Shape-Shifter

by Pauline Melville

  ‘Bring me someting, please. Bring me someting, please.’

  The girls shrieked and ran.

  It was dusk as the two girls walked into the centre of town. People stood in knots outside in the warm night air, lounging against the wall of a rum shop, liming, passing the time of day. Flambeaux, lit by the street-vendors, flickered on trestle tables lighting the meagre range of buns and peanuts and sweets. It was a ghost town in more ways than one. In this place the ghosts walked openly and brazenly in the streets. The blue eyes of a Dutch planter looked enquiringly out of the black face of the local midwife; the wrists of an Indian indentured labourer who had died a hundred years earlier were the same wrists that twisted brown paper round the peanuts Millie bought at the stall. Mr Chan’s face had skipped down the centuries, travelling through Demerara and all the way to Panama and back before arriving to peer anxiously from the doorway of his restaurant on this, the main thoroughfare of New Amsterdam. With each decade the genetic kaleidoscope shifted and a greater variety of ghosts appeared, sometimes as many as four or five mischievously occupying one body. Jumbie people. That is the best way of describing the population of New Amsterdam, capital of Berbice county. Jumbie people.

  There had been no electricity for four weeks. Apart from Mr Chan’s restaurant which had its own generator, the only illumination in the street came from the pots of fire on the vendors’ tables, an unstable flickering light that cast weird shadows on the moving faces. Millie was trying to dislodge the crunched peanuts from the cavities in her back teeth when Selma whispered in her ear:

  ‘See Mrs Singh over there?’ Millie glanced at the full bosomed Indian woman examining sandals at a stall. Selma continued:

  ‘She can’t get children.’ Selma’s eyes were small, hard and black as ackee seeds. ‘They say that after she marry, her pussy stop being sweet and creamy an’ it start to spout ammonia and acids. Then it start to talk an’ say rude tings an’ her husband too frighten to go near her.’

  At that moment, Mrs Singh looked up straight into Millie’s eyes. Millie felt herself flushing.

  ‘Good evening, Millie.’ She called across. ‘Say hello to your mother for me.’

  ‘Yes, tank you, Mrs Singh.’

  Selma continued relentlessly:

  ‘Anyway, her husband send her to see an Indian obeah man and he tell her she must take an image of Mother Cathari – that’s the evil one of seven Indian sisters – and keep it under her pillow and then her pussy will stop talkin’ and spittin’ poisons and she can get children.’

  ‘Shhhhhh. Selma you wicked.’ Millie looked troubled. Her mother had tried to stop her seeing too much of Selma but as she lived next door, it was impossible. When Millie asked why, her mother had replied grimly:

  ‘Because that girl don’ give satisfaction, that’s why.’

  Millie and Selma walked in silence to New Street where they lived.

  ‘Bye, Selma.’ Selma climbed gingerly the disintegrating wooden steps of the one-storey house on stilts. When she reached the top she turned and waved like a film star on the steps of an airplane, before vanishing into the dark, rotting timber jaws of the house.

  Millie hung around on the steps of her own house. How could she tell her mother that she needed one hundred and fifty dollars to save her teeth? She went in. Her mother bent over the sewing machine working by the light of the kerosene lamp. Granny slept in one of the threadbare armchairs, her bad leg thick and swollen like a turtle’s leg resting on a stool.

  ‘Millie, quick, come watch this rice for me while I fetch the washing.’ Christine, her sister, stood by the stove in a loose blue tee-shirt and brown corduroy pants. She sniffed under her arm:

  ‘Phew! I’m rank,’ she said. Her four-year-old daughter, Joanne, chattered at her side. Christine bent over to fasten the child’s ribbon:

  ‘If you lose this ribbon you can’t get another and it’s no more party time. Understand?’

  Millie poked at the rice to stop it catching at the bottom of the pan. She turned to tell Christine what the dentist had said about her teeth but Christine had already disappeared down the back steps into the yard. A minute or two later she returned, arms full of washing, prattling in her shrill voice:

  ‘Well, Millie girl, they tell me at work today that another one of that family in Fyrish drop down dead. That makes twelve altogether. You know how it start?’

