Setting, Symbolism, & Figurative Language (RR2)

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II f Fire EDWIDGE DANTICAT Edwidge Danticat was born in the city ofPort-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1969 and immigrated to the United States with her parents (a cab driver and textile worker) at the age of twelve. She is the author of three plays and seven novels. She has edited books and published a memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, in 2007. In 1995, she published, Krik?Krak!, her only collection ofshort stories, which includes 'A Wall ofFire Rising" and was a finalist for the National Book Award. More information about Danticat's literary themes and personal background can befound in the literary analysis, 'An Interview with Edwidge Danticat" on page 158.

"Listen to what happened today:' Guy said as he barged through the rattling door of his tiny shack.

His wife, Lili, was squatting in the middle oftheir one-room home, spreading cornmeal mush on banana leaves for their supper.

"Listen to what happened to me today!" Guy's seven-year-old son-Little Guy­ dashed from a corner and grabbed his fa­

. ther's hand. The boy dropped his. composi­ tion notebook as he leaped to his father, nearly stepping into the corn mush and her­ ring that his mother had set out in a trio of half gourds on the clay floor.

"Our boy is in a play." Lili quickly robbed Little Guy of the honor of telling his father the news.

"A play?" Guy affectionately stroked the 5 boy's hair.

The boy had such tiny corkscrew curls that no amount of brushing could ever make them all look like a single entity. The other boys at the Lycee Jean-Jacques called him "pepper head" because each separate kinky strand was coiled into a tight tiny ball that looked like small peppercorns.

"When is this play?" Guy asked both the boy and his wife. "Arewe going to have to buy new clothes for this?"

Lili got up from the floor and inclined her face towards her husband's in order to re­ ceive her nightly peck on the cheek.

"What role do you have in the play?" Guy asked, slowly rubbing the tip of his nails across the boy's scalp. His fingers made a soft grating noise with each invisible circle drawn around the perimeters of the boy's head. Guy's fingers finally landed inside the boy's ears, forcing the boy to giggle until he almost gave himself the hiccups.

"Tell me, what is your part in the play?" 10 Guy asked again, pulling his fingers away from his son's ear.

"I am Boukman," the boy huffed out, as though there was some laughter caught in his throat.

"Show Papy your lines," Lili told the boy as she arranged the three open gourds on a piece of plywood raised like a table on two bricks, in the middle of the room. "My love, Boukman is the hero of the play:'

The boy went back to the corner where he had been studying and pulled out a thick book carefully covered in brown paper.

"You're going to spend a lifetime learn­ ing those:' Guy took the book from the boy's hand and flipped through the pages quickly. He had to strain his eyes to see the words by

" . 151

I' Danticat: A Wall of Fire Rising

elight of an old kerosene lamp, which that The boy closed his eyes and took a deep ,night-like all others-flickered as though it breath. At first, his lips parted but nothing ,was burning its very last wick. came out. Lili pushed her head forward as

'~these words seem so long and heavy:' IS though she were holding her breath. Then .Guy said. "You think you can do this, son?" like the last burst of lightning out of clearing

"He has one very good speech:' Lili said. sky, the boy began. 'Page forty, remember, son?" 'il wall offire is rising and in the ashes, I

The boy took back the book from his fa- see the bones ofmy people. Not only those peo­ ther. His face was crimped in an of-course-1- pie whose dark hollow faces I see daily in the remember look as he searched for page forty. fields, but all those souls who have gone ahead

"Bonk-man," Guy struggled with the let- to haunt my dreams. At night I reliue once ters of the slave revolutionary's name as he more the last caressesfrom the hand of a lov­ looked over his son's shoulders. {(I see some ingfather, a valiant love, a belovedfriend." very hard words here, son:' It was obvious that this was a speech writ - 35

"He already knows his speech:' Lili told ten by a European man, who gave to the slave her husband. revolutionary Boukman the kind of European

"Does he now?" asked Guy. 20 phrasing that might have sent the real Bouk­ "We've been at it all afternoon:' Lili said. man turning in his grave. However, the

"\Jllhy don't you go on and recite that speech speech made Lili and Guy stand on the tips of foryourfather?" their toes from great pride. As their applause

