Soucouyant

by David Chariandy

  Meera never put herself into any dangerous proximities. When entering auditoriums at school for plays and announcements, she made sure never to sit in the empty seat beside either of the sons of the wandering lady. She made sure to stay at opposite ends of the playground during recess. Once, though, she learned that two classes were going to share a bus for a trip to the museum. Arriving late, she saw a packed bus and, in the window, the profile of the younger of the coloured boys. She watched a flung eraser bounce off his dark head, noticed the sole available seat beside him, and began to feel sick. She suddenly realized her chance, and started faking the most violent nausea and stomach cramps. She was questioned by teachers, and she faked even more desperately, real tears now burning in her eyes, her body gradually co-operating. She ended up being rushed to an emergency ward to get her stomach pumped, and she refused to admit that her symptoms, at least at first, were invented. Even when they wheeled out that awful machine and slid the tube down her throat.

  (‘He says he’s going to be a poet,’ a science teacher once joked in class, speaking of the older son of the wandering lady, absent from classes for a whole month now. ‘Are you going to be a poet just like him, Meera?’

  Laughter all around her. Meera’s face darkening. Why couldn’t she appreciate the joke? the teacher thought to himself. Everyone knew she was the best in the class.)

  ONCE, SHE LET her guard down. She was twelve and she was walking home from school when she noticed that she had let the older son of the wandering lady stray too close, and that a bunch of still older boys from the community had noticed and decided to have a bit of fun. The boys formed a ring around the two of them and said that they wouldn’t let anyone go unless they saw something. The air was congested with giggles, with the disembodied heat of male adolescence, with a floating notion of what a black boy and girl should be willing to do. The older son of the wandering lady could have fought them off. He could have done something to resist, but he didn’t. He pecked Meera once with hard lips, their noses bumping. There was laughter, and he was jeered into doing it properly, and he so flubbed a bit longer with an open mouth. When he pulled back, Meera noticed, for a moment, a thread of saliva linking them together. Sun-touched before it was broken.

  She remembers that detail, just like she remembers the trembling of his lips and the almost perfect circuit of desire and complicity that suddenly emerged between these boys of different races. Strangely, she can’t remember feeling fear or anxiety in the moment itself, even when the circling boys invited the older brother to pull her nipples hard and to grope down her pants and up into her. She remembers these things happening, but as if to an acquaintance or character in a film and not directly to herself. She does, however, very precisely remember being compelled to whisper ‘nigger’ to the older boy, a private message just for him, and then feeling a small shiver of pleasure by the water that rimmed his eyes and never hers. She remembers how he eventually pushed his way out of the circle, walking away coolly first, then quickening into a sprint. A black boy with legs pumping all the way back to his home. As if someone there could have helped or advised him. As if any parent born elsewhere could have understood or even begun to grasp the contradictions.

  MEERA USED to crank-call the wandering lady.

  She never for a moment believed that her calls were innocent, that they were devoid of wickedness or spite. But she never allowed her pranks to become as cruel as many of the ones that others were playing on the wandering lady, and reported over and over again, with nervous glee, on the playground. Many times, Meera’s calls were just stupidly banal. Giggling requests to speak to ‘Oliver Clothesoff,’ or ‘I.P. Freely,’ and funny only because of their self-evident idiocy. And, at other times, Meera’s calls appeared motivated by something approaching simple curiosity. Maybe even care.

  ‘Hello?’ the wandering lady answered, sounding as if she were speaking into the wrong end of the phone. ‘Hello?’ she said again, her voice stronger.

  ‘Are you …’ Meera began, trying to find the right words. ‘Do you know what’s happening to you? Can you put it into words? Can you conceptualize it?’

  A long silence.

  ‘I’m sad sometimes,’ the woman said.

  Meera heard a man’s voice in the background. The wandering lady tried to reply, and Meera heard a chair squeaking on the floor and what seemed to be a brief struggle for the phone. Then an older man’s voice.

  ‘Who you is? Why you don’t just leave us alone? What kind of people you is in this neighbourhood? You ain’t have no shame? You have no shame at all for people suffering…?’

