Earlier that morning there had been an almighty row between Grandmother and Selma when she informed Selma that the funeral was very expensive and that, therefore, they would have to get rid of either Pansy the cook or Mohammed, the night watchman. They could no longer afford both. In fact, really it should be both of them that went. There was no more money in the bank. Selma exploded with rage:
‘So you mean, Mother,’ she bellowed, ‘that we have to choose between starving to death without a cook or being murdered in our beds without a night watchman?’
For the first time I saw my grandmother diminished and defeated as she tried to placate her daughter.
When she had finished reading the paper Grandmother left with my father to visit the priest. A few minutes later Selma appeared downstairs looking distracted, a snakes and ladders board under her arm. She had unearthed some board games from somewhere and expected me to play a variety of childish games. After a warning frown from my mother, I submitted. There was a gleam in Selma’s eye as we played. She leaned forward, her foot joggling to and fro with anxiety, biting her fingernails, her grey plaits brushing the coffee table. When she won she shrieked with triumph and brandished the dice in the air.
On the day of the funeral yet another violent tropical storm burst over town. It was rainy season and there were frequent downpours. We gathered, all dressed in black, on the wooden verandah that surrounded the ground floor of the house. Selma, wearing elbow-length black gloves and exuding a musky perfume, carried a large black umbrella with a heavy fringe. She clucked and tut-tutted with impatience as she waited for the hearse. At ten past ten it arrived.
‘Don’t brush against the yellow allamanda,’ said Grandmother as we made our way down the drive. ‘There’s a nest of marabunta hornets in it. If they start buzzing about everyone must stay still until they settle or you will be stung. I ain’ carryin’ anyone to no hospital.’
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. A melancholy white mist shrouded Le Repentir burial ground. We walked down the avenue of giant royal palms. The tall trees were stricken with some disease that had turned the drooping foliage mangy and yellow. The cemetery was flooded after the storm. The marble mausoleums looked as if they were floating, allowing the dead to move about below and change places. Grandfather was lowered into his grave with a splash. Grandmother stared down at the coffin for a few minutes, tears in her eyes. She was holding Grandfather’s favourite Crown and Anchor dice in her hand. She had wanted to throw them into the grave so that he could play for eternity but, under the eye of the priest, she lost her nerve and gave them to me:
‘Look after these for me, dear.’
When the funeral was over she instructed the undertaker to check the next day to make sure grave-robbers had not taken the body out and stolen the ornate coffin. Finally, she led the funeral party away to the waiting cars.
*
The funeral tea was held in the living room with its gleaming polished floor of greenheart wood. Grandmother held court with her usual grace. The Rodriguez boys, invited for my benefit as we were much the same age, stood there with their wide smiles. Their mother delicately removed a strand of cucumber from her teeth as she explained why, to everyone’s astonishment, she had returned to Guyana from a prosperous life in America.
‘Yes. I came back from America. You ask why? Well, just observe the American middle-class children. Everything lookin’ fine and dandy. They polite. They all ready and dressed in time for school. They have a glass of milk and a cookie. They attend endless activities – summer camp, swimming club, school proms. They are neat and well-behaved. Then when they’re sixteen they come home and shoot their parents. Well I have two sons getting to that age. I can’t take de risk.’
Caso, a sly, wizened old walnut of a man, a gambling buddy of Grandfather’s, grabbed my arm to whisper in my ear stories about his gambling days with Grandfather:
‘Your grandfather and I used to play cards together till three in the morning and then commandeer a donkey to get home. One night, sweet-up an’ full of rum, we staggered out to climb on the donkey. We rode all night clinging on to each other. When de sun rose we find the donkey is tethered to a post going round in circles. Tee hee hee.’
Grandmother hastily extricated me from his company and instructed me to pass around a dish of canapes.
By four o’clock in the afternoon the funeral tea was over and the guests had vanished.
