by Amanda Smyth
WILLIAM DANIEL SHAMIEL (he told me his middle name) ordered sandwiches and sweet drinks from a snack bar on the upper level. I wasn’t hungry and left most of my bread. I thought about keeping it for later but a woman cleared our plates away and I didn’t want to say anything. At one point, he got up from his chair and took a blanket from his bag and spread it out on the floor. He said the blanket was as good as new and if I wanted to I could lie on it and get some rest. I almost said, And what about you. Where will you be? But then I saw a woman sitting with her back against the wall, a young child was sleeping on her. If anything happened, she was right there.
I didn’t know I was so tired until I lay down and closed my eyes. The boat was moving slowly and I could smell the fumes from the engine. I turned my head toward the exit; it felt like a rock that might roll away. There wasn’t any sea breeze. Children were shouting and running up and down on the deck. Somewhere nearby a man began to play the cuatro and sing a familiar calypso. I don’t remember what it was. Then someone picked up a bottle and beat it with a spoon so it went clangalangalang and a small crowd I could not see were soon clapping. And then I slept.
In my dream, Aunt Tassi was wandering around the yard in her nightdress. There was snow on the ground and yet the sun was shining. When she went under the house, there was a huge pile of snow and it was stained with blood. She called Violet and Vera and the three of them looked at the blood and started to laugh. Roman came out and he was laughing too. The objects I had found on the beach— a purse, the map of a place I could not recognize before (only now I saw it was England), the falling-apart shoe—were tied to the branches of the frangipani tree like Christmas decorations.
WHEN THE ANNOUNCEMENT came that we were approaching Port of Spain, I was surprised to wake and find William sitting in the same position. I tried to get up and my head started spinning. I sat still for a moment and took a couple deep breaths. I tried again, and the same thing happened.
William said, “Miss, I’ll help you. Where you want to go?”
So I told him that I’d like to go to the bow of the boat so I could see the Dragon’s Mouth and the Gulf of Paria and the Northern Range Mountains because this is probably what my father would have seen when he came from panning gold near the Essequibo River in British Guiana, and if he could help me I would be very grateful.
“Your father lives in Trinidad?”
“No,” I said, “He lives in Southampton. In England.”
I took hold of William’s arm like it was a rail.
THE NORTHERN RANGE Mountains were clear, like someone had cut them from cardboard and stuck them there. It might have been the early evening light, soft and pinkish, which made the peaks so dark and so green. Some say that the Northern Range Mountains in Trinidad are sad because from their feet to the top of their tips they are covered with dense forest trees, vines, wild pines, tendrils; the sort you might get tangled in. I listened for the cry of monkeys but I could only hear the wind and seawater churning. And then I remembered that the howler monkeys only cry after rain and as far as I knew it hadn’t been raining.
Someone said there were dolphins following the boat; I knew that dolphins were a sign of good fortune, but I couldn’t see any. The sea was shimmering there and when I looked back it was silvery. There was a light breeze and it made my hot skin cold. I could see the harbor of Port of Spain, and the Port Authority building. The water there was olive green. I just about made out a crowd of people. In the distance, there were a lot of tiny lights. The sky was like a dark blue ceiling and the moon was there but a little bit of its left side had been eaten away.
SEVEN
“MY MOTHER IS GOOD WITH HERBS AND MEDICINES,” William said, lifting my bag on to his shoulder. “Tomorrow you can get a drop to the bus station. From Arima you can catch a bus to Tamana.”
We were walking slowly toward the large iron gates. It was almost dark and the last passengers were drifting out ahead of us. I thought about saying, Thank you for all you’ve done, and hurrying away, but instead, I said, “Where is your house?”
“Right there in Laventille.” He pointed somewhere up and off to the right.
Laventille. I’d heard about Laventille.
He gave me the blanket and I wrapped it around my shoulders and tried to stand upright. My back was hot with pain, especially around the bottom where I imagined it was bruised. At the same time, I was shivering with cold and it was clear to me now that I had a high fever.
