January 18, 2006
Fiction
Strangers in the Water
I owe my existence to the frantic coupling of two strangers in 1937 in the shallow and bloody waters of the Massacre River that separates Haiti from the Dominican Republic. The story of this incident is told in hushed, awkward tones, on those rare occasions it is told at all, as if it is we who must bear shame for the indiscretion of my grandparents. My mother never speaks of it. She tries to distance herself from the geography of so much pain, and now, only travels to Haiti when absolutely necessary. It is not that she is ashamed of her mother, or the circumstances of her birth, but to imagine her mother and a stranger fleeing the Dominican Republic, hiding in the waters of the river while soldiers slaughtered people on both banks, only to seek solace in each other reminds her of a history she only wants to forget. Perhaps it is a history we all want to forget. But every morning when she stares in the mirror, or when she catches her reflection in a storefront, she is forced to remember.
I am fascinated by this story—this moment of desperation and conception. I asked my grandmother about it once, when my husband Todd and I were in Haiti for a few weeks. I remember how she stared at me with milky eyes, her small hands, scarred from working in sugar cane fields in Dajabon, the first town across the Dominican border, and how she held her glass of rum and water so tightly I thought the glass would splinter in her hand. I took the glass from her, told her that she had almost hurt herself. She looked away and whispered, “Scars cannot bleed.”
Todd and I have been married for three years, together for over six. My mother refers to him as “Mr. America,” because in her mind, he represents the wholesome American image she has come to resent. We met at the University of Nebraska, but after our twins were born, I insisted we move to Washington D.C. because if we stayed in that cold, remote place, our little brown babies would always be more mine than his. I try to explain to Todd what it means to be Haitian but its hard for him to understand that there are places in the world where power outages are commonplace, and the majority of the population wallows in poverty—where no matter how rich or poor you are, you want the same thing, an end to the chaos, a breath of fresh air, a moment of peace. It is hard for him to understand why I would want to be in that place. But it is hard for me to understand why I would want to be anywhere else.
My husband and I have been to Haiti together twice. The first time, he brought a case of bottled water, and found it inexplicable that I wouldn’t speak to him for a week, afterwards. The second time, he brought ten bottles of mosquito spray. Every night, we would swelter beneath the mosquito netting of our bed, and when we tried to make love, he made me nauseous with the aerosol stench of insect repellant. Then, upon our return, in the airport in Miami, he kissed the ground, and was subject to two weeks of the silent treatment. For the sake of our relationship, we keep international travel to a minimum. But now, I have this need to go to Haiti, because it is the only place in the world that truly feels like home. My grandmother is getting older, the country is getting worse, and if I don’t go now, the places I remember, the people that make it home, will no longer be there.
My grandmother lives in Ouanaminthe, the first town on the Haitian side of the Massacre River. I don’t understand why she chooses to live so close to a place of horror but sometimes I think that she can’t bear to part with the memories, as if the further away she gets from that place, the more she will forget. Her house is a small, cement affair. There are palm trees in the front yard and a small iron gate to ward off unwanted visitors. She often sits on her porch, staring towards the river, a distant look in her eyes. When she’s like this, I can only watch her. A silence surrounds her that demands respect.
She and my grandfather worked on a plantation in Dajabon, cutting sugar cane. They didn’t know each other, but they didn’t need to. They shared the same condition. I have heard the stories of cane workers—days beneath a tormenting sun, cruel overseers, little pay, a life much like the slaves in America. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for my grandmother, a small woman in a big world that she could not hope to understand. When General Rafael Trujillo ordered all Haitians out of the Dominican Republic, she gathered her few belongings and wrapped them in her skirt. She ran from the overseers, and people throwing stones and marauding soldiers only to find more soldiers on both sides of the river. She found a shallow place and even beneath the moonlight, she could see that the water ran red with blood. The water was icy cold and as she waded in, a body floated past her. She waited, her heart stopping every time she saw the barrel of a soldier’s rifle or heard the heavy footsteps of military boots plodding along damp soil. She heard the screams of men, women, and children being slaughtered, the thrashing of limbs in water, the silence of death.
