Nunchucks In Haiti.
A short story by Robert Cormack.
“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.” Frank Zappa
I was in Petionville, on the northern hills of the Massif de la Selle, after an incident in Port-au-Prince where three men jumped me in alleyway. They came out of a hole in the wall, trying to take my running shoes. Pierre, my guide, fought them off. He said to me, “You have to hit them.” They glared at him with yellow-rimmed eyes, then walked away laughing.
After that, I gave Pierre ten gourds and grabbed a tap-tap down to the safer town of Petionville. While walking along Rue Darguin, I saw a teenager standing in front of a long white stucco house with a tiled roof. He was holding a pair of nunchucks, swinging them over his head and around his waist.
After seeing people in rags all morning down in Port-au-Prince, his Lacoste shirt and matching shoes seemed too civilized even for Petionville.
He didn’t look Haitian, more Arab. I’d learned all Middle Easterners in Haiti were called Syrians. Many of them had done very well. After seeing people in rags all morning down in Port-au-Prince, his starched linen shirt and Lacoste shoes seemed too civilized even for Petionville. He kept swinging those nunchucks left and right. When he turned and noticed me, he used his nunchucks to point up the hill.
“The galleries are that way,” he said.
“Art galleries?” I asked.
“That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing them.”
“You should,” he said. “My family owns them.”
“Do you work there, too?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I have my own collection inside.”
He used his nunchucks again to point at the house. It was a low-slung affair, wrapped around a large eucalyptus. The paved driveway circled to a three-car garage. Sitting out front was a late-model silver Mercedes Benz sportscar. It was hard to imagine anyone driving a sportscar outside of Petionville. Even here, it seems about as out of place as a samovar in a roadside diner.
Sometimes you saw shadows huddled around candles on the ground. As the taxi driver explained, these were voodoo ceremonies.
Two nights before, arriving late at the airport, the taxi driver took me along some dark streets past overgrown lots and broken down buildings. Sometimes you saw shadows huddled around candles on the ground. As the taxi driver explained, these were voodoo ceremonies.
Further along, we suddenly saw these bright lights. It was a Mercedes Benz dealership. I mentioned this to the teenager with the nunchucks. He said the dealership belonged to his uncle.
“It’s the only one in Haiti,” he said.
When I nodded, he looked at me and said, “Do you want to see my art collection?” He said it like he didn’t care one way or the other. “None of it is for sale,” he added. “I won’t sell anything until these artists are seriously recognized.”
“Sounds like you know your stuff,” I said.
He started walking up the driveway, swinging his nunchucks again. I figured he was expecting me to follow him, so I did. We went up to this large oak door.
The house itself looked Spanish in design, lots of old timber and wrought iron smelling of sandlewood and incense. All the rooms opened out to a courtyard with big bougainvilleas and various other bushes. The walls were covered in big paintings, some abstract, some more realistic. I said to him, “This stuff’s certainly better than the stuff they’re selling at The Iron Market.”
He shrugged again, sitting down on a leather couch. He put his nunchucks next to a pack of cigarettes, took one out, lit it, then threw the match in a big ceramic bowl.
“No art is good in The Iron Market,” he said. “They’re peasants.”
“No art is good in The Iron Market,” he said. “They’re peasants.”
“Aren’t all artists peasants starting out?” I asked.
“Not if they’re really good,” he said.
“I thought a fear of starving was what made artists good.”
“They don’t fear starving.”
“What do they fear?”
“Life, probably,” he said. “They paint to escape it.”
I kept looking at the paintings.
“Do you know these artists personally?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he said. “My uncles support them.”
“And gets repaid with paintings, I take it.”
“Of course,” he said, flipping an ash. “We’re not a charity.”
“You’ve picked some beautiful pieces.”
“I don’t pick them,” he said. “My uncles tell me what to buy. Most of this” — waving his hand across the room — “comes from younger artists. If their work shows well in Miami and New York, then I’ll be rich.”
“When she saw me, she stopped, lifted her sunglasses, and said to the teenager, “Who’s this?”
A door at the end of the hall opened. A woman in her thirties, with the same features as the teenager, came out. She wore a floral dress, a large straw hat, sunglasses. Her black hair was pulled straight back. She carried a book and an empty glass. When she saw me, she stopped, lifted her sunglasses, and said to the teenager, “Who’s this?”
“Someone off the street,” he said.
“Why are you inviting strangers into our house, Malik?”
“He’s just a tourist.”
“And if he comes back tonight to murder us, what is he then?”
“Dead,” he said, nodding to the nunchucks. “I’ll kill him with these.”
