Pleasantview

by Celeste Mohammed

  PRAISE FOR PLEASANTVIEW

  “In one of Chekhov’s stories, a character says that every happy man should have someone who taps at his door with a little hammer, reminding him that there are unhappy people in the world. Reading Celeste Mohammed’s novel-in-stories makes me think of that magical little tap—except that the door opens not to a vision of unhappiness, but to a world crammed with life that you never knew existed.”

  —CLAIRE ADAM, author of The Golden Child

  “As James Joyce did for Dublin, Celeste Mohammed holds up a polished mirror to the inhabitants of the fictitious Trinidadian town of Pleasantview and dares the reader to take an unflinching look at a multi-ethnic society that is vibrant and joyous but riddled with corruption and the exploitation of women, the young, and the vulnerable. Mohammed’s writing is smart, funny, and enlivened by everyday Trinidadian vernacular, creating rich and lively portraits of a range of Trini characters. A formidable debut, Pleasantview’s razor-sharp observations of misogyny and the abuse of power are leavened by humor and a pitch-perfect ear for the language of human foibles.”

  —TONY EPRILE, author of The Persistence of Memory

  “Pleasantview offers the reader a sharp and fearless view of the dark underbelly of life in Trinidad, filled with unforgettable characters that we meet in do-or-die situations. Marked by male violence, political underhandedness, and economic desperation, Pleasantview also demonstrates Mohammed’s remarkable range as a writer as she moves seamlessly from callousness to tenderness, humor to sorrow, lyricism to minimalism in a work that lingers in the reader’s mind long after the final page. This is a thrilling debut.”

  —LAURIE FOOS, author of Ex Utero and The Blue Girl

  “The residents of the fictional Trinidadian town of Pleasantview are divided by mistrust and racial and ethnic tension, but they are forever bound to each other by their shared histories and secrets. From Omar who is forced to confront his boss’s corruption, to Miss Ivy in her employer’s hand-me-down fur coat outside the police station, Mohammed’s characters demand to be acknowledged. In this beautifully written debut, Mohammed gives voice to the silenced and the overlooked. Pleasantview sizzles with originality and heart and introduces a fearless new writer.”

  —HESTER KAPLAN, author of Unravished

  “Celeste Mohammed forces you to travel with her characters. You see their lives and their world as they do, on foot. You walk in her characters’ shoes. Mohammed is a skillful storyteller, so the journey educates and exhilarates you, Mohammed invents a clear, crackling town/district, Pleasantview, a bustling, hustling side of Trinidad, where few of us have ever been, or will ever go. Pleasantview forces us to look at how we behave when uncontained, when unconstrained, when our lack of morality unmoors us.”

  —A.J. VERDELLE, author of The Good Negress

  Pleasantview

  Pleasantview

  A Novel in Stories

  Celeste Mohammed

  NEW YORK, NY

  Copyright © 2021 by Celeste Mohammed.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher. Please direct inquires to:

  Ig Publishing

  Box 2547

  New York, NY 10163

  www.igpub.com

  ISBN: 978-1-63246-203-9 (ebook)

  For Sarai Ayesha

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Rachel Manley

  Prologue: The Dragon’s Mouth (Bocas del Dragón)

  Endangered Species

  White Envelope

  The Ides of March

  Home

  Loosed

  Six Months

  Santimanitay

  Epilogue: Kings of the Earth

  Foreword

  In 1959, a little-known street in Trinidad, located in one of the poorer areas inhabited by Indo-Trinidadians, was brought to life by the writer V.S. Naipaul. In his collection, Miguel Street, Naipaul used candor and humor to write about a cast of improbable characters whose stories reflected the lives of ordinary people. This early collection of short stories would establish Naipaul’s extraordinary voice on the horizon of English language.

  “I rather suspect the mantle of Chekhov has fallen on Mr. Naipaul’s shoulders” wrote a reviewer of the collection, Robert Payne.

  Trinidadians are natural storytellers. Back in the early 1930s, The Beacon magazine opened the literary floodgates to pioneering local voices. Read C. L. R. James, Arthur Mendes, Michael Anthony, Earl Lovelace. Listen to Trinidad’s calypsos. Stories evoking place and character, then reflecting the issues of a British colony; voices that longed to set their island free.

