a meditation as old as the tide
my arms, anemones
belly and breasts, sea jellies
Achilles fins, I become
free-swimming medusa
my hands touching
her blue curves
fingers tipping
spindrift
a star in worship
a wafer in her mouth
a five-pointed offering
she swirls
counter-clockwise
beneath me, all goddess
all muscle, energy
power, pulse
oh, the simple faith
of the floating
letting go
in order to be held
by the body water of the world
some days
this love
is all I need
Tread Lightly
Emma Kate Lewis
Malta
In the vacant plot of land visible from both our homes, Nik and I set traps to capture the kidnappers.
Inspired by our favourite cartoons, we dug shallow pits in one sweaty day, hiding them in plain sight beneath dead palm fronds. We left slabs of cacti dangling from the branches of the tallest trees we could climb. We stacked sharp stones in the long grass.
The land was difficult enough to navigate without our makeshift additions: a dense, tiered jumble of rubble walls, carob trees and bamboo clusters. We found our way around these obstacles most of the time. When we couldn’t, we went through them instead, thorns catching our t-shirts as we crawled in the bellies of bushes. The chance to lay claim to whatever space we found ourselves in when we emerged was worth the dirt and the bloodied forearms, the stinging ants and the bruised shins.
We acquired weapons as we roamed. Fallen branches long and firm were sliced through the air, used to carve a path through stubborn roots or decapitate weeds in preparation for an encounter with our imagined enemies. We spent much of our time this way during the long summers, immersed in the alternative world we’d created just metres from our bedrooms. Our minds expanded effortlessly to ensure we never tired of our game.
We grew up in Mellieha, on Under the Cliff Road. Great jagged slabs of rock towered above us on one side, as the name suggests, and a mixture of houses and fields at various levels of descent sprawled on the other, ending only where the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean Sea met them. When it came to conjuring a storyline to accompany our exploration, much of the work had been done for us: of all childhood’s fabricated monsters, we were most afraid of those who might have taken us elsewhere.
Whenever we ventured away from our street by choice, Malta’s size made it possible to get from one end of the island to the other in little over an hour by car. Its road conditions, unfortunately, rarely reflected this. Potholes and pinched patience in heavy traffic made for particularly tense rides in the height of summer, when only air conditioning relieved the humidity. But even the worst case of car-induced cabin fever could be soothed when driving along the Coast Road. There, the great sparkling sheet of the sea’s soft white edges flapped against wide stone slabs, giving way only to the sticky tarmac that clung to the tread of the car’s wheels inching along it.
If my mother was taking us to see a film, we could follow the curve of the coast for much of the drive, weaving our way through the narrow streets of St Julians and Sliema to reach the yacht-crowded harbours of Ta Xbiex and Msida, before curving up towards the old fortifications of Valletta. The entrance was always crammed with vendors selling food and brand-less clothing opposite the fountain. If we were lucky, my mother would buy Nik and me an imqaret each, the soft pastry and warm, sticky date filling fuelling our march to the cinema flanked by cooing pigeons.
But even these excursions didn’t have the same thrill to them as the ones I had closer to home. The cobbled streets of Valletta felt slippery beneath my shoes, nothing like the familiar crunch of the shrubs in the vacant plot that released their scents as I stepped on them and made my head rush with their ferocity. The idea of the cinema was exciting, but it was also predictable. Exploring with Nik, the plot took a different form each day. Every unexplored bush and unclimbed tree held the promise of something new entirely.
The greatest discovery we made was Kidnapper’s Cave. Or, rather, the boulder that had crashed down from the cliff face thousands of years earlier and landed in such a way as to create it. We stumbled across the cave after a morning of scrambling over stones on a steep hill, another activity driven by our desire to set foot in every crevice of the vacant plot. The boulder threw a shadow over us as we approached it, and only when we began to claw our way up its rough side did we discover the hole leading to its hollow interior.