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ Meera said, her voice snapping instantly into a prodigy’s eloquence. ‘This is the Port Junction adult school program. We’re calling to offer a special rate on remedial grammar classes. We’ve heard you might be interested.…’

  MEERA SAW IT, sometimes. The grey rot on the edges of things. The aura of menace around luxury homes and dutifully manicured lawns. The static hurt on new metal surfaces. The radiation sickness of moods and habits that none at all seemed able to escape. Meera looked at good neighbourhoods, ‘traditional’ neighbourhoods, places where parents might raise their children in safety, places at a happy distance from the people who don’t share our values and ways of life, and she saw sadness and anxiety. She saw violence. She saw war. Her mother noticed the mood that had arisen, inexplicably, in her daughter, and she began to worry. About the time Meera spent alone. About the desperation that accompanied her studies. Studying was good, of course. In fact, Meera’s teachers were betting that she would win a major scholarship for university next year. But should she be holed-up studying in her room all of the time? What was she doing, really? Shouldn’t she be socializing? Why would anyone cut herself off from others like this?

  ‘It’s your birthmark, isn’t it, dear?’ Antoinette asked. ‘People tease you about it.’

  ‘Not today, Mom.’

  ‘We’ll get it removed, Meera. You’ll have a fresh start when you finally go away. Regardless, it’ll all be different when you’re older. You’ll see, dear. Things like that won’t matter in the future.’

  THERE WAS A graduation party. It was organized by a boy who was off to his father’s alma mater, a renowned private school in the states. Other university-bound kids were in attendance, and, for some reason, Meera had been invited. Earlier in the week, she was horrified to notice that she was one of three graduates profiled in the school paper. An old yearbook picture of herself, her hair frizzed out like a crazy Ethiopian saint. ‘I guess they needed a coloured kid for political correctness,’ a teacher in another class had reportedly snickered, his students thereafter making a special point of informing Meera about the joke. Meera had decided not to go to the party, but she changed her mind at the last moment and arrived in brand new jeans that were a size too small and pinching her around the waist. The conversation turned immediately and lengthily to the prom that Meera hadn’t attended, and she stood quietly while drinking glass after glass of a spiked and fruity punch. She relaxed a bit as the alcohol and sugar began to take effect. She could get through this. It wasn’t that bad after all.

  Someone asked her about the scholarship that she had received, and if it was true that she’d be going to the city’s university. Meera said yes, which didn’t seem to please anyone. Another person, a boy, asked if Meera had already thought of a major.

  ‘Economics,’ she said.

  ‘What are you going to use that for?’ he asked.

  ‘To study economics.’

  The small joke fell flat and it looked like some were offended. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and then one boy who had enjoyed quite a few drinks of punch began describing, in great detail, the latest ‘adventure’ that the wandering lady of the neighbourhood had had in his parent’s trash bin. She’d be missed, the boy concluded with apparent seriousness. He didn’t know if he’d ever get to live in another neighbourhood with such exotic and interesting people. Anoth
er boy agreed and then re-told the old neighbourhood story about how a bunch of youths had found one of those liveried black-boy jockey statues at a flea sale and set it up on the wandering lady’s lawn. The youths hid and watched as the lady came outside and actually scolded the statue for dressing like a fool and standing out there in the cold. Still another story was shared about a prankster who did himself up in shoe polish one Halloween and knocked on the wandering lady’s door, pretending to be a relative and demanding that she cook him a big old meal of ‘grits’ and ‘gumbo.’ Which she actually did, never once suspecting that anything was amiss.

  ‘She’s from the Caribbean,’ Meera said, ‘not the American South.’

  More awkward silence. One of the youths, a girl of awesome blonde beauty, spoke up and said that she found such stories deeply distasteful, and that the actions of those boys were beyond belief in their stupidity and cruelty. In fact, she said, she doubted that anyone could really have the stomach to commit such vile acts upon such a defenseless person, and she suspected that the stories were just a bunch of unfounded rumours. Which was a shame, she continued, because it gave Port Junction a bad name. One it simply didn’t deserve. ‘Look at all of the coloured people moving into the neighbourhood lately. They seem pretty happy here. Look at Meera. A scholarship, for God’s sake. We ought to be a little prouder of ourselves.’ There was a short period of silence, after which a couple of the now sheepish youths admitted that this was a very good neighbourhood, and that it was, indeed, changing so rapidly. They’d miss it all, the old times, and they’d have to keep in touch. They’d have to get together for reunions and remind themselves about things. At least, they’d always have their memories.

