Jerome looked at his brother wide eyed. ‘Petra write that about you?’
James nodded and giggled. ‘All these girls, she said, have a crush on me. All the girls in her class in Convent. All of them want me as their boyfriend.’ James roused himself from the floor and looked at his image in the mirror on the wall.
Jerome looked on incredulously as his brother strutted around their bedroom, running his pick through his afro. Something seemed horribly wrong to him about all of this. Horribly, horribly wrong.
Chapter 14
Petra decided she would take a Saturday off from sweeping the floors at the beauty salon. She told her mother she needed some time to do some “marketing” for her hair-braiding business. Patricia was all too pleased to see her daughter developing business skills so she’d allowed Petra to go off on her own.
Petra’s plan, of course, went way beyond marketing. She took a bus near the main market, where people still stopped to take pictures of the fallen tower, to a town in the north, and then two other buses to the tiny village way up in the mountains were Mark lived.
She knocked on his door, knowing he’d be surprised to see her. ‘Petra! How did you get up here?’
She shrugged. ‘I was in the neighbourhood.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t say I’m surprised. I knew you’d come here fishing for information soon enough’.
‘What do you mean?’ Petra asked too innocently, looking around Mark’s small house.
‘He’s not here,’ Mark said flatly.
‘Who’s not here?’ Petra tried to keep up the act.
‘I know you came here looking for Mr Brown. But he’s out. Every day he goes up in the hills to walk. At first he said it was to practise using his legs. Then he said he has a friend who lives up there.’
‘Up where?’ Petra asked.
Mark chuckled. ‘It’s your least favourite place. The spooky place with all the stinky trees.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘He walks all the way up there every day?’
‘Every single day,’ Mark shrugged. ‘I can’t get him to stop going up there.’
‘But why? Just to meet with his friend?’
Mark nodded. ‘I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or if he’s confused. But the walks seem to keep him calm and happy so I’m not gonna question him or discourage him from going.’
‘Have you ever gone with him?’ Petra asked.
Mark shook his head. ‘No time. I’ve had tourists coming through for tours every week recently. Since the tower fell more and more people want to do the history hikes.’
Petra nodded. ‘So when’s Mr Brown coming back?’
Mark looked at his watch. ‘Any minute now. Don’t agitate him with your questions, OK?’
Petra nodded. ‘I won’t.’ She paced around Mark’s tiny little house. There were two bedrooms, a bathroom and one large living area that was the living room, kitchen and dining room. Mark owned three guitars, one acoustic and two electric and they stood side by side on the wall under a huge poster of Jimi Hendrix and another of Bob Marley.
‘Where’s the rest of your furniture?’ she asked him.
‘I don’t need any furniture. I’m hardly ever here.’
‘But what if somebody comes to see you and they need to sit down. You have two chairs. You need a sofa.’
Mark shook his head. ‘There’s Mr Brown.’
A tall, lean and dark man walked through the front door. His expression was serious. He nodded at Mark and Petra and went straight for the kitchen.
‘How was the walk today?’ Mark asked.
‘All right,’ Mr Brown said.
‘Mr Brown: This is Petra. Patricia’s daughter. Your granddaughter.’
Mr Brown looked at Petra blankly and nodded. ‘How are you, young girl?’
‘I’m well, sir.’ Petra approached him and held out her hand. He didn’t shake instead he nodded.
‘I heard you were walking in the hills with your friend,’ Petra said.
Mark cleared his throat loudly.
‘I walk by myself,’ Mr Brown said. ‘Sometimes I meet my friend. Sometimes I don’t see nobody.’
‘Your friend lives up in the hills?’ Petra asked.
Mr Brown shook his head. ‘I don’t know where he lives. Who can know that?’
Petra looked at Mark who was watching the conversation warily. ‘How are your legs?’ Petra asked.
Mr Brown laughed out loud. ‘They are very good. I exercise them every day so they can get stronger. That is what the man told me to do.’
‘What man?’ Petra and Mark asked in unison.
‘The man who healed my stumps. He told me to walk up the hilly roads every day and my legs will be as strong as they was when I was a boy.’
Petra glanced at Mark. ‘This is the same man you visit up there in the hills?!’ She felt her heart pounding. Wow. She could solve the mystery that had fascinated the entire island in just one afternoon. But then there was a loud crash. Mr Brown’s glass had fallen to the tiled floor and lay in pieces. He held his heart and moaned. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh! Oh! Oh!’
Mark rushed to keep Mr Brown from stepping on the glass. ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a glass.’
‘But it was a nice glass. Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Mr Brown’s face was contorted with dismay and he clutched his forehead. ‘I’m so sorry. So sorry. Oh! Oh!’
Petra stepped back, confused and a little afraid. ‘Is he OK?’ She asked Mark. He shook his head.
‘Come on, Mr Brown. Go and lie down. You walked so much you must be really tired.’ Mark gently took Mr Brown’s elbow and led him to one of the bedrooms.
Petra could hear Mark talking to Mr Brown. When Mark returned to the living room he was shaking his head. ‘He’s all right. He gets like that. Sometimes the most simple things will agitate him.’
