Nicole Dennis-Benn - Here Comes the Sun

The sun is peering above the hill, just the cap of its head rising. The sky is a clear violet blue sprinkled with leftover stars and half of a moon. Thandi quickens her pace. She has to get across the Y-shaped river to where Charles’s mother lives. She might be lucky enough to get Miss Violet to tell her where Jullette lives. She opens the gate despite the yellow tape. Mary and Joseph are no longer in the pen. Someone must have taken them to sell. Or killed them. The four dogs roam the yard, their bones more visible, protruding through their skin like ridges of broken sticks. They follow Thandi, sniffing up her skirt. “Shoo! Shoo!” She waves them off. She bypasses Charles’s zinc shed and goes directly to the main shack, where she knocks. There’s no answer. No sound. The familiar foul smell hits Thandi when she pushes the door open. This time there are no cooing sounds to guide her as she makes her way farther inside, feeling around in the dark shack. She pauses when she gets to the upholstery curtain that shields off the bedroom. Thandi pushes it aside, looking for the woman lumped on the bed. But when she parts the curtain there is no sign of Miss Violet. Just the soiled rumpled sheets. She has already left.

Thandi backs away, nearly stumbling this time over a footstool. She goes next door to Miss Ruby’s shack. Before she knocks, she sees an eviction note posted on the door. By the faded look of the paper, it seems to have been there for weeks. Thandi bangs on the door, her heart somersaulting in her chest. Her dream of finding Charles seems further away with Miss Violet gone. Miss Ruby might know something. When Miss Ruby opens the door, Thandi is surprised to see the woman’s face. It appears bruised all over with purple blemishes on her cheeks. Gone is the clear salmon-colored hue she bragged about just months before. Presently she appears to have aged, her skin paper-thin, wrinkled, and blotchy like a days-old navel orange. When Miss Ruby sees Thandi staring, she fumbles with her housedress, bringing the collar up to her mouth. “What is it yuh want so early in di mawnin’?” Miss Ruby asks.

Thandi tries her best not to appear troubled by Miss Ruby’s appearance. “Do you know where Miss Violet went?” she asks.

A deep scowl transforms Miss Ruby’s face. “Why yuh askin’ me dat fah? Me look like me keep tabs pon people? I survive by min’ing my own business.”

“Do you at least know where Jullette lives? I have to find her. I have to find Charles.”

“Where have you been? Yuh so locked into yuh books dat yuh not even know what time it is. Everybody want to know where Charles is. Him is a wanted man. Anyone who know where him is, is a rich s’maddy. Rich enough to buy a house and not be treated like shit. If I did know where dat brute was, me woulda move out long time. Suh why would you ask me such a stupid question? Now get away from me front door an’ nuh come back unless yuh have money for my service.” She looks at Thandi’s face. “From where ah standing, it look like yuh need more rubbing.”

“No, thank you,” Thandi says.

“Yuh sure ’bout dat? Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I tell yuh dat God nuh like ugly? Look what’s happening to us.”

But Thandi turns and walks out of Miss Ruby’s yard without looking back.

She hurries toward the square before the sun rises entirely. She passes Miss Gracie’s house and stops by the mango tree where she once spotted Charles and his gang stealing and devouring mangoes. Thandi reaches toward the lowest branch and picks one. But when she lowers the mango, she sees that it is rotting, the inside carved out by worms. She tosses it and keeps moving. When she gets to the pink house, she slows her pace. The French shutter windows are closed, but leaving the house in this early morning hour is her sister. Margot stops in her tracks when she sees Thandi. And Thandi halts too, her breath drawn so sharply that it hurts her lungs.

“Thandi, wait!” Margot says. She’s opening the latch on the gate.

“You didn’t have to lie to me,” Thandi says as soon as her sister approaches.

“Ah didn’t think you’d understand.”

“You could have told me that it was her .” Thandi has this odd feeling that they are being watched from a window inside the pink house.

Margot touches Thandi on the arm. “I’m sorry—”

Thandi pulls away. She starts to run, ignoring Margot’s plea for her to come back. She cuts through a grassy area, wiping away tears from her face. Her feet pound the ground, stirring up dust. She has to find Charles. Her bookbag slaps against her back the way it did that day when she chased him through the streets. When she reaches Sam Sharpe Square, she turns and turns, unsure where to look first. She doesn’t know where Jullette is hiding Charles. Who could she talk to? Where can she go? She sits outside and observes the gradual chaos of the shoppers, hoping Jullette will appear. Thandi waits the whole day, until sundown and the sky becomes a stunning shade of violet and fuchsia.

On the street she spots two women in short tube dresses. One of them has rail-thin limbs. The rest of her looks like parts belonging to another woman — a high, round ass upon which one could rest an elbow, and sizable breasts that squeeze together inside the dress like two breadfruits, the way grocers display them in the square. The other woman is big all around — her voluptuous frame snug in the little elastic dress that looks like it’s about to bust open when she heaves and sighs from the fitful coughs caused by the smoke from her cigarette. The women are standing together behind the veils of smoke, their eyes alert on the pedestrians. The skinny one digs into her purse for a small compact mirror. She grins to check for lipstick stains on her teeth and pats her short black wig. But really it seems as though she’s trying to check out the man who just passed them by — as if to gauge if he’s looking back at her. Her fat friend shakes her head when she turns and sees that the man is walking straight ahead, not even giving them a backward glance. The skinny one puts the mirror back inside her purse and rolls her eyes. Thandi approaches them.

“Can we help you?” the fat woman asks. Up close she looks a lot older than she dresses, the skin on her face ashy and drooping as though all the elasticity has been worn.

“Yes, I think so,” Thandi says, uncertain.

The two women glance at each other before they look at Thandi. “How much?” the skinny woman asks. She’s wearing a lot more makeup, complete with fake eyelashes and a drawn-on mole on her upper lip.

“I — uh.” Thandi is speechless.

The women burst out laughing. “Lawd, Doreen, yuh laugh like a damn hyena! No wondah why no man nuh want yuh!”

“Shut yuh claat, gyal. Yuh laugh like faa’ting donkey.”

The fat woman taps her friend on the forehead and her friend fans her off, the way one fans off a person they’re used to joking with. She turns back to Thandi. “What is it dat yuh need help wid, baby?”

“I need help finding someone. A girl name Jullette.”

“Why not look har up in di directory? What’s her last name?”

“Rose.”

That’s when the fat woman slaps her hand on her forehead, nearly knocking off her red wig. “Oh, Sweetness!” She hits her friend on the shoulder. “Doreen, she ah talk ’bout Sweetness!”

Doreen’s eyes light up. “Oh, Sweetness! Yes, yes, me know who she is!” She turns to Thandi. Then to her friend she says, “Annette, yuh t’ink we should—”

“Big boss would know,” Annette offers, cutting off Doreen. She lights another cigarette.

“Who?” Thandi asks.

“Big boss. She come aroun’ dese parts an’ recruit girls. Di younger ones.”

“She?”