Haiti Noir_The Classics

by Edwidge Danticat

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  Hearing the mailman’s footsteps, Mariéla grabbed the bag she’d filled with our clothes and pushed me toward the door. Outside, the first thing that struck me was the heat of the sun. Mariéla and I, we prefer the moon. On moonlit nights, shadows are softer than modeling clay, and we used to draw shapes with them. The noonday sun casts a shadow so hard that it follows close on your heels, as if everyone had a personal policeman to drag along underfoot. We always took shelter when the sun beat down too harshly. At school, there was the great oak in the middle of the recreation yard. Mariéla had also shown me other shady places for escaping the sunshine. Sometimes we hid behind the long curtains of sheets hung up by washerwomen. Or we sought out the dampness of the unfinished little houses at the far end of the slum. Out where stubborn folks had begun to build despite warnings from the city inspectors and then reluctantly had to stop work after all, because you cannot lay foundations in a swamp. The two of us had always had our haunts, spots where we could outwit the sun. For the first time, we had to brave the glare without the promise of relief, trying courageously to outrun it, racing for a long time toward the night. After Corazón’s death, the first thing I saw was the sun. The second thing, that was the mailman’s belly. I ran right into it. He let the whole neighborhood’s mail tumble into the stagnant water between our place and the Jean-Baptiste family’s house next door. The letters began to spread out into the muddy water and float like sailboats. The neighbors might have forgiven us for just Corazón. Basically, aside from us, no one liked him. He’d wheedled money from even the poorest of the poor, and since the women liked his looks, all the men loathed him without daring to tell him so, because of his biceps. Our real crime was to have knocked the mail into the muck. No one in the world likes having their hopes flung into a puddle. People were going to shred us. There was surely a letter from Mam Yvonne swimming somewhere in there. Corazón could sense them coming and would get the little table ready to welcome the mailman, who loved to chat with him about boxing. One bottle, two glasses. Corazón had a mongrel’s flair for sniffing out the arrival of Mam Yvonne’s letters and arranged to intercept them so he could spend the money himself. On those days, Corazón, who no longer allowed Joséphine to leave the house, encouraged her instead to go out, reminding her of this or that promise to visit an old friend. He’d set the glasses on the table, roll up his sleeves to admire his biceps, and wait for the mailman. He was rarely off in his calculations, and then only by a day or two. Except for those six months when we went without any news, which was how long it took Mam Yvonne to get the backlog of her Social Security checks from the state of Florida. Floating among the letters was one from Mam Yvonne with a number to be presented at the window of the foreign exchange office and precise instructions as to the usage of the sum in question. But now Corazón would not be there to intercept it. And anyway, the mail for the whole slum was soaking in the puddle between our house and the Jean-Baptiste place. The mailman had gotten to his feet and was shouting at us to come back. We were long gone when he decided to enter our house to get help from someone with authority. We had already run down half the main alley, passed the entrance to the elementary school, and were climbing over the dilapidated little wall around the property of the pastor of the Baptist church to take the shortcut that came out in front of the furniture factory. Grown-ups avoid that path, especially those with jobs, because they risk stepping on broken glass or cow-pats: the smell of dung is unmistakable, and grown-ups don’t always like people to know where they’ve been. For us, though, it’s so simple to jump over the low wall. And since no boss preaches to us on payday about the need for cleanliness, we prefer the shortcut to the adults’ long ways around. At the end of the path, only a hop, skip, and a jump from the asphalt where the big city began, Fat Mayard tried to stop us, just for fun. Actually, I didn’t interest him. I don’t interest many people. To them—aside from Stammering Jhonny, Marcel, and a few others—I’m Mariéla’s brother. Fat Mayard felt honor bound to feel up girls’ breasts, and he often lay in wait for Mariéla. She had let him do it once, probably because it was a new experience. Mariéla likes trying new things. And he, foolishly convinced he’d acquired some rights, had gone all around the slum crowing victory to make guys jealous. On the day of Corazón’s death, he tried to grab her and hold her close. At first it was only a game. When he heard the uproar of the neighborhood shouting our names, he realized something serious had happened. Like everyone who dreams of being in the spotlight, he tried to join in, by grabbing Mariéla for real. And she dodged him. Exactly like Corazón when he worked out at daybreak while the neighborhood still slept, except for the women on their way home from the bakery with bread to sell. That threw Fat Mayard for a loop, but he wouldn’t give up. An unarmed girl was