Brother, I'm Dying - Edwidge Danticat [79]
“How are you, my heart?”
“M nan prizon,” he said. I’m in jail.
“Oh I know,” I said, now missing his real voice, the one that didn’t always sound the same, the one I could no longer fully remember. “I know and I am so sad. I’m so sad and sorry for everything that’s happened both in Haiti and here. But you met with the lawyer?”
“Yes,” he said. “Maxo and I both did.”
“He’s going to get you out,” I said. “He’s a very good lawyer. He’s going to get you out.”
“Okay,” he said. He’d had so many horrible surprises in the last few days, why should he believe that things would start going well now?
“Nèg nan prizon,” he said. “Fò w mache pou wè.” If you live long enough you’ll see everything.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll get you out.”
“They took my medicine.” The machine produced some static as if his finger had slipped off the button that he pressed to keep the voice going. “I also had something for your father, some liquid vitamins. They took that too. And my papers, my notepads, they’re gone. Burned.”
“Don’t worry about all that,” I said. “Just concentrate on getting out tomorrow.”
“Does he know?” he asked. “Does Mira know I’m in here? I didn’t want him to know. He’s so sick. I don’t want him to have this on his mind.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “He knows you’re getting out tomorrow.”
“Do people in Haiti know?” he asked. He was most concerned about his sisters, Tante Zi and Tante Tina.
“I think they know,” I said.
Now even the motorized voice betrayed a hint of shame, the kind of shame whose only reprieve is silence.
“I have to go,” he said. “Others are waiting.”
“How do you feel?” I asked. “If you don’t feel well, tell them.”
“I will,” he said. “I have to go.”
I heard a muffled voice in the background, someone demanding a turn at the pay phone.
“You’re strong,” I said. “Very strong. You have so much more strength than even you know.”
And reluctantly he agreed and said, “Oh yes. It’s true.”
“Just get through tonight,” I said. “Tomorrow, God willing, you’ll be free.”
Afflictions
My father every now and then would quote from the book of Genesis, paraphrasing his favorite lines from the story of Joseph, the youth who was ousted and sold into unfriendly territory by his brothers. My uncle Joseph was named after the rainbow-coated man, but I’d never heard Papa look for parallels between my uncle’s life and the biblical story before.
“Uncle is in his own Egypt this morning, in his land of afflictions,” my father said, when we talked just before nine a.m. the next day.
“He’s going to be all right,” I said. “You just concentrate on Columbia Presbyterian.”
As I was talking to my father, my uncle was waiting with John Pratt outside an asylum unit trailer office at Krome. Leaning over to one of three other detainees also waiting for hearings, my uncle asked the English-speaking Haitian man to tell Pratt that his medication had been taken away. Before Pratt could respond, he and my uncle were called in by asylum officer Castro, a woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties. The asylum interview was about to begin.
My uncle and Pratt were seated at a desk close to the back wall, facing Officer Castro. A certified translator was needed for the proceedings, and since there wasn’t one on the premises, a telephone translation service was called and the interpreter put on speakerphone. The phone was on the desk in front of my uncle, next to Pratt’s lawbooks, notepads and other materials.
The interpreter had trouble understanding my uncle’s voice box, so Officer Castro asked my uncle to move his mouth closer to the phone. As my uncle leaned forward, his hand slipped away from his neck and he dropped his voice box.
The records indicate that my uncle appeared to be having a seizure. His body stiffened. His legs jerked forward. His chair slipped back, pounding the back of his head into the wall. He began to vomit.
Vomit shot out of his mouth, his nose, as well as the tracheotomy hole in his neck. The vomit