I followed Samona’s voice to the back porch, where she was petting a small tabby cat—Egusi, I guessed. Mrs. Fabiyi turned to me and made another one of those gummy smiles. In the daylight I could see that she wasn’t wearing a sheet at all. It was a long blue and green and black dress that touched the floor. The scarf was made of the same material. Mrs. Fabiyi looked younger than Granmè. She had black skin that was smooth and didn’t have a wrinkle in it. “Well, you. What you see?”
“There aren’t any toad’s eyes or voodoo dolls or even a stupid love potion.” Here I’d come all this way and Mrs. Fabiyi turned out to be nothing but a regular old lady. Manmi was gonna kill me when she found out I skipped another piano lesson.
Mrs. Fabiyi’s eyes twinkled. “You think I obeah-witch woman? Ah-ah! More fun to scare little boys like you.”
“I wasn’t scared,” I said, turning away.
“Mrs. Fabiyi hasn’t been sick,” Samona said, cuddling the little cat. “She went to see her sister in Nigeria.”
“It good for you to come see about me. You come again. I promise no more soup.”
Samona put Egusi on the floor and picked up Nightmare. “That’s very civilized of you, Mrs. Fabiyi. And I guess I don’t mind if Nightmare comes over here to visit Egusi either.”
Well, I was tired of this. No one was going to eat or kill us here. I hadn’t even seen a kitchen knife around. Papi was right: You can’t believe everything that people say. It’s just like some of the kids at school who think that all Haitians are boat people and only eat frogs’ legs. I should have known better than to believe the stories about Mrs. Fabiyi. People like to think all kinds of bad things about you just ’cause you come from someplace different.
“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Fabiyi. I’m leaving, Samona. You can come if you want to.” I headed for the front door.
Samona stuck her tongue out at my back. “You can throw soup at him anytime, Mrs. Fabiyi. Seth Michelin! Wait up!”
“You are welcome,” Mrs. Fabiyi called after us. “And you right, Samona. Cat taste good as chicken.”
Samona looked back at her with wide eyes before chasing me down the stairs. “See! I told you!”
I didn’t pay her any mind. I started walking as fast as I could once we got outside. The bright sunlight hit me in the eyes and made me squint.
Samona caught up with me, huffing a little and squeezing the life out of Nightmare. “What are you walking so fast for?”
I stopped. “Look, Samona. I don’t have any time to be wasting with you.”
She shifted Nightmare to her other arm. “Well, ’scuse me. Where’s the fire?”
I glared at her. “I got places to go, okay?”
“I got places of my own to get to,” Samona sniffed.
“Like what?” I asked as scornfully as possible.
“Well …” Samona bit her lip. “Matter of fact I have to go to the city hall today and register for the Little Miss Dorchester contest.”
My mouth fell wide open. “You’re off your rocker. You can’t win that contest.”
“Oh yeah? Wait and see.” Samona pointed to my open mouth, then turned and walked away. “Better watch out for them flies.”
Samona’s fool idea about entering the beauty contest went right out of my head later when I opened the door to our apartment. I had my nose all wrinkled up ’cause they had just mopped the hallway and it smelled like ammonia. I knew it would stink like that for days. Sometimes Manmi smelled like that when she came home from work at the hospital. When she smells like that, it means she got stuck washing the floors all day and she usually has to go straight to bed ’cause her back hurts so much. I was wishing for the hundredth time that we could live in a real house like my cousin Enrie when I walked through the door and knew something was wrong.
For one thing, it was so dark I could barely see in front of me. All the shades had been drawn to shut out the sunlight. If it wasn’t for the tiny lamp lit up in the corner of the living room, I would not have been able to make out Tant Cherise, Tant Renee and Monnonk Roddie setting up a low murmur in Kreyol on the couch. There wasn’t any sign of Granmè or Manmi, and that started to make me nervous.
