Chapter 17

But for the multitude whose hope is selfish worldly happiness,

Such fare not better singly, than those who missed it doubly.

—Martin Farquar Tupper

While Brahami was abroad for his studies, Darah had wondered if he would return from Paris changed. His smile revealed the same charming dimples. As soon as they were alone with an after-dinner sherry Brahami told her, “Your letters made me happy. I’m sorry I didn’t answer the last two. I was busy with my thesis and preparing to come home.”

“I thought some French girl took all your time.”

“No one could keep me away from you.”

In his letters to Darah, Brahami usually wrote about his studies, his travels outside of Paris, and the cultural events he attended. Those letters stirred in her a desire to travel to France, the land of her ancestors, as she often claimed. She, in turn, usually wrote that she yearned to see him again and that she would wait for him, even if it took an eternity.

In the days that followed his return, Darah helped Brahami get reacquainted with the city and its surroundings. Pleased to be with one of Haiti’s most adored beauties, Brahami and Darah often went on picnics in the cool mountains of Kenscoff. On Sunday afternoons he visited her at home. Their parents watched them discreetly and hopefully.

One such Sunday, Darah’s friend Suzanne and her husband of two years went with them to the Rex Theatre to see Rio Grande. After the show, they went to Bicentennial Square, which President Estimé had built in downtown Port-au-Prince to beautify and modernize the city. Lumane Casimir’s melodious voice blasted from loudspeakers and water gushed from fountains. American tourists disembarked from a cruise liner to purchase mahogany souvenirs and colorful paintings from street merchants. Suzanne and Gérard sat on a bench facing the bay, while Brahami and Darah strolled along the promenade, enjoying the salty air.

Brahami led Darah to a secluded area where they sat on a bench near a bush of wild red roses. “I’d like your permission to ask your parents for your hand,” he said.

 

* * *

 

One evening after they were married, Brahami was surprised to find a bottle of wine at the dinner table. That treat was usually reserved for special occasions. “Are we celebrating something?”

Darah filled a glass for each of them, lifted hers to eye level.

“To our love.”

After a dinner of grilled fish, baked sweet potato, and a tomato salad, the couple sat on the veranda, taking in the evening breeze.

“Something is bothering you. What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’m okay.”

“Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I saw my gynecologist yesterday. I might not be able to conceive if I don’t get the fibroid removed.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he said and took her hand into his.

 

* * *

 

After the fibroid had been removed, Darah was still unable to conceive. Her doctor recommended a specialist in Paris. Since Brahami’s architectural firm was thriving, he could not take time off to accompany her. Instead, her mother and mother-in-law traveled with her to Europe. There, the doctor could not find anything medically wrong with her reproductive system. After numerous tests he concluded it was anxiety that had impeded conception.

Months after her return from Paris, Darah still had not conceived. She shared her despair with her closest friend, who advised her to get a card reading. “I told you the woman who read my cards helped me when I didn’t know where I stood with my husband,” said Suzanne.

“I don’t think Brahami would approve.”

“He doesn’t have to know.”

“I can’t bring her to my house.”

“We will go to her. How about tomorrow evening?”

The streets of Bel Air were noisy even after dark. Darah watched, as Suzanne drove through the raucous neighborhood. People who could not afford electricity gathered around lampposts to play cards or dominoes. Students formed study groups at other lampposts, hopeful that education would help them escape a life of deprivation. Others stood around women who sold fried foods, plantains, sweet potatoes, fish, and pork. Lovers strolled, looking for secluded places to share a moment of intimacy. A breeze roused putrid odors of garbage.

When Suzanne pushed open the wooden gate of an alley, Darah could not hide her contempt for the surroundings as she stepped into a muddy puddle that the torrential rain had left behind the night before.

A boy greeted them. “You want to see Man Clara?” he asked.

They answered yes and followed him past wooden houses with sheet steel roofs.

Clara welcomed Suzanne with a broad smile. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen you. Come in.” Dressed in a white cotton dress and a white scarf covering her hair, she called one of the young girls playing osselet, a game in which the knee bones from goats are spread on the floor and the player throws one at a time up in the air. The object of the game is to catch as many bones as possible before the one tossed comes back down. “Ti fi, go get me some matches,” Man Clara called to one of the girls.

“This is a good friend of mine,” Suzanne said, placing her hand on Darah’s arm.

The mambo took the book of matches from the young girl and lit a candle while Darah observed, with great curiosity, a table covered with bottles of hot peppers steeped in white rum, dark Barbancourt rum, red Manischewitz wine, cheap perfume, syrup, and other articles that were unfamiliar to her. The walls were covered with pictures of Catholic saints, some of which she could not identify.

