Allah in the Islands E-Book

Brenda Flanagan

• Herausgeber: Peepal Tree Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 370

Beschreibung

The novel returns to the aftermath of the trial of Beatrice Salandy and the villagers of Rosehill on the island of Santabella first met in Flanagan's novel You Alone Are Dancing. Though Beatrice is acquitted to the joy of the village, it is clear that nothing has changed. Though Santabella has been independent for several decades, only the new Black ruling class has benefited. Most Santabellans struggle to scratch a living, find adequate schools, healthcare or even reliable basic services. Cynical corruption flourishes and the queues to get visas to escape to America grow ever longer and more desperate. For Beatrice there is the recognition that Sonny, the man she loved, has wholly abandoned her, settled in the USA with a white American wife. But there is one new element: a rapidly growing radical Muslim movement with a growing appeal to the poor Black people of Santabella with their welfare schemes, grass-roots campaigning and air of incorruptibility. And there is the Haji, the charismatic leader of movement who combines a media-savvy native wit, a well-developed mystique and a steely control over his group. Even Beatrice is impressed. Between the Mosque, regularly raided for arms by the police and army and Rosehill is Abdul, whose aunt lives in the village and who is the Haji's second in command. It is Abdul, decent serious Abdul, who is one of the main narrative voices in the novel. But does his sincerity go with honesty about the violent coup that the Haji plans? Abdul's becomes a fascinatingly unreliable voice, part revealer, part concealer of the truth. Trinidad born Brenda Flanagan teaches creative writing, Caribbean and African American Literatures at Davidson College, North Carolina. She is also a United States cultural ambassador, and has served in Kazakstan, Chad and Panama.

Leseprobe

First published in Great Britain in 2009

This ebook edition published in 2021

Peepal Tree Press Ltd

17 King’s Avenue

Leeds LS6 1QS

England

© 2021 Brenda Flanagan

ISBN 9781845231064 (Print)

ISBN 9781845235406 (Epub)

ISBN 9781845235413 (Mobi)

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission

PART ONE

DRY SEASON

That this, after all, was how it would go

figment, scheme, fantasy

silent films of the poor

psychedelic flashes of madmen

Kamau Brathwaite(from ‘Springblade’)

ONE

On the day Beatrice Salandy’s case was dismissed, I was with Haji and Yusuf inspecting the house round the Savannah. Haji had just come back from overseas, and even before he went down Carenage to see his wife and children – the second one, that is – he tell me to drive him straight to the Zhara House.

I was a little worried about this because Haji had put me in charge of finishing some repairs on the house, and I wasn’t sure Yusuf do everything I tell him to do. I had wanted to go and check things out for myself before Haji could do his inspection but I hadn’t had time.

When you see the Haji tell you to do something, you have to do it right, but I had so much on my plate that I couldn’t see to everything he wanted, so I take a chance and ask Yusuf to do some.

All the way back from the airport I was studying if Yusuf do what I tell him because I didn’t want to get in trouble with Haji. He’s a real workhorse, and when you see he give you a task to perform, you have to do it and do it well. Standards. He always tell us that we had to set standards. Santabella was so unruly with young people bringing up themselves while their parents gone away to hustle work. It leave up to us to set examples for them to follow.

Yusuf was a new member and he still had a lot to learn. Twice, as we travelling down, I opened my mouth to tell Haji that I had give Yusuf some of the projects to finish, just to protect myself, but I could see he wasn’t in no mood to hear excuses.

The airport authorities had keep him back for a long time after the plane land, searching up his luggage, asking him questions about where he went and what he do there. He didn’t tell me this, but I know their system, and the airport was practically empty by the time he come through the door.

He was usually first off the plane, flying through Customs without any trouble, but this time was different. Besides, I know him long enough to know when he clamp his lips down and start making that grinding noise, it’s best I keep my tongue between my teeth.

Just when we turn off the highway, I see his face muscles relax, and he asks how everything went. I tell him fine and he asks if the books come from America for the school children. I tell him twelve boxes come and we lock them up in his office.

“We leave them for you to open.”

He give a little smile and I begin to relax myself. So far so good. If Yusuf finish all the things I tell him to do, then I would be able to sleep that night in peace, Insh’Allah.

Yusuf was waiting at the house when we get there, and I could see he was smoking. At least the evidence was still burning in the drain where he throw it when the car pulled up. He still have a long way to go, I could see. Haji glance at the cigarette butt but he didn’t say a word. He’s a man don’t always talk when he’s vexed.