  Seventy years later, here we are in Pleasantview, again in one of the poorer areas of this now-independent island nation, inhabited by modern day Trinidadians whose daily dramas may differ from those of decades ago, but whose basic concerns of poverty, violence, misogynism, sexuality, religion, education, politics, crime, love and betrayal, remain universal.

  In a now-established literary tradition, the versatility of Celeste Mohammed’s voice is evident not just in her use of the various accents and quirks of dialogue that provide authenticity and individuality, but in the fluidity of her point of view as it shifts from omniscient author to that of her characters, male and female, so that we too inhabit their lives. So the reader is there with a bird’s-eye view at times and then has the immediacy of dipping into the character’s thought at others. The effect is that of a camera taking long aerial shots and then zooming in, allowing us glimpses of intimacy and insight we would otherwise only be able to guess at.

  Each story in Pleasantview is a strand of a tapestry. As the characters step forward one by one, we get a sense of who they are and how they relate to each other, until we are presented with a whole village—from the emotionally bankrupt Mr. Jagroop, to the doomed Sunil and Consuela; Jagroop’s young tenant Omar, who struggles to defend his values; and Gail, who turns to the village soothsayer with her own history of his abuse after she falls victim to the despicable Mr. H, the ruthless shopkeeper and deceitful husband. The tangled web of village and family relationships is revealed by Kimberley, who escapes her father’s reach and tries to find herself in probably the most intricately woven and moving of the stories; the cultist clutch of the church on Michelle’s spirit which abandons the “hell” in Michelle to turn into Ruth, who becomes a stranger to her husband Declan. The lure of America as an economic salve splits up a family—Judith and Luther—which has far-reaching consequences for each and for their marriage, and when their vulnerable son Jason seeks his own life’s answers.

  This collection could well have been subtitled “Santimanitay,” for the stories are truly tales that turn the everyday life of the ironically named Pleasantview inside out, exposing truth “without mercy.” This collection announces an uncommon voice and a rich talent. It also reveals that the dynamics of poverty, human joy, human misery, the effect of love on the heart, the cruelty of power, the often misguided need for identity and comfort, the high price paid for secrecy, remain very much the same today as they always were.

  It’s my turn to suspect the mantle of Chekov, then Naipaul, has now fallen to Celeste Mohammed.

  —Rachel Manley

  Prologue: The Dragon’s Mouth (Bocas del Dragón)1

  IT HAVE A BENEFIT TO BEING on this prison island, this tiny dot in the Gulf between Venezuela and Trinidad: freedom. The officers don’t take we on much; they don’t lock up too tight, because where it have to run? We can’t go nowhere. Or so they feel.

  Straight from the cell, me and Richards, my cellmate, we stroll out.

  Officer Babylon watching TV. We tell him exactly where we going: “Down by the water, Boss. To light up, li’l
bit.”

  “Allyuh going and smoke? Or allyuh going and bull?” he say, squawking like a seagull.

  “Nah, we could do that anytime we want in the cell,” I say, not because me and Richards in any bullerman thing, but because that kinda fleck-up answer is the best way to block Babylon from saying something worse, something that might make me lose my head and buss he throat.

  Tonight is not to fight. No, when your head in the dragon mouth, you ease it out real slow.

  Me and Richards trot down the incline, to the nibbling edge of the water. The place warm, warm—not a breeze blowing, but that good for us because the water go be flat. It have a full moon, though, grinning like it know what we planning and so it come out for spite, to make sure everybody see we. We didn’t expect this damn moon—I shoulda check beforehand, my mistake—but is do or die tonight. All the dominoes done line up and people waiting on we.

  So, me and Richards stand up, watching the silver water and sighing, like if we’s really lovers. Me ain’t know what he thinking, but I studying Consuela, she there on the other side, on the mainland. Not Venezuela (although that’s where she come from), I mean the big island, Trinidad. Consuela working in one of them so-called “guesthouse” in Pleasantview. She know I coming, at least I think so—I did send message with my pardnah, Stench: “Pack and get ready. I comin’ for you Thursday night.”

