A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Álvarez Read Free Book Online Page B

the people to do? Truly one of those environmental and social-justice conundrums; what should come first: the eradication of poverty or the forestation of the land that might allow for agriculture so that hunger can begin to be eradicated? I am hungry. Give me something. The chant starts up in my head.
To Eseline’s house we go
    Now the fun part starts for the lady in the long, flouncy skirt and dressy sandals. She keeps tripping over the skirt; the sandals don’t give her purchase on the steep, rocky hillsides that go down and up as if imitating a rollercoaster. My beloved, in a floppy hat to guard his fair complexion, is having his own difficulties negotiating the rough terrain.
    Pablo comes to my rescue, offering me his arm. He looks dashingly handsome in the tan suit that was in the hanging bag yesterday. The two of us could be headed for a wedding in Cape Cod. It’s amazing he doesn’t trip, given the shoes he is wearing with long, pointy toes, a style which is all the rage in the DR. Eli and Homero are much more casually dressed in jeans and khaki pants respectively, both with white shirts, in deference to the wedding, I suppose. Charlie has donned a striped shirt with a crest of a lion rampant above his right breast, very British, maybe from his time in the Bahamas. Bringing up the rear is a young Haitian man on a mule, dressed in a pale yellow suit, the same color as my skirt. “He, too, works in la République,” Pablo points out. How can he tell? Anyone who can afford a suit has gotten out.

    The hike is long and strenuous. Finally, after forty-five minutes, we descend into a clearing with half a dozen small houses arrayed around each other. The most prominent turns out to be Eseline’s house, its mud walls a pale cream, the blue windows outlined in orange, the thatched roof peaked like the curl on top of a baby’s head. A long awning of palm branches extends from the front door. It looks like an impromptu structure, perhaps put up for the wedding, so guests don’t have to stand in the hot sun.
    The cry goes out that we have arrived. Men and women stop what they are doing—carrying firewood, making fires, cooking, ironing, braiding hair, sweeping, preparing coffee—to look at us. A pack of children, always the best alarm, like geese in a barnyard, race down the side hills but brake to a stop ahead of us. It’s as if we are the wedding party.
    Piti comes bounding out from the back of Eseline’s house in a white T-shirt to greet us. It’s already eight thirty, and he is not even dressed. The wedding is obviously delayed, though Piti assures us that as soon as the pastors arrive, it will begin. There is no sign of the bride’s family, and Eseline herself is off at a neighbor’s house being dressed.
    Piti calls a diminutive older couple to come forward. His mother and father, he says, introducing them to us. I embrace the thin, kerchiefed woman, whom I’ve been imagining for years praying for her son in a far-off land.

    From the introductions that follow, I know that Piti’s father has at least one other wife present, though I don’t know if this is a subsequent wife, an ex-wife, or both wives are current. There are many sisters and brothers, half brothers and sisters. It’s difficult to keep everyone straight, especially when we don’t speak Kreyòl.
    Piti disappears to get dressed, and Pablo and Charlie wander off to visit with friends. Eli and Homero and Bill and I are left with the rest of the mostly female guests, none of whom speaks Spanish or English. We glance around, not wanting to be too obtrusive, though, of course, that’s impossible. Every person with whom we make eye contact offers us his or her seat, cleaning off the spots they have vacated with facecloths, which seem to be what is used here for handkerchiefs. I respond to every look or nod with a smile like a dignitary’s wife at a function, whose only role is to look friendly.
    Several of the children are openly curious, pointing