10. How would you characterize Don Francisco and Richard Huebner? Are there any similarities between them? Any glaring differences? What role does ambition play in the lives of the male characters? Does ambition take the same form for the female characters?
11. The first epigraph is taken from T. S. Eliot’s “Gerontion”: “Unnatural vices / Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues / Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.” Why do you think the author chose those particular lines from Eliot?
12. Is it possible to save the world, or do you think the title Saving the World is meant to be ironic? If you had been asked to help in selecting the title of this novel, what would you have suggested?
Photo by Bill Eichner
Julia Alvarez is the author of five previous books of fiction, including How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies; a book of essays; five collections of poetry; and five books for children. She received the Hispanic Heritage Award in 2002. She lives in Vermont, where she is a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College.
A Shannon Ravenel Book
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2225
a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2006 by Julia Alvarez. All rights reserved.
First paperback edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, April 2007. Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2006.
Excerpt from “Voices from Lemnos” from Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966–1996 by Seamus Heaney. Copyright © 1998 by Seamus Heaney. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Excerpt from “The Turn of the Century” from Miracle Fair by Wisława Szym-borska, translated by Joanna Trzeciak. Copyright © 2001 by Joanna Trzeciak.
Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
eISBN 978-1-61620-102-9
We hope you enjoy this special preview of Julia Alvarez’s latest book,
A Wedding in Haiti,
coming soon in paperback from Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Author’s Note
In telling this story, I am not claiming to be an authority on Haitian matters. This is a book about a friendship with a young Haitian, Piti, who happened into a farm and literacy project my husband and I set up in my native country, the Dominican Republic. Through that friendship has come an opportunity to discover my neighbor country, who was and still is “the sister I hardly knew.” But these two journeys to Haiti are only the beginning of an evolving relationship, which has deepened with the writing of this book. My friendship with Piti and Eseline and little Ludy and their extended families and friends back in Haiti also continues to evolve and teach me how much is possible when we step outside the boundaries that separate us one from the other.
Julia Alvarez
September 2009–October 2011
con la Altagracia a mi lado
ONE
Going to Piti’s Wedding in Haiti
Circa 2001, the mountains of the Dominican Republic
My husband and I have an ongoing debate about how old Piti was when we first met him. I say Piti was seventeen at the most. My husband claims he was older, maybe nineteen, even possibly twenty. Piti himself isn’t sure what year we met him. But he has been working in the mountains of the Dominican Republic since he first crossed the border from Haiti in 2001 when he was seventeen years old.
Bill and I might have forgotten the year, but we distinctly remember the first time we met Piti. It was late afternoon, and we were driving past the barracks-type housing where he lived with half a dozen other Haitian workers on a neighboring farm. On the concrete apron in front, the group was horsing around, like young people having fun all over the world. Piti, whose name in Kreyòl means “little one,” was the smallest of the group, short and slender with the round face of a boy. He was putting the finishing touches on a small kite he was making.
I asked Bill to stop the pickup, as I hadn’t seen one of these homemade chichiguas since I was a child. I tried to explain this to Piti, who at that point didn’t understand much Spanish. His response was to grin and offer me his kite. I declined and asked if I could take his picture instead.
On the next trip, I made a point of finding Piti so I could give him the photo in the small album I’d brought as a gift. You’d have thought I was giving him the keys to a new motorcycle. He kept glancing at the photo, grinning and repeating, “Piti, Piti!” as if to convince himself that he was the boy in the photo. Or maybe he was saying thank you. “Mèsi, mèsi” can sound like “Piti, Piti,” to an ear unused to Kreyòl.
A friendship began. Every trip I sought him out, brought him a shirt, a pair of jeans, a bag in which to cart his belongings back and forth on his periodic and dangerous crossings of the border.
What I felt toward the boy was unaccountably maternal. Somewhere in Haiti, a mother had sent her young son to the wealthier neighbor country to help the impoverished family. Maybe this very moment she was praying that her boy be safe, earn good money, encounter kind people. Every time I spotted the grinning boy with worried eyes, I felt the pressure of that mother’s prayer in my own eyes. Tears would spring up and a big feeling fill my heart. Who knows why we fall in love with people who are nothing to us?
A coffee farm or a mistress?
Over the years, Bill and I got to see a lot of Piti. Whenever we could get away from our lives and jobs in Vermont—short trips of a week, longer trips of a few weeks—we headed for the Dominican mountains. We had become coffee farmers.
Every time I get started on this story, the curtain rises on that vaudeville act that long-term couples fall into: who did what first and how did we get in this fix.