She closed her eyes and thought about her childhood, the sound of her mother singing, the smell of fresh laundry, her father’s paintings. She didn’t notice when a large man slipped into the water. She couldn’t scream when he tapped her shoulder. She wanted to tell him to go away—that two were easier to spot than one, but she looked into his eyes and saw her fear mirrored there. As she lay in the water shivering, the small part of her heart still remaining opened up, and she wrapped her arms around this stranger. For hours, but perhaps it was only minutes, they lay there holding each other until she could feel his heart beating against hers, every breath of his followed by one of hers until she was certain that they were breathing for each other.
She did not protest when she felt his cold lips pressed against hers. She opened her mouth and felt respite at the warmth she found in his. His large hands unbuttoned her blouse, covered her breasts. They lifted her skirt, and turned her onto her back and held her as he entered her swiftly. He buried his face in her neck. She buried her face in his shoulder. With each thrust, the coarse fabric of his shirt scraped her cheek. She felt a tightening between her thighs. His chest seemed to hollow as he sobbed silently. Even after they came, he remained inside her. He remained inside her until young shafts of morning light gave witness to the carnage around them. Only then, did he withdraw and steal home, as silently as he had crept into the water.
She saw him again, later that day. His name was Jean-Marc. He was neither handsome nor ugly but from his demeanor, she decided that he was a good man. At first, they pretended not to recognize each other, but then he smiled a sad little smile, and again, her heart opened up. He reached for her hand and she brushed his fingertips with hers. He took her to get warm clothing, a bit of food. She would have married him, my grandmother told me, but he was killed three weeks later as he snuck back into the Dominican Republic to find his younger sister. When she found out that my grandfather had died, she wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, throw herself in the river but instead, she found work as a maid with a well to do family. She gave birth to my mother. She finally did cry when she saw her daughter, an exact likeness of the man she knew but for a moment. And then, she hoped to never cry again. Instead, she lived as close to the river as her heart would allow, and talked to the waters as if they held the spirit of Jean-Marc.
There are no pictures of my grandfather. Sometimes, when I think of my grandmother’s story, I imagine him, tall and strong, proud. I imagine the times he and my grandmother should have had, and when I do this, I cry the tears my grandmother cannot. There is no explanation for this. It is as if my grandmother’s grief skipped a generation and now resides in me. And her grief is a burden I did not ask for, but one I bear. The tears I cry for her, for Jean-Marc are yet another thing Todd cannot understand. He knows the story, as he was there when my grandmother told us her saga and I believe that he truly mourns the tragedy, but he mourns it the way he mourns other atrocities—from a comfortable distance—a distance I cannot nor will not share.
My mother disapproves of my going back to Haiti. “Nothing good will come of it,” she told me. “And it’s not safe.” But nothing good will come of not going, either. Just as Todd cannot understand certain parts of me, I cannot understand certain parts of my mother. I cannot understand her unwillingness to go home, but perhaps it is that her memories are stained with a different, more paralyzing brand of grief that hold her where she is. At the airport, she hugs me tightly, and I can feel wetness against my chest when she pulls away. She stuffs a thick envelope into my hand, orders me to give it to her mother, not to open it. I beg her to come with us, but she shakes her head, hides behind a dark pair of sunglasses, grips the handles of the twins’ stroller, the veins in her hands pulsing. As we head into the airplane, I think I hear her calling after us.
After we make it through customs, Todd and I are standing in front of the airport waiting for a cab. I am already irritated with him, and the expression on his face. The air is heavy, thick enough that it takes effort to breathe. In the distance, we can see black plumes of smoke filtering through the sky as political dissenters burn tires. Cab drivers lean against their cars, sucking their teeth, inspecting passengers as they try to deduce who will pay the most for their services. At once, things are silent and loud, still and frenetic. It is a scene that can only be found here on my island. Todd is sweating, his tie hanging loose around his neck. His nose is wrinkled, as if he can’t quite place a distinct and unpleasant odor. I pinch the soft skin beneath his elbow and he winces.
“Why did you do that?”
“Stop looking like that?’
“Like what?”
