"My mother is the reason that I love you,' Bhim said simply. 'She is the reason I know what love is." Leah Franqui, America for Beginners

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XXVIII.

Alex had only been to Port-au-Prince once, and that was the day that he had left Haiti. He was amazed to see the dirt streets filled with coloured men and women, going about their business ... as though they were free to do so.

It was always a fight. If it was not the French, it was the military and the anarchists. He felt as though he had lived his life fighting. Fight, failing, and losing. But there seemed to be some freedom here, or at least some semblance of it.

Who was in power? Alex didn't know. For how long would they be in power? He didn't know that either. How long would it be before someone else came to control the island, to control its people?

The term "gens de coloeur libres" did not mean much to those with ulterior motivations.

The one thing that Alex did not see in Port-au-Prince was white folks. Not a single one. This was something entirely foreign to him seeing as he had grown up at the mercy of the petit blancs. To see the island, which had once been his home, completely devoid of them was almost alarming.

"Where is your mother?" Belle asked weakly as they rested against the wooden wall of a market stall. Despite being wet from the sea, they were drying quickly in the Caribbean sun. Alex's legs were like lead from having to swim to shore while dragging Belle along behind him.

Alex looked to the mountains beyond the city. "When things were bad after the Revolution, I took her up into the mountains. If you know where to look, there are villages of maroons, escaped slaves. I took her up there to be safe."

Alex had never gotten word to her that he had left Haiti. He had no way to communicate with her, and his mother would never have been able to read a letter anyway. He felt immense guilt growing inside of him in knowing that his mother probably felt abandoned by him.

Lord, he prayed she was still alive.

Belle wrapped one of her thin arms around her middle and rested her head back against the wall, her eyes closing. "May I ... may I rest for a moment?" she rasped, pain in her voice.

"Of course," replied Alex, feeling quite helpless as he was at a loss of what to do to help her. She really needed to be lying down and resting, and yet they had such a way to go.

Alex still had the knife that Captain Whitfield had given him, the one that had been used to seal Belle's wound shut. The blade was cleaned now, and quite fine. The hilt, in fact, looked to be ivory. It would certainly be very valuable.

The thought of trading the knife disturbed Alex a little, as it was really the only connection, the only proof, that he had met his father. But Captain Whitfield had not gifted this blade to his son. He had armed a defenceless man. Would the captain of bestowed the same gift had he known?

Alex wasn't confident. It was terribly hard for him to feel any sort of faith in the good of life. He had never known it. One only had to look upon poor, innocent Belle to see the hard truths of life for people like them. Good things didn't happen to them. Good things were snatched away.

Losing Susanna had been enough evidence to prove that. Alex didn't need to do it again.

***

Alex had intended on trading the knife for a horse, but managed to bargain for a cart as well, just a small one, but it was large enough to allow Belle to lie down and rest while the horse carried them out of the immediate town.

He took them out of Port-au-Prince and found himself on the road towards the plantation where he had once been enslaved. He hadn't meant to go there. It was almost as if the horse was taking them there of its own volition. The road seemed to narrow as the trees and shrubbery began to encroach upon him.

Alex felt his throat swell and air become scarce as there suddenly came into view acres and acres of coffee trees. The very plantation that had been his own personal hell was right there. The smell assaulted his nostrils and he wanted to bend over onto the road and empty his stomach.

Clearly things had not changed so much that there wasn't the need for forced labour. Alex saw slaves dotted throughout the plantation, tending to the crop. The only difference was that petit blancs were not patrolling the land, hurling profanities, attacking women, or taking their whips to the backs of innocents.

Over the next hill came the view of the large plantation house, from where Master would look over the land like a king surveying his riches. Only Alex noticed another difference. Where once the house had been the grandest structure for miles, it was now a ruin. It was burned, with only the foundation and a few outer walls still standing.

To see it destroyed was an oddly calming experience. It settled the waves of stress and nausea that had been weighing upon him for the last few miles. Alex, of course, knew that the master was dead. But seeing his house destroyed, Alex knew, was the only sort of justice a former slave would truly have.

Just as Alex was about to push the horse on to take them away from the plantation and towards the mountains, he heard a familiar singing voice in the distance. He suddenly pulled on the reins and forced the horse to stop.

"Alouette, gentile alouette,

Alouette, je te plumerai.

Je te plumeria la tête."

Voices, young voices, sang back, "Je te plumeria la tête!"

"Et la tête."

The young voices chorused, "Et la tête!"

As he heard her sing, Alex recalled a vivid memory of being rocked to sleep as a young boy.

His mother had sung a lullaby.

"Dodo, l'enfant do,

Dodo, l'enfant do,

L'enfant dormira bien vite

Dodo, l'enfant do

L'enfant dormira bientôt."

It was her. It had to be her. Somehow, she had found her way down from the mountain and had returned to the plantation. Either that or she had been forced down. But she was here. And she was alive!