Clara took a white enamel cup of water from the table, poured three drops on the floor, and invited the women to sit at a table on the other side of the room. As Clara shuffled a deck of cards, she told Darah to relax. “If you’re here, it’s because you want the truth, and I’m going to tell you just that. Cut the cards in three piles with your right hand.” Clara spread the cards and slipped into deep concentration. “You just came back from a trip. Oh, oh-o-o! You went to white man’s country. You were not alone, non. Two older women were with you. You saw doctor there. But you not sick.”

Darah cast a questioning look at Suzanne.

“I see you’re married. Your husband is worried lately, right?” Darah nodded, and Clara went on, “It has to do with another woman. But don’t worry. He loves you and will do whatever you say.” Another pause. “You want a child, wi.” Darah nodded again. “You will have one, but not right now.” The mambo put the cards in a pile and spread them out again. “Your husband will have a child with another woman before you have yours. Madame, I know it will be hard, but try to be kind to that other woman and her baby.”

“Never!” she uttered between her teeth. Even though she doubted the possibility of another woman in her husband’s life, Darah was still resentful.

The mambo shrugged. “Ask yourself a question.” She spread the cards, examined them. “I already said you will have a child. But not right now.”

“Can you give her some medicine to help her conceive?”

“But I already said she’ll have a child, wi.” Clara sounded annoyed.

The consultation was over, and the mambo walked the two women outside and bade them good night. “What do you think of the reading?” Suzanne asked her friend when they were back in the black Chevrolet.

“I wonder who the other woman is.”

“You should have asked her.”

“Can we go back?”

Suzanne drove away from the stench of garbage. “It’s probably better not to know,” she asserted.

The thought of a rival whirled in Darah’s mind so much so that she began to go through her husband’s pockets and other personal belongings, without ever finding a clue to confirm if there was another woman. She even began to go with him on his evenings out with Georges, and concluded Man Clara didn’t know what she was talking about.

It promptly came to light one morning when Darah didn’t find her husband in the room when she woke up. She figured he was in his study and went downstairs to make sure Hagathe had his breakfast ready. As she approached the kitchen, she overheard the conversation between her husband and the maid. Her chest suddenly heaved and, as if Erzulie Dantô had taken control of her mind, she could only think of how to avenge her pride.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, when Darah became aware of her mother-in-law’s presence, her sobs became violent once again. The older Madame Bonsang suggested they pray to restore peace in the home and in their hearts. She opened the Bible Darah kept by her bedside table, read to her daughter-in-law in a clear voice: “And it came to pass that when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.”

Later that day, Darah turned down her mother-in-law’s invitation to come home with her. After a meal and a nap at her parents’ home, she went to visit Suzanne. “So, this is what Clara was talking about. It makes sense now. Just wait, you’ll have your child,” Suzanne promised.

In the days that ensued, she vacillated between feeling cheated and humiliated. But with time, she was able to forgive Brahami, who became even more attentive toward her. “Nothing like that will ever happen again. I’ve learned my lesson,” he told her one evening.

Darah became more and more absorbed in her tragedy. She struggled with desperation and hope; an obsessive longing for motherhood haunted her. Fearing her barrenness was a punishment from God, she lit candles in as many churches as she could find and distributed coins to the numerous beggars that paved the churches’ entrances to calm any possible wrath. During that time, she had a recurring dream in which she saw herself swimming in a pool of still, dark water.

Her mother suggested a trip to Lourdes to ask St. Bernadette and the Immaculate Conception to intercede on her behalf. Along with people who suffer from incurable diseases and physical handicaps, she bathed in the miraculous water of the grotto to change her intrinsic fate. During a candlelight procession one evening, she vowed to only wear white and blue until she was rewarded with the desired child. Seven months after she returned from her trip, she dreamed she was in a river of crystal-clear water, and soon after that her doctor announced she was six weeks pregnant. From that moment on, she contemplated her naked body every day. The fuller it looked, the happier she felt.

The sun was shining at its strongest one afternoon when a brief rainfall moistened the dusty ground and a fresh earthy smell lingered. Darah was resting next to Brahami after lunch when the moment she awaited finally came. Not even the pains could overshadow the happiness she anticipated when she gave birth to their daughter with little difficulty, assisted by Haiti’s best obstetrician.

Espéranza Bonsang’s birth also brought happiness to her father. He went to the only florist in the capital, ordered a basket of each variety of flower. Never had the nurses and doctors of the hospital seen so many flowers in a patient’s room. While Darah was still in the hospital, Brahami told her to think about a date for their daughter’s baptism. Suzanne would be the godmother. Brahami’s first cousin, with whom he had shared an apartment in France, would travel from Paris to be the godfather.

Months later, the same mulatto elite that had attended Darah and Brahami’s wedding gathered for the lavish ceremony. They brought with them luxurious gifts to honor the baby who, by virtue of her birth, seemed destined for a good life.