Niyati Keni - Esperanza Street

‘If I was a train … ’ My mouth refused to form the rest of the sentence.

Suelita started to laugh, her teeth flashing, mouth open, the moist rose of her tongue as fascinating and remote as a sunset. ‘You want to come in anyway?’ she said. I wished she hadn’t said anyway .

I thought about it long enough that when I finally gave my answer her eyes were intent on me. ‘No,’ I said.

‘Suit yourself.’ But she sounded surprised.

I was smiling as I walked away but with neither pleasure nor amusement. I had cut short with a single word the only time we might ever be alone together. I imagined her eyes on my back as I moved through the alley, but when I looked back from the brink of Esperanza, the door of the shack was closed and she was gone.

My father leaned forward, his forearms resting on the pew in front. He stared up at the life-sized wooden Jesus on his cross. Jesus’ paint was peeling and his robes, which had once been a blue the colour of the sea out over the reefs, had faded to early-morning sky or, in places, chipped away altogether to reveal the grain beneath. It had been a while since my father had brought me here and I hadn’t rushed to remind him. He’d been quiet all the way from the jetty but, looking at him, I was sure he had something to say. There was no one else here now. He’d waited for the last person to leave and still he glanced anxiously at the door, fingering the bamboo pendant about his neck — another cross with a minuscule Jesus on it, which I remembered playing with as a kid, hopping it up a mountain of peas that my mother had asked me to shell.

‘Missy says you asked about … some girl.’ He said the last two words delicately. I felt my skin bristle. I should have realised she’d go to him. He waited and when I didn’t say anything he added, ‘You don’t have to fix anyone else’s mistakes, Joseph.’

He watched me as he said this and though I knew I shouldn’t have, I said, ‘Why is everyone so sure it’s not my mistake?’ The question rang out louder than I’d intended in the close air of the chapel. My father’s face grew livid. His grip tightened on the wood of the pew till the skin over his knuckles was stretched and pale. He looked up at Jesus, his eyes apologising for his son.

‘You think it’s a joke?’

I slumped back in the pew like a child. ‘You took in Lorna. That wasn’t your mistake,’ I said quietly.

‘What has this to do with her? I’m older than you. You’re at the beginning of your life.’ In fact, I felt at that moment as if I were at the end of it, as if everything was worn out. I looked about me at the shabby chapel. I could imagine a hundred places I would rather have been with my father and yet I’d obligingly followed him here. I waited for him to say something else but he closed his eyes and bent his head to pray. I sat without moving, my hands balled in my lap until he’d finished. When he was done, he stared up at Jesus again, at the hands and feet bleeding red paint, and said with an air of finality, ‘Missy won’t help you. Neither will Bee. You stay out of other people’s trouble.’ And he started to his feet before he’d even closed his mouth again, afraid perhaps of allowing me any chance to respond. I thought to myself that he might just as well have stayed seated, for his words alone left no room for mine. He inched round into the aisle, his knees still bent, for the pews were placed too close together in order to allow Jesus a little more leg-room. My father’s shuffling movement seemed suddenly comical and I looked away quickly. He straightened up and moved down the aisle to where Jesus’ arms seemed to embrace the candle stand and the donation box beside it. My father plucked out the stub of the taper he’d placed in the stand earlier. The candles were cheap and, having sagged almost immediately in the heat, had spilled their wax over the side of the stand onto the floor, exhausting themselves too quickly. He tossed the stub into a nearby pan. When the pan was full, the wax would be melted down, the wicks picked out, the candles refashioned so that they could bleed their gritty whiteness over the floor again in a day or two. He rubbed his fingers together and, seeing him do it, I rubbed mine too, imagining the greasy feel of the cooling wax as it clouded and flaked off his fingertips. He lit another taper and pushed it into place, throwing me a look. This one , his eyes said, is for you .

Dub took his supper at the boarding house that evening, the first time in a long while that he’d done so, and ordinarily Aunt Mary would have been delighted by his presence at the table. Her manner was certainly light, almost cheerful, through the meal, but there was a tautness to her voice and she watched me more closely than usual. America had said something to her, I thought. As I served him, Dub looked up at me and smiled. I looked away, glancing automatically at his mother. Had she been looking our way just then, she might have read something in my eyes that disquieted her, might have seen the shade of complicity between her houseboy and her son. Afraid of what I would give away, I retreated to the kitchen as soon as I could.

Usually the first to leave, Dub lingered at the dining table as I cleared the dishes. When I started back with the last of them, he excused himself to his mother and, smiling at her as he slid his chair neatly back under the table, followed me to the kitchen. He didn’t look at America but said to me, ‘Can you bring me up some coffee?’ He slipped away again quickly. He was usually happy to fetch his own coffee and America glared at me as I prepared it, but she didn’t pass any remark.

When I reached his room, Dub was waiting by the door. He closed it behind me. He ignored the coffee in my hand and said, ‘Did you get them?’ I looked down at the cup for a minute, puzzled. ‘The herbs , Joseph.’ I held out my free hand, palm up, spread the fingers. He stared at it for several seconds, as if on closer inspection, it might not have proved to be empty. He pushed both hands through his hair and turned away. ‘She hasn’t told him yet.’

‘They won’t give them to me.’

‘Can you take them?’ he said quietly. I pictured the rutted turquoise of the Bukaykay stoop, the smooth brown of Suelita’s thigh. The cup grew suddenly hot in my hand. I looked for somewhere to put it down. I remembered my father’s face in the chapel, his hand on the wooden pew, candle grease on his fingers but not on mine. I looked away. Dub threw himself onto the bed. ‘She’ll have to tell him soon,’ he said softly. ‘You have to think of something. I don’t know who else to ask. Can I trust you?’ He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked at me for a long moment. The closed door seemed to hulk behind me and I felt myself rounding my shoulders against it. I nodded. He lay back again, staring up at the ceiling.

‘Where do you want me to put your coffee?’ I said.

He waved a hand without looking at me. ‘I don’t feel like it now,’ he said dolefully. I walked out, closing the door behind me. I paused on the landing and looked at the cup in my hand. It didn’t feel like the same coffee I’d carried in and I held it at arm’s length as I moved down the stairs. America looked at it sourly as I came through the door. I emptied the cup into the sink.

‘He doesn’t want it?’ America said. I stared at her aghast for a moment. She waited for me to say something and when I didn’t she said, caustically, ‘You think I want to ask you your important business? You’re such a big man.’ I imagined pulling a face at her. Maybe she guessed because she added, furiously, ‘You think I even care ?’ I’d long since learned when it was best to keep quiet, and soon enough America subsided, though she watched me for a while as I busied myself at the sink.