Haiti Noir

Like the Destins, other residents with nothing to do often gathered, coffee cups in hands, under bright early suns to swap Maloulou stories, as if competing for the most exciting rendition. There were those who laughed in disbelief, others appeared pensive when reports were shared about the mysterious thing that had always lived in their midst but had never been seen. Young ones like me attending to morning chores before hastily preparing for a discounted ride to school with Josaphat, the camionette driver who lived in Lakou 22, used to listen furtively, ears tuned to what was being said, eyes wide with amazement. Where the name Maloulou came from, no one really knew. One version of the story was that Maloulou came from the sea to the island with the name Nkiruka, but it was changed to Maloulou because it rolled easier on the tongue.

Nevertheless, the nomadic and infamous visitor who was said to roam our compound in the ink-blue night enthralled all. One man in particular, it was said, Roland Désir, might have come nose-to-nose with Maloulou.

Roland Désir turned mad one morning, the story went, and folks repeated verbatim the words of the person who saw it happen, his wife Marguerite, who stood in the middle of the yard sobbing, saying that maybe if she hadn’t confronted Roland about the children’s school fees lost in a cockfight the previous night, he might not have lost his head. Years later, Roland was still roaming the streets and corridors, speaking to himself, living under trees, sleeping under the stars, begging for food, throwing rocks at the sea or at the gagè where he used to wage cheer on cockfights.

Lakou 22 people still sought Roland to give him scraps of food. After all, it was on account of this yard that his life changed. Folks remembered how he was a proud nèg nan nò, who had moved here from up north a long time ago with his young family. He provided for all his eight children, transforming abandoned oil drums into coal stoves to sell. Sadly, what he made was insufficient to sustain his avaricious cockfighting addiction; but all agreed that he was a fine member of Lakou 22.

What made matters worse for the Désir clan were the series of unfortunate events that hit the family right on the heels of Roland taking to the streets. Folks were in agreement that it was easy to imagine Kenesou, Roland’s youngest child, not living long. Less than a year had passed between him and Jean, the sibling before him, and Madame Roland’s body had not fully been restored to carry a healthy baby to term. And sure enough, Kenesou was very sickly: fever, bronchitis, diarrhea, you name the parasitic disease and he had it. Many thought the Désirs lucky to have had him alive for so long, but some still believed Maloulou might have been the culprit.

Now, the death of Hermione Désir, the eldest, came as a complete surprise. She was pretty like a rainbow, they say when telling her story. By all accounts, Hermione was angeliclooking. To have seen her walking down the road and not taken special notice would be cause for concern with any man: young or old. Men begged to nestle in her hips. Wives tried to shield their mates. Prostitutes wished she’d move away. Little boys could be heard praying for the gods to send them wives like her when they grow up. Young girls were said to imitate her walks and get their hair done like hers.

The whole neighborhood trembled, they say, the afternoon Hermione Désir started convulsing. Burning cotton under her nose, rubbing alkali on her face and chest, were not enough to bring her back. She did not even wait to have the tea that had been put on the fire for her. All of Lakou 22 mourned her, even crazy Roland Désir, the father she had supposedly lost to Maloulou. He was heard the night of her burial pacing about and lamenting, “This child was too young and pretty to die,” as if her death made him momentarily sane.

Mothers and wives who inherited these stories would evoke the fate of Roland to caution their men of the perils of walking dark corridors after midnight. In my head, though, I had preferred imagining Maloulou like the character Django, from the first spaghetti western film I ever saw. I envisioned Maloulou pulling a machetes-filled coffin in the dead of our nights, looking to rescue me, her own Maria, from renegades like Uncle Solon, who had mutated into a Tonton Macoute.