The boy tipped his head towards the thundered in the small space of their shack rusting tin on the roof as he prepared to recite that night, they felt as though for a moment his lines. they had been given the rare pleasure of hear­

" Lili wiped her hands on an old apron tied ing the voice of one of the forefathers of Hait­ around her waist and stopped to listen, ian independence in the forced baritone of

"Remember what you are:' Lili said, "a their only child. The experience left them great rebel leader. Remember, it is the revolu- both with a strange feeling that they could not lion:' explain. It left the hair on the back of their

"Do we want him to be all of that?" Guy 25 necks standing on end. It left them feeling asked. much more love than they ever knew that

"He is Boukrnan," Lili said. "What is the they could add to their feeling for their son. only thing on your mind now, Boukman?" "Bravo," Lilicheered, pressing her son into

"Supper," Guy whispered, enviously eye­ the folds of her apron. "Long live Boukman ing the food cooling off in the middle of the and long live my boy:' room. He and the boy looked at each other "Long live our supper;' Guy said, quickly andbegan to snicker. batting his eyelashes to keep tears from rolling

"Tell us the other thing that is on your down his face. mind;' Lilisaid, joining in their laughter.

Q\ . "Free.dom!". sho~ted the boy, as he IC quickly slipped mto hISrole. The boy kept his eyes on his book as they ate

"Louder!" urged Lili. 30 their supper that night. Usually Guy and Lili "Freedom is on my mind!" yelled the boy. would not have allowed that, but this was a "Why don't you start, son?" said Guy. "If special occasion. They watched proudly as the

you don't, we'll never get to that other thing boy muttered his lines between swallows of thatwe have on our minds:' cornmeal.

CHAPTER 8 Literary Analyses I~

The boy was still mumbling the same words as the three of them used the last of the rainwater trapped in old gasoline containers and sugarcane pulp from the nearby sugarcane mill to scrub the gourds that they had eaten from.

When things were really bad for the fam- 40 ily, they boiled clean sugarcane pulp to make what Lili called her special sweet water tea. It was supposed to suppress gas and kill the vermin in the stomach that made poor chil­ dren hungry. That and a pinch of salt under the tongue could usually quench hunger un­ til Guy found a day's work or Lili could man­ age to buy spices on credit and then peddle them for a profit at the marketplace.

That night, anyway, things were good. Everyone had eaten enough to put all their hunger vermin to sleep.

The boy was sitting in front of the shack on an old plastic bucket turned upside down, straining his eyes to find the words on the page. Sometimes when there was no kerosene. for the lamp, the boy would have to go sit by the side of the road and study under the street lamps with the rest of the neighborhood chil­ dren. Tonight, at least, they had a bit of their own light.

Guy bent down by a small clump of old mushrooms near the boy's feet, trying to get a better look at the plant. He emptied the last drops of rainwater from a gasoline container on the mushroom, wetting the bulging toes sticking out of his sons' sandals, which were already coming apart around his endlessly growing feet.

Guy tried to pluck some of the mush­ rooms, which were being pushed into the dust as though they wanted to grow beneath the ground as roots. He took one of the mush­ rooms in his hand, running his smallest finger over the round bulb. He clipped the stem and buried the top in a thick strand of his wife's hair.

The mushroom looked like a dried insect 45 in Lili's hair.

"It sure makes you look special," Guy said, teasing her.

"Thank you so much," Lili said, tapping her husband's arm. "It's nice to know that I deserve these much more than roses:'

Taking his wife's hand, Guy said, "Let's go to the sugar mill,"

"Can I study my lines there?" the boy asked.

"You know them well enough already," 50 Guy said.

"I need many repetitions;' the boy said.

Their feet sounded as though they were play­ ing a wet wind instrument as they slipped in and out of the puddles between the shacks in

.the shantytown. Near the sugar mill was a _ large television screen in a iron grill cage that

the government had installed so that the shantytown dwellers could watch the state­ sponsored news at eight o'clock every night. After the news, a gendarme would come and turn off the television set, taking home the key. On most nights, the people stayed at the site long after this gendarme had gone and told stories to one another beneath the big hlank screen. They made bonfires with dried sticks, corn husks, and paper, cursing the au­ thorities under their breath.