Then I smelled the spirits in the air and I knew Tant Renee must be drinking. I looked closer and sure enough, she was sitting in the pocket corner of the couch with her hair hanging down straggly-like and a large glass of clarin in her hand. Her face was starting to swell up like it always does when she takes to the spirits. Now, Tant Renee is a terrible drinker but she knows better than to be doing it in Manmi’s home. I knew something serious must have happened.
Tant Cherise noticed me first and ran over to give me a hug so tight I could feel the bones sticking out of her body. Tant Cherise is almost as skinny as me, which is where I get it from, I guess. She’s a grimelle, though, like Manmi and Chantal—which means she’s really light-skinned. Jean-Claude and I are as dark as tree bark—like Papi.
“What’s going on?” I kissed her on the cheek, automatically.
Tant Cherise put her hand over my head and all of a sudden commenced to crying and moaning at the same time in her heavy accent, “Priye avek mwen, Seth. Pray with me.”
Her words didn’t scare me as much as her crying did. Tant Cherise is about as holy as can be. She’s always praying for people’s souls and rejoicing over who just joined the church. But I’d never seen her carry on like this before.
Monnonk Roddie came and pulled her away from me. I could hear him whisper to her that I was just a kid, and that got me mad. I wanted to know what was going on here.
I looked up fiercely at Monnonk Roddie’s coal black face and all the anger just fell away. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Monnonk Roddie when he wasn’t laughing at something. He’s bald and fat and smokes too much but he’s got one of those faces that is full of laughing. If it’s not in his smile then it’s in the corner of his eyes or the twitching of his mustache or the shaking of his furry eyebrows.
My throat was starting to feel tight. Something must be terribly wrong, with Tant Renee drinking and Tant Cherise crying and Monnonk Roddie not laughing.
“Monnonk Roddie,” I finally choked out, “where’s Manmi?”
Monnonk Roddie put a hand on my shoulder. “We didn’t mean to scare you, Seth. Your manmi is fine. She’s in there with your granmè. Granmè didn’t take the news too well, and your manmi is trying to calm her down.
“What news?” I asked, feeling a little bit better. “Is Papi okay? Where’s Jean-Claude and Chantal?”
“Papi’s out taking care of everything for the wake and the funeral. Your granmè’s sister, Margaret, died this morning—at last.” Monnonk Roddie shook his head carefully, like he was afraid it would break. “Only person that ever laughed at my jokes. She was a crazy one.”
Matant Margaret! Relief rushed through me. I hardly even knew her. She was ninety-four and lived in a rest home near Mattapan Square. Granmè went to visit her every Sunday and Tant Renee saw her every day but the rest of the family only saw her on Christmas. Every year we went over to the rest home to have dinner with her and the other sick old ladies. She never recognized us. All she could do was sit in her chair and stare at us with her mouth hanging open and her eyes half-closed.
Matant Margaret was dead and I wasn’t sure what to feel. I knew Granmè and Manmi would be pretty sad. They were always telling stories about how Matant Margaret worked in the casinos in Haiti to save money to buy her visa and her plane ticket to America.
“Is Granmè gonna be okay?” I asked anxiously. Now I could make out the soft sound of Manmi’s voice coming from Granmè and Chantal’s bedroom.
Monnonk Roddie nodded. “She’s just feeling a little of the pain right now, Seth. I guess we all are. You go sit with your brother and sister in your room.”
I got out of there quick ’cause I knew Monnonk Roddie was gonna try to get Tant Renee to quit drinking and there was going to be a screaming fight before Tant Renee let go of that bottle.
/> My room wasn’t as dark as the living room. The shade was pulled halfway but there was an even layer of sunlight coming from the bottom of the window. The television was sitting next to Jean-Claude’s bed instead of in the living room.
My sister Chantal was sitting on one side of Jean-Claude’s bed painting her toenails and running her mouth off on the phone about Jerome, who is all she talks about since they started going together.
