The Forgetting Tree

by Tatjana Soli

  He chuckled. “Oh, my Erzulie, she has a hot blood, moun.”

  The boys cried like babies.

  “Okay, tell you what. You crawl to her, and you kiss her feet, and maybe we let you live.”

  “Non!” Marie screamed, jumping up and down on the sand, drunk on the new idea that she could inflict pain on those who hurt her. “That’s not what I said. Touye them, kill them.”

  “Enouf this. You one spoiled girl child.” Marie pushed her chest out and tied her shirt up under her ribs. “Ou, titty too jenn, too baby. Maybe in couple years.” Jean-Alexi winked and threw her a piece of candy as he took off after an older girl who wagged her hips at him. The boys scattered free. Only later did Marie figure out that Jean-Alexi did not give back her coins.

  Chapter 2

  The pink house was built forty years ago for an English bride whose curls by then had turned white. Maman had been cooking in the pink house for five years when the old, white-curled lady, a schoolteacher way back, said to her, “Bring me someone ignorant to teach the Queen’s English to, someone to convert into God’s lamb,” and so Maman brought her own Marie each day. The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. Marie was taught that everything in England was heaven, and they on the island could not be helped for their ugliness, their sin that showed skin-deep.

  The old lady told the young girl this even though she had lived on the island all forty years of her married life, lived there so long England was as much a fantasy as heaven, all her relatives long buried, she herself long forgotten, and the girl believed her. Marie was so good at English, she read out loud the silly Brontë and Austen stories (full of young women holding hankies and waiting to marry rich) the old woman loved so much that she lay back in her bed with a smile, as if she were already dead and in heaven.

  * * *

  Maman was such a fine chef because she knew the best dishes used both the sweet and the salt since that was the way of life. She told Marie of the time when she was a young girl, and the light in the deepest forest was gold, burning like a necklace around a rich woman’s neck, and the country was full of hope, but how after, it turned the dark of iron. In Maman’s mind, the country’s happiness and her own were the same, and the Troubles that came destroyed both. Some think bad luck comes like lightning, once in a lifetime, but Maman knew it was more like a rock slide, one thing setting off another until the end of one’s days, and so it was for them.

  One of the village women grew jealous of Maman, her schooled ways and her healing, how she kept back from the rest as if she were slightly better, how even though she hid her pretty shape under sackcloth, it was still visible. That woman did some talking back in the capital and informed the Macoutes that Marcel’s widow was agitating in the countryside.

  Ten years after she had come there, the men, on the way to somewhere else, decided to stop in the little village and settle old scores. They followed Maman into the forest, and as she gathered healing leaves, they gathered her. Because they were simple, brutal men, and she was defiant and unafraid, they killed her quickly, afraid of the rumors that she had magical powers.

  That was how the men caught her in that black-bitter iron forest, the despair-filled dark jungle. After, just in case she might recognize them in the afterlife, they carved away her face. Marie thought maybe that was better—God had mercy and did not make her look back at the despair of her life.

  When Maman died, sans face, everyone was too afraid to mourn for her in public. Whoever picked up her body, that one would be killed. Whoever buried her, also. Whoever mourned, too. Like the long line of begats in the Bible. Marie sat alone under the mapou tree in the rain and watched the road away from town, watched the dirt turn to liquid mud, and wondered if that was the road Maman had meant, the long road to Guinée. If she walked it, could she join her? How would Maman make her way, blinded, faceless, on such a road?

  * * *

  After Marie’s maman was gone, the girl became a restavek, forced to live in her aunt’s house. On the island, family was a rubber-band kind of thing. Since Marie’s great-grand-maman was gone, a cousin called aunt was perfectly acceptable. When Marie tried to run away, hiding under the sacred tree, each time they found her and dragged her back, beating her. “Timoun se ti bet, kids are animals,” Tante Josie said. Uncle Thibant was the opposite of Tante in every way—slight where she was wide, quiet where she bellowed. He was whip smart, too, and understood how it was to have life go against you. He winked at Marie and passed her a coin or two for candy, but he would not lift a finger against his wife.

