Butterfly's Way: Voices From the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States Read Online Free PDF Page B

so happy. "Manman went to buy clothes for my first communion," I told the cook, smiling, dancing, and singing. She paid no attention to me, but the expression on her face dampened my festive mood. By noon a taxi stopped in front to the house. I ran to see. It was Florence, carrying a big brown paper bag. I danced in my heart as I fought against the urge to hug her, knowing she would slap me away.
    She walked in without saying a word. I went inside and fetched her slippers. She changed into another dress and began to supervise the cook, who was preparing dinner. In the early afternoon, after I finished my chores, I approached Florence with a pail of water and a towel and began to wash her feet. She was sitting in her rocking chair, sipping sweet hot black coffee from a saucer. With pounding heart, I spoke, "Confession is at six o'clock and communion is tomorrow at nine o'clock in the morning."
    She stared at me for a long moment as she ground her teeth. Her face turned very angry. "You little shithead bedwetter, you little faggot, you shoeshine boy. If you think I'm gonna spend my money on your first communion, you're insane," she shouted. Trembling with fear, I dried her feet, slipped on her slippers, and stood up, holding the pail and towel. I felt as though my feet and legs were too heavy for me to move. I was stunned by her words. "Get out of my face," she yelled. I went into the kitchen and sat quietly in my usual corner without shedding a tear.
    "Amelia!" called Florence loudly.
    "Out, Madame Cadet," the cook responded.
    "You don't need to prepare the chicken for tomorrow; I'm spending the day with my niece. Her son is having his first communion tomorrow," she said.
    I went to her bedroom to find out the contents of the bag and saw a pair of shoes she intended to wear to her godson's first communion. I felt crushed, but at the same time resigned myself to believe that only children with real mothers and fathers go to communion, receive presents from Santa Claus, and celebrate their birthdays.

HOMELANDS
    Marie-Helene Laforest
    My truth, like many truths, is partial. As I set out to tell this story, I suspect the other characters involved would tell it differently. Only on one point would my relatives and I agree: we had not been black before leaving the Caribbean. In a country of dark-skinned people, my lighter skin color and my family's wealth made me white. My white grandfather was a coffee and sisal exporter in a small town to the north of Port-au-Prince. He conducted his business out of his general store, which imported construction materials and basic foodstuffs like flour. He was the honorary consul of Norway. Before the National Bank of Haiti closed for the weekend on Fridays, a large trunk painted green, full of his money, was put onto a dray, held in place with a thick rope, and pushed by a bare-chested man through the Grande Rue to the bank. My grandfather's half-brother had brown skin and green eyes. Perhaps my grandfather had a better knack for business, but I could not help thinking, as a child, that his skin color put him on the Grande Rue whereas his half-brother conducted his business on a back street near the market. My grandmother's brother, too, had his business on the main street. He was light-skinned and his wife was a woman whose veins showed through her white skin. The Europeans, mostly the clergy, and the Canadians, who exploited a copper mine in the area, patronized my grandfather's and his brother-in-law's businesses.
    I had not been a "Caribbean" either before leaving Haiti. I knew a few of the other islands by name but had not met anyone from there. My mother and her sister had gone to Cuba for their trousseaus. They spoke of Havana City being like Paris, but they spoke of it in the past tense. It had lost its glamour after Fidel Castro took over. When I was six years old, my mother took me on a trip to Miami to see the Seminoles on their reservation and the dolphins in the Seaquarium. There