had suffered a heart attack and died during a kidnapping attempt at her own house in broad daylight, had become extremely philosophical, a filozòf, in such matters. He chimed in, saying to Solange, “Ma chère, this country is a land of mystery. Mysteries enter your home quietly, and always when you least expect them. They come like a closed padlock and always without the keys to their puzzle. It’s almost impossible to discover what’s behind a mystery in this country. They are part of the essence of our people. They are stained into the fabric of our culture. When you hear the sound of drums coming from the depth of night, what you really hear are echoes. And never, never can you discover the true source of the drumbeats. And never mind whose hands are beating the drums. Those are the mysteries of the night. You know, madame, when the flying werewolves are in the air, one can only see the traces of their flames, but never can one guess which direction they are taking, or in whose yard they will land. Never will we know, as they fly, whose children they plan to eat during the night. But sometimes the solution to a mystery is right under our noses. In other words, what you need to know is right there next to you, though sadly, you never see it. Madame, you will never know who took Rosanna. The why, we know, is money. Money, we know, or lack of it, is the primary obsession of a poor country like ours. But as to who committed this crime, I am speaking from experience: your mystery will now join the rank of all the other mysteries that will never be solved in this country-”

“They want half a million American dollars,” Solange finally interrupted her philosophical neighbor, lest he should go on speaking forever. “It’s too much. Far too much. I have to imagine that they would take half of that, which is all I have liquid right now.”

***

In the windowless room where Rosanna sat contemplating her fate, the heat kept rising and her body began to shake in fear. She couldn’t stop thinking of all the kidnapping cases that had been in the newspapers. Of the sixteen-year-old boy who was killed and dumped on a trash heap even after his family had paid the ransom. Of the girl who had been taken all the way to the northern city of Cap Haitien and was gang raped then murdered after having both her eyes gouged out. Of the school bus full of children that had been abducted, forcing each parent to come up with a thousand dollars. Of the shoeshine man who had been beaten on the spine with a crowbar and was paralyzed because his family could not afford the ransom. But there were also happy stories, happy endings worth clinging to. There was the girl at school who had only spent several hours in captivity because her parents had quickly negotiated and paid. Not a hair on her head was touched, she had insisted to everyone at school. They had blindfolded her, just as they had Rosanna, so she didn’t know where she had been taken. All she knew was that it was extremely hot and full of mosquitoes.

There were mosquitoes flitting about Rosanna now too. By the thousands, it seemed. Flies buzzed annoyingly around her ears, occasionally landing their tiny moistened tentacles on her skin. She could also hear the man guarding her, breathing across the room, swatting the mosquitoes dead with loud slaps to his own skin.

Meanwhile, because they could not go to the police, Solange’s philosophical neighbor took Davernis with him back to the Portail Léogâne bus station, hoping to find witnesses. The bus that Rosanna had intended to take to Les Cayes had already left. The street vendors who had surrounded her, and even the others who had not, but had seen everything unfold before their eyes, refused to tell them anything.

“M pa konnen,” they answered to Davernis and the neighbor’s repeated questions. I don’t know.

“I understand.” The neighbor tried to coax them with small purchases until he had an armful of wilted fruits and vegetables. “You have to come back here every day, and even talking to me right now might put you in danger, but I am a customer and customers and vendors have an intimacy.”

“M pa konnen mesye,” they all repeated, the fear evident in their eyes.