Edwidge Danticat - Haiti Noir

Sometimes I could feel the other mother’s despair overwhelm her, and her moist eyes would make me even angrier. Apparently, she didn’t understand that when you’re used to getting hit, one part of you hangs onto the leather of the strap and you absolutely must not flinch when it grazes your skin. On the contrary, you get your back up, you brace yourself and you wait for what’s coming, with your arms ready to pick up the broken pieces. And yet sometimes, in a flash, I could see the same dry, desperate determination in her eyes, which too often looked faded. Under her fragile appearances, was she, too, hiding rage strong enough to turn life upside down and give her little girl a chance?

And then one day Beatrice announced that in accordance with the aunt’s orders, she had scheduled an appointment with the lawyer to begin the proceedings. That TB was going to inform us of her decision very soon. As she saw us jerk in alarm, Beatrice quickly added that she didn’t know what the decision was. She would learn which of the little girls would be adopted at the same time we did. I managed to keep a poker face but I could feel my heart beating as if it wanted to jump from my chest and howl out its helplessness. The other could no longer hide her panic. Her fragility irritated me more and more. I would have liked her to be tough and unshakable like me-a formidable enemy, not a doll, easily smashed. Sometimes she would lean on the table as if she couldn’t bear life any longer, with her baby on her hip. We often carried our little ones that way, like a bump on our side that wriggled and gurgled from time to time.

When the little girls’ glances met, I wondered whether each one thought she saw her own reflection turning toward her. Of course, we could tell them apart, the other mother and I. I’d pick mine up and right away I could feel her little arms and legs clenching my body in total abandon, and in spite of myself I would lose some of my cynicism. How could I resist those tiny fingers clinging to my hair?

“Actually, you two resemble each other too,” Beatrice declared. “That’s why the little girls look like twins. My brother liked that type of woman. Ethereal, and a bit distant, taciturn. Both orphaned at an early age. Both frail, and mysterious,” she added with a knowing smile. As if we reminded her of a character in those romance novels she was always devouring. It’s true that we looked a bit alike, the other mother and I. We were the same age, both of us slender women with distant gazes. But I had discovered real differences very quickly. Through the other one’s dull eyes, I could see the trembling of a woman asking for friendship. Physically, too, she would sway from time to time like a rootless plant shrinking under the heat of the sun. Sometimes Beatrice would give her a worried look. “I’ll take you to the doctor if this keeps up.” Egalitarian to the very end, she wanted to include me in the consultation. Or maybe it was one of the great-aunt’s criteria. A medical evaluation of the two mothers before the definitive choice.

We were informed of the decision two days before the other mother had her first heart attack, four days before her death. As if her organism refused to assimilate the magnitude of the new situation. The announcement that the great-aunt would pay for the funeral quieted the discontented grumbling of the parents of the deceased far more than the verdict of the doctor who had hurriedly been called in. The young woman’s heart had collapsed. From New York, TB demanded an autopsy, furious at the fate that had interfered with her plans. But the family-cousins and an old uncle who seemed greedy and self-serving-were against it. No way they were going to cut apart their relative’s body. All they needed was a few thousand extra gourdes to do what had to be done.

The money was quickly paid, and an old woman came in with her panoply of leaves and bottles blackened by years of use. She shut herself up with the body to ward off any illintentioned attempt to get hold of the corpse after burial. The guilty party or parties would be punished. With the old mambo’s expertise, it would not be possible to turn their cousin into a zombie. The rumors of evil actions went on for a few days and then went to feed the store of tales to be told.

The great-aunt was more indignant than ever at the country that once again proved how little it could be trusted. Young or old, people were dying like flies. But God moves in mysterious ways. For this death-so unfortunate and unexpected- confirmed her decision: more than ever, the little orphan needed all the help she could get. As for Beatrice, she repeated to all the visitors that before the other mother died, her aunt had a dream in which Aramis whispered which one of the two little girls to adopt. The Salnave family had always boasted of very strong spiritual connections with deceased relatives.

Meanwhile, they gave the little orphan to me, the surviving mother. Still stunned by the rapidity of my action and its consequences, I cradled her with my own daughter. I had hatched my plan hastily, no doubt, but it was pretty smart. I couldn’t believe I was really carrying it out. All I had done, in fact, was take advantage of a given situation and wait for nature to take its course. After the very first visit to the doctor, even before the great-aunt announced her decision, Beatrice had confided that the other mother had a heart condition and had to be spared any strong emotion. The doctor had prescribed medicine and a special diet. Her lifestyle had to change to limit risk factors. Beatrice repeated the entire doctor’s jargon to me with a worried look. I listened with the appropriate expression on my face, without playing it up too much, already thinking of ways to exploit this illness, a gift from heaven. I needed to increase the “risk factors,” because the other one had to disappear for my plan to succeed. If I didn’t watch out for my daughter’s interests, who would? That was the least I could do for this child. She hadn’t asked me for anything and I had brought her into the world. It was fine to say that the two little girls would be cared for, but how could I not dream of that expansive horizon offered to the one who’d be taken in by the great-aunt? How could I not want to prevent my child from taking that long, sterile road I had gone down, the permanent anxiety of never knowing what tomorrow will bring, the feeling of walking with your arms dangling helplessly at your side in a perpetual state of frustration and rage?

I didn’t go to the other mother’s funeral. I stayed with the two babies. On that day, I said goodbye to my daughter.

It was so easy to substitute one for the other, to comb my baby’s hair the way the other mother combed hers, to switch the few articles of their clothing that were different, to put one stuffed rabbit in place of the other. It never would have worked if the other mother were still alive. She would have seen through the swindle right away. But I didn’t touch her that night. I could have activated the process, hastened the end. I did nothing of the kind. I let fate decide what would happen next. Who knows? They might have found her still alive at dawn.

That night, I’d been awakened by a thump and a child’s whimpers. Instinctively-a child’s sigh now had the power to dictate my actions-I turned my head to the cradle. My daughter was sleeping peacefully. I walked through the doorway between the two bedrooms.

The other mother was writhing on her bed. I took care of the baby first, gave her back her pacifier, before turning to the shrunken form on the rumpled bed. That’s when I noticed her pale, literally twisted face. With one hand on her left breast and her features ugly with pain, she was inhaling noisily, a wild sound wrenched from her guts. The Bible she read every evening before she went to sleep was lying on the floor. My first reaction was to look for her medication; the pills Beatrice had brought back from the pharmacy, and put one under her tongue as the doctor ordered. Then I held back. Why would I do that? I gently covered the sleeping child in her cradle and patted her little raised bottom. I had nothing against that little girl. She was my own baby’s sister, and besides, she was indispensable for my plan. Before leaving the room, I turned my head to the other mother. It seemed to me she was trying to raise her hand in my direction. I could hear her increasingly awful gasps, like calls for help stuck in the bottom of her throat, unable to reach the voice. For a second, her eyes-two frightened butterflies, prisoners of silence and pain-rested upon me. I turned mine slowly away.