Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat [39]
"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."
In the fairy tales, the Tonton Macoute was a bogeyman, a scarecrow with human flesh. He wore denim overalls and carried a cutlass and a knapsack made of straw. In his knapsack, he always had scraps of naughty children, whom he dismembered to eat as snacks. If you don't respect your elders, then the Tonton Macoute will take you away.