Esperanza Street

by Niyati Keni

  I saw Jonah move towards the stage. The sight of him jolted me. I’d been certain none of the jetty boys, my father included, would have been here; the price of the tickets, though not impossibly high, was certainly the kind of money one would think long and hard about spending. I noticed now how lean Jonah was, except for the increasingly conspicuous bulge of his pregnancy. When it was his turn, his belly yielded not the half-expected foetus but a handful of small pebbles the size of beans, which the Reverend trickled slowly into a jar with a sound like rain on an iron roof.

  After a while, people started to leave. Here and there across the hall, they rose and moved away like twists of smoke from embers; those who had been healed, those who might only have come to watch and seen enough to assuage their curiosity, those whose children had become fractious or who were distracted by the smells from the food stalls outside. Several times Aunt Mary looked over her shoulder, considering, perhaps, how we might leave unobtrusively from the very front row. When we finally got up I saw that Eddie and his companions had already disappeared.

  Outside, the air was pungent and smoky. The barbecue vendors were doing brisk business and, sliding between them, women sold corn on the cob, boiled eggs, coconut cakes from baskets on their heads. In the centre of the schoolyard, a ring of stalls displayed statues of Mary or Jesus, bottles of holy water, votive candles, prayer beads. I saw Johnny Five Course’s cart – a new notice taped to its roof read vegetarian option. Behind her brother, Jaynie parcelled up food without raising her head.

  In front of me, Aunt Mary and Benny fell into animated conversation. I thought I heard Aunt Mary say the word cellular. I quickened my step but their voices were swallowed by the noise.

  As we came to the edge of the crowd, Dub put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Ahead of us a line of motorbikes leaned beneath a frangipani tree, slick with light from the school windows. Behind them, a group of men and women sat on a low wall. I recognised Earl.

  Dub turned to his mother but before he’d even opened his mouth, she said, ‘Don’t forget Joseph.’ I was disappointed again; I’d hoped to walk back with her and Benny, listening in to their conversation. Benny pushed his hands into his pockets and said sullenly, ‘Joseph rode out with him,’ but Aunt Mary slipped her arm firmly through his. America, tired and impatient now, pursed her lips at the bikes before turning away.

  Earl was the first onto his bike. In ones and twos the group pulled out of the school gates, crawling through the traffic and the mass of people spilling out from the sidewalks. We rode in a line to Salinas and then, as we cut through town, one after another the bikes peeled away again until only Earl and Dub rode on together past the edges of Greenhills to rejoin the coast road several kilometres to the south.

  Earlier it had taken only minutes to get from the boarding house to the school. And, despite not having wanted to ride with Dub in the first place, as we’d slowed down to turn in at the school gates, I’d suddenly wanted to pick up speed and keep going, leaving the gates, the crowd, the noise and mess of Esperanza behind. Now, as we rode back, the black sea invisible to my right, the wind smoothing my hair away from my face, I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom, and suddenly I understood something so clearly that it surprised me. I understood that for these brief times of being on the road, Dub was not the son of Mary and Captain Bobby Morelos, the product of generations of breeding, in the same way that I too harboured the illusion of leaving my real self behind, far back amid the eddies of road dust, and flying forward to meet a future that was still ripe with possibility.

  We rode on through the darkness and, after a while, it seemed as if an uncertain light shifted in the distance ahead. When we drew closer to Esperanza we discovered why: under a thick pall of smoke, the jetty was on fire.

  ‌Night Scene at the Jetty

  When I was much younger, the jetty was the furthermost boundary of my world. It was busier then; the ferry terminal along the coast hadn’t been built and the jetty was always full – of people, livestock, engine noise – a chaos that made it seem far bigger than itself. Along the coast road, small eateries and variety stores flourished, many of which closed down altogether or moved away when the new terminal opened. Then, my father was a giant, or so I thought, and Jonah was a young man, unmarried and flat-bellied.