She laughed, going out to the courtyard.
“My sister has a gallery, too,” Malik said to me. “She’s also a paranoid.”
“I heard that, Malik,” she called back.
Malik grinned, showing these perfect white teeth. Then he stood up and grabbed his nunchucks again. “You’d better leave before the rest of the family comes home,” he said. “They don’t like strangers.”
He walked me to the door.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“A resort up the coast near Saint Marc.”
“I would drive you,” he said, “but I don’t feel like it.”
“Malik,” his sister called out again, “don’t be a shit.”
“I’m not driving all the way to Saint Marc.”
His sister came back inside.
“Give me the keys,” she said. “I’ll drive him.”
“Keys,” she said. “Or I’ll put your paintings in the garage.”
“Not in my car, Zara.”
“Whose car, Malik?”
She stepped into a pair of sandals and snapped her fingers.
“Keys,” she said. “Or I’ll put your paintings in the garage.”
Malik sheepishly handed her the keys.
Before I knew it, she was walking out the door.
“Come along, whoever you are,” she said to me, going to the Mercedes. “I have to get back by five to close the gallery.”
“Go with her,” Malik said. “You might get laid.”
“Malik,” she warned.
As I crossed the driveway, Malik was already flipping the nunchucks over his shoulder again. I got in the car next to his sister. She screeched out onto the road, heading towards the highway north. She turned on the radio, changed stations, then pulled a gun out of her straw purse.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t use on you.”
“What’s it for, then?” I asked.
“Nothing, really,” she said. “Malik’s right, I am paranoid. We have a problem with kidnappers here. Are you really just a tourist?”
“What else would I be?”
“I’m sure kidnappers don’t necessarily look like kidnappers. Maybe fishermen. What are you when you’re not a tourist?”
“You could be anything,” he said. “I’m sure kidnappers don’t necessarily look like kidnappers. What are you when you’re not a tourist?”
“A writer, actually,” I said. “I thought I’d retrace Graham Greene’s steps.”
“The Comedians?” she laughed, pointing to the tent cities along the road. “Do you see anything romantic here? Greene was a romanticist. They’re the worst crooks. I have a degree in English literature, you know. Stanford.”
“I would’ve thought art history.”
Zara laughed, showing the same perfect teeth as Malik.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“This thing people have with art history,” she said. “Art has always been a business,” she said. “No dealers, no art. Don’t get me wrong, I love art, but it’s all about betting. We make the bet, nobody else. That’s how art lives. Without us—without our money—no artist in Haiti couldn’t survive. Now you think I’m a mercenary, right?”
“No,” I said. “I think I agree with you.”
“Well, don’t,” she said. “I like money. I own that house, you know. I let Malik live there. I paid for those paintings he was showing you. He’s too lazy to work. If we don’t help him now, he’ll end up dead in a ditch.”
“You know, at six o’clock, everyone will come to my house. They have bigger houses, but they come to mine. Why? Because it was their first house. They sold me their first house.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said.
“Why?” she said.
“He’s your brother.”
“And I must do the right thing, right?” she said, turning off the radio. “You know, at six o’clock, everyone will come to my house. They have bigger houses, but they come to mine. Why? Because it was their first house. Same with my gallery. It was their first. I’m the hand-me-down queen.”
“Is that so bad?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she said. “I’ve never known anything else.”
We drove along in silence for a while, Zara driving fast, pulling out around slow wagons, buses and rattling cars. Each time we passed a small village, she’d shake her head, pointing to the little huts where lottery tickets were sold. “Every Haitian buys lottery tickets,” she said. “They live on dreams.”
By the time we reached the gates of resort, it was already four-thirty.
“Well, tourist,” she said, pulling up to the guard house, “I hope you’ve got Graham Greene out of your system.”
“I hope you don’t have to use that gun,” I replied.
“Don’t worry,” she laughed, “you were my only chance at a half decent kidnapper today. Come to the gallery if you get the chance.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
She drove off and I went through the gate. At the resort itself, people were by the pool, sitting with big hats. I went to the tiki bar and ordered a drink. I looked around at the guests going off to get ready for dinner. I wanted to say, “Haiti’s out there,” but it wouldn’t have meant anything to them. They’d eat and dance later at the pavilion. I was too tired to do either.
I realized Zara was right. Romantics were crooks. Haiti had many romantic crooks at one time or another. Not so many now. Maybe in a painting, but that’s about it. You had to look awfully hard to find romance in Haiti. Even if you thought you’d found it, odds were, it was something else.
