Black Cake(49)
More applause, then a medal, then the naming of this stretch of beach after Etta Pringle. Etta looks out past the waves frothing against the rocks. This was the bay where a much faster, bolder swimmer had led Etta past the seven-mile mark for the first time and made her realize who she was destined to become.
Etta had swum across the Strait of Magellan in Chile, circled New York’s island of Manhattan, crossed the English Channel, and survived the icy waters off the Siberian coast, the first black woman in the world to have made all of these crossings. She had raised two children with another woman at a time when such things were not mentioned. She had spoken to entire stadiums full of people about overcoming obstacles. But there was one obstacle in her own life that Etta had never been able to overcome.
Etta scanned the crowd. There they were. A couple of the Henry boys. There was always someone from the Henry family hanging about, waiting for someone to slip up, waiting to offer their unique brand of assistance at terms that could never be repaid. There was a whole new generation of Henrys now, people who lived to exploit other people. People who enjoyed holding a grudge. Which was why Etta needed to get away from this island.
There Was a Place
While Etta Pringle was being honored on the island, Eleanor Bennett was at home in California, nearly three thousand miles away, looking at her laptop. She noted with satisfaction that Pringle was trending on social media. Eleanor’s husband Bert, rest his soul, would have gotten a kick out of that. He and Eleanor had been proud to see a woman from the islands, a black distance swimmer, become so famous. But in the five years since Bert’s passing, Pringle had become even more popular, known to the younger generations for her motivational speaking.
And now, Etta Pringle had a beach named after her. Imagine that, Bert, Eleanor thought. Seeing the video of the dedication ceremony on the Internet brought the sting of salt water to Eleanor’s eyes. It left Eleanor with a longing to be surrounded by folks from the islands, a need to remember what she used to be like before she and Bert started going out of their way to stay away from other West Indians, trying to avoid people who might know people who might remember them. Caribbeans, her son kept reminding her to say. It was more politically correct to say that. Wasn’t that funny, how her child was telling her what to call her own home?
Even after all these years, it wasn’t so common to hear a voice from the islands in Eleanor’s neighborhood, so she got into her car and drove north to Los Angeles, the sudden change of plans being one of the perks of retirement. There was a place in the Crenshaw district where Eleanor would go to pick up some of her favorite island foods. A bunch of plantains, a can of ackee, a jar of smoked herring paste, a bottle of hot pepper sauce. A place where she could also find Chinese egg noodles and a head of baby bok choy and didn’t have to explain to anyone what suey mein was. Didn’t have to explain that it wasn’t so much Chinese food as island food.
A little over an hour later, Eleanor was walking along the aisles of the store, running her fingertips along the jars and burlap sacks, watching mostly brown faces leaning in to read the labels, listening to chatter in different accents and languages. Near the baking supplies, a soft-armed saleswoman in a purple skirt and yellow top was giving an in-store demonstration.
“When it comes to black cake,” the woman was telling a small group, “a base of marzipan, or almond paste, is essential to successful icing.” As she spoke, she dusted a cloth-covered board in front of her with confectioner’s sugar.
“Once you have the cake ready, you want to cover it in a layer of marzipan before applying the icing. Otherwise, all that rum and other good stuff that makes your cake so special will cause the icing to go runny.” She nodded and pointed. “Has that happened to you? Yes?”
The saleswoman dumped a wad of almond paste onto the sugar-dusted surface while people asked questions. Then she patted it down and picked up a rolling pin.
“Any of you here ever watch that English woman on YouTube? The one who’s always talking about different ethnic foods? You know the one I mean, right? She does some interesting shows on local traditions around the world. She claims that black cake is not an authentic Caribbean recipe.”
She tips her head to the side and raises an eyebrow. Laughter bubbles up from the crowd.
“She says we wouldn’t have black cake without the Europeans dem coming over to this part of the world and bringing certain foods over here. She says the recipe comes from a mixing of different cultures. Different cultures? Well, what does she think the Caribbean is, anyhow?” Someone kissed their teeth and a buzz of comments went around the group of onlookers.
Eleanor breathed in the almond smell, remembering the kitchen in her childhood home, the marzipan spread out on the kitchen table, Mummy and Pearl gossiping and tittering. Eleanor tried not to think back to those days too often, to the days when she was still Covey, to the days before her mother went away. But on this day, she let herself imagine what it might be like to go back to the island today.
What if she could wander through her hometown unseen, past the old school grounds, past the swim club, toward the house where she grew up, with its white cement walls and corrugated tin roof and red hibiscus blooming at the corner? What if she could stop to pluck a naseberry from a neighbor’s yard, stop to snap and strip a frond from a dwarf coconut tree? What if she could step into the backyard where her father used to play dominoes with the men and stand just behind him, and simply be his daughter again, before his weaknesses had gotten the best of him?