  My mother took me there sometimes after the market and, though my father took his work more seriously than the other jetty boys and disliked distractions, he always looked pleased when he saw us approaching. We’d sit for a while on the sea wall, waiting for him to finish. I have scattered memories from that time: the rush of air as my father swung me up over his head, before frowning at me when the suddenness of it made me cry and my mother scolded him; my sister kicking her dry heels against the stone; my brother running along the top of the wall, jumping down to holler at chickens crammed into cages or bunched by their feet against the front wheels of a bicycle.

  For me, the jetty contained these events just as my father’s apartment contained other pieces of my life. And now I could see flames bursting out from along its length and stealing from the roof of Jonah’s office onto the canopy of the market.

  Dub slowed the motorbike down, and as we came nearer, I saw people running with buckets and pans, even jugs, back and forth from the sea. The air was thick with heat and smoke and beneath the smell of burning, another smell, acrid and familiar. Dub stopped the bike in the middle of the road and we dismounted. From up ahead, Earl turned round and cruised back to join us. ‘Feel like being a hero?’ he said. His garage was on the other side of Esperanza, but the wind coming from over the sea was restive and it hadn’t rained today.

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ said Dub, but he sounded doubtful. A crowd had gathered but, as the heat built, the onlookers edged back slowly along the coast road while the fire, brilliant against the night sky, crept forward in a thin line along the beams that anchored the corrugated iron plates of the market-hall roof. Within the encircling darkness, the first shops and dwellings of Greenhills wavered like ghosts in the uneven firelight. I thought of the curandero’s wooden-frame house, the Espiritista chapel, the countless shacks made out of fruit crates and sacking. Even at this distance, hard, dry waves of heat broke over our skin.

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ Dub said again and climbed back onto his bike. We rode up around the back of the market, through the rough, unpaved alleys and across Esperanza Street to leave the bikes on the garage forecourt. Earl knelt to chain the bikes to the garage doors and then he and Dub started running back towards the jetty. I followed after them.

  Earl began to force his way through the crowd and we followed in a line behind him, Dub first, then me. Later, this moment was one that came back to me over and over, the sight of Earl’s big frame cutting through the crowd and, when it did, I wondered if Dub, like myself, was relieved that all that was required of him in that moment was to follow or whether, in the end, he really was made of different stuff than I. Like most people, I had, in the safety of my bed or daydreaming as I hung sheets in the yard, imagined myself in acts of heroism: pulling Benny from a burning Bougainvillea, even going back for Aunt Mary’s most precious figurines, or dragging Suelita from the sea. But now, faltering amid the smoke, the dense, hot air clamouring around me, I was struck by a kind of paralysis. Like a child, I wanted to be told what to do.

  The crowd grew. Handkerchiefs and t-shirts tied across mouths and noses divulged only intermittently the familiar contours of a cheekbone, a jaw. Here and there I thought I heard the timbre of a familiar voice. People brought more containers, anything that might hold water, and cleared empty crates from the far end of the market. But the fire had climbed higher now, out of reach of the men and women who passed vessels back and forth along a line. I heard someone shout nearby, a voice I knew well: Jonah. He sounded shrill. ‘We have to bring the beams down or it’ll catch the wind.’ I looked up at the market roof, the lines of fire snaking further towards its peak. A man pushed out from the crowd
and moved towards the market hall. He carried an axe and when I saw him I cried out, the sound lost straight away, even to my own ears. It was my father.

  I watched him as he strode forward, his gait resolute, a man who had decided not to wait for others to act. He paused for a moment and looked up, studying the roof, the struts that supported it. And then he ran under the canopy, deep into the market hall, and took up position at one of the beams nearest the centre, under the peak of the roof. Shaking my head, I started after him. I felt Dub’s hand on my shoulder pulling me back. Jonah stepped forward now after my father, the long, curved blade of the bolo he held orange in the firelight. The lines of people carrying water slowed now and moved away from the market to concentrate their efforts on Jonah’s office and the single line of shacks that ran along the coast road and abutted the market hall.

