Sugar Town Queens

by Malla Nunn

  “This morning, at the hospital.”

  “And?” She wants details.

  “He is a mean old white man. And a racist.”

  “But you’re his granddaughter!”

  The words are hard to say, but I say them. “He kicked me out of the hospital, told me to never come back. And he called me a kaffir.”

  In America, they have the n-word. In South Africa, we have the k-word. Same difference. Both are slurs that equate blackness with laziness and lack of intelligence. Both hurt to hear. Both leave a wound.

  “Lord help us.” Lil Bit gasps. “To your face?”

  “To my face,” I say, and quickly move on. “Is there a bio link for Annalisa?”

  Whenever Annalisa tries to remember things, her mind slips. Facts appear for a moment and then they’re gone. My father’s name. The place I was born. Her first boyfriend. Her last job. All blank. Now is the moment to gather whatever information I can.

  “The last photo of your ma is from sixteen years ago, before you were born.” Goodness scrolls through picture-perfect images of the Bollard family living a picture-perfect life. “After that, she disappears. Poof. Gone.”

  I bet Grandpa knows. He knows what happened to Mother after that last photograph was taken. He knows, but he’ll never tell.

  “Ask your granny.” Lil Bit finds the most logical source of information. “She was there. She’ll fill in the gaps for you.”

  “Of course.” I let Neville into my head when I should have kept the memory of Mayme’s open arms closer. That’s on me. “Mayme wants to see Annalisa and me tomorrow. I’ll ask then.”

  The clock on the wall strikes three, the end of Annalisa’s shift at Mr. Gupta’s law firm. If I rush, I’ll catch her leaving the office, which is actually a blue shipping container with the words Sandeep Gupta, Esquire. Unpaid fines? Unfair jail time? Bail hearings? Ask me. I can help! spray-painted on the side.

  “Gotta go.” I have to soften Annalisa up to get her to come back to the hospital with me tomorrow. It won’t be easy after I confess to sneaking out to see Mayme on the sly. I don’t think I’ll mention the old man.

  “But . . .” Lil Bit splutters. “There’s chicken and roti.”

  “You stay,” I tell her. “I gotta catch Annalisa, though. All right?”

  “All right.” Lil Bit throws Goodness an is it really all right? look to be sure. Passing up a free lunch goes against everything Lil Bit stands for. She loves food the way a flower loves the rain. Food is happiness.

  “Of course, stay.” Goodness clears a space on a messy side table. “I’m hungry, too. With our royal sister gone, there’s more for us anyway.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “My inheritance is coming any day now.”

  “I’m your best friend. I should go with you,” Lil Bit whispers as she walks me to the door. She’s jumpy at being left alone to eat lunch with Goodness Dumisa, though I can’t imagine why. Lil Bit likes Goodness, and she adores food. The situation is a win-win for her and her stomach.

  “No matter what, you’ll always be my best friend.” I squeeze her shoulder. “Enjoy the curry, Lil Bit.”

  “Drop by my place tomorrow and tell me the news?” she says.

  “Count on it. And you too, Goodness. Thanks for the computer help.”

  I take the metal stairs down to the loading dock and tread a path through the moving forklifts and idling trucks. The air in the open yard smells of wood sap and sawdust. Not unpleasant. Halfway down the lane to Abdullah Ibrahim Street, I hear the crunch of running footsteps coming up behind me. I turn with my fists raised, ready to beat off a rude boy on a grab-and-go mission. Lewis Dumisa stops and smiles at my weak imitation of Mike Tyson on the worst day of his boxing career. I look like a fool.

  “Offense is the best form of defense.” I quote Lil Bit, who found the expression inside one of the military history books that her father left behind when he ran off. “Did I forget something?”

  Lewis holds out a cotton shopping bag.

  “Chicken curry and roti,” he says. “It will save you making dinner tonight. You can bring the empty container back to the yard or to our house. Whichever.”

  Thanks but no thanks. I have my pride. Annalisa and I accept church charity on occasion, but we refuse personal handouts. We get by. Except the curry smells divine. My mouth waters, and my pride dissolves.

