Category: Uncategorized

 

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

          Locket # 43

          Mr. Flagman, this is about me and Dak Bo. That’s Dak Bo Chin, the Chinese
          Restaurant owner. The restaurant down Sheriff Street outside Georgetown.

          Everybody believed he was Chinese. I think he was from Vietnam, by way of
          Hong Kong, where he hooked up with a Chinese woman, who brought him
          here to Georgetown, where she got killed by some stupid gunman, leaving
          Dak Bo alone and wondering what to do next, if he should continue with the
          restaurant.

          I don’t think considered living the rest of his life here, even with his Chinese
          wife. After she died he wanted more than ever to leave. I could tell he was
          ready to go, but not before making somebody pay for killing his wife.

          I helped him understand, hitting back was too easy. There were other ways
          he could make the country pay. Work, brace, wait.

          So he stayed, he continued on, though not exactly as before. I stayed with
          him until he didn’t feel like a total stranger anymore. Still keeping to himself,
          but brave again. After awhile he got used to my closeness. I became his #1
          reliable partner, the person who could help him deal with unexpected things.

          The business was cooked meals. Our menu was second to none. It wasn’t
          exactly Chinese. People hear frying noise and see flames spitting from the
          pan, they think is just another Chinese food place. My flavourings made the
          difference. I had my suppliers of local seasonings. There were two Chinese
          cooks in the kitchen.

          After a year we had separate partner responsibilities. Dak Bo handled the
          “expenses”; plus he had “residency” problems to deal with. In his little office
          at the back under the hanging light bulb he’d put on his glasses and talk to
          people on the phone. Sometimes he went off somewhere with a briefcase.

          I was like the person in charge of supplies, orders and deliveries. First time
          in my life I had responsibility. Dak Bo got me a motorbike to use. Working
          all day carried us along. Work, save, wait.

          And the business thrived, like the “Thriving Restaurant” we have in
          Georgetown, though from the outside you couldn’t tell.

          You could say we developed our own “brand”. We were ready to serve people
          too tired or lazy to cook at home. Getting like the States, yes.

          I worked and saved for my only child, my daughter. At nineteen her life was
          a ripe grape ready to burst but going nowhere. She didn’t do well in our
          schools. She used to help around the house until she got this job in a city
          mall store.

          I had to pull her back from the shiny floor stuff, her friends there. Make her
          go to school again.

          I made her stand in our kitchen. Slice, stir, taste. Try out recipes. When time
          come, cause you can’t keep them stuck here forever, she left for New York,
          stayed with my sister in Brooklyn. Next I heard from her, it was to say she
          had applied for courses at an International Culinary school. I felt so happy.

          I worry about her, but I don’t let her know. Her time is her own now.

          Dak Bo and me, we were a thriving combination. We tried this and that until
          we came up with how best to serve customers. Good meals, reliable service.
          Midday and after work meals. Special preparation like for when certain men
          visiting their women.

          Our customers were mostly people on wheels. Police, transport people. I
          know how they move, how they think.

          We encouraged the pickup, not waiting and “takeout”. You phone your order,
          drive up, honk, your order ready for “pickup”. With soup as a side order. I
          told people they didn’t need to wash down our meals with beer or soft drink.

          The wife of a Govt. Minister sent her driver. We catered sometimes when the
          Ministry was celebrating.

          It wasn’t a “cook shop” like some bad mind people say. Wasn’t like
          McDonalds either, with customers crowding the premises, which was how Dak
          Bo’s wife got killed, bandits ordering food, then suddenly shouting, waving
          guns and shooting. Saying later, They didn’t mean to kill her!

          I was coming in as they came running out. These violent boys, this one side
         parenting of our country. I don’t know what to say. Is like nobody care.

          The day his wife died Dak Bo stood shaking his head and staring at the blood.
          I was staring at the blood.

          Next day I came back, the blood stains were still there. He hadn’t done
          anything. I could still see the cord strains in his neck. Hurry up with the
          mourning, I told him. You have to wash away this blood.

          He didn’t move. He must have thought this was it, the end of the world.

          Something happened at that point. I can’t explain it other than we felt a
          need to put this loss behind us. I went straight home and came back with a
          mop. Right there and then he understood there were situations he could
          trust others to handle.

          For five years after Dak Bo’s clean new premises became his home address.

