Free Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat Page A

as I lowered her into the small hole in the ground. At first I thought it was Monsieur or Madame, and I was real afraid that Madame would be angry with me for having used a whole bottle of her perfume without asking.
    Rose slipped and fell out of my hands as my body was forced to turn around.
    "What are you doing?" the Dominican asked.
    His face was a deep Indian brown but his hands were bleached and wrinkled from the chemicals in the pool. He looked down at the baby lying in the dust. She was already sprinkled with some of the soil that I had dug up.
    "You see, I saw these faces standing over me in my dreams—"
    I could have started my explanation in a million of ways.
    "Where did you take this child from?" he asked me in his Spanish Creole.
    He did not give me a chance to give an answer.
    "I go already." I thought I heard a little meringue in the sway of his voice. "I call the gendarmes. They are com-ing. I smell that rotten flesh. I know you kill the child and keep it with you for evil."
    "You acted too soon," I said.
    "You kill the child and keep it in your room."
    "You know me," I said. "We've been together."
    "I don't know you from the fly on a pile of cow manure," he said. "You eat little children who haven't even had time to earn their souls."
    He only kept his hands on me because he was afraid that I would run away and escape.
    I looked down at Rose. In my mind I saw what I had seen for all my other girls. I imagined her teething, crawling, crying, fussing, and just misbehaving herself.
    Over her little corpse, we stood, a country maid and a Spaniard grounds man. I should have asked his name before I offered him my body.
    We made a pretty picture standing there. Rose, me, and him. Between the pool and the gardenias, waiting for the law.

the missing
peace
    We were playing with leaves shaped like butterflies. Raymond limped from the ashes of the old schoolhouse and threw himself on top of a high pile of dirt. The dust rose in clouds around him, clinging to the lapels of his khaki uniform.
    "You should see the sunset from here." He grabbed my legs and pulled me down on top of him. The rusty grass brushed against my chin as I slipped out of his grasp.
    I got up and tried to run to the other side of the field, but he caught both my legs and yanked me down again.
    "Don't you feel like a woman when you are with me?" He tickled my neck. "Don't you feel beautiful?"
    He let go of my waist as I turned over and laid flat on my back. The sun was sliding behind the hills, and the glare made the rocks shimmer like chunks of gold.
    "I know I can make you feel like a woman," he said, "so why don't you let me?"
    "My grandmother says I can have babies."
    "Forget your grandmother."
    "Would you tell me again how you got your limp?" I asked to distract him.
    It was a question he liked to answer, a chance for him to show his bravery.
    "If I tell you, will you let me touch your breasts?"
    "It is an insult that you are even asking."
    "Will you let me do it?"
    "You will never know unless you tell me the story."
    He closed his eyes as though the details were never any farther than a stage behind his eyelids.
    I already knew the story very well.
    "I was on guard one night," he said, taking a deep theatrical breath. "No one told me that there had been a coup in Port-au-Prince. I was still wearing my old régime uniform. My friend Toto from the youth corps says he didn't know if I was old régime or new régime. So he shot a warning at the uniform. Not at me, but at the uniform.
    "The shots were coming fast. I was afraid. I forgot the password. Then one of Toto's bullets hit me on my leg and I remembered. I yelled out the password and he stopped shooting."
    "Why didn't you take off your uniform?" I asked, laughing.
    He ignored the question, letting his hand wander between the buttons of my blouse.
    "Do you remember the password?" he asked.
    "Yes."
    "I don't tell it to just anyone. Lean closer and whisper it in my ear."
    I leaned real close and