The Dew Breaker - Edwidge Danticat [75]
The preacher decided to squeeze himself into the chair, which squeaked and swayed unsteadily beneath him. The fat man signaled for the Voice to leave the room and the Voice did so immediately. Even though the wobbly metal mustard door was still open, the size of the room made the preacher feel as though it had been suddenly sealed shut.
The fat man got up from behind his desk and strolled to the preacher’s side. From the preacher’s angle, the fat man seemed quite massive, like some kind of ambulant mountain on giant feet.
“Listen, I’m going to tell you something,” the fat man began in a rather slow, scratchy voice. To the preacher’s wounded, much-pounded-on ears, it sounded as though the fat man was speaking from inside a bucket. “All I want to tell you is that you must stop what you’ve been doing.”
The preacher was feeling restrained in the little chair as if he were chained to it. The tiny bloodsucking pinèz bugs, which inhabited such chairs, were already digging through his now torn and filthy pants, mining his buttocks for their nourishment. The preacher didn’t dare move or scratch himself. Obviously the fat man had some childish game in mind for him. The fat man was going to give him hope and then take it away. He would be questioned, then returned to his cell to wait for his execution or for the next inquisition, which would be even more brutal than his capture.
The fat man was moving closer to him, extending his hefty hand as if to help him out of the small chair. This was probably one of the subtle torture methods the fat man used, reasoned the preacher. He made you uncomfortable, then pretended to relieve your discomfort so you’d feel grateful to him and think he was on your side.
As the fat man leaned in, the preacher began to shake. He didn’t want to appear afraid, but he was. He had been counting on a quick death, not one where he would disappear in stages of prolonged suffering interrupted by a few seconds of relief. He had never thought he’d have reason to hope that maybe his life might be spared. He hadn’t expected the kindness of his cellmates, men of different skin tones and social classes all thrown together in this living hell and helping one another survive it.
From their skeletal frames and festering sores, he could tell that some of them had been there for a long time, waiting, plotting, and dreaming of their release. Many of them were forgotten by the world outside, given up for dead. For indeed they had died. They were being destroyed piece by piece, day by day, disappearing like the flesh from their bones. He didn’t want to die like that, stooped in a filthy corner of the cell with parasites burrowed in his flesh.
Still the fat man’s face kept moving closer to his and the fat hand was still extended, offering to grab him out of the chair. For what? To take him to the real torture chamber? The one he’d always imagined?
The preacher pushed his body back, moving away from the fat man’s hand. The chair squeaked underneath him and crashed, breaking the wooden legs into several pieces and dropping him on the floor. The fat man was still leaning down to him, his hand still extended. Now the hand seemed compelling, urgent, for he needed it to get off the ground. He was going to reach for it when he noticed the fat man smiling, his giant face growing wider with his cheeks spread apart.
The preacher wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t let the devil see him weep, so he lowered his head and pushed his arms behind him to balance himself on the floor.
His hand landed on one of the chair’s broken pieces. He ran his fingers over the ragged edge, which sloped upward toward a sharp tip. He grabbed the piece of wood and aimed. He wanted to strike the fat man’s eyes, but instead the spiked stub ended up in the fat man’s right cheek and sank in an inch or so.
The fat man’s shock worked in his favor, for it allowed him a few seconds to slide the piece of wood down the fat man’s face, tearing the