Titanic — and the year I learned what freedom actually costs

Visiting my husband in prison in Haiti with our infant son. Some scenes you do not pose for. (This one I did, I remember that feeling of having to put on a brave face, trying my best to ignore that big knot in my stomach.) Petit Goave, 1999. 

If you read the last post in this series, you know how my Haitian husband ended up walking me down the aisle to the soundtrack of The Godfather. The following happened a few months later. It is some of the scenes I have been carrying around in my head the longest, and one of the hardest to put on the page.

What follows are scenes from the year my first son was born, and my husband disappeared. 

(If you want to know more about Aurora — our writers retreat for film and TV writers in Senja, Northern Norway — I have left details at the bottom.

The Birth

A first child, born in a winter storm in Norway, while his father is nowhere to be found. From the story I'm writing at our writers retreat in Northern Norway.*

I traveled back to Norway two months before the birth of our first son, and I was waiting for Jimmy to join me as soon as he could get some time off from his job as police commisaire. I didn't want to risk giving birth in Haiti, where most of the hospitals were understaffed and under-equipped.

As my due date was getting closer, I started to feel anxious because I could not get hold of Jimmy. He was not answering his phone, and Fred, one of his closest friends, was also vague about his whereabouts, telling me that Jimmy had been sent on a secret police mission and could not be reached. I spent the days before giving birth with my friend Anie in Tromsø, who tried to calm my nerves as I started to worry that something terrible had happened. 'This makes no sense,' I fretted, 'has he abandoned me or what? I can't believe this.'

My water broke one early morning and Anie drove me to the hospital. I still had no news from Haiti about Jimmy's whereabouts. My baby boy was not in a hurry to be born and I spent twenty hours in labor as a winter storm was building up. Dino arrived in the world with a 'victory hat', his head covered in hat-like remnants of the fetal membrane. In Scandinavian popular tradition such children will have great luck in their lives and be equipped with supernatural abilities to protect themselves. I loved this thought, holding my small child in my arms. 

A week after giving birth I still had no news from Jimmy.

The Phone Call

The news comes from a Norwegian woman with the Salvation Army. From the screenplay I'm writing at a writers retreat in Senja.

One evening, back home at my mother's house, I got a phone call from Christin, an older Norwegian woman I knew who worked in Haiti for the Salvation Army. 'Hi, how are you, how is your baby doing?' she asked gently. 'I'm calling because I just heard on the radio that Jimmy has been arrested. Is there anything I can do to help?'

I remember feeling dizzy at her words. Had I heard her correctly? Jimmy in prison? I felt my heart beating faster and faster, and I had to sit down trying not to faint. Christin didn't know much more aside from hearing that he was currently in custody in a small prison in a town outside the capital, Petit Goave. She imagined that he would not have access to a phone.

I felt at that moment that I had become an actress in a movie. It was hard to digest this news. My Jimmy was in prison, in Haiti, one of the worst countries with regards to human rights, never mind prisoners' rights. My immediate reaction was that I had to travel back to Haiti to help him. My mother was not too keen on this idea, worried about how dangerous it was. But I knew I had to go. I prepared my tickets and when my mother realized she could not stop me, she decided to come along as moral support and to help me with Dino. The three of us travelled back to Port au Prince when Dino was four weeks old.

Petit Goave

Visiting a prison for the first time, with a newborn on my hip. From the screenplay I'm writing at our writers retreat in the Arctic.*

The prison where Jimmy was held was in the small town of Petit Goave, southwest of the capital, approximately four hours' drive on terrible roads. When I arrived there the first time, with Dino and my mother, I felt extremely nervous, not knowing what to expect. I knew prisons in Haiti were of the worst kind in the world, and I was scared. Jimmy was waiting for me in an open space outside the cells, sitting on a bench under a huge tree that gave some shade.

The smell behind the prison gates was an intense gas-like combination of piss, excrement, body odour and old frying oil from the open kitchen area. Jimmy looked somewhat embarrassed, but overjoyed to see me and Dino for the first time. He was wearing boxer shorts and a large t-shirt, I could see he had lost weight. It was a small prison with 10 cells, painted in dark yellow that had seen better days, on one single floor. Each cell was built for ten prisoners, it was very overcrowded, the men taking turns to sleep as there were not enough beds for all.

