Dancing in the Baron's Shadow Read Online Free PDF

legs. “Papa’s home!”
    Raymond let the children hold him for a while and pressed his hands against their small backs. It often struck him how small Enos and Adeline were. He knew they weren’t getting enough to eat, and he couldn’t get past the guilt he felt when he ran his hands along their backs and felt their bones. But he loved that their smallness was still a kind of innocence in a place where so much experience was painful. He bent over and kissed them on their foreheads. Adeline was six, Enos four, and they wore their smiles like torches, lighting up the dark corners of his heart.
    â€œHow was your day? Tell me, my little angels.”
    He picked Enos up and walked over to the small kitchen table, his other arm wrapped around his daughter’s shoulders, the children clinging to their father like vines. As he sat down, the chair wobbled and shifted under his weight. Some nights, he came home with a piece of candy in his pocket, or gum, or dous kokoye, sweet coconut. Tonight he had nothing.
    On the counter, his wife, Yvonne, had left bowls and basins filled with water they’d fetched from the back of the house. Dishes were piled up, glistening with dinner’s rancid oil. On the wall, there was a holographic portrait of Jesus—crucified and resurrected—and a photograph of his wife and children in Sunday church clothes, leaning against Raymond’s car. The wall calendar, still turned to January, featured a black-and-white photograph of Duvalier, lips curled in a devious smile, trailed by a gloved First Lady craning her neck like a condor.
    Yvonne rushed out of the bedroom. “Where have you been? I was getting worried.”
    In the dim light, her skin glowed as if lit from the inside, like a fanal, those festive paper lanterns. These days, she rarely greeted him happily with the children. Instead, she’d wait for him to come to the kitchen where, wiping empty plates, she’d complain about the price of rice, of shoes, of medicine, about the chronic pain that gnawed at her bones, about the heat that choked them all day and night. Even as they fell asleep, she repeatedthe familiar questions in the dark: “Must we live here forever? Can’t we have just a small, nice kay with trees?”
    Right now, however, her face displayed genuine concern. Yvonne rested her hand on his head. “It’s really late,” she said.
    â€œHave the children eaten?” he asked.
    â€œYou almost missed curfew!” She pulled away, yanked the kitchen towel from her waistband and threw it on the countertop. “Yes, they’ve eaten.”
    She was scared. He recognized this, and still he said, digging through his pockets, “You don’t want to know what I’ve been through today.”
    He shifted Enos onto his other leg and gave his earnings to Adeline, who handed the money to his wife. Yvonne stared at him for a moment, the way she always did when she couldn’t get a good read on her husband.
    â€œAre you all right?” she asked.
    He nodded. She reached for his hand. Her palms were sandpaper rough, the result of years of handwashing sheets and towels in hotels with cheap, imported chemical soaps. He looked down and saw how the dyes had stained her nails, how the flesh was worn around the beds. Those hands had never been smooth. The very first time she’d held his face, he’d felt the damage of her life against his cheeks. He recognized the same toughness from his mother’s hands.
    â€œWhy are your hands shaking?” she asked.
    â€œIt’s been a long day.”
    He put Enos down and asked the kids to go prepare him a bath. They grabbed a bucket and ran out, the back door slamming behind them. Yvonne counted the bills quietly.
    â€œThat’s all?” she whispered. “Thirty gourdes, Raymond. What am I supposed to do with that? That’s just enough for the kids’ tuition.”
    â€œThere’ll be more