Was it out of some misguided sense of moral superiority that she was silent about Morrison’s racial identity? Did she hope to prove the unfairness of her mother’s unquestioned acceptance of the negative images of African Americans beamed on international TV? But what about
her
acceptance? She has not told her mother about Equiano. She has not told her that the writers on her list at Equiano are writers of color. Is it embarrassment that makes her dissemble by omission so that her mother continues to believe she is a senior editor at Windsor?
Racism is a poison so insidious it finds its way through the tiniest slit in the soul and does its damage there even before one is aware. How to explain the black men, the political and cultural gurus, the intellectuals, who all but very few brought white women, their wives or mistresses, to the first congress of the newly independent nations celebrating the end of European colonization?
It should not matter. It should not matter. But for the black women who came to that first congress it mattered. Love is in the heart, they knew, but love is also in the will. One chooses with the heart; one acts with the will.
Her mother, at least, does not dissimulate; she is honest; she is forthright. She does not mince her words. She says she would rather risk surgery on her island, in a hospital that lacks sufficient equipment, than have it in America where there are doctors and equipment for Americans, doctors and equipment for African Americans.
“You’ll learn,” Tony said. “Stick to your kind. Stick to your own race. You’ll find you’ll be happier in America.”
Your own race
. Anna believes there is only one race, the human race.
Tony, of course, meant black people, and she is forced to admit that there is something of the truth in what he said, something of the truth in the ease of bonding with her own kind, with people from the Caribbean islands.
Her mother heard the lie in her answer
. Of course
. Of course she has friends in America. But the reality is that Paula is her only true friend. She has social acquaintances, people she meets at parties, at office functions, and there are the odd coworkers, but with none of them does she spend Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. Only with Paula does she celebrate those special holidays. Their friendship is founded on their common roots. They belong to two-season landscapes where the rain falls incessantly for months on end, where dense green jungles sprout out of ordinary backyards and thick vines strangle the leaves of high-reaching trees. They belong to islands that gave birth to the myths of the soucouyant, douennes, La Diablesse—a place where a people stripped of their musical instruments invented new music from discarded oil drums. The names of their fruit tell their tales of displacement and colonial conquests: pomme cythere, pommerac, mammy sepote, grugru boeuf, tamarind, mango, doungs, chennette, guava. Mixed-up names: none the pure languages of the European colonizers, neither English, French, nor Spanish, none pure African, Indian, or Amerindian either.
Her mother’s best friend is her husband. Her mother is her husband’s best friend. Anna thinks it is their common roots that nourish them, people, places, events they can recall together, that temper resentment, that warn them instinctively of the dangers of transgressing boundaries.
Her father waits for her mother’s approval to acknowledge the blood on the vest she wears to bed.
Her mother rips out her beloved orchid bed to build a fishpond she hopes will ease the grief consuming her husband’s heart.
Roots allow her parents the generosity to forgive. Roots allow her mother to forgive an offense Anna had thought unforgivable: her father’s betrayal that siphoned color from her mother’s lips and planed the soft curves on her breasts and hips.
Anna had come home from New York for her annual visit, timed this year for her mother’s birthday. She brought with her a diamond-studded bracelet her father had asked her to purchase, a gift for his wife. She’d had to quarrel with the jeweler to make him understand that the circumference of her mother’s wrist was less than six inches. He had been in the jewelry business for more years than she had been on earth, the jeweler told her. He knew the circumference of a grown woman’s wrist. But her mother’s wrists were unusually tiny, and so Anna could be forgiven if at the airport, when her parents came to meet her, what she noticed first about her mother was that the measurement she had given the jeweler was accurate. And then, little by little, her eyes took in the rest: the scaffolding exposed on her mother’s face, cheekbones so pronounced they hollowed her eyes, her dress clinging to the frame of a scarecrow.
“A new diet,” her mother murmured. Anna did not believe her.
Inside the house her mother extended her arm for her husband to put on his gift to her. Anna saw the thick corded veins that snaked under her mother’s skin. They veered in every direction, sluggish tributaries of a dry-season river.
“It’s beautiful,” her mother said, but there was no light in her eyes, no happiness in her voice.
