Brown Girl, Brownstones

by Paule Marshall

  His eyes opened and he laughed and pulled her down beside him. “Le’s hope they don’t, lady-folks. Let’s hope they don’t.” And still laughing, but ruefully now, he got up and dressed, putting on new gray suede shoes and a matching hat, and went out.

  For a long time she did not really believe in the war, even with the air-raid drills in school, and Chauncey Street occasionally plunged in blackness, and Fulton Street chastened by the brown-out. Not until later that winter when the war seemed to reach out and claim her. For her body was in sudden upheaval—her dark blood flowing as it flowed in the war, the pain at each shudder of her womb as sharp as the thrust of a bayonet. Remembering all that Beryl had said she did not complain. Each morning for a month she felt her chest, sitting up in bed in the chilly room while Ina slept beside her. And each morning she sadly pulled down the shirt over her flatness. Then bathing one night she felt a barely perceptible swelling under the washcloth, and splashed up, staring down at it and then over to the other, her long limp arms hanging, water dripping from her lean frame. Suddenly she smiled, shyly at first, then triumphantly. There was hope.

  But sometimes she was frightened by the war and herself, and those times she would wander into the kitchen and sit at a small table in the corner, out of the mother’s way yet near her. She would sit for hours, her feet hooked on the chair rung, her chin in her hands, staring out the window at the pear trees in the back yard, at the nude branches clacking in mournful chorus against the somber sky.

  On Saturdays the kitchen was filled with fragrances, for Silla made and sold Barbadian delicacies: black pudding, which is the intestines of the pig stuffed with grated sweet potato, beets, animal blood and spices until it is a thick sausage, then tied at the ends and boiled; also souse, which she made by pickling parts of the pig; and coconut or sweet bread, a heavy bread with coconut running in a rich vein through the center.

  From early one Saturday Selina and Ina had been grating until, by noon, their fingers were torn and their blood mixed with the shreds. The bell rang, relieving them, and a shaft of wind brought voices and a feel of the snow crushed hard along the curbs.

  “Dear-heart, the pudding and souse smell too sweet! How?” Iris Hurley entered, her wide nostrils stiff with cold. She was tall and big-boned like Silla, with smooth black skin, high hard facial bones, evasive eyes.

  “Iris, I still here,” Silla said and turned to the other woman. “Florrie, how?”

  “Suffering, soul!” Florrie Trotman’s short legs carried her chunky body as if it was an unfair burden. She had dull yellow skin, oblique eyes, an innocent mouth and huge breasts that swelled over her brassière so that it appeared that she had four breasts instead of two. Sometimes Silla affectionately called her “Bubby-Island.”

  “Come soul, sit, do.” She motioned her to a chair. “You’s blowing like a whale.”

  Florrie Trotman sat heavily; her bosom heaved. “We ain staying Silla-soul. We just stop to see if you was still living or dead. Wha’lah I din see the children.” She twisted around to them. “C’dear, I never see girl-children so features their father as these two, Silla.”

  “They’s his all right—frighten for work just like he.”

  Florrie struggled out of her coat and swung her pocketbook high on her arm. “But in truth these New York children don like work. They soft. Look that half a man I got there. All day his head does be up in a radio listening to jazz like he’s some jazz fiend or the other. Only yesterday I had to up hand and give a cuff that near kill him.”

  “You best watch that heavy hand,” Silla said, “’cause this is New York and these is New York children and the authorities will dash you in jail for them.”

  “Never mind that! They want licks!” Florrie shouted. “You got to wash their tail in licks. You remember what the old people home did tell us: hard ears you wun hear, own-ways you’ll feel.”

  Iris Hurley spoke for the first time. “But c’dear, I don does have no trouble with mine. Maybe if you two would of send the children to church . . .”

  “But Iris, who ask you?” Silla flared. “You always bringing up the church in everything. Don you think I sent the little beasts to Barrow’s Church and they was up there reciting the ‘Little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head’ and thing so! You think that change them?”

  “As for you! It’s years since you darken the door-mouth of a church,” Iris said.

