An Untamed State Read online

  Nadine took my hand between hers. The palms of our hands were soft together. “Kenbe fèm,” she said. Hold steady. Stay strong.

  She said these words as if strength were still a possibility for me. I was grateful for her words. I knew how far beyond my reach strength was.

  There was something calming about packing, putting things in order. Order. That’s what Michael needed, that and to put some distance between his family and this place. He had always known that something like this would happen. He watched the news. He had eyes. But first, home. They had to get home, their flight left in five hours. Packing was the first step in making that happen. He looked down at his hands, the knuckles raw, nearly bloody. No one had noticed and he was grateful for that.

  As Mireille sat on the corner of the bed, staring at the wall, Michael folded their clothes carefully, making neat piles. Fabienne stood in the doorway. Her hair, normally pulled tight in a French twist, hung in loose strands. She twisted her wedding ring back and forth.

  “It would be good to stay longer, Mireille. Please talk to your father. We were so worried.”

  Mireille didn’t respond, just kept staring at the wall. Michael paused his folding. It was unnerving, how still his wife sat. He wanted to shake her.

  “We are getting out of here,” he said brusquely.

  Fabienne was undeterred. “I am speaking to my daughter. Stay out of this.” More softly, she said, “It would be best to put this incident behind you, Mireille.”

  Mireille turned to look at her mother, eyes dull. “Incident?”

  Michael normally stayed out of Mireille’s relationship with her parents. He didn’t understand how they worked, how often there was more said in what was not said between his wife and her parents. “Normal families,” he once told Mireille after he met her parents, “actually say what they mean and feel.” “We’re Catholic,” she replied, and they laughed. It seemed funny at the time, almost charming.

  He looked up from the pile of Christophe’s clothes he was folding with strangely timed precision, forcing his hands to work steady. “That is total bullshit. And there is no out of this for me. She is my wife. You can’t will me away because that would be more convenient for you.”

  In the before, Mireille would have said Michael’s name sharply and he would have understood that American husbands are to be seen and not heard. Mireille said nothing, resumed staring at the wall and began rocking back and forth.

  Fabienne frowned, began twisting her ring harder. “Your ordeal is over, Mireille. We can move on from this.”

  Her clinical vocabulary fascinated Michael—it was like his mother-in-law was talking about a mild inconvenience. This was all madness. He looked at his wife, whose hands were shaking.

  “I’m sure you can move on from this,” Mireille said, “but I will never move on. I am still where they kept me; I am in that cage.”

  Mireille ran into the bathroom. There was retching, silence, and more retching. Michael winced, and after the retching stopped, followed his wife. She stood in front of the mirror, holding a pill bottle. She placed one pill on the tip of her tongue and swallowed.

  “Are you okay?” Michael asked.

  Mireille placed another pill on her tongue, swallowed. “I don’t know what the hell I am,” she said.

  “Babe, what does that mean? I’m really worried.”

  Mireille finally looked up. “It’s like I can’t remember my name or my life but . . . I can. I mean, it’s all there but I can’t quite reach myself. I am so tired.”

  “We’re going home, baby, and we’ll get you to the hospital and we’ll figure out how to get you better.”

  She laughed hoarsely. “B-E-T-T-E-R.” She studied herself in the mirror for a moment, shook her head, and slid past Michael. “I need some air.”

  Before she could leave the bedroom, Fabienne took firm hold of Mireille’s elbow and pulled her close.

  “Let go of me,” Mireille snapped.

  Fabienne relaxed her grip and traced her daughter’s hairline with her fingertips. “You are my youngest daughter. You are loved. I am sorry this happened.”

  Mireille stared blankly again. “I’m no one’s daughter, not anymore.”

  “Look at me.”

  Mireille faced her mother.

  “You are my child. You hear me? You are mine and you will always be mine and nothing can change that. I made you.”

