On Christmas Day, he called his former wife and he learned that his daughter had left for Canada three weeks earlier. She had intended to call, but the last months had been a flurry of activity with foreign exchange and student visa and arranging for a place to stay. Orbits was deeply disappointed, but he told his former wife he understood, and it was okay, and he was happy her daughter had left because of the upsurge of crime in the island and because there were many other options for her in Canada. His wife remained silent and Orbits realized he was saying too much and none of it mattered. Eventually she said, “I am glad you understand.”
“I have a friend there—” he began, but she had hung up.
He felt he needed to share this news with someone, so he told his mother, “Dee went away.”
She clutched the snow globe, leaned slightly forward and nodded. Orbits was not sure if she heard or even if she remembered her granddaughter’s name.
***
With the new year came the dry season. Now there were no rainy evenings and the humidity carried in the nights, so everything seemed clotted and dried. The green paint lost its lustre and began flaking out in tiny ribbons. Woodlice and ants burrowed behind the raised strips, and sometimes Orbits would stare at a lizard, still for more than an hour, suddenly leaping to life, its neck stretched up as it swallowed. This how life is, he thought. One swift moment of change shattering all the accumulated harmony. But maybe this setting things in order is the real harmony. At other times, though, he believed that change, when it occurred, was so sluggish it was impossible to trace its inception. In the nights, smoke, sweet and syrupy, from bush fires seeped through the house, banishing the odour of dead paint, and he would hear the distant cackling of bamboo and would wonder if men and women who lived in a war zone ever grew used to sounds like these. Then the rainy season came once more, washing away the dust and grime, and tiny green tendrils sprung from the dead vines and the flattened brown grass. Some evenings his mother would be so still that Orbits would worry she had died in her chair, then he would see the confetti in her globe shivering.
Soon the rain gave way to blistering heat and the cycle that led to the parched land and the forest fires continued. Orbits arrived at his work and left at the same times each day. He stayed an equal length of time on the porch and went to his bedroom at the same hour. He was aware of the passage of time, the days falling into weeks and the weeks falling into months, not only from the change of seasons, but also from the increasing frailty of his mother. Although she still insisted on cooking, her hands trembled as she lit the pro-gas stove, and sometimes Orbits, smelling the gas, would rush to the kitchen to turn off the valve. He bought food, soups and sandwiches that were at times untouched and fruits that were nibbled at the ends. She now had to support herself on the doorway and on the furniture as she walked to her bedroom. He bought her a cane that she accepted numbly as she had done the chair. He no longer wished for her death, nor did he think of her passing away; everything seemed to be playing out in slow motion, stretching and stretching in a kind of indifferent and neglected permanence. He guessed he was waiting, but for what, exactly, he had no idea.
Years earlier, his former wife had asked what he wanted from life and, not getting a ready response, had grown annoyed. Now, he still did not have an answer. He was neither happy nor unhappy, neither contended nor dissatisfied. Nor was he paralyzed with the lassitude that had fallen on him following his separation from his former wife and the departure of Wally. He did not hold the world at a distance, so he still felt a marginal sorrow at the retirement of Spanish, a tendril of regret when Gums left and a short burst of grief when he heard that Doraymay had been paralyzed and sent on permanent disability leave. He was aware of these feelings and reassured, too; he treasured these temporary eruptions because they were signs he was alive. Sometimes, late in the nights, he would catch a bit of harmonium music from a village ceremony, the sounds badgered by the distance and the wind, and he would sit up in bed, listening for a familiar note, the stirring of some melody. Frequently he would hear his mother coughing and during the periods of silence, he would relax only when she resumed. Her coughs were dry and harsh and had the rasping stridency of an accusation.
She remained on her bed longer in the mornings, and he would drive to work only when she emerged from her bedroom for the cup of hot, freshly grated cocoa and ginger — the odour strong and brisk — she had taken to drinking during the day. He finally got a home phone and instructed her to call him if she was not feeling well, but she glared from him to the phone as if it were a curse. The phone was a mistake, he soon realized, because he would grab the office receiver in alarm each time it rang. During one of these calls, which turned out to be from a farmer who was always crying down himself and berating his ungrateful children, six daughters in all, for shunning the hot sun and the muddy rice field, Orbits told the man that his application for subsidies had been approved and he could come to the office for the letter. He arrived just before closing, and Orbits, who believed that the farmer had castigated his family to emphasize his deservedness, listened impatiently as he launched a fresh assault on his daughters. One was wayward, the other light-headed, yet another rude and the rest hopelessly lazy. The farmer, who had a long trunk on short legs — his face with its big forehead and insignificant chin repeating this oddity — scratched his ear with his muddy thumb. “Eef they was good-looking I could have married them out toute baghai, but all of them take after they mother.” They had all attempted various jobs but had failed. He mentioned the jobs — seamstress, fruit vendor, road worker, maid — and Orbits lost track of who had been fired from what. “The lagoon is the proper place for them, but they feel they foot too good for mud.”
