Author: FarJourney Caribbean

         < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

          Locket #14
 
         "Guyana is in your DNA," my Mom said to me. Ridiculous. You don't know
         what you're talking about, I said "Well, you might be connected in other
         ways. You were born there." So! I was just a tiny girl when we moved  
         away.

         We visited my Grandpa in Georgetown the summer before I started college.
         I wanted to tell him the good news. I was accepted because of him. Well,
         not exactly. My grades were good too. But I think it was my college essay
         that got me in.

         My guidance counselor had given us guidelines. "Choose something that
         matters to you, or someone you care about." I told my Mom I couldn't think
         of anything. She mentioned how when she was in high school in Guyana,
         they were told to write an essay on someone they considered a hero. She
         chose grandpa.

         Why did she choose him? I asked. Not for anything he did, she said. He was
         a dreamer. What did he dream about.  Buildings. Designing buildings. He
         worked as a manager in his father's department store, but his real wish was
         to become an architect.

         She told me his story and straightaway I knew what my college essay would
         be. "Let the experience flow through the writing," they advise you. Well,
         the writing flowed, but the real experience came after I got my acceptance
         letter.

         I told my Mom I wanted to visit grandpa. I felt bad writing about him and
         about Georgetown, but barely knowing them.

         When we got there, it rained a lot the first two days. Mom told him he ought
         to spend time on designs for expanded roadways and functioning canals. He
         laughed but I think she touched a nerve.

         Builders today had no sense of beauty, he complained. When he was growing
         up Georgetown was known as the Garden City. They had these cool, airy 
         wooden buildings and well kept public gardens.

         Now the houses of the new well-to-do, anxious and weak in spirit, were
         like fortresses, with paved driveways and shiny metal gates. Exteriors on
         display.

              Mom made fun of him one evening, shouting from the kitchen, in her only
        daughter who-loves-her-dad way: "That's all he likes to talk about. His designs.
        Not about the problems with vegetation. What's the point building a fabulous
        homes; bush all around, odorous habits, water rising when it rains."

        Grandpa smiled. His buildings, he said, would fire the imagination with
        pride. People would want to take care of the surroundings so the beauty of
        their homes would shine.

                                                                          **                      **

        But that wasn't what my essay was about. I wrote about a girl who played
        piano. And the Russian official he played chess with on Saturday afternoons. 
        
         Mom said you had a high school sweetheart who changed your life? I asked
        him. "She wasn't my girlfriend." Far from it. And he gave his version of what
        Mom told me.

        The family lived on the other side of the street where he grew up. Two doors
        away. The Stevenson family. The father was a police officer. The mother
        more or less stayed home.

        The girl came straight home from school and began piano lessons; supervised,
        apparently, by her mother, who must have seen a piano future in her.

        First, practicing her scales, building her confidence. Then she practiced a
        short piece by (it turned out) Mozart. Over and over.

        At home from school one day he heard her playing and he was riveted. His
        temperament, his outlook on the world was altered. He was no longer
        himself.

        No, he wasn't now a fan of classical music. He didn't know what became of
        the girl.

        "You have to imagine Georgetown, at three o'clock in the afternoon. The city
        getting ready to shut commercial and office doors. Right at that point, in
        that interval, this girl is at work on the piano."

        He rushed home from school just to listen to her play the Mozart piano piece.
        He felt as if a mysterious tranquility had descended on the world. And in that
        world a boyhood heaven.

        The experience lodged like a presence inside him. Up to this day he stops 
        what he's doing at three in the afternoon, only in Georgetown, to listen to
        Mozart. Sounds kind of weird, I know. I believed him.

                                                **                        **

        The Russian chess player was actually a Consulate official who came to his
        high school with a gift of six chess sets. He stayed long enough to give a
        dazzling display, taking on six opponents at the same time. Grandpa was the
        only student who won  ̶  the Russian made a bad move at a crucial moment,
        or so it seemed  ̶  and he was invited to drop by the embassy on weekends
        for games.

        Grandpa took up his offer. Every Saturday afternoon he'd ring the residence
        bell, and play chess with the consul. Two, three hours of chess.

        He remembered how quiet, almost noise-proof the room was; the polished
        floors, the sparse furnishings. The Russian smoked and studied the board from
        some unknown, faraway place. So absolutely himself.  Grandpa played and
        wanted to find a path to that place.