We get through the downstairs inspection all right, except for the sliding doors to the back yard.

“How many times I have to remind all-you about security?” Haji was outside of the closed door, shaking it, testing, and I start to get nervous as he pushed a hairpin through the lock and the door slide open in a flash. He stepped back inside.

Yusuf’s jaw dropped open. I just start praying in my mind.

“Anybody could jump this wall and be inside this house in a flash,” Haji tell us, and fool Yusuf had to put in his two cents.

“But the wall has broken bottles on top.”

Haji didn’t even glance at him. I cut my eyes at him to shut up. It wasn’t as if he himself didn’t used to jump over walls with broken bottles before he join us, so he was only talking foolishness. Haji didn’t even answer him.

He turned to me. “Get Salim to help you fix this by tomorrow morning. Put some bars across the door, from the inside, then see bout installing iron frames round the windows, from the inside.”

Some people slow to learn. Yusuf jump in again. “But the bars should be on the outside.”

This time Haji turn and give him a look that make my blood run cold.

“Wait in the car.” He say it real quiet. I know him, you know. When he’s vexed, really vexed, his voice gets quiet-quiet. You almost have to strain to hear him.

Yusuf let out a long stupes. Another bad habit he had, sucking his teeth when he get reprimand, like a spoiled child. No home training. But he went outside, walking bumpity-bump like a bad-john from behind the Bridge, which he used to be before we give him sanctuary. You know what they say: you could take a man out of the gutter but you can’t take the gutter out of him. Still, Haji and the rest of us was trying to do that with people like Yusuf.

About two months before, Yusuf – that’s his Muslim name – his slave name was Kelvin Brown but everybody know him as Kentucky because he must have made three jails for breaking into the chicken place down on Wrightson Road, and all he ever get to thief was stale chicken.

Anyhow, he come bouncing into the compound one day demanding to see Haji. Well, is not any and everybody who could just come barging in and see Haji just like that. We have protocol to follow. The guards stop him cold before he could get anywhere near Haji’s office. Some of us recognize him because we have other members from behind the Bridge who use to live the kind of life Kentucky was living before they joined us. We take him down in the back for questioning.

Come to find out he was running like a zandolie from Sandfly, the drug lord. He asked for Haji’s protection. Well, we had to straighten him out right then and there. We’re not in no business of protecting drug pushers. We make it plain that if he wanted protection, he would have to give up that dirty life and convert.

Well, he was so frightened of Sandfly at that point that he would agree to anything. His hands trembling like fig-leaf in a storm. We let him stay a few days in the compound, down in a back room we reserve for people like him, while we check things out because we couldn’t put it pass the government to try to infiltrate us. It wouldn’t be the first time.

We had to be vigilant. Haji teach us that: watch your back; keep four eyes in your head; and your tongue between your teeth because bush have ears. Radars.

After Kentucky pass the checks, and we detox him, was only then we bring the full matter before Haji and he agreed to give him sanctuary on condition that he had to change his name, perform certain good deeds, and beg pardon from Sandfly.

When he hear that he had to ask Sandfly forgiveness, Kentucky nearly pee himself, but he couldn’t back out. Is a funny thing, but a lot of those bad-john fellars like Sandfly have respect for Haji, even though he was preaching against drugs every Friday, the very drugs they made their living from.

That’s because they know full well he was after the real big criminals, the people in government, on the police force who have no conscience, who suck the lives out of the poor man like soucouyants. Sandfly was a small-time peddler even if he could make men like Kentucky quake in their boots.

I was the one put in charge of Yusuf’s training, so I arrange for him to meet with Sandfly. In front of me, Sandfly warn him that the day he move out from under Haji’s protection, his dog’s dead.

“Bring the dogs up and leave them here until you get this place secure,” Haji was saying as we went up to inspect the second floor.

Right at the top of the stairs Yusuf had left his radio blasting. The news was coming on. I was going to turn it off but Haji tell me to leave it on. Top of the news was the story about Beatrice Salandy. I was glad to hear that she get off. I didn’t know her personally but my Tante Melda lives in Rosehill and she was always talking about her.

She even ask me one time to ask Haji to say a prayer to Allah, Peace be upon Him, for Beatrice. I forget to do that, but when I hear that her case was calling, finally, I say a prayer for her.

