Seth and Samona Read Online Free PDF

scream coming from somewhere inside. Maybe we’d missed the whole thing. Maybe Matant Margaret was jumping out of her coffin right now and walking around shaking people’s hands!
    “Seth.” Jean-Claude looked down at me and I realized I was holding on to the edge of his dark blue suit jacket. He looked older in his suit and tie. He had even taken his earring out of his ear in respect to Granmè. She wouldn’t talk to him for two weeks after he got his ear pierced. She kept saying that the next thing Jean-Claude would do is start wearing a dress. “Take it easy, man.”
    I let go of Jean-Claude’s suit quickly. If Jean-Claude wasn’t scared, then I wasn’t gonna be scared either. Besides, what could happen with Papi and Manmi and the rest of the family there? I made up my mind to pray as hard as I could for Matant Margaret to wake up. I would even shake her hand if she wanted.
    A short, fat man in a black suit came up to us and began talking to Papi. He had skin the color of peanut butter and a round bald head that looked like it had been greased to make it shine. He was shaking his head and talking very fast. I wondered if working here around all these dead bodies was what made his hair fall out, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate to ask.
    After a few minutes, we started to follow the bald man down the hallway with the red carpet. The closer we got, the louder the moaning became. I thought I could feel vibrations coming through the floor, like when someone is playing music too loud. The bald man led us all the way to the back of the house to a set of double doors. From all the noise slipping through the cracks under the door, it sounded like there was a circus going on in there. The bald man opened his mouth to say something, then just shook his head, pointed at the door and walked back down the hallway.
    Papi turned to look down at the three of us. His eyebrows were close together and he had those wrinkles on his forehead. That meant he had something serious to tell us. We could tell he was trying to tell us to behave ourselves. Jean-Claude, Chantal and I nodded quietly. Then Papi reached out to open the door and he barely touched it before it flew open and all this rush of sound erupted from the room and filled the hallway, the entryway and the whole building.
    I stepped inside the door behind Chantal and stared at what was going on in amazement. The room was full of relatives and family friends in black dresses and suits. There were wooden-back chairs all over the place and set up in no kind of order. There was singing going on in one corner and crying in another. Some people were sitting and talking, others were standing and laughing. I saw old Madame Germaine who usedto give me candy to eat while we were in church and Alberthe with her big red cane and more of Granmè’s friends sitting with two rows of old ladies weaving back and forth in their seats and making that terrible moaning sound I had heard from way outside the house. Behind them were three or four white-haired old men, including Ti Jacques, who was sitting with them rubbing his curly white beard. They had their heads hanging low and their feet stomping out a quiet and regular beat on the floor and they were humming all the while. I saw Tant Renee on her knees in the middle of a group of kneeling women leading a rosary chant. Tant Cherise was jumping out of her seat every couple of minutes and screaming “Amwe!” and falling to her knees and pulling her hair out. Manmi and Monnonk Roddie would pull her back up and sit her down and she would start all over again. And right in front of it all was Matant Margaret lying in a long, shiny casket with brass handles on the sides and flowers sitting all around it.
    Papi led us through the maze of people and chairs to the front of the room where Manmi and Granmè were sitting. Manmi had her eyes closed and was singing something in Kreyol. Her dark hair had come loose from her scarf and was hanging