        When he emerged from the building his mind was still firing. He saw the
        city's straight lines and open spaces; he pictured new structures, new
        shapes, new windows for light and the ocean breeze. He was filled with
        designing excitement. 

        The thought came to him: he'd go abroad, study architecture. If there was
        someone of that profession here he was probably the only representative.
        His father refused to entertain the thought. How far do you think you'll get 
        with that? Tossing away with those words a boy's feeling of his destiny.

        Mom with her big mouth told him about my college plans, how I hoped to
        study architecture. That opened up the flood gates. Grandpa asked me if I
        liked drawing, and what I enjoyed doing best with my hands. I told him I
        took Art and Music classes in high school.

        He wanted to show me the city's Main Street where the Russian consulate
        used to be, next to an old Catholic cathedral that had burnt down. The
        years and the buildings didn't exist anymore. Commerce in painted stone
        and glass, passive models from other countries, had taken over and was
        sucking up all the air, he said.

        While we were packing to go home he showed me two sketch books filled
        with drafts. His designs for entire communities. For the Amerindians in
        the forest, the savannah residents, and for villages off the public roads
        with coconut trees as backdrop. He had it all worked out. Habitats of
        Beauty for a Confident Nation, I noticed he'd titled it.

        He wanted me to take the sketch books, look them over. I told him I couldn't
        do that. I won't know what to do with them. I wasn't even sure architecture
        was really what I wanted to study. He turned away and tried to sound not
        too disappointed.

        I was happy we met. He never came across as a grumpy old man with aches
        and unchanged opinions and reveries; wanting to be loved and remembered 
        by his youngest of kin (who has her grandpa's eyes).  

        Maybe some day out of the blue I will encounter someone like Grandpa's
        piano player, or his chess partner. Someone who quiets the world, whose
        devotion to dreams transfers in me "the searcher's self-belief" (my English
        teacher's words). Suddenly there I am, alone and away. My first big life
        experience! 

        Who knows, one day I might look up at a building, feel its power, as grandpa
        says, and think: I could put one up like that.

        Anyway, that's what my college essay was about. Not exactly all of the
        above. We'll see what comes next.

        Tatiana Gonsalves
        Georgetown, Guyana
        Texas, USA

          < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

        Locket #13

        I stopped on my way past her home the other day. I usually wave and ask
        how she's doing. I thought she would want to hear the news. I had just come
        back from Georgetown where all the talk was about the videotape of a
        Pastor caught in a compromising bedroom situation.

        "Sprawled between two naked women," I told her. "A videotape is on the
        internet. That means people all round the world seeing it."

        She was in her verandah chair, her arms neatly folded, looking out at the
        afternoon sky. I didn't want to appear like a passing street vendor of gossip,
        so I added. "Is true what you said. These church men really wicked."

        What people in Georgetown and around the world would not know is that
        Mrs. Bunbury had first hand knowledge of the wickedness of our pastors.

        Years before this Georgetown videotape, we had a Pastor Brown and his
        Church of Divine Principle, here in Canal District; who, depending on your
        point of view, helped save or fracture the lives of several women.

        Mrs. Bunbury was among the women fractured. Or saved, depending on your
        point of view. She and her daughter Agnes.

        "I bet the women of his church still support him," she said, shouting at her
        her dog to be quiet. "Some women will kneel for the devil they know. I gone,"
        I said, preparing to move on.

        I thought she might toss a verse after me, from the Bible, about judgment
        day in the courtroom of the Lord. "Okay, then," she said, nothing more; as 
        if quietly tracing the hours to sunset, and the start of her night; cicadas
        in quavers outside.

                                                    ~ * ~

        Pastor Brown lived in Georgetown but operated his church in Canal District.
        Mrs. Bunbury was a strong church-goer, after her husband passed. Took
        her daughter Agnes with her. 

        Agnes was one of my best students. An active, pretty girl, eager to learn. 
        I would not have gotten close to her mother, had I not observed a change
        in her behavior. From patient to petulant; to chatting when she should be
        listening.

        I got her interested in Library studies; maybe going off somewhere to get
        a degree and coming back to take over from the hair-pinned ladies at the
        Public Library in Georgetown.

