Remember when I told you of Ben Daisy and how he drowned for love? And you said, in flirtation, that he and I belonged to Erzulie. Ti Me also told me, in her careful way, that I am Erzulie’s, that I will always be unsatisfied, that the beauty of this world will never be enough for me and I will always long for the other side of the mirror, the more perfect world.

But I wish for a different story, I think.

So when you come to me, tell me this one. The one you told me about the water where I learned to swim. Remember the story you told me, about the pools? You said that water did not belong to us. Not to the colored people of Haiti, not to the Negroes, certainly not to the whites who caused the soil to run with blood. No, you said they belonged to Anacaona first. You said she was a Taino queen, who ruled the land here when Columbus came. She was beloved because she could sing. She could sing her people’s past, she could sing her people’s present, she could sing through all the way to her people’s future. She led her people in revolt against the world that was descending, revolt against the world that said it was the only world possible.

The Spaniards tried to break her. They gave her the choice of death, or to be one of their wives, trapped in lust. She chose death. She went to her end with pride, even though they hanged her.

She revolted, and you said that we could still hear her cries in the water there.

That is what you told me.

When you come to find us, because I believe you will become a strong enough man to follow us, this is the first story I want to hear from your mouth, the only one I will want to hear in your voice for quite some time.

I think you can break free. I believe you can. But I cannot do it for you. You have to do it yourself. I don’t know if I, myself, am free. I hope to be. Our children are already, and I leave you now to keep them that way. I leave you to keep their sovereignty intact. But do not think that you are now alone. I promise you—we are waiting for you, in the new world.

Your

Libertie

Acknowledgments

There are so many people who helped me bring this book into the world. First and foremost, I would like to thank my agent, Carrie Howland, who believed that this book was possible and pushed me to write the proposal for it. I would like to thank my editor Kathy Pories, Betsy Gleick, Elisabeth Scharlatt, Michael McKenzie, and the many others at Algonquin who have so enthusiastically supported the creation of this work.