Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat [1]
The bòlèt man was coming up the road. He was tall and yellow like an amber roach. The children across the road lined up by the fence to watch him, clutching one another as he whistled and strolled past them.
This albino, whose name was Chabin, was the biggest lottery agent in the village. He was thought to have certain gifts that had nothing to do with the lottery, but which Tante Atie believed put the spirits on his side. For example, if anyone was chasing him, he could turn into a snake with one flip of his tongue. Sometimes, he could see the future by looking into your eyes, unless you closed your soul to him by thinking of a religious song and prayer while in his presence.
I could tell that Tante Atie was thinking of one of her favorite verses as he approached. Death is the shepherd of man and in the final dawn, good will be the master of evil.
"Honneur, mes belles, Atie, Sophie."
Chabin winked at us from the front gate. He had no eyelashes—or seemed to have none. His eyebrows were tawny and fine like corn silk, but he had a thick head of dirty red hair.
"How are you today?" he asked.
"Today, we are fine," Tante Atie said. "We do not know about tomorrow."
"Ki niméro today?" he asked. "What numbers you playing?"
"Today, we play my sister Martine's age," Tante Atie said. "Sophie's mother's age. Thirty-one. Perhaps it will bring me luck."
"Thirty-one will cost you fifty cents," he said.
Tante Atie reached into her bra and pulled out one gourde.
"We will play the number twice," she said.
Even though Tante Atie played faithfully, she had never won at the bòlèt. Not even a small amount, not even once.
She said the lottery was like love. Providence was not with her, but she was patient.
The albino wrote us a receipt with the numbers and the amount Tante Atie had given him.
The children cringed behind the gate as he went on his way. Tante Atie raised her receipt towards the sun to see it better.
"There, he wrote your name," I said pointing to the letters, "and there, he wrote the number thirty-one."
She ran her fingers over the numbers as though they were quilted on the paper.
"Would it not be wonderful to read?" I said for what must have been the hundredth time.
"I tell you, my time is passed. School is not for people my age."
The children across the street were piling up the leaves in Madame Augustin's yard. The bigger ones waited on line as the smaller ones dropped onto the pile, bouncing to their feet, shrieking and laughing. They called one another's names: Foi, Hope, Faith, Esperance, Beloved, God-Given, My Joy, First Born, Last Born, Asefi, Enough-Girls, Enough-Boys, Deliverance, Small Misery, Big Misery, No Misery. Names as bright and colorful as the giant poincianas in Madame Augustin's garden.
They grabbed one another and fell to the ground, rejoicing as though they had flown past the towering flame trees that shielded the yard from the hot Haitian sun.
"You think these children would be kind to their mothers and clean up those leaves," Tante Atie said. "Instead, they are making a bigger mess."
"They should know better," I said, secretly wishing that I too could swim in their sea of dry leaves.
Tante Atie threw her arms around me and squeezed me so hard that the lemon-scented perfume, which she dabbed across her chest each morning, began to tickle my nose.
"Sunday is Mother's Day, non?" she said, loudly sucking her teeth. "The young ones, they should show their mothers they want to help them. What you see in your children today, it tells you about what they will do for you when you are close to the grave."
I appreciated Tante Atie, but maybe I did not show it enough. Maybe she wanted to be a real mother, have a real daughter to wear matching clothes with, hold hands and learn to read with.
"Mother's Day will make you sad,