Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange Read online

  BEFORE I LEFT, Aunt Sula asked me to take down an old milk tin from the top kitchen shelf. She told me to take out five dollars. “For next time,” she said, “to make sure you come back.”

  ON THE WAY home, Solomon wanted to know if I’d brought fruits or provisions, and I was about to show him the huge avocados in the brown bag that Aunt Sula had given me when suddenly, just after the turning on the road to Santa Cruz, thirteen miles from Port of Spain, we hit something. I had never heard a sound like it. It was a buh-buduh-buh.

  “Shit,” he said, and pulled over. Quickly, we got out and ran back up the road to where a dog was lying on its back. It was twitching, its mouth bloody and open, its eyes rolling back in its small brown head. It was a mother, its teats big and dark and hanging. There was no one around. But I could see some small houses farther up and I wondered if the dog belonged to someone there. There would be puppies somewhere.

  “Get back in the truck,” Solomon said.

  “Why?”

  “Get back in the truck.” He said it like an order, so I did, thinking that he was going to pick up the dog and put it in the tray. But next thing I knew, he had started the engine and we were reversing up the road to where the dog lay. Before I could ask him what he was doing, I felt its lumpy body underneath the wheels. And then again, as he drove forward—over it.

  “Solomon!” I shouted, and put my hands up to my face.

  For a few minutes he didn’t say anything. He kept his foot down and carried on. Then, as we reached the turning in the road, he said, “I don’t know why you’re fretting so. The dog was going to die. Better it die quickly.”

  EIGHTEEN

  THAT MORNING, HELEN RODRIGUEZ WAS IN A BRIGHT mood. She was taking Joe and Consuella to a birthday party in Cascade. I heard her tell Joe that when they came home, they would change and go to Maqueripe, the beach on the other side of town, on the American base.

  “We can take a picnic,” she said, as they came into the kitchen.

  Joe looked pleased. “Will Daddy come too?”

  “Of course.”

  “And Celia?”

  “I think Celia probably has a lot to do here,” she said, and looked up. “Celia, will you tell my husband to be ready for around three o’clock?” It was now 11:00 a.m.

  I followed them outside. Through the car window, she asked if I would prepare tea. “Just some ham sandwiches, and fresh juice. That should be enough. She smiled, as if she was fond of me.

  I was closing the gates when I heard Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez call out. “Seelee-ah! Seelee-ah!” I ran inside and hurried up the stairs, sure that something was wrong.

  “I’m in here,” he said. “In my bedroom.”

  I was surprised to find him standing wet and naked in the doorway of their bathroom. I had never seen him fully naked. I had seen him wearing swimming trunks, and I had seen bits of him naked, but not like this, where I could see all of him. His body hair was dark and it looked like there was nowhere on his skin that it was not. His penis was slack and soft and long. He looked up, and smiled, and then took up a towel and tied it around his waist.

  “It’s rude to stare,” he said, and told me to get undressed. “We are lucky this morning with the house empty. She should be gone for at least three hours.”

  I looked around the room. A skirt was thrown on the chair, things were scattered over the dressing table; there was talcum powder on the floor and I realized I had stepped in it and walked it across the room. I went quickly to fetch a cloth. When I came back, he was lying under the mosquito net, sprawled out.

  “There are so many mosquitoes at this time of year. Make sure you don’t let them in.” Then, “Do you know that only the females bite? Isn’t that typical?”

  It felt odd undressing in the room Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez shared with his wife. I must have looked uncomfortable but he kept on talking as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if I was his wife.

  “When I was a baby, my mother left me in my pram under a mosquito net while she went off to play tennis. She didn’t know there was a mosquito trapped under the canopy. When she came back, I was screaming and covered in bites. It had feasted on me.”

  I stood there looking at him, not sure what to do.

  “Come on.” He patted the place beside him.

  I climbed up and into the bed, sliding onto the cool sheet. He rested on his elbow and stared at me.

  “I feel strange.”

