New Worlds, Old Ways Page 7

  Leon wasn’t no scholar, and she never treat him like she treat me! But he did take notice of her behaviour. He say that he went through the same nancy-story. Was strange when he wanted to exchange numbers, but I went ahead. When he call, we would badtalk the Sharmas. He used to call them the Brahmins, which woulda make we the Dalits, the Dravidians, the Untouchables. We bond like that, jokin bout how we coulda eat at the same table with these Brahmins. One thing that stick out to me was when he tell me, “Is a while since I coulda laugh at something I actually find funny.”

  But no matter how much I talked with Leon, I ain’t learn much. Might sound weird, but he was unknowable, secretive while appearin to be an open book. Have a way he curl his eyebrows when he talk–you know that the man hidin things. His honesty was an illusion and I suddenly had the notion that he was lyin in bed next to Lakshmi, tellin her all the things I used to say, bout all the vulgar badtalk comin outa my mouth. It coulda be a plot from Mother Sharma to get rid of me. Leon wasn’t exactly the apple of the woman eye, but she still give him a chance in the textile business she was runnin. What Leon coulda know bout textiles?

  As for me, well, I was useless. No room for me in that equation. The woman had no opportunities for me. She wanted me gone! Never had a day she wouldn’t nag Shivan to get a girl who wasn’t a damn wedding singer. Shivan used to ask me to sing for them–like a puppy trained to do tricks. Like the issue was the quality of my singing and not my career choice. He was a desperate boy, is all I could say. Desperate for mummy’s approval.

  “She’s not going to one day be singing at the Metropolitan, darling,” she used to say to Shivan. And one day, Lakshmi back it up with, “You sure she doesn’t sing for funerals?”

  That’s what Leon told me. I didn’t know what to say. I expected lines like that from the old, senile bitch, but not from Lakshmi. I barely ever talk to Lakshmi, but I was hurt. I have a thick skin, but that sting real bad. That night, I invite Leon over to my apartment. Was under the guise to go out and watch a movie. Lakshmi didn’t like goin to the cinema–she was that kinda woman–so she was happy for Leon to find a movie-friend. I tell him to come up and wait for me. When he walk in the door, I was already naked on the couch. He waste no time–he jump on me and we went at it three times. He was of a different world from the Sharmas. A different creature. He didn’t belong in whatever birdcage they was keepin him in.

  I did it to get at Lakshmi and, by extension, Mother Sharma. I wanted to ruin the family. Was for no other reason, really. It feel good knowin that there was some things they had no control of. So I let the affair go on for bout a month. He tell me he was in love, he tell me I had perfect breasts, he tell me everything was different with me, how mechanical Lakshmi was and how organic I was–foolishness like that. He tell me he would leave his wife for me, but I ain’t stupid–I know how men does talk. I never let it fool me, not for a minute. Leon was useless without his wife, anyway. I would never talk bout Shivan with him, though he insist I should. The only comparison I ever make was when I tell him, “You taste like him, but sweeter.”

  I let it go on until Shivan get rid of me. No, he ain’t never find out bout the affair–he was as clueless as his sister. His mother end up gettin the best of him. The breakup was simple. One phone call, one last roll under the sheets, and I put my dress back on and went my way. I ain’t beg for him. To tell you the truth, I was relieved–I didn’t realize it until a few days after. My phone was filled with missed calls from Leon. But I never bother to call back until I wake up vomiting one mornin. So I did the test the next day–and yes, I was pregnant. Wasn’t Shivan’s–he always use protection. Leon didn’t.

  So I call up Leon and let him know what was goin on. He was quiet-quiet at first. Wouldn’t be hard to imagine what was goin through his head, but you coulda never know with him. “I gon be there for the child,” he tell me. “I know what is like to come into this world with nobody.” But after that, all calls went unanswered. Texted constantly, no replies. Is hard to explain what it feel like–I was a fruit, ready to be juiced dry into some bitter cocktail. Blood and progesterone burned like shots of straight Scotch every mornin. Every step I take feel like an oar stroking a heavy arc of water. I thought bout gettin rid of the child, but that was a more frightenin thought than havin it. All I coulda think bout was metal and blades and scissors in a bright sterilized room. Surgery of the soul. I couldn’t do it.

