Breath, Eyes, Memory Read Online Free PDF Page A

changing the name of the airport from Francois Duvalier to Mais Gate, like it was before Francois Duvalier was president."
    Tante Atie's body tensed up.
    "Did they have to do it today?" Tante Atie asked. "She will be delayed. We cannot miss our appointment."
    "I will do what I can," the driver said, "but some things are beyond our control."
    I moved closer to the window to get a better look. Clouds of sooty smoke were rising to the sky from a place not too far ahead.
    "I think there is a fire," the driver said..
    Tante Atie pushed her head forward and tried to see.
    "Maybe the world, it is ending," she said.
    We began to move slowly in a long line of cars. Dark green army vans passed through narrow spaces between cars. The driver followed the slow-paced line. Soon we were at the airport gate.
    We stopped in front of the main entrance. The smoke had been coming from across the street. Army trucks surrounded a car in flames. A group of students were standing on top of a hill, throwing rocks at the burning car. They scurried to avoid the tear gas and the round of bullets that the soldiers shot back at them.
    Some of the students fell and rolled down the hill. They screamed at the soldiers that they were once again betraying the people. One girl rushed down the hill and grabbed one of the soldiers by the arm. He raised his pistol and pounded it on top of her head. She fell to the ground, her face covered with her own blood.
    Tante Atie grabbed my shoulder and shoved me quickly inside the airport gate.
    "Do you see what you are leaving?" she said.
    "I know I am leaving you."
    The airport lobby was very crowded. We tried to keep up with the driver as he ran past the vendors and travelers, dragging my suitcase behind him.
    As we waited on the New York boarding line, Tante Atie and I looked up at the paintings looming over us from the ceiling. There were pictures of men and women pulling carts and selling rice and beans to make some money.
    A woman shouted "Madame," drawing us out of the visions above us. She looked breathless, as though she had been searching for us for a long time.
    "You are Sophie Caco?" she asked, speaking directly to me.
    I nodded.
    Tante Atie looked at her lean body and her neat navy uniform and hesitated before shaking her hand.
    "I will take good care of her," she said to Tante Atie in Creole. She immediately took my hand. "Her mother is going to meet her in New York. I spoke to her this morning. Everything is arranged. We cannot waste time."
    Tante Atie's lips quivered.
    "We have to go now," the lady said. "You were very tardy."
    "We were not at fault," Tante Atie tried to explain.
    "It does not matter now," the lady said. "We must go."
    Tante Atie bent down and pressed her cheek against mine.
    "Say hello to your manman for me," she said. "You must not concern yourself about me."
    The driver tapped Tante Atie's shoulder.
    "There could be some more chaos," he said. "I want to go before things become very bad."
    "Don't you worry yourself about me," Tante Atie said. "I am not going to be lonely. I will be with your grandmother. Just you always remember how much your Tante Atie loves and cherishes you."
    The woman tugged at my hand.
    "We really must go," she said.
    "She is going," Tante Atie said, releasing my hand.
    The woman started walking away. I moved along with her taking big steps to keep up. I kept turning my head and waving at Tante Atie. Her large body stood out in the middle of the airport lobby.
    People rubbed against her as they rushed past. She stood in the same spot wiping her tears with a patchwork handkerchief. In her pink dress and brown sandals, with the village dust settled on her toes, it was easy to tell that she did not belong there. She blended in neither with the smiling well-dressed groups on their way to board the planes nor with the jeans-clad tourists whom the panhandlers surrounded at the gate.
    She stood by the exit gate and watched as the woman pulled me though a glass door onto