  “And years to come!” Silla added, “And you know why, Iris? It’s not that I’s some heathen or the other, but that my mind turn from the church. I see too many hypocrites prostrating themself before the cross each Sunday. The same ones buying house by devious means. Lemme tell you, Iris, you don see God any better by being sanctified and climbing the walls of a church and tearing off your clothes when you’s in the spirit, or even when you’s up in the so-called High Church, choking on the lot of incense and bowing and kneeling for hours and singing in various tongues. Not everyone who cry ‘Lord, Lord’ gon enter in . . .”

  “I gon pray for you, Dear-heart.”

  “Don waste breath, Iris. Each man got to see God for himself.”

  Florrie Trotman sucked her teeth, annoyed. “But why wunna two hard-back women always arguing ’bout the church. . . . Silla, those new curtains?”

  “Woman, who can be buying anything new with all this war and foolishness going on?”

  Iris Hurley sent a blast through her wide nostrils. “But do you read how many thousand upon thousand they killing out each day? But c’dear, these white people getting on too bad. They say that Hitler put all the Jews in a gas chamber. But you know, somebody oughta take up a gun so and shoot down that man so, ’cause he’s nothing but the devil-incarnate.”

  “In truth,” Silla said with bowed head and her face drawn with sadness. Suddenly she cried, her voice tremulous with anger, “It’s these politicians. They’s the ones always starting up all this lot of war. And what they care? It’s the poor people got to suffer and mothers with their sons.”

  “Oh Jesus-Christ-God, Silla!” Florrie shuddered. “Don speak do. Livingston’s due to go, y’know. He ain no good but he’s my only son.”

  “They’d never get a child of mine in no army,” Iris said. “I’d make him eat soap each day to make the heart beat fast first. Wait, no . . .” She paused. “I might if he was gon fight direct for England and the crown.”

  “But Iris you’s one ignorant black woman!” Silla said softly. “What John Bull ever did for you that you’s so grateful? You think ’cause they does call Barbados ‘Little England’ that you is somebody? What the king know ’bout you—or care? You best stop calling the man name like you and he does speak. You think the king did care when you was home heading canes? Or when the drought come and not a pot stir ’pon the stove for days . . . ?”

  “Dear-heart,” Iris said placidly, “you like you come to read the burial service over me.”

  “You deserve to dead,” Silla cried, her face working and her eyes boring into Iris, who remained unmoved and unimpressed. Silla leaned across the table to her, whispering, “Iris, you know what it is to work hard and still never make a head-way? That’s Bimshire. One crop. People having to work for next skin to nothing. The white people treating we like slaves still and we taking it. The rum shop and the church join together to keep we pacify and in ignorance. That’s Barbados. It’s a terrible thing to know that you gon be poor all yuh life, no matter how hard you work. You does stop trying after a time. People does see you so and call you lazy. But it ain laziness. It just that you does give up. You does kind of die inside . . .”

  “It’s the God truth,” Florrie whispered.

  “I ain saying that we don catch H in this country what with the discrimination and thing and how hard we does have to scrub the Jew floor to make a penny, but my Christ, at least you can make a head-way. Look how Roosevelt come and give relief and jobs. Who was one the first Bajan bought a house? You, Iris. When they pass this law to hire colored in defense plants who was the first u
p in the people face applying? Your husband, Iris. Even I gon apply for one those jobs. So c’dear, give credit where it due, nuh,” she pleaded softly, then as Iris still ignored her, she lashed out, “You’s an ungrateful whelp.”

  “Dear-heart,” Iris laughed, “I ain able for you to kill me with words!”

  Florrie had listened rapt, respectful to Silla, and now she said solemnly, “Talk yuh talk, Silla! Be-Jees, in this white-man world you got to take yuh mouth and make a gun.”

  During the long lull Silla served the black pudding, souse coconut bread and ginger beer. The children watched from their corner: Ina with the pained look of someone caught in a world she couldn’t understand and didn’t like, Selina leaning forward excitedly, the grater lying idle in her lap. The words were living things to her. She sensed them bestriding the air and charging the room with strong colors. She wondered at the mother’s power with words. It was never like this with Selina. In school she could sense the veil dropping over the other children’s eyes when she recited, and other thoughts crowding out her voice in their minds. Only afterward, when it was too late, would her mind be flooded with eloquence . . .