  Another young woman started talking. She had a reputation for being quiet and sweet, but she had finished a few cups of punch and was now speaking enthusiastically about an old cottage that her parents once owned to the north of the city. It was made of oak and teak and hand-hewn ceiling beams, and it had been in her family for three generations. Eventually, though, her father considered it too much of a bother to keep up, and, when she was ten, he bought them a modern cottage closer to the city. But she ended up missing the old cottage dearly. It was the site of her childhood, a place of memories, of swings and clammy bathing suits and picnic foods. There was a cherry tree on the acreage that she used to climb, and that carpeted the ground with blossoms in spring. She missed it all so much, and she made even Meera miss it too. She had a real gift for telling this sort of story. Of old times, of places past. She was heading to a university in British Columbia, and she had decided, before leaving, to make a special trip by herself to see the old property. She drove the full day in her mother’s car, never once even listening to the radio. She arrived and noticed that, from the outside at least, it looked like it had caringly been kept. She had planned on leaving with only that knowledge, but she changed her mind. She approached the front door and knocked. And when it opened, she was struck by the absurdity.

  ‘A whole family of darkies!’ she exclaimed.

  Meera laughed, a short nasal huff. She laughed at the stupidity of the word as well as at the discomfort of the teller, who was now blushing and belatedly conscious of the coloured woman’s presence. Meera laughed, she knew, at something else too. Something that had flashed into sight at this going away party. Something about a whole youthful lifetime. But she stopped laughing when she realized that she was completely alone. That nobody else was willing to laugh with her or even to meet her eyes with something human. A couple of the boys were indeed laughing, though only amongst themselves. Snuffling through noses and pursed lips. Exchanging sly looks and trying their best to join the others in their polite disregard.

  And, somehow, the whole scene enraged her.

  There was a phone on the other side of the room. Meera approached and punched in a number. She asked loudly and pointedly if this was indeed Adele, the wandering lady, so that everyone at the party would know exactly what was happening. And then Meera offered one parting joke. Something everyone could openly laugh about. She let the wandering lady know. That her entire family had been killed. That some terrible accident had happened, and that there was charred flesh and guts that spilled like rope. That her husband and children had each tried to communicate things through melted lips and salt-filled throats, but that nobody could understand what they were saying. Nobody could hear and interpret, and you, Adele, weren’t there to help. There were last-ditch efforts to save their lives through amputations and transfusions, but nothing had worked, their bodies were ruined, and what would it have mattered, anyway? Your family would have survived only to be monsters in this place, forever scarred, forever proclaiming a violence that nobody in their right mind would ever want to remember. They would have been alone with their traumas, forever alone, just as you, starting now, will forever be alone.

  ‘So sorry.…’ the lady’s voice came through the phone line, breaking and soft. ‘Please forgive me.… I so, so sorry.…’

  Meera almost missed it, this stream of apologies, this strange reaction, because she was watching the expressions of those around her. It had worked so brilliantly, her call, even though she hadn’t immediately understood what she was doing. Because now at least, nobody could go on politely ignoring her. Now at least, she had people’s attention. Nobody was laughing at the joke, but at least everyone was looking directly at her. Each white-shocked face appalled by the cruelty.

  ‘Please forgive me,’ said a voice again and again on the other end of the line.

  IN HER BEDROOM the next morning, in front of a hand mirror, Meera pushed her hair away from her right ear. She saw the bruises that were caused when she had pressed the receiver of that phone so unforgivingly against herself. She touched and felt nothing at all, and she wept for what seemed to be the first time in her life.

  SHE TELLS ME now that she doesn’t understand that thing called memory. She doesn’t understand its essence or dynamic, and why, especially, it never seems to abide by the rules of time or space or individual consciousness. She doesn’t understand how a young woman, in the midst of some small crisis, can remember catastrophes that happened lifetimes ago and worlds away, remember and proclaim these catastrophes as if she herself had witnessed them first hand. She doesn’t understand that at all, or else how the very same young woman, offering only what she imagines to be a cruel joke, can in fact end up remembering a catastrophe that is yet to happen.

