“With regard to all the staring you’ve been doing, it’s led me to wonder if there’s something not right with my face.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then go ahead and ask the question you have.”
“I was just wondering how come you not married anymore.”
Mrs. Eldermeyer uncrossed her feet at the ankles, then crossed them again. “I was taught that marriage was supposed to go on forever … when you loved someone and they loved you. That’s all I thought we needed. That’s all we both thought we needed. When we went before the judge, I was barely seventeen. Too young for many things, marriage included.” She looked off into the ominous skies.
“You were only seventeen when you married Lewis’ uncle?”
“Oh no. I lived a whole life before I met Charles. He was my second husband.”
“How come you not married to him anymore?”
“Infidelity.” She sighed. “The commandment, ‘thou shall not commit adultery,’ was not heeded.”
“Did you love him?”
“Love is a strange thing. All that romance and excitement. Understanding and respect is probably the best course to follow. Too often, love causes people to act against their true natures.”
She said nothing more, and we both became lost in our thoughts. I took a deep breath. I had always loved the way it smelled when it rained—when the air was filled with a raw wetness. The wind picked up and bullied the long, skinny trunk of the coconut palm near the end of the street. The tree swayed so far back and forth, I thought it would snap in half, but it never gave in.
Mrs. Eldermeyer began reading one of those seventy-five cent paperback romances. She tried to camouflage it with a quilted book holder, but the book had been left on the kitchen table earlier in the day, and I had taken the opportunity to flip through it. Mrs. Eldermeyer turned each page slowly, often using her left ring finger to push her oversized spectacles up along the bridge of her nose. Eventually, she closed the book, crossed her hands in her lap and just looked off at the rain.
“You okay, Mrs. Eldermeyer?”
“Donald used to love the rain. When he was a boy, we couldn’t get him in the house once it started coming down. My goodness, the amount of colds that boy caught. I can’t believe how long ago that was.”
Rainy days were hard for her—when there wasn’t much else to do, and she was forced to think about life. It was a rainy day when she first told me about her son, her only child. He had died a few years back when a storm took hold of his small skiff near the Cayman Islands. She kept a framed photograph of him in the living room, and not a day went by in which she wasn’t dusting or polishing or fussing over it.
I was looking off at the street when the stutter of a motor interrupted the patter of the raindrops. A beat-up silver car came to a stop directly in front of the house. The driver got out of his vehicle, pulled his cap farther down onto his head, walked up to the gate and rapped against it.
“Yes, young man. How may I help you?” Mrs. Eldermeyer called out.
“Me name is ’Enry Donovan. Me was sent by Mr. Montrose and was told to give dis letter to …” He looked down at a small envelope, then lifted his eyes toward us. “… to Sowkey Alexandah?”
“It’s SooCee.”
“Oh, sorry ’bout dat, Miss.” He didn’t move from where he stood on the street side of the gate until Mrs. Eldermeyer gave him the okay to do so.
“What is it?” I asked.
The young man shrugged his shoulders as he climbed the stairs and handed the envelope to me. He looked down at a small pink and purple lizard as it scampered along the top step.
“The letter will tell you. If you would open it now, please. I cyan’t leave wit’out you answer.”
I slid my finger under the sealed flap and removed a small card.
“Please accept this invitation to dine with me tomorrow evening, 7 p.m.,” I read aloud.
Henry Donovan pulled a pen from the back pocket of his trousers and handed it to me.
“Please give you answer in writing.”
I did so, then returned the note and pen to him. He mumbled a quiet, “aftahnoon,” and nodded before making his way back down the stairs. It seemed to take him just shy of forever to rev up his engine, but eventually, he and his car sped off into the rain.
“Why didn’t Lewis just call?” I wondered aloud.
“He is not one to take the simplest route around things. Never has been,” Mrs. Eldermeyer said.
* * *
Six-thirty the following evening, Mr. Moore drove up to Mrs. Eldermeyer’s house in the silver Mercedes he had met me with in Ochi Rios.
“You’re not coming?” I asked when I noticed Mrs. Eldermeyer standing off to the side of the verandah.
“No,” she said with a smile. “I was not invited.”
During the drive, Mr. Moore was as uncommunicative as he had been during our first meeting. I spent most of the ride looking out the window. The moment the car turned onto the grounds at Reach, I saw Lewis standing on the front lawn. With the sun setting behind him, his face was overwhelmed by shadows. He moved forward to meet the car, and took my hand as I stepped out onto the lawn. I was led into the large dining room, and the first thing I noticed was the table. I had never seen something as massive or as fancy. It could have seated everyone in Stepney and had room left over for the entire population of neighboring Nine Mile. I couldn’t help wondering how they had gotten such a large table into the room. But maybe they hadn’t. Maybe they had gotten the table first, then built the house around it. Lewis sat at the head, and I sat just to the right of him. We had only been seated a few minutes when Mrs. Moore brought in two bowls of conch soup.
“Hope everything will be to your liking, Mr. Lewis,” Mrs. Moore said. She turned to face me. “Ma’am.”
“I asked her not to call me ma’am, but she still does it,” I said after Mrs. Moore had left the room.