      The civil prison in Petit Goave, 1999

We were allowed to meet for an hour, not more, and I urged Jimmy to tell me what had happened. Jimmy tried to explain. He was the police chief in the district of Leogane. One evening his police officers had stopped a suspicious car and found a bag filled with thousands of US dollar bills. Jimmy kept the driver for the night in prison but decided the next morning to let him go. A few days later all hell broke loose when the driver accused Jimmy and his police officers of stealing a large amount of money from the bag. Jimmy was arrested the same day.

'We will get you out of this mess Jimmy, I promise,' I said, trying to sound brave and convincing. 'I will do everything I can to help.' Jimmy just held me. 'We will survive this!' he whispered to me fiercely. 'This will only make us stronger. We will show our enemies nothing can stop us if we have each other.' 'Oh Jimmy,' I said, closing my eyes in defeat. 'Why didn't you tell me sooner?' 'I'm sorry. I knew it would be too big a shock for you while you were so pregnant. And the arrest happened so suddenly.' His arms tightened around me. 'I see now that you are much stronger than I gave you credit for. I am so grateful you came back.'

Titanic

The transfer to the worst prison in Haiti. From the screenplay I'm writing at Aurora, our writers retreat in Northern Norway.

Jimmy had been in the prison in Petit Goave for four months, when he suddenly was transferred to the notorious prison in the capital, the national penitentiary. Overcrowded, huge, dirty, it housed some of the worst criminals in the country. When Jimmy first heard that he would be transferred to Port Au Prince, it was the first time I heard my brave husband express fear. 'It's the gateway to hell, Ingrid,' he said grimly to me, just before the police came to take him to his new home. 'If they send me there it's because they want me dead.' I felt sick hearing him speak like this. My anxiety hit the roof seeing him handcuffed, hands behind his back.

Inside the national penitentiary there was a certain set of rules, where your rank in your civilian life was somewhat respected. This helped Jimmy as he was well known as a popular military commander, meaning, at least, that nobody would try to fuck with him. He was put in the prison department called Titanic, with ten cells, each built for twenty inmates but ten times that number. He was not allowed to leave the cell more than two hours a day. The prison conditions here rank amongst the worst in the world, with cells too small for all inmates to lay down and sleep at the same time, lack of air in 30+ degrees Celsius, lack of food and clean water, not to mention the disgusting system of having to defecate in buckets not regularly emptied, or in plastic bags.

Photo from Penitencier Nationale Haiti, Port au Prince

I would visit Jimmy every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. The other days of the week I would knock on doors to anyone I believed could help the case. I brought Dino with me everywhere I went, not wanting to let anyone else take care of him and to make sure I kept breastfeeding my baby who was only months old.

Dino, blissfully unaware of what was going on with his father. 

Gran Brigitte

A vodou ceremony in the mountains, a Norwegian woman, and a lwa from Ireland. From the story I'm writing at our writers retreat in the Arctic.*

Mèt Jonas, a family friend, asked me to come with him to the mountains to summon a lwa to help Jimmy. I had no idea what to expect but I was willing to do anything, and I had a deep respect for Haiti's culture and their way of handling things, including vodou and summoning anyone who might be of assistance.

Mèt Jonas picked me up later in the evening, wearing a big straw hat and dark clothes. We drove for a couple of hours, and parked near a mountain where a small group of people were waiting, there to ask for favors for themselves. One of the women said she was there to ask for help for her son's exam, another woman needed support for her visa application to the US. One man said he suspected that his wife was trying to poison him, and he was looking for answers on what to do. We were about twelve people, aged from twenty to seventy, walking up the mountains for about an hour before Mèt Jonas told us that we had arrived.

The summoning would take place on a flat open area, with tall trees surrounding the open space. There was a full moon, giving natural light. The group members had brought with them several bottles of rum Barbancourt, three black roosters, a goat, and some Haitian gourdes, to give to the lwa. Mèt Jonas was the master of the ceremony. He had several assistants that helped with the set-up, making a circle of salt for the group to step into. We entered the circle and were not allowed to step outside the protective circle during the ceremony without the master's permission.

