Niyati Keni - Esperanza Street

Dub didn’t come down for another coffee or for any other drink that evening, staying in his room all night and leaving for the garage before I could see him the next morning.

From Earl’s forecourt, I watched the light from BabyLu’s apartment shift over the dusky terrain of her balcony as someone moved about inside. The balcony doors were open to the evening and the light washed out, gilding the leaves of her potted palms, the fronds of her bougainvillea. I couldn’t hear any music coming from inside, though it would have been hard to tell; Prosperidad was busy. I looked up and down the street. There was no sign of Eddie’s car. Still, I stayed where I was in the shadows around the forecourt, rehearsing what I might say. I imagined myself, just for a moment, as a character in one of Aunt Mary’s books: an elderly man, staring up at a lighted window from a Parisian square, the edges around him softened by the evening, waiting to see the beloved face that he hadn’t set eyes on in decades. The thought made me feel a little ridiculous and I laughed at myself softly, becoming conscious as I did so of the attention of people coming home from work or bringing in their washing from the nearest balconies of Prosperidad; I’d been standing there with no discernible purpose for a while. And so, though I scarcely felt ready, I crossed the road and climbed the stairs to her apartment and, on reaching it, still hesitated at the door. But she must have been waiting after seeing me loitering below for, the very moment I knocked, the door flew open. She looked at me, her eyes grave. It occurred to me that I should have thought to bring one of her books; it would have been a better reason for being there.

I sat down at the dining table. I hadn’t been in her apartment since I’d eaten there with Dub. She’d been animated that evening, a light in her eyes that wasn’t in them now. I thought about the baby she was carrying, how in other circumstances, the knowledge of it might have made her eyes even brighter.

‘How have you been, Joseph?’ she said, and I felt abashed. I should have asked her first.

‘Ok,’ I said. ‘He told me.’

‘No foreplay then?’ she said tersely. I flushed deeply. Looking remorseful, she said, more kindly, ‘You want a drink?’

‘Sure,’ I said but she stayed in her seat.

‘Did he tell you the first thing he said was shit ?’ She exaggerated the word, pulling her mouth into an ugly shape as she said it. I opened my mouth and closed it again. I felt ashamed for Dub. ‘Not quite how I pictured it,’ she laughed, her voice throaty, rich. She’d been crying.

‘What do you want?’ I said.

She leaned towards me, her eyes moist, beseeching. ‘You know he never asked me that?’ I wasn’t sure which he she meant, or perhaps I just didn’t want to think it might be Dub. Maybe she realised that because she said, ‘I haven’t told Eddie yet, but I’m going to. Tonight.’

I didn’t feel like defending Dub just then, but I said, ‘He hasn’t been able to think about anything else.’ It was the truth at least.

‘Really?’ she said, more brightly.

‘Sure,’ I nodded.

‘I do know what I want, Jo-Jo,’ she almost whispered. Her eyes glistened. Her face was soft, her lips slightly parted. Even with reddened eyes and fatigue seaming her face, she looked exquisite. Of course, I knew then what she wanted and wondered that Dub could have missed it. I should have asked but instead, seeing my opportunity on the brink of collapse, I said, ‘I know a woman. There are herbs. I can take you to her. She can sort things out.’ The words stumbled out of me and lay scattered and dreadful between us. I watched BabyLu’s face change.

Her breathing became shallow, controlled, and she was pale as she said, ‘Did he send you to say that?’ I felt sick. I wanted to gather everything back up and start again. She stood up. ‘You tell him not to come round here again.’

‘BabyLu …’

‘I thought you might understand, but you’re just his flunkey. You do as you’re told, whether you think it’s right or not,’ she cried, her voice brittle, the words like fragments of glass. ‘Or maybe you just don’t think at all.’ She jabbed at her temple with her finger furiously, her nails long and scarlet. I wanted to fold her hand softly, safely, into mine but I didn’t. I leaned forward, my palms out, wanting to apologise. Her eyes flared and she groped around on the table for something to pick up, but, finding nothing, she crossed her arms again. ‘Go away,’ she said petulantly, like a child. She looked small, her very daintiness an accusation.

It felt almost unbearable to leave everything poised at that point and yet I was grateful to have been dismissed. As I reached the door I turned to look at her and, seeing me turn, she clenched her jaw, raised her chin; she would hold everything in until I was gone.

I ran down the stairs and out into the night and set off down Prosperidad, away from Esperanza Street and the Bougainvillea, a dull, hard feeling in my chest.

The apartment blocks here were at least four storeys tall with jutting balconies overlooking the street. In soft globes of lamplight, people ate together, talked over the sound of TV sets, rolled out bedding. It was a street where neighbours hung over railings and called to each other in the darkness, the red tips of cigarettes looping through the air as they talked. I tried to imagine what it might feel like to once again belong somewhere like this, perhaps even with someone, by choice rather than happenstance. But I couldn’t quite capture the sense of it, as if there had grown over the years some barrier as light as gauze, floating between me and everything else. BabyLu was right, I thought. It didn’t matter whether I knew wrong from right when all I did was whatever I was told, without questioning the role that had been written for me by everyone but myself. And when it was required of me to break through the gauze, when it really mattered, I could not.

I walked about aimlessly for some time before I realised I was crying. I wiped my face with my arm, grateful for the darkness, and then I started running. I tore back through Prosperidad, heedless of the surprised faces around me. As I neared her building, I looked up at her balcony, the room beyond it still full of light. I ran up the stairs. I might not have been so hasty had I recognised the Mercedes, half in shadow, rolling softly away onto Esperanza.

I hammered on the door and when she opened it she looked frightened. I hadn’t meant to alarm her and I started explaining all at once as I blundered into the room, still out of breath, imploring her forgiveness.

‘Joseph,’ she began.

‘You were right. I am his flunkey.’ I clutched at her hand. ‘But what does it matter that I can think or act for myself when nobody requires it of me?’

Behind her, Eddie Casama stood up from the chair I’d occupied only a short while ago, his jacket slung across the back of it, a tumbler in his hand. His tie was loose, his collar buttons undone, a man returning home after a long day at work, hoping for tranquillity. He looked at his watch. He seemed amused and I wondered if this might be a good sign. BabyLu shook her head at me.

‘If you had the time,’ Eddie said, ‘I’d ask you to make up some of your delicious calamansi juice, but you seem in such a hurry.’

BabyLu pushed me gently towards the door and out onto the landing. I let her steer me as I stumbled backwards, offering no resistance. She held my gaze as she closed the door, her eyes the last thing I saw as the sliver of light between the edge of the door and the frame narrowed to nothing and I was left standing in the darkness.