  “Don’t think about it. Pretend you’re in a hotel.”

  “I’ve never been in a hotel; I’d feel strange there too.”

  “Then I will take you to one and it won’t be strange anymore.”

  He bit my neck, not hard. (Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez was never rough.) And then he put his mouth on my breast. This was something he liked to do. Next he moved lower, onto my stomach, where he stayed for a moment, looking, smelling my skin. He took a pillow, with its embroidered linen cover, and put it under me so that the bottom half of me was raised. He had never done this before. Then he went lower, again, until his head was down between my legs, and I could only see his thick, dark hair. Gently, he pushed my legs up and pressed them back so they were opened wide and I felt as if the whole world could see me. I wanted him to stop. But he stayed there. He stayed there for a while, holding my legs, and licking as if he was a dog eating something off the ground. And then I no longer wanted him to stop. I had never known pleasure like this. He turned me over and lifted me up by my waist and I dropped onto my hands. I could see the wall and through the white net, the photograph of Helen Rodriguez. He put himself in and up inside me, and we did it like this, with his small jutting movements.

  “Come here,” he said, and tugged at my hair band, until it came away. Then, running his hands through my long hair, “It’s like a lion’s mane.” And he rolled back on the mattress and pulled me to him. He liked it when I was above him, because I looked serious, he said. He liked the angle; when I leaned forward and he could hold my breasts in his hands. He’d say, “If only you could see what I can see.” It was better for me if, rather than kneeling, I squatted with my feet on either side of him. For some reason, my legs didn’t get tired. A sign of youth, he said.

  When it was over, I lay down next to him. I had just put my head on his chest, and I was thinking how his hair there was soft like feathers, and how I would like to have it next to me for a long time. And I was feeling warm and high with love, as if I was floating, and I was thinking of how much I loved Dr. Rodriguez, when I heard the unmistakable sound of the Hillman car pull up outside in the road, the car door slam, and then the familiar creaking of the gates.

  “That can’t be Helen. They’ve only just left.”

  I ran from the room, and into the children’s bathroom and locked the door. I pulled my dress over my head at the same time that I heard the car driving into the garage. I climbed onto the ledge of the basin and looked through the shutters. Joe was closing the gate. Again, I heard a car door slam.

  HELEN RODRIGUEZ WAS standing in the hallway, pale like milk. Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez had his arm around her narrow shoulders. He was helping her to a chair. Consuella was still in the car, he said, with Joe. I ran outside; she had just started to cry. “Mummy has a migraine,” Joe said, in a flat voice. “Are we still going to the beach?” Then he pulled a face. “What have you done to your hair? It looks a mess.”

  Now Helen Rodriguez was sitting at the table, sipping water. “Can you close the shutters in our room, Celia,” Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez said, and gave me a look. With Consuella in my arms, I went quickly upstairs. She was crying and crying, her little face red and wet with tears. I put her down in the cot.

  “Hush,” I said, straightening the covers. “I’m coming back just now.”

  In their bedroom, I closed all the shutters and turned up the fan. I quickly fixed the sheets and searched the floor for my hair band but I couldn’t find it. I thought about changing all the bed linen, but then I thought she would know.

&
nbsp; In the corridor, I heard Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez say, “We must keep the house quiet. Voices, music, any noise in fact will be painful for your mother. Do you understand, Joe?”

  Joe looked as if he was about to cry.

  “All done, Celia?”

  Helen Rodriguez was shading her eyes.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Then Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez disappeared into the bedroom with his wife and the door closed. Very quickly they started to argue about something and her voice grew high and strained. And while I tried to get Joe away—pulling gently on his hand, asking him to please come with me to check on his sister because I’d left her crying in her cot—there was no hiding the sound of his mother’s inconsolable weeping pouring out into the passageway.