Mèt Jonas said prayers while walking around the perimeter of the circle, throwing rum and rose water on the group and outside the circle. As he prayed, he invoked Papa Legba, naming the specific spirit that he needed to open the gate to the parallel universe. I was praying quietly. I wasn't scared, but I felt an 'our father' prayer was at its place. I had never been very religious, but now I felt comfort in knowing my childhood prayers and I repeated this in silence as I witnessed strange things unfold.

Suddenly, in the darkness approximately thirty meters away, there was an explosion of orange flames. They lit up the area for a few seconds before it went pitch dark again. This happened a few times, with a few minutes between each time. At this point Mèt Jonas took my hand and told me to step outside the circle. He walked with me, still holding my hand, towards the place where the flames had been. As we walked away from the circle I could see the contours of a large looking creature, not seeing the details nor a face, but a large shadow, wearing a long, black cape. I did not feel scared, more curious, and I felt safe with Mèt Jonas by my side. He told me to ask the lwa what I wanted, and I said; 'I need my husband to be freed from prison. He is innocent, and we need him back home with our newborn son.' I felt a piercing stare from the lwa as I tried my best to stay calm and collected in front of this mysterious creature. Mèt Jonas was also communicating with the lwa, who gave him instructions on what to do to help us with our request. We were to go to the main cemetery in Port au Prince with a rope that we should leave at a specific place, connecting the rope to the gate of the cemetery as a symbol of releasing Jimmy from prison. This had to be done at a specific time of the day, within three days.

We walked back to the circle, while Mèt Jonas explained that he was happy that he had been able to petition Gran Brigitte, a lwa so powerful when it came to achieving success with legal issues and court cases. Originating from Ireland, she was the lwa of death and the consort of the powerful Baron Samedi, lord of the cemetery and the crossroads. 

The day after we went to the cemetery to bind the rope to the gate as instructed. Mèt Jonas made a small altar near one of the graves where he put a bottle of rum filled with hot peppers, freshly grinded coffee beans and several purple eggplants. 'Now all we have to do is wait,' he told me, 'Gran Brigitte will help us.'

Art by Myrlande Constant - depicting Baron Samedi & Gran Brigitte. Photo from Le musée du quai Branly, Paris 

About Aurora — The Writers Retreat in Senja, Northern Norway

Aurora is a week-long writers retreat held twice a year on the island of Senja, above the Arctic Circle. We host a maximum of 12 writers at a time. Small group. Real mentors. A long enough stretch of time to actually fall into the work.

The next edition runs in January 2027.

In-person mentors for January 2027: Stephanie Joalland, Nicholas Pinnock, Sean McConville, Bessie Carter, Brendan Foley & Shelly Goldberg

Location: Senja, Northern Norway. Above the Arctic Circle. Polar nights and Northern Lights season.

Aurora is one of the few writers retreats in Europe built specifically around the demands of film and TV writing — small group, real mentors, a current project on the table.

Who it's for: Aurora is built first and foremost for writers working in film and TV — screenwriters developing a feature, a pilot, or a series. All other serious writers are welcome too: memoirists, novelists, playwrights.

Each writer at Aurora works on a current project — a screenplay, a pilot, an idea for a story — with one-to-one mentor sessions, long writing blocks, and the kind of group feedback you only get when a small group of serious writers are in the same room for a week.

If you have been searching for a screenwriting retreat, a writers retreat for film and TV, a writers retreat in Norway, or a creative writing retreat with serious mentors and a ridiculous amount of natural beauty — this is for you.

Read more about Aurora January 2027 → Aurora Writers Retreat

(Did Gran Brigitte answer? The rope is tied. The hot peppers and aubergines are at the grave. Jimmy is still in Titanic. I am still driving back and forth twice a week with a baby on my hip. The next scene from this year is the one I have been hardest at work on lately, in Senja, in the blue Arctic light. I will tell you about that one too. Just not yet.)

Hope to meet you in Senja x

Ingvill

About the author: Ingvill Konradsen is a Norwegian writer and the founder of Aurora — a writers retreat for film and TV writers in Senja, Northern Norway. She is currently working on her first screenplay.