by Amanda Smyth
Roman must have used all his strength to wedge himself into me because when he took out his hand I tried to lock myself together. He spat onto his fingers and put this spit on himself; he rubbed it on the top. Then he positioned himself at the place where I opened, only I didn’t open, I locked myself together, and he rammed and rammed and rammed until he broke inside and he rammed again and again until he climbed right up and into me. I was sure he was going to burst into my stomach and my body would split in two halves like a carcass I once saw hanging in the doorway of an abattoir. I don’t know how long it went on but I could see he was trying to make something happen and his face was so twisted up that if someone had said, This man is Roman Bartholomew, I would have answered, No it is not, I do not know this man. Tears fell from the corners of my eyes. I closed them and I knew then, that if I could think of something else, if I could see something other than Roman, I could save myself from something. So I put there, the picture postcard of Southampton, and I saw the people and the gray sky and the seagulls flying above the world … That’s when Roman smacked my face and I was suddenly back, underneath the house, again. He looked crazy, and I realized he was afraid I would pass out. Then he started again. I knew now to keep my eyes open.
I did not know what he was waiting for until it came. It spilled everywhere like thick milk. Some vomit flew up into my mouth and I coughed it out. Roman climbed off me. He used his vest to wipe himself, and then he stood up and pulled on his trousers.
“If you say one thing to Tassi, I’ll make you so sorry. Tassi doesn’t give one shit about you. The sooner you understand that the better.”
He shuffled up the steps to the house. At the top, he rubbed his face now shiny with sweat and glared at me, as if this was something I had made him do.
FIVE
I WAITED FOR A WHILE, THEN TOOK A BUCKET OF WATER and a rag and scrubbed myself as though I was filled with feces. The clear water turned pink from my blood and the gluey slime that came from inside kept coming out. I put my fingers high inside the bowl of myself to wash out every last drop of him. Then I waited in the yard until I saw their shapes appear in the half-light. They came like a vision: my aunt, my two cousins, Vera and Violet, with their arms linked. They walked slowly, as if they had until the end of the world to reach the house. Their hips swayed out, their shoulders back, swinging their bags of buns and cakes. I thought, Yes, that’s why you did not come home in time, because you walk like you are in a dream. They didn’t see me crawl up the steps of the house. When they arrived I was in bed with the sheet pulled up over my head.
In the kitchen I heard Aunt Tassi singing a familiar song. The song had always made me feel sad as though it was meant for me. It went:
Brown skin girl, stay home and mind baby
Brown skin girl, stay home and mind baby
I’m goin’ away, in a sailing boat
And if I don’t come back
Stay home and mind baby
She’s the girl with the pretty eyes
She always gettin’ by
She run ’til she get away
She run at the break of day …
I stayed in my room and when Violet came to look for me so I could taste the coconut cake they had bought I told her to go away, and that I was sick. I listened to their voices in the kitchen. Vera was laughing because Roman was sleeping on the porch with his mouth open and a fly nearly went in it.
“Daddy catching flies,” she shrieked. “Why they like Daddy’s mouth so?”
I listened to the crickets in the yard; something was moving in the grass, one of the goats perhaps. I wondered if they had seen what had happened.
Later, Aunt Tassi brought in a tray with a bowl of callalloo and a piece of bake. I said I didn’t want any. She put the tray on the little table beside my bed and sat down.
“Celia, you should eat something.”
I pulled up the sheet.
“You are such a stubborn child sometimes. Come, eat a little something.”
“Maybe your food is making me ill.”
I knew this would hurt her. She got up and went back into the kitchen where I heard her say she never knew a child so rude like Celia before and how my moodiness must have come from my father’s side because none of her family were like that. Then I heard Roman, “She really think she’s somebody. She just like Sula.”
• • •
THAT NIGHT, FOR the first time in weeks, Roman stayed at home. Aunt Tassi asked him how come he not going out when she heard tonight there is some big drink up down by Uncle C’s. Roman said he was practicing for Lent and she should make the most of it.
