< Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket #12
At some point during conversation the question gets asked: how did you
two come together? what brought you here? We've told this story several
times. If you were a butterfly on that lampshade you might protest it's never
the same story. "That's not because we like to embellish things. As the wine
disperses, little details overlooked in earlier tellings pop up in the head and
want to be included."
We grew up in Georgetown. My Dad used to bike me round the city as a child.
I'll never forget those growing up years. I used to take music lessons.
Most of my friends from secondary school got married. "They married up,
they married down." Married light, dark. A few still keep in touch. They
talk about their kids, the homes, their routines. How life is increasingly a
haze of worries; a séance night and day with the future, Stan says. "And
they're aging faster than they think."
We go back to Georgetown often. Say what you like about the state of
the capital, it is near impossible to bike ride now. Once we tried renting
("actually they wanted to sell us") the bikes. Spent the entire vacation
cycling around the city.
Nothing beats waking up early, wheeling the bikes out, before the morning
traffic swarms and starts swerving to avoid collision with the cows. "Our
pointy bike helmets always turn heads."
We grew up in Queenstown. It's a quieter part of the city. Narrow streets.
Though now cars and minibuses come ploughing through with no regard for
life or limb.
Towns of the old days are being abandoned. "People are leaving for new
residence, to find some measure of dignity and quiet." Paved front yards,
grilled windows. Far from the bicycle-to-work old days. "From cane fields
bent over and over, everyone deserves a fresh start. To straighten up; find
a way to live past daily bread and tea."
So we moved away. Came to Toronto "There was one big moment of fear."
̶ not now, Stan, do we need to bring that up now? ̶ "We decided to leave
Dark Leader and his regime of hazards and lizards. The lords of our land
resent architects of beauty. To be mature" O, this man and his words! "is
to risk giving insult to somebody."
I was warned by my father against wildness. Wildness in thinking. You might
accidentally set on fire everything you now know. You're too young to handle
the excitement of strangers. Outside our community, he meant.
We're doing okay. We go biking. On weekends, weather permitting. We love
Guru, our dog. He has a dog life of his own. No, no plans for kids.
Why no plans? Stanislaus had this idea once we got married, we'd put off
conceiving for two years. Determine our capacities as life partners, he said.
"I just wanted to test how long we could put up with each other given our
different back streams."
When the two years were up, we decided to uphold our pledge to each other.
We like things the way they are. "Children would upset the equilibrium, is
what she means."
Say what you like, we love our dog like he was our only child. We pay
someone to handle him when we're at work.
How did we meet? A foreign Head of State was visiting. Wasn't it Prince
Charles of England? "I don't think it was." Anyway, he was standing on the
steps of our Public library, I mean Stanislaus, not the Head of State, on the
steps. And I was on the pavement waiting to cross the street. "Which she
couldn't at that point due to the barriers and the people. Her body, I
sensed, was trembling with ambivalence. About her next step forward."
I noticed how perfectly still he stood, and I thought, There! is where I want
to be. Next to him. Not craning his head, all excited. Anyway, the motorcade
went by, people were drifting away. I think we stood there for another
minute. I felt blood rushing to my head. My eyes were on his eyes.
Eventually we moved. He said to me, as we passed, I know what you're
thinking. He couldn't possibly have known, but in that moment I felt
connected to his brain. I stopped. I was surprised how easily we talked.
Surprised he thought me worthy of attention.
I went home. All night I twitched and turned in bed. I wondered why the
insect noise outside my window sounded louder. I woke up from dreaming;
I stepped back in my dream. This! all this is reality, I thought. Eventually
after a hundred more passes, a thousand more words, I said Check! "Our
mates were found."
Just last week I was telling Stanislaus I thought we were born to live out a
fairy tale. Like we were meant to follow a chosen path; without knowing
why; and guided every step.
"Pay no attention to her. We're making it up as we go along. Every time we
talk about what we're doing here another piece of the puzzle slips into
place. We'll be happy when it's finally complete."
We're quite happy now. Lucky, too. "And always looking down the tracks.
Light head, short breath, cardiac stutter ̶ the carriages of decline pass our
station every day." You hear him? And to think Mr. Gloom-and-Doom here
was once my knight in smart shiny armour. Not a wish bone in his body.
~ * ~
Selfish? or Self-absorbed! Yes, we hear that a lot. With the no-offence giggles.
No, we don't mind. It is our way through the world.
A psychologist friend ̶ from Ukraine, of all places ̶ is intrigued by the way
we seemed wrapped up in each other. In a bubble of rapture, isn't that what
he said? With traces of the jungle. "He was referring to your house plants,
Nadira."
I'm the one who keeps us anchored. Purchases, due dates. I'm good with
numbers. "Nadira is the probably fastest divider by twelve in the Americas."
I keep it simple: what we need, minus what we could do without, plus
essentials. "Plus clean, ready-to-tango bed sheets." Stan!
I'm trying to make him change his bath towel more often. He says he prefers
the rough rub on his skin of old towel fibres. "In clean sheets we make and
hope to wrap our lives."
We know who our friends are. Our true friends. "They're far and few." The
family next door is from back home, but we try to avoid them. He's a bank
embezzler. Fled the country hoping no one would notice or track him down.
"He could have stolen and stayed home. Like the squirrelly actors who hold
office or sort revenue. Who has the time of day for detail?"
He smiles a lot, leaning on his snow shovel, watching your face; wanting to
be more than a neighbour. His wife came over; told me what he did. Then
she packed up quietly and left.
"She left him? You know, I never once heard raised voices over there. Not
once someone shouting, Yes! Yes!"
Took her child and her tits, and moved away. She told me she had enough
of the whole stay-at-home, mind-the-baby and the kitchen business. Now he
carries on as if nothing has changed. "Give him time. He'll go after her." I
could punch him in the face. The scamp.
With the people at our jobs we get along. Sort of. They're a little British in
their correctness and Howyoudo. The key is how close you come to know
them, and them you. "They don't say 'fucking' a lot like the Americans."
They're fanatics about ultra-clean surfaces in the home. "The scrubbing
toothbrush is the last line in defence of the castle."
Stanislaus, please! enough with the drama. "Come here, Guru! Nobody
paying attention to you? Here, boy."
S & N. Snijders,
Georgetown, Guyana
Toronto, Canada
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 