The Dew Breaker - Edwidge Danticat [77]
“What have you done?” Rosalie shouted, her pistol aimed at his head.
“He attacked me,” the fat man replied, catching his breath.
“How could you let this happen?” Rosalie slowly lowered her pistol. She seemed aware that all the wardens and militiamen were watching her and taking note of her reaction. She was like the queen of a fire ant nest. If she needed to, she could leave the other ants behind to attack, but she didn’t. Not yet.
“I told you to let him go,” she said.
When he looked down at the preacher’s corpse, his arms and legs spread out, a puddle of blood growing around his torso, the fat man wanted to vomit. Since he’d disobeyed the palace’s orders twice now, it was possible that he would be arrested, even executed.
He took a few steps away from the body. Stumbling past his colleagues, he tottered through the prison corridor, and soon he was out in the yard where the prisoners were allowed an hour in the sunlight each day.
“Where are you going?” Rosalie was following him.
He kept on walking until he’d crossed the entire yard, shuffling through a smaller building until he was outside again, this time in a patch of dried-out dandelion weeds near the front gates. It was only then that he emptied his stomach and once he’d begun, it seemed as if his retching would never stop.
At first he was alone out there near the gates; then Rosalie and the others joined him, circling him.
When there was nothing left in his stomach, Rosalie leaned toward him and said, “You’re not well. I’ll take you home.”
“I’ll get there myself,” he said.
Then Rosalie signaled for the gatekeeper, whom the wardens had nicknamed Legba, to open the gates to let him out.
“You should be all right,” Rosalie said, patting him on the back. “I’ll think of something to explain all this.”
He didn’t feel reassured. Ultimately she would do what was best for her, taking responsibility if the president changed his mind once again and applauded the preacher’s death or leaving the blame on him if she was reproached.
He walked out through the front gate thinking he was going to be shot in the back, either by his colleagues or by Legba, the gatekeeper. However, he managed to cross the threshold alive.
Once he was out on the street, he felt for his face, finding his fingertips delving inside his own flesh, as though he’d been wearing a rubber mask that was peeling away. Following the contour of the prison wall, he continued walking until he thought he was out of the range of fire, then stood at the corner on the edge of the block where the prison ended and the rest of the neighborhood began.
What would he do now? Where would he go? He should go to a hospital, but would he be safe there?
He felt another urge to retch, but even as his body tried its best to pour out his stomach contents, nothing came out. Then something hit him, something like a large, blind animal fleeing at a hundred miles per hour.
It was a woman, a madwoman it seemed. She was wearing a white satin nightgown that looked like a full slip. The nightgown was entirely soaked with sweat that glued it to her bony body. Her short hair was wild, as though each strand were standing up in protest, her eyes filled with rage and confusion.
After she’d slammed her body into his, she stopped and looked up at his lacerated face. He hoped she wasn’t someone he’d harmed or nearly killed, someone who’d been in the torture chamber adjacent to his office, for he wanted sympathy, compassion from her. He wanted her to have pity on him, take him to her house and bandage him. Even if she despised him for some reason or another, he wanted her to help him, so he quickly mouthed the word “Tanpri,” Please, and heard the same word come out of her mouth at the same time, and he remembered how his mother used to say that when you spoke the exact same words as someone else at the exact same time, it meant that the two of you would die on the same day. He hoped that his plea merging with hers wouldn’t lead to her dying sooner than she was supposed to. Who was she, anyway? Was she a mother, a wife, a sister who was