Vera and Violet came to bed. When they spoke to me I pretended to be asleep. My aunt turned on the radio and it was playing some old-time Spanish music. I heard glasses clinking and I imagined they were drinking rum. Then I heard feet shuffling on the wooden floor and I knew she was dancing. I had seen her dance for him before. She lifted the sides of her dress and moved her bottom from left to right and it seemed separate from the rest of her, and she looked over her shoulder, dropped her eyes, and, slowly, smiled, letting her big mouth stretch and part, revealing her best asset of all, her bright, white teeth. And I knew that when she did this Roman did not take his eyes off her. If this happened when I was in the room, it made me feel ashamed for her.
Soon I could hear both of their footsteps, dancing, and when I opened my door and looked down the passageway I saw that Roman had his arm around her thick waist and his face was in her neck and he was gnawing on it.
Aunt Tassi giggled as she lay down on the old bed that arrived one day from the estate where Aunt Sula worked. I listened to the groan of the mattress and the rusty frame as Roman pressed down on her. I heard him slapping up against her like sea on the side of a boat, I heard him groan. There were some puffing sounds and I knew that they came from my aunt. She said his name. She said his name. Finally there came a loud and deep moan from Roman and at the same time a high and breathy sigh from my aunt.
In the silence that followed and in the light of the bright moon, I gathered as many of my clothes as I could find and packed them into my school bag. I put on my blue dress with the petticoat, the one I mostly wore to church and parties, and I put on my shoes shined since yesterday.
Violet looked up from her pillow. “Celia.”
“I’m going to the toilet. Go back to sleep.”
I pulled back my sheet and saw that there was blood there. This was not unusual; the sight of blood on my sheet and my aunt will assume I am menstruating and that I have forgotten to use a cloth. Then I went into the kitchen where I saw a huge moth sitting on the table. Its wings were as big as my hand and its body was thick and long. I couldn’t imagine why it was there. At the back of the cupboard I found a cocoa tin where I knew Aunt Tassi kept money from her tips. I quietly took out the coins, there were a lot of them, and there was also a five-dollar bill. I put it all in my purse. Then I emptied the jar of sweet biscuits into a small brown paper bag. On my way out, I picked up a mango from the windowsill left there by Violet to ripen in the sun.
THE YARD LOOKED like a different yard. The bushes were silvery from the moon and thick like hair and the grass was also silvery and it looked soft like I could lie on it. At the bottom of the steps I almost tripped on a toad and was glad of my shoes. The skin of a toad was like the skin of a dead person. Aunt Tassi always said you had to be careful when you come close to a toad because it might spray urine in your eyes and blind you, which was why when I saw them in the yard I sometimes threw salt on their backs. It burns like acid. Shuddering at this, I walked quickly onto Black Rock road, the road I would take if I was going to school. The silk cotton trees were like tall people and the moon gave them the light of ghosts. I remembered a man I had heard about who found a baby crying under one of the trees. He put it on the back of his bicycle and made his way to the hospital, but soon he realized the baby was getting bigger and heavier. Then in a man’s voice the baby said, “Take me back wh
ere you found me.” And when he put the baby back under the silk cotton tree it shrank to its original size. If they found me I would never go back.
I hurried along the path. It was silent as though everything in the world was dead. I thought of Joan Maingot sleeping, and her mother also asleep. I thought about the kind man she would meet and marry and have her children with. She would have a normal life in Black Rock village and her children would go to St. Mary’s school and every Sunday the family would dress for mass at St. John’s church where Father Carmichael would welcome them and where there was now a plaque for Wilfred, her father. She would live a long and happy life. My life was not to be like hers. My life was not to be happy. Mrs. Jeremiah had said so.
