Anacaona

by Edwidge Danticat

  I directed my movements at the sky and the sea when I was thanking the ancestors, then at Matunherí when I was thanking him, then at my parents when I thanked them. In the end, I added some new movements, thanking all the high chiefs and subchiefs who had brought or sent me such wonderful gifts. I wanted to thank Chief Caonabó in particular for the beautiful birds he had brought me, but I did not think it wise to show too much interest in him, as it might make it harder for my uncle to claim a large marriage price for me.

  When I was done with my dance, I could tell that everyone was pleased, including my uncle. Bibi and Baba looked delighted, even though Behechio appeared a bit jealous.

  There was more singing, dancing, and spinning of tales until sunrise, when the guests began to leave, the chiefs and their emissaries making their way to the beach where, along with their large parties, they boarded their canoes and began their journey back home.

  I lost sight of Chief Caonabó soon after my dance. By the time I inquired about him, Behechio told me he was already gone.

  FULL MOON, DAY 13

  I am no longer to have my morning baths with Bibi but now must bathe with my uncle’s wives, who each has a servant to wash her. On Matunherí’s orders, I, too, must have someone wash me. It must not appear that the cacique’s wives are treated better than one who might one day rule Xaraguá.

  I will miss my sunrise baths with Bibi, but we both knew this time would come. Still, I did not expect these changes to make me so sad, even if these are the steps I must take to rule one day. To keep from crying while the servants slap the cleansing plants on my back in the river at sunrise, I remind myself that I will still be with Bibi at the communal meals and other occasions.

  There is now so much to learn in preparation for my rule, so much to get accustomed to. Behechio, who has never been as attached to our parents as I am, says that I must act as though I am already cacica, thinking only of Xaraguá as my mother and my father.

  FULL MOON, DAY 14

  A wife has been found for Behechio. He seems overjoyed about this and is already making preparations for his marriage. She is not one of the many young women who came to my ceremony. He has never met her and neither have I. She is someone my uncle has chosen, the youngest daughter of one of the subchiefs of another region.

  I asked Behechio about his future wife, wanting to learn as much about her as I could in order to prepare a proper welcome. He knew no more about her than I did. Each time he tried to ask my uncle about her, my uncle reacted in a brusque way, as though Behechio was challenging his choice, so Behechio stopped asking. I consoled him by saying that whoever his wife is, she will probably be good for Xaraguá and will earn us an ally in one chief or another. Otherwise my uncle would have never chosen her.

  FULL MOON, DAY 15

  Behechio’s intended is to come soon so that they can be married. If he is to have a wife before long, then how much further behind can I be?

  I pray there will never be a battle between Behechio and myself for authority over Xaraguá, but I must accept that should he marry, he will stay here among our people and close to our uncle, but should I marry — as I eventually will — I will have to leave Xaraguá.

  In light of Behechio’s marriage, I have decided that I will only marry on the condition that the status of the man I am joined with is equal to my own, one with powers that are equal to those I must surrender here in Xaraguá.

  LAST QUARTER MOON, DAY 16

  A riddle to myself:

  Why would I consider leaving Xaraguá for Chief Caonabó’s Maguana?

  Response:

  My marriage to Chief Caonabó would strengthen the already agreeable ties between our two peoples.

  My husband would be a cacique and I would help him rule.

  Another riddle to myself:

  Why would I stay in Xaraguá, even if I remain unmarried?

  Response:

  In Xaraguá, I can rule in my own name or with my brother. In Maguana, I can only be the wife, or one of the wives, of the supreme chief.

  LAST QUARTER MOON, DAY 17

  It is night. I am sad and — I must confess — lovelorn. I cannot sleep. I have with me the amulet my uncle gave me, the one that once belonged to my grandmother, the last cacica of Xaraguá. I treasure this amulet in the shape of a frog, as much as I cherish the legends told about my grandmother. Made in the form of a fast and agile water beast, it was the symbol of her reign, as she considered herself the toa, the mother, of all her people.

  Our elders tell stories of how my grandmother ruled by these dictums:

  NEVER ATTACK UNLESS ATTACKED.

  HUNT ONLY WHAT IS NEEDED.

  PROTECT OUR YOUNG AT ANY COST.

  There are no stories told of my grandmother feeling amorous and downhearted, as I am now, yearning for other chiefs from other territories, nor of her ever considering abandoning her birthright. Even though she married and produced heirs, it is said that there was only room in my grandmother’s heart for one great love, and that was Xaraguá.

  LATER

  I grow more and more sad as the night wears on. What’s worse, I still cannot sleep. The birds Chief Caonabó gave me have been kept behind my uncle’s house in a corner of the courtyard, close to my hammock. At night they make the most melodious sound, lulling me to sleep. It is a sound between moaning and laughing, a sound that reminds me of the demeanor of Chief Caonabó himself. If one listens to the sound with longing in one’s heart, it can make one sad, but if one listens with joy, it can easily make one blissful.