  Millie took the boiling corn off the stove and put the curry back on the burner. She shook her head disinterestedly at the question. Christine was the only one of the family with work – as a clerk in the bauxite factory:

  ‘Well. This boy in Fyrish left his girlfriend with their baby and went away to Miami. When he came back he say that he goin’ marry another girl an’ he call this new girl his fiancée. The baby-mother sent this new fiancée a custard block and soon she dead. Then the boy dead. At first they think is the girl do it. Then she dead too. All the family keep dying. They call in a big obeah man – the very best from Surinam. They call him Jucka. Whatever it is he do, it can’t work. Cousins, aunties, one by one they keep dying. A policeman try to call at the house but when he reach the door he start shakin’ and he turn and run. The house is empty. Fowls and goats left to run loose. Nobody enters.’ Christine had taken over from Millie’s half-hearted efforts at the stove and was banging pots and shifting the steaming pans onto the sideboard as she spoke:

  ‘Now they say is Bakoo do it.’

  ‘What’s a Bakoo, Mummy?’ enquired Joanne.

  ‘It’s a thing they keep in a bottle,’ replied Christine, warning Millie with a look that the conversation should stop.

  The meal was served. Millie’s two elder brothers emerged from the back bedroom which they shared. Mrs Vernon took her place at the head of the table. Behind her head on the blue-painted wooden wall hung an anaemic picture of Christ. Strung below that on a nylon thread was a row of faded Christmas and birthday cards. Mrs Vernon said grace. The family bent their heads:

  ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.’

  The meal consisted of half a piece of bad corn each. Rice. Curry without meat. Some pieces of black pudding. A salad made from tomatoes and cucumber. Millie toyed with her corn. Just as she was about to mention her teeth, Mrs Vernon started up in her twittering voice:

  ‘That sewing machine can’t mend. The timing belt is gone. The Lord knows what will happen. The council has written to say if we don’t pay the back taxes on the house they goin’ put it up for sale. Fitzpatrick, Colin, you must go to Georgetown in the morning and look for work there if you can’t find it here. You can stay with Uncle Freddie.’

  ‘Don’ fret. We find the money somewhere.’ Colin was always full of empty promises.

  ‘Joanne,’ Christine lifted her daughter down from the stool, ‘run to the Chinee and beg a piece of ice for Granny’s drink.’

  Millie left the table. She took a candle and went to inspect her teeth in the cubicle that passed for a bathroom. Inside, there was a corroded tin bath and an ancient cranky shower attachment. No water. The water in the town had been turned off for nearly three weeks apart from the standpipe in the back yard. People put out pots and pans to catch water when it rained. Millie wrinkled her nose at the sour stench. She took the piece of broken mirror from the ledge and examined her teeth. In the uneven light from the candle she could just see the holes in the bottom back teeth. More serious was a brown patch, the beginning of a cavity in one of her top teeth right at the front. She felt sick. She practised smiling without showing her teeth. Underneath her feet, a hole in the floorboards allowed a glimpse of the ground below. Avoiding it, she slipped through the back way into the kitchen, scooped a cup of water from the big pan and returned to the bathroom to scrub her teeth obsessively. There was no toothpaste. Toothpaste and soap were in short supply in New Amsterdam.

  The boys had dissolved into the dark night. The family sat in the living area lit by the kerosene lamp. Four wooden pillars supported the
sloping eaves of the house. Pictures of Christ adorned the walls. The nylon curtains tied with plastic hair-bows hung still in the airless night. Nobody spoke. Christine was dabbing methylated spirits on Joanne’s mosquito bites. Millie hoicked her legs over the arm of the chair. She could wait no longer. Her voice was croaky:

  ‘Mummy, I went to the dentist today and he say I goin’ lose my teeth unless I can give him one hundred and fifty dollars to save them.’

  Mrs Vernon frowned:

  ‘Oh dear, oh lor’. Millie I don’ know what you goin’ do. All I can think you must do is go to church and pray and by the grace of God, He will help you. I can’ help you.’

  Millie wished she’d never asked.

  ‘That’s all right, Mummy. I goin’ write to Evangeline to see if she can send the money.’

  ‘If you write to Evangeline,’ said her mother, ‘ask her please if she could send me a timing belt with thirty-five links for a Singer sewing machine, model 319.’

