Excerpt from Cécé by Emmelie Prophète, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt
Cécé

Outside, the usual racket. My body counted the imagined comings and goings. I had nothing but the present and stories with no beginnings. It was dark. I had slept lightly, just enough. No dreams, no real rest, just a short transition between two wounds.

For five days now the man had come. He would knock discreetly, always at the same time, 6:30 p.m. He was fat, acted shy, and wore striped shirts like the kind the tailor on Rue Ficelle used to make. His pants were hiked in the rear, the inseam too short or his belly too flabby for them to sit at his waist. His shoes were clean and well-polished with thick rubber soles. He wore the same clothes every time I saw him. His cologne was very strong, and clung to the pillow and the sheet.

I was never in the mood to talk to him. If our eyes met, he would smile. Not me. I never encouraged conversation. I'm sure he would have welcomed it.

He undressed timidly and slowly, embarrassed by his body. And he was ugly. He had short legs and his gut appeared even bigger when he took his shirt off. He floated a little in his white briefs that had seen their share of washings. He must have had a mother or wife obsessed with scrubbing clothes, especially whites, like my grandmother was. She was capable of soaking old undershirts and socks for several days in a basin of bleach-water and still not being satisfied with the result.

He was heavy on top of me. He hurt me. He didn't moan, didn't speak, and when he came, he tensed, making him even heavier. He would get dressed right away and hold out one thousand gourdes, double my price, wrapped in a piece of paper. I appreciated the thoughtfulness. I'd stopped counting the money. He basically had a tab. And I didn't think him capable of being dishonest. Call it intuition, that's all.

There weren't all that many clients. I spent my time on the rocking chair that had belonged to Grand Ma, fiddling with my phone, surfing Facebook. I was all over social media. Lots of people followed what I posted and took the time to comment, going to the trouble of disagreeing with me, even getting angry with me.


I wasn't afraid. I was used to the sound of gunfire. I grew up here in this Cité that's never seen a truce and where death can strike anytime, day or night. It's been nine months since Grand Ma died, from fear. It was a particularly rough night, a Sunday, that had started out calm until the rumor went around that a few guys in Makenson's gang had whistled at the girlfriend of a bigshot member of Freddy's gang as she was walking home from church. The two gangs that ran the Cité were never short of mutual provocations but there had never been, until that Sunday night, a direct confrontation. I'll always remember my grandmother's bulging eyes and her hands squeezing my wrist.

"Grand Ma, you're hurting me!" I had cried out.

"Cécé, Célia, my child, piti mwen," she wheezed. "Cécé, I feel like my heart's about to explode. I'm dying."

I slept in the same bed as Grand Ma. Always had. I knew right away when she died. She'd gone stiff. Cold. I couldn't, as I always had, put my right leg over her to help me fall asleep. I started talking to her. I don't remember what I said, except for some prayers she had taught me. I couldn't hear the sound of my voice. The gunfire was constant and the clamor went on till dawn.

I went to wake up Uncle Frédo. The noise I made opening the wooden door and nearly breaking the latch didn't disturb him. He was completely drunk, as usual. I couldn't rouse him so I went to knock at my neighbor Soline's door. She agreed to come back with me, almost shoving me to make me go faster. To her I was nothing but a little liar. How could I claim that Grand Ma was dead when only yesterday they had been at Mass together and she'd been just fine!

Soline had paused at the doorway, her large breasts floating in a floral nightgown. Like everyone in the Cité, she hadn't slept. She had dark rings under her eyes. Then she took a firm step over the four-inch threshold that Grand Ma had had built between the little porch and the front bedroom entrance so that rainwater wouldn't enter the house.

Excerpted from Cécé by Emmelie Prophète. Copyright © 2025 by Emmelie Prophète. Excerpted by permission of Archipelago Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.