I bite my lower lip. “Never you mind.”
A cab driver finally decides we’ll pay him enough, and throws our bags into the trunk of his beaten Mercedes. Todd and I climb into the back seat, and as the car lurches towards downtown Port-Au-Prince, we hold each other’s hands so tightly, I can no longer feel my fingers. Driving in Haiti is a peculiar thing. There seems to be no reason nor rhyme as to how fast people drive, where in the road people drive, or any other traffic rules I am accustomed to in the States. By the time we arrive at the Hotel Montana, where we will be staying for a night before heading to Ouanaminthe, Todd looks peaked. I forgive him the heavy sigh of relief he exhales as he shoves a few dollars into the driver’s hands.
Our room is rather bare, but well-appointed. This hotel, it seems, is one of the nicer ones in town. But the towels, though clean, are worn. The cakes of soap in the bathroom are so thin, it’s a wonder how anyone could properly bathe themselves. The bed is old and small, and the air-conditioning coughs on our sweaty skin ever so faintly. Todd takes a shower, and I lie on the bed, naked and waiting for him. It has been a long day for both of us. I wish my mother were here. I don’t like not having a clear understanding of why I am here. I’m hoping that I won’t regret the decision to bring my husband along. But nonetheless, I am glad Todd is here, because he is home and Haiti is home and I want to savor the experience of these two homes together.
When he comes out of the bathroom, all the steam from the bathroom enters the room and the air thickens. I can literally feel sweat covering my skin. Todd smiles shyly, and my lingering irritation disappears as lightly as a whisper. He lets the towel around his waist fall to the floor and crawls into bed, atop of me, his damp skin clinging to mine. His cock is hard, momentarily resting against my left thigh before he is inside me and we’re struggling to move against each other but already, I feel sharp spirals of pleasure working their way up my legs. We make love so quickly that afterwards I can hardly believe that we’ve even touched. Todd falls asleep first, but I lie awake, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, wondering about the sound of my grandfather’s voice.
We wake early the next morning, and through the dirty window we can see that the sky is still dark with plumes of smoke. We take breakfast in our room—mangos, toast and cheese. And then we sit, bags packed as if we are afraid to move forward from this point. I call my mother, assure her that things are fine but I can hear the doubt in her voice. Perhaps, I hear the doubt in mine. Finally, Todd stands up.
“We’d best get going.”
I smile. “Yes. My grandparents are waiting for us.”
Todd looks confused, but he gets our bags and soon we are driving on what passes for roads, towards Ouanaminthe. We pass mile after mile of sugar cane fields and dark sweaty men stare at us as we pass by, sucking their lower lips, machetes paused in midair and you can tell that they’d rather strike themselves than one more stalk of cane. And then, their machetes fall as if they are thinking, next time, next time I’ll have the courage. Working in cane fields is brutal, bitter work. Men and even women spend twelve hours a day beneath the unforgiving island sun, as their skin is shredded by the brambles about. My grandmother has told me stories of how she used to tend to her friends wounds as they lay on the dirt floor of the servant quarters late at night, using a poultice and strips of old clothing to hold back blood and infection. She would tell me of the guilt she felt when she was moved from the fields to the master’s house; watching her friends from the comfort of a kitchen or sitting room window, and then the relief of no longer having to toil alongside them. It is strange—so many years later, very little has changed in the cane fields of this island.
When we arrive in Ouanaminthe, that sense of anticipation is gone. There is not much to see here. It is a small town that looks like most towns in this part of the country; in every part of the country. The houses are worn cement blocks, all the windows open. There is a small market with a sad array of wares, a few bars, and other shops. And on a small dirt road so close to the water that I can taste the Massacre River in my mouth, there is my grandmother’s house surrounded by a black iron fence. For some reason, I expect to see her standing in the dust of her front yard, but her lot is empty, save for the coconut trees, standing naked, skeletons of fertility.
