River

by Shira Nayman

  “And a custard trifle for dessert,” Joel said.

  I dug in, too. The stew was pungent and extremely flavorful. It sat in its thick gravy on top of a mound of steaming cornmeal that had been cooked up into a chewy porridge.

  I couldn’t remember when a meal had tasted so good. I swallowed the last mouthful, trying to stem the disappointment I felt at the sight of the empty bowl—I was still so hungry, as if I hadn’t eaten at all! But then, Joel appeared beside me with the pot and ladled another helping of the mealie pap. A moment later, he returned with some more stew. I ate more slowly, this time, relishing each mouthful.

  Joel went into the laundry room off the kitchen and as we ate, I could hear the sound of water filling a trough, followed by great swooshings. I pictured Joel at work, perhaps washing the family’s linens.

  Once the large meal had given chase to my ravenous hunger, I was able to pay attention to the room, which was spacious and had a certain rough elegance. Across from us stood an enormous glass-fronted cabinet containing an assortment of dishes and glassware. Beside this was an ancient pot-bellied stove, which gave off intense heat. On the floor beside the stove was a straw mat, rolled and tied loosely with twine, along with a large metal bowl. I brightened at the thought that Darlene perhaps had a dog.

  “Do you have a dog, then?” I asked.

  Darlene shook her head. “I wish we did, but no.”

  She followed my querying gaze to where the mat and bowl sat on the floor by the stove. Her face dropped and when she spoke her voice cracked with pain.

  “That’s Joel’s mat. He sleeps there, during the week. The bowl is his toilet. On weekends, he goes home to his village. It’s not that far—an hour and a half by foot.”

  Her words fell like soft blows to my ears. I thought about the gentle, dignified man in the back room, from which I could still hear those loud swishing sounds and felt a cold rage rising within as I imagined him settling at night on the hard floor while his “masters” slumbered comfortably in their beds.

  “That’s just awful!”

  Darlene nodded, then looked away.

  I saw again that photograph we’d looked at in the Belle Meade Plantation gift shop, heard Mama’s heavy words, Built on the backs of slaves. What country was free of horrors? Was there no society on earth where justice and kindness truly reigned? Even this sorry farmhouse, in the middle of a nowhere that included vile, bigoted teachers who threw chalkboard erasers at children’s heads, was built on the backs of servitude—on the very back of the kindly man who seemed like a father to Darlene, and yet bore the title of servant. The rude word ricocheted in my mind. I recalled the faces of the children in scraps of clothing, pressed up against the wire fencing around the school yard. Layer upon layer of cruelty—I didn’t know what to do with all the feelings that surged violently within.

  Just then, a familiar chime rang out, and I almost jumped out of my skin. Grandma’s clock! The clock given to her mother—my great-grandmother—on the occasion of her marriage! The very same clock I had awoken to—gosh, an age ago—in Melbourne. The clock had been given to Darlene’s mother, Sarah, as a wedding present; much later, Darlene would bring it to Australia. Perhaps one day, I thought, I would pack it into a velvet box and take it with me to New York. It gave me goose bumps to think about this clock, chiming up through the decades, marking the hours, days, weeks, years, of so many lives that came into being and then drifted away.

  “The chimes startled me,” I said.

  “I love that clock,” Darlene said. I wanted to say I love it, too! However, I kept silent, aware of the eerie secrecy I felt bound to regarding the truth of who I was and where I came from. But looking at Darlene, I realized something else: that I was also in some way discovering new truths, laying claim to something lost.

  At that moment, Joel returned, carrying a large earthenware dish. “Here’s the trifle.”

  Darlene jumped up. “I can serve it up.”

  “Thank you, Do-Do,” Joel said, and returned to the laundry room.

  The trifle was heavenly: layers of pound cake, strawberries, and thick yellow custard, topped with heavy clotted cream. We each ate a large serving while drinking several cups of steaming brewed tea, to which we added frothy milk and lumps of brown sugar.

  When we finished, we took our plates to the sink, then grabbed our satchels and passed through a long hallway to Darlene’s room. She hung her school bag on a hook, removed her shoes, and placed them neatly by the foot of her bed. I did the same.