  One day I left a voice message for Leon, tellin him that I’d tell his wife bout the baby if he don’t reply. Was just a threat, just a lil somethin to stir the fear in him. Well, the phone ring, ring, ring! I coulda hear talkin and shufflin in the background and he was whisperin to me, “You can’t do this to me. I’ll lose everything. Do you know how much I sacrificed?”

  But I kept up the threat, sayin, “Be a man and take responsibility, Leon. I have pictures of you in my apartment if you don’t.” Actually, I didn’t.

  A week later, he called and asked to come over. He’d pick me up and we’d drive and talk. So we drive down to Waterloo, near the cremation site by the Temple in the Sea. Well, Leon ain’t come to talk that night. He cut the lights, lean over and press his thumbs against my neck.

  Stranglin me right there in the passenger seat.

  His eyes was watery and red. He was snarlin like a dog.

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t kick him offa me.

  I stretch my arm to open the door.

  It fly open and I fall backward, my head upside-down, his thumbs still jam against my throat. A colony of dogs in the distance lift their eyes at me. No sound but the muted rumble from the water, sloshing salt into the wind. The moonlight falling on the queue of jhandi flags poking out from the mud. A small boat, anchored to a bamboo pole, bobbed silently in the bay.

  I saw these things as the light was bein squeezed outta me.

  Couldn’t remember nothin else.

  When I wake up, I was face-down in the silt. I still can’t angle my neck straight–it have a perpetual crook in it. My clothes was drenched and bloody round the waist. And a baby was next to me, cryin, cryin, cryin. I ain’t even realize I was dead at first–me and this baby that was inside of me. Nobody coulda see me, nobody coulda see the child. I was shock at first. I underestimate Leon! Didn’t think the man had it in him! Ain’t nobody gon look for me, ain’t nobody in this world to miss me. It probably ain’t even had a body to find. Just one more woman fall off the Earth–dispensable flesh.

  Leon didn’t start comin to see me till a full month later. I ain’t know how else to put it–but he look like shit. I ain’t think it was guilt, but I still could never be sure. Death ain’t have no clarity to it, you know. It more confusin than life. Lookin at life from the outside make me miss it. Ghosts couldn’t have company unless they haunt somebody. So as I say before, I drive him mad whenever I could, just because I could. The first time he drive down here and see me standin near the flags, my clothes tattered, my pale bloated skin drippin wet, he just drop to his knees. He ain’t try to run. He ain’t scream or bawl.

  All I coulda say to him was, “The child want milk, Leon.”

  So whenever he come, he make sure to bring two gallon of milk, because this child always hungry! He have to bring it, because I find out something I coulda do. I coulda yank the lives of babies right from the womb. I do it to a woman who was starin out at the sunset here near the temple. Rip the baby’s soul right outta she and watch the blood spill down her dress and legs.

  It was incredible!

  Now, at the time, Lakshmi was pregnant. Don’t ask me how I know–I just know. The dead know these things. I didn’t even have to be near she. I let Leon know what I would do if he ever stop comin. I would tear that baby right outta she and I would belt out a wedding song for the fuckin funeral!

  This went on for months. Had a time he lie against my breast and tell me bout his father–walk right outta his life before he was born–like I could care. He tell me this child mean everything to him. Every time he come
, he’d snivel and beg me not to take his child–that it was the only good thing in his life. I tell myself I woulda keep stringin him along and kill the baby at the eighth month. But the joke was on me; the baby was born premature at seven months. A healthy, pink, flushed baby boy. Unfortunately.

  Suddenly, I had no authority over it, but I didn’t let Leon know that. I let him believe I coulda still snatch it away from him at any time. I enjoy it for a while, but it get boring. Just one day, I decide to let Leon go. He seem unhappy enough with his life. His marriage makes him suffer worse than I did. I try luring some other men into the water, but I tell you–it get boring.