supposed to be easy prey. He pounced again. And Mariéla treated him to the shock of his life. She popped him one right in the breadbasket. Just the way Corazón shadowboxed with the morning breeze to keep in shape. In a last reflex of pride, Fat Mayard took the precaution of glancing around. No one was watching. Relieved to have no witnesses, he dropped to his knees, eyes glazed, breathless, gagging as if giving up the ghost. We didn’t have time to scold him, to tell him he was going to live and get himself clobbered plenty more times. Flesh isn’t as weak as people think. Mariéla and I know that death doesn’t kill with a single punch, it’s the accumulation of damage that wears the body down from inside, till only the skin is left. Those last weeks, Corazón hit Joséphine almost every day. She didn’t even bleed anymore, didn’t cry, didn’t react in any way. But her battered skin kept breathing. Death hadn’t yet risen to the surface. Blows take a long time to kill. Fat Mayard could wait. Mariéla burst out laughing at his look of despair. Some people come into this world with the gift of tears. Mariéla’s natural-born talent is laughter. She’d found that out all by herself, no help needed. I don’t know if there are places where laughing is taught, but around here you just pick it up on your own. And sometimes life goes by so fast or stays in one spot so long that somehow you run out of time or energy and never get around to learning. Me, for example, I don’t like to laugh. In elementary school they teach you the ABCs. The different churches of God teach the fear of the Lord. For wisdom and rules to live by, we take inspiration from proverbs. In our neighborhood, when things go wrong, life leans on proverbs. Everyone has a supply of them. Even the poorest souls. And they’re the only possession we share without waiting to be asked. Those times when we have nothing to say to one another, we toss out a proverb at random, and that can start up who knows what conversation. We’ve got tons of proverbs to fill empty spaces and provide commentary for any occasion. Even those unexpected once-in-a-lifetime events. When the rainy season lasted so long that the water topped the highest roofs of the houses clinging down in the ravines, people were racking their brains to come up with a saying that would explain the deluge. The oldsters invent a proverb every time misfortune trips life up. And children collect them to grow in wisdom. Mariéla’s laughter isn’t some local custom, it’s a personal conquest. Mariéla is her very own creation. Her tears, her ideas, her peals of laughter. And now her destiny. If you can call the trackless life ahead of us a destiny. She was still laughing when we reached a real street. With a name. And cars. A different territory under different rules. In our neighborhood, aside from those who work and always slog home exhausted, we have lots of spare time. So people are available. Our pursuers weren’t about to give up the chase, but it would be hard for them to find us in the crowd. We’d become a girl and boy among others. Anonymous in the real city. The one on the map. Once we’d reached the outskirts of the city, we slowed down. I was coughing. Pedestrians were turning around and seemed to study me with a suspicious eye. I can’t help coughing after the slightest effort. In the slum, my cough is no big deal. Everybody knows it’s part of my nature, a constitutional defect, and no one pays any attention. But strangers always seem a little startled by it. Our headlong run had worn me out, so Mariél
a suggested we go on to the Champ de Mars, to rest there on a bench. We walked slowly and my cough calmed down. I had no idea what would happen next, but I felt fine. The anxiety came later, on the bench. And again that evening, when we had to improvise to find a place to sleep. And yet again the next day, when we went to meet Stammering Jhonny and found out the press had gotten involved. Black thoughts, they’re like trees. They can take time to grow, budding in your head, and wind up taking root there. During those first hours after Corazón had died for real, after our race to escape the slum, we walked quietly around the Champ de Mars, where the statues of heroes look down indifferently from on high. Mariéla was carrying the sack and thinking for the two of us. We walked side by side, and I advanced calmly, as if I were hidden behind her. She has always been kind to me. She’s done heaps of favors for me, a thousand little things you don’t think about at the time. Big things too. Like doing my homework or taking care of my health. Plus, since she was Corazón’s favorite child, whenever I misbehaved she’d say we, to soften him up. If it isn’t against the law, I hope we’ll be able to write to each other. She and I, we were a real pair. Mariéla is more than a sister. Brother and sister, they’re not words we use. In the slum we call everyone by name and we more or less love whomever we like. We can’t afford to love from obligation. I had chosen Mariéla. It was already like that before. And for as long as our escape lasted—three days, two moons, and a few hours—until they spotted us on the third day on that same Champ de Mars, watched over by those same statues, me sitting at the bandstand, dreaming about music, and she returning from her bike ride, the two of us formed a real pair.

