Between the Pool and the Gardenias

Image: "Sleeping Baby" by Jodie Gayton

"Between the Pool and the Gardenias" is the only story in Krik Krak that has genuinely confused me. I found  the story to be very tragic, but I could not understand the main character Marie's thinking. The story begins with Marie describing a baby she has seen abandoned on the street. "She was very pretty. Bright shiny hair and dark brown skin like mahogany cocoa. her lips were wide and purple, like those African dolls you see in tourist store windows but could never afford to buy." Immediately after I read this passage, I wondered if the baby was dead or alive, because of the description of Celianne's still born baby in  "Children of the Sea." "I never knew before that dead children looked purple. The lips are the most purple because the baby is so dark." The purple lips stayed in my mind as I read further and further.

We learn that Marie has had several miscarriages, and wished she could have had a daughter. The word "Rose" is embroidered on the collar of the baby's dress, so Marie refers to the child as Rose from then on. She begins to describe how she wants to take Rose home with her and dress her in the outfits she had made her her daughters. That is when I began to wonder if the baby was really alive. I couldn't understand why anyone would talk about taking care of a dead baby.


We learn that many babies are abandoned on the streets of Port-au-Prince, which would be unheard of doing in the towns in Haiti. I had hope that Marie had discovered baby Rose in time. Regardless of your financial situation, I cannot imagine how a person could possibly abandon their baby and leave it to die. The fact that the baby's name had been embroidered onto her dress says to me that someone loved that child, someone made a special dress just for her. How could they possibly kill her like that?


You then come to learn that Marie works as a maid in a very large house. She likes to pretend that she is the one who lives there. She also says that she is visited by her ancestors. I begin to see evidence that Marie could be slightly delusional, which would explain how she could care for a dead baby. She constantly describes Rose as being a beautiful and perfect child who never cries. The never crying aspect also reminded me of the baby in "Children of the Sea" and added more evidence that Rose was not alive. 


Finally, it is confirmed that Rose is dead when Marie tells us that no matter how much she bathes her the baby still smelled horribly. Marie even used her mistresses perfume to attempt to block the smell. In Marie's mind she had to keep the smell away so the baby would be real to her. 


Finally Marie faces reality and accepts that the baby is dead. She also believes that by keeping her she has trapped her soul so she decides to bury her. While she is doing this she is seen by the Dominican grounds keeper who she had made love with once. He accuses her of killing and eating children, and informs her that he has already called the police because he had discovered the child's body the day before. 


In the last paragraph, Marie describes the scene as "We made a pretty picture standing there. Rose, me, and him. Between the pool ad the gardenias, waiting for the law". This allows me to understanding the meaning of this story. Everything is not always the way that it seems. When Marie found the baby, Rose still looked perfect and beautiful, even though she was dead. No matter how Marie cared for the baby, it could not change the fact that she had been dead all along. Marie can stand out and look at the house and the grounds, but it could never be hers.  The grounds keeper accuses Marie of being evil, which she is not, and if anyone saw that last moment of the story, a woman and a man standing there with a baby, you would never imagine that the baby is dead, and the man has just accused the woman of killing her. 


Nothing in this story is what it seems to be on the surface. We are meant to question what we see in front of us, and find the truth in it.