Sic Transit Wagon

by Barbara Jenkins

  “You grow everything you eat?” Margaret asked.

  “Almost.”

  “This place soooo nice… it too, too nice.” Tara looked around then directly at him. “I feel as if I could live here… is… is… is like being back to early days in the countryside… no noise, no traffic, no neighbours… like how my aji and aja – my grandparents – uses to live…” She laughed. “Would a be perfect, if it wasn’t for no internet.”

  “It have internet in the shop. You could stay here as long as you like and go down to the main road when you want internet.”

  “Oh!… Oh gosh… I didn’t mean it so… I not looking to… sorry… but thanks… it would a be so nice if… if I didn’t get back to… to whatever…”

  He sat still, looking down at his hands, which hung loosely between his knees. He said nothing for a while, upturning his palms and looking closely at them, as if to read his future there.

  “I have to tell you something… Yesterday, when you was in the post office, I was in the shop next door.” He went quiet for a while, then, “I hear your voice asking for stamps and I watch you put the letter in the post box.”

  Margaret felt a chill. So it wasn’t a chance meeting, after all. His gaze was still fixed on his hands as he went on.

  “When you cross the road and go down to the beach, I wait a little bit then I follow you. I wasn’t there to collect no coconuts.”

  At this, they fell silent. It was no comfort to Margaret to learn that she was right to have been suspicious of the man. He had stalked them and baited them and now they were alone with him, God knows where, and for what purpose.

  “Why did you follow us?”

  “I did make a mistake. At first I thought you was tourists. And I woulda try to make a little hustle.”

  How foolish they were to have come, Margaret thought. Here in the forest, they were alone with him, dependent on him, whoever he was, whatever his intentions. If he couldn’t “make a hustle” from them, what then did he hope to exact from them?

  He looked first at Tara then at Margaret as he continued.

  “And then I find out you was from here. But you did still seem like nice people, even if you from here. I was surprise you didn’t mind having a normal conversation with a Rastaman.”

  Neither woman said anything to his comment. He took away their empty plates and walked away towards where he said he grows “other things”. Margaret followed him with her eyes. What had he gone for, she wondered, or worse, whom had he gone for? She glanced across at Tara and was surprised to find her sitting on the floor, playing with the dog, talking to it while stroking its stomach, her long, smooth, black hair loose, like a veil screening her face. She seemed to be in her own world, unaware of what was going on. Had she not understood what he said about stalking them, luring them to this place and now disappearing for what nefarious purpose? She wanted to call out to Tara, to tell her they should try to escape, running back the way they had come, quickly, before he returned. It was insane to remain there and be at his mercy. But, she didn’t call out. She feared that she would look an old fool, a silly old fool, and she feared that more than any fate she could imagine at the hands of her captor and his putative accomplices. She closed her eyes and waited; dear God, protect your child, she implored silently, I have strayed from the path of good sense… I have shown poor judgement… but dear God look on me with mercy… please…

  The slap of bare feet on the beaten earth jolted her out of her communion. There stood Shiloh, holding in both hands a long golden ripe pawpaw. With a flick of his wrists he twisted it into two halves. A silvery sheen reflected off the exposed uncut cell walls as the orange flesh parted. A knife would have wounded the cells, leaked their juices… Black seeds, gleaming like sturgeon roe filled the orange cavity… Margaret’s eyes and thoughts concentrated on minutiae to still her whirring mind. He turned each half of the fruit upside down, inserted a finger, dislodged the seeds, shook them into a waiting calabash and broke the half again, passing a rough quarter to each of his guests. Runnels of sticky juice ran down their arms as they worked their way through the sweet, fragrant fruit. Perhaps it was the ordinariness of eating fruit that gave Margaret the courage to pick up the conversation.

  “What makes you think people don’t want to be friends with people like you? With Rastas?”

  “Experience – the best teacher it have. Is like we Rastafarians have our space where we allowed to be seen and heard. Emancipation Day, when we drumming, is OK, otherwise, every time people see a Rasta, they does cross the road. But you didn’t and it make me think you is alright people that I could trust.”

