Krik? Krak!: Nineteen Thirty-Seven

by Edwidge Danticat
In this short story collection, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat explores everyday life in Haiti.

Here are links to our lists for the stories in the collection: Children of the Sea, Nineteen Thirty-Seven, A Wall of Fire Rising, Night Women, Between the Pool and the Gardenias, The Missing Peace, Seeing Things Simply, New York Day Women, Caroline's Wedding, Epilogue: Women Like Us, In the Old Days
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. leech
    carnivorous or bloodsucking aquatic or terrestrial worm
    The first city person I saw was an old woman carrying a jar full of leeches.
  2. respectable
    deserving of esteem
    She had layers of ‘respectable’ wrinkles on her face, the kind my mother might also have one day, if she has a chance to survive.
  3. plantain
    starchy banana-like fruit
    She led me by the hand to a small alley where a girl was selling fried pork and plantains wrapped in brown paper.
  4. occupation
    the control of a country by forces of a foreign power
    By the end of the 1915 occupation, the police in the city really knew how to hold human beings trapped in cages, even women like Manman who was accused of having wings of flame.
  5. grimace
    contort the face to indicate a certain mental state
    She uncovered the food and took a peek before grimacing, as though the sight of the meat nauseated her.
  6. hoarse
    deep and harsh sounding as if from shouting or illness
    Her voice was hoarse from lack of use.
  7. muster
    summon up, call forth, or bring together
    And before the women went to sleep, the guards made them throw tin cups of cold water at one another so that their bodies would not be able to muster up enough heat to grow those wings made of flames, fly away in the middle of the night, slip into the slumber of innocent children and steal their breath.
  8. ration
    a fixed portion that is allotted
    Her normal ration of food in the prison was bread and water, which is why she was losing weight so rapidly.
  9. pilgrimage
    a journey to a sacred place
    When I was five years old, we went on a pilgrimage to the Massacre River, which I had expected to be still crimson with blood, but which was as clear as any water that I had ever seen.
  10. crimson
    a deep and vivid red color
    When I was five years old, we went on a pilgrimage to the Massacre River, which I had expected to be still crimson with blood, but which was as clear as any water that I had ever seen.
  11. indistinguishable
    exactly alike; incapable of being perceived as different
    When we dipped our hands, I thought that the dead would reach out and haul us in, but only our own faces stared back at us, one indistinguishable from the other.
  12. spare
    save or relieve from an experience or action
    “Here is my child, Josephine. We were saved from the tomb of this river when she was still in my womb. You spared us both, her and me, from this river where I lost my mother.”
  13. ember
    a hot, smoldering fragment of wood left from a fire
    Our mothers were the embers and we were the sparks.
  14. tuberculosis
    infection transmitted by inhalation or ingestion of bacilli
    “God only knows what I have got under my skin from being here. I may die of tuberculosis, or perhaps there are worms right now eating me inside.”
  15. delirium
    a usually brief state of excitement and mental confusion
    Her eyes had the look of delirium.
  16. console
    give moral or emotional strength to
    “When I am completely gone, maybe you will have someone to take my place. Maybe you will have a person. Maybe you will have some flesh to console you. But if you don’t, you will always have the Madonna.”
  17. imply
    express or state indirectly
    She did not even blink at my implied accusation.
  18. discipline
    a system of rules of conduct or method of practice
    She would know all the things that my mother had said to the sun as we sat with our hands dipped in the water, questioning each other, making up codes and disciplines by which we could always know who the other daughters of the river were.
  19. rejuvenate
    return to life; get or give new life or energy
    She had become rejuvenated, as though strengthened by the correctness of her prediction.
  20. balmy
    mild and pleasant
    When Jacqueline took my hand, her fingers felt balmy and warm against the lifelines in my palm.
Created on Mon Sep 10 11:22:06 EDT 2018 (updated Tue Sep 11 14:49:10 EDT 2018)

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