by Niyati Keni
‘Baby will either love fish for life or hate it,’ he said.
‘Better be love because we’re no distance at all from the sea.’
She walked ahead of us through the alley towards the basilica, turning off into the street of my father’s apartment. She didn’t hesitate as she entered his building and climbed the stairs to the room where my mother had lived and died.
Inside, the room was dark, the curtains drawn. A small fan hummed on the dining table. As we walked in, my father called out ‘Lorna— ’ but the rest of his words died on his lips. In the corner of the room Lorna squatted, legs apart, dress pulled up around her breasts, naked from the waist down, one arm gripping the table, her eyes like cornered prey. She was moaning. Around her feet, the floor was wet and between her legs I could see something, a dome with soft black hairs and beside it what looked like a tiny hand.
My father and I froze. Missy snapped into action, barking at us for towels, cloths, clean water. We obeyed, fumbling through each task. She lay Lorna down on the floor and I watched, nauseous now, as she pinched and pushed the baby’s fingers until the hand withdrew inside Lorna’s body. Missy’s hand seemed to follow it and I looked away. The smell filled me, something raw and pungent, like ammonia. The room was full of noise: Lorna’s moans and Missy’s commands to breathe, push, fetch this thing or that, the sound of my own heartbeat shaking my body. The child emerged slowly at first and then in a rush, and when it was out and in its mother’s arms my father sank into a chair and put his head in his hands.
Missy beckoned me over and together we moved mother and baby to the bed away from the blood and the mess and the smell. I gathered the dirty towels and sheets into a ball and went to fetch a pail and some phenol with which to scrub the floor.
As I passed my father’s chair, I saw that he was trembling and, my senses still overwhelmed, numbed by everything that had just occurred, I registered as I would register the heat, the rain, the presence of a fly, that he was crying.
Mother and Child
My father spoke quickly, anxious to explain. He’d gone that morning to the cemetery to visit my mother, as he had every morning since hearing about Eddie Casama’s consortium. He fell silent now thinking about it, and Lorna, without lifting her eyes from the baby, started up in his stead. She’d seen him there, she said, and followed him without his knowledge. She’d watched from behind the larger crypts as he wept quietly, privately, without display. She looked up at me. ‘I went to the priest first, after I left the jetty. The one with the yellow hair. He told me they could help me find a home for my baby but I don’t want to give her away.’ She lowered her head gradually as she spoke so that these last words were murmured into the baby’s scalp.
The apartment was clean now and smelled of disinfectant. Missy had left, but she’d promised to return later after Lorna had had time to rest. But Lorna, eager that I should first understand that my father was not at fault, pushed herself upright in the bed so that she would not succumb to sleep, and continued. ‘For two nights I lay down between the crypts, in the shadows where the sun hardly touches the grass and where there’s moss so the ground is soft. It was cold. I didn’t sleep at all. Every sound woke me: the men drinking nearby, the dogs sniffing around. I was afraid of the living, not the dead. I don’t know why I followed your father this morning. What else was there for me to do? When he went to the church to pray and he cried again, I decided right then that I wasn’t going to spend another night in the cemetery.’ When he got up to go to work, she’d approached him, seizing the fabric of his shirt as she asked for his help. She offered to cook and clean for him, to wash his clothes. She even offered herself – at which my father shook his arm free in fury and she had to run after him into the churchyard and almost halfway down the street, begging him to listen, before he stopped again. He agreed, finally, to take her home, though he wouldn’t promise that she could stay. He left her there, after making sure she ate something, to go to work. He was late at the jetty for the first time since my mother had died, and he looked so tired, so preoccupied, that Jonah didn’t persist with his questions.