Inside were the charred remains of a fire and three empty glass bottles covered in dirt, their labels worn down to a few wispy strips of paper on dried glue. We fell silent then, the realisation that others had visited the cave before us mingling uncomfortably with the thoughts of kidnappers that had previously kept their distance in our imaginations. Neither of us wanted to venture inside. So we continued our climb, leaving behind the unpleasant knowledge that the place we considered ours had not always been so.
Standing on top of Kidnapper’s Cave, we found our heads above the trees. There we could see Gozo, the neighbouring island in the distance, the only place that held more allure than our vacant plot. Nik’s mother, Erika, would often take us to Gozo for weeks at a time over the school holidays, renting a flat in the seaside village of Marsalforn, in a building with walls made of the same globigerina limestone as the cliffs that overlooked the bay. She’d pile us into the back of her car with the rest of her luggage and we’d catch the Gozo Channel ferry from Cirkewwa, waving goodbye from the upper deck to the fishermen who lined the port. The boat would pass Comino on its route, and we could make out the famous turquoise waters of the Blue Lagoon in the distance.
Erika’s excitement rivalled Nik’s and mine when we arrived in Gozo. She’d drive us along with every window wound down and the radio turned up as high as it would go, encouraging us to sing along and laughing whenever we messed up the lyrics, so we did it on purpose sometimes. Marsalforn became our playground on those trips, the kidnappers forgotten in a rush of sand, slush puppies and midnight swims. For a while, all we had to fear were the jellyfish whose bulbous bodies local kids splashing in the shallows threw at one another when teasing became too serious. That was, until Nik came up with the solution to the one-lira cut-off point that shortened our nights at the local fair. We’d heat the ends of my hairpins with one of Erika’s stray lighters, plunging the glowing tips into the bright pink and yellow plastic of our tokens and pulling the hot metal through hastily with fumbling fingers. In the bumper cars we’d insert the tokens as usual, leaving the hairpins poking out of the slot for us to yank free in the seconds before the rink’s timer stopped and they were swallowed for good.
We got away with it for several nights on end until, high on our own confidence, we caught the eyes of the owners: two Gozitan men with greased hair and thickly inked skin. They stamped out their cigarettes as we bolted, then gave chase for as long as their lungs would allow. With blood rushing in our ears and flip-flops hammering the tarmac, we ran until the distance between ourselves and the flashing lights of the fairground rides was enough to swallow their curses. In the silence broken only by our gasps for breath, the flood of relief brought with it whoops and giggles that forced themselves up from our heaving chests and out through our open mouths into the night sky.
I was guilty, but the elation proved addictive. A month later we were back in Malta, flying through the air on trampolines suspended above the rocky beach in Bugibba, a tourist hub of karaoke bars, nightclubs and fast food trucks. It was well after closing time, but the line dancers stomping to Elvis Costello at the open-air restaurant across the road had provided just enough light for us to pick our way towards the sea in the dark.
When the chain link fence that encircled the tramp
olines proved too tall to climb, we chose to go under instead. We wriggled our way up from beneath the metal frame, Nik providing the initial lift that I’d needed to push one of the giant protective mattresses to the side. Then I’d squeezed between the exposed springs, clasping at the soft netting and swinging both legs over until I lay flat on my stomach and could haul Nik up with me.
We hadn’t long been jumping when a car’s headlights caught our flailing bodies in mid-air. Both front doors were flung open and yells came from inside, but by the time the engine was cut we were gone, our flip-flops abandoned on the mattresses as we slipped out the way we’d come in and thudded to the ground. Bare feet pounding across the stone that hugged the water’s edge, we cheered into the darkness. I felt no guilt. I reasoned that the owner of the trampolines wouldn’t be making money from them at that hour anyway. We were simply visiting, our shoes the only evidence we’d been there at all. No harm done.
Besides, if they’d really wanted to keep us out, they’d have set better traps.
