The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir (3 page)

“What you mean, you finish? Me not done yet! Just wipe off you bottom and get back on the mat, man!”

“But, Delano, me don’t want to play anymore.” I don’t know why I am arguing with him. I know I will eventually have to do what he wants.

“If you play one more time, we can finish after that. One more time, Stacey, then after that you can do anything you want!”

It feels good to just lie down on the cool floor. Through the slats of the railing, I see strips of the blue sky. Then Miss Sylvie is coming in her big, broad flower hat. In the bright hot sunlight her white dress makes her look like a duppy floating upside down toward me. But I know it is not a duppy. It is only Miss Sylvie going to church. She goes on Saturdays because she’s a Seventh-Day Adventist.

She holds down her hat with one hand and waves to us with the other. “Good mornin, children! Good mornin!”

I don’t want to play Superman anymore. I want to stay right where I
am and watch Miss Sylvie as she calls out a greeting to Marse George, who is approaching from the other direction. He waves back with his gleaming wet machete. Miss Sylvie gets smaller and smaller as she walks farther and farther away. Marse George is getting bigger and bigger. Grandma says that men who work the ground from sunup till sundown have all of God’s good blessing on them. Marse George might have God’s blessing, but he does not have one tooth in his head. When you look inside his mouth all you see is his tongue and the little ball hanging down from the back of his throat. I think I would rather have all my teeth than all God’s blessing. At least with teeth I can eat sugarcane.

Marse George spends his days planting fields and fields of white yam. He also has two big fat cows that give fresh milk. Every day he brings a bottle of milk and gives it to Grandma for free. He raises the empty quart bottle in greeting. “Howdy! Howdy, tell Miss Bernice I say howdy! Tell her I will pass back with a fresh bottle when me done milk them cows!”

Because Grandma can’t hear what he is saying from so far away, Delano tells her what is said. She listens and then smiles and waves back. “All right! All right, sah! Me will be right inside here, just make one of them come inside and call me!”

I stick my arms through the openings in the railing and shout, “Mornin, Marse George! Mornin, Marse George!”

“Mornin, little miss! Good mornin to you too!”

Marse George waves at Miss Cherry, who passes every morning to fetch water from the public standing pipe. Beads of sweat glisten on her large nose as she straightens her dress, wipes her face, and adjusts the waistband of her skirt. Not once does she reach up to steady the five-gallon kerosene pan full of water on her head. I marvel that the pan does not fall with all that movement.

“Morning, children! Make me come inside the yard so you Granny can see to hear what me saying.”

Miss Cherry lowers her face to Grandma’s. “Lord, Miss Bernice! You two granny them look especially white and pretty this morning. Keep them outta the sun, you don’t want fi spoil up them skin—especially the little girl!”

“Thank you, Miss Cherry! How is Marse Jeb this week?”

“Lawks, Miss Bernice, him so-so. But God won’t give we more than we can bear. We just have to praise his name and hope for the best.”

“You talk truth deh, Miss Cherry! You just keep on bathing him in that fever grass, and put him before the Lord in prayer, and leave him there!”

“Yes, Miss Bernice, but you must call them in from off the veranda. That little girl going to turn black in the hot, hot sun!”

“Thank you, Miss Cherry. But the room is too small fi keep them coop-up inside. The sun not doing them anything, and everything that happen is the Lord’s will.”

“But remember, Miss Bernice, God help those who help themself. The color them have is only because them mother have sense. Hazel have enough sense to make sure to give them fathers with clean white skin. You have to take care of them until she ready to come and take them to America. Is Canada or America she gone?”

“Is Canada, ma’am, but—”

“I am sure that things is just like them is in Jamaica. A clean complexion will take them very far in them life—much farther than them other tar-black pickney them who born here and going to dead right in Lottery.”

“Well, only God know what in store fi these two children, Miss Cherry, only the Father know.”

“True words, Miss Bernice, true words! But I will tell Jeb you ask after him! See you fi church tomorrow, God willing.”

As Miss Cherry disappears around the bend, I touch Grandma’s arm. “Grandma, why Miss Cherry don’t want we fi get black?”

