In the car, he told me about how all the towns looked alike after a while when he was traveling and how he kept thinking about me and feeling guilty about my mother, because he was wanting to steal me away from her.
The whole evening was like one daydream. I had never imagined myself in a place like the Note. There was a large dance floor with pink and yellow lights twinkling from the ceiling. That night Joseph played the tenor saxophone. There was a whimpering sound to it, like a mourning cry.
After the show, we drove over the bridge, into dawn.
'I have to go away again,' he said, on the steps of my house. 'We have to play in Florida. I think you would love Florida.'
He took a small silver ring from his pinky and slipped it onto mine. I felt my eyes close. I let in my first kiss.
I did not see him for a while. He was back from Florida but packing to return to Providence. We went for dinner at the Note. This time he wasn't playing. We sat at a table with the other customers. He asked me to marry him.
I didn't say no, but I didn't say yes. I wanted time to think. My mother would never allow it. She would go crazy.
'Let's have dreams on it,' he said, 'and if you never bring it up again, neither will I.'
That night, I slept hugging my secret.
When my mother came home from work, we went on another ride on the train to watch the lights on the bridge. I wanted to tell her that I loved someone. Like maybe she loved Marc, or like she had loved before.
'Manman, Henry Napoleon is never coming back,' I said.
'It's too bad,' she said. 'I hear from Maryse at work that he is in medical school in Mexico.'
'Really?'
'You didn't know? I thought he was the one sending you these letters from all over the country.'
She was quiet as the train raced over the bridge and back down to the tunnel.
'There are secrets you can't keep,' she said. 'Not from your mother anyway.'
The next night, after seeing Joseph, I came home to find my mother sitting in the living room. She was sitting there rocking herself, holding a belt in her hand.
'I thought you were dead,' she said when I walked in.
I tried to tell her that I had not done anything wrong, but it was three in the morning. I wished that I had not asked Joseph to let me go in alone. Perhaps if he had been there. Who knows?
'Where were you?' She tapped the belt against her palm, her lifelines becoming more and more red. She took my hand with surprised gentleness, and led me upstairs to my bedroom. There, she made me lie on my bed and she tested me.
I mouthed the words to the Virgin Mother's Prayer: Hail Mary… so full of grace. The Lord is with You… You are blessed among women… Holy Mary. Mother of God. Pray for us poor sinners.
In my mind, I tried to relive all the pleasant memories I remembered from my life. My special moments with Tante Atie and with Joseph and even with my mother.
As she tested me, to distract me, she told me, 'The Marassas were two inseparable lovers. They were the same person, duplicated in two. They looked the same, talked the same, walked the same. When they laughed, they even laughed the same and when they cried, their tears were identical. When one went to the stream, the other rushed under the water to get a better look. When one looked in the mirror, the other walked behind the glass to mimic her. What vain lovers they were, those Marassas. Admiring one another for being so much alike, for being copies. When you love someone, you want him to be closer to you than your Mamssa. Closer than your shadow. You want him to be your soul. The more you are alike, the easier this becomes. When you look in a stream, if you saw that man's face, wouldn't you think it was a water spirit? Wouldn't you scream? Wouldn't you think he was hiding under a sheet of water or behind a pane of glass to kill you? The love between a mother and daughter is deeper than the sea. You would leave me for an old man who you didn't know the year before. You and I we could be like Marassas. You are giving up a lifetime with me. Do you understand?
'There are secrets you cannot keep,' my mother said after the test.
She pulled a sheet up over my body and walked out of the room with her face buried in her hands. I closed my legs and tried to see Tante Atie's face. I could understand why she had screamed while her mother had tested her. There are secrets you cannot keep.
Chapter 12
I did not tell Joseph what happened. He left for Providence and stayed away for five weeks. My mother still worked night shifts. She had no choice. However, she would test me every week to make sure that I was still whole.
When Joseph returned, I did my best to avoid him. I was hoping he would go back to Providence and forget that he had ever met me. He did not give up so easily. One night he banged on the door for two hours and finally I opened it.
'I'm leaving for Providence after next week for good,' he said coldly. 'I wanted to know if there was anything in this house you wanted.'
'I don't want anything,' I said, walking away.
I twirled the ring around my fingers while listening to the saxophone wailing in the dark. My mother rarely spoke to me since she began the tests. When she went out with Marc, I refused to go and she showed no desire to take me along.
I was feeling alone and lost, like there was no longer any reason for me to live. I went down to the kitchen and searched my mother's cabinet for the mortar and pestle we used to crush spices. I took the pestle to bed with me and held it against my chest.
The story goes that there was once a woman who walked around with blood constantly spurting out of her unbroken skin. This went on for twelve long years. The woman went to many doctors and specialists, but no one could heal her. The blood kept gushing and spouting in bubbles out of her unbroken skin, sometimes from her arms, sometimes from her legs, sometimes from her face and chest. It became a common occurrence, soaking her clothes a bright red on very special occasions-weddings and funerals. Finally, the woman got tired and said she was going to see Erzulie to ask her what to do.
After her consultation with Erzulie, it became apparent to the bleeding woman what she would have to do. If she wanted to stop bleeding, she would have to give up her right to be a human being. She could choose what to be, a plant or an animal, but she could no longer be a woman.
The woman was tired of bleeding, so she went home and divided her goods among her friends and loved ones. Then she went back to Erzulie for her transformation.
'What form of life do you want to take?' asked Erzulie. 'Do you want to be a green lush plant in a garden? Do you want to be a gentle animal in the sea? A ferocious beast of the night?'
The woman thought of all the animals that she had seen, the ones that people feared and others that they loved. She thought of the ones that were small. Ones that were held captive and ones that were free.
'Make me a butterfly,' she told Erzulie. 'Make me a butterfly.'
'A butterfly you shall be,' said Erzulie.
The woman was transformed and never bled again.
My flesh ripped apart as I pressed the pestle into it. I could see the blood slowly dripping onto the bed sheet. I took the pestle and the bloody sheet and stuffed them into a bag. It was gone, the veil that always held my mother's finger back every time she tested me.
My body was quivering when my mother walked into my room to test me. My legs were limp when she drew them aside. I ached so hard I could hardly move. Finally I failed the test.
My mother grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off the bed. She was calm now, resigned to her anger.
'Go,' she said with tears running down her face. She seized my books and clothes and threw them at me. 'You just go to him and see what he can do for you.'
