Concrete Flowers

by Wilfried N'Sondé

  Some days, Sonia, Rosa Maria, and Anna suffocate in their room that’s become too small for them over the years, especially when the family atmosphere is so tumultuous. They feel like they’re truly living in hell, one on top of the other with very little space and privacy. But once the timbre of the voices calms down, the tense foreheads relax, smiles return, and, within the four walls of the tiny room, a refuge is restored, the kingdom in which confidences and anxieties are shared, a secret garden, inaccessible to their parents, where Salvatore would never venture.

  Their father wears a gray, exhausted mask, his eyes are dull, his back hunched. He watches the comings and goings of every passerby in the path delineated by weeds, which tremble feverishly following the whim of the fall breeze. The flowers that used to line it have long since withered from poverty, negligence, and acts of vandalism.

  Antonio’s ghost is omnipresent in Salvatore’s daily life and otherwise in the Milano family’s life; he has sealed their mouths in the unspoken, a bitter presence hovering in Rosa Maria’s sadness, a reproach that weighs heavily on Salvatore’s shoulders, a thorn in the most tender part of Antonio’s grieving mother’s heart. An indescribable chagrin consumes her like venom, inconsolable. His memory haunts her every single night and every morning again from the moment she opens her eyes, she worries about whether he has already woken up . . .

  Salvatore forbids himself to cry for the loss of his son. He tries in vain to fight the profound grief buried in his soul and his flesh.

  Happy images of Antonio playing on his knees haunt him, the remorse, the torture, years lost in misunderstandings with this son, so different. His absence affects Salvatore’s brain, already fragile from the economic hardship, the silence, the lack of affection, time that keeps going by and resolving nothing, his daughters who avoid him and especially the disapproval in their eyes. Isolated, Salvatore is coming undone.

  His gaze often lingers on this young blond girl, high heels and short skirt with long legs. He undresses her. Salvatore already knows her by heart, the way her rear end bounces with each step. He’s lost in the bright red lipstick on her mouth; the subtle movement of her breasts beneath her provocative clothes sets off a flood of warmth in his chest. She makes him want to kiss her and even more, bite her, spread some warmth, some tenderness, gently caress her skin, smile, enjoy good feelings. She goes by. He watches the movement of her shapely figure, provocative, a dream of tender flesh; he pictures the velvety touch of a finger running all over his worn body, a longing, an obsession. He’s possessed by Margarine, his desire for her breathes life back into him. When Salvatore is contemplating her, he forgets his patriarchal role, the intransigence, the inflexibility, and ventures toward gentleness. With her, everything is so simple. He sees himself nestling in with his swaying gait, his arm delicately holding her around the waist. His stern mask of days of misery is replaced with a radiating smile, she turns toward him and hugs him too. They walk, hand in hand, talking to each other in whispers right until she turns the corner and disappears behind the building. Salvatore comes back to reality and lights a cigarette.

  FOR ANGELINA, THE monotonous litany of each passing day begins on Monday morning. She wakes up at the crack of dawn, prepares breakfast for the whole family, and takes care of Anna, the baby, before heading off to work. Once she’s quickly and carefully prepared herself, she transforms into a rapid shadow who leaves the building, always in a jog trot, and takes off into the street still covered in darkness.

  The broken door in the hallway on the other side squeaks while opening. Another silhouette emerges in the beam of light coming from the streetlamp, exits, and feet hit the asphalt. Little by little, a crowd mainly of women huddle under the bus stop shelter. No one pays attention anymore to the giant advertisement that covers the back of the shelter, a superb-looking woman dark-­complexioned on a sunny beach on the other side of the world, in a discreet bathing suit, toned body, smiling, black hair and generous hips, above her, the inscription reads: Indulge yourself, Get away, Discover Bora-Bora!

