“Wha’ g’wan, Thandi?” Charles asks, breaking the silence that serenades her. She nearly trips. Heat spreads from her neck to her face, though none of the boys let on that they saw what just happened. She nods and walks quickly past Charles, knowing that his eyes are following her as she walks. She knows they are watching the gentle sway of her hips. She knows that while his eyes trace the curves, his thoughts have already slipped under her skirt. And what might they find there? If only he wasn’t a common boy, the kind Delores tells her to stay away from; the kind Margot would disapprove of because he’s not one of those moneymen with homes in Ironshore that even some of her classmates at Saint Emmanuel brag about dating. Besides, now that her skin will be lighter, she doesn’t have to settle for a boy like Charles. And yet, a pulse stirs between her legs and she hurries down the path, holding it in like pee.
Thandi finally arrives home. It’s the only shack in the open space next to a pasture where Mr. Melon, a soft-spoken farmer, ties up his nanny goat by the barren pear tree. Every day Mr. Melon walks the goat into the fields, to the only patch of land that has not turned into the rusted brown color of the trees around it. People think he treats the goat better than he treats his woman. Miss Francis and Miss Louise query Thandi with their eyes as she walks up the incline, passing the tenement yard that more than one family shares, their shacks joined like men leaning in a drunken embrace. The women use their hands as visors to shield their eyes from the sun. Though they don’t immediately call out to Thandi, she hears them talking about her. “Is Delores dawta dat? Look how she grow up nice. Mi hardly eva see her. Always in her books. But what ah beautiful sight.” To their young daughters sitting between their legs on the veranda, whose nappy hair they rake wide-toothed combs through and whose scalps they grease with Blue Magic, they point. “That’s how yuh should be. Like Thandi. Now she’s well on her way going to dat good school. See how neat her uniform is? Everyt’ing ’bout har jus’ neat. An’ she always pleasant. Not like har sistah, Margot, who g’wan like she can’t mash ants wid har nose inna di air.” They wave when Thandi looks their way.
Thandi greets them out of obligation. She manages to pass them by without lengthy conversations. “Good afternoon, Miss Louise. Good afternoon, Miss Francis. Oh, Grandma Merle is fine. Delores? Oh, yuh know, working as usual.” She pauses, a steady lump in her throat, when they ask her about school. “Yes, I’m preparing for the CXCs. Studying really hard. Thanks for the prayers.” And long after she walks away, she feels them watching her back.
When she opens her gate, Grandma Merle is sitting on the veranda, staring at the sky. “Good afternoon, Grandma,” Thandi says, though she knows there will never be a response. She often wonders if Grandma Merle is more conscious than she’s letting on. They have not exchanged more than two words since Thandi was a baby. She’s fifteen and has no recollection what it’s like to hear her grandmother’s voice. Grandma Merle fell silent after Thandi’s Uncle Winston left for America. He was Grandma Merle’s pride and joy. These days, the old woman stares at the blue sky as though she will see her son somewhere in the clouds sailing above the house, above all the trees and the sloping hills that swallow the sun in the evenings.
Little children are home from school, playing in the big open space where Mr. Melon ties his goat. Some are chasing the fowl in Thandi’s yard that are let loose out of the coop. The squawking birds fuss about the big yard, kicking up dust and startling the sleeping mongrel dogs that wag their tails to ward off flies. Thandi leaves Grandma Merle on the veranda and walks into the house. She puts the rice and cornmeal in their rightful places inside the cupboards, then fishes out the crème. She sits before the mirror and wipes the sweat off her face with the hem of her skirt. Twice a day after bathing, the instructions read. But Miss Ruby has warned her against taking showers.
Thandi holds the new crème jar in her hand, rereading every word of instruction. She wants it to work. It has been a month, yet her skin is still the same color. She has been doing everything she was told — wiping her armpits with a wet rag and washing her privates by squatting over a basin of soapy water to freshen up; wearing the long-sleeve sweatshirt over the Saran Wrap during the day to trap moisture and prevent sunburn; massaging Miss Ruby’s concoction into her skin every other day. Queen of Pearl is her last resort for faster results. She is unable to wash her face at this time in the day when the water pressure is low. Her face looks clean enough. She touches it with her fingertips, traces the length of it, the smoothness. The longer she examines herself in the mirror, the more she begins to see what her mother and sister and the community see: Thandi the scholarship winner, Thandi the good girl, Thandi — a source of hope for her family, destined for riches and prestige. The shack falls away and so does that perpetual weight inside Thandi’s chest as she stares at herself.
2
MARGOT BRAIDS THANDI’S HAIR WHILE DELORES STIRS RICE and peas inside a pot. Margot had brought home groceries — a dozen eggs, beef, cheese, mackerel, milk, oxtail, and chicken back, though the meats might go bad. JPS cut the electricity again. Thanks to Clover, the neighborhood handyman who disappeared but has recently returned, they are usually able to get electricity by stealing it from a nearby light pole, given that the shack isn’t legally wired. The little vocational schooling Clover had at Herbert Morrison Technical High makes him River Bank’s electrician, carpenter, and plumber. He helped to build half the shacks in River Bank, most on abandoned land. But tonight, there’s nothing that can be done to restore the electricity. According to Radio Jamaica news, which Delores has turned up on the old battery-operated radio near the stove, several trees caught fire due to the drought and damaged a few main JPS wires. Half the country is without light.
The kerosene lamp glows in the shack. Delores switches off the radio and continues to stir the pot, one hand resting on her wide hip thrust forward atop sturdy brown legs. Her broad shoulders rise as though they themselves are a mounting wall of hard feelings — much like her clenched back, which seems to ward off conversation. Margot can tell that her mother is irritable. “All dis food going to waste in dis blasted heat,” Delores says with her back still turned. “An’ now di people dem telling we dat we not g’wan have no electricity for a while because ah dis drought. But yuh see me dying trial? How dat g’wan help we?” Delores sucks her teeth and leans over to taste the food. Margot imagines her face scrunching as she reaches for more salt. The smell of mackerel hangs in the heat.
Margot refocuses on Thandi’s hair — the kinky curls that wrap around her finger like black silk when she stretches them. Thandi and Margot sit near the open window, taking in the cool breeze and mosquitoes that land on their flesh. They take turns squashing the fattened insects on their arms and legs, wiping off bloodied palms with old newspaper or tissue. They never know whose blood stains their palms; and rarely does it matter, considering that if it belongs to either one of them, then it’s the same.
The thing Margot looks forward to the most whenever she’s home is braiding her sister’s hair. It’s the only reason why she’s here tonight and not at the hotel or at Verdene’s, where there’s a generator. She finds enjoyment in the softness of her sister’s hair. Margot is older than Thandi by fifteen years, an age gap that makes Thandi regard Margot more as a second parent than an older sister. When her sister was a baby with a head full of curls, Margot discovered that in the braiding she found escape from various men’s untying, unclasping, and unbuckling. It was in this soft, delicate texture that the roughness of the other touches faded. The braiding has been a ritual ever since.