Then, a man holding a water glass of rum and swaying to the music glided up behind Silla’s chair and, motioning to the children to be quiet, stared down at her bowed head. He was an old man, the last bit of life flickering out in his body, yet he seemed strong. Strength flashed in his taut hands, in his mottled eyes, in his bearing. He had known Silla as a girl, and he kissed her now, shouting, “Come, Silla-mahn, get up.”
She turned, a faint smile breaking. “But Seon Braithwaite, you mean to say you ain dead yet?”
He laughed, his teeth very white against his dried, dark skin. “God don want me, mahn. I too black and wuthless.” And still laughing, he drank.
“But c’dear, how you can still be swilling rum at your age?”
“Mahn, I preserve in rum. Now come, le’we dance.”
“G’long nuh, you know I don does dance.”
“I know what?” he cried, angering. “But what wrong with you, Silla, that you change up so since you come to these people New York? You don does dance! You must think I forget how you used to be wucking up yourself every Sat’day night when the Brumlee Band played on the pasture. You must think I forget how I see you dance once till you fall out for dead right there on the grass. You must think I forget, but, girl, I ain forget.”
Helplessly she laughed. “But Mr. Braithwaite, how you does remember so good?”
“How you can forget the past, mahn? You does try but it’s here today and there waiting for you tomorrow. So come, mahn, don continue sitting here with your face long down. ’Cause you know one thing . . .” He bent low over her. “In the midst of all this”—his gesture took in the bright lights, the gowns, the decorations—“we’s in death. So le’we drink our little rum and have our little spree till it come.”
Silla’s protest was lost and the old man led her triumphantly to the dance floor.
They danced near the edge of the circle, the old man straining the mother close and her blue gown swirling around her feet. All the older people danced with this same graceful restraint—their backs stiff and only a suggestion of movement in their hips and legs. Sometimes as the clarinet pierced the air with a long plaintive note one of the younger women would move away from her partner and dance alone, her arms outstretched and her face rapt as she responded deeply to the music.
Selina’s eyes followed the mother while her mind strained to see her as the girl dancing on the pasture. But there was nothing to form the image. She could imagine the pasture. It must have been a wide field with the grass cropped short by the grazing cattle, and scarred by the dancers’ bare feet. The world had been when she had not. Time stretched behind and beyond her small life. Years ago, on an island that was only a green node in a vast sea, the mother had been a girl who had danced till she had fainted once, and she, Selina, had been nothing to her. Suddenly she yearned to know the mother then, in her innocence. Above all, she longed to understand the mother, for she knew, obscurely, that she would never really understand anything until she did.
“Isn’t it a nice wedding?” Ina was saying. “I wish, though, they’d put out the lights and just leave the candles burning.”
Selina noted her sister’s faint lipstick and her gloved hands arranged neatly in her lap. She was like the college girls, Selina thought. They all had something she would never have. Grace, quiet poses, and the mildness . . .
A young man came up and, leaning over Ina, asked her to dance in a voice breaking with nervousness. She hesitated a moment, glancing at Selina and then toward the mother on the dance floor; then quickly she placed her hand trustingly in his and rose.
Only Selina and the bride were left now and she felt terribly alone. She traced the brocaded design of the tablecloth to hide her loneliness from the dancers and from the faceless onlookers crowded at the open windows and doors. What must she look like sitting there, she wondered, with the childish bow and the yellow gown that made her skin darker, with her jutting elbows and wrists. She gazed enviously at the children scampering amid the dancers in a game of tag. She was too old for them, yet not old enough for a boy to come, his voice breaking, and ask her to dance . . .
“Guess who?” Damp hands covered her eyes.
“Beryl.” She pulled away.
“What’s wrong?”
“I hate weddings.”
“I don’t. They’re fun.”
Suddenly Selina jumped up. “C’mon, let’s dance.”
“How can we? We don’t have partners.”
“I don’t care. We’ll dance with each other.”
“But we’re kinda old for that.”
“I don’t give one damn, d’ya hear? Not one damn in hell about anything.”
Beryl started and drew away a little, shaking her head disapprovingly. “Selina, you’re mad about something . . .”
“I’m not. Let’s just dance.”
On the floor they sidled awkwardly amid the other dancers, clutching each other close. Gradually their bodies gave way to the music, their feet caught the rhythm and they were dancing.
The calypso flared in loud lilting rhythms through the hall and reached with fluid arms to the curious crowd at the windows and doors and into the gathering night behind them. Someone sang in the flat but striking accent of Barbadian speech:
“. . . It was the day after Christmas that I went to Barbados,
As I walk around in the town I heard a cute little song.
The temperature was so damn hot,
That I stopped in a rum shop,
And before I could open me mout’ I heard somebody shout:
’Aye, Budda Neffie lock up and he ain do nothing, Pam-palam.
He get nine years for he own granddaughter, Pam-palam.
Oh, the sweat ’pon he head running off like water, Pam-palam.
He swear by Christ he ain done nothing, Pam-palam . . .”
The dancers overflowed the space and other tables were dismantled. Selina’s feet seemed to glance the floor now, for the music had become a high wave lifting her up.