  “Thanks.” I take the bag and glance up at Lewis long enough to show good manners. He smiles at me, and those gorgeous dimples do strange things to my heart. I’m standing still, but I feel like I’ve run a hundred kilometers uphill with no water; my mouth is that dry. He holds eye contact for a moment before looking away. Dear lord! This boy is juicy. One sip from those lips would quench my thirst, and now it is definitely time for me to leave. “See you around.”

  “Yeah, see you soon,” Lewis says. I start to walk toward home, already working on wiping the memory of Lewis from my mind. He is way out of my league. But the expression on his face when he gave me the roti is impossible to forget.

  “Amandla!” he calls out, and I glance over my shoulder. “None of my business, but what your grandpa said? Don’t believe a word of it.”

  “Thanks,” I say in a voice that is strange to my own ears. “I’ll try not to.”

  He waves and walks back to the Build ’Em Up. I walk to the avenue. Lewis is different from the township boys who snap their fingers at passing girls and call out, Come over here, sweetness. I’ll take you places you’ve never been. When I looked up at him, I saw curiosity and kindness. A kindness so rare, it made my knees shake. It’s just as well we live on opposite sides of Sugar Town. A tall black boy with friends and money? A small brown girl with one good friend and only change in her pocket?

  No way!

  Or maybe?

  11

  Juicy?

  Top of my English class and that’s the word that I come up with? Chewing gum is juicy. A ripe mango is juicy. Hot gossip is juicy. But to use it to describe an entire boy? That is . . . vulgar. Unimaginative. Coarse. Lazy, even. I don’t think of myself that way.

  I turn into Abdullah Ibrahim Street, preoccupied with the word juicy, and how it is low class but, in the end, suits Lewis perfectly, and bump shoulders with Jacob Caluza, the younger brother of William, the butcher. Bumping into Jacob is proof that the universe has a sense of humor. He is exactly what I expect from most township men who, when they see me alone on the street, see an opportunity to take advantage.

  A can of grape Fanta soars out of Jacob’s hand, and I catch it on the fly without thinking.

  “Got it!” I grab the can and give it back to him. “Here.”

  “Amandla, what a nice surprise!” Jacob rips the tab open and slurps purple liquid from the rim of the can. He was handsome once, with smooth black skin and warm brown eyes. That was before he started smoking the clear white crystals we call Tik—crystal meth. Now he is thin as a skeleton. His pupils are dilated, so I know he’s flying. “Still in school?”

  “I have two more years before I graduate,” I say. Jacob dropped out of high school a long while back. He’s around twenty-five years old now and going nowhere.

  “Good, good, good, but all work and no play makes Amandla a dull girl.” He grins like he’s the first person to think up that expression. “You should come to my friend Dion’s place for a Sunday session. All nice people. I’ll take care of you.”

  I’m sure he would—not! Those drinking sessions and smoking sessions have trapped Jacob and his friends in a drug haze. They imagine themselves riding through the streets of Sugar Town in the back seat of a tricked-out Mercedes-Benz with tinted windows. If they had the money and the time, they’d do great things. I hear that kind of pipe talk on street corners all the time.

  “Thank you for asking, but I can’t.” Jacob is unpredictable. I once saw him turn violent when his brother refused t
o give him money. I will never let him get too close. “Sunday is the Lord’s day, and that’s when we go to church.”

  We do go to church, but only when Annalisa is moved to attend, which is once every two or three months. This coming Sunday I will turn up at the Christ Our Lord Is Risen! Gospel Hall and testify alongside Lil Bit, just in case Jacob tries to catch me in a lie.

  “God ain’t got no money, but I have plenty,” Jacob says. “You should be out having fun instead of stuck at home with your crazy ma and her big ideas. I hear her tell my brother that you’re meant for better things, and I agree with her. You need money to get out. I can help you.”

  I fail to see how being stuck with a twitching, itching drug addict is better than being stuck with a mother who at least has real ties to the world outside of Sugar Town. Frayed ties, yes, but ties of blood that might, one day, be useful.

