Samuel had never been further than the park at the end of the road, so when Mrs Christus announced that she was taking him to see Lazario, he asked where that was. "Downtown," she replied. It took him a moment to comprehend that a place existed beyond the park. Mrs Christus tied his shoelaces, took up her umbrella, and, holding his hand, walked him out into the hot sun. Twenty minutes later, they turned off the main road and down a narrow side street where the drains were high with rank-smelling mud and slimy, green water, where the houses leaned forward out of their tiny front yards and where children sat, like alley cats, on front porches. Here, the smell of cooking mingled with decay, overflowing septic tanks and soapy water discharged through broken pipes. Mrs Christus, erect and with the air of a person on a mission, increased her pace and took a firm hold of Samuel's hand. Eventually, the houses gave way to small, shop fronts and a livelier atmosphere generated by a few bars clustered at the very end of the street. Opposite stood a large, wide-fronted building whose lower half was of brick and upper stories of wood. A few windows broke it stern facade and from the outside, at least, it may as well have been a penitentiary. Samuel was directed to a small door, at street level, which opened into a dank, vaulted, brick passage. The passage led to an open yard dazzlingly strung with lines of washing. Two small, wooden houses, newly painted blue and white, stood at the edges of the yard. The main brick and wood building, three stories high, was framed by balconied walkways strung with more washing dripping from each of the three levels. Immediately in front of them, four women were washing clothes at cement tubs, one with her hair in curlers and her eye shadowed by a large, blue bruise. When she caught sight of Mrs Christus, she spat just a few feet from the tub. Samuel, still firmly in Mrs Christus's grasp, felt dizzy from the sheer quantity of life squeezed into this one quadrangle of space. The place throbbed with arguments, the warmth of human bodies, the crying of babies and the drone of radios. He scanned the balconied walkways, seeing the occasional parrot, dove, or songbird swinging in its cage outside open doorways boasting colored lights or a few flowering plants in large tin cans.
As they ascended the second staircase, Samuel forcibly pulled his hand out of her grasp and ran ahead. His first journey into town was an experience akin to a spiritual awakening and climbing the stairs as fast as possible was all he could do to contain his excitement. From the floor below, Mrs Christus, holding onto the railing and wheezing with the exertion, wanted to shout to him, but she could not find the breath to do so. Earlier, he had crept away from her, and now, just a few hours later, he was running away. She stamped her foot to dislodge her annoyance.
At the top of the third flight of stairs, Samuel was stopped in his tracks by a large, grotesque face held like an egg in a mountain of stiff satin. It took two minutes to recognize, beneath the lurid blue and green eyeshadow and pink lipstick, the face of a girl perhaps four years older than himself. With the help of a fistful of grease, she had managed to tease her hair to one side where it was held by a large, diamante clip. The shoes, bright pink with tall black heels, were several sizes bigger than her feet and hung precariously to her toes, as she flung her legs forwards and backwards under her chair. She stared at him with the eyes of a huge, hungry cat. Samuel did not dare go past her even though he saw Lazario's bicycle just two doors away. Seeing his predicament, noticing his discomfort, she smiled, her face lighting up.
"Yu di luk fi sohnbadi?" she demanded, getting up. Samuel saw then that she was the widest, most rotund girl he had ever seen. "Yu dumb or wat?" she demanded again. With mounting fear, Samuel stepped to her side, hoping that she was perhaps about to descend the stairs. But she wasn't and, cornered against the wall, she asked in a sweeter tone as if to something small and inferior, "Weh yu naym?"
"Samuel," he muttered under his breath.
"Samuel," she mimicked in a tiny voice, her nose in the air, but, seemingly satisfied, she returned to her chair and sat down again.
"Come yah," she beckoned with her finger, "ah gat sohnting fi show yu." With hunched shoulders, Samuel went to her side. She held out her stout arm, her fists closed, concealing something.
"Dah weh eena mi hand?" She looked at Samuel's confused face unable to contain her glee at having an innocent victim to toy with. Samuel smelt the sweet stickiness of boiled sugar and guessed correctly that in her palm she had a small plug of fudge.|
"How yu noa dat!" she said menacingly. "Nobadi nevah guess right." She opened her dirty palm, and the squashed lump, runny at the edges, was exposed to daylight. "Yu haftu eat it. Dat dah di rule."
Samuel realized then why no one ever guessed what was in her palm, but, too frightened not to do as he was told, he took the sweet and ate it before her. When he had swallowed, she said, "Mek wi play dat again." Samuel shook his head. He did not want to play the game again and, thinking that perhaps she was done with him, he sidled past her.
"Dah weh yu di goh?" she said, frowning. "An who seh di game finish." She pulled him to her side and Samuel, not prepared for the strength of her grip, stumbled, hitting his chin on the edge of her chair. A sharp pain suffused the side of his face, stunning him into silence, and there on his knees, speechless, he faced his first childhood friend.
