DUST TO DUST Part 4

                                         DUST TO DUST

                                              By Nzinga Nzinga

PART 4

'What a calamity!’ the judge exclaimed as he held his big blubbering, weeping baby brother while the two doctors, the matron and the two nurses set about recuperating the poor undertaker.

‘No, Freddie, this man did not kill Dada.” The judge tried to explain to Freddie. “Dada died because something went wrong in his body causing him to suffer a massive stroke which killed him. When this man burnt Dada, it was not Dada he was burning but a dead body that has no feeling. When he burnt Dada, the spirit or soul of Dada had already returned to God who had placed it in his body in the first place. That was not Dada as we knew him. That was not the essence of Dada that he burnt. That was just the container which once held Dada’s spirit.’

‘I don't understand that kind of talk. All I know is that dis man bun up big big Dada till he can hold in a little vase. Dis man deserve fi dead. Fire bun fi him! He can't go around di place bunning up people.’
'Listen, Freddie, it’s his job to burn a dead body if the family asks him to do so. He made a very tragic mistake and burnt the wrong body. Come with me let me show you something.’ And the huge Freddie went obediently with the judge still crying out, ‘Dada bun up.’ The judge pointed to the urn. ‘Dada’s ashes are in that vase, Freddie. That’s all that is left of him but that is not what we will remember. We will remember Dada full of life and love for all of us.’

           
‘Freddie will only member dat dis foolish bad man bun up Dada,’ Freddie, now rendered calm, muttered.

'What a mess this clown of an undertaker has created,’ the diplomat son remarked.

"The scene was so pitiful that the others could not bear to watch it. Freddie and Stanley were the only two brothers who remained in the town where their parents lived. Freddie stayed at home with his parents but Stanley who had taken over the large construction business from his father lived in his own house about a quarter mile away from the family home." 

Stanley looked at the inconsolable Freddie, doubled his fist and cried, ‘Let me go outside before I kill somebody in this place, you hear me? Melanie, respect, eh. You got guts. I respect you, girl.’ he said to his beauty queen niece. ‘Give me pass, Josephine,’ as he brushed against Josephine who was the real white German wife of the judge. 

"Everybody, understanding his feelings and sympathising with them, made way for him to pass through the door. His café au lait wife with marked oriental features and his 16-year-old son, who looked like a slightly lighter copy of him, followed him. The undertaker had been resuscitated and as he looked around in vain for his assistants, his courage failed him and he started to weep: ‘It was a mistake. Anyone can make a mistake. No one is perfect.' 


Colin, the tennis champion and a son of Judge Orville, looked at him scornfully and retorted, ‘But not as imperfect as you have shown yourself to be. Man, there was no way you should have made such a mistake. My grandfather looked like a white man. He was lighter than me and people think I’m white. He could pass for white in America, England, France, Canada, Australia, South Africa and even here in Jamaica. 

"This body you foisted on us was that of a black man, so black that if he was in the pitch darkness of night you wouldn't be able to see him because he and the darkness would become one. How on earth could you have mistaken a white man for a black man? Unless you're blind. And you're not blind.’ 

Turning to his family he said, ‘Frankly, if only Uncle Stanley, Melanie, Freddie and I were here tonight, this man would not be given the opportunity to undertake or cremate or mix-up any more bodies. Believe me, Daddy,’ he addressed the judge.

‘Colin, I am as upset as you are, but under no circumstance would I condone murder. This man deserves punishment but murder is not the answer.' 

               
Turning to his father, the judge, Colin asked, 'What is the next move then, Your Honour, because the longer we stay here, the most likely will there be a murder?’ Colin wasn't laughing as he flicked his well-practiced tennis wrist. His photographer bother took several other shots of the undertaker.