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  When we reached the Champ de Mars, we slowed down and looked for an empty bench. To take a rest. Every seat was taken. The only free space was the corner of a marble bench already occupied by a gentleman dressed the old way. In a three-piece suit and tie. And although he didn’t say a word, we understood that he spoke a different language from ours. A library language with difficult words. He did not answer our hello. At any other time, Mariéla would have insisted, pressuring the man into politeness. The man did not see us, refusing the accidental company of such offspring from another world. Hands lying flat upon his thighs, he looked into the distance, indifferent to everything, not just our presence. But still. You’re supposed to reply when spoken to. Although Mariéla was the sort to make him eat his own tie, we weren’t in a position to stand up for good manners. We were rather like him, staring solitarily at our horizon line. Except that ours was behind us. Or maybe off to the side. The man was one of those lucky people who know where to look. A scholar or a man of faith. He was at peace in his world. Still keeping an eye on our strange neighbor, Mariéla asked me to dig the money out of my pocket so we could count up our fortune. Then she wanted to know if I was hungry, and I answered no. I’d been thinking too. After what we’d done, I’d lost the right to be frail. I’d decided to be grown-up. To summon some strength. So I’d promised myself to control my cough. And not to be hungry or thirsty. Ever again. To live without anything. Without daring to feel the slightest need. Not in front of Mariéla, in any case. You’re sure you’re not hungry? I said no, and besides, it was true. The first day, I didn’t want anything. To make things equal between us, I asked her if she wanted me to take charge of the bag. In the future. No, it’s not very heavy. Mariéla never speaks with the voice of a victim. There were bloodstains on her dress. More real than the gentleman with the well-cut clothes who continued to stare straight ahead of him without moving his head or his hands, seeing only the portent of that imaginary line he had chosen to target. So I copied him. I gazed at an empty point to avoid seeing the bloodstains on the dress, and all that had happened. Sitting on that bench made me vulnerable. (Before Corazón’s death, I lived on silence and would stay motionless for long periods. Now I need movement. And floods of words. Silence awakens the dead.) Corazón was already taking advantage of our stay on the bench to become a kind of ghost. He was there, before my eyes. I looked at Mariéla. Even in the heart of death, Mariéla is like life. But he was coming between us. Enormous. Bleeding from open wounds. Working hard at dying. If you don’t want to think about anything, you must take life like an athlete, run all the time, hide behind speed. Once the body is at rest, misery swarms into your head. I stared straight ahead. I looked up at the statues, and I still saw the blood. I closed my eyes to concentrate better. But it’s inside your head that you see. The images come from within. That’s where everything happens and then happens all over again, real fast. Corazón was dead, and he was alive. Ready to die anew. And now here in the afternoon it’s morning once more. It’s like a play or a movie. I close my eyes to stay in the afternoon. But the morning is stubborn. Eternal. Unstoppable. Despite all my efforts to stay where we are, Mariéla and I are walking past the garage again. We’re returning from the market. A long walk for not much: a pepper and some laundry detergent. The pepper is for Corazón. So’s the detergent, for his overalls. The garage isn’t too far from the slum. We usually avoid that street. Corazón doesn’t like to be bothered at work. And to see him is to bother him. Or not to see him: same thing. Because he doesn’t go there every day. The toolbox, the tools, the overalls, all that, it’s for show. He doesn’t really work at the garage. He’s used more like an automobile jack there. He has no claims on the machinery. Or dignity. Or words. Corazón, he’s a pair of arms. But we don’t know that. Mariéla, who wanted to take that street, she doesn’t know that. There’s an unbelievable scene going on at the garage. An end-of-the-world. One voice is raised, dominating the others. It isn’t Corazón’s. On the contrary: the louder that voice grows, the weaker Corazón’s gets. We watch what’s going on. Mariéla is very upset. On