Summary
Part I: Chapter 8
Since school did not start for another two months, Sophie accompanies her mother to her jobs. During the day, Martine works at the nursing home and at night she watches an old lady.
Sophie can see how tired her mother is and how she is always applying brightening cream to her face to lighten her skin. Martine promises she will find a better job, and explains that this is life—when Sophie gets an education, she won’t have to work like this.
Martine asks Sophie if she is the mother she imagined. Sophie thinks of her mental image, which was like an opulent Virgin Mary, but says she could not ask for better right now. Martine asks what she thinks of Marc. Sophie replies that he is smart. Martine explains that Marc helped Sophie get here, and that back in Haiti Marc would not have been able to love her because he is from a good family. She tells Sophie of how she got her green card through an amnesty program and had to get a lawyer. They became friends during the process and went to many Haitian restaurants. When Sophie asks if she will marry him, Martine says she does not know.
Martine then asks Sophie if she has a boy in Haiti and when Sophie says no, Martine is relieved. She counsels Sophie to focus on school and be a good girl. She then tells Sophie how when she and Atie were girls, their mother used to “test” them by putting a finger inside their vagina and seeing if the hymen was still intact. Atie screamed every time and hated it.
After a pause, she tells Sophie that the tests stopped. She then asks if Sophie knows how she was born. Sophie realizes this will be a sad story. Martine states that the details are too much, but a man grabbed her from the side of the road, pulled her into a cane field, and raped her. Sophie did not want to know more. Martine adds that she never saw his face because it was covered, but as a child out of wedlock always looks like the father, she can see him in Sophie. Martine doesn’t say this angrily, but simply.
Sophie takes twelve years to put together this story, and by now it is too late.
Part II: Chapter 9
Sophie is eighteen and going to start college in the fall. Her mother still works long hours but they have moved to a small one-family home in the neighborhood where Marc lives. Martine now grows hibiscus, not daffodils. Everything is decorated red.
Sophie had attended an Adventist school, which she hated. All the classes were in French except English composition and literature. People called them the “Frenchies” and “boat people” and “stinking Haitians.” Sophie had to supplement her English with television and reading, but she finally became fluent.
Sophie thinks of Atie’s statement that love is like rain because it comes in a drizzle and then it pours and you could drown. When she is eighteen, Sophie falls in love with Joseph, an older black man who plays music. He lives near them and Martine does not like him, warning her of American boys. Sophie knows no other men besides Marc; men were as mysterious as white people.
Sophie notices how Joseph’s eyes follow her as Martine hurries her inside. Sophie thinks he looks respectful and kind and wishes she could smile at him.
One day when she is home alone, Joseph knocks on the door and asks to borrow her phone. She hears how excited he is talking to someone on the other side and, after they introduce themselves, bursts out that his band got a gig in the East Village. He asks her where she is from and explains that he is from Louisiana and speaks a little Creole. They speak a bit more about her mother and how he lives in Providence part of the year and travels places with his band. He tells her he thinks she would like it there because it is a quiet, thoughtful place. Finally, he tells her she can stop by sometime.
Sophie spends the rest of the day listening to him rehearse through the wall. One day, Joseph comes by with a sandwich to thank her for the phone. He asks her about her studies and notes that she does not seem excited to be a doctor. She shrugs and he asks her what she wants to be. She replies that she is not sure, and when he says that is okay, she says that sounds very American. Being a wanderer is not a Haitian thing. He tells her she is a fine woman and she is elated.
Sophie starts going over to Joseph’s place every day, even though she knows her mother would not approve. She listens to him play music and learns the story of his life. She learns that he loves to play Negro spirituals on his piano and his saxophone. She tells him about her family in Haiti and he tries to link Negro spirituals and Latin/island music.
Joseph tells Sophie he will marry her even though he knows there will be problems with her mother. He is old, he says, but will not tell her how old. Sophie sneaks a look at his license and sees that he is a month or two younger than her mother. She laughs that he is young at heart.
An evening when her mother works the whole night, Joseph stops by wearing his tuxedo from playing and holding posters of jazz greats he loves. He asks her excitedly to go out to dinner and she agrees. They go to the Café des Arts on Long Island and have a lovely, romantic evening.
