Niyati Keni - Esperanza Street

‘It’s Benny ,’ I said, softly.

She took a slow, deep breath, nodded. I guess she was trying to build up some suspense but I wasn’t impatient, I knew she wanted to tell me. It must have been a lot to carry all these years. I smiled at her and she frowned. Maybe she’d imagined the moment of telling someone differently. ‘The girl was called Dorothy. She was Mary’s housemaid, one of many when he was still around. Of course he took a liking to her. Careless, selfish man. It was bound to happen. She tried to hide it for as long as she could until I spotted it.’ America tapped her temple. ‘You know, the way she stood, the way she walked, even before it really showed. It was Captain Bobby that told her she had to go, the day he left for Manila on business. He threw some money onto the piano and strolled out the door. More money than the poor girl might have seen in a year. He expected Mary to banish her there and then, expected to return to an orderly house. Well, that man never appreciated the kind of stuff his wife was made from. She took us all to her country estate — me, Dominic and the girl — leaving the houseboy in charge here. She saw the girl through her pregnancy and promised her the baby would be cherished. I remember her saying it. Cherished . She had to explain to the girl what it meant. Afterwards, she told Dorothy to disappear without a fuss and she did. She never came back, though she did send letters. A lot of letters. The first ones were addressed to Mary, then after that to Benny. He never got any of them. As far as I know, Mary never answered any either, so Lord knows what the girl was thinking. Most of them she burned without even opening them. I thought about suggesting she kept one or two for him when he grew into a man. But she was young. Who can blame her?’ America paused for a moment, tracing a square on the tabletop with a finger, watching me coolly. ‘I hid the photograph or she’d have burned that too. I thought he’d find out some day and have a pile of questions. There wasn’t really anywhere else I could put it,’ she glanced over at her mat on the floor. ‘Maybe I hoped it would fall out one day.’ I stared at her. ‘Anyway, I’d forgotten about it.’ She frowned at me again. ‘That man would have come back from Manila to find an empty house. Well, good . You know she left a message with the houseboy that her husband wasn’t to follow us and that if he did he wouldn’t be let in at the gate. He never showed his face.’ Even after so long, she looked disgusted. ‘Sure, he phoned . Once or twice. Anyway, a few months later, we came back, Mary carrying a new baby that she’d called Benito, after her grandfather.’ America sighed heavily. As she got up she said, ‘You know, that man never even asked about the girl.’

Lola Lovely looked round the dining room with the mournful expression of someone visiting a landscape after a long time to find the places of her youth obliterated. ‘There were only ever friends and family in the house when I was here,’ she said. ‘Strangers don’t respect a place in the same way.’ She ran a finger over the side table, looked disappointed to find it clean. She rubbed her fingertips together anyway but didn’t inspect further. ‘We’d have the priest round for dinner regularly in those days. Ah, but it was Father Lucien then, a handsome Frenchman. Everyone asked him to dine.’ She stopped at the window, gazed out, perhaps seeing the garden as it might once have been. ‘Always in the sun, chut , that child!’ I peered past her but the garden was empty. Lola Lovely ran her hand over her cheek and I imagined her suddenly leaning out of the window calling down to where Mary Morelos, the schoolchild, sat alone playing jacks. America! Tell that child to play in the shade at least. I don’t want her getting dark.

She glanced round the room once more, at the bowl of glass fruit, the cutwork place mats, the glossy surface of the table. She frowned as she looked in my direction and I moved aside, so that she could complete her inspection. ‘Things have got a little tired over time,’ she said, ‘but do what you can. And put out the best china, Joseph.’ And with that she left, pulling her pañuelo round her shoulders as if she was cold and the thin silk might provide any warmth.

I polished the dining table again and checked that everything was straight and lined up. Lola Lovely wasn’t in the room — she’d gone to check on America — but the sensation of her scrutiny persisted. When I’d finished, the room looked no different so I was glad she’d seen me get to work, for she nodded, pleased, when she came in again. I doubted either Father Mulrooney or Pastor Levi would take in the state of the room; the dinner invitation was hardly a social one anyway, more to discuss what could be done to halt Eddie Casama’s scheme.

Lola Lovely, assured that all preparations would be carried out to her satisfaction, went to take her siesta and I found myself in the sala with Aunt Mary, who had managed to avoid her mother most of the morning. We sat together, in silence, Aunt Mary on the piano stool, me on the rug polishing the boys’ shoes. I liked these moments; there were fewer of them now. More often these days, Aunt Mary left me to maintain the house without her direction, closing the door of her study softly behind her.

The blinds had been lowered part-way and the windows of the sala thrown open. Through them came the fragrance of the jasmine that was in full flower, mingled with the scent of the hot street and, somewhere, faintly, an open gutter. The noise of the street felt close and intrusive but it was too hot to close the windows again.

Aunt Mary sat with her back to the keyboard, a pile of sheet music on her lap. The piano lid was open, but Aunt Mary hadn’t been playing. She frowned as she ran her hand over each sheet, as if the texture of the paper or the music it described might ignite some lost memory. The sheet music had been ordered and reordered countless times: alphabetically by composer, or categorised by style, genre, era. It was a kind of meditation for her. I’d never heard her play. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, saw her hands pause over the pile and then, without warning, she exclaimed, ‘Damn it, Joseph.’ Startled, I jumped to my feet, uncertain what I’d done wrong. She waved me down again, apologising. Then she marched into the hallway straight to the telephone. I heard her exclaim, ‘Constanza! Mary Morelos here. Oh! Connie, then. I was wondering if you and Edgar are free this evening. I know it’s very last minute.’

Dub and Benny, called by their mother, came down just as the doorbell rang at seven. They kidded around with each other as they walked down the stairs. They were uncomfortable to be dressed smartly, in shirts chosen by their mother that I’d pressed for them that afternoon. They stood awkwardly side by side in the sala, like acquaintances waiting to be introduced at a wedding.

Father Mulrooney and Pastor Levi were punctual. I was conscious of the slightest throb of disappointment as I opened the door to them, but only because I’d steeled myself for the arrival of Eddie Casama. Aunt Mary stood behind me as I opened the door, to direct the men into the sala. Father Mulrooney, less crumpled than usual, was wearing a shirt and slacks. I’d expected him to come in his robes. Perhaps Lola Lovely had too, for she said as he entered, ‘How fashions change, Padre.’ He smiled at her and she held her hand out as if expecting him to kiss it. He hesitated and then took her hand in his, bending his face only slightly towards it, an abbreviated but polite gesture. Lola Lovely held her hand out to Pastor Levi and said, ‘I’m sure I remember you as a boy. Why, nothing really changes.’