Here Comes the Sun(7)

The pink house is owned by Verdene Moore, who is watched closely because the whole community knows what she is capable of. There’s no Miss before the woman’s name—like there is for all the other older women Thandi has to address that way—for the same reason there’s no Mrs. Not that the women in River Bank marry. Marriage is for people like the parents of the girls Thandi goes to school with. She thinks about the heavily made-up, well-dressed mothers accompanied by distinguished-looking fathers at school functions where Thandi’s only parent in attendance is Delores. Her father, the last she heard, lives in Westmoreland. There are mostly common-law arrangements in River Bank, where the men live with the women, which is usually enough to seal a relationship. The thing about Verdene Moore that Thandi grew up hearing is that she lures little girls to her house with guineps so she can feel them up. Women have caught her in her yard smiling at them as they pass by with watermelons and icicles between their lips on those hot days when their skirts and dresses cling to their bodies like a second skin. It is known and has been known in River Bank’s history that Verdene Moore is the Antichrist, the snake every mongoose should have hauled off the island and eaten alive; the witch who practices obscene things too ungodly to even think about.

Last August Mr. Joe, a stuttering nomad people hire to cut their weeds, found a dead dog in Verdene Moore’s yard with what looked like teeth marks in the animal’s bloodied side. He hollered and ran down the street, wielding his machete in the air as though slaying the wind. To this day people believe Verdene Moore killed the dog. A dried-up, bony mongrel. The type of animal that people kicked in the head or sides to move out of the way, the type of animal people fed bones and leftover meals and any rubbish they could find. The type of animal that attracted fleas and sniffed and licked its own rump. A detestable animal that became a poor, helpless animal overnight, because Verdene Moore killed it as a sacrifice in one of her rituals. People stay away from the woman, who keeps to herself anyway. No one even knows what really goes on in that pink house. Her mother, Miss Ella, had died and left it for her. Surely it’s a beauty, with its shingle roof, big yard, French doors, and windows with shutters; but the darkness inside can be seen from the road through the open windows, where white curtains billow and fall like ghosts.

Thandi takes extra steps to hurry along, managing not to look at the beautiful garden in Verdene Moore’s yard, with flowers of every color in the rainbow, or sniff the heavy scent of the bougainvilleas that line the fence, where hummingbirds hover, then zip out of sight. They are an anomaly, for the drought has made it hard for the flowers this year. Even the red hibiscuses hang from their stems like the tongues of thirsty dogs.

It’s a big yard, so Thandi runs a little to cover the distance along the fence. She’s sweating profusely in the heat, and her uniform clings to the plastic, macca thorns latching onto the hem of her skirt. She’s aware of the weight of the bag with the rice, cornmeal, and crème of pearl, the only promising thing inside it. The uprooted stones press under her thinning soles, which slap her heels as she runs. She speeds up, pushing away shrubs and hanging limbs, her lungs filling with the fear of being caught.

By the time she gets to Miss Gracie’s house, she’s breathing heavily, holding her sides. She knows she’s safe in front of Miss Gracie’s house because, though Miss Gracie has a few demons of her own—which have to do with her permanent residency at Dino’s Bar—Miss Gracie is a woman of God. She is inclined to have fits of the Holy Ghost in public, preaching in the square at the top of her voice while clutching a Bible.

A group of teenage boys sit on Miss Gracie’s fence, gorging on fresh mangoes from the tree. They pause when they see Thandi, each of them lowering his hand from his mouth. She’s the only girl in the neighborhood whose presence is likened to a figure of authority—a school principal, a teacher, a nun. When Thandi passes them, they are as silent as the caterpillars that rest on the leaves. All but one. Charles. Thandi walks with her head held straight, not because of the others, but because of him.

“Wha’ g’wan, Thandi?” Charles asks, breaking the silence that serenades her. She nearly trips. Heat spreads from her neck to her face, though none of the boys let on that they saw what just happened. She nods and walks quickly past Charles, knowing that his eyes are following her as she walks. She knows they are watching the gentle sway of her hips. She knows that while his eyes trace the curves, his thoughts have already slipped under her skirt. And what might they find there? If only he wasn’t a common boy, the kind Delores tells her to stay away from; the kind Margot would disapprove of because he’s not one of those moneymen with homes in Ironshore that even some of her classmates at Saint Emmanuel brag about dating. Besides, now that her skin will be lighter, she doesn’t have to settle for a boy like Charles. And yet, a pulse stirs between her legs and she hurries down the path, holding it in like pee.

Thandi finally arrives home. It’s the only shack in the open space next to a pasture where Mr. Melon, a soft-spoken farmer, ties up his nanny goat by the barren pear tree. Every day Mr. Melon walks the goat into the fields, to the only patch of land that has not turned into the rusted brown color of the trees around it. People think he treats the goat better than he treats his woman. Miss Francis and Miss Louise query Thandi with their eyes as she walks up the incline, passing the tenement yard that more than one family shares, their shacks joined like men leaning in a drunken embrace. The women use their hands as visors to shield their eyes from the sun. Though they don’t immediately call out to Thandi, she hears them talking about her. “Is Delores dawta dat? Look how she grow up nice. Mi hardly eva see her. Always in her books. But what ah beautiful sight.” To their young daughters sitting between their legs on the veranda, whose nappy hair they rake wide-toothed combs through and whose scalps they grease with Blue Magic, they point. “That’s how yuh should be. Like Thandi. Now she’s well on her way going to dat good school. See how neat her uniform is? Everyt’ing ’bout har jus’ neat. An’ she always pleasant. Not like har sistah, Margot, who g’wan like she can’t mash ants wid har nose inna di air.” They wave when Thandi looks their way.