There was a crowd already gathering for the nightly news event. The sugar mill workers sat in the front row in chairs or on old buckets.

Lili and Guy passed the group, clinging to their son so that in his childhood naivete he wouldn't accidentally glance at the wrong person and becalled an insolent child. They didn't like the ambiance of the nightly news watch. They spared themselves trouble by go­ ing instead to the sugar mill, where in the past year they had discovered their own wonder.

Everyone knew that the family who 55 owned the sugar mill were eccentric "Arabs;' Haitians of Lebanese or Palestinian descent whose family had heen in the country for generations. The Assad family had a sonwho, it seems, was into all manner of odd things, the most recent of which was a hot-air bal­ loon, which he had brought to Haiti from

America and occasi tytown skies.

As they approa ing the field when and deflated ballot Guy let go of the hi the boy.

Lili walked 011 the last few week~ though Guy was I

___.__ . _ _ _ _ _ .... - - -4

reached this poin~ balloon. AsGuy p~

-harbed wire, she, his face that he wi the square baske~ surface of the ba~ head. During th~ open, Guy woul~ ing at it with th~ most men dispq pretty girls. ;

Lili and the] distance as G4 deeper, beyondi arated him from

I

his pants pocke, etknife, sharpe; surface of the f4 moved closer, I pocket, letting] son's tightlyco]

"I wager ~ GUy said.

"Whydo~

asked. "I know it]

He folloW! mill, leading i watch light. » hind them. n balloon lookq

uti strets high grass in] tried to toucf

"You're I "You're not] snakes that q

America and occasionally flew over the shan­ tytown skies.

As they approached the fence surround­ ing the field where the large wicker basket and deflated balloon rested on the ground, Guy let go of the hands of both his wife and the boy.

Lili walked on slowly with her son. For the last few weeks, she had been feeling as' though Guy was lost to her each time he reached this point, twelve feet away from the' balloon. As Guy pushed his hand through the barbed wire, she could tell from the look on his face that he was thinking of sitting inside the square basket while the smooth rainbow surface of the balloon itself floated above his head. During the day, when the field was open, Guy would walk up to the basket, star­ ing at it with the same kind of longing that most men display when they admire very pretty girls.

Lili and the boy stood watching from a distance as Guy tried to push his hand deeper, beyond the chain link fence that sep­

" arated him from the balloon. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small pock­ etknife, sharpening the edges on the metal surface of the fence. When his wife and child­ moved closer, he put the knife back in his pocket, letting his fingers slide across his son's tightly coiled curls.

"I wager you 1 can make this thing fly," Guy said.

"Why do you think you can do that?" Lili 60 asked.

"I know it;' Guy replied. He followed her as she circled the sugar

mill, leading to their favorite spot under a watch light. Little Guy lagged faithfully be­ hind them. From this distance, the hot-air balloon looked like an odd spaceship.

Lili stretched her body out in the knee­ high grass in the field. Guy reached over and tried to touch her between her legs.

"You're not one to worry, Lili," he said. "You're not afraid of the frogs, lizards, or snakes that could be hiding in this grass?"

Danticat: A Wall of Fire Rising

"I am here with my husband;' she said. 65 "You are here to protect me if anything hap­ pens:'

Guy reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a lighter and a crumpled piece of paper. He lit the paper until it burned to an ashy film. The burning paper floated in the night breeze for a while, landing in fragments on the grass.

"Did you see that, Lili?" Guy asked with a flame in his eyes brighter than the lighter's. "Did you see how the paper floated when it was burned? This is how that balloon flies:'

"What did you mean by saying that you could make it fly?" Lili asked.

"You already know all my secrets;' Guy said as the boy came charging towards them.

"Papa, could you play Lago with me?" 70 the boy asked.

Lili lay peacefully on the grass as her son and husband played hide-and-seek. Guy kept hiding and his son kept finding him as each time Guy made it easier for the boy.

"We rest now:' Guy was becoming breath­ less.

The stars were circling the peaks of the mountains, dipping into the cane fields be­ longing to the sugar mill. As Guy caught his breath, the boy raced around the fence, run­ ning as fast as he could to purposely make himself dizzy.

