“You’re not familiar with classical music?”
“Cyan’t say we get much a dat in Stepney. But I was t’inking maybe I could ask you somet’ing, Mr. Montrose.”
“Lewis,” he prompted.
“Lewis, we still a go get married, or me mek dat long trip fe not’ing?”
He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin, then rested it next to his plate.
“I was waiting for James Alvarez before I proceeded. You remember him. He was one of the gentlemen with me in Stepney.”
“Yes. But what does he mattah? Is me you marryin’, isn’t it?”
“James is a trusted advisor, unofficial campaign manager in some respects, and close friend, so everything I do, I do with him having full knowledge.” He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “Will you walk with me, Souci?”
He was up and walking down the stairs and into the backyard before I had a chance to answer. No matter how quickly I moved, I couldn’t quite keep up with him. He crossed the yard and entered the orange grove.
“When I was little and I needed to disappear for a while, I’d just run down here,” he said as he brushed a couple of low-lying branches aside. He stopped walking as we reached a small clearing between trees.
“I’d sit beneath one of these trees, pull my knees up to my chest and just think. Sometimes I’d hear my mother’s far-off voice calling out my name, but it was like another world to me. I especially loved when the oranges were in season.” He looked up at the delicate white blossoms and inhaled. I did the same, feeding off the warm, humid air.
“Souci, I spoke to you about how negative the election process can get, but I don’t know if I stressed it enough. Carlysle is a mudslinger. He plays on people’s emotions. That’s almost a sure recipe for some type of conflict.”
“Will dere be trouble for you?”
“A politician’s life here goes hand in hand with trouble. It just depends on how passionate someone might be about keeping him out of office. You will also be in the public eye, and although the chances of any physical confrontations are slim, there will be insults thrown at you, name-calling. All this just because you’re associated with me. I was selfish in asking you to come to a decision without first completely highlighting these circumstances as they pertain to you. In light of that, if you need to reconsider …”
“Name calling’s nevah once stopped me from doing anyt’ing. Besides, is a likkle too late fe reconsidering. Me say me good-byes already. Me put an end to me life in Stepney. Me cyan’t change all dat now.”
Although Lewis was standing in front of me, he wasn’t looking directly at me. His face was angled up over my head and into the trees. He was so quiet, so still, it seemed as if his very breath had been suspended. Now more than ever, I wondered if he wasn’t truly a witch doctor. I was alone with him in a tangle of trees and bushes. I had no idea what was going through his mind, and I was at his mercy. He reached up into one of the trees and tugged at one of the white orange blossoms, then extended the flower toward me.
“T’ank you,” I said quietly.
“You’re welcome. Souci, when I was a child, there was nothing I wanted more than to be someone great. I figured if I couldn’t be the best, if I couldn’t make a difference, I wouldn’t be anything at all. Now, I have the chance to become prime minister. I have a chance to do something for this country. I will run and I will win.”
His eyes fell toward my weather beaten brown sandals. I tried to clean them off as best I could for the trip, but just couldn’t quite get rid of all the red mud that marked Stepney’s rainy season. The sleeves of my frock ended at least two inches above my wrist. My hands were rough from washing sheets and digging up yellow yams. I followed his eyes and looked down at myself, wondering if a poor country girl could really help to gain votes for the man standing so regally before me.
When we made it back to the house, James Alvarez was sitting in the game room. His sleepy eyes never once left my face as he explained what was expected of me. He had a deep, mellow voice.
“You will appear infrequently at first, at rallies and campaign stops with Lewis, social gatherings, dinners and various other public functions. Stories of a budding romance between Lewis Montrose and a certain unidentifiable woman will be leaked to the press, but the Montrose camp will deny them all. Five months before the election next November, an official statement will be made concerning your engagement, and you will appear, courtesy of The Gleaner, brandishing a bright smile and a significant diamond. Some time before the elections, we have not decided on when will be most opportune, you will be married.”
