The Worlds Within Her (52 page)

Through the thumping of her heart, Yasmin says, “There's more. What aren't you telling me?”

Amie goes still. Her chin trembles, eyes grow watery. Her face acquires years. “How much you want to know, Beti?” she says softly.

“Everything.”

Her back stiffens, eyes wandering away to the shuttered window.

Yasmin waits, her sigh riveted on Amie's profile. She does not even blink.

“Mister Vernon was a saga-boy. You know what a saga-boy is? He did like the ladies, nuh. And even after he got married with your mother … Everybody did know it. Miss Shakti included. She use to wait up nights for him, till all hours. I can' tell you how much they use to fight. She was smellin' the other women on him. Even your grandmother try talkin' to him but …

“Then one day they stop quarrellin'. Jus' like that. Miss Shakti din't wait up for him no more. Is not that he change. A saga-boy born a saga-boy. She kind o' give up, you know? She swallow everyt'ing.

“Is aroun' then she start paintin'. Every week, she change the colour o' the room. Pink, then blue, then green. Is a kind o' madness that come over her on the weekends. Monday mornin', out did come the paint brushes, poor Miss Shakti doin' the work sheself, in here all day, not eatin' or drinkin'. The smell o' paint was always heavy-heavy, it did give me a headache sometimes. I ain't know how she stand it. Swallowin', swallowin'.

“As for Mr. Vernon, he continue on as usual. The paint smell did bother him sometimes. A couple o' times, he sleep in the livin' room. But I ain't think he ever really understand how much he t'row at your mother. And Beti, he t'row a lot, and not all of it was
paisa.
It have people like that, eh? Money is everyt'ing, and if they t'row enough at you, everyt'ing all right.

“But he, Mister Vernon, did t'row and t'row and t'row — and not only at Miss Shakti. He hit a lot o' people, Beti.”

Yasmin says, “You?”

“Me.” And she turns away from the window, away from Yasmin, lowering her head so that when the words come again they come from a woman huddling herself into an ellipse of strange and feminine beauty.

FUNNY THING ABOUT
children, isn't it, Mrs. Livingston?

At first we know everything about them. They hold no secrets
because they have none.

Then, as they get older, the less and less we know, the more we must intuit — or, if we are honest with ourselves, guess — based on what we have learnt in the early years.

By the time they've attained adulthood, they have grown distant from us, become strangers in ways difficult to grasp because of their familiarity.

It's almost as if growing up entails, in part at least, the hoarding of secrets — as if the self needs a spot that is accessible to no one else. Ever. I'm not so romantic as to claim that in this place is the true self, but I am realistic enough to know that it may be essential to it, in the way that soil is essential to a plant.

This standing apart. So inevitable. So necessary.

And yet …

And yet, so terribly, terribly sad.

'I WASN' PLANNING
on being a servant girl all my life, you know. When I start this job — I was young, just a girl, nuh — my parents had already fix me up with a fella. We was plannin' on gettin' married in a couple o' years. He was workin' in the cane fields, and wanted the time to save some money. And when this job come along, I decide to take it, to save some money too. Is how I end up here, workin' for your grandmother.

“I remember the day Mr. Vernon marry Miss Shakti, I remember the day she come here. And I remember dreamin' that one day soon it goin' to be my turn to put on the red sari and sit in front o' the pundit and become the wife of a good man.

“But after the two years he ask for more time. My father say no, after two years he have enough
paisa.
Then he find out that the fella was gamblin' every evenin', and even if he was a hard worker he was a bad-lucky too. And it ain't have nothing to do when somebody bad-lucky, nobody know how to change the stars.

“But he promise to change, he promise no more gambling, and my mother convince my father to give him another chance. So I stay on here, workin' for your grandmother, givin' my parents some money, savin' a little. Waitin' and prayin'. Not countin' the days no more.

“When Mr. Cyril and Miss Celia come back from Englan', Mr. Vernon decide they goin' to take my bedroom, so he build a little room downstairs for me, put in a little bed and a old dresser. He did forget about light so I had to use a oil lamp for a few months, until he get somebody to run a wire.

“An' it was in that room one evenin' that Mr. Vernon come to visit me. He did come in late, as usual, I remember hearin' his car drive up. And a few minutes later he come knockin' at my door. I get up, open the door a little bit, thinkin' he was hungry, nuh, wanted something to eat. ‘Amina,' he say. ‘Amina.' An' in his mouth my name was sof'-sof'. I say, Mister Vernon? Something wrong? An' he say, ‘I tired, Amina, I tired, I need to res'.' Then he push the door open and step inside the room.

