The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [38]
“My heart is saddened for the death of your other child,” Kongo said in his best Spanish. He released her hand so that she could better grasp her daughter. “When he died, my son, the ground sank a few folds beneath my feet. I asked myself, How can he die so young? Did the stars visit him upon me in caprice? To teach me that a lifetime can be vast as a hundred years or sudden as a few breaths? Enjoy this one you have left. It all passes so fast. In the time it takes to draw a breath.”
Señora Valencia watched as Kongo walked out. I followed him with my eyes as he strolled down the hill. He laid his hand on Sebastien’s shoulder as if to summon the strength for one more step.
After everyone was gone, Señora Valencia went back to her bed and lay silently awake, watching her daughter sleep at her side. It seemed that she might have regretted exposing herself to the damp morning air and her daughter to outside forces that Kongo and the others might have brought with them, but her son’s death had made her heedless and rash.
When her husband returned, before he could tell her anything about the burial, she told him what she had done for the cane workers.
He did not scold her, but once he discovered that she had used their imported orchid-patterned tea set, he took the set out to the yard and, launching them against the cement walls of the house latrines, he shattered the cups and saucers, one by one.
21
At Christmas, the hills beneath the citadel are full of lanterns. Parents and children join hands to light each other’s faces by the glow of fragile paper shaped to the desires of their hearts. A fanal, a lantern, is like a kite, my father says, a kite that glows but does not fly.
My father always made me lanterns shaped like monuments, a task that took longer than most, the lantern of La Place Toussaint Louverture with a candle glowing inside, the plumed feather-capped hat of General Toussaint, the Cathedral of Cap Haitien with one set of paper used to dye another to look like stained glass, and of course the citadel, which takes twelve months of secret work.
I say to my father, Make me a lantern of your face to carry with me the whole year long.
He laughs, a chortle of paternal pride. It would be too vain, he says, to spend more time than God reproducing one’s self.
22
Rosalinda’s baptism took place only after Señora Valencia’s period of lying in had formally ended. On the baptism day, at the chapel, the pews were filled with a waiting brood of mothers, fathers, godmothers, aunts, and uncles. They had brought their children to Father Vargas for a group baptism. Many of the children were already six or seven years old and were being rebaptized so the Generalissimo could now become their official, albeit absent, godfather.
Señor Pico forced his way past the crowd spilling over outside as his wife carried their daughter to the front row, which was reserved for the more privileged families.
Señora Valencia wore a pale cream dress with a mantilla bordered with the same Valenciennes lace as the tablecloth that had been buried with her son. Papi followed behind her, then Doctor Javier, and Beatriz.
I watched from a distance as Father Vargas poured holy water on Rosalinda’s head welcoming her into the Holy Catholic Church.
After the baptism, I gave my space to the family of a nearly grown boy whose name was about to be changed to Rafael in the Generalissimo’s honor.
Outside the chapel, the valley peasants waited for their turn before the altar. A few playful toddlers chased a baby goat around the