The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [86]
“Then how can I be of service to you, my child?”
“I want to know if you have heard of Father Romain or Father Vargas, who lived and served on the other side of the river?”
He joined his hands together and pushed his body forward, towards my chair.
“In churches all over this land, we have prayed for them,” he said, glancing up at the simple cross on the wall behind me. “Word of their struggle has reached us through our other brothers in the faith.”
He seemed pleased that there was at least something he could do for me.
“So they are not dead?”
“They suffered much in prison, but they are still alive. Some members of the church approached the Generalissimo on their behalf and they were both liberated. After he was released, Father Romain was asked to leave the other side, even though he wanted to stay and help those of our people who have remained there.”
I reached across the desk and squeezed his joined hands.
“Did you know them?” he asked.
“I did know them, yes.”
“Father Romain is living near the border, in Ouanammthe, in a tiny shack with his younger sister, not a nun, a blood sister.” He smiled. “A singer. The house is near an old grange where a clinic was erected during the crisis. He wanted to be as close to his old parish as possible.”
“You are a miracle, Father,” I said, kissing the still warm rolls of bread rather than him.
36
That night, I wrote a simple note to give to Father Romain if I saw him. My words were written for Doctor Javier, who, if he was not still in prison, might visit Father Romain at the border.
Por favor—Doctor Javier,
I would be most grateful for your guidance
as to where to find Michehne Onius and
Sebastien Onius, who are said to have
perished in Santiago at the time of
the slaughter. Desiring to know if you
have seen and know this to be true.
Signed,
Amabelle Désir
I added the location of Man Rapadou’s house, along with the street number of the merchant on the quay who sold us most of our sugar and flour. If Doctor Javier was ever handed my note, he would know where to find me.
When Yves came to bed that night, he kept himself on the far end of the mattress and took great pains for our skins not to touch. Before he fell asleep, I told him I would be going to the border the next day to visit Father Romain.
The following morning, he started early for the fields, but left ten gourdes with his mother, some of it for me to pay for the camión to take me there.
During the journey back to the border, I was struck by the size and beauty of the mountains, their hiplike shapes becoming clearer as we drove alongside them.
The camión stopped in front of a field of dust-feathered grass surrounding the grange where the old makeshift clinic had been. As I approached the grounds where the dead and wounded had lain, I thought of Odette and my stomach churned.
The ground was slipping beneath my feet; the sun seemed to be moving closer until I felt like it was stationed next to my face, melting my skin and blinding my eyes. The rocks on the ground become as large as pillows and finally I fell, making of the earth a warm bed.
I knew I should call for help, but there was no one coming and going, alive or dead. Besides, I felt so rested, I did not want to be disturbed. Above me spun a sky full of grass and the planks nailed in twos across the grange door.
I remembered once, when I was a girl, watching an infant boy my mother and father had midwifed into this world. A month later, the mother left the boy with us when she went to market. While he was sleeping, he rolled himself into a ball and spun around on the bed. I watched him do this for some time before I called for my father, who was cutting wood outside, and my mother, who was washing clothes behind the house.
“I think this baby has the evil in him,” I told them.
My father laughed and slapped the little boy’s bottom, which made him stop his spasms. Then he explained, my father, that sometimes in the first year, babies remembered their births with their bodies and had to repeat it many times before they