  Tante Josie took over cooking the meals in the pink house on the hill. She did not want to lose the good wages, but Tante was not a chef like Maman, she used too much salt, every dish came out bitter, and she knew her days were numbered, so she looked around and bartered the sweet, not her own dear daughters, non, but Marie, now fourteen, up to the house. No more time for English classes or reading either, but the white-curled lady never raised a question, turned her cataract-clouded eyes to the wall, because nothing could be truly spoiled if it wasn’t English first.

  Tante had her mop the floors, rub lemon oil deep down into the grain of the wood, but mostly she left her in the greenhouse on long afternoons, alone in a babyish, white crocheted dress and frilly pink panties, alone with the old lady’s son, a man with his own hair gone salt and pepper already, because the sweet of their same family blood didn’t matter to Tante.

  * * *

  Another village by another name, where Maman had taken her for fresco, ices, but now where the man-on-the-hill took her when he wanted more privacy than the greenhouse allowed. First, he sat in the bar and had a beer, talked with the men while she sat outside on a chair or crate or, if there was no room, on the curb where her legs would get dusty. Sometimes he sent a Pepsi out. Then he rented a room in the town’s only hotel, but this was no news since he had rented rooms there many such times, so the only gossip was adding Marie’s name to the long list of ruined. She felt light-headed with dread. A small room, bare, except for a wobbly table by the window, one chair, which he sat on to untie his shoes, and a bed barely wide enough to hold one weary body.

  The man-on-the-hill was kinder when he was away from his large pink house and his fancy people. He showed a definite tenderness toward those he would use. His face was soft and pink like the belly of a pig. Marie looked down at his bare feet, the toenails thick and yellowed. He pinched her earlobe between his thumb and forefinger as he ruined her the first time, so that she wouldn’t feel the true pain. “Marie, Marie, Marie,” he whispered in her ear till she grew to hate the sound of her own name. He made her whisper back his name and the English words his mother had so carefully taught her. “Edward, Edward, Edward.” The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. Afterward, he pulled out a small pair of gold-plated scissors and cut out a section of the stained sheet, which he neatly folded and put away in his jacket pocket. Marie pictured a wooden box filled with the scraps of other girls. While he smoked, he ordered her to strip the rest of the bed and bundle it for laundry, treating her as maid, as if the act were simply another service provided by the hotel.

  * * *

  When Marie started throwing up in the mornings, Tante took her down to the curing shed where the coffee beans dried. She worked a metal wire between her legs and that was the end of that. So much blood, maybe this would be her end … the floor stayed red no matter how many times she made Marie wash it afterward. Tante Josie stood by and smoked down her cigar. “Shame on you,” she said. “You bouzin. At least there won’t be babies.” That was the first time Marie felt herself grow strong by hate. Tante let Marie stay home that afternoon, resting on the porch, while she brought her cup after cup of coffee to fortify her blood. By now, Marie knew better than to mistake this for kindness; Tante was protecting her investment.

  * * *

  After a time, maybe two years, the man-on-the-hill was done. The white-curled lady lay dead in the weed-covered foreigners’ graveyard. She would
never make it back to her England or know the wickedness the island had allowed to fester in her son. Now he only wanted fresh goods, Tante, with her pebble eyes, said to Marie. Josie was a regular businesswoman bartering with Marie’s body. Next she offered the girl to man-on-the-hill’s son, a pimply boy scared of his own shadow. Then after, to his friends, until after a time it didn’t matter to Marie anymore—what was Marie was gone like a kite after the string snapped.

  As Marie was handed down, there was less and less kindness, as if the thing that had been done to her were simply a fact of nature or self-inflicted character. As if she had been born ruined and was maturing into it. Soon not even shabby rooms were rented, but dark alcoves, hallways, stinking alleyways. Taken for granted that she was what they saw before them, had always been that, and nothing else. Treat someone as if they’re worthless, soon they believe it. By the time Marie got to the woman in Port-au-Prince, even Tante Josie pretended away her part and blamed the girl for her state.