  Consuela waiting; she can’t wait forever—she done wait too long already. Time to move.

  “Light the thing, nah, bai,” I tell Richards, “before the man get suspish.”

  Richards pull a li’l spliff and a lighter from he pants pocket. He take a pull, I take two, we blow out the smoke and the air start to smell like herb.

  I rest down the joint on a rock, and prop it up nice, nice.

  “You ready?”

  “Yeah, let we go.”

  With that, me and Richards walk into the sea and just keep walking till we disappear. We lucky: not everybody could do what we doing. Only a few fellas on this prison island, even counting officers, could swim good. But Richards say he born and grow down Ste. Madeleine near a pond, he say nobody in the village was faster than he. But I tell him fresh water different to salt, and pond have edge; the sea ain’t got none. But he say that don’t matter. Me, I born in this Gulf: Icacos, to be exact. If Trinidad is a boots, Icacos is the toe. On a clear, clear day, we used to see Venezuela plain as we hand. My father is a fisherman, he father was a fisherman, and so it go and so it go … all the way back through history. From small, I was always on the pirogue with Daddy; I learn to swim before I could walk, I learn to dive before I could read and write. That’s why I slapping this water, making it splatter outta my way, like is nothing more than melt-down ghee.

  Left, right, left, right.

  I did tell Stench to wait by the next small island, a li’l cove it have there. Wait and keep the boat quiet, no engine till I reach. Bring change of clothes, I did say. And have a car waiting in Carenage. We heading straight for Pleasantview, straight for Consuela. By that time, they go sound the alarm on the prison island, and while they huntin’ for we in the north-west, we go dash down South, to Icacos. I have to see Daddy and Mammy before I leave for Venezuela. I have to collect back the money Daddy holding for me. With that, me and Consuela go set up weself nice, nice, nice, back in Tucupita, she hometown.

  Left, right, left, right. That cove is half a kilometer from here—so the map say. Left, right, left, right. Half a kilometer is about 1,600 feet. That’s all. Feet. Freedom is just feet away from me. And freedom have a next name: Consuela. Consuela, Consuela. A kind of madness take over: I turn barracuda in the water, one arm over the next, I going faster and faster. I ain’t feeling nothing, I ain’t ’fraid nothing, I not looking back, I not going back.

  I hear a siren and I know is for we.

  I shout for Richards and he shout back but he sounding far, like he lagging behind.

  “Richards!” I bawl again, “they comin! Swim!”

  That’s all I could say because I pushing through the water, pushing hard. I not going back!

  Then I hear a vessel, the Coast Guard fastboat. Then voices, Richards bawling, other voices. It sound like he fighting with them; he not going easy. I sorry for him but I glad same time, because them so busy with he, I get chance to swim faster, push harder, lungs burnin’ till I feel I go dead.

  “Jesus!” I gasp and spit brine.

  Jesus used to lime with fisherman, so he go hear me. I only have energy to swing my hand one last time and I touch a log. I latch on … and name it Hallelujah. Hallelujah keep my head above water till I reach the cove. I can’t believe I actually reach, I ’fraid to let go Hallelujah, but them fellas grab and pull me on the pirogue.

  We take off for Carenage.

  I so tired, I barely breathing, but I have to ask Stench, “You tell she I comin’?”

  He say, “Yes, bai. And I just talk to she. She ready and waiting.”

  She glances again at the clock, strategically placed on the side wall of her room. From any angle, she is always able check if a customer’s time is up. A self-taught trick—that, and many more. It is just after 10:00 p.m. Sunil sent a message earlier to say, “He coming tonight; pack and get ready.” So yes, she’s packing, but with only half a heart. She is not at all sure if she should believe in him.

  Sunil has been in jail for the last year.

  In Venezuela, jails are never easy to walk out of, but this is Trinidad—everything is different, easier in many ways. The night-news talks of prisoners and their “rights”. She isn’t sure what exactly that means, though, and if she has those too.