According to the news, Allah had showered her with mercies, and a few lines of thanksgiving prayers run through my head. She was a tough sister; she had a right to get free.

I could see Haji was thinking the same thing because he give a little laugh when the announcer say the case against her was dismissed. “A few more sisters like her and we could turn this country inside out,” he tell me.

I was grateful to Beatrice right there because just the mention of her beating the case had put Haji in a good mood. We went on with the inspection, and except for the insides of the kitchen cupboards that was still lined with old newspaper, Haji didn’t find anything to criticize.

“You do a sweep of the whole place yet?” he ask me. I tell him that me and Kello had done it twice. He said he had brought some new equipment and once he put it together, we would need to do another sweep. I was wondering how the airport authorities let him pass with that equipment, and as if he was reading my mind, he say everything was under control.

“Who patrolling the Savannah this week?” he ask me.

I tell him Salim and Mousa had that job. Just before he went away, some dirty man had raped three young girls in the Savannah and the police still couldn’t catch him. One of the girls’ father was Haji’s friend and he come to us for help. Since then, we had two men patrolling the Savannah from one end to the next every night. Not a single rape since.

I can tell you this. When Haji tell you something under control, you better believe it’s under control. I scored a few points with him when we went into the bedrooms because I had put up two bunk beds for the boys. He asked me where they came from and I tell him my Uncle Neddy from Morvant build them from wood I have under the house. Wood I was keeping to put on a room on my own house. All he have to do was buy two mattresses.

“How much you pay him?” He was inspecting the carpentry. My uncle in the best carpenter in Santabella so I was confident Haji wouldn’t find any notches.

I tell him my uncle do the work for free because he have a lot a respec for what we was tryin to do. Haji put his hand in his pocket and pull out some bills; Yankee money. “Give that to your uncle and tell him I say thanks.”

Later, when I count the money, I had more than enough to pay Uncle Neddy, to buy back the wood for my house, and some plants for my garden. That’s another thing I start because of the Haji. He was encouraging all of us to plant we own food.

A few days before Haji come back from overseas, Miss Farouka make me bring her up to the Zhara House just to make sure we was doing the work right. She bring a set of plants and show me where to plant them because she knows Miss Amena likes flowers.

I make Yusuf put the plants in the side yard because we had set down bricks in the back yard which was one of the major things Haji tell me to do before he come back.

Miss Amena, Haji’s second wife, was suppose to move into the house in a few days. She’s the one who have the most Muslim children with Haji.

His first wife, well, first Muslim wife anyway, because he had one before he convert, that first Muslim wife, Miss Farouka, I tell you, she’s a good woman. And when I tell you how much she suffer, she suffer bad, oui. You would think I make up a story, but I was there with them all the time, so I know what I talking about. Don’t doubt me.

People don’t believe me when I say this, but Miss Farouka and Miss Amena get along better than a lot of women I know. I can’t really talk for the third one, the Chinese lady, as we call her, because she didn’t come to the compound much, since her house was down in the country, but I never hear anything bad about her relationship with the other two.

Some women say they would never do that, share their husband with a next woman, even when they know the man have a deputy in Toco, and a next one in San Juan.

Miss Farouka and Miss Amena, they know where their husband is when he’s not with them. I think it’s better that way, but you have to have big money for that kind of arrangement.

You could see the care Haji was taking with the house, making sure everything fixed to the best before Miss Amena and the children move in. And Miss Farouka was helping him. Every woman in Santabella should have a husband like that, and every good man deserve to have wives like them, especially Miss Farouka.

She was a big time civil servant when she meet Haji, and I know she help him a lot, especially in the early days. She was married before and had a daughter who was at university in Canada when she meet Haji. By the time everything fall down, she would be dead too, and the poor girl didn’t have one thing to do with what Haji or any of us do.

When we finished inspecting the top floor, Haji went into another room. I willing to bet that nobody but me, Billal, Haji, and maybe Miss Farouka, could get from the bedroom to that other room.

While I was standing guard, Haji went inside to put away some things that he had bring with him in a small bag, then we went back downstairs.

Yusuf was smoking a joint. Just leaning up against Haji’s car, smoking away. He didn’t even put it out when he see us coming, just take a long drag, then drop the butt on the pavement when I open the car for Haji.