  Since we still have had no word from Chief Caonabó about me, I can only listen to his birds with sadness, their moans and chirps tearing at my heart. So under this final thread of the last quarter moon, I opened the cage and shooed Chief Caonabó’s birds away.

  At first they seemed hesitant to fly, as though the night might hinder their journey, but finally one fluttered off, then another, until the cage was empty and they were all gone.

  I don’t know what made me sadder, the empty cage or the birds’ flight. But at last I will be free of all reminders of Chief Caonabó. Let his birds return to him and let him see that I have not followed them.

  FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 1

  It is time to harvest the yucca, a strong root that sustains us all.

  Of all the harvests, the yucca harvest is the one we profit most from. Not only do we eat yuccas roasted and boiled, but from our yucca harvest we make cassava bread, cassareep — a delicious sauce that often makes me lick my fingers — and uicu, a yucca wine greatly favored by my uncle and father and now Behechio.

  Sometimes I ask myself what we would do if there were no yucca. Perhaps we would die of hunger, just as we would die of sickness if there were no healers.

  FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 2

  I have continued to grow taller these past seasons. Bibi, Baba, and Matunherí all concur that I am even taller than my grandmother is said to have been at this same cycle in her life. Perhaps I shall be the tallest cacica of Xaraguá.

  Though my grandmother died before I was born, I always feel that she is with me in her death. Perhaps it is she who is guiding my destiny from the land of the ancestors, making me grow and feel stronger with each passing moon.

  I often have the sensation that my grandmother would like to rule again from the land of the dead and will choose to do it through me. Perhaps she has made me superior in height so that in my own body I can bear both her carriage and mine and still have enough courage to look any chief in the eye and fight at his side if needed — or against him if necessary.

  This past season, Behechio has taken no less than a handful of wives — that is, five in total. He has his own household, where he resides with all of them, and he spends most of his time there.

  I thought I would gain sisters among my brother’s wives, but this has not been the case. He has kept them all to himself; I only see them at meals, ceremonies, and dances.

  I speak to Behechio daily when my uncle calls us togethe
r to watch him exercise his duties, presiding over the morning meal, demanding accounts from the subchiefs, and other such matters.

  FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 3

  Behechio has told me that he would like to have more wives. Young women are sent for him to consider all the time and he enjoys choosing from them or sending them away.

  Though my uncle has traded goods and continues to share a friendship with Chief Caonabó, the chief appears to have expressed no further interest in me. There are still others who would have me, but I do not want them and I will not yield from my position, even if my chilling omen at the haircutting ceremony comes true and my uncle lowers his ax on my neck.

  FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 4

  Bibi and Baba and I went to watch a group of villagers harvest the yucca, just as we used to do when I was younger. While sitting under the large silk cotton tree near the yucca field, they told me that Chief Caonabó is interested in having me as his wife, but my uncle is not yet willing to release me. Matunherí wants to be certain that Behechio is skilled enough to rule Xaraguá before he can let me leave for Maguana.

  All at once I was filled with many emotions. I felt a great deal of love for my mother and father, who knew I was suffering and wanted to relieve my pain. I felt honored that Matunherí did not want to let me go. I felt, once again, a warmth in my heart for Chief Caonabó, and then felt pity for Behechio, because all he seems interested in anymore are his wives.

  FIRST QUARTER MOON, DAY 5

  At dusk, Matunherí called me to sing a ballad for him and his wives. It seems that one of them had requested it. She did not want to hear one of the ballads we have inherited from our elders, but one of my own creation.

  I almost refused this request, for it is difficult to sing with no preparation, but I did not want to displease him. With Matunherí, there are some moments when I feel like his successor and others when I feel like a servant, but I am certain that he is trying to instruct me in many ways, is helping me learn the ancient lesson that, though servants never rule, rulers must serve.

  HALF MOON, DAY 6

  Behechio had a loud quarrel with one of his wives. It appears that she traded some mortars and pestles without speaking to him first. Bibi and Baba are usually the ones who trade the mortars and pestles on my uncle’s behalf. Behechio threatened to return his wife to her village, but both Matunherí and Baba intervened and she will stay.

  Later that night, I found the wife Behechio had quarreled with crying in the courtyard behind Matunherí’s house. Her name is Yaruba. She no longer wants to stay in Xaraguá, but would like to return to her village.

  I asked her what village she was from. She motioned toward the seas as if to indicate a place far in the distance and stopped sobbing long enough to whisper that she was from a village in Maguana.

  My heart began to beat faster and I asked her, “Is it Maguana, where Caonabó is chief?”

  She shook her head, signaling yes.

  In Maguana, her uncle is a subchief under Chief Caonabó. Her uncle barters with Matunherí for the special wood from which we make our mortars and pestles, which we then trade in other territories. Yaruba had traded some special mortars and pestles on which she had carved messages to her uncle saying that she wanted to return home.

  There was no question of her returning home without causing some disagreement between our two territories, which is why Baba and Bibi and my uncle had made her stay. Now she was unhappy that she had fallen out of favor with Behechio, whom she did not like, anyway.