Lewis was seated across from me at a small card table, but he never made eye contact during James Alvarez’s speech. Instead, he focused on the geometric patterns in the table’s wood.
“After Lewis’ election, you will have the obligation of escorting your husband to official dinners, making some official trips abroad with him, hosting a few dinner parties each year for this cause or that, visiting hospitals, orphanages, etc., and making a few public speaking engagements. Your relationship, though loving and idyllic in public, will remain completely platonic in private. You will have separate quarters, so you need not feel any sort of pressure. The marriage will last for the duration of Lewis’ first term in office and for at least one year thereafter, in the event he seeks and achieves re-election. After this point, you will have the option of terminating this agreement, and a statement will be issued as to the marital differences. Thereafter, you will be relocated to another address, your expenses paid for. After a year of separation, an official divorce will be granted and, you will be able to continue with your life as you see fit. This arrangement is to be kept in secret between you, Lewis and myself. Do you have any questions?”
I had a thousand, but only seemed to be able to get one out.
“What is platonic?”
James looked at Lewis, but Lewis’ eyes were still fixed on the card table. Without looking away, Lewis spoke.
“It means the relationship will not be sexual.”
The thought of how unhappy Michele would be at such an arrangement made me grin. But then I replayed James Alvarez’s words in my mind, and my head fell into my hands.
“Me still nuh understand why me,” I said quietly. “I mean, Jamaica full a ooman, black ooman. Why you pick me?”
Lewis waved, and James handed him a thick manila folder.
“I was about to give up on this madness when I met you,” Lewis said. He opened the folder, pulled out a photograph, and began reading a notation on the back.
“Mary Roberts of Black River, from a family of successful cane farmers.” He turned the picture toward himself.
“Too timid. She kept fidgeting with the hem of her dress and giggling and calling me ‘sir.’ ” He placed the picture on the card table, then fished through the folder again, this time, pulling out a picture of a slightly older woman.
“Audrey Miller, from Mandeville. Didn’t take to her either.”
Lewis placed this picture alongside that of Mary Roberts’. He began running down a list of names and lining those pictures up also.
“Marlena Davis, Bog Walk, Rachel Jones, Runaway Bay, Judith Bonds …” he shook his head as he repeated that name.
“Half these people, I can’t remember. The names have all evolved into an indistinguishable alphabet soup. The individual personalities and faces have all been distorted. We didn’t start taking snapshots until Morant Bay. Can’t remember half of those in the photographs without prompting. I knew I didn’t want a Kingstonian. I didn’t want anyone affected by or accustomed to the city. It makes people too rough about the edges and insular. I wanted this person to hail from a place that was untouched; someplace rich and innocent. I also needed her to have as little familial and social ties as possible. It makes things less complicated.” He paused briefly and withdrew my photograph from the folder.
“Souci, you are young, but you seem to have the wisdom of
a woman twice your age. Yet there is something innocent and unspoiled about you. You have a way about you that is captivating. Most of all, you are genuine, and that’s what I need.”
I looked around the room at the miniature pool table and the many pieces of artwork. I was going to be a part of it all. I was really going to be living in one of the palaces Michele and I had fantasized about as children. So many questions, thoughts and fears were jumbled in my mind.
“But what if you nuh win de election?”
“We’ll win,” Lewis said. “We have no other option.”
-9-
There were three knocks, then the door to the game room opened slowly. Mrs. Moore walked over to Lewis and whispered something. He nodded and she walked back out, leaving the door open. Lewis stood and looked toward the door. A few moments later, a short, solid woman appeared. She had small puckered lips that made her look as if she had just finished sucking on a lemon. Her skin was drawn tightly against her cheekbones, like the covering across the top of a drum. Her hair was cut like a man’s and her skin was just as light as Lewis’. She wasn’t wearing glasses, but the skin on both sides of her nose was red and depressed. She wore a blue skirt and jacket. Her white button down shirt was so starched, I think it would have been able to stand on its own had she taken it off.
