Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange

by Amanda Smyth

  After a week of this nausea, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes in the morning, I knew it wasn’t a virus I had, and I knew by the soreness of my breasts and the new hardness of my belly, that it would not go away; not unless I saw a special doctor like Mrs. Jeremiah, who could give me a potion to drink; not unless somebody placed a pouch of chicken liver and aniseed inside me and fed it to the top of my womb with a piece of wire. Aunt Tassi’s words spun around my head: “Just now you’re a baby and you’re having a baby yourself.” Only I wasn’t a baby anymore. I was nineteen years old.

  THAT NIGHT I asked William, “Are they back from England, yet?” “Yes, Celia.” Then, carefully, as if he wasn’t sure whether he was saying the right thing, “Mrs. Rodriguez get big with the next child.”

  Mrs. Shamiel threw me a look; I pretended not to notice.

  TWENTY-NINE

  I TOOK A TRAM FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL. I SAT near where the doors opened, so I could catch a bit of breeze. In the glass my face was thin. These past few days, I had made myself eat because I didn’t want Mrs. Shamiel to become suspicious, but mostly, the thought of anything but dry bread made me feel ill.

  The tram filled up as we got closer to town. Some young children were dressed like kings and queens, wearing glittery crowns and cloaks of bright colors. They were talking loudly, excitedly. I had forgotten it was the first day of carnival. Port of Spain would be busy.

  I got off early and cut through the back streets of Woodbrook. Even here, there were people walking in the road; some in sailors’ costumes—blue wide trousers with striped shirts and white caps. They were probably going to find their band; hundreds would dance in the streets today. “Hey baby,” one of them called, and from a pouch he pulled out a handful of white powder and threw it at me. “You’re going in the wrong direction!” I could hear music coming from somewhere, and somebody was loudly beating a drum. As I turned the corner, a man appeared on high stilts, dressed like a robber, wearing an enormous hat with a wide brim, and a terrifying mask. He pointed a gun at me.

  “Hand over your money, girl,” he shouted, leering forward. I tried to walk closer to the wall, but he lifted his long wooden legs and, like a giant spider, straddled his way toward me.

  “I drown my grandmother in a teaspoon of water. I steal little children and decorate my house with their faces. Their brains make my supper. Give me money or I’ll shoot your ears from your head.”

  Then he laughed, as if he had just heard the best joke in the world. I hurried down the street.

  THE SURGERY DOOR was held ajar with a large piece of coral. Inside, there was a small queue of people. The receptionist was friendly enough. “Yes,” she said, “Dr. Rodriguez is the only doctor working today. He’s just back from his vacation.” She said this as if I was lucky to catch him fresh from England, especially at carnival. She asked me to fill in a form, which I did. I called myself Grace Carr Brown; he would not know this name. In the tiny bathroom, I washed my hot face; dusted the white powder from my hair; I put on lipstick. Then I sat near the waiting room window. There was a ceiling fan, and every time it reached a certain place it made a clicking sound: tuck–tuck–tuck. It made me want to fall asleep. It was almost noon before she told me I could go in. “He’s in the first office,” she said, “no need to knock.”

  I walked in, and without a word, Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez stood up. He came around and closed the door behind me. He had put on weight; his tan had gone.

  I said, “You probably know why I’m here.”

  “No, Celia. I don’t have a clue.” He sat down opposite me. I could see that he was nervous.

  “Helen is due much sooner than me. There’s still time to get rid of it.”

  He looked me up and down. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” For some reason, I did not want to cry. I was far from that place of tears. “I need you to help me. I have no money, no way of making a living. You have to help me.” My voice was small and the words all sounded like the same note.

  For a moment, he leaned back in his chair. Then he rubbed his face as if to wake himself up.

  I noticed a recent photograph on his desk. The family was standing outside a castle. Helen Rodriguez was wearing a pink maternity coat, her hair tucked up in a hat. A proper English rose.

