The Bone Readers

by Jacob Ross

  I imagined her sitting in her veranda at night, on her plastic stool, looking out onto the road with the terrible anxiety that now distorted her face. I understood that; I’d had my share of waiting too.

  My mind drifted back to the eleven months I spent in England, in that place of high white walls and numerous black-framed windows we referred to as ‘The Lab’. There, they taught us a language meant to rid us of all feelings. Everything was procedure. You walked into a crime scene, secured it from every possible contamination, including yourself. Then you ran a fine-tooth comb through it, which could last for weeks because – short of a confession – evidence was everything.

  My instructor told us that a time would come when we would take it all for granted. Unravelling a crime would be just a job like an electrician’s – a wire breaks, you do your best to fix it. No difference. There isn’t a village or a city in the world, he said, where murder doesn’t happen. It was all about not feeling.

  I turned away from Iona. Miss Stanislaus glanced at me. Her hand paused over the mouth of her purse, then she snapped it shut.

  ‘You got a photo of Nathan?’ I asked, ‘One… before… erm…’

  ‘Me and Missa Digger leavin now,’ Miss Stanislaus said. ‘See y’all next Sunday.’

  Back on the road I started the car and sat with the engine running. The stretch of asphalt ahead was bright white in the afternoon sun. Heat waves shimmered above it. I switched on the aircon. Miss Stanislaus reached out and switched it off.

  That surprised and irritated me.

  ‘Nuffing wrong with sweating,’ she said. ‘What you find out?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Nathan.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘Well, he very neat and tidy for a fella.’

  ‘For a fella,’ she echoed, chuckling.

  ‘How else you want me to say it?’

  ‘Go ahead, Missa Digger. I listening.’

  ‘He think a lot of himself: nice clothes, two sticks of deodorant; tweezers – how many fellas have tweezers by their mirror? Mirror take up pride of place near the window so he could check out them pimples proper. Dictionary of Correct English Usage is the only book in his room. That make me think that he don’t feel he cut out for no small-island life. Ambitious, I believe. He can’t afford a concrete house, but he make the one he live in the prettiest in the village. Skin-toning cream and skin-bleaching soap. What kinda fella use that? He prefer to be a white man perhaps – a local Yankee who believe he born in the wrong place.’

  ‘You ask for a photo of Nathan. Why?’

  I shrugged, ‘Procedure.’

  ‘In all dis time y’all never ask for a picture of the boy?’ She was staring at me hard.

  ‘I wasn’t handling the case.’

  ‘Why you want a photo now?’

  ‘A pusson want to know what he’s like; not so?’

  ‘But you jus done tell me what he’s like.’

  ‘Like I said, Miss Lady, is procedure.’

  She looked out the window, her attention drawn to a flock of white egrets above the blue-grey hills in the distance. ‘No wonder y’all never find Nathan.’

  ‘Ever cross your mind he might’ve run off to Trinidad and said to hell with everybody?’

  ‘What make you think so – dis?’ She dropped the receipts on the dashboard.

  I looked at the slips of paper, then at her, her hands resting quiet on the clasp of her bag.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘All of them in Trinidad currency and each one got a different date roughly four weeks apart.’

  ‘And dat mean?’

  ‘The youngfella accustom travelling to and from Trinidad, average once a month. Had a lil business buying women stuff: shoes, handbags, cosmetics – you saw the stuff in the suitcase – and selling for a profit here.’ I pointed at the last receipt. ‘Last time Nathan was in Trinidad was August fifth, three years nine months ago. Maybe the last time he went to Trinidad he decided to stay.’

  Miss Stanislaus dropped the receipts in her bag. ‘Or, Missa Digger, mebbe somebody in Trinidad make de purchase for Nathan, then post the goods along with the receipt. People do that all the time too. What I sayin is, you dunno for sure if Nathan went to Trinidad.’

  She pulled a tissue from her bag and fanned herself. ‘Missa Digger, you kin tell me why we still here sittin in your car by de govament road?’

  12

  I didn’t trust Malan’s smile when we got back to the office. He had laid out a jug of cold mauby on a tray. The glass was sitting on a napkin. A decanter of ice stood beside it. Lisa told me afterwards that Malan went out and bought the tray and glass himself.

