Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Public Notice

2017; Duke University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/07990537-4156894

0799-0537

Ayanna Gillian Lloyd,

Adah had spent the last two weeks wandering around the hospital but had never seen the mortuary, never once thought of where they would put her father when his bed on Ward 33 was finally empty. She had known it must have been somewhere in the gaggle of fruit vendors, healers, and pirate gospel music CD sellers that lined the outer grounds and hallways of the General Hospital, but the previous two weeks had passed in a blur only brought into focus by the late-night phone call. So when she walked down the roadway that connected Charlotte Street to Emergency and the lady selling nuts asked her, “How the old man?” as she handed her the usual—a pack of salted nuts wrapped in brown paper—Adah could only shake her head and say, “He gone.” She knew that she should feel something—he was her father, after all—but all she could think of was how he had made their lives miserable for years.She followed the directions from the security guard and found the mortuary tucked away to the back of the hospital behind a tall, rusted gate with a broken padlock and a large sign:Public NoticeThe Services at the Port of Spain General Hospital Mortuary are Free of Charge. If you are asked to pay for these services, please report the person and incident immediately to the hospital administration.The building was smaller than she had expected: two cobbled-together renovated shipping containers with heavy steel doors. There was a covered enclosure with galvanized roofing next to it, already full to bursting with women sitting on wooden benches. From the nondescript appearance of the building to the matter-of-fact sign at the entrance, it could have been any government office; if her eyes could somehow skip over the words “hospital” and “mortuary,” she could be coming to renew her driver's license. She did not know what she had expected a mortuary to look like—cold chrome, perhaps, or starched white, like the hospitals on TV—but she had thought it would, at least, have a particular smell, something distinctly medicinal. Instead, it looked and smelled like the city that surrounded it—rusted gates, peeling paint, thick with the smell of car exhaust, the distant sewer, and urine from vagrants who pissed on the wall outside.The irony that she was the person charged with identifying her father's body was not lost on Adah. She had seen more of him in the last two weeks at the hospital than she had in years. Once she had grown up and left home, there had been no reason to rehash all the things that had gone wrong, no reason to do all the things the expensive therapist had counseled her about healthy confrontation, truth-telling, and healing. And once her mother had died, there was no reason for her to interact with him at all. What was the point anymore of saying to his face the words that had been hard-won on the therapist's couch, “I am angry with my father.”Adah wedged her body into the only remaining space on a bench among pregnant women with swollen eyes, old grandmothers with their hands clasped in prayer, mothers and daughters with faces pinched and drained like half-eaten oranges, and she wondered whether only women were capable of identifying the dead. A lady in a neatly pressed skirt and blouse caught her eye for a second and then looked away. She was sitting on a bench on the other side of the waiting area, her legs crossed sideways at her ankles ending in nude pumps, and her thick hair—streaked with grey and still in rollers—covered by a hairnet. Adah couldn't remember the last time she had seen a woman wearing rollers and a hairnet. She looked as if the smallest action might be dangerous, like her own breath might tear her apart. It felt indecent to keep staring and so Adah looked away. She felt like an imposter among these grief-stricken women. Their worlds had fallen apart, but she could not decide what she was feeling at all.She thought of Ward 33 just a few days ago, with its low hum and peculiar combination of sounds: the voice of the man in the bed next to her father's who had been praying for days, the sound of strong hands wrestling with weak flesh, and someone fighting against the manacles of his bedsheets. “Watch that one, eh, he does bawl out in the night all the time and try to run,” the nurse had cautioned her. “They does have to tie him.” Adah could almost smell the sweet coconut of the pink and white sugar cake that she had bought from the old lady outside the hospital pharmacy and sneaked in past the nurses to her emaciated father. It was not a peace offering; Mom would have wanted her to do it. But in the hospital, there was none of the overbearing, drunk bastard he had been. There was just a thin, dying man with skin that barely concealed the bones of his face, devouring pink sugar cake, smiling at his daughter who had brought it to him.From her bag she took the book that she had found that morning at her father's house. Poems by someone named Pablo Neruda. She didn't even like poetry, didn't