  He said, “How do I know it’s mine?”

  I did not understand this question.

  “How do I know it’s not William’s?” Then, “Or another man you might have been with in the last couple of months?”

  “There’s been no one else.” Now my voice was about to crack.

  “And I have to take your word for that.”

  I stared at him; he must know I wasn’t lying.

  “I gave you money when you left, Celia. If you’re in trouble, use the money I gave you to get rid of it.”

  “What if I want to keep it?”

  Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez drew a deep breath and sighed. For the first time, he looked at me with kindness and, perhaps, pity. His eyes were more green than brown; green like green sea. “I can’t help you, Celia. I’m sorry. If you decide to have it, and I hope you won’t, then that’s your choice. I can give you the name of somebody, he’s very good. He’s right here in town.”

  “I hear girls die in these operations.”

  “Not when they’re done properly, professionally. It takes no time at all. I wouldn’t recommend somebody who wasn’t professional.”

  “Do you ever think about us?”

  He looked down at his hands.

  “Yes,” he said, “but not in the way you might want me to.”

  “And how do I want you to think of me?”

  There was a tap at the door, and the voice of the receptionist said, “Dr. Rodriguez, there is a telephone call for you. Shall I put it through?”

  “Yes,” he said, “give me two minutes, thank you.”

  “I don’t know, Celia. With some kind of need or desire. It doesn’t really matter, does it.” He got up and put his fingers through his hair. “I really hope you’ll make things easy for yourself and go to see Charles. You met him, down the islands at Avalon. Charles Smith, the gynecologist, remember?” He scribbled a number on a piece of paper, and gave it to me. Then he opened his wallet and pulled out three twenty-dollar bills. “Just don’t go saying it’s my child you’re getting rid of.” He smiled.

  “Is this what you did with Brigid?”

  “I’m sorry, Celia. I’m sorry this has happened to you.” And with that he walked around his desk. He opened the door and held it wide.

  I wanted to say something more. But I couldn’t.

  THIRTY

  NOW I KNEW FOR SURE: ALL ROADS LEAD TO NOWHERE. Mrs. Jeremiah was right. My life was not to be happy. My life was miserable and it would always be miserable. I escaped one monster to meet a different kind of monster. Only this one was much more dangerous because I loved him. He did not love me. He had never loved me. Like rum, he drank me up and peed me out. His child told me he had done this before and the moment I heard it I knew in my bones it was true. I was not the first. I would not be the last. If I saw him in the street, he would cross over to the other side and pretend he did not know me. Pretend he did not know what my skin tasted like, how I smelled, how my thighs felt around his waist. I was not his sunshine, his light in the dark. He will break your heart in two, Mrs. Jeremiah said. She was right.

  Tamana, a place where nothing changes, and yet everything changed. I thought I could live there, when I saw there was nowhere else to go. This white man will look out for me. My aunt would take care of me. Her home was my home. I could ride the horse up to the fields, play games with the children, clean out the stables. That could have been my life. But I disappointed him. The woman I loved, my beloved aunt, died. I wasn’t welcome there anymore.

  I had nothing. There was nowhere to go. If I went to Black Rock, everybody would say, Oh yes, Celia run away to make her life and come back when it all go sour. Look where she reach! With no fathe
r for the baby and no money to take care of it.

  So I live in Laventille with two men—one ugly, the other a handsome crook—and their mother, and eventually I will marry the ugly one and wait for the mother to die so we can say the shacky little house is ours? Where did the baby come from, they’ll say. The little half-white pickney child?

  Money buys you freedom. I had little money. I was not free. I told myself I do not want to live. All roads lead to nowhere. Money. Money. If only I could have more money. If I could get to England I would find my father. He might be a rich man, he might be a pauper. It wouldn’t matter. He would want to see me. I was his flesh and blood. If my skin was too dark for him, I would scrub it with lime to make it pale. In England I could start again. I could be a cook in a restaurant, or a seamstress, or a nanny. I could go to university. I’d teach in a school. Just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean you shouldn’t study and do something with your life. Money. If only I had money. With money I would start all over again. You will not die in this place. That’s what she said. Mrs. Jeremiah said, Celia does what Celia want. You don’t care what happen to get what you want. You must get what you want.

