The Last Warner Woman (8 page)

that maybe in the excitement of all the screaming and the water-breaking, Mother Lazarus had kept a steady head. She had not been distracted. And so she, who was supposed to understand the importance of cleanliness, really did wash her hands, really did put the water on to boil, really did lay fresh sheets on the bed, all the things a midwife would have known to do.

that maybe this could have been a different story.

But tell me, what is the use of all these maybes when Pearline Portious did, in fact, die?

In the room where they finally took her, Mother Lazarus was shouting like a cheerleader.

“Push, girl! Push!”

So Pearline pushed.

“Yes, I see it coming, girl. Push. Come on, just a little more.”

So Pearline pushed a little more.

“The head, I holding the head! You doing good girl. Push now! Push!”

And Pearline’s eyes began to flutter.

“Come Pearline, come!”

Pearline gasped.

“A little more!”

Pearline’s eyes were suddenly flung open, as if she had seen something spectacular. And they stayed like that. Open. Lifeless.

But Mother Lazarus continued, “Push Pearline, push!”

And now Mother Lazarus was pulling. She reached inside the girl and started to pry the baby out with her own hands.

“Good job, Pearline mi girl! One last push!”

And Mother Lazarus herself pulled the baby right out. The infant and the old woman hollered together; the first protesting at the indignity of being thrust into the light, the other with exhaustion and joy. Pearline’s hand dangled off the bed, and it was this, more than her absent heartbeat, more than her discontinued breath, that became the irrefutable evidence that Pearline was no more, that she had fallen outside of time, and departed from her own body.

From the doorway Maas Paul and Maas Johnson saw the hand and they started weeping over it, as if no other part of Pearline had died. As if they knew it would take time and strength to grieve over her face, and then her legs, and then her knees, because sometimes grief is so great it must be divided.

Mother Lazarus remained oblivious.

“Pearline, you have a little girl. Look on this little girl you have.”

Only then did she look around. She saw now the glazed eyes; she noticed the hand.

“Pearline?”

She recognized on Pearline’s face the kind of sleep she herself had been longing for, a sleep that had been so long in coming.

“Pearline! Don’t you do this to me, young lady. It is not your turn. Is not your turn!”

Agatha Lazarus found out then that there is a moment when a dream is so utterly crushed, that instead of withering the dreamer will explode. Such is the ache and violence of disappointment. She began punching the dead body of Pearline Portious. Mother Lazarus opened the palms of her hands and slapped Pearline’s lifeless face.

“Wake up. Wake up now. This not fair, Pearline. Wake up or else I kill you.”

But soon Mother Lazarus was sobbing. For no matter how many times she punched the body, or how many times she slapped the face, or how loudly she shouted, or how seriously she threatened, or how much water dripped from her eyes, Pearline would not wake up. And this time it did not matter how desperate her prayer was; her desperation was not powerful enough to bring back the dead.

So there it was, this room, and inside it was a dead body and all the stinking mess of birth: blood and shit and mucus. And a baby was wailing. And an old woman was beating her chest. No one dared step into this strange vortex, this room like an obeah curse. They left it to Mother Lazarus to bring her own self back.

She had to say to herself, “Is so it go sometimes. Just accept it, Agatha. That is how things go. Just accept it.”

It took hours before the last of her rage finally left her. She exhaled it in a heavy breath. She turned her attention to the child that was still attached to its dead mother. Agatha went over and held the baby, at a distance at first, but then she brought the child closer, and then closer still. She wiped the stale tears from her own wrinkled face.

“Sshhhhhhh,” she whispered, and made an effort to smile. “Well, well, my dear. Maybe you is the child I was never able to have. And if I did have a little girl-pickney like you, I would have named her Adamine.”

So Agatha rocked Adamine in her arms, cooing to her. “
OK
my dear.
OK
. Mother Lazarus will make you a deal. Fifteen years, but not a day more.”

