Moy and Manman are no longer speaking to each other in strained voices. Even when Manman scolds Moy about going to play dominoes with the boys across the street, it sounds more like she is making a suggestion than giving him orders. Moy tells Manman he needs to pass the time somehow, making it sound as though he would like to obey Manman, but has no choice but to go out and play with the neighborhood boys. Even though I am not trying to listen, I hear Manman complain to Tante Rose that Moy is getting to know too many of the boys in the neighborhood.

  “Moy has always been good at making friends quickly,” Tante Rose says. “That’s one of his charms.”

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21

  The National Police arrested thirteen people who were involved in plotting and carrying out the shootings and bombings. They promised that there would be more arrests.

  Among the people who were interviewed on the television news broadcast tonight, some thought President Aristide’s party was responsible for the violence. Others thought the opposition was to blame.

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22

  A teenage boy was killed, another bomb victim. All in all, seven pipe bombs exploded in the city today.

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23

  A seven-year-old girl was killed. She was on a bus, on her way to school. A bomb was thrown at her bus. The girl was killed in Carrefour, where our camion was hit.

  This really makes me angry. Why must children be killed? They are not involved in politics.

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24

  Tante Rose was so sad when she came home. Both she and the other nurses looked very tired.

  “We had a hard day,” Tante Rose said, “but not as hard as the people we treated.”

  She did not want to watch the evening news broadcast.

  “I have already seen more than I can bear,” she said.

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25

  President Aristide visited the spot where the boy was killed by a bomb. Manman leaned closer to the television screen to get a better look at President Aristide’s curved back as he knelt down and kissed the ground.

  LATER

  Papa called. He had been hearing about the bombings all the way in New York and wanted to tell Tante Rose to be careful. He was surprised to find out that we were at her house.

  When Manman got on the phone, she told him everything.

  I could tell by the way Manman was talking that it took a lot of reassuring words to calm Papa down. His face was probably changing, the way it did when he watched the stars fall out of the sky.

  After he and Manman had spoken for a while, he asked to talk to Moy, who assured him again that we were okay.

  When my turn came, I couldn’t hold back.

  “I am afraid, Papa,” I said. “I want to go to Beau Jour, but we cannot because there are bombs on the road and Manman’s leg is hurt.”

  “Don’t be afraid, Cécé,” Papa said. “I am working very hard so you and Moy and Manman can come to New York and we can spend Christmas together. My friend Franck is a rich man here. He is doing a lot to help us.”

  And just like that, I was less afraid. Papa’s voice could always calm my fears. Even when I was little and would wake up screaming in the middle of the night thinking I had heard Galipòt galloping up to our front door, Papa would whisper in the dark, “Cécé, many things like Galipòt exist in the streams of our dreams, but they cannot hurt us.”

  That’s when I knew that nothing that was happening now could hurt us. Neither the elections, nor the shootings, nor the bombings.

  SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 26

  ELECTION DAY. 8:00 A.M.

  It’s quiet this morning. No sounds of gunfire or loud voices on the street discussing the bombings and shootings, who is responsible for them, and how to stop them.

  Everyone in the house is dressed and walking about, but no one is going out.

  I walked into the living room and found Tante Rose sitting alone between the television and the radio, both turned off, because of another power outage and worn-out radio batteries.

  “Are you feeling well, Tante Rose?” I asked her.

  “I am trying to decide if I should vote,” she said.

  “Will you vote?” I asked.

  “I am deciding,” she said. “You see, Cécé, the year you were born, in 1987, there was another election. You were born in January and the election was in November 1987. It was the country’s first election in thirty years. Everyone was so excited to go out to vote, but when the polling stations opened, the military shot and killed thirty-four people. They threw grenades into the streets, destroyed radio stations. It was a very bad time. When the killings happened, I told myself that whenever I could I would vote for the people who had died at those polling stations that day. I have not missed a vote yet.”

  12:00 P.M.

  The power is still out, but Raymond, the young man who looks after the house when Tante Rose is away, found some fresh batteries for Tante Rose’s radio. We are all gathered around the radio, even the two nurses, along with Nadine and Esther.

  Raymond keeps switching back and forth between radio stations. As soon as a report is done on one station, he immediately moves on to another.

  There are many reporters doing broadcasts directly from the polling stations, interviewing people as they come in to vote. It doesn’t seem as though a lot of people are voting. The radio reporters said that the lines were very short.

  This morning before a polling station opened in Carrefour, a bomb exploded there, injuring one man. Aside from that there have been no other acts of violence.

  “This is not the same kind of election we had in 1990,” Tante Rose said.

