“ What we need is the skin of a white man 
for parchment, his skull for a writing desk, his 
blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen” 
Boisrand-Tonnerre (when signing the-Haitian Act of independence) 
happy. The fourth aide, who has since 
found sanctuary in the Brazilian 
Embassy, suggested Duvalier should 
fly over Haiti, jump out, and make 
everybody happy. 
The bar woman cackles silently; 
the old soldier smiles. But, their joy is 
unfounded. It is a good joke, but 
based on a lie. There can be no de¬ 
mise, no happy leaps from planes. 
Should such an attempt be made, 
Duvalier has promised “Himalayas 
of corpses and flames as far as Ber¬ 
muda”. The bar woman stops laugh¬ 
ing and shuffles away; the old soldier 
frowns. The black doctor has taught 
them the cure is often worse than the 
disease. 
The young Creole girl, juggling 
the nectarine in her hand, leaves the 
bar and goes outside. On the porch, 
an idle collection of sport-shirted men 
in dark glasses converse in low and 
throaty whispers, punctuating their 
comments with solemn nods. The 
strings of coloured lights mask the 
porch in lurid shadows. The girl, 
weaving in a leisurely way among the 
men, looks pert and glossy as a bird. 
Hopping up on the balustrade, she 
swings her legs between the railings 
and bites at the nectarine. 
Whispering, their voices muted by 
the noise of the jukebox, the men turn 
occasionally to stare. One of them, 
drab and unshaven, cradles a rifle in 
his arms. He gapes in a stupid, almost 
ruminative way, involuntarily caress¬ 
ing the rifle-stock. The scene is visible 
through the open window. “The 
Macoute have nothing to do any¬ 
more,” the old soldier says. “Duvalier 
has pulled most of them off the streets 
now. Because of the tourists, you 
understand. Which makes them even 
more corrupt. Duvalier has institution¬ 
alised corruption. They hang round the 
bars and the brothels,” he says. “They 
work mostly after dark now.” 
But not always. Last week, he con¬ 
tinues, a friend of his from Cap Haitien 
got into an argument with some 
officials at the national bank. They 
wouldn’t cash his Government cheque. 
He was taken by the Macoute and 
questioned. That same afternoon he 
was tied to a tree and executed by 
rifle fire. There was nothing anyone 
could do. 
There are some 6,000 Macoutes at 
large in the island. Set loose among the 
populace, they exert the authority of 
an army in occupation. Estimates of 
the number of their victims vary, but a 
high police official, who fled the 
country, took with him records of 
more than 2,000 executions. Dour and 
disgruntled of late, as they have not 
been "paid, they strike haphazardly, 
as the mood takes them. 
In the shadows, at the edge of the 
porch, a man draws a final puff from his 
cigarette and flips it into the garden. 
He picks at his tattoos unthinkingly, 
his attention directed to the Creole 
girl, swinging her legs through the 
railings. The man slips into the garden 
and creeps along the side of the porch. 
Squirming through the bushed, he 
stops just below and behind the girl. 
Reaching up, quite casually, he drags 
her from the balustrade down into the 
bushes. There is a clump as the nectar¬ 
ine hits the porch, a short muffled cry, 
the snap of a branch. Frankie Laine 
picks up the chorus of Ghost Riders in 
the Sky . The men in sport shirts chatter 
on. The unshaven man lays down his 
rifle. He smiles and wipes his palms 
“For him the 
peasant masses must rejoice 
in a new strength ” 
on his uniform. 
It is three a.m., thebrothel isshutting 
down, but the streams of coloured 
lights still flicker through the trees. 
The small group of sport-shirted men 
wander off into the darkness, giggling 
and drinking dairin, the cheap local 
rbum. The young Creole girl lies 
quietly in the shrubbery, as though 
drunk or asleep. Not one of the men 
looks in her direction as they pass 
down the steps and into the road. 
