Haiti Noir - Edwidge Danticat [63]
“Don’t say a word,” she heard the one carrying her say. “If you cry for help, we’ll blow your head off. Do you hear?”
An intense fear invaded her, causing her to feel even dizzier. She was much too afraid to yell. Besides, everything was happening so fast that she had trouble concentrating on any one thing.
Soon she was in the back of a jeep with darkened windows. The man threw her in headfirst and quickly placed a dirty black rag over her eyes. He turned her on her belly and tugged at both her arms, forcing them behind her, ripping the sleeves of her blouse in the process. She could hear the tearing of duct tape, which he used to wrap her arms and hands together. Then he turned her on her back and placed a strip of tape over her mouth.
When the door slammed shut and the car barreled away, she fell on the floor between the front and back seats— cracking, she was almost sure of it, one of her ribs. Only as the sharp pain of the fall shot through her body did she realize fully what had happened. She was barefoot. Her shoes and her purse were gone. Over the hum of the car engine beneath her and the bounce of the bumpy road, she heard the loud chatter of commerce at the port and realized that they were driving along Bicentennial Road.
She had been kidnapped, she could now fully admit it to herself. On Bicentennial Road, at the seashore, albatrosses and pelicans used to glide low over the waves as large vessels approached the port. This, of course, was during another time, when she was free.
A shudder ran through Rosanna’s body when they arrived at what she imagined was the hideout. They removed the tape on her legs so that she could walk but kept the blindfold on her eyes and the tape on her mouth. One bandit placed her hand on his shoulder so that she could follow him like a blind person with a guide. Underneath her feet were muddy rocks and puddles. Then there was a stretch of dry earth. She heard the unlocking of a padlock and felt a shove on her back: she was being pummeled against what felt like an unfinished concrete wall. She hobbled along a corner, offering her now severely aching back some support. Nearby, as if in the next room, she heard some dogs barking. They sounded like hungry dogs, she thought, her heart racing. She wondered if eventually they would use these hungry dogs against her. She pushed her back deeper into the wall and tried to remain still.
A rancid smell hung in the air as the men paced back and forth around her. One was wearing boots, she could now tell by the way his feet hit the concrete on the ground. The other was wearing regular shoes, fake leather loafers, it sounded like to her. There was no air passing through the room. Perhaps there was no window.
“Now,” the man with the boots said, “let’s get started with the important part!”
It seemed that their plans for a ransom demand had already been set in motion. The one with the boots would make the call, they decided, while the other one remained in the room guarding Rosanna.
Before he left, the one with the boots ordered Rosanna through clenched teeth, “Don’t cause any trouble and you won’t get hurt.”
Rosanna tried to anchor herself against the wall, which was hard with both hands taped behind her back. She thought of Davernis who might be looking for her, of Aunt Solange who had not wanted her to take the camion in the first place, but had given in to make her happy. She thought of the stories of other kidnappings she’d heard in the past. The men were always beaten badly. The women were often raped. Some small children had been killed when the ransom was not paid. She thought of the shock that this could cause Aunt Solange.
Davernis drove back home as fast as he could. He was screaming like a madman when he got to the front door of Solange’s compound. From the slew of words that came out of his mouth, the only ones Solange could understand were: “Rosanna has disappeared!”
“What did you say? What do you mean, Rosanna has disappeared?” demanded Solange.
“Madame Solange,