  FOUR MONTHS ago, Meera was alone in her university dorm room, flunking out of all of her courses and unable to attend classes, unable to focus on present tasks or her future, unable to tolerate anything at all like human company. She was lying awake in bed one evening when the phone rang. It was her mother, who immediately explained that she didn’t want to be a bother. She realized how difficult things were between the two of them lately, but she felt the need to tell her something. Driving home from the office, she had run into that poor wandering lady of the neighbourhood.

  ‘She was carrying groceries, Meera. Her plastic bag broke, and she couldn’t seem to understand this. Or even how a plastic bag was supposed to work. I gave her a lift home, and she told me in detail, just then, that her husband had died not too long ago and that her sons had each gone their own way.’

  ‘Her husband … died…?’

  ‘There was an accident. It was terribly violent, the poor woman tried to explain. God knows if that’s actually true or not. One moment she was talking about her husband, the next she was talking about her mother in Trinidad. Look, Meera, I know that all of this may not seem particularly relevant to you right now. But it occurred to me just then, how difficult it must be for that woman. Not just because of her dementia but because of her loneliness too. Anyhow, I needed to tell you this, Meera. Because I do truly love and respect you, whatever your choices. Because in this world, it’s impossible, isn’t it? It’s impossible without the love between mothers and daughters. It’s so true what they say, Meera. In the end, all we have is fa
mily.’

  Meera listened and said goodbye. She waited three more hours and dialed.

  ‘Hello?’ said an old woman, her voice as if coming from across a whole ocean.

  ‘Hello,’ Meera said. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Hello?’ said the old woman again, her voice stronger now, her mouth probably now at the right end of the phone.

  ‘It’s still me. I’m still here.’

  ‘Well, hello, dear. It so nice to hear you voice again.’

  Silence between them for a while. The noise of something like a drawer of cutlery falling upon the floor.

  ‘Are you … alright?’ Meera asked. ‘Are things alright?’

  ‘Well, dear. I want to tell you. The stove won’t come on. The jellyfish done melted from the shore. Also, I feeling a little bit lonely, in truth.’

  ‘I could visit,’ Meera said. ‘Maybe stay a while.’

  ‘That would be nice. It would be so nice to see you again.’

  More silence.

  ‘Do you …’ began Meera. ‘Do you really know who this is?’

  ‘No,’ said the old woman. ‘But come anyway.’

  THE TRAIN’S approaching bell and the shaking of the house. A blur of light outside. Afterwards, the dark mirrors of the windows.

  ‘She told me about your brother,’ Meera says to me now in the wake of her story. ‘Your mother told me a bit about him, but especially how you felt about him. How crushed you were when he left. How much you looked up to him.…’

  ‘Nothing else, Meera. Not now.’

  ‘You need to know this. You need to see that you were right. He visited your mother every once in a while. Did you know that? He’d bring crumpled bills of money, and each time he’d knock on the door like a visitor. Your mother told me. One day, I answered the knocking and we recognized each other and stood for a while without speaking. We had no words for each other. We couldn’t begin to explain or justify, but we ate dinner together, the three of us. He was famished. His jeans and sweater had holes, and he smelled, but your mother acted as if this happened every evening. As if he was still living at home. She told your brother to sit up straight, and he immediately did. Before he left that evening, I asked him if he could bring me something to read the next time he visited. Perhaps some poetry, perhaps some Derek Walcott. I hadn’t read Derek Walcott, but I was hoping to make a connection. Your brother never met my eyes, but he nodded and the next time he visited, the last time he was here, he brought the same crumpled bills of money, but also a massive box full of books. No poetry, but a carpentry manual and an Italian-English dictionary and a battered volume of the Loeb Classical Library containing four dialogues by Plato including the Cratylus, the one about the meanings of names. Other books too, the ones around the house, the ones you see me reading. I just wanted to honour his gesture. I needed to believe that a belated gesture could matter, if only a little. He was trying his best in circumstances that neither of us had chosen. All things considered, he really could be someone to look up to.’