Behind the Mountains

Wednesday, October 18, 2000

Ti liv mwen, my sweet little book. How wonderful to have your crisp white pages to write on during those quiet moments between my day and afternoon tasks. My teacher, Madame Auguste, gave you to me today before we started recitations. In front of the entire class, she said I deserved you because I had the best marks of all thirty-nine pupils last month. Madame Auguste is like that. Every now and then she will surprise the class with a kind gesture, such as a group outing or candies from the city, but this time she just chose me. She gave you to me.

It was Madame Auguste’s opinion that I could use you in whatever way I wanted, keep you in the little cedar box you came in and never take you out at all, or only remove you from there on special occasions. She also said that I could keep you in a special place at home. For me that would be under my pillow on the bed that Manman and I sleep in together.

“Celiane could also use her notebook,” she said,spelling out every word for the students to ponder, “to write down pensées or maxims that she likes so she can refer to them whenever it pleases her. She may use this book to jot down the pages of the texts she has to memorize for recitations in class, or she can simply use it to record her own ideas, thoughts of her own.”

Madame Auguste made such a speech of the whole thing to show me and the other pupils all the uses an empty notebook can have. But when she said I could use you to write down things about myself, I became very glad and decided that is exactly what I am going to do. I will tell you everything I can tell no one else, and you will keep quiet because you have no tongue and you cannot speak. My pen is your tongue and I am your voice so you will never betray my secrets.

I must go soon, sweet little book, to prepare for Manman’s return from the market. Manman goes to the market down the mountain in Léogâne on Wednesdays and Saturdays to sell peanut and coconut confections that she, my older brother, Moy, and I make together. Manman will be back soon, at just about the time that Moy will be returning from the cornfields. Ever since Papa left for New York five years ago, it is Moy who looks after Papa’s cornfields and Papa’s two pride cows.

I must do my homework before Manman and Moy return. Then I must go to the fork in the road and help Manman carry the provisions she has brought home from the market. I wish I had gotten you sooner, sweet little book. But as Manman always says, you cannot chew before you have teeth. Maybe Madame Auguste was waiting for me to know how to use you before giving you to me. I will “chew on you” later.

Later

I am writing behind our house, by the light of our kerosene lamp. Manman and Moy are asleep. I sneaked out to the cooking shed where the three large rocks we use to hold our pots are still warm from the fire Moy had made for Manman to prepare our supper. In spite of Moy having poured half a calabash of water on the cooking sticks, there are a few cinders left in the ashes, small pieces of wood glowing red before collapsing into a heap of white soot.

I love to watch the ashes, especially at night. It’s like finding stars on the ground, an extraordinary thing to observe in an ordinary place, the place where we cook our food.

Our house is not big, but we are very proud of it because my father built it himself many years ago. Papa was proud of this house, too, when he was here. He told everyone who made a compliment about the house, “I built it with my two hands.”

Papa had refused help from his neighbors and friends because he wanted to prove to Manman’s parents Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial- that he was worthy of her. This is why we have stayed here in this same house since Papa left even though he sends us money from New York and we could afford a place in the city, like Papa’s sister, Tante Rose.

Our house has two rooms. The front room is for us to receive guests. It’s also where Moy sleeps. The back room is for Manman and Papa, but now I sleep with Manman in her and Papa’s bed. (When Papa was here, I slept on a sisal mat on the floor next to the bed.)

Our house is in a village called Beau Jour. It is a tiny village on top of a mountain. Beau Jour is on the middle mountain of a range of four mountains that we can see in every direction. I learned from my geography lesson that the name of this country, Haiti, comes from the Arawak Indian word Ayiti, which means mountainous land or land on high.

There is also a proverb that says, “Behind the mountains are more mountains.” This is certainly true because our house is on a mountain, but not the tallest one. Some mountains are bigger and taller still.

