Dream Count

Eight #2

“I don’t want hospital.

I don’t want police. Please.”

Everything is happening too fast, swelling and ballooning.

She is causing too much trouble, with this talk of hospital and police.

All she needs to do is rinse her mouth and take Tylenol and she will be fine, she will soldier on.

She cannot lose her job.

She looks at the manager, fearing that he will fire her for making a fuss, causing him to be so nervous, a man who always seemed so confidently in charge.

“Tell me what happened,”

the manager says.

Shaquana gently rubs her shoulder again.

“Jeff tell me the guest has check out, but I knock, knock, knock.

I say, ‘Housekeeping!’ I say two times.

I go in and I check the study, nothing, so I want to start.

Just fast-fast I see a naked man, he’s coming from the other side, the bathroom.

I say, ‘I’m sorry I’m sorry!’ And I start moving back.

I’m very surprise because when I come in, there is no noise, I don’t know that somebody is there.

He just come fast to me, very fast, he say no need to be sorry.

He go fast to door and close it, he push it hard.

He…just touch my breasts.

I say please sir, no, please.

I say my supervisor is outside, because I want him to stop.

I say I don’t want to lose my job.

He say you’re not gonna lose your job.

Everything is so fast.

I’m so scared.

This happening my second week in the VIP floor.

I don’t see something like this before in this work, never.

He take up my dress, but I hold it and I say no, no.

So he pull down this, my stockings, and he push his hand in…my private part.

Then he push me.

He strong, very very strong.

He use force.

I’m surprise because he’s not young man. He push me. Just push me very hard.”

“Pushed you where?”

points at her shoulder.

“Here.

So I am down.

He push his…thing inside my mouth.

And then he hold my head and…he finish and I run and spit.”

The manager stares at her, saying nothing.

Mike says, “I’m so sorry, .”

“I don’t want police.

Is okay,” says.

“, we have to call the police.

This is a crime.

We have to do the right thing,”

Mike says.

“No, please, is okay,” says.

The manager is already on the phone to the police.

He sounds hesitant, unsure.

He says, “One of our room attendants was assaulted by one of the big guests.”

Shaquana asks her to sit down.

Mike says they have to be quick, the detective in charge of special victims is on the way.

hears “special victims”

and thinks of a TV show Binta likes.

The air is hot, she wants to rinse her mouth and wash her face and scrub her body.

She feels dirty, so dirty.

“Your stockings are torn,”

Shaquana says, and looks down to see the jagged hole in the stockings that runs down her legs, and her exposed skin, in contrast, looks like a wound.

She reaches out to touch it as if to hide it.

“We’re going to the hospital now, Kadi,”

Shaquana says.

“Go bring your stuff, your bag with your clothes.”

“My bag?”

She wants to come back and finish cleaning her rooms.

If they want her to take her things now, then maybe they want to fire her.

“They’ll have to keep your uniform as evidence,”

Shaquana says.

walks to the staff area, hoping no one will be there to see her take her things.

The new maid from Haiti is there.

“What’s happening?”

she asks, and says, “Nothing, nothing,”

and hurries to get her bag.

She feels dirty, and dirtied, and she holds her bag low, hoping it shields her ripped stockings.

In the car to the hospital, she shrinks into the seat corner to keep herself away from tainting Shaquana, clutching her bag to her chest.

Her brown monogrammed bag with a sturdy single zipper.

It is one of the best fakes, Amadou said when he gave it to her.

It has been some years and it has lasted.

She can feel, through the faux leather, the lump of her jeans and sweater, the firmness of her wallet.

The manager’s words ring in her ears.

One of our room attendants was assaulted by one of the big guests.

Stalled in traffic, she looks at the people walking in their coats, holding a coffee, pulling along a furry dog, their lives normal and unchanged, their day going just as they expected it to when they first woke up.

Tears gather in her eyes, but she will not cry, she will not.

There is already somebody waiting for them in the hospital lobby. A brisk nurse in blue scrubs. She leads them upstairs and tells that the nurse who will examine her is on her way. “She’ll be here any minute,” she says.

As walks, a wave of anger seizes her, to think that she was doing her job, just doing her job, and a guest turned into a wild animal, and now she is in this hospital, with sick people being wheeled by, but she does not belong here, she is not sick.

A nurse glances quizzically at her, as if wondering what she is doing there, wearing her hotel maid uniform, white apron tied neatly in a bow at her back.

They go up to the third floor, and someone is talking to Shaquana, and then someone else, and there is such bustling all around her, such urgency and movement.

thinks: All this for me.

