Krik? Krak!

When Josephine, a young woman living in Ville Rose, sees her porcelain Madonna statue cry, she fears that her mother has died, and she walks barefoot to the prison in Port-au-Prince where her mother is incarcerated. Josephine was born in 1937, on the day that a dictator, whom she calls El Generalissimo, ordered the massacre of all Haitians living in the Dominican Republic. Josephine travels with her Madonna statue to Port-au-Prince, where she plans to visit her mother in prison. She is stopped by an elderly woman, who asks to touch the Madonna statue and shudders when she does so. The elderly woman tells Josephine to bring her mother food.

At the prison, Josephine worries about her mother’s health. Her mother—who has been accused of having wings of flame—has grown thin in prison. The guards suspect that her skin is sagging because she takes it off each night and has no time to put it back on correctly in the morning. Josephine struggles to speak to her mother in prison, but gives her the food and the Madonna statue, which her mother holds tightly. When Josephine’s mother was arrested, they had been staying at a friend’s house, and Josephine’s mother sometimes cared for the friend’s sick baby. When the baby died, Josephine’s mother was accused of witchcraft and murder, brutally beaten by her neighbors, and imprisoned.

When Josephine was a child, her mother had taken her to the Massacre River and told her the story of their escape. Her own mother, Josephine’s grandmother, had been murdered that night, and her body was one of the thousands that had been cut up and tossed into the river. Josephine’s pregnant mother had swum across the river in order to save their lives. As years passed, Josephine’s mother would bring other women who had survived the massacre to the river, where they would share stories and give thanks. During her next prison visit Josephine asks her mother whether she truly has the power of flight. Her mother chastises her, and says that Josephine should remember that all of the women who gathered by the river could fly to the moon and back if they wanted to.

One week later, a woman appears at Josephine’s house in the middle of the night. She says that her name is Jacqueline, and that she was one of the women who gathered by the river. Josephine asks her a series of questions to verify her identity, and Jacqueline provides the answers, which the women rehearsed during their time at the river so they could find each other. Jacqueline tells Josephine that her mother is dead, and the two women travel to the prison to confirm the news. When they enter Josephine’s mother’s cell, it is filled with six other women, who have already begun the process of mourning. They tell Josephine that her mother was beaten to death by guards. Jacqueline asks Josephine to stay and watch the burning: The other incarcerated women will be forced to watch, and Jacqueline believes Josephine’s presence will comfort them. Jacqueline reminds Josephine that life is never truly lost, and that another life will come to take her mother’s place. As she waits for her mother’s body to be burned, Josephine remembers the story of the day she was born: Her pregnant mother had indeed flown from Dominican soil into the bloody water, then back out onto the Haitian side. She looks into the sun and wishes her mother a joyful flight.