"Listen to what happened today;' Guy whispered softly in Lili's ear.

"I heard you say that when you walked in 75 the house tonight;' Lili said. "With the boy's play, 1 forgot to ask you:'

The boy sneaked up behind them, his face lit up, though his brain was spinning. He wrapped his arms around both their necks.

"We will go back home soon;' Lili said. "Can 1recite my lines?" asked the boy. "We have heard them;' Guy said. "Don't

tire your lips:' The boy mumbled something under his 80

breath. Guy grabbed his ear and twirled it un­ til it was a tiny ball in his hand. The boy's face

CHAPTER 8 Literary Analyses

contorted with agony as Guy made him kneel in the deep grass in punishment.

Lili looked tortured as she watched the boy squirming in the grass, obviously terri­ fied of the crickets, lizards, and small snakes

, that might be there. "Perhaps we should take him home to

bed," she said. "He will never learn;' Guy said, "if I say

"one thing and you say another:' I Guy got up and angrily started walking home. Lili walked over, took her son's hand, and raised him from his knees.

"You know you must not mumble," she 85 said.

"I was saying my lines;' the boy said. "Next time say them loud;' Lili said, "so

he knows what is coming out of your mouth:' That night Lili could hear her son mut­

tering his lines as he tucked himself in his corner of the room and drifted off to sleep. The boy still had the book with his mono­ logue in it clasped under his arm as he slept.

Guy stayed outside in front of the shack as Lili undressed for bed. She loosened the ribbon that held the old light blue cotton skirt around her waist and let it drop past her knees. She grabbed half a lemon that she kept in the cor­ ner by the folded mat that she and Guy un­ rolled to sleep on every night. Lili let her blouse drop to the floor as she smoothed the

. 'I lemon over her ashen legs.

Guy came in just at that moment and 90 saw her bare chest by the light of the smaller castor oil lamp that they used for the later hours of the night. Her skin had coarsened a bit over the years, he thought. Her breasts now drooped from having nursed their son for two years after he was born. It was now easier for him to imagine their son's lips around those breasts than to imagine his anywhere near them.

He turned his face away as she fumbled for her nightgown. He helped her open the mat, tucking the blanket edges underneath.

Fully clothed, Guy dropped onto the mat next to her, He laid his head on her chest, rubbing the spiky edges of his hair against her nipples.

"What was it that happened today?" Lili asked, running her fingers along Guy's hair­ line, an angular hairline, almost like a trian­ gle, in the middle of his forehead. She nearly didn't marry him because it was said that people with angular hairlines often have very troubled lives.

"I got a few hours' work for tomorrow at the sugar mill;' Guy said. "That's what hap­ pened today:'

"It was such a long time coming;' Lili said. 95 It was almost six months since the last

time Guy had gotten work there. The jobs at the sugar mill were few and far between. The people who had them never left, or when they did they would pass the job on to another fam­ ily member who was already waiting on line.

Guy did not seem overjoyed about the one day's work.

"I wish I had paid more attention when you came in with the news;' Lili said. "I was just so happy about the boy:'

"I was born in the shadow of that sugar mill;' Guy said. "Probably the first thing my mother gave me to drink as a baby was some sweet water tea from the pulp of the sugarcane. If anyone deserves to work there, I should:'

"What will you be doing for your day's 100 work?"

"Would you really like to know?" "There is never any shame in honest

work;' she said. <. "They want me to scrub the latrines:; "It's honest work;' Lili said, trying to con­

sole him. "I am still number seventy-eight on the 105

permanent hire list;' he said. "I was thinking .. of putting the boy on the list now, so maybe

by the time he becomes a man he can be up for a job:'

Lili's body jerked forward, rising straight up in the air. Guy's head dropped with a loud thump onto the mat.

"I don't want ~ "For a young boy ~ might influence hisl on the list:' .

"Look at me;' q worked there, if hel you think I would~

"If you havea~ "you will notput hl

She groped fo~ dark and laid her l his heart beatingJ' pumping double, i

"You won't p~ you?" she implor~

"Please, LiIi, ~ will not go on the'

"Thank you:' I "Tonight I w~

the yard behind j have been watchif

"I know:' i "I have see11/

said. "I've seen hi sky and go up ~ kite and he was who run after it will land, Once1

I

those men WhO~ guessed correc arcane fields. I tance and it ac~

"Letmesa~ "Pretend thf

and we believed • I

for a long nme.] loon. The first q like a miracle, ~ the more ordin~

"You're pn do it;' she said.}.