From our house, when it is not so dark like it is tonight, I can see a chain of mountains and braids of water running down the mountains to become water falls and rivers. In the daytime, when the sun is high in the sky, you almost cannot see the water at all, just a glow mixed in with the sun. It looks like the pictures of crystals and diamonds in the books Madame Auguste keeps in the schoolhouse. The mountains are more beautiful still at sunset. Then they look blue and gold, like one of the paintings that Moy’s artist friend, Bòs Dezi, makes to sell at the tourist market in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

I must admit that I am afraid of the dark, even though you would not know it because I am out here alone so late at night. My grandfather, Granpè Nozial, sometimes tells very scary stories about the night. One of the scariest stories is about a three-legged horse named Galipot, who trots down the mountains at night looking for his fourth leg. The three-legged horse is named Galipòt because if you say the three syllables really fast “Ga-li-pòt-Ga-li-pot-Ga-li-pòt,” it makes the sound of three hooves hitting the ground. If you see Galipot and run, he thinks you’re his fourth leg and he chases you.

I have never seen this horse myself, and most of the time I believe, as Papa used to say, that maybe these kinds of things only exist in the “streams of our dreams.”

Thursday, October 19

Last night I did not share the biggest news. Manman came home with a cassette from Papa. After supper, the three of us gathered in the front room to listen to the cassette.

Papa sends us cassettes and money from New York once a month. Papa sends the money to pay for my schooling and for Moy’s training to be a tailor. (Moy chose that himself rather than going to university in the city.) Moy uses a lot of his money to buy sketching paper. Even though Manman thinks he is making designs for shirts and pants for his tailor’s classes, I have looked over his shoulder a few times and I have seen that he is really drawing shapes and faces like Bos Dezi does before he makes one of his paintings. Sometimes Moy draws girls, too, but never anyone I know.

The money Papa sends us also pays for food and clothes, and any extra things we need. Manman does not really have to sell dous at the market, but with Papa gone, she likes to keep herself busy and she likes for us to keep ourselves occupied, too. So she works at making and selling the confections and Moy works the cornfields and looks after Papa’s cows even when Moy also has to go to tailor school.

Sometimes Moy comes home angry because his classmates tease him and say, “Your papa is in New York. Why must you work the fields?” Moy has gotten into fights because of this. Just last week he punched a classmate, who then hit Moy on the shoulder with a stick. I don’t know all the details. That’s all Moy was willing to say about it.

Manman is worried that Moy is becoming too difficult. She blames his behavior on the fact that Papa is gone. I don’t think she is blaming Papa, just his absence. Whenever Moy gets into one of his fights, Manman always makes it clear to him that she is the granmoun, the adult, and that he is the child – Moy is nineteen and not a child, but to Manman he will always be one. You should see Manman standing on her toes to make herself the same height as Moy to scold him.

“Listen to me, Moy, the head that’s accustomed to wearing a hat will always wear a hat,” she says to him.

I wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell Moy then, but now I realize that maybe she was telling him that if he gets used to being in fights, he would always be fighting.

Manman likes to speak in pictures like that. They are called proverbs. I like proverbs because you have to stop and think to interpret them. They make a picture for you and you must discover for yourself how to interpret it.

In any case, after supper we all sit in the front room with the cassette machine that Papa had bought for us before he left for New York. Manman brought new batteries from the market, which she puts in the machine before inserting the cassette. Papa always begins his cassettes to us in the same way.

“Alo, Aline.” (That’s Manman.)

Then it’s, “Alo, Moy, alo, Celiane.”

Papa continues, “How are you, my precious ones? I am trying to see all three of you in my mind as I sit here. Aline, I see your face leaning close to the machine as if you would like to touch my voice. Celiane, I see you pulling at a little strand of hair on the left side of your face because you are waiting for Papa to say your name.”

Papa knows us well. It is true Manman was leaning forward as though she wanted to kiss Papa’s voice and I was doing the same, except I was also pulling on my hair. Moy was leaning back in his chair, just as Papa said. He was trying to appear calm and unexcited. (I wonder if Manman tells Papa in secret that this is what we do while listening to his cassettes.)

Each month when Papa sends the cassettes, I worry that he will forget to mention my name, or for get to talk about the few things I had said to him in the last cassette we had all made for him together.

“Moy, I hope your lessons are going well,” Papa says. Moy smiles, losing some of his reserve. Papa tells Moy, “Manman says you are taking time to look after the land the way Papa taught you. This makes Papa proud. You might not think it fashionable, but, Moy, everything you do now will be valuable to you in the future.”

Most of the time when Papa is talking in the cassettes, I think he forgets himself, forgets that he is talking to us and simply talks to himself, to console himself, to counsel himself just as he is counseling us, to make himself feel better just as he is trying to make us feel better.

It was my turn for Papa to speak to me.

