Haiti: Ora Pro Nobis

I tell myself that it’s bogus, ridiculous, even…the fact that I have been able to do nothing, all week, except watch Hurricane Matthew make its way (as a storm) past my sister in Tobago, past us some hundreds of miles south of us (though we still felt it), and then…

…well, you know the rest of the story.

Oh, wait, you don’t.

Nobody does—not even the officials in Haiti who even today, three days after the storm passed, cannot survey the damage.

The first clue, perhaps, was that the Dominican Republic reported four deaths, but that there was no news from Haiti. Given that the center of the storm went though Haiti, but not through the Dominican Republic, this argued that no new was not good news.

It’s only gotten grimmer since then. As of 32 minutes ago, the BBC was reporting that the death toll in Haiti is over 400. But news reports are also saying that areas in Haiti are still unreachable: so who knows what the final toll will be?

In fact, we’ll never know, which is a commentary on the nature of the situation in Haiti. Because the hurricane is now “battering” Florida: I tell you this because I saw helicopter footage, and there is a five-foot section of a big K-Mart façade that has been slashed. Oh, and a meteorologist in Daytona Beach was standing next to a pillar outside her hotel—to avoid being hit buy debris, she told us solemnly—and directing the crew to film the only debris visible on an otherwise unaffected street. So there I was, in Puerto Rico, in an air-conditioned café, peering at a three-foot chunk of aluminum on a Florida Street.  

Then there is this:

Right—you can understand that if you had to wade through miles and miles of this, you might never know exactly how many people died in the storm. That is, of course, if you could even get to scenes like this, since many of the bridges are out.

But that’s not the real reason we’ll ever know.

One of the worst things about the current Saffir Simpson categories is that it focuses exclusively on wind. Right—moving air can be scary. I’ve been through a category three hurricane (Georges, in 1998), and the howling of the winds, the blasts of generators exploding, the thunder, and the sound of debris crashing against my house…yes, that was scary. But I was also in the second floor: the walls of my building were three-feet thick: there was no way the water could get to me. And it is exactly the water that does the damage.

Remember Katrina?

I had followed that storm too, and the night before it hit, I knew: New Orleans was finished. And so it came in, and then the news came in, and guess what! New Orleans had been spared! The damage was nowhere near what had been feared! Sighs of relief!

Of course, there was that little report of the levees being breached…..

So Hurricane was a category 3 when it hit New Orleans. So? OK—the wind created a storm surge, which was responsible for some of the levee failure. And there were questions about the construction of the levees, as well. So yes, the wind was a factor: it was the flooding, however, that did the damage.

As it is the flooding that will do the damage in Haiti. Because the ground was already saturated before the hurricane hit: and the terrain of Haiti? Well, Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, cites the Haitian proverb: Beyond mountains, more mountains.

It’s true geographically, but it’s real meaning is metaphorical: the hurricane came, and now is gone, but is the damage over? Of course not, since there is now a critical shortage of food, of water, and of resources. Oh, and the country doesn’t even have a president, since the elections were to have been this Sunday. So all of that argues that starvation, dehydration, and most critically, disease will kill many more in the months to come.

And the disease most to be feared? Cholera, which in one of the most ghastly sagas in recent medical history, was actually introduced into Haiti by UN workers who came in to do humanitarian work after the 2010 earthquake. Now, in fact, it is the worst cholera epidemic in recent history, according to Wikipedia, and who ever argues with them?

And so the hurricane was the first mountain: there are many more. And however bad cholera may be, my suspicion is that a very much more prosaic condition will kill many more, especially children.

Diarrhea, leading to dehydration, leading to death.

Dehydration is a mountain, apparently, that we can’t move.

Consider, for example, that a Google search turned up, on the second page, a New York Times article entitled, Diarrhea Persists as Scourge of the Third World. Then consider that the article was published in 1983. Right, 33 years ago….