Before leaving her, my father had told Lorna that when he returned he’d bring her parents with him, but she’d begged him not to and eventually they’d compromised on Missy, the midwife, for the baby’s sake. My father was relieved at that, the weight of such a secret sitting rather heavily with him. Missy was more forceful with the girl than my father would have dared to be and Lorna, worn out from the labour, agreed quickly that her parents ought to know of her whereabouts. Besides, by then my father had acceded that, if Lottie and Lando agreed, she could stay. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing to bring life into this place again,’ he said. He went through my mother’s things, the few that remained, and took out a dress that, till now, he’d been unable to part with. He gave it to Lorna while Missy was still around to help her get into it, so that she would look clean and rested when her parents came, her own dress being stained beyond remedy.
I wanted to leave, to return to the comfort of the boarding house’s routine, but my father wouldn’t let me go. He didn’t want to be alone with her, was afraid of how it might seem. So I stayed, but it was a long while before Missy returned.
Lorna slept for much of that time; the baby slept too, bound in cloth against its mother’s chest. Intermittently she woke to its cries and lifted its head to her breast to try and feed it. From watching her mother raise four more after her without the privacy of walls and doors, Lorna, at fourteen, seemed already to know what to do. In contrast, I saw on my father’s face a look of utter helplessness.
My father and I took it in turns to watch over them through the open door, averting our eyes when the baby fed. He didn’t want Lorna there, I was sure of it. He wanted no complications in his life, but I also knew that he wouldn’t ask her to leave.
When Missy returned, she brought with her not just Lottie and Lando but also Jonah. The House children were left to play in the yard, listening out for when their mother might call them up.
The sun was low now behind the apartment blocks and the sky overhead was streaked like the throat of an orchid. Lottie sat on the bed, stroking the baby’s foot as Lorna repeated her story. Lorna told my father’s part entirely now for he stayed silent. When she had finished, Lottie let go of her granddaughter’s foot and, growing agitated, turned to my father and said, ‘They came. The Police. They took our House apart, found the number trays. They’d heard rumours, they said.’ And she mimicked their speech as she repeated it, ‘“Rumours of an unlicensed gambling operation.” That’s what they called it. They talked to me slowly, as if I was an idiot. They said that not paying a license “deprived the correct authorities of money”. Deprived the correct authorities of money!’ She turned to Lorna. ‘They almost arrested your father, handcuffed him, gave him a few blows to his legs and head and back to show what they were capable of, what they might have to do if we didn’t cooperate. You think they teach them at police school how to speak like that?’ she said bitterly. ‘Like TV cops.’ Lottie had parted with three days worth of takings. ‘“A reasonable fine,” the officer said.’ She pulled a face. ‘They took the big tin. Sure, they didn’t find the small one. That was buried in the rice sack and they didn’t waste time going through that. Still, it didn’t have all that much in it.’ It was over in minutes, their money gone, the gaming tables broken and Lando covered in cuts and bruises, the blood around his mouth already drying. ‘A few minutes is all it took.’ Lottie jabbed a finger at her daughter. ‘And you disappeared without a word for two days.’
But Lorna was drunk now with the sight and smell of her baby. When she spoke her voice was soft, placatory. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want her to be born on the street.’
‘Street was good enough for me,’ said Lottie.
‘You knew but you didn’t say anything,’ said Lando to my father. ‘Were you planning to tell us some time?’
‘I asked him not to,’ said Lorna.
‘It’s not his fault.’
‘Is it your baby?’ said Lando suddenly to my father, his voice rising.
My father stepped forward, his fists clenched. ‘You think that I—’
‘It’s all right, Dante,’ Jonah broke in, and to Lando: ‘He’s all right.’
‘Why can’t you just ask me if it’s his baby?’ said Lorna sullenly. ‘Anyway, it’s not.’
‘We can’t stay in Esperanza now,’ said Lottie. ‘You’ll have to pack up today. Where’s your dress? Whose dress is that?’
‘It was Carmela’s,’ my father said quietly.
‘Jesus,’ said Lando.
‘Mine got covered in blood,’ said Lorna. ‘He’s never touched me.’
‘My father’s a good man,’ I said loudly. I’d said nothing till now and the sound of my voice breaking into the room surprised even me. Lottie and Lando’s eyes flickered in my direction but my father didn’t even turn to look at me. ‘He’s a good man,’ I said again more quietly.
