The Forgetting Tree

by Tatjana Soli

  Marie tried to ignore how Jorge and the other men rough-handled the animals, holding the leashes tight till they were swinging by the neck, bodies dangling like the stripped bodies of pigs or cows from butcher’s hooks in La Saline. If the dogs were mean, the men kicked them with their heavy boots, and sometimes they kicked them even when they were not mean; it did not much matter to the men either way.

  She rooted for the mean dogs. She wished them luck in their bites because either way they were doomed, and after a time she thought they, the humans working, were equally doomed, and the dawning knowledge that life could be as hard and ugly in America as it had been back home packed her chest so tight she could not breathe.

  * * *

  At the end of each week a van would pull up to the back of the building, and the dogs who had been there longest were pushed into the back in plastic crates and driven away, never to return. Then the process of refilling the cages would begin again. Marie was given overtime to stay and clean up after the dogs were hauled away. If Maman had been there, no doubt she would have felt the spirits, despair so painful Marie had to hit herself in the leg or arm so that she could bear it.

  While she waited for her paycheck, she talked to Coca in the office, glancing at the lists, and saw it was Rolex’s turn to go the next week.

  * * *

  Marie slept in Amélie’s fragrant bed—a bed carved by Amie’s father from a special wood only from the islands—its narrow hold like a boat transporting her back. She was in Maman’s kitchen, watching her make one of her special dishes, chicken with rice. They were hungry, so looking forward to eating, but no matter what spices Maman used, the dish grew saltier and saltier until it was finally inedible. Maman tasted it, tried to give Marie a spoonful, but it was impossible. Tears were in Maman’s eyes as she watched their bodies grow thinner by the minute, and she begged her daughter to fix it. Marie woke at dawn, exhausted.

  At work, they led Rolex to the shower room to clean the dirt off her; Marie heard snarling and the men’s threats. She walked in and spoke for the first time in two weeks. “Let me wash this one.”

  “So the Dog Girl talks.”

  The men were glad to take a break. Rolex, backed in the corner, crouched, teeth bared, eyes hating, and at first didn’t recognize her. Jorge threw Marie the dog’s chain in a challenge and went off to smoke a cigarette. “Don’t get your hand chewed off.”

  She squatted down. “Doudou,” she whispered. “It’s okay now. I take care of you now.” She picked up the chain and led Rolex under the showerhead and shampooed the filth off her. No one could have guessed the luster of her clean coat. The men stood around watching, thoughtful and sullen as they smoked their cigarettes.

  “I’m going to take her on a walk to dry off,” she said.

  One of the new boys said it wasn’t allowed, but no one else seemed to care.

  “Give it a break,” Marie said, scornful, because any show of softness would end them. She walked out of the shower with dripping Rolex, collected her purse while Coca watched under thick eyelashes. She walked down the street alone. After a few blocks she turned and saw no one behind her.

  They ran.

  She ran faster than she thought she was able, buildings and cars melting past. The faster she ran, the more Rolex stretched out, took longer strides, as if the new space allowed the dog to grow, heading straight ahead as if she knew this was her fate all along and had simply been waiting for Marie in her slow human way to figure it out. Marie ran faster, air a hot piston through her lungs, her bag banging hard against her side. They came to a park, and she veered off into the grass, the softness relieving the terrible pounding in her feet. She slowed, and Rolex slowed, as if they were a single body. They trotted, a slow jog, then walked, blowing out breaths like professional runners, shaking out legs, and when they came to a fountain, she let the dog drink deeply from the water.

  They spent the whole day in the park, resting under a tree with large, spreading branches. The neighborhood they had invaded had bungalow houses set back on grassy lawns, palm trees that made pools of thick shade. Marie watched blond, blue-eyed mothers wheeling their babies through the park. Some of the babies were being pushed by dark women, some from Mexico or Central America, others from the islands. The sight of these women calmed her and made her feel safe. She was sick of the world of men. She fell asleep under the tree, holding Rolex’s leash, dreaming she was back home.

  When she woke, the dog was sitting, watching a young black woman pushing a pram with a yellow-haired baby. Marie called out, “What time is it, sister?” and the woman answered, “Five in the afternoon. Time to quit loafing.”

  Marie laughed at the tease, and the woman laughed back. She had skinny, bowed legs, with a big space between her front teeth. She struck a match against the pavement and lit a cigarette. “They don’t let me smoke in the house. Is he friendly?” she said, pointing at Rolex.

  “She needs to be, doesn’t she?” Marie said.

  “Be careful. The police don’t like our faces around here unless we working.”

  “I hear you. Any chance your people would want this dog?”

  The woman looked at Rolex as she shook her head. “No chance. The woman don’t like any dirt in her house.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It is.”

  “You get good job here?”

  The woman nodded. “Many Haitians nan Florid. But we’re all still dreaming of the promised land, nuh? Got to get going.”

  She walked on. Marie took out her lunch, ate half and fed the rest to Rolex. The dog gulped without chewing, looking for more. No more here, Marie thought. It was too sad to want to give more than you had. Sitting under that tree, she was as happy as she’d been since leaving home, but she knew that she would have to move on again. If the island was about standing still, America was about moving, even if you were past dead tired.

