My Mother's House Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2020 by Francesca Momplaisir

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.aaknopf.com

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Momplaisir, Francesca, [date] author.

  Title: My mother’s house / by Francesca Momplaisir.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2020. |

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019017546 (print) | LCCN 2019018686 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525657163 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525657156 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.O5226 (ebook) | LCC PS3613.O5226 M9 2020 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019017546

  Ebook ISBN 9780525657163

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover images: (details) jayk7; alvarez; bunhill; Koron, all Getty Images; Ranta Images / Alamy; (background) Rolau Elena / Shutterstock

  Cover design by Jenny Carrow

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Zero

  The house screamed...

  One

  Lucien

  La Kay

  Lucien

  La Kay

  Two

  Lucien

  Sol

  La Kay

  Three

  Lucien

  Sol

  La Kay

  Four

  Lucien

  La Kay

  Sol

  Five

  Lucien

  Sol

  La Kay

  Six

  Lucien

  Sol

  La Kay

  Seven

  Lucien

  Sol

  La Kay

  Eight

  Lucien

  Sol

  La Kay

  Sol

  Acknowledgments

  A Note About the Author

  FOR THE ONES WHO TAUGHT ME TO LOVE

  AND THE ONES WHO TAUGHT ME TO SPEAK

  America. God bless you if it’s good to you.

  America, please take my hand.

  Can you help me underst—?

  —KENDRICK LAMAR (FEATURING U2), “XXX.”

  Zero

  THE HOUSE screamed, “Fire!” from every orifice. Difé! Melting windowpanes rolled down the aluminum siding, dripping polyurethane tears. Orange, blue, and yellow flames hollered their frustration into the icicles along the struggling gutters. The two-story (three, if you counted the basement), one-family (two, again, if the basement was included) House had had enough. Fed up with the burden of Its owner’s absurd hoarding, inexcusable slovenliness, and abuse of power, It spontaneously combusted everywhere a power source sprouted unkempt. The matted nest that passed for a fuse box in the basement; the half-assed hose that connected the gas stove to the wall in the upstairs kitchen; the shaved pipes that pulled natural gas from its source to the boiler and radiators throughout the House; the power strip in the upstairs bedroom that powered a tenant’s hot plate, microwave, refrigerator, stereo, television, DVD player, cable box, computer, and electric shaver and toothbrush; the tangle of Christmas lights left plugged in and blinking as a deterrent to robbers over the holidays. The House blew it all up and burst into tears It had been holding back for decades.

  It cried and laughed at the same time, watching the owner scurry out of the basement. When the tenant jumped out the upstairs window, the House doubled over and shook in amusement. It nearly keeled over from being tickled by the rodents and roaches racing one another into and out of their hiding places, confused which would be best—crackle in the fire or crack in the icy January air outside while trying to make it to the safety of a neighbor’s house.

  The House listened for the loud cries.

  “Anmwey! Difé!” the owner hollered as he ran Its circumference.

  It tracked the movements of the owner, who ran around like a man trying to keep his pants up after having missed a belt loop while getting dressed. It watched as Its pajama-clad owner rushed from the backyard up the skinny driveway to the front stoop, then through the frozen garden in the empty parcel where another house could have been built, then around to the backyard again. The House didn’t see where the tenant vanished to, but he was gone before the ambulance arrived. It had a hard time emoting and keeping eyes on the owner simultaneously, but the House continued to cry and laugh convulsively.

  “Anmwey!” the owner shrieked as he waited for help to arrive, help the House did not want.

  It tried to figure out how to drown out his cries. It screamed in different ways for different reasons until sirens overwhelmed them both. The fire trucks pulled up out front and, mercifully, the drivers silenced the blaring. But the night was far from still. The House blinked rapidly as the engines’ discordant lights made a visible noise of their own. It closed Its eyes to shut out the annoying but necessary red and yellow spinning that cracked the dark freezing night. Desperate for attention, It pumped out flames with renewed vigor like a toddler in a tantrum forcing herself to cry harder.

  It wished It had been built with the ability to speak, since people-talk always trumped Its performances. It huffed as the owner continued screaming in his native language: “Pitit mwen yo!” It wanted to shut him up. But a firefighter came across the half-frozen man while inspecting the perimeter of the House for points of entry. The House rolled Its eyes as the owner spoke English to ensure the firefighter understood.

  “Hep! Difé! My sheeldren!” His accent protruded like a boil through taut skin.

  It looked down at the two men and easily deduced that the heavily masked rescuer was white by his blue eyes reflecting the frosty glint of aluminum siding in the January night. The firefighter chased the owner back through the rock-hard soil of the hibernating snow-covered garden and out to the front of the House. The man finally stood still, watching powerlessly as his house blazed before him. Difé!