        Losing focus, falling behind in homework assignments, in her final year, I
        considered a danger sign. Discipline, at every junction, discipline! I say to
        them.

        I met her mother one day, and mentioned the behaviour change, only to
        learn of Pastor Brown (balding reader from the Holy Book) and the big wedge
        he'd driven between Agnes and our high hopes for her.

                                                    ~ * ~

        This came about when the Pastor offered to take Agnes to Barbados "as his 
        secretary", to a conference on church leadership, he said. It was her first
        trip outside the country. When she returned she seemed quick to temper.
        Confining herself to her room, I learnt. Slow to start and complete household
        chores.

        A strict but communicative parent, Mrs. Bunbury could not understand. Agnes
        was "answering back". She was no longer the good girl we knew.

        The explanation emerged one evening. At the dinner table. After Agnes
        had not bowed her head in prayer, and seemed to be waiting to begin.
        Daughter and mother had lived trusting each other. Now, perhaps tired of
        holding things in, her daughter revealed the swelling on her chest.

        That trip with the Pastor? She had been "seduced", she said. In the Barbados
        hotel. He talked to her, prayed with her, talked some more until she
        removed her clothes; caved to his pressing. Doing things she had never
        imagined doing. With him. With the room lights on.

        Her bright, bare limbs facing his insistent older man's nakedness  ̶  it must
        have been frightening.  She cried in a towel, fiercely and completely. She
        emptied her stomach of shock and embarrassment. She spent hours 
        stretched out (first time) in the hotel bathroom tub of warm water.

        No, she hadn't spoken to anyone about it. Until now. No, she didn't think
        she was pregnant. Didn't think she was?  She was definitely not pregnant.
        
        At some point the conversation halted. It happened, alright? Agnes said,
        as if a mound of the past had settled over it. She left the table, and Mrs. 
        Bunbury said she felt a pain heating up her head. She believed right there
        and then she was having her first "nervous breakdown", and could no
        longer tell her daughter anything.                                                  
                 
                                                  ~ * ~

        "But how could this happen?" she asked me over and over. I cautioned her
         not to act rashly. Her daughter had been made physically aware of her age,
         and the many faces of authority. 

        Had Agnes returned in visible distress, her eyes frequently filling with tears,
        it might have made sense to confront the Pastor. What would be the point of
        inflaming the matter now? As adults we had responsibilities.

        I promised to keep Agnes focused at school. I encouraged her to be patient,
        to refrain from any kind of "punishment". No fits of haranguing to ferret out
        new disclosure.

        Agnes came through despite our fears. We were surprised and relieved her
        application to the university in Jamaica had been accepted. Then came the
        second thrust of the wedge.

        She informed her mother Pastor Brown had offered to cover her first year
        expenses. The wheels were already in motion.  And while her mother and I
        fretted, not sure what this meant  ̶   why hadn't she simply turned down his
        offer?  ̶  Agnes announced she was all set to travel; her body eager to own and
        explore its future; fierce bright feelings lighting the way.   

                                                                               ~ * ~         
   

        Far from the city and the internet, Canal District has its network of news and
        furtive activity. For instance, it was common knowledge that Pastor Brown
        administered to the special needs of some church members, women whose
        husbands or partners showed no interest in church-going.

        Mrs. Bunbury's had felt no need to be "administered" after her husband died,
        but she knew of two women who approached Pastor Brown with an unusual
        problem. Their husbands wanted intimacy the moment they returned from
        Sunday Service. In the middle of the afternoon.

        Indifferent to summons of the spirit (and always expecting to be fed) they
        demanded instant undressing.

        The women balked, fearful this craving might become a Sunday habit. Which
        led to argument and abuse; and feeling betrayed nights as husbands strayed.

        Pastor Brown stepped in offering spiritual counsel. He spoke on Sundays
        about the importance of family bond. He organized a group for Tuesday
        evening Bible Studies. He arranged private sessions for anyone who needed
        "a consultant". By appointment. Behind secure doors.

        Mrs. Bunbury learnt about these closed meetings when Mrs. Joseph, one of
        the participants, came to visit. The private sessions, she said, were a mixture
        of pleasure and gratitude and prayer. Complete undressing was not required.
        The pastor's manhood like his words filled her up, Mrs. Joseph said, lowering
        her voice to a confidential giggle.             

