Beyond Summer (14 page)

I love the little children. I birthed four babies of my own, and my arms yearn for them at night when my dreaming mind drifts into the past. They were
his
children, but he took each away when they were small.
This is America. Here, children belong to their fathers
, he said.
You wouldn’t want them working in the cane fields anyway, would you, Sesay? I can give them a good life.
Then he drove away through the sugarcane, and I knew I must not follow. If you go past the end of the fields, his men will call the police, and the police will take you away and put you on a boat.
Here in this country
, they tell the laborers,
you can’t just go wherever you want. You have to do your work, because you owe for your food and the bed you sleep in. What? Do you think all of this is free?

Sometimes, when
he
came, I saw little faces in his car. They had gray eyes. Mulatto eyes. His eyes. I watched them, an ache blooming in my arms and my breast. I gave names to them, but they never knew those names. This is why I want to be near the children now. I yearn for my own, even though years have gone by and they are grown by now.

The little boy in the yellow house gave a toy animal to me when I handed my book to him. We traded. Now my book is his, and I have a white rabbit in my pack. I will carve a similar one and bring it to him when I come to his window again, but just now, I should go. The angry woman screams at the man across the street, and the sound beats a hammer in my chest. I worry that someone will call the police.

I walk on to the Summer Kitchen. On the way, I try to think of a story to go along with the toy rabbit. A rabbit story. I’m certain I must have one. I have traded stories with many people as I’ve wandered. I trade stories at the Broadberry Mission, as well. Now there are so many people at the mission—not only men and old women, like me, but also families. Some of them have come from yellow houses, such as the one in which Root and Berry live. Now the families live at the mission.

I watch the mothers at the mission reading books to their children. They will let you listen to their stories, if you do not touch the children. One of them told the story of a boy rabbit, a little one. He is a bad little fellow, this rabbit, and he turns against his mother’s wishes, and sneaks into the field of the
patrón
. The man, McGregor, chases him with a pitchfork, and as he runs away, he loses his new mitten. Peter. The rabbit’s name is Peter Rabbit. I have decided that he is sneaking into the field after sugarcane. I am not certain whether he is a cottontail or one of the short-eared muck rabbits that live in the cane fields, because I could not see the pictures when the mother was reading the story. You must keep a distance from the families at the mission.

I think Peter is a muck rabbit, because he is a crafty fellow, but when I tell his story, I will show the toy rabbit in my pack.

I pull out the little rabbit and rub it close to my face. It is soft, like the pelts that hung by the dozens on the sides of the workers’ quarters when the cane fields were burned in the winter, and the rabbits ran. There was food for the taking, then, but the sound was terrible, and the air thick with smoke and blood and screams.

This little white rabbit does not smell like smoke. He smells like a child—like soap and soft powder. I am glad that I gave the book in exchange for him. I can trade a story for another book at the Book Basket, but the rabbit is something to keep. MJ will ask what happened to the last book, but I won’t tell her. If I told her, she would say,
Sesay, you mustn’t be hanging around people’s windows.

The line is still forming when I reach the Summer Kitchen. Some people are eating on the porch already, and the children dash around, and bounce basketballs, and run on the lawn playing soccer while their parents wait for the lunches. Some days, the line stretches off the porch, down the sidewalk, and around the corner. Mostly, the men from the mission do not come down here. It is farther than they prefer to walk. But the families come. They need a way to pass the afternoon, now that the children are away from school. At the Summer Kitchen, they eat and the children hear a story, and then play until the kitchen closes in the afternoon, and finally Pastor Al locks the doors, and Teddy tucks the toys and balls into the shed.

I do not like to come when the line is still growing. It’s too many people so close together. You would not want someone to look at you too carefully. They might know you have run away from the cane fields.
There’s no place you can hide where the
patrón
won’t find you
, the men tell you in the cane fields.
There’s no point running away.

But so far, I have done well. I have been wise. I never stay long in one place. He has not found me in these many years. I have come far from the cane farm, and I hope it is distance enough, but still I must be careful. I must be watchful, so that the police cannot put me on a boat, where I will end up in the ocean, my body sinking slowly beneath the surface, like Auntie’s.