“Celiane, Papa is glad that you got such good marks in school last month,” he says. “Papa will reward you by sending you a typewriter like you asked.”

I scream so loud that some birds stir in the almond trees in the yard; I scare them away with my voice.

Now comes the moment both Moy and I were expecting. This moment comes in all the cassettes.

“Aline,” Papa says, “after these words you can stop the cassette. The rest is for your ears alone.”

“Good-bye, Moy. Good-bye, Cécé,” Papa says before he speaks to Manman alone. “You are in all of Papa’s dreams and you have all of Papa’s love.”

Manman turns off the cassette. The rest she listens to when Moy and I are away from the house. She listens to the cassettes almost every day, until the next one comes or until the batteries die.

Manman always looks sad when it is time to stop listening to the part of the cassette that we all listen to together. It is as if Papa was with all of us for a while and has disappeared again. I know she feels better, though, once she listens to her part alone. Papa says things to her, good news and bad, that he chooses not to share with Moy and me.

Friday, October 20

My closest friend in school is a girl named Thérèse. Thérèse and I are together so much that some of the other pupils think we are sisters. We are both tall for our age, taller than all of the boys, especially a boy named Pouchon, who is always mad at me because I am usually first in the class, while he is in second place behind me. I am flattered to be mistaken for Thérèse’s sister because she is pretty. Everyone, even Pouchon, thinks so. What is different about us, though, is that Thérèse is not nearly as interested in school as I am. All she thinks about are boys, not the ones in our class, but older boys, like my brother, Moy, who is her latest fancy.

Thérèse lives in the same village as my grand parents. Whenever Manman, Moy, and I go to my grandparents’ house, we must pass her house, and whenever she knows we are coming, she stands out on the road in front of her house to greet us. (Mostly to greet Moy.)

Today during recess Thérèse started pestering me again about Moy. Some of my classmates were playing hopscotch, marbles, jumping rope, and singing while they twirled themselves to near dizziness in a won, but all Thérèse wanted to do was talk about Moy.

“How is your brother, Celiane?”

“He is fine, Thérèse.”

“Is he still going to Léogâne for sewing lessons?” “They are not sewing lessons. He is learning to be a tailor.”

“Then one day I will be a tailor’s wife.” “You’re dreaming, Thérèse.”

“Okay, Celiane, for now you can keep your brother to yourself, but soon I will be looking for someone and I will be sure he looks at me.”

“He has seen you already, Thérèse.”

“He has seen me with his eyes closed, Celiane. Soon he will look at me with his eyes open.”

I would never tell Thérèse about the girls in Moy’s sketches. If she knew about them she would die of jealousy.

Later

This afternoon we made the dous for Manman to sell at the market tomorrow. First, we boiled the milk from our cows with the sugar that Manman bought at the market, and then we put in the peanuts and co conut chunks. It is my job to shell the peanuts and Moy’s to shred the coconut.

While the dous was cooling off, we made a cassette for Papa. We sat together and took turns talking to him. Manman usually speaks first.

“Victor,” she says, “we, your family, are happy to have this chance to talk to you again. We welcomed with great joy the words you sent us last month. Now I will let the children greet you.”

Moy leans over to speak. He begins by clearing his throat. “Papa, thank you for the money you continue to send for my schooling. I am progressing well. The corn is coming along fine. The cows are okay. I will speak to you again next month.”

After I say a few things to Papa, Manman takes the cassette machine to her room.

Unlike Papa who was alone when he spoke in the cassettes, we were all together in one room, which made us very shy, except for Manman who would later say private words to Papa while we were asleep.

There is so much I always plan to tell Papa, but I am always embarrassed to talk in front of Manman and Moy. I am better at writing, so maybe I should write him letters. I have written a letter for one other person, so why not for Papa?

Once, when I was at the market in Léogâne with Manman, one of the cloth vendors, a lady named So Grace, waited until Manman was gone on one of her errands and asked if I could read a letter for her. She reaches into her money apron and hands me the let ter. It is from her daughter in Canada. I read the letter to her, translating it from the French into Creole. Then Sò Grace asks me if I can write a reply to her daughter.

The daughter was studying at a university in Québec and was writing to tell her mother that she was doing well in her studies and that she had met a young man whom she wanted to marry. Sò Grace beams when I read and interpret this for her. At the same time she seems so sorrowful that she has been carrying such good news in her money apron and has not been able to read it.

