Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat [44]
By the time we ate, the air was pregnant with rain. Thunder groaned in the starless sky while the lanterns flickered in the hills.
"Well done," Tante Atie said after her fourth serving of my rice and beans.
My grandmother chewed slowly as she gave my daughter her bottle.
"If the wood is well carved," said my grandmother, "it teaches us about the carpenter. Atie, you taught Sophie well."
Tante Atie was taken off guard by my grandmother's compliment. She kissed me on the forehead before taking the dishes to the yard to wash. Then, she went into the house, took her notebook, and left for her lesson with Louise.
My grandmother groaned her disapproval. She pulled out a small pouch and packed pinches of tobacco powder into her nose. She inhaled deeply, stuffing more and more into her nostrils.
She had a look of deep concern on her face, as her eyes surveyed the evening clouds.
"Tandé. Do you hear anything?" she asked.
There was nothing but the usual night sounds: birds finding their ways in the dark, as they shuffled through the leaves.
Often at night, there were women who travelled long distances, on foot or on mare, to save the car fare to Port-au-Prince.
I strained my eyes to see beyond the tree shadows on the road.
"There is a girl going home," my grandmother said. "You cannot see her. She is far away. Quite far. It is not the distance that is important. If I hear a girl from far away, there is an emotion, something that calls to my soul. If your soul is linked with someone, somehow you can always feel when something is happening to them."
"Is it Tante Atie, the girl on the road?"
"Non. It is really a girl. A younger woman."
"Is the girl in danger?"
"That's why you listen. You should hear young feet crushing wet leaves. Her feet make a swish-swash when they hit the ground and when she hurries, it sounds like a whip chasing a mule."
I listened closely, but heard no whip.
"When it is dark, all men are black," she said. "There is no way to know anything unless you apply your ears. When you listen, it's kòm si you had deafness before and you can hear now. Sometimes you can't fall asleep because the sound of someone crying keeps you awake. A whisper sounds like a roar to your ears. Your ears are witness to matters that do not concern you. And what is worse, you cannot forget. Now, listen. Her feet make a swish sound and when she hurries it's like a whip in the wind."
I tried, but I heard no whip.
"It's the way old men cry," she said. "Grown brave men have a special way they cry when they are afraid."
She closed her eyes and lowered her head to concentrate.
"It is Ti Alice," she said.
"Who is Ti Alice?"
"The young child in the bushes, it is Ti Alice. Someone is there with her."
"Is she in danger?"
My grandmother tightened her eyelids.
"I know Ti Alice," she said. "I know her mother."
"Why is she in the bushes?"
"She must be fourteen or fifteen years now."
"Why is she out there?"
"She is rushing back to her mother. She was with a friend, a boy."
I thought I heard a few hushed whispers.
"I think I hear a little," I said, rocking my daughter with excitement.
"Ti Alice and the boy, they are bidding one another goodbye, for the night."
My grandmother wrapped her arms around her body, rocking and cradling herself.
"What is happening now?" I asked.
"Her mother is waiting for her at the door of their hut. She is pulling her inside to test her."
The word sent a chill through my body.
"She is going to test to see if young Alice is still a virgin," my grandmother said. "The mother, she will drag her inside the hut, take her last small finger and put it inside her to see if it goes in. You said the other night that your mother tested you. That is what is now happening to Ti Alice."
I have heard it compared to a virginity cult, our mothers' obsession with keeping us pure and chaste. My mother always listened to the echo of my urine in the toilet, for if it was too loud it meant that I had been deflowered. I learned very early in life that virgins always took small steps when they walked. They never did