  “Here,” Darlene said, reaching under her bed excitedly and retrieving a sizable wooden box. Her fingers were shaking with anticipation. Only now did I notice that the nail on her right pinky finger was very long and sharpened to a point.

  “Why do you have such a long pointy nail, and only the one?” I asked.

  “Oh, that!” She laughed. “That’s my weapon.”

  “Your weapon?”

  “You’ll see,” she said. “But look, have you ever seen such a lovely tea set?”

  The box opened on two impressive brass hinges to reveal the tea set Darlene had told me about; each item was nestled in its own special section lined with velvet. The miniature dishes were made of real bone china, decorated with an elaborate pattern: rose clusters, joined by lengths of twirled vine with delicate green leaves. Darlene removed each piece, one by one, and arranged them carefully on the table beside her bed.

  “Let’s prepare a tea party for my dolls.”

  I cast a glance around, looking for her collection of dolls, sighting only a crew of rough-hewn creatures fashioned from mango pits sitting squatly on the chest of drawers. This, along with a tiny wardrobe and Darlene’s bed, completed the furnishings of the room.

  Darlene gathered her mango-pit dolls. “The Smithson family is coming to visit the Harrisons for tea!”

  Just as I was beginning to wonder why a girl of fourteen would still be interested in playing with a tea set and dolls—and mango pits, at that—Darlene’s game took an interesting turn.

  “The Smithsons are a family of famous anthropologists. They’ve spent years in Mexico, studying the Indigenous people, who the Smithsons have discovered are incredibly kind. They adore children. They carry their babies in slings on their backs—the mother or the aunt or sister, it doesn’t matter. Children are never left alone and as a result, they are never sad and almost never cry. Even the Smithson children have been involved in the family research. They know how to speak the native languages and they talk and play with the Indigenous children.

  “The Harrisons are art historians. They know the history of European Art backward and forward. Their children have little reproductions of the world’s most famous paintings all over their bedroom walls. At night, before they go to sleep, they recite the names of important painters, starting with Cranach and ending with Picasso.”

  Darlene’s cheeks were flushed with pleasure. For a moment, I thought she’d forgotten me, but then she turned and clasped my hand.

  “Come on, Camellia. You can help me figure out what they’re going to talk about over tea. Maybe the Smithsons will tell the Harrisons all about the art of the Mexicans: their pottery and beautiful embroidery. Or perhaps—”

  Darlene froze mid-sentence. While she was chattering away, she’d carefully placed the china pieces on the wooden table by her bed, except for one plate, which remained in its felt-lined partition. I was startled by the sudden change that came over her. The look in her eyes—terrified and fearsome, both.

  “What have we here?” I heard someone say. I turned to see a handsome fellow of sixteen or seventeen leaning against the door jamb.

  “Two little girls, playing with dolls and a tea set. Wouldn’t you say you’re a mite old for such babyish games?”

  It was impossible not to note the malice in the boy’s face.

  “Hey girls, want to see what dear old Mr. Krige gave your brother Harold, here?” He gave an oddly impersonal smirk.

  “A wonderful new bas
eball. All the way from America. Ever seen a baseball, girl? They’re hard. Really hard.”

  A flurry beside me told me that Darlene had sprung to action. She was trying to gather up the pieces of her tea set, having realized her brother’s intention. In her panic she fumbled, though in any case I imagine she would have failed. The boy was simply too quick. Besides, he had the advantage of a predator who has cornered its prey.

  The ball whooshed by my head. Darlene snatched her hand out of harm’s way at the very moment the ball smashed into the china. A delicate tinkling followed the crash, as shards flew from the table onto the ground. Not a single piece remained intact. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Darlene’s hand steal toward the felt-lined box on the ground and stealthily remove the single remaining plate. She was able to slip it under her skirt without her brother seeing.

  “St-r-iiike!” He called out.

  Harold crossed the room to retrieve the ball then walked back to the doorway. He stood for a moment, looking over at where his sister sat ramrod straight on the floor, then he disappeared.

