Krik? Krak!

Marie, a domestic worker, is in Port-au-Prince when she finds a beautiful baby with purple lips wrapped in a blanket on the curb. She compares the baby to the stories of Baby Moses and Baby Jesus she learned as a child, and wonders why no one is around to claim the baby. She wonders if it is a trap left by one of her many enemies, such as the women who slept with her husband while she was experiencing recurring miscarriages. Marie studies the baby, who is wearing a blue dress with the word “rose” embroidered on the collar. The baby looks exactly as Marie had imagined her own babies would look. Marie calls the baby all the names she imagined for her own daughters. She remembers hearing stories on her boss’s television about women who abandoned their babies; she wonders if this baby was one of the abandoned. Marie picks up the baby, which she is now calling Rose, and feels that it is warm. The baby does not stir or cry when Marie picks it up, and it smells like the gardenias in the house where Marie works.

At dawn each morning, Marie repeats her mother’s prayers. Although her mother is dead, she visits Marie often, in the voices and faces of other people, but also in Marie’s dreams. It is revealed that Marie’s mother is Josephine, the narrator of “Nineteen Thirty-Seven,” and that Marie is visited in her dreams by the spirits of the women who gathered by the Massacre River with Josephine’s mother. It is also revealed that Lili, the female protagonist of “A Wall of Fire Rising,” was a member of the group, and that she died by suicide after her husband’s own suicide in the hot air balloon. Marie thinks that these women are calling on her to take care of the child that she has found, and takes Rose home.

When Marie returns to the home where she works, she quickly puts Rose to sleep in her small bedroom and begins to prepare lunch. When her employers leave, Marie brings Rose into the kitchen and tells her the details of her life: She had been married for ten years, and her husband had had “ten different babies with ten different women” (96), so Marie fled to Port-au-Prince. She likes to pretend that the beautiful house where she works belongs to her, and that she is in a relationship with the Dominican man who cleans the pool, whom she once had sex with. She considers Rose to be a perfect addition to this family.

After a few days, Rose’s body begins to show signs of decomposition. Marie begins to bathe her constantly in order to cover the smell. She wants to return Rose’s body to the street, but feels responsible for her soul, which is now being prevented from moving onwards. Marie moves the body to an outdoor shed, and covers it in perfume. She bathes and dresses the body one last time in preparation for burial. As she is burying the body, however, she is caught by the pool worker, who accuses her of witchcraft and says that he has called the police. He detains her, and while they wait for the police, Marie thinks that she, Rose, and the pool worker make a beautiful picture.