Anna In-Between (29 page)

“Nothing. Oh, nothing,” he says and looks away from her.

“You know what I said is true. They’ll all feel superior.
Poor Beatrice. Poor, poor Beatrice.”

“You can wear a hat, Beatrice. You look beautiful in a hat,” her father says.

“Or a wig,” Anna adds.

“That may be an American fashion, but here, if you haven’t noticed, Anna, it’s too hot to wear a wig. Rivers will run down my face.”

Anna flinches. “They make wigs now that it would be almost impossible to tell you are wearing one,” she says, making a valiant effort to sound encouraging.

“And where will I get such a wig on this island?” her mother asks.

Anna does not respond. Her father comes to her rescue. “Beatrice, hats suit you. You have the face for hats.”

“Well, I am not going,” she says. “And that is that.”

And that was that. They finish their tea with small talk. Afterward her mother retires to her room for a nap before dinner.

Later, Anna finds her father at the pond feeding his fish. He is humming. The tension that tightened the air earlier has evaporated. “
Figaro, Figaro,
” he sings. He’s listening to a Mozart CD,
Opera Highlights,
that she had bought for him a year ago. “
Figaro, Figaro.”

Anna fights a sudden impulse to cry. She has let him down. The musical gene the Sinclairs have carried for generations has withered and died in her; in spite of the years of piano lessons the seed did not take root. She approaches her father quietly. “Don’t you wish I knew how to play?” she asks him.

He is stooped down on the concrete border of the fishpond, balancing on his toes, scooping flotsam from the surface of the water with a green net attached to a long thin pole. “The piano? Play the piano?” He does not turn around.

Anna can tell by the lightness of his tone that he has not taken her question seriously. He continues to skim the net over the water.
“Figaro, Figaro,”
he sings.

“Mummy was disappointed,” she says. “Were you?”

He stops singing. “No, Anna, I was not disappointed.” He stands up, stretches his hand over the water, and with the net reaches for the twigs that are scattered on the far end on the pond.

She
was.” “

Still gathering the twigs, he says, “Your mother was not disappointed in you, Anna.”

“She’s disappointed I’m divorced.” Anna knows without asking that her mother has told her father this.

“Nonsense! Why do you say that?”

“You heard her?
Does he have a wife?”

“She meant nothing by that.”

“She’s not even met that … that Dr. Bishop, and already she’s lining him up as a potential husband.”

“Your mother wants you to be happy. She belongs to a generation that believes that married women are happier than unmarried women.”

“Do you believe that?”

He has gathered all the twigs and he pulls in the net. “I read somewhere,” he says, carefully picking out the twigs from between the loops in the net, “that married women live longer. I guess it’s because they have a companion.”

“I have friends,” she replies. “I have a fulfilling life. I love my work.”
Friends
is a lie, but her life
is
fulfilling. She loves her work.

“I know. I know. But your mother worries. I worry. You need a companion when you get old, someone to talk to, who loves you. I don’t know how I would have been able to bear old age if your mother were not with me.”

He, too.
“Who will look after you when you’re old like me?”
her mother said.

“We love you, but neither of us has many years left.”

“Your father lived into his nineties.”

“I may not be so lucky. And there is your mother. We didn’t count on this. The cancer.”

She does not fear death or growing old without a companion. But she fears death in a country where she has no roots. She fears dying there, growing old there, alone, without a companion. She has imagined returning. Which immigrant does not dream of returning to the place of her birth, to retire there, to settle down there after a lifetime of work? But if her mother dies and her father dies, who will be there on the island to receive her? Who will be there to attest, to prove that she once belonged, could belong again?

Mozart wafts between them. She does not like this talk of death. She reaches for safer ground. “Your parents and your sister were so talented.”

“I suppose.”

“I could tell Granny was disappointed that I didn’t play the piano like Aunt Alice.”

“You can’t live your parents’ dreams,” he says. “I couldn’t manage the violin. Your grandmother should have been more disappointed in me than in you, but she loved us both.”