  That night, Millie could not sleep. She shared her bed with her mother. Her tossing and turning eventually obliged Mrs Vernon to get up and sprinkle her with holy water to let her sleep. In the morning, the sound of her mother sweeping woke her. Quickly, she dressed, plaited her hair and hung the mosquito net on the nail in the rafter overhead. Then she fetched a pen and paper and sat on the edge of the bed. The floorboards felt warm under her toes. She puckered her forehead and bit the end of the pen, staring unseeingly at the socks and panties hung on a wire across one corner of the room. Then she began:

  17 January, 1987

  My dear cousin Evangeline,

  How are you? I do hope this letter reaches yourself in the pink of health. As for me I’m fine.

  Evangeline, as you know I am not working yet and things are very tough in the home at present. Evangeline, I would be very thankful if you could send me some money to get my teeth done. My teeth has started to decay. I would be glad if you could send whatever you could afford. I know you would understand the situation, if I delay until next year I would lose my teeth completely, for when I went for the examination of my teeth the dentist told me, by the next two months if I don’t fill them I would lose them. I would hate to lose them.

  Do you remember I told you I was waiting on my advanced typewriting results? I was successful but there is no jobs.

  Evangeline, I am enclosing a dollar bill wrapped in carbon paper to give you an idea how to post the money.

  It cannot be detected that way.

  Care yourself, I would always remember you in my prayers.

  Your loving cousin, Millie.

  P.S. Please send mummy a timing belt (35 links) for a 319 Singer machine.

  After she had dropped Joanne off at school, Millie ran back down Main Street and cut up through King Street to the Strand, her thick plaited pony-tail leaping and flying behind her. The morning sun was extraordinarily bright, its corona dancing in circles. As yet there was not much heat. She flew past clumps of banana trees that leaned their tattered leaves over fences like common gossips. She posted the letter, turned round and bumped slap into Mad Max Marks:

  ‘Poop me loops, sister Millie.’ The mulatto’s green eyes sauntered lasciviously down her slim body and up again to her neck. ‘That’s a pretty necklace.’ Millie’s hands leapt up to where her blue necklace was fastened at the back:

  ‘How much will you give me for it?’ He scratched his ginger hair:

  ‘Three dollar. Pity it ain’ green. Green is obeah colour. People pay more for green.’

  She gave him the necklace and put the money down the front of her blouse. It’s a start, she thought, for my teeth money.

  Millie rounded the corner of New Street. Outside her house two women were arguing. One of them was Selma’s mother. A small group had gathered to watch as the two women circled each other in the yard:

  ‘Yuh lie! Yuh mad! If you lay one finger on my chile again I goin’ box you upside down.’

  ‘Is your chile put grease on the wall,’ screamed Selma’s mother, ‘an’ it spoil my pants. I give him one big lick an’ he deserve it.’

  ‘That wall is ‘e father’s property. ‘E can do what ‘e like with it. ‘E put grease there to stop you sittin’ an’ limin’ ‘pon it.’

  ‘’E’s a dutty little scunt.’

  Before they could exchange blows, Selma’s eleven-year-old brother shot out of their house calling for his mother:

  ‘Mummy come, quick quick. Sometin’ happenin’ to Selma.’

  Selma’s mother spat at the neighbour, tossed her black curls and waddled as fast as she could up the stairs and into the house.

  ‘Wha’appenin’, Jonjo?’ Millie was curious. The boy’s eyes had widened with fright:

  ‘Selma catch some kinda fit. She on the floor wrigglin’ like a bushmaster snake an’ she can just grunt. An’ a whole heapa spit comin’ outta she mouth.’ He ran back in the house.

  Millie could hear muffled thumps from inside. Seconds later he re-emerged taking a flying leap down the stairs and swerving to avoid Millie. Without stopping he shouted:

  ‘Mummy says I must fetch Mr Evans from the Backdam.’

  Apprehensively, Millie watched his bare heels kicking up behind him as he ran. Mr Evans was an obeah man. She trailed up the stairs to her house, part of her wanting to stay outside and see what went on, part of her frightened by it. In the cool, dark interior, Mrs Vernon was fixing her hat ready for a church meeting. She had heard Jonjo’s shouted remark:

  ‘Millie, don’ business with those people. They deal with their troubles their own way. We is Catholics remember.’