  A moment later, Joel appeared at the door. He surveyed the mess, then looked sympathetically at Darlene.

  “Let me clean this up for you, Do-Do,” he said.

  Another tread approached. A heavy-set woman, whose dark brown hair was streaked with gray, appeared in the doorway.

  “And what may I ask is going on here?” she asked, in a surprisingly husky voice.

  She crossed the room and pulled Darlene up by the arm from where she knelt over the shattered fragments that minutes before had been her new tea set.

  “What a clumsy girl,” she said. “You don’t deserve nice things.”

  Only now did she seem to notice me.

  “You should be ashamed, in front of your friend. No supper for either of you. Clean this up, then straight to bed.”

  She let go of Darlene’s arm, which glowed pink from where her mother had gripped her. Darlene’s face had turned stony. She uttered not a word in her defense, but simply set about carefully picking up the shards from the floor.

  Darlene’s mother walked briskly from the room. For someone of her heft, she moved with surprising grace.

  Joel and I both knelt down to help Darlene clean up the broken pieces.

  “I’ll fetch the broom and dustpan,” Joel said. He disappeared and returned carrying the broom and pan. When we’d finished cleaning it all up, Darlene sat down on the bed; she was biting her lip, struggling to hold back tears. Joel again approached her but stopped a small distance away, as if deliberately positioning himself just out of arm’s reach. He stroked one of his own arms with the flat of his other hand, as if he meant to be stroking Darlene’s but was making do with his own. He uttered something in a loud whisper in a language I did not understand—Zulu, perhaps?—then repeated the phrase twice more.

  Darlene nodded, returning Joel’s intense gaze. He leaned down and whispered something to her, then left, carrying the broom and dustpan full of broken china pieces.

  Darlene rose. “I’m sorry about all of that,” she said, giving a weak smile. “Joel just reminded me that tonight is Mother’s bridge game. She lives for bridge. That’s a lucky thing, or I’d be more skin and bones than I am. Joel always sneaks me food when I’m punished. Usually, it’s just a piece of bread and a hard-boiled egg, something Joel can hide in his pocket. But on bridge nights, I can sit in the kitchen and eat a proper supper. She doesn’t leave until nine o’clock, though, so we have a few hours to wait. It’s a good thing Joel gave us our dinner early.”

  We opened our satchels, took out our books, and set about doing our homework. The work came easily; I had a strange knowledge of what I was doing, even though I had been in class only the one day.

  We labored through several columns of sums. Then, we filled three pages with text we had to copy from a geography book. There was an essay question, too, and it was only halfway through regurgitating the information recited earlier by the teacher about the Boer War that I realized I was writing in Afrikaans!

  I looked up from my work.

  “The Afrikaners hate the English, don’t they?”

  Darlene looked up from her notebook, wearing the same quizzical-patient expression of earlier.

  “Of course. The Afrikaners hate everybody except for themselves. And the Nazis, who in their view, have the right idea about things. Why do you ask?”

  “I guess I just wanted to be sure,” I said, fearing that in my ignorance of local realities, I’d given myself away.

  I wondered about this odd feeling I’d had now several times since finding myself on this journey. This fear of giving myself away. Was I afraid that Darlene would discover I was from another time and place? And what if she did? Or did I fear something else; that Darlene would discover I was not who I thought I was?

  I put down my pencil.

  “Darlene, why didn’t you tell your mother the truth? That we weren’t being careless. That Harold deliberately smashed your tea set.”

  “She’d never believe me.”

  “Why not?”

  Darlene also put down her pencil. Again, that patient look in her face.

  “Harold is my mother’s favorite. When my father was alive, they would fight about him. They each had different favorites; my father’s favorite was Barry. If my father hit Harold, my mother would hit Barry. My father would do the same—threaten to beat Harold if she struck Barry. In a way it was lucky for me, being no one’s favorite. Mostly, they just ignored me.

  “But if I ever say anything against Harold, she’d take notice. I’ve learned to keep as quiet as I can—and stay out of her way.”