*
An hour or so later my parents had packed and were ready to leave. They were flying back to England that night while I was to stay on with my grandmother for the remainder of the school holidays. I waved them off in their taxi, a little apprehensive about being left on my own with my grandmother and aunt.
At seven in the evening Aunt Selma appeared downstairs dressed to the nines. She was wearing flowing voluminous robes in orange and black and a matching orange striped head-wrap with silver threads. Her hair was swept under the wrap to reveal dangling silver earrings and a heavy pendant around her neck. Her hands and wrists were weighed down with silver rings and bangles. She sailed like a galleon into the front room and went to pick up the telephone.
‘And where de hell you think you goin’ on the day of your father’s funeral?’ demanded Grandmother before Selma could dial a number. ‘You can’t go out dressed up like that today of all days.’
‘Why not, Mother? You always told us he was an asshole,’ said Selma calmly.
‘What are people going to think if they see the Van Eysen girl out on the town the night her father was buried?’
‘Mother, have you any idea what important event it is that I am attending?’
‘I don’t care what the hell it is. Yuh not goin’.’
Selma raised her voice just enough to overpower her mother’s. ‘I am going to see the Opera Flambeau. They are on tour and are only performing here at the Cultural Centre for one night. And do you know who is singing?’
‘I don’t give a toss who is singing.’
‘Antonio Velasquez.’ Selma hissed the name with great emphasis as if the mere sound of it would put an end to the argument. ‘One of the best tenors ever to visit this country. One of the best tenors in the world.’
‘You’re a disgrace.’
‘Well I’m goin’. I ain’ missing one of the few international events that ever comes to this country just because father chose to bury himself on the wrong day. The whole country has been arguing about whether or not Velasquez is as good as Pavarotti.’
‘How they know that if they’ve never seen him?’ Grandmother’s voice was deepening with rage. ‘And they’ve never seen Pavarotti either.’
Selma pulled herself up to her full height. Her bosom swelled with indignation.
‘I will tell you how we know, Mother. We read the reviews sent down from New York and from London and we take our sides from those! That is how we form our opinions in this country. We never get a chance to see these things so we read the reviews and take sides.’
Selma looked at her watch and dialled a number:
‘This is Miss Van Eysen. Where de taxi? I ordered it for seven,’ she snapped.
‘You’re not going. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. Oh God, why did you have to give me this pig-headed daughter?’
Grandmother rushed out of the room. Selma stood silently like one of the three Fates waiting for her taxi. Grandmother re-appeared smoking a cigarette and stood in the doorway blocking her exit:
‘Well, I shall take de opportunity while you are out to tell both Pansy and Mohammed that they are no longer wanted. They’re fired from this minute.’
At this news, Selma went rigid. Her lips clenched. Suddenly, she spun on her heel, tore off her head-wrap, flung it on the floor and glared with fury at her mother. Then she screamed:
‘Don’t you dare, Mother. Don’t you dare. Those people have been with us for all my life since I was a child. I love them. An’ you jus’ goin’ an’ throw dem out like garbage? I won’t hear
of it.’
‘Well, you can blasted well find the money to pay fuh dem,’ countered my Grandmother.
‘I will. I will do just that. I will do exactly that,’ yelled Selma, kicking her head-wrap out of the way and charging out of the drawing room, slamming the door behind her. As she progressed to the far reaches of the house we could hear the sound of doors slamming with ever decreasing volume. There was silence. The taxi arrived, waited for a while then left again. Grandmother turned to me apologetically.
‘There really is very little cultural activity here. You have to seize what you can when it comes. Excuse me while I go an’ lie down for a little. I’m very tired.’ She stubbed out her cigarette and went wearily up the stairs, leaving me on my own.