  He hardly waited for Miss Stanislaus to sit before placing the tray in front of her.

  She nodded her thanks and turned to him. ‘Missa Malan, we have to report to you; not so?’

  Malan drew up a chair in front of us.

  ‘Yes, talk it through first. Digger will write the report later.’

  Malan had switched modes. There was no pretence here. When it came to this business, Malan was a different animal altogether.

  The week I returned from England, I found one of Chilman’s handwritten notes to the Commissioner explaining, in his usual staccato sentences, why Malan had to be the person to run the office.

  Not stupid. Loves the job. Mind works in leaps. Will break the law to catch the lawless. Loyal to nothing and no-one but the department.

  Maureen, Chilman’s secretary of thirty years – who knew him better than his wife – would have translated it all into Civil Service language.

  I described our visit to Miss Iona as briefly as I could. When I finished, Miss Stanislaus tapped her bag. The afternoon light through the window highlighted the fine mesh of her eyebrows and her purple lipstick. Side-lit, she looked neither old nor young; male nor female – just a glowing face in which the only thing that held you was the brown glitter of her eyes.

  ‘I don’t mind people tellin lie, Missa Malan,’ she said. ‘Lyin not the crime. The crime is whatever the lie is hidin. Miss Iona not lyin, she jus not tellin de truth. She know Nathan never left de islan, but she dunno where he is. She want us to find im; but she frighten to know what we goin to find.’

  ‘She told you that?’ Malan queried.

  Miss Stanislaus shook her head. ‘Nuh. Is the way she talk bout him. Like he not with us no more. H’was a good boy; he use to like to look neat an clean. Use to love to dress up. And yunno, I believe what she believe. Nathan somewhere here.’ She gestured as if Nathan was hiding in the room. ‘How I so sure? Well, it was that lil leather bag where he keep his costlymetics that the Canadian teacher-friend give him. That bag always pack-up with Nathan hand-cream and comb and finger-clippers. The way I unnerstand it, if Nathan never leave for work widout his comb and clippers, ain’ got no way he goin leave Camaho widout them either. Besides, that night he dress in short-pants and sandals. Soft-foot fella like Nathan in short-pants an sandals, I don’t think he going nowhere far.’

  Malan was staring at some point beyond the window while Miss Stanislaus spoke. I knew that gaze. He was memorising every word. In a few months he would still be able to quote her down to the pauses in her sentences. And if he had to remind her of those words, it would usually be in reproach or retribution.

  Malan sprang to his feet. ‘Okay, people, if y’all don know it yet, we have a case.’

  He strode into his office. I heard the clatter of keys. My heart stepped up tempo.

  He came back with a small box, sat down, placed it on Miss Stanislaus’s desk and opened it in front of her.

  The gun looked stark against the red bed of velvet. It was the smallest we had – a Ruger. Malan loved that little revolver, boasting that he’d walked through many inter-island airports with it and never got detected. On his off-duty days he wore it in a specially designed holster just above his crotch. Mercifully, I thought, he wasn’t showing off the holster too.

  ‘This, Miss Lady, is ah LCR.’ He hefted the weapon and r
an a finger along the muzzle. ‘Thirteen and a half ounces – less than a pound ov sugar. Six-an-a-half-inches of polymer and aluminium. Thirty-eight calibre. Five rounds.’

  Malan settled the little gun in his palm with the snout pointing at his chest. ‘The kind of bullet it pack is called a Plus P.’ He flicked a wrist and emptied the chamber. The five bullets lay like bright metallic eggs in the other hand. ‘You can’t go wrong with this after we finish training you.’ He laid the weapon in front of Miss Stanislaus. Of course, she wasn’t meant to take it. Not yet. It was simply Malan’s way of calling a truce between them.

  I watched Miss Stanislaus trace with darting eyes the rubberised handgrip, the curve up to the rear sight, then the short pig-snout of the barrel. Her eyes halted on the silver trigger. ‘Won’t be nerecerry, fank you.’ She pressed her back into the chair.

  The smile left Malan’s face. I could see that he was hurt. That gun was the best peace-offering he could make, and Miss Stanislaus had turned him down.

