Pynter Bender

by Jacob Ross

  ‘Ah! You also read my letter?’ The eyes popped wide with pleasure.

  ‘A wonderful letter,’ Tinelle purred. ‘The, er, possibilities for Pynter?’

  ‘Self-taught, you know. If I may say so of myself, a perfect example of self, uhm, enhancement. Yessir. I am very much that. I’ll tell you something else.’

  Bostin frowned at a crumb on his knee. With a single finger, he flicked it into his palm, scrutinised the offending particle and then brushed it off onto the saucer.

  ‘I’ll also tell you this. If I had the opportunity, I would have innovated something by now – some invention of importance, because I am an innovator. I was innovating since I born, researching and exploring. That’s what my parents told me and I have no reason to be dubious about what they said. Innovating is my nature. I see you laughing, Miss McMurdo, but my father, if he was alive, that is, would make a point of letting you know that. Anyway, I’m here to discuss another matter of urgency. I solicit your pardon. Jacob’s crackers and Blue Band margarine always get me talking.

  ‘Now! Young man! Like I said in my note – I assume that you have destroyed the missive as requested? Yes? Good! As I indicated, I am aware of your present predicament and apart from my historical interest in you – I consider you one of my protégés – I have been prompted by certain interested parties to, er, to bail you out, to use their expression. And, granted my current position as Policymaker and Advisor, we’ve all agreed that a scholarship is just the thing.’

  ‘Who’s the interested parties?’ Pynter studied the man’s face closely.

  ‘I am not at liberty to say, sir. But believe me they’re well-`meaning. One of them I understand you had some association with? Some people have a conscience – a rare thing in these times, if I may say so myself.’

  ‘Which person I had association with that I don’t know nothing about?’

  Bostin responded with an expression of sympathy. But that was all, he wasn’t giving anything away. There was no one Pynter could even vaguely think of apart from Sislyn. But Sislyn would know nothing about his present situation.

  ‘Tell me about the scholarship.’ Tinelle came around and wrapped her arms around Pynter’s shoulders from behind.

  ‘Ah! We get these offers sometimes during our overseas missions: meetings, summits and, er, colloquies, you know, offers that nobody don’t really know what to do with.

  ‘If, say, a North Korean offers your country a scholarship in tyre manufacturing, what you tell them? No? Nooo! You tell them, yes. Yes, thank you, a scholarship in tyre manufacture is the most important economic input your country will ever receive, even though you never saw a rubber tree in your life! They know and you know you will never take it up because your country don’t make tyres and it never will. You catch me? That is what we call aid. Some kinds of aid, I’m reliably informed, is not offered to help you. What matters here is the offer itself. These North Koreans could be like that.’ Bostin looked up at him. ‘You would like to go North Korea?’

  ‘North who?’

  Bostin’s eyes settled on his shoes. ‘Well, young man, nobody will be looking for you there. Besides, they are very gracious people. That’s what I hear.’

  ‘I thought you talkin about a real scholarship.’

  The man lifted his eyes at Tinelle as if imploring her to help him. She refilled the empty glass and placed herself beside Pynter. Bostin eased his handkerchief from the pocket of his shirt and began patting his forehead.

  ‘They speak English?’ Pynter said.

  Bostin shrugged. ‘Everybody do.’

  ‘In Korea?’

  ‘You’ll pick it up – Koreanese – er, the way Koreans talk.’

  ‘Nobody else in de world speak Korean except Koreans. Who I goin to speak Korean to when I come back? Or p’raps y’all don’ intend for me to come back?’

  ‘Y’all? Who, might I ask is “y’all”?’

  ‘You work for Victor, not so?’

  ‘Excuse me, sir, I don’t work for no Victor! I does work for de Civil Service. Education, it is my belief, transcends politics.’

  ‘My arse! Not here. Dat’s exactly why you talking to me right now about some kind of flippin banishment in some country on top o’ de North Pole.’

