The House Of Mr Christus

Chapter Ten - Running Away

The sun was sinking in a pink and orange sky, and tall, overhanging Flamboyant and Sweet Almond trees cast their shadows across her path. It was August, the tail-end of the rainy season, and the yards were cloaked in dark, velvet green, the leaves releasing the last shimmering pearls of water to the sodden earth. Leaving behind the shuttered houses, she turned into a wide street leading into the city center. There was political unrest in the city, and Angelita could hear the voices of protesters from the quiet of the street. Just ahead, the Royal Palms and white picket fence, which girdled the green lawns of Government House, came into view. The police sentries were lowering the British Flag and standing beside them was the Governor. The flag was being lowered earlier than usual, in expectation of trouble.  Angelita lingered before the Royal Palms and the white fence of Government House, not because she wanted to watch the lowering of the flag but because she wanted to see the Governor. Two girls, passing by, shouted out, "Waika di kohn," then ran away, laughing.

There was a melancholy air about the governor and Angelita put down her croaker sack to better inspect the man in a white shirt, tie, and shiny black shoes. Their eyes met and he turned away from her. The woman's audacity astounded him. The steady gaze, like many of her countrymen, dismantled him, piece by piece. His fishing trip had been interrupted by news of impending riots and he was in an irritable mood. This, one of the last colonial postings had come his way by accident and although there was little to do, as his responsibilities had been reduced to defense and public order, he was grateful. The posting would see him to retirement.

"Waika", the two girls shouted from the distance. The word carelessly flung in his direction peaked his interest, and ignoring the brazen woman, still staring at him, he went to the fence and looked down the street. In the distance, the approaching protesters were being intercepted by the police. He could see lit torches, a symbolic gesture from the past when the focus for demonstrations was the colonial administration. He had received reports that government buildings were being stoned by angry mobs. Yes, he thought, the Waika were indeed coming and history was in the making. His mind turned to his dinner, it was getting cold and, with the flag lowered, he returned indoors.

Angelita walked through the crowd of protestors, drinking in the anger, letting it rekindle her own. She steered through police blockades and onlookers, then turning off the main street, and the last vestiges of middle-class wealth, she walked down the narrow lanes hedged by wooden houses, timbers gray and wet with patches of rot. They leaned towards her as if trying to escape the flooded yards. Ahead of her, a family, a young mother and five children, each with a plastic bucket in hand, made their way to a pipe stand. People in this part of town had no access to sewage services and water was distributed via pipe stands. Eventually, she came to a narrow bridge which spanned a dark, murky canal. The canal, overhung by a corrugated-iron latrine, ran alongside the bus terminal. Crossing the canal she saw a bloated cat mired in the blackened sludge. The last bus to the town, some ten miles from her village, was pulling out in a cloud of diesel fumes. People were milling about the terminus and food vendors boarded stationary buses, carrying covered pans and tubs filled with johnny cakes, meat pies, conch fritters and fresh juices. Angelita, seeing that she was stranded at the terminal, found a seat in the waiting hall on a bench shared with a family. She closed her eyes and listened to the shuddering and shaking of the Yellow Bird buses, motorized truck frames attached to bus bodies constructed from thin, sheet metal. She knew the inside of these buses like the back of her hand; they were a tenuous link to her mother. Seated beside her mother, she had rattled down potholed roads and highways to attend the births of babies in towns and villages right across the district. Before each journey, her mother would carefully select marigold flowers and basil leaves from her garden and tie them into two little pouches, one she put into her brassiere and the other she attached to a string and hung it from Angelita's neck. The protective function of her mother's charms was no different to the protective function of the pictures of the Sacred Heart or Blessed Virgin which the bus driver hung at the front of the bus. On stepping into the bus, everyone knew that they were placing themselves in the hands of fate.