  The House ignored the outside entertainment and, refusing to be defeated, It tried to turn Its efforts inward. It spread flames through every corner of Itself to produce Its cry of fire for onlookers to see. It kept an eye on the owner standing outside in the subzero air bawling and mumbling to himself. It drooped to see the hydrants give more easily than expected. It recoiled as the hoses gushed against Its battalion of flames fighting for their right to be and be seen. It had earned this catharsis. It had endured and witnessed, had stood silent and been complicit. It deserved to explode publicly, to commit suicide grandly. It harnessed and funneled the flames to fight off the water like hell itself.

  It followed the firefighters as they focused on the l
eft side of the House where most of the windows were. Their hoses lined the narrow driveway that separated the opportunistic flames from the closest neighbor’s house, a tacky yellow eyesore with brown trim. Ambushed on Its left, the House strained to push fire out of the singular window on Its right. Its flames stretched their fingers across the empty parcel, trying to reach the tips of the dormant leafless apple tree. That was Its only hope of spreading Its fury: extend Its fire to high-five the tree, set it ablaze, then jump to the next house just inches away. If Its flames could reach the branch tips, they could skip to the almost-elegant pale blue cookie-cutter structure and take out half the block toward the main boulevard at least. At least.

  The House longed to level all Its neighbors that should have known about Its suffering. It knew that they’d also been in pain, but they’d done nothing to help themselves or It. It would be the brave one, the one to put an end to it all. It would euthanize them, take them out of their misery, in the only way It knew how. The people were a different matter. It wanted to tear them down for putting their houses through the same suffering It had endured; the same misery that had been replicated in the various shades of brown, languages, and accents of the neighborhood’s inhabitants. How could people want to live through all of that? What was there to live for after all It had seen and been through? Why prolong the pain? What were they trying to prove? Perseverance? Resilience? To what end? Why stand outside in paper pajamas in the middle of a blocked-off street, in the mean January air, in the middle of the goddamned night, shouting, “There are people in there!”

  The House changed tactics. It retracted the flames. It inhaled and held the smoke in Its chest, tricking the firefighters into believing that they were winning. For now, It would have to settle for self-consumption. Like an unseen hell, It would devour Itself without the fanfare of sparks. Lanfè. It would revel in the blue and yellow hues of Its dark interior. Hellfire. It would swallow molten glass and metal as salves to soothe Its regret at not having destroyed other houses whose inhabitants surely should have known the hurt being heaped upon It. It held Its breath and allowed the flames to do their worst inside to make Itself forever uninhabitable. It allowed them to eviscerate all of Its wood paneling, floors, and furniture. It took one hard gulp of fuel from the kerosene heater to burn through the floorboards in the cold upstairs bedrooms. No one would ever sleep there again. Difé! One long lick with ten tongues through the shotgun first floor, blackening the foyer, living room, dining room, and kitchen. No one would ever be welcomed, invited to sit, presented with a plate, and allowed to dip a tasting spoon there again. One jagged cough through the basement, a hiccup of final fumes, skipping over and in between defunct TVs, stereo turntables, eight-track tape decks, and heaping crates of unsorted junk. No one would ever stoop through the tight tunnel to thrift shop among the owner’s dusty collection again.

  The House floated in and out of consciousness, waiting to die. It would no longer have to stomach wickedness, deviance, and injustice. It looked forward to the demolition that would level and free It at long last. It sighed and quietly stuttered, “Di-di-di-di-difé.” It closed Its eyes, ignoring the embers’ red glow. It didn’t feel the water pounding around Its gutted insides. Even if It had given credence to the owner’s incessant pleas, It wouldn’t have felt the tickle of a small child or the heft of a few adults crouching in one of Its corners.

  One

  LUCIEN

  Well into his sixties, Lucien was arrogant enough to wish there’d been songs written about his birth, so he would know that he had been a miracle. He remembered only being abandoned in the care of his aunt La Belle by his U.S.-bound parents before his first birthday. Newly settled into his true complexion and curly hair texture, he’d become the perfect light-skinned, silky-haired toddler that Haitian families welcomed and worshipped. As he aged, he’d retained his color that was the creamy beige of traditional flour-thickened vanilla porridge—labouyi—boiled slowly and sweetly, eaten from its cooled-down edges to its enticingly hot center. His light brown eyes looked hazel in sunlight, proof of the centuries spent preserving the mark of miscegenation that had produced his lineage during centuries of slavery. His last name, Louverture, was the other legacy of that epoch.

  Tante La Belle had been the same color. She should have been pretty given her light skin, smooth hair, green eyes. She believed that she was, but even Lucien’s merciful and grateful gaze could not make it so. Her features had come together awkwardly on her flat, round, wide face. Her eyes protruded like two egg yolks in a pan. Her bottom lip hung open, exposing the pink inside with its blue-green and purple veins. As much as she’d tried to hide her freckles, the three-dimensional skin tags around her nose resisted the heavy face powder. Her hair should have made up for some of her ugliness, but it had been so thin that it exposed her scalp.

