by Joan Dobbie

Winter is not necessarily ice-white or stone gray. Jane’s winter is hot, blood red, and riddled with drumbeats. The year is almost 1968. Ibrahim has invited her “home” for the New Year. Home is “en Haite.” In Haite.

Jane is 20 years old. She lives in Boston and works for a publishing company. Ibrahim and his brother, Amir, are students who rent the apartment below hers. They are Haitian Arabs and speak almost no English. Jane speaks almost no French and absolutely no Arabic. She and Ibrahim hardly speak at all except hello in the hallway. She has never told him that she is Jewish or that she has family in Israel. She has no idea whether he would or would not mind. They are not, and have never been, lovers.
Ibrahim left over a week ago and Amir is staying in Boston. Jane will travel alone. Bucking the wind in Harvard Square, fighting her way to the travel agency, she passes a bookstore. On display in its window is a large dayglow poster labeled “The Night Sky in Winter.” When Jane was a child, her father once pointed up over their snow-covered roof to show her the constellation, Orion. Every winter Orion returns to her sky.

It may have been only a slip of language in the hallway that resulted in Ibrahim’s invitation, but for some reason Jane did purchase the ticket and now she is sitting in the airplane. The airplane is tipping forward, nosing down for a 9 pm landing in Port-au-Prince. The long-limbed, amber-skinned stewardess is stepping crisply down the aisle with a spray can. She is spraying all the passengers. This is to kill foreign insects. Jane allows herself to be sprayed.

When the wheels touch ground, the plane roars like a lion. The runway is crowded with people. They are scattering in all dirctions, like insects. Jane thinks she hears a gunshot, but she is uncertain. Black men in black suits are running away into the night. After she has gathered up her luggage and dealt with the proper authorities, Jane walks forward into the street. The air is heavy with moisture and the smell of donkeys and goats. There are people everywhere. There is vegetation, lush tropical vegetation, with huge shining leaves. The leaves are so green as to almost be black. The heat is a tangible thing. It is black night, but venders are nonetheless selling their wares. The airport could just as well be a market. There are chickens in basket cages and women with baskets of fruit on their heads. There are men pulling wagons full up with strange fruit and sugar cane. There are children wandering about among the legs of the adults. There are beggar-women squatting beside near empty bowls, infants clinging like crabs to their breasts. There is the constant crowing of roosters.

Ibrahim arrives to greet Jane. He carries her suitcase to the limousine. A chauffeur is driving. Ibrahim says that his family expects they will marry. Why else would he invite a woman from America? Ibrahim laughs and Jane laughs. He brings her to a large, elaborate hotel which is owned by his aunt. He opens a door. This will be her room, he explains, and leaves her there.

The air is hot and heavy and thick as blood. Her bed is a small hard cot with a worn cotton sheet that serves as a blanket. There is one small window in the upper right corner of the room. When Jane looks out the window she sees the constellation, Orion. This is how she knows it is still winter. Even in this heat, it is winter in the sky.

All night the roosters crow their five-syllable song. It is partly because of the heat, and partly because of the crowing that her sleep is disturbed and muddied with nightmare. She dreams about blood and Voodou and the howling of demons. She is not certain why she actually went ahead and bought the ticket that brought her here. She supposes she was bored, but she does not remember having been bored. She wishes she and Ibrahim really were friends insead of bare acquaintances. She wishes she spoke more French or he more Engish. She wishes she spoke Arabic or Creole. There are so many languages and none of them work.

Now there is daylight coming in the small window and Jane wishes she had never come. She is nauseous with heat and her head is aching. Also, the nightmares are still swimming in her head. And the roosters are still making their noise.

She decides to go walking, but only walks out into the courtyard. She realizes she is almost the only patron in the hotel. Most of the rooms are closed up. There is a long rectangular swimming pool. A black man in a blue bikini trunk is sweeping something that resembles a butterfly net over the water. He is skimming drowned insets off the surface of the pool. A fat white middle-aged woman is lying on her belly on a cot by the pool. A tall and muscular shining black Haitian man who has huge biceps is kneeding the fat on the woman’s back, her buttocks, her legs. The woman does not move, but Jane is certain that she is in ecstacy.