          The day he told me he was leaving I didn’t get upset. It was not my business
          to know the reason. But from his muttering I could tell something unexpected
          had happened again, only this time there was nothing I could do.

          I turned away thinking, well, we had been good for each other all these years.
          My cup was filled.

          I went with him to the airport. When my daughter left she took a taxi from
          our home. Like Dak Bo she was taking a risk, making her way through airports
          and Immigration, hoping to start again.

          I gave her a hug. Just go, I told her, you on your own. Watch out for the grey
          baldies with teeth going crooked. And those spider men with quick bread and
          spread for ideas. Show the world what you know.

          In the car to the airport it felt like Dak Bo was quietly slipping out the
          country. I put my hand on his knee. First time I ever touched the man.
          Mr. Fast and Furious, I said to him. And he smiled. First time I ever saw him
          smile. Laugh, yes, but Dak Bo hardly smiled.

          Yes, Mr. Fast and Furious is leaving you, he sighed.

          At forty five you wake up one morning, you study your belly and breast, and
          you realize time is really zipping. In this country wet lands could parch fast,
          men can be crude. You pick and choose your pleasure, you understand the
          sun is never late each calling day.

          There were nights, like on Christmas Eve or Old Year's night, when even I
          didn’t want to be alone. Didn’t want to be with people jumping up or singing.
          I stayed behind on the premises after we closed up.

          We drank soup. We sipped the rice wine I made. Another year had gone by,
          the business getting better and better. We told stories of life growing up,
          and sometimes we got a little carried away.

          “I don’t trust these Chinese condoms,” I’d say when his fingers reached for
          my arm. Chinese condoms good! he’d say. Time for Chinese fireworks.

          Mr. Fast and Furious. At first he didn’t understand what I meant. He didn’t
          watch television. For five years he’d close up for the night and retire. I
          don’t think he slept very well.

          I got him a gun. He said he wanted to be ready for when the next bandit
          showed up. I told him if he shot anyone, call me straightaway, not the
          police. We would move the body far from the premises. “Found dead”
          elsewhere.

          Either from pure luck or readiness, bandits didn’t try us again. We had no
          blood on the premises to clean up again.

          The risk that man took coming here, from Vietnam, via some big boat with
          Hong Kong in big letters at the stern, which was another story he told me.

          He didn’t talk about his Chinese wife, how they met, if he still had feelings
          for her. You can understand why. And he didn’t say much about the other
          Chinese business people, who were suspicious of him but left him on his own.

          In the beginning I was suspicious of him too. His teeth looked perfect. He was
          too quiet, like a man who had fallen from some secret high place, rolling 
          down the side into our country.

          In some men you see no climbing back from a fall. I wanted my daughter
          to face risks like Dak Bo. Find a partner, make her way, thrive. That was all
          I wanted.

          Thelma B.
          Georgetown, Guyana

           

  

 

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

        Locket # 42

        I couldn't imagine what my grandparents looked like, and when they came to
        New York, they didn’t look like how I thought they would look. My father took
        me with him to pick them up at Kennedy Airport. It was a long drive from
        Long Island.

        We weren’t sure the plane would land on time. “And if it's not on time,
        you’ll be stranded in the city with our daughter?” my mother said. I’m
        eleven years old. I can look after myself, I said. “See? she wants to come
        along,” Dad said.

        They’ve been having little fights since Dad lost his job in the city. He found
        another but it doesn’t pay as much as his first job. There are other “issues”
        I’m not supposed to know about.

        It’s usually very quiet round where we live. Sometimes, if I leave my door open
        a crack, I can hear them in the living room in front of the TV set.

        Mom raises her voice, Dad shushes her. For awhile, silence. They start up again
        during the TV commercials, then go quiet again. Next morning I’m getting
        ready for school, and it’s like none of it ever happened.

        Anyway, when we got to the airport, the plane was late. Dad was annoyed
        with himself. He should have phoned ahead about the arrival time. We missed
        the Arrival ramp, so we had to exit and start all over. Then we had to park
        the car and go inside.

        “What do they look like?” I asked. They look old. “They might be lots of old
        people coming off the plane.” One of them looks a lot like me. At least he
        used to.

        It took them forever to emerge. They looked tired, but seemed relieved to
        see us. They complained a lot about the flight and the airport back home.
        Grandpa asked how old I was, and how well I was doing in school and what I
        wanted to be. They seemed nice. Their accent was funny, you just have to
        listen harder when they talk.