  Then come the young mothers with dark circles of fatigue under their eyes. They hurry out into the first light of dawn behind their strollers, always running late, lagging behind, pushing tiny little humans, not yet sure of their footing, snot dripping from their noses, teary eyed, with the remains of a quickly eaten breakfast on their cheeks, tiny traces of jam and bread stuck to the corners of their mouths. The drowsy expression of children who’ve had too little sleep and are still catching up on some on their way to the daycare center. With hardly enough time to make themselves beautiful, the young mothers’ heads are already filled with an interminable list of things to do that time will not allow them to accomplish, an inventory of criticisms from their unsympathetic employers and demanding, nagging spouses. Hours wasted handling administrative concerns. They’ve started a new week. These courageous young mothers will wait for Saturday, Sunday, to come up for air before the week starts all over again.

  When the sun makes its way through the dark clouds, heads down, a slow belabored pace on the asphalt, the old, the retired, the forgotten await the unlikely visit of a family member. Memories to keep them going as long as their memory doesn’t begin to fade. Loneliness.

  Among them Lucien Marchand, wife deceased too soon, no children. Following a youthful existence filled with travel and adventures, life had crushed him to the point of making a human wreck of him. The image of his defeat has colored his face gray, sapped by cheap red wine and dark tobacco. He only leaves his apartment to head to the discount supermarket where, forever in a foul mood, he babbles nasty remarks with an evil eye. He buys the cheapest alcohol and stuffs it into his worn-out shopping bag. At times, when he’s standing at the cash register of the bar and tobacco shop buying his weekly lotto ticket, there’s the hope of having a new lease on life. He goes back home to the walls yellowed by nicotine stains and the asphalt and just hunkers down till the next morning. The rest of the time he spends vegetating in front of the TV or standing by the window irritated, arguing with surprised passersby and scolding children playing at the foot of the building. Because he is so bitter, the laughter and games coming from the other side of the street at the end of the day, and especially on weekends and during school vacation, get on his nerves. They disturb his state of boredom, interfere with the rumination in his sadness, thinking about the only woman who ever loved him. Lucien Marchand spews out all his frustrations, insults and foul language are always on the tip of his tongue, pointing his menacing finger at ten-year-old kids who get a kick out of really giving him a hard time. They then go off for a while and start up the mischief even louder than before. The sixty-something-year-old is on the verge of imploding; the medication he’s on is no longer enough to calm his nerves.

  Beneath the shed, as soon as the bus arrives, Angelina and the others pile on in without a single word, the sound of the engine is going, the click-clack of the stamped tickets paces the takeoff, no one looks at each other, everybody’s heading to work with no visible joy or motivation. Angelina, she’s happy to be making her way toward a new experience.

  After several weeks of training, the municipality offered her a job as a cleaning lady. Rosa Maria’s mother was very nervous about the prospect of having to return to school; her education had ended thirty years ago with a basic leaving certificate, after eighth grade. She was quick to remind herself that most of the other women didn’t know how to read or write. Luckily, the skills required to do surface cleaning were basically learned on the job; you just had to repeat the same gestures over and over and progressively improve on your effectiveness.

  Now she’s earning a living for the first time and getting a taste, however feebly, of her independence and freedom. Even though she still loves and respects her husband, it’s a relief to be spared the company of his unbearable silence in the back of the kitchen. Their best years together are now a distant memory.

  She can still picture Salvatore, young, handsome, and as cool as a cucumber,
singing her a serenade in his husky voice with his little wooden guitar, making eyes at her and extending a bouquet of wildflowers, blushing like a little boy. They got engaged in secret after an intense first kiss on the lips under an olive tree. He’d then taken her by the hand and, following tradition, taken her away for three days. Seventy-two hours of pure happiness for Angelina. Salvatore was attentive to her every last wish. He wove necklaces of rose petals, whispered sweet words in her ear, and kneeled down before her to pray to the Virgin Mary to give their love a chance. Tears in his eyes, he kissed her fingers, placed them on his cheeks, and drenched them in his tears. They subsequently resurfaced before her father to ask for her hand in marriage.

