by Annie Bryant
When we were finished, Selvin helped us clear the table. Once, when he and I were in the kitchen, he pulled me aside and whispered in a low voice not to mind Cousin Cecil. “He used to be very pleasant, make plenty joke and thing, but him get a bit touchy since his wife died,” he explained. I could understand that, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with him.
Grandma Ruby waved off dessert, which was a custard smothered in coconut-flavored cream. How could she do that? She insisted on sipping her coconut water instead. Big mistake. The custard was, to quote my mother, “simply delightful.”
Grandma and Cousin Cecil went to sit on the veranda while the rest of us washed the dinner things and put them away. No dishwasher here. Water was piped in from a large tank at the back of the house. I was learning the lay of the land fast. Selvin made things really fun by singing reggae tunes, and Olivia and I danced around the kitchen. I showed her some of Maeve’s dance moves, and she showed me some local Jamaican moves. How cool would I be back in Boston?! I could teach all the BSG some Jamaican dance styles when I got home.
Afterward, Olivia and I went to watch television, but almost right after we turned it on, all the lights went out. “Ooo!” Olivia wailed in a funny voice. She made a spooky face, and I was forced to throw my pillow at her when she wouldn’t stop. Major pillow fight. We were laughing so loud that we failed to see Cousin Cecil standing in the doorway. “Olivia, “he voiced sternly. “You shush now and stop all this silliness.” My feelings for Cousin Cecil just got worse. I was going to have to talk to Grandma Ruby about whether it was the right thing to do to hang out here for our whole vacation.
Once Upon a Time…
“Power cut!” Selvin exclaimed as Olivia and I walked into the living room.
“We got a big wind out there,” announced Cousin Cecil as he quickly lit two lamps. They were weird, old-looking kerosene lamps with the words “Home, Sweet Home” written on the shades. He put one in the living room and one in the kitchen.
“Are we having a hurricane?” I asked nervously as I heard the shutters rattle.
“No, no, Katani,” Cousin Cecil said in a softer voice. “Just a little Caribbean wind. It come sometime. Nothing to worry about.”
I looked up at him and thought I saw the beginnings of a tiny smile. My cousin was very confusing. Sometimes nice, sometimes grumpy. Cousin Cecil was definitely going to take some getting used to.
“I was going to town, guess I pass now.” Selvin complained. “I don’t know what a gwine happen with dem lights.”
“Well, I for one find the wind very relaxing,” said Grandma Ruby as she headed back out to the veranda. We all followed her and sat outside in semidarkness.
Beyond the house it was very dark. Every now and then I could see little flickers of light flying around. “The fireflies are pretty,” I commented to Olivia.
She laughed. “Girl, we call those peenie-wallies.”
Then it was my turn to laugh. “Peenie-wallies,” I repeated. The words people used in Jamaica were definitely fun.
Whenever we were quiet, I could hear the strange noises of night creatures. Olivia told me what they were. Croaking lizards—ugh! An owl or two! Crickets and tree toads! I hoped they kept their distance. Meeting Spotty was enough wildlife for me in one day. Once, I thought I heard something like a big animal moving through the banana trees, which were not very far away.
“Do you have any…any…like, wild animals in Jamaica?” I asked.
“You mean like lions and tigers?” Selvin laughed. “No. Not even monkeys. It’s only if Spotty get away.”
I shuddered at the idea of Spotty being loose. “Doesn’t he get locked up?” I asked.
He and Olivia collapsed with laughter, but Cousin Cecil told them to behave, as if Selvin were also a child. “I’ll tell you some other time. Not tonight,” Cousin Cecil replied.
Olivia and Selvin kept snickering. Obviously I had asked something silly. Maybe Spotty was an escapee or something.
“Dad, since there is no TV, why don’t you tell us one of your stories?” Olivia asked.
“Yes,” Selvin agreed enthusiastically. “When you don’t have no light, you tell Anansi story, or…”—he paused to snicker—“Spotty story.”
Olivia began to sing, and Selvin joined her.