All the way down to the house in Carenage, Haji didn’t once look at Yusuf. It was as if Yusuf didn’t exist; Haji block him totally. He talked to me, telling me about the kind of water tower he wanted to build on Zhara House instead of them big black plastic tanks, uglying up the scenery all over the country.

He was saying he see some he like in Libya, shaped like turrets, made from concrete. If we started installing similar ones on the houses we building, Santabellans would have alternatives, another way for us to make money for the group, and for all the people Haji had to help in this country. On top of that, it would give people like Yusuf legitimate ways to make a living.

I could feel Yusuf steaming in the back seat, shuffling as if he had piles, stupesing every few minutes as if something stick in his teeth.

When we reach Carenage, Haji order him to wait in the car.

I help take Haji’s suitcases inside. Miss Amena was there and you could see how her whole face light up like a 100 watt bulb. She invite me to stay and eat with them but I only stay long enough to wash up, say my prayers, drink a glass of juice, and listen to what Haji tell me to do about Yusuf.

TWO

“Not guilty. You could go, Miss Salandy. But make sure you don’t show your face in my courtroom again. I warning you.”

It took a second or two for the magistrate’s words to register with Beatrice, so deep was her concentration on the possibility that, before the morning was out, she would be carted in the Black Maria through town to the Royal Jail.

It was the rumble of excitement around her, rather than the declaration from the bench, that made her realize her fears were not going to be realized.

“Where’s Mother Dinah? Mother Dinah?” Melda was shouting.

“Somebody say the 23rd Psalm because we out from the valley of the shadow of death in truth. They not locking you up, Bee. You free.”

Miss Ann, Melda, Jestina, Reme, Uncle Willy, Mr. Roberts, the whole of Rosehill, it seemed, had come down to the court to hear the case, and they were shouting her name, laughing out loud and making such a bacchanal that the magistrate had given up banging on his desk for order, lifted his black robe, and left the courtroom in disgust.

“What you talking bout, Melda?” Jestina shouted as she grabbed Beatrice’s arm to pull her away from the group. “Who in his right mind was going to lock up Beatrice? You mad or what? Come, Bee girl. Let we leave these mad people. Reme. Come go with me.”

Still in a daze, Beatrice allowed Jestina to tow her through the crowd, down the stairs, and out to the yard of the courthouse. A photographer ran up to them and Jestina barked to the group, “All you back off, nuh. You don’t see the man want to take picture of the girl? Is her case. Is she picture he want for the News tomorrow, not yours. Get out the way. Everybody except Reme. Come-come, Reme. Stand with your daughter.”

The crowd pushed Reme through so she could lean against Beatrice. The light flashed, and another, and Beatrice closed her eyes against the glare. In the moment before she reopened them, she took a deep breath and exhaled the tension that had wound itself though her chest. She was unable to talk, her thoughts still a jumble, so Jestina acted as her spokesperson, answering the reporters’ questions, demanding that they tell the truth because “I know how all you could lie, yuh know.”

Reme was saying to anyone who would listen, “You think is two novenas I make? You think is two candles I light, my Jesus? I bathe the girl in saltwater. Three times down Carenage. Is a hundred candles I light on that magistrate’s head, oui.”

A man shouted down from the balcony, “Beatrice’s free! We girl free.”

He peeled off his shirt and began to wave it like a flag as two police officers watched, slight smiles on their faces. Beatrice Salandy, accused of stealing thousands of dollars from the government, had gotten away scot free.

It was a thing, in those hard times, for poor people to be proud of.

“But you know that’s not really why the government tried her,” one policeman told the other. “Eh-eh. They were really trying to send her to jail for killing the big-time Chinese doctor. They say she throw acid in the man’s face.”

“That’s a wicked crime,” the other policeman said. “Any woman who would do a thing like that is a real devil. And she get ’way free? Nah, man. Don’t tell me that.”

“That doctor was a raper man,” the first policeman whispered. “They say that’s why she throw the acid in his face, but the government couldn’t find a single witness to say she do it, so they make a charge about how she thief money from the Ministry. Is two years now they trying to send she up for that but they couldn’t make a solid case. But she’s guilty like sin, man. I know that for sure, regardless of what that magistrate say.”

“Then why them people treating her as if she’s some hero or something?”

The second policeman, recently transferred from Tobago, Santabella’s sister island, was beginning to think that his mother was right when she had warned him to be careful.