        The real purpose of her visit, she said, was this. After the Barbados hotel
        revelations, Mrs. Bunbury chose to stay away from Sunday service. Agnes had
        sworn she wasn't going back. It would have been awkward sitting, listening
        as Pastor Brown (perspiring taker of schoolgirl innocence) quoted scripture;
        laid out the meaning of gospel story.

        Now everyone was wondering why her attendance had lapsed. Pastor Brown
        had called her name last Sunday, alerting the flock to Sister Bunbury's
        absence. Asking if anyone had been in touch with her.

        So here she was. Showing sisterly concern. Sharing sentiments she must have
        sworn to keep secret. And speaking with such rushing certainty, Mrs. Bunbury
        herself might do well, she implied, to consider making similar arrangements.

        What was slope-shoulder Pastor Brown after now? And who else, Mrs. Bunbury
        wondered aloud, among the full-bosomed church regulars came to him for
        consultation? The loudest singer? The eyes tightest shut?

        She sent back word she was doing fine. She was no longer interested in  
        attending Sunday service. The visitors stopped coming. And Pastor Brown,
        not daring to show his face at her gate, stopped mentioning her name on
        Sundays.

                                                   ~ * ~

        I couldn't help but admire her strength, the dignity she maintains after the
        loss first of her husband, then her only child. I offered comfort, careful not
        to seem willing and ready to be her new saviour and tutor. Outside the
        support of her relatives I don't know how she manages; how she feels when
        she wakes every morning, no snoring head on the pillow beside her.

                                                  ~ * ~

 
            One last thrust of the wedge came in December when Agnes was expected
        back home. Upon arriving in Jamaica she had sent word she had settled in.
        Then nothing. Until Mrs. Bunbury heard she had dropped out of the university.
        She was living with a Rastafarian. On a farm. And she was bearing his first
        child.

        Over the years there was little communication. Agnes sent word only at
        Christmas. Told her mother not to worry, everything was fine.

        She sent photos, of her second, then third child.  She promised one day to
        bring the children to see their grandmother. I saw photos of little girls in
        braids, unsmiling faces quietly looking at the camera. 

        Mrs. Bunbury didn't share the full contents of Agnes's letters except to say
        Agnes had changed her first name. "At least she's staying in touch," I said,
        leaving it at that.

        She has taken shelter from Pastor Brown and his flock of Sisters. And from
        people like me offering to help her understand how her only child, raised
        with a stern love, could toss away a sure, safe upward path. And just like
        that submit to faith in a man and his island ways. His farming retreat. His
        child bearing.

        How does the parent mind reel in such precipitous behavior? this craving to
        be some other? you might ask. 

        For now Mrs. Bunbury lives in the pages of her Bible. The words flow through
        her eyes and quiets her pain. And so, I suppose, all life flows. Through
        Georgetown or London. Canal District. Babel on the internet.

        No place in the world, though, like Canal District. Sunday afternoons; that
        time of day; day of need.  

        V. Hemphell
        Canal District, Guyana

         < 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

      
      < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

       Locket #11  

       It took me over two weeks to piece together the mysterious connection
       between this English woman, and my uncle Toolsie. I am beginning to think
       I could make a good investigator. Maybe I could join the police force. Become
       a detective. Joke. There are no women detectives in this country, far as I
       know. I had to "interview" this Georgetown taxi driver, and other people,
       to get the full picture.

       This Englishwoman comes to Georgetown, checks in at a hotel in Alberttown.
       Traveling alone, her first visit to Guyana, but she seems familiar with names
       and places.

       The very next day she enquires at the front desk about transportation to
       Canal District. Dressed in pantsuit and sunshades, she spoke softly but
       intensely. She was told about our minibuses. She wanted something more
       private and direct. A taximan outside agreed to take her. According to him
       she directed every turn of the way.

       They had barely taken off when she told him to stop at a house number along
       Lamaha street. Her mother, she says, came out to join her first husband who
       worked for the British Administration in the 1960s, during the last years
       before our Independence.   

       She pulls out a photo from a brown envelope. "This is the building, see? This
       is where she lived.  Are we on the right street?"  She snaps a photo with her
       camera. "And where's the train line? Isn't there a train service?"   