‘I want to stay,’ Lorna said stubbornly. She looked at my father but his face gave nothing away. It was his apartment but I could see he didn’t believe it was his decision to make.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lottie.
‘Will it be safe?’ asked Lando, but he said it to Jonah and I was angry with him at that. I stepped forward, but now my father stirred and put his hand on my arm.
‘She’ll be safe,’ said Jonah. ‘Dante’s all right.’
Missy, who up till now hadn’t offered an opinion, said gruffly, ‘You could look for years and still not find a better man than Dante Santos.’ After that little else was said on the matter. Lottie called the children up to see their sister and her new baby and then they left the apartment to make up their bedding for the night in the safety of the yard, in readiness to leave early the following morning. They weren’t going far. ‘Maybe only the next town, to repair the House and do some quiet business before we come back, to check,’ Lottie said, glancing at my father.
The sun had long set when I reached the boarding house. Aunt Mary came downstairs on hearing the door. She was still in her day clothes, though ordinarily she’d have bathed and changed for bed by now. She looked tired and she was frowning as she met my eye. I wondered if she’d waited up for me. I wished I’d been able to go to her rather than have her come to me, if only to demonstrate that I hadn’t forgotten my obligations to her. I started to apologise but she shook her head. ‘Missy Bukaykay sent Fidel with a message,’ she said. ‘Have you eaten anything since morning?’
I hadn’t expected the question. ‘No, ma’am,’ I said slowly, struggling to remember. She sent me straight to the kitchen where America, in her nightclothes, had already started warming food for me. And it was now, at Aunt Mary’s generosity, at the sight of the food America laid out wordlessly on the table, that I finally yielded. I cried as I ate, and America, wise enough to know when to ask and when not, left me to do so in peace.
Portraits
News of the birth spread quickly through Esperanza and most mornings my father opened his door to find dry food, an old dress, a vest for the baby with a note from one neighbour or another. Johnny Five Course, whom I’d never thought of as a sentimental man, brought dinner for my father and Lorna every night for two weeks. Jonah brought a rattle for the child and a bottle of rum for my father, which he helped make a start on one night after work.
Missy visited most days to check on the baby and brought guava or castor-bean leaves from Uncle Bee to make decoctions for Lorna to wash her wound with or poultices for her breast to encourage her milk. She berated Lorna each time for not resting, for Lorna – afraid perhaps that her luck might end and though she was tired and sore – kept the apartment cleaner than it had been in a long time.
At the boarding house, Aunt Mary and America unpacked the boxes they’d stored away when the boys were small and found blankets and sheets and a small crib that Aunt Mary and I took to my father in a taxi. We reassembled it in his apartment, pushing the dining table up against the wall to make room. My father was now sleeping in the kitchen while Lorna and her baby, whom she was yet to name, had the main room to themselves.
America set to making batches of food full of iron or calcium or protein, whatever she’d decided a new mother needed most that particular day. Fried sardines, chickpea curry, soybeans or rice cakes heavy with anise to help Lorna make milk. If Aunt Mary knew of the few extra groceries that were diverted in this way, she never complained. I wondered at the time why they would want to do all of this for Lorna, or even for my father. Now I understand that at least a little of it was for me.
I helped America silently at first but found my voice again soon enough; America’s cooking had a rhythm to it that felt right and it pulled me out of myself. When she decided I didn’t need to be handled gently any more, she stopped her cooking and supervised me making a fig and black molasses cake, partly for Lorna but enough for the rest of us too, snapping her instructions like a colonel, her voice losing the softness of the preceding few days. ‘Mix that like you mean business,’ she said as I turned the flour and eggs together. ‘It’s not made of diamonds.’
‘Diamonds are the hardest thing in the world. Nothing like mixing a sponge,’ I said, testing her.
‘Don’t get clever with me. Your reading better get you further than this kitchen if you’re going to feel free to talk to me like that.’ She picked up the tin of molasses and put it down again roughly. Not so roughly that I’d figure she was really cross, just roughly enough that I’d think twice about contradicting her again. I smiled to myself.