We were lucky to find a seat; people were struggling with boxes and large bags and they couldn’t find anywhere to put them. I had never been on a tram before, but I had seen pictures of them in the newspapers. I put my head on the glass and watched the road, and it was busy with cars, more cars than I had ever seen in my life, and their bright lights were moving like they were in a hurry to get somewhere.
We soon turned in to a wide street. Here, shops were lit up like I imagined shops to look in New York: Stephens and Todd, Glendenings, Bata! In large windows there were mannequins dressed in bright-colored materials. I saw a window filled with only shoes; another full of hats. Two sailors were standing on the corner of the street watching the tram pass, smoking cigarettes; they looked like Americans. I had heard there were a lot of them in Trinidad, and they liked to be with local girls but when they went back home the girls would never hear from them again. If Yankees come to Trinidad, Some of de girls go more than mad, Young girls say they treat dem nice, Make Trinidad like a paradise …
At the top of the road, we waited while some people got off. I saw a sign for the Queen’s Park Hotel, and a little troop of people came through the swinging doors, dressed up and laughing as if they were having a good time. This was another world. Like a dream.
BY THE TIME his brother arrived, William and I had been waiting at the crossroads for more than an hour. I was sitting on a piece of broken-down wall when he pulled up in a pickup truck across the street, his face hidden by a shadow. He waited with the radio playing loud, the engine running and the lights on. William ran over and said something to him, and then he called me over. Solomon said hello as if I was no one in particular. Climbing into the back of the cabin, I heard him say, “What happen, she sick? Only you could pick up a sick girl. She better not bring some disease into the house.” He asked William if he had something for him, and William said yes. I shifted onto the passenger’s side, leaned against the cabin, and closed my eyes. On the road to Laventille, while I was falling in and out of blackness, their voices were like the tapping of faraway drums.
Solomon parked at the bottom of a hill where the road stopped. Apparently we all got out and walked up to the wooden house. But I don’t remember this.
EIGHT
THERE WAS VERY LITTLE AIR IN THE HOUSE. WHEN I opened my eyes to drink water from a tin cup held by a woman with silver plaited hair and a round face like a dark moon, I had no idea where I was. My skin was on fire. She said, “Miss, drink the water. Come, drink the water.” I drank as much as I could, and then I vomited it out on the floor. “Oh Lord,” she said, wiping my mouth. She tied back my hair.
It was a relief to roll back onto the mattress there on the floor and let her, William, and Solomon’s mother, Mrs. Edna Shamiel, undress me. By now my clothes were damp and dirty. Slowly and gently, she sponged down my body. I called out when she reached the bruises—on my back and on my arms and on my thighs, which were swollen now and bloody. She said, “What is this, what we have here?” And then she put me in a big nightdress and covered me with a blanket. I fell into a deep and heavy sleep.
FOR THREE DAYS I tossed and turned and the fever soared. I became delirious. I shouted out the names of the people I had so far lived my life with. Later when Mrs. Shamiel told me this—I was bawling for Aunt Tassi, Aunt Tassi and I called out for Violet—I said I didn’t know anyone by those names, and she said, “Strange how fever make you lose your mind,” and she gave me a knowing look. At one point William came into the room and I curled into a ball and sc
reamed at him as if he was a demon. He thought that I was dying because my eyes were rolling back inside my head. He asked me about my aunt, he wanted to let her know that I was sick, but I said she was dead. My mother dead, my father dead, everybody dead. Then the fever died down and for a few hours they thought I had come through. The pains in my stomach had gone and my head no longer hurt. But that same night the fever came back like a bush fire raging and by morning my eyes were red with faint streaks of blood. My gums bled and my nose bled too and the metal taste of blood made me vomit everything I tried to swallow including water. Not knowing what else to do, William arranged for Solomon to collect Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez, his employer, from Port of Spain, and bring him up to the house.
