An Untamed State

by Roxane Gay

  By the time we made it back to the Commander’s house, I calmed. He would take me to his room filled with the trappings of his lack of imagination. His anger at my attempt to escape would be cold, cruelly measured. I accepted this.

  A Jamaican friend, Elsa, once told me of a popular lullaby from her country about a mother with thirteen children. The mother kills one child to feed twelve, and one child to feed eleven, and one child to feed ten until she is left with but one child, whom she also slaughters because she too hungers. Finally, she returns to the middle of a cornfield where she slaughtered her other children, where the bones of their thirteen bodies lay. She slits her own throat because she cannot bear the burden of having done what needed to be done. After telling me this story, Elsa said, “A West Indian woman always faces such choices.”

  The Commander closed the door to his bedroom and stood against it, smiling. He is a man who smiles without any change in his eyes. His eyes are dull, uninteresting. There is not one original thing about the man except for the scar on his face. There was a different way to fight. I knew I needed to find it, to live, to make it back to those from whom I had been taken. He pulled his gun from his waistband and began running his fingers along the length of the barrel, over the trigger, the slight curve of the handle, a beautiful affair with pearl inlays. I walked over to him and got on my knees.

  I would fight by giving him that which he did not yet want. I feigned surrender. I held his wrist gently, pressed my lips against the underside. I became someone different, a woman who could satisfy a man with his desires. I held his wrist and opened my mouth and swallowed the barrel of his gun, occasionally massaging his arm. The gun was hard. My teeth scraping the metal made me cringe. I did not show my disgust. I was becoming a woman who could be disgusted by nothing. The gun oil was almost sweet in my mouth. It coated my tongue and filled my nose. Even though my throat was swollen, raw, I relaxed as best I could and I took the barrel of that gun into my throat. I looked up at the Commander, who gazed back at me curiously. He leaned against the door, relaxed. I tried to breathe and treated the gun like I would a lover. I choked myself on that weapon, making soft, wet, strangled sounds. I could see how much the Commander appreciated the display, how his breathing changed, the stiff rise of his pants.

  I stood and held on to him by the waist of his jeans. At the foot of the bed, I undressed. I did not shrink from the way he looked at me. Though I had little experience with men, I knew I had a nice body or I did before. I took the gun from him, and our eyes met. He was guarded as he loosened his grip. I set the gun on the bed, yearning to be able to pull the trigger. I undressed the Commander the way a woman who could want a man like him might. I began to forget everything I had ever known and anyone I had ever loved. I became no one. I became a woman who wanted to live. That was my fight.

  I kissed his chest and the palms of his hands and pressed my cheeks against the palms of his hands. I think he trembled. I lay on his bed and set his gun over my mound. I spread my legs. I offered myself to him. The Commander wrapped himself around my thigh. He traced the bruises and blisters along my inner thighs with the end of his gun. He penetrated me with his gun and I raised my hips. I grabbed his shoulder, squeezing the thick stretch of muscle. I endured the pain. I was no one, so the pain did not matter. He kissed my thigh over and over, drew his fingers around the bone of my knee.

  When it was the right time, when I knew he wanted me desperately, I told him he should put his gun away. I told him he had no need for it. I told him he should become his gun. He liked this. He was rough because he is not a man who knows how to be gentle, who knows how to handle precious things. He was not a difficult man to understand. He held my hair in his fist and put his mouth on my neck and put his mouth on my lips. I opened my mouth to him the way I opened my body to him, the body he had already tried to break but could not break. I was silent. I pretended I did not feel pain even though the only thing I felt was pain. My hands were not my hands. My body was not my body. He was loud, made a sound from deep in his chest like a roar and then he was completely spent; his body was heavy and immovable on top of mine. I raged beneath him, staring at the ceiling. In what was left of my mind, I screamed. I was alive.

  I made my choice. There is nothing you cannot do when you are no one.