“Moonshine tonight
Come mek we dance and sing
Moonshine tonight
Come mek we play ring ding.”
Whoa! Olivia could really sing! Selvin was singing a sort of second part, and then—I could hardly believe it—Grandma joined in.
“Me deh rock so
You deh rock so
Under banyan tree
Me deh rock so
You deh rock so
Under banyan tree.”
I am pretty sure my mouth was open in surprise.
“You know that song?” I asked Grandma.
“My mother used to sing it for me when I was a little girl.” She sighed, and there was that choked-up sound in her voice again. “I remembered it when they started singing.”
I think Cousin Cecil understood that it was an emotional moment for her. “Well,” he said. “There’s no moon, and it’s a long time since I’ve told any Anansi stories….”
“Not since Mom died,” Olivia whispered to me.
“Who’s Anansi?” I asked.
“Him a spiiiiiider,” Selvin answered, wiggling his fingers in my direction and making a goofy face. Olivia and I both burst out laughing.
“They say all the stories in the world belong to Anansi,” Olivia explained when she caught her breath.
“I’d like to hear one,” Grandma joined in encouragingly.
Cousin Cecil thought for a minute. “Well, now. Let me see. I know a story that doesn’t have Anansi in it, but I think it’s one that ol’ spider would like….”
“The River Mumma,” by Cousin Cecil
“In Jamaica, we don’t have a lot of big rivers. You can go rafting down the Martha Brae in Trelawny, or on the Rio Grande in Portland, and boats can travel for a distance on the Black River in St. Elizabeth, but that’s probably it. Most of the rivers are quite small. In the rainy season, of course, they can become raging torrents, but generally they just run quietly, minding their own business. Some of them, though, do have places where the water is like a large pool, and these can be very deep.
“In the rural areas, some villages don’t have piped water, so water is fetched from the river to do daily chores. Usually that’s the children’s job when they are old enough, especially the boy children, since they are stronger.
“Most times, the boys in the village would go to the river at the same time each day, have a swim, play a game or two or just chat, before returning home with their buckets of water. This is Orrin’s story.”
Orrin was a young man living in one such village. Although they owned a few acres of land, his family was very poor. He and his father farmed the land without much success. He was fed up with his life and wanted to run away to the nearest city where he thought he would be able to make a better living. Since he had no brothers and sisters, there was no one else to go to the river and that remained his task, even after he left school. He had outgrown going to play with the other lads, so now he went alone, usually around midday, when few people wanted to walk in the hot sun to fetch water. Often he sat on the bank of the river fretting and wondering how he could make his life better.
One day, he was feeling particularly sorry for himself. He sat by the riverbank, bucket at his feet, wishing there was some way he could get his hands on some money. If he had some money, he could buy fertilizer for the crops; he could get better tools and hire help and plant more crops.
He could see it in his mind’s eye: a thriving farm, his father sitting on the veranda, feeling good, and perhaps presents for everyone in the family.
Orrin sighed as his foot kicked the bucket and he came back to reality. He picked it up wearily, then paused. Out in the riverbed, there h
ad been a flash of brilliant light, much more brilliant than the sun.
What could it be? He rubbed his eyes and looked out into the middle of the river where the sparkling water flowed deep blue and peaceful. Then he gasped. There on the rock…there, sitting on the large rock in the middle of the water…could it be…
“River Mumma!” cried Selvin, startling all of us. I had been so wrapped up in the story, I was almost surprised to find that I was still on the veranda in the semidarkness.
“That’s what country people call a mermaid,” Olivia told me, in a soft voice.
“Thank you very much,” Cousin Cecil spoke sternly. “May I continue?”
I sighed and sat back in the chair. Yikes! Cousin Cecil was so uptight.
“Please do,” said Grandma Ruby.
Yes, it was a River Mumma, or, as Olivia explained, a mermaid. Now all his life, from when he was a little boy, Orrin had heard about this fabulous creature who lived in the depths of the water. Every now and then she would come to the surface, sit on a rock, and comb her long hair with a golden comb. If something frightened her and she left the comb behind and you found it, you would have to return it or she would call your name forever until you came and returned the comb.