  LATER, SHE RANG the bell. The room was dark like a tomb, and she was curled up with her head underneath the pillow. I wondered how she was breathing, and I wondered, too, if she could smell me on the linen cover. At first she didn’t know I was there. I touched her arm; it was a thin white stick. She lifted the pillow and opened her eyes. They were narrow and intense like two cuts. She spoke so softly I could barely hear. Would I go with Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez and the children to the beach? She had been promising them a swim for so long.

  “Joe has been looking forward to it. I know you like the beach.” Then, “You do like it, don’t you?”

  I said, “Of course. Can I get you something?”

  “No,” she said, “just go. I want all of you to go.”

  AT MAQUERIPE, THE water was green and calm. Consuella lay on the large towel I had put under the tree; she seemed happy in the shade. Earlier, I had taken her down to the water’s edge and let her put her feet in it. I splashed it on her legs and on her small body. She had cried a bit but then she seemed to like it. The sea air made her tired; she was soon asleep.

  I watched Joe and his father digging a hole big enough to climb inside. Then Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez sat in the hole; his son started to cover him up, at first pouring the sand onto him, then scooping it up in his small hands and dropping it in. Joe got excited, and he started using his foot to push the sand onto his father. Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez shouted, “Not in my eyes, Joe.” By the time he had finished, the sand reached Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez’s neck, so that just his face was sticking out. The little boy patted it down, like it was a grave, and smoothed it over. He was laughing as he ran off into the sea. His father waited for a moment, then gave a huge roar, burst out of the sand, and ran after him.

  I followed them in. I walked until the water was up to my waist, and then I dipped my head underneath the surface. I swam a little, to the start of the rocks, and I turned and looked back at the bay. It wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small either. There was a family on the left and they were having a picnic; they were all looking out. I was sure they were watching us. In the end, we didn’t bring a picnic. There hadn’t been enough time, because when Helen Rodriguez asked me to go to the beach with her husband and her children, I wanted to get out of the house as quickly as possible before I did something “immature” (Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez’s word) like tell her what I had done, what we had been doing for these past months, so I forgot all about a picnic. Now I remembered the ham sandwiches I was supposed to make. And I was thinking about the fresh juice, too, when Joe appeared like a star floating beside me. I said, “Are you hungry, Joe?” But suddenly he was gone again, under the water. I could see his shape wriggling toward the rocks.

  Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez swam toward me and rested for a moment.

  “We have to be more careful,” I said. “We nearly got caught today.”

  To the sky he said “yes,” and then he turned and rolled onto his back and started swimming away as if we didn’t know each other. I tipped my head to one side and let the sea chop the world in half. It looked strange, like my life.

  HELEN RODRIGUEZ STAYED in bed for a week. At her request, Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez slept in the spare room, in case he disturbed her. He was concerned; it was unlike her to get migraines, it hadn’t happened for a long time. She didn’t come downstairs; she didn’t leave her room. When she needed anything, she rang the bell. I carried up tea and juice, but she only ever wanted water, and dry biscuits broken into little bits like you might feed a bird. Also at her request, I kept the children away. For some reason she didn’t want to see them. I didn’t know if I was imagining it, but when she looked at me, it was as if she didn’t want to see me either.

  NINETEEN

  WILLIAM AND I STROLLED TO THE BOTTOM OF MARY Street. Like a gentleman, he stayed on the outside; walking, not too slowly, because we needed to arrive in time to find a good seat. All the same, he said, there was no point in rushing either. It was a cool evening; the sky was powder blue with puffs of yellow cloud floating here and there, like cotton you see in the fields. The grass was dark green in that light; hedges were tall and clipped; typical of the manicured gardens in St. Clair, where, it seemed, nothing was ever allowed to grow wild. In the park, a young couple were sitting on the swings, holding hands. I wondered how we might look to them. Me in my cotton dress with a hoop print (given to me by Helen Rodriguez because, she said, it was too big for her and “you must have something nice”) and flat leather slippers, and William in a lime green shirt I had never seen before, dark slacks, and sandals. He was wearing a cologne that smelled of limes.