A while later Selma appeared in the doorway in a state of high agitation. Still dressed for the opera she tugged a black silk stole round her shoulders. Her hair was dishevelled, strands coming loose from the iron grey bun on top of her head. There were tears in her eyes. She brushed past me as if I didn’t exist and went over to the mahogany bureau, opening each drawer in turn and rifling through papers and documents. Her lips were pursed as she chucked numerous letters, bills, papers, blotters and staplers into a heap onto the floor. Rummaging through the drawers she finally came across what she wanted: a sheaf of yellowing documents wrapped in red ribbon with something hand-written in copperplate on the front page and a red wax seal stamped on it. She shoved these in a cloth bag with zig-zag designs which she slung over her shoulder and went to the telephone:
‘This is Miss Van Eysen. Can I have a taxi please to take me to the Rivoli Hotel.’
Her fat cheeks and lips quivered with emotion. She hurried to the cupboard where the housekeeping money was kept and helped herself to a roll of money. Then she left without saying another word. I watched her make her way to the waiting taxi, swatting away a marabunta hornet as she passed the allamanda bush. The last I saw of her were her silver sandals glinting in the moonlight.
What occurred at the Rivoli Hotel that night I heard later from Caso. Caso, Grandfather’s old gambling buddy, had gone straight from the funeral tea to the Rivoli where he regularly staked his bets. He had witnessed all the events of the evening.
The Rivoli Hotel is a large dilapidated hotel on the Highway and the only hotel in Georgetown to contain a casino. The casino’s clientele consists mainly of businessmen, some of whom recognised Selma as she entered and exchanged knowing glances with each other. Also gathered there were the usual riff-raff and desperados who haunt the gambling dens of any major city. Selma’s appearance there caused quite a stir.
She elbowed her way through the crush, looking neither to left nor right and settled down immediately at the roulette table. There was a glint of determination in her eyes as she pulled her black silk stole round her shoulders. Her bracelets and bangles shone in the overhead light as she dipped into her bag and brought out the roll of dollars.
‘Faites le jeu. Faites le jeu.’
She started modestly and placed a few thousand dollars on the red.
‘Rien ne va plus.’
The wheel spun. She won and doubled her stake. She won again. A delighted Selma laughed and joked with some ruffian sitting next to her with whom she would never normally have exchanged a word. She won again. She fished in her bag and put another thirty thousand dollars on the red. Small beads of perspiration appeared on her upper lip as she focused on the spinning wheel. Under the table her foot was joggling with excitement. She continued to bet on the red long after most people would have heeded caution and changed their bets to black, thinking it impossible for the run on red to continue. But her number came up again. She grew increasingly confident and expansive, calling out merrily to people she didn’t know on the other side of the table. She threw up her hands and made cooing noises of pleasurable surprise when the ball tumbled into the right slot. As often happens, the other gamblers recognised that someone was having a run of luck and crowded around her placing their bets alongside hers.
And win she did. Within an hour of sitting down at the table Selma had won enough money to keep Pansy the cook and Mohammed the night watchman in employment for the rest of the year. She scooped up her winnings, grabbed her bag and made to leave smiling around at everybody.
‘That’s it. Get out now girl. Get out now or yuh money goin’ go like butter ’gainst de sun,’ advised a bystander. People were patting her on the shoulder and congratulating her as she made her way out. Her bag with its zig-zag pattern was stuffed with dollars. She remained unaware of some people’s disapproving glances and whispers about the woman who had come from her father’s funeral to gamble.
A short man with greasy black hair and a cinnamon complexion grabbed Selma by the arm as she made her way out. His grip tightened. His eyes gleamed with malicious humour:
‘Run from coffin an’ yuh buck up wid jumbie,’ he warned.
‘Excuse me, sir.’ Selma’s voice rose in anger. Her large breasts were heaving: ‘What is that stupidness? Yuh head ain’ good or what?’ She shook him off and headed for the door.
‘Every stupit man gat ‘e own sense.’ The man shouted after her. Selma shook her head in impatient dismissal and disappeared into the crowd.