know why she picked it up with its well-worn, dog-eared pages, as though marked for rereading. On the inside cover was an inscription in faded, delicate, cursive handwriting:“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”Love always, 1986She had never thought of her father as a big reader or her mother as a romantic woman, but this book had sat next to the piles of papers and files that Adah had had to rummage through, the only sentimental, personal item on a desk that was otherwise consumed by work and medical bills. She flipped through the poems on the pages, scanning the lines: “I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair …”; “In this part of the story, I am the one who dies …”; “ … Love, in fire and in blood.”Perhaps it had been a gift from their courting days. Perhaps in those days her father wasn't as much of an asshole; he couldn't have been if her mother had married him. Maybe he was sweeter then. Maybe they both were.The ringing of a cell phone made Adah look up. An old woman answered it: “ … No, not yet. Waiting for them to call his name.” She glanced at the younger woman with her whose face looked hollow, her eyes unfocused, staring at nothing, “No, she not doing too good,” and motioned for the man who had been walking around in silence, selling dinner mints, Bay Rum, and Tiger Balm out of a canvas bag. Then a clerk opened a creaky metal door to the building and read a name off her clipboard: “Junior Alexander?”The woman ended the call, opened the small, bright red tin of Tiger Balm, rubbed a little on the vacant-eyed young woman's temples, then held her hand and led her through the metal doors. For several minutes the air outside in the waiting area held taught, then a guttural wail tore it to pieces. Adah could feel the other women who knew the place in their bellies that grief comes from exhaling. Others sank into themselves, bracing for the next time. And every time the clerk emerged and called a new name—“Raymond Borde?” “Michael Callendar?” “Frederick Jacobs?” “Jabari Thorpe?”—the Tiger Balm and Bay Rum sold faster, their acrid smells blending with the city beyond the gates.Hours passed and the numbers thinned. Adah was now more than halfway through the book when she felt eyes on her again. She looked up, startled to find that not only were she and the neat lady with the hairnet and sensible shoes the only people waiting, but the woman had moved over from the bench opposite and was now only a few spaces away. The woman's makeup was subtle and her skirt and blouse looked fresher than they had a right to, given that she too had been sitting on an uncomfortable bench for hours in a place that had been packed with people. Her back barely touched the grimy wall behind her, and she looked straight ahead as if her eyes had not connected with Adah's earlier at all.The morning had taught Adah that there was a code in the waiting area. No one spoke, no one attempted to give comfort or seek out comfort from strangers. Why then had this lady left a seat on the bench opposite to draw closer to her? Adah was immediately irritated, but there was something about the woman's straight shoulders, the way her small hands were folded in her lap and the expensive-looking handbag next to her that reminded Adah just a bit of her mother.“You ok?”The woman didn't answer. Her fingers clenched in her lap and there was a movement in her throat as if she were holding back sobs.“Umm, It's just us so you should be going in just now. It will be over soon.”More silence except for the city sounds. Adah didn't like how stiffly the woman sat or the way her fingers clenched and unclenched. The other women looked spent but this one was full of something barely contained.“You know it gets better after a while. They say that doing this, identifying the body, helps to give you closure.”“Closure …,” the woman muttered, in the softest sound that Adah could barely hear. She wondered for a second whether the woman had said anything at all.“Do you believe that?”“Umm, I guess so. That's what the books say right? That's what they said when my mom … Well, it means that you accept that they're dead right? So you can start to—”“None of those books know what they are talking about.” The woman cut her off, her voice full of the same steel that propped up her spine. Adah wished she hadn't said anything at all. The conversation threatened to wander into territory that she wouldn't know how to escape.They had broken the code and now the silence between them stretched thick and sticky. It was afternoon, and the midday heat was giving way to a muggy humidity that signaled a rain shower was on its way. Adah looked up at the galvanized sheeting that covered their enclosure, wondered whether it leaked and considered whether it would be impolite to move in advance, reinstating some kind of order. The woman did not seem to want her comfort or conversation and truthfully, she was a little relieved. She had no grief to share and she couldn't understand her own desire to offer comfort anyway.She had just reopened her book when she felt the woman move closer to her on the bench.