  Sebastien Duval and Fabienne Duval née Georges each had twelve siblings. Their mothers’ wombs were fertile countries unto themselves. Each sibling had at least two children. Several had more. Mireille’s family was oppressive in size.

  As news of the kidnapping spread throughout their circle, Mireille’s bloodline began showing up at the Duval house early each morning, impeccably dressed. They were there to hold vigil and support the family. They were there to be seen holding vigil and supporting the family. They were a benevolent pestilence.

  The family held court in the large sitting room, barking orders at the maids who held tongues silent and heads high as they brought tea and coffee, sweets and fruit. The family talked loudly, offering wild opinions, making idle threats, demanding change, trying to solve all of Haiti’s problems in one sitting as is the way of Haitians when they gather. Michael hovered on the periphery, struggling to hold on to the conversations. After eight years with Mireille he could follow along when people spoke slowly, but with so many people, all talking so fast and furious, it was hard to make sense of anything. When he tried to interject, his mouth dried and he became overly conscious of his awkward French. When he spoke English, they mostly looked right through him.

  Veronique, Mireille’s maternal aunt and godmother, fell to her knees every so often, throwing her hands in the air as she offered up ecstatic prayers. Her sister Vivienne shook her head and rolled her eyes, and surreptitiously sent her own daughter, safe in Miami, text messages keeping her up to date on the spectacle. Lily and Mathieu, twins, sat side by side, whispering to each other about how this was what happened when you left the country of your birth and assumed you could return without consequence. They were Sebastien’s siblings and they resented how few of his blessings he bestowed unto others. He called them the Handouts because their hands were always out.

  Three of Sebastien’s brothers, Etienne, Bernard, and Benjamin, were doctors—an internist, a gynecologist, a pediatrician. They liked to make jokes about what would happen if they walked into a bar. They stood in a corner, pretending to look busy so they would not have to hear about all that ailed their siblings and in-laws and on and on.

  Emmanuel, Fabienne’s youngest brother, was close to Michael in age. He was the only one who really tried to talk to the American who was largely distracted, his eyes constantly flitting across the room as if waiting for someone else to appear. Emmanuel had a flask of rum he offered to Michael, who drank from it eagerly. He gently jabbed Michael in the ribs with his elbow, said, “We’ll get her back, man. They can’t keep her forever.” Michael took another sip of rum but said nothing.

  Fabienne sat on a couch against the wall near the middle of the room, flanked by two of her sisters. She held her hands in her lap, one leg crossed over the other. The conversation around her was a persistent hum that refused to organize itself into distinguishable sounds. Her youngest daughter, her stubborn sweet girl, was out there in a city Fabienne loathed, a city she had sworn she would never return to but for the will of her husband. She knew what the curve of Sebastien’s spine said and what he meant when his eyes wrinkled at the corners. He made her blood rise in ways that still made her warm, everywhere. He was a man who did as he was told when he came to their bed each night and she said, “In this room, you are just a man. You leave the rest of it beyond these walls.”

  But now, everything out there was spilling into every last part of their lives. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Sebastien had assured her they were safe. Mireille was an American, mostly. Fabienne smiled, remembering how when Mireille was young, eight or nine, she would always answer her mother in English when they were in public, a spiteful thing all the children did to show
their parents they were not like them at all. And then, fifteen years later, Mireille began answering her mother in French, no matter where they were. The petty insurrections were over. She loved all her children. Mona, her wild child, always saying, “But Mom,” and asking, “Why?”—Mona who was still a good girl, as settled as she likely would be with the photographer, and Michel, the adventurer, always in some faraway place, trying to put distance, Fabienne understood, between himself and his father. Still, it was her youngest who took up most of her heart. Fabienne longed for a simple pleasure, all her children in one place, safe, with her.