I do not remember much about his visit. William and his mother waited outside the room while he thoroughly examined me, lifting away the gown, gently pressing and prodding, here and there. He had smooth and manicured hands and they were cool on my skin. He peered into my eyes with a little torchlight that came from his pocket and he put something on my tongue to push it down so he could see the back of my throat. It was probably yellow fever, he said. I had most of the symptoms. It was spreading fast in Trinidad and Tobago. There was nothing he could do but give me something to bring down the fever. If the symptoms got worse, the chances are it would cause liver failure and then I would die. But he didn’t think this would happen. He told Mrs. Shamiel to check my skin for yellow coloring, a sure sign of the disease. He recommended a bath in cold water. “Make sure she drinks plenty of water too. Boil it first. Watch out for mosquitoes. If they come into contact with her and spread it to you, you will soon know about it.”
That night my fever dropped, and for the first time in days I woke with an appetite. Mrs. Shamiel brought in a plate of cow heel soup, which I ate. Later, she came with an oil lamp and sat with me and I propped myself up on the old pillow and sipped the sweet tea she had brewed from special healing herbs. Her kindness surprised me; she didn’t have any reason to be kind. “You getting better now, child. Today you turn a corner. You’ll see.” In the shadows, I saw William enter the room and stand behind her like a guard. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell that he was relieved. Wearily, I thanked them both for saving my life.
NEXT MORNING, AFTER William and Solomon had gone, and Edna Shamiel had left for the bakery in Woodbrook, where she’d worked for seventeen years, I got up and I wrapped my sheet around me, and slowly made my way around the little wooden house. It was very small and the floor was thin and broken in places. There were two bedrooms and both had mattresses. There was a kitchen with a coal pot and a basin, a little larder; plates and pots and cutlery were stacked here. Just off the kitchen was a table and four chairs. It was hardly big enough to call a dining room. I wandered outside onto the tiny veranda where there were two wooden chairs with cushions and a little stand and a rubber plant. I sat down. Over the door was a framed picture of the Virgin Mary; she was surrounded by a golden, hazy light.
That morning, a breeze blew until around noon and kept me cool. My fever had definitely gone. But I was exhausted. Mrs. Shamiel had left a jug of lime juice on a tray in the kitchen, and there was a plate of bread and cheese. I ate a little, and then I went back outside, laid cushions on the floor and slept. In the late afternoon, I woke in time to see her climbing up the track, her bowlegs bending under the strain of her heavy frame.
“You’re up!” she said. “What did I tell you. Just now you’ll be feeling exactly like yourself.”
So began my slow recovery.
IT WAS COOLEST on the porch, shaded by the eaves. From there I could look out on the patched-up houses below with their galvanized rooftops, right down the hill where the road stopped and where Solomon parked his truck. And every day I watched the sun light up that hill. At times I got strangely hot, took a bucket of water, stood outside, and poured it over my head. People walked up or down the mud track. When heavy rains came, the path became slippery and treacherous and everyone used another route, which was paved and narrow. No one passed the house, because it was at the end of the road. I saw neighbors as they made their way, looking up at where I was perched on the veranda. I felt far away from anyone and everyone. There were little brick steps leading up to the porch and a cluster of banana trees grew at the bottom of them. I watched them flower and their figs grow big enough to eat.
At the back, there was a breadfruit tree. It wasn’t as big as Aunt Tassi’s tree but it had the same shape and the same thick leaves. They say the best breadfruit comes from Tobago, but when Mrs. Shamiel baked one in her coal pot, I thought it as sweet as any I’d ever tasted.
“I could eat mine all over again,” I said, when I put down my fork.
“Nothing like Tobago breadfruit, though,” she said. “When you go again, bring one for me and we can test it out.”