  Round that time, had a few folks that start sensin somethin was goin on at the bay. Maybe they coulda feel me breathin down their neck, or hear me callin out to them. Maybe they coulda see the splashes in the water that I make. Or maybe I abort one too many foetuses near the temple. I dunno–I lost count long time. They give me all kinda names–churile, jumbie girl–but the one I like the most was maiden of the mud, probably because they start seein the footprints I leave whenever I walk cross the silt. Maiden remind me of how young I was. I wasn’t no hag or no witch. I was a maiden.

  You know, I’m not so much a ghost, I’m a demon. A young demon. And I feel like demons ain’t born. Demons are made. Demons are moulded. Demons get stuck wanderin a place over and over for centuries, hauntin the same old people, unable to move forward with time. Women demons, especially, obsess with man and only man. Why? This is how I want eternity to play out? Hauntin some string of men? Listenin to some child cry whole day? Even in death, I realise I still stuck bein a blasted untouchable.

  Must have somethin better out there, I keep thinkin. So today, I get up and leave the child to cry. Funny how I never think to just leave it behind before. In death, decisions like that don’t even come to mind normally. The farther I walk away from it, the softer the cries get. Until it dwindles into silence. Peace and quiet, at last.

  I turn round and see the child has always been nothin but a stone. I turn round and head back to see if the light been playin tricks on me. But no, it right there, just a big chunk of rock. Has it just been playin a prank on me and Leon the whole time? I dunno. I could never know. I hold it in my arms now. I drop it into the ocean and watch it dissolve into a flurry of black ribbons.

  In the distance, bands of clumpy grey clouds swell and taper cross the sky, the dust-coloured twilight shootin out through the cracks. But the cracks soon stitch up and the darkness stretches cross the sea. The iron gloom is mantled with a twisted matrix of lightning. The temple standin still at the end of the stone jetty; the tides startin to lash against concrete.

  I squint my eyes and peer at the slow swirl of clouds. A giant plume of rain blowin in from the rumblin horizon. A storm comin. It tellin me, Girl, you have to go. It tellin me, Girl, it’s time to move on. It tellin me, Girl, you free to leave this place.

  Richard B. Lynch

  Water Under the Bridge

  Barbados

  Janice looked down at the water under the swing bridge and stared at her reflection. Even at a distance, she could see the fear on her face. She was scared because it was Friday. Friday was scary since her mother started to work the graveyard shift at the gas station and she was left in the care of her mother’s boyfriend.

  Janice would ask her mother not to go to work but her mother always answered, “I have to, li’l girl.” Janice would ask if she could stay with her mother’s sister, but her mother always answered, “Don’t confuse me, chile.”

  It was about three months ago when the boyfriend came to live with them. At first he spent most of his time in the bedroom with Janice’s mother, but gradually spent more time just loafing around the house. Janice would come home from school and find him in the small living room in front of the television with her mother–in each other’s arms. She felt that her mother was ignoring her.

  Sometimes, after school, Janice would sit with them while they watched television. Then, everything was pretty all right, but one time when her mother went to the kitchen, Janice caught the boyfriend staring at her. She felt frozen under his stare. She occasionally glanced in his direction, hoping he would be looking away, but he only removed his eyes when her mother returned to the room. Janice tried to tell her mother about the incident the next morning, but her mother told her that the boyfriend was probably just high.

  The first evening that her mother worked the graveyard shift, the boyfriend just sat and watched television while Janice read her books in her room. It was on the third or maybe the fourth time they were alone when he invited Janice to sit on the sofa with him. That night he put on a good action flick, which Janice enjoyed.

  The next time he called her to watch a movie with him, she did not enjoy it. The movie was about people kissing and being in bed with each other and doing “lovey dovey,” as her friends at school would say. The next time they watched a movie together, Janice knew they were watching a blue movie. She had heard the boys at school talking about them–about whose father had the most. She sat through it, stiff as a plastic doll, grateful when it came to an end. Then he sent her to bed.