        From the first day Grandma took over the kitchen. She brought all kinds of
        cooking stuff in jars, and she prepared dinner. “This is what I cook in Canal
        District. I sure Dhany miss this food bad, right, son?”

        She encouraged me to use my fingers, tear bits of “roti” and dip it in the
        sauce; and try the spinach. It tasted good. “Nothing better than good ole
        home cooking,” Mom said. Dad fussed about not enough paper napkins.

        Mom had never visited the Canal District. She wondered why Dad hadn’t
        thought of taking her there on vacation.

        Grandpa was telling us stories about Dad when he was a boy, riding his bike
        along the canal in the District. It had us all laughing. Dad scowled and looked
        uncomfortable. “Nobody wants to hear about that stuff, Pa?” I do, Mom said.
        I do, I said.

       “Do you have boats in the canal?” I asked. That cracked everyone up. It’s not
        that kind of canal, Nadine, Dad said. “Allyou must come on vacation. Anytime
        you want. We will show you around,” Grandma said. 

                                                             *                        

       It was late September and the weather was getting ready for the slide to cold
       days and nights.

       Dad didn’t like the clothes his Dad and Mom brought with them, his buttoned
       down long sleeves, her plain long dress. “Doesn’t look right somehow up here.”
       I don’t see anything wrong with what they’re wearing, Mom said. As long as
       they feel comfortable.

       Dad said he found them sitting outside early Sunday morning. They’d gone for
       a walk down the block. People might have seen them. The neighbors must
       have wondered who they were.

       Mom and I took Grandma out and Mom bought her a long denim skirt which she
       liked. So now when we go anywhere she wears this blue denim skirt.

       We stopped at the supermarket. Grandma wasn’t too happy in the Produce
       section. She examined the cucumbers. “They not supposed to have these
       bumps." And the tomatoes. “Why they look so red, red?” She was suspicious
       of everything.

       Dad had taken Grandpa to get a pair jeans. At the dinner table Grandpa said
       he’d wanted the cargo pants with the pockets. Dad thought he’d look
       ridiculous in them. “They’ll laugh at you back in Canal District.” So let them
       laugh, is who wearing the pants?

       Dad bought him a bathrobe which he didn’t use. He’d come up from the
       basement, shoulders drooping in bright striped pajamas, hugging his tiny bag
       of bathroom things (I think Dad bought that for him, too.)

       He’d say, Hello, little girl. Good morning. So you getting ready for school.

       He showed me an exercise he said I should do ‒ You too chubby for your age ‒
       punching his arms sideways out and in, out and in. I lowered my head and
       smiled as if I’d already started thinking about what he said.

       Except for sounds of coughing in the basement, he seemed in good health. Top
       of his head shiny, a little white Grandpa moustache; and he is “garrulous”
       (Dad’s word). Grandma on the other hand sat calmly. She had this fixed look in
       her eyes. And she smiled a big smile when everyone told her the food she
       prepared was wonderful.

       She must have said something to Grandpa because he announced he would
       start work on a vegetable garden in the backyard. Dad was not keen on the
       idea. “Now is not the right time to do that.” They had to get tools from the
       hardware store.

       Grandpa dug a nice row at the back along the fence. Grandma promised,
       next Spring if we plant the seeds, we’d have so many tomatoes and greens,
       we could give away or sell some to the neighbors.

       Grandpa said he noticed the little concrete wall by the basement window well.
       There were cracks in it. It needed fixing. It’s not important, Dad told him.
       “I can fix it for you. Clean out the leaves in the space there. Make it look
       nice.”

       So off we went again to the hardware store for cement and masonry tools.

       Dad complained to Mom. “This vacation is costing us. The tools, the wheel-
       barrow, the back garden. When they’re gone what will happen to all the
       stuff?” Just put them away in the tool shed until they come back to visit.
       “They’re not coming back to visit.”

       One night I overheard them arguing again about Grandpa.  

       It was after eleven o'clock, everyone was getting ready to go to bed. Dad
       was going back and forth from the bathroom with his toothbrush. He’s a
       dedicated morning and night tooth brusher.

       It seemed Grandpa had killed someone back in Canal District. The man did
       something nasty to a girl in the District, and for that Grandpa killed him.