  At the beginning, they loved each other like kids, intensely, and were married in no time. For the occasion, one of Angelina’s sisters loaned her a white dress, the couple, much like the rest of the island, were seriously short on funds. The young bride must have only been about a couple of weeks’ pregnant when Salvatore accepted the position in the automobile factory somewhere in the Paris area. The employer offered them a huge brand-new apartment in one of the public housing complexes with all the modern conveniences, toilet, bathroom, running water, and gas, reserved parking spots, playgrounds for the kids, and schools. It had all been conceived for six thousand families of workers, constructed with modern material made to last, steel, reinforced concrete, and asphalt. Salvatore and Angelina were amazed by the architecture of simple efficient geometric shapes, especially squares and rectangles, no blind spots, to prevent surprises, nothing had been left to chance. Angelina felt confident, she was overwhelmed with joy, and respect and admiration for Salvatore, who was himself proud to be able to offer his beautiful wife the kind of dignified life a lady deserves and a future for the children to come. They were among the first to move into the neighborhood.

  Nowadays, the late afternoons of the former Prince Charming are wiled away at a local bar until he heads on home to the evening meal prepared by his wife, all that’s left of a family life that no longer resembles what they had both dreamed of. Salvatore is worn out, his voice is wedged in his throat with his suffering. He no longer understands anything about the life he leads, and his self-esteem is definitively gone, disappeared into a life of living off childcare benefits and the meager salaries of Angelina and his oldest daughter.

  Angelina has let go, she’s no longer looking to rediscover the man who used to hold her in his arms or surprise her over by the stove on his return from the factory, a kiss on the neck, electric tingling sensations going up and down her spine, the small of her back curving beneath the wave of desire, even if while smiling she would wiggle out from under his embrace and send him to go get ready for dinner.

  She hardly recognizes him when he drags himself about and wanders around in the apartment, his aimlessness always taking him back to the kitchen window.

  He smokes nonstop and only goes out at the end of the day to head over to the counter to drink, never speaking to anyone. Within an hour and a half, he’s back home even more morose than before he left.

  Thanks to her job, Angelina is able to get out of the oppressive closed-off universe in which her relationship is trapped. She has made friends with her new colleagues, women whose biographies resemble her very own. They share their joys and take each other in their arms to lament. They’re on their way to emancipation. Ever since the conjugal bed went cold, this lone housewife and mother has reconnected with her body and dreams of having two twin beds in the room, but they’re in desperate need of money. Angelina is relieved, the girls have grown up, even Anna, the youngest, has outgrown her bras and her skirts. She’s so adorable. Courageous, Sonia is working at the supermarket; the poor girl had to sacrifice her studies by quitting high school to get a real job, too bad, but they needed the extra income.

  As for Rosa, who has always been secretive, she’s gotten worse since her brother’s death. Angelina’s son had been such an adorable, playful baby, always laughing, so sensitive, too refined for his father. Antonio had made for a lot of problems as a teenager, constantly criticizing and wanting to change the world. Like the time he organized a demonstration in front of the police station with the young people in the neighborhood to protest against police violence and racial profiling. But Antonio also managed to get some space down at the local youth center to volunteer as an academic tutor.

  A few months before his death, he had changed big-time; he no longer slept at home and would even disappear from the neighborhood for several days at a time. One night, Salvatore had brought him back home from the police station before giving him a thorough beating. Antonio never did come back home after that, except to steal. He lost a lot of weight, looked terrible, and sometimes even came by at her workplace to ask for money . . . Angelina didn’t recognize him anymore. He frightened her. Then came the tragic end, the shock, the horror, the mystery because no one knows exactly what happened.

  A mother never forgets the day she has to bury her first child.