  She walked through the park to the edge of a long street of houses that looked like mansions to her, like the palaces of kings in the Bible. Grander than the pink house on the hill even. Marie could tie Rolex to a streetlamp, but she worried that this would make the dog helpless, and perhaps only the police would rescue her, take her back to the shelter from where she started.

  No, Marie thought as she untied her, Rolex is wise enough to recognize kindness when she runs across it. Marie had not seen much of it herself since she’d come here, the only god she saw worshipped so far was money, but this freedom was the only gift she could afford to give.

  Sometimes it felt as if they were both dumb animals, lost and alone in the world. She felt the flame of good in the world was riding lower; lately she felt it guttering, about to blow out.

  Maybe Rolex would walk up to that big white house with burning lights in the window, and she’d curl up on the porch by the door, and the pretty yellow-haired family that lived in it would come home and find her curled asleep, and they would see that she was precious, and they would take pity, which was the most that anyone could hope for.

  Maybe after weeks and months of comfort, Rolex would be restored to herself, to the way she was before Marie ever saw her. She will only remember her shower, Marie’s hands rubbing shampoo into her fur, only remember their run, the sharp, clean air as they fled. She will recall as her true beginning the day in the park, their nap as her resurrection, and Marie her weak angel, who brought her to the life that was surely waiting for her, the life that should be promised to all.

  Marie took off the ribbon that held her hair and wrapped it around Rolex’s neck and tied a bow so that anyone looking could see that she had been loved.

  Rolex strained ahead, sniffing the night air as Marie unclipped the chain from her collar, and then she was gone.

  Chapter 4

  The less you have, the more the pain in losing what remains.

  Marie stood alone in the park for an hour, hoping Rolex would return and hoping she would not. At last Marie started walking, one foot in front of the other, and fou
nd herself at Coca’s house. When Coca saw her—a ghost at the door—she dropped the plate she was drying, confirming that Marie’s hold on this life was weak.

  “Kisa ki rive ou? What happened to you? Why did you come here?”

  “Where else?”

  “You took the dog. They’ll make trouble now.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “If they see you here, I’ll be fired.”

  Marie gathered her few shirts, a toothbrush.

  Coca watched, biting her lip. “Ou byen? You okay?”

  “No loss. I couldn’t work there another day.”

  “Wait.” Coca walked into the next room. Marie heard her on the phone, wondered briefly if she was turning her in, betrayal now a commonplace, but then Coca came back with a big smile on her face. “There’s this lady I worked for. She called, asking if I wanted to come back. Problem is that you have to live there, and I have family, my boyfriend, to look after. It’s far on the other side of town. But for you…”

  “Can’t be far enough now.”

  “Just cleaning her house. She lives alone so there’s not much mess, only dust. But don’t do anything crazy, like with the dog, oke?”

  Marie was shaking now, relief unlocking her bones. Already sure that she’d run out of last chances. “I can clean.”

  “Course you can,” Coca said.

  “Mesi, thank you. You save my life.”

  Marie started to cry, but Coca brushed her away. “One does what one can. Look, I tell the lady you’re my cousin from Trinidad.”

  “I’m Haitian. She’ll never believe me.”

  Coca looked at her, eyes disbelieving. “Don’t you know, girl, we’re all the same to them?”

  * * *

  Marie borrowed money from Coca for the bus and walked to the station. It didn’t matter if she waited hours or days because this was the only slip of life she had left to try. She spent her last dollars on a sandwich and a Coke and even bought a candy bar in a spike of reckless hope.

  Two hours later the bus dropped her off in a fancy suburb outside Miami. A warm night, the terminal was open to the air, brick and lacquered-wood benches scattered under a roof of grapevines. Marie slumped down on a bench and slept until the janitor poked her awake at dawn and told her to leave. That was what she was learning of this new country—no matter how lovely the place, one could never stay long, but had to keep moving.

  She clutched the piece of paper with the address as if it were a lottery ticket. She wandered the streets reading the signs. Finally a garbage truck stopped to load cans, and the men were from Cité Soleil. They smiled, and they greeted her like long-lost kin—Bonjou! Komon ou ye? N’ap boule!—the taste of familiar words in her mouth gave her strength. They read the address and pointed the way, offering a ride, but Maman’s girl couldn’t arrive for her new life with the garbage, so regretfully said no. Other than the trash truck, nothing moved in the silent, empty streets. The houses were set behind high walls, barricaded behind prickling, thorny hedges of bougainvillea.

  * * *

  At seven in the morning, Marie was staring at a white building that looked as if it were a set of child’s blocks stacked one against another, filled with silvered glass on all sides. She checked over and over to make sure this unlikely place was the address on the paper. Unsure, she walked up the bleached-rock driveway that shushed under her feet like a rocky beach and dropped the fish-shaped knocker against a copper door, heard it echo through a large, empty space.

  No one answered. She stopped and studied the street, then turned back again to the knocker, which she lifted and let fall, and heard a gunlike bang ricochet on the other side. The door gave way under her knuckles, and she dipped forward as a thin, tall woman wearing a white robe squinted down. Her face was tanned and sculpted, the skin shiny tight over the bones. When she smiled, it was quick and painful, her eyes remaining fixed and cold.