As we park in the small driveway and close the gate behind us, my grandmother appears in the doorway and I gasp, gripping Todd’s hand. As his fingers curl around mine, it feels like they are wrapping around my heart, holding it safe. Looking at my grandmother reminds me of the trees in her yard; she looks like a ghost of the woman I knew growing up, of the woman I saw in the black and white photos in my mother’s albums. But her eyes, a deep blue, shine as she drinks me in, cautiously steps towards us. When she opens her arms, I know exactly what she looked like as a younger woman; what she looked like before grief formed a home in her features.
She leads us into the house and we sit at a small table, formica, cracked and wobbly. In the center of the table is a pitcher of limonade and three clean glasses. She pours for Todd first, then me, and finally herself before sitting down. I remove my mother’s envelope from my backpack and slide it across the table to my grandmother who’s eyes water as she traces the edges of the envelope with one knotted finger.
“You’re mother couldn’t come?”
It is less of a question, more a statement of fact. I shake my head, and gently cover my grandmother’s hand with mine. “She stayed behind to watch the twins.” Beneath the table, I nudge Todd’s knee with mine, and he pulls their pictures from his wallet, smiling proudly as he lays them on the table.
“Miriam,” my grandmother whispers.
I smile, but there are tears streaming down my cheeks and I don’t quite understand why. “Jean-Marc and Sebastien; we named them Jean-Marc and Sebastien.”
She nods slowly; swollen arcs of tears rest on her lower eyelids. “They look like your grandfather.” She turns her head to the side, towards the river, and rests the palm of her hand against her breastbone. “Yes. They look like your grandfather.”
I can only take her word for this. The only images of this man in my mind are pieced together from years of my grandmother’s stories—the same stories repeated over and over as if to tell a few stories many times will take the place of the life she and my grandfather did not have, stories she should have had. I study the pictures of my children and all of a sudden I miss them. I’ve been so wrapped up in being home and not understanding why I’m here that I haven’t had time to miss their sweet and sour breath, their coos, their chubby hands and feet. I want to bring them here, when the time is right, when we can look at the Port-au-Prince skyline and not see smoke, when we can walk down the street and now worry about the children being kidnapped for ransom. Everyone here thinks American’s are rich. In many ways, they are right. But I don’t want my children to be victims of that fact. I want that perfect time to be sooner than later. And I want my mother here as well, so that we will be four generations of my family standing on our native soil. I want a lot of things. It is the nature of my people to want things we do not know how to have.
Until Todd and I started visiting Haiti, I hadn’t been here since I was ten years old. Back then, we came to Haiti every summer but that last visit was special, almost idyllic. We were sheltered from the island’s truths. My father shimmed up coconut trees, his pants rolled up his thin calves and threw down coconuts that my mother cracked open with a machete. We ate douce, a kind of Haitian fudge until our lips shriveled in protest. My brothers and I swam and stared at each other under water, marveling that there was water on this earth clearer than anything we had ever seen. One day, while my mother shopped in the city, my dad took us away to La Citadel, a fort and as we climbed and climbed and climbed, my father told us stories of warriors and freedom and I knew that this was the happiest I would ever see him. I remember thinking how much cooler my parents were in Haiti than back in the States.
And then, they took us to Ouanaminthe, and as we approached the town, all the smiles and laughter disappeared and in a far too brief moment, I thought I might never remember what my parents looked like when they were happy. My mother fidgeted in her seat, my father gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white, and my brothers and I sat nervous and knobby-kneed, trying to understand why all of a sudden, things were so different.
There was my grandmother, who smelled like lavender and rum and spoiled us rotten with sweets and attention and long walks. But then she and my mother would disappear for hours at a time. We were under strict orders not to follow them. We’d pester my father for an explanation, but he would brush us off, look towards the river, then distract us by carving puppets or telling us more stories. Finally on the second to last day of our visit, my father lay down with my brothers for a nap, and left to my own devices, I was determined to find my mother. I set out through the gate and followed the trickling sound of water until I reached the banks of the Massacre River. I knew nothing about the river, then, but I saw a bridge in the distance, and I saw soldiers and rifles. It was just like something in a movie. And there, maybe twenty feet from where I was standing were my mother and grandmother, kneeling as they ran their fingers through the water. Their lips were moving but I couldn’t hear them. I walked towards them, but they didn’t notice me until I was standing next to them, and even then, I had to clear my throat. When they looked up, at the same time, I remember thinking that they looked like paper dolls because their profiles were so alike. And I remember that they were crying—their eyes were red like blood—their eyes were so red that I could not recognize them as women who gave me life, women who loved me. The sight of them scared me so much that I ran back to my grandmother’s house and crawled into bed with my father, resting my head against his chest so I could smell his cologne and hear the beating of his heart. We never spoke of that moment, and the next day as we drove away, I stared at my grandmother’s figure through the rear window and she had that same look in her eyes—hollow, desperate, lonely.