  Dub pulled me forward now and we joined the lines and passed buckets and tins back and forth. Dub pulled his t-shirt up over his nose but it kept slipping. My mouth was bitter with the taste of burning. I looked in the direction of the market hall and imagined I heard over the din the rhythmic sound of iron chopping at wood. I knew that my father and Jonah would be working together, each striking the beam as the other swung back. I craned my head to see what was happening and saw that more men had joined them under the canopy to work at the neighbouring beams. I imagined now the roof giving way and the men running out from under it. Esperanza Street itself had cleared as people moved away from where the roof plates might fall. Some of them moved towards the neighbouring shacks, still untouched by the fire, and took with them more containers of water with which to wet the buildings. It seemed a pitiful effort, the pails and basins of water inadequate to the size of the task, the sheer number of homes.

  The evening became artificial, dreamlike, and I behaved automatically, passing containers first one way then another. But something tore at me. The beams of the market hall were slowly being weakened but everywhere people worked in a frenzy, without heed to each other’s efforts, and I thought dimly that when the roof came down, who could tell which way it might fall? Who could be certain which beam would give first? And my father stood almost at the very centre of the hall.

  When it happened, the night, already shattered by noise, was rent again by the sound of iron sheets tearing from their anchorage. I turned to watch, mesmerised, as the iron roof collapsed in a shower of sparks and a surge of sudden heat. I watched the men scurry out from under it like lice, heads down and backs bent, their shapes as indistinct as spectres in the rush of smoke and dust, and then, as it settled, I saw Jonah. He turned to look behind him and when I saw him start back towards the pile of twisted wood and metal that had been the market hall, I knew in an instant that my father was under it still.

  Much of the rest of the night was lost to me, fragmented and hazy. Later, I remembered running, and Dub and then Earl pulling me to the ground. I remembered Dub holding me to his chest, forcing my eyes away from the scene. I remembered also that, after all, the fire did not reach far into Greenhills, for soon after the market roof fell in it started to rain, hesitantly at first and then boldly, the drops heavy, unrepentant.

  I remembered the sight of Subong tearing at Jonah’s shirt as he cried, ‘I saw it, I saw who did it,’ his face raw with fear, with disbelief. And I remembered, days later, when the confusion of images and sensations had settled to a dull, steady ache, the absence of the fire-department trucks and the smell in the air as we’d ridden up the coast road and seen the first flames licking the jetty: kerosene. And finally, I remembered how the last time I’d seen my father I’d left without shaking his hand.

  ‌Faces at a Vigil

  My father’s vigil was held in his apartment and, like my mother, he rested on the dining table for want of room. More people came to pay their respects than could be accommodated and the visitors spilled out into the hallway and, after a while, down the stairwell into the courtyard. Elisa, on her mother’s orders, left the door to their apartment open and pulled her mother’s chairs out into the hallway one by one to line up by our front door. People milled back and forth, the children left to sleep in Bina and Elisa’s room, while the adults filed through to touch the coffin. The coffin was closed and without the proof of my own eyes, it was hard to believe he really lay in it. When the chanting began, the sound echoed through the passages, drawing out the building’s remaining inhabitants. I felt penetrated by it, unable to escape it.

  My sister and brother came, of course, though I hadn’t called them; I wouldn’t have known how to reach them, not having foreseen a time when I’d need to keep such information. Instead, Aunt Bina called Luisa from the telephone in the general store downstairs and asked her to track down Miguel. Perhaps it was Bina that Luisa had expected to see first, for when Lorna opened the door to her my sister greeted her angrily.

  Luisa came with two children again, another two I hadn’t met before: her third and fourth. The two who’d come to our mother’s vigil had been left at home. She looked sourly at me as I struggled to name them. I repeated the names after her aloud, as if committing them to memory, my manner exaggerated slightly for her benefit, but minutes later I’d forgotten again. At that moment I didn’t really care; I knew I wouldn’t see them again for a long time and, when I did, would barely recognise them and they would not recognise me at all. Luisa had changed, become quite stout, her features coarse. She was in her twenties still, yet little girlishness remained in her face or her gestures. She looked tired from the journey but wore another kind of tiredness too; the kind that is not merely physical, and that often masks disappointment. I’d seen her only once or twice since our mother’s funeral, though she’d written to my father in between with news of the children.