  Margaret did not know what to say. She looked down, flushing red, embarrassed that he considered her trustworthy, she who had mistrusted him all along and still continued to, in spite of his generosity, his courtesy and his confession. She would not be so easily disarmed. In their silence, he continued.

  “I specially wanted people like you, nice respectable ladies, to come here to see where I living… to see how I living.”

  “And you living real good… real Irie,” affirmed Tara.

  At this, he smiled, a shy, grateful smile. An awkward pause followed; no one knew how to move the conversation along after that. Shiloh clicked his fingers and the dog rose to his feet and came to put his muzzle in Shiloh’s outstretched hand.

  “Come boy, let’s take the ladies to wash their hands.”

  He led them along a well-worn path through the forest towards the rising sound of rushing water. When they came to a screen of lianas, he pulled aside the trailing vines, and, bowing dramatically announced, “Ladies, look at it, my precious emerald!” Before them was a river pool, wide, shady, rock-strewn, water and sunlight combining to transmute the reflected deep green of the encircling forest into a living gem. On the bank, white lilies raised their cowled heads above the spreading skirts of their heart-shaped leaves. They took off their shoes, walked to the water’s edge, and, ankle-deep in the clear flow, splashed clean their hands and arms. Tadpoles like fat commas, roused and curious, butted their black heads against their toes. Shiloh dived right in, inviting with upraised arms.

  “Come in. It really nice.”

  Margaret stood at the edge, unsure of what to do next. Tara did not pause. She peeled off jeans and T-shirt, stripping down to her underwear. “Is no different from a bikini,” she said to Margaret as she walked further into the water, clutching her arms to her chest and shivering with the shock of chilly water. As Tara dived in, Shiloh called out to Margaret, “You can’t come all the way here and not enjoy the best part.”

  Margaret waded across to a giant, flat, riverbed stone and scrambled up it. The slanting sun struck hot. She closed her eyes and began to think about herself and how she must seem to other people, to strangers, like Shiloh. She had not always been like this – anxious, suspicious, fearful. Her earlier trust had been slowly eroded by life – by the change in people around her, by her intimate knowledge of the lives of her rescued girls.

  From time to time, she looked across at Tara who seemed so happy, in an excited childlike way. She, Shiloh and the dog were playing at throwing and catching fallen fruit, cavorting and splashing with the abandon of familiar playmates. When Tara joined her on the rock, Margaret saw none of the tension of the morning; she saw in loose limbs and fluid movement, a release, a surrender of her whole being that she had never seen before. The scars on her arms and thighs caught the fading sun, those long gilded chevrons worn proudly exposed like hard-earned tribal marks. Shiloh emerged from the green pool, stood upright, and shook his head to set free the captured water, spraying a benediction over them. Walking to where they were reclining, he lifted the necklace with the seeing-eye pendant from around his neck and placed it over Tara’s head. “Peace,” he said.

  The day ended, draining away both tension and pleasure. In silence they and the dog passed through the dark tunnel carved out of the living green. At the main road, Tara stopped walking with Margaret and t
urned to Shiloh.

  “You remember back in your house, you did say I can stay?… and I say no? … Well, I change my mind… you think I can stay for a little while?”

  Margaret, startled at this out-of-the-blue request, looked at her in mute admonition. Tara closed her eyes, blocking any appeal Margaret could make. Shiloh took Tara’s hand and Margaret knew that there was no way she could stop her now. She turned down their offer of company on the way back and insisted that she would walk alone. On the road, out of the forest, it was still lingering dusk and she wanted the journey to herself, to assess what this sudden departure of Tara’s could mean for herself and for Tara. Back at the cottage that night, she called Shiloh’s cell phone number. An automated voice answered, “The number you are trying to reach is either switched off or out of the service area.” She then called Tara’s number. She heard the phone ring in the kitchen and found it on the counter where Tara had left it in her haste to leave that afternoon.