  You will die in a foreign place. But somehow I had to get to the foreign place.

  THIRTY-ONE

  WILLIAM CAME HOME FIRST. HIS MOTHER HAD GONE TO visit Ruby in the General Hospital, so she wouldn’t be back until early evening. I had a memory of this, something she had mentioned that morning. By then it wouldn’t have mattered if Queen Elizabeth of England was coming to Laventille.

  Apparently, William heard me as he was walking up the hill. At first he thought the cry came from a dog or a cat trapped somewhere. And then something told him it was Celia. He ran up the steps and flew into the house; when he opened my door, I looked up at him, my eyes frightened and swollen, my face wet and red. (Later he said, “You didn’t look like yourself.”) He thought something terrible had happened. “What happen, Celia? What happen?” He tried to lift me up from where I was curled over. But I was heavy like rock. Everything in me wanted to go down, down, down. He called my name. It made no difference; I was at the end of a place I had never visited before. There was no light and no sound. He put his arms around my back; he swayed me gently from side to side like a child. Until, at last, I heard my breath slow right down, and the sobs become laps, not waves. And then, finally, they stopped. “Tell me, Celia,” William said, his dark eyes searching. “You can tell me. Whatever it is.”

  • • •

  WE LEFT THE house and made our way through the back of the village. I had never been this way before. I followed William up toward the top. We passed little shacks that looked like they might fall down. And some of the people we saw stopped what they were doing and looked at us. Some said good afternoon or waved, and I realized they must know William. A man asked, “You play Mass today, William? I hear Port of Spain heaving with people.” Another said, “Tell your mother I bring black pudding for her tomorrow.” William made it clear he couldn’t stop to talk.

  And so it went. And we kept on walking in that golden light, weaving along the narrow path lined with wild, dry bush, until we reached an open concrete area. Rubbish was scattered there—broken chairs, torn mattresses, old clothes. Ahead was a large church, and in the grounds of this church, a stone statue of Our Lady of Laventille towered thirty feet high. I had never seen her so closely. I had glimpsed her from the highway. But she had not looked like this. Her robe was long and flowed down to her bare feet. She wore a crown; her face was kind and serious. She did not appear sad; her eyes were filled with pity—pity for me, pity for William; pity for the whole world.

  It was here, on the dusty ground at the feet of the Virgin Mary, that I told William I was pregnant. At first he was shocked. He stared at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.

  “Since when?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe eight or ten weeks. I’m not sure.”

  “Is it someone from the estate?”

  I shook my head.

  “Someone you’ve met in town?”

  “No.”

  William looked confused. Then, and I saw the thought take shape, “Not Dr. Rodriguez?”

  “Yes.”

  He stared at me, his eyes dark and wide. He was absolutely still, as if he wasn’t breathing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  William got up and walked to where the concrete stopped and long grass grew. He bent over like somebody who has taken a blow to the stomach; he put his hands on his knees. I wondered how long he would stay like that. He might lose his balance and fall down the hill. On the other side, some children were playing with a bicycle wheel and a stick. They hadn’t noticed us. One of them shouted something and William stood up. He wrapped his arms around himself as if he was cold.

  There were questions: When did it start? Soon after you got the job?

  “No,” I said. “It was later, it was much later.”

  “You were together in the house?”

  “Yes. Sometimes we went out in the car. She was often in her room.”

  I could see that he was thinking, trying to remember. “Did you go in the toolshed?”

  I nodded.

  He shook his head. “That’s why it was always messed up.” He made a strange grunt, like a kind of laugh. “I always blamed Joe.”

  Then he said, “Were you in love with him?”

  “Yes.”