‘Haven’t seen much of Benny lately,’ I said.
I’d said it just to make conversation, but now America glared at me. ‘Stop fishing,’ she said curtly. I looked at her, surprised, noticing as I did so how weary she looked this morning, her rash bright across her cheeks. My attention had been inward these last few days and I felt ashamed of it all of a sudden. For now that I thought about it, America had seemed really distracted this last week too, and it occurred to me that perhaps she’d cooked such a lot as a kind of solace. I recalled that I’d come into the kitchen the day after the birth to see her and Benny sitting together at the table as if they’d been talking. They’d fallen quiet as soon as I walked in. America had got up sharply and sent me off to fetch shrimp paste, though I was sure there was an open jar in the Frigidaire. When I got back, Benny had gone. America left the jar I brought on the kitchen table for a couple of hours before putting it back on the pantry shelf.
She watched me now, warily. I turned the cake mixture more firmly, as if doing so might appease her. ‘You think the sun moves around you?’ she said.
‘The sun, the moon, the stars,’ I said lightly and pushed the mixture round so fast that some spattered onto the table.
‘Watch it! That cake’s got to fill eight people.’ I stirred more carefully. ‘Why don’t you just ask him?’ she said suddenly.
I stopped stirring. ‘You think I could?’
‘He’ll tell you if he wants to. It’s his own business. Jesus, Joseph, you’re such a baby. You don’t need my permission to talk to him.’
I stared at her. ‘You get mad at me if I do anything without checking with you first.’ I expected her to respond to this with a crack about how men needed to be told how to wipe their own noses.
Instead, she said softly, ‘You’ll do just fine.’ She didn’t give me a chance to ask her what I’d do just fine with, but opened the molasses tin, thrust it at me and said, haughtily, ‘You may pour.’
When the sponge was ready, she cut a big slice for me to take up to Benny.
He didn’t answer straight away when I knocked, though I knew he was in because I could hear music. Then he said, ‘Door’s open, Joe.’ I wondered stupidly how he knew it was me, even though I knew the difference too between his footsteps and anyone else’s.
He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, his sketchbook across his knees, a packet of Marlboro by his fee
t. I took in the cigarettes, glancing up at him, surprised. He stared back and I looked away. I stayed just inside the door.
Benny’s room was at the front of the house. It was broad and often filled with sun and so gave the impression that the doors and windows were wide open even when they were not. It opened onto a wooden balcony that overlooked a corner of the garden in which, in the old days, a poultry house had stood. The walls of his room were papered with his own work. Sketches of Esperanza: Johnny Five Course’s stall; Cora grinding coffee, her eyes glinting over her glasses at the artist; Ignacio decorating pastry, looking like he was humming while he worked; Dub’s motorbike and on the same sheet of paper the wolf’s head on the back of his jacket. On the wall above Benny’s desk, taped over what might have been pictures of the jetty, were several portraits of the girl under the yellow bell tree. I moved forward to take a closer look. In a couple of them she seemed different; she was smiling. I turned back to him. He’d been watching me and now I saw his face darken like a monsoon sky. ‘Get lost,’ he said, coldly.
As I left, the door was bolted behind me. I looked down. I was still holding the plate, the dark wedge of sponge upon it still warm and fragrant. I turned back and though I knocked more than once, he didn’t reply. The music grew louder, something angry, reminiscent of Dub’s punk. I looked again at the plate in my hand. I heard something shift inside the room and the door shuddered as if someone had sat down suddenly against it. I left the plate on the hall table, setting it down noisily so that he might know it was there, though it didn’t seem likely he’d hear it.
When I first arrived at the Bougainvillea, I slept on a mat next to America in the kitchen as the previous houseboy had done. But after a while Aunt Mary set me the task of clearing out the old pantry at the back of the house so that America might have some privacy. However, America, used to the open nipa huts of her village, refused to sleep in it, preferring the broader space of the kitchen, and so the room came to me.