It began in 1997 with a writing assignment for the Nature Conservancy. I was asked to visit the Cordillera Central, the central mountain range that runs diagonally across the island, and write a story about anything that caught my interest. While there, Bill and I met a group of impoverished coffee farmers who were struggling to survive on their small plots. They asked if we would help them.
We both said of course we’d help. I meant help as in: I’d write a terrific article that would bring advocates to their cause. Bill meant help, as in roll-up-your-sleeves and really help. I should have seen it coming. Having grown up in rural Nebraska with firsthand experience of the disappearance of family farms, Bill has a soft spot in his heart for small farmers.
We ended up buying up deforested land and joining their efforts to grow coffee the traditional way, under shade trees, organically by default. (Who could afford pesticides?) We also agreed to help find a decent market for our pooled coffee under the name Alta Gracia, as we called our sixty, then a hundred, and then, at final count, two hundred and sixty acres of now reforested land. I keep saying “we,” but, of course, I mean the marital “we,” as in my stubborn beloved announces we are going to be coffee farmers in the Dominican Republic, and I say, “But, honey, how can we? We live in Vermont!”
Of course, I fell in with Don Honey, as the locals started calling Bill, when they kept hearing me calling him “honey, this,” “honey, that.” The jokey way I explained our decision to my baffled family and friends was that it was either a coffee farm or a mistress. Over the years, I admit, I’ve had moments when I wondered if a mistress might not have been easier.
We were naïve—yes, now the “we” includes both of us: We hired a series of bad farm managers. We left money in the wrong hands for payrolls never paid. One manager was a drunk who had a local mistress and used the payroll to p
ay everyone in her family, whether they worked on the farm or not. Another, a Seventh-Day Adventist, who we thought would be safe because he wouldn’t drink or steal or have a mistress, proved to be bossy and lazy. He was el capataz, he boasted to his underlings, the jefe, the foreman. He didn’t have to work. Every day turned out to be a sabbath for him. His hands should have been a tip-off, pink-palmed with buffed nails. Another manager left for New York on a visa I helped him get. (Like I said, it takes two fools to try to run a coffee farm from another country.)
Still, if given the choice, I would probably do it again. As I’ve told Bill many a time—and this gets me in trouble—even if in the end we’re going to be royally taken, I’d still rather put my check mark on the side of light. Otherwise, all the way to being proved right, I’d have turned into the kind of cynic who has opted for a smaller version of her life.
And things have slowly improved on the mountain. Over the years, the quality of the coffee being grown in the area has gotten better. Local farmers are being paid the Fair Trade price or higher, and the land is being farmed organically. We also started a school on our own farm after we discovered that none of our neighbors, adults or children, could read or write. It helps that I’m associated with a college, with ready access to a pool of young people eager to help. Every year, for a small stipend, a graduating senior signs on to be the volunteer teacher. Recently, we added a second volunteer to focus on community projects and help out with the literacy effort.
During the tenure of one of the better managers, Piti was hired to work on the farm. It happened while we were stateside, and when we arrived, what a wonderful surprise to find him at our door. “Soy de ustedes.” I am yours. “No, no, no,” we protested. We are the ones in your debt for coming to work at Alta Gracia.
Piti later told me how it had happened. His Haitian friend Pablo had found work on a farm belonging to some Americanos. (Because I’m white, married to a gringo, and living in Vermont, I’m considered American.) It was a good place: decent accommodations, reasonable hours, Fair Trade wages “even for Haitians.” Piti put two and two together. The chichigua lady and Don Honey. We were not in country at the time, so Piti applied to the foreman, who took one look at this runt of a guy and shook his head. Piti offered to work the day, and, if at the end, he hadn’t done as much clearing as the other fellows on the crew, he didn’t have to be paid.
Piti turned out to be such a good worker that he became a regular. His reputation spread. After several years at Alta Gracia, he was offered a job as a foreman at a farm down the road. Piti had become a capataz! One with calloused hands and cracked fingernails who could outwork any man, Haitian or Dominican.
He was also a lot of fun. Nights when we were on the farm, it was open house at our little casita. Whoever was around sat down to eat supper with us. Afterward came the entertainment. At some point, a visiting student taught Piti and Pablo to play the guitar, then gave it to them. A youth group left a second guitar. Bill and I bought a third. Then, like young people all over the world, Piti and Pablo and two other Haitian friends formed a band. Mostly they sang hymns for their evangelical church. Beautiful, plaintive gospel songs à la “Amazing Grace,” in which the down-and-out meet Jesus, and the rest is grace. We’d all sing along, and invariably, Bill and I would look at each other, teary-eyed, and smile.