Santabellans are a different breed of people from Tobagonians, she had argued. “They not like we”; he would regret asking for the transfer.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she had said when he still refused to listen to her. “Them Santabellans are real bacchanal people.” Here, he thought, was vivid proof.

Out of the courthouse yard the noisy group was leading the girl, anointing her head with their fingers, powdering her cheeks with their red lips, demanding to know, “How you feel, Beatrice? How you feeling, girl?”

The first policeman said, “To them, yes, she’s a real hero. But mark my words, this is not the last we hearing about her. People like her have trouble mark all over them. It’s just a matter of time.”

He turned away to re-enter the courtroom and the Tobagonian policeman followed, his head shaking in wonder.

Down in the yard, Beatrice knew what Rosehill wanted her to say; they were giving her the words.

But the words from their mouths could not express the meditations of her heart. Rosehill had lived only vicariously through her two months in jail, and nearly two years of walking with a load on her shoulders.

She wanted to tell them the truth. She wanted to say, “I still can’t believe I’m not going to jail. It’s not true. It can’t be true.”

But if she couldn’t believe it, they had no doubts. Their exuberance was enough to shake the flowers off the poui trees up in the hills, and they fully expected that she, the centrepiece of this drama, should be exalted with them.

So she kept the truth to herself, as usual, and offered up her body to speak in unison with their language of praise and glory. In turn, they returned her hugs and backrubs and squeezes round her waist, and bent their ears to her chest to see how fast her heart was beating.

“Yes,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster, “I could wine down Saint Vincent Street in truth.”

The image made them laugh because everybody knew she couldn’t dance worth a lick.

They were probably thinking of that image, or about the relief they could feel now that their homes were safe because the source of the money Beatrice had used to buy their land leases was no longer in question. That’s probably why they did not pay any attention to the clear-skinned woman, dressed to kill in white spike heels, a white suit – clearly cut overseas – and a blue fedora pulled low on her forehead, pushing through the crowd, until standing right in front of Beatrice, she spat in her face.

“You kill him. I know you do it. Whore! You will rot in hell, just wait and see,” she screamed.

So quick, so unexpected was her attack that before they could recover, the woman was gone.

If you had asked five of them what she looked like, you would have gotten five different stories. But her face was engraved in Beatrice’s mind.

She had seen the woman in court each time the case had been called, dressed always in that white linen suit, her head covered in a fancy matching hat, her face lowered to a copybook, as if she was taking dictation. She had sat away from the Rosehill crowd.

Beatrice had thought she might be a reporter for The Sentinel, until the time she had suddenly glanced across the aisle and caught the woman’s eyes cutting into her, hot needles searing her skin.

Stunned by the intensity of the glare, Beatrice’s mouth had dropped open in shock. She remembered thinking, but what I do this woman for her to hate me so? For long seconds, she had heard nothing her lawyer, Ali, was saying to her as the woman’s eyes continued to make her blood crawl.

She was gone now, but a taste of her words hung nasty in the air. Beatrice wiped her face with the back of her hand. Jestina gave her a handkerchief to wipe her cheek, but her face burned as if pepper-sauce had been rubbed into it.

A few people shuffled back from Beatrice as if to distance themselves from the effects of the woman’s curse, and one whispered to another:

“Beatrice had better watch herself. Some women in this country would die for that doctor.”

“But nobody on Rosehill come forward to say they see her kill the man,” another argued. “You can’t just go round saying something like that. You have to have evidence.”

“Ah-hah, but she’s a sly mongoose, oui. The way she hold herself up like a flag these past two years, nobody looking at her would think she could kill a fly. Umm-hum. That one? I’m willing to bet she thief that money in truth. Sonny come back from America to say otherwise, but where he get all that money to give her, eh, tell me that.”

“He’s a lawyer. You think he would lie?”

“Some of the biggest fowl thieves in this country are lawyers. What you telling me? I hope that woman’s curse don’t blight Beatrice, though.”

“Hummm. Her Tante Vivian was a seer women, yuh know. You must remember she could fix things, eh, even if she’s dead and gone. Yes, she could fix them from over yonder too. Beatrice will have to call her and quick-quick too.”

The wind carries words and when they drop, they could be big rocks on your head or showers of blessing.