And she feels grateful, but also upset, because it should have been for something good, something beneficial to her.

Maybe if Binta was seriously ill, or she was ill, all this trouble would make sense.

Shaquana is saying she can have an advocate in the examination room but she can decline if she doesn’t want one, and she stares, not sure what “advocate”

means.

Someone who will protect her, like security, but why she needs that here she cannot say.

“Do you understand?”

the nurse asks , and she turns to Shaquana.

“Does she speak French? Maybe I could use Google Translate.”

“I understand,” says.

A policeman in uniform appears, a camera stuck to his chest, a walkie-talkie on his sleeve.

He asks her to tell him what happened, exactly what happened.

He asks as if she has done something wrong, the camera on his chest blinking a red light.

She tells him that checkout time had passed and Jeff said the room was empty, and she shouted “Housekeeping”

two times, there was no answer, and she went in, and a naked White man ran out to her.

She says this loudly, so that Shaquana can hear too, so that Shaquana does not forget that she knocked, she said, “Housekeeping.”

She followed the rules, she didn’t just walk into a room.

“And then what happened?”

he asks her.

“Then he just…grab me…force me.”

“Grab you? Grab you where, Ms. Bah?”

She looks down, embarrassed to be saying this to a man she does not know.

From him she senses that it would be better if she did not report at all, if she kept silent about all this.

His uniform looks tight; their unforms always seem tight, uncomfortable, with all the weapons stuck at their waists.

She wonders whether they might not run more easily in less tight clothing.

But they don’t run, American police, they shoot more than they run.

They shot Amadou Diallo.

“Ms. Bah!”

he says, a little sharply, as if to get her to focus.

“I need you to tell me exactly what happened, Ms.

Bah, with as much detail as possible.”

The nurse who will examine her has arrived.

Even though she is young, she has a motherly aura, an authority with a smile.

Between the nurse and the policeman, a strained tension descends.

“My name is Krystal.

I’m a sexual assault nurse examiner.

I’m trained in helping people who have gone through what you’ve gone through,”

the nurse tells .

Her yellowish hair is tied back in a ponytail, but in the photo on her ID card, clipped on her sleeve, her hair is much darker, almost black.

She curtly tells the policeman, “I’d appreciate if this questioning happens after my examination is done.”

She leads into a room and shuts the door firmly, draws the curtain closed, and is glad of the cocoon, this space in which she might forget what happened.

Krystal asks if anything hurts and says no, even though her shoulder is on fire now, a brittle burning pain.

“Are you sure? It’s okay to tell me if anything hurts.”

And so says, “Here, but small.”

Krystal gently presses down on the shoulder, then gently moves her arm, and a small sound escapes ’s mouth, the pain surprising her, and she is ashamed of herself, for not bearing it.

“You’ll need an X-ray,”

Krystal says.

“But we’ll do the examination first, okay?”

nods.

“I’d like you to tell me what happened.

Tell me what you can.

Tell me what you remember.

Nothing you say is wrong, and you’ve done nothing wrong, and I am so sorry this happened to you,”

Krystal says, as if she knows, or somehow overheard, how the policeman spoke to her.

is so grateful for this small kindness that her tightness loosens, her heart calms, and it is easier telling Krystal.

Krystal listens, taking notes, nodding from time to time, to encourage, and sometimes to sympathize.

She never looks shocked or surprised, and knows it is because she has heard this story many times, in different forms, from all kinds of women, but in the end the same story.

“You have a bruise on your neck, right here,”

Krystal says.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Bruise on neck, pantyhose ripped,”

Krystal says into her phone, and then looks at the screen, head tilted back to make sure her phone has written what she said.

“We’ll have to keep your clothes, for evidence.

Do you have something to change into? If you don’t, it’s fine, I’ll bring you something.”

“No, yes, I have,”

says.

They will actually take her uniform? She has two sets but already this feels like a loss, a failure.

Krystal says she will step out so can take off her clothes, and put them in a big plastic bag, and lie under the disposable blanket.

Alone in the room, takes off her uniform and folds the apron, the dress, and places them on the table.

She shivers.

The room is cold.

Her bra and underwear she puts in her bag, under her jeans for privacy, until she can put them back on.

She lies naked, thin paper blankets spread over her, wanting to hug herself for warmth, but she doesn’t, it feels inappropriate in some way, as if Krystal might be offended by such a posture, and so she lets her arms lie limply by her sides like a corpse.

She does not want to offend anyone; she has caused too much trouble as it is.

Krystal knocks before she comes in.

“I’m going to do a head-to-toe exam, okay? I’ll be taking pictures of everything.