“Stacey”—there is a sharp note in her voice—“Stacey, is not everything good fi eat good fi talk.”

“But, Grandma—”

“Stacey, stop asking me that foolishness and keep yourself outta big people business!”

“But, Grandma, me was sitting right here when she was talking ’bout we! I wasn’t listening to anything that is not my business!”

“Stacey, put your bottom on that cloth before I make your backside red with something else! You believe you hire any washerwoman to rub any red polish out of them clothes?”

I know that Delano will tell me, so I adjust my bottom and whisper to him with my mouth turned away from Grandma. “Delano, is true say we white?”

“Well, Stacey, we are not white like real white people. But we father is Chiney, so we not Black. You understand?” I nod and he continues. “But you know that I am more whiter than you, right?”

“How come?”

“Because my hair is straight and yours is rough and tough like Grandma.”

“My hair lie down just as flat like yours when Grandma put castor oil and water in it!”

“Stacey, listen to me, you not as white as me—feel my hair, it don’t need no castor oil, just a little water make it lie down flat.”

“Delano, the two of we look just the same. The two of we is Chiney Royal—that mean say the two of we is white.”

“Yes, the two of we is Chiney Royal, but my hair is nicer and me skin is whiter, so me more Chiney Royal than you.”

I am tired of Delano acting like he is better than me. So what if he has nicer hair or whiter skin? It does not mean anything. And when I look at him I don’t think we look that much different from one another. Delano picks up the foot-wipe and flaps it loudly in the air. He lays it flat onto the floor again.

“But, Stacey, you still better off than them other Black children. You can feel good about that. Now, come sit down and let me pull you.”

I cross my arms and smugly ask the first question. “Delano, if you whiter than me, that mean that me is blacker than you, right?”

“Yes, Stacey, that is true.”

“And our mother is Black, right?”

“Is what kind of stupid question you asking me? Everybody know that our mother is Black!”

“Okay, that must mean say me must look more like Mummy than you, right?”

Delano does not answer. He roughly pushes me onto the cloth and tells me to hold on before I fall and break my stupid Black neck.

“You ready to fly again?”

I begin to cry.

“Come, man, Stacey. Don’t bother with that.”

He roughly grabs both my hands and raises them above my head. “Who am I?”

I sniffle and whine. “Superman.”

“And who are you?”

I know all the answers. “Superwoman.”

“So what that mean, Stacey? Come, man, tell me what it mean.” Delano is now pumping my arms up and down and shouting, “Come, nuh, say what that mean, Stacey. Tell me, tell me what that mean.”

“It mean—it mean we must—we can’t—that—that—”

“Stacey, it mean that no matter what happen, you cannot cry. People with superpowers don’t need to cry. No matter how many times you drop off the thing, even if you hit your head, you just have to get right back up and fly again.”

I button my lips and wipe my face. Delano relaxes when he sees that I am not crying anymore. He gently pats my hair and fixes my twisted dress. Then he straightens the foot-wipe. “All right, Stacey, you ready to fly?”

I wipe my face and shout back, “Ready! Yes, me ready!”

Before long, the lines on the wooden floor are sailing by. The world is spinning again and I am immersed in the sound of our squealing delight.

G
randma says that next to praising God, learning your book is the most important thing in the world. If you believe in the Lord and get a good education, all of God’s blessings will come easy to you. I want to ask about Job, whom God used to make a bet with the Devil and caused him to lose everything, but Delano already told me that parables don’t really happen anymore. In modern times people have to work and go to school and make their own way in life.

Every evening after school we sit on the back steps and do homework while Grandma cooks dinner in the backyard. Her hands are quick as she pushes the wood and balances the shiny pot on top of three large stones. This evening she is making brown-stewed chicken. As she adds salt and pepper I read my new vocabulary words to her. If I stumble on a word, she makes me read it again. Delano works quietly beside me.

“Grandma, how come Delano don’t have to read out him homework to you?”

“Delano is almost six years old. Him big enough to know when him own homework is right! You is not even four yet—now read, before I really have to answer you!”

