Haiti Noir

“Driver!” Davernis called out to one of the safest-looking camions at the station, a colorfully painted monster that was blasting reggae music to attract passengers. The camion was called Fate.

“We need the front seat for this beautiful young lady,” Davernis told the driver.

“The front seat is more expensive,” the driver replied, leafing through his ticket book. “If she wants to pay the difference, no problem. We leave in half an hour!”

With Rosanna’s cushioned leather front seat reserved, they had thirty minutes ahead of them. Davernis’s order from Aunt Solange was to not leave the station until he had seen Rosanna’s bus leave. But waiting in this torrid heat in the middle of the chaos at the station was tough, especially for Rosanna. In no time, she was surrounded by a horde of merchants pleading with her to buy everything from water and juice to plantain chips to cigarettes to painkillers. People were getting so close that she could barely breathe. The people’s voices blended with the reverberating sounds of the horns blowing from a multitude of buses arriving and leaving. It was all getting on her nerves. More vendors approached offering kolas, patties, candy, and chewing gum. Even though she would never admit it to Davernis, Rosanna’s head was spinning. Never in her life had she been so physically close to so many people all at once. As the crowd moved in on her, she searched their faces for Davernis, but could no longer see him.

“Davernis!” she called out.

“Mademoiselle!” She could see his head peering from somewhere behind the perimeter.

Turning to a roaming pharmacist in the mob around her, she asked, “Do you have aspirin?”

“Five dollars,” the small man said, lowering the bullhorn he used to advertise his wares as he reached into a small black pouch for the aspirin.

To get the five dollars-an exorbitant price-Rosanna had to open her purse in front of everyone. She reached in awkwardly, and in doing so a bunch of Haitian dollar bills that Aunt Solange had secretly stuffed in her purse rose to the surface, looking like a flush in a game of poker.

“Mademoiselle!” Davernis gasped from where he was standing, the crowd now seeming to push him back to purposely keep them apart. The people around Rosanna couldn’t help but notice the bills. Even Rosanna seemed shocked to see them. She was now an even bigger magnet. A group of beggars pushed in, landing on her like flies. Their hands stretched out toward her, they pleaded for help.

Now deciding to forsake the aspirin, Rosanna shoved Aunt Solange’s surprise deep into her purse. There must be at least a thousand Haitian dollars there, she thought.

Then, out of nowhere, two well-built men, men who looked like they might belong to a SWAT unit, approached her. “Get out of here! Get lost!” they ordered the group of people surrounding her. “Leave this beautiful lady alone!” They shouted at the beggars as they chased the crowd away. They were responsible for security in the area, they told her.

“We’ll hang around and look after you,” they said, “until you board your bus.”

“You are very kind,” Rosanna answered, relieved that they were there, since Davernis had simply disappeared, “but I really don’t need protection. I’m expecting a friend.”

Hardly had she uttered the words when one of the alleged security officers grabbed her arm as the other pushed a small handgun into her spine. The one who grabbed her arm picked her up off the ground and carried her away, with the other one trailing behind. The crowd quickly scattered, and even though the first man was carrying her, he ran faster than the second one with the gun.

“Don’t say a word,” she heard the one carrying her say. “If you cry for help, we’ll blow your head off. Do you hear?”

An intense fear invaded her, causing her to feel even dizzier. She was much too afraid to yell. Besides, everything was happening so fast that she had trouble concentrating on any one thing.

Soon she was in the back of a jeep with darkened windows. The man threw her in headfirst and quickly placed a dirty black rag over her eyes. He turned her on her belly and tugged at both her arms, forcing them behind her, ripping the sleeves of her blouse in the process. She could hear the tearing of duct tape, which he used to wrap her arms and hands together. Then he turned her on her back and placed a strip of tape over her mouth.

When the door slammed shut and the car barreled away, she fell on the floor between the front and back seats- cracking, she was almost sure of it, one of her ribs. Only as the sharp pain of the fall shot through her body did she realize fully what had happened. She was barefoot. Her shoes and her purse were gone. Over the hum of the car engine beneath her and the bounce of the bumpy road, she heard the loud chatter of commerce at the port and realized that they were driving along Bicentennial Road.