At the end of the conversation it was agreed that one of the daughters, for a salary of one thousand a month plus a room and food, would move to Orbits’ place to take care of his mother. On his way home, he tried to recall whether it was the wayward, the light-headed or the rude daughter. He hoped it was not the lazy one. The father had arranged to drop the girl on Sunday; she would stay during the week and return on weekends. Orbits tried to prepare his mother for the appearance of a stranger in the house, explaining that the girl would help her clean around and cook but not mentioning anything about attending specifically to her. The mother just scowled at the snow globe.
On the appointed day, Orbits felt the father had changed his mind and had forced the poor girl into the lagoon, but about eight in the night, when his mother had already retreated to her bedroom, he heard the honking of a horn and saw the farmer’s old van parked at the side of the road. The girl followed her father out of the vehicle carrying a suitcase in one hand and a bulky cloth bag in the other. He ran down the step to help her, but the father said, “She could manage. She could manage.” The father, his long trunk striving for balance on his short legs, tilted forward as he walked down the slope, his hands slightly raised at the side as if he were riding an invisible motorbike.
Although the girl had a trace of her father’s disproportionate shape, she had a pleasant face. “Where Grandma?” she asked.
Orbits was a little surprised by the girl’s reference, but she had spoken respectfully. He told her as they walked up the steps to the porch, “She went to bed. She is up early and goes to sleep early too.”
“This one here is the opposite,” the father said. “She up late and go to bed late.” Orbits wondered if this was, in fact, the lazy daughter. But the father added, “From small, I start calling her Moaner because she always moaning about something or the other.”
“Only when I have cause,” she said to her father with a little smile. “Only when somebody give me cause.”
“Well, you better don’t give these people here cause to fire you because it will be back to the lagoon for you.”
Not wanting to be drawn into a family quarrel, Orbits said, “Mona. Is a nice name.” He saw the girl glancing inside the house an
d he told her, “You will sleep in the middle room.” He pointed to the room once used by Starboy.
When he awoke the following morning, the girl, Mona, was in the kitchen shifting around tins of condensed milk and salmon and beans in the cupboard and discarding fruits that had turned brown and soggy. His mother was at the doorway watching her with the wariness of an animal uncertain of its surroundings. “This girl came to help out,” he told her. “Her name is Mona.”
“That is true, Grandma.” Mona stood up, cans in both hands. Her damp hair was loose and fell around her shoulders. She put down the tins, produced a clip from the pocket of her jeans, bunched her hair and fastened the clip.
The mother bent forward, her body even more crooked, squinting to get a better look. Then she slowly raised her cane and pointed it to Mona and to the front door.
“I have to go now,” Orbits said to both women. And to Mona, “She likes ginger and cocoa tea in the mornings.”
He left the office earlier than usual, stopping on the way to buy oranges and avocadoes. When he drove into the driveway, his mother was not at her usual spot on the porch. She was by the small side table pushed against the wall, where the shelf still had some of the dental material used by her husband. Her cane was on the table and she was holding both ends like a stickfighter. The girl peeped out from the kitchen and when she saw the fruits, she said, “Let me get that.” Orbits placed the bag on the dining room table. “Grandma is in a bad mood today.” She retrieved the fruits and held a papaw before the other woman. “You like this? Is nice and sweet. Look at the red and yellow colour.” Orbits’ mother turned and swished at the fruit with her cane. The girl jumped back and giggled nervously. “I think she is in a bad mood because she not used to me as yet. Not so, Grandma?” she asked in a high-pitched, cajoling manner.
The bad mood got worse. Each evening he returned to his mother pacing from the porch to the kitchen, knocking her cane loudly on the floor. And each evening she screamed to Orbits, “Send she back!” The girl, whose full cheeks and big eyes gave her a vague cherubic look suited to martyrdom, did not seem too upset and even treated the old woman’s outbursts as expected and inconsequential, which only made matters worse. “What she doing here?” the mother asked one evening, pointing to Starboy’s room. Orbits wondered if this was the cause of his mother’s rage: the room had been unused since his brother’s death, and maybe she believed her son had been shunted aside, memories of him no longer useful to anyone but to herself.
“She helping to . . . helping to keep the place clean,” he told her.
“Yes, Grandma. Look how nice the place looking now. I want you to look the same way. You want me to comb your hair?”
“Get away!”
Mona followed Orbits to the porch. “Grandma just like my father. Getting vex like if is a habit.”
“So, you don’t mind?”
“Is only two weeks so far. I think she will come around.”
“She wasn’t always like this,” Orbits said apologetically. He was on his way to his Kingswood when he returned and told her, “The two most important people in her life died.” The girl looked confused, and Orbits had no idea why he had mentioned this. That day in his office he wanted to call the father and explain that things weren’t working out, but the girl was right: maybe his mother just needed more time. Many old people were like this, he reasoned. Like some of the farmers who planted the same crop year after year in the face of falling profits.
