Niyati Keni - Esperanza Street

‘Thank you, Joey,’ Aunt Mary said, graciously.

We joined my father. There was no sign of Dil and I was grateful for that. Aunt Mary looked about, her eyes combing the crowd. People were already coalescing now into smaller groups, in readiness for the march. America put her hands on her hips. ‘So anyway, where’s your brother?’ she said to Benny. Benny looked about then too. Like me, he’d been too distracted to notice Dub’s absence. ‘He could have shown his face for his mother’s sake at least,’ America said.

When the march left, we walked together near the rear of the crowd. As we neared the Bougainvillea’s gate, Aunt Mary squeezed my arm gently. ‘Find him,’ she said softly. I would have preferred to march on, adding my voice to the day, rather than trail after Dub, but she patted my arm again more briskly and I slipped out of the mass and into the cool tranquillity of the boarding-house garden. I stayed at the gate for a while, watching the marchers walk up the hill, and waited until the urgency in my breast had subsided and been all but obliterated by a dry sense of duty. When I’d lost sight of them, when even the sounds of the march had faded, I glanced up at a locked and empty Bougainvillea before starting back down the hill towards Prosperidad.

The doors to Earl’s garage were bolted and padlocked. I leaned back against them and gazed up at BabyLu’s balcony. The balcony doors were closed too and, in front of them, framed by the lines of door and railing, the leaves of her potted plants were as bright and still as in a painting. The sight was pleasing and I stayed on the forecourt for some time, the skin of my back growing slippery under my shirt against the hot wood.

I closed my eyes and thought about the cool interior of her apartment, the fan on her coffee table, her books. My mind fixed on these, I straightened up and set off across the street and then up the stairs to her door. I knocked, softly at first. There was no answer. From inside, I heard a sound like hands sweeping over cloth. I knocked again, more firmly. ‘BabyLu, please. It’s Jo-Jo.’ I felt foolish saying it so pleadingly, like a child. I knocked and called several times. And then, finally, the door was flung open.

BabyLu was in disarray, her hair wild, her robe sagging about her. I wondered if she’d been in bed. She gasped when she saw me and stared at me, not inviting me in. ‘Good,’ she said at last, shrilly. I was astonished and gazed back at her, bewildered. She chewed her lip. ‘I’m glad ,’ she added. ‘You heard me right.’ But now she looked away as she said it. Still, I didn’t speak, and after a minute she said miserably, ‘It was your idea. The herbs. He told me.’

‘Who?’ I found my voice at last.

‘Dub.’

‘Dub,’ I repeated hoarsely.

‘You thought he wouldn’t find out?’

‘Where is he?’ I said, my voice rising, peering behind her into the flat.

She drew in her breath, remembering. ‘Eddie’s men came. They took him.’ Her eyes swept over my hands and face now, taking in my injuries. ‘You have to find him.’ Her eyes were bright with fear. I stared back at her dismayed. I thought of Aunt Mary, squeezing my arm, then patting it again.

‘Where?’ I said. I imagined Dub sitting on a settee, drink in hand, Eddie standing over him, smiling affably, sprinkling holy water.

‘I don’t know,’ BabyLu cried. I was ashamed at how relieved I felt at that. She crossed her arms and looked at me coldly, but now her eyes avoided the worst of my bruises.

I considered telling her the truth but her eyes started to brim over again and I felt the heat go out of me. I looked down at her belly where no sign showed yet. I felt an emptiness then, so engulfing that I stepped backwards. Let her believe whatever suits her , I thought. ‘Jo-Jo,’ she said softly, but I turned away and started down the steps two at a time.

I dropped to the kerb at the corner of Prosperidad and Esperanza and sat, my head in my hands, waiting for my heart to stop its pounding. Esperanza was quiet, and without its usual layers of noise I could hear the soft crash of the sea. Everyone would be at the town hall by now, sharing in the camaraderie of a day from which I’d found myself excluded. It wasn’t far; I could still join them. I closed my eyes, pressing the lids tightly together. I forced myself to breathe slowly, the air humid and heavy, comfortless. The street smelled of hot dust. And after all, I thought, I had no idea where he might have been taken. Really, I shouldn’t even have known that he had been taken. I might comb the entire town and never find him. And it was hardly anything to do with me. I sat quietly. Good , she’d said, I’m glad . I got slowly to my feet and walked back to the Bougainvillea.

America and I waited in the dining room for much of the morning, the house quiet around us. We’d laid breakfast out, covered it over again, eaten our own meal at the kitchen table and cleared our dishes away, until at last all that was left for us to do was sit, listening for footsteps, for the sound of doors opening, water running.

They came down one by one. Dub was the last. I hadn’t seen him since before the rally. He’d returned to the boarding house long after the evening meal had finished and stayed in his room, not touching the tray that America took up. She’d been tetchy when she came back down with it and straight away dispatched me to my room for the night.

I stared at him as he came into the dining room. His hair was short and ragged, as if he’d cut it himself in front of the mirror. He stared down at his plate as I stepped forward to serve him. I looked him over stealthily as I spooned out his eggs. His skin was its usual unblemished coffee-cream, his loose-limbed deportment apparently unchanged. He sat comfortably enough though he barely ate. He was quiet. All morning he stayed on the edge of things, not commanding the room as he usually did. Later, he went out with his mother and when he came back his hair was different again — sharply cut. It suited him, but I didn’t feel like telling him so. Even if I’d wanted to, I had little opportunity to speak to him for the next few days, for he always seemed to be flanked by his mother or by Lola Lovely, and they were quick to send me away.

America, unsettled by the change in mood at the Bougainvillea, announced that she was going to visit her village to spend a few days with her grandchildren. Sufficiently recovered, I found myself running the household and out on errands more often in her stead and it was on one of these early one afternoon that I happened to pass by the Beauty Queen parlour.

The Beauty Queen had opened on Esperanza Street the same year that I came to Aunt Mary’s and the sight of it, of Jaynie and even of Lady Jessica, whom otherwise I found intimidating, was always significant for me, like a lucky charm. And so I was alarmed now to see it in such disorder. Manicure tables, chairs, hairdryers were lined up on the sidewalk while, nearby, Cesar Santiago and another man stood next to an idling sedan, one of Eddie’s, watching the salon being emptied. As I approached I heard Cesar say, with his sorrowful voice and lawyer’s smile, his hands open as if offering a gift, ‘So, you see, some disruption is inevitable.’

Lady Jessica was squashing a bundle of towels into a bag on one of the chairs. She nodded sulkily at me. ‘You guys redecorating?’ I said, shooting a look at Cesar, who stood with his face creased in apology, hands back in his trouser pockets.

‘Seven years,’ said Lady Jessica, her voice, naturally a quick-fire staccato, faster than usual. ‘Seven years. And his boss is no stranger to a manicure. Or his wife. This was like her second home. More time here than at her own mother’s.’ She looked me over critically as she spoke; the bruises on my face and arms were starting to yellow at the edges. ‘You need something to cover those?’