  They didn’t take Americans. That was how Fabienne had slept at night, knowing her daughters would always be safe when they were in Port-au-Prince. And now, she knew her husband had lied to her. So many years, following him to so many places, and he had repaid her with such staggering deceit. If she allowed herself, she would tear his eyes out and spit on his bleeding face. She breathed deeply. She loved him. She tried not to consider the satisfaction of his flesh beneath her fingernails.

  Sebastien stood next to the couch, taking slow, careful sips from a small cup of espresso. He had to look calm. He had to be in control. Too many people in the room would be more than happy to see him fall, to plunder all he had built. One thing he had learned in this life—there were always barbarians at both sides of the gate.

  He looked up from his reverie, but didn’t dare meet the eyes of the woman who had stood by his side the whole of his life. There Fabienne sat, as beautiful as always, so elegant, her back straight, eyes flashing, dark hair streaked with silver. Her face older, but still, this was the woman he married without ever looking back, always faithful. When he looked at Fabienne, everything was good and quiet. He could step away from the rush of the fire he always felt at his back.

  Always, in America, he had to prove himself to the men he worked with, then men he worked for, the men who worked under him, all men he could outthink on his worst day. He hated how they mocked his accent before clapping him on the shoulders, saying, “You don’t mind, do you?” He hated how surprised they were when he did something excellent, and how they never stopped being surprised, even twenty years on. It was not easy to be a man like him in a country where everyone looked upon him with suspicion. Everything he had made of himself and still, these indignities choked him and filled his mouth with bitterness. The easiest decision of his life had been to return to Haiti, where at least, he would always be a man among men.

  And now, his youngest child was in the hands of animals—the little girl who always looked up at him, followed him everywhere, did as he asked. Sebastien never imagined this could happen. Things were getting so much better throughout the country—even CNN said so. He paid various thugs to allow his trucks into certain neighborhoods so his workers could build what needed building. Every hour of every day he paid armed guards to watch the concrete plant and keep people from stealing too much. He paid bonuses and holidays and when a project finished early or under budget. He paid the customs agents to finesse the import of supplies he needed. He paid the women who fed his family and cleaned his home and he paid for their children to go to school, made sure they had strong roofs over their heads.

  Always, Sebastien was paying money, small ransoms here and there, the price of doing business in Haiti. But this was too much—a million dollars, such a breathtaking amount of money. It galled him that men who had not worked an honest day in their lives would be so bold as to ask for a lifetime’s fortune. But it wasn’t about the money. It was about so much more and there was nothing he could say to explain what he meant. Sebastien rubbed his forehead. He was doing the right thing. He finally met his wife’s stare and his stomach fell. They had spoken little since their daughter was taken. There was little to be said.

  Fabienne stood and everyone hushed, watching as she crossed toward her husband. They wanted the spectacle to swell ever more garishly. When husband and wife were only inches apart, Sebastien smiled softly. He studied Fabienne’s hands, still smooth, the hands of a much younger woman. And oh how her hands felt in his, so much smaller than his calloused hands, what a network of delicate strength. Sebastien set his espresso on the small end table and reached for Fabienne’s hands but she swatted him away.

  “No. You do not get to hold my hands, not until my daughter is safe, back in this house.”

  Sebastien shifted from one foot to the other, terribly aware of the barbarians staring at him, judging him no matter what he said, no matter what he did. He tried to reach for his wife again but she was resolute, holding her body in a rigid line. “I am doing everything I can to bring our child back to us. You have to trust me.”

  “No,” Fabienne said. “The time for trust is over. Too much trust I have given you. End this, now.” She could feel panic rising through her spine. “Now,” she repeated, her voice high and sharp. “Goddamn you, Sebastien Duval. Bring home my child.”

  Sebastien was suddenly weary. All the stares had shifted from curious to accusing. He loosened his necktie. “Excuse me,” he said, stumbling forward, and out of the sitting room. He kept walking until he no longer heard voices and finally, when he was alone, he collapsed.

