Edwidge Danticat - Breath, Eyes, Memory

"Mèsi," I said. "Thank you very much. Are you listed in the town record book now?"

"Listed for certain," she said. "Atie listed herself and your grandmother too."

Louise gently stroke the pig's back, letting his tail dart across her chin.

"They had this for us at the Poste and Telegramme bureau." Tante Atie pulled an International Express letter out of her satchel.

The letter bore my mother's Nostrand Avenue address.

"Old woman, where's the cassette machine?" shouted Tante Atie.

My grandmother pointed to her room. Tante Atie rushed inside and came back with their cassette player. She laid it on the steps and ripped open the envelope.

My grandmother walked over and sat on the bottom step. She kept her eyes on the clouding sky as my mother's voice came through the small speakers.

"Allo, Manman, Atie. Good morning or good night, if it's morning or night. I hope your health is good. Me, you know how it goes. I am swimming with the current. At least I'm not in a mental hospital. I hope you got the money I sent last month, Manman. No, I haven't forgotten that little extra you asked me to send, so you can plan your funeral. In any case, there is no hurry. Manman, you are still a young woman.

"Speaking of young people, I don't want to trouble your spirits, but I received a telephone call from Sophie's husband not too long ago, telling me that he was on some sort of musical tour. He left Sophie at home with their child and it happens he keeps calling Sophie at their house and she is not there. He is very uneasy."

I wanted to stop the tape, but my grandmother was listening closely, her wrinkled forehead drawn into a knot.

The pig squealed loudly, momentarily drowning out my mother's voice. My grandmother reached over and yanked the pig's tail. Louise pulled the pig away and buried its face in her chest. The pig whimpered and oinked even louder. Louise placed her hands over its snout and tried to drown out its bawl.

"The husband thought she might have come to spend the time with me. I am already having panic attacks about this. Could be she came to her senses, but not to return to me. I have already lit some candles for her. Green for life, like you've always said."

I tapped the stop button with my toes. The pig began to wail more loudly as though it suddenly felt it could. My grandmother got up and went back to her cooking.

"Isn't it time you reconciled?" Tante Atie said.

Louise tied the pig to a pole in the yard. My grandmother fed it a pile of old avocado peels before we ate.

"How much money do you still need to pay for the trip?" I asked Louise.

"I made only ten gourdes since the last time you saw me," she said.

Brigitte stretched out her hand to grab the fireflies buzzing around us.

After the meal, we sat on the back porch and listened as Atie read from her notebook.

She speaks in silent voices, my love.

Like the cardinal bird, kissing its own image.

Li palé vwa mwin, Flapping wings, fallen change Broken bottles, whistling snakes

And boom bang drums.

She speaks in silent voices, my love.

I drink her blood with milk And when the pleasure peaks, my love leaves.

Louise had helped her paraphrase the poem from a book of French poetry that Louise had read when she was still in school.

"You're a poet too," I said to Tante Atie.

She pressed her notebook against her chest.

After her reading, she and Louise strolled into the night, like silhouettes on a picture postcard.

My grandmother took the cassette player to her room to listen to the rest of my mother's message.

I heard my mother's voice coming through the thin walls.

"I am not having the short breath anymore, but every so often, I do find myself dreaming the bad dreams. I thought it would end, but lately it seems to be beginning all over again."

Brigitte was still awake, even after my grandmother fell asleep. I wrapped her in a thick blanket, took her outside to show her the sky. Tante Atie was sitting on the steps feeding the pig.

"Is it male or female?" I asked.

"What difference does it make to the pig?" she asked.

"I want to give it a name."

"Call it Paul or Paulette, Jean or Jeanne. The pig will not protest. You do not have to name something to make it any more yours."

"Are you in a sour mood?"

"My life, it is nothing," she said.

"What is the matter? Do you miss Croix-des-Rosets?"

"Croix-des-Rosets was painful. Here, though, there is nothing. Nothing at all. The sky seems empty even when I am looking at the moon and stars."

There were drums throbbing in the distance. Some staccato conch shells answered the call.

"I wish I had never left you," I said.

"You did not leave me. You were summoned away. We must graze where we are tied."

"I wish I had stayed with you."

"You must not go back and rearrange your life. It is no use for what has already happened. Sometimes, there is nothing we can do."

"Do you want to go back to Croix-des-Rosets?" I asked.

"I know old people, they have great knowledge. I have been taught never to contradict our elders. I am the oldest child. My place is here. I am supposed to march at the head of the old woman's coffin. I am supposed to lead her funeral procession. But even if lightning should strike me now, I will say this: I am tired. I woke up one morning and I was old myself."

She threw a small green mango at the pig.

"They train you to find a husband," she said. "They poke at your panties in the middle of the night, to see if you are still whole. They listen when you pee, to find out if you're peeing too loud. If you pee loud, it means you've got big spaces between your legs. They make you burn your fingers learning to cook. Then still you have nothing."

The pig jumped up in the air to catch an avocado peel. The jump tightened the cord around its neck, nearly causing it to choke. Tante Atie rushed over and loosened the rope.

"Take your baby inside," she said. "I know you have heard them, the frightening stories of the night."

The pig oinked all night. Tante Atie woke up several times to check on it. My grandmother got up to see what all the commotion was about.

"That Louise causes trouble." My grandmother turned her wrath to Tante Atie. "Everything from her shadow to that pig is trouble."

"Don't trouble me tonight, old woman." Tante Atie strained to control her voice.

The pig started a slow nasal whine.

"I will kill it," said my grandmother. "I will kill it."

My daughter woke up with a sharp cry.

I fed her and rocked her back to sleep. The pig, it was still crying, but there was nothing I could do.

Louise was out of breath when she ran up to the house the next morning. Her face was reddened with tears and her blouse soaked with sweat.

My grandmother motioned for me to take the baby inside the house. I backed myself into the doorway while clinging tightly to my daughter.

I watched from the threshold as Tante Atie gave Louise a cup of cold water from the jug beneath the porch.

"Li allé. It's over," Louise said, panting as though she had both asthma and the hiccups at the same time. "They killed Dessalines."

"Who killed Dessalines?" asked my grandmother.

"The Macoutes killed Dessalines."

Louise buried her head in Tante Atie's shoulder. Their faces were so close that their lips could meet if they both turned at the same time.

"Calm now," said Tante Atie, as she massaged Louise's scalp.

"That's why I need to go," sobbed Louise. "I need to leave."

"A poor man is dead and all you can think about is your journey," snapped my grandmother.

"Next might be me or you with the Macoutes," said Louise.

"We already had our turn," said my grandmother. "Sophie, you keep the child behind the threshold. You are not to bring her out until that restless spirit is in the ground."