her face I can see astonishment, then disappointment. The scene is hard to describe because what we see is way more humiliating than a kid driven by fear into the shit of the public latrines. This job? The only reason you’ve got it is because of a promise to your father! Corazón is dying. And don’t you dare have any more opinions or touch one single thing without being asked! It’s as if one of the grand statues on the Place des Héros had fallen from its pedestal. Physically he’s still very much alive and is lifting a section of an engine, those are the boss’s orders. But he’s a man without an image. And Mariéla, who has always respected him even when she disapproved of him, now realizes she’s an orphan. She takes my hand and we leave. We drop the detergent we were to bring back to Joséphine. And the pepper. Mariéla stomps on the pepper and picks up the detergent. She doesn’t want to go home right away. We walk. We’re looking for an image, a reason to tell ourselves that it’s not serious. But the walk doesn’t erase the scene. We’ve already seen everything that’s in the street. It’s all ugly, all the same: the beggars, the dust, the shop signs, the drunks. And us. There’s nothing that could protect us from Corazón’s fall. I hear the boss’s voice. Lousy good-for-nothing! And lots of adjectives for Corazón run through our minds. None of them positive. He’s a man without quality who has no rights or privileges. And Mariéla says to me, He’ll never hit you again. She thought of me, and I of Joséphine. Between Mariéla and Joséphine, there’s no love lost. Joséphine adores being pitied and Mariéla despises weaklings. The sun’s broiling our skin and we decide to go home. But we still dawdle. We need time to accept Corazón in his new version. We’re hoping not to see him again right away. It’s like when Jhonny’s older brother had his crazy fit. I saw him. On all fours, like a dog. Wagging, like a dog, his imaginary tail. Lapping dirty water from a ditch, like a dog. When Jhonny told me that the fit had passed and that his brother thought he was human again, I waited weeks before seeing him. So as not to see the dog. It takes time to get used to the new reality of a father who gets himself told off and walked all over like a rag. Unfortunately, when we get home he’s already there. He has set up the table, with the bottle and the glasses. The dead hero acts as though he were alive. He’s waiting for the mailman. He can’t forgive Joséphine for b
ustling around the house. For being there. For wearing such a sad look that you can’t miss it. She’s busy. And always sad. When she’s not cooking, she cleans house or mends old clothing. Housework is her passion. It’s kind of amazing. If you look around, you won’t find that many objects to put away. We don’t live in a big house, and when she insists on straightening up the place, moving things around and dusting the glasses, everyone feels uncomfortable. Especially Corazón, who has no more room to stretch out his legs. He usually chases her out when he’s expecting the mailman. They’re alone in the house, and he’s starting to get cross. That part, I don’t see that, it’s something I imagine. He can’t bear Joséphine looking at him even though she’s as meek as can be. But he knows perfectly well that he’s a worthless man, and he believes she knows that too. Even though she has always found reasons to admire him. She’s the only one who can forgive him. Even Mam Yvonne has lost all hope. She went away to wait until he can’t make decisions for us anymore. So that she can salvage us. Mam Yvonne is figuring that we’ll find a way to replace him. She gives us presents and is secretly preparing our departure for abroad. Even his mother has abandoned Corazón. His only absolution is Joséphine. Mariéla loved him when she thought he was her equal. They communicated over our heads. Now Mariéla is all alone. Only she has the strength to face up, to decide. She’s ready to pay the price. While he lays low like a lizard in front of his boss, to save a lie. You do what I tell you, or you get out. And don’t come sniveling back around here. Corazón, he gave in, so he could keep his overalls. And now he wants to play the big guy. Joséphine’s presence enrages him. When we walk in, he’s hitting her. With each blow he lands, he’s trying to hide the truth. He doesn’t care that we’re there. He has no idea that we saw him die not an hour before. He hits her. To recreate the image he lost. But he’s not our champion anymore. Nothing but some poor jerk and our father. We