BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
I sit up straight, my heart pounding, wrenched from sleep. It's two P.M., but it gets so stiflingly hot and dusty under plastic tarps and sheet metal that I'm lying on a sheet on the floor, wearing just a bra and a skirt, sweating, dreaming quick, shallow, afternoon dreams. I am the only one home.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
It takes me a dazed moment to realize that the noise is someone pounding on the door. I get chills, despite the heat.
"Who is it?" I call out, and I hear the panic in my own voice.
"PNH! Open up now!"
The police? I haven't done anything. Why are the police here? I don't think I've done anything wrong. I reach for the nearest shirt and pull it on, inside out. What if they rape me? What if they shoot me?
"Open up!"
"Wi, wi, map vini! Yes, yes, I'm coming!"
Barefoot, my hair a mess, I stagger to the door and unlock it, and it flies open. There are three officers holding rifles and wearing camouflage and silver reflective sunglasses. Beyond their uniforms and guns, I can't see anything else. If you were to ask me later whether they were short or tall or young or old or black or brown, I wouldn't be able to tell you.
"Bonswa," I say, "Good afternoon," because I'm not sure what else to do.
They don't say anything. They move past me. I am sure they can hear my heart beating. They start searching everywhere. They open the suitcases where we store our clothes and dig into everything. They look under the table and peer into our water buckets and even run their hands over our sacks of rice and charcoal. They pull the mattress off the bed and search beneath it. They poke the butts of their guns against the tarp and metal roof, making sure there's nothing up there. "Mèsi, madmwazèl," one of them says. "Thank you, miss." Then they leave. A few moments later, I hear the same pounding at Mme Joseph's next door. They probably weren't here for more than two minutes, but I feel exhausted, with my eyes wide open. The room is humid, a soupy mix of sweat and men's cologne.
Later I go out to buy hot pepper, green onion, and a piece of coconut to cook dinner before Tonton élie gets home. Mme Christophe, the machann with graying hair and green eyes she says she inherited from a French great-grandfather, is gossiping with Michael, the young guy in a red Digicel vest who sells scratchable phone cards. They sound more interested than traumatized.
"Mezanmiiii, I thought I was going to have a heart attack," says Mme Christophe with satisfaction.
"They're looking for thieves and kidnappers," reports Michael. "You heard about the girl who got kidnapped on her way home from school last week near Kalfou Gerald? They're looking for whoever took her."
"Oh, why would anyone kidnap a little innocent?" Mme Christophe mutters, more to herself than anyone else. "What money can her family have?"
"The police were looking for guns, for anyone with guns," Michael says.
"Look at this country," Mme Christophe tsks, shaking her head.
I don't feel like gossiping or talking politics right now, so I buy what I need and thank Mme Christophe and tell them both good afternoon.
When I get home, I notice it, lying on the floor, halfway under the bed. Open, dusty, ruffled, and still, like a dead bird half-eaten by a cat. It's my old journal, the one I've been hiding since it was pulled from the rubble. The police must have shaken it loose when they pulled the mattress from the bed frame.
I stare at it for a while, not sure what to do. The cover, with yellow puppies on it, is gouged and dusty, but the notebook is intact. I step closer. It's open to a page with one of Nadine's drawings.
I can't help laughing. Since the earthquake, the journal had become a holy, untouchable thing to me, like a relic, but when I see Nadine's stupid drawing of Mme Faustin, it comes back to life. Little grains of whitish plaster fall onto my skirt as I lay the notebook on my lap and begin, cautiously, to leaf through it. And there we are—Manman, Nadine, and me, frozen in time. I run my fingers over the words, the barely-there indentations of the ballpoint pen, and wonder at the things that survive.
Memories are ambushing me. It's been one year this month.
If I'm going to be honest, I'd say I'm afraid of the notebook. Now I'm crying. I can't stop crying; my nose is running, and hot tears are splashing down onto the paper, making the ink bleed.
I miss you. I miss you all over again.
Our souls rise from the pages like smoke. My heart hurts. I know that I am the only one left. The house where it all took place is gone. But for one afternoon, at least, we are together again—my mother, my sister, and me.