“Let’s see,” he said.
She raised her arm and the bracelet slid down, almost halfway on her forearm. She lowered her arm and the bracelet fell off. The thud of diamonds and metal against the hardwood floor echoed with accusation. In the empty space where the sound dissolved, her mother stood frozen, her hand a fist in her mouth.
Her husband reached for her elbow. “Beatrice, come now.”
Her mother flinched, the bones on her shoulders grazing her earlobes.
“Beatrice, don’t.”
She pushed him away. Her sobs rattled through her throat, a staccato not unlike the coughing of a consumptive, as she ran to her room.
Later that night, her mother quiet now, still in her room behind closed doors, her father explained. He had met a woman. He had fallen in love.
I
n the morning her mother is her old self again. Her skin glows, her eyes are bright. She has come to breakfast in her favorite chocolate brown linen pants which she has paired with a cream-colored linen tunic, one with a Mandarin neckline that she has fastened at her throat. The sleeves on the tunic cover her arms. Nothing is exposed that will give the lie to the picture she presents of perfect health. There are no hints that under the front of the tunic a tumor grows.
Lydia is beaming when she greets her. “Miss Sinclair, you look so pretty. You look like a million dollars.”
Her mother purses her lips. Lydia has crossed a boundary, one that separates employer from employee. The domestiCHelper in her employers’ house must learn to be circumspect; even compliments can be considered an invasion of their privacy.
Anna is quick to intervene. “Lydia wanted to bring your breakfast to your room, Mummy.”
“Well, you can see there is no need for Lydia to do that,” her mother says stiffly.
“She made something special for you.”
“Something special, Lydia?” Her mother arches her eyebrows.
“I make fry bake and buljoil,” Lydia says.
“Fried bakes and buljoil?” This is her mother’s favorite breakfast meal. Her lips relax. “Thank you, Lydia,” she says.
Lydia grins. “Is a little ting.”
John Sinclair is standing behind his wife. He does not approve. “Won’t buljoil and bakes be too heavy for your stomach, Beatrice?”
Her mother takes the seat he pulls out for her. “Dr. Ramdoolal said that if I feel well, I should eat what I want. And I feel well.” She opens her napkin.
“But so soon?”
With the deftness acquired through years of learning which matters are or are not serious enough for her husband to be willing to compromise, she diverts his attention. “Can’t you find something better to wear, John?” she says, her eyes traveling across his clothes.
Her father is wearing the same clothes he changed into when they returned from Dr. Ramdoolal’s office. They are the clothes he wears when he works outside in the backyard. He wipes his hands on the legs of these shorts; yesterday’s sweat clings to the armpits of his knit shirt. “I’m not going out,” he says.
“Still.” Her mother clicks her tongue.
“I’ll change if I need to go out.”
Her mother shakes her head in frustration, but she has won. She will have her buljoil and bakes. Yet her father gets his way too. He sits back in his chair and loosens the belt at his waist.
“Must you always do that, John?” Her mother glares at him.
He pats his stomach. “For a breakfast of fried bakes and buljoil, yes.”
Anna laughs and her laugh infects her mother. In spite of her best efforts, the muscles on the sides of her mother’s mouth begin to twitch. The smile rises to her eyes. “Your father.” She throws up her hands in mock exasperation. “What can I do?”
All is well, Anna thinks, relieved. The tumor can lie there insidious, waiting, but it is hidden; it is out of sight. For now, they will have breakfast. Fried bakes and buljoil. For now, all is normal. There are three long weeks before the next chemo session. For now, they can pretend.
Lydia brings the warm bakes in a basket and presents the buljoil on a silver-plated tray. The marinated saltfish is mixed with an appetizing medley of colors: translucent pieces of raw onion, chopped red tomatoes, yellow and red sweet peppers, and sprinkles of fresh green chives and parsley.
Anna’s stomach has grown unaccustomed to this rich fare at breakfast. In New York, she has bagels and cream cheese, sometimes cereal and bananas for breakfast, nothing more complex. For the last two days she has managed to pick her way through sardines and herring, but the saltfish is too much. She will not be able to keep it down. Raw onions irritate her stomach. She reaches for the bakes. She will have one, with butter and cheese, but not the buljoil.