Antoine Alexandre is a professional 
guide, his patter rigid and well- 
rehearsed. “Give me three dollars,” 
he says, “and I will show you Para¬ 
dise.” Impudence is an acceptable part 
of his charm. He is always to be found 
near the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince, 
wearing a threadbare suit, two sizes 
too small, dusty shoes and no socks, a 
thin tie, the clasp high up, and a brown 
felt hat set stylishly at the back of his 
head. He speaks French, Creole, pass¬ 
able English and has learned Yiddish, 
he says, in order “to con the American 
tourists. Versteben?” 
A religious man, he attributes his 
learning to a study of the Bible. Cap 
Haitien, he explains, is the most elegant 
city in the Land of Beulah. In Cap 
Haitien, only 160 miles to the north, 
he promises living proofs that Haiti 
had not been the richest colony in the 
world for nothing. The plantation 
homes of d’Estaign and of Pauline 
Bonaparte, the gigantic Citadel and the 
Palace of Sans Souci, built by Haiti’s 
greatest moral king, Henri Christophe 
- these were jewels, beyond compare. 
Antoine smiles and lifts his hands to the 
heavens. For a small down payment, 
he, Monsieur Alexandre, can arrange 
all this. 
Driving slowly, in a rented car, we 
head northwards through the morning 
rush hour to Eden. There is little 
motor traffic - there are only 8,GOO 
vehicles on the island - but crowds of 
marketers block the streets or climb 
on and off the brightly-painted buses, 
known as “tap-taps”. The buses, 
little more than pick-up trucks, are 
surmounted with hand-painted signs 
saying, “Mission Speciale”, “Toujours 
Edith” and “Dream Island Voyages”. 
The northern mountains are visible 
in the distance. 
It is good to leave Port-au-Prince, 
good to anticipate what the Director 
of Tourism had called “the enchanting 
countryside”, good to walk among 
“the smiling and hospitable peasants”. 
Three dollars is cheap for Paradise. 
Up through the arid Artibonite 
Valley, the flat sheet of scrubland 
stretches out on either side as rough 
and crumpled as an elephant hide. In 
the distance* the tips of acacia and sisal 
are visible, bobbing furiously above 
the vast swirls of dust, like driftwood 
upon a flood. The road is lined with 
cracks and shallow craters. Most 
drivers, unwilling to chart a snaky 
course among the rubble, take to the 
packed dirt verge and for long dis¬ 
tances the road is deserted, with small 
spot traffic jams on either side. The 
Government plans road tolls to gain 
revenue for their repair. Alexandre 
laughs. “They’ve done that before,” he 
says, gesturing grandly toward the 
ancient road, “and behold — the new 
highway.” 
Beyond Gonaives, the rocky road 
“Faithful to his ideal , 
he protects the helpless and 
defends the oppressed ” 
begins a hesitant, twisting ascent of 
the northern mountains. Here, the dust 
has settled, the air becoming sharp and 
cool. Shabby lean-tos dot the roadside. 
Every few hundred yards, bands of 
ragged children, their stomachs plump 
and distended, kneel in the road filling 
potholes with dirt and stone. At the 
sound of an oncoming car, they drop 
their stones and line the roadside like 
refugees. Rubbing their stomachs, they 
hold out their hands. One of them, an 
ulcerous waif, steps forward and says: 
“Please mister, my father, he gone 
away, my mother she crazy, give me 
one nickel, please.” 
Inevitably, famine has followed 
drought. Officials in Port-au-Prince 
think themselves fortunate as the 
famine has only affected the north¬ 
west - out of sight of the tourists. 
There, in the tiny wooden hamlets 
which straddle the road, mothers put 
their boney children up for sale. A 
Haitian child is worth approximately 
3s. Few, if any, are sold. It’s a bad 
market for Haitian children. 
Throughout the northern moun¬ 
tains, the poinsettias and the flam- 
boyan wilt for lack of water; the wild 
maguey, the aloes, the mango and the 
breadfruit trees hang limply down. 
The derelict shacks of the poor cling 
like old brown spiders to the mountain¬ 
sides. Inside, when it rains, the peasants 
used to pray for Papa Doc; now, they 
pray against him. In one shanty, near 
Cap Haitien, an old black crone prays 
on the dirt floor. Above her, tacked to 
the wall, a crucifix and a small picture 
9 
