Breath, Eyes, Memory - Edwidge Danticat [49]
"Manman, will you know when your time comes to die?" my mother asked sadly.
"The old bones, they will know."
"I want to be buried here when I die," my mother said.
"You should tell Sophie. She is your daughter. She will respect your wishes."
"I don't want much," my mother said. "I don't want a Mass like you. I want to be buried the day after I die. Just like the old days when we kept our dead home."
"That is reason for you and Sophie to be friends," my grandmother said. "She can carry out your wishes. I can help, but she is your child."
My mother paced the corridor most of the night. She walked into my room and tiptoed over to my bed. I crossed my legs tightly, already feeling my body shivering.
I shut my eyes tightly and pretended to be asleep.
She walked over to the baby and stood over her for a long time. Tears streamed down her face as she watched us sleep. The tears came harder. She turned and walked out.
My mother walked into the room at dawn while I was changing Brigitte's diapers.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"Fine," she said.
"Do you still have trouble sleeping?" I tried to be polite.
"It's worse when I am here," she said.
"Are you having nightmares?"
"More than ever," she said.
My old sympathy was coming back. I remembered the nightmares. Sometimes, I even had some myself. I was feeling sorry for her.
"I thought it was my face that brought them on," I said.
"Your face?"
"Because I look like him. My father. A child out of wedlock always looks like its father."
She seemed shocked that I remembered.
"When I first saw you in New York, I must admit, it frightened me the way you looked. But it is not something that I can help. It is not something that you can help. It is just part of our lives.
"As a woman, your face has changed. You are a different person. Besides, I have always had nightmares. Every night of my life. It was just stronger then, because that was the first time I was seeing that face."
"Why did you put me through those tests?" I blurted out.
"If I tell you today, you must never ask me again."
I wanted to reserve my right to ask as many times as I needed to. I was not angry with her anymore. I had a greater need to understand, so that I would never repeat it myself.
"I did it," she said, "because my mother had done it to me. I have no greater excuse. I realize standing here that the two greatest pains of my life are very much related. The one good thing about my being raped was that it made the testing stop. The testing and the rape. I live both every day."
"You're not dressed yet?" My grandmother was standing in the doorway. "I am ready to go."
My mother placed her hand on my grandmother's shoulder and signaled for her to wait. She turned back to me and said in English, "I want to be your friend, your very very good friend, because you saved my life many times when you woke me up from those nightmares."
My mother went to my grandmother's room to dress and soon they left for the road.
They came back a few hours later with a pan full of bloody pig meat.
In our family, we had come to expect that people can disappear into thin air. All traces lost except in the vivid eyes of one's memory. Still, Tante Atie had never thought that Louise would leave her so quickly, without any last words.
That night, Tante Atie had a glazed look on her face as she ate the fried pork.
"Forgive me if I don't go to Mass ever again. I will choke on the Communion if I take it angry."
Louise had sold her pig, taken my grandmother's money, and left the valley, without so much as a good-bye to Tante Atie.
Chapter 27
I asked Tante Atie if Brigitte and I could sleep in her room with her, the night before we were to return to New York. We put down some sheets on the floor and stretched out with the baby between us.
Tante Atie turned her back to the wall as though she did not want me to see her