There’s been lots of progress in the last 33 years, which is why I can now sit at a computer and watch a piece of debris on a Daytona Beach street. Or see a segment of a K-Mart façade that has been damaged. Actually, the “computer” in the last sentence dates me, since I could have seen all of this on my cell phone. So the stock market has risen and fallen scores of times, we have learned to treat the “deadliest” disease of our age—AIDS—and…oh, wait.

Does dehydration kill more than AIDS?

Who knows? My point is that the treatment for dehydration is hardly on the order of the treatment for AIDS. But that would mean going into the Third World, establishing supplies of clean water, establishing a supply chain, and making the treatment available. Of course, somebody has done that: a British couple who created ColaLife, about which they say (and drawn from their website):

The ColaLife movement is based on three observations:

1  You can buy a Coca-Cola almost anywhere you go in the world, even in the most remote parts of developing countries

2  In these same places 1 in 9 children die before their fifth birthday from preventable causes. Most die from dehydration from diarrhoea.

3      The child mortality figures have not changed significantly for at least 3 decades which would indicate that current initiatives are not working

The founder of ColaLife hit upon the idea of making a wedge-shaped diarrhea kit that would fit in the spaces between the necks of bottles of Coca-Cola. Here it is!

The idea is insanely simple. The devil, as it always is, is in the details. For more information, click here.

And so it’s been a confusing week. Or rather, a confusing two or three weeks, since two weeks ago, a supposed bolt of lightening threw the entire island of Puerto Rico into a blackout. Yes, we were all stumbling around in the dark, swatting a Zika-bearing mosquitoes, and gazing up at the stars, which for the first time in decades had decided to shine. And then this week, I was looking at my cousin Brian, who works for Minnesota Public Radio and is a big choral music fan. So he was interviewing the members of two preeminent groups, Cantus and Chanticleer. They had met, these two groups, as so many of us do, in a bar. But when they decided to sing the Ave Maria of Franz Biebl, well…it was one of those moments that got captured onto a cell phone, and then it went viral.

So the hurricane was beating down on the next island over, or perhaps it was due for the next moment. Anyway, Haiti was…well, can I say it now? Haiti was fucked, and twenty men plus my cousin were preparing for a concert three thousand miles away from the Caribbean, and I was in a café. And I was wondering: how far was I really from either Minneapolis or from Haiti? By the slightest twist of meteorology, I allowed myself to think that Minnesota was just up the road, while Haiti was another world away. But that—we all know—is delusion.

So today I woke up and prepared to watch the five-foot gash in the K-Mart façade, as well as contemplate the single piece of metal that has managed to fly onto a road in Daytona Beach. I could do that because my husband’s aunt, and my good friend Rose, and texted me that she had weathered the storm. She’s in a town just outside Orlando, and even though I thought privately that she was only halfway through the storm, I was glad to hear from her. So I went off to the café, and discovered that for a week only, the two choral groups rendition of the Biebl would be available on YouTube and Classical MPR. So I listened to that—tears in the eyes—and then heard my cousin, telling me that the leaves are turning up there in Minnesota.

And what is turning, down here in the Caribbean?

So now it’s several hours since I started this post, and guess what? The BBC now tells me…wait, I’ll just give you the headline: Hurricane Matthew, Haiti Dead Reach 800 as South Awaits Aid. And to save you going back up to the beginning of this post, I will tell you that the first BBC article said that 400 people were dead. Now it’s twice that.

Great music gets attached to great moments: after the September 11 attacks, it was Barber’s Adagio for String, in the choral version, which went viral. And so I sit in a café one island over from where the death toll is doubling in hours, and I think: why shouldn’t the Biebl go viral? Why shouldn’t those bright guys up in NPR twist the choral arms of Chanticleer and of Cantus, and get them to OK the use of the track as background for a fundraising video for Hurricane Matthew Haiti relief? And why not ask NPR supporters to donate a ColaLife kit for every hundred or thousand hits on YouTube?