  Weeks passed and Margaret stayed on at the rented cottage. On rain-washed afternoons she walked to the village where she asked about Shiloh at the store. They hadn’t seen him lately – he does come and go, they said – sometimes you does see him every day, sometimes, is months and you don’t see him. When the post office clerk handed her a letter addressed to Tara, she left it there, saying that Tara would collect it herself. The deepening rainy season gloomed the sky, brought silt downriver, churned the ocean, made the sea less inviting, but she would not leave, tormented by a sense of unfinished business.

  So far, she had rescued three girls, but the ache of failure over Lisa, the first one, continued to gnaw. Years before, Margaret had witnessed the slow decline of her bosom friend – at first, from depression, then to drugs to ease the hurt of a betrayal in her marriage, finally to the streets to support the drug habit. How many nights had she spent on the streets looking for Lisa, failing to find her most nights, finding her sometimes? She sensed that many times Lisa wanted to be found, wanted the loving care and support Margaret gave. Margaret offered Lisa a home, a chance to recover, to heal, and it worked for almost a year, but even at her most optimistic, Lisa never became the happy person of old. At Carnival, she assured Margaret that she was ready to take care of herself. She had a job offer, a good one as live-in manager at a small hotel catering to budget tourists, and that all would be well. Margaret wasn’t fully convinced but nevertheless gave her blessing and Lisa left. The job lasted only until Easter when trade dried up and Lisa disappeared. People who saw her called Margaret to say that Lisa had been spotted hanging out in a Chaguanas bar where rooms were rented upstairs by the hour. Later reports described her as ragged, emaciated, and sick looking, soliciting at traffic lights downtown. Lisa haunted Margaret’s nights, she was the wagging skeletal finger at every feast. “Memento Mei, Remember Me.” Which tattered heap of unclaimed human scraps did she become? Margaret made frequent, futile pilgrimages to the hospital, the mortuary, but Lisa was never found, no chance at rescue a second time. “Mea culpa, my fault, I didn’t try hard enough.” Had she tried hard enough with this one, with Tara? How would she ever know? Tara had made her own choice, true; yet she could not stop trying to save Tara from herself. She would stay on in the cottage, just in case Tara came back and needed her.

  One night, a storm that had grown in size and strength from the moment it left the African coast as a curl of moist air, skirted by the seaside village on its way to wreaking havoc further up the archipelago. The spiralling wind lifted the umbrella of the old flamboyant, ripping its roots from the earth, sending it sailing over the edge. The new crater, filled from runnels of rain quickly churned to heavy slurry, yielded to the pull of gravity, and took some of the cliff sliding into the sea below. She lay awake, listening to the roar of thunder, the siren call of wind, screaming of trees, slick sliding and crashing off the rocks. But she was not afraid; it was out of her control, and in the space wedged open by that thought she saw the wisdom of knowing the difference between the things you can change and those you cannot.

  The next day dawned calm and clear, innocent of the ravages of the night before. The cottage was still standing; the bench was there, but little else. She sat looking out at the soft blue sky and gently rippling waters and was lulled into a deep reverie. When the sun at zenith seared through her closed eyelids, she sought respite indoors. She stumbled into the darkness of the kitchen, running her hand along the kitchen counter to feel her way. Her fingers came into contact with something that hadn’t been there before. As her eyes adjusted, she saw what she had touched. She also saw what wasn’t there any more. In the place where Tara’s phone had been resting since that afternoon was a small box. She picked it up. It fitted snugly into her curled palm, but had a surprising heft for its small size. On the box, was a single word in Tara’s awkward lettering, PEACE. Margaret turned the little box over in her palm, opened it and looked inside. An eye of stone looked back at her. She walked with the box to the bedroom. She opened the box again, lifted out the talisman and passed its rough cord over her head. The eye felt snug and at home between her breasts. Margaret made a deep, long sigh, dragged her suitcase from the cupboard and started to pull open drawers.

  IT’S NOT WHERE YOU GO,

  IT’S HOW YOU GET THERE

  It’s my own fault really. Who send me? Early morning still and your girl already full-on into her mea culpa ritual. How so? Well, try this for starters: Boyfriend is waiting for her in Belmont; they have to be at UWI by nine for the workshop; it’s eight, she’s late and Boyfriend, no punctuality slouch himself, is I-rate.