“What are you reading?”Her body looked a bit more relaxed now, and she looked at Adah with red-rimmed eyes.“Umm, poems. One Hundred Love Sonnets. Yeah, I know. Weird selection for a place like this, right?”“Neruda.”“Yeah. You've read him?”“I did a long time ago.”“I'm not really into this sort of thing, but I knew I would have a long wait, and even poetry is better than staring at the walls for hours, right? I found it while cleaning up my father's house. It's him I'm here for.“Oh.”“You like poetry?” Adah asked.“I love Neruda.” She smiled slightly. Something about the look in her eyes softened Adah and made her regret her little joke about poetry.“I'm Adah, by the way.”“Caroline.”The sound of heavy, double doors opening interrupted what had just begun to be companionable quiet. Two young men in white overalls walked out, wheeling a gurney carrying something shrouded in a blood-splattered, white sheet. Just past the doors, they paused. One stepped away and leaned casually against a pole, his thin, lanky body almost as long as the pole itself, and drew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit one up and put it to his lips. The other stood near the gurney. He opened the can of Coke that he had been holding in one hand while he pushed the gurney with the other. He began chatting to his friend.They were quite some distance away, and neither Adah nor Caroline could hear what they were saying. They looked relaxed, their mouths moving soundlessly. Every now and again, the one with the Coke would throw his head back, laughing, and the other would nod in enthusiastic agreement and take another drag of his cigarette. Then something became dislodged from the gurney and slipped out from under the sheet. An arm. It hung off the side, visible only from the forearm to fingertips. Adah heard Caroline gasp. The attendant transferred his cigarette to his lips and fixed the corpse's arm back under the sheet. He took one last drag before tossing the cigarette; the other attendant carefully pocketed his now empty Coke can, and they wheeled the gurney through yet another pair of metal doors.Adah and Caroline sat in silence, the book forgotten. There was nothing but the spectacle of the shroud, the arm, the men who worked with the dead, the red of the Coke can, the red of the blood on the shroud. Adah broke the silence. “You ok there?”There was nothing but shallow breathing.“Listen, they see this every day. It's not like they don't …” God, she was babbling. What else could she possibly say? She wanted nothing more than for them to call her father's name so she could get this over with and get out of here.“I can't see him!” Caroline blurted out. “You talked about closure but I can't even see him!” Caroline's back was rigid again, her hands restless in her lap. “They say I am not his next of kin. I am not his anything, not really. The people in there won't let me.” Having released the words, Caroline looked deflated, her breathing ragged. Adah felt callow next to this woman who had sat so straight, who had done her makeup and left her house in pumps but had forgotten to take the rollers out of her hair. The attendants were gone; they were quite alone now. Without even thinking about it, Adah reached over and covered Caroline's hand in hers. It was small and lined, the French-manicured nails, immaculate.Another door opened. The clerk came out with her clipboard, “Kenneth Zachary?” And the hand, still and limp a moment ago, held Adah's.“That's me. I have to go.” Adah said softly. “It will be ok.” She moved to get up but Caroline refused to let go of her hand.“Please, Adah …”Her eyes looked crazed. There was desperation in them now that made Adah suddenly want to get away from her as quickly as possible.“Listen, they're going to call your person's name soon, ok?” Adah pulled her hand away again, a little harder this time.“Kenneth Zachary?” the clerk called a little louder.Caroline would not let go of Adah's hand; her grip intensified. Adah stared hard at her, and Caroline stared right back, her eyes bright and pleading. Adah felt panic rise in her throat. She forced her hand hard from Caroline's grip and stood up, scattering her bag and the book on the ground. Caroline was sobbing openly now. Adah scrambled to pick up her things, reached for the book, then recoiled. It had fallen open to the inside cover, the inscription, “Love Always.”Adah leapt up, head reeling. Caroline stood too, her mascara running trails of black down her cheeks and moved toward Adah, her hand outstretched.“Please, Adah, I'm sorry! I just want to see him, please. I need to see him. Twenty years and no one even knows my name! I just needed someone to know …”“Kenneth Zachary!” The clerk shouted his name this time.“Yes, I'm here!” Adah backed away from Caroline, recoiling also from the hand she had held just a little while ago.