"Yuck," she muttered rudely, "yu gat blod pan yoh face." And before he could wipe the smarting area with the edge of his sleeve, she had him up on his feet and was dragging him into her home. She pushed him into a room, pungent with the smell of perfume and unflushed toilet, then turning to a wide, low sink, filled it with water.
"Come yah," she said, "mek ah wash it off." She picked up a scrap of waterlogged soap and proceeded to scrub the wound while he squeezed his knees together and clenched his fists. When she was finished, had dried the area, she said, slightly exasperated, "Bwai, yoh blod still di poar owt." Just then the door was pushed open and Mrs Christus, black umbrella in hand, stepped in. Samuel felt a flood of relief but, fearing a reprimand from the girl, remained rooted to the spot. Nausea, due to the reek of the unflushed toilet and exacerbated by the sight of blood streaming through his fingers, made him sway, want to retch, then, without warning, the room dimmed and the wide, dark contours of Mrs Christus's person began to undulate like umpteen little waves licking the side of the door frame. He woke sometime later in a strange room. He was lying on cushions arranged on the floor, and, from a long, wide window, the sun emptied itself, filling the room with constant yellow light. This was where Lazario lived, he knew this, and then he remembered how he had come to be there.
The room was simply furnished with a round, wooden table, four chairs, an old radio on a long sideboard and a bright, red rug over the worn floorboards. Dust motes, dancing in the sunlight, were suspended across the room like layers of soft gauze, and, through the haze, he made out the figures of Mrs Christus and Lazario. They were drinking tea. On the table was a cake Angelita had made. He heard the sound of their voices but didn't try to make sense of the words. He was too comfortable. His chin, he felt, had dried to a scab, and, easing himself back onto the cushions, he stared aimlessly at the ceiling, feeling suddenly happy. Taking three marbles out of his pocket, he placed them in an even line on the floor. They were as round as the fingers of the girl he had just left. Two were bright blue and one was green. He took them up, one at a time, and rolled them across his chest and then across the floor. They rumbled like miniature cannonballs, filling the room with noise.
Mrs Christus, poised with the cake halfway to her mouth, watched as the marbles were thrown repeatedly, colliding every now and again. She took a bite of the cake thoughtfully, then as Samuel rushed by her chair she caught his arm. "Enough!" She drew a chair out for him. "Here, sit and eat your cake."
Samuel sat reluctantly, feeling a terrible urge to play and, even more so, an urge to disobey. A month ago, he would have sat and quietly observed the adults, but, today, he fidgeted uncontrollably and within fifteen minutes had Mrs Christus rushing to the kitchen for the dustpan and brush to sweep up the cake, he had dropped, which was now half trodden into the floor. The moment she had gone, he got off his chair and crawled over to the marbles lined against the wall and once again began to spin them across the room. When Mrs Christus returned, she was amazed to find that he had disobeyed her and was liberally coating the marbles with spit before spinning them.
"Up!" She stood with her finger pointed at him, "Now!"
"Ma, let him play." Lazario said and turning to Samuel asked, "Do you want to go outside?" Samuel nodded, "Go then."
Samuel went without a backward glance, and Mrs Christus, incredulous that he should saunter out like an alley cat, asked herself if it wasn't yesterday that he had clung to her because of some unknown terror. Wasn't this, she asked herself, the child who seemed almost to covet her shadow. She nodded her head feeling a sense of loss and accepted that he was no longer just a child.
Samuel was not totally unaware of the effect his actions were having on Mrs Christus. However, once outside, he regretted his defiance and was again beset by terror. The girl was waiting for him. He pushed against the door but it was firmly shut. He turned to meet her. She made no move towards him. It occurred to him that without her pink, high-heeled shoes, without her makeup and layers of satin, she was not half as terrifying. In fact, she was pretty. She had a baby in her arms and was jogging him up and down. Her face was fixed and resentful. She whispered across to him, "Dem wap yu tu?" She repeated it again but this time in English. "Did your Ma lash you?" He shook his head.
"Look yah." Her eyes were hard. She lifted her dress and showed him the red welts left from the lash of the belt. The baby sagged heavily in her arms. She put him on the floor and instructed Samuel to sit on the first step down so that the baby couldn't escape. He noted that she kept switching between Kriol and English and she explained that her mother had instructed her to speak nice to him. To treat him kind, seeing that he was Mrs Christus's little boy.
Samuel looked at the baby, dressed only in a vest, and saw a puddle widening around his tiny, outstretched legs. "He wet his self."
"Yes, so? Ih aalwayz du dat." She switched to English, "He always does that". The baby squirmed. "How ole you think I am?" she asked. Samuel thought a moment, wondering if this was another game, and then said abruptly, "Nine."
"Yes," she clapped, her face animated. "How ole you?"
"Five."
"Five," she repeated, "and you so small." The baby, hearing his sister laugh, gurgled and then slapped his hands in the puddle.
