Their story begins with a young girl who sought the loa, Papa Legba, for a favor, "...take away my voice and make me cripple!" During her vow of silence, Zuellie discovers many family secrets and eventually finds hope in a family relic—La Clairière, an old bent machete that was never intended for use.
Their story begins with a young girl who sought the loa, Papa Legba, for a favor, "...take away my voice and make me cripple!" During her vow of silence, Zuellie discovers many family secrets and eventually finds hope in a family relic—La Clairière, an old bent machete that was never intended for use.
ALONG THE WOODSY trail leading up the hillside, a thicket of heavy brush and wildflowers concealed a path known only to those who sought the healer. During the stormy season, torrential rainfall formed a trench, making it almost impossible to reach the mambo’s cabin.
“Don’t mind the gully,” said Effia, as she scanned her twitchy-eyed guests' clothing and footwear, “the loas have decided to protect me in this way.”
If her visitor had worn fancy threads or was blessed enough to have on shoes she knew their journey had been long, and their pockets would be full with her reward.
The powerful winds swept through the hills, bending palm trees and uprooting delicate crops. There was always a reason for nature's wrath, whether to punish the people’s greed or to correct some form of dishonor. Before his passing, the houngan (male priest), warned of change to come. Now his daughter, Effia, the mambo, (female priestess), did the same. In the evening she walked through the forest barefooted to listen as the earth groaned and bemoaned each transgression.
“Enjoy the crops now, one day there will be nothing but dust and mud.” As she spoke nearby leaves shook, and when she tugged on the long braids dangling from her white headscarf the wind seemed to settle. The sharecroppers placed several Haitian Gourdes on the table before leaving.
Families like the Dupont’s and the Guerrier’s were farmers of citrus, and sugar cane. There were other crops, but the cane fields required hard labor of which every abled body was needed. A small grove of almond trees grew outside one particular compound, there a bright-eyed brown girl was often found stuffing her pockets full of nuts that had fallen to the ground from the leaves that hung over the wall. She would not venture outside the gate, nor would she participate in fieldwork, though she was old enough for both.
Among the four families dwelling within the compound were a herd of cattle, a coop full of hens, several hogs, and two mules used for transportation. Some of them believed in making a sacrifice to the spirit world, others turned their worship to Mother Mary, and despite these differences, they were able to coexist in peace. Mostly the town of Miragoàne was a thriving, self-sufficient community. Their women were easily noticed at the market selling produce or purchasing goods they could not cultivate for themselves like salted fish, fine garments, and hand-carved furniture.
No matter who was selling or buying, the conditions were always hot and unbearably humid, with long days under the sweltering sun. Regardless of the heat, rains, or hurricane, the women were fashionably dressed in vibrant quadrille dresses and their heads adorned with colorful headscarves or large hats. On market days they strutted onto the vendor row and took their places. The men dressed for comfort wearing linen or cotton pants, and a sun hat. Whether in the fields or town, children played alongside their hard-working parents; their hands and face sticky from ripe fruit juice mixed with sweat which drew flies and mosquitos—a nuisance to the overworked adults.
That summer, an aged English woman working in the clinic helped the bright-eyed Dupont girl prepare for delivery. As they carried her squirming body into the birthing room, her pocket full of nuts fell along the floor creating a trail from the entryway, just as her water broke.
“Linn!” said the midwife, as she side-stepped slippery spots on the floor. “It means a trail of water, or like a waterfall.” She braced herself on the wall for balance.
Upon hearing the words, the hairs on her arms stood up. She grunted when her body was placed on the cot and in her confusion reached out for the errand boy who had been called to clean the floor.
“Settle down child,” said her grandpapa, after releasing the errand boy from her grip. “Agwe has claimed this one’s offspring. Their destiny is beyond the Caribbean Sea,” he said.
“No, no, take it back…please, don’t curse my baby!” A trembling hand crossed her heart and forehead as she prayed through tears. He did her the honors of repeating the curse before leaving, in case the words had been missed through the wails of her birthing pangs.
That evening after giving birth and the other mothers in the ward were sound asleep, the new mother left her recovery bed and crept onto the darkened street until she found the Catholic church. When she told the priest about the prophecy, he calmed her fears by instructing her to light a candle and pray the rosary. The young mother bowed her head in a moment of silent prayer. After feeling comforted, she returned to the recovery ward and held her baby named Linn close at her breast where she intended to keep the child for a lifetime - if it were in her power to do so.
On the same hill that same year, a light-haired mulatto boy was born to the Guerrier’s. His manman (pronounced mama) had already selected the name for her unborn child, no matter what the gender turned out to be.
“Kolelas,” the runner. “Because it feels as if this baby is running round and round inside my belly,” she panted.
The parents of young Kolelas sought the houngan, and later the mambo, for medicine and spiritual guidance on all matters. Their way was to seek the healer, and they would never convert to the new religion introduced by the missionaries. The hillside village overlooking Miragoàne had a unique subculture. For starters, one had to get there by horse, or mule, unless you were fit for the long walk. The trail populated with loose rocks and dirt led through a thick wall of looming trees. Beyond the dangling vines, chirping birds alerted skittish animals to human interference.