It was difficult to see the opening to the bay. I wondered about the crabs that came up onto the sand at night and I hoped there wouldn’t be any. There were also turtles that dragged themselves onto the sand and laid their eggs. The sea was enormous and it was hard to know where it began and where it ended. I was glad of the moon but I did not look at it too much because I knew it could send me crazy. The moon threw light on the water and the black rock was a creature climbing out of it. I decided to sleep on the beach until the sun came up. I covered myself with fallen fronds from the coconut trees. I used my bag for a pillow. There were a lot of mosquitoes; I could hear them buzzing around my head.
When dawn came I started out for Scarborough. I was the only person in the world and the loneliest person in the world. I walked quickly past the mangrove trees and at the sea grape trees I did not stop and look for pink grapes. I passed the little houses and the green where sometimes boys played cricket and everything was asleep. In the village I looked for people sitting in their doorways but no one was there. I waited for a bus and it wasn’t long before it came, and there wasn’t anybody I knew on the bus, which I was glad about. The driver didn’t notice I was sad like somebody who is running away.
By six o’clock, I was standing on the edge of the town looking at the rooftops of the stores and houses and they were shining in the sun. The sea was flat as if it was painted and the boat that would take me to Trinidad was waiting in the harbor like a monster. Along the main street people were busy unloading goods from trucks and carts for the market. They were laying out their stalls with vegetables and fruits.
I climbed the hill. It was hot now and the sun was rising higher in the light blue sky. Soon it would be hotter and then I would not want to climb any hills. Outside St. George’s church a lady said hello and looked at me as though she knew me but she did not know me and I did not say hello. I sat down on the steps of the church and took out the mango. I bit into its yellow flesh. I sat there for a few minutes and ate it. Down the road a little girl was walking with her mother, their hands joined, her immaculate school dress stiff and green. I felt like throwing the mango seed at them. But instead I put it on the ground, and then I noticed some red hibiscus flowers on the nearby hedge and I got up and picked one.
The grass on my mother’s grave was long and there were little stinging Ti Maria plants in it. I pulled them out and tore away some of the grass in clumps. I traced the letters on the piece of wood that said, Grace Angel D’Abadie, and the date she died, the same day as my birthday. I put the flower at the head of the grave. Then I lay down on my side, and put my arm over the place where I imagined her body to be. Once again, tears ran down my cheeks. I did not feel sad. I felt dirty and angry at what Roman had done.
SIX
SCARBOROUGH QUAY WAS CROWDED, AND IT WAS DIFFICULT to see where the ticket line began and ended. Most of the people gathered near the fence were waiting to board the boat. It was supposed to leave at 11:30 a.m.
After I had bought my ticket, I tried to find a way to get through the crowd or around the crowd but it was impossible. “Get in line,” a guard shouted from somewhere near the front. “Where the line start?” said someone else. Then, “Here! It start here,” yelled the guard, and he stood up on a wall and pointed. Everyone surged forward and there was pushing from behind and I had no choice but to let myself go like a wave rushing at the shore. If one of us falls, just one of us. “Wait,” the guard shouted. “Wait right there.” A woman in front with an enormous back jumped up and flung her arms about as if trying to get someone’s attention. From behind, somebody shouted, “Come on! Like we have all week to get to Port of Spain,” and there was more shouting and pushing. I had never seen the quay so full of people. Sometimes it was busy, yes, but not crowded like this. My left side was up against a young man and my right side was pressed against the fence. Through it I could see the glittery sea.
Packed up like cattle on the way to market, we waited in the hot sun and the glare. There was no breeze. Beyond the fence I watched a patch of long grass and it stayed absolutely still—not a flicker or a bend. At one point, a flock of parrots flew overhead making a screeching sound. Miss McCartney used to say that parrots fly out early but come back when the sun is warming up; by evening they are found in the mangrove or the palms. They are sociable and move in a crowd, she said. Like people. Right now, Miss McCartney was probably talking about geometry with the fan spinning above my empty wooden desk and my chair pushed underneath it. Angela Hernandez might say, “Celia not here,” and that would be that.
MORE THAN AN hour had passed before they finally started letting people through a gate and onto the gangway. I checked the clock on the Port Authority building. I couldn’t imagine how the boat would leave on time.