  “You’re Coca’s cousin?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come in. Get out of the street, for Christ’s sake.” She waved with a skeletal, clawish hand. Her nails were short and lacquered a dark gray. A band of diamonds glittered on her finger like a tiny collar. Marie walked into a room unlike any she had ever dreamed of before. The walls, couches, table, carpets—everything white. The ceiling was of glass, and the walls, too, everything leached of color and substance. Sunlight blazed all around them as if they were trapped together inside a bottle. It was the most terrifying and peaceful room Marie could ever have imagined.

  “Let’s do introductions later. I’m going back to bed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Enough ma’am. You make me feel like someone’s grandmother. Me llamo Linda.”

  Marie nodded.

  The woman did not ask her name, only looked at her face briefly and looked away. Her eyes were such a light blue they seemed to have no color at all, like the room itself, and like the sun they were hard to look into for long. Her hair was the palest blond, also drained of color, and it swept along her chin like a delicate cloth.

  “I’ll show you your room so you can get settled. Since you’ll be living here, I require you to take at least one shower each day and wear a uniform. Nothing silly—just a polo shirt and white jeans, white sneakers or loafers. Give me your sizes, and I’ll take care of it. Is that okay?”

  “I always wear others’ clothes. Don’t know my own size.”

  “More information than I really wanted.” Linda sighed. “I’ll guess. You’re about the same as the last girl.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman frowned. “Maybe we both need sleep.”

  * * *

  The maid’s room was not like the other parts of the house—the ceiling was low, the beams exposed, the walls painted a gloomy mustard yellow with figures and words scrawled across them that told Marie that the girl who had drawn them (she did not think it was Coca) had been from the islands also. She pried the window open, struggling with the warped wooden frame. The only sounds outside were of a lawn mower and the ocean in the distance. She sat and let the silence wash over her. The window looked out at a thick, coarse lawn, the blades so fat and sharp they looked as if they would hurt bare feet, and at a corner of the swimming pool, blue like a chip of island sky. Marie lay back on her single bed, the mattress covered by a balding chenille blanket. A closet, a scarred desk, a sagging chair, nothing else in the room. The most beautiful place she had ever been.

  * * *

  She fell asleep and did not wake until she heard an impatient rapping on the door.

  It flung open before she could get up, and the woman stood in a white pantsuit, her only bit of color a pink scarf trailing down her neck. Now her eyes were rimmed in kohl, her lips a silvery pink, and Marie thought her perfect like the pictures in magazines. The woman was like her house—untouched, with no sign of time passing and leaving its imprint. “Do you normally sleep all day?” she said, lips in a frown while she raked through her small purse.

  “I’m sorry.…”

  “I hate people apologizing. Just don’t do it, okay? Let’s move to the living room, please.”

  Marie jumped up and tried to smooth her clothes as best she could, jogging in her hurry to follow the woman’s long strides.

  “Cleaning supplies are in the pantry off the kitchen. I’m sure you’ll figure things out for yourself. Coca said you have experience, right?”

  “I know cleaning.”

  “The number one thing to remember is that I prefer not to be bothered with details, okay? Unless it’s absolutely essential. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Linda.”

  “This isn’t a Southern plantation. Linda.”

  “Linda.”

  The woman pulled out a dark pair of sunglasses from her purse and put them on. The room was so bright Marie wished for her own pair.

  “I’m late for lunch so we’ll continue with this later.”

  “Yes.”

  The woman opened the fro
nt door, then turned back. “My God, I forgot to ask—what’s your name?”

  Marie hesitated, her mind empty of possibilities. “Maleva?”

  “What a pretty name. A pretty girl. You’ll do just fine. I’ll be back at five.”

  * * *

  Coca was right—the woman did not leave behind much dirt. Marie’s biggest job was to go over her own cleaning of the week before, vacuuming and dusting, replacing wilted flowers in vases that were never looked at, plumping pillows on the sofas that were never sat on for guests who never came.

  Linda was gone most of each day, and at night she sometimes brought her boyfriend home. They went into the kitchen that Marie had cleaned after it had not been cooked in that day, and they stood and drank water out of bottles before they went into Linda’s bedroom and closed the door behind. When she came home alone, Marie would often hear her crying, and sometimes she watched her outside in the hot tub, drinking from a bottle of wine.

  “Are you okay, Linda?” Marie would ask.

  “Just need to take my happy pills. Men get mad over nothing.”

  “This is true.”

  One night Marie snuck into the kitchen in the dark to take a cold apple from the crisper. By the weak light of the open refrigerator, she stood deciding if she should have a piece of chocolate cake also. She could still not get used to how, as much as she ate, there was always more, and she was growing plump. Already the loose clothes Linda bought were getting filled in. Suddenly the overhead light came on, blinding her, and there stood the boyfriend in his underwear. He was slim and olive-skinned, with curly brown hair. He was as young and carefree as Linda was not.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Marie said, dropping her eyes and backing out the door.

  “Don’t leave. Get what you came for.” He smiled. “You’re the new one.”