Haiti Noir - Edwidge Danticat [109]
“Seems like your auntie’s husband has come home to see her.”
“Mind your own business, Tiboguy. How do you know all this?”
“I saw him there on his knees making love faces.”
“Get out of here or I’ll beat you to a pulp.”
Tiboguy ran. At a safe distance, he spread his butt cheeks at her. Moah pretended to chase after him, but when he had gained a good distance, she took the footpath behind the marketplace and headed for Pierre-Paul’s house.
She found him on his veranda, in his green rocking chair.
“Moah, Mo pa mwen, why are you so beautiful? You just want to break an old man’s heart, make me wish I could be thirty years younger.”
“You were never young. Why would you want to be young, old man? Where’s the pail? I want to give you a foot bath.”
“You know where—under the bed. The leaf vendor brought some nice, fresh medicinal leaves. They are on top of the table. Use those cause I’ve got a lot of swelling today.”
Moah went straight for his drawer. She knew he kept money there. Lots of money. There were medals, gold, jewelry, and two old guns. She knew he would not miss anything. She took what she needed and quickly grabbed the bucket.
“Today, I’ve got a story for you. This is going to make you believe the curse of Croix-des-Bouquets.”
“Does it involve you?” she asked.
“No, put this picture in your mind. It’s the heyday of the Duvalier regime, when we were flirting with Cuba and the United States acted like a married man whose mistress was cheating on him. The political air was intense. Many young men had gone to study medicine in Cuba. There was a brilliant young guy who grew up a few blocks from here. His mother was of questionable vocation and thus no one knew his father. He was handsome and smart, so, like we do here in Haiti, he became everybody’s child. When he was about fifteen or sixteen, his mother died. He was taken in by the manbo next door.”
“Wait a minute, does this boy have a name?’
“Yes, he does, but it doesn’t matter because this is your story, my story, our story. He was about twenty when I heard that the manbo married him to èzili. He became the groom of èzili. Whether he knew or understood the implication, I’m not sure, because he fell head over heels in love with a local girl. She was nice. She had been sent to Port-au-Prince to study nursing, but once she fell in love with the boy, she never gave nursing another thought. The boy made a fatal mistake and married her. The manbo became raving mad. She killed the girl’s brother, sister-in-law, and their unborn baby. Then one day soon after, in the manbo’s compound, a young girl was raped and killed. Even though the young doctor was nowhere near the girl or the site, the police arrested him. He spent sixteen years away from the woman he loved and his baby daughter. Finally one day, he finds his way back to her. The manbo found out and killed them both.”
“This happened in Croix-des-Bouquets?”
“No, this is happening in Croix-des-Bouquets.”
“This is the best story you’ve ever told me.” Moah worked methodically as she nursed Pierre-Paul’s swollen limbs.
Everyone knew that Lamercie was going to kill Colin and Haba. She left her compound, machete in hand, her large blue dress flapping in the wind. At first it was the neighborhood kids who followed her. Then the neighborhood gossips. Pretty soon, all of those who lived in the bouk with nothing to do followed her past the cemetery. They followed her past Our Lady of the Rosary, Charlotin, and onto the busy rue Stenio Vincent. She cut through the yard of the old abandoned factory. By the time she got to the front gate of her destination, she was a woman possessed. She pounded on the half wall that held the makeshift gate. She trampled the patch of wild flowers struggling to hold on to the undernourished soil. Somehow, through it all, she heard the clicking of a gun. The crowd looked up.
Some will say that she wore her hat crookedly like some