It’s only three PM on a Friday after, as the leaves turn in Minnesota and the bodies mount up in Haiti. And I haven’t been drinking…

…but just imagine what I could have dreamt up if I had?

Chapter 11

“Do you ever wonder,” I asked Lady, “why there are so many great female pianists? I know that sounds dismissive, but consider: from way before Clara Schumann and right up to the present day, women have been at the top of the piano world. But violin? Yes, today there are some great women violinists, as there always have been, but nothing like the pianists. Anyway, so it seems to me….”

“Well, perhaps it’s because the piano tended to be the instrument that every comfortable home in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries had to have. And since every woman was expected to play, there naturally were more women pianists than, say, women oboists.”

“Hmm,” I told her, “a very good point. I think you’re onto something there….”

We had just listened to Natalia Karp playing Chopin, and there was melancholy in the air.

“So who was she,” asked Lady, “and what’s her story? Wonderful, by the way, to see that posture at the keyboard….”

“She’s a true pianist,” I told her. “The problem with Chopin is that you can’t be in the least mawkish: there’s so much expression and feeling in the music that anything you add just pushes it over the top. On the other hand, you can’t play it utterly straight—I mean, it’s not a Sousa march. So getting that balance is really tricky. But she does, every time....”

“Maybe that’s it,” said Lady. “She plays with restraint, and leaves you satisfied, but still wanting more….”

“A German woman once told her after a recital that she had given as a young woman something like: My dear, you’re a wonderful pianist now, and after you have lived, you’ll be a wonderful musician.”

“Ouch….”

“You know, it’s a very romantic notion, but I wonder if for all of that it isn’t true. Because I have to watch all of these clips on YouTube of six-year olds playing Liszt on the piano, and yes…it’s wonderful. It would also be wonderful if we could devise a computer program that would play music perfectly from a score. Or perhaps we have. Anyway, the point is that I can’t think of a child prodigy that moved me, emotionally. And maybe that’s why so few child prodigies turn out to be great musicians in adult life….”

“Well, she certainly seems to have lived, and probably to have suffered.”

“When it came to suffering, they had to get the back hoe out to shovel it into her life. She was born wealthy, which is always a tricky thing….”

“Yeah?”

“Of course: let’s imagine she had been a Rothschild. Would she ever have had the drive to succeed? Would she have been encouraged to? I wonder, sometimes, whether great wealth hasn’t robbed us of great talent or genius than poverty has….”

“Marc, honey, would you like me to take your fever?”

“OK—but you know what I mean. Anyway, Karp was a student of Schnabel, and for pianists, there’s no higher accolade. So she made a career for herself, or was beginning to, and then a series of misfortunes befell. Her mother died, and then Natalia married, and her husband disapproved of her playing professionally. More proof, by the way, that wealth….”

“He was wealthy?”

“Apparently, and certainly his family was. And so then her husband died in a bomb raid. Then she got sent off to the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, along with her sister. So someone tipped off the commandant that there was a concert pianist in the camp, and then, half-starved, Natalia had to go to the party. Yes, there the commandant was, and all the women beautifully dressed, and everybody on their best behavior, drinking and smoking. And Natalia, who sat at the piano—for the first time in several years….”

“What!”

“You know, it’s such a good example of the—to us—almost unfathomable mindset of the Germans,” I said. “The amazing ability of people to hold two completely different ideas in their mind at the same time. Yes, because the commandant was quite aware that he was killing Jews, whom he saw as little more than animals. And at the same time, he was craving beauty and music, and petitioning a Jew to provide it.”

“And did she?”

“Yes, and very slyly, she chose to play the Chopin Nocturne in C sharp minor, opus posthumous.”

“Why so sly?”

“Well, she sad that she played it because it’s so sad, and she felt sad. But I think there was another reason, of course. Remember, she hadn’t played in a couple of years at least. And however good you are, you get rusty if you don’t play every day. So she chose a piece that made—at least for the first couple minutes—relatively few demands, technically. Smart move, really….”