  The air was so thick and still. Michael blinked, and he was back on the street, surrounded by armed men. Mireille was being torn from him, Christophe was crying, the horn, the stunned silence as he ran toward the house with his son in his arms, one would help. His headache returned, a sharp and steady pain behind his eyes. He wanted out of Haiti, forever. He wanted away from Mireille’s parents, all these people who said one thing and meant another.

  “You may have made me but he left me to rot and you let him and now, I am rotten. Your child is all gone,” Mireille said.

  Michael blinked again and resumed packing though he was done with neat folding. It didn’t matter. “We are getting the fuck out of here,” he muttered, stuffing the rest of their things into the suitcases.

  Fabienne looked past him at Mireille. “Your father loves you very much.”

  “Don’t speak to me about that man and love. What they did to me.”

  “These kidnappers are businessmen. From what I understand, most of the people who are taken are treated reasonably well.”

  Enough was enough. Michael threw a shoe against the wall and it left a thick black mark. He pointed at Mireille. “Does she look like she was treated reasonably well? Open your eyes for once in your precious life.”

  “You should leave this country before they come for you,” Mireille said.

  “My place is here, with your father.” Fabienne faltered. “Mireille, there are things you cannot understand right now but he loves you very much. He loves all of us. He has suffered here as much as anyone.”

  “That’s not how I remember it,” Michael said. Mireille turned to look at her husband, and for a moment, he saw a flicker of life, but then her eyes dulled again.

  Mireille stood. She looked at Fabienne and Michael. “He didn’t come for me. None of you came for me. You all let me rot,” she said, and limped out of the room, Michael calling after her, even though he knew his words could not reach her.

  Fabienne tried to regain her composure and turned her attention to her son-in-law. “You have no understanding of the world. Don’t you dare try to come between my daughter and her family.”

  Michael snapped the suitcase shut and look a quick look around the room. “With all due respect, Fabienne, you and your husband did that all on your own and if understanding the world means being okay with what my wife has been through, I’m fine not understanding a goddamned thing about it. We’re done with this place, forever.”

  “How American of you, this being done with the birthplace of your wife’s parents, as if such a thing were possible.”

  “You know, Fabienne, being American is feeling pretty good right now. This would have never happened to us in Miami, or anywhere in the States and don’t you forget that.”

  Fabienne closed the distance between them and dug her fingernails into Michael’s arm. “I lived more than half my life in the United States. You are being quite selective about the merits of your country and how nice that must be for you, Mr. America.”

  Michael looked down at his mother-in-law’s hand and shook his head. “Thirteen days, and you can stand there and lecture me?”

  “You cannot come between us,” Fabienne said again, as Michael grabbed the suitcases and stormed out of the room. There was little conviction in her words.

  Our goodbyes were formal and impossible. There was a fracture that could never close. I stood near the front door trying to stay quietly in my rage, trying to control my fear about every hideous thing that could happen to me, my husband, my child, between my parents’ home and the airport. My mother held Christophe for
a very long time, pressing the palm of her hand against his face as if she were trying to memorize his features with her skin. My father stood next to her with his hand firmly against the small of her back. He would not look me in the eye but he stood tall. My father always stands tall.

  I tried to remember how much I once loved that man. I couldn’t. All I could see in his face were thirteen days spent in the company of seven men who undid me. His pride burned everything good between us and he stood, defiant still, letting me choke on his ashes.

  My mother looked so small standing next to my father. I wanted to reach across the raw fracture but the way she stood next to him, the way she fit her body against his was more than I could forgive. We kissed lightly, once on each cheek, and she handed Christophe to Michael. I leaned into her and I whispered, “I love you,” because I did not want that to go unsaid, not after everything. There was a fracture between us but for my mother and me it was not impassable. She grabbed my hand as I turned away, squeezing tightly. She took a long time to let go. She said, “You will survive this.” I had never known her to be an optimist.