  My brother, Miguel, had returned twice after my mother died, staying fewer days than he’d intended both times. My father had been quiet and angry for days after each visit. Miguel had talked both times about going to work overseas and now finally he’d come with the news that he was leaving for the Middle East at the end of the month. He was thinner, the skin of his face and arms dry and dark. His forearms were marked with fine scars and his palms were rough and red. His hair, still thick, was shot with grey in places, though the effect was still of youth. When I saw him, I thought of the jetty boys; he wouldn’t have been out of place among them.

  When he greeted me, my brother smiled and embraced me, swaying gently. On his breath was the faint, sweet smell of liquor consumed the night before. He wasn’t drunk, but he too looked tired. He’d come a long way, arriving that morning having travelled all night. He spoke briefly to Jonah and Bina and some of the others that he recognised, but then slept for an hour beside the children – our sister’s and the baby Marisol – in Bina’s apartment.

  Aunt Bina greeted visitors at the door for most of the morning and into the afternoon until Missy arrived and took over the same duties. Elisa said very little to me but watched me from time to time. She sat staunchly next to Lorna. Lorna rocked back and forth where she sat, clutching Marisol so tightly to her that I wondered the baby didn’t suffocate. She wore her grief and her fear openly. By comparison I must have seemed cold, but the truth was I was still numb. My father’s death made no sense. I pictured him at the rally, at the jetty with Jonah. I still expected him to arrive home, as I had my mother seven years before.

  So many people came. Some I didn’t recognise at all. The mode of my father’s death had elevated him to the status of a hero and it seemed as if everyone in Greenhills wanted to demonstrate some connection with him. I was pointed out over and over again. ‘That is his son.’

  Jonah and the jetty boys came. Without my father, without Subong in his orbit, for he too was absent, they seemed somehow incoherent. I wondered if they felt it too. Dil was among them but I didn’t look at him even when he offered a greeting, pretending to be lost in my own thoughts. ‘Subong?’ I asked Jonah, but without reproach in my voice; Subong had looked up to my father and today would have been hard
for him to bear.

  ‘Never showed up the day after,’ Jonah said. ‘I sent Dil to his mother’s, but he’s not been home.’ I stabbed a look at Dil. He was watching me and lifted his chin, raised his eyebrows, his eyes without challenge, as if inviting a friendly remark.

  ‘I heard him say he saw who started the fire,’ I said loudly.

  ‘I heard it too,’ Jonah said.

  ‘No doubt it was deliberate,’ Uncle Bee said from the door. He’d brought Missy, Suelita and Fidel with him. Suelita clung to her mother’s arm.

  ‘Maybe he’s been taken as a sacrifice for Eddie Casama’s building project,’ someone said, and there was a murmur of alarm.

  ‘Don’t talk such rubbish at a man’s funeral,’ Jonah snapped.

  ‘It happens though,’ a woman said.

  ‘In komik books,’ someone else said.

  ‘People like us are disposable. They think of us in the same way as pigs or chickens and you wouldn’t have a problem with sacrificing a pig or a chicken,’ the woman continued.

  I didn’t want to listen to this, though at another time, about another person, I might have indulged like everyone else in the same kind of macabre speculation.

  Suelita came forward to pay her respects. As she turned from the coffin she embraced me without warning, her eyes unguarded and uncertain. Taken by surprise, I barely embraced her back. Still, she held me for a while, her hand cupping the back of my head. She didn’t stay for the entire vigil, leaving perhaps to man the sari-sari store or cook the evening meal. Anyway, there was simply not the room. She was still there though when Benny arrived with America and Aunt Mary and she returned later to join in the prayers at the chapel.