Jane is lying on her back by the pool reading Green Mansions. She has brought this along for reading and now she is reading it. Then a bell chimes for breakfast. Only Jane and the fat white woman are seated at tables in the vast white-table-clothed dining room. They sit many tables apart from each other. Servants bring grapefruit and banana and mangos and other carefully pared fruits. When those are finished the servants bring hot oatmeal with fresh milk and strawberries. When that is finished they bring scrambled goose eggs with hot fresh-baked rolls. There is coffee to drink, and tea also, and many sweet bright-colored juices. Jane and the woman are served souffles and then coffee cake. Jane does not understand why all this food has been prepared for only two people. When she and the fat woman walk in the halls of the hotel, their footsteps echo on the marble floors and off the marble walls.

Now Jane steps out into the city. The streets are full of people. She wonders if anyone in Haiti sleeps. Everyone is always awake, always walking from here to there carrying some huge heavy thing. And always the roosters are crowing.

Jane sees a group of small boys. One boy is slightly taller than the others. His glistening skin is jewel black, his eyes alive with intelligence. When he is a man he will be more than handsome.

The boy leaves his group and gestures to Jane. We are hungry, he makes her to know without words. Jane goes back into the hotel. She sits down at her table. She orders more fruits and more cakes and more rolls. She stuffs her purse full of rich food and brings the purse out to the boys. They stuff their mouths with white rolls. Their cheeks puff out like balloons.

The boys laugh at Jane and touch the fabric of her dress. They stroke her hair and the smoothness of it makes them laugh. They lead Jane off the main street and up the narrow winding mountain trails that are bordered with tiny, shabby one-room shacks. The shacks are made of tin scraps and old wood. In one shack is the boy’s mother and his many small sisters. The sisters climb on Jane’s lap and giggle into the silk of her hair. Even the mother is entranced with Jane’s hair. The boy, she comes to understand, is named Pierre. She tells Pierre and his family, “Thank you. Thank you.” and follows the trail back down to her hotel.

Ibrahim greets her at the door to her room. He makes her to understand that she may no longer reside in this hotel because she has associated with the street children and that is a thing not allowed. He says he will take her to the boarding house owned by another of his relatives. Tonight there is a New Year’s ball, however. If she likes, he will escort her to the ball.

There is another man standing beside Ibrahim, not speaking but looking at Jane. This is Paulo. Paulo is tall, stocky, of apparently African, not Arabian descent. Ibrahim introduces him as a cousin. Paulo drives his own car. Ibrahim and Paulo heave Jane’s suitcase into it.

In the privacy of the car, Ibrahim and Paulo speak openly, for Jane’s sake, in English. They say that nothing of a political nature can be spoken in public in Haiti. They speak with contempt of “Papa Doc” who is common, of common blood, and a bloody dictator. They tell Jane that they are subversives and plan to overthrow his dictatorship. Soon there will be a revolution. From their apartment in Boston Ibrahim and his brother have been communicating with Paulo and others. They have been arranging the revolution for years. Soon it will be a reality. Their families, Jane comes to understand, own all of the best hotels in Haiti, but now, because of Papa Doc, the American tourists are afraid to come here. The economy has collapsed. They show Jane the money in their pockets. The bills are all shredded like rags. They are not making money any more, in Haiti. Not printing it. But soon that will change.

These are the kinds of things they are saying. They are saying them loudly because the engine is roaring. Paulo is driving very fast over the narrow mountain road. He is leaning on his horn and women and chickens and goats and children scatter before them. One dog does not get out of the way of the car. It screams and tumbles. Paulo does not even slow down. Jane says nothing. She thinks this is some sort of dream. The roosters are crowing and the geese are cawing and flapping their white wings. It is soon almost dark.

Jane’s new room is larger and almost homey. Others live in this boarding house besides Jane and the landlady. There is a pale distant Frenchman. There is a full-bodied blond German woman named Ingrid, and her small white-haired son. Jane spoke German as a child in Switzerland and so can almost understand her when she speaks. Ingrid is an expatriot. She has fallen in love with Haiti and will never leave. Her son will be a Haitian. The white-skinned, blue-eyed boy looks out of place amongts all the black-skinned, black-eyed children. He looks like an outline that has not yet been colored in. He is very shy.

Jane puts on her best dress for the ball. Still she is not nearly dressed to match the others. Ibrahim and Paulo arrive wearing tuxedos. They drive Jane to another hotel that is almost identical to the first that she stayed in. The ballroom is decorated with silver and gold crepe. It is nearly empty of dancers, but those that are there are dressed like royalty. There are three or four women. Their gowns are of silk and brocade. There are several men who look at Jane with interest as if she were a painting or a sculpture. One of these men is Pashu, who nods when Ibrahim introduces him to Jane and then speaks in a low voice to Ibrahim and Paulo. Though Jane strains to listen she is not certain in which langugage they are speaking.