“Did it work?”

“Absolutely, since the commandant of the camp, Amon Göth, was so moved that he told her, ‘you shall live.’”

“And her response?”

“She said, ‘and my sister, too.’ And so Göth agreed.”

“Hmm—the champagne must have been flowing….”

“You know, it’s great news for Karp and her sister, but what about all the other people in the concentration camp? All of those mother and fathers and children—humans, people with families, with dreams, with hope. Should being able to play a Chopin nocturne really be your ticket out of the camps?”

“Of course not. It’s hideously unfair. But there it is….”

“So then what happened to her?”

“Well, she married, had two children, and resumed her career. And while she may never have gotten to the very top of the pianistic heap, she didn’t do badly, by any means. And she must have been a strong character: she always wore short sleeves, and refused to hide the tattoo that the Nazis had put on her. And she bought, soon after her release from the camps, a pink handkerchief; it was a symbol, for her, of her femininity, which despite the camps had survived. So she carried the handkerchief out and placed it on the piano at every performance.”

“Wow—what a story!”

“It is, actually. Well, she died at age 96, which must have been a great satisfaction. I mean, you really don’t want to survive the camps, just to be hit by a bus the day after your release….”

“Absolutely! Do you ever wonder, Marc: could you have survived the camps?”

“I have no idea. From her daughter’s book, you get the sense that most of the people in the camps were simply existing. They were so beaten down, so hungry, so tire, and often so sick that—well, they were just putting one foot in front of the other. And as horrible as that is, maybe—just maybe—there’s also a compensation.”

“What? How could there be?”

“You know, when I broke my back, there was absolutely nothing but physical pain: the worst I’ve ever had. But also, my world telescoped down: all I had to do was breathe, survive, and live for another day. I did, and now I worry about money, hurricanes in Haiti, Facebook posts from my son—all kinds of stupid stuff. So I wonder if being in the camps wasn’t a bit like that. And whether the real challenge wasn’t faced by people like Adam Czerniakow….”

“Marc?

“I know: tomorrow’s story….”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Chapter 10

“OK,” I told Lady, “so today’s problem is what to do about Poland….”

She snorts, since yesterday was her birthday, but today? She is sweeping out the store, which is normally attended to by one woman (this week on vacation) and another woman (today on sick leave). So Lady is moving furniture and pouncing with a broom on any hapless speck of dust she might encounter.

“Speck,” she roars. “I’ve found dust bunnies the size of elephants! Dinosaurs! Planetary systems!”

Indeed she has, and I tell her: make sure you photograph everything, in order to establish a historical record. She laughs, and shows me her phone: it’s all right there!

“Anyway,” she tells me, “ I hardly see what you need to worry about Poland for. Presumably, it’s going around and about, just like the rest of us. Why worry about it?”

“Well, no one ever told me anything about Poland,” I told her. “Which is odd, because it’s by no means a small country, and it’s right smack in the middle of Europe. I wonder if it wasn’t because of the Cold War? We got British, French, and German history, along with a bit of Italian and Spanish—but the rest of Europe? Russian, or the Far East? Well, we had just enough Russian history to explain her involvement in World War II, and then the subsequent partitioning of Europe. But that was it….”

“Well, why worry about Poland,” says Lady. “If it’s gotten along without you, all these years…”

“I can quite get my head around it,” I told her. “It’s one of those countries that goes back and forth: at one point it’s carved up between Russia and Austria or Germany, and at another point it’s its own nation again. And then, what’s the big connection between Poland and France? At some point, all of the Polish intelligentsia seemed to go into exile in France. Think Chopin….”

“I often do,” said Lady, “when not doing such lofty things as sweeping behind the sofas…and am I the only one who can move a sofa?”

She’s right: the dust bunny looks infinitely more comfortable than a Posturepedic mattress….

