Beyond Molasses Creek (14 page)

Slowly, I approach a lone woman sitting behind a wall. She has long black hair and a fitted green dress. She is of caste. I am afraid to speak. “Namaste,” I manage.

“Yes? What do you want?”

I pull out the rumpled old card and set it down before her. “Please,” I say, looking at the card and not in her eyes. “I am here to see this person. Mr. Davidson Monroe.” I say it just the way I repeated it back to him many years ago, the way I have rehearsed it in my mind. My stomach churns as I await her reply. My knees tremble beneath me.

She hands the card back to me and says, “I'm sorry, but there is no one here by that name.”

I look at the card. I look at her fingers. They are soft and have never broken gravel. “Please. Please. Are you sure? I—”

“Where did you get this card?” she asks. “I can double-check the roster.” She looks to her computer and puts her fingers on the keys. I leave the card sitting on the desk.

“Forgive me. I got this from Mr. Monroe himself, a long time ago. Perhaps twenty-five years.”

The lady raises her eyebrows. Then she stops typing and folds her hands under her chin. “I see. And you are an American citizen?” She looks at me with pity.

“No. I am not.” I am filled with shame for standing here.

“Then why are you at the US Embassy?”

“I—” I shake my head. “I do not know. I am sorry.” I turn to walk away.

“Miss,” the woman says, “if you'd like to see another consulate officer, you may make an appointment.”

“An appointment.”

“Yes. Let's see . . . I have next Wednesday at . . . mmmm . . . 1:30?”

She is mocking me. I look toward the door. Next Wednesday. That is five days from now. Five days with no food. I cannot go home; I have nowhere to stay.

“Miss?”

I look at the lady.

“Did you hear what I said? A consulate officer can see you on Wednesday. Shall I put you down for 1:30?”

I feel a draft from my wet clothes and shiver. Then, uncontrollably. “No. Thank you. Namaste.”

I move as quickly as my legs will take me to the door and back into the street where I belong. I am unclean. So it is, and so it will always be. But I must survive. I will search for twigs or straw. I will make a broom and sweep the streets of their filth and excrement in the morning with the other Dalit women. But I cannot go back to the quarry. They will kill me if I do.

The rain pours on my umbrella and suddenly it is being ripped from my hands, yet I will not let go. A car has stopped. Two high-caste men tell me to get in the car. I struggle to stand. I have seen what happens to Dalit women who struggle. They are stripped in public and humiliated. They are beaten and burned. And the police do nothing.

This is how it will end. Here on Maharajgunj Road.

I open my mouth to scream, and a man falls to the ground. There is a fight before my eyes. The rain is coming down hard and a third man is here, fighting the other two. They get up and run to their car and speed away.

I fall to my knees, a stone on the sidewalk.

Someone puts hands on my arms and walks with me back to where I came.

“Are you okay?” the man asks.

I cannot speak. I am trembling.

We enter the embassy doors again, but this time I am too stunned to be afraid.

“My goodness, you're freezing. Are you ill, miss? Did they hurt you?” He turns to the secretary and speaks in English. “Marta, please, a towel. And some hot tea for the lady.”

The man wrenches the umbrella from my hands and sets it up against the wall. I have never been called a lady before in any language. The towel and tea warm me and I begin to focus once more on my surroundings. I touch my breast to make sure the book is still there. It is. I look straight ahead and see the man's legs. He is sitting on the edge of a desk, arms folded.

“Better?” he says, returning to Nepali.

I nod slightly with the warm cup in my hands. The woman who brought the tea whispers in the man's ear. He is bald and wearing a wet brown suit.

“Really? I see,” he says. He studies me. I try to drink my tea. I may not have any for a very long time. “You speak Nepali. I understand you were just here looking for a consulate officer. Yet you are obviously not American, are you? I have to wonder what brings you here. Tell me, how long have you traveled to get here?”

My eyes shift and I recount the days.

“You do speak?”

I count the times I found an overhang or trash bin to rest my eyes. “Four days,” I say.