"Do you hear that, Belle?" Alex asked. "The singing."

"Yes," murmured Belle lethargically from the cart.

"That is my mother."

Alex leapt down from the small driver's perch and then hurried to the back of the cart to fetch Belle down. He affixed the reins of the horse to a nearby fence and placed a large rock in front of one of the cart wheels.

Never would Alex have believed that he would ever willingly set foot on this land again, but it did feel different. Despite the apprehension that he had felt upon seeing the land for the first time in eons, the house was gone and his mother was singing.

The smell of the plants still grossly offended him as he came to be at eyelevel with the coffee trees while still supporting Belle. But he craned his neck to over, to listen for where her voice was coming from.

"Maman!" Alex cried out.

"Go," encouraged Belle as she slowly bent her knees to sit down on the ground below. "Don't wait for me. Find her," she insisted.

"I'll be right back," Alex promised. He immediately ran into the field, along a row of coffee trees, taking strides one after the other that he had never thought that he would take again. He could still hear his mother's voice in the field somewhere, and so he called out again. "Maman!"

The singing stopped. Alex passed people tending to the crops, faces he recognised from his time spent here, but he couldn't stop.

"Alexander?" called the singer.

It was her.

She was so close. Alex followed her voice as she called out to him again, and he pushed through a row of trees to force his way into another lane. Standing some twenty yards away, flanked by a handful of children, was his mother, Amélie.

Alex was not entirely certain how long it had been since he had seen her, but she had certainly changed a great deal in that time.

Amélie had always been a petite woman, thin, as most women were in that environment through lack of proper food and an exhausting work regimen. But standing there, she looked healthier. Her face was fuller, her body stronger, her skin nowhere near as sallow, but deep and beautiful.

She was dressed in plain work clothes, though Alex could remember a time when her clothes would appear more like sacks upon her. Now they fit her well, and she looked like a beautiful woman.

Amélie stared at Alex in shock, not blinking, probably for fear that she was imagining things.

"Maman," Alex uttered.

Amélie burst into tears as she broke into a run, closing the distance between them in seconds as she threw herself into Alex's arms, pulling him down to her height so that she could kiss his cheeks over and over.

"Alex, you're here, you're alright!" Amélie cried through her tears. "Oh, how I prayed for this! How I prayed for you!"

Alex tightened his hold on his mother and kissed her forehead. When he thought back on all this woman had done to keep him alive, he didn't know what he had done to deserve her prayers.

"I'm sorry," Alex said, his voice suddenly thick and hoarse as he felt his own tears threatening. "I am sorry for leaving you here. I am sorry for abandoning you."

"Abandoning me?" Amélie recoiled. "My boy, you never abandoned me." She cupped his face. "And you didn't leave me here. I came back. The land, it was given to the peasants to work. I work for a wage ... it isn't much, but it's something." Amélie hugged Alex again, before leaning back to study his face, as though she was recommitting each detail to memory. "What has happened to you?" she asked quietly. "I can see such things have happened to you."

What had happened to Alex? She was exactly right. Such things had happened to him. From meeting Len, to travelling as a deceitful circus act, to meeting Susanna and finally understanding what hope felt like.

To then have it all snatched away in the blink of an eye. He could still vividly see the look of betrayal on Susanna's face. It hurt that his clearest memory of her face was that look. And perhaps it was cowardice, but Alex didn't want his mother to learn of what he had done to her. What he had done to all of them. Alex had already lost Susanna forever. He couldn't lose his mother, too.

---

I'm sorry this is a bit shorter than normal! It's 2am and I literally cannot keep my eyes open. I did have a bit more planned for this chapter but my brain can't do it so it will go in the next one.

I was out tonight which is why it's a bit later. I went to the movies for the first time in 18 months! But honestly the events that happened after were just insane. 

So my friend and I are walking towards the door of the cinema and there a girl sitting against the wall and she's wearing a crop top and it's rolled down and her chest is fully out. I stopped when she didn't move and we went over to her to see if she was okay. She was so drunk it wasn't funny, and we thought she might've taken something. But people were literally walking past her!!

I went to get her some water from the snack bar and just asked for a cup of tap water and the two guys behind the counter said that they were closed, and I was starting to get pissed off. I pointed to the poor girl and they said, "Oh, yeah, she's been there for ages, been wondering what she was doing." Like, it didn't occur to you to go and check on her? How many people passed this poor girl before we checked on her? After threatening to go behind the counter and get a cup of tap water myself, I finally got some for her. 

The poor thing ended up throwing up on the carpet and we managed to get her phone code so we could call her friends to come and help her. We waited until their ride arrived and she was safely on the way home. But I just couldn't believe that those workers had just left her there.

We both agreed that after that, we felt 35 and were mad pleased that our clubbing/bar hopping days were behind us lol

Anyway, I'm off to sleep! Night xx

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