For nearly two years Beatrice had felt stones pelting her back, bruising her shoulders, but she had refused to break down in the quarry, at least not for the people to see. No, she couldn’t let them see her tremble, not her, who all of them on Rosehill, the mauvaislangue ones and those who sang her praises, had so much to say about, beyond the nine-days when she was supposed to be a wonder. Fingers held against their lips, their tongues clicked-clicked about how she didn’t cry when little Melvin died, and how she thought she must be better than some of the others on Rosehill with she neck propped on a flag pole.

She could read suspicion, doubt, jealousy like crickets in her ears, and her temples strained to burst. That’s when she would call out to Tante Vivian to come, come rub her head oh God, for the fever to go away, please. Next morning, there might be a wet hole in her pillow with teeth marks around it, and her head would be clear.

None of the Rosehill stalwarts encircling her at the courthouse that day knew what she had endured. For them, Beatrice’s freedom was a hot new calypso to jump up to, so like mass on Carnival Monday, they held up traffic on busy Saint Vincent Street to carry her over to Ching Chee’s snackette where they raised their elbows in praise of the gods of mercy, with black rum and Carib beer, sweet drinks and lemon juice to lips parched too long for a little bit of gladness.

Though still not sure of the ground she was walking on, Beatrice knew that some things had to come naturally. She put away thoughts of the spitter and turned her attention to Rosehill.

She praised them: “Yes, Miss Ann. For the prayers, eh. I know you made a lot of novenas for me. If you don’t hold me down, is fly I will be flying.”

“You is a soucouyant, girl,” came the picong from Willy.

Rosehill loved that. They burst out laughing, relieved that they did not need to be distracted by the spitter. Beatrice drowned the rest of her words in the Peardrax Mr. Roberts had placed in her hand.

He ordered the same for Miss Ann who shooed the drink away, scornfully.

“Sweet drink? This day? This day when poor people should drink champagne, you going to offer me a cheap sweet drink? Look man, I want the biggest glass of rum in this place. And you might as well bring back out them dollars you hiding in your pocket because you buying one for all the women.” She gathered the women around her at the counter.

Their eyes carefully measured the three fingers of Old Oak as the barman poured, but before they could raise the glasses to their lips, Miss Ann dipped her right hand into hers to sprinkle some to the ancestors. Melda and Miss Roberts did the same.

“Here,” Melda whispered to Beatrice. “Here, have half of mine. Rum does make my knees water, girl. I only doing it to please Miss Ann.”

Beatrice gulped a mouthful, welcoming the heat of it on her tongue. Suddenly an arm came around her shoulder. Jestina’s lips kissed her right ear.

“Don’t drink any more of that cheap rum, girl, unless you want a massive headache in the morning.”

Miss Ann, seeing Jestina pour Beatrice’s drink into her own glass, protested, “All the men you have and you can’t buy a rum for yourself?”

“Money is not an object where my love is concerned, meh dear,” Jestina laughed. “And it’s not better to give than to receive?”

Leaving Miss Ann to puzzle over that, she leaned on Beatrice, begging her to show her to the toilet.

Ignoring Miss Ann’s protests, they left the group for the narrow stall at the back of the shop. As Jestina lifted her skirt, Beatrice splashed water on her face, but the feel of the spit from the woman’s mouth seemed to have penetrated her cheek. She washed her face again, then turned to the mirror and felt in her purse for her powder puff.

“Don’t mind all these people, eh,” Jestina relaxed on the toilet seat. “I not drunk, you know. I only do that to get you away from them. They’re glad you win the case, is true, but they just thinking about feathering their own nest. Is money on their mind, eh Bee. Your money. Even them who talk you bad, who say that you thief the money from the government, will be waiting by your gate with their palms stretch out. You don’t think you do enough for Rosehill, Beatrice, umh? You have to look out for yourself sometime. Tante gone; you don’t have chick nor child to hamper you. Reme could look after herself. Go up New York. I’m not meaning you should go by Sonny. No. But the same way he could go there and become a big-time lawyer, you could too. Don’t misuse what God give you, eh girl. Hand me a piece of that brown paper there. They never put toilet tissue in here. Cheap-arse.”

Beatrice stepped aside from the sink as Jestina rose from the seat, skinning her face in mock despair at the roughness of the brown paper on her skin. She flushed the toilet handle, and straightened her clothes.

“You looking bazoudi,” she laughed as Beatrice slipped her powder puff and lipstick back into her purse. “Don’t let what that woman do get you down. She’s a fool. Imagine cursing out somebody for that bad-bad man. Some women too stupid for their own good.”