  With the Commander I surrendered defiantly but with TiPierre I fought viciously, like the caged animal I was. I clawed at him and beat his body with my hands. I refused to lie still, twisting my body every which way. He was always calm, patient, as if he knew he would win but also knew I needed to fight.

  TiPierre had a son close in age to Christophe. He told me about his child as he lay next to me on the tenth night, his arm heavy across my chest, one of his legs draped over mine. Even though I kept trying to free myself, he would not be moved.

  “I love my boy,” TiPierre said. “He lives with his mother. I live with her when she isn’t angry with me. She is often angry with me. You know how women can be.”

  I was silent, my skin burning with the weight of his arm across my chest. I said nothing.

  “You have a son. What do you want for your boy?”

  “I do not have a child,” I whispered. “I do not have a child.” The constant ache in my breasts sharpened even though my milk was drying, I could feel myself losing this one last part of myself. I tried to figure out what I could say to make TiPierre stop talking, to make him finish what he had come to my cage to do so he could leave me alone to be no one and feel nothing.

  He propped himself up on one elbow. “Why would you deny your own child?”

  I turned away from the man, the boy really, next to me, the one who hoped that through the intimacy of confession he might bring about my desire. “I am not the mother of that child,” I said, pulling my knees to my chest, trying to find my way to some silent place inside myself.

  TiPierre abandoned his line of questioning and began tracing my shoulder with his fingers. I bit down on my knuckles, as hard as I could. It was an interesting pain, dull but steady.

  “I would like to raise my boy in America. I don’t want him to become like me, running the streets, living in all this,” TiPierre said.

  Ti Pierre was from Gonaives, came to Port-au-Prince as a restavek, sold into indentured servitude when he was a small boy, sold by his mother who loved him for one thousand gourdes, twenty-five U.S. dollars. He was no stranger to the buying and selling of the human body. As a boy, he worked, indentured, to a wealthy family who lived up on Montagne Noire. All day and night he worked, cleaning for them, and when he got older, cooking. At night, the bones of his fingers were curled in pain from scrubbing marble floors and climbing ladders to polish a crystal chandelier and washing the beautiful German cars he would never sit in. The father of the family who owned him used to beat him each evening with a whittled tree branch to remind TiPierre of his place, fifteen strokes, more if he had somehow displeased his employer. TiPierre did not go to school, never learned to read or write, had no friends. He forgot his mother who loved him, his father, brothers and sister, his real name. He ran away when he was sixteen, ran to t
he slums because in the slums he would be safe. Someday, TiPierre said, he would make his way to Miami, where he would be a deejay in a fancy nightclub. He would meet famous football players and rap stars and beautiful women who wear bikinis at night. He would play Benny Benassi and David Guetta and Chemical Brothers and wear sunglasses in the dark and jump up and down to the beat. Maybe, he said, I would come see him spin. Maybe I would be his girl and look pretty for him. Of course he thought he could buy me.

  I was desperate to keep his body from touching mine more than necessary. He kissed my shoulder and fondled my breasts affectionately. I pitied him, how carelessly he had been loved, how easily he had been discarded, how little he knew of love or true desire. I loathed myself for my compassion. I loathed him for making me feel anything toward him at all.

  I shook, silently, my hand over my mouth until my bitterness welled. “With you as his father, your son has a very good chance of turning out exactly like you.”

  TiPierre grabbed me by my neck, the V of his thumb and forefinger locked just below my chin. I tried to swat his arm away but he squeezed until my eyes bulged and I gasped hungrily for air. I was on the edge of something, a quiet blackness. I found comfort there.

  “You are an animal just like the man you work for,” I said hoarsely, relaxing into his hand, hoping TiPierre would kill me. I longed for him to squeeze just a little harder, to show no mercy. I was no one. My death would not matter.

  He finally released his grip. I touched my neck, could still feel the pressure of his hand against my fingertips. He kissed my collarbone, and the new bruises blooming around my throat. “I am sorry,” he said, “but what you said was not nice.”