She gives me five dollars to buy paper and an envelope to write a reply to her daughter. The rest I am allowed to keep for myself.

She tells me to write to her daughter how happy she is that her daughter is almost an engineer, and to ask if she is sure about the young man. Is it the right time to marry? Will the marriage not dis tract her from her studies, halt the beginning of her career?

I write exactly what she says, pretending that she is giving me dictation, like Madame Auguste in class. I am careful with my handwriting, and the letter comes out neat with no mistakes. Now I think I will do the same for Papa. I will write him letters that only he can read.

I quickly began my letter. I planned to tell him so much that I was too shy to tell him in front of the others.

Dear Papa,

We miss you.

Your daughter Celiane

I was surprised so little came out in my letter. Maybe I don’t know my own father anymore. Maybe he has changed. Maybe I have changed.

Even though Papa sends us pictures regularly, it is hard to imagine what he looks like in his everyday life, in the place where he works, in the house where he lives. I am even more worried now that I will not know what to say to Papa when I see him again.

Saturday, October 21

We wake before dawn to go to the market. At that time of the morning, a gray mist hangs in the air, dew over everything. It is very calm but a little cool at the same time. Manman makes me wear an extra blouse over my dress. Halfway down the mountain, when the sun comes up, I can take off the blouse.

My job is to carry the peanut confections while Manman carries the coconut ones.

Along the way we meet other vendors walking down to the market. Some are carrying plantains, breadfruits, mangoes, and corn to sell. Others are carrying cocoa and coffee beans.

We must cross a river before we can reach the market. Manman and the other vendors always try and find the shallowest spot in the river for their crossing. Then we remove our shoes, raise our skirts – the men roll up their pants – and we wade across with baskets of different weights on top of our heads.

The market is very lively on Saturdays, even more so than on Wednesdays. Manman does not have a stall, because she is not a big vendor like Sò Grace or the others who sell things in larger quantities. Manman usually sets her winnowing trays near Sò Grace’s stall, and Sò Grace doesn’t mind if Manman benefits from the shade from her stall because Manman buys cloth from her now and then.

Sò Grace is taking out some of her best cloth when we arrive. Soon Manman goes off to send the cassette to Papa. I have decided not to send my letter until I can think of more to say..

While Manman is gone, Sò Grace walks over to where I am sitting behind Manman’s tray of sweets and says, “My daughter is coming for a visit soon.”

“Is she, Madame?” I say.

Sò Grace bends down, picks up one of Manman’s coconut candies, and bites into it. Then she reaches into her money apron and gives me twenty-five gour des, which is much more than the dous is worth.

“When I spoke to her on the telephone,” she says, “my daughter told me your letter was the best letter that I’d ever had written for me. She said she could hear my voice in the letter.”

Later

Moy met us at the fork in the road when we returned from the market. Manman was more tired than usual. She had a headache.

Moy gave me a gentle tap on the head as a greeting, like he always does. When you look at him, not thinking that he is your brother, Moy does appear rather handsome. He is tall and thin, like Papa, and he wears loose and airy clothes that he makes himself.

Even though he and Manman are not on the best of terms, Moy takes Manman’s basket and carries it the rest of the way home.

Sunday, October 22

We are at Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial’s house for Sunday supper. Granmè Melina made dish, green peas with rice, my favorite.

Granmè Melina is young for a grandmother. Both she and Granpè Nozial have strong, firm bodies. They still work their own fields. They do not live with Manman because they say it would make them age faster having someone looking after them.

Behind Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial’s house are the graves of Melina’s parents. Every year on the Day of the Dead, Granmè Melina cleans the graves to honor her parents.

While I am washing the pots in the yard, even though I am not trying to listen, I hear Granpè Nozial and Manman talking about Moy.

“You cannot keep him under your skirt for the rest of his life,” Granpè Nozial tells Manman. “He is a young man, Aline. Young men are like young bulls They must fight their way through everything.”

Monday, October 23

I keep thinking about Papa. When he was here, some nights after working in the fields, he would stand in the yard with Moy and me, and together we would look up at the sky and watch the stars fall. Though he would not speak, Papa would look sad when a star fell out of the sky. It was as though the world was changed somehow, and not for the better.

