A writer who lived in Haiti during the 1950s and has returned frequently in the intervening years writes of the hope and turbulence that have become hallmarks of daily life in the country today. PNS contributor Herbert Gold is the author of "Best Nightmare on Earth: A Life in Haiti" (Simon & Schuster).

PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI -- At a busy street corner in downtown Port-au-Prince last week, a revenge commando team of four ambushed a former army officer named Henri-Max Mayard. When I visited the scene a few hours later, the body was still there, centerpiece for a theater of admonition, curiosity and grief. Some passersby appeared possessed as they uttered voodoo incantations both for and against the killing; others calculated how much it would cost to repair the dead man's bullet-riddled Honda.

President Aristide strongly condemned the murder, but an acquaintance of Mr. Mayard -- in Haiti the car-owning population tends to know each other -- was more muted in his criticism. "They say only 3,000 people were killed under the Coup by the army and its attaches. But no one in this country doesn't know a victim. I know many. Colonel Mayard was promoted to General under the Coup by this now-defunct" -- he crossed himself -- "army which has never fought against anyone but the Haitian people. Oh, and maybe against rival drug dealers and smugglers, for turf. I used to see the General in the Casino. Of course. I dislike killing, but with a justice system like ours..." He shrugged. "These days murder is as natural as pumpkin soup. We don't have apple pie in Haiti."

It was he who used the phrase "revenge commando team." It could have been old colleagues and rivals in the army. The not yet fully born new police force has announced that it is inquiring.

On my way to the National Palace for a law school graduation before President Aristide, I asked a friend why names are not being put forward as candidates for the Presidency in the elections scheduled for December. "The trouble with putting a name forward is that it would give people a chance to think about him."

"Or her," I said.

My friend rolled his eyes and whispered: "Rene Proval. Maybe Leslie Voltaire. Maybe nobody. Don't tell anyone I said so."

Later I joined a meeting at the Palace with Leslie Voltaire, head of the Education Commission, as he recounted the Scheherazade-like tale of the stricken educational system which has left 80 percent of the population illiterate. We sat in a conference room with flecked gold wallpaper, decorated under the Duvaliers. Mr. Voltaire spoke of the 90,000 school scholarships being proposed, sixty school buses for Port au Prince, 10,000 schools, subsidized text books, a Presidential Commission, "initiatives to find financing for water, latrines, instruction programs..." I watched a press pass, seeming to breathe on its own, clipped to the dreadlock-ponytail of the cameraman from Haitian television. At one point Mr. Voltaire's comments were drowned out by the military band pumping out oompah tunes outside for the drum major demonstration about to begin. He spoke in both Creole and French, but the tubas and trumpets spoke louder.

I asked him if he would consider running for President. "I have a young baby I never see," he semi-responded. The jostling is delicate. Paul Magloire, President during the early Fifties when I lived in Haiti, said that every Haitian believes he deserves a position somewhat higher than Senator. Nobody wants to be seen as craving to replace the overwhelmingly popular Aristide, despite the fact that he is forbidden to run again by the irrevocable 21st Haitian constitution.

The meeting ended with a discussion of the choked traffic of Port-au-Prince. The Palace was crowded with a bustle of folks doing their jobs, and something other than sweeping up the cash in the treasury. I remembered the party-pad pomp of the Magloire days, the menacing stillness of Papa Doc times with his basement torture chamber, the empty inconsequence of the time of the Coup. This is a government which is trying.

And over it presides the skinny little former priest who has come to dominate Haitian life by something other than cunning manipulation or brute power. President Aristide has dissolved the Army, enemy of the people, and this is probably the clearest evidence against the accusation that he is manipulated by Uncle Sam. The U.S. wanted him merely to reform the unregenerate, un-reformable, and unnecessary.

A new monument on the Palace grounds must be unique in the world of memorial sculpture for its grave irony. It is a bust of the Army captain, Fritz-Pierre Louis, who died resisting the coup which sent President Aristide into exile in 1991. The inscription says bluntly: ASSASSINATED BY THE HAITIAN ARMY. The point is understood by the visitors who gather and read aloud for those who cannot read. Captain Pierre-Louis is mourned, he is celebrated, and this soldier did not die in vain. There is no more Armee d'Haiti.

"Was" does not exist in the Haitian spirit. What happened is always present. But the new police patrolling the Palace grounds, the fledgling law school graduates in their caps and gowns, and even the drum majors, majorettes, and children leaping and dancing in front of "Titid," their President -- their voices joining his as he sings "Haiti Cherie" -- represent not only traditional Haitian energy and pride. In the future there may even be some kind of justice and decency for Haitians. For the present there is hope and turbulence.