“Then there’s the whole paradox of the war,” I told her. “The poor Poles seem to have been sure that the moment Hitler walked in the door, the French and British would come running to their aid. So they fought defensively, trying to stall and buy time, and what did the French and the Germans do? They said ‘tsk-tsk’, and then realized that they were way behind, in military preparedness. So the Poles were left to fend for themselves, if I read the book correctly….”

“And that book would be?”

“No Greater Ally,” I told her, “and I just ran over to Amazon to refresh my memory. Anyway, here’s the blurb:”

There is a chapter of World War 2 history that remains largely untold: the story of the fourth largest Allied military of the war, and the only nation to have fought in the battles of Leningrad, Arnhem, Tobruk and Normandy. This is the story of the Polish forces during the Second World War, the story of millions of young men and women who gave everything for freedom and in the final victory lost all. In a cruel twist of history, the monumental struggles of an entire nation have been largely forgotten, and even intentionally obscured.

“Wow,” she said, “who knew?”

“I think I sort of did,” I told her, since we often watch the History Channel, and when we do, I usually have a glass of wine in my hand. So things get to be a bit confused, especially towards the end of the evening. “Anyway, as I remember reading the book—I only got halfway through it—the Poles went around and helped various allied forces. So they lost their own country, then helped defeat Germany, and then what happened? The Communists walked in, and the Allies, who had been perfectly happy to accept their help, cheerfully tossed Poland to the wolves….”

“Nice,” said Lady, “they wouldn’t be some of my employees, by any chance?”

“I think all that dust has gone to your brain,” I told her, “or maybe to your spirit. Anyway, according to No Greater Ally, which comes from a reputable press, the Poles were heroes, and treated shamefully….”

“Well, good to know,” said Lady. “Shame about what happened to them….”

“Right,” I told her, “but then we come to the sticky question: what about Polish anti-Semitism? Because I had a Jewish friend in High School who swore that the Poles were vicious anti-Semites. But is that true? Anyway, what I didn’t know was that the Jewish population of Warsaw was the second largest in the world, following New York. There were over three million Jews in Poland before the war, and it was the largest population of Jews in Europe. And then, according to Anne Karpf, after the war there were only 5,000. Which means that the eradication of the Jewish population in Poland was virtually complete. So what was the role of the Poles, if any, in all of this?”

“Probably mixed,” said Lady, “it always is. History spawns its share of heroes and villains, alike.”

“As well as that worst type of all, the huge majority of people who stand gaping on, with their mouths open and their vacant eyes comprehending nothing,” I told her. “Consider Irene Sendler, who along with her friends saved nearly 2500 children from the ghetto in Warsaw. Tremendous woman: she used to sneak babies out in packages, and put them on buses, wrapped as packages under the seats, before the bus began its route. Then, someone outside the ghetto would collect the child. Amazing, when you think of it….”

“Wow,” said Lady, “Like Nicholas Winton, though he only clocked in at saving 700 children, or so. But still, that’s huge….”

“Well, that’s one side of the picture,” I told her. “Though it’s certainly true that Poland had welcomed the Jews in earlier centuries, which is why they had so many of them. But it all got a little gunky in the 30’s, with the Depression. And though there were lots of Jews, they weren’t terribly well assimilated. So they stuck out, which made making the ghetto easier….”

“OK—I get that….”

“Anyway, the Depression hit, and Hitler was stirring things up, generally, and many of the Jews had done well. So for those people who weren’t doing well….”

“Ah,” said Lady, “the old story…..”

“Anyway, the whole question cropped up in the 80’s, when a Polish intellectual, Jan Blonski, wrote an article called ‘A Poor Pole Looks at the Ghetto’….”

“So were they, or weren’t they, or were they somewhere in between?”

“Who knows,” I told her. “Though Anne Karpf seems to think so….”

“And she would be?”

“The daughter of Natalia Karp!”

Lady looks at me with exasperation. And also with the broom, which looks increasing less like a utensil, and more like a weapon. At least potentially….

“Just listen,” I tell her, and we do….