Delano makes a funny face and dashes out into the yard to chase stray chickens and stone ripe mangoes off the tree. I work on copying the new words Miss Sis has written in my notebook. I love smelling the chicken cooking while I work. Grandma puts the tiny pieces of crispy, salty, garlicky chicken that flake off onto a plate. One by one, she gives them to me as I read. One word seems impossible to sound out. S-A-L-V-A-TI-O-N. I struggle to make sense of the letters, but nothing comes to me.
Grandma stands over me, one hand on my shoulder, the other patiently positioned on her hip.

“Nuh mind, man. You know the answer! Just try sound it out again!”

I spell it aloud. “S-A-L-V-A-T-I-O-N. Salvat…salava…Grandma, me just can’t get this one right, you can sound it out for me, please?”

She looks first at me, then at the page. “No, you have to do it yourself. That is the way fi learn! Now try again!”

“Savat…Grandma, me just don’t know it. Just please do this one for me, nuh! Please!”

Grandma nods and looks at the page again. She points at the word and rubs the page. Then she mumbles something I cannot hear. Her breasts go up and down. She touches the page again. Then she closes the book. “Stacey, is time for you to go bathe now. Ask Miss Sis tomorrow. Is fi her job to tell you what the word is. Just ask her when you reach school in the morning.”

I look up at her, confused. She smiles and rubs my head. “Stacey, go bathe before night come catch you dirty. And make sure you wash you coco-bread good.”

As I lather my legs I wonder why Grandma always tells me to wash my coco-bread good. I know what I should do when I bathe. I am annoyed that she wouldn’t just tell me the word. She saw that I was having trouble sounding it out by myself. Her refusal to help seemed spiteful. Then I remember the helpless look she had on her face and suddenly realize that she can’t read a lick. I feel like everything bad is happening to me. First my mother runs off and leaves me. And now my grandmother is a big dunce. By the time I am done bathing I am very angry. I don’t want Grandma to be my grandmother. I wish I belonged to Miss Sis. Then I would have someone to help me with my stupid homework.

When Grandma calls me to come for my tea, I turn away and mumble, “I don’t really want nutten from you!”

“Stacey, is what you say? You really forgetting yourself inside here?”

“I don’t have to listen to you. You can’t hear and you can’t even read.”

In one motion she grabs my braid and throws me flat on my back. The smell of the floor polish makes me want to sneeze, but I am too afraid. She drags me up by my braid and brings her mouth right down to my eyes. Every wart on her face is magnified.

Her breath hisses out of her lungs. “Listen to me, Staceyann whatever-you-middle-name-is Chin, listen, and listen good! If you smelling you-self I advise you to hold your skirt tail down. If you ever talk to me like dat again, I will break every bone God use to hold you upright!”

She releases me. “Now get out of your yard clothes and go put on your pajamas.”

The dull ache of the coco has already begun. My grandmother must be an obeah woman. Deaf or not, she knows exactly when you say something rude. That must mean something. I don’t want to be angry with Grandma anymore. I make myself think of all the good things she knows: how to soothe the terrifying sweats brought on by a duppy; how to wash out dirty white clothes so they are really, really white; how to quickly clean any size house; how to pray and make it sound like a pretty song. But all of that seems like nothing next to reading like Miss Sis.

The next morning, I ask, “Grandma, how come you can’t read? Them never have any school when you was small?”

“Ah, me child…” Grandma wipes the sweat from her glistening forehead. “Go and get the comb and make me comb your hair while me talking.” I want to hear the story, so I get the comb without murmuring.

Grandma undoes each braid and runs the comb through it. When she is done she gathers all the hair and runs the comb through the entire mass. The sharp teeth of the comb rake across my scalp. I try hard not to cry. But soon I am shrinking into the floor and wiping the cascading tears.

Grandma sucks her teeth. “Stacey, is cry you really crying? Me think you did want to hear the story. You don’t want me fi tell you?”

I wipe my face and nod.

“All right, then, stop the crying and make me tell you.”

She lifts the comb and rakes it across my scalp. I burst into a fresh round of tears. Grandma drops the comb and raises her right hand to God. “Jesus, if you not busy, come take a look at this sorrowful child!”