The Plundering
Heather Barker
Barbados
The day the letter about the Plundering arrived was the same day I’d tripped and fallen while running during PE. Blood and dust formed a paste that oozed down my leg.
I walked home with a Band-Aid stuck to my left knee. My snot was a flaky crust around my nostrils by the time I limped up the short, steep hill. As I said good afternoon to Mummy and Daddy, I saw an envelope on the table with my full name in large gold letters propped against a vase filled with sand and bright plastic flowers. The lettering on the mail was pretty, especially the capital ‘F’. Mummy didn’t look pretty, though. I mean, she was beautiful, but she looked upset and scared, like when she and Daddy have it hot. The top edge of the envelope was jagged; Mummy had already read whatever was inside. She got up from the sofa and paced up and down the living room, waving my letter in front of Daddy’s face.
‘She too young to go. Wha’ the Government could be thinking. They mad? A man ain’t get beat the first time? They should have pick you or me instead.’
‘They ain’t going to hurt a child, and you know they does pick people random, like lotto winners.’
‘But none of we buy tickets. This like being force into the army. I don’t want she to go.’
‘Go where, Mummy?’ I asked. Whatever they were talking about didn’t sound fun. Defence Force soldiers, in their dull and ugly uniforms, looked scary with their big guns.
‘Finasara,’ Mummy said with a you had better listen to what I about to say, hear? voice while stroking my cornrows. ‘You been chosen to go to houses of white people in St Thomas and ask for whatever you want.’
‘They starting trick or treating here?’ I asked.
‘No, it ain’t Halloween,’ Daddy said.
‘I don’t want to go to a stranger’s house.’
‘Not even to get things?’ Daddy asked.
‘It depends – like if it’s chocolate ice-cream or a Dora bag, maybe.’
‘I suppose,’ Mummy muttered. ‘But you must be careful. Some people might not like your treasure hunting.’
‘You and Daddy coming, too?’
They looked at each before she shook her head. ‘We can’t, they won’t let us.’
I pushed out my bottom lip and started crying. ‘I don’t want to go then,’ I said, between sobs.
‘Hush, hush. If you don’t go, we’ll have to pay a lot of money. Uncle’s been chosen, too, so he’ll take you. Go and let him tell you about it.’ They didn’t even ask about the plaster on my knee.
I shuffled over to Uncle’s house and knocked on the side door before going round to the back and knocking again. ‘Who goes there?’ Uncle said in his deep play-acting voice.
‘Open up, police!’ I said roughly. That wasn’t how the police really sounded when they came to our house. They called Mummy and Daddy by name and spoke with a mix of friendliness and school-principal authority. Like how some of the old white people would speak to Uncle when I went with him to make deliveries. Kind and slow but loud, the words tickling your ears and slapping you round your head at the same time. Uncle ran a ginger lily farm, in the belly of St Thomas. He supplied villas and hotels all over the island and even sent some overseas, too. His house was filled with them, in every room. The bedrooms stretched themselves out and had wide, bouncy beds with colourful duvets, not narrow mattresses with plain white sheets like mine.
I pushed the back door open and the smell of fish, green seasoning and hot oil made me sneeze. ‘Good afternoon. In here smells real good.’
‘There’s more to the measure of life than what you does do with your nose,’ Uncle said, pushing a small piece of fish into my mouth which I chewed noisily. ‘Wait, that tooth ain’t come out yet?’
‘I don’t want to take it out. Mummy says it’ll come out when the Tooth Fairy is ready to come back to Barbados,’ I said, tracing the bottom of my loose tooth with my tongue while grabbing a bag of salt bread.
‘She flight like it almost ready to land,’ Uncle said as he wiped his hands on a towel and set a plate of flying fish cutters. He passed the plate to me and we walked to the table. Uncle was the tallest man I’d ever seen and my neck ached just looking up at him. I didn’t know how old he was. His hair was grey but his moustache was mostly black. And Uncle was comedy. He would stretch his face while peering over his glasses at me.