But just before she got to the swing doors at the front of the hotel Selma stopped. It was nine-thirty at night. There was time for another flutter. Why not? She walked back to the salon, hesitated, then instead of heading for the roulette tables she turned and made for the side room, where they played the card game Rouge et Noir, also known as Trente et Quarante. Rouge et Noir played for much higher stakes than was permissible when playing roulette. The roulette tables closed at midnight. Rouge et Noir could be played until three in the morning.
The side room where the game was being played was a good deal smaller than the open area that housed the roulette tables. A haze of cigar smoke hung in the air. Taking her seat at the card table Selma found herself surrounded by some dozen serious gamblers. She put down a substantial bet, her heart beating fast. The croupier was shuffling the six decks. He laid the cards out in two rows. Selma lost heavily and sucked her teeth, whispering imprecations under her breath. She placed another stake, lost again and sat the next game out. The confidence she had felt at the roulette table began to seep away. In a fit of peevishness and not wishing to look as if she were short of funds, she thrust all of her roulette winnings onto the table. Within an hour of sitting down at the table she had lost everything.
Stunned and feeling slightly sick, Selma pushed her chair back and fanned herself with a hotel brochure. The croupier on her side of the table offered her a blank card to cut the pack for the next game:
‘Do you want to raise your stakes, Miss Van Eysen?’
Who knows whether it was embarrassment or a sudden craving for risk that made Selma reach in her bag and pull out the deeds of the house:
‘Will you accept these?’
The croupier took them and checked with the supervising croupier on the other side of the table. He nodded:
‘We put a price of two million dollars on the deeds. That is our limit.’
Selma looked a little startled then cast her eyes around at the other gamblers who were looking at her with curiosity.
‘Go ahead,’ she said and giggled.
They played on. She lost and watched in disbelief as the deeds of her house were passed to the winner, a well-built black man with rimless glasses whom she had never seen before.
According to Caso, an argument then ensued. Aunt Selma could not believe that she would not be given the deeds back. Surely, nobody could believe that anyone would seriously bet their house on the turn of a pack of cards. No. No. No. How could anyone think she was serious? It was just a game. In her mind it had no greater consequences than Snakes and Ladders. Selma’s voice was raised to full volume. She stamped her foot and yelled. Security was called and she was escorted out of the salon.
Selma stood in the hotel foyer, bewildered. Then came the
ice-bath shock of loss and with it the realization of what it all meant.
Meanwhile, at home I was reading in the living room when Grandmother wandered down and discovered the contents of the bureau strewn over the floor.
‘Wha’ happen’ here?’
I explained that Aunt Selma had been looking for something in the bureau.
‘Why she mek all dis mess? She still sulkin’ in her room, I suppose.’
‘No. She’s gone out. I think she took a taxi to the Rivoli hotel.’
Grandmother stared at me. ‘The Rivoli? Are you sure?’
‘I think so.’
‘Oh God. Oh God. Then you must go and fetch her back jus’ now. She gone to the casino.’ Grandmother looked distraught. ‘Selma is very own-way an’ sometimish. She very warrish when she wants. You mus’ go. I can’t go. I can’t go there when I jus’ bury my husband. You know how in Guyana people does know your business and spread it around. You mus’ go. I will give you money for a taxi.’
She rushed upstairs to find her purse. I followed her to get my jacket. And then, for some reason, I came across Grandfather’s black silk opera hat folded down in my suitcase and snatched it up. I was fifteen. I thought it would be a joke to take it with me.
Before I knew where I was Grandmother was pushing me out of the door towards a waiting taxi:
‘Suppose they don’t let me in. I’m not eighteen yet.’
‘Yuh big an’ tall like yuh grandfather. Tell them yuh eighteen. Look, yuh nearly have a moustache.’
I was half way down the drive when Grandmother called me back:
‘Guilford. Wait. Ah comin’. I caan’ let you go to that place on your own but I will not go inside the Rivoli. I will wait in the taxi outside while you fetch Selma. She might not want to come but you must persuade her, however long it takes. I will be waitin’ in the taxi outside.’
The Master of Chaos Page 2
