'Not if he knew what it was doing to her. I don't think so.'
'And you think she's aborting right now?'
'Before I came here, I called her and she wasn't there. I called her at work and she wasn't there.'
'So she's going to do this on her own. Without her lover.'
'I think she'll lose her mind if she doesn't.'
'I really think you should convince her to seek help.'
'I can't convince her,' I said. 'She's always thought that she was crazy already, that she had just fooled everybody.'
'It's very dangerous for her to go on like she is.'
'I know.'
I drove past Davina's house. She was at work, but I had my own key to our room. I went in and sat in the dark and drank some verbena tea by candlelight. The flame's shadows swayed across Erzulie's face in a way that made it seem as though she was crying.
On the way out, I saw Buki's balloon. It was in a tree, trapped between two high branches. It had deflated into a little ball the size of a green apple.
We thought it had floated into the clouds, even hoped that it had traveled to Africa, but there it was slowly dying in a tree right above my head.
Chapter 35
Joseph was on the couch, rocking the baby, when I came home. She was sleeping in his arms, with her index and middle fingers in her mouth. Joseph took her to our room and put her down without saying a word. He came back and pulled me down on the sofa. He picked up the answering machine and played me a message from Marc.
'Sophie, je t'en prie, call me. It's about your mother.'
Marc's voice was quivering, yet cold. It seemed as though he was purposely forcing himself to be casual.
I grabbed Joseph's collar, almost choking him.
'Let's not jump to any wild conclusions,' he said.
'I am wondering why she is not calling me herself,' I said.
'Maybe she's had a complication with the pregnancy.'
'She was going to have an abortion today.'
'Keep calm and dial.'
The phone rang endlessly. Finally her answering machine picked up. 'S'il vous plait, laissez-moi un message. Please leave me a message.' Impeccable French and English, both painfully mastered, so that her voice would never betray the fact that she grew up without a father, that her mother was merely a peasant, that she was from the hills.
We sat by the phone all night, alternating between dialing and waiting.
Finally at six in the morning, Marc called.
His voice was laden with pain.
'Sophie. Je t'en prie. I am sorry.'
He was sobbing.
'What is it?' I asked.
'Calme-toi. Listen to me.'
'Listen to what?'
'I am sorry,' he said.
'Put my mother on the phone. What did you do?'
'It's not me.'
'Please, Marc. Put my mother on the phone. Where is she? Is she in the hospital?'
He was sobbing. Joseph pressed his face against mine. He was trying to listen.
'Is my mother in the hospital?'
'Non. She is rather in the morgue.'
I admired the elegance in the way he said it. Now he would have to say it to my grandmother, who had lost her daughter, and to my Tante Atie, who had lost her only sister.
'Am I hearing you right?' I asked.
'She is gone.'
Joseph pressed harder against me.
'What happened?' I was shouting at Marc.
'I woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I wake up and she's not there, so I was not worried. Two hours passed and I woke up again, I went to the bathroom and she was lying there.'
'Lying there? Lying where? Talk faster, will you?'
'In blood. She was lying there in blood.'
'Did she slip and fall?'
'It was very hard to see.'
'What was very hard to see?'
'She had a mountain of sheets on the floor. She had prepared this.'
'What?'
'She stabbed her stomach with an old rusty knife. I counted, and they counted again in the hospital. Seventeen times.'
'Are you sure?'
'It was seventeen times.'
'How could you sleep?' I shouted.
'She was still breathing when I found her,' he said. 'She even said something in the ambulance. She died there in the ambulance.'
'What did she say in the ambulance?'
'Mwin pa kapab enko. She could not carry the baby. She said that to the ambulance people.'
'How could you sleep?' I was screaming at him.
'I did the best I could,' he said. 'I tried to save her. Don't you know how I wanted this child?'
'Why did you give her a child? Didn't you know about the nightmares?' I asked.
'You knew better about the nightmares,' he said, 'but where were you?'
I crashed into Joseph's arms when I hung up the phone.
It was as if the world started whirling after that, as though I had no control over anything. Everything raced by like a speeding train and I, breathlessly, sprang after it, trying to keep up.
I grabbed my suitcase from the closet and threw a few things inside.
'I am going with you,' Joseph said.
'What about Brigitte? Who will look after her? I can't take her into this.'
'Let's sit down and think of some way.'
I didn't have time to sit and think.
'You stay. I go. It's that simple.'
He didn't insist anymore. He helped me pack my bag. We woke up the baby and he drove me to the bus station.
We held each other until the bus was about to pull out.
I gave Brigitte a kiss on the forehead.
'Mommy will bring you a treat from the market.'
She began to cry as I boarded the bus. Joseph took her away quickly, not looking back.
Marc was waiting in the house in Brooklyn when I got there. Somehow I expected there to be detectives, and flashing cameras, but this was New York after all. People killed themselves every day. Besides, he was a lawyer. He knew people in power. He simply had to tell them that my mother was crazy.