“Are you okay, miss?”
The young man reminded me of someone but I couldn’t think who.
“Yes,” I said.
I wondered how I must have looked to him. My hair was knotted in a ball on top my head, strands were glued about my neck. My dress was sticking to me. I was hot, but not in the usual way where a breeze comes and you cool down. I was hot on the inside like meat when it is cooking. Apart from the pain in my back where Roman had kicked me, I was sore as if I’d been cut with a knife. Earlier, when I had gone to the toilet, there was more blood and it had shocked me. I had a spare rag but I didn’t know what to do with the bloody one so I threw it away. I hoped this one would last until I got to where I was going. Now I tried to stand with my legs apart and balance on the outer soles of my feet, but there wasn’t enough room.
After a few minutes, we moved again, and were soon very nearly at the front of the line. But then we stopped about ten feet from the gangway and the guard put up his hand and told us—again—to wait. I looked at the young man and he rolled his eyes.
Here the air was thick and still; it was as if we were breathing in the same hot air we’d been breathing in for the last half hour. The idea of standing up all afternoon was suddenly unbearable. I knew that it wasn’t good to be out in this sort of heat, especially when you’re sick. Aunt Tassi would say, Go inside, put on a hat, cool yourself, lie down. My head felt strangely light, like a balloon. There were still a lot of people. I could feel them behind me, pushing and jostling. Somebody kept stepping on the back of my shoe. I wanted to say something and I quickly turned around and that’s when my head started spinning and I saw the blue sky rolling away and I thought I was going to fall …
THE YOUNG MAN found me a place to sit on the second level, near to the opening of the deck. Through the round window on the opposite side I could see Bacolet Bay and the tall coconut trees there. “I feel much better,” I said, turning to catch the little bit of sea breeze now coming in.
“The English lady where I work, when she feel faint the doctor tell her to put her head between her knees.”
“It’s just the heat,” I said, “I’ll be okay.”
I looked down at the tiny waves lapping at the side of the boat. I realized I was thirsty and asked the young man if he knew where I could get a glass of water. He went away, and came back carrying two paper cups. I thanked him and quickly drank the cool water, hoping it might stop the pounding in my head. It was easy to dehydrate. Aunt Tassi was always telling us to drink plen
ty. I almost said something to him about this, only I didn’t feel much like talking. So we sat there on the bench, with neither of us saying a word. I wanted to be alone, but he didn’t look like he was going anywhere.
Meanwhile, passengers were pouring onto the boat, looking for seats and places to put their belongings. And before long, the boat started pulling away from the harbor and there were cheers from somewhere below. On land, a few people were standing behind the barrier, waving goodbye to loved ones. I turned to the enormous sea rolled out like a ream of crinkled blue cloth, and I wondered what Aunt Tassi would say when she knew I had gone, and if she would tell the police and they’d start searching around the place. I suddenly felt small and quite afraid.
“How long does it usually take?”
The young man looked up.
“To get to Port of Spain? It depends. This afternoon should be smooth,” he said, and sliced the air with his hand. “The wind is low from the east. Seven hours or so.” Then, “When I came in this morning it was calm like a pond.”
“You sailed here this morning?”
“I had to collect something,” he said, and patted his trouser pocket. “For my brother.”
He smiled and I saw that his teeth were very white. His skin was dark, a shiny bluish black. He was probably twenty-two or twenty-three and he must have been a good bit over six feet. His hands and feet were huge. Aunt Tassi was always telling us not to talk to people we didn’t know. But the thought came easily to me that this man seemed to know a few things about the boat, and the crossing, and there was something about his eyes that made me feel he was okay. And I thought, perhaps, that when we reached Port of Spain he would help me because I had no idea how to get to Tamana Estate where Aunt Sula lived. I didn’t even know how to find my way into Port of Spain. I had heard it was a busy place with a lot of cars and a lot of people. What else was there to do?