Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat [13]
All the street lights were suddenly gone. The streets we drove down now were dim and hazy. The windows were draped with bars; black trash bags blew out into the night air.
There were young men standing on street corners, throwing empty cans at passing cars. My mother swerved the car to avoid a bottle that almost came crashing through the windshield.
"How is Lotus?" she asked. "Donald's wife, Madame Augustin."
"She is fine," I said.
"Atie has sent me cassettes about that. You know Lotus was not meant to marry Donald. Your aunt Atie was supposed to. But the heart is fickle, what can you say? When Lotus came along, he did not want my sister anymore."
There was writing all over the building. As we walked towards it, my mother nearly tripped over a man sleeping under a blanket of newspapers.
"Your schooling is the only thing that will make people respect you," my mother said as she put a key in the front door.
The thick dirty glass was covered with names written in graffiti bubbles.
"You are going to work hard here," she said, "and no one is going to break your heart because you cannot read or write. You have a chance to become the kind of woman Atie and I have always wanted to be. If you make something of yourself in life, we will all succeed. You can raise our heads."
A smell of old musty walls met us at the entrance to her apartment. She closed the door behind her and dragged the suitcase inside.
"You wait for me here," she said, once we got inside. I stood on the other side of a heavy door in the dark hall, waiting for her.
She disappeared behind a bedroom door. I wandered in and slid my fingers across the table and chairs neatly lined up in the kitchen. The tablecloth was shielded with a red plastic cover, the same blush red as the sofa in the living room.
There were books scattered all over the counter. I flipped through the pages quickly. The books had pictures of sick old people in them and women dressed in white helping them.
I was startled to hear my name when she called it.
"Sophie, where are you?"
I ran back to the spot where she had left me. She was standing there with a tall well-dressed doll at her side. The doll was caramel-colored with a fine pointy noise.
"Come," she said. "We will show you to your room."
I followed her through a dark doorway. She turned on the light and laid the doll down on a small day-bed by the window.
I kept my eyes on the blue wallpaper and the water stains that crept from the ceiling down to the floor.
She kept staring at my face for a reaction.
"Don't you like it?" she asked.
"Yes. I like it. Thank you."
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she unbraided the doll's hair, taking out the ribbons and barrettes that matched the yellow dress. She put them on a night table near the bed. There was a picture of her and Tante Atie there. Tante Atie was holding a baby and my mother had her hand around Tante Atie's shoulder.
I moved closer to get a better look at the baby in Tante Atie's arms. I had never seen an infant picture of myself, but somehow I knew that it was me. Who else could it have been? I looked for traces in the child, a feature that was my mother's but still mine too. It was the first time in my life that I noticed that I looked like no one in my family. Not my mother. Not my Tante Atie. I did not look like them when I was a baby and I did not look like them now.
"If you don't like the room," my mother said, "we can always change it."
She glanced at the picture as she picked up a small brush and combed the doll's hair into a ponytail.
"I like the room fine," I stuttered.
She tied a rubber band around the doll's ponytail, then reached under the bed for a small trunk.
She unbuttoned the back of the doll's dress and changed her into a pajama set.
"You won't resent sharing your room, will you?" She stroked the doll's back.