“Just be yourself, all right?” Ma says, patting my arm lovingly.
I Smile, and feel guilty. Ma deserves only the real thing.
Unfortunately there’s no market value in that.
Four
“Diaspora” was the first SAT word I remember learning last year. “A scattered population whose origin lies in a different geographic locale.” For Haitians—the Haltiwanger clan, specifically—it means to split apart and put yourself together someplace else. I’m from a branch of a tree that, at some point, gave way to five siblings. All smart, all filled with potential, all hungry for a better life elsewhere.
Dad chose New York. One sister chose Switzerland because they also spoke French there. Another sister followed her husband to New Port Richey, Florida, with a son my age that I’ve never met. His other brother was apparently in St. Bart’s, working as a caterer, and did not keep in touch. Strange relatives, unknown cousins, and faces you don’t recognize in photo albums. That’s the longer, Haltiwanger-specific essay-form definition of diaspora.
The story of Jacques Haltiwanger, Haitian, forty-eight, is in many ways the story of the Wyatt building, 86th Street and West End Avenue, which, in truth, is the only home I remember. Dad has tied together the story of our family to that of the building into such a knot that, by now, it’s impossible to untie the two. I’ve heard every permutation of it.
The Happy one that started in 1994.
“We’d moved the Christmas before. It was my very first job in America. It was just an evening desk job. Back then, Mrs. Landau, RIP, liked the fact that I could speak French. In her mind, it added sophistication to the building that the janitor would be international. We lived in the Bronx and commuted in before this unit opened up and was offered to us.”
The Sad one.
“Your mother wanted us to stay in New York City because she didn’t want you to be the only little Black boy in some small town. And she wanted you to see snow. What was the point of coming to this country if you didn’t show your kid snow?”
The Inspiring one.
“This is the land of Doctor King, Maya Angelou, Michelle, and Beyoncé. This is the only place in the world where those stories can happen. All those town cars passing through? They’re as likely to have a Black or brown person in them these days. Back in Haiti, for me and your mother, that wasn’t the case.”
So here I am, on the afternoon of my Columbia interview, the only college interview that matters, deciding which family story to tell. Of all the applications I sent out this past month—all the essays, recommendation letters, SAT scores, AP test results, and that little vial of your soul all top colleges essentially ask for—Columbia University was the only one I submitted with shaky hands, shut eyes, and Dad’s hand on my shoulder. The truth is, I couldn’t tell you what the school mascots of Duke, NYU, Northwestern, McGill, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, Oberlin, and City College—my backups—even look like. For me and my dad, Columbia has always been the dream—the beacon of possibility, the ticket to a better life for me and my family.
I get off at 116th Street, which opens right onto the University, and cut through the orange bricked college walk, looking around, soaking it in. I know the layout by heart already. The dorms are on the south side, surrounding Butler Library, the massive building in and out of which students in light blue hoodies are constantly pouring. Some look tired, others are buzzing with energy, but all are barreling forward with purpose.
The interview is scheduled for three thirty at the Hungarian Pastry Shop, a staple of the college community with low orange lighting. I order an overpriced cup of coffee and sit by the entrance, ten minutes ahead of our scheduled meeting time, surrounded by bearded graduate students on laptops wrapped in political stickers. Nothing about my Smile is disingenuous today. I start to read a magazine with an in-depth interview with one of Nike’s oldest designers, but change my mind and quickly switch to the copy of Catcher in the Rye borrowed from the library, which makes for better optics, all things considered.
“Henri?”
A freckled, light-skinned Black woman with a streak of white hair tumbles into the coffee shop, bumping into the back of someone’s chair on her way in and sending packs of artificial sweetener flying off the table before she apologizes profusely.
“Donielle?” I confirm, moving to help her pick them up.
“They’re renaming a hurricane as we speak,” she jokes.
She orders a tea, and I pick up the stirrers that get knocked by her large bag when she turns around. So, this is what a National Endowment for the Arts winner, MacArthur Fellow, and Forbes Top 30 under 30 playwright looks like. She’s decidedly a lot less intimidating when not being handed an award in a Dior gown to uproarious applause.
After I thank her profusely for taking the time, she settles in and unwraps herself, layer after bright layer. First a scarf, followed by a coat, then a bubble jacket, then a wrap. Her arms are jiggling with bracelets, some metallic, some in painted wooden beads.
“I hope you weren’t waiting long, Henri. I’m workshopping a play at the new Highline Theater House and rehearsal ran over,” she says, and then snorts, laughing at her statement. “Well, ran dramatic, I should say! Two of my actors are married and came in with such bad energy this morning. I didn’t know they were together when I cast them, believe you me—and short story long, the whole thing turned into group therapy for two hours. They’ve been having problems. Of the bedroom kind.” Her voice turns into a conspiratorial whisper on that last statement, and she mimics zipping her lips shut.
“Oh, um.” I didn’t have a prepared segue for that vaguely inappropriate soliloquy. “Did you manage to get back on track?”
“Nope! We’re well behind schedule now,” she says, and then laughs again. “You’re Haitian, right? I was in Port-au-Prince ten years ago for research on a project.”
“My parents are Haitian immigrants, but I was born here. I think that makes me first generation, or is it second? I can never tell.”
Another laugh. This one was predicted. “You’re the first gen. Me too. Now take a breath.”
I make a show of exhaling. She laughs again.
Truth be told, I’m nowhere as nervous as I’m making myself out to be. But performing a bit of anxiety can be an endearing quality to some adults. If nobody likes to be fawned over, a lot of people respond positively to having created butterflies in someone else’s stomach. They want to calm you down.
Donielle Kempf tells me about her life growing up in Jersey City. Her multiple siblings, attending public school and then community college, graduating in six years instead of four since she had a child and needed to work the entire time. “And then I applied to the Columbia Master of Fine Arts program. It was the only place for me—I knew it in my bones. I could taste it. I refreshed my in-box every ten minutes for two months.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “I can relate.”
She gives a wistful sigh. “Then it turned out that was only thing number five of a million more things I would go on to also really, really want with every fiber of my body. You never stop wanting, y’know? That’s the human condition.”
The Haltiwanger Hunger, indeed.