“So,” she said while looking in my direction, “I take it this is my new pupil.”
“Mrs. Eugenia Eldermeyer, allow me to introduce you to Ms. Souci Alexander.”
She seemed like the strangest little woman to me. If Michele could have seen her, she would have wondered exactly how far the stick went up her backside. She reminded me of a former teacher from primary school—a woman all the students called “Mrs. Mitter the hitter” because she was never found without a yardstick in hand. It didn’t matter to her whether or not you were the actual student who had misbehaved. If you had the bad luck of sitting in the direction a whisper or giggle came from, your knuckles were going to be tenderized.
Mrs. Eldermeyer walked over and tugged a bit at my collar. Her face brightened some, but she seemed a little discouraged.
“It will take a bit of work….”
“But,” Lewis interrupted.
“But it’s not impossible. I’ve had a hundred times worse.” She finally addressed me directly. “Hello, my new pupil. How are you?”
“Me is all right, you know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I am all right,” she said slowly.
“Good t’ing,” I responded.
“No, you don’t understand. You don’t say ‘me is all right.’ The correct way is, ‘I am all right.’ ”
“Well, I know de correct way. If I was in school right now, I would say it de correct way, but since me is not in school …”
“Then you might want to think of your time in Kingston as a non-ending study session.”
“Well, me finish me time in school many years …”
“Mrs. Eldermeyer used to teach at a local typing school,” Lewis interrupted. Maybe he had caught sight of the not particularly impressed look on my face with regard to Mrs. Elder-stick-up-her-backside. “Presently she teaches etiquette exclusively. Souci, you’re going to be working with her for the next few months, and she’ll help you along. She’s a wonderful teacher.”
“Help me along wit’ what exactly?”
“With everything you need to know in order to make things easier for you.”
“Everyt’ing like what?”
“How you’re expected to dress, to behave. What to say, how to say it. What to eat, how to eat it.”
“Well, I been doing all dose t’ings fe a while now, wit’out anybody help.”
“I’m sure you have, and I’m sorry. I probably should have explained it to you first. Everything you’ve done in Stepney, you’ll be doing here. However, now there’ll be numerous eyes on you, and they do it a little differently at a state dinner or a benefit. There are times you will have to speak to a room filled with people you have never before laid eyes upon, or eat a meal with a diplomat in which you’ll have to choose between a salad, shrimp and dinner fork.”
“Salad, shrimp an’ dinnah fork, huh? Don’t dem all pick up de food just de same?” After a slight nod from Lewis, I continued. “Seem to me, de more money people have, de more dem mek t’ings biggah an’ grandah an’ hardah dan it need be.”
“That might be so,” Mrs. Eldermeyer said. “But we have to do what custom dictates. You will be staying with me for some time, in which we’ll try and straighten things out.”
It was as if the skies had gone black and the room had become silent.
“I won’t be staying here?”
“That’s a thought, but just think what a stir we’d cause living here all tucked away in the mountains together in sin,” Lewis joked.
“Maybe dat’s just de kind a publicity you need.”
Lewis laughed. James Alvarez just looked at me with those sleepy eyes of his. Eugenia Eldermeyer cleared her throat.
After a “spot of tea,” as Mrs. Eldermeyer put it, I was loaded into her car and transported to her home, which was located on a quiet street in an uptown area of the city called Liguanea. Mrs. Eldermeyer lived impossibly close to Jamaica House, Kings House, and the Governor General’s residence. I wasn’t sold on the idea of having to spend my time with her, but I was impressed at the thought of being so close to such important people.
Mrs. Eldermeyer’s house was much smaller than Reach, but I still thought it big. I had never seen as many different types of flowers in one small area as there were in her front yard. You had to walk up a set of stairs to get to her elevated verandah. Two glass doors opened up into a foyer, which led into a living room, which had, to my sheer delight, a television set. And it was color, no less. Mrs. Eldermeyer led me to a bedroom at the back of the house and instructed me to put my grip there.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to get your bearings,” she said. “Then we can sit outside … get to know each other a little. We’re getting such a nice breeze today. I’ll get us some lemonade.”