  Bostin leaned forward. He’d dropped the handkerchief on the floor and seemed unaware of it. ‘You smart, young Bender, I give you that. But you also very stupid. I am advising you to take it because is all I can offer now and it did mean a lot of hard work on my part to get it. Take it if only because is the quickest way out of your troubles. The time might come when you could even make something special out of that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you prefer to stay here and … And … ’

  ‘Get kill? Don’t worry, Mister Bostin, Education Ruler of the Universe. I not going alone.’

  Bostin swiped his walking stick across the table and knocked the glass of orange juice onto the floor. He slammed the door behind him.

  Tinelle sat back on the cushions, crying.

  ‘Bostin will come again,’ he told her. ‘And unless he come back with something better than North Korea, I’ll refuse again.’

  ‘You damn fool. It will be too late.’

  ‘So be it.’

  ‘Stuupid!’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Bostin did come again. This time, he said, pulling several sheets of paper from his briefcase, he’d brought Finland, and of course Sweden was a possibility, although he would not advise that personally, since life was too much of a distraction there. Holland was also noted for distractions of that sort. He’d even got hold of Austria which, he was told, was quite wonderful and rare. Would he consider Portugal if it ever came up? He would put the word out that he was looking out for Portugal and that nobody should touch it because it was already booked by him. Pynter may even get a big one. Only last month Briarson, his Permanent Secretary friend, found Switzerland just lying there beneath a set of memoranda, for months. Nobody noticed it. Briarson’s daughter was there right now studying languages in Berne. Had he ever heard of Berne?

  ‘Germany,’ Pynter said.

  ‘Beg yuh pardon?’

  ‘You got anything for Germany?’

  Bostin straightened up. ‘Germany? My God, boy. Like you forget Missa Hitler!’

  ‘He dead long time now.’

  ‘Ah!’ Bostin laughed. ‘Not from what I hear.’

  ‘I will take a scholarship to Germany, Missa Bostin. You got one?’

  ‘Why you want to go there?’

  ‘Cuz it ain’t got nowhere else to go.’

  ‘But you’ll have to learn that language. God! Is not de prettiest language in de world to learn, you know!’

  ‘Is easier dan Koreanese.’

  Bostin lowered his eyes.

  Pynter felt a sudden flush of warmth for this stranger. He’d heard about people who did that sort of thing – social projects that Sislyn claimed followed a person throughout their lives. Bostin looked like the sort who would follow a person right through life, just to see if his ideas about them were right.

  ‘Tell me, Missa Bostin, why you never leave to go nowhere?’

  ‘If everybody go, who goin be here to send de last one off?’ Bostin threw his head back and laughed. He stared up at him, all teeth. ‘That one tickle you, eh!’

  Was Pynter honestly interested in Germany?

  Pynter told him yes.

  He would begin working on it tomorrow. Did he have a passport? No? He would do the necessary correspondence to make that happen quickly – say, in a couple of days? Another thing, it would make things easier if he used his father’s name. Did he know that he was christened Pynter Raphael Forsyth Bender? Yes? Well, Raphael Forsyth on his passport and on the paperwork will not raise a question anywhere since nobody nowhere knew him by that name. Money – did he have any money? No? No need to worry, a discretionary stipend would be in order and of course relatives and friends may want to make contributions.

>   Bostin got up and extended his hand. Pynter sidestepped it. He embraced the man. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Well,’ he cleared his throat. ‘One has these ideas, you see, these longer-term agendas, and occasionally one wants to get at least one item safely through.’

  After Bostin left, Pynter dug into his bag and took out the money Patty had given him. Each note was folded as neatly as Bostin’s handkerchief. He weighed the packet in his hand. It was all the money Patty would have saved from the time she started working. She had handed him her future. He was holding her store in his hands.

  He dropped it on the cushion beside Tinelle. ‘A time will come, Tinelle, when I’ll ask you to give this to my aunt. Tell her I forgot it.’

  44

  BY THE TIME they were ready for him to return to the yard, another curfew had silenced the island. Still, it was a good time, Peter said, for it was the Season of the Souls and Tan Cee had emerged from the silence she’d sunk into. Santay had fed her herbs, boiled leaves and roots and grasses and made her drink them. She’d soaked her every day in a stew of herbs and resins. She’d sprinkled her with powders, drawn lines and circles in the dirt and had her stand on them for hours. Now his aunt was whole again.