And the swarm of insects that had been fluttering in Mother Lazarus’s fingers and her arms and her eyelids and her feet all flew away at once—like fireflies that lose their light and disappear with the morning.

an installment of a testimony spoken to the wind

Shhhhhhhhh

Is lie. The Monsignor never come back quiet. He come back with vexation brewing in his heart, bubbling up like a pot of peas, and when he open the door and see what was before him, is like the lid of that pot explode. No sah. He never come back old. He get old because of what Miss Lily did do him. Listen, Mother Lazarus say, even she who don’t custom to fraid of nobody was fraid of him that day when he step back inside the house. Monsignor Dennis come back to see something that look like celebration, something that look like carnival or Jonkoonoo. People did wrap up in all kind of colors, everybody looking as bright as birds—Maas Paul with his blue bandages, Maas Johnson with yellow round his left foot and red round his right, Maas Johnny with orange on his body and on top him head. But most splendocious of all was Miss Lily. From her eyeball straight down to her toenail, Miss Lily was draped in purple. She was wearing bandage on parts of her body that never even need bandage. Monsignor Dennis wasn’t pleased. Him shout out,
Miss Lazarus! Miss Lazarus!
Mother Lazarus right there beside him but she fraid to answer. He turn on her.
Explain this to me. Explain this, you silly old woman.
She don’t answer him in her usual way for even she admit that sometimes she talk to him as if him was a boy. Not today. Instead she thinking to herself,
a soft answer turneth away wrath,
but though she know the principle, she can’t think of the soft answer to give.
Missa Dennis, sir, I really don’t see the harm …
He throw his head back and laugh so loud it cut her off. Everybody surprise because nobody ever hear him laugh before. But there was no joy in that laugh, and soon as it did start is as soon as it did stop.
You do not see the harm? You do not see the harm? Of course, my dear lady, you are too bloody old to see anything. Well, you just take them off this instant. This very instant.
Him was serious and before Mother Lazarus could say yea or nay, he bend down himself and start to tear off bandage like how a pickney would tear shine-paper off of present. The whole time him was muttering bout the properties of dye, bout ink that if you don’t mind sharp could seep into wounds, bout infection of the bloodstream. But he whispering it all to himself, like this knowledge was too much to share with the people who it really concern.

Shhhhhhhhh

All this time something terrible and strong was rising up in Maas Paul and in Maas Johnson and in Maas Johnny. But most especially it was rising up in Miss Lily. She was sick and tired of this man treating her like she was nothing more than a ball of donkey shit. He tear off the bandages from Maas Paul. He tear off the bandages from Maas Johnson. He tear off the bandages from Maas Johnny. But when he go over to Miss Lily she lean over in her chair and
kashai!
she thump him in his face. One almighty thump like she did have yam and dasheen and cassava in her fist. Have mercy! He never expect it. Never see it coming at all, at all, and he howl out. Listen nuh, anytime they tell me this part of the story they all laugh and laugh just to think of Monsignor Dennis rubbing him face and looking so frighten. They say he jump up to his feet and bawl out,
What the devil has gotten into you lot of monkeys?
Yes, that’s what he call them to their faces. Miss Lily push herself as far up in her wheelchair as she could go. She looking like a man who just step out of the rum-bar and suddenly unbalanced by the night air. She rocking back and forth but she looking on him steady, so steady that him cannot look away from her. Miss Lily was a schoolteacher once upon a time and she draw for that same sharp voice that used to make pickney stand up straight and behave themselves. Miss Lily herself never once repeat this speech to me, but the other fellows repeat it for her. And maybe they add to it, and maybe they subtract, but she never correct them. So if don’t go so, it nearly go so.