‘Colin is right, Orville.’ Melvin, the Q. C. faced the judge. ‘The sooner we leave here the better for everybody because I am telling you the truth when I say the only reason that I punched out Stanley and prevented a murder is because I knew that morally it is wrong. However, we are human beings and we are all in pain with the thought of this horrible thing that this incompetent man has done. We all know how much Dada was dead set against cremation, so was Mama and I myself am not for it. It seems as if he knew this was going to happen why he always stressed the point that he didn’t mind what we buried him in or where we buried him as long as we didn’t cremate him. Now the question is, what are we going to take back to bury?' 

The judge, who came from a world of habeas corpus shook his head and his voice shook as he said, ‘We have no corpse, we have no body.’

‘We just have to bury his ashes,’ one of his sisters said

‘In a big casket?’ Sandra, the Guyanese Hindu university lecturer wife of Colin asked.

‘And what happens when he is lying in state and the people come to view the body?’ The ex-headmaster-turned-lawyer asked.

'Wait till Mama hear this. You better prepare for another fainting scenario,’ the matron cried.

‘Country people don’t know much about cremation and the little they know they don't like. Witness Dada and Mama. Poor Mama. She fainted when she saw the wrong body. She going to go into coma now,’ their civil engineer son from Louisiana said as he clutched the arm of his recently wed Swiss bride.

‘Lord have mercy! What really hurt me is how this man made us waste our time go into that awful bush place in Trelawny when he must have known that was a wild goose chase. And then to have these bereaved people dig up their body again. All that time the bl..d cl..t man have Dada in a f---ing vase. This man is to lose his license. This is fraud.’ Stanley and his family had come in again and those words were spoken by his Chinese-looking wife Zelma, who ran a restaurant and nightclub. 

There was not one pure black woman in that family. The women also married light-skinned men with strong and unmistakable signs of Syrian, Jewish or Chinese background.

‘All we can do is take the urn and put it in the coffin with some heavy stuff about Dada’s weight and don’t open it up for public viewing. We can find some excuse. We have enough cause to want to get it over and done with as fast as possible since we have had to postpone it.’ That was Irene’s opinion. She was a science teacher at a leading girls’ school in Kingston and a very matter of fact Scottish woman married to Richard, an electrical engineer.

‘That’s it in a nutshell,’ her husband approved of his wife’s idea and so did everyone else.

'What about Mama? She will want to make sure this time.’ Stanley said.

‘I can take care of her. I will convince her not to look at him. All we have to do is seal the coffin. When will we have the funeral though?’ the matron asked.

‘As soon as possible,’ the ex-teacher-turned-insurance executive said.

‘A week’s time then?’ the judge asked.

'Wha-wh-what ab-bo-bout a qui-quiet early mo-mo-morning fu-fu-fun-eral, fa-family a-a-and clo-close friends only? D-d-day after to-tomorrow and then a mem-me-memorial ser-service in a week’s ti-time.’ The quiet voice with the stutter belonged to Leslie, a very prosperous and prominent Mandeville businessman, son of the late Jacob Jenkins. He had not said a word before except, ‘M-m-my, m-m-m-my’ when the Beauty Queen shocked the crowd with her uptown accented explosion of obscenity. 

Leslie was a man who was not given much to talking and a man who never argued. This was one of his longest speeches that they could remember. His proposal took them by surprise because that idea had not occurred to anyone else.

‘The people won't like that. Mama won't agree either. She will say that Dada was a man of the people who would never want to he buried privately. Although it is really the best suggestion, we will have to bury Dada the old fashioned way.’  Orville, the QC son conceded.

‘I think that Leslie’s suggestion is a very sensible one but I tend to go along with Orville that we should do it just the way we had planned, bar the viewing of the body.’ This was the opinion of the civil engineer who pressed the bejewelled arm of his Lebanese wife for approval. She nodded and he loved the way her long red wig – he had no idea it was a wig – bounced up and down on her shoulders. 

“Eventually, the matter of the funeral home was handled with the minimum of fuss. A family consultation unanimously agreed that it would not do to take it to court or to make a big to-do about it, since, if it became a matter of litigation, there would be a prolonged period of publicity, whereas, if settled out of court, it would be only a nine day wonder. 