  President Aristide had been elected for the first time in 1990. During that election, the lines were very long, stretching back farther than the eye could see. People waited for hours to vote, some arriving at the polling stations before dawn and leaving late into the night. Once they had voted, they went into the streets to dance and show off the purple ink their fingers had been dipped in to keep them from voting again. They tore off tree branches and waved them in the air while singing carnival hymns. Voters flooded the capital from all the provinces. Some Haitians came back from France, Canada, and the United States to cast ballots.

  To hear Tante Rose tell it, it was a beautiful day.

  “Did you vote then, Tante Rose?” Moy asked.

  “Of course I did,” Tante Rose said. “I am also going to vote today.”

  So she had made up her mind.

  “Don’t waste your time, Rose,” Manman said. “None of those politicians are going to do anything for the country.”

  “Aline, you think you live in a different country where you are up in the mountains?” Tante Rose said. “It’s the same country. We all live in the same country.”

  “Then why don’t you tell that to your politicians when you go out and vote for them,” Manman said. “They never think about the people in the mountains. Victor had to leave so we would not eat dust up there. I vote for Victor, my husband. He is my president.”

  Manman got up and limped away, grimacing in pain as she went. I started to follow her, but she waved her hand, signaling for me to stay back.

  2:00 P.M.

  Complete silence among us now as we listen to radio reports from the polling stations. Manman still has not come out of the room. Tante Rose and one of the nurses are about to go out and vote.

  “I want to go, too,” Moy whispers so Manman won’t hear.

  “Are you registered, Moy?” Tante Rose asks.

  “In Léogâne,” he says. “Manman doesn’t know.”

  “You must vote in Léogâne, then,” Tante Rose says.

  “I just want to go with you,” Moy says.

  “All right then,” Tante Rose says. “Let’s go quickly. It’s not far away.”

  I can’t believe Tante Rose is encouraging Moy to defy Manman. She must know that this is going to cause problems with Manman. As she is tiptoeing out of the house with Moy and the nurse, Tante Rose puts a finger over her mouth, signaling for me to be quiet.

  3:00 P.M.

  As soon as Moy and Tante Rose left, I went up to the roof to have a look at the street. There were not as many people walking around as usual, except a few who were heading home from church or coming back from voting, or both.

  All of a sudden, a shriek from downstairs. I rush down there. It’s Manman.

  “Where is Moy?” she asks.

  “Out with Tante Rose,” I say.

  “Voting?” Manman holds her head with both hands as if to keep it from exploding.

  “That woman!” shouts Manman. “We must leave this house. We cannot stay here anymore.”

  Manman limps back to the room and drops herself on the bed.

  “We have to stay for your leg,” I remind her.

  “I know,” Manman says. “That woman and this leg are holding me prisoner here. We should have never come. Look what it has brought us.”

  She raises her skirt to show me the bandage and then pulls back the bandage slowly to show the cut. It was larger and deeper than I had feared. It still must hurt a lot because Manman moans in pain at night and grimaces when she walks.

  In spite of the way the wound looks and how much it frightens me, I say, “It could have been worse, Manman. We both could have died, like those children.”

  “I know,” Manman says, resigning herself to having to stay in Tante Rose’s house a while longer.

  Today more than most days, I wish Papa were here to console Manman, to reassure her more than I ever could.

  5:00 P.M.

  Manman and I are waiting in the living room when Tante Rose and Moy and the other nurse return.

  Manman’s face relaxes a little bit when she sees that they are all right.

  “Sister,” Tante Rose says, walking toward Manman, “the streets are empty. It was safe.”

  “Sister,” Manman says, “since you call me sister. Just because I am in your house and you are looking after me does not make my children your own.”

  8:30 P.M.

  The evening news reports say that fewer people came out to vote than were expected. Perhaps it was because, like Manman, they worried about possible violence and were afraid.

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27

  The city is back to normal. I could make it all out from Tante Rose’s roof: the reopened shops, the street vendors, cars lined up behind one another in traffic jams, horns blowing from every direction.

  Manman and Tante Rose are friendly again. They exchanged a few jokes while Tante Rose looked over Manman’s leg this morning.

  Papa called while I was still asleep to check on us. Manman said he sounded calmer, less worried.

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28

  Moy decided to go back to Beau Jour. Manman tried to convince him to stay, but he said he needed to see about the cornfields and the cows, which Granpè Nozial and Granmè Melina have been looking after since we left.

  I know the camion trip back will be very difficult for Manman and I want to be with her when she decides to make it.

  Manman resigned herself to the fact that Moy would go without us, so she told Moy to pick up Papa’s cassette and the money at the transfer place. She said nothing about when she thought she would be able to go home.

  I realize now just how afraid Manman is of traveling through Carrefour. This is probably why she accepts that Moy will be leaving without us. I, too, am afraid of being in another camion and having the same thing happen.