       How come he wasn’t arrested? Mom asked. “Keep your voice down. It doesn’t
       always work like that back there,” Dad said. I don’t understand. “Listen!
       People die. The newspaper headlines say: ‘Mystery Surrounds The Death’.
       Besides after what the man did to that girl!” (Mom didn’t want the gory
       details of what the man did to that girl.) So tell me, what is your father
       doing here in our house? Hiding out till ‘the mystery’ blows over? “The girl
       was Nadine’s age. The man had no business violating her like that.” Are you
       listening to yourself, Dhany? Something very wrong happened. Your father
       was involved.

       Dad said not one word more. And that was the end of the story.

       That night I grabbed my phone and under the blanket I sent Josh a message.
       He’s this boy at my school I like, only he thinks I’m a stuck in the house nerd
       who goes straight home from school. He says nothing exciting could ever
       happen where I live. Good looks, but a peanut size brain ‒ that’s Josh. His
       purpose on this planet still unknown.

       "Guess what?” I told Josh. “My grandpa is staying with us. He killed a man back
        in his home country. He’s hiding out here till things blow over.” Rightaway
        Josh answered “Wow”. I thought that would get his attention.

        By the time he was ready to be more friendly, hoping to come around and
        maybe meet Grandpa, they had gone back home to Canal District. And that
        was the end of our story.

        Nadine G.
        Patchogue, New York.

  

 

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

          Locket # 41

 

         I was watching my youngest child the other day. He old enough now to be
         doing things with his hands. Right now he’s hooked on his play station, using
         his thumbs and staring at the screen. It won’t be long before he old enough
         to transfer his finger press to the cell phone.

         How times change. How fast times changing now.

         Back in my Georgetown youth days I had fun rolling a tyre up and down our
         village street. The one dream I had was to drive a fire engine unit. Putting
         on the helmet, saddling up, and driving to the scene of the conflagration,
         my sirens clearing the road.

         When I was done with high school, I promptly sign up to join the Georgetown
         Fire Service. I nearly didn’t get accepted.

         I barely pass the “physical agility” part of the training. The instructor kept
         saying I too “chubby” for the work. A whole house could burn down while
         you still hooking up the hose. He made me run round the block in Alberttown
         with a roll up hose to pass one test.

         But he knew my father, they went to school together. I told him my father
         taught me driving skills. I know Georgetown roadways backward and forward,
         and I always wanted to be behind the big wheel.

         I persevered. I stayed through my probation, till they assigned me as truck
         driver.

         I still on the job, still keep up with the training; but the dream part, feeling
         like an emperor at the wheel, that part gone. Driving though Georgetown is
         breaking my spirit.

         At one point it was the filthiest city in the world. The Stabroek Market, the
         centre of the city, piles of rubbish and smells to high heaven. The city
         cemetery overrun with bush. And at night the cardboard vagrants sleeping on
         the pavement, still there next morning, ragged and sprawled to high heaven.

         I get agitated. Honestly, I don’t know who to blame.

         It would take more than “clean up campaigns” so I can drive and not notice
         wretchedness left and right. More than men with brooms or a machete crew
         with plastic bags. Something like a Garbage Service, a Cemetery Maintenance
         Service is needed. People trained and ready to keep things clean and tidy all
         the time.

         Other people seem to be making ends meet. They use their hands to cook and
         bake ‒ make something, set up a tray and sell! ‒ while I here under this
         “dream”, hands on the fire truck wheel, sirens wailing.

         I thought of asking for a transfer, like to the fire station at the airport. They
         don’t give “transfers” just like that. In any case, I couldn’t see myself
         hanging around the airport waiting for an emergency event as the planes land
         or take off.

         Georgetown is still a wood-frame house town for the most part. Used to be
         people were responsible and careful. They knew what could happen if fire
         break out. Over the years they putting up these three, four five-storey
         buildings. I don’t even think they have sprinkler systems like in New York.

         Besides, our fire trucks not like them big rigs you see in movies. God only
         knows what would happen if our boys try saving anybody from top floors.

         Our truck tank could hold about 450 gallons of water. Once that run out,
         fire fighting from the unit done.

         The last fire we had, we got there late. The owner of the building said he
         called, but somehow the message didn’t get through. It took us 30 minutes
         to get there.

         Sirens does have a weird effect on our car people. I had to wait till traffic
         in front decide to turn or speed up.

         I had to help find a hydrant, clear the thick grass all round it, open the rusty
         hydrant head, and listen. I couldn’t hear anything coming, water pressure
         low.