Things were sometimes very bad for Papa, like when his crops failed and he had to sell some of his land to repay his debts. He was too proud to ask his younger sister, Tante Rose, for money.

Papa finally left for New York because he was worried that one year things would become too difficult to bear: A cyclone or hurricane would hit, or the crops would fail and we would have nothing at all.

It was a childhood friend of Papa’s, Franck, who sent him the invitation papers. Franck has several restaurants in New York and offered Papa at one of them. Papa was supposed to go for only a few months, but then he stayed.

Three years ago, Papa’s friend Franck sent invitation papers to the American consulate for Manman, Moy, and me. We have already had all of our physical examinations and as soon as we receive word from the consulate, we will be able to join Papa in New York.

Tuesday, October 24

Tonight we had a rain shower. Thérèse and I were doing homework together when the rain began. When I was younger, I used to be afraid of lightning and thunder so I would hide under a sheet during rain showers.

When Papa was here, he and Moy would soap themselves then rush out in the rain in their underpants. Thérèse and I wanted to go out for a rain bath, but Manman would not let us.

Moy went out rain bathing, but hurried back in side saying the rain was too cold. There were bits of hail the size of rice grains in it.

Thérèse was so happy to see Moy in his underpants that she laughed and laughed, her laughter sounding even louder than the rain pounding on the tin roof.

I love to hear Thérèse laugh. It is a very free laugh. Thérèse never covers her mouth when she laughs. She just lets it out with all her might. Her whole body bounces. Her neck twists. Her chest rattles. Her hands wave wildly in the air, as though they were dancing.

Manman says that Thérèse laughs like someone who was raised with pigs and donkeys. I believe Thérèse laughs like someone who thinks she may never laugh again.

Wednesday, October 25

Manman was very tired today when she came home from the market. This happens to her sometimes. She gets so fatigued that her bones ache. Her head still aches, too.

Before she went to bed, I made her some ginger tea and Moy boiled a yam for her. I could tell she didn’t have much of an appetite, but she ate the yam because it was one of the few times that Moy has ever put pot to fire.

Friday, October 27

Manman has decided to skip the market tomorrow. Instead we are going to the city to visit my father’s sister, Tante Rose.

We have not seen Tante Rose since the summer. Madame Auguste will not have class next week, on All Saints’ Day and the Day of the Dead, so we are going to the city. While we are gone, Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial will look after the fields and the cows for us.

I am glad we are going to see Tante Rose even though I don’t especially like the city.

“There is city family and there is country family.” Manman often says. “Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial are your country family. Tante Rose is city family.”

Tante Rose comes to visit us in the summer, but never stays for long. She does not like that we have remained in Beau Jour when we could be living in Port au-Prince. When Tante Rose was my age, she left the mountains and went to live with a family in the capital. After a few months the family threw her out, so she went to live in an orphanage. The people who ran the orphanage sent her to school. She studied hard and became a nurse.

Papa used to brag a lot about Tante Rose. If anyone asked about Tante Rose- – people who still remembered her from when she was a girl – Papa would answer, “My sister is working at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, curing the sick.”

When the men who used to work with Papa in the fields wanted to tease him, they would say. “Victor, you do not look like you have a sister who is a nurse. You are a peasant. You have big dusty toes. Why would you stay here and live like this when you a sister in the city?” have

People never understand why anyone would choose to stay in the mountains when they could be living in the city.

I can see many advantages myself to living in the mountains as opposed to the city. For one, there are fewer people here. When Manman, Moy, and I go to the capital, I always feel like I am being pushed andshoved by crowds of people. Even when we are in a taxi with Tante Rose, there are always people sur rounding the taxi.

“People get lost in the city,” Manman says. Not lost in the same way people usually get lost when they are looking for a place they cannot find. People in the city, Manman says, know where they are going, but they still feel lost, as though they are looking for them selves.

No, the mountain does not have an advanced school yet. Moy has to go to Léogâne to attend his tailoring classes. But all in all, like Manman and Papa, I love these mountains, the vetiver and citronella plants along the trails, the rain tapping on the tin roof, even the fog that shifts from place to place in the afternoons.

I love the rainbows during sun showers. I love the shortcuts through the cornfields, the smell of pine wood burning, the golden-brown sap dripping into the fire. I love sleeping on a sisal mat on the clay floor in Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial’s one-room house, and eating in their yard while listening to Granpè Nozial’s stories.