  Consuela shrugs like she’s taking off an invisible blouse, but her doubts remain, even as she moves the last two items from her clothes drawer. She dumps them into the faded nylon duffel bag Sunil gave her seventeen and a half months ago—she’s been counting. She’s collected lots more clothes, nicer clothes since then: tights, frothy blouses, jeans and pretty lacy panties, all bought in Pleasantview Junction from roadside people who shout, “Mamacita, take a walk inside! Take a walk inside!” They are accustomed to seeing “Vennies” scurrying around the back streets—to them, every Latina is a Venezuelan whore—so they take her money and ask no questions. She pays a higher price for their silence. She is safe in Pleasantview. As long as her Boss Lady makes sure policemen have free service at the guesthouse, she is safe. She has never even thought of boarding a maxitaxi and going anywhere else in Trinidad. Where can she run without a passport and a man to protect her from other men? Here, at least, she has Mr. Jagroop.

  She approaches the closet where her “good clothes” hang—a couple dresses and some shinier, more bling-bling versions of the same things that were in the drawer, most acquired only recently. The $200 Sunil has been sending now and then can’t do much for her, but she struck jackpot a few months ago when Mr. Jagroop approached Boss Lady about “permanent arrangements”. Friday nights with Consuela became his, and he pays dearly for them. But he can afford, Boss Lady says, because he’s a businessman and, rumor has it, he’ll be a candidate for the next local elections. He is a good man to fuck.

  Consuela backs away from the closet and sits on the edge of her bed, staring at the gold lycra of a jumpsuit. She is worth something here in Pleasantview. Does she really want to leave? She isn’t even sure she’s the same person who fell in love with Sunil, who promised him, “I will wait,” last year, when he’d called her to say he was turning himself in to police. But she is very sure she’s no longer the tender seventeen-year-old who did as her mother asked and got on a boat with Sunil and his father and the other men, to cross the Gulf. No, this eighteen-year-old Consuela has trained herself to let go of many things, to squelch and drown other things. She’s learned how to focus only on the words spoken during those last moments with her Mama. She has trained herself not to remember her own dread and her own secret trembling at being married off to a boy she barely knew, to a land she’d never seen.

  “Promise
me, she … only one,” Mama pleaded with Sunil’s father before he left Tucupita. He always visited Mama’s bed whenever he docked in the village; he always paid with cash but tipped with foodstuff. He was one of the honest smugglers; his promise carried weight with her.

  “Yes, only she,” Sunil’s father said. “I don’t bring in people on my boat. I only making exception this time because of my son. He over-want she.”

  “And he will married, sí?”

  “Yes, we’s Hindu. Is no problem to married—she seventeen, he nineteen—they old enough. By next year, my house full up with pretty, pretty, fair skin baby and thing.”

  “She will work, teach en la escuela, okay? Ella habla inglés perfectamente.”

  Sunil’s father silenced Mama with a hug. “I promise you, she go have a good, easy life. Plenty better than out here,” he said, pointing his chin at their home: a concrete slab surrounded by roofing sheets.

  He turned to leave then, but Mama followed, explaining her fears. “Mi otra hija, Marisol, she take boat from Güiria last year. Too full. News say everybody die. I no lo creo, pero we hear nothing … nada más. I still … Yo no creo, no lo creo.” Then Mama grabbed his elbow, as if he hadn’t paid his bill for last night. “You help Consuela find she sister, mi Marisol?” she asked.

  “Look,” Sunil’s father said, peeling her off, “Trinidad is a big place. All I could tell you: Consuela safe with we.”

  And she was safe, at first. The boat slipped as easily onto the sands of Icacos as she slipped into the household of Sunil and his family. They smiled at her but cooked things she didn’t know how to eat: no cachapas con queso, only roti and choka; no pabellón, only dhal and rice and curry. Everything was strange, and she understood little when they spoke to each other—too fast, and not the English she knew from school—and Sunil’s mother made her clean and wash for most of each day. But Sunil spoke to her slowly when they were alone. He cooed like she was a baby. It was from him she learned that the pundit was coming at the end of the week to marry them. Sunil said he wanted to wait until afterward, to have sex as man and wife. He was Hindu, yes, but he went to the Presbyterian Church sometimes with his mother, so he knew better than to sin.