Orrin had always believed this was just another folktale to amuse children, but here she was in living color, sunning herself on the rock and combing her long, long hair. Her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her face.
He was so surprised that the bucket fell out of his hand and clattered against the river stones. Quick as a flash, so fast he could barely see her movements, the River Mumma dived into the water. But Orrin saw that she had left her comb behind. It shone and sparkled and glittered with a thousand different rays from the gold and jewels with which it was made.
He wasted no time. Quickly he waded through the water; then, as it got deeper, he swam to the rock and retrieved the comb. Back on the bank, he turned it over and over in his hand. A few strands of the River Mumma’s long hair were stuck in it. He took them out, folded them carefully and put them in his shirt pocket. He couldn’t believe his good luck. The comb must be worth a fortune, he thought. It was decorated with a lot of beautiful gems; rubies, diamonds, emeralds. Though he had never seen jewels like these before, he knew that what he had in his hand was almost priceless. This was the answer to all his problems. He would take it into the city and sell it to a jeweler. He was sure he would get enough money to make a better life for himself and his father.
“He didn’t remember that she would call to him forever?” I asked, then put my hand over my mouth as I realized I was interrupting.
“No,” Cousin Cecil answered. “He was dazzled by all those jewels. He forgot about the legend that said the River Mumma would come back for her comb and would call to him until he returned it.”
Suddenly, the electricity returned, and we were bathed in the bright light from the veranda bulb. Blinking, we looked around at one another, as if we had been in a different world and were suddenly pulled back to this one.
“Right!” Cousin Cecil said. “That’s enough for tonight. I’ll continue the story tomorrow night.”
“Oh, no!” I groaned. “I hate cliff-hangers. Now I’ll be thinking about what happened to Orrin all night long.”
“Please, Dad, you can’t leave us hanging,” Olivia begged. “I never heard that one before. It’s still early.”
“Tomorrow night,” he promised. He had returned from being the mysterious storyteller to his usual stern self. “Besides, I want to have a little chat with Ruby before she turns in.”
An Invitation from Olivia
“Your dad is quite a storyteller,” I remarked to Olivia when we were getting ready for bed. “I bet he could go around to schools and everything. Kids love those kinds of tales. You know—the ones that are a little scary, but not too much,” I explained as I climbed under the covers.
“Yeah,” she replied. “My mom used to tell him she was going to start collecting his stories and get them published. He stopped telling stories after she died. Tonight, he was almost like his old self. Good thing you came. Him used to laugh a lot before. Maybe him laugh more now.”
Poor Cousin Cecil. I had never lost anybody close to me, and I didn’t even want to think about such sad things.
I wasn’t feeling sleepy, and neither was Olivia, it seemed. This was a chance to get to know her better, so I asked her about her school.
“I love school!” she said. Her enthusiasm for everything kept reminding me of Maeve. “We have a three-day holiday from school this week. And on Monday, we’re celebrating Black History Month. My class is making a presentation on Marcus Garvey. You know who he is, right?” I shook my head. “He’s one of our national heroes!” Olivia explained. “He grew up in Jamaica more than a hundred years ago, and then he moved to New York to fight for civil rights. Anyway, I’m in the class presentation. You should come,” she told me. “My friends would love to meet you.”
I thought about it for a moment. Going to school on my vacation wasn’t exactly what I had pictured for this trip, but it might be kind of interesting to see what school was like in another place.
“Yes!” she said, clapping her hands and raising her fists in the air. It was a gesture I would see her make whenever she was excited or very happy about anything from then on.
Just as I was about to close my eyes I thought of Spotty and laughed out loud. “Are you crazy, laughing in your sleep?” she teased.
“I’m just thinking about that crazy Spotty,” I told her.