The doors to the ballroom are open and lead out onto the patio, which is conspicuously empty. There is a live band that is set up by the pool. The musicians are reflected in the water. Two couples are dancing on the marble tile by the pool. The fat white woman from her first hotel is here as well. She is wearing a tent of sequined silk and is fanning herself with a large leaf.

Jane dances with Pashu who is more handome than the prince of her fantasies. She thinks she is dreaming. Pashu is neither black, nor white, but he is golden. Everything about him is golden. He has dark golden skin and lush golden hair. Even his eyes are the color of gold. When he presses her close to his body, she smells the gold of his skin, a rich sweet smell like the smell of a lush tropical fruit. When his breath mixes with her breath, Jane tastes a nectar of honey in her lungs. When Jane dances with Pashu she forgets everything, everything that is not golden.

But after one dance Pashu squeezes her hand and leaves her standing alone by the pool. Jane sees him in the shadow by the shrubbery at the far end of the patio. The three are together, Pashu, Paulo and Ibrahim. Jane looks down at the water, hoping he will return for the next dance. When the music begins, she looks up. All three have disappeared.

Jane sits down at a table with two other women, Ingrid and Cedelia. Cedelia is slender, slate black and lovely as an ebony sculpture. She is visiiting from Jamaica and speaks soft tropical English. Jane is very thankful to hear English spoken and so listens with pleasure. Cedelia says she has no fear of Papa Doc. And she speaks loudly, fearlessly, in public. She is a model, she tells them, renouned in Europe, ignored in Jamaica, unknown in America. Due, she states flatly, to her complexion. Jane and Ingrid both nod. Cedelia complains about the maid service in Jamaica. The servants, she tells them, have grown so haughty as to be nigh on useless. Cedelia is glad to be visiting Haiti where servants still serve.

And indeed, servants are everywhere. There are more servants than guests. The servants are serving liquor of many sorts. They walk tall and straight with trays balanced on the five tips of their perfectly steady fingers. The trays are laden with hors d'oeuvres, liquors and wines. When Cedelia rises to dance Ingrid tells Jane that these servants are actually slaves. They have been given as children to the owners of the hotel. They work all their lives for no pay and are very thankful to be here where they never go hungry. “They are ever grateful,” says Ingrid.

Jane’s head is fuzzy from the heat and the drink. She has been drinking a heady French wine. Servants keep bringing her more. Two strange young men approach her. One is an Arab, the other is German. They are friends of Ibrahim they explain and he has asked them to drive her home to her room. Would she please come now? As she follows them out to their car she is aware of the crowing of roosters. The German sits at the wheel, Jane in the middle, and the Arab sits by the window. It is the dark of the night and the winding mountain road is empty of life. Jane is alone in the car with these men. The Arab begins stroking her shoulder with his hand. He tells her in broken English that she is beautiful, that Ibrahim has excellent taste. Jane is flattered and also she likes being touched. She pretends she is not aware of his hand on the back of her neck. She does not want him to stop touching her.

The German pulls the car off to the side of the road. The Arab grabs her shoulders and begins jamming his tongue down her throat. Jane slips out of his grasp and lands in the back seat. “No, she is begging. No, please.” Now she hears her voice, and it is pleading in German, a language she never even knew she remembered except in the deepest of her dreams. But the German responds. He leaps into the back seat beside her. He places his body between hers and the body of the Arab. First harsh words and then cajoling words are spoken in Arabic and in Creole and in French. Then the German returns to the driver’s seat. The Arab makes an apology in broken English. Jane remains in the back. Soon they have arrived at her boarding house. Jane is very thankful. “Thank you. Thank you,” she repeats to the two men. She kisses them both, thankfully.

The next morning the police come by, as they do every morning. Each morning as the police pass, everyone must stand at attention at the front door and salute. This morning as Jane is saluting the police stop. They point to her purse and when she opens it they take out her cigarettes. The police are very happy with Jane’s cigarettes. They share them amongst themselves and smoke as they continue marching. The landlady serves breakfast and again Jane stuffs her purse full with hot rolls. Her purse is steaming, full as a full belly. She walks out into the street and when she meets Pierre and the others she opens her purse. The boys laugh as they munch but there are never enough rolls.

