food.
“No going back for you?” asks Mrs. Fonteneau.
“I have not yet had the opportunity,” my father replies.
“We go back every year,” says Mrs. Fonteneau, “to a beautiful place overlooking the ocean, in the mountains of Jacmel.”
“Have you ever been to Jacmel?” Gabrielle Fonteneau asks me.
I shake my head no.
“We’re fortunate,” Mrs. Fonteneau says, “that we have a place to go where we can say the rain is sweeter, the dust is lighter, our beaches prettier.”
“So now we are tasting rain and weighing dust?” Mr. Fonteneau says and laughs.
“There’s nothing like drinking the sweet juice from a coconut fetched from your own tree.” Mrs. Fonteneau’s eyes are lit up now as she puts her fork down to better paint the picture for us. She’s giddy; her voice grows louder and higher, and even her daughter is absorbed, smiling and recollecting with her mother.
“There’s nothing like sinking your hand in sand from the beach in your own country,” Mrs. Fonteneau is saying. “It’s a wonderful feeling, wonderful.”
I imagine my father’s nightmares. Maybe he dreams of dipping his hands in the sand on a beach in his own country and finding that what he comes up with is a fistful of blood.
After lunch, my father asks if he can have a closer look at the Fonteneaus’ garden. While he’s taking the tour, I make my confession about the sculpture to Gabrielle Fonteneau.
She frowns as she listens, fidgeting, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, as though she’s greatly annoyed that so much of her valuable time had been so carelessly squandered on me. Perhaps she’s wondering if this was just an elaborate scheme to meet her, perhaps she wants us out of her house as quickly as possible.
“I don’t usually have people come into my house like this,” she says, “I promise you.”
“I appreciate it,” I say. “I’m grateful for your trust and I didn’t mean to violate it.”
“I guess if you don’t have it, then you don’t have it,” she says. “But I’m very disappointed. I really wanted to give that piece to my father.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I should have known something was off,” she says, looking around the room, as if for something more interesting to concentrate on. “Usually when people come here to sell us art, first of all they’re always carrying it with them and they always show it to us right away. But since you know Céline, I overlooked that.”
“There was a sculpture,” I say, aware of how stupid my excuse was going to sound. “My father didn’t like it, and he threw it away.”
She raises her perfectly arched eyebrows, as if out of concern for my father’s sanity, or for my own. Or maybe it’s another indirect signal that she now wants us out of her sight.
“We’re done, then,” she says, looking directly at my face. “I have to make a call. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Gabrielle Fonteneau excuses herself, disappearing behind a closed door. Through the terrace overlooking the garden, I see her parents guiding my father along rows of lemongrass. I want to call Gabrielle Fonteneau back and promise her that I will make her another sculpture, but I can’t. I don’t know that I will be able to work on anything for some time. I have lost my subject, the prisoner father I loved as well as pitied.
In the garden Mr. Fonteneau snaps a few sprigs of lemongrass from one of the plants, puts them in a plastic bag that Mrs. Fonteneau is holding. Mrs. Fonteneau hands the bag of lemongrass to my father.
Watching my father accept with a nod of thanks, I remember the chapter “Driving Back Slaughters” from
The
Book of the Dead
, which my father sometimes read to me to drive away my fear of imagined monsters. It was a chapter full of terrible lines like “My mouth is the keeper of both speech and silence. I am the child who travels the roads of yesterday, the one who has been wrought from his eye.”
I wave to my father in the
“No going back for you?” asks Mrs. Fonteneau.
“I have not yet had the opportunity,” my father replies.
“We go back every year,” says Mrs. Fonteneau, “to a beautiful place overlooking the ocean, in the mountains of Jacmel.”
“Have you ever been to Jacmel?” Gabrielle Fonteneau asks me.
I shake my head no.
“We’re fortunate,” Mrs. Fonteneau says, “that we have a place to go where we can say the rain is sweeter, the dust is lighter, our beaches prettier.”
“So now we are tasting rain and weighing dust?” Mr. Fonteneau says and laughs.
“There’s nothing like drinking the sweet juice from a coconut fetched from your own tree.” Mrs. Fonteneau’s eyes are lit up now as she puts her fork down to better paint the picture for us. She’s giddy; her voice grows louder and higher, and even her daughter is absorbed, smiling and recollecting with her mother.
“There’s nothing like sinking your hand in sand from the beach in your own country,” Mrs. Fonteneau is saying. “It’s a wonderful feeling, wonderful.”
I imagine my father’s nightmares. Maybe he dreams of dipping his hands in the sand on a beach in his own country and finding that what he comes up with is a fistful of blood.
After lunch, my father asks if he can have a closer look at the Fonteneaus’ garden. While he’s taking the tour, I make my confession about the sculpture to Gabrielle Fonteneau.
She frowns as she listens, fidgeting, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, as though she’s greatly annoyed that so much of her valuable time had been so carelessly squandered on me. Perhaps she’s wondering if this was just an elaborate scheme to meet her, perhaps she wants us out of her house as quickly as possible.
“I don’t usually have people come into my house like this,” she says, “I promise you.”
“I appreciate it,” I say. “I’m grateful for your trust and I didn’t mean to violate it.”
“I guess if you don’t have it, then you don’t have it,” she says. “But I’m very disappointed. I really wanted to give that piece to my father.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I should have known something was off,” she says, looking around the room, as if for something more interesting to concentrate on. “Usually when people come here to sell us art, first of all they’re always carrying it with them and they always show it to us right away. But since you know Céline, I overlooked that.”
“There was a sculpture,” I say, aware of how stupid my excuse was going to sound. “My father didn’t like it, and he threw it away.”
She raises her perfectly arched eyebrows, as if out of concern for my father’s sanity, or for my own. Or maybe it’s another indirect signal that she now wants us out of her sight.
“We’re done, then,” she says, looking directly at my face. “I have to make a call. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Gabrielle Fonteneau excuses herself, disappearing behind a closed door. Through the terrace overlooking the garden, I see her parents guiding my father along rows of lemongrass. I want to call Gabrielle Fonteneau back and promise her that I will make her another sculpture, but I can’t. I don’t know that I will be able to work on anything for some time. I have lost my subject, the prisoner father I loved as well as pitied.
In the garden Mr. Fonteneau snaps a few sprigs of lemongrass from one of the plants, puts them in a plastic bag that Mrs. Fonteneau is holding. Mrs. Fonteneau hands the bag of lemongrass to my father.
Watching my father accept with a nod of thanks, I remember the chapter “Driving Back Slaughters” from
The
Book of the Dead
, which my father sometimes read to me to drive away my fear of imagined monsters. It was a chapter full of terrible lines like “My mouth is the keeper of both speech and silence. I am the child who travels the roads of yesterday, the one who has been wrought from his eye.”
I wave to my father in the
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