  “Speaking of my mother.” I glance in the direction of Mr. Gupta’s office. “She’s waiting for me.”

  Jacob reaches out to grab my arm. I sidestep him with a fake smile. “Take care of yourself, all right? I have to rush.”

  True to my word, I rush away from Jacob and from the realization that he might be right about the amount of money it takes to break free of the township. Generations have tried and failed to make the leap.

  The pile of notes inside Annalisa’s bag might not be enough to pay my school fees for another two years. Neville won’t do it. It scares me to think that I may never finish high school, let alone go to university. Education is my only way out.

  * * *

  * * *

  I catch Mother leaving Mr. Gupta’s shipping-container office with her handbag slung over her shoulder and a breeze from the sugar fields running through her hair. I shape my mouth into a smile, ready to lie before I get around to telling the truth.

  “Surprise,” I say. “I thought we’d walk home together.”

  Annalisa stops and stares at me with narrowed eyes. My smile dies, and the skin on the back of my neck prickles. No way can she know where I’ve been or who I’ve spoken to.

  “You went to see her,” she says. “After I told you not to.”

  “There’s a roof garden on the top level of the institue.” I blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. “I got some cuttings for Mrs. Mashanini.”

  “Tell me everything that happened.” Annalisa turns into a narrow alley that takes five minutes off our journey home. “And don’t bother lying. I’ll know if you do.”

  So much for inching toward the truth. Annalisa is way ahead of me. I skip the lies and tell her about the garden, Mayme in the wheelchair, meeting Sam, Uncle Julien, and Harry. Neville and his threats. I leave out the visit to the Build ’Em Up timber yard. The pictures of her young and happy are too painful to bring up. I skip to the future.

  “Mayme wants to see us tomorrow morning at nine thirty. It’s important, she said.”

  “You made an enemy of my father.” Annalisa is grim. “He’ll make you pay for talking back to him. He can’t forgive or forget. It’s not in his nature.”

  “What can he do? Mayme is a grown woman who has the right to talk to whoever she wants.”

  “You don’t understand.” Annalisa grabs my arm and pulls me close. Our hips bump bone to bone. “He’ll try to take you away from me again, but this time I’ll be ready. This time, I will fight back.”

  What does she mean, again? I have no memory of Neville before the black sports car drove past me. Surely I’d remember brushing up against a person so mean. Unless . . .

  “When did he try to take me away? Was I little?”

  Annalisa stops midway down the alley. She rubs her forehead, trying to clear up the haze inside her head. Her short-term memory is fine, but going back a decade and beyond is a struggle.

  “You had no name,” she says. “There was a stone wall. Gardens and black cats. I don’t know when it happened.”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about. The blood drains from Annalisa’s face. She goes pale. Sweat rolls down her temples, and the veins on the side of her neck pulse blue under her translucent skin. She’s close to a panic attack. Her fingers dig into her skull, either trying to unearth the past or keep it buried, I can’t tell which. She’s scaring me now. If she pushes too hard, I’m afraid she’ll fall again into darkness. I can’t let that happen.

  “Stop. Stop, Ma.” I take her hands in mine. She stares into my face, her shoulders softening. “Mayme will help you remember tomorrow. But for now, guess what?”

  I open the cotton bag and hold it under her nose, drawing her back into the alley with the scent of coconut chicken curry and cloves. My stomach rumbles, reminding me that a single slice of bread for breakfast was the last thing I ate. Annalisa laughs at my grumbling stomach. Now I know that she’s with me in the present.

  “Early dinner?” she says, and I lay my head against her shoulder, content to be right here, right now, with dust swirling around my ankles and low winter sunlight slanting across the mouth of the alley. I don’t need the Bollards. Annalisa is my gold.

  * * *

  * * *

  This morning, Cyril the parking guard’s smile is missing. He hands me a folded piece of paper with my name written on the front in ebony-black ink. Simple and expensive. Lil Bit stole a pot of the same color from an art store in Glenwood last year. Cyril stares at the ground and avoids making eye contact. He knows the note contains bad news.