The first few days of my visit with my grandmother pass without event. We talk about the children and my parents and my brothers and my job. When Todd is exploring the town, mixing with the natives, as he calls it, we talk about him. My grandmother likes him, his simplicity, the tenderness he shows me. She says you can trust a man who looks at a woman the way he looks at me. She says my grandfather looked at her that way. When I ask her what way, she sucks her teeth and looks at me with disgust. “You,” she tells me, “You are in many ways like your mother. You take the things around you for granted.”
At night, Todd and I lie beneath mosquito netting, our bodies damp and heavy.
“Is it always like this?” he asks.
“It’s an island.”
“Seriously.”
I sigh. “Haiti has always been hot, will always be hot. I don’t question it and thinking hard right now would just make me hotter.”
Todd chuckles. “I can think of a more enjoyable way to make you hotter.” He traces a line from my chin to my navel, and gently nibbles my earlobe, but I push him away.
“It’s too hot for that sort of thing.”
“It’s never too hot.”
“Then this will teach you a lesson about never saying never.”
I can feel him pull away in the darkness. I don’t need to see his face to know that he is pouting. I thought I would feel closer to him, being here with him, but mostly I am annoyed by his presence. He is keeping me from what I should really be doing, whatever that is.
“Maybe it was a mistake for me to come,” he says.
“I wanted you to be here,” I whisper. I know I don’t sound convincing.
“What you wanted and what really is are two different things. I feel like you’re expecting something of me without telling me what that something is.”
I turn away from him, wrapping my arms around myself. “I’m tired. Go to sleep.”
I lie perfectly still and pretend to fall asleep until I hear his snoring. My slumber is punctuated by a torment of slain bodies and cruel soldiers with white, freakishly large teeth and the husks of small children floating in massacred water.
The next morning, Todd wakes up before me, and when I stumble into the kitchen, he and my grandmother are sitting at the table drinking coffee. He refuses to look at me, but I kiss him on the forehead and sit down, rubbing my eyes.
“You look like you had a terrible sleep,” my grandmother says.
“Bad dreams.”
“There are no other kinds in this place.”
To hear the resignation in her voice only saddens me. I am overwhelmed by her hopelessness, by the hopelessness I see in the faces of the men and women and children all around me. I spend the day with my grandmother. When she goes to the river to talk to my grandfather, I go with her and she doesn’t protest. Instead, we walk together and we are silent, but again her lips are moving, as if she is filling him in on our visit, his great-grandchildren, the details of her life. In my mind, I talk to him too. I ask him if he ever found his sister, if it was worth all this pain to go back for her. I ask him to send my grandmother some sign that he actually hears her.
The river is much smaller now than it was then; it is more a stream than anything else. The soldiers are still there, but they hardly pay attention to anything other than their gossip and the cigarettes they smoke. The river is still shallow and dark and when I run my fingers through the water, it is a frightening kind of cold that demands escape. I can hardly imagine it, the people fleeing, thrashing through midnight waters, dead bodies floating to the surface, the water running red. But I can hear echoes of their screams as the water runs around rocks and a child splashes about in the water under the watchful eye of her mother. When my grandmother and I finally look at each other, I wonder if I look the way my mother did when I stumbled upon them so many years ago.
I leave my grandmother there with her memories. It is clear she needs to be alone. Todd is nowhere to be found so I crawl into bed and wait for the cool of night. Later, when it seems that the entire world is asleep, I awake and Todd is beside me, wrapped around the edge of the bed. I shake his shoulder and he turns to me.
