Edwidge Danticat - Breath, Eyes, Memory

"I am very worried about her state of mind," I said. "It was like two people. Someone who was trying to hold things together and someone who was falling apart."

"You feel she was only pretending to be happy."

"Deep inside, yes."

"Why?"

"That's always how she's survived. She feels that she has to stay one step ahead of a mental institution so she has to hold it together at least on the surface."

"What has she decided to do with the baby?"

"She is probably taking it out as we speak."

"What do you mean she's taking it out?"

"Losing it. Dropping it. I can't say it."

"An abortion?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"She says she hears the baby saying things to her. He says hurtful things, this baby."

"Your mother hears a voice?"

"Yes."

"Has she always heard voices?"

"When I lived with her, it was just the nightmares, her reliving the experience over and over again."

"And now she hears these voices?"

"Yes."

"If she's afraid of therapy, perhaps your mother should have an exorcism."

"An exorcism?"

"I am not joking. She should have a release ritual. The kind of things you do with the sexual phobia group. You can help."

"She is afraid to deal with anything that would make this more real."

"It has to become frighteningly real before it can fade."

"It's always been real to her," I said. "Twenty-five years of being raped every night. Could you live with that? This child, it makes the feelings stronger. It takes her back to a time when she was carrying me. Even the time when she was living with me. That's why she is trying to get the child out of her body."

"I think she needs an exorcism. Has she told her lover that she wants to abort?"

"I wish you wouldn't call him that."

"Why not?"

"It sounds-" I hesitated.

"Sexual?"

"Yes."

"Too sexual to be linked with your mother? I think you have a Madonna image of your mother. Part of you feels that this child is a testimonial of her true sexuality. It's a child she conceived willingly. Maybe even she is not able to face that."

"I just want her to be okay," I said.

"Does her lover know that she doesn't want the baby?"

"The way my mother acts, he probably think it's the best thing that's ever happened to her. I don't think she's ever really explained to him about how I was born."

"Do you think he would want her to have the baby?"

"Not if he knew what it was doing to her. I don't think so."

"And you think she's aborting right now?"

"Before I came here, I called her and she wasn't there. I called her at work and she wasn't there."

"So she's going to do this on her own. Without her lover."

"I think she'll lose her mind if she doesn't."

"I really think you should convince her to seek help."

"I can't convince her," I said. "She's always thought that she was crazy already, that she had just fooled everybody."

"It's very dangerous for her to go on like she is."

"I know."

I drove past Davina's house. She was at work, but I had my own key to our room. I went in and sat in the dark and drank some verbena tea by candlelight. The flame's shadows swayed across Erzulie's face in a way that made it seem as though she was crying.

On the way out, I saw Buki's balloon. It was in a tree, trapped between two high branches. It had deflated into a little ball the size of a green apple.

We thought it had floated into the clouds, even hoped that it had traveled to Africa, but there it was slowly dying in a tree right above my head.

Joseph was on the couch, rocking the baby, when I came home. She was sleeping in his arms, with her index and middle fingers in her mouth. Joseph took her to our room and put her down without saying a word. He came back and pulled me down on the sofa. He picked up the answering machine and played me a message from Marc.

"Sophie, je t'en prie, call me. It's about your mother."

Marc's voice was quivering, yet cold. It seemed as though he was purposely forcing himself to be casual.

I grabbed Joseph's collar, almost choking him.

"Let's not jump to any wild conclusions," he said.

"I am wondering why she is not calling me herself," I said.

"Maybe she's had a complication with the pregnancy."

"She was going to have an abortion today."

"Keep calm and dial."

The phone rang endlessly. Finally her answering machine picked up. "S'il vous plait, laissez-moi un message. Please leave me a message." Impeccable French and English, both painfully mastered, so that her voice would never betray the fact that she grew up without a father, that her mother was merely a peasant, that she was from the hills.

We sat by the phone all night, alternating between dialing and waiting.

Finally at six in the morning, Marc called.

His voice was laden with pain.

"Sophie. Je t'en prie. I am sorry."

He was sobbing.

'What is it?" I asked.

'Calme-toi. Listen to me."

'Listen to what?"

'I am sorry," he said.

'Put my mother on the phone. What did you do?"

'It's not me."

'Please, Marc. Put my mother on the phone. Where is she? Is she in the hospital?"

He was sobbing. Joseph pressed his face against mine. He was trying to listen.

"Is my mother in the hospital?"

"Non. She is rather in the morgue."

I admired the elegance in the way he said it. Now he would have to say it to my grandmother, who had lost her daughter, and to my Tante Atie, who had lost her only sister.

"Am I hearing you right?" I asked.

"She is gone."

Joseph pressed harder against me.

"What happened?" I was shouting at Marc.

"I woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I wake up and she's not there, so I was not worried. Two hours passed and I woke up again, I went to the bathroom and she was lying there."

"Lying there? Lying where? Talk faster, will you?"

"In blood. She was lying there in blood."

"Did she slip and fall?"

"It was very hard to see."

"What was very hard to see?"

"She had a mountain of sheets on the floor. She had prepared this."

"What?"

"She stabbed her stomach with an old rusty knife. I counted, and they counted again in the hospital. Seventeen times."

"Are you sure?"

"It was seventeen times."

"How could you sleep?" I shouted.

"She was still breathing when I found her," he said. "She even said something in the ambulance. She died there in the ambulance."

"What did she say in the ambulance?"

"Mwin pa kapab enkò. She could not carry the baby. She said that to the ambulance people."

"How could you sleep?" I was screaming at him.

"I did the best I could," he said. "I tried to save her. Don't you know how I wanted this child?"

"Why did you give her a child? Didn't you know about the nightmares?" I asked.

"You knew better about the nightmares," he said, "but where were you?"

I crashed into Joseph's arms when I hung up the phone.

It was as if the world started whirling after that, as though I had no control over anything. Everything raced by like a speeding train and I, breathlessly, sprang after it, trying to keep up.

I grabbed my suitcase from the closet and threw a few things inside.

"I am going with you," Joseph said.

"What about Brigitte? Who will look after her? I can't take her into this."

"Let's sit down and think of some way."

I didn't have time to sit and think.

"You stay. I go. It's that simple."

He didn't insist anymore. He helped me pack my bag. We woke up the baby and he drove me to the bus station.

We held each other until the bus was about to pull out.

I gave Brigitte a kiss on the forehead.

"Mommy will bring you a treat from the market."