“He’s quite harmless,” she assured me. “Him just bumptious and show-off.” Olivia moved easily between English and patois. But I noticed that around her dad she only spoke English. Selvin and Enid also spoke patois. My ear was getting a little used to their pretty accents and I could mostly follow what they were saying without asking them to repeat too often. Soon I fell into a deep sleep with the sounds of patois, a vision of the River Mumma, and Olivia’s singing in my head.
CHAPTER 6
Making the Rounds
When I woke up the next morning, bright sunlight was streaming through the open window as I was remembering a lovely dream about blue water and shells and pretty little fish swimming around my ankles. It took me a few moments to realize that I was in Jamaica at my Cousin Cecil’s farm, high up in the mountains…far from a beach.
Olivia’s bed was already made and I heard sounds and smells coming from the kitchen, so I quickly made my bed and got ready for the day. I decided to wear my favorite tie-dyed T-shirt and my cutoff jeans. I also slipped on a pair of gold hoops. I mean, just because I was staying in the country didn’t mean I couldn’t glam up a bit.
As I fried my frizz head with a straightening iron, I wondered why Grandma Ruby hadn’t woken me up, until I remembered that Selvin had said he would pick her up at five o’clock to take her to the bakery. It was way past that, I was sure.
I went into the kitchen, where Enid was stirring a pot on the stove. “Good morning,” I greeted her. “Where is everybody?”
“Olivia say to tell you that she soon come. She gone look after the goats. When she come, you will eat breakfast. You want some tea?”
I told her I would wait for Olivia. I hoped she wouldn’t be too long, as I was starving. I went onto the veranda and looked around. We were too far from the road for me to see anything, but I could hear vehicles and now and then loud talking as people went about their business. Lots of selling and talk of bananas going on. A little gossip here and there about some woman who sounded mean. Guess there were Queens of Mean everywhere. In my school we had Anna and Joline—those girls had nothing good to say about anybody.
When Olivia came in, she was deliriously happy. One of her goats, Lily, had given birth to two kids. She had put them into a smaller pen away from the others.
“How’s Spotty?” I asked sarcastically.
She grinned. “He’s okay. I keep the kids away in case he gets any funny ideas. He’s a strang
e one. Once, he wouldn’t allow anyone near the kids, even the mother. Don’t know what that crazy goat expected those babies to do.”
She went to change her clothes, and then we sat down in the kitchen to a breakfast of boiled green bananas and salted mackerel cooked in coconut milk with lots of onions and tomatoes and pepper. Enid called it “run down.” All the meats here were cooked with a lot of seasonings. There was also a hot drink they called “chocolate tea”—a thick, muddy kind of cocoa. I didn’t much care for this breakfast. I really wanted cereal, or a nice big piece of Banana Bliss, but I tried to eat enough to be polite.
I could hear Grandma’s voice in my head saying, Katani, at least try what’s being offered. Grandma Ruby was definitely old-school about manners and things. But fish for breakfast? Hello! I couldn’t wait to tell Charlotte about this. She’d be impressed that I actually took more than one bite and didn’t utter one word of complaint. Charlotte said if you were going to be a world traveler, you had to be open to all sorts of new things. Even things that seemed a little yucky or weird.
Just as we finished eating, Selvin drove up. “Ruby could use some help now,” he announced. “You can come with me when I am making deliveries later. And wear your swimsuits underneath,” he added mysteriously.
At last, I thought. Beach! My kind of action!
Bakery Bliss
Aunt Faith’s bakery was about a mile away from the farm. I was kind of shocked when I saw the home of Nana’s Banana Bliss. You know how you can imagine things and then they turn out to be way different? I guess I was thinking it would be like Montoya’s bakery back home. Not even close.
The Bliss Bakery was a rectangular, bright turquoise brick building, narrow in front and long at the sides. Inside, there was no place for customers to sit and enjoy the baked products like at Montoya’s. Selvin saw my look of disappointment and explained: “This strictly a place where they bake Banana Bliss. Then we drive all the Bliss to the fancy resorts. The customers eat it up.” He laughed at his own joke.