“You know her?” Beatrice asked.

“Every Chow, Dick, and Selwyn know that woman. She was one of them ladies of the night for years, then they say she make a child and claimed it was for that Dr. Chow. The man was married. He never even paytay on her, never acknowledged the child. Maybe she had hopes while he was still alive, but the man dead. Time for her to try to latch on to somebody else.”

“You think she telling the truth? That the child was his?” Beatrice asked.

“Yes, I see the little girl sometimes. She has his face. But he was a bad-bad man, Bee, you know that. I wouldn’t want anybody to know he was my child’s father, if I was her. But forget him and that crazy woman. Let we concentrate on you.”

But even as she was saying, “I’m okay,” to Jestina, Beatrice was thinking about the woman, and a feeling of sorrow came over her.

That woman, even if she was a prostitute, as Jestina said, had made a child, an innocent child, for Dr. Chow. Just like Melvin. The child couldn’t be held responsible for what Dr. Chow had done. The woman had gotten herself all twisted, thinking she should defend her daughter’s father. If Melvin had lived, would she have come to forgive Dr. Chow for raping her? No. No. He was dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

“Ummm-humm,” Jestina was babbling away. “How long I know you, Bee? Eh? You think you could fool me?”

“You know me better that I know myself, sometimes.” She tried to summon a smile but failed, then shook her head to clear it. “You ever see a bird that spend years in a cage, wishing it could get out? The day the cage door open, the bird’s still hopping around, inside. That’s me.”

“Ummmhumm,” Jestina acknowledged. “I know just what you mean. You remember the time I had that case for cutting Sharky? Three months in the Royal Jail. Weeks after I get out I still use to feel I was inside that little hole. Here, lend me your powder puff a minute. But it will pass, you know. Give it time. Let me put a little bit of your lipstick on my cheekbones. I forget my rouge home. Thanks. But hear what I telling you. Go up by the Botanic Gardens. You remember how we used to do that every time we come down town? Go up and see the flowers, girl, and say hello to them for me.”

“Reme might not like that. You know how she is.” Beatrice told her. “She’s waiting for me to travel back to Rosehill with her.”

“Your mother is a grown woman, girl, and you’re not in diapers.”

Someone shouted from the other side of the door. “You all living in there or what? A person wants to pee.”

Jestina ignored the plea. “Don’t let Miss Ann and them talk you into going to the stores with them. I hear them talking about how they want you to buy this and that for their children. Watch yourself, you hear me?”

“How much money they think I have left? I paid for all those leases. Then for Tante’s funeral. Reme get some to give that doctor in Venezuela for her belly. How much money they think I have so?”

“I’m going to pee myself out here. Woman, open the door!” a man’s voice shouted.

“Go ahead. Wet down your pants,” Jestina laughed, but Beatrice lifted the latch which opened the door, causing the man to fall into her, his cigarette brushing against her chest.

Jestina, muttering “Drunk”, squeezed by him to follow Beatrice back to the front where Willy and some of the Rosehill men were taking one for the road with two saga-girls from town.

“And a hip-hip hooray for we girl Beatrice,” Willy shouted.

Beatrice acknowledged them with a smile and after a last round of “Shake my hand, nuh girl. Let some of your good luck rub off on me,” she turned to Miss Ann who, she noticed, was casting deadly cut-eyes at Willy.

“Well I’m leaving now, eh. I’ll see all-yuh up the Hill.”

“Where you going off to, Beatrice?” Reme demanded. “You’re not travelling with me?”

“I need to stop by Mr. Ali’s office. I don’t know how long that will take. You know how busy he is. You go on up without me.”

“You need to go and kneel down in a church and thank God, Beatrice, if you ask me, but as usual, you never consult with me.” Reme shook her head. “You round a corner but you don’t know what’s waiting for you behind the next bend. Only God knows, and only he can prevent something bad from happening. Don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

“God finish with Beatrice,” Jestina laughed. “He gone South Africa to help Mandela and them black people. She has to help herself now. Eh Beatrice? And you strong enough to do that too, meh dear. Tell them not to worry their self over you, eh.” And she started to sing Sparrow’s popular calypso:

Don’t worry yuh head over me

Study for yuhself, not for me,

Because I’m young, and I’m strong,

And I ent ’fraid no man in town,

So, don’t worry yuh head over me.

The two shining women hanging on to Willy’s arms picked up the chorus.