  A door closed upstairs and Florrie Trotman’s small eyes darted up. “Who that, Silla?”

  “The old white woman daughter, a religious fanatic and a walking-dead. She and the mother does fight like tearcats.”

  “But why you don get them and that free-bee Suggie out the place and rent those rooms for good money?” Iris Hurley asked.

  “I only leasing the house.”

  “You could still do it.”

  “It’s Silla’s fault.” Florrie sucked her teeth in disgust. “I told she to put down something to make them move.”

  “How you mean—put down something?” Iris glared suspiciously.

  “I mean, if I must explain my explanatories, that Silla should go to a spiritualist and get something and put down outside their door and make them move!”

  “What you pretending for?” Silla turned to Iris. “You know Florrie does still believe in obeah and does walk ’bout with piece of coal tie round she waist and carrying finny and goat foot for luck.”

  Florrie rose, bristling. “Oh, wunna laughing cause I got sense enough to protect muhself against all the evil people does try to do yuh. But I know what I doing. When I was a girl home I did see obeah work on somebody and the person is dead-dead today . . . You did know Affie Cumberbatch?” Her slit eyes swept them, reaching out to include Selina and Ina in her question. “A good-looking clear-skin girl from Cane Garden with hair down she back? You know who I talking ’bout?”

  They nodded reluctantly.

  “That girl die when she was only twenty and in perfect health. Now tell me what she die from?” She pointed to Silla.

  “Woman, how I could remember and that thing happen donkey years?”

  “Then, lemme tell you and listen and believe. This Affie was running with my wuthless uncle. Now his wife, my dear-aunt Do-Da, was always a thoroughfare, and when she found out she swear she was gon kill Affie. She took me with her to the obeah man. I hear she tell him she want to work obeah on Affie and she pay him good-good money. And I see the bag of the obeah man . . .”

  “Florrie, yuh lying now!” Iris gasped with fear.

  Her outcry halted the tightening mesh of Florrie’s voice. In that moment Ina sprang up and dashed from the room, her face stiff with terror. No one noticed her; they all waited for Florrie, including Selina, who was crouched low in her chair.

  “Who tell you I lying? I see the bag! It had in some rusty nails and feathers and broken glass and thing so. He took some out and put in a bottle and bury it, and all the time he chanting. He give muh dear-aunt Do-Da duppy dust to put in muh uncle food so that he would pass it on to Affie when he was in the bed with she. He told muh dear-aunt not to worry, that Affie Cumberbatch was as good as dead. And I kiss muh right hand to God.” Florrie kissed both sides of her right hand and raised it. “When you hear the shout, Affie Cumberbatch took in sick. Her people throw ’way money enough on doctors and still cun find what was wrong with the girl. They even boil lizard soup and give she, but it din do no good. Affie said she felt like a crawling under she skin and she continue cry for a pain. She said she heard the duppies walking ’pon the roof at night and a hand cold as death ’pon she body. And be-Jees, before the year out Affie Cumberbatch was in she grave. Now tell me that’s some game-cock bring ram-goat story!” She glared at them triumphantly.

  Silla said, “Florrie, I gon tell you like the old people home did say. What you believe in you die in. If you believe there’s a duppy walking ’pon the roof, then one is there.”

  Winded, Florrie sat down. Her eyes gradually lost their wildness, her face settled into its broad calm again. In the silence that followed, they heard the faltering sound of Ina’s piano.

  “Guess who I butt up on in De Kalb Market looking like Laddy-da and buying up all the half-rotten fruit?” Iris Hurley started their talk again.

  “The great ’Gatha Steed,” Silla said.

  “C’dear, the very one.”

  “But look at she! She favor dog. How many house she got now?” Silla said.

  “Three. And I hear she looking now to marry off the daughter so she can have a big wedding. But the longface girl is liking some boy from down South, and they almost had to tie ’Gatha down with wet sheets when she found out. She want the girl to marry a Bajan boy who’s here on the immigration scheme.”

  “Ah, you see,” Silla said, “the woman is nothing but a black-guard. I don say that she should let the girl marry no boy from the South but she don have to get on like she never christened.”