A bird fluttered in a cage two doors away. The noise, for some unknown reason, reminded Samuel of Angelita changing the bedsheets. It was a dove. A small white dove, restless in the confines of the cage. Samuel went over to the cage. He wanted to hold the bird, to feel its soft feathers against his cheek. He reached up and opened the cage door.
"Yu kyant du dat!" she cried. "Yu eena chrobl." Samuel ignored her protests and she repeated herself in English, anxiously laying stress on every word. Still, he put his hand into the cage.
He felt the bird's wings beating against his palm, saw its chest heaving with the effort and with fear. He huddled it against himself, trying to shield it; from what, he did not know. It amazed him that the life in his hands was so fragile, and when the girl came and sat at his side he asked her whether it was going to die. She rolled her eyes upwards and asked him why he thought that.
"Because it's trembling."
"Da soh dem look." After a moment's thought, she said with conviction, "It's cause they are mostly air."
He did not understand and, feeling sure it was going to die, went over to the railing and opened his hands. The bird fluttered up and away. It circled above them and disappeared over the far roof. When he returned to the girl, he saw that she was glum. "Are you happy it flew away?"
Her eyes were pools half-filled with tears. "Cause of you, I am going to be in trouble!"
"But I let it go." Samuel returned.
"Even so, they will blame me." The girl knocked on the door beside the empty cage. A woman opened the door. "Yes," she demanded. The girl pointed to the empty cage and then at Samuel. "Di lee bwai mi gwain fi grab di dov....ih flai weh."
The woman poked her head out the door. "Da hoo disya bwai, Priscilla?"
"Da Mrs Christus lee bwai."
"Priscilla, noh waste mi taim now! Tel di chroot or ah gwain tel yoh ma."
Samuel hadn't asked the girl's name, but now he knew it was Priscilla. The woman had emerged from the doorway and was wagging her finger in Priscilla's face. He said to the woman, "I am Samuel, and I am with my mother." Samuel went over to Lazario's door and touched it. "In there."
The woman focused on him with renewed interest. She glanced him over and went back in, slamming the door behind her. A moment later, she opened the door and spoke to Priscilla and then, turning to him, said, "When the bird comes back, call me." The door slammed. Samuel noted that the woman had spoken to Priscilla in Kriol and to him in English.
"You are lucky!" Priscilla cried. "If it had been me, she would have slapped me for sure!" But Samuel was not listening. He was mortified to find that the bird was coming back. Why, if it was free, would it come back to its cage. He asked Priscilla why would the bird come back.
"Ih baan deh," she said, and then she repeated in English, "It was born there."
"In the cage?" Samuel asked.
Priscilla nodded her head, but the thought of the beautiful bird born in the cage did not make him feel any better, and he said angrily, "If it comes back, I will...." But he could not think what he would do. She laughed and the baby, still playing in its puddle, laughed too.
Priscilla went over to the railing and motioned for him to sit beside her on the floor. They sat, staring down at the rows of washing. The three women at the cement tubs had gone and a dog was sniffing at a doorway. He cocked his leg and pissed. The sun was high in the sky and a gentle breeze swept across their legs. Priscilla sat with her thighs wedged between the bars of the railing, and Samuel sat beside her on his knees, his head between the bars, leaning as far forward as possible. Behind them, the baby gurgled. Priscilla had tied his leg with a green, cloth belt to the chair. From three floors up, the world, measured by the yard below, seemed infinitely interesting, and the shrill chirps of the blackbirds in the mango trees at the yard's edge were joyful. Samuel felt happy. When Mrs Christus came to fetch him, she saw them together and was troubled. She wanted to protect him from the girl. She decided not to bring him the next time she visited Lazario.
Samuel returned home intoxicated by what he had seen, heard, smelt and done. He pranced about so agitatedly that Mrs Christus asked if he wanted to go to the toilet. He said no, and she took a firm hold of his hand and told him, in that case, to be still. On arriving home, he immediately checked to see if the ants were still marching through the crack in the porch door. They were. Darkness was gathering and the ray of light shed through the crack had dimmed. The timbers of house creaked and groaned as the sun set and the air cooled. From the kitchen, Samuel heard the sound of pans clattering, and he smelled the aroma of savory meat, rice and beans, and fried plantain. Because it was Sunday, the dining room table had been set with the best china. Mrs Christus and Angelita took their places, opposite each other, at the table. Samuel sat beside Mrs Christus and they ate in silence. From the corner of the room, the luminous enamel face of the clock stared down at him and, next to the clock, a framed photograph of the old man grimaced. Below the photograph was another, yellowed with age. It was the young boy. Himself. He liked that photograph because the picture reminded him of his transparent reflection in the glass pane of the veranda door. After the meal, Mrs Christus sat on the veranda and Samuel on the steps to the yard. She encouraged him onto her lap, where he fell asleep. He dreamt of Priscilla, beckoning him from the end of the street. He tried to reach her but with each step, she drifted further away, and, eventually, she disappeared into the distance, a small, black dot against the setting sun. When Angelita joined Mrs Christus on the veranda, she found her wiping away tears from the still sleeping child.