  I said nothing to my father. My father said nothing to me. His will is absolute and mine had become absolute too. Michael said nothing to anyone but I knew what he was thinking and I loved him for it. Our bags were brought to the car. As we walked out, my father cleared his throat. He called my name but I didn’t look back. He called my name again, louder. I tell myself I heard desperation in his voice. I may have heard what I wanted to hear. I kept walking even though each step hurt more than the one before it. Michael and I sat in the backseat behind two armed men, with our child between us. I wanted my father to run after us, to try to explain himself, to tell me he loved me, to tell me anything at all, but he didn’t. He simply called out my name as if that were the grande geste I needed from him.

  As we approached the airport, all I could see was the swarm of dark, sweaty bodies shouting, reaching, shouting, reaching. I worried one of my kidnappers, maybe more, were there, waiting to take me again, waiting to extract more ransom, more penance where there was none to give, waiting to end me as they already should have. There’s no one you can trust in a country run through with anger.

  We pulled up to the terminal and I grabbed Michael’s arm as he moved to open the door. “Wait.”

  “Why? I want to get us the hell out of here.”

  “It’s not safe.” I looked around nervously. Strange faces kept peering into the car, trying to see through the dark tint covering the back windows. I donned a large pair of dark sunglasses. I tried to ignore the shock of pain running through me, my God, the constancy of it. “It’s not safe,” I said again. I fumbled through my purse for the painkillers and swallowed three, dry, and waited to feel something like numb.

  The men in the front seat turned around but Michael waved them off. He nodded affably, moved to stroke my arm but stopped himself. “We can sit here all day if we need. We have air-conditioning.” He looked down at Christophe, who was sleeping. “And the baby is sleeping so he won’t even know the difference.” Michael smiled and this time I recognized him, my husband from the before.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes, sank into the leather seat, waited and waited and waited to stop feeling the pain between my thighs and in my heart and in my back and in my head. Slowly, the bruises loosened and the world muffled. It was more difficult to focus. I spoke slowly but my words were slurred. “I think we can go now.”

  Michael nodded and tapped one of the armed men on the shoulder. The driver opened my door and helped me out of the car. I steadied myself against his arm. His jacket opened. There was a holstered gun, nestled against his rib cage. I wanted a gun for myself, one that would never be pointed at me or thrust in me, one I could hold. Michael carried Christophe and we walked behind the security guard, who cleared a path. I tried to keep my head down. I tried not to hear or see or feel. I ignored the stares, and what those people were thinking, what they could see written on my body. We were quickly ushered through the diplomatic check-in area. I was still my father’s daughter even though I was no longer my father’s daughter.

  When it came time to pass through security I stopped just before the metal detectors as I watched one of the security agents giving a passenger a vigorous pat-down. “I can’t do this.”

  Michael, a few steps ahead of me, paused, turned around. “What do you mean?”

  “If they have to pat me down, I will die, again, Michael.”

  He looked at his watch. “We have to go, babe. You’ll be fine.”

  “I will die,” I said, quietly.

  “If I did not think you could handle this, I would try and figure something else out, but you will be fine. This is the last terrible thing, I promise.”

  “You have no fucking idea what I will be,” I snapped. “And you have no business making promises.” Every time I spoke to him I said something I regretted, but I had so little kindness left in me and no patience at all.

  Christophe stirred then settled again against his father’s chest. I wanted to hold my child so badly I could feel it in my arms, how the weight of his small body always fit against me but then I thought of the me I had become touching that child and I took a step away from Michael.

  “I want to understand why this will be hard for you,” Michael said, “but I also know this is the only way home.”

  “Home.” I shook my head. “I hate you,” I said, instantly regretting the words but I walked right past him holding my passport and my plane ticket. As I walked through the metal detector I shook so hard my elbow accidentally brushed against the side and the sensor beeped. I glared at Michael through the detector and he looked down, his face red.

  “Madame,” one of the security agents said, lifting his arms, motioning what I should do. I held up a hand, said, “Please, let me just walk through again.”