"I am inte

right to sayth~: "Dol1'tYo~ "Think li~

up there? Up I some kind ofU

\ ,. "­ "I don't want him on that list," she said. ,

"For a young boy to be on any list like that might influence his destiny. I don't want him i onthe list:'

"Look at me," Guy said. "If my father had worked there, if he had me on the list, don't you think I would be working?"

"If you have any regard for me;' she said, "you will not put him on the list:'

She groped for her husband's chest in the 110 dark and laid her head on it. She could hear his heart heating loudly as though it were pumping double, triple its normal rate.

"You won't put the boyan any lists, will you?" she implored.

"Please, Lili, no more about the boy. He will not go on the list:'

"Thank you." "Tonight I was looking at that balloon in

the yard behind the sugar mill;' he said. "I have been watching it real close:'

"I know:' 115 "I have seen the man who owns it;' he

said. "I've seen him get in it and put it in the sky andgo up there like it was some kind of kite and he was the kite master. I see the men who run after it trying to figure out where it will land. Once I was there and I was one of those men who were running and I actually guessed correctly. I picked a spot in the sug­ arcane fields. I picked the spot from a dis­ tance and it actually landed there:'

"Let me say something to you, Guy-" "Pretend that this is the time of miracles

and we believed in them. I watched the owner for a long time, and I think I can fly that bal­ loon. The first time I saw him do it, it looked like a miracle, but the more and more I saw it, the more ordinary it became:'

"You're probably intelligent enough to do it," she said.

i- "I am intelligent enough to do it. You're 120 '­

t~. right to say that I can:' "Don't you think about hurting yourself?" "Think like this. Can't you see yourself

up there? Up in the clouds somewhere like some kind of bird?"

Danticat: A Wall of Fire Rising 153 1

"If God wanted people to fly, he would have given us wings on our backs:'

"You're right, LiE, you're right. But look what he gave us instead. lie gave us reasons to want to fly. He gave us the air, the birds, our son." '-.

"I don't understand you;' she said. 125 "Our son, your son, you do not want him

cleaning latrines." "He can do other things:' "Me too. I can do other things too:' A loud scream came from the corner

where the boy was sleeping. Lili and Guy rushed to him and tried to wake him. The boy was trembling when he opened his eyes.

"What is the matter?" Guy asked. 130 "I cannot remember my lines;' the boy

said. Lili tried to string together what she could

remember of her son's lines. The words slowly came back to the boy. By the time he fell back to sleep, it was almost dawn.

The light was slowly coming up behind the trees. Lili could hear the whispers of the mar­ ket women, their hisses and swearing as their sandals dug into the sharp-edged rocks on the road.

She turned her back to her husband as she slipped out of her nightgown, quickly putting on her day clothes.

"Imagine this," Guy said from the mat on 135 the floor. "I have never really seen your entire body in broad daylight:'

. Lili shut the door behind her, making her way out to the yard. The empty gasoline con- I tainers rested easily on her head as she r walked a few miles to the public water foun- ~

I

tains, It was harder to keep them steady when the containers were full. The water splashed all over her blouse and rippled down her back.

The sky was blue as it was most morn­ ings, a dark indigo-shaded turquoise that would get lighter when the sun was fully risen.

i

CHAPTER 8 Literary Analyses I~

Guy and the boy were standing in the yard waiting for her when she got back.

"You did not get much sleep, my hand­ some boy;' she said, running her wet fingers over the boy's face.

"He'll be late for school if we do not go 140 right now," Guy said. "I want to drop him off before I start work:'

"Do we remember our lines this morn­ ing?" Lili asked, tucking the boy's shirt down deep into his short pants.

"We just recited them;' Guy said. "Even I know them now:'

Lili watched them walk down the foot­ path, her eyes following them until they dis­ appeared.

As soon as they were out of sight, she poured the water she had fetched into a large calabash, letting it stand beside the house.

