1971, April 22–24: (The Lying in State and the Burial on Bawon Samdi’s Day: The Refrigerated Glass Box, Twenty-Two Soldiers and Twenty-Two Miliciens, the 101…

1971, April 22–24: (The Lying in State and the Burial on Bawon Samdi’s Day: The Refrigerated Glass Box, Twenty-Two Soldiers and Twenty-Two Miliciens, the 101-Gun Royal Salute, Beethoven’s Ninth Set to Duvalier Lyrics, and the Mighty Wind at the Cemetery Gate): Nothing had been overlooked. A refrigerated glass box, complete with fluorescent lighting, had been secretly brought in so the president could lie in state — spectacles carefully in place over unseeing eyes. Close at hand, as people filed by in an endless stream, were his collected works. Standing watch over the body was a guard of twenty-two soldiers and twenty-two miliciens. All day Radio Commerce played classical music, with a Mozart mass at noon. On Saturday, April 24 — day of Bawon Samdi — François Duvalier was buried. The day dawned very still and very hot; no one could remember such heat in April — peasants said it was the doors of hell opening wide. In the Salle des Bustes at the top of the great stairs, Archbishop Ligondé, flanked by his bishops — Haitian to a man — commenced intoning the solemn pontifical requiem mass. Outside, every church bell tolled throughout the city while Fort National fired a 101-gun royal salute, one gun every two minutes through the forenoon. At an organ was Guy Durosier, the internationally famous Haitian tenor flown from Paris, who amid the incense and liturgy sang words set to the choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — a hymn of gratitude to François. Outdoing even Durosier and Beethoven, Judge Félix Diambois of the Cour de Cassation proclaimed in funeral oration: this man was the Messiah! Down the steps, borne by sweating officers in heavy dress blues, through the mass of top-hatted diplomats, black-robed judges, pistol-packing macoutes in black sunglasses, white-cassocked priests, blue-denimed miliciens with ancient Mausers, ladies in chic miniskirts and fat députés in shiny black Duvalier suits, bobbed the bronze casket — its hinged top sealed at last. Outside, the Garde Présidentielle presented arms as the casket was loaded into the black Cadillac hearse; at each corner of the Palais, low in the shrubbery, a .30 caliber machine gun and crew were emplaced to command the gathering and, should occasion demand, mow down the funeral. As the cortège wound past the commingled shrine of Dessalines and Pétion, along flower-strewn streets, the heat was overpowering. At the gate of the Cimetière — sentry post of Bawon Samdi — a mysterious event transpired: suddenly from nowhere, with a fierce howl and dark coil of dust, a mighty wind swirled up from underfoot and obscured the sun. There was a shriek of horror. Musicians dropped instruments; mourners trampled each other to escape they knew not what; miliciens fired rusty Mausers in the air. Duvalier has burst the grave, men cried, and is loosed upon earth — there is no hiding place. All at once the wind twisted out to sea. Again it was very hot and very quiet. The procession hesitantly reconstituted itself and picked its way slowly inside the sun-baked old cemetery packed tight with the dead. In the cream-colored mausoleum with aquamarine tile steps he had built for his parents, the little doctor who ruled Haiti fourteen years and died in bed was shut away from the living. Now he was alone with the Ancestors — or almost alone: at the portal, as the last mourner straggled out, a fearful sentinel remained lest any seek to spirit Papa Doc away and enslave him as a zonbi.