  Iris Hurley dismissed this and said, “You hear Ena Roacheford finally buying the house she been leasing since the year one?”

  “Who Ena Roacheford?” Silla’s head snapped up.

  “A red woman from Rock Hall home. Look Eulise Bourne. She buying another one despite the wuthless husband . . .”

  “Where?” Silla asked her sharply.

  Iris ignored her. “I butt up on Vi Dash on Fulton Street crying poor but she buying the second house, best-proof.”

  “But how she does do it, and the husband is nothing but a he-whore?” Florrie asked.

  “How yuh mean? She does beat he and take ’way the money, nuh. Dear-heart”—Iris turned to Silla who was standing behind her now, listening with suppressed fury—“you did know a girl name Eloise Gittens?”

  “Yes . . .” Her voice was choked.

  “Well, soul, she and all buying house.”

  “She’s nothing a-tall,” Silla said hoarsely.

  Iris shrugged and turned away. “I know she still buying. I don know how some them doing it.”

  Florrie laughed, unaware of the tension. “They doing it some of every kind of way. Some working morning, noon and night for this big war money. Some going to the loan shark out there on Fulton Street. Some hitting the number for good money. Some working strong-strong obeah. Some even picking fares . . .”

  Selina muffled her laugh. The mother seemed not to hear while Iris gave Florrie a cold smile and droned inexorably, “Ena Sobers just bought one in Crown Heights. Up with the white people, if you please . . .”

  She continued listing the names in a colorless, unrelenting voice, never once turning to Silla, yet addressing only her. Silla stood silent and seething behind her. At each name she winced and envy darkened her eyes. After a time, her big frame began to buckle, it seemed, under Iris’ unceasing assault, until suddenly her head snapped up. Another voice, heard only by her, might have sounded, for her eyes narrowed and probed the air as if seeking the face. Her own face became taut, her heavy breathing stilled. Suddenly her body convulsed and her voice clashed loud and exultant into Iris’ monotonous recital. “Oh God, I can get the money!”

  “What, Dear-heart?” Iris asked calmly, glancing over her shoulder. “What money?”

  “From the land.”

  “But Dear-heart, why you continue pers
ecuting yourself ’bout that piece of ground?” she chided, turning away. “You can’t make the man sell it.”

  “I gon sell it . . .” Silla lunged, halting just behind Iris’ chair.

  Selina and Florrie Trotman shied at her violent movement, but Iris did not move.

  “How she can make Deighton sell?” she asked Florrie. “He’s keeping his land to build house and thing so.”

  “His mouth look like a house,” Florrie whispered, her apprehensive eyes on Silla.

  “I gon do it.” Silla’s voice wedged between theirs. “Some kind of way I gon do it.”

  “How?” Iris snapped, still not turning to her.

  “How . . . ?” She paused, confused.

  “Yes, how?” Sarcasm edged Iris’ voice. “You must gon work obeah. That’s the only way you could make him sell—and there ain no obeah that strong. You best forget the piece of ground and save what you make selling pudding and souse and scrubbing floors to make the down payment. Deighton ain gon sell!”

  “Be-Jesus-Christ, I gon do that for him then. Even if I got to see my soul fall howling into hell I gon do it.” Her words hung portent in the white silence. The air sagged with them. From her table in the corner, Selina visualized them as ominous birds, poised, beaks ready to rip her father. She knew, even as the dread seeped her blood, that this was not just another one of the mother’s threats about the land. The way her body had heaved as she spoke proved this. Fear for her father sounded in a wild alarm throughout her. It clamored even louder as she looked up again at the mother.

  Silla stood calm, confident, almost smiling in their midst. Her eyes had clouded over and she had forgotten them. Now she sought the presence who always listened and sympathized. “It’s strange,” she mused aloud to him, “how you can try to figure out how to do a thing for years and then suddenly it’s clear in your mind. For months now I has sat at this same table, lain in that bed up there ’pon a night figuring for this thing till I thought I would go mad so. Two years racking my brains. And now, in a minute so, it’s clear-clear what I must do. Clear like somebody draw a picture so and show me.” Then her eyes, hard with her resolve, reached out to them. “As God is my witness I know how to sell it for him.”