  And, where she went wrong? Just the usual sins of omission and commission. Up at six-thirty and, time-starved, first omission – no power-walk; no oats and oat bran – another omission – only weak tea and just a sliver of time to shower, do teeth and dress; and all this hassle because of a commitment – not a commission, she reminds herself – although she increasingly wonders whether what she has going with Boyfriend doesn’t qualify for the self-inflicted sins of commission side of that debate.

  For instance, last night, hear him:

  “Why you going home so early?”

  “I want to be in my own space.”

  “So, you don’t like being here?”

  “What does that have to do with my wanting to be in my own space?”

  So, this morning, ten to seven, your girl throws on standard uniform for going somewhere nice and undressy in daytime, at least that’s predictable – fawn pants, white long-sleeved blouse – all-cotton, soft and easy, made in South Africa, gift from youngest babe – brown leather push-toe Rasta sandals, brown-cotton embroidered Indian shoulder sack – where the cellphone gone? Afro-picking to lift hair – Jah, this going to self-rass soon if I don’t do something, and with Gros Michel in hand – eight dollars a pound – organically grown in un-chlorinated water, assured the farmer when they met at SunEaters a week before. “I’m also opening up a quarry on the estate – blue limestone.” Wait nuh, something environmentally ambivalent here, not so? But she voiced nothing – tact or cowardice? Does that count as omission? She’s never quite sure about these moral dilemmas. Now into white Corolla – only two and a half years hers, after being pre-loved somewhere across the globe, Singapore? Japan? Malaysia? JeezU, we Trinis have the same attitude to sexual partners as we have to cars – you’re looking nice? Matters not where you been and with whom. It’s the detailing that counts: nice body, nice smell, nice upholstery, nice sounds, and nice shiny bling.

  She calls out, “Auntie, you know where I’m going.” No answer. Should have read the signs. Maybe they said she was the one who didn’t know where she was going; but, nah, no time even for Calvin & Hobbes, Modesty Blaise and Brenda Starr – another omission, but not a sin of – and off, up Royal Palm over the speed bumps, waving to Manmohan at the guard booth and on to Victoria Drive. And then – uh-huh, so this is how it does be? – nosing into a stagnant stream of vehicles. Waiting for fifteen minutes to call Boyfriend and leaving a v
oice mail to say, “Still in Victoria Drive and all’s still.”

  Nothing moving east to join highway; nothing moving north on highway; nothing moving south on highway; lone SUV enters west bound Victoria Drive, the driver’s heavily tinted window glides down a few inches and a Holy Name Convent accent penetrates the stagnant air. “The radio just said that a man was hit crossing the road near the walk-over at Cocorite and the police are on the scene.”

  Boyfriend returns call: “You called at quarter past seven, where are you now?”

  “Still on Victoria Drive.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing is moving.”

  “So you said. What’s causing it?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, nothing is moving.”

  Stop talk for an X-and-brake-squeezing exit from Victoria Drive; man in black car does the sloping eye signal to let her through on northbound lane of highway and she does the cheery smiley grateful wave thing back. Two hatted women, one in white, the other in mauve, on a bench outside the Church of the Apostolic Doctrine, have their backs to the highway and lean towards each other in deep discussion. Must be nice to spend whole morning going to church and discussing scripture; can save a heap of bother with real life. The ladies are under a billboard that declares “Get your car tested, it’s the law.” Your girl flicks her eyes to the out-of-date test sticker on the windscreen – another omission! If she don’t fix that soon, is she they go catch.

  On the opposite side of the highway is Mary’s backyard with its towering traveller’s palm and she can count twenty-four leaf blades in the open green fan. A gold African tulip tree tops Mary’s ten-foot concrete back wall, a cluster of red sealing-wax palm fronds, a red umbrella-topped calyandra and a handsome pair of cabbage palms rise, while bright purple and orange bougainvillaea extend thorny arms through a coiled razor wire wall-crest. Mary, neighbour, your girl sends a telepathic message: remember the days when the bougainvillaea alone was enough deterrent?