The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [65]
The air vibrated with a twenty-one-gun salute. People applauded and stomped their feet and sang the Dominican national anthem. “Quisqueyanos valientes,” they began. Perhaps Señor Pico was there, somewhere, watching, listening, advising, participating. I heard sirens and cheers and the stampede of feet over my head, occasionally landing on my hands and shoulders.
The Generalissimo was leaving the church. The sirens. The voices. The hum of army trucks, then another twenty-one-gun salvo for good measure. Cheers erupted as the Generalissimo’s car sped away with a caravan of soldiers and La Orquesta trailing behind him.
I attempted to get up many times, but was shoved back down by people rushing to glimpse the back of his head or to catch a last mote of the dust raised by his automobile.
Finally most of the crowd departed, leaving only a few dawdlers who cursed themselves for missing a glimpse of the Generalissimo, or a glance from him at them, even if only out of the corner of his eyes.
“Get up now.” A couple was standing over us. “Rise.”
Yves was already on his knees, trying to stand. He staggered to his feet and grabbed the side of the fountain to support his weight. Tibon’s face was pressed into the ground, his back covered with foot marks.
A hand lifted me, a soft shoulder was offered for me to lean on.
“The river is not so far away,” a woman’s voice whispered in my ears.
“The river is not so far away,” a man repeated.
I recognized the voices and immediately tried to speak, to ask, “Odette, Wilner, is this truly you?”
My voice came out in one long grunt.
“Save your strength,” Odette said.
“We waited for you and Wilner, Odette,” I tried to say, but I uttered only another long groan.
“Calm yourself,” Odette said. “While these people are running after their Generalissimo, we’re going to a house Wilner knows of. Tomorrow we will go to the river. It is not so far, the river.”
“Will they beat us again, Odette?” I tried to ask.
She thought I wanted to know about Yves and Tibon.
“Only Yves will be coming with us,” she said.
Tibon’s body was left face up near the fountain at the square. Yves and I were dragged down a dark alley between two small houses. Odette’s nervous movements made me feel as though I were being attacked all over again. When I moaned in pain, she thought I was asking about Tibon.
“We leave the dead behind,” she said. “Tibon is dead.”
“We should not leave him,” I tried to say. “Who will bury him? Besides, he was the one who wanted to wait for you and Wilner, Odette.”
She stopped and looked at my face. That time I thought she understood what I was saying.
“We cannot take him with us,” she said. “He is dead. Let your lip rest a bit now. It’s as big as a melon, your lip.”
“But how can we be sure he is dead, Odette?” I asked.
“Oh wi, your lips are as big as melons,” she replied, “and you’ll only waste more blood if you keep knocking them together like this.”
They dragged us into a tiny room behind a house across from the square. The room was almost empty, with only a few sacks of cement piled against the back wall.
Wilner moved around as if trying to find something in the dark. He gave up, went outside, and came back with a cup full of salt water, which Odette held up to my lips. The salt stung my mouth. I spat it out on the front of what was left of my dress.
“We will rest here tonight,” Wilner said, sounding like the echo of his own voice. “Tomorrow, we go to the river.”
Yves sat with his back pressed into one of the cement piles, his shirt soaked with blood. He watched as Odette spread a coarse, itchy blanket over me while I shivered from a fever slowly rising from the hollow of my bones. My chipped and cracked teeth kept snapping against the mush of open flesh inside my mouth. All the pain of first being struck came back to me. I reached up to touch my misshapen face. Odette moved my hands away from my jaws. Wilner was pacing back and forth speaking to himself under his breath. The hand he lay on my forehead when he stopped smelled of parsley. Odette’s clothes smelled of parsley. I closed