On the doorstep, Joseph compliments Sophie’s beauty and she leans her head on his shoulder as the sun comes up. He asks if she can tell that he likes her and if she likes him. She replies that she cannot say yes or he will not respect her. He says earnestly that he will not pressure her about anything; he is older and not about that. He simply wants to be happy with her, and says they will go to sleep separately.
Inside, Sophie hears him playing music and her whole body tenses up with the thrill of it, then relaxes with a rush.
Chapter 10
The next night, Martine suggests to Sophie that they go out together, as they have not done that for a long time. They take the D train over the Brooklyn Bridge. Martine stares at the river, beaming.
Sophie asks if she will ever go back to Haiti and Martine responds that she has to go back once more to make final arrangements for her mother’s resting place. She will go for a few days, no longer; there are ghosts there she cannot face.
Gathering her courage, Sophie asks if she can like someone. She is afraid to tell her mother the full truth. Martine demands she tell her about him, convinced Sophie is already lost because she trusts him. Sophie decides to quickly lie and says his name is Henry Leogane Napoleon, the Leogane Napoleons being a prominent Haitian family. She says he went back to Haiti after graduation. Martine insists she meet his parents and have a meeting to make sure there were no indiscretions.
Sophie kisses her mother’s cheek but cannot force herself to tell her she loves her.
Now that Martine knows something, Sophie is careful about being the best, most thoughtful daughter. She cooks Martine’s favorite meals, does well in school, and puts up with her mother talking about the fictive Henry. She assures Sophie that Henry is a success story because he comes from a poor but hardworking clan that now has some money and he is going to be a doctor.
Joseph is gone on the road for a month and sends Sophie postcards, which she rushes out to get before her mother can see them. When Martine is home, Sophie waits up all night to wake her mother from her nightmares. Martine always covers her eyes and tells her daughter that she saved her life.
Chapter 11
Joseph returns home and Sophie takes a chance since her mother is out, donning a yellow dress and going to his club. He tells her she looks all grown up and what his travels were like. The evening is like a dream for Sophie.
After the show, he ruefully tells her he has to go to Florida to play for a month. He kisses her; this is her first. When he returns from Florida, he asks Sophie to marry him. She cannot say yes or no, thinking of her mother.
When Martine comes home, they take a ride on the train to see the lights on the bridge. Sophie wants very badly to tell her. She begins by saying Henry is not ever coming here. Martine stiffly says Sophie can keep nothing from her; she knows Henry is fake and has seen Joseph’s postcards.
The next night, Sophie goes out and sees Joseph. When she comes in her mother is holding a belt and rocking. She intones that she thought Sophie was dead, then gently takes Sophie’s hand and leads her upstairs to her bed. She tells Sophie she is going to test her.
As she does this, Sophie tries to think of every pleasant memory she’s had. As Martine tests her, she tries to perhaps distract her by telling her the myth of the Marassas, two inseparable lovers that were the same person duplicated in two. They admired each other so much and were very vain. When you love someone, Martine says, you want them to be closer than your shadow, your Marassa. They should be your soul.
Finally, Martine tells Sophie that mothers and daughters can be the Marassas, and that Sophie cannot possibly leave her for an old man. When the test is over, she adds that there are secrets one cannot keep.
After Martine covers her and leaves, Sophie thinks how she knows why Atie screamed when her own mother did the test.
Chapter 12
Martine tests Sophie every week. Joseph is traveling and Sophie does not tell him what happens. When he returns, she avoids him. He becomes upset and coldly tells her he is going to Providence for good.
Sophie does not go out every much. She feels alone and depressed.
One evening, she takes a mortar and pestle from the kitchen and holds them to her chest. She thinks of the story of the woman who was always spurting blood from her body and decided to go to Erzulie to see what she could do. Erzulie tells her if she wants to stop bleeding she has to stop being a human being, but she can choose what she wants to be. The woman decides to be a butterfly, and Erzulie transforms her into one.
Sophie takes the pestle and presses it into her vagina. The blood drips out and she throws away the bloody sheets. When her mother comes to test her, she fails. She is in terrible pain.
