on the heroine

She was able to look at the world with great astonishment and see what no one else saw. She could decipher the murkiest eye and link a quivering lip to a broken heart. … Through her, we learned for example that a bright and early morning departure with a small suitcase and eyes too downcast announced the shipwreck of a Catholic love on the abortionist’s table. In other words, with her in our Quarter of Texaco, a life without witnesses, like life downtown, was a difficult wish. All was known of all. Miseries shouldered miseries. Commiseration intervened to fight despair and no one lived in the anxiety of extreme loneliness.

- Patrick Chamoiseau, pg. 19, Texaco, trans. Rejouis & Vinokurov