  Now William looked at me as if he was in a kind of trance, and I knew that he was trying to make sense of it. He pressed his fingers into his forehead.

  “Does he know?”

  “He wants nothing to do with me or the child.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Today I went to the surgery.”

  “And Mrs. Rodriguez?”

  “She doesn’t know. She won’t ever know.”

  William looked away at the tiny lights in the distance. We could see the main road to the east, and straight ahead the flat gray sea. Those who did not like carnival would sail their boats down the islands. In town, celebrations would be winding down, with masqueraders going home to rest up for tomorrow. Another day of drinking and dancing in the streets, and then it would all be over.

  “That’s why she went crazy.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Same thing with Brigid.”

  “Yes.”

  By now the sun was low, the golden glow had vanished. It would soon be dark.

  “Do you want the baby?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Yesterday I didn’t, but today I do.” I surprised myself to hear this. Then, “I beg you, William, please don’t say anything to your mother. I don’t want her or Solomon to know. I just want some time to sort myself out. He gave me the name of someone.”

  “For what?”

  “To get rid of it. They say it doesn’t take long.”

  Two stray dogs had come to the edge of the grass, they were fighting over a chicken bone. They were so thin their stomachs were bloated. One of the dogs growled, and chased after the other dog; I saw it had only three legs.

  “You wonder if they’d be better off dead,” I said. But William was no longer there.

  “Where are you going?” I shouted.

  He didn’t answer. I watched him disappear into the jungle of houses.

  I SAT THERE for a few minutes. I was so tired, I could have lain down on the ground and slept. I looked up at the statue looming now in silhouette. And for a moment, I could imagine that she was real, and not made of stone at all.

  THIRTY-TWO

  NEXT DAY, I HAD JUST FINISHED SWEEPING THE FLOOR, and it was around noon when William arrived home unexpectedly. Apparently, he had left the Rodriguez house without saying anything; he’d put down his tools and walked out.

  “Why?” I asked. “Did someone say something?”

  “Not really. Nothing in particular.” He seemed dazed, bothered.

  “You can’t quit your job now. You’ve worked there al
l these years. Nothing has changed.”

  “Everything has changed,” he said, looking at me as if I was crazy.

  “That’s not true,” I said. “The only difference is that you know something today you didn’t know yesterday.”

  He sat down on the old wicker chair. “I can’t work for Dr. Rodriguez anymore. I can hardly look at him. I want to help you, Celia.”

  “Well it won’t help when your mother starts asking why you’ve given up your job and you tell her it’s because of me. And then there’s two of us here.”

  Outside the light was bright and glaring. The banana leaves were shiny as if they’d been polished; two large hands needed picking.

  William got up. “We could go away; you could have the baby. If we were somewhere else it wouldn’t matter. Somewhere nobody knows us. Jamaica or Barbados. Even England. Look how many people going to England now and making a fresh start. Isn’t your father in England?”

  “With what, William?” I felt my face getting hot. “You can’t live on air. We have nothing; that’s what we have. Nothing. You can’t start a new life with that.”

  FOR A FEW days, William went back to work, but he never stayed a full day. He went in late, and left in the early afternoon; Solomon picked him up at the gate and they took off somewhere. Apparently, Marva asked if he was sick and he told her, Yes, sick of her, sick of the whole Rodriguez family. At home he was distracted and quiet. His mother soon noticed. She said, “You feeling all right?” and for the first time I heard him snap at her. “Don’t fuss so,” he said. “Everything’s okay.” She looked at me, I pretended I hadn’t noticed.

  One night, he went out with Solomon and he came back drunk. I had never seen him like that. From my window I watched him staggering in the half-light of the moon, trying to find his keys, calling out to nobody in particular. Eventually, Mrs. Shamiel went outside; she told him to go in his bed and sleep. I noticed them talking on the porch until late. Their conversations were hushed and serious. Something was going on. I said, “Since when were you and Solomon so close?”