The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [8]
“I’ve named my daughter Rosalinda Teresa,” Señora Valencia said.
“For your maim!” Juana sobbed louder now. “Oh, had your mother lived to see this day, she would have been so joyful.”
“Then, why are you crying?” Señora Valencia said. “It’s a happy day.”
“Your mother would have been crying, too, more tears of joy than tears of sadness.”
“I will go to the barracks to fetch Pico,” Papi said. “I want to come back before dark.”
“Don’t go alone, Don Ignacio.” Juana stepped in front of him with Rosalinda resting in her arms.
“No need to worry, I’ll go with God,” Papi said, a trace of impatience in his voice.
“Yes, please go with God. But also take Luis with you,” Juana urged. “He’s in the banana grove cutting a few bananas for me. I don’t know how he missed hearing all of this.”
“We’ll try to return tonight,” Papi said, kissing his daughter’s hand.
“Señora, you rest,” Juana said. “Amabelle and me, we’ll look after everything.”
“Don’t spoil her too much,” Doctor Javier cautioned.
“Valencia, don’t let the kindness of these good women spoil you.”
“Pobrecita, this is her time of risk,” said Juana. “She must spend the necessary number of days lying in, resting, both for herself and for the children.”
5
Sebastien—who is from the north of Haiti like I am, though we did not know each other when we lived there—feels haunted by the crooning of pigeons. Their cry, he says, sounds like it’s not meant for others to hear, but like each howling pigeon is trying to bury its head deep inside itself. He imagines that the way pigeons moan is the same way ghosts cry when they are too lonely or too sad, when they have been dead so long that they have forgotten how to speak their own names.
Sebastien’s father was killed in the great hurricane that struck the whole island—both Haiti and the Dominican Republic—in 1930. He lost his father and almost everything else. This is why he left Haiti. This is why I have him. A sweep of winds that destroyed so many houses and killed so many people brought him to me.
Sebastien’s mother is still alive in Haiti. Sometimes, when we are almost asleep together, Sebastien will hear a pigeon; the pigeons he hears—and I don’t always hear them—tend to go on moaning night after night with their mysterious calls in their mysterious language.
The pigeons always make him draw in his breath, suck his teeth, and say, “Ay, pobrecita manman mwen.” My poor mother.
6
Doctor Javier went off to see a young man who was bedridden with chills and a fever. He promised to return to visit the children once more before nightfall.
Juana was in the pantry preparing chicken soup for the señora, a soup made from the meat of an old hen, and a stew for the rest of the household. The children were sleeping in their cradle as Señora Valencia lay in her bed, everything but her face covered by several blankets.
I walked over to look at the babies. Dwarfed by her brother, Rosalinda lay completely still. I reached in and picked her up. Señora Valencia turned over on her side and saw me holding her daughter.
“Amabelle, put her face on your breast,” she said.
Rosalinda remained asleep while I unbuttoned my blouse and placed her tiny cheek between my breasts and collarbone. I could instantly feel the air streaming in and out of her nose, her breathing falling into step with the beating of my heart.
“Isn’t it miraculous?” Señora Valencia’s eyes traveled back between her daughter and her son as though there was nothing else in the world she could see. “Javier says that they can’t see anything except the light and the dark for the first days. I don’t believe him. They’re too perfect.”
Señora Valencia motioned for me to come sit on the bed next to her. I put Rosalinda back in her cradle and walked towards her mother.
“Amabelle, I must confess something,” she said. “When I had you light the candle to La Virgencita after the children were born, it was really for my mother. I promised her I’d light her a candle after I gave birth. Last night when my first pains began, I felt like my mother was with me.