Niyati Keni - Esperanza Street

I felt like an impostor, invited to eat at this flat as if I wasn’t Dub’s houseboy, but his friend. I hesitated at the kitchen doorway, nodded at the parcels of food as she unwrapped them. ‘I can do that,’ I said, but she laughed at me and pushed me back into the dining room. She pointed at a chair like a schoolteacher. I sat down.

BabyLu wedged the kitchen door wide open so that we could hear each other more easily as she threw the food into pans. She talked as she worked. ‘Most of the furniture was here when Eddie bought the flat. Belonged to the previous owner. A professor .’ She peered round the doorframe at me, her eyes gleaming. ‘Eddie wanted to get rid of it but I liked it. I didn’t have anything much of my own anyway. Most of the books were here when I came too but some I bought myself. Eddie brings me books sometimes, but he only likes ones with a particular kind of cover.’ She stopped stirring to count off on her fingers: ‘Hard covers. Leathery. Gold lettering.’ She picked up the spoon again. ‘He doesn’t care who writes them. He never looks.’ I wondered about the kind of man who chose a book like he would an ornament, buying it for its binding, as if opening it to discover its real value was out of the question.

Dub was quiet but it didn’t matter because BabyLu talked for all three of us, as if all the loneliness and boredom that besieged her in this apartment full of things had, while we were here, only a brief time to purge itself. ‘I used to be Eddie’s maid, but then his wife caught us fooling and gave him an ultimatum. He brought me here. It’s ok I guess. I left the village when I was fifteen. I have nine brothers and sisters. I’m not used to silence. It’s unnatural, don’t you think?’ She peered out from behind the doorframe again to solicit our responses.

BabyLu was talking even as she brought the food out, but while she served it she fell silent. She arranged the food carefully on each plate, her every movement reflected in the polished dark wood of the table, the bird’s egg blue of her shirt becoming sky mirrored in water. Hers was the only movement or sound in the room then, for instead of picking up the weft and continuing to weave a conversation, Dub and I watched her work. BabyLu kept her eyes on the plates, but as we looked on her breathing quickened, and when she was done her colour was high.

The food was good and there was plenty of it. Dub picked at his plate and tried now not to stare at her. Still, she caught him watching her several times and glanced away quickly as if bashful, though I thought once that she looked pleased. She ate carefully, self-consciously, and when at last Dub witnessed her splash sauce down her chin, she blushed and, flashing a wounded look at him, cried out: ‘Psychic surgery! Do you believe?’ We stared at her, astonished. She pointed with her spoon at the pile of papers Dub had moved off the armchair earlier, that she had pushed aside to make room for the food. On the top was a flyer: The Reverend Julio Orenia, World Famous Psychic Surgeon, Is Coming to Heal You! I’d seen the same flyer just a few days ago. America had brought one home only for Aunt Mary to remove it, though it was soon replaced with another. They were everywhere, especially thick in the vicinity of the Espiritista chapel from where they’d no doubt originated. BabyLu wiped her chin stealthily, spoke in a rush. ‘Such people are extraordinary, don’t you think? He’s restored eyesight and made people walk again. He’s cured cancer! And all with the power of spirit. He doesn’t claim it for himself.’

Dub studied the flyer, his full spoon poised near his lips. ‘He calls it a prayer meeting but people will have to pay to go,’ he said softly, cautiously.

‘You’d pay to see any doctor,’ she said hotly.

Dub started laughing. ‘But he’s not a doctor.’ BabyLu’s eyes glittered at him. He shot me a look but I stayed quiet.

‘Well, I will be going! Eddie has promised to take me.’

Dub opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. BabyLu turned to me and said, ‘Julio Orenia. His name sounds like a proper rock star. And he’s coming here , to Puerto. Imagine this little place for a man of his reputation.’

Dub flushed. I looked back at BabyLu guiltily, searching for something to say. ‘I’ve never thought of Puerto as a little place,’ I said at last.

She stared at me for a moment and then unexpectedly she started to giggle. It was my turn to blush; seeing it, she laid a hand on mine and said, apologetically, ‘I guess I try to think of everywhere like a place in a book. That way I don’t miss it if I leave.’ My hand felt hot under hers and my skin prickled with the weight and softness of her touch. Dub glanced at her hand and then away again.

BabyLu got up and started to gather the plates together. I stood up to help. ‘Are you planning to leave?’ I said.

‘Sure, why not? Unless I find a reason to stay.’ She fixed her eyes on me as she said this, but I was sure it was only so that her eyes wouldn’t find Dub. I helped her carry the dishes through to the kitchen but BabyLu wouldn’t let me wash them, slapping my wrist lightly as if telling off a child. She walked back into the main room, where Dub was still sitting at the table. She handed him the sponge. ‘I’ll talk you through it,’ she said mischievously.

I stayed in the sala, browsing her collection of books, my thoughts punctuated by the splash of water, by their laughter. They took a long time to wash a few dishes. I became anxious to leave. When they emerged, they were still laughing. The front of Dub’s t-shirt was sodden. I said awkwardly, ‘Aunt Mary will be wondering.’ The sound of his mother’s name seemed to sober Dub suddenly; he’d had enough explaining to do before we even came up here, but now the street was dark and dinner at the boarding house would be over.

We waited by the door as BabyLu ran her fingers along the bookcase and pulled out the book I’d picked up when we first entered the flat. She held it out to me. ‘Dub can drop it back when you’re done,’ she said. Then, looking at him askance, she added, ‘That’s ok, isn’t it, Elvis?’

‘Sure,’ he said lightly.

She stayed in the passageway, half lit by the light from her apartment, till the elevator doors closed. ‘Jesus,’ said Dub as we were carried downwards, but it was all he said.

Out on Prosperidad I waited for him to retrieve his bike from inside the garage where earlier he’d locked it away, but he surprised me by starting towards the boarding house on foot. Perhaps he wanted to prolong the evening as much as possible, for he certainly walked leisurely, and of course while I walked beside him holding her book some connection to her remained. Whatever his reason, I was thrilled. Strolling along as his companion, comfortably silent together, I felt older, broader, more substantial.

As we came onto Esperanza a gold Mercedes rolled down the hill from the direction of Salinas. I watched as it slowed down and turned onto Prosperidad. In the back, his face in profile, was Eddie Casama. He stared blankly ahead, oblivious to life on the street. The Mercedes pulled up in front of BabyLu’s building. Eddie , I thought and the thought was like ice. I looked back towards the apartment and she was there on the balcony watching us, watching Dub, walk away. I thought about all of the food we’d just eaten. Because of us, however briefly, Eddie Casama would once again, after so many years, face an empty plate. I quickened my step, quelling an urge to tug at Dub’s arm, and he laughed softly at me, at my impatience.

Without warning, Aunt Mary was summoned to Manila by her mother. It wasn’t unusual for Lola Lovely to make sudden demands on her daughter but Aunt Mary seemed more preoccupied than she might ordinarily have been before the trip. She was nervous of ferries anyway, refusing to travel by some passenger lines altogether or to travel at night. She left early, breakfasting soon after dawn, eating little. I heard her reminding America for at least the third time, as they settled themselves into the taxi, to make sure the boys ate.