I don’t know exactly what to make of Jerome. The first time he came over to the house he had to wait for Chantal to finish washing the tub, so he started asking me all sorts of funny questions. Do I ever clean the tub? Does Chantal get good grades? Does she do all the housework? Does she get to stay out late like Jean-Claude? What does she want to be when she grows up? Does she cook all the food? I couldn’t answer half the questions. I told him that Manmi and Granmè cook and do housework too. Jean-Claude and I have to keep our rooms clean. I wasn’t sure but I think Chantal wants to be a nurse like Manmi.
Jerome didn’t seem to like any of my answers. He didn’t ask me any more questions but I heard him whisper “typical Caribbean” and something about sexism under his breath and I started to get mad. What was he talking about? Who was he to criticize my family? Chantal told me that Jerome didn’t even have a big family. It was just him and his mother. I couldn’t see what he was criticizing anyway since he didn’t know anything about us.
Samona met Jerome once and thought that he was a lot like Jean-Claude but I didn’t pay much attention to the opinion of someone who would sell shampoo made of horse manure. She talked to Jerome for a long time one day when he was waiting for Chantal on our steps.
“He seems okay to me,” Samona told me after I got tired of waiting for her to go away and came outside.
I looked at her like she was crazy and then at Jerome, who was walking down the street with Chantal. Jerome was built like a football player—not very tall but with big muscles. He kept his hair really short, so he looked almost bald. But his eyes were what bothered me. They were light brown and always seemed to be looking at everything like he was trying to take it apart and understand it. It gave me the creeps.
Samona twirled one of the wooden beads in her hair.
“He had to take care of his mother and his two older sisters all by himself. He thinks women should be liberated and take care of themselves.”
“Liberated from what? Anyway, that’s not what Jean-Claude thinks,” I said. I was wondering if Samona knew that she had two completely different sandals on today. One red. One purple.
“That’s ’cause Jean-Claude’s just like you and all men,” Samona announced. “You like to pass judgment on people and control things—at least that’s what Leticia said about Tyrone.”
I gave Samona a look that said she wasn’t making sense as usual.
Now, back in the room, my brother Jean-Claude was lying flat beside Chantal. His long feet were sticking off the end of the bed ’cause he’s so tall for seventeen. He was half-watching the news and half-listening to Chantal. Jean-Claude is always telling Chantal that Jerome is nothing but a lost brother with no kind of future. He knows Jerome quit school last year and works full-time at the 7-Eleven near the highway.
“Hi, Seth.” Chantal looked up from her toenails and smiled that smile that looked just like Manmi’s. Sometimes it surprises me how much Chantal can look like Manmi, with her golden skin and long, thick hair. “Is Papi home?”
“No,” I said, and sat down at the edge of the bed. “You think Granmè’s gonna be all right?”
“Yeah.” Chantal reached out and touched my shoulder gently. “That old woman’ll live forever just so I never get my own room.”
I smiled at that ’cause Chantal’s been asking for her own room for years. She’s all the time complaining about Granmè snoring like a horse and making her do the rosary with her every night. Chantal always falls asleep before Granmè can finish.
Jean-Claude turned his attention from the news and I was glad to see that he didn’t look upset. He goes off when he hears news like something about two brothers shooting each other over a basketball game. He’s always talking about how the television only shows bad images of black men on the news. They don’t show the good things that black men do every day like take care of their families, or come up with all those inventions like the traffic light.
His face was still serious as he looked at us. There was a big dent in his hair and I could tell he’d been sleeping on one side of his head for a while.
“Y’all know we’re gonna have to go to the wake tomorrow,” he said.
“What’s a wake?” I asked. Monnonk Roddie had said that Papi was out taking care of it.
Chantal’s face fell. “Aww, man. I’m supposed to go out with Jerome tomorrow. Maybe he can sit in the back where Manmi and Papi wouldn’t see him.”
Jean-Claude turned his face back to the television and said, “Don’t you dare bring that sorry brother near the wake.”
“You don’t even know Jerome!” Chantal almost tipped the nail polish on the bed as she sat up.