She went back into the room and slipped 145 into a dry blouse. It was never too early to start looking around, to scrape together that, night's meal.

"Listen to what happened again today;' Lili said when Guy walked through the door that afternoon.

Guy blotted his face with a dust rag as he prepared to hear the news. After the day he'd had at the factory, he wanted to sit under a tree and have a leisurely smoke, but he did not want to set a bad example for his son by indulging his very small pleasures.

"You tell him, son;' Lili urged the 'boy, who was quietly sitting in a corner, reading.

"I've got more lines," the boy announced, springing up to his feet. "Papy, do you want to hear them?"

"They are giving him more things to say 150 , in the play;' Lili explained, "because he did

such a good job memorizing so fast:' "My compliments, son. Do you have your

new lines memorized too?" Guy asked, "Why don't you recite your new lines for

your father?" Lili said.

The boy walked to the middle of the room and prepared to recite. He cleared his throat, raising his eyes towards the ceiling.

"There is so much sadness in the faces of my people. I have called on their gods, now I call on our gods. I call on our young. I call on our old. I call on our mighty and the weak. I call on everyone and anyone so that we shall all let out one piercing cry that we may either live freely or we should die."

"I see your new lines have as much 155 drama as the old ones;' Guy said. He wiped a tear away, walked over to the chair, and took the boy in his arms. He pressed the boy's body against his chest before lowering him to the ground.

"Your new lines are wonderful, son. They're every bit as affecting as the old:' He tapped the boy's shoulder and walked out of the house.

"What's the matter with Papy?" the boy asked as the door slammed shut behind Guy.

"His heart hurts;' Lili said.

After supper, Lili took her son to the field where she knew her husband would be, While the boy ran around, she found her hus­ band sitting in his favorite spot hehind the sugar mill.

"Nothing, Lili," he said. "Ask me nothing 160 about this day that I have had:'

She sat down on the grass next to him, for once feeling the sharp edges of the grass blades against her ankles.

"You're really good with that boy;' he said, drawing circles with his smallest finger on her elbow. "You will make a performer of him. I know you will. You can see the best in that whole situation. It's because you have those stars in your eyes. That's the first thing I noticed about you when I met you. It was your eyes, Lili, so dark and deep. They drew me like danger draws a fool:'

He turned over on the grass so that he was staring directly at the moon up in the sky.

She could tell thai hot-air halloon bl out ofthe cornerq

"Sometimes ~ in me;' he said."I for me. You want] want me to get a j

I you want these ,

vv_ant me to feell~ not one to worry take things as th

"I don't like I she said.

"Listen to th. cret. SometimesJ balloon and ridel off somewhere <q a really nice pl~ where I couldb~ own house, ke~ something new.1

"I want you! !

"I know you That can't keep]

"You could about that?" -- "Don't yo

new?" I "I don'tli~ "Please do

h is voice strai "If you we.

away, wouldy~ "First you I

now you want t I

! "I just wan' i me and the bo

He leaned drifted offto s there with his bone. He dr down to herb ester bra. Sh watching her himself as h~ field. The mt

i

Danticat: A Wall of Fire Rising 155 I

She could tell that he was also watching the heads. Winking at them, as Guy liked to say, hot-air balloon behind the sugar mill fence on its way to brighter shores. outof the corner of his eye. Opening his eyes, Guy asked her, "How do

r- "Sometimes I know you want to believe ",jyouthink a man is judged after he's gone?" in me;' he said. "I know you're wishing things ! How did he expect her to answer some- for me. You want me to work at the mill. You thing like that? want me to get a pretty house for us. I know "People don't eat riches," she said. "They \.

l, , you want these things too, butmostly you eat what it can buy:

,

I want me to feel like a man. That's why you're "What does that mean, Lili? Don't talk to 180 not one to worry about, Lili, I know you can me in parables. Talk to me honestly." take things as they come:' "A man is judged by his deeds;' she said.