‘What kind of sickness is that?’ Petra asked.
Mark shrugged. ‘Could be some kind of mental illness. It’s hard to get doctors to travel all the way up here and even harder to get Mr Brown to go back to town.’
‘So what are you going to do? Just keep him here?’ Petra asked.
‘Sure. I don’t mind the company,’ Mark said.
‘So you’ve never seen this friend of his?’ Petra asked. ‘Maybe it’s the man I saw when we were out hiking that day! The man with the big hat?’
Mark shook his head. ‘No. No one lives up there. I already told you that. I think it’s just his imagination or maybe some kind of hallucination. Who knows?’
Petra wrinkled her nose. ‘Do you believe him though? That someone touched his stumps and his legs grew back?’
Mark laughed. ‘No. I don’t believe that. You know what happened to him right? Did your mother tell you?’
Petra’s eyes widened. ‘No. What do you mean?’
Mark, catching himself, backtracked. ‘Ask her then. Ask her when she’s in a good mood.
‘What do I ask her?’ Petra asked.
‘Just ask her to tell you about your grandfather.’
Petra nodded. ‘But….’
‘No more questions,’ Mark said firmly. ‘I’m going to drive you back to the village so you can get the bus back to Roseau before it gets dark.’
Chapter 15
The boys ate breakfast silently while Granny cleaned the kitchen slowly. She’d made corned beef hash stewed with onions and cornmeal porridge. Daddy must have sent money – they only had corned beef hash when Daddy sent money. But Granny wasn’t her normal, happy self. Washing the dishes always put her in a good mood. This morning, it seemed like there was much on her mind. The boys, sensing the air of change, were quiet too.
‘So…you boys want a day off from school?’
Two necks snapped in Granny’s
direction simultaneously. ‘What?’
Granny rolled her eyes. ‘You boys still talk at the same time? When you will outgrow that?’
She placed a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice in front of them. ‘We could do something together today. All of us. No school.’
‘You serious, Granny?’ James asked.
‘Anywhere you want to go? Anything you want to do?’
‘Memory Garden?’ Jerome blurted before James came up with something else that would take them off track.
Granny’s brows furrowed. ‘All the way down there? Why?’
‘I just remembered it the other day…and…I want to see it again.’
Granny shrugged. ‘OK then. It’s really nice now with all the flowers blooming. Good idea, JJ.’ She called him JJ when he brought home a good report, when he did well at a sporting event (which wasn’t often) and when he was sick.
Jerome and James shared a quick look, reading each other’s minds. Granny was sad about losing them. She didn’t want them to go to America. That was the only reason she’d allowed them to have a day off from summer school. To Granny there was only one thing more sacred than school and that was church. When they got a day off from church then they’d know that something really, really big was about to happen.
‘Come on then, eat fast. We gotta catch the bus.’
The boys ate quickly, hoping no one at the Memory Garden would recognise them from yesterday and tell Granny that they’d just been there. ‘Oh, Charlie wanted to come and see the garden,’ Jerome said, remembering his promise to Charlie the night before. But Granny demurred. ‘No. No Charlie today. I want to spend the day with you boys. Besides, Charlie need to be in summer school instead of playing on the Internet all day and night. His mother say he need to spend more time around real people and less time on that computer.’
‘Charlie all right,’ James said. ‘Cider…. Ms Cider need to stop treating him like a little baby.’
‘Is not your business,’ Granny said sharply. ‘Family business is not easy to understand,’ she said before falling silent. Granny slowly emerged from her pensive mood during the ride to Wouge Place. She pointed at sites from her girlhood and giggled as she saw old friends walking down the streets of the little southern villages.
‘Oh, I love that Memory Garden. You know I bring your Daddy here right after we find your mother.’ Granny stopped talking, thinking; the boys looked at her eagerly, waiting for more.
No one ever talked about their mother. They wanted to know more about her. She was pretty – they could tell that from her pictures: tall and brown-skinned with a big, wide smile. They knew she loved to sing and to read. She’d been a teacher. One day she went out on her father’s fishing boat – no one knew why. Five days later her body washed up on the beach. They only knew this detail because they’d overheard neighbours whisper it. People who didn’t know often asked where their mother was or who she’d been. They seldom had good answers.
Granny deftly changed the subject. ‘On the way back we can stop for some ice cream.’
They tried to sound upbeat. But they wanted to hear about Mama. And the day the fishermen found her body on the beach. But Granny was back to her chattering. They looked out the window at the miles and miles of glassy, blue sea. Was it an accident? Did she mean to do it?
It was already past ten when the bus dropped them off at the main bus stop in Wouge Place. The sun was already high in the sky and an aura of lethargy hung over the small village. Two chickens crossed the narrow street, clucking busily, while a dog looked on morosely from a shady spot not motivated enough for the easy chase. They could see no one.
‘How come our island so poor? Why we don’t have places that look like America?’
Granny laughed out loud. ‘James, you just like your father. You want answers to the most impossible questions.’
‘It not an impossible question.’