His eyes open. “In the rain? No wonder you're cold. It is too dangerous for you to be on the street.” Silence sits between us as I sip my milked tea. The steam wafts up into my face.

“Tell me, why did you come all this way to the US Embassy? It must have been a very important trip for you to make. Do you have matters with the US?”

I am afraid to speak. I bite my cracked lips.

“I'm sorry, where are my manners?” The man unfolds his arms and puts a gentle hand out to me. “My name is Theodore Assai. I'm with the US Consulate. And your name? Please. Look at me.”

I look at him and say, “M-My name is Sunila Kunari. I came to see a consulate officer I met many years ago. Mr. Davidson Monroe.”

“Ah, I see. And you've come all this way to find out he is no longer here?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm. Pity. Tell me, what sort of business would a woman like you—a Dalit, no?—have with the consulate of the US Embassy?”

“I—” I press to stand. “I have taken up too much of your time. I am sorry.”

“Let me explain,” he says. “I am an American. I was born in America to Nepalese parents. So I have returned to Nepal but I do not believe in the caste system. I do not believe I am any better than you. Do you understand this?” The man looks at his watch. “I am on a break, so it is my time to take up. So tell me, would you like to have lunch? I am hungry and I've nearly forty-five minutes left.”

The thought of food makes my mouth quiver, but I am wary of this man. No one eats with a Dalit.

“Good. Marta, I'll be taking tea and lunch in my office today. Please bring enough for two of us. Dal bhat. Oh, and a cold compress for my hand. There was some trouble on the street today.” The man helps me get to my feet, holds my rainbow-colored umbrella, and with a curious voice says, “Right this way, Ms. Kunari. Right this way.” The feel of his hands on mine, Dalit hands, untouchable in my society, makes my head swoon. I feel far away from home. The book burns in my chest, and I wonder if this has all been a terrible mistake.

TWENTY-SEVEN
Jasper Farms

Mount Pleasant
Ally
1968

I
T HAD ALL BEEN A MISTAKE
. A
TERRIBLE, AWFUL MIS
take. I went through four years of high school, fifteen dances, eight different hairstyles, and countless Beatles songs without ever laying eyes on Vesey Washington again. All because of my impetuous nature. My parents never knew anything had happened between us. They saw me sitting on the end of the dock, pining away as all teenaged daughters did, no doubt. They had no idea—and they would have had strokes had they known— that I was missing Vesey. I, Ally Green, homecoming queen to the class of 1968 at Mount Pleasant High, missed a colored boy. When I was dating Sam Packard and Miles Dupree, I was actually thinking about Vesey—how he would never say something just to impress me, how he would speak from his heart about his dreams for the future, about spiritual things and the true state of man—how he was real and genuine and everything right.

It was all wrong in everyone's eyes, but I remember sitting there with my feet down in the water, thinking,
If it's so wrong, God, why would you let me feel this way?
A loving God wouldn't make somebody have feelings for a person and then never ever let it be right. Would he?

My religion was wavering, my foundation growing shakier each year, and by the time I hit eighteen and was thinking of leaving Charleston—going off to college, going off to start a life somewhere—I could not bear the thought of never seeing Vesey again. He had grown into the image of a near-god in my drawings and in my heart.

To never see him again? I simply could not bear it.

When you have wronged someone, you live with it. It does not go away. It lingers and stains and hurts and festers. I had wronged Vesey by keeping my mouth shut. I should have rowed over to his mama's house and told her that I was the reason Vesey was caught dancing with me that night. I should have told her it was me who had had designs on him and not the other way around. I should have explained that I was like Odysseus's sirens, luring him to the rocks. To his death.

But I never said a word. I thought it might inconvenience and embarrass my parents. I thought of my own shame and what people might say about me. I thought of Vesey, I did, but in all actuality, I only did what served me best. And by the time I turned eighteen years old, I remembered that little girl I used to be, the little girl who used to be good friends with the little colored boy across that river. I thought of who I had become, who I wanted to be. And then early one Sunday morning I borrowed Daddy's car and headed straight for John's Island. I was going to find Vesey Washington and set things straight once and for all. I feared he was no longer there anymore, that he'd been drafted or hurt or grown bitter or run off and gotten married. I feared I'd never get the chance to tell him I was sorry, that I could never tell him the depth of my true feelings—that I had cared for him deeply. All these years. Him, and nobody else.

