CHAPTER 4

Birthday in Brixton

The Basil Rathbone black-and-white classic films of London in a terrific fog, moisture enough to have curled the hair of the wife of Frankenstein (as played by Elsa Lanchester) without electricity are true. But when the sun comes out in Brixton, a heavily West Indian working-class neighborhood, all kinda miracles come about. Colors challenging visions dulled by winter’s mists and rains dance up and down Railton Road like so many butterflies come out they cocoons. It was on such a day, when the heat reminded everyone of home, Saint Kitts, Jamaica, Barbados, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Trinidad, Sri Lanka, wherever the sun had refused to set before she fell into our laps, a free fire of possibility, our folks paraded themselves in strolls particular to their pre-London homes round and through the Brixton market.

I say this only to say that shopping in Brixton is as much fun as shopping in Texas’s Fiesta markets, Nuestros Cachitos (our little stores). Our music from Yellow Man to Youssour N’Dour blaring from vegetable stands proffering tubers of every size and color, peppers whose scent from a distance brings tears to the eyes, and midriffs sportin’ more of us at the nipple, on the infant bottle, suckin’ no different than the palm wine drinkard’s wildest dreams, if we take Amos Tutola at his word.

My daughter and I were looking for a typical special dinner from the Americas, if such a thing is possible. I had to shop for a very good friend’s surprise birthday party on Mayal Road down from Marcus Garvey Square. We found, amazingly, sweet looking carrots, fresh red beans (kidney beans), paratha (an East Indian flatbread) straight from the loving hands of the wife of the halalbutcher. Now a halal butcher is the Moslem equivalent of a kosher butcher. In other words, the meats and poultry are slaughtered in a specific way and then blessed by an imam before being suitable for consumption.

Savannah and I found a miraculous rack of lamb that did not stretch our budget too very much. We also picked fresh watercress and cucumber and beets for a salad to be graced with rosemary and mayonnaise. I had a vague recollection of niddah, an Orthodox Jewish practice of women bathing in reverence and humility at a certain time during the Hebrew calendar. After consulting with my spirit guides and my daughter, I decided that we should do our best to prepare a special bath for our friend and hostess, Leila, who was certain this day that she was at the nadir of her life as a woman, an exile, a wog who should go back where she came from, which would simply mean that she would come here, to the New World, where all of us whose history is disrupted by the slave trade belong.

Well, we covered every inch of the house on Mayal Street, the house where C. L. R. James, the father of the West Indian democratic movement, was so loved and respected during his lifetime, with flowers and vines and incense, never allowing the smoldering hints of C. L. R.’s presence to be overshadowed. Once I believed I could hear him muttering: “Enough child, enough. You’ve made your point now.” But we weren’t done until we had filled Leila’s tub with drops of rose water, Florida water, and so many roses, African daisies, violets, aranda orchids, carnations, and lavender that we could hardly imagine how her ample body was going to fit.

Though C. L. R. James’s head was a tousled nappy mess of ivory cotton, rivaling a good German Saint Nick, I hoped he was tending the door to the bath so that Leila’s giggles of pleasure and surprise would not end before we’d finished preparing her birthday supper. I am sure even in his nineties C. L. R. would have assisted us. He had a weakness for bright women, especially when he could say he was a part of giving them something wonderful.

Leila’s Birthday Surprise Supper/She Really Didn’t Know—Rack of Lamb

We broiled most of Leila’s repast in the garden on a regular grill with charcoal seasoned with tequila and lavender. We basted the rack of lamb with olive oil and salt and pepper. Between the fat on the outside of the cut of meat and the meat itself, we inserted minced garlic and rosemary. Then we simply laid the meat on the grill (coals are gray-red) till we decided it was ready. We had some problems here because everybody’s rare is not the same and well done might as well be burnt to a crisp to others. Luckily we were all friends, still are. We also made red beans and rice, which we make the same way we make black-eyed peas and rice. The paratha we turned over and over on the grill, like American flapjacks or pizza to get the outside honey brown. Alu paratha has a mixture of potatoes and herbs as fillings and should not be flung about so cavalierly. There was mango ice cream for dessert. Unfortunately, none of the flowers Savannah and I were able to find for Leila were edible.

Oh, I almost forgot. One reason I turn so frequently to East Indian or Moslem references is that Trinidad and Tobago, where Leila’s life partner, Darcus Howe, and some of my people hail from, is either one-half or two-thirds (depends on whom you talk to) East Indian. Guess why this is the case in Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad. Right! Somebody had to work those rice paddies. Only by the late nineteenth century slavery was illegal, indentured servitude was not. Sound familiar? Check your James Fenimore Cooper. Or if you find it more in the spirit of things, C. L. R. James’s own The Black Jacobins: “Now we are independent. We own the soil. We have our own name. We have our flag. Let us have some wine and some music.”¹