Now, everybody love their carnival,
Lord, don stop the carnival.
Yes, carnival is a decent Bacchanal,
Lord, don stop the carnival.
All the West Indian love their carnival,
Lord, don stop the carnival.
Ah, gal, it’s a Creole Bacchanal,
Oh, Lord, don stop the carnival.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I’m a born Creole and about to have me fun,
Lord, don stop the carnival.
Especially when you see me drinking rum,
Lord, don stop the carnival.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Oh, carnival has come to New York,
Lord, don stop the carnival.
Everywhere you go you hear the talk,
Lord, don stop the carnival.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Yeah, Lord we makin’ Bacchanal . . .
The music persisted through the bride and groom’s departure; it screeched and thudded late into the evening, binding the dancers together, setting them apart from all other people.
“Small Island, go back where you come from.
Small Island, go back where you come from.
You come from Trinidad in a fishing boat,
And now you wearing a great big overcoat!
Small Island, go back where you really come from.
You see them Bajans, they’re the worse of them all!
You hear them say ‘I ain’t gwine back at all.’
They come by the one and they come by the two,
And now you see them all over Lenox Avenue.
Small Island, go back where you really come from . . .”
Selina swayed with the thronged dancers,
part of a giant amoeba which changed shape yet always remained of one piece. When she and Beryl danced in the center she felt like the source from which all the movement flowed. When pushed to the periphery, like someone clinging to a spinning wheel. Once, pushed to the outside, she glimpsed a man standing in the doorway. She saw only his legs, but their stillness in the midst of all the movement arrested her, and the stance reminded her vaguely of her father. But then the dancers quickly swept her back to the center and she lost sight of the still legs. When finally she pressed to the edge again she saw that it was her father and his presence drained her happiness.
Deighton stood, uncommitted, between the summer night filled with faces behind him and the brilliant scene in the hall. He might have been one of the silent surging mob outside who had been shoved by them into the light—or a guest who had purposely arrived late and waited, poised, for his presence to be noted and his name murmured throughout the room. His tuxedo fitted well his lean body. He held white gloves and a top hat. And his face was as carefully arranged as his clothes: the eyes moving casually over the men at the bar, over the deserted bridal table with its burnt candles and melted lovebirds, over the heaving dancers and sweating musicians. His smile was ready.
“My father’s here,” Selina shouted and tried to pull from Beryl, who was singing loudly with the others, “Small Island, go back where you come from . . .” and did not hear her.
“My father’s here. Lemme go.” And again she struggled without success. Not only Beryl, but the glaring lights, the loud song and the other dancers seemed to be holding her from him. Frantically she waved until his eyes in their unhurried search finally reached her. He smiled, but at the same time his hand shot up in a forceful signal for her to remain where she was.
His eyes swept on. He saw Ina, her face lifted shyly to the boy’s as they danced. Then suddenly he took one short startled step forward, pressing the hat and white gloves hard in his hand. He had glimpsed the mother. Her blue gown amid the other colors and the old man’s arm tighth around her waist.
He was jealous, unreasonably so, for he knew that the man was old and useless. But he could not help it. At least the old man was holding her and laughing down into her face, while he had not held her since the Sunday night before that Monday of ruin—had not touched her even, or spoken. He slept in the parlor each night now with the tall sliding doors locked between them . . . He followed the line of her body under the blue gown with surprise and guarded desire. Then, as the old man spun her around and he saw her laughing like a girl, saw her breasts rising full at the low neckline, passion thrust him sharp and for a moment he had to close his eyes.
Silla had seen him and, as he opened his eyes, she lifted her head to stun him again with her beauty. Strangely, the same passion lanced her eyes—stronger, more urgent than his even. It reached our across the hall to claim him, to confess that despite what they had both done, despite their silence, they were joined always. Her hand half lifted as though to beckon him close, a gesture that said she would, with her hand in his, declare all this to the others. But even as he took the first tentative step forward, her hand dropped and her derisive laugh drove him back.
The mother laughed, the song soared: “Small Island, go back where you come from . . .” and both sounds tore his thin composure apart. His eyes wheeled over the room in a desperate search for a single welcoming face. To the bar, but the men there had seen him, and as his eyes met theirs, as his hand lifted uncertainly, they turned away with cold nods, and their backs formed a wall against him. His eyes then swung in a wide wild arc back to the dancers; he strained forward as if by sheer will he would force someone there to greet him. But they had seen him by now and they closed protectively around Silla and Ina; someone pulled Selina back. Then, like the men at the bar, the dancers turned in one body and danced with their backs to him.
But still Deighton remained, staring with exquisite pain at their disdaining backs, transfixed by those piercing voices. Until finally his agony was too great and he staggered back. As if choking, he pulled at the stiff collar, his voice struggled up, “Oh God . . . My God . . . why . . .” Before his next word they turned—all, the men at the bar, the musicians, the whirling dancers turned. Even the children crumpled in sleep on the benches against the wall roused and turned their small faces to him. From all over the hall those dark contemptuous faces charged him. Those eyes condemned him and their voices rushed full tilt at him, scourging him and finally driving him from their presence with their song, “Small Island, go back where you really come from!”