  * * *

  After the men in the village were through, Tante cut a bargain with the woman who ran girls to Port-au-Prince. A regular establishment of whoring. Marie packed a kerchief and boarded a tap tap for the capital, a reverse of her maman’s escape. When Tante Josie and her daughters waved good-bye, Marie turned her back.

  * * *

  Although Marie had not seen Jean-Alexi again after the beach encounter, she had heard talk of him through the village gossip. From small-time criminal and drug dealer in the village, he had been recruited by the local Macoutes to turn his attention from cruelty to things to cruelty toward men. He “disappeared” some of the men who were making trouble for local politicians collecting taxes. For his appetite for ruthlessness, he was rewarded with a Jeep, an Uzi, and a few acres of land. These he quickly converted to cash to buy drugs, doubling his wealth. At about the time Maman was murdered, Jean-Alexi was on his way to the capital to continue seeking his dark fortune. Unlike Marie a few years later, he did not go empty-handed or without connections.

  Madame Zo, Madame Bones, the woman Tante sold her to, was impatient as she met the tap tap. “You are late, stupid girl.” It was dark already, the noise and crowds of Port-au-Prince overwhelming to a girl from the country. But Marie remembered the happy stories Maman had told her of her younger days there—could life get any worse than it had been in the countryside?

  Madame Zo walked her to the edge of the park, what she later learned was the Champs de Mars. “Get in a few customers before we go home.” Marie was dirty, hungry, and tired. The walkways around the grass and trees were crowded by the dark shapes of other girls, and each time a man passed by, voices moaned and pleaded. Marie hung back against a building, her sack of belongings clutched over her chest, till Madame Zo found her. “Nothing? Too much to hope for.”

  She held on to Marie’s hand and marched her through the nightmare of La Saline. Marie had never imagined such a way of living because, although they had been poor, there had always been space; here there was none. They wound their way through a maze of narrow, dirty passageways, a chaos of noises and smells, and all she could think was how she would escape. Sanity would be when she was back in open spaces, back under her sacred trees. They came to a rusted-iron, padlocked gate. The house was built of plyboard, supported by leaning on its neighbors; the roof was corrugated iron that in the rain dripped puddles of orange rust. In the alleyway, a dozen girls lounged on low plastic stools in various states of undress. A few listened to calypso on the radio, a few played dominoes. None of them bothered to look up at Marie’s arrival.

  “You don’t work here—you do your business in the park. This is home,” Madame Zo said.

  Some of the girls snickered. Home was the size of a large closet, and thirty to forty girls were to call it their place of living. No matter where Marie rested, she pressed against other bodies. At night they slept dòmi kampe, what they called stand-up sleep. The first girl in rested against the wall, padding her cheek with an arm or a piece of clothing. The next girl came and rested against her, so on and so on, until the last packed herself against the opposite wall, sometimes seven or eight bodies thick. When they were in tight enough, one could relax, held up by others, and not fall down. At first the contact repulsed Marie, used to the luxury of space in the village, but after a while her insides grew so lonely, the contact comforted. It didn’t much matter which girls she leaned against, they were all sisters in misfortune.

  One day that was especially fine—the sun hot but the trade winds carrying off the humidity, Marie walked to the public fountain to wash her dress while she wore the other one she owned. A customer from the night before had given her a generous tip, and she treated herself to fritay, fried pork in dough. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a swaggering, loose-jointed walk and dreads that could belong only to one man. “Jean-Alexi?”

  The young man turned and studied her with a smile, trying to place her. “Bonjou.”

  “Don’t you know me? From the village?”

  He shrugged, lifted thin, muscled shoulders. “Koumon ou rele? What’s your name?”

  “Marie. From the village.” Their brief meeting had been years ago; they had never exchanged names. News of Jean-Alexi had created a relationship in her mind. “You protected my money from some boys on the beach.”

  “Good for me, nuh? I’m late now.” He didn’t remember her, but as he turned away, she became desperate to hold on to someone from the old days.