“Yes, but I must have been a disappointment to you and Mummy.”

He looks up at her. “Anna, Anna,” he says. “Your mother and I could not have asked for a better daughter.”

She is ashamed of herself. She is far too old to be fishing for compliments and reassurances this way, but if she started this conversation without ulterior motive, she is conscious now of having one. Guilt has nagged her since Dr. Ramdoolal asked his question, posed rhetorically, with an assumption of her answer. Yet she has no plans to stay longer than the four weeks of her vacation.

“You are too kind,” she says to her father.

He is walking away from her toward the orange tree. “No kinder than your mother,” he replies as he places the net against the trunk of the orange tree.

It is not what she wants to hear. She wants justification, she wants exoneration for the decision she has not yet made, but is likely to make. She wants to assuage the guilt that is hounding her.

“I don’t know how you can stand it,” she says. “Mummy is so … so intransigent. Even when something is good for her, she’ll say no.”

Her father wipes his hands on the towel he hangs on one of the lower branches of the orange tree. It is an old towel, frayed at the ends and stained with clumps of dried fish food, or, rather, dog food. He has resisted her mother’s attempts to wash it, or to hang it out of sight at the back of the house. Her mother may be intransigent, but he can be stubborn too. He needs everything to be in one place, he has told her mother. The towel should be next to the net, which is next to the orange tree. He scrapes off the dried dog food and declares the towel perfectly clean.

“It’ll be good for her to go to the Bishops’ party,” Anna says. “No one would care if she has on a wig.”

Her father puts the towel back on the tree. “She’s afraid, Anna. That was fear speaking.”

“What about you? Weren’t you friends with Mr. Bishop?” She is standing close to him. “Why should
you
be stuck in the house? Why should she prevent
you
from going to the party?”

“She isn’t preventing me,” he says.

“If she won’t go, you won’t go.”

“That’s right,” he says. He bends down to pick up an orange. There are several that have fallen from the tree. He gives her the one in his hand and bends down to pick up the others. “Lydia can make orange juice with these for breakfast.”

“Why do you
always
agree with her?” She is aware that her voice has risen to a pitch close to a child’s whine.

“Your mother is not a fool, Anna. She knows what Dr. Ramdoolal is up to. The Bishops’ son from the States will be at the party.”

“But isn’t that the point? Isn’t that what you want? Mummy needs to have her surgery in the States. You know that.”

“It’s your mother’s life.” He has two oranges in one hand and two in the other. “I can knock down some more from the tree,” he says. “Would you want me to?”

“I don’t want to talk about oranges,” she responds tersely. “I want to talk about Mummy. Why won’t you face the fact that she can die if she does not have the surgery?”

“But she intends to have the surgery,” he says calmly.

“You know what I mean. I mean in the States.”

“Your mother has a right to make the decisions that affect her life.”

“But what if her decisions affect your life?”

“My decisions have affected her life,” he says. He begins to walk toward the kitchen.

“How can you be so … ?”

“Understanding? Because your mother and I understand each other. She is frightened now, but in the end she’ll make the right decision.”

“I doubt it,” Anna says.

“I know your mother.”

She wishes he is right. She is not unaware that her wish is motivated by selfish reasons, but she convinces herself that her reasons are not so selfish as to exclude consideration of her mother’s welfare. If her mother goes to the States she will get the surgery she needs, and Anna, on the other hand, will be able to continue her life uninterrupted. She will return to work. She will be able to meet her deadlines.

“You are too good, Daddy,” she says.

“Good?” He stops and squints at her.

“To Mummy. You’re a saint.”

He looks steadily into her eyes. “You know better than that, Anna. You, above anyone else. You should know I am not a saint.”

Two women pass by the house on their way to the bus stop, ten blocks away, at the main road. They are holding umbrellas open over their heads for shade from the stinging rays of the sun. Mortified by her father’s forthrightness, his unwillingness to let her get away with her juvenile, fairytale illusions of a perfect father, a faithful husband, Anna turns toward the two women.

Her father follows her eyes. “Come,” he says. “Let’s go for a walk.”