  He was quiet and I guessed that he was feeling shy. This was a date, after all. Marva said he had probably been looking forward to it for two whole weeks. “He’s like a puppy,” she said, that morning. “I never see him so excited. Usually William so laid-back.”

  It was true, he was definitely more lively; although I wouldn’t have noticed if Marva hadn’t pointed it out. These days my head was elsewhere.

  I said, “How is your mother?”

  “She say you must come up to the house and have dinner.” Then, “I tell her how you always busy.”

  “I’ve been waiting for an invitation.”

  “You would come back to Laventille?”

  “Of course. It’s just difficult to get away. Mrs. Rodriguez doesn’t like to be alone with the children. She can’t cope. You know how she is.”

  “Solomon says you’re one of those girls who take what they want and move on. Mother says that’s because that’s how he is. Always looking for a chance.”

  “Solomon can say what he wants. I like your mother. She was kind to me. So were you.” I smiled, and William’s face lit up.

  WE SAT IN the upper level, rather than in the pit, which was where William usually sat. The seats were comfortable and we were right in the middle of the row, looking at the big, blank screen and the curtains on either side of it. Some people were sitting underneath the projector at the back, and they were making a lot of noise. William said they didn’t come here to watch the picture.

  At first, when the lights were dimmed, I felt anxious, and I wondered what in God’s name I was doing sitting in the Deluxe cinema and I wished the night would pass quickly so that I could get home to Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez. But then the huge, glorious Technicolor images appeared—the grand white house, the very green fields; the shining, galloping horses, the girls in their beautiful lacy gowns; and the orchestra boomed and crashed and filled me up and I felt as if I was right there in the Deep South of the United States of America—and I soon forgot.

  The film was so long, when the lights came on at the interval, I got up to leave. William looked worried. “You don’t like the show?” Then we both realized, and I laughed, and then William laughed too.

  “HE SHOULD HAVE left her long ago,” I said, as we started our walk home around the Savannah. There were colored lights under the trees, and a lot of people were out that night. I saw a group of sailors standing on the corner. They stared at me, and I could tell they liked the way I looked. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt light and free.

  “Who?”

  “The Butler man. And how come that girl—Melanie—was so nice
to Scarlett when she was always chasing down her husband.”

  “Some women are like that.”

  “And he wasn’t even handsome.”

  “You liked the movie, Celia?”

  “Yes. But if I was her, I wouldn’t have let him get away like that.”

  And so it went, the whole way home.

  AT THE BACK door, I quickly turned and went inside. “Good night,” I said, through the screen.

  “See you Monday,” William said, “please God.”

  I passed through the kitchen turning out the lights. I could feel his eyes watching through the net. Dr. Emmanuel Rodriguez was in his study, waiting up; wanting to know all about my date.

  WILLIAM AND I started going to the cinema every other week. We saw Casablanca, Prince of Peace, South Pacific, Walking in the Rain, Pillow Talk, Ben Hur, Strangers on a Train, Enchanted Evening, Affair in Trinidad. These are the films I remember. We always sat on the upper level, and stayed until the credits had rolled and the lights were up. And then we walked home along Queen’s Park West, Marli Street, and up Maraval Road and then around the back of the college, and the whole way I talked about the movie—why I liked it or didn’t like it, and who was good and who wasn’t good. Apart from once, when it was raining, William never so much as touched me. We were running for shelter under the eaves of the Roman Catholic church and he put his arm protectively around my shoulders. And that same night, before he said goodbye, he tilted his face and I was sure he was going to try to kiss me. I said, “William, I’d like to take things very slowly.” “I understand,” he said, and looked down at his feet.

  That was the week after the projector broke in the middle of the movie, and we went to a bar called The Cricket, and I drank a Coca-Cola, and before ordering a beer, he asked if I minded if he drank alcohol. I said, “Of course not, as long as you don’t go and get drunk and I have to call the police.” He laughed at this. “Sometimes Solomon and I come in here and we don’t remember how we get home.”