You can let me know if you want to take a break at any time, or if you have any questions, any questions at all,”

Krystal says.

As Krystal slips on her gloves, watches tensely, unsure what this examination will mean.

“I’m going to take swabs of parts of your body, okay?”

opens her mouth; she doesn’t want to feel so scalded by shame but she is.

Krystal puts a cotton-edged stick in her mouth, then another, then another.

“I want to raise this blanket and look at your chest, is that okay?”

Krystal is careful to cover every part of ’s body that she is not looking at, as if to give back as much honor to her body as she can.

A moist swab on her face, her lips, her neck, her leg.

“I’m going to take a picture of your leg, okay? You have a bruise on your knee.”

She has got to the legs, thinks, so it has to be almost over.

is telling herself to relax when Krystal says gently, “Now, , I have to examine your private parts.”

She pushes out the stirrups, asks to put her feet in them, and to shift herself downward.

“Does that feel okay?”

Krystal asks.

It does not feel okay, it cannot feel okay, but says, “Yes.”

Lying with her legs apart, feet held up higher than her body, she is reminded of birthing her son, in that hospital, in that mining town full of dust.

The thin blanket, bunched up at her waist, feels useless.

She is exposed.

To be exposed for birthing a child or for a test to benefit her health, yes, but this, this is an affront.

“You have some swelling and redness in the vaginal area,”

Krystal says.

“Do you feel any pain?”

“No.”

This time she says no because it is not pain, it is a desecration, and it cannot be healed.

Another wave of anger courses through her.

Her period just ended, but what if she had been in her period today? What if this wild-animal guest desecrated her body while in her period? What if she had to spread herself like this while also bleeding?

“I’m going to take some photographs, okay?”

Krystal says.

springs up and the paper blanket covering her chest slips off and falls to the ground.

She makes to pick it up.

Krystal gives it to her.

“Picture of there?”

asks, horrified.

“It’s okay, .

I know it feels like an invasion of your privacy.

I’m so sorry.

We have to document everything.

We have to make sure we don’t miss anything that can help with the prosecution of your case.

I know it’s hard, but we need to make sure you get justice.”

closes her eyes; it is unbearable to watch somebody take pictures of her like this.

Krystal asks her to get on her knees so that she can take more pictures.

Her knees?

“Yes, I’m sorry.

I know it’s hard.”

feels like a condemned dog, a useless, hated thing.

She is on all fours, the blanket hanging on her back like a cruel joke, emphasizing her humiliation, covering nothing.

She woke up in the morning to come to work and now a stranger is photographing her most private parts.

Where will the photographs go? Who will see them?

“We have to do everything that can help your case,”

Krystal says, in soothing tones.

The words “your case”

fill with sudden dread.

What wouldn’t she give now to make this all go away, to return to cleaning an empty room, and then go afterwards with Binta to the theater to see The Maid’s Brides ?

“Do you need the bathroom or anything?”

Krystal asks.

“I want to wash my mouth,” says.

At the sink, she fills her mouth with water and gargles, and spits, fills her mouth with water again.

She gargles and gargles, she washes her hands and, with her finger, she scrapes her tongue.

She fills her mouth with water, over and over again.

“Are you okay?”

Krystal asks, from outside the tiny toilet.

peers at her face in the mirror, surprised that she looks the same; after all that has happened, she still looks the same.

She returns to the room, still wrapped in the blankets.

Krystal gives her a bottle of pills for her shoulder pain and tells her how to take them.

“I have some questions for you, but you don’t have to answer them all,”

Krystal says.

does not understand this; why ask her a question and then tell her she doesn’t have to answer it? Krystal asks how long she has worked at the George Plaza, if she worked before, where she lives, how long she has lived there.

“These are some demographic questions,”

Krystal says, and ’s stomach clenches, pressure rising, fearing questions about her asylum application.

But Krystal merely asks where in Africa she is from, if it is okay to check her race as Black, and wonders what else her race could be.

“You’ve done very well, ,”

Krystal says.

Krystal gives her a packet of new cotton underwear, saying, “I think these should be your size.”

There are three in the packet, one pink and two white.

takes it, turns it over in her hand, looks at the photo of a White woman, her body beautiful and full-figured, wearing a pink one, pulled up to her navel.

“Even my underwear?”

“Yes, the police will need everything you wore when the assault happened.”

Krystal gives her a small bag, and hesitates to look inside, as if wary of yet more underwear.

Inside is a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, hand cream, and pamphlets with pictures of women looking downcast.

touches the deodorant, feeling embarrassed, again, as if she is being rewarded for her own violation.

