Edwidge Danticat
Krik? Krak!
© 1995
The following stories have been previously published, some of them in a slightly different form: 'Children of the Sea' appeared under the title 'From the Ocean Floor' in
– SAL SCALORA,
'White Darkness/Black Dreamings'
children of the sea
They say behind the mountains are more mountains. Now I know it's true. I also know there are timeless waters, endless seas, and lots of people in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves. I look up at the sky and I see you there. I see you crying like a crushed snail, the way you cried when I helped you pull out your first loose tooth. Yes, I did love you then. Somehow when I looked at you, I thought of fiery red ants. I wanted you to dig your fingernails into my skin and drain out all my blood.
I don't know how long we'll be at sea. There are thirty-six other deserting souls on this little boat with me. White sheets with bright red spots float as our sail.
When I got on board I thought I could still smell the semen and the innocence lost to those sheets. I look up there and I think of you and all those times you resisted. Sometimes I felt like you wanted to, but I knew you wanted me to respect you. You thought I was testing your will, but all I wanted was to be near you. Maybe it's like you've always said. I imagine too much. I am afraid I am going to start having nightmares once we get deep at sea. I really hate having the sun in my face all day long. If you see me again, I'll be so dark.
Your father will probably marry you off now, since I am gone. Whatever you do, please don't marry a soldier. They're almost not human.
haiti est comme tu l'as laisse. yes, just the way you left it. bullets day and night, same hole, same everything, i'm tired of the whole mess, i get so cross and irritable, i pass the time by chasing roaches around the house, i pound my heel on their heads, they make me so mad. everything makes me mad. i am cramped inside all day. they've closed the schools since the army took over, no one is mentioning the old president's name, papa burnt all his campaign posters and old buttons, manman buried her buttons in a hole behind the house, she thinks he might come back, she says she will unearth them when he does, no one comes out of their house, not a single person, papa wants me to throw out those tapes of your radio shows, i destroyed some music tapes, but i still have your voice, i thank god you got out when you did. all the other youth federation members have disappeared, no one has heard from them, i think they might all be in prison, maybe they're all dead, papa worries a little about you. he doesn't hate you as much as you think, the other day i heard him asking manman, do you think the boy is dead? manman said she didn't know, i think he regrets being so mean to you. i don't sketch my butterflies anymore because i don't even like seeing the sun. besides, manman says that butterflies can bring news, the bright ones bring happy news and the black ones warn us of deaths, we have our whole lives ahead of us. you used to say that, remember? but then again things were so very different then.
There is a pregnant girl on board. She looks like she might be our age. Nineteen or twenty. Her face is covered with scars that look like razor marks. She is short and speaks in a singsong that reminds me of the villagers in the north. Most of the other people on the boat are much older than I am. I have heard that a lot of these boats have young children on board. I am glad this one does not. I think it would break my heart watching some little boy or girl every single day on this sea, looking into their empty faces to remind me of the hopelessness of the future in our country. It's hard enough with the adults. It's hard enough with me.
I used to read a lot about America before I had to study so much for the university exams. I am trying to think, to see if I read anything more about Miami. It is sunny. It doesn't snow there like it does in other parts of America. I can t tell exactly how far we are from there. We might be barely out of our own shores. There are no borderlines on the sea. The whole thing looks like one. I cannot even tell if we are about to drop off the face of the earth. Maybe the world is flat and we are going to find out, like the navigators of old. As you know, I am not very religious. Still I pray every night that we won't hit a storm. When I do manage to sleep, I dream that we are caught in one hurricane after another. I dream that the winds come of the sky and claim us for the sea. We go under and no one hears from us again.
I am more comfortable now with the idea of dying. Not that I have completely accepted it, but I know that it might happen. Don't be mistaken. I really do not want to be a martyr. I know I am no good to anybody dead, but if that is what's coming, I know I cannot just scream at it and tell it to go away.
I hope another group of young people can do the radio show. For a long time that radio show was my whole life. It was nice to have radio like that for a while, where we could talk about what we wanted from government, what we wanted for the future of our country.
There are a lot of Protestants on this boat. A lot of them see themselves as Job or the Children of Israel. I think some of them are hoping something will plunge down from the sky and part the sea for us. They say the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. I have never been given very much. What was there to take away?
if only i could kill, if i knew some good