  As downright ugly as she was, she liked to think that Lucien resembled her. But his features had come together to make him a gorgeous toddler and, later, a pretty preadolescent boy. But he didn’t remember his face. Who and what he’d been between his childhood and his preteen years were murky. He couldn’t recall if La Belle had been kind to him or if he had made that up. But she’d bathed him like a baby until he was nine years old, slathering lotion over his skin in a way that had made him feel awkward and aroused at the same time. She loved to touch him because of the way her hands felt again his creamy skin. He would wait with anticipation as she slid off the rings she wore on each finger. She would end by running her fingers through his curls to remove the remaining oil. He would stand in her full-length mirror to bask in the sight of his shiny naked body, taking his time to get dressed, never looking at his own face.

  He had not been able to resist the way she had doted on him, reminding him how beautiful a boy he was, how he looked like a prettier male version of herself. He’d once asked her why she’d had no children of her own and she’d responded that she hated all children except him. He’d been flattered at the odd compliment that had raised him to a status just above special. Her attention had approximated love, and the responsibility she’d placed on him had resembled trust.

  He vaguely remembered the deeds that she’d made him commit. But he recalled with precision his early love of counting and his giftedness at math. He still relished the calculation of money and the appraisal of the value of things. He was an intelligent boy, but by age eleven, Lucien was only sporadically attending the clean, pricey Seventh-Day Adventist seminary for which his parents dutifully paid tuition twice a year. He’d never enjoyed time behind the doors of the pastor-led school. He’d even found the freedom of recess in the yard confining. Instead he’d wandered throughout the roughest parts of Port au Prince, daring shirtless slender boys—muscular despite days without meals, with skin as dark as the bottoms of their bare feet—to attack a well-dressed, well-fed, well-heeled cream-colored man-boy like himself. From the same dirty streets gorgeous indigo girls rose and ripened like curvaceous eggplants. With a frightening hunger in hand, he harvested the loosest ones and fucked them before bringing them to his newly adopted home, the brothel at Bar Caimite. He’d claimed the entryway to the place, which smelled of rum and frequent and corrupt sex. Leaning against the doorframe, he’d become a permanent fixture like the knob and hinges. A mature teenaged toughie, he’d installed himself as a handsome recruiter and de facto bouncer and earned his way to part ownership in only two years. He packed an old pistol and liked to watch the American and European soldiers, peacekeepers and self-proclaimed rescuers of his people. They unabashedly entered his bar to enjoy their favorite overpriced liquor and even more expensive ladies of the dawn, bon matain, afternoon, and evening. He’d owned these women and even some soldiers by means of blackmail and the pistol he bragged about but never brandished.

  Lucien had always preferred reclining against walls to sitting in chairs or on high-backed barstools. A burgeoning narcoleptic, he needed to stand to stay awake. He remained vigilant to
watch the prettiest little brown-skinned girl he’d ever seen, a precociously dressed two-year-old whose father was a rising military man in François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s personal guard. From his post in the doorway, Lucien watched the coddled Marie-Ange Calvert grow up for more than a decade beside the general who drove, carried, and held the hand of his baby-doll daughter to the elite Catholic school up the only green hill in Port au Prince. Lucien was puzzled by his amorous feelings for such a young girl but determined to wait until she was of age to court her. For this reason, he hadn’t taken any girls seriously until he was twenty-four. By then, Marie-Ange was fifteen, old enough for him not to be embarrassed by his slow chase—stalking, really—of this maturing untouchable beauty.

  Why she’d married him was one of the many stories he’d rewritten upon arrival in America. He preferred to focus on how well he’d dressed back then. The sharp creases in his linen slacks. Panama shirt starched as crisp as kassav. The collar tips as hard and pointed as sharks’ teeth that would later devour daring or stupid Haitian boat people. From his open collar, a hypnotic gold chain beckoned to passersby. He flashed new greenbacks that hid his wad of ratty Haitian goud. The bills tempted beggars, hungry hookers, and ambitious marriage-age schoolgirls with no acceptable suitors. Not that he was suitable. But he looked like he could get somewhere.

  Yet he’d always known that calamity, not his good looks and exquisite dress, had forced Marie-Ange into his embrace for protection. Fear tightened around her waist, forced her to bend over his left forearm, allowed him to give her the most painless, pleasure-filled, doggy-style fuck any virgin had ever experienced. He had not expected the day to end that way, but, a natural opportunist, he was always ready for the unexpected. He was one of the first to see the eight armored trucks along the Palais Nacional road, carrying expendable blue-black Haitian soldiers strapped with U.S.-supplied machine guns. Behind them, an American exported tanker and a band of Union Jack–bolstered combatants stomped the dirt road smooth, ready for a fight. Many assumed that this was just another episode of grandstanding by the newly appointed president for life Jean-Claude Duvalier. But it turned out to be one of many attempts to overthrow the demon president bent on slaughtering his real and imagined enemies and terrorizing ordinary citizens. It was merely a single song set to play over and over again on the aging record player in Bar Caimite.