She adjusts my head for leverage. “Stacey, I don’t know why you is so ’fraid of this nice head of hair. Is not soft like Delano own, but it not tough like them little naygar children own either.”

She parts the hair in two equal sections, and oils the part. “Your hair is just like butter, soft and nice.” Pull. Drag. Plait. Part again. Wail.

“Only Jesus know why you bawling like that! You just want to look like you don’t have a good-God soul who own you! You want to go just go ’bout the place with a fowl nest ’pon yuh head? You don’t have no mother, but I want people fi know that you have somebody who taking care of you.”

I try to picture my mother combing my hair, but I don’t know what she looks like. We have no pictures of her. Grandma smears the sticky grease from her hands onto my face. I smell onions and scallions on her fingers as she wipes the snot from my nose.

“All right, all right, Stacey, don’t bother cry no more. Make me tell you the story that will show you how much you have to give the Lord God thanks for. Let me tell you how, from the very first day, the God up in heaven was looking after you.”

“Grandma, me know the story of how me born already. Me want to know why you don’t know how to read.”

She sighs and pulls me into the folds of her floral skirt. The fabric reeks of wood smoke, fried chicken, and washing soap. “Stacey, me gal, if I ever tell you ’bout my life—Lawd Jesus, if—” She pulls her handkerchief from her bosom and wipes her eyes. I look up into her eyes brimming with tears. I stop breathing.

“I wasn’t even eight years old when me mother, Mama Lou, stop me from going to school. She was a midwife—but she was sickly—so she did need me fi work. She couldn’t read either, so she never think that book-learning so important. Me never want to leave school, but me have to do what she say.”

I can’t think of Grandma as a little girl. And it is stranger still to see her crying. She wipes her eyes and continues. “She send me to Kingston to work with a woman name Mrs. Levy. In all me life I don’t think I work as hard as I work for that woman. Eight years old and me was peeling green bananas, soaking salt-fish, cutting up the onion and scallion to cook food. And you have to believe me when me tell you that I don’t stop working from then. It was one domestic job after the other.”

“But Miss Sis say that them have schools for big people. Why you never go when you was bigger?”

She smiles and touches my face. “Well, things not always so easy, you know. By the time me was fifteen me start to have the children. Me had to work fi feed them.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“But because me couldn’t read me couldn’t get no permanent job. One woman tell me she can’t hire me fi cook fi her family because she don’t want me mistake bleach fi water and poison the whole of them. Is only God make me find this job at the police station. Them don’t pay nothing big, but me don’t have to worry-worry meself ’bout finding work every week.”

The tears stream down her face. “Me really did want better fi them children, but you grandfather was a worthless man. Him could read and write, so you would think him would make sure them children get some schooling. But that man was a dirty sinner, and a gambler—a careless rum drinker who never come home! Every time me ask him fi stop gambling, him cuss me. If me answer him, him beat me. That is why me don’t have much hearing in me ears. Your grandfather beat out all me hearing out of me ears. And that is why me give me life to God. When nobody can help you, you only have to turn to God. Every day me ask God fi make you grandfather help me. But that man was a worthless man. Because of that, you Uncle David still can’t read a lick. But you Uncle Harold was different. When Harold was a likkle boy, all the policemen them say him could be a doctor. Him is a big policeman down in Bethel Town now. Your mother was bright too, but because me couldn’t afford the clothes she want to wear she stop going to school. But all of that is done and gone. And God know why him make everything happen. We just have to put our trust in him. He know what is best for us wretched sinners.”

I am not so sure that I want to put my trust in such a God. “Grandma, what if God wasn’t paying attention to you and that is why all those things happen to you? What if God is not listening when you pray?”

“Stacey, kibba you mouth and let me tell you something. And this is probably the most important thing me have to tell you. Trust God, Stacey, trust God and learn you book. Ask God to make you learn it good, good enough so that no man could use you as a beating stick.”

“So where is we grandfather now? Him old like you? Him living in Lottery still?”

“Lawd ha mercy, Stacey, it getting late. Is time for you to go to school. Don’t worry yourself, man—me will tell you the rest another time. Get up from there and come put on your school clothes.”