  Tan Cee traced the muscles of his arm, pulled his eyelids apart and blinked in horror at his eyeballs. She brought her nostrils to his armpits and pretended to faint. She walked him through her herb garden, crushed lemon grass, santa maria, bay leaves and black sage between her fingers and brought them to his nose. She yellowed his face with the pollen of okra flowers and showered his clothes with prickles. She sat him down and peeled golden apples for him, placed the salted slices in his mouth and watched him wince as the sourness spread across his tongue before melting into sweetness. She whistled tunes she used to sing to him as a child, warbled, clucked and cheeped them till he was a ball of laughter at her feet. And then she kicked him on his behind and said, ‘You think you is a man, you think you is a man. You stray-’way dog!’ And then, still bubbling like a pot on the boil, she helped him to his feet and told him. ‘Go bathe an’ sleep, cuz I keepin y’all up tonight.’

  Pynter took in the dark heap of manioc, the large mound of firewood beside the giant metal platter beneath the June-plum tree. ‘Farine,’ he said. ‘You makin farine tonight?’

  ‘Mind yuh business,’ she replied, and with a thump on his back she hurried him off to bathe.

  Later, it was Pynter’s little sister who woke him. ‘Tan Cee say to wake yuh, an’ you wouldn get up, so I bite you!’ Pynter lifted Lindy onto his shoulders and went out to the yard. A low moon floated over Old Hope amongst a bright scattering of stars. The air was thick with the smell of manioc.

  Deeka was stoking wood beneath the large platter. The masantorches were lit and everyone had spread themselves around the yard. Pynter placed Lindy on her feet and went over to Tan Cee.

  ‘I was thinkin ’bout you all de time,’ Tan Cee whispered.

  They’d already peeled away the rough skin of the manioc. The bared flesh glistened white and ghostly in the night air. The milk from the leaves and stem could blind a person in minutes. And the juices in the roots were a slow and painful acid in the blood once they got in there. Yet it was food in the hands of Tan Cee and these deep-eyed Old Hope women. He’d seen them make bread as delicate as sacrament from the white flesh and the poison, and starch so pure it had the translucency of glass.

  They’d brought the season forward for him: Cassava Time, when old grudges and wars were abandoned, and past insults and hurts discarded like old garments.

  Deeka’s fire was now a growling beast beneath the giant platter. Peter and Tan Cee had propped their graters on the sheet of galvanised iron near it, preparing themselves for the grating.

  Peter raised his head and warbled. A slow, beautiful trill came back from somewhere in the dark and Windy stepped into the yard. Pynter laid his back against the stones and closed his eyes.

  There was the giddy-sweet stench of cassava, the wet whisha-whasha of graters chewing into the soft roots, the deep-chested grunts of his mother, Peter’s exhalations. Women’s voices stirred him. He sat up and saw Santay leading seven women up the hill. Their greetings were muted and musical. Santay wrapped her arms around Tan Cee and rocked her. They were laughing now, all nine of them together.

  The draining of the grated paste was over. Pynter envied the ease with which Peter lifted the heavy drum and carried it beneath the house. Windy had moved to stand beside his mother.

  The women tossed the paste into the hot platter. Patty and his mother were lifting the long oarlike spatulas and turning the substance till it became white dust on the heated metal. And with a sweep of the hand that was both a benediction and a boast, Tan Cee scattered mint, bay leaves and powdered cinnamon into the mix. Windy tasted and pronounced the whole thing wundaful. Peter laid a basin of special paste before the women. They scooped it up into their palms, patted and pulled and rounded it to an impossible perfection. Baked, it became brittle like dried leaves. Tan Cee broke the first one, brought it back to flour with a vigorous twisting of the fingers, scattering the result to the four corners of the earth. And before she could say the words, Pynter heard them coming from himself.

  ‘Ago, Legba. Ago!’

  Pynter dipped the big white biscuit into his cup of hot cocoa. Patty came and sat with her back against his. Lifting his head with the first bite, he saw a thin, red thread of light running across the peaks of the Mardi Gras.