He looked at me this way as he asked what happened that I was wearing a Band-Aid.
‘I fell over during PE.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Running. But I’m not very fast.’
‘And what you did when you fall?’
‘I cried.’
‘And what you did after that?’
‘I got back up, after a while.’
‘Ah, good girl,’ Uncle said, pointing at me. ‘Baby does fall all the time, but it get back up. There’s no shame in falling down, only regret when you don’t get back up.’
I nodded. Uncle often said things that confused me. Last week, he’d declared, ‘One-one blow does kill old cow,’ when I told him that learning how to say the Spanish alphabet was hard for me.
‘I hear you got a letter today, too,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to go, unless it’s like a picnic.’
Uncle shook his head slowly. ‘It is better and worse than that. All two at the same time. I should know.’
‘Wait! You went before?’
‘It was just over fifty years ago, during cane season. We not long had Independence from England, and we thought things would turn round real fast. They did for some people, ’specially the children that were bright and went to the better secondary schools. They ended up with government jobs for life or went to England studying law or medicine. Others decide to book passages there to work in hospitals or on the buses. But not every child could come first in the exam. So you could look at some and predict, if not for the hand of God, they would stay poor and their children after them.’
‘So what happen, Uncle?’
‘Some people, egg on by the unions, start to complain and say that this Independence thing ain’t all it crack up to be and that things need to get better for blacks, not just the whites. They nag the government, telling them to right some wrongs. The government was new and wanted to give people a say in their own lives, so they had a vote – Do you think black people should have one day every fifty years to ask white people for what they want? And as you could expect, people vote Yes, since more black people here than whites.’
‘So you went?’
‘Yes. I was hardly older than you and just as confused. They called it the Plundering. Sound bad, right? But it changed my life, and when I get married it change our children’s lives. They went to university and got an education. Them is good children, too.’
‘What they do?’
‘Rudolph is principal at a school for bright children, like you, in a place call Harlem in New York. Moni, she in Australia – one d
ay I may take you there – and writes children’s books. And Gazelle, she run the flower business across Boston. And she’s cook for famous people, too.’
‘Like who?’
‘Well, she cook for a weather presenter who does be on TV, and politicians in Washington.’
Mummy had done a cooking course at the community centre and had started baking. I called them experiments. Some tasted good but most tasted bad. Still, I would smile and bob my head when she asked how I liked them.
Uncle interrupted my thoughts. ‘Yes, I ain’t necessarily saying none of this would have happen without the Plundering. Perhaps it would just have taken more time.’ He looked sad for a moment. ‘If I didn’t chosen, I would probably have gone to Brooklyn like my sister. But there wasn’t much to do, except work two or even three jobs, even if you had a piece of learning. My sister, she did bless. She train as a paediatric nurse and do good, so good she never move back, not even when she loss she memory. She dead out there, that’s what she prefer.’
Uncle explained that the Plundering gave black people permission to go to wealthy white people and ask for what they needed – houses, businesses, lands, anything – and the white people had to give it to them. If they said no, their property could be taken away by the government. ‘After tomorrow, the next plundering will be fifty years from now. The government like they had sense though – it could happen only three times, so the next plundering will be the last. Else, all the rest of white people would leave and never come back.’
The world Uncle described to me was more complex than the one I knew. It didn’t sound good, though getting anything I wanted did. ‘What did people get during the plun’ring?’
‘Plundering!’ Uncle said with a laugh. ‘All kinds of things. Children ask for toys and sweets, mothers ask for food, some men ask for premium liquor. One fella even asked his boss to call him “Sir” whenever he spoke to him!’
‘I will ask for a plane ticket so Mummy can go to cooking school in New York, and a bed I can bounce and do somersaults on, and a Dora the Explorer backpack.’
So Many Islands Page 2