“And she always will.”
“But she’s almost old enough to be me granny.”
“She’s been a housekeeper for most of her life. Old habits die hard. Believe me, she has no qualms about calling you ma’am. If you keep pushing, you might unwittingly offend her.” He began sipping his soup. He caught me looking over at him, but he just smiled and continued to eat. Perhaps I was getting used to his measured behavior because I just followed suit and began eating my soup. I figured that in due time, he would explain the reason for his dinner invitation. Time passed. The soup was finished. The main course of braised pork and white rice was brought out, but our conversation hadn’t progressed very far
“So, I figure I’m not just here because you all of a sudden wanted a dinner companion,” I said.
“No? Then why is it you think you’re here?”
“Don’t know. Figured you would tell me.…”
“I have nothing to tell.”
“Then why am I here?”
“I wanted a dinner companion.”
“Please,” I said as I shook my head.
“It’s true. Look, I know I haven’t been a good host to you. I haven’t been completely accessible these past couple of months. But I’ve been thinking about you and just thought it would be nice to spend some time together. I’m sure you probably have questions …”
“Well, if I knew I could have asked you any question in the world tonight, I would have taken pen and paper and write them down because I’ve had so many these past few weeks. I don’t ask Mrs. Eldermeyer much because … well, I once asked her what she knew about me and you, and she answer in one of them roundabout ways that don’t really tell you very much. So if I ask you things, will you answer me, really answer me, and not just say something to make me shut up?”
“I’ll do my best. Why don’t we begin with your question concerning Mrs. Eldermeyer.”
“All right.”
“Let’s just say she knows what she needs to. More than most but a lot less than she could. She’s a part of this because she’s o
ne of maybe three people I trust implicitly.”
My eyes fixed onto the large chandelier that loomed above the dining table.
“I always hated that,” Lewis began. “All those lights and baubles. When I was a boy, I thought the thing would come crashing down and knock me unconscious as I ate. And have mercy when the hurricanes came. My mother was very tasteful, but at the same time, she could be quite ostentatious. If it glittered, to her, it had to be gold.”
“So, you don’t like the chandelier. Do you like this table?”
“Not particularly.”
“Do you usually eat in this room?”
“I suppose.”
“But why, if you don’t like it?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve always taken meals here, so I don’t even think about it.”
“We can eat outside, you know. I like the breeze. And I like to hear the crickets when it gets dark.”
He smiled. “Dinner outside. I think that will be nice. Might be a few mosquitoes, with all the rain we’ve had.”
“That’s okay. I’m not afraid of mosquitoes.”
“Hmm. You don’t seem to be afraid of very much, Souci Alexander.”
Lewis called Mrs. Moore, who helped move the dinner to the bamboo patio table on the back verandah. It was nice being outside. The sun had gone almost all the way down and a strong breeze blew. Being up in the Blue Mountains reminded me of nights in Stepney; nights when it would get so cool, you could see your breath dancing in front of you.
“This house is very old,” Lewis said. “There are a lot more oddities than that giant chandelier and table. There’s a cellar underneath. Actually, cellar isn’t the right word. It’s not like we have wine aging down there. It’s more a passageway that at some point, someone went through a lot of trouble to build.”
“Where is it?”
“There’s a pantry in the kitchen where flour and sugar and such things are stored. Somewhere back there is a door that leads down to the passageway. And that passageway connects with the main house, which is at least a couple of miles away. I guess that underground trail made it easier for people to have their little trysts without being noticed.”
“Have you ever gone down there?”
“When I was a boy. It was very dark and damp, but it still functioned just fine. I gave my mother quite a scare being gone all that time. If she couldn’t see me, she couldn’t control me, and she couldn’t have that.”
“I never really heard somebody talk about their mother the way you do,” I said. Lewis didn’t respond, but I continued nonetheless. “Whatever happened, it must have been pretty bad between you two.”
Still, he said nothing. He just poked at his food with his fork.
“You don’t got to talk about it,” I said. I sighed deeply and traced my finger along the edge of my plate. “You know, when I was little, me and me friend Michele used to dream of living in a house like this and being rich like you.”
“I don’t want to disappoint you, but I’m not rich. You think this house is grand because you’re from Stepney, from a small house on a hill.” He pushed his plate out of the way and leaned back in his chair.A moth flew a little too close to his face, and he swatted at it.
“To the people living five in a ten by twelve shack, you are rich. True, I’m better off than most people in Jamaica are. But if you were to see one of those mansions in England or America, you wouldn’t think the same.”
“Maybe I got different standards from you, but I know what poor is, and that’s not you.”
“Not by far. But there’s a huge valley between rich and poor. There’s not a great deal of money in my bank account, just what I’ve been able to earn from lecturing and from my books. Whatever little savings fund my brother and I had, my father used it many years ago to try and make a go at his business.” He paused to take a sip of his soursop juice. The pulp had separated from the liquid, so he picked up a spoon and stirred before taking another sip.
“But I can’t complain. I’m better off than most. I’m very comfortable. I have two cars that, although they might be impressive in name, I’ve paid very little for. The white BMW I use, I got out of an auto body yard near the cement factory off Windward Road. The car Mr. Moore uses for his errands and such, it was my brother’s.”
