An Untamed State

by Roxane Gay

  My parents’ house was quiet and empty. An older woman with my face held a beautiful, sleeping child. She stood, approached me, still holding the child. She tried to hold her hand to my face but I did not let her. I could not look her in the eyes. I was uncomfortable beneath the lights. I wanted to run away from these people who would know too much about what happened to me if they looked at me too carefully, these people who could not recognize a stranger in their midst, these people who allowed me to become a stranger. She tried to hand me the child but I crossed my arms across my chest, tucking my hands beneath my armpits, staring at my feet. Michael leaned down and whispered something in her ear. She frowned. “Mireille, I am your mother, this is your child, your son, Christophe. Here, hold him, such a beautiful boy.”

  “I know who you are,” I whispered, though I wasn’t entirely sure that was true anymore.

  I would not dare touch that child until I was clean even if he was not the child of the stranger before him. I would not touch him with any part of what I had become. He was perfect. He would stay that way. I would see to that.

  We stood within that uneasy impasse, a mother, a mother, a father, a father, a husband, a husband, a sleeping child, a broken child. They wanted to ask questions. There was nothing I could say. I could not bear the taste of my mouth. I needed to vomit. That’s all I would do for months, trying to purge myself. I held my stomach, swayed unsteadily. I said, “Excuse me,” and ran up the metal staircase to my room. I don’t know how I knew my way through that enormous house. I was reminded, again, of the wisdom of the body. In the bathroom, I fell to my knees and heaved into the toilet. I stayed there, like that, like a prayer.

  When I stepped into the weak stream of lukewarm water, still dressed, I beat my fist against the tiled wall. I said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” I had hoped for hot water from the cistern but knew it was not likely so late in the day. I beat the tile again. My clothes clung to my body uncomfortably so I peeled myself out of them and scrubbed myself with a white washcloth and a bar of pink French soap. I washed myself until there was no soap left, until the water was ice cold and then I sat on the shower floor, letting the water wash over me weakly. A stream of reds and pinks, my blood, circled the drain for a long while. Every now and then I would hear a knock at the door and I said, “Leave me alone.”

  I needed to be alone. It is easier to be alone when you are no one. The longer I sat there, the more I remembered of the woman I had been and would never be again, the woman I would have to pretend to be even though I was no one. After several rounds of this call and response, the bathroom door opened. I pulled my legs against my chest. Through the glass, I saw the outline of Michael’s body. He leaned against the bathroom sink.

  “You’ve been in here for a long time.”

  “It’s not nearly enough.”

  “I will sit with you, keep you company.”

  I didn’t have the energy to protest. I sat until the water ran out. I had known there would not be enough water. I asked Michael to hand me a towel. I asked him to leave. He sighed softly, and stepped out. As I dried myself, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. A thick shock of silver, inches wide, ran through my hair on the right side of my head. The streak would never go away. Friends would later call it distinctive. Michael would say it made me even more beautiful. My face was nearly unrecognizable, misshapen—two black eyes, contusions, bruising. A constellation of small bruises lined my collarbones. There were darker bruises wreathing my neck, my shoulders, my thighs, my back, my stomach. A series of small cuts marked my left calf. There were cuts across my back, a very fresh cut between my breasts, wide, open and weeping. There were so many burns. I studied the attentions of unkind men. My fingernails were ragged and broken. I fought so hard. I was proud. I would have that, always.

  When I was ready, I pulled the bathroom door open a crack and asked Michael to hand me some clothes. It was a relief to wear something clean, something of mine—a long-sleeved T-shirt and flannel pajama pants. It was a relief to feel the air-conditioning against my damp skin. Michael sat on the edge of the bed in a T-shirt and boxers. I stared at the hair on his pale legs. I love the hair on his legs, tufts all the way down to his ankles. My hair was wet and heavy against the back of my neck. I tried to twist it into a loose bun. My arms ached.

  “Can you believe my hair?” I pointed to the silver streak.