MRS. SHAMIEL DIDN’T seem to mind that I was there in her house all day doing nothing. She told me to take things easy, and when I was well enough we would talk about where I was going and what I was doing. She never asked me about the state I was in the night I came to her house, but I imagined that she knew more than she let on.
One day she said, “Whatever trouble you had is over now.”
While sitting on the floor picking through a tray of rice, she told me that my arrival in her home was a blessing because she could see that William, her youngest son, was very fond of me.
“The minute he saw you, he knew there was something special about you. He say so that night he bring you here.” She was smiling, proud. “He is a good man and he wouldn’t harm anyone or anything. Not even an ant.” She looked up. “He like you a lot.”
“I like him too,” I said. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I might be dead.”
“All the girls prefer Solomon, you see.” She narrowed her eyes. “Because Solomon is good-looking. But he only live for money, like his father.”
“There’s a lot of people like that. Money is their god.”
“Right now his father sitting in jail in Port of Spain serving life for killing a man in a brawl. And you know why? He owe the man money and the man tell him so. Just like the day does catch the moon, he get caught.” She shook her head. “Solomon make plenty money with his truck, and yet William had to pay him to bring Dr. Rodriguez here. He have William running about the place. Like when he met you, William only in Tobago for Solomon. I doubt William know what business he doing. Solomon’s right hand don’t know what his left hand doing.”
Then she turned to the window where the last rays of sunlight were trickling in. “He is my son and I love him, but if he wasn’t my son I not sure I would like him.”
EVERY EVENING, THREE of us, William, Mrs. Shamiel, and I, ate dinner around the small wooden table, which was covered with a plastic tablecloth patterned with apples and pears. It was strange that this pattern had found its way into a house in Laventille where, chances are, none of the people in it would ever taste apples and pears. And while we ate, Mrs. Shamiel talked about her good friend Ruby who worked on the cake counter, and she talked about her new boss, Mr. Abraham; she didn’t like him one bit. Or she talked about her customers; those that never had money, those that spoke down to her, those she’d known for years. And once she had finished, she’d say, “So William, what happen in that madhouse today?” And he would always look across at me and I knew that he was shy.
William had worked for the Rodriguez family for six years. He managed the yard, looked after the flowers and plants and fruit trees, cut the lawn, and trimmed all the hedges and borders. He had a little plot where he grew pineapples. Now and then he brought them home; the family didn’t seem to mind.
I heard about a small boy called Joe who bit his younger sister so hard the baby had to have a tetanus injection. Mrs. Shamiel said he was lucky that his father was a doctor; he had the needle right there. Joe took William’s tools and hid them in the yard. He often played inside the toolshed, even though he wasn’t a
llowed. She thought William should tell the boy something. “These children play you like a pipe,” she said. “Nobody seems to discipline them.”
William told us how this same baby, Consuella, pushed her head through the bars of the cot and got it stuck there, and how he had to bring a little saw and cut her free. “She turn purple,” he said. “She nearly die. And the whole time the mother only standing with her face to the wall sobbing like the child already dead.” He didn’t know how long Helen Rodriguez would last in Trinidad when she was afraid of everything from flies to hot pepper. Mrs. Shamiel said, “She ’fraid of the sea, she ’fraid of frogs, she was even afraid of Brigid, the maid! You wonder how she ends up in Trinidad. Her husband is a good-looking man, he could have had anyone he liked. You remember him,” she said, “the doctor.”
William said that Dr. Rodriguez had asked about me more than once. “I tell him you feel much better. He say he very glad to hear it.”
SOLOMON ALWAYS CAME home late and sometimes he brought a friend, and they sat on the porch and drank rum in the dark. If they made a lot of noise Mrs. Shamiel would get up and go outside and speak to them. She was not scared of Solomon and he knew it. He seemed to have a lot of friends and they had unusual names: Cricket, Long, Red Boy, Cobeaux, Tiny, Nathaniel. He hardly spoke to me, and sometimes when he did, I felt uncomfortable.