Jane follows the children up into the mountains where everything is green.There are green vines and green stems and green leaves. A shadow moves by her foot and Pierre seizes it, holding up for her the writhing body of a slender green snake. Everything makes him laugh. After a while the boys run off on their own. Now Jane is alone. A woman steps out of the brush. She is scrawny and dirty and her clothes are torn. There is a tiny pot-bellied toddler in front of the woman who is pushing it forward, pushing it forward at Jane. “Please, “ says the woman, in a careful, well-practiced English, “Please take my baby to America.” Jane is shaking her head. “No, I am sorry,” she says. She is backing away from the woman, from the baby. “I am sorry,” she keeps saying. “I am sorry.” In the distance a rooster is crowing. Later Pashu comes by to invite Jane out for the evening. “Ce soir,” he intones. “Ce soir,” she repeats. That evening they go to a dance hall where they dance wild dances and drink themselves dizzy. The band is making wild blood curdling music and the robust female vocalist is howling in a loud, trembling soprano. The drummer invokes a goddess of Voodou. Someone is holding a struggling rooster. The rooster is screaming. Jane becomes frightened. Pashu leads her outside. When she looks up into the sky the white moon appears red as if it were bleeding. Around it the stars spinning crazy like an inside out disco ball. Only Orion is steady, unchanged, stamped onto the black tropical sky as if it were only the sky over Worchester.

Pashu drives Jane up a steep mountain road to the summit. He is driving with one hand and holding her hand with the other. Even if they spoke the same language there would be no need to speak. They stand hand in hand gazing down at the twinkling city below. There are large dark shapes that move like huge shadowy beasts from one section of the city to another. This is the black-out that covers each section of Port-au-Prince in turn in darkness. There is only one small electrical generator for the enitre city, so this is how energy is conserved. Each area has one hour of black-out each evening. During the black-out the households huddle together under kerosene lights. Everyone sits close. Conversation is low. Sometimes there is looting.

It is another night now, and it is time for the black-out at Jane’s boarding house. The Frenchman, whose name Jane can never remember, and Ingrid are conversing flirtatiously in half German and half French. Ingrid is holding her son on her lap and he is falling asleep at her breast. The landlady is pouring out tea, and the kerosene lamps flicker.

When black-out is over Jane goes to her room. She lies down on the bed, closing her eyes. Golden thoughts about Pashu flow through her body like warm golden wine. There is a tapping at her door. It is Pierre and the other boys. When she opens the door the boys scramble over her bed like a litter of puppies. They jump on the mattress and make flips like small acrobats and they laugh about everything. Ibrahim tells Jane that she is no longer to stay in the boarding house. It was not a good thing to allow the street children into her room. Such a thing is forbidden. Jane says, “But where can I stay?” Ibrahim replies that she had best take the next flight back to America. He has made the arrangements. He says he does not blame her, he is sorry, but she does not belong here in Haiti, and it is dangerous for her here, He regrets having invited her. He says this as politely as possible.

In the morning Paolo arrives to drive Jane to the airport. Just as she is about to step onto the runway she feels a tap on her shoulder. It is Pierre who pushes a thing into her hand and then disappears. The thing is a sealed envelope. It is addressed, “Tante Maria. New York City.” Jane does not know what to do with the envelope. She tucks it into her purse.

Jane still has the envelope in her purse at 8am the next Monday morning as she wades through deep drifts fighting her way through the snow to the publishing company where she works, Snow is reeling around her head and the New England wind is cutting through her coat, through her clothes, her flesh, into her bones.

She still has the envelope in her purse some weeks later, when the snow has let up, the sky cleared, and it is one of those rare Boston nights when one can see stars. She is wondering about Ibrahim. How is it he never returned? Amir also is gone, their apartment for rent. Jane is gazing up at Orion, who appears to be lying on his side. She is fingering the envelope in her purse but she has no idea what to do with it. Later, when she buys a new purse, she tucks the envelope along with her wallet and toothbrush into the new purse.

* * * In Jane's dream the letter is yeast filled like bread. It heats up and rises to fill her new purse. She and Pashu walk hand in hand through the streets of Port-au-Prince. All around them the roosters are singing. Jane's purse is steaming and bloated with bread. The hot smell of bread fills the air and her purse bursts open. The children surround her. They eat and they eat and there is always more bread. She wakes to the sound of their laughter.