       They move on; they get to the Berbice River. She's mumbling, reading from
       a notebook in her lap, looking up through the window.

       Same thing happens. "Where's the ferry? Are we taking the ferry". No more
       ferry, the driver tells her, we're crossing the bridge. She asks to be taken to
       the old ferry docking point. Takes a picture, looking around, her hand on her
       hat as if ready for an uninvited gust of wind.

       They cross and the taximan is told to find a village in Canal Poulder. They
       drive past roadside shacks, cars hurtling the other way. He's in relatively
       unfamiliar territory, grew up in Demerara. But she is determined to locate
       "Mr. Toolsie", my uncle. She evidently assumed that just showing up in a
       village, and asking for someone would bring results.

       Her driver grows impatient now with the frequent stopping and moving. He's
       starting to think this is one confused tourist lady. And though he's confident
       he will be paid for his services, he's never had a passenger acting so weird.
       She's really anxious, though, to locate my uncle.

       They make several enquiries, "I am looking for a Mr. Toolsie," she says, in her
       clear, chirpy accent. "I think he lives in this village". Toolsie is a familiar first
       name; the "Mr." throws everybody off at first.

       Finally she finds her man; or rather finds where he hangs out; at a rum shop,
       now a "beer garden", that also sells lunchtime snacks. He isn't there at the
       moment, but at this point the driver hints he's had enough. It's after midday.
       Sun still raging. He needs to gas up his vehicle, get some fluids and food; he
       wants to get back to Georgetown.

       The lady starting to wilt, too, under her hot weather hat. It's been a long
       morning, running around the coast of this country. Nodding her head, as if
       she too had had enough, she was ready to abandon her mission as abruptly
       it started.

       So now she's gone; and the regulars at the beer garden swat at the mosquitoes
       and wonder: what is the connection between Uncle Toolsie and all these
       white women coming to the District? There has to be some connection. 

       Some nights Uncle Toolsie starts up rambling about the days before
       Independence. He talks about the house in Lamaha Street where he worked
       as a handyman. Fridays and Mondays. Occupied by British people. Very nice
       people.

       He claims an arrangement was made with "the mistress". After the Friday
       yard work, she'd indicate she will visit the Canal District. He should meet
       her at the steamer stelling. Which he did faithfully.

       They'd take a hire car to his village, turn off the main road, walk along a 
       worn foot path, turn off into the fields. There, according to Uncle Toolsie
       in full flow after six or seven drinks, outlandish behavior followed.

       She takes the cutlass from him and starts one wild slashing at the cane stalks.
       Slash slash.  Slashing and screaming, "So this is what it feels like. This he
       cannot do himself." Slash slash. Stopping to catch her breath, wipe her brow.
       Slash slash. I could see her, clothes damp with sweat, face and arms livid,
       hair coming loose. Did she say anything when she got back to Georgetown,
       disheveled but glowing?

       At some point, all worked up, the slashing stops. She turns to my uncle: "Alright
       then, let's see what the big tool can do today."

       Out of the blue Uncle Toolsie would slap the table with a cutlass. Who brings
       a cutlass into a beer garden? Who sings and carries on, telling people now he
       wants to be called "big tool"? If you were there you'd have to laugh, or tell
       him to stop his nonsense.

       Rum can make you a sad, delirious man, deserving of sympathy. Uncle goes
       home to his wife in that wretched state. I could get to the bottom of all this
       by talking to my Aunt. She complains about his drinking, and how a man who
       knows to wield a cutlass should know how to open a sardine can without
       cutting his finger. I could ask questions, but I would have to draw the line at
       tales of sweet joy in the cane fields. 

       So let's see now. English woman comes to Guyana with a notebook (we can
       assume it's her mother's old Georgetown journal) retracing steps. What was
       her purpose? Just verifying certain pages in her family history?

       About O my God! her mother who had "meetings" with a man named Toolsie, 
       who just happens to be my uncle! who drinks on weekends in a beer garden
       like a laid off worker; the object of coarse jokes; his only friend a cane field
       cutlass. 

       Weird! like from some other dimension; like from the plantation days  ̶ 
       stories of whispered arrangements, voice commands, gratitude paid.