A court case would open up quite a few cans of worms and besides being greatly embarrassing to them, any hope of keeping the fact of the cremation secret would be lost. They worked out a very satisfactory settlement with the undertaker who was more than happy to escape with his life, especially since Stanley, the Beauty Queen, the tennis ace and the one who was not so right in his head were watching him the way a hawk watches a chicken he plans to have for his next meal.

“They paid no cremation fees, parlour accommodation fees or dressing fees. In other words they paid nothing. It was the undertaker who paid out to the family. He refunded all their costs including transportation in and out of Kingston. They did not let him off the Trelawny leg. He was to write a letter of apology to the bereaved of the Trelawny corpse for any inconvenience they might have suffered and to pay any expenses they might have incurred through the interruption of the burial resulting in the exhumation of the corpse. The final stroke which he wholeheartedly welcomed although he didn't let on, was that it would be to his advantage if he stopped practising in Jamaica and sought a market elsewhere.

‘That’s one business that can't fail. People are dying by the second. People must die and you can't have enough undertakers, even if incompetent ones,’ volunteered the UN diplomat, Norma Jenkins as her parting shot. The undertaker felt that if he stayed in Jamaica he might well need the services of an undertaker pretty soon, what with Stanley and his disciples around. Within three months he had hurriedly closed down, sold out and was last heard of in Birmingham, England, running the same business, specializing in Jamaican funerals, with a discount on cremations.

“The funeral was held a week later, same place, only more people, quite a few coming out of mere curiosity. No one outside of the immediate family knew that the deceased had been cremated. The widow was kept in total ignorance. This time the hearse was dead on time but the disappointment at not seeing the last remains of Old Jakey was keenly felt by his widow and many mourners who wanted to make sure that this time the corpse in the casket was that of Jacob Jenkins and of no one else.

Everything went off with clockwork precision. The programme was strictly adhered to and no time wasted. One pleasant surprise was the duet How Great Thou Art sung by the tennis star, Colin and his Beauty Queen cousin, Melanie. It made the mourners’ day, so well rendered it was. 

There was a great deal of weeping as the casket bearing the last remains of Jacob Godfried Jenkins J.P, was borne out of the church on the distinguished shoulders of a Cabinet Minister, a High Court judge, a Q.C., a neurosurgeon, a photographer, an engineer and a career diplomat, all family members. 

Once out of the church, for the leg to the nearby cemetery, it was taken over by Leslie, Stanley, a son-in-law who was a restaurateur, a quantity surveyor, a professor and Curtis, the manager of one of Jakey’s businesses, a man whose light complexion allowed him to pass as a member of the family to the extent that scandalmongers claimed that he was an illegitimate son of Old Jakey, who was not given the educational privileges of the others, but employed in the block making business as a clerk rising to his present position of manager.

The minister officiating at the vault side in the church cemetery intoned from the Book of Common Prayer:"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust", and taking up a handful of earth, threw it unto the casket already lowered into the vault, repeating ‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes’ while others followed suit. 

Suddenly, a loud blubbering voice shouted from the area where the immediate family stood, ‘Foolish man bun Dada. Dada in pretty vase. Ashes in pretty vase is Dada in coffin. They say Freddie must forget but Freddie can't forget foolish man bun Dada. Dada not in coffin. Man bun up big, big Dada and put him in a pretty little vase and they put the vase in Dada coffin.’

Only certain members of the bereaved Jenkins family understood why on hearing the strange words of her mentally challenged and irrepressible son Freddie, Mrs Jacob Jenkins, relict of the late Jacob Godfried Jenkins J.P., deceased, fainted for the second time at the final rites of the funeral held for her late husband, Jacob Godfried Jenkins J.P.”

EPILOGUE

“Why are you crying, Lulu?” the raconteur asked in a gentle voice.

“It’s such an unfortunate business and I believe every word of it. Even though they are so stuck-up and colour prejudiced, still it must have been a most horrible time for them. You changed the names but I know who they are. It’s Judge Dunstan’s father, right? I know some of them. I suspected it was them from early in your narrative but do you know that I never heard a thing about it before now?”