arrive just when his huge fist lands in Joséphine’s face and destroys it, propelling her to the back of the room, toward the bed. And he’s not finished. He goes after her, defending his imaginary titles. He keeps his guard up, he’s Joe Louis again: Joe hoists up Joséphine, who’s already knocked out from the first blows. Joe is boxing. And the old skin bag is taking a beating. For Mam Yvonne, whom he never dared to challenge. For the garage owner, who treats him like less than zero. For El Negro, the Dominican boxer against whom he lasted only a single round that one time he ever stepped into a real ring. For the referee, who stopped the fight too early, before I got my second wind. That ref, he fucked up my whole life. And suddenly, he’s punching her for Mariéla, who’s ordering him to stop. Up yours! Here, I’m the boss! He pummels his punching bag exultantly. But he’s been dead ever since the incident at the garage. He’s been dead ever since we heard him stammer helplessly. That’s why Mariéla goes rummaging through the box where he keeps his tools. She hefts the wrenches, selects the heaviest one. Corazón, basking in his glory, still thinks he holds his audience in the palm of his hand. Mariéla goes up to him, then up on tiptoe to take better aim at his skull, and sweeps her arms in an arc to bring that wrench down in both hands as hard as she can. He’s astonished to be attacked by an adversary he hasn’t picked out himself. He thinks it’s not fair, given that she’s the one he loves the most. He moves toward her, perhaps to demand an explanation. He wants to understand. But Mariéla doesn’t feel like having a conversation. She strikes him a second time. Head on. Right on the forehead. I hear the sound the bone makes. Now he’s furious. He advances in spite of the blows, fist raised, to defend himself. That’s when I intervene. I don’t want him to touch Mariéla. Joséphine, she’s a consenting adult. The only thing you can do for her is help her suffer, and that’s all she asks. If anyone told her to leave she’d simply say mind your own business. But Mariéla, she was born to have wings. I crawl toward Corazón. I’m not afraid of him anymore. I’m only afraid of Joséphine, who will accuse Mariéla. I’m afraid because I love Joséphine and hope she will forgive us. Anyway, I crawl toward Corazón. I cling to his feet. The only thing I want is to hold him back. I forbid him to touch her. I try to bite him. My teeth aren’t strong enough to get through his mechanic’s overalls. He drags me along as he closes in on Mariéla. What’s happening is between them; what I’m doing doesn’t count. He stopped taking me seriously the day he realized that I had no talent for boxing. He moves forward as if I didn’t exist. But because he’s already staggering and I tighten my grip, he ends up falling. Mariéla has stopped hitting him. It’s the first time I watch someone die, but I know that he’s dead. I can’t tell if it’s the blow or the fall that killed him. Joséphine is sleeping, curled up on the bed. Her husband is lying on the floor, and the blood pools like the rain that sometimes leaks through the roof. At the time, I don’t pay attention to a whole bunch of details. I didn’t see the blood spurt onto Mariéla’s dress. It’s only on this bench in the Champ de Mars, next to this apathetic gentleman, that I notice the blood on the dress and realize the permanent nature of what has happened. Violence, that’s something we’ve always lived with: in our neighborhood, the strongest beat up the weakest, and life goes on. This act went beyond anything that came before. Everything we’d ever been or said simply didn’t matter anymore. Corazón’s death would begin us: Joséphine, Mariéla, and me. I understood that when I saw the blood on the dress. I told myself that it was important for Joséphine not to grow old with the idea that it was a real crime. Mariéla and I, in all our predictions, had never had anything but happy endings. No child in the neighborhood is rich enough to believe in Father Christmas, but sometimes I let myself think that I could stand in for him. Then I would buy a garage for Corazón, and hundreds of glasses and loads of hard candies for Joséphine. Clothes, too, because the mother of Father Christmas deserves a wardrobe, after all. I thought about that on our bench. I saw that Mariéla was shaking, that doubts or worries had made her fragile, and I looked away, toward the gentleman. I felt tears on my cheeks and said, It’s nothing, it’s my cough. Mariéla pretended not to notice that I was crying.