BEHIND THE NARROW STREET

CHAPTER SIX -BELMONT TRINIDAD 1994, ANNA'S HOUSE

"Peter, what did your parents tell you about your grandfather?"

Peter looked up at Anna, "Well, I really did not know my dad."

"Oh, why is that?" Anna sounded somewhat surprised.

"I was only four years old when my dad was killed in an accident. A drunk driver ran into him as he was crossing the road."

Anna looked disturbed and turned away, not wanting Peter to see her face. "That would explain why..." She did not finish the statement.

"What is it, did I say something wrong?" Peter wondered why his father's death had such an effect on her.

"No, no it's alright, just that there is so much I must tell you but it has to be done right." Anna turned back to Peter. He could see tiny tears swelling up in her eyes. "So when did you find the tin box?"

"For a long time I have been having these nightmares and I kept hearing a voice telling me about this tin box. When I found it and showed it to my mother she began to cry. She knew about my grandfather but would say very little."

"So tell me Peter, did your mother mention me at all?" Anna breathed deeply, trying to compose herself.

"Yes and no."

"What do you mean?"

"She knew of you but for some reason preferred not to talk about you. She would say things like, 'Your grandfather was under a spell and that this woman, Anna, had him in her thrall."

Anna began to laugh. "Oh it's so good to laugh...under a spell!" She pulled on her head tie, tightening the loose ends. "Your grandfather had more of a connection to this island than he had with the country he had sailed from."

"You know, the more I listen to you the less I know." Peter took a deep breath. "My mother tried to stop me from coming after I told her I was going to Trinidad to learn more about my grandfather."

"Oh."

"She said that you were a..." Peter looked away.

"A whore," Anna added. "A prostitute."

"Yes." Peter looked back at Anna. "She said you were responsible for my grandfather's strange behaviour, and there are still so many things that do not add up."

"Peter, you have travelled more than a thousand miles and yet your journey has only now begun. But I promise you, the story will have an end, the journey will end." She paused. "Not the end you might think."

They both looked at each other as though attempting to read their respective thoughts. The room darkened for a moment as the morning sun moved behind a passing cloud, plunging everywhere into a colourless shade.

"I got home minutes before seven that evening, having left Mr. Poon-Young's parlour, and as I opened the front door I saw Selwyn hit my mother."

******

ANNA'S HOUSE, 1940

Anna's mother fell to the ground, hitting her head on a

side table, causing a deep cut along her forehead. Blood streamed out, staining her face red like some devil masquerader from a carnival band.

"Stop, leave my mama alone!" Anna shouted, her heart pounding in fear.

Selwyn lunged towards Anna in an attempt to hit her but managed to trip on the same side table, collapsing onto the floor. His eyes rolled over as he passed out from an overdose of bad rum.

Anna ran to her mother. She bent down and raised her injured head, wiping the blood off her face with her hand. She knew then that she would seek Nancy's help.

******

ANNA'S HOUSE, 1994

"So what did you do?" Peter asked knowing that Selwyn's

shirt or toenail was going to play a part in the solution.

"My mother refused to go to the hospital so I had to clean her up the best I could. Fortunately the cut was not too deep so no stitches were needed."

"And about Selwyn?" Peter asked, anxiously wanting the story to proceed.

"He slept for ten hours or more and when he woke he knew nothing about what had taken place. I really should have slit his throat there and then ..."

"What!" Peter remarked, somewhat taken back.

"Well it did cross my mind." Anna smiled. "Anyway, it gave me the opportunity to get several personal items belonging to Selwyn, including a toe nail from his corn infested foot."

Peter remembers what Nancy had asked Anna to bring her. "So what did you do with the items?"

"It was a long time before I had the courage to go to Nancy but I'll get to that." Nancy pointed to the book on the table. "The book that is next to you."

"Brujeria?"

"Oh yes. This is the beginning of Selwyn's hell." Anna looked around the room as though expecting to see someone gazing in through the window.

"Is someone out there?" Peter asked almost in a murmur, but perhaps not wanting an answer.

"When we talk about spells to cause physical or mental illness, bringing about bad luck, even death, be sure that the spirits know that our intentions are pure and righteous. We have to clear our minds to understand the journey we are embarking upon."

Just then an overweight, orange-speckled cat jumped up onto the windowsill, its eyes squinting as though trying to focus on something. His coat was haggard, like a worn carpet and in some areas his dark skin protruded.

"You see Peter, even after the years have gone, we are visited by the memories of the past through other forms. You will get to know the lost child, from the plantation house that the fire tried to consume, your grandfather's ability to be a healer, a curandero..."

"A what?"

"Curandero... someone who can connect with the spirit to help make peace. Peter, both the African and South American Indians had people who could control certain events, could heal."

"I am trying so hard to understand but I am simply not connecting the events of something that took place nearly two hundred years ago, where a child is saved from a burning house, who happens to have my name or at least that's one side of the story; a woman who ran a brothel for US soldiers during the war and who could summon the spirits while disguising herself in an animal form; a graveyard that seems to be haunted with a tomb that carries my family name, where a drunken caretaker hides behind a bottle of rum in fear of the past and the spirits that haunt him; your relationship with my grandfather and now my grandfather who appears to be connected to all these unrelated events. And if that was not enough, my grandfather may be some sort of spirit healer." Peter paused to catch his breath. "And then I come into the picture."

Anna smiled broadly, folding her hands as though she was about to pray. "That is so correct. You now have all the major pieces of the puzzle. All we need to do now is put them together."

Peter looked around the room, hoping that all the photos that papered the walls would speak to him so he could understand. Here he was after many years, face to face with the one person who could bring all the pieces together, and make some sense of his own life and the strange feelings that kept distressing him.

"You are ready now to take the journey that started well over a hundred and fifty years ago when a little boy named Peter Lambert stood on the veranda of a great house looking out onto the sugar plantation, where dozens of slaves were cutting cane and loading the mule drawn carts to be taken to the mill."