“Not surprising for even though this is such a small island, not many people know the truth about that funeral. You were abroad then and the news was neither published in the newspapers nor aired on radio.”

“Belle, can we go for a walk? I am so upset about this story, I am, all of a sudden, afraid to die.”

THE END
All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright. 

  

DUST TO DUST Part 3

                                                       

           

                                                                                     DUST TO DUST

                                               BY NZINGA NZINGA                                                         

 PART 3  

“Belle, I've been listening to your story which I am starting to believe, but there is something that doesn't ring true. Are you telling me that not even one member of the family had helped to dress the old man? I mean family members and friends are usually in on the undertaking part. They take the clothes and so forth there. What about the size of the two corpses? When my father died, there were five of us there at the parlour from start to finish, until we even helped to screw down the cover of the casket. That is the usual thing. Don’t tell me these people were so high society that they ignored those little rites?”

“Well to tell the truth, I asked those same questions because like you, I was there when Granny was being prepared for burial. I witnessed everything. But you wait. Don’t jump the gun. Let me finish. Everything will get explained later on in the story.”

“You are right. Sorry. Go back to when the judge made his little speech and confirmed that there was a mistake. How did the people react? I want that little detail.”

“You know how people still ‘fraid of judge, whether he’s in wig and robes or out of the courtroom? When word got around that he was going to speak, everybody cocked their ears and listened. There was a lot of crying going on among the family members and workers, some of the workers, who used to complain how old Jakey hard, bawling more than the family.”

“Typical,” Lulu said, pictures of the contradictions of slave behaviour on slave plantations flicking through her mind.

“After the judge made his stirring little speech, there was silence and obedience. As far as the family was concerned, the service was over, so they no longer sat in reverent silence. Most of the other folks sat quietly while a few sauntered out providing those outside with the latest bulletin. The organist moved from one mournful piece to another although he was silently questioning the need to play funereal pieces when there was no funeral.

“The judge, other members of the family and about twelve officiating ministers representing an ecumenical front in the form of the Baptist, Moravian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and Anglican churches from around the area and from Kingston, Mandeville, Montego Bay and Black River, came out of the vestry about forty-five minutes after entering. The Jenkins belonged to the Anglican Church. There was no sign of Mrs Jenkins, the doctor, the matron or Stanley. It was the parson in charge, the Anglican, who announced the outcome of the meeting. He said that they had sent someone to phone the funeral parlour and after checking they had admitted their mistake.”

“Unfortunately, both deceased were scheduled for burial at the same time, so unless the mistake had been discerned, the other would probably be already in the vault. However, phone calls were being made to alert and stop the other people. Even more unfortunately, they were deep in some Trelawny bush and it was going to take some time to get word through. In the meantime, the family was asking the people at the funeral to understand their distress. 

They were asking them to pardon the inconvenience they had caused but they would have to postpone the funeral until further notice. They asked them to watch the newspapers and listen to the radio for further announcements. Refreshments had been prepared at the house especially for those who had travelled from afar. ‘Please don’t hesitate to join the family there.’

“What a mess. So what happened?” Lulu was already convinced that it was a true story.

“When you hear the rest of this story, is that time you going to say is storybook tale. Peel another orange for me. Swing your imagination to the funeral parlour in Kingston. Listen carefully now. The family rushed back with the body to the parlour. 

The undertaker was sweating like a man that running marathon. He was so afraid when he saw the battalion of VIPs. For though he didn’t know it yet, there were at least six lawyers of two generations including a High Court judge, a prominent Q.C., a UN diplomat and a Cabinet Minister in that immediate Jenkins family, and among their friends and relatives, there were many heavyweight people. The poor man started hiccupping.

‘Where is my father’s body’, Stanley, rough as usual, was the first to ask. Nobody silenced him this time.

‘Let me explain, please,’ the parlour man said, fear making his voice squeak.

‘Explain nothing. You send us into the deepest bush in Trelawny and when our people go there the body was already buried and we make them dig it up again even though everybody there insisted that they viewed the body and it was their dead. So where is the body of Jacob Jenkins and you better come good?’ Stanley’s voice was like the roar of a hungry lion.

‘Wait, my friend.’

‘Your friend? Am I your friend? I am certainly not your friend. Right now I am your enemy.’ And the way Stanley said ‘enemy’ the poor man choked.

‘It’s like this. There is a horrible mistake. The body you got by the strangest mistake is that of a Mr Jacob Wilkins from Toronto. His people asked to do the necessary and send it to them.’

‘We have brought back Mr Wilkins. I take it you haven't yet sent a body to Toronto. Or have you sent our father’s body to Toronto?’ The trembling man recognised Judge Orville Jenkins. After all, his pictures appear in the papers from time to time since he was a popular man about town.

‘Guilty with explanation, Your Honour.’ His grimace was supposed to be a smile.

‘My man, wipe that silly grin off your face. This is not a joking matter. You are way out of line. Your establishment has extremely embarrassed us and we have incurred a great deal of unnecessary expense because of your carelessness and negligence in handling this matter. As a matter of fact, after we have accomplished the funeral rites, you better believe it when I say you will be faced with a legal suit. And in addition, my dear man, our mother has had to have medical treatment as a result of your incompetence, not to mention the expense, the embarrassment and waste of time in the Trelawny debacle. Now tell us in not more than two words, where my father’s body is.’

Stanley was seething with impatience over the measured tones and calm words of his judiciary brother and was held back only by a stern look from his uncle Frank who was a top corporate lawyer in America. The poor man was now shaking. He pointed over to the left of where they were and although his mouth kept opening and closing, the only sounds emitting from that cavernous deep were the clicking sounds of his double denture.

‘Where man, where? Have you lost your speech?’ the Judge asked.

‘He’s going into shock, Orville,’ his brother Greg who was a doctor exclaimed.

‘Orville, just let me get him to speak. Don’t let him lose consciousness before I get him to speak. Please don’t deny me that one request.’ Stanley pleaded.

‘Control yourself, Stanley.’ Judge Orville Jenkins sternly cautioned his impatient sibling.

The poor man, shaking like a breadfruit leaf in a hurricane, raced over to a shelf on which stood a lovely amethyst Grecian urn. He pointed to it. ‘In there,’ he had finally got his two words out.

‘What! Are you mad?’ the judge screamed.

'What he mean, Orville? What him do? Tell me.’ Stanley looked puzzled. The others understood. Stanley did not understand because the implication was too way out, too incredible.

'Are you saying you cremated my father? The last words of my father to my mother were, ‘No cremation. Whatever you do, don’t let them burn me.’ and you have gone against the wishes of a dying man and done just that. You must be joking though this is no joking matter. Tell me you are lying,’ the judge spluttered, quite unlike his usual urbane self.

‘Cremate Dada? You mean dis piece a shit bun up Dada?’ Stanley cried.How he got to the man so fast is still not clear but one minute he was over on one side and the next he had knocked out the man on the other side, lifted him up and put him in one of the empty coffins. He was trying to close it.

‘Stanley, what in heaven’s name are you doing?’ asked Eloise, his sister the accountant with Price Water House.

'What am I doing? Can’t you see what I am doing? I’m sending this son of a bitch on a one-way ticket straight to hell just as he sent my father. Where’s the f-----g crematorium? Where is it? I am going to cremate this asshole.’ It was a blow from Melvin the Q. C. that stopped Stanley. Melvin was an amateur boxer with promise while he was at Law school. A very light-skinned Latin looking young woman moved up to her Uncle Melvin, and said in angry tones.

‘Uncle Melvin, what the backside you stop Uncle Stanley for. Let him burn him up to r...s. You will have to knock me out too for since you stop him is me going to have to do it. Burn Grandpa? Is the last r..s body him going to burn.’ These words, issued from the delicate cherry lips of dainty beauty queen Melanie, who had just captured one of the coveted beauty titles in the USA, so shocked her father, who was a headmaster-turned, that he reverted to his disciplinarian role of schoolmaster and pulling her back said, ‘Behave yourself, Melanie, or I will give you a taste of the cane. You need to have your filthy mouth scoured with detergent. How dare you speak to your uncle in that obscene manner?’

His wife who was real white cried, ‘It’s the tension, Phil. We are all worked up. At this moment anything can happen.’ She must have foreseen something terrible about to blow up because Freddie, the son who stayed home because he was mentally retarded, had gone over to the casket which still contained the undertaker, and was quietly strangling him while all eyes had been focused on Stanley who was sitting nursing a sore tummy, and the Beauty Queen who was struggling to free herself from her mother and father who were not doing too good a job of containing her. 

Suddenly Hilda, the matron, a matron in a private hospital shouted,

‘Stop Freddie for God sake! Stop him! We don’t want murder on our hands. Oh, my God, stop Freddie!. He’s killing the man.’ Everybody at once rushed to the coffin and literally lifted a big and heavy, sobbing 200-pounder Freddie from his victim. ‘Man bun up Dada. Man firebun Dada. Foolish man. Bun up Dada. Wicked man. Freddie vex. Freddie don’t like bad man. Bad man bun up Dada. Bad man fi ded. Freddie kill bad man.’

To be continued

All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright. 

SILAS Part 2

SILAS  

By Nzinga Nzinga

Part 2

Clara continued to reminisce. "Headmaster Brown thought his wife had gone into cardiac arrest. How can I ever forget such a thing? Then Lizzie had the nerve to say that she couldn't understand why black people, especially Jamaican black women, are so petrified of lizards when in America and England white children and even black children, for that matter, make pets of newts which look like lizards. ‘Such harmless little creatures!’ she said to the poor headmaster whose blood pressure had taken a flying leap as a result of his wife’s unfortunate condition.”

Clara had felt like strangling mother and son on that occasion, but she had restrained herself to help her mother and the headmaster revive Mrs. Brown.

Touching her mother’s hand, Clara recalled. “Mama, do you remember the time Silas told Lizzie that I had slapped him when nothing could have been farther from the truth and she believed him?”

“She not only believed him, girl, she threw a fit and threatened to slap you back. That was when I stepped in and warned her that if she dared to do such a thing, she would have to slap me too and that put her in her place because as trying as Lizzie can be, I don’t think she would go as far as slapping her mother. Those two! They are unbelievable”

“Incredible is the word. Lizzie really makes that little boy twist her around his little finger. How can I forget the day Lizzie left him with us and we suffered while he had fun unlimited, yet as soon as he heard her returning to the house, he started screaming and yelling that he was hungry because we had starved him the whole day?”

“Yes, I remember it well. She grabbed him up, patted him with tears of anger streaming down her cheeks, and turning to us asked how we could be so cruel and heartless. She said that she couldn’t believe that her own flesh and blood could treat their own flesh and blood in such a wicked way. She didn’t even give us a chance to say anything in our defence. She was too busy lecturing us on the evils of child abuse. Do you remember that when she wasn’t looking in his direction how he made faces at us behind her back indicating that the victory was his? What a twosome!” Silas’ granny said with a grin.

“Mama, it was a lot of terrible things that we had to put up with when that child was here. Sometimes when I remember how Silas hid your denture for three whole days and you had to go and make that speech at Sylvia’s wedding without your front teeth and how embarrassed you were, I feel to disown my sister and her ‘one and only’”

“Aye sah. I can never ever forget that business. Even this very minute that I think about it, I want to hide my face out of shame. I wouldn’t have gone to give that speech if you didn’t force me to do it and if Sylvia hadn’t burst into tears when I tried to make some excuse or the other why I couldn’t be there. And that little devil kept acting and looking the innocent, helping us to search for it and asking me if the tooