Lisa Allen-Agostini - Trinidad Noir

Matilda Jasodhra caught her daughter’s distraction and dug her fingers into her daughter’s shoulders. Meera Meera Johna winced. Isabella Tatiana’s smile broadened, but only, Meera Meera Johna thought, for Meera Meera Johna herself to see, and... and. And she winked. That was a wink, wasn’t it? All of this, but Meera Meera Johna, nevertheless, drew to her mother’s attention.

A man, whose face was unknown to her, instructed her in a jovial, mischievous, and booming voice that she should ask the nation’s president for absolutely-absolutely anything her little heart desired, and surely-surely it would be granted. The other guests laughed, raucously. Her Excellency Lady Oswald Jones, wearing around her neck a heavy silver chain (that drew attention to itself and away from her bony neck) from which hung a silver pendant inlaid with dazzling blue patterns, managed a stony smile. Meera Meera Johna’s eyes grew big. As much as she was tempted to bring notice to the unfortunate fashion faux pas , Meera Meera Johna kept to herself this queerness. By drawing on knowledge garnered from watching and listening to the main woman in her life, her mother that is, she intuitively conjectured that mentioning the faux pas would surely embarrass the two women, and without any hint of her distraction she simply looked up into the president’s eyes and said, “Really?”

His Excellency laughed and told her to whisper in his ear and he would do his utmost to please her. A squawking chortle erupted on the patio again. His Excellency stooped and Meera Meera Johna whispered away. The president’s face stiffened and he turned gray. He pulled Meera Meera Johna to his chest, pressed her head against him, then whispered back to her, but at least one person heard him say, “I don’t know why he was perched on her. I don’t think that is what was happening. Are you sure you weren’t seeing things?”

Meera Meera Johna understood in an instant, and tried again, “Can I ask another question then?” The president, hesitant this time but bending to the pressure of the audience around him, moved his ear to Meera Meera Johna’s lips. He heard her question and pulled away as if she had spat. He peered across to the far room at his host John Lucknow Mansing, cavorting some distance away. He glanced up quickly at Matilda Jasodhra. He looked at his own wife, and then he looked back at Meera Meera Johna. He shoved his lips in her ear. They tickled her.

“But of course they love each other,” he was heard to say. “How else would you have come into this world? Look at them. Just look at this lovely evening, all these lovely people. They must love each other to be able to create this sort of enjoyable occasion. Now, young lady,” the president continued, “who would you like to be like when you grow up? Have you any heroes?”

Meera Meera Johna thought for a moment and then said, “My father.” The guests clapped their hands in giddy agreement.

The president said, “Well, that is assured. That I can grant you. The sins of the father, et al. But a note of caution, my child. Take care of what you wish for. You may, to your delight — or horror — get it!”

The man with the booming voice said, “Your Excellency, par excellence !” There was laughter, and then John Lucknow Mansing finally arrived on his patio, a good few minutes after his guests. All attention turned to him.

Meera Meera Johna extracted herself from the president’s grip. She inhaled until her chest was as taut as the skin of a balloon, and forced herself to give brave answers to questions like, So, what class are you in now, and, Who made that lovely dress for you, and, What are you eating, child, that is making you grow so tall and so pretty? She took happy note: She was a capable child, capable of all of this, and her chest, still full of air, did not split, nor did a single strand of hair escape the elastic that was now like the fastener on a bag in which her heavy brain pulsed.

Meera Meera Johna had to endure an eternity of ten minutes of adults talking to her as if she were a trick puppy, throughout which she distracted herself by watching her mother. She was impressed by her mother’s administration, the way, like a concert director using the barest nod or a concentrated look, she conducted the servants. Her mother did more with the yardman though. He had been standing still with a tray of empty cocktail plates and scrunched napkins held up shoulder height in one hand (his jumbie-bead eyes indiscreetly jumped about the room, from her mother to the various guests to her father to Isabella Tatiana back on to her mother). Matilda Jasodhra Mansing went over to him and whispered briskly, orders no doubt, for he busied himself. He walked back and forth now, but with the same tray of empty cocktail plates and scrunched napkins. Then, with an equal briskness, she turned to Meera Meera Johna and ushered her back into the depths of the house. On the way, far from the presence of the guests, and outside of earshot of the household staff, Matilda Jasodhra Mansing tightened her grip on her daughter’s shoulders and sternly demanded, “What did you ask Sir Oswald?”

To which Meera Meera Johna whispered, “Nothing. Honest, Mummy. Nothing.”

Matilda Jasodhra, although she had not heard her daughter’s questions nor the president’s answers, knew her daughter well enough to reply, “What is wrong with you? Why are you always asking those horrific questions? Why can’t you simply behave yourself, Meera Meera Johna Mansing? Change into your pajamas and get into your bed this instant. I don’t want to hear another peep from you.”

Long after she was supposed to have been asleep in her bed, Meera Meera Johna got out, crept in the shadows down to the front of the house, into the living room. The three-tiered crystal chandelier that hung from the high ceiling cast dancing prisms of color on the wood floor. The smell of the polish the yardman had applied that morning still lingered. The room had been vacated of almost all furniture except for some chairs pulled up against one part of the wall. In the low light she moved against the wall and slipped into a corner behind a tall blue-and-white-patterned Chinese vase out of which a Monstera deliciosa grew. She crouched down and was well-hidden. The guests had eaten dinner, and dancing and drinking in earnest were just beginning.

Matilda Jasodhra moved about the room, Cha cha chatting a minute here, another there, all the while catching the eyes of servers and her yardman, who seemed to only need a nod from her to know what it was she wanted. Her father was with a group of men, and Isabella Tatiana That Tatiana Woman was with them. Meera Meera Johna, peeping through one of the holes in a leaf of the Monstera deliciosa, wondered how her dress stayed up without any straps, and was surprised to find that thoughts on the matter made her, very strangely, dizzy, but a dizziness that she, strange to her, enjoyed. These wordless thoughts caused tickles in her mouth, tickles that felt as if they were caused by the wings of butterflies brushing against the interior contents of her chest, and around the inner exterior of her knees, and in between her toes.

A man had his arm around the white woman Isabella Tatiana That Tatiana Woman’s waist — Was it her father’s arm, or another man’s arm? — and she, Isabella Tatiana That Tatiana Woman, had her hand on someone’s back, the back of a man who closely resembled her father. And then Meera Meera Johna had to close her eyes and shake her head. How could two women show up at the same party wearing similar necklaces and pendants? She was sure Isabella Tatiana had worn no jewelry to the party, yet now she wore the same silver chain around her neck as Her Excellency. Perhaps Her Excellency gave her own necklace to Isabella Tatiana, thought Meera Meera Johna. Or then again, perhaps Isabella Tatiana had stolen it from Her Excellency. There was just too much confusion around these adults and Meera Meera Johna became tense — even more tense, that is — and felt a little bit nauseous. Flashes of iridescent blue darted from the pendant that pulled the chain in an insistent and perfect V but stopped just short of tucking itself into her cleavage. Turquoise one flash, then full-moon blue, and full-moon blue again, then black, and back to turquoise, full-moon blue, full-moon blue, as if in time with the Cha cha cha, Cha cha cha . She wanted to jump out from behind her leaf and tell someone about the possibility of a theft. Anyone. But in truth, the necklace looked a hundred times better on the smooth pale skin of Isabella Tatiana. Good for her , Meera Meera Johna thought suddenly, even if she stole it . Then Meera Meera Johna saw that the man who resembled her father was indeed her father and that it was her father who was hugging Isabella Tatiana. Or so it seemed. It is not easy to see clearly through the hole in a philodendron’s leaf.