  “I’m Leta’s girl.”

  His face broke open in recognition. “Why didn’t you say? Say hello now to Maman.”

  “They killed her.”

  He nodded as if this were part of the everyday, no who? or why? needed. “Mwen regret sa. I’m sorry.”

  “I have no one to tell,” she said.

  “Grown up as pretty as your maman.” He looked at her closely, then looked away as her tears began to fall. Only in front of someone who understood did she feel free to cry. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  They walked out of La Saline and through downtown, grabbing rides from trucks and cars whose drivers beeped in recognition of Jean-Alexi. Inside the vehicles, the men sat in front and discussed business, ignoring Marie in the back, which was just fine with her. This was her first chance to see the city as a whole, and as their journey slowly led them up the hill, the details that were so hard to bear up close grew smaller and smaller. From a distance, the brightly painted shantytowns almost looked tolerable next to the rolling blue of the ocean.

  Halfway up the hill, Jean-Alexi jumped out of the pickup they were riding. Marie had not imagined an area as nice as the one they now found themselves in. Palm trees swayed overhead, bougainvillea and hibiscus formed crowded hedges at street level. Although the houses were run-down, many abandoned, there was a sense of ease that didn’t exist down below. Jean-Alexi led her inside the crumbling walls of a compound.

  “These were your people. Look how we sliding back in one generation—you turned bouzin.”

  The main house had been condemned—a fire and then a few years later an earthquake made it unsound—but on the grounds, families had set up shacks, squatters’ residency.

  “I like it here,” Marie said.

  “You should. This is your papa’s house. Or was, long ago.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “I was just a kid. But he was a great man. Gave people hope.”

  They walked through the empty rooms, looted of everything of conceivable value. In the kitchen, the stove gone and a pile of coals on the floor. In the bedroom, an old stained mattress. Marie liked it that way—the place hollowed out of meaning. Too painful to consider what could have been her life.

  “I come here sometime to be alone. Now you should come. This is all that’s left you. Your maman was a good woman. Like tante to me.”

  Marie stood at the open window, stripped long ago of shutters, glass, and screens. The only thing that couldn’t be stolen was the view of the glittering ocean far below
.

  “Is this rich neighborhood?”

  “Ah, non. You go on up to Pétionville for that. You headin’ up in the world, you go there and then next stop Miami.”

  “Miami.” The name rolled in her mouth like something sweet and undreamed of.

  “Hurry goin’, girl. This La Saline life goin’ eat you up fast.”

  He rummaged in a corner and came back with a bottle of tafia, homemade rum. As the sun sank into the ocean, they sat side by side on the mattress and passed the bottle.

  “How about I stay here with you?” Marie said. “Not go back to La Saline. Nothing for me back there.”

  “Mwen leaving tomorrow, next day. Big time waitin’ for me in Miami.”

  Marie nodded at the fact that Jean-Alexi would always be just ahead, out of her grasp.

  “You ever hear ’bout the chimère in Cité Soleil?”

  Marie shook her head.

  “Don’t want to. Just means I have a mark ’bove my head same as your papa and maman. Time to be moving on.”

  “I get so scared,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “When I used to get scared, I killed it right away. Kill it, that’s all I can tell.”

  Halfway through the bottle, she realized she was drunk for the first time in her life, and the worry that was a constant in the pit of her stomach was gone, or at least unfelt.

  “You can kiss me,” she said.

  He shook his head. “You like mwen sè, sister.”

  Jean-Alexi rolled over and fell asleep. She had wanted his kiss. The chance to feel desire herself was new, instead of serving as the object of it for others. Love, too, as impossible and out of reach as a big house on a hill.

  Loud chirping woke them the next morning. They searched the empty room until Jean-Alexi found a cricket high up in the rafters. Carefully he cupped it in his palms, carried it over to the window, and opened his hands. It just sat there, big and brown, warming in the sunbeam it found itself in. It started to rub its wings and sing again. “Get goin’. Don’t know a good thing when it happens.” He blew on it and the insect flew straight up and out into the sky.