  I think she realised it. She picked up the weapon with a wad of tissue, held it well away from her before resting it on the desk.

  She was more enthusiastic about the cell phone he handed her.

  ‘Standard issue,’ he said. ‘Walkie-talkie went out with Chilman and all dem ole fellas. So,’ he turned to Miss Stanislaus, ‘that mean you got to see Iona again and when you see her next time…’

  ‘I go to church with her,’ Miss Stanislaus said.

  ‘I was goin to say you get heavy with the woman. That’s what I was going to say!’

  Miss Stanislaus stood up. ‘I goin join dat church ov hers.’

  ‘Join!’ Malan looked at me. ‘That Iona woman is a Fire Baptist, not so?’

  I said nothing.

  Malan turned to Miss Stanislaus. ‘Miss Lady, is protection; you sure you want nothing to do with dis gun?’

  ‘Like I done tell you, Missa Malan, is not nerecerry.’

  They locked eyes for what seemed like forever. The afternoon sun cut a bright decisive path across the floor between them.

  It was Malan who broke the silence. He smiled that twisted little smile of his, ‘You got no choice, Miss Lady. Is what the job require.’

  Miss Stanislaus dragged out a tissue from her bag then snapped it shut. ‘Nuh!’

  ‘I’ll train her,’ I said. I took the gun, laid it in the case, eased it into my top drawer and locked it. Miss Stanislaus twisted her mouth and shook her head at me.

  13

  What Miss Stanislaus didn’t tell us was that Nathan had adopted his mother’s religion. What I didn’t tell anyone in the office was that I knew all about Fire Baptists.

  In that complex hierarchy of Deacons and Mothers and Teachers; of Shepherds and Nurses and Captains; Surveyors and Healers and Watchmen, my grandmother who mothered me, was a Prover. She was a discerner of truth. A decipherer of souls.

  She was the one who rooted out the false believers from the committed, sifted through their visions, their dreams and revelations and decided which were to be believed, and what were pure invented lies. And when the spirit seized The Flock and threw them thrashing on the earth, my granny picked out the pretenders from the truly possessed.

  My old woman was a demon hunter, I told Miss Stanislaus. She was a chastiser of stray souls, and I, along with everyone else, was terrified of her.

  Nathan was a Pointer, Miss Stanislaus said, did I know what a Pointer was?

  ‘The Sealer of Hands, Miss Stanislaus. Most times it is a woman who got that job. But sometimes you have a fella. He shepherd the mourners on the Mourning Ground.’

  She was dangling on my every word, so I decided to take my time.

  ‘Mourning Ground is a form of cleansing, although I don’t see what clean about lying on cold earth with a stone for a pillow. Pointers look after the Mourners cuz they stay there between seven and twenty-one days. Without food. My granny call that fasting; me – I call it starving. You want me to tell you about the Candle Service, the Flower Service and the Pilgrimage my Granny used to drag me to when I was a lil boy?’

  ‘No, fank you.’ Miss Stanislaus laughed.

  We left for the church early Sunday morning. It was one of those days when the sunburnt hills in the far distance looked just a hop and a skip away.

  Miss Iona, she said, would present her as a friend who wanted to convert. I was to be Miss Stanislaus’s ‘mister’.

  The church was hidden away in a place called Pwin. I saw the flags first, high on bamboo poles, fretting in the wind. The car struggled to get to it on the narrow dirt road, gouged as it was by years of rain and neglect.

  I pointed past the old Volvo car in the yard, at the windowless concrete hut that sat just behind a larger wooden building. ‘The Mourning Ground. The calabash of flowers by the doorway tell you that.’

  They’d built The Children of the Unicorn Spiritual Baptist Church at the edge of the swamp where the rivers that ran through the valleys of Old Hope and Morne Delice met the sea and died. The odours of incense and melting candle-wax were as familiar to me as those of my own bedroom.

  A flock of women surrounded Miss Stanislaus, their heads tied in red and blue and yellow scarves, their white dresses flaring off their narrow hips as they shuffled around her, chirping like nighttime crickets. To look at these people holding her hands and smiling, a person would think they were first cousins or newly discovered family. Women, I thought, they all the same. Dunno what they see in one another.