  ‘What does that mean, exactly?’ Millie asked, truculently.

  Mrs Vernon looked nonplussed:

  ‘It means we go forth and do the best we can,’ she said vaguely. ‘Come to church with me now to say some prayers and maybe God will help you.’

  ‘No tanks, Mummy. My throat is hurtin’ me. I stay here.’

  Mrs Vernon descended the stairs. Her small head poking out of the big frilled collar of her dress and her springy step made her look like a turkey.

  Millie went into the kitchen and cut a piece of cornmeal pone. Then she took up position in her bedroom and watched from the window.

  Shortly, Mr Evans appeared marching purposefully towards Selma’s house. He was a short, stocky black man of about forty, his dark suit buttoned up at the front despite the heat. His white shirt bit into his thick neck. Under one arm he carried a briefcase, like an accountant. Behind him, Jonjo hopped nervously from side topside as if he were herding a great bull up the street. Millie knelt on the bed to see them enter the house. The door slammed shut behind them.

  Millie explored her teeth with her tongue. If Mr Evans was as powerful as people said, perhaps she should ask him for help. She wondered how much he charged. Then she slipped off the bed and opened the ill-fitting bottom drawer of the chest quietly so Granny wouldn’t wake. In a cardboard box at the back were several hundred dollars saved by her mother to pay back taxes on the house. Five thousand were owing altogether. Millie took out fifty and stuffed them down the front of her blouse. The room was hot and stuffy. For a while she sat on the bed staring into space. Then she heard a noise. She looked out of the window to see Jonjo being sick over the side of his steps. She ran down and beckoned to him from the shadows of her own bottom-house:

  ‘Pssst. Jonjo. Wha ‘appenin’ in there?’ Jonjo looked subdued as he approached wiping his mouth with the back of his hand:

  ‘Mr Evan took a spirit out of Selma.’

  ‘Did you see him do it?’ The boy nodded and came and crouched on the ground in the shade under Millie’s house. He started to describe what had happened in a monotonous little voice:

  ‘First he did light a sulphur candle. Then ‘e lock the door and block up the key-hole with a rag. Then ‘e look for all the cracks in the windows and block them up too. All the time, Selma gruntin’ like a hog in a cart.’

  Millie tried to imagine Selma like that – Selma
, who always managed somehow to emerge from that black pit of a house immaculately turned out, smart as paint. Jonjo continued:

  ‘Then he put healin’ oil on she hair and knotted the hair so the bad spirit can’ get out that way. ‘E pour oil in she ears too. Then ‘e question the spirit an’ ask it why it troublin’ Selma. Thas when I start feel sick but they wouldn’t let me open the door and come out in case it got out with me. So I jus’ sit under the table an’ cover me eyes wid me hands. When I peep out, ‘e holdin’ a bottle to Selma’s ear. ‘E said some things and call the spirit into the bottle an’ Selma start to jerk. Then ‘e put the stopper on the bottle. Thas when they let me out. I hear him tell Mummy ‘e goin’ put it in cement and throw it in the river.’

  ‘How is Selma?’ Millie needed to know for sure if this business worked.

  ‘All right. I tink she sleepin’.’

  Jonjo wandered off a little dazed. Millie waited nervously for Mr Evans to come out. It was mid-day. The heat was unbearable. Not many people were out. Eventually, the door of Selma’s house opened just long enough to let Mr Evans out before banging shut again. He paused to wipe his brow and the back of his neck with a white handkerchief, then set off down the street. Millie followed him. Across Main Street. Past the church. Up Crab Street and through a network of little streets that led down to the Backdam. Once or twice Millie tried to call out to him but her voice wouldn’t work.

  He lived at the end of a row of old slave logies on the Backdam. She did not want to enter the house. People said the walls were covered in chicken blood and the tap dripped human blood. As he reached his front door, Millie managed to call out:

  ‘Mr Evans.’ He turned. ‘Mr Evans can you help me please?’

  ‘Come in, chile.’ He went in through the door. She had no choice but to follow him.

  The tiny room was spotlessly clean and neat as a pin. From an armchair in the corner an old black woman, smoking a clay pipe, nodded and smiled. Mr Evans put down his briefcase, lowered himself into the other armchair and leaned back expansively like a bank manager greeting a client: