Nineteen Thirty-Seven Summary

The narrator (Josephine) is carrying a small Madonna statue. She observes the Madonna shed a tear, and takes this as a sign that her mother has died. Josephine is on the way to the prison in Port-au-Prince (capital of Haiti). The reader learns that the Madonna has been in the narrator's family for generations.

An old woman takes an interest in the Madonna, and then shows Josephine where to buy food for her prison visit. She is taken inside the prison and visits her mother, who is alive, but barely. She is a ghost of a woman, very thin and wrinkled. All the women of the prison are accused of being witches and of causing the deaths of children. The mother has little reaction to the food, but warms to the Madonna statue, fondling it and sobbing.

Josephine recalls when her...