Daddy's '65 Olds rolls along the dusty roads of John's Island, clouds forming at the back of the car. The oak trees hang over me, Spanish moss dripping down and doting on me like an old nanny. I should have come here a year ago. Two years ago. Three. I should have found Vesey as soon as he got moved here. I could have cleared things up. I might have moved on with my life, had some closure, but no. I am still living with his ghost just as if he never left.

I look at my hands on the wheel. Have they changed any since I've become a young woman? I look down again at my chest that has filled out this sweater, then back up into the rearview mirror at my eyes with purple eye shadow and blond hair, curled and smoothed. Yes, I have changed. I hope Vesey likes what he sees. But what will I find in him? Will he be handsome still or grown bitter, living out on this farm? Will he even agree to see me?

There is a sign on the right for the Angel Oak. Mama and Daddy and I drove out here once to see it, a large sprawling fourteen-hundred-year-old tree. Standing there, cradled in its arms, I could almost feel the souls of the Indians who had prayed there before me. I pass the sign and keep on driving. No time for prayer. A deer is standing on the side of the road flicking its tail. It waits and waits and I slow down to a crawl. I honk my horn and it turns back to join its family. I take a deep breath, and then I see it—a hand-drawn sign that says
Jasper Farms
. This is it. I turn into the dirt drive and hold my breath.

Pothole after pothole, at the end of a very long road, I finally see a break in the sky. There's a river straight ahead of me and on the left, a sprawling farm with cotton plants and tomatoes and purple wildflowers as far as the eye can see.

And there bending down to the soil is Vesey.

He looks up and stands, hands on hips, watching me. He squints and when he realizes it's me, he drops his basket and runs toward the car. My heart is about to burst out of my chest! I set the car in park and get out of the door. I go to run to him, but he stops several feet away and scolds, “What are you doin' here?” He looks behind him to see if anyone is watching. His body is a man's now, taller, fuller. His clothes fit him loosely, a long-sleeved white shirt with blue jean overalls. He looks healthy and dark. Better than I imagined.

“Vesey, is it really you? I can't believe how you've changed.”

“You cain't be here.”

“I won't stay. I just needed—my goodness, it's been so long.” I grab my stomach and smooth my dress. I look over now toward the house to be sure we are alone. “I'm, I'm going off to college. In the fall. I got in.”

Vesey is silent, watching my face and pressing his hands in his pockets.

“Are you?” I ask. “Are you going to college?”

“Ally, why'd you come here? It ain't good for you to be out here. Ain't you heard all the stuff goin' on?” His voice is low and thick like molasses.

“Oh yes. I'm sorry about Dr. King. I—I don't know what to say really, but it's awful. All of it. I just cannot believe people behave the way they do.”

Vesey looks back at the house and folds his arms across his broad chest.

“You don't think I'm like that, do you?” I ask.

“What kinda question is that?” he says. Crows come for whatever is in the basket he dropped, and he shoos them away.

“I'm graduating next week, Vesey. We're going up to visit Furman as soon as I do. I guess I came here because I wanted to . . .” I look down at his dirty shoes and then at my own. “I'm sorry, Vesey. I've wanted to tell you how sorry I am for the longest time, but—”

“Sorry 'bout what? Ain't nothin' to be sorry about.”

“Yes, there is! It was my fault. I'm the one who got you into trouble. It was all me! You had to come all the way out here because of me.”

“It was bound to happen,” he says.

“Yes, it was. And it was all my fault because I—” I look up into his eyes. “Vesey, I've cared about you since the day I met you.”

The silence between us is loud and awkward. I want to absorb the words back into my mouth but I can't. It's too late. Confusion comes over Vesey's face and then concern. Crows dance behind him on the ground, cackling at my announcement. I speak again to smooth it all over.

“So are you? Going to school?”