“But this house is so big.”
“There are nine rooms upstairs and you’ve seen most of this floor. But aside from the renovations my parents did almost a lifetime ago, we didn’t pay a cent for this house. And the land is only extensive because it’s unclaimed mountain land. It’s a lot less than that of some cane farmers in Black River.”
“But Ms. Eldermeyer said you went to school in America. Most kids here have to worry about having enough uniforms to last the week. If I didn’t have a uniform when I was little, me auntie had to keep me out of school until she could clean one and hang it out to dry.”
“Souci,” he said so softly, it sounded more like a whisper or a sigh than a word, “I’m not trying to compare myself to anyone. I’m not trying to equate what’s lacking in my life with what’s lacking in the lives of most Jamaicans because compared to them, I’m as wealthy as the richest of kings. But I’m trying to make you understand that mine was not as ideal a life as it might appear to you. I was not sent off to school because my family could afford it. Quite the contrary. William had just finished school in England at the time, and my father’s business was going under. The thing is, we were then, and are now still considered of the upper-middle class, even though our money does not run deep. We’re upper-middle class more so because of our pedigree and my family’s political standing than how much we might have in the bank. That was how it was years ago, and unfortunately, to an extent, that’s still how it is today.” He leaned into the table, clasped his hands together and brought them up, as if he were about to begin praying. The crickets, which had begun their songs, sounded like a choir backing up his words.
“When I was twelve, my father opened a law firm with a friend, Benjamin Carlysle. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because Benjamin was Douglas’ father. Over the years, he and my father lost almost every dime. We had several servants in the early days. Most ended up being laid off because we couldn’t even afford to feed ourselves. Only Mr. and Mrs. Moore remained. She was actually known as Miss Thompson then. My mother adored me, too much if you ask me. Still, the option of me remaining here for school was never even brought up.”
“But if that’s all you could afford … the schools here that bad?”
“No. But children of the middle and upper classes just don’t complete their higher education in the islands. It just doesn’t look good to the rest of ‘society.’ And my mother thought it best I left Jamaica for a while, to clear my head. She believed I had picked up some bad habits along the way.” His voice sounded far away.
Mrs. Moore reappeared to clear the dishes from the table. She walked back into the house, then quickly returned with two dessert plates.
“Lewis, if you didn’t have to marry me for this campaign, would you be married to Agnes Gooding right now?”
He looked deeply into my eyes, which once again made me believe that he could read minds.
“I think many people misunderstand Agnes. She’s a wonderful woman; one of the most focused people I know. She’s smart. She’s creative. She has a degree in the arts. She’s written cookbooks and dozens of articles on the lack of importance placed on art in the Caribbean. She’s also willing to give her heart completely and unconditionally to those she cares for.” His face actually lit up when he spoke of her.
“She has faults just like the rest of us, but after a while, they seem less severe. You have to understand the life she has lived to understand her. It hasn’t been easy, and she’s put up with so many of my episodes. Still, she’s always there to cushion my falls.” He shook his head slowly.
“Agnes deserves, at the very least, to get back all the attention and love she gives. She’s very special to me. As
far as us being married now, that’s impossible. Agnes already has a husband, who happens to be a very esteemed New York-based surgeon.”
“Well, if she didn’t have a husband and you weren’t trying to become prime minister, is she the person you would marry?”
“You should eat your dessert,” he said. “It’s fantastic. Mrs. Moore takes bananas and browns them in a pan with butter and a little brown sugar. Then she floats a little rum on top and puts it over fresh baked banana bread. Go on, try it … It’s wonderful, isn’t it?… By the way, I love your hair like that.”
“Really? Mrs. Eldermeyer had Marcia curl it up. You don’t think it’s curled up too tight?”
He shook his head. “I think it’s just perfect.”
I felt my cheeks getting warm. I bent forward and leaned in on my elbows, but thought I heard the voice of God. It was only Mrs. Eldermeyer’s teachings creeping into my conscience, but I removed my elbows from the table and sat upright nonetheless.
“You never did answer me about Agnes,” I said quietly.
“You are persistent, aren’t you? As far as marriage is concerned, one with no strings attached, there needs to be compatibility, timing, many other factors. Let’s just say that for me, all the factors really haven’t come together.”
“So, if Agnes wasn’t married …”
“But she is.” He didn’t really yell, but his voice was very firm. I flinched a little. I suppose he noticed my reaction, and his next words were softer.
“You already know a little about my parents and brother. I do have a sister. Her name is Helen. She lives with her husband and their two children in Leeds, which is in England. I was born in February of thirty-three, the middle child. I graduated law school at the age of twenty-four and served two terms in Parliament during the sixties. That should bring you up to date on my life.”
“What about James Alvarez?” I asked. “If you don’t mind.”
“I respect him better than all others. James is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. His opinions in Parliament were always nothing short of brilliant. He speaks easily of the problems Jamaica faces in its independence and of what he believes to be solutions. I have always admired him. But, enough about other people. I plan to start campaigning and trying to get more of the voters in my corner after the holidays. I think you might be able to help me with that.”
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