As she walked toward the kitchen, I looked around at the bedroom furniture. The dresser and nightstands were made of the darkest wood I had ever seen, and the bedspread was way too fussy. I could only shake my head. I was going to be marrying Lewis Montrose, but I had been carted away to live with Eugenia Eldermeyer. I wondered what other surprises Lewis might have had in store for me.
The floor of the verandah was made up of blue tiles that were so shiny I could almost see my reflection in them. Mrs. Eldermeyer had relatively high hedges, so I had to walk down to the gate to get a good view of the rest of the street. All the homes on Somerton Avenue had the same shaped hedges. The playful screams of small children came from the house directly across the street. In the ten minutes or so that I stood by the gate, only one car drove by.
Mrs. Eldermeyer walked out onto the verandah with a pitcher of lemonade and two tumblers.
“You live in dis big house all by you’self, too?”
“The word is ‘yourself.’ It has an ‘r’ in it. And it’s not ‘dis’, it’s ‘this.’ Now, ask me again.”
I considered repeating the sentence just as I had before, but didn’t want Lewis to think he had made a deal with a troublemaker.
“You live in this big house all by yourself?”
“Very good,” Eugenia Eldermeyer encouraged. “The house is really quite modest, but it suits me just fine. Sometimes I take on a boarder when the parents think the bad habits are too ingrained to be broken with only bi-weekly sessions. But don’t worry, I won’t have any boarders while you’re here.”
“How come?”
“Because that’s the way your benefactor wants it. It will be just us, except for the days the maid comes in.”
“Everybody in Kingston have maids?”
“Hardly.”
“So, do you know about all dat’s … I mean, all that’s going on?”
“I know dear, that you have a very
special relationship with Lewis and that you would like to smooth out the edges you have that are ruffled.”
“Uh-huh …”
“All right,” she corrected.
“What?”
“Pardon me!”
I did not foresee my relationship with Eugenia Eldermeyer ending in success. I gave the strange little woman a long, frustrated look, to which she responded, “I know it’s going to seem futile sometimes, but we have to work on you every chance we get. We don’t have a great deal of time.”
* * *
It took Mrs. Eldermeyer almost an entire week to get an appointment at Maxi’s, the most fashionable salon in uptown Kingston. Someone was having a big fancy wedding, and all of Jamaican society was in need of a new hairdo. A large set of chimes were attached to the front door, so each time the door opened, it sounded as if a thousand bells were going off. All that jingling nearly scared me half to death. But it seemed to alert everyone else in the place of our entrance.
Most of the women didn’t seem to be receiving treatment of any kind. Their hair was styled, and they were all put together. They were just sitting around giggling and gossiping the day away. They wore the fanciest clothes I had ever seen. I couldn’t believe people went to the hairdresser in their very best, but at Maxi’s they did. Then there was me—in my school girl’s white blouse and royal blue skirt, which, after one too many washes, had taken on more of a grayish tone.
Mrs. Eldermeyer introduced me to Maxi Jobson, a brown-skinned woman with a no-nonsense handshake. I also met her twin daughters, Marcia and Marlene, who were also stylists.
“One of the reasons this place is so exclusive,” Mrs. Eldermeyer whispered to me, “is that there are only three stylists here, and they do the best cuts in Jamaica.”
As I waited to be taken, I looked around at the half dozen or so other women there. None were as brown as me, and only two seemed to be having any kind of work done. The first was a tall and distinguished woman. She wore a short blue sundress. She had the complexion of caramel and legs as long as cane stalks. Every now and then, she would shoot up out of the chair she was sitting in and clap her hands loudly. The other woman was a little older and wore a long, beige linen dress. She seemed to be trying to blend in more than her friend was. When one of the women looked in my direction, I waved. The older woman sort of smiled. The other one hardly missed a beat while continuing on with her conversation.
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