  From the kitchen, we heard the sound of boisterous laughter: Harold and his mother, enjoying the supper from which we’d been banished. It was a couple of hours since we’d eaten Joel’s hearty meal, and as I’d eaten so little for days, my stomach was already rumbling again.

  Darlene looked down at her nail “weapon.”

  “Once, when Harold was hitting me, I tore a strip of skin from his cheek with this.”

  “Weren’t you afraid he’d tell your mother?”

  Darlene shook her head. “He’d never admit he’d been hurt by a girl, let alone by me.”

  We turned again to our work. Through the window, I could see the light fading. In the distance, small rain clouds gathered, further blotting out what remained of the day.

  After a time, Darlene put her notebook and pencils back in her satchel and I did the same.

  “She’ll be gone, by now,” she said. “My mother.”

  “And Harold?”

  “Oh, he’ll be in town with his friends. He never stays in after supper.”

  We made our way to the kitchen where Joel had set two places on the counter by the sink. We sat side by side on wooden stools and Joel placed before us each a boiled egg in a wooden eggcup, two thick slices of brown bread slathered with butter, and a bowl of steamed vegetables. After finishing the first egg, we each ate a second.

  When we’d polished everything off, Joel pointed to a plate on a shelf by the stove that was covered with a cloth napkin. “I saved you some cake,” he said.

  It was dark brown honey cake. It went wonderfully with the cup of milk Darlene poured for each of us from a jug.

  Darlene smiled warmly at Joel and said goodnight. I was struck by the way they communicated; it occurred to me now that there was never any physical contact between them. I recalled the way Joel had stroked his own arm after the tea set had been destroyed, as if comforting Darlene by proxy, and how he later caressed her with his eyes, as if enfolding her in a protective embrace.

  I also said goodnight and Darlene and I made our way to the bathroom where we washed our faces and hands in the cracked porcelain sink. She shook some white powder onto a toothbrush with raggedy, worn bristles and scrubbed at her teeth. There was another toothbrush by the sink; I assumed it was mine. I also sprinkled some of the powder on the brush. It tasted soapy and left an unpleasant, f
ilmy feel in my mouth.

  “Why don’t you ever hug Joel?”

  Darlene turned to me, her face hung with surprise.

  “You know perfectly well why,” she said.

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  Darlene’s eyes wavered and when she next spoke, her voice sounded odd and far away.

  “Because it’s against the law for a black man to touch a white girl. He would lose his job. Maybe even be sent to prison.”

  “Yes, of course. I know that,” I said, overcome with confusion.

  “Then why did you ask?”

  I paused, aware of a peculiar shiver traveling the length of my spine, and then, unable to come up with a suitable answer, simply said what I felt. “I don’t know.”

  Darlene nodded, something curiously knowing in her eyes, as if this was a satisfying answer—the answer, in fact, she’d been expecting.

  Back in her room, Darlene took something from the back of her top drawer and handed it to me—a solid little chunk wrapped in aluminum foil. I opened it to find six squares of milk chocolate.

  “I was saving this for a special moment. And now, here it is!” she said.

  I broke the joined pieces into two even sections and handed one to Darlene. I bit off one of the squares and let it melt on my tongue and Darlene did the same, folding the piece of foil and replacing it in her top drawer. She seemed to save everything.

  When we’d finished eating the chocolate, Darlene changed into a nightdress, offering me a simple cotton shift. She insisted on making up the cot that was to be my bed. She took great care with the sheet and blanket, smoothing them until they were tight as a drum, then gave me her one feather pillow, on top of which she placed a lace doily she’d crocheted herself. It was clear that Darlene owned very little: a single dress hung in the wooden armoire, alongside two carefully pressed blouses and an old blue cardigan, all of which looked like hand-me-downs. Her tiny chest of drawers seemed to hold equally few items.

  I slipped in between the sheets of the cot and lay down on my side. Darlene retrieved something from between her mattress and the wooden bed frame—an envelope. She kneeled down by the bed, closed her eyes, then put the envelope to her lips. She seemed to be muttering a prayer. When she had finished, she rose.