Nicole Dennis-Benn - Here Comes the Sun

Sister Benjamin stands over Thandi. She presses a cool pinkish hand to Thandi’s neck. As if unsatisfied with what she feels, she retrieves her thermometer and tells Thandi to open her mouth. When she takes it out and looks at it, she nods to herself. “When did the sickness start?” she asks.

Thandi clears her throat. “Last month, miss.” It’s true that she hasn’t been feeling like herself lately. Her drive to do schoolwork has diminished, though she still makes good grades. Maybe it’s because the exams are only days away and she’s ready to get them over with.

“Last month?” Sister Benjamin raises an eyebrow. “Have you been experiencing any headaches, nausea, vomiting?” Sister Benjamin asks Thandi.

Thandi nods, relieved that she can get away with the lie. She swallows, comforted by the recollection of the dizzying hot flashes she had been getting due to the plastic and sweatshirt she had been wearing since February. “How about fatigue?” Sister Benjamin asks. “Have you been feeling very tired lately?” Thandi nods again, thinking about the creeping wave of exhaustion that overwhelms her out of nowhere.

“Have you missed any periods?”

Thandi clears her throat and lowers her eyes.

“It’ll be all right, dear,” Sister Benjamin says, leaning again to touch Thandi on the arm. “You can talk to me.”

Thandi tenses. She takes a deep breath to steady herself.

“How did it happen, love?” Sister Benjamin asks.

“I’m not pregnant.” Thandi says. “I’ve never. .”

“You’ve never had sexual relations with anyone? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. . I mean, yes. . I mean, no. . I–I didn’t do anything.”

If she tells Sister Benjamin what really happened all those years ago, it would mean that her pain would no longer be hers. She shakes her head, her eyes downcast. “I’m not pregnant.”

“Then what have you been hiding under that sweatshirt? It’s been a hundred degrees outside.”

Thandi’s face grows warm. Sister Benjamin would never understand. How can she ever explain that she wanted to be fair — like the Virgin Mary or the nuns and girls at school who take their lightness for granted? Thandi doesn’t know what’s worse in the eyes of this woman of God — the discovery that she could be correcting God’s mistake and even blasphemously suggesting that he made one; or the assumption that she has fornicated and gotten pregnant. Thandi’s eyes catch on a poster on the wall. In bold letters it declares: YOU ARE MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. Below the words, a frail girl who looks like the Virgin Mary is piously bowing her covered head, her milky white skin glowing in a light that appears to be descending from heaven. Thandi averts her eyes.

“Let us pray,” Sister Benjamin says, reaching for Thandi’s hand across the table. Thandi sits back down and puts her hands inside Sister Benjamin’s. The woman’s hands are tight around hers, her eyes closed. “Repeat after me. Oh, my God, I am heartfully sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishment. .”

When Thandi opens her eyes, Sister Benjamin is smiling. “Thank you, Sister Benjamin,” Thandi chokes, unable to look her in the eyes. She feels Sister Benjamin watching her as she gets up from the chair and moves to the door.

“Concentrate on your education. A girl like you can’t afford not to. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to throw all this away just for your indiscretions. Or someone else’s.” A shadow briefly descends over her face like a veil. When Thandi blinks, it’s gone, replaced by a cool stamp of disapproval.

Thandi makes a beeline to Charles’s house, her backpack bouncing behind her. She will apologize to him for their last encounter, tell him that she wasn’t herself; that something came over her and made her do what she did, embarrassing them both. She flings the gate open and hurries to his shack. Cain and Abel trail behind her. They recognize her now, jumping up to greet her, their tails wagging and tongues hanging. She knocks on Charles’s door. When she knocks again and no one answers, she peers through the window. He’s not there. She looks around the yard, wondering where he could be, given that he was not by the river. Neither was he by his father’s boat. She contemplates the main shack, where the front door swings open in the light breeze. She never thought to look there. Never thought to go inside, for it is known in River Bank that Miss Violet does not take visitors. Thandi goes to the main house anyway and pushes the door open.

The house reeks of sinkle bible and boiled tamarind leaves. Thandi shudders from the stench, which reminds her of sickness. But it is the more potent mixture of piss, feces, and something else that makes her swallow the box lunch she ate at school earlier. The darkness doesn’t permit Thandi to see much farther than the doorway. She considers turning and going back outside, but her feet remain grounded as though the floor is made of wet cement. Someone coughs. This is followed by a soft coo, like a baby bird or something more fragile. Thandi steps inside, her feet aggravating the wooden floorboards. She puts her backpack over both shoulders so that her hands are free to feel around. A sliver of daylight enters through the small tear in the curtain by the only window. The curtain, Thandi notices, is just an old sheet. This faint light allows her to see the small table with a couple of chairs, some cardboard boxes, a stack of old newspapers, and a barrel. Now that she’s inside, outside seems like a foreign country. There’s no concept of time and place. The date — though currently June 1, 1994—is still August 7, 1988, according to the water-stained calendar hanging on a wall.

Inside this house, Hurricane Gilbert has not yet come and devastated the island, flooding out some residents of River Bank. Inside this house, Edward Seaga is still Prime Minister of Jamaica, a yellowing picture of him pasted next to the calendar. Inside this house, a fisherman name Asafa still brings home lobster for his family. When Thandi approaches the bedroom (the partitioned area where the cooing gets louder, sounding like a wounded animal as opposed to the soft, fragile thing that Thandi had pictured earlier) a frail woman’s voice calls out. “Asafa? Ah you dat?” But it’s not the assumption that throws Thandi off guard; it’s the sound of the woman’s voice — gravellike and strained, as though she has been weeping for hours, days, weeks, months, years. Nearly a decade. “Asafa?”

Thandi pauses. Though she’s barely breathed since entering the house, she gasps for the little air remaining.

“No, Mama, is jus’ me. Yuh imagining t’ings again.” It’s Charles. Thandi tiptoes to the side of the partition, a red, velvety upholstery material that she’s used to seeing on chairs in Mr. Farrow’s furniture place. She spies Charles squeezing a piece of washcloth from a basin. Thandi hears the water swooshing around. His mother is sitting up on a narrow bed, naked, looking like a big doll. Her dark hair is wild, flanked with powdery grays. Her eyes are sunken and wide, the bags under them like dark pouches. It’s hard for Thandi to recognize Miss Violet with all that wrinkled flesh. Her face seems to have crumpled under many years of disappointment, worry, sadness, and longing. This is Jullette’s mother. A woman Thandi once thought to be the most beautiful, loving, and caring mother compared to hers. Miss Violet would give Jullette peanuts even when she didn’t ask. She gave her perms too, something Thandi envied because it made Jullette seem grown. And when Jullette’s hair started falling out, Miss Violet had her get those extension braids. They talked like friends, giggling and smiling at each other all the time. There was never any beating or shaming. As the only girl in her family of boys, Jullette did anything she wanted without living in fear of a domineering mother. Miss Violet used to sell peanuts, tamarind balls, and peppered shrimp outside the gate of their primary school. She was always ready for Thandi with a pretty smile, though she had only a few teeth left in her mouth then. “ Aye, coolie girl. ”