         We had next to turn to the nearby canal. Thank God it wasn’t silted up.
         All the while pushing back “public spirited” people (so the newspapers say)
         grabbing the hose, wanting to help “quench” the flames. This time the
         hose didn’t spring leaks.

                                                        *

        I was on a plane heading to Trinidad the other day to visit a friend. This man
        beside me from Georgetown was heading back to New York. He living there
        now, works with the city’s Sanitation Department.

        He went on about opportunities there, how his salary was near what our
        Government Ministers making. And if I like driving vehicles so much, I should
        come up to New York, try my hand. Find a better source of income, he said.

        About my chances, I would have problems breaking into the Fire Service over
        there, no matter how much “experience” I bring from Georgetown. Native
        barriers, he said. Still, I could try for City Transport, the big buses; or Airport
        taxi work. Native barriers there too.

        If things didn’t work out I could do some hire car work. Cars passed him every
        day with signs saying DRIVERS WANTED.

        I noticed how he paused, letting his words sink in, so certain what he was
        telling me was big news, since I was getting off the plane in Trinidad.

        Push come to shove, he said, I could apply to pick up and drive school children
        to school in a yellow bus. Rules and barriers and paperwork everywhere, but
        ways could be found to get around them, he said. You have to be bold.

        A part of me listened, not asking questions, wondering if any higher levels
        waiting for me in Georgetown. I was still this hands-on-the-fire wheel person.
        I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

        Our Fire Service is supposed to be updating and upgrading. According to our
        newspapers, the hydrants overdue for “rehabilitation”. Well, I here driving
        and driving, and I don’t see any rehabilitating yet.

        A building up in flames. Our truck on the way but progress slow on the road.
        My foot shifting start-stop on the pedals. I does just shut off the siren. I tell
        myself, the bucket brigade done reach the fire before me. I can’t save
        everything every time.

        Sometimes I feel like a camel rider bouncing along. Georgetown roadways are
        my desert sands, and I just there bouncing forward. Tight grip on the wheel
        ‘cause these days it feel like the sands drifting and the camel lurching.

        My wife think is some kind of “depression” forming. Telling me I should see a
        doctor, get some prescription pills for the problem. She don’t understand, this
        is not some medical problem, and I don’t need any medication. This thing, is
        like a growing frustration, bothering me inside, on and off duty.

        I know, I should stop complaining. Georgetown people quick to find fault.
        Alright, I done complaining.

        The fellow on the plane, hosing me down with words in the tiny plane space, I
        don't know why but I didn't trust him. He leaned on the armrest toward me,
        and he told me he saw this man on a pavement in New York City, an artist man,
        drawing faces. You sit down for five minutes and in quick time he did a portrait
        of you. The man was very good.

        If you ask me, that portrait man probably reach the end of his line; his unit run
        clear out of turn space. Shove come, and nothing left. At least he not at a
        front window in a rocking chair in Georgetown, looking out.

        Still it set me wondering, as I filled out the immigration form, if maybe I got
        myself in a wrong turn situation, stuck in Georgetown with this one dream, this
        one ‘Occupation’; and what could happen if I move out from under this dream.
        Move some place else while I still have time. Before I get so stuck I can’t start
        over or do anything else with my life.

        Tyrone Armstrong
        Georgetown, Guyana

         

   

  

        <Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >

       Locket # 40

       Not calling names. At least not real names, okay?

       I like taking care of the women who come to our hospital all bruised and
       battered. They talk to me. I listen like a big sister. Find out what really
       happen.

       Take Jainee. Her man beat her up bad, then he try to kill himself. Both of
       them hanging on here, though left to me this man would be mince meat and
       ribs for the ants and earthworms.

       I looking after her, alongside this doctor from England. He used to work in
       Malaysia, and now he is here.

       She in a fragile state, in and out; most of the time sleeping, or pretending to
       sleep, especially when relatives come to visit. Whenever I come in to check her
       vitals tears fill up her eyes. She’d hold my hand tight. “What happen to the
       man,” she’d ask. Don’t fret yourself, I tell her. And I’d whisper, He don’t
       deserve to walk again after what he do to you.

       She don’t want to leave the hospital. She don’t want to live anymore. All her
       life people taking advantage. This last beating was like the last straw.

