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By Root 625 0

at high noon, my uncle thought he’d never make it to the village. The mule was hiking at a steady gait, but my uncle was hot, thirsty, and covered with sweat and his head and backside ached. Still, all he could think of was seeing Marie Micheline and the baby again. He blamed himself for letting Tante Denise send her away when she was pregnant. Why hadn’t he forced her to annul her marriage? He should have been more diligent, much more suspicious. Who marries a pregnant girl—as Léone had asked—even one as pretty and smart as Marie Micheline, unless there’s something else behind it? In Pressoir’s case, that something seemed to have been cruelty and madness.

When he reached the village, my uncle walked to the house of its highest official, the section chief, a toothless old man, who in his own starched denim uniform and dark reflector glasses reminded him of the much younger Pressoir.

“A man whose eyes you can’t look into is not a man you can ever trust,” his father, Granpè Nozial, had often said.

The macoutes had a synchronized look, a coarse veneer that made the thin ones seem stout, the short ones seem tall. In the end they were all equally intimidating because they represented the government. Whether it was Pressoir or this old man, each one had the power to decide whether or not my uncle lived or died, whether or not his daughter lived or died.

Fearfully putting his hand on the old man’s shoulder, my uncle said, “Father, for your hair is white enough and you’re old enough that I can call you father, please help me, another father, free my daughter from her bondage.”

He gave the old man the equivalent of five U.S. dollars, which he wished he could get back when the old man said, “Pressoir’s a real big chief now, a city macoute. None of us can cross him. Your daughter isn’t the only girl he has in this condition. There are many others. Many.”

“Then please, father,” my uncle pleaded while trying to maintain his calm, “do me only this favor. Forget you ever saw me, but I’m not leaving without my daughter and her child.”

“I won’t say anything to him,” the old man said as he pocketed the money. He then reluctantly gave my uncle directions to the one-room house where Marie Micheline was living.

My uncle found the house on a nearby hill, then secured a secluded grazing spot for the mule, where he too rested until dusk. As the moon started peering out of the sky, he watched Pressoir leave in full uniform, perhaps to attend a meeting. His heart began to race. What if there was someone else in there? What if Pressoir came back? What if he failed and only made things worse for Marie and the baby?

Finally he built up enough courage to walk up the hill and into the tiny house. Marie Micheline was lying on her back on a woven banana leaf mat, which aside from a small earthen jar and a kerosene lamp was the only thing in the small shack. The limestone walls were covered with sheets of newspaper, snippets of fading bulletins that he imagined she’d read over and over again to keep herself hopeful, and calm.

“Vini,” my uncle said, reaching down and pulling her up into his arms.

“Papa, is it really you?” she whispered. Now he could see that her legs were covered with pus-filled blisters, open and discolored wounds. Her gaunt face was hot and moist. She had a fever.

“He beat me. He beat me on my legs, with a broom, with fire stones when I tried to escape.” She began to cry, her tears even warmer on his arm than her skin.

“Where’s Ruth?” he asked.

She pointed out the door, toward another hill. The baby was with a family down the road, she whispered.

“They’re good. They will give her to me,” she said.

“Let’s go, then.” As they walked out the door, she stumbled, catching herself just in time before falling nearly flat on her face. He wrapped her body in his arms, thinking that she felt the same to him now as when her father had placed her in his arms as a baby, trusting that he would look after her, that he would always keep her from harm.

Outside, the night sky was full of stars, the kind of stars that he rarely took time to