I got up off the bed and left the room. I hate it when Jean-Claude and Chantal fight. They never used to argue until Chantal started seeing Jerome. Jean-Claude must have a good reason not to like Jerome. They call Jean-Claude “the savior” out on the streets ’cause he’s always the one to step in and stop a fight or if he hears about something going down, he’ll go and try to talk people out of making trouble. Everybody trusts Jean-Claude.
I tiptoed down the hallway past the living room to Granmè’s room. I almost tripped on the vinyl that protects the carpet from dirt but nobody saw me. The door to Granmè’s room was cracked open and I peeked inside.
Granmè was lying in bed asleep. One of her hands was under her head, trapping her rosary beads against her cheek and the pillow.
She looks okay, I told myself, and then I looked up at Manmi, who was sitting on the rocking chair beside the bed. She still had on her white hospital uniform and her eyes were closed like she was asleep too. I wondered if Matant Margaret’s death had made her forget about her new hairstyle. It was cut short and fell around her face. It used to be very long, longer than Chantal’s. It was Samona’s mother who told Manmi that her hair was too old-fashioned and that she should get something more contemporary. I told Mrs. Gemini that Haitians like to be old-fashioned. When Jean-Claude had gotten his hair cut into a fade, like the other guys at school, all the family and all our relatives talked about it for weeks before they got used to it. That’s what Manmi was going through now. In spite of all the talk, though, I could tell Manmi liked her new haircut.
“Seth.”
I jumped ’cause Manmi hadn’t even opened her eyes, but somehow she’d known that I was there. Manmi can be spooky like that. She can always tell when one of us is lying, which makes it pretty hard to get away with anything.
I edged inside the room and went to kiss Manmi on the cheek. I was glad she smelled like her flowery perfume and not like ammonia. I turned back to look at Granmè again. Coming home and seeing everybody in the living room like that had really scared me.
“Dou-dou?” Manmi said, using her own special nickname for me. I guess she wanted to know what I was doing here, but I didn’t say anything.
“Granmè is fine,” Manmi said quietly. She took my hand and shook it gently like she always does when she wants me to loosen up.
“Then why’s she in bed?” I asked, leaning back against her knees.
“It’s always a shock, you know, when you first hear.” Manmi’s voice had a soft Kreyol accent. It was so subtle most people didn’t notice it. “Such a serious boy God gave me. Everything is good here. Go back to your room.”
I looked at Manmi and her eyes started to close again. I could tell she was really sad but she didn’t want to show it in front of me. “Okay.”
When I got into the hallway, I heard a loud, “Assez! Bay tèt mwe lapé!” which basically meant “cut it out now!” and I knew that Pap
i had come home and was mad with Jean-Claude and Chantal for arguing. I hurried back into the room.
Jean-Claude and Chantal were quiet. When Papi speaks to us in Kreyol, he means business. He stepped into the room, bending his head so as not to hit the doorframe. Papi was so tall I always had to bend my head way back just to look him in the eye.
“You have to be quieter so Granmè can get some sleep,” Papi sighed, switching to English. He looked tired too and he changed into his blue uniform for work at the airport. Papi works on the ground crew for Air France. He likes his job ’cause he can be close to all the airplanes and learn more about them. Before he married Manmi, he wanted to be a pilot but he couldn’t join the air force ’cause he wasn’t a U.S. citizen and flying lessons were too expensive. I think he still dreams about being a pilot someday ’cause he drags us to every flying exhibition that comes into town. Once he took a trip on the train to Washington, D.C., all by himself to go to the Museum of Flying. He spent the whole day there and when he got back home he talked about everything he saw until he drove us crazy.
“Now, you’ve all heard about Matant Margaret.” Papi looked at us with steady brown eyes. “Is there anything you want to talk about or ask me?”
“How’s Granmè?” Chantal asked first.
“So-so.” Papi smiled a little and moved a hand up to scratch his chin. “She’ll be cooking your favorite pen patat by next week. She knew this was coming.”
Seth and Samona Page 2