       Her man came home one night demanding! Common law situation. I could
       never for the life of me understand these situations. More like common
       lawlessness. And this man has rise and come problems.

       In his 40s, almost twice her age. They have no children. He likes his rum, but
       he could barely lift and stay stout inside. He always wanting help.

       At some point ‒ grabbing her hair, forcing her face to his crotch ‒ he’d give
       up; then in the middle of the night he wake up and fly in a temper, like he
       remember what didn't happen, and he hitting her for not helping.

       This time he hit her with a Roti rolling pin, knock her all ‘bout her arms and
       head. She here now all swell up.

       I asked her, You don’t get tired of his nonsense? She didn’t want to cause
       more aggravation, she said. Besides, she was seeing another man. He was
       better. Better? Well, he didn’t need any help. And when he talked, he made
       her smile, he made her feel happy.

       So just a lil sweet talk and she spreading? In the hot stuffy bedroom, she had
       to push her husband off her stomach. She’d lie on her back, pouting, watching
       his chest heave, listening to the grinding of the cooling fan; thinking only
       when next she would see Mr. Sugar Cake man. He's probably near her age,
       better looking.

       So why she didn’t just leave? Same thing I was wondering. She had nowhere
       to go. She wasn’t going back to her parents. Another man was waiting there
       to take advantage. A pandit.

       First time she went back her mother sent her to him. He listened. In his
       opinion, her husband had “stress” problems, which was why they had no
       children. Drinking rum was not the solution. Her duty was to help release him
       from these problems. He told her to take off her clothes, he would give a
       demonstration.

       This is what we have now, pandit talk show fornication, with one of these ‘my
       dear child’ pandits, which makes for bad fornication.

       I tell you, sometimes our bodies are like a forest. Every day some creature
       comes out, crosses the river, hungry for scraps and bones. When it can’t find
       anything, when it can’t stand being ignored, it does horrible things, then
       scoots back to some shed in the bush.

       I stab one o’ them already. He was no older than a schoolboy. Pushing me inside
       as I opened my front door, all sweaty and pointing a gun. Expecting me plead ‒ 
       Okay, okay, please! 

       I waited till the right moment, when he thought I was too frightened to resist.

       I reached in my bag and pulled out a doctor’s scalpel. I always carry one. You
       should see the shock on his face when I slice him. He stared at the blood on his
       fingers, on his shirt, and he ran out the house fast.

       Mongrels! with no future! pointing gun at your face and running at the sight of
       their own blood. 

       I don’t think Jainee could make it on her own. I will help her get better till
       time come for her to leave. Her village there waiting ‒ sugar in short supply,
       cows with milk to give and belly heavy men. Not a lot to choose from. Still,
       you never know.

                                                         *

       This doctor from England (he wasn’t born there, but he has their accent) in
       his fifties. He seems to know what he’s doing. Mr. Shiny Shoes. All beard and
       curly hair.

       He gets fussy about time and he can’t stand anybody who couldn’t be bothered
       doing things the right way. He likes when I tell him everything is in order.

       He told me he was beginning to understand our problems. The women in this
       country all waiting to be rescued. Rescued from what? I asked. “Your mother
       and father probably saved each other and now, see? you’re working here, doing
       well. You know things about life,” he said.

       Only here a short time and already he’s this big expert on my mother and
       father, and our women; and claiming to know me.

       Actually, we had a very nice conversation. At a restaurant, after work. Was
       him, another woman and me. I think he wanted to show us girls he was not
       above socializing outside the hospital with lower level staff.

       He ordered wine. No one had ever served me wine in a wine glass anywhere in
       Georgetown.

       He said our country was breaking down, too many viper heads, too many hot
       air heads in charge. One day we going become like Malaysia.

       The other girl laughed. Maybe she thought she was supposed to laugh when
       sipping white wine in the company of doctors.

       At the restaurant I could tell he hadn’t been with a woman since he arrived. I
       picked up signals ‒ after the wine and the conversation and some awkwardness
       outside ‒ that he wanted me. I played Not interested. Didn’t want him to
       think I was another Georgetown woman who needed saving. But the next day
       I spread for him.

       Was after 10.00 in the morning, in his office, I brushed his left side with my
       hips and thigh and told him how much I enjoyed the wine and his company.
       “I enjoyed your company too.”

       Sorry, things didn’t advance afterwards, I said in a soft voice. And that must
       have raised the colours up his flagpole.