Shhhhhhhhh

Look here, sir,
Miss Lily start,
I know you do not know what it is like to look in a mirror and see a face as ugly as mine. And even if you did have what I have, you would be white so you would still be able to make a way in this word. So since you don’t know, I will tell you: I seen a man eat him food and throw it back up just because he catch sight of me. And another time a whole set of children throw dog shit at me and bawl out leper, and then they run away and laugh.
The men were nodding like it was church.
Tell him, Lily, tell him.
She continue.
But I wasn’t born looking like this, sir. There was a time when I was a schoolteacher. I have my diploma from Mico Teacher’s College to prove it. Furthermore I was a pretty young thing, and a tall gentleman better looking than even you was courting me in those days. We was supposed to get married. But then all on a sudden this thing start happening to me.
The three men agreed,
Yes, yes. That’s how it start. All on a sudden.
Miss Lily was getting bolder, her voice rising and breaking at the same time,
So I said to myself, Lily, you can’t go to church and turn Mrs. with this bad case of eczema. That is what I did think it was. So I wait for it to clear. It is twenty years now and I still waiting. The man leave me of course. Who could blame him? And furthermore I lose my looks. Furthermore I lose my man. Furthermore I lose my teaching work. Furthermore I lose every Godalmighty thing a person can lose. So see here now, Monsignor Dennis, it is a long long time now that I don’t feel good bout myself. But take a long look at this ugly woman before you.
Miss Lily spread her arms to show the heap of purple that was covering her body.
All of this is making me feel beautiful again. And no way josé you going to take this from me.
She finish by spitting on the floor.
You, sir, is nothing but a cantankerous stinking old john-crow.
The three men repeat this with feeling,
Yes, yes, a stinking old john-crow.

Shhhhhhhhh

Is like the words hit him harder than the thump him get. Like maybe he couldn’t handle the thought of people like that, lepers, standing up to him like they was somebody. So from that day he leave them alone. He don’t say nothing. He don’t business. And his age come upon him hard. When I did get to know him years after, he was just a shadow of a man—a senile old priest who did sometimes seem even worse off than the lepers. I remember one day Mother Lazarus sigh a heavy sigh and march outside to him, like something was on her mind and she had to speak it even if he never have the ears to hear it.
You know how old I be? You know how old I be, Missa Dennis? I is one hundred and one years old. You can’t count that. I supposed to be in the grave now, but I still doing work here because you is wutless. I still on my hands and knees. It is a crying shame.
Monsignor Dennis look up at her and then he smile and ask,
Nancy, is that you?
He did start to do that, call people by whichever name did come to him. Mother Lazarus put her hands on her kimbo and is like she find a joke in this. She start to laugh and she say,
Well there you have it. We is abandoned.

Shhhhhhhhh

What people in Spanish Town never want to see, they had to suffer and see. Lepers with all their sores sitting on whichever street corner they could capture, their hands stretch out for the whole day, hoping that somebody would drop a coin or two into them. More times people would just cross the road. I was lucky because I could walk up and down free and I never really have leprosy though I consider myself one of them. Sometimes if I see a woman who look to me like maybe she is a mother, I stop and ask her for money. Sometimes that woman turn round and ask why I not in school. I don’t tell her that I can read and write, thank you very much, probably better than her own dunce pickney. In the same way when I reach this country, the nurses in the hospital always asking if I want them to read to me. I don’t tell none of them how Miss Lily would sit me down every evening and learn me my lessons, and how I did read her favorite book plenty times and could recite chapter and verse from
Jane Eyre
without even look at the page. I don’t bother ask none of them the greater question—what good is writing and reading; what good is books when all the books in the world don’t change the fact that some of us is born under a stone, and every try that we try to rise we ongly buck our heads. The chaulmoogra oil did stop coming. The leprosy start to get worser and worser. Who never lose toes and fingers before, start to lose them now. Who did want to cry couldn’t cry, because their tear ducts mash up. The house start to really fall apart. The paint strip completely and you could no longer look on that house and think of anything soft; just plain hardness staring right back at you. The roof start to fall in and the garden get so overgrown it begin to look like wilderness. Sometimes when people pass, we hear them say,
Look pon that abandoned house.
I would think, but of course. It is an abandoned house for abandoned people. And I did know even then that that house was like my life. I know in my heart that I was destined for ruin. I know my life was going to be one big wilderness, full of chaff and stone, and this never cause no vexation in my spirit. I just accept it. That is what life was supposed to be. I was a leper. I consider all these things and I take them and call it as fact.