  ON THAT AFTERNOON, groups had gathered over time in front of the hallway entrance; facial expressions were grave, closed off, heads lowered, bodies stiff and stoic. The complex was at half-mast, preparing the journey to the final destination of one of its own, the atmosphere was heavy. Rain threatened to pour down. Girls and women were holding back tears, huge knots of sadness contracted under their eyelids. They were moving their heads back and forth, slowly, in silence, eyes red and lifeless. Everybody was turning on their heels like zombies, hands in the pockets of the pants they wore for special occasions, impatient, overwhelmed by what had happened. The elderly had dug up funeral outfits that had been buried in the back of the closet up till this point. The tasteless display of clothing of somber colors, black, gray, from another era, a truly peculiar tableau next to the getups the friends of the deceased had improvised that morning, dressed in their everyday wear except for a large piece of black cloth wrapped around the arm. For most of them, this was their first funeral. The bitterness ran deep, the anger too, still anesthetized from the immense shock of the news. Antonio, deceased only a few days prior, had had a unique role in the neighborhood, he was everybody’s friend, the big brother, the one who made everyone feel proud, even courageous, and who gave everyone a lot of attention and affection. A caring hand on the shoulder, with his enthusiasm and convictions, he managed to convince people they would come out OK at the other end. It was about taking a stand and taking action together.

  The procession waited for the family to arrive before beginning the walk to the cemetery. No one had the courage to look up at the window on the second floor where Salvatore had stationed himself as usual to observe and smoke cigarettes. Stone-faced, he ignored the crowd, his resolve could not be stirred, a cold expression despite his wife’s pleas, there was no way he was going to be accompanying his son to his grave. Inconsolable, her face hidden beneath a veil of black lace, Angelina wound up joining, however painfully, the head of the procession. She had cried so much that she almost collapsed with each step she took. Her eldest daughter, Sonia, held her up by the arm. Her other two children followed behind, hand in hand.

  The hearse opened the procession by moving to the pace of those walking; the column of people advanced slowly beneath the drizzle, trickles of cold water, beating on their faces. A cruel wind kept blowing stronger and stronger, letting the first brown leaves of the fall dance a macabre ballet in the air. The dull, clammy sky punctured the menacing clouds. The whole neighborhood was mourning Antonio. A curtain of grayness spread throughout the alleyways and paths, engulfing the inside of buildings, descending into the basements, and covering all the cement and asphalt. It was an unbearable farewell; legs dragged along heavily. The crowd went past the football field and veered left toward the junction, passing beneath the sad expressions hiding behind the curtains of each window in the complex. They then made their way on to the right beyond the gas station. The funeral procession continued straight ahead toward the railway station and, jus
t before the roundabout, turned again to the left to reach the cemetery on the edge of the old city. The beautiful gray roofing and cream-­colored facades of the suburban homes were already discernable.

  Sitting at the wheel of an unmarked police vehicle in front of the annex to the mayor’s office, Police Commissioner Jacques Bridin observed the procession. For him, the situation could potentially explode. The mysterious demise of Antonio Milano, pseudo-political agitator, troublemaker, occasional drug dealer, completely idolized, especially among the ranks of the young people in a problem area like project 6000, could easily exacerbate the tensions between the community and law enforcement.

  Family and friends finally gathered before the priest, standing close to the mother, who was in tears, and the sisters, who were choking in their sobbing, their eyes riveted to the coffin and the gaping hole, ready to welcome Antonio Milano, the beloved brother of Rosa Maria. In the distance, the bad weather rumbled and at times drowned out the moaning in the congregation and the words of the clergyman. Unshakeable in his litany, he evoked the ravages of drugs, a plague of modern times, so young a life called back to the Almighty Lord. He made an appeal for calm so that the soul of the deceased could rest in peace. It was important to continue to have faith.

  When it was over, everyone took turns embracing Angelina and her three daughters, expressions of sorrow, lips murmuring condolences following the embraces. Then the crowd dispersed peacefully, everybody was looking for shelter, the downpour had intensified. It was the most sordid day in Angelina’s life.