  Michael smiled softly. “It’s beautiful. You are beautiful.”

  “You’ll say anything to charm me. We both know I look hideous right now.” I pointed to the bruises on my face.

  “What do you need?”

  I shook my head. “Michael, I have no idea.” His name felt good on my tongue.

  He nodded slowly. “Do you want to see Christophe?”

  I did, very much, but shook my head. I went to the window and looked out onto the mess of the city below, blocks of concrete stretching from the mountains all the way to the ocean. I wrapped my arms around myself. My mouth still tasted terrible. My jaw ached, was loose.

  “Come to bed,” Michael said.

  There was the weight of TiPierre’s arm, so heavy draped across me as he slept. Panic wormed through my body so sharply I doubled over. I wanted to hide. I wanted to sleep alone so I could be safe. Michael rushed to his feet, held me by my shoulders. “Are you okay?” he asked. I felt another sharp pang. I tried to free myself from his grasp. My body was coming apart. “Please,” I begged. “Please don’t touch me, Michael. I’m sorry. I can’t handle it.” He immediately pulled away, looked at his hands as if they had betrayed him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”

  The walls were closing in; this new cage was getting smaller and smaller. There was a leash around my neck. The leash was heavy, choking me, reminding me I was still in that room, alone, with angry men. “I want you to pack our things so we can get out of here in the morning.”

  Michael backed away slowly, sat on the edge of the bed, tucking his hands beneath him. He nodded to the side. “Sit with me.” I was thankful for the blessing of a king-sized bed. I sat as close to him as my leash would allow. It was not close at all. I looked at the floor, tried to make sense of the marble patterns.

  “You look so skinny.”

  “I haven’t eaten much lately.”

  “Do you want me to make you something?”

  “What took so long?” I asked, quietly.

  My husband bit his lower lip and shook his head. “We should talk about this later.”

  I threw my hairbrush against the wall. “What took so long? You abandoned me. How could you?”

  “I did not abandon you, Mireille. I tried everything. Everything.”

  “But?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Maybe we should talk about this after you’ve had some rest.”

  “What happened? Why didn’t you come for me?”

  “I tried,” Michael said. He started crying again. I wanted to comfort him but didn’t know how. I wished tears would come so easily to me. “There were complications.”

  I nodded slowly as the air in the room shifted. “I don’t understand. Money was not the problem. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Michael sucked in his chest. His voice took on a tone I had never heard, tight with fury. He stood and began pacing. “Your father insisted on handling the negotiations. He wanted to prove a point. He said if he capitulated too easily, his words, those animals would try to take everything from him, everything he built. I threatened to kill him. I tried to work around him but I don’t know anyone here, I don’t speak the language that well, no one would help me. No one would fucking help me. It was like I wasn’t even there but I looked for you with your cousin. We nearly tore the city apart.”

  “What are you talking about, Michael? Which cousin?”

  My husband shook his head. “Nothing for you to worry about. I just mean to say, I did not sit idly by.”

  I was missing something but I couldn’t quite figure out
what. “I told them on the very first day my father wouldn’t pay.” My voice broke. “I was right. I knew he wouldn’t want to pay. His principles matter more.” I paused, trying to swallow the uncomfortable shape of this new truth. “Why did he finally pay?”

  “Who knows? Your mother, maybe. Or his conscience finally got the best of him.”

  I exhaled loudly, My chest tightened. I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath. I was not going to cry. I would not cry. “Thirteen days is a very long time.”

  “A lifetime,” Michael said. “I know.”

  “No, Michael. You do not know. You have no idea.”

  I crawled to the edge of the bed and stretched out as best I could. It still hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. It hurt to be in this new cage. The leash wrapped itself ever more tightly around my throat. Carefully, I rolled onto my side and faced my husband. He stared and stared at me as if he were trying to read my mind. I knew he needed something from me, something to hold on to. I barely had the energy to give him anything. I said one true thing. “I missed you so fucking much.” He smiled widely, tried to reach for me but I grabbed his wrist, tried to make the gesture seem affectionate by rubbing my thumb over his knobby wrist bones. I was not convincing.

