The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir Read online

  Her voice is soft and kind. “Lawd, Miss Bernice, he looks like a little gentleman! I am pleased to have him here. He looks like he will do well. And this is the little sister! She is as pretty as a willy penny!”

  Grandma gently pushes Delano forward. “Delano, I beg yuh, please behave yourself. Do not give Miss Sis any trouble. I will come back for you this evening.”

  Miss Sis takes Delano by the hand. Grandma and I begin to move down the steps. I look back at Delano standing there, lips trembling, eyes filling with tears. I don’t want him to stand there by himself crying. I pull away from Grandma, run up the steps, and grab his hand away from Miss Sis. “Let him go! Is not your brother! Him is mine!”

  Grandma tries to pull me off him, but I stick both hands into the waist of his pants and sink my teeth into his leg. Both of us are screaming and holding on to each other. Grandma is so ashamed she can’t even look at us. “Miss Sis, is not so me raise them, you know! As there is a God up in heaven, I never see them behave like this at all, at all!”

  Miss Sis places her face directly in front of Grandma’s. “Miss B, look at me face so you can hear me. It is quite all right, is normal, especially if is only the two of them. Tell you what—as long as she can say when she need to use the bathroom she can stay with him.”

  Delano squeezes my hand and we both stop crying to listen.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Sis! She can talk plain, plain as day! I never see a little girl talk so much from me born! Her mouth is bigger than the whole of Montego Bay and Lottery put together. That would be a blessing, ma’am, but me only have the money for the boy. Me can’t pay for both of them with the little I get from the boy father.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Miss Bernice, money is not everything. Just pay for the boy. If and when you have a little more, you can give it to me then.”

  “Lord, Miss Sis, this is truly a blessing to me! Thank you very much, ma’am. The Lord will bless yuh more and more for your kindness to the poor and needy.”

  “One hand wash the other, Miss Bernice, one hand wash the other.”

  Miss Sis ushers us into the blue house. A table and two long benches almost fill the room. The walls are covered with round red things that sort of look like tomatoes. Miss Sis informs us that there are nine other children in the school. The boys sit on one bench while the girls sit on the other. I don’t want to sit so far from Delano, but I am afraid to say so lest Miss Sis sends me back home.

  Miss Sis goes to the blackboard and makes a mark. She says the mark is the letter A. “And what word begins with the letter A, children?”

  Nobody says anything.

  “Don’t worry, children. It is normal to forget. Can someone point out an apple in this room?”

  I look around. Nothing on the walls looks like an apple to me. The other children look equally bewildered. Finally Miss Sis smiles and points to one of the red tomato things on the wall. “This is an apple, children. And A is for apple—repeat after me, A is for apple.”

  Confused, I face the tomato-looking picture and say with the other children, “A is for apple.”

  “Good, and now we will do some writing.”

  Miss Sis says she is here to help each of us to learn to write our own name. “Boys and girls, everything we learn, we learn through constant and diligent practice!”

  In our books, she makes dots and encourages us to connect them. When I am done connecting, she holds my face and kisses me. She smells like Vicks VapoRub and thyme. I feel very special when she asks me if I have any questions about the lesson.

  “Yes, Miss Sis. Is why you tell the children that the tomato them is apple?”

  She smiles. “Stacey, I know that those things look like tomatoes to you, but they are apples. Not like our apples, these apples are American apples. You ever hear of a place called America?”

  The smell of thyme on her breath makes me think about brown-stewed chicken. I inch closer to Miss Sis. “Grandma say America is where the banana boat go?”

  “Yes, Jamaica exports banana to America on the banana boat. Very good, Stacey! You have a good memory for things! Now, let us see what we can do about teaching you to write those things down.”

  Delano makes up games for us to play. He tells me where to stand and what to do and how long to do it. Because he makes the rules, he is always in charge. On Saturday morning while Grandma does housework we play Superman on the veranda. The rules of Superman are simple. I sit square in the middle of a cloth foot-wipe. Delano grabs the two front corners and shouts, “Ready, Stacey? You ready to fly?”

  Ready or not, I say, “Yes, Delano, I am ready to fly.”

  The object of the game is to slide me from one end of the veranda to the other. Delano takes a breath and rapidly propels me forward. He trips and I end up hitting my head. I try hard not to cry. As long as I remain dry-eyed, Delano is gentle with me. So I button my lips and brush off my dress. He hurries over. “You all right, Stacey? You can go again?”

  “Yes, Delano! Me fine!”

  “All right! This time we going to go really fast. But don’t worry, this time I go take good care of you.”

  He takes my hand and sets me on the foot-wipe. Beneath the surface of the polished wood, my reflection is alive with excitement. Delano’s voice is pitched high with his own enthusiasm. “All right, Stacey. We go do better this time. Just make sure you hold on good!”

  He dashes forward and we are off. I am trying my best not to fall off the square of yellow cloth. My brother slides me across the slippery wood. The maroon-red floor is a rushing blur, and inside my head my eyes are spinning like tops. Suddenly Delano flies into the veranda rail. I sail pilotless into the wall ahead. My right knee jerks up, smacking my forehead. It feels like my head has opened up. I am sure my forehead is bleeding. I spit flat into my hand and rub the sore spot above my eye. There is no blood, but now there is too much spit on my face. I wipe the slimy excess all over my neck. I check to see how Delano is doing. He is also wiping globules of sticky saliva from his forehead. We burst out laughing. We laugh and laugh and laugh until our stomachs hurt. I have to think about Jesus dying on the bloody cross before I can stop.

  Finally, I roll over and brush the tiny pieces of red floor polish from my legs. Delano drags himself upright. “All right, Stacey, hurry up and get back on!”

  I am exhausted from the flying and too much laughing. And my head hurts. A big round coco is already forming on my bruised forehead. The raised bump throbs against my fingers. I don’t feel like flying anymore. “No, Delano, me finish!”

  “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 h
anging 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.

  In Everything Give Thanks

  Grandma 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 y
et—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.