“I get frighten, I tell him he should go upstairs to sleep, but he shake his head and sit down on the bed. ‘Amina,' he say again. ‘Little Amie.' Then he hold out his hand to me, as if he did need help. I ain't move a inch, but he reach out quick-quick, grab me and pull me to him.

“He put his arm 'round me. I say, Mister Vernon, no. But he jus' hold me tighter. He was a big man. Strong. Next to him I
was a mosquito. I was frighten, yes, I was frighten. For all kind o' reasons. So I stop tryin' to … I let him hol' me.

“And then he … Then he start to touch me, Beti. He start to touch me in places no man ever —

“I say, ‘Stop, Mister Vernon. Stop.' But it was jus' my mouth talkin'. I try to push his hands away, but they find their way past mine, past my nightie. Easy-easy.

“And despite everything, for all kind o' reasons, and to my everlastin' shame, Beti, I din't want him to stop …”

Yasmin's world shudders on its axis. Senses unshackle: a deflation of flesh and bone.

She thinks: I do not wish to hear this. But her tongue cannot — will not — shape the words.

Up near the ceiling of the room suddenly contracted, her consciousness hovers cool and expectant.

Amie's voice comes to her from afar, each word hardened, distilled to its essence.

“And to my everlastin' shame, Beti, I start to touch him too.

“I never think about the man I was waitin' for. Never think about how far —

“I let him do …

“Because what he did want was what I did want. There. Then. In the moment.

“Is only when he push me back on the bed, gentle-gentle but pushin' all the same that I …

“But it was too late.

“He was a'ready —

“And when he —

“It feel as if somebody was pushin' a knife —

“It feel as if all the air leave my body —

“I did want to scream, but I couldn' scream. I did want to pray, but I couldn' pray. I shut my eyes.

“He was heavy, so heavy, pushin' an' —

“My legs feel as if they was startin' to break off. An' I had to push my face pas' his shoulder to breathe.

“An' I breathe, Beti. I breathe as if I was eatin' air.

“I breathe an' breathe an' breathe, because it was like the only thing I had lef'.

“Then he choke, he stop movin' — an' he was done. Jus' like that. He stay on top o' me, heavy-heavy, crushin' me.

“In a little while, he get off me, sit on the bed and hide his face in his hands. He say, ‘Amina, Amina.' He was cryin'. Then he straighten out his clothes and leave the room.

“I ain't know what happen next. If I fall asleep. If I pass out.

“The nex' mornin' I wash out the sheets. The blood and t'ing nuh. And I t'row away my panties. I wanted to go back home, to my parents, but my father was sick, they did need the little money I was givin' them. So I make up my min' to stay, and put a lock on my door.

“Two months later I find out he did put a baby in my belly.”

Image, she knows, is no more concrete than thought.

Yet it is image her instinct reaches for, imagining
it
— this horror, this hysteria — as a nest of vipers materializing within her.

And yet, when Amie continues, it is in a voice so composed, a voice of such equanimity, that it is, in its grasp of events, like wisdom.

Unexpectedly, Yasmin finds herself soothed.

HAVE YOU EVER
played the game truth or consequences, my dear Mrs. Livingston? A religious game in many ways. This need to confess secrets that some religions have tapped into. We all need a confessor, don't we?

I have spoken to you about some of my regrets, but I have never told you, or anyone, the biggest regret of my life. Shall I try, my dear confessor?

It's one that has come to me only in later life, you know. A surprise, in many ways. I had thought myself well beyond all that …

Listen to me babbling on, will you. As you have probably guessed, I am reluctant to voice this regret, but I am also so tired of it swirling around within me like some kind of hurricane that cannot find land to wear itself out.

You see, my dear, I regret never having known what it is to have —

To have a child growing and stirring within my womb —

To feel my body house and nurture new life —

To feel that new life fight its way to autonomy —

To have breasts swollen with milk to nourish a hungry body —

All this, my dear, is my regret, and my fantasy …

And what of Yasmin, you ask? Yasmin, dear Yasmin, you see, is my daughter — but she is not my child.

'MY FATHER WAS
a long-time stick-fighter, Beti. Everybody did know about him. Everybody did say he could take off a man head with one swing o' the stick. So when he turn up at the house early one Sunday mornin', stick in hand and cutlass tie to his waist, they did know he mean business.