Blacks like the Dupont’s and lower-class mulattos, such as the Guerrier’s, lived and farmed together, which at that time was rare as the country smoldered, and simmered from the revolutions of 1804. However, on the hillside, sometimes referred to as a mountain, they found comfort and even wed one another. That year, Haitians found civil peace at the expense of international unrest. Then-President, Jean-Nicolas Saget, stalled Libertarian’s hunger for reform as he dealt with several military problems. Haiti’s ports took the stage of a battle or two. The first between Spanish men-of-war and the United States over a steamer thought to be a pirate carrying contraband to Cuba.
The Germans struck later that year. A gentleman named Captain Batsch took it upon himself to attack two Haitian men-of-war ships anchored in the harbor of Port-au Prince. And amid these troubles, President Saget managed to redeem the paper currency. The country formerly known as Saint-Domingue had once been the wealthiest colony in the French Empire and all the world. The government had high hopes and expectations to recapture a fraction of Haiti’s glory days.
In the capital, artists became famous for the colorful depictions of their people and culture. Haitians were spirited. Their food savory, and the music expressive—like the people. Moving beyond the narrative of poverty and violence, Haiti’s beaches and hillsides were of the most beautiful in the West Indies. The coastline nurtured lush tropical vegetation of palms above, and coral reefs beneath the sea. The hillsides matured into mountainous land and plains—Emerald jungles with a nutritious center where deep gorges of rock gave way to undisturbed natural baths. Vines and towering trees sagged from their ripened fruit; Moringa, Soursop, Mango, and Cacao. There were some sugar cane fields, though not as populous as they once had been, but still valuable enough to farm in one form or another.
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1878
Each male owned a trusty machete used for whacking thicket and cutting cane. From an early age, 6-year old Kolelas, who became known simply as Kole, learned to sling a blade with accuracy. His gangly legs moved through the bush clearing more ground than any of the other workers. His relatives speculated on his supernatural ability, many years before becoming known for the urban legend of having run from one end of Haiti to the other in a day,
The machete he used had earned the title and name of, la clairière (the clearing), and was never intended for use due to an obvious curvature slightly to the right. The defective blade had been given to him as a joke, just as it had been given to his father before him. However, in the right hands la clairière became more useful than any other cane cutter’s blade, moving its wielder through the reeds with a speed of a cyclone. There was not a reed left standing after they passed.
Linn had also spent her life on the hillside. Her family converted to Christianity against the wishes of their small community and shunned the houngan’s rituals marked by the drums. Kole had known her since they were old enough to play outdoors. She was the shy girl who watched other children from her door stoop, always silent. He would catch her on occasion giggling at the boy’s horseplay. Sometimes she would disappear from the doorway for days, and he worried until her return. Linn was not an attractive girl, at least that is what the other boys said. But Kole was fascinated by her face, thinking a girl who never smiled had to have known things beyond her years. She had the saddest eyes that seemed to bulge as it observed the whole world at once. Sometimes she waved in his direction, always after looking over her shoulder first. He mimicked her behavior, checking his surroundings before he returned her wave.
“Don’t even trouble yourself with her,” said one of the boys, as he shook his head. “She doesn’t speak and she never comes out to play with us.”
Kole laughed with the others while inwardly determining he would be the one to rescue her from the porch someday. Through him, Linn would become the stream of water she had been named after. One day he would show her the place on the other side of the hill where the waterfall spilled over into the sea. And each day her curiosity pulled her back to the doorway to stare at the well-mannered boy with bright skin and smooth hair. It was more than looks that made him stand out from the rest. Kole noticed her, and soon he would learn the reasoning behind her strange behavior.
I've always been quite taken with the world of Caribbean religions, and Laura Gaisie does not disappoint with her third novel, "Twelve Days La Clairière." The story follows multiple generations as they deal (in very different ways) with the spiritual elements that follow their family.
The story first follows Linn and Kole as they grow their family. Kole and Linn have differing opinions on the traditional medicine and magic of Haiti, creating an interesting dynamic that truly is a window into the 1800's and the intensely realistic family dynamics. I felt myself drawn into the relationships of Linn and her daughter Zuellie, who becomes selectively mute to cater to her mother's growing grief that her last baby is getting older. Though told in another time, in another culture, Gaisie masterfully reflects the complex and complicated emotions that come with aging and coming of age, both as a child and an adult.
Once Zuellie becomes older, she meets Pieter, who becomes her husband. The lineage of family healing falls to Zuellie, but desire for Rinaldo overtakes her. Zuellie travels to Cuba with Rinaldo, pregnant, and Rinaldo eventually starts a family with her daughter, who continues the family line. The tension created from these family dynamics is jarring, but tender. You can feel both the love and the magic in the prose. The narrative is tied together through the family axe, La Clairière.
While the beginning seemed a little slow, the action picked up quickly and absolutely immersed me in the story. Gaisie is a master at creating tension, suspense, and the romance is just enough for those of us who love it.
What caught my attention the most is the way in which Gaisie uses real historical themes of class and race to tell the story of a family, heaving through the adversity of segregation, laws, and differing cultures. Through four generations, the family faces differing adversity, and each character truly becomes their own. The intersection between the history of Haiti, Cuba, and America intertwines for the reader in a way that makes sense, pulls at your heart strings, and elicits the powerful magic of storytelling.
This novel is truly magical. I highly recommend it.