In the Summer Kitchen, no one can come and go without being noticed. I know this much already. The young girl with the long blond hair—her name is Cass—waves at me and smiles, and says, “Hi, Sesay! You’re early today. Are you going to help with the storytelling in a while? MJ said you might.” This girl likes stories. I think she will be a storyteller one day. She stops cleaning the tables and comes to listen when MJ sits and tells stories to the children.

“I have a story today,” I tell her, and her lips spread into a wide smile that puts lights in her eyes. She is beautiful, this one. She moves as if the world is laid out before her like a banquet. She goes around the kitchen with fast, sure steps that bounce her hair like a shimmering ribbon. I try to remember who I was when I was at her number of years—twelve, she has told me she is. I was living in
his
house then, caring for the little girl in the wheelchair. The girl was my friend, and I was a companion to her, and this was the work I did for
him
, to pay for my bed and my food. The girl and I dreamed of adventures we would enjoy someday. We saw pictures in books, and made plans, and there was a light in me. Then the girl sickened and died, and
he
put me in the car and drove me to the sugarcane fields to cook for the cane cutters. It was all that was left for me to do to pay my way, as the girl did not need me any longer.
If you don’t pay your way, the police will put you back on the boat
, he told me.

I can hear him in my mind yet. I can feel that day, if I let myself, as if it is yesterday.

Deep in the cane fields, all the light died. It died in his silent, dark room with the large metal desk, where he told me to write my name on the paper, so I would not have to go away on the boat. The sun left the one small window, and he took away the last of the light in me; then he walked me outside to Olani, and told her to give me easy work in the kitchen, as I was good to his daughter.

Olani was not bad to me. She was just indifferent. She told me I thought too much of myself. I was no one special anymore. She told me that before he lay with me, he lay with her, and when I grew old, he would leave me alone. She laughed and said by then I’d better make sure I knew how to cook.

I push that day away like a bad smell creeping up my nose. Here in this kitchen, the Summer Kitchen, they call out my name when I come to the counter. The woman who oversees the cooking here, Mrs. Kaye, greets me and smiles, even though she looks tired, her hair hanging in wet, red strings around her face. They have been at work for hours now, preparing lunch and then serving it. “We have some spaghetti left, or beef noodles,” she tells me. “Which would you like, Sesay?”

I think for a moment. It feels strange, having choices. I lean over the counter and look into the pans. “This one,” I say, because I am not certain which is which. “Thank you most kindly.” This is what would have been said in the house with the girl in the wheelchair.
Thank you most kindly.
I know this is the proper way, because in the house, as in my father’s big house when I was young, everything was very proper.

“You’re very welcome,” Mrs. Kaye says, and while she scrapes the contents of the pan onto my plate, she adds, “I have a batch of dish towels going into the wash. If you’re staying around for cleanup, I could launder something for you while you’re here.”

“I would very much like to wash these,” I say, and look down at my shirt and green pants. I have not stayed at the mission for days, and my clothes are soiled. They smell very bad, I think.

“Go on back,” she tells me, and nods toward the hallway behind the counter. “I’ll keep your plate for you.”

“Thank you most kindly,” I say, and then carry my pack around the counter and down the hall to the bathroom. A woman with a young child has just finished in there. Their hair is wet, and I know their clothes will be in the washer, as well. It will not be full of dish towels. It will largely be filled with clothes. Later, I will help Mrs. Kaye hang them on the line outside, where their owners can find them.

“Shut the lid and turn on the machine when you’re done,” Mrs. Kaye calls to me, and I tell her I will.

I wash and change, and then stand in front of the sink. There is no mirror—only a frame with words in it. I have no way of knowing what it says. Someone has painted a flower next to the words, a rose. I think the words must be about roses.

When I come back to the kitchen, I’ve changed into a long red dress I traded for at the mission store. The dress is loose and comfortable, like the ones my auntie wore when I was young. At the counter, the food line is still moving, but the used dishes have become piled, and Mrs. Kaye is trying to wash them while Cass and the other women serve the food. I step behind the sink, even though Mrs. Kaye tells me to sit down and eat. She has saved my plate for me.