Krystal leaves, to let her get dressed, and retrieves her own underwear and bra.

Both black, the bra her favorite, firm and comfortable, fraying at the back from all the times she has hooked and unhooked it.

She looks at her underwear.

There is a stray string dangling at the front and she wants to pull it out, but she stops.

If she had known she would have to give them her underwear, she would have worn the newer bra; at least it wasn’t so worn.

She sighs.

There is nothing wrong with her underwear, but it is not what she wants anyone to see.

She puts them in the plastic bag on the table, where they join her uniform.

She rearranges things so that her uniform shields her underwear, and then looks at the bag, touches the plastic, sad that she is leaving her things behind, as if abandoning them.

The new underwear feels wrong, slides in between her buttocks as soon as she puts it on. She slips on her jeans. How strange, to wear her sweater without a bra. She won’t ask Krystal for a bra, she does not want to be presumptuous, but the loose feeling of being braless is disconcerting; she has never been out in public without a bra.

Krystal knocks to ask if she’s okay, if she wants some water or coffee before she goes for her X-ray.

“No, thank you,”

says.

The thought of anything in her mouth nauseates her.

Krystal takes her into another room to have her blood drawn.

A man looks at her as if he is sorry for her, and when he ties a thin cable tightly on her arm, she reaches on impulse to pull it off; she is skittish, jumpy, at the thought of any kind of restraint.

As the sharp needle approaches her skin, she looks away.

Krystal takes her to another room and, again, she takes off her sweater, stands with her bare back pressed against very cold metal.

The man tells her to be very still, very very still, don’t move, and she wishes she could remain that way, unmoving, silent, sinking into the metal of forgetfulness.

Krystal hugs her gently, saying goodbye, and in a smaller voice, she says, “Take care.”

thanks her and then feels a flare of panic; she does not want Krystal to leave.

Relief washes over her when she sees Shaquana waiting for her near the elevator.

She is grateful not to be alone, and sorry that Shaquana is here because of her, in a hospital, instead of walking the hallways of the hotel, overseeing the maids.

Shaquana tells her the detective is waiting downstairs for them and will drive them back to the hotel.

’s spirits fall.

The detective waiting means yet another beginning, while she longs for an end.

The detective is not wearing a uniform and is confused for a moment, unsure if he is actually a policeman.

She does not want to tell this story again, and not to a man.

But she has no choice.

“How are you?”

he asks her.

His eyes are warm, patient, like an uncle keen to protect.

He wants her to show him exactly where everything happened, and he says he knows it’s hard but it’s necessary.

She walks with him into the hotel, eyes downcast, hoping the manager will not be there.

She does not want to see the manager’s face, to witness that strange disorientation that she has caused.

They go in the staff elevator to the room.

She almost doesn’t want to walk in.

Shaquana opens the door and the detective goes in first.

Somebody is taking photographs with a big camera held to their face.

There are four or five other men.

The detective asks her to show him exactly where—where she was standing when she saw the naked guest, where he pulled her, where he pushed her down to her knees.

As soon as she points at where she spit, one of the men bends down and begins cutting out the carpet there with a small buzzing knife.

She is horrified.

No, she wants to say, no please don’t destroy it.

She will lose her job, they have destroyed the room carpet because of her.

She feels a sudden smothering inside her, a heaviness in her chest.

If this guest had not been so fast, so much like a crazed animal, so lacking in control, she would not have been as shaken and she would have had time to collect herself, and not report this, and all would be normal now.

The weight is growing on her chest.

She knows, in that moment, that she has lost her job, she will never come back here again, to clean rooms, to put worlds in order.

How will she find another job? The relief agency she works with will say she has been long enough with the George Plaza to get a recommendation letter, but she does not know if the manager will write one for her, after she has reported something that left him so shaky.

“You okay, ?”

the detective asks.

He is talking on his phone but moves it away from his mouth to talk to her.

“Yes.”

She wants to go home.

She had wanted to finish cleaning her rooms, but she really wants to go home, to sit on her bed and think of how to keep her job, to hug Binta.

“You want to sit down? We’ll be done here soon,”

the detective says, and gestures to the armchair in the suite living room.

shrinks.

No, no.

Of course she cannot sit on that chair; imagine sitting on a chair in this VIP suite.

When she cleans the rooms, she doesn’t sit on anything, always careful not to jeopardize her job.

The detective says she will identify the guest when they get to the police station, as if she already knows she is going to the police station after this.

“Can I call my daughter?” she asks.

“Yes, of course,”

the detective says.