There is only an hour of daylight left in spite of the blinding light. Already the ibis are on their way from the continent, heading for the mangrove swamp on the island. Already their scarlet-feathered bodies are cutting a bloodied trail across the brilliant blue sky.

“Isn’t it too late?” she asks.

“We’ll be back before dark.”

“What about the dogs? I’m afraid of the dogs.”

At this hour, the dogs that roam the streets are restless, sniffing empty pails for remnants the garbage men have left behind. For the strays, this is their last chance for a meal. They must find some hovel, some corner, perhaps under a tree, where they can spend the night. Most of the dogs have metal tags around their necks. In the day, their owners let them out and they patrol the streets, trotting back and forth, up and down, the nails on their paws clicking against the hard asphalt, their dog tags tinkling merrily. But let no one be fooled by this playful jingle of dog tags. These are vicious animals, ready to pounce on anyone who gets too close to their masters’ gates.

Anna resists the temptation to say to her father that in the States the owners of these dogs would be fined, if not imprisoned. She was almost bitten once. The dog’s jaws were clamped around her leg, its saliva dribbling down her shin bone. It was about to sink in its teeth when, from a nearby house, its owner shouted its name. There were apologies, but no apparent remorse. The owner pleaded for compassion. “They’re closed up all night in a little space in the yard. Is hard to begrudge them a little freedom.”

Locals on the island are not like the English who live there. They do not allow their dogs to sleep in their beds; they do not kiss their dogs on the mouth, but their affection for them runs no less deep.

“I have a stick for the dogs.” So says her father, the hunter, the man who used to love nothing more than to spend his weekends in the forest with a pack of yapping dogs. “I don’t have to touch them. I raise my stick and they back away.”

“And Mummy?” Her mother will not remain in the house alone. The electric gate, the bolts on her door, are not enough to make her feel safe from the drug lords and their minions.

“I’ll ask Lydia to stay with her until we come back,” her father says. “Lydia won’t mind.”

There are no dogs on their street, but as soon as they turn the corner, Anna sees four, one on one side of the street, three on the other. None of them look particularly vicious, but her memory of the time she was attacked causes her to stiffen.

“Don’t show fear,” her father warns. “They smell fear. They’ll attack you if you let them know you’re afraid. You have to show them you’re the stronger one. It’s the law of the jungle.”

There is no pavement along the sides of the streets. The sidewalks, if they can be called that, are extensions of the gardens and manicured lawns behind the iron gates that enclose the houses. They are dotted with clumps of flowering trees and graceful palms that make walking on them almost an act of defacement, but difficult as well. One has to make one’s way around flower-beds and plants and the occasional bundle of branches that need to be cut down frequently from fast-growing trees in backyards. The neighborhood is stylish, yet the streets are narrow and covered with potholes. Open gutters are strewn with refuse.

Does America do this better, insisting on the improvement of communal spaces? America has a reputation for capitalistic greed, for selfishness. Here, the locals pride themselves on the neighborly concern they have for each other. Yet in this stylish neighborhood, the contrast is stark: well-tended lawns on one side of the iron gates where the prosperous live, deteriorating asphalt and garbage on the other side where the workers must travel.

She is critical of the people on the island who allow their dogs to roam the streets unleashed. The narrow roads, the potholes, the garbage raise her ire, and yet her mother has not once expressed outrage, or if she is outraged she has chosen to hold her tongue.

Is this what she needs to learn: tolerance for those who do not share her views?
Go with the flow
. It is a slogan she has seen on billboards on the island. Should she go with the flow and say nothing to her father about the importance of leashing dogs, clearing sidewalks, and repairing roads? Has America so seeped into her bones that she cannot go with the flow without great effort?

Her father motions her to walk on the road. The sidewalk can be treacherous, he says. The dogs eye them. They trot forward but keep their distance. When Anna and her father slow down, the dogs move ahead, but a few yards further they stop, turn, cock their heads to one side, and wait for them.

“Why don’t they just go away?” Anna asks.