“Don’t worry yuh head over me. Dah, dah, dah dah dah! Dah dah dah.”

Miss Ann, muttering to Melda that the women had enough rouge on them to paint two motor cars, got up from the table to recapture Willy. Beatrice squeezed her mother’s shoulders, kissed Jestina on her cheek, and slipped out the front door.

Jestina raised her glass of rum to the girl’s receding back before turning to the frowning Reme.

“So tell me about that spirit man down the Main who cure your big belly, nuh girl. Look how nice you looking. A-A. He must be put a good obeah on you.”

Reme shrugged off her arm and deliberately turned her back on her.

THREE

Before she left town, Reme went to the post office on Wrightson Road to buy a stamped blue letterform which she took over to a side counter, out of the way of macomay eyes. She found the black ballpoint pen she had remembered to tuck into her handbag that morning, and with it she wrote:

Dear Sonny,

I am praying that these words does meet you fine as they leave me safe. Sonny, praise the good Lord, Beatrice’s case dismiss. Is not that I ever doubt that would happen but you never know what kind of thing people working on you in this country. But she’s free now and we have God to thank for that. You too. You know I did always have doubts about you but when you come back to do what you could for Beatrice, I was satisfied that you still have some decency in you.

Sonny, I don’t know what all happen between you and Beatrice since then because you know Beatrice wouldn’t talk to me at all, but I don’t see any letters coming from you so I have a feeling you and Beatrice break up again. I hear some talk about you marrying a white lady in America. You know bush have ears in this place so Beatrice must be hear that too but I don’t know what is true from what is a lie.

I don’t want to get in your business but deep down in my heart I have a feeling you still wouldn’t mind helping Beatrice out. That’s why I say to myself, let me write and ask you this favour. If I leave it up to Beatrice, you know how proud she is, she might never send to tell you how things going with her these days. So I take it upon myself to do it for her, and I hope you don’t mind that.

Sonny, even though the baby dead and you and Beatrice not so friendly any more, you could think about poor little Melvin and help her out for long-time’s sake? I want Beatrice to go America. These vultures on Rosehill can’t wait to break down the door begging Beatrice to help them, but I want her to use what little money she have for a ticket to go away. Since she small, you remember, she used to talk about studying in New York. Like you. You get scholarship and leave, and Beatrice get mixed up in all this commess about land and Doctor Chow. Is time now she look out for sheself. With the baby dead, poor little soul, and Tante Vivian gone, Beatrice only have me here and I could take care of myself.

I’m not asking you for money, Sonny, just for the invitation letter because you know how the Embassy people is. You have to have a letter from somebody in America inviting you to stay with them. So for long-time sake, Sonny, I know how you use to like Beatrice even though she didn’t treat you too nice when you come all the way back here to help her. But you know how she is. That girl have too much pride for she own good. She would never write and ask you this one little favour, but I asking you to do it for me please.

I went last week to see your father in the nursing home and he’s still the same. I will check up on him every week even after Beatrice leave. So Sonny, I’m counting on you. Please, for God’s sake, help me get Beatrice out from Santabella before she get into any more trouble.

Sonny, as God is my witness, I will never forget you for doing this small thing for people who look after you long before you start wearing long pants. Do, please, don’t forget your people. Remember it’s they who have you where you is today. Write me at my madam’s house so Beatrice won’t know I ask you this favour. The address is: Reme Salandy, c/o The Ames, 120 Diamond Vale Road, Santabella. Hoping to hear from you soon, in God’s love.

Sincerely,

Reme

She signed her name neatly, reread the letter, folded the form along its creased lines, licked the strip of dried gum inside the flap, and pressed it close. Then she slipped it into the overseas mail slot in the wall.

Riding in a taxi on her way to Rosehill, she looked out the window at the plains planted with unending rows of sugarcane up to the base of the grey-green hills. They seemed to be bowing, waving at her. She smiled back at them.

Life, she believed, had to get better from that day on. If only she could get Beatrice to start thinking about herself for a change. Forget Rosehill. Let them bear their own crosses because when it came down to the wire, it was you alone dancing. Who made a jail? Not that Miss Ann sitting behind the counter in her parlour minding everybody’s business. Not Melda nor Jestina. They had all profit from that money. Beatrice had bought out their leases, saved their behinds from getting thrown out in the road; keeping the government from taking over the land to drill for oil.