“Pass the buljoil to Anna, John,” her mother says. “I’m sure Anna’s not had buljoil in New York.”
Anna crosses her hands. “Not for me,” she says quickly.
“Not for you?” Her mother narrows her eyes.
“Too rich,” Anna says.
“Too rich?”
“So early in the morning.”
“Lydia went through a lot of trouble,” her mother says. She takes the platter from her husband’s hands.
“Lydia made the buljoil for you, Mummy.” Her mother wants to trap her with guilt, but she will not let her.
“And because she thought you’d appreciate it too.” Her mother passes the platter to her.
“I do, I do.” Anna looks over to the kitchen and catches Lydia’s eyes. “I do, Lydia.” Lydia smiles.
“The least you could do is eat it,” her mother says.
“I can’t. Really, I can’t.”
Her mother puts down the platter
“But the bakes. I love the bakes,” Anna says, slicing one of them in two.
Her mother spoons some buljoil on her plate and turns to her husband. “Did you notice, John, how she picks at everything? She doesn’t like our food. Did you hear her last Sunday? She doesn’t like callaloo. It’s practically our national dish and she won’t eat callaloo.”
“I’d just prefer cheese this morning, that’s all,” Anna says.
“She means cream cheese, John.”
“I can have the cheddar.”
Her mother ignores her. “Do you know what cream cheese is, John? It’s not real cheese. Not in my opinion.”
Her father concentrates on the buljoil on his plate. He piles a sliver of saltfish with bits of tomato and onion delicately on the back of his fork.
“She’s become American, John,” her mother presses on. “She eats only American food.”
Her father chews slowly. He does not say a word.
“I suppose saltfish is beneath her, now she lives in big New York.”
Anna has had enough. “Don’t speak about me in the third person, Mummy. I’m here. Speak to me.”
Her mother faces her. “Then how is it that buljoil is too rich for you? You used to eat it when you lived here. You loved it.”
“Raw onions make me sick,” Anna says.
“That’s it? Raw onions make you sick?”
“I can’t eat it so early in the morning.”
“You used to. John, didn’t she used to?” Her mother challenges her father to take her side. He puts down his knife and fork. “Yes, Beatrice,” he says indulgently. “She used to. But if she doesn’t want to eat it now, you shouldn’t force her.”
Her mother stretches her hand across the table and pushes the dish of buljoil away from Anna. “I suppose Americans don’t eat raw onions for breakfast,” she mutters under her breath. “I suppose that’s it.”
A numbing pain shoots through the base of Anna’s head, the muscles tightening into a ball. She cradles her neck in the palm of her hand. Her father glances at her sympathetically. “Beatrice, Beatrice,” he pleads. “Let it go.”
Her mother retreats. They finish their meal making small talk about the weather and the recent rash of robberies in the neighborhood.
After breakfast her mother goes to her garden. Singh is already there, pulling up weeds among the flowers. Through the open window in her bedroom Anna can hear them talking.
Singh says: “If bossman buy two clay pots, I put de two orchid plants de wife send for you in dem and I hang dem under de orange tree. It go be like you have orchids growing on your orange tree.”
Her mother tells him that her husband’s name is Mr. Sinclair, not bossman. He should call him Mr. Sinclair.
Singh pretends he has not heard her. “If bossman too busy, I get de clay pots for you,” he says.
“Mr. Sinclair,” her mother repeats. “His name is not bossman.”
“I does call him dat from when I did start to work for you. I call him bossman. I call you madam. I doe change.”
Her mother makes grunting sounds. Then she says, “Will you have the time to do that? To get the clay pots?”
“Anything for bossman,” Singh says.
“How much do I owe you?”
“For what?”
“For the orchids you brought.”
“Is a present from de wife and me,” Singh says.
All is quiet outside. Anna waits for her mother’s response. Seconds pass. A shift has occurred in their relationship. Singh is not the hired hand; he wants no money for the thing he has done; it is a gift he offers, from one human being to another.
Anna moves closer to the window. Her mother’s voice is soft but clear. “They are beautiful. You are so kind to me, Singh. So kind, you and your wife.”