Caribbean Beat — March/April 2018 (#150)

As he pass through the gate, Miriam watch how he’s stoop a
little when he walk and how his hands making two fists.
“He want somebody to pass his children on to,” she say.
But Nathaniel Mendoza have her confuse. First time she see
him was the day her neighbour son had help her cut down
the zaboca tree that was sick. She come out to wet the
heliconia when the sun start to go down, and find this tall brownskin
man leaning on the gate watching at the trunk and branches pile on
the pavement for the City Council truck to pick up.
“You will miss your zabocas,” he say, as if they accustom talking
over the wall just so. “Eh heh,” she say, softly, expecting him
to say something more, but he just walk away. She remember
she stand up on the gallery wiping her wet hands on her dress
watching him go. He was whistling.
But a couple weeks later, he show up at the gate carrying a
paper bag with two perfect Pollock pears. She thank him and
offer him a glass of lime juice, so he pass through the gate after
her and follow her into the gallery. Nathaniel from Paramin,
that little village nestled in the Maraval hills. You could see it
in the distance on your left on the way to Blanchisseuse. “Not
everybody could make it up there,” he say. “Is only four-wheel
drive could climb them hills.”
He tell her he have five brothers and sisters, and all of them
still in that village. When she say all she know about Paramin
is they look Spanish, they’s grow chive, they always bring out
a blue devil band at Carnival, and they play parang, he laugh
and say his parents is sell seasoning in the market, two brothers
involve in blue devil mas since they in their teens, and he is the
mandolin man in a parang band. “Maybe is true, and all we good
for in Paramin is growing chive, spitting fire, and making music
for Christmas.”
His face break open in a smile, and Miriam find he remind her
of something from when she was small, but she ain’t sure what.
She smile, too, though.
“Parang ain’t parang without the mandolin,” she say.
When Nathaniel talk, he’s use his hands plenty, as if the words
not enough to tell the story. Miriam sit and listen and watch at
the shapes his hands making. He not handsome, but he have a
kind face, and eyes like he always studying something more.
He working on the wharf, and he tell Miriam about some of the
things he see: Filipino sailors, small like boys; Koreans — big
hard-back men — walking along the docks holding hands. He
always find that odd, but everybody have their own way, he say.
Once he watch a Norweigan officer standing on the deck of a
cruise ship, throwing down coins for a local woman below. Her
husband was there, but the captain like he didn’t care.
But a lot of the time he cross one long leg over the next one
and listen to her. It look like the stories he’s tell make her want
to talk, too. Sometimes she surprise at what she remember. All
kind of thing from when she was small — how she used to play
in the dry river bed with twin sisters who live in a house where
everything paint pink. Or the time they were staying in Las
Piedras and she sleepwalk out to the sea and nearly drown. She
find she want him to listen. When Nathaniel say he going, she try
to think of things she could talk about that might get him to lean
back in the chair and cross his legs again. She look in his face
and her heart flutter — almost like a bird that frighten — but she
don’t have anything to keep him. He wave from by the gate and
walk brisk towards the junction.
Around five o’clock most Saturdays after that he come, and
he tell his tales leaning back in the chair, his long legs stretch out,
but he always leave once the neighbours start to turn on their
lights. She invite him to stay for a little roast bake and smoke
herring one evening, but he thank her and say, “Is time to head
up. I have a good way to go to get home.” Miriam find that after
Nathaniel gone on those Saturdays, she sit down in the gallery
thinking about her parents, about her brother and sister who in
America years now, about school days. Sometimes she ain’t even
remember to watch the news on the little TV she have in the
drawing room, and instead she just stay on the gallery with the
lights of houses twinkling in the hills.
“What this Paramin man come down here for?” she hear herself
ask softly, but she can’t see that he really come for anything
in particular.
The strangest dream she ever have is come back in a
different form every so often. In one dream, she on the
gallery, and a man pass and tip his hat and tell her she have
a beautiful garden, and he especially fond of the lovely red plant,
and gone on his way. In another one, she come out of the service
with all the congregation and in the courtyard the men turning
from their wife and smiling at her, and one of them whisper,
After his wife dead, Bally throw
himself into his work so hard that
he spitting out clothes fast as a
factory
“That’s a wonderful red plant growing wild in your garden,” and
before she have time to answer, he disappear in the crowd. Is have
her uncomfortable when she wake up; she never like the idea of
getting praise or compliment when she ain’t deserve it, and in the
dream she don’t have chance to say they must be mix hers up with
some other garden, because she ain’t have no such plant. But by
the time she get out of the bed and gone to the kitchen to make
tea, she forget till the next time.
The following Saturday morning she went to the market
and bring back the usual ingredients for the soup. She
peel the dasheen and cassava and sweet potato and put it
to boil. She cut up the chive and onion and crush the garlic. She
burst the split peas in the pressure cooker, and as she take it off
the fire, she hear Desmond call out. He early today. She walk out
to the gallery, and he beam at her from the gate. He was carrying
a shopping bag with some piece of clothes or the other in it. She
take a deep breath.
“Desmond,” she hear herself say, “I can’t invite you in today,
nuh.”
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