When Radix first met Mrs. Haliburton he was unaware of her reputation as a woman
whose power in the comunity was not to be taken lightly. He happened to wander past
the open door of her office, and he caught a glimpse of her looking out the window,
seemingly lost in thought. He hesitated; he was struck by the empty feel of the room,
the spartan arrangement of chairs.
"What goes on in here?' he asked with cheerful innocence.
"Why don't you come in and find out?" the lady at the desk replied.
He was startled to discover she knew who he was; knew his name, the department he
worked in.
"I hear you're from the Caribbean islands."
"Where did you hear that?"
"My father came from the island of St Kitts."
Mrs. Haliburton seemed friendly and engaging, and mysteriously self-possessed; a stout
woman in her forties, with firmly upholstered breasts; dressed with an older woman's
concern for clothes that reflected her age and status and identity. There were thin
elegant streaks of grey in her full head of hair which reminded Radix of island women of
prominence who devoted their energies to organizing other people's lives. In Mrs.
Haliburton's case there was the desk, the telephone, an air of leashed impatience; but
no sense of her room as a humming centre of activity.
"So how're you getting along here?" she asked.
"I'm still feeling my way around."
"I hope you decide to stay with us. We don't have too many like you here?"
"You mean people from the islands?"
"I mean, there aren't too many black men in the teaching profession. You can count
the ones we have on your fingers. Our community needs more men like you…role models
for the kids…young men with your neat little Malcolm X beard, and…" she gave a fist
pump "..fire in their bellies."
She was looking at him directly, as if measuring his worth. She asked where he lived
and was delighted to learn he lived in the Bronx. It prompted her to introduce her theory
of borough residency requirements for teachers.
"You weren't here during the snow days last fall…see, lots of teachers couldn't get in,
they live far outside the borough. The kids made it in through all that snow, but not the
teachers. In fact we had so many teachers out, we ended up warehousing kids in the
lunch room for most of the day."
"So how do we fix that problem?" Radix asked.
Mrs. Haliburton's face flashed a look of disappointment.
(from "Ah, Mikhail, O Fidel!" a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 