       I really not born to play detective. You need curiosity and patience. You
       have to be sniffing round the baggage people carry. I am only twenty four, 
       slender, burning. Besides, in this country there are so many real issues
       needing investigation. Many unsolved cases that in all likelihood will stay
       forever unsolved.

       Some things  ̶  like fever, temper, blinds  ̶  you better off not touching. Look
       around. The grass growing, serpents oil and stretch sun bathing. Everywhere
       people going about their business. At the slightest slight they cut and pouting.
       Why dwell? Best leave alone.

       Melissa Madramootoo
       Canal District, Guyana

      < Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

       Locket #10 

 
          Since we moved to this (mostly "white" family) neighborhood in Toronto
      my wife has discovered the "dinner party". She invites the neighbors over.
      People we know from back home come over, like on national holidays,
      for food from back home, buffet style, outside on the patio. The dinner
      evenings involve food from back home, too, but it's more focussed,
      you know.

      A life lived for dinner preparation and chitchat is really not for me.
      I decided to draw the line. "What do you mean?" she asked. I said, too,
      that as a couple we were definitely "incompatible".

      The last dinner party was the point breaker. "He went back home to
      Guyana. His father was in hospital. He had a stroke," she told our guests,
      the Merridews, from across the road, like us early in their fifties. He
      has a full combed brown beard and, after a recent vacation in China,
      holds court like Marco Polo back from a big trip. 

      "Sharing" is a social tool my wife picked up after we moved here. The
       people at her job "share" from the moment they arrive and take off
       their coats. She gets home, takes off her coat, and sharing begins.
       Doesn't stop even in the bedroom. (Starts up quickly after sex, back
       from the valley! in lacy sleep wear; not a moment spared for catching
       breath.) 

       She assumes my unwillingness to "co-share" is a signal to pour forward.
       On her own. "You think too much," she  told me once. The incompatibility
       gap opened up between us after our two girls were born. It widened as
       they grew older and became impatient with our parenting.

       "He was all set to come back here," she said to the Merridews. "Suddenly
        one evening he decides to go for a walk in the city. And there he saw an
        old man getting mugged. Right in the middle of Georgetown."

        Her head and shoulders follows the traffic of every word spoken at the
        table, leaning in with opinion from as far as the kitchen area. Usually
        I withdraw, into what my face suggests is careful processing, before
        I chip in.          

        "Mugging", whatever the word means elsewhere, wasn't what happened
         that night in Georgetown.

         There's this walk path down the middle of the city's Main Street. It's a
         tree-lined path that seemed designed for strolling. I was cautioned by
         family and friends not to "stroll" after dark. The city I once knew was
         now a den for "deceivers and heartless bandits", my uncle said. He
         advised I walk like an overseas resident  ̶  stepping with straight
         ahead purpose, from place A to place B.

         I took the stroll anyway, toward a shopping area where stores were
         shutting down for the night; with pavements that seemed also designed
         for strolling, though now street vendors have taken over, cutting off
         the stroll space with precarious stuffed stalls.

         "Georgetown used to be nice," my wife had earlier set the scene. "Now
         with all the politics, it's more like a 3rd world country." (Authority on
         3rd world countries now, you notice.)

         The "mugging" victim, before he became a victim, was standing in front
         of a store window, gripping a bag, and studying the merchandise on
         display; electronic devices, phones, computers.

         I must have been half a block from him when I heard shouting. I looked
         back. He was on the ground, trying to shield off two men who cursed,
         leaned over him, punched him in the face; kicked him hard, stepped
         back, kicked him hard again, again. I shouted in alarm. One of them
         went through his pockets. They searched his bag, then they took off.

         I rushed back. The man seemed in considerable pain, breathing with
         difficulty. He tried to stand up. He seemed concerned about the state
         of his clothes. "Are you alright?" He said he was. He tried to stand up
         again, but he crumpled.

         "And while all this was going on, nobody even stopped to help," my wife
          went ahead. "Two days later he reads in the newspaper that the man
          had died. The same man. Died in the Georgetown Hospital. They
          kicked him so hard it must have caused internal bleeding or something."