  Janice told her mother about the movie and her mother confronted the boyfriend about it. He sucked his teeth and said, “Is either she imagination, or she trying to get me in trouble. We watch a movie and it might-uh had in some kissing and ting but I wuh never put on a blue movie in front you chile.”

  Janice’s mother flogged her that night and told her not to “mess up tings” with her and her man. After that, on Friday nights, the boyfriend continued to call Janice to watch movies. Sometimes he even dragged her out of her room to make her watch. It was not always pornography, but he made her sit on his lap, whispering in her ear as he touched her. “You muhduh ain’t eva gine believe you, cause she like dis same touch too much. Don’t scream, hear, cause I wuh break you neck right hey.”

  Janice cringed as she sat on his lap. She looked at the television, thinking that this was what got her in trouble in the first place. She looked at the linen cupboard and wished she was inside it and away from this man. She looked at the picture of Jesus with his hands outstretched, and wished he would come off the wall to help her.

  Now, looking down at her reflection in the water under the swing bridge, she recalled her conversation with the old woman who sold tamarind balls outside school. In truth, the old woman had spoken to her.

  She looked into Janice’s eyes and said, “You troubled, li’l girl chile. Wha’ troubling you?” Janice just stood there, looking back at the old lady. The next day was Friday, but Janice was afraid this woman would react as her mother had.

  “Who troubling you is de real question?” the old woman said. “It is time yuh help yuhself. Do exactly as I tell you.”

  Janice pulled a jar from her bag and carefully reached into her pocket for the egg she had stolen from the supermarket across the street. She had been very careful not to bump into anyone while leaving, so as to protect the egg. She slid an egg into the jar, easing in her fingers as far as she could so it wouldn’t break, screwed the lid back onto the jar and let it drop from the swing bridge. The jar broke her reflection as it hit the water. When the reflection reformed, instead of fear, she now could see hope.

  When Janice got home she was shocked by what she saw, even though the old woman had prepared her well. The television was on, and sitting in front of it on the sofa in the small living room was a little girl. From behind, Janice could see that the little girl’s hair was in the same style as her own. She crept over to the sofa and stared wide-eyed. The face was a perfect reflection of her own.

  She remembered the old woman’s instructions: “Don’t look at she long, cause she gine see dat you is she and she gine leff. Just find someplace good to hide.”

  Janice opened the linen cupboard and pulled out a few things from the inside, spilling them onto the floor. She crawled into the space and closed the door behind her. Janice could see what was in the living room
through the slats of the cupboard doors.

  Janice’s mother came out of her bedroom, ready for work. “Janice! I hope you plan to tek up all dese tings you got pun de floor.” She saw what they were and shouted. “Janice, how you cuh tek out my tings and just leff dem dey! I gine work and tings better not be so in de morning when I get home!”

  Janice’s mother called to her boyfriend. “I leffing hey now. Mek sure dis chile clean up dis mess.” Janice stayed in the cupboard, waiting, feeling sick that she was leaving this other child to face her horrors. She almost burst out from her hiding spot to tell the other girl to leave, but the boyfriend walked into the room. Janice could see his naked legs and she knew that he was wearing nothing but boxer shorts.

  “Wait!” he cooed. “I surprise I ain’t had to call yuh out. Yuh starting to like wha’ yuh getting, nuh?” The little girl on the sofa did not move. She was out of Janice’s vision when the boyfriend sat between them. Janice could tell that he was looking into the girl’s eyes, because he always looked into her eyes before he told her to sit on him.

  But this time he did not tell her to sit on his lap. He did not say anything as he sat next to the impostor. She had taken his voice! Janice did not know the extent of the impostor’s powers but she felt certain it was exerting them now. Her double looked deeply into the boyfriend’s eyes and seemed to know his intentions. He, looking back, must have seen hers. He trembled but he did not move. When he tried to speak, a click-clicking sound seemed to come from his throat.