‘Our country is poor because, in this world, being rich is about getting there first or getting there second with enough power to steal from the people who got there first. We didn’t get there first and we don’t have no power so we not rich.’
‘Getting where first?’ James asked.
‘Anywhere.’ Granny spread her hands wide. ‘Where the oil, the gold, the diamonds, the fertile land, you name it can be found.’
‘So we can’t take back what we lost if we don’t have power?’ Jerome asked. This was very interesting to him. He believed that a lot had been taken from Dominica. And there had to be a way to get at least some of it back.
‘Maybe you can come up with another way,’ Granny said and put an arm around his shoulder. ‘You a smart boy and you going to be something great someday – somebody big and important.’
Jerome leaned into Granny’s side. It made him feel so good that she believed in him. It made his big dreams seem less impossible.
‘Oh, and if you boys going to be anything in this world you have to learn how to treat people with respect. So give that red girl back her diary.’
‘What?’ Jerome pulled back from Granny shocked. James averted his eyes.
‘You hear me? Give it to her the next time you see her or else. All-you hear me? You all think I don’t know what going on but I have ears!’
***
They were not prepared for the sight that greeted them as they entered the gates of the Memory Garden. A familiar sound of heavy machinery, axes hitting ground and workmen grunting prompted the boys to sprint ahead to find the cause of the commotion.
‘What are you doing?!’ Jerome yelled at a man driving a backhoe over the centre portion of the garden. The red canna lilies were flattened and large holes had already been dug around the trees and across the grassy island of the Memory Garden.
Granny caught up with them breathless. ‘What is going on here? You are desecrating a holy site!’ But the man did not hear. Instead he went about his work as if they did not exist. ‘Stop! Stop!’ Granny yelled but only a few of the digging men deigned to even glance at her.
‘Mackey is doing this,’ James said. He clenched his fist. Jerome looked around at the Memory Garden; it was now a ruin of overturned earth. He wanted to cry.
‘This is a very bad thing,’ Granny said wringing her hands. ‘Did I tell you boys that this place represents the peace and unity between the African slaves who were brought here and the Carib people.’
They nodded helplessly and watched the men continue their work under an unforgiving sun. Where was Mackey? In hiding? And how could the caretaker allow this after he’d spoken so reverently about the Memory Garden?
‘Granny, we have to tell you something,’ Jerome said. It was only a matter of time before Father Mackey came around and she’d find out everything. Better she hear it from them.
‘No,’ James pleaded with Jerome. He knew that once Granny found out they’d be locked in the house from now till eternity. But Jerome didn’t listen. He told Granny the story from beginning to end. Her expression wavered between disbelief and anger as Jerome told her about their adventures.
‘Father Mackey get you mixed up in this?’ She asked incredulously. They nodded quickly, thinking that if she were upset with Father Mackey then there was no way she could place all the blame on them.
‘You boys know Father Mackey is very sick. Since the stroke his mind is not what it used to be.’
‘He’s still smart,’ James interjected.
‘He’s too sick…’ Her voice cracked. ‘Some days he can’t even remember his own name.’
James and Jerome exchanged glances. But this couldn’t have been all a lie! ‘So why his brother here trying to find the treasure too?’
Granny shook her head and surveyed the decimated Memory Garden sadly. ‘That legend…that story about a treasure on this island been going around for a long, long time. I heard
about it since I was a little girl. Boys, it not true. Is just fairy tales.’
‘But we been following the clues…’ James protested.
‘So you think just because the tower fall down and a parrot died that mean is not a lie?’ Granny shook her head. ‘I not going to tell you boys to stop playing your game. Is school vacation time and if you busy then I’m happy. Just don’t go getting yourselves into trouble.’
‘What about Father Mackey’s brother?’
‘Leave the man alone. From what I hear he a very rich and greedy man. He might be dangerous. I don’t want to hear anything about you boys getting tangled up with him, you hear?’
The boys nodded. Granny shook her head mournfully as she looked at what was left of the Memory Garden. ‘I know why they digging here,’ she said.
‘Why?’ Jerome asked.
‘The slaves. An old story say that this stupid treasure buried with the slaves.’
James’s eyes opened wide. ‘So it might be here?’
Granny shook her head. ‘What I just tell you? There is no treasure. Only thing that’s here is old bones of slaves and Indians. Abed. Abed means slave in Arabic. They say the first group of slaves brought here were sold into slavery by their own brothers.’
‘Like Joseph in the Bible?’ James asked.
Granny thought for a minute. ‘Yes. Exactly like Joseph.’
‘So if there was a treasure,’ Jerome said. ‘Why wouldn’t it be here, Granny?’
Granny laughed. ‘It wouldn’t be here because that treasure is a fairy tale. You have to have the key to unlock it or be the chosen one. Something stupid like that.’
‘So what if we the chosen ones?’ James said innocently.
‘Chosen by who?’ Granny sucked her teeth. ‘You know, we don’t even have a lot of slavery in our own line. My great-great-great-grandfather was a plantation preacher; his son my great-great grandfather was set free by his master and since then everybody else was free.’
‘Wow! How you know all this, Granny?’ Jerome wished he had brought a notebook so he could write it all down.
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