26.
Ethel One Day in the 1920s
I found out that by the time Ethel was twenty-four she had birthed Claudine, Lynkie, Skool, and Mika. Something like my own grandmother had done, in the early 1920s. My grandmother is a woman I envy twice a day because at breakfast and dinner she tells this story: she left her first husband in 1896. I picture Ethel as the same type of woman who would say, “Look, leave,” to a problem.
Ethel’s husband, Job (Mika’s father), had left on his own. The last thing he’d done before he left was haul out into the open a black leather chest detailed with big silver buttons. He’d tapped on the heavy silver latch and said the chest was a breathing treasure for every child he’d help to make—all of whom were standing around him to witness this final act. Proud as he was of this grand gesture, he was, of course, drunk. Claudine and Lynkie left the room, and later left the house for good.
For the rest of their lives there was no one the children would call father, and Skool, only thirteen or twelve at the time, became the little man of the house. He’d learned from Job how to keep a chicken coop; Job had been breeding six Araucana cocks and fifteen white-faced black Spanish hens for almost a year before he left. Skool was hoping to make some cash cockfighting around the neighbourhood after school instead of studying for hypothetical future gains. He didn’t care about Ethel’s plans, and he said this often to Claudine, whom he was so fond of. But Ethel had the most plans of any mother in the world for her children.
There was a prolonged drought in the neighbourhood the year Mika turned eight. She was thirsty, and the pipe stands were dry. She narrowed her vision to her father’s tiny shack, on the hillside opposite where she lived. At lunchtime, she entered it through the bedroom window while Skool was taking his first cockfighting lesson from Minister Fonso, the foremost expert in the village, who had dethroned the great and mysterious Bogart two years before. Minister Fonso lived in the house next to Mika’s father’s house.
Mika climbed through the one window of the house that faced a playing field. Inside, a large blue curtain with flowers in bouquet-like configurations served as a room partition, making a small dining area outside the bedroom, which was closest to the door. Lunchtime would be over in ten minutes, she knew, so she quickly walked through the part in the curtain and stole three dollars off her father’s dining room table. With that money, she staved off hunger with golden apple jam and a cherry soft drink.
That afternoon, on Mika’s way home from school, Minister Fonso called to her.
“Your father want to see you,” he said. “He say you come now-now.”
When she entered her father’s house, Job asked her to climb through the window. Right away, she knew she was in trouble.
She pretended that climbing through that window was difficult. She exaggerated her efforts, slipping on the ledge. She swallowed all the insects in the space between her knees and the ground five feet below. She’d learned to do this when she was much smaller. So, by the time she finally stepped through Job’s window, she felt brave.
“Thief,” he said.
The community worker in Mika’s nostril grumbled.
“Give me your hand,” Job said.
“Pap, I was hungry,” she said.
“Put your hands on this table,” he said, “in the same spot where the money was.”
The banker who had not given Mika’s mother a loan to build a bakery made a small weeping sound from deep inside Mika’s spleen. Grudgingly, she let her hand rest on the table and regarded Job. Job started pinching. The back of Mika’s hands began to swell. A heat in them grew, travelled to her head. When Job had pinched his fill, he told her she could leave.
At home, Mika told her mother everything.
Ethel listened, saying nothing. Then she left the room, and her children trailed behind her and gathered in the yard to watch her movements through it.
Ethel lit the kerosene lamp, even though the sun was still high in the sky. The flame cast a bright, watery mark on her dark face.
She left the yard carrying the lit lamp, and the children moved to follow her. They had only gone a few feet before Ethel stopped them.
“Go inside,” she said. “I coming back soon. I’m just going down the road to do something.”
When Ethel did come back, just as soon as she had promised, her hair had aged a few decades.
And Mika and Skool stood facing the street, watching for a long time as smoke billowed from the opposite side of the hill.