       “Lock the door,” he ordered, catching me by surprise. “The door,” he
        repeated, rising from his chair.

        A pen rolled away and fell to the floor as he pushed my shoulders down on his
        desk. He took a little time putting on “his gloves” like he about to examine
        a prostate. Ready for work and pleasure, you notice.

        His finger grip on my wide hips was firm, I couldn’t move. My mouth opened,
        enough to release a muffled Yes! Yes! to keep him driving. Other parts of me
        waited for something grand to happen, like fireworks of pink and gold. Too
        much to hope for at that moment, I know.

        Mr. Far from home, lonely but not showing it, whose lips barely move when he
        talks; who just the day before was saying how women here could use a little
        “sweetness” now and then, though his word for it was “affection”.

        When he was done, he patted my buttocks and turned away as I scrambled to
        pull my pants up and look tidy again. Then he sat down and laced up his shoes.
        He had slipped out his shiny shoes! All that time he was in his socks! huffing
        behind me like he climbing stairs.

        Regrets? Not from me. One day a man who I knew was generous, the next
        day I let him. We here now, calm and composed as per usual; we even in Eden.
        And that feels better than some mongrel jumping out the bush at you, leaving
        you on all fours ragged and torn.

        Doctors and patients come and go. I feel my life has changed, maybe just a
        little. I’m definitely not the same as yesterday.

        Whatever happens next, I am not going to end up living alone in Georgetown.
        With a cat or a dog. Some child’s auntie. Acting the same way every day, not
        realizing the years passing.

        Our rivers move at their own sweet pace. I could always find wine and wine
        glass in a shop here. I think I could manage.

        I’m not going to let situations wear me down. My little doctor scalpel right
        here ready to head off any common lawlessness.

        Ayanna Brimp
        Georgetown, Guyana

  

 

So what’s “the takeaway”, as US newsmen like to ask, after the passing of the
British (born in Trinidad) author V.S. Naipaul.

 You mean the ‘Indian bloke’ who lived in Wiltshire, England for umpteen years?
  with his second wife, a cat named August and a British way with words? Finally,
accommodation.

 Many consider A House For Mr. Biswas his masterpiece. It came long before
thoughts of the author’s greatness took to the air like balloons. Set side by side
Tolstoy’s War And Peace or America’s Moby Dick, it marks the stellar
achievement of a region and a century and a man.

 Followers from the days of book reading have saluted the prose master’s life
investment: this is how some men seized their independence inside colonial
boundaries, testing courage, risking home approval.

  His fiction, the long and short pieces, set in the region, their value yet to expire,
contain the only conversations that really matter to the islands.

  The Mr. Speakers in The House, quick to feel and deal offence, might want to
look again at his insights and descriptions. Our view pointers settling for word
bloated columns could take a cue or two from his unsentimental precisions.

   Here then ‒ from the man who helped us think about how we lived! the Knight
surveyor of our darkness! ‒ 13 extracts from V.S. Naipaul’s start-up stories.

   What he was he was.

                        ________________________________________

        [from The Suffrage of Elvira: Penguin Books, England, 1969]

  *   Elvira was stirring before dawn. A fine low mist lay over the hills, promising
a hot thundery day. As the darkness waned the mist lifted, copying the
contours of the land, and thinned, layer by layer. Every tree was distinct.
Soon the sun would be out, the mist would go, the trees would become an
opaque green tangle, and polling would begin.

   *   Ramlogan was striding ahead, flinging out his legs, shaking and jellying from
his shoulders to his knees.

  *   Foam said, “Is those Witnesses. They can’t touch nobody else, so they come
to meddle with the poor Spanish people in Cordoba. Telling them not to vote,
to go against the government. Who ever see white woman riding around on
red red bicycle before, giving out green books?”

 *   To get the van into the yard they had to pull down part of the rotting wooden
fence and build a bridge over the gutter. Some poorer people and their
children came to watch. Baksh and Foam stopped talking; frowned and
concentrated and spat, as though the van was just a big bother. And though
it wasn’t strictly necessary then, they put up the loudspeaker on the van.

 *   “Herbert,” Mrs. Baksh said. “You mustn’t tell your father he lie. What you
must say?”
     “I must say he tell stories,” Herbert said submissively. But he perked up, and
a faint mocking smile – which made him look a bit like Foam – came to his
lips.
     “No, Herbert, you mustn’t even say that your father does tell stories.”
     “You mean I mustn’t say anything, Ma?”
     “No, son, you mustn’t say anything.”