  It would be the first day of the Season of the Souls.

  ‘Make me a promise, Pynto.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘You never stop makin words.’

  45

  THE SEASON OF the Souls began with the thunder of last year’s corn dragged down from rafters, followed by the strewps-strewps-strewpsing of graters chewing the yellow seeds off the husk. Thin films of lard hissed in hot cast-iron pots and everywhere the air rattled with a rain of maize on metal.

  Nights, the thoooka-thookuh of pestles crushing the parched corn in heavy wooden mortars shook the earth like heartbeats. And in the morning, miraculously, there was asham – the result of the roasted corn, pounded so fine it was textured talc – mixed with sugar, hints of clove, black pepper and flourishes of cinnamon and nutmeg.

  Tan Cee made cornki – corn flour sweetened and mixed with coconut juice and spices, then steamed in a large butter tin covered with young plantain leaves. Corn, she reminded him, was food fit to feed the souls of all the Dear Departeds of Old Hope. For the Season of the Souls was the season of the dead – a time of penance in the midst of plenty. And unseen though they were, their spirits populated Old Hope. That was why during the week ahead the whole village would give witness to the presence of ancient uncles, past aunts, parents and grandparents gone, and little children who, though God had chosen to take them before their time, made themselves manifest in everything. They were there in that wind that stirred the dark outside and made the flames dance briefly.

  There were special meanings in the way leaves unanchored themselves from trees and came sailing down to land in someone’s pocket or even in their bosom. Did he know that? Did he?

  Pynter knew that. He also knew that Deeka Bender would be first to light her candles and place them in two snaking lines along the path that led from Old Hope Road right up to her door. If John Seegal or any one of those long-gone folks who populated her memory decided to return to her in spirit, their journeys would be guided by the candlelight out there.

  He had never been more attentive to the pulses of Old Hope. He wondered if this was because he had chosen to be with Tinelle.

  The Season of the Souls was also a time of penitence for all the hurts inflicted on the innocent. Old Hope spoke in hushed tones, remembering Jordan, Frigo and Paso – the victims of a war that had consumed them all. Even Pynter spoke more slowly, leaving the necessary silence between sentences, just in case the ghosts of Old Hope were listening and wanted to put in a word or two. For hadn�
��t his whole life been explained by these same ideas which made this funerary celebration possible? Hadn’t he been one of those who had left the world for what Tan Cee called the Middle Air? It was the place from which they said he’d come and against whose tug he had been pulling all his life. Everyone believed it from the moment he was born. Jordan and Frigo and Paso were somewhere in the air and looking on.

  Pynter wanted to take all this with him. He wanted to carry all those voices that had, undefeated by the canes, surrounded him from birth: the goading, insistent voices of the women of the yard.

  On the second day, Pynter decided to follow the crowd to Déli Morne. It was the annual convergence of elders on the garden of crosses and flowers on the sloping ridge above their valley. Up there they would set about clearing last year’s growth of weeds and grass. They would plant fresh flowers and leave burning candles at the gravesides. That was Old Hope’s way of putting all those memories back to rest.

  Paso’s place was beside a flowering tree Pynter did not recognise. In the fading light, its big, red bulbous flowers were as still as sleep. Pynter wondered who could have been remembering his nephew so diligently.

  And then in the half-light, a slow figure appeared. Miss Maddie came towards him, hesitantly but without fear. By then he had placed most of his candles around Paso’s mound.

  His sister had grown older over the months he hadn’t seen her. She smelt of the peppers she grew around her house.

  She patted the side of her head. ‘Lordy! I almos’ thought that … Good Lord!’

  A wicker basket hung from the curve of her elbow. He saw a pack of candles there, a box of matches and a little huddle of dried leaves.

  ‘You and him,’ she said. ‘Same everything … Same … ’

  Miss Maddie was pointing not at the mound but at the flowering tree. She dropped the basket at his feet, stretched the other hand out and stroked his face. He allowed her fingers to follow the line of his jaw, the curves of his forehead, neck and cheekbones.