She whispers in Pular to Binta, tells her there has been an accident at work and she will tell her details later.

Sorry we can’t go to the movie, she tells Binta.

“Mom, why are you whispering?”

Binta asks.

“Are you hurt? What kind of accident?”

She says it’s not serious and she will explain when she comes home.

She ends the call feeling ashamed.

She will have to tell her daughter that a strange man forced himself into her mouth.

It is not a conversation she wants to have with her daughter.

Maybe she can tell her something else, make up a story.

But if she loses her job, she will have to explain why.

No, she will tell Binta the full story.

Binta is mature, a high-school junior wiser than her age.

The detective asks if she wants something to eat and she shakes her head before he is even done asking, unable even to think of food.

At the police station, she looks down as they walk, wishing she had a scarf in which to hide her face.

The station is noisier than she expected, many voices talking, many people, and she imagines them looking at her.

The underwear keeps slipping into her buttocks.

She is too embarrassed to pull it out, and so she walks awkwardly, and her gait adds to her embarrassment.

In a small room with a table and a few chairs, the detective asks again if she wants something to eat or drink.

She shakes her head.

He tells her he knows it’s difficult but he needs every single detail she can remember, but first she has to identify her attacker.

He says “attacker”

quietly.

She starts to shake her head, scared about confronting the guest, because he behaved like an animal and because he is a VIP.

“He won’t see you, .

He’ll be in a different room and you look at him through a one-way thing where you see him but he doesn’t see you. Okay?”

The detective talks to her as if she is somebody.

This is the best kind of American, a simple, wise, and hardworking man; she can tell that he sees people as people.

In her heart, she wishes blessings upon him and his family.

The room is dim and she looks into the next room, at the men standing there.

Without a pause she points at him, the fifth in line.

The guest.

Him, yes, that is him.

She will recognize him anywhere.

“Number five,”

she says.

The men file out of the room and another group of men file in, and there he is, the guest, the third one, and the shortest.

She points again and says, “Number three.”

The guest looks irritated, his face twisted, as if they are bothering him.

The detective asks her to tell the story again, and as she talks, she feels as if the guest is forcing himself into her mouth again, and disgust rises in her throat.

Finally, the detective and his partner drive her home.

She rolls a ball of tissue in her hand, and as they drive she spits inside the tissue, quietly, discreetly, raising the tissue to her mouth.

She cannot wait to shower.

Binta opens the door before she can unlock it.

She has been standing by the door, listening for her.

“Mom, what happened?” she asks.

hugs her, holds her close, inhales the scent of her.

Something fruity she buys in the mall.

Then she pulls back, worried that Binta has noticed that she is not wearing a bra.

In the merciful quiet of her apartment, her body is suddenly confused.

She looks away, avoiding Binta’s eyes.

“Let me shower and brush my teeth first,”

she tells Binta.

“Should I make ndappa for you?”

Binta asks.

She always makes food for Binta, and it warms her to hear her daughter offer to make her food.

“No, no, I’m not hungry.

Thank you, my sweet child.”

“Who were those men?”

pauses.

“The police.”

“The police?”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious.

I’ll just shower.”

Her room feels like an embrace.

She looks down at her bed, up at the water stains on her ceiling, and she looks at her leppi cloth folded on top of her dresser, the leppi she wore to a cousin’s child’s birthday two weeks ago, and she looks at her TV where she watched a Nollywood film that Binta put on for her, and halfway in, she took a picture of an actress in the film, wearing a wig she liked.

She peels off her clothes and wishes she could rush to the laundromat now and throw them into a machine.

In the shower she scrubs herself, everywhere, once, and then again.

She is so grateful for hot water; she has never been so grateful for hot water rushing out of her shower, a cleansing wondrous American miracle.

She dries herself, sits on her bed.

She wants to send Shaquana a voice note to ask about her job, or maybe she will just go to work tomorrow.

If they see her tomorrow, ready to work, they may not fire her.

She will call Lin and ask her what to do, maybe how to talk to the union representative.

She feels overwhelmed, the weight in her chest is back. She turns on the TV, gets up to call Binta, still thinking of how to tell her, how much to tell her.

At first the picture on the screen does not register. She has almost walked past the TV before she stops, shocked, and stares. The guest. His face fills the screen. A shout escapes her mouth. On the screen she sees words she cannot read and then she sees “maid,”

which she can read.

There is a clip of him speaking French.

He is French! Binta is in the room asking, “Mom, what is it? What is it?”

Binta looks, puzzled, at the TV screen, and then back to .

is shouting, still, in disbelief.