   *  “How Hari?” Baksh asked. “He write yet?”
Hari was Dhaniram’s son.
“Boy in England, man,” Dhaniram said. “Studying. Can’t study and write
letters.”
          

     [from The Mystic Masseur, Penguin Books, England, 1964]

   *   He spoke in Hindi but the books he showed in this way were in English, and
people were awed by this display of learning.
        His main point was that desire was a source of misery and therefore desire
ought to be suppressed. Occasionally he went off at a tangent to discuss
whether the desire to suppress desire wasn’t itself a desire; but usually he
tried to be as practical as possible.

   *   And then there was Soomintra to be faced. Soomintra had married a
hardware merchant in San Fernando and she was rich. More than that, she
looked rich. She was having child after child, and growing plump, matronly,
and important. She had a son whom she had called Jawaharlal, after the
Indian leader; and her daughter was called Sarojini, after the Indian
poetess.

   *   He was in a temper when he returned late that night to Fuente Grove. “Just
wanted to make a fool of me,” he muttered, “fool of me.”
       “Leela!” he shouted. “Come, girl, and give me something to eat.”
         She came out, smiling sardonically. “But, man, I thought you was dining
with the Governor.”
        “Don’t make joke, girl. Done dine. Want to eat now. Going to show them,”
he mumbled, as his fingers ploughed through the rice, and dal and curry,
“going to show them.”

  *    They brought their sadnesses to Fuente Grove, but they made the place look
gay. Despite the sorrow in their faces and attitudes they wore clothes as
bright as any wedding crowd: veils, bodices, skirts all strident pink, yellow,
blue or green.

              [from Miguel Street: Penguin Books, England, 1971]

  *  Mrs. Bhakcu would say, “You better mind your mouth. Otherwise I come up
and turn your face with one slap, you hear.”
     Mrs. Bhakcu was four feet high, three feet wide, and three feet deep.
Mrs. Morgan was a little over six foot tall and built like a weight-lifter.
     Mrs. Morgan said, “Why you don’t get your big-belly husband to go and fix
some motor car and stop reading that damn stupid sing-song he always sing-
songing?”

 * I couldn’t bear to look at the fight. I looked all the time at the only woman
in the crowd. She was an American or a Canadian woman and she was nibbling
at peanuts. She was so blonde, her hair looked like straw. Whenever a blow
was landed, the crowd roared, and the woman pulled in her lips as though she
had given the blow, and then she nibbled furiously at her peanuts. She never
shouted or got up or waved her hands.

* “I did everything for him. Everything. I gave up everything. Money and family.
All for him. Tell me, is it right for him to treat me like this? Oh, God! What
did I do to deserve all this?”
  And so she wept and talked and wept.

    (A version of this article appeared elsewhere in 2009)

                                                     – Wyck Williams

 

        Least when you expect . under the whush whush
      of helicopter blades . into the gravity! duck, step.

      Sparks from sun scorched grass leap . only
      the shirt damp on your faith never once doubted.

      In the desert you might hear whispers 20 miles away,
      something on its way | don’t go metrological at the wind.

      You dig a ditch you slice a worm it does a twin
      shimmy . still processing.

      A newspaper folds . what’s left for you to swat
      Read Only flies.

      The phone screen light middle of the night vibrating
      fibril disquiet No no no! assembling

      Trace with scull oars ice break aways . polar end
      plates | floaters sky stares; bubbles at sea mark dares.

                                                           – W.W.

 

        

       

         

 

 

          QAT

   
       *SPEAKING of which, Qat can tell you of teenage
        Zillah who, with her Christian parents, fleeing
        From Beirut via Sicily, had been sent
      By Canadian government sensitives to try
        To live in Didsbury ‒ where, feeling indeed  
        Done-interred, she exhumed her corpse, getting it
        Pregnant, shocking her dad’s heart to its last thump.

        Gloom, guilt, despair and other self-punishments
        For a few seconds’ surrender of her sex
        To a roué kinder than her own parents
      Were what Zillah really brought to Qat’s desk at work (and,
        More than once, to Qat’s kitchen-table) under
        The pre-text of a plea for help in finding
        A sleeping-space beyond her widowed mother’s.

       (from “Charon’s Anchors” by Brian Chan, 2018)