Haiti Noir - Edwidge Danticat [57]
Maybe he was crazy for bringing her here, he thought as they entered his and Toni’s room. He could hear more singing and praying through the window that had earlier allowed children’s laughter to wake him. He helped Minouche onto Toni’s bed as she moaned in pain then mumbled something— another curse or demand. The whole world may be wanting a hospital or doctor, but his Minouche was safer here; he could care for her better than any doctor or nurse. He kissed her forehead once more and placed a single finger on her lips. She groaned in pain as he wrapped a towel around her bloody foot. She could barely ask for water.
He found some in the tiny kitchen and put a cup to her lips. She did not sip, she just let the water drip past her lips onto the pillow. He lay next to her for a moment, pulling her body close to his. Then he checked on Tanya, kissing her softly on the forehead as well. She was already cold and clammy, rigor mortis having set in. Both his girls were so peaceful. If indeed the devil had raised the earth, then it was here in his nearly unscathed bedroom that God lived. But Caroline was still out there. Unprotected by him, unsafe.
Minouche squeezed his arm, signaling for him not to go. She didn’t appear to notice Tanya in the next bed. Or maybe she was in too much pain to care. He kissed both their foreheads again. Minouche was getting warm, either from the heat or from an infection. Her body was shivering too. He wondered whether she’d be alive when he returned.
Outside, he managed to climb into a packed tap tap heading up the hill. It was full of people praying, crying, and cursing at their cell phones for not working. There was a body sprawled out on the floor by their feet. Robby avoided their eyes and the arguments about what had happened and thought of only Caroline’s face and how she looked in that dress the night before.
Caroline never stayed in her NGO’s office past two. Robby hoped that she had been safely nestled in her large, sturdy home. He jumped out of the tap tap at the foothill leading up to her minimansion.
Out of habit, he dialed her number on his cell phone, but of course there was no reception. At the still-standing high metal gates, he called out her name, but she did not answer. There were no lights on in the house, or anywhere for that matter, and everyone seemed to be in the streets. Her car was not in the driveway.
He remembered how she’d sometimes call him in the evening. If he didn’t answer because he was with Tanya or Minouche, she wouldn’t care. She’d tell him that he was free to do as he wished. He was more attractive to her, she told him, because she had to compete for him.
If Robby was indeed the ghost he was starting to believe himself to be, then he would have been brought back to life by the lilting sound of Caroline’s voice. Then he turned around to see her running toward him through a crowd of her neighbors gathered in small groups holding bedsheets and pillows, as if preparing to lay down in the middle of the street for the night. She hugged and kissed him, and he picked her up and swung her around.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Come back to my place,” he said immediately, while staring at her made-up face, neatly combed hair, and clean blouse.
“Your place? Robby, I can’t even go back into my own house,” she replied, dusting off his clothes with her hands.
Someone, another man, called her name in the distance.
“I’m coming!” Caroline shouted back to him.
“Who’s that?” Robby asked.
“Victor. He’s a friend,” she said, not looking into his eyes. “Some of us are going to sleep in his yard. It should be safe there.”
Robby pulled her toward him, making sure that this Victor person could see them. She wiggled away from him, and he drew her back to him.
“Robby, what’s wrong with you? You