  Michael fell asleep quickly but I did not, did not trust I could sleep, did not trust what I might say in my sleep, did not trust what could happen while I slept. Michael started to snore. His sounds, the shape of his body near mine, made me feel closer to whole, however fleeting the moment. Tears welled. I would not cry. I slid out of bed and walked to where Christophe slept in a crib my mother bought the moment she heard I was pregnant. My son sleeps exactly like his father, on his side, his fingers curled into loose fists, one arm stretched behind him. He looks like his father more than he looks like me if you’re paying attention. They have the same nose and cheeks and toes. My son has my eyes. I leaned into his crib to touch the perfect dimples on his fingers but stopped myself. I still did not trust myself to touch my child but I held my hand against the rapid rise and fall of his chest. I would not touch him again for weeks and weeks. I said, “I love you so much.”

  I listened to the boy’s soft snoring until morning, watched how his lips trembled every so often. I thought about how simple things were in a country like Haiti. There were no authorities to notify about my release, not really. In the morning, the police would visit, yes, but I doubted much would come of it. I wasn’t going to stay in Haiti one moment longer than I had to. There would be no evidence collected, no trial, no justice and without justice, there was no crime. It was almost a relief. I was no one so nothing happened to me.

  When Christophe stirred, I quickly left his room. I did not trust myself to keep it together around him. Michael was still asleep. I looked for my phone, which I hadn’t seen in two weeks. I found it next to Michael’s on the end table. I sat on the floor and watched him sleep too. He looked older. I imagine I did too.

  There were dozens of missed calls and my voice mail was full. I saw several messages from Mona and listened to them. She called me each day I was gone, explaining why she wasn’t in Port-au-Prince waiting for me, explaining that our mother and her husband demanded she stay in the States. I listened to her voice and tried to remember the shape of her face. I refused to cry. My hands shook as I dialed her number in Miami. She answered on the first ring.

  “Miri, Jesus Christ. I miss you so much.”

  “Mona,” I said, stuttering. “Please come to the airport tomorrow. Please be there.”

  “Of course, Miri.”

  “I don’t remember anything, Mona. I mean, I do but I don’t. I listened to your messages. You didn’t forget me.”

  “Forget you? Honey, you’re all we’ve thought about.”

  “They abandoned me.”

  “No one abandoned you. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”

  “I’m tired, Mona. I have to go.”

  “Don’t hang up,” Mona shouted, but I ended the call.

  After a final look at Michael’s sleeping form, I took my soiled clothes, the ones I wore for thirteen days, the ones covered in piss and tears and semen and blood I could not wash out even though I tried. They were still damp from the shower. I threw those filthy clothes holding those memories of my body into the fire pit behind my parents’ house and watched the clothes smolder.

  Eventually, I looked up and saw Michael’s silhouette in the light of the fire. He watched over me but left me alone. When all that remained was gray ash, I threw more wood into the pit, watched the flames reach high into the night. I held my hand close to the heat. I knew what it meant to burn, how it felt, how the right amount of heat can make your skin rise and how the pain rises with your skin until it spreads through you and when the pain starts to spread, it becomes easier to endure. I closed my eyes and fell forward but Michael grabbed me by the waist. He pulled me away from the fire. He wrapped his arms around me. I tried to fight his embrace but he was stronger. He whispered into my ear. He said, “No, Mireille. No.” He held me as I fought. He gave me someone to fight who wouldn’t fight back. He let me fight until I ran out of energy. I did not cry.

  We sat on a teak bench next to the pit. I lit a cigarette, offered him one. He accepted even though he doesn’t smoke. We stared into the fire. I looked at my left hand, so naked. “They took my wedding ring and my engagement ring.”