And so, the curtain falls on the coffee-farm vaudeville act.
It was on one of those evenings that I promised Piti I’d be there on his wedding day. A far-off event, it seemed, since the boy was then only twenty, at most, and looked fifteen. One of those big-hearted promises you make that you never think you’ll be called on to deliver someday.
© 2012 by Julia Alvarez. All rights reserved.
Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
The photographs in this book are credited as follows: Isaías Orozco Lang, page 3; Nicole Sánchez, page 10; Bill Eichner, pages 38, 39, 74, 82, 83, 100, 200, 216, 219; Homero, pages 54, 55, 66, 67, 69, 104, 123; Carlos Barria (Reuters), page 143; Mikaela, pages 199, 207, 210, 235; Ana Alvarez, page 173; Thony Belizaire (AFP/Getty Images), page 242. All others by the author, except for page 25, from the author’s collection.
ISBN 978-1-61620-151-7
Also by Julia Alvarez
POETRY:
The Housekeeping Book
The Other Side/El Otro Lado
Homecoming
The Woman I Kept to Myself
FICTION:
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
In the Time of the Butterflies
¡YO!
In the Name of Salomé
A Cafecito Story
NONFICTION:
Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA
Something to Declare
A Wedding in Haiti
BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS:
The Secret Footprints
How Tía Lola Came to Stay
Before We Were Free
finding miracles
A Gift of Gracias: The Legend of Altagracia
The Best Gift of All: The Legend of La Vieja Belén
Return to Sender
How Tía Lola Learned to Teach
How Tía Lola Saved the Summer
How Tía Lola Ended Up Starting Over
Praise for Saving the World
“Subtle, nuanced and deeply compassionate. … A remarkable examination of conscience.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Alvarez [has] skillfully concocted a fascinating life story. … Fresh and unusual, and thought-provokingly sensitive.”
—The Boston Globe
“Saving the World is wise and spellbinding as it ponders the difficulty of the human condition in any era, and the ways the actions and decisions of a few individuals can make things better or worse.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A rich and satisfying work of fiction that bridges two worlds—the one within that tries to define who we are, and the one beyond our grasp that will always pull us to defy our boundaries.”
—The Charlotte Observer
“Suspense and suppressed romance lend Saving the World the tension of a page-turner.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“An interesting glimpse of history and a chilling reminder that we are in the midst of contemporary plagues.”
—The Oregonian
“Provocative … shrewd, ambitious.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A gripping story of love, politics, greed and good intentions.”
—MSNBC.com
“This engrossing, expertly paced novel links two women, centuries apart, touched by battles against smallpox and AIDS. It’s clear by story’s end that the past informs the present and that altruism has its costs.”
—People
“An intriguing and engrossing novel. … Two stories with two totally different endings are melded into a riveting tale by master storyteller Alvarez.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Extremely readable and deeply felt.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
“[An] entertaining meditation on salvation and loss.”
—The Baltimore Sun
“This latest work reflects Alvarez’s creative agility, political insight and spiritual depth.”
—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“Weaving pandemics from different eras is the compelling and timely plotline in Julia Alvarez’s newest novel, Saving the World.”
—USA Weekend
“Two complementary stories that raise tough ethical questions. … Alvarez’s prose is a pleasure to read; she has a gift for interpretation, surprising insights, and observations that hit us right between the eyes.”
—Journal of the American Medical Association
“Lyric, expansive. … [Saving the World] is an impressive bit of writerly acrobatics.”
—Time Out Chicago
“Sa
ving the World artfully braids together the stories of two women separated by 200 years. … Beautifully written.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Entertaining and enlightening. … An elegant novel in which the two stories—so far apart in years—nevertheless meld smoothly, due to [Alvarez’s] ability to masterly interweave their similar ethical, cultural and human issues. Grade A.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“The conceit of Saving the World is sublime, its execution almost flawless. … [A] superb novel.”
—The Santa Fe New Mexican
“Alvarez takes fascinating historical facts and gives us a novel that comes alive and enlightens. This is one book you’ll reflect upon long after turning the last page.”
—The Birmingham News
“This is the triumph of Julia Alvarez’s own storytelling. She accomplishes what Joseph Conrad asserts is the mission of fiction: ‘to pre sent an unrestful episode in the obscure lives of a few individuals out of all the disregarded multitude of the bewildered, the simple, and the voiceless.’”
—Sea History
“A powerful novel—on a par with such major works as Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. Politically savvy, astutely written, smart, and rich in poetic imagery, this hybrid of a novel is nothing less than a work of art.”
—Burlington Free Press