Go ahead, cry it out and be done with it. Then get down on your knees and thank God that your daughter Camille has been polluted by her no-good Arab husband into a petty thief, and that you fired Teresa for Camille’s crime. Thank God, because you know that otherwise, and not too long from now, you would have asked Teresa to marry you.
Mahmoud slides from the chair and clunks to the floor on his knees. It must have been God who intervened when the pearls went flying, because if Mahmoud had been thinking for himself he never would have believed the thief could be a woman to whom he had entrusted the housekeeping money every week for the past fifteen years. It was God speaking straight out of his mouth. Thank you. Infinite wisdom, infinite mercy, I am not worthy.
Mahmoud kneels and weeps into his own praying hands. Beneath the bed, Frances listens, fascinated.
Teresa is crying too, but with anger. She sits on the loveseat in her home under the hand-tinted photograph of Bridgetown and wonders what she’s going to do now. Worse than the loss of her job is the loss of her reputation. And what is its price? To have been unjustly accused. And of something so far beneath her and everything she comes from. How dare he? Hateful old man. Like all the rest only worse. Nasty, low-down, filthy Syrian — oh sweet Lord, I am trying but You make it hard. How is it possible to forgive and to live at the same time?
It always ends this way: not-coloured people can’t stand it when a coloured person gets too good at something. Teresa blames herself for believing that she was indispensable to Mahmoud. Pride goeth before a fall. She did everything for him. She remembered all the names and all the birthdays of all his grandchildren, and shopped for the endless stream of presents that bore his name. She remembered which son liked what dish and cooked accordingly when they came for supper. She knew when to mend a sock and when to throw it out, where he had left his diamond tie-pin and his reading glasses, she banked his money, paid his bills and soothed his corns. If she hadn’t done her job so well Mahmoud would not have resented her and fired her on a vicious lie. Yes he would. He’d have fired her for being lazy “like the rest of your people”. It ends the same way no matter what, leaving you to suck salt and pray Jesus to take away the hate.
Hector reaches over and brushes away a tear, which causes her to weep afresh. They have been married thirteen years. All day long Hector sits faithfully under his blanket waiting for her to come home. Thank the Lord for Ginger, Adelaide and their kids, thank God for good neighbours, otherwise Hector would have died of loneliness by now.
Hector wasn’t fired, he was never unjustly accused of anything and, unlike dear Ginger, he never resorted to making a living through illegal means. Hector had a good job at the steel plant. He and Teresa were married fourteen months when a half-cooked beam fell and caught him on the side of the head. Now he can go for little walks if you hold his hand, but mostly he gets pushed along in his wheelchair.
Hector and Teresa had put off having children because he was going to be a minister and they were going to move to New York City and have American children and a better life. Teresa pats Hector’s hand, then goes to fetch a fresh diaper for him from the linen closet. She long ago gave up imagining what their children would have looked like.
Jameel barges into Boutros’s bedroom on the second floor and says, “Tell Leo Taylor to come here tonight and bring a case of ginger beer.”
Boutros turns from his open window and says, “I’ll pick it up myself, Pa.”
“Shutup and do what I say.”
“How come?”
Jameel reaches up and clips Boutros a sharp one on the back of the head, “That’s how come.”
“Ow.”
Jameel laughs and explains, “Your cousin wants him, b’y.”
Boutros doesn’t say anything. Jameel shakes his head, Jesus, I have to spell everything out for this kid, takes after his mother — “Queen a’ Sheba, friggin Frances, b’y, she’s after his black arse.”
Boutros is trembling. With someone as big as Boutros, it’s hard to tell. He is nineteen. Soon he won’t be able to stop himself from belting his father. Jameel laughs at Boutros, grabs his big face in both hands, squashes the cheeks together and slaps him affectionately. “Do what I say, go on.”
Jameel leaves and Boutros turns back to his open window. He picks up a battered oilcan from the ledge and finishes watering his marigolds and petunias.
The name Boutros means Peter. And Peter means rock. And upon this rock, Jameel has built his booze can. It is Boutros’s curse to be the eldest. He has four younger brothers. Most of them are just like Jameel and therefore well suited to being the eldest, except for the middle brother, who is obviously headed for the priesthood. Boutros dreams of saving enough money to buy a farm; of marrying his cousin Frances and taking her and his mother, Camille, away to the country, where they would all be happy. They’d have a lot of children and he would love them all, but especially he would love his wife, and make his mother’s last years the happiest of her life. Frances is a painted drunken whore on the outside but Boutros sees through that because he loves her and, one day soon, intends to save her.
“Pa wants you to come tonight and bring a case of ginger beer.”
Ginger looks up at Boutros filling the doorway. Adelaide calls from the kitchen, “Take it yourself, buddy.”
“Puppa says for mister to come.”
“It’s okay, Addy, I won’t be long.” Ginger goes for his jacket.
“Not now,” says Boutros, “tonight after midnight.”
“What for?” Adelaide wants to know.
“I don’t know, Mrs Taylor, Pa says.”
“It’ll cost him,” says Adelaide, pouring some hot into Teresa’s cup — Adelaide’s been making mincemeat pies and offering to beat the can off old Mahmoud.
Ginger says to Boutros, “Tell him I’ll be there.” But Boutros doesn’t leave right away. He remains for a moment, looking down at Ginger. Finally he turns and goes without a word.
“Did you see that?” Ginger asks the women, returning to the kitchen table. “Gawking at me like I was a ghost?”
“That whole family’s right nuts,” says Adelaide, thinking not only of the old vulture who fired Teresa, but of mean Camille — twenty years in The Coke Ovens and she’s never said hello to a soul. Then there’s the New Waterford branch. Too bad Ginger has to be mixed up with any of them.
“Lord have mercy on them,” says Teresa, folding her hands around her cup.
“Mercy my foot,” says Adelaide, “here, baby.” Adelaide sets a plate of Nellie’s Muffins in front of Ginger. He gives her a kiss, sits down and hands the jammiest one to Hector, who grins with delight.
Adelaide cooks all that good plain Nova Scotia stuff. She comes from a community in Halifax called Africville. She is proud of her African Irish United Empire Loyalist blood, proud to have been baptized in Bedford Basin, and never tires of telling tales of the 1917 explosion — I was spared for a reason: to punch you in the nose, buddy — to dance with you tonight, honey — to see my babies grow.
Later, when Teresa and Hector have gone and they’ve put the kids to bed, Adelaide says, not looking at him, “Don’t go to that place, Leo.”
“I have to, baby.”
“Then come right back, don’t linger.”
“No desire to.”
“Come here,” she says, looking at him.
He smiles and obeys her.
Ginger carries the crate up to the front door of Jameel’s speak. He hates this place. He can hear the usual party going on inside. He can smell the booze from out here and it smells like the raw material used to make vomit. He feels sorry for Jameel’s wife.