"I don't like it when you talk this way," 165 "The boy never goes to bed hungry. For as long ! she said. as he's been with us, he's always been fed:'

"Listen to this, Lili, J want to tell you a se- Just as if he had heard himself men­ cret. Sometimes, I just want to take that big tioned, the boy came dashing from the other balloon and ride it up in the air. I'd like to sail side of the field, crashing in a heap on top of offsomewhere and keep floating until I got to his parents. a really nice place with a nice plot of land "My new lines;' he said. "1 have forgotten where I could be something new. I'd build my my new lines:' own house, keep my own garden. Just be "Is this how you will be the day of this something new." play, son?" Guy asked. "When people give'

"I want you to stay away from there." you big responsibilities, you have to try to live "1 know you don't think I should take it. up to them:'

" That can't keep me from wanting." The boy had relearned his new lines by 185 "You could be injured. Do you ever think\ the time they went to bed.

about that?" ,.' ,That night, Guy watched his wife very "Don't you ever want to be something 170 closely as she undressed for bed.

new?" "I would like to be the one to rub that "I don't like it," she said. \;. piece oflemon on your knees tonight;' he said. ' "Please don't get angry with me;' he Said,(' I" . - She handed him the half lemon, then

his voice straining almost like the boy's.;1 "raised her skirt above her knees. "If you were to take that balloon and fly , Her body began to tremble as he rubbed

away, would you take me and the boy?" his fingers over her skin. "First you don't want me to take it and "You know that question I asked you be- 190

now you want to go?" '. fore;' he said, "how a man is remembered after 7 "I just want to know that when you dream, \175, he's gone? I know the answer now. I know be- I \me and the boy, we're always in your dreams.T>' cause I remember my father, who was a very:

He leaned his head on her shoulders and' poor struggling man all his life. I remember drifted off to sleep. Her back ached as she sat him as a man that I would never want to be:' , there with his face pressed against her collar bone. He drooled and the saliva dripped , down to her breasts, soaking her frayed poly­ Lili got up with the break of dawn the next ester bra. She listened to the crickets while day. The light came up quickly above the watching her son play, muttering his lines to trees. Lili greeted some of the market women himself as he went in a circle around the as they walked together to the public water field. The moon was glowing above their fountain.

CHAPTER 8 Literary Analyses

On her way back, the sun had already melted a few gray clouds. She found the boy standing alone in the yard with a terrified ex­ pression on his face, the old withered mush­ rooms uprooted at his feet. He ran up to meet her, nearly knocking her off balance.

"What happened?" she asked. "Have you forgotten your lines?"

The boy was breathing so heavily that his lips could not form a single word.

"What is it?" Lili asked, almost shaking 195 him with anxiety.

"It's Papa;' he said finally, raising a stiff finger in the air.

The boy covered his face as his mother looked up at the sky. A rainbow-colored balloon was floating aimlessly above their heads.

"It's Papa;' the boy said. "He is in it:' She wanted to look down at her son and

tell him that it wasn't his father, but she im­ mediately recognized the spindly arms, in a bright flowered shirt that she had made, grip­ ping the cables.

From .the field behind the sugar mill a group 200 of workers were watching the balloon floating in the air. Many were clapping and cheering, calling out Guy's name. A few of the women were waving their head rags at the sky, shout­ ing, "Go! Beautiful/go!"

Lili edged her way to the front of the crowd. Everyone was waiting, watching the balloon drift higher up into the clouds. .

"He seems to be right over our heads;' said the factory foreman, a short slender mu­ 1atto with large buckteeth.

Just then, Lili noticed young Assad, his thick black hair sticking to the beads of sweat on his forehead. His face had the crumpled expression of disrupted sleep.

"He's further away than he seems;' said young Assad. "I still don't understand. How did he get up there? You need a whole crew to fly these things:'

"I don't know," the foreman said. "One of 205 my workers just came in saying there was a man flying above the factory:'

"But how the hell did he start it?" Young Assad was perplexed.

"He just did it;' the foreman said. "Look, he's trying to get out!" someone

hollered. A chorus of screams broke out among

the workers. The boy was looking up, trying to see if his 210

father was really trying to jump out of the bal­ loon. Guy was climbing over the side of the basket. Lilipressed her son's face into her skirt.

Within seconds, Guy was in the air hurtling down towards the crowd. Lili held her breath as she watched him fall. He crashed not far from where Lili and the boy were standing, his blood immediately soak­ ing the landing spot.