  Some nights I dream that after the bombing I am lost and never found again, that I forget my name and am unable to tell anyone who I am. Other nights I dream that it is Manman who is lost and who forgets her name and is never found.

  I had these same types of dreams after Papa left, that he would get to New York and find a new son and daughter and a new wife and forget about us.

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29

  President Aristide is officially declared the winner of the election. On the television news broadcast, they said he received two million votes.

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30

  I am feeling much better now. The bump on my head is no more and my bruises have faded into little scars that hardly show. I am saying prayers every day that soon Manman can say the same.

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1

  It’s already been a month since we’ve been here. If we’re here any longer, we might as well stay for Christmas.

  This morning, I saw Manman walking back and forth across the room, as if trying to will her leg to do exactly what she wants it to do.

  I think the leg is getting better. She moans less at night and grimaces less often when she walks.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2

  We are home! I am writing by the light of our kerosene lamp. Everyone is asleep. The cooking rocks are still warm from the fire and I could spend all night staring at the cinders in the ashes when I am not looking up at the stars.

  When we woke up this morning, Manman said, “We are leaving today. I am tired of Rose’s house. I want to go back to my own house.”

  She announced this to Tante Rose as soon as Tante Rose woke up.

  “I feel bad that I made you stay longer the last time,” Tante Rose said. “I am not going to tell you to stay this time, even though I think you should wait for your leg to heal completely, but if you must go, let me take you.”

  Tante Rose told Raymond to find her a car. An hour later, Raymond came back with a borrowed car and we were off.

  Manman and I sat together in the back. Tante Rose sat up front while Raymond drove.

  As we neared Carrefour, Tante Rose asked Raymond to use a shortcut off the main road to spare Manman from having to see the bombing site again. Raymond did this and in no time we were in Léogâne.

  Once we got there, Tante Rose rented two mules. Manman rode one with her hurt leg stretched out in front of her, just as Tante Rose recommended. Tante Rose and I rode the other mule. By late afternoon, we were finally home.

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3

  I thought Tante Rose would rush back to the city early in the morning, but she did not. She went with Moy to see the fields and Papa’s cows, then stayed for the midday meal Granmè Melina cooked for us.

  Granmè Melina and Granpè Nozial were thrilled to see us. I couldn’t stop staring at them, I was so happy. As usual, Granmè Melina smelled like coffee. I didn’t realize how much I missed that smell and how much I missed her.

  As we ate, Granpè Nozial told us a story about a man who left the mountain to go to the city and in the city discovered ice. The man liked ice so much he wanted to bring some back up the mountain, but by the time he got up the mountain with the ice, the ice had melted. The man came back to the village several times and tried to find a way to define ice to his friends, who had never seen it, but all he had to show for his encounter with the ice was a wet shirt. “So ice is a wet shirt,” his friends told the man to keep him from feeling too bad.

  I think the lesson of the story is that even though Granpè Nozial hadn’t been to the city with us to see for himself what we had been through, he could understand it because he could see the result in Manman’s leg.

  Granpè Nozial can always think of a story to make you feel better, no matter how strange the story.

  After the meal, Tante Rose showed Moy and me how to change the dressing on Manman’s leg, and she made us promise that we would remind Manman to take her tablets and eat plenty of green vegetables and liver when she could find it. Tante Rose also ordered us not to let Manman go down to the market until her leg was completely healed.

  Tante Rose said she would have a surprise for us when she saw us again at Christmas. I asked her what it was, but she refused to tell me. She can be quite a torturer, that Tante Rose, saying something like that just as Moy starts walking her down the mountain.

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 4

  It feels wonderful to be back in school. Madame Auguste made me stand as she made a welcoming speech in my honor.

  “We’re happy Celiane is with us again,” she said. “We missed her. Did we not miss her, class?”

  There were some whispers, but I think almost everyone missed me except Pouchon, who’s been in first place since I have been gone.

  During recess, Thérèse prodded me for details about my adventures in the city. At times during my telling, Thérèse was frightened and outraged. At other times she was plain jealous that I got to spend all that time in the city, no matter how dangerous it was.

  She wanted to know how Moy had handled himself. I told her he did well. We couldn’t have gotten along without him, I said. This seemed to increase her esteem for Moy and I think for me, too.

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5

  Madame Auguste had a special lesson about Christophe Colomb, the Italian explorer who came to our island on this day in 1492 from Spain.

  Before Colomb arrived, there were Arawak Indians living here and plenty of gold mines. Colomb and his men made the Arawaks work the gold mines and exposed them to diseases from Europe, to which the Arawaks had no resistance.

  Soon, all the Arawaks died.

  After Colomb and his men left, the French came and imported slaves from Africa. Most Haitians, Madame Auguste says, are the descendants of those slaves.