          Again he tried to stand up, tried to walk. He gripped my hand. He
          wanted to know if I thought the computers in the show window were
          worth the investment. He'd buy one, but electricity in his village was
          unreliable. "Are you alright?" I shouted.

          He asked me to retrieve his bag. It contained spare parts for his tractor.
          He didn't seem to mind his money gone. He'd been waiting a long time
          for the tractor part to come in.

          Still gripping my hand he told me his wife had left him. All he had was
          a little piece of land, his house, and the tractor. He'd had an accident
          with the tractor; and  right after that his wife moved away. Back to
          her parents. Then one day off to Canada with his son.

          He hadn't heard from them in many years. Then he learnt his son was
          now Dr. Sunesh Deodatt. Working somewhere in Canada. He had no idea
          how all this happened. Her family wanted nothing to do with him. He
          was thinking maybe if he bought the computer he could use it to locate
          his son, the doctor.

          A vehicle pulled up near us. Men in uniform, with dangerously idle rifles.
          Wanting to know what was going on. The man sagged to the ground,
          but the grip on my arm was fierce.

          I told the officers he'd been kicked violently by two young men. He was
          in bad shape. He needed help.

          Out of nowhere another man approached. He swore he had seen "the
          whole  thing" happen. So someone in the shadows had watched the
          attack from a distance, and stepped forward only when it seemed
          a crowd was gathering!

          "So my goodly husband comes back to Toronto. And now all he does is
           spend hours on the computer. Up late in the night. Trying to locate
           this man's son. Mind you, the man dead and bury already."

 
                                                            ~~~

                
           In my mind one thought kept flashing: he must have been in great
           pain slumped on the pavement, going on about his tractor and his
           son. Why did he ignore the pain?

           "But why would you want to contact him?" Mrs. Merridew's forehead
           wrinkled. I found myself studying the table cloth pattern, the wine 
           bottle labels. "That's what I asked him?" my wife jumped in, alert to
           her goodly husband's apparent drop in temperature. "I mean, what
           would be the point?" "Unless he wanted to explain he was the last
           person to see the father alive."

           "And shake the hand of the son." "Now that would be something."  
           "You mean, with the same hand that gripped the dying father's hand?"
           "That would really be something?" "Was he planning to somehow say,
           Hello, I met your Dad in Georgetown?"  Faces swiveled my way.

           My wife has brought our two grown girls into this world, and my life
           to a moment of clarity at the dinner table. What has my education
           led me into?

           "And where would you begin the search? The son could be anywhere
           in Canada?" "That's exactly what I told him" "Well, the name is 
           unusual."                                              

           "Sunesh Deodatt!" Sun….
           "Sun-nesh" SUN-neesh
           "Dee-o-datt." DEE-o-datt.

           "If he is a surgeon, a name like that is bound to pop up on a hospital
           staff registry somewhere." "Or maybe he's on Facebook"  "It makes no
           sense. He could be anywhere?" It was all very sad. A little scary, too,
           the way it happened. Very sad.

           I sensed my wife preparing to announce with a winner's smile that
           the hour of dessert had arrived. At which point I got up and excused
           myself. Stepping outside for a smoke.

           That night as the electric toothbrush with the mint green handle 
           whirred away at her gums, I released the word. Incompatible. There
           was a pause. Spitting in the sink. The bathroom light off. "What do
           you mean, you think we're incompatible." "Just that. We're incom- 
           patible." "So wait, what you trying to say?"

           My abrupt manner had rattled her. From her side of the bed, a voice
           probed. "After all these years, now all of a sudden."  I didn't twitch a
           muscle. "You've been acting real strange since you come back from
           Georgetown?" And at that first arming for argument, my eyes closed.

          My abrupt manner had rattled her. From her side of the bed, a voice
          probed. "After all these years, now all of a sudden…" I didn't twitch a
          muscle. "You've been acting real strange since you come back from
          Georgetown?" And at that first arming for argument, my eyes closed.

          I was hoping it would be my last word for the night, like a pillow her
          head could toss and turn on. "Look," I said, "I'm very tired right now."
          She had much more to say, of course, but this was where I closed off.
          Incompatible. A tree-lined detour, under construction.  So that
          tomorrow and in the winter months ahead we'll see which way things
          go.

          M. Muniram,
          Georgetown, Guyana
          Toronto, Canada