  I watched the two Watchmen watching me while the women fussed around Miss Stanislaus. The Watchmen held their knotted whips against their legs. I held the gaze of the younger with the pointed beard. He winked at me and smiled. The other – clean-shaven, bald as a polished stone – was staring at Miss Stanislaus. With her frilly white dress and cream handbag she stood out among the other women like an egg in a calabash of stones. I imagined her becoming like them: thin as a sliver of dried bamboo, her lovely brown eyes gone dark and dreamy by seasons of prostration in that little concrete hut. I felt – for the first time – a quiver of dread and possessiveness for this woman who confounded everything I knew about Camahoan women.

  There were children in the churchyard too, all standing in a corner of the narrow, stone-packed space, staring at Miss Stanislaus with the honest curiosity of children. When Miss Stanislaus waved at them, they became an agitated little flock of twisted shirts and skirts, and wide uncertain smiles.

  A tall man walked out of the long wooden building – a big brass bell in one hand, in the other, a heavy leather-covered Bible that had clearly suffered many preacherly beatings. There was not a person on the island who had not heard of Deacon Bello, Healer and Diviner, whom politicians visited in secret to have their misfortunes fixed and their excesses remain undiscovered. Miss Stanislaus turned to him and bowed. But for the slight lifting of his eyebrows he might not have seen her.

  Miss Stanislaus eased herself away from the women and walked over to the children. She lifted a little girl and caressed the child’s small face. ‘I got a lil one pretty just like you. What’s your name?’

  Clucking like a delighted hen, she picked up another. ‘And who this one belong to? Cuz you sooo sweet I want to take you home.’

  ‘Dat’s Millie baby,’ one of the women told her.

  A young girl just outside the group nodded shyly at her and quickly lowered her eyes.

  Miss Stanislaus pointed at another. ‘And dat lil man? He belong to Miss Millie too?’

  ‘Dat’s Amos,’ the girl replied. ‘His mother not here. She lef’ him with us and gone off to Trinidad.’

  I could not keep my eyes off the boy they called Amos. His mouth was soft and fluid, his lips glossed over with spittle. Big, watery eyes that never settled on anything for long. I couldn’t help wishing he had a grandmother who would steer him to a place of quietness.

  Miss Stanislaus must have seen the agitation in Amos too. She rested a hand on the boy’s head and looked into his eyes; then she kissed him on
his forehead.

  One of the women took Miss Stanislaus’s hand. ‘Come meet The Mother.’ They urged her towards the back of the building.

  Deacon Bello was still in the doorway of the church, sleeves rolled up to his elbow. A large wrap of fabric sat on his head like a multicoloured hornet’s nest.

  I’ve heard women speak of Bello in a tone that would unsettle any man they lived with. There was a sheen to him. A person got the impression of limitlessness when they looked into those large dark eyes of his. He was wearing his robe – blue like an Easter sea. His body filled it out completely. The famous staff with which, they said, he beat the hell out of the demons that attacked his flock, was leaning against the doorway. He’d angled his head in such a way that it looked as if he were inspecting the flags at the top of the poles. I wasn’t fooled. I could see by the whites of his eyes that they were fixed on me.

  I lowered my head and genuflected the way my grandmother taught me all those years ago.

  A rich voice – thick and dark like molasses – reached me. ‘You a Believer?

  ‘My granny was,’ I said.

  ‘I know she?’ With a quick convulsion of the hand, he opened the giant Bible.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘How come?’ Bello hadn’t raised his voice but I heard the challenge in it. There was not a Fire Baptist family on this island that Bello wouldn’t know, or know of.

  ‘She gone to glory,’ I said. ‘Long time.’

  ‘What kill she?’

  ‘All flesh is dust,’ I replied.

  Bello flashed bright white teeth at me, turned and disappeared through the gaping doorway.

  The Mother emerged from the back of the building, her hands dripping with soapsuds. Quick, dark-brown eyes took in everything. She was broader than her husband and held herself like royalty, gliding over the rough yard in a white headwrap and a flowing dress to match. Miss Stanislaus looked like a little dressed-up doll beside her.