  Michael tried to reach for me but I pulled my hand away before I had to suffer his skin against mine.

  “They’re just things. I will get you new ones,” he said.

  “They mattered to me.”

  “And they mattered to me, but you matter more.”

  “I fought, especially when he took my rings. I fought.”

  “Who is he?” Michael came close, close enough for me to feel the warmth of his body. Sorrow pulsed from his skin. “What did they do to you? Tell me. Give me something so I can do something. God, Miri. I want to kill somebody.”

  The most honest words locked themselves in my throat. I tried to push something out that might make sense but the harder I tried, the more the words twisted themselves into tiny, stubborn knots. I shook my head, covered my mouth.

  “I understand,” Michael said. “When you’re ready, I am here to listen. There’s nothing you can’t tell me, baby.”

  “I am never going to be ready, Michael. Not ever.” My spine stiffened.

  “It must have been terrible.”

  I turned to look at my husband. “What is it you want to know, Michael? Do you think I don’t know what you’re asking? If there’s something on your mind, just say it.”

  His features rearranged themselves in new ways. “I want to help you.”

  My mother has often told me there are some things you cannot tell a man who loves you, things he cannot handle knowing. She adheres to the philosophy that it is secrets rather than openness that strengthen a relationship between a woman and a man. She believes this even though she is an honest person. Honesty, she says, is not always about the truth.

  I rubbed my forehead and looked away so I could tell him an honest lie. “It was terrible, Michael but not as terrible as you might think. They certainly did not hesitate to knock me around but other than that, they left me alone in a small, hot room with greasy walls and a narrow bed. They didn’t feed me much so I was hungry all the time and I missed you and the baby. My milk dried up. That was the worst of it.”

  Michael nodded slowly. I waited for him to say something, hoped he would want to believe me enough that we would never have to discuss what happened. The mere thought of telling him the truth made my throat lock up again. There were no words that would make him understand what had happened or what I had become. The necessary vernacular did not exist.

  “You have to tell the police something in the morning.”

  “No, I don’t. I have nothing to say to anyone. We are getting our kid out of here.”

  He threw his hands up. “I won’t argue with you. It’s probably a was
te of time anyway. You know, you haven’t cried at all. You can cry if you need to.”

  “I wasn’t waiting for your permission, Michael. I don’t need to cry.”

  I felt him shrinking away. I reached for him and his fingers found mine. I ignored how my skin crawled. I held his hand so tight. When I pulled away he said he was going back to bed, that he was exhausted, and I said I was going to stay outside. I did not want to be surrounded by walls. I couldn’t breathe in my father’s house. As he walked by, Michael put a heavy hand on my shoulder. I winced. “You didn’t have to lie,” he said. “You could have just said you’re not ready to talk.”

  I didn’t look at him as I sank into the bench. “That’s not what you wanted to hear, is it?”

  He left but I did not notice. Sometime later, there was rustling in the corner near the kitchen’s entrance onto the courtyard. I wrapped my arms around myself and stared into the dark shadows. Slowly, Nadine stepped into the light of the fire. I slid over on the bench and made room for her.

  When she sat, I turned to look at her. She had once been beautiful or she still was, only beauty now resided in her features differently. She was nearly as old as my mother, late fifties, her hair streaked with gray, her eyes bright and her eyelids sagging. She should not have still been doing the work of cleaning up after a family like mine.

  “I’ve been a maid for nearly forty years, have worked for five families.”

  “What you must think of us.”

  “Some families are better than others. Your mother treats her staff generously,” Nadine said.

  “That’s my mother, generous.”

  “I have never seen anything like this.” Nadine reached for me, grabbed my arm. When I tried to pull away, she held firm. “Your father is not so generous. He should have paid much sooner.” She sucked on her teeth. “Much sooner.”

  Again, the leash around my neck tightened. Beads of sweat broke out across my forehead. It was unnerving to hear someone say what had gone unspoken since my return.