  I felt so sad for Yaruba because she was in a situation that I could easily find myself in, living far from her family and her people and missing them very much. I told her to take heart, that I would speak to Matunherí on her behalf and maybe he would send her back.

  She replied that she had already made up her mind to leave, that she would return home soon. It was only a matter of means until she found some way to escape.

  It was brave of her to confide in me since I could have gone to my uncle or to Behechio and denounced her, but I think somehow she could tell that I wouldn’t betray her.

  To ease her sadness, I asked her to tell me what she loved most about Maguana. I thought this would make her feel like she was on a visit there and at the same time give me a chance to learn more about her land.

  She said Maguana was the most golden place, with so much gold strewn over so many parts of the land that from the sky Maguana might look like another sun. She said the supreme cacique, Chief Caonabó, ruled with kindness though he was a strong warrior and able to protect their people against invaders, especially the Kalinas from across the seas.

  Her favorite place in Maguana was a bluff overlooking the sea, where she could watch the trade canoes row out at sunrise and in again at sunset.

  Back when she was in Maguana, she said, she’d thought she wanted to leave, but now she wished she never had.

  We parted with a squeeze of the hand.

  I know Behechio. He is unforgiving and may never speak to Yaruba again for the rest of his life. Even if she remains in his house, he will quickly replace her with someone younger and more docile.

  I ran back to her and told her to meet me again at sunrise. Perhaps we could go to one of our bluffs and watch the canoes come in and out or we could go for a stroll near the yucca field to watch the yucca growers harvest the yucca and then squeeze the poisonous hyen juices out of the roots to make cassava bread.

  She said she had already seen that, had even participated in the yucca harvest against Behechio’s wishes.

  I told her perhaps we would find some other activity that would please her even more.

  She said we would see.

  Once again we said good-bye and began walking away from each other. She turned around and said she enjoyed my ballads. She had heard me singing for my uncle’s wives.

  Suddenly I had one of my sensations that perhaps she was ill or hiding something from everyone, including me. Then what it was became as clear as daylight, and I quickly ran back to her.

  I asked her if she was with child and she shook her head, indicating yes.

  I asked if Behechio knew.

  She said no. No one knew.

  She asked how I could tell. Could everyone tell?

  I didn’t know how to explain, so I told her I had a gift for such things, a kind of skill that Bibi said I had inherited from my grandmother.

  She shook her head and smiled. She asked what else I could see in her future.

  I said I could see nothing more at the moment. I simply had that one revelation that she was with child. Then I began to plead with her. She must not escape. She must stay with us. Behechio has no heirs. This would be his first child.

  We heard someone coming. We thought it might be Behechio or one of his other wives, but it was a servant from Behechio’s household, looking for Yaruba.

  Yaruba told me she was tired and would come looking for me at sunrise so we could talk further. Then she and the servant walked away together, blending into the night.

  HALF MOON, DAY 7

  Yaruba is dead. Behechio found a half gourd of the poisonous juices from the yucca roots beneath her hammock. He seemed very troubled and talked to no one after he announced her death.

  I have decided not to tell him that Yaruba was with child. This would only make the situation more difficult to bear. It seems plain to me now that Behechio had cared for Yaruba, as much as he cared for any of his wives. He had only quarreled with her because he did not want to disturb the usual order of things in my uncle’s and his household. Had he let Yaruba return home, it would have been seen as an insult to her uncle and a sign of rejection of all of Maguana’s women.

  I asked Behechio’s permission to take charge of Yaruba’s burial and he obliged. I know of several small caves on a bluff overlooking our seas and thought it would be fitting to inter her there. From those caves, she could see not only the trade canoes row in and out but also, perhaps, a faint silhouette of her village in Maguana.


  HALF MOON, DAY 8

  We interred Yaruba in one of the caves by the sea. My uncle was present, as was Behechio and his other wives, along with Bibi and Baba and many of the subchiefs from our villages and the yucca growers whose roots Yaruba had taken from the harvest to poison herself.

  What a sad fate, to die alone, so far from one’s home! I ask myself a riddle for which perhaps there is no answer: Is it truly better to die than to suffer among the living?

  HALF MOON, DAY 9

  Behechio has not left his house since Yaruba died. Understanding him as well as I do, I know he must be tormented by the idea that something he said or did to Yaruba could have led her to poison herself.

  I am terribly distressed that I can’t console him as he refuses to see anyone at all.

  Our elders tell this story about the land of the dead:

  There is a part of Quisqueya that we do not count among its five territories because it is the land of the dead. Though our dead remain in this territory, Soraya, from dawn to dusk, at night they visit with the living. And as the dead move among us, the only difference between them and ourselves is that they have no navels.

  HALF MOON, DAY 10

  I finally went to Behechio’s house, against his orders, to speak with him. After a long silence, he told me he feared that Yaruba would return from the land of the dead in the form of another woman to punish him.

  I reminded him that all he must do when he chooses his next wife is see if she has a navel.