“God! Please, Adah!”But Adah turned and walked away, following the clerk through the metal doors.Adah sat in a battered chair in the small office only half-listening to the pathologist who was going over Kenneth Zachary's case file. Who was that woman? How long had she been sitting there? Had she been waiting for her? Had Mom known? How do you love a married man for twenty years? Had he loved her? The book. He kept the damn book. How did she even know who Adah was? Had she been in her parents' house? Seen family photos? God, had he gone to her right after Mom's funeral? Adah took the documents from the doctor, nodded, signed them, and mumbled her thanks.An attendant took her to a large, cold metallic room full of gurneys in neatly arranged rows, each bearing a body covered with a white sheet like the one she'd seen with Caroline outside. But no arms escaped these sheets and no blood splattered them. These were here on display for the families, like so much meat at a butcher's, waiting to be chosen. The attendant stopped at one white-shrouded gurney. The body beneath was small. This couldn't be him, the towering man her father had been.“You ready, Ma'am?”“Ready? You serious?”The attendant pulled the white sheet down and folded it across Kenneth Zachary's chest. Most people see the dead at funerals. Their mouths are closed and peaceful, and their lips are soft, if a bit shrunken. Their faces are powdered and their hair is combed. They never look alive, but perhaps asleep. What Adah looked at was nothing other than a corpse—mouth agape, papery skin stretched across bone, eyes bulging. No breath animated the body, no mortician had worked on it and no embalming fluid had been applied. This was not the man she had seen laughing and loving in photos with her mother all those years ago on his wedding day. This was not the man who had locked himself in his office at home, irritated by every interruption from his small daughter. This was not the mean drunk who had thrown things when enraged, who had filled the house with fear or had passed out on the couch every family holiday. This was not even the man who had eaten pink and white sugar cake, pulling at the crumbly sweetness with his long, bony fingers, leaving bits of it on his hospital gown. This was just fresh dead. There was no trace of the man she had spent a lifetime hating, the man who was loved by no living person except the distraught stranger outside.Adah looked at the other bodies in the room. She thought of the smell of the Tiger Balm and the wail she had heard. She thought of the praying grandmothers, the pregnant wives and girlfriends who would sleep alone. She thought of the children who had not yet begun to make sense of the fact that they would now always be one parent short. These bodies belonged to them, belonged to people who loved them.“Yes, it's him.”She nodded at the attendant, signaling that she was finished and knew that the job of making that pronouncement had really never belonged to her at all. She walked through the doors, pulled out her cell phone, and called her contact at the funeral home. “I'm done … Everything's signed and they'll have the paperwork ready for you when you reach— … No. No, I can't wait. I'll come tomorrow to settle things … Something I have to do.”Caroline hadn't moved. In the time Adah had been in the office, the clouds that were threatening had burst and the rain come and gone, leaving the concrete outside wet and steaming. Caroline sat slumped on the bench, her head bowed, and her hands rested on either side of her thighs. She did not even look up as Adah approached. Adah stopped and stood in front of her.“You don't want to see him like that.”Caroline's shoulders trembled, but she didn't look up.“It's not him. He's not there.” Adah tried to soften the gravel in her voice but found she couldn't. She thought of her mother, and resentment boiled in her gut.“You hear me? You can go in if you want, I'll tell them not to stop you, but it won't help. You shouldn't see him like that. Ok?”Adah waited and stared at the top of Caroline's bowed head. Her eyes drifted to the book still on the ground and she bent down to pick it up. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. She felt the burn in her stomach settle, felt the gravel dissolve in her throat, and said, more gently than she had thought possible, “Caroline?”And Caroline crumbled, with her elbows on her knees, her head held in her hands.Adah looked away. When the tears stopped, Caroline straightened her back, reached over into her handbag, pulled out a white handkerchief, and dabbed her eyes and cheeks. Streaks of black stained the fabric. She looked up at Adah, who continued to stand in front of her. Caroline now took on the same drained, pinched appearance of the women Adah had observed earlier in the day. They looked at each other, and from somewhere inside of her that she hadn't imagined existed, Adah found herself asking,“Did you eat? There's a place. It's not too far. If you want …”Caroline looked at Adah as though she could not quite understand the request, didn't believe her. Then she nodded. Adah handed her the book and she took it, their fingers brushing just slightly before Caroline put it in her handbag. She stood up then to meet her, and Adah was surprised how tiny the woman who loved her father was, even in heels. Together they left the waiting area and walked out through the tall, rusted iron gates of the mortuary.