  “It’s from Mother,” Annalisa says. “I recognize the writing. What does it say?”

  I open the paper and read:

  Time has run out. The doctors say that an operation might fix my heart, but they can’t guarantee it. And if something goes wrong, what kind of life would I have? I would rather have a few short weeks, alive and lucid, than six years tied to machines and in a fog. Neville thinks that I’ll be more comfortable at home with my books and plants. He’s right, but a part of me feels, well, uneasy. I wanted to stay another day, but he said that a quick move was better for me. Again . . . I wonder what happened between the two of you yesterday in the garden. Neville can be unkind. When you get this note, come and see me. Annalisa knows the way.

  Love, Mayme Amanda

  At the bottom of the page is Sam’s name and mobile number and, under that, a short sentence. If you need help.

  “Of course he wants her at home,” Annalisa says. “He’s only happy when he’s in control of everyone.”

  An angel married to a gargoyle who keeps her locked in a stone fortress by the ocean. That’s how Annalisa described Mayme and Neville to me without naming them or explaining that her mother was the angel. Annalisa sees fantastic creatures roaming the streets in broad daylight: Mrs. Bewana, the owner of the Black Beauty Hair Salon, is a snake in human form, and Jonas, the mechanic, a mouse with a lion’s heart. Sugar Town has dozens of shape-shifters whose true nature is known only to my mother. Neville as a gargoyle makes perfect sense, though.

  “You remember the way?” I fold the note and drop it into my pocket. “She said to come over.”

  “I remember,” Annalisa says. “Follow me.”

  Cyril watches us go, relieved that the awkward interaction is over. How strange, I think, to want to be close to the Bollards and yet fear the consequences of displeasing them at the same time.

  12

  Iron gates guard the two-story house and the circular driveway. In the center of the circle is an art piece: a cube of plain white marble balanced on a metal spike. I marvel at the size of the building. The house seems to look down through a dozen white-framed windows at a garden thick with plants and blooming flowers.

  “Stay close,” Annalisa says as we approach the gates. “Let me do the talking.”

  Fine by me. The white house, the paved street lined with other great houses and acres of lawn, have taken my breath away. I don’t belong here, but my mother does. She
played here. Walked here. Grew from a girl to a woman here, protected by fences and private security. All that security didn’t keep her out of Sugar Town, though.

  We get close to the gates, and three tall men in dark suits move from the garden, through the gates and onto the pavement. They come straight for us, like they’ve been waiting for a slender blond woman and a brown girl with a freckled nose to show up. Each man wears an electronic earpiece and has a handgun holstered on his hip. My mouth goes dry and it’s hard to swallow.

  “Annalisa Bollard.” Mother announces herself in a polished voice. “I’m here to see my mother, Mrs. Bollard.”

  A beefy mixed-race security guard with pockmarked skin and light green eyes shakes his head. “Sorry, Miss Bollard. I’m afraid she’s not able to see you today.”

  The other guards crowd around: one white and wiry, the other black and solid through the shoulders. I take in the tall trees and the garden. The wide blue skies and birdsong. It seems that today, none of this groomed beauty is ours to enjoy, even for a moment. Annalisa and I are outsiders who belong back in the township.

  “I beg your pardon,” Annalisa says with icy calm. “Perhaps you misunderstood. I’m here to see my mother. On her invitation.”

  The mixed-race guard clears his throat and says, “Sorry, Miss Bollard. I can’t let you in.”

  “Who says so?” My voice comes back. “Mayme Amanda or Neville?”

  A flash of surprise lights up the guard’s green eyes. A Bollard who isn’t white. He’s never seen one before. Makes sense. I’ve been stashed out of sight for fifteen years in Sugar Town. The alley cat is out of the bag now.

  “Mr. Bollard’s orders,” the guard says. “He was very clear.”

  Annalisa steps back, unsteady. Her hands and shoulders shake, and then her whole body follows in a spasm of rage and grief. She throws her head back, and the cords of her neck string tight against pale skin.