  He shook his head, said something about security protocols. I wanted to laugh. No one in that country knew anything about security. The agent stepped toward me and I shrank. Michael tried to walk through the detector but the man with the wand held his hand up.

  “She’s my wife,” Michael said. “She needs my help.”

  The security agent pretended not to understand English. He turned to me and raised his arms again. I tried to find the words to explain to him that I could not be touched, that if he touched me I would shatter and I would die more and I would never find my way home. I faced Michael and stared at him as I raised my arms, slowly. The muscles were sore, stiff. I looked at my wrist, still raw and abraded. There was so little left of my skin.

  Michael nodded and half-smiled. “Mireille, look at me. You’re going to be fine.”

  I wanted him to stop saying that; the way he lingered on the f with such confidence, it was just too much. The security agent stood in front of me, tried to block my view. I looked past him. I looked into Michael’s blue eyes. I wanted to tell my husband I was still so in love with him, that despite everything I knew that to be true. The security agent smirked and set his wand down. I could smell his spite. Men like him do well in such positions of impotent authority. I was close enough to claw his eyes out, to dig my fingers into his eye sockets, to pull those soft, pulpy masses away from his skull, to tear at the fibrous bundles connecting his eyes to the rest of him since he was so clearly incapable of seeing the state I was in. My arms trembled but I stood my ground. I surprised myself. I had a little fight left. He started at my wrists, pressing my body between his hands. His hands were sweaty, calloused.

  The floor tilted as he patted down my chest, pressing his hands too long, too hard against my breasts, so very sore. I whimpered as quietly as I could. I bit my lower lip until I tasted blood. The security agent’s hands slid lower. It was getting difficult to keep count of the men who had no right to my body taking liberties. The agent crouched to the ground and leered up at me. I ignored him. He pressed my ankles between his hands, my calves between his hands, my thighs between his hands. The agent’s hands
were a blade, peeling me apart, slowly separating what remained of me. I felt everything. I looked into Michael’s eyes. The leash around my neck was so tight, the ringing in my ears so loud that my world reduced itself to nothing.

  “Look at me,” my husband said again. He was eerily calm. It would be months before I understood he had no choice, that he had a singular purpose that day, to get me home, to make me safe. Christophe blinked slowly and yawned, waking up; my son smiled at me. I tried to return his smile but could not. Fresh bile bubbled in my throat.

  When he was finished, the security agent returned my ticket and passport. Michael walked through the metal detector without incident and glared at the agent as he retrieved the stroller, our carry-ons. We sat at the gate and Michael tried to talk to me, to reach me but I was no longer there, I was no one again, surrounded by strangers, sitting next to the husband and child of another woman. On the plane, I recognized almost everyone in the first-class cabin. They stared and whispered. I hid behind my sunglasses. The plane took off and I stared out the window at the sparkling ocean. Nowhere is Haiti more beautiful than from high in the sky.

  After a time, the captain turned off the seat belt sign. I stood and stepped into the aisle.

  Michael moved to follow me. “Where are you going?”

  “The bathroom. What are you, the hall monitor?”

  He sat back down. “I am just trying to help.”

  “Leave me alone if you really want to help.”

  He ignored me, said, “I’ll be here, waiting.”

  I sighed, so tired, so sick of everything. “We’re on an airplane. Honestly, where else would you be, Michael?” I walked away.

  In the cramped bathroom I stared at the stranger in the mirror. I was taken aback by the weight I had lost. My clothes hung from my body like they belonged to a woman twice my size. The wide streak of silver seemed even brighter. I filled the small metal sink with water and washed my face and my hands. I wanted to wash my entire body again. I was never going to get clean. I tried to count the number of hours between that moment and when I could take a shower in my own bathroom. There were too many. I dabbed water against my dry lips and sat down on the toilet. I leaned forward and tried to forget about the leash around my neck or the walls of the bathroom closing in on me. There was knock at the door.