“Is something wrong?” he asks, groggily.
I press my finger against his lips, hand him his shorts, and motion for him to follow me. It is an eerily quiet night. It is darker than a night ever could be back in America.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
I shake my head and we keep walking until we are at the river. I step into the water and look up at my husband. “My grandfather died here. Thousands of people died here. But my mother was also conceived here. Strange, isn’t it, that this river is both a place of death and life?”
“Yes,” Todd says. “It’s such a small river.”
“I thought the same thing this morning.”
He nods, rubbing his eyes. “Why are we here?”
I pull my t-shirt up and over my head, tossing it onto the riverbank before stepping out of my shorts. I stand naked before him. Then I lower myself into the water, and gasp.
“What are you doing?” Todd whispers, loudly.
“Come here.”
He looks around nervously and in the pause I feel terribly alone. I now understand why my grandparents did what they did, anchoring themselves to each other.
“Please.”
He wades into the water. I can feel the silt of the riverbed beneath my body. It has a life of it’s own as it works its way around my elbows and into the small of my back.
“Take your clothes off.”
“I don’t know about this, Miriam. What if we get caught?”
“We won’t,” I promise.
There is doubt in his eyes, but he strips quickly and squats, shivering. I lie back and giggle as the water tickles me. I can feel my hair fanning out. Suddenly, it is as if Todd realizes what I need him to do. He crawls atop of me and I sink lower into the river, until only the tips of my breasts and my nipples are above water. The muscles in my neck are aching slightly as I hold my head up. He brushes his lips along the sharp of my collarbone and I look at him, once again marveling at how pale he is compared to me. Shadows from nearby trees cast across our bodies. The night is ever so still.
I don’t really feel like I’m here. In my mind, it is 1937 and I am cold, afraid, and hungry for this man atop of me to commit the act of touch. I clasp the back of Todd’s neck with my hand and press my lips against his, so hard that they become numb. He forces his tongue between my lips—he tastes salty and there is rum on his breath. His fingers press into my shoulders. There will be bruises in the morning. I wrap one leg around his waist and wince as small rocks cut into my back. The water is colder now. I close my eyes for a moment and when I open them, the water is red, almost as warm as blood. I hear screams in the near distance. At once I am alone and with Todd and surrounded by ghosts. He covers my mouth with his other hand and my head sinks into the water. My eyes burn. The water tastes sanguine.
My husband makes love to me in a slow steady rhythm, and I pull him deeper and deeper into me until I’m certain that our bodies will remain forever joined like this. Cool water and soft silt slide beneath me and I begin moving my hips, forcing myself against Todd, urging him to fuck me harder. I want this to hurt. I want to remember him like this, fucking me in the river, tomorrow when I am sitting. He nestles his chin in the space between my shoulder and my neck.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” he says, hoarsely.
I don’t have any answers for him.
I can’t stop crying. I cry enough tears to fill this Massacre River—tears for my grandmother who cannot forget, who will never feel what I am feeling in this moment and in every moment after; for my mother who pretends she has forgotten; for myself, and the burden of this country’s grief. I scream into his hand. I hate that this feels so good but I don’t want to stop. The sound of his body splashing against mine overwhelms me. When I look at him, I hardly recognize him. His jaw is set with determination, his eyes, almost vacant. I let my head fall under water and then he looks hazy, like an apparition. My chest tightens but I remain submerged. I allow myself to drown. In this moment, the ghosts of these waters will breathe for me.
Todd is saying something to me, but I cannot hear him. My ears are filled with water and memory. I begin to shake and as I rise for air, my hair plastered against my face, I throw my arms back, and the upper half of my body floats. I look up and see the moon. My body shudders violently until I feel so much pain and pleasure at once that it is unbearable. I have to push him away from me. We stare at each other and for a moment, we too are strangers in these waters. And then, his arms are wrapped around me, and he is leading me onto land. I know why I needed to be here.
• • •
’s writing can be found in many places including Best American Erotica 2004, several editions of Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Bisexual Women’s Erotica, Shameless: Intimate Erotica and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Vols. 3 & 4, among others.
