Gwo Manman cursed the day she’d allowed Foufoune to take her away. But admitted she had been curious about the foreign place too. She had dreamed of being able to say that she went there once. Only once. And came back. But Foufoune had tricked her. There was never a return ticket.
Foufoune arrived several days later with Dona Malbranche’s body in a gorgeous coffin.
“You look well,” Miriam remarked upon seeing her sister for the first time since she came and took Gwo Manman away years ago. Not a single crease in Foufoune’s flawless features. Hair, as usual, in a classic chignon. Foufoune had always been the beautiful sister, “the one who’s going to amount to something,” everyone, even Gwo Manman, would say.
“And you haven’t changed,” Foufoune said, eying the tufts of unruly gray around Miriam’s temples, the head tie she must have borrowed from a charcoal vendor, the rust of subpar living in her sunken eyes. Koshon Mawon! The words tickled Foufoune’s lips, but she did not speak them. There were stains on Miriam’s skirt: blood, no doubt-probably from cutting off fish heads to make soup. Koshon Mawon! Long ago when they attended Anne Marie Javouhey elementary school, Foufoune and her girlfriends had made up a song which they liked to sing whenever they saw Miriam approaching:
Miriam threw her arms around her sister, saying: “We have only each other now.”
Foufoune, in turn, kissed her on both cheeks.
That night while Foufoune rested, Miriam paced under the flamboyant tree. Gwo Manman did not die peacefully- that much she knew. She suffered. Li soufri. Miriam held her belly. She wanted to scream, but swallowed the pain.
A few other relatives flew to the island to say their goodbyes. They booked rooms at Hotel Flamboyant, where the pool sparkled and massive generators guaranteed the power would stay on. They brought laptops in order to meet deadlines; they still had to make a living. Nouyòk pa lan jwèt a moun, surely Miriam understood. Business reports and dissertations did not stop for death.
No one planned to stay Down There too long after the services. They all led busy lives. They would spare a day or two, and then mount their winged friend to return to their respective chapters in their respective storybooks. During the services, however, they would be most dedicated, most single-minded, most unwavering in their show of grief. They would not be reproached. By the time they were through, all of Puits Blain would know just how much they loved the old woman they hardly knew.
The stained glass inside église Saint Pierre rattled with their screams. Eyes darted between the pews to see who was crying and how many teardrops were actually shed. Some of the practiced mourners would have outdone themselves had the body been displayed. They felt cheated.
The procession to the cemetery boasted an impressive number of those who had succumbed to sezisman. Long-lost cousins swooned, dropping down in front of moving cars. There were wreaths galore (more flowers than Gwo Manman had seen in life). The affair cost many, many thousands; everyone was duly impressed. The casket, copper of course, came with a sixty-year moisture and water seal warranty-just in case. (You know Haiti and hurricanes, the dealer had said). Gwo Manman’s burial clothes-an elegant mother-of-thebride two-piece-were precious. Pity no one got to see how prettily she was dressed. And who among them would have discerned how much she loathed the outfit?
These clothes make me look like a clown, Dona would have said, if she could have seen herself. I look like a madigra mal maske.
At Miriam’s house after the interment, there was no place to punch a pin. Everyone ate their fill. Barbancourt 5 Star flowed like Saut d’Eau’s waterfall. A young man complained there was not enough ice. His drink was not cold enough. “In this heat, the mourners need ice. Where is the ice?” he wanted to know.
“Why are you here?” Miriam asked the disgruntled mourner. “Did you know that the woman whose funeral you attended never once owned a refrigerator? But does that matter? You want ice. We’re out of ice. Don’t move. I’ll see to it that you get your ice.”
Foufoune asked Miriam what was wrong.
“We’re out of ice,” Miriam said, shaking with disgust. “This boy is crying for ice. We’re out of ice.”
“Where is the ice?” Foufoune asked, desperate to do something-anything-right. The parched earth under her feet had shifted when she watched her mother’s coffin being worked like an oversized pacifier into the tomb’s mouth. Tears had spurted out of her eyes when she heard Miriam scream: “Not again, Manman! Don’t leave me again, Manman!” Foufoune’s heart had softened. She realized then that she did, in fact, love her sister. And Miriam loved her.
Burning tears stood in Foufoune’s eyes. It took burying their mother to see that she could never have despised her own flesh and blood. And Miriam had been so generous. So selfless. Miriam had been the one who handled every detail of the funeral. Trying to plan it from thousands of miles away was a logistical nightmare. Perhaps Miriam was right about everything else. Perhaps she should have sent their mother back to Haiti to live. Perhaps Gwo Manman would still be alive today.
“I’ll take care of getting more ice,” Foufoune said. She would crawl on her knees all the way up to Caribbean Market and carry bags of ice on her head, if that was what Miriam wanted. One day she would tell Miriam that she regretted taking Gwo Manman to the live with her in the States. One day she might even ask for forgiveness. Her sister had been right all along: Gwo Manman belonged in Puits Blain. She knew that now. How could she have been so selfish? So blind? Her mind raced with regret, but what came out of her mouth was: “Where can I go to get more ice?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Miriam said. She summoned Jean-Jean, who barely looked like himself in his fine funeral clothes. His work clothes were in a satchel by the outhouse, which he would start sealing “after the last mourner leaves,” as Miriam had instructed him when he arrived much earlier than he was told. Pending jobs made him uneasy. The sooner he sealed the hole, the less of a chance Miriam would have to change her mind; and the sooner he would get the rest of his money.
“Leave your shovel behind the house,” Miriam had instructed him before the funeral. That thing was like an extension of his hand. He carried it everywhere, always hoping someone would hire him. “You can start tonight,” Miriam had added, to his delight. She had read the impatience in his eyes, though she was the one who could no longer wait once word had reached her ear about some sneaky schoolgirl who had dropped her newborn into a nearby latrine. A suspicious houseboy had followed the trail of blood from the outhouse to the girl’s thighs, and she’d confessed. Jean-Jean almost slipped into the hole and died himself, when frantic neighbors sent him down there with a bucket on a rope to try and scoop out the remains.
“I remember your mother well,” Jean-Jean said. The thought of getting paid in just a few hours had cured his stutter for now. “She was a good person.” Gwo Manman always had a kind word for him. He would do anything, anything at all, for the Malbranche family.
“We need ice,” Miriam told him.
“I’ll get it,” replied Jean-Jean. For once, no one seemed to care where his hands had been.
Miriam embraced her sister, saying, “Pran kouraj. You did what you thought was best.” She lifted up her hand and her voice: “A toast to Gwo Manman!”
Someone gave Miriam a fresh bottle of rum. She put it to her mouth and drank. She passed the bottle to Foufoune. Do this in remembrance of me.