VII
That night and many nights afterward Selina’s sleep was marred by the image of her father groping as though blind or drunk from the hall. The image was like an abstract painting, for he was always only an immense hand reaching out and imploring eyes. Each night the calypso song resounded in her sleep, hounding him out into the mob waiting in the dark to claim him.
On her fifteenth birthday she stood in line in the school lunchroom thinking of the dream amid thoughts of the mistake she had made in geometry and the blond boy in Latin whose eyes mirrored her loneliness; she wondered whether her lunch group would give her the customary party. Holding up her tray she shoved and prodded a way through the crowded lunchroom, dodging the sprawled legs and flailing arms that sprang up like traps in her path.
The air was raw with the smell of sweated young bodies, and their shrill voices, strafing the air in almost visible white streaks, spoke of life bursting full yet, at the same time, pleaded for something or someone to give that life form before it destroyed them. The sound always recalled to her the machines at the factory. Its theme was the same one of impending ruin. The machine-force pervaded them, it seemed—was shaping them—and they could not help but echo it.
Nearing her table she saw five cupcakes arranged in a cake with a tiny candle in each, and she hid her happiness by shouting, “I was just standing in line getting good and mad thinking none of you jerks had remembered.”
“Make a wish and blow,” they yelled, and not knowing what to wish for she sucked in air and let it out and the candles died. They shoved a knife into her ink-stained hands and she cut the small cakes in two. When they had eaten and she had tenderly put away her candles their voices welled up in the usual talk and then suddenly dropped into silence as one girl leaned across the table, whispering, “Remember that cute fella I was telling you all started coming by to see me?”
“Yes,” their hushed voices pressed up around her.
“Well, me and him’s engaged. Sorta, anyways.”
“No.”
“Yep.”
Their table became the one small center of silence in the lunchroom as they waited, eager for more but afraid. The girl who had spoken was thin, with lipstick blazoned across her mouth and a petulant child’s face under a profusion of curls. She had recently been assigned to their table and at first the other girls, all colored and mostly of West Indian parentage, had been distant and disapproving because the girl lived on Fulton Street, played hookey, smoked and talked only of boys. Yet when she talked they listened, helplessly absorbed in all she said.
“How come?” Selina finally asked.
“Where’s the ring?” someone added cruelly.
“That’s why I said ‘sorta,’ jerk. Till I get the ring.”
“How come?” Selina shouted.
“Well, it was like this,” she began, and they hastily formed a tight circle around her while the noise clashed unheeded beyond. “We was in the living room, see. Talking and fooling around. Mostly fooling around. Y’know. Then my aunt had to go to prayer meeting so naturally he had to leave. Soon as he left she started getting on me about the same old crap—going to church and going to school. Y’know. But girl, when she finally cut out to church who should cut back but that cute fool. And there I was in my pajamas . . .”
“Lord,” Selina said.
“Girl, I was so embarrassed I almost fell out. But he apologized and said he forgot his ci
garettes. So naturally he stayed and naturally we started fooling around again. After a while he turned off them lights and things really got frantic then. So I had to like tell him I didn’t mind fooling around if I liked a fella but I didn’t go all the way . . .”
Someone snickered and she shrugged. “So he got salty, girl. Said he didn’t go out with squares. But he got nice again and said how about us getting engaged. And you know me, I’d do just about anything to get outta going to school. Then he said it was all right to go all the way being as we was practically engaged—and being as all engaged couples do it.”
“That’s a lie,” someone sang out. But no one heard for they were all busy shaping that scene of seduction behind their wide eyes. Beyond their circle a kind of silence also rippled below the noise as if others in the lunchroom listened with drawn breath.
The silence stretched and when it was taut enough to snap the girl said with a proud shrug, “Well naturally, it happened. And to tell the truth I didn’t see nothing that great about it at first. But girl, after a while that jive got good to me and lemme tell you, I was moved!”
She sat back, lit a cigarette and the intimate circle fell apart. The others remained leaning on the table, so shaken and spent that it might have been they on the couch in the darkened room. Their shocked eyes fled her face while their hands nervously caught at the bread crumbs and bits of paper on the table. Only Selina gazed wonderingly at the girl. It was wrong, she knew, yet even in the dimness of her thoughts she could not see it as sin; it was sad because it had happened in a tenement on Fulton Street, yet she was envious. For the girl seemed suddenly awakened into life. A woman despite her child’s face. Freed of the ferment trapped in all of them in the lunchroom. She had done something else too, Selina sensed, gathering up her books as the bell rang. She had thumbed her nose at them, at her nagging aunt, at everyone . . . Could she, Selina, if given that chance, be that bold?
That evening, waiting for her father in the twilit bedroom, she lit the candle nubs, and with the tiny flames spiraling close to her face she wished for a boy. Not one who would tumble her on a sofa. She was not bold enough for that. But a quiet boy who would read with her in the library, and sometimes kiss her behind the stacks on the balcony. For the first time in her life, her lips formed the wish and she strained in her mind to shape his face.
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