“I will,” I say. “Later.” We move through the dishes. I scrub and she dries them. She admires how quickly I can do this. I am
way ahead of her
, she says. I tell her, in my lifetime I have washed enough dishes to fill this room. She laughs as if she does not believe this is so.

“We’re starting another evening reading class here,” she tells me.

I hear the children gathering on the porch. MJ has come over from the Book Basket. “I have a story to tell today,” I say.

Mrs. Kaye whisks a hand at me, as if I am a fly. “Go ahead. I’ll tuck your plate in the warmer and finish these dishes. We’re caught up now, anyway.”

I take the rabbit from my pack and hurry to the door. My reflection walks toward me in the glass. For a moment, I can only stop and look at it. That isn’t me. That is an old woman.

I remind her not to smile when she tells the story of the rabbit, Peter. An old woman like that does not have beautiful teeth. She should not smile.

I don’t feel like an old woman.

I open the door, and the children cry out for a story, and I know I am smiling. “I have a story,” I say, and they want to know what it is about. I hold up the little rabbit. “This is the story of Peter, the rabbit, who lived with his mother deep in the cattails alongside the sugarcane field. . . .”

The moving scene across the street was about to come to an explosive conclusion, I could tell. The woman had already gotten in her car and taken off once. Now she was back, and she and the guy were arguing some more. I couldn’t help myself—I put down my paint roller again and went to the boys’ bedroom, where there was a better view. Benji and Ty crawled up onto the window seat with me, to watch.

That woman was seriously out of place in the neighborhood—super-high-heeled shoes, a chest rounder than anybody gets naturally, tanning-bed skin. She was dressed in a tight T-shirt and shorts—the matching kind that come from a high-dollar department store.

The man wasn’t arguing with her, really, just standing there letting her bombard him with words. Finally, he held her by both shoulders, said something to her, and turned her toward the car. Behind the tinted windows I saw the head of someone not very tall, with curly hair. There was at least one kid in there. . . .

Slipping her fingers under her sunglasses, the woman wiped her cheeks, then walked around to the back of the car, her spike heels wobbling. The man followed her, then waited while she opened the back hatch. He staggered backward a step, looking surprised when she shoved a pet carrier into his hands and slammed the hatch.

Apparently, he was getting the cat. Inside the carrier it hissed and snarled, the sound echoing through the neighborhood so that it felt like we were extras in a cross between
Desperate Housewives
and
Nightmare on Elm Street
.

Stalking back to the driver’s door, the blonde swiveled in our direction, and I jerked away from the window, taking the boys with me.

The mouse book toppled to the floor, and Ty picked it up and looked at it like he’d never seen it before. “We ga a book!” he cheered, holding it up.

Benji took a step closer. “It’s mine.”

Ty’s face instantly pruned up. “I want da book.”

I took the book away and set it behind me, trying to stop a fight before it could start up. Benji and Ty could pick a fight over anything. “All right, you two. We’ve got a whole shelf full of books and they’re everybody’s to share. They’re not Benji’s and they’re not Ty’s, okay?”

Benji stomped a foot, leaning toward the book. “It’s mine. The green-pants lady brung it. She gave it to
me
.”

I caught a breath, let it out, thinking,
Patience, patience
. Squatting down, I took Benji’s hands in mine. “Benjamin, I want you to listen to me. I want both of you to listen, all right?” I waited for them to nod and look straight at me. “I don’t want to hear
any
more stuff about the green-pants lady, all right? Not
one
more
thing
. Period. I don’t want you making up or telling any more stories about her, you understand? Making stuff up and acting like it’s true is the same as lying. When you do that, Daddy and I don’t know what to believe. If you ever do see, like, a real person around here,
not
make-believe like the green-pants lady, then you need to holler for us right away. You don’t talk to anybody, and if they’ve got something for you, you don’t take it. We don’t take anything from strangers without asking Mommy first, all right?”