He was surprised each Friday night when the girl would say, “I have to leave now, Grandma. Be a good girl when I not here, okay? Don’t give this nice quiet son you have here any trouble.” And his mother would raise the stick and point to the road. But the bigger surprise was his mother’s relapse during the weekend, sinking into the old chair, sitting quietly, her eyes clouded, stroking the snow globe as if it were all she could feel. The minute Mona reappeared on Sunday night, his mother would rise from her chair, her eyes would sparkle, and she would be filled with malicious life as she followed the girl around, resting on her cane, watching her every move.
The father hung around on Sunday nights, chatting about his other daughters, assuring Orbits that they were just as worthless as Mona. “You need a cook or a bottle washer? Just say the word.” Orbits was never sure if the man was joking or had fallen into the ritual of criticizing his family or if he really wanted to palm off his daughters to a man he saw as soft. So he was thankful when, invariably, the talk shifted to the pleasures of lagoon life. Not only rice, the man said, but dasheen, catfish, cascadura and conches. “Everything you want to eat right there in the mud. You ever study mud? Is the most useful thing in the world if you ask me. You could build road, repair house, make wares, plaster bruise. Anything you like.” Orbits couldn’t believe the man was so backward, and because he was uncertain as to whether this was all a put-on, he listened quietly and made neutral sounds. One night the man said, “Just now, people will have to eat mud. This money going to run out and everybody forgetting how to plant. Young people not interested in the field again. And people like Halligator waiting to eat everybody up. Just wait and see.”
That week Orbits saw Mona on the front step with the potted orchid disembowelled. She was softening the mud around the roots and above her, standing with her cane, was his mother. He parked hurriedly. His mother was saying, “Stupid child. Foolish girl. Not like that. Look how you gone and spoil everything.” She turned to Orbits. “This stupid child meddling with the flowers.” She had a ghastly, lopsided smile. “I feel to knock she in she head.”
“Grandma only full of talk. She like me too bad.”
“Like you? Who will like you with you big bottom? Look what you gone and do.” She laughed from somewhere in her throat, the sound caught and expelled with a rush of air. Orbits couldn’t recall when last he had heard that sound from her.
Another evening, he saw Mona combing his mother’s hair. “Grandma hair full of louse,” she said provokingly.
“You give to me. Is you!”
When Mona got up, her skirt bunched at her waist and he saw her lower body silhouetted against the window’s light. He looked away quickly; she was possibly twenty, the same age as his daughter. He tried to keep this in mind, and once he wondered if Starboy’s life would have turned out differently if he had met someone like her. He had already concluded that the girl’s amiability with his irritable mother was because she was accustomed to dealing with her father and his insistence on lagoon work. Or maybe she was just relieved to get out of that back road and had never known anything different. From his work at the station, he knew country people whose lives repeated those of their parents and grandparents, who could envisage no other existence, and who were annoyed whenever innovative solutions to their problems were suggested.
One midday he came home early and he saw his mother on the sofa looking at Mona, who was reading so intently she did not observe his arrival. When the girl saw him, she hurriedly put away her book and pushed some pages into a brown folder. He didn’t ask her anything, and when he emerged from his room later in the evening, she was in the kitchen cooking the vegetables he had brought. During dinner, she cajoled the old woman. “Look at this nice pumpkin your kind son bring home. It not tasting nice?”
“I don’t like pumpkin. It look like shit.”
Mona covered her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to disguise her laughter. Eventually she managed to say, “That is a bad word, Grandma.”
Orbits told her, “My younger brother used to say that all the time.”
“You have a younger brother? Is he away?”
“People kill him. They kill him over and over!” She swept the table with her cane, sending the bowl of pumpkin to the floor. She got up and went to the porch, where she sat for the rest of the evening. In the night, Orbits heard Mona singing to her, a ridiculous nursery rhyme about a pot and a spoon.
It was close
to a week before he told the girl, “They find my brother dead in the community centre. The police say he committed suicide because of the marks around his neck and on his wrist. But he had other wounds and my mother believe he was murdered.”
They were on the porch waiting for the arrival of her father. “And they didn’t do an autopsy?”
“My mother didn’t want it. I don’t think she wanted to know.”
They remained silent for a while. Then she said, “The man from the shop close to where I live was killed last year. His eyes and everywhere else had been ice-picked. He used to beat his wife all the time and everybody saying is his own son who do it. Every other house it have . . .” She paused and added, “Sometimes I want to go and live in the town.”
“Your father know about this plan?”
“He say that in the town these criminals just looking for country bookies pretending to be knife-and-fork people. But if you ask me, over here is no better.”
Once he had listened to Spanish and Gums talking about the difference between country and town crimes. In the country it was mostly domestic violence and praedial larceny, they claimed, while in the towns it was drugs and gangs. “Is that why you are studying?” She seemed so guilty that he regretted asking the question. He told her, “My daughter is away at university.”
“Oh, you have a daughter too? I didn’t know that. What is she studying?”
He had no idea. Thankfully, her father pulled up and Orbits went to his mother and said, “Mona is going for the weekend. Tell her goodbye.”
The mother removed her hand from the globe, and with her fingers bent as if she was turning a key, waved. But after Mona had left, she said, “That girl too fast. Why she want to know everything for?”
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