Martine looks at her calmly and tells her, with tears pouring down her face, to go see what Joseph could do for her.
After Martine falls asleep, Sophie packs her things, knocks on Joseph’s door, and tells him she is ready to marry him this very minute. He agrees, confused but happy. Sophie thinks she will like living in a place called Providence—a place named after the Creator, the Almighty.
Analysis
Sophie learns to assimilate into American culture (she speaks English well, wears American clothes, etc.), but she still maintains an uneasy relationship with several aspects of her own identity. She does not appear to have any close friends, is inexperienced in relationships, and has trouble speaking up in regards to her feelings about school and what sort of career she wants to pursue. She does learn the truth about Martine and the rape, but as she says matter-of-factly, it is too late for anything to be done about it. As she becomes a woman she falls deeply in love with Joseph, whose age and gravitas appeal to her because she never had a father.
The most troubling part of this section of the novel is Martine carrying on her own mother’s “testing” of her daughter to see if her virginity is still intact. This was indeed a common practice in Haiti, and one that was done simply because it had always been done (this is Martine’s explanation to Sophie years later when Sophie asks why). A woman’s virginity was considered of paramount importance; if she was not a virgin then she would be considered soiled and no man would want to marry her. Marriage was, as critic Donette A. Francis notes, “institutionalized as the only legitimate, and therefore dominant site for the expression of women’s sexuality.” The preoccupation with female chastity and purity is most manifest in the story Sophie recalls of the rich man who married a virgin who did not bleed on her wedding night and then died when her husband, to preserve his honor, cut her so she would actually bleed.
The testing is a form of sexual abuse, and one that is rendered even more complex because it is carried out by a loved one, and, for Sophie, by someone who professed to hate that very thing when it was done to her. Both Martine and Sophie have a “tentative approach” to the testing because “[it] is naturalized as a cultural value.” The only way Sophie can seek to mitigate the testing is to “double,” or disassociate, while it is happening to her, and the only way to end the testing is to control her body by mutilating it; later, her bulimia attests to the fact that she is still looking for ways to feel power over her body. Sophie’s self-mutilation is mirrored in Martine’s ending her pregnancy by killing herself.
As mentioned, Danticat weaves in Haitian stories and myths into her novel. Sophie grew up hearing these tales, as did her mother and aunt. One of the tales is that of the Marassas, which Martine evokes during her testing of Sophie. Critic Marc A. Christophe explains that this allegorical image of sex and violence helps intertwine the themes of “love, death, blood, and water.” The twins in the story are doubles; Sophie and Martine “double.” The motif, then, “acquires an ironic pluridimensionality, one that connects simultaneously to the doubling effect of water as mirror as well as to the resemblance between lovers, between mother and daughter, and to the possibility of falling, as in water, into each other’s consciousness and possibly into the abyss of madness.”
A couple of other significant things to point out in the text are Martine’s marginalization, even in New York, and in the significance of color. First, Martine symbolizes the common experience of many immigrants who come to America hoping to better their lot. Martine struggles immensely in this respect. Sophie notes her rundown car, the graffiti and dissolute behavior in the neighborhood, and Martine’s long, demanding work schedule. Martine also believes that her dark skin is not considered attractive so she begins to whiten it. While going to New York helps Martine flee from some of her past, it still forces her to do things she does not necessarily want to do.
As for color, it is one of the most important motifs in the novel. Yellow was associated with Haiti, with childhood, with good memories. Yellow appeared in the daffodils and Sophie’s dress; it is a bright and hardy color. However, Martine becomes associated with red and thus Sophie’s life is soon filled with red. Martine grows red hibiscus and their apartment is red. The Caco bird flushes crimson when it dies. Sophie buries Martine in a bright red suit. Red, as the color of passion, blood, pain, sacrifice, fire, sex, and energy, is a more complicated hue but one that attests to the Caco women’s resilience even in the face of trauma. Christophe notes, “the color red as emblem of pain and sacrifice returns in the pages of the novel like a defining leitmotif that grants it a tragic as well as a redemptive dimension.”