The balloon kept floating free, drifting on its way to brighter shores. Young Assad rushed towards the body. He dropped to his knees and checked the wrist for a pulse, then dropped the arm back to the ground.

"It's over!" The foreman ordered the work­ ers back to work.

Lili tried to keep her son's head pressed against her skirt as she moved closer to the body. The boy yanked himself away and raced to the edge of the field where his father's body was lying on the grass. He reached the body as young Assad still knelt examining the corpse. Lili rushed after him.

"He is mine," she said to young Assad. 215 "He is my family. He belongs to me:'

Young Assad got up and raised his head to search the sky for his aimless balloon, try­ ing to guess where it would land. He took one last glance at Guy's bloody corpse, then raced to his car and sped away.

The foreman and another worker carried a cot and blanket from the factory.

Little Guy was breathing quickly as he looked at his father's body on the ground. While the foreman draped a sheet over Guy's

corpse, his son his play.

"A wallofj see the bones of pie whose dark fields, butalltru to haunt my d more the last a ingfather, a val

"Let me la said, pulling ba

Sheleane~ at Guy's face. 1) tenance that s~ that curled wh, flat nose that! against hers. 4 ored eyes. The eyes were sti~ ing for some j

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corpse, his son began to recite the lines from his play.

"A wall offire is rising and in the ashes, I see the bones ofmy people. Not only those peo­ ple whose dark hollow faces I see daily in the fields, but all those souls who have gone ahead to haunt my dreams. At night I relive once more the last caressesfrom the hand of a lov­ ingfather, a valiant love, a beloved friend."

"Let me look at him one last time;' Lili 220 said, pulling back the sheet.

She leaned in very close to get a better look at Guy's face. There was little left of that coun­ tenance that she had loved so much. Those lips that curled when he was teasing her. That large flat nose that felt like a feather when rubbed against hers. And those eyes, those night-col­ ored eyes. Though clouded with blood, Guy's eyes were still bulging open. Lili was search­ ing for some kind of sign-a blink, a smile, a

Danticat: A Wall of Fire Rising

wink-something that would remind her of the man that she had married.

"His eyes aren't closed," the foreman said to Lili. "Do you want to close them, or should I?"

The boy continued reciting his lines, his / voice rising to a man's grieving roar. He kept his eyes closed, his fists balled at his side as he continued with his newest lines.

'There is so much sadness in the faces of my people. I have called on their gods, now I call on our gods. I call on our young. I call on our old. I call on our mighty and the weak. I call on everyone and anyone so that we shall all let out one piercing cry that we may either live freely or we should die."

"Do you want to close the eyes?" the 225 foreman repeated impatiently.

"No, leave them open;' Lili said. "My husband, he likes to look at the sky:'

1. Make a list of specific words and phrases that char­ acterize or describe the story's settings, characters, and interpersonal relationships: the family's hornei ~ the shantytown and other areas outside the hortie; ~Guy's personality and character; Lili's personality and character; the relationships among family \ members; the relationship between Guy and Lili. (If you form groups, each group can take one or two of

3. these topics and present their lists to the class.) Now, write a paragraph that describes that setting, charac­ ter,or relationship. It should have a strong topic sen­ tence and should include quoted words, phrases, sentences, and possibly passages. Use the strategies in "Choosing an Appropriate Style" to help you inte­ grate the story's words with your own (and be sure to use the literary present tense when appropriate).

2. The setting for this story is a Haitian shantytown. Do some research on Haitian shantytowns to find out

what they're like and what it's like to live in one. Try to find pictures depicting them and life there. What, role does the setting itself play in the story? Our envi-·· ronment affects us in ways that are both profound and subtle. How does this setting affect the reader's view of the story and its characters, and how does the ' 'setting affect the characters' views of themselves?

If you were going to produce a movie based on this short story, how would you do it? Which actors would you choose to play the roles of each charac­ ter? How would you try to capture the mood of the story with visual effects: lighting, camera angles, and so on? If you wanted to be as true to the story as possible (not just the events, but its mood and tone), what would this movie look like? Write a one-minute "pitch" for your movie and present it to the class. (The pitch is a micro genre similar to proposals; see Chapter 12).

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