Lamort (French for “death”), a 14-year-old girl, is with her older boyfriend Raymond in an empty field behind a schoolhouse. Raymond, a soldier, attempts physical intimacy with Lamort, and, as a distraction, she asks him to tell her the story of how he got shot. During the coup in Port-au-Prince, Raymond was wearing the wrong uniform, and was shot in the leg by a friend, Toto. Raymond’s life was saved when he recited a password that identified him as a member of the new regime. Raymond asks Lamort to repeat the password: peace. As she does, gunshots are fired to signal the start of curfew.

As she walks home, Lamort passes a churchyard where soldiers often bury the bodies of dissidents. The graves in the churchyard are so shallow that body parts are sometimes visible poking through the ground. Lamort picks some red hibiscus flowers, and quickly returns home. When she arrives, her grandmother throws out the flowers, claiming that they grow with blood on them. She tells Lamort that a boarder has rented the yellow house next door, and asks her to bring the boarder, a young American woman named Emilie, a needle and thread. Lamort asks her grandmother a number of questions; the grandmother encourages her to stay quiet.