The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [7]
“He returns from the barracks often enough,” I said, trying to make my way out of the conversation. “When he’s at home you’re always elsewhere. You should ask Señora Valencia your questions, Doctor.”
“I’m weary of military men,” he said, not discouraged by my lack of interest. “They don’t often like me, those men of the Guardia, even those like Pico who are old acquaintances. But let us put this thought aside for a moment. Amabelle, what I wish to tell you is this: I’m quite anxious about the little girl.”
“Isn’t she healthy?” I asked.
“If Valencia feeds her well, she could become robust in a few weeks. But she is so small. Can you make certain that she nurses her often? Please tell Juana too. She may also be looking after the children.”
“And the boy?”
“He looks healthy. It’s little Rosalinda who makes me anxious.” He turned his empty cup upside down on the saucer, a signal that he didn’t want any more coffee. “Let me also say this to you, Amabelle. You should leave here and become a midwife in Haiti.”
I felt my eyebrows shoot up, my mouth forming a grimace that might be interpreted as a smile.
“I am not a midwife,” I said. “And I haven’t been across the border since I was a child of eight years.”
“You can be trained,” he said. “Valencia once told me that you can read and write. People like you are needed at the small clinic I sometimes visit across the river. We have only two Haitian doctors for a large area. I cannot go there all the time, and I know of only one or two midwives in that region of the border. You are greatly needed.”
“You’re kind to think so highly of me, Doctor.”
“Would you like to go?”
“There is much to consider—”
“Consider all of it, then,” he said as he left me.
I was still feeling pleased by the doctor’s proposal when Juana walked into the pantry with the house linen folded in a basket.
“I received some coffee from my sisters today,” Juana said. Juana’s two younger sisters, Ana and Maria, were both nuns living in a convent orphanage in a mountain village close to the border.
Juana pulled a ripe yellow mango out of her pocket and handed it to me. “I know you would have picked that one if you passed it on the tree,” she said.
I immediately sank my teeth into the mango, letting the thick, heavy juices fill my mouth.
“How is the señora?” she asked.
“Didn’t you hear the screams?”
“What screams?”
“The señora in labor.”
“Baby?”
“Babies!”
She dropped the linen basket on the floor, then bent down and picked up all the scattered sheets. Juana was a heavy woman whose every movement was exaggerated by the expanse of her flesh. Her pale hands were large but fragile looking, as though they would explode if you stuck a needle in them.
“How many babies?” she asked, her head bobbing with excitement.
“How many could it be? She’s not a hen.”
“Two?”
“One boy and one girl.”
“Twin babies in this house,” she said, crossing herself. “This is for certain the doing of Santas Felicitas and Perpetua. Where’s the señora now?”
“In her room, with Doctor Javier.”
“Oh! It was Santa Monica’s doing, bringing Doctor Javier on time.”
“He came too late,” I said, neglecting the modesty I had been taught in childhood by my parents. “I birthed the babies myself. It happened so quickly, you would call it a miracle.”
“Miracles always happen in my absence,” she said. “I have to tell Luis.” She rushed out of the pantry, then came running back in. “First I must see the señora and the babies for myself.”
I put my mango down. We walked to Señora Valencia’s room. Juana burst into tears as soon as she saw the children: Rosalinda in her mother’s arms and the little boy undergoing another close examination by Doctor Javier.
Señora Valencia held Rosalinda out towards Juana.
“Take her,” she said. “Wouldn’t you like to hold my daughter, Juana?”
“I’m afraid I will cry,” Juana sobbed.
“You’re already crying,” Señora Valencia observed.
Peeking at the little boy, Juana