Haiti Noir - Edwidge Danticat [51]
Using the boulder his daughter had sat on to rest his drunken and spinning head, Gaspard lay down on the sand and with his eyes glued to the scattered stars, he promised the heavens that he would never try to give her away again.
Most of the townspeople had left, except for a few young men who had nowhere to sleep and were grateful for the company all the commotion had afforded them. They and a few other stragglers set up for the night, arranging their sleeping bags and sisal mats and bedsheets in a protective circle around Gaspard.
Every once in a while, one of them would walk to Gaspard’s shack and peek inside, checking for Claire. They did this without asking Gaspard if they should and timed themselves so that they checked every half hour or so, when it seemed Gaspard might want to go and check himself. The entire night was spent like this, until worry, exhaustion, and drink overcame Gaspard and he finally slept.
The next morning, Gaspard woke up at the usual time that he would have been heading out to sea. The air was gray and growing lighter and the young men were still asleep. Gaspard’s head ached, his temples still throbbing. He staggered to the house and checked all the corners once more. Claire had not returned.
It suddenly occurred to him where his daughter might be. His heart was pounding and he was nearly breathless as he half walked and half ran through town. The early mass was beginning at the cathedral as the bell chimed the six a.m. hour. A large crowd of sick people had already gathered in front of the town hospital, hoping to be seen at the clinic that day. The streets were already crowded with cars and moto taxis ferrying people to and from the outdoor markets. He felt the gazes of people on his face as he raced past them, too quickly for them to say hello and for him to respond. He could barely breathe as he sped by the cane field toward the burial site.
At first he did not see her, lying on her side, coiled up like a baby on the dew-soaked red earth. Her head was resting on a large stone, half leaning against the farthest tip of her mother’s grave. She was still wearing her pink muslin birthday dress and a quarter of her face now seemed buried in the ground, showing that she had been there for some time, possibly all night long. Bending over, he placed his cheek next to her nose. He thought he felt a warm stream of breath against the cool earth, but it was his not hers. Reaching down, he pulled her into his arms and pressed her against his chest.
“Claire Limyè Lanmè?” he said, wanting to finish a thought, but not sure which.
Her eyes were wide open but she was not looking at him. She was looking somewhere off in a distance, past him. He swayed his hand back and forth in front of her face, but she did not blink. Her arms and legs were limp the way they were before she woke up from a very deep sleep.
“Claire Limyè Lanmè?” he said again. He felt her damp dress, and when he saw the blood that ran from the side of her face onto her shoulder, it did not startle him. She had pounded her head against the ground several times, it seemed, before one side of her forehead gave way in the form of a crack that had seeped with blood and further reddened the earth around her.
THE HAREM
BY IBI AANU ZOBOI
Delmas
The women called him Robby. A flash of his gorgeous smile, his fake Rolex watch, and a flick of his shoulder-length dreads would get him a phone number. Only after a few date nights, when he’d join them in bed, would they know his full name: Jean-Robert Dieujuste. But he insisted that they mustn’t ever call him that. To most of Pétionville’s young and fabulous, he was Robby, the smoothtalking Haitian sensation whose café-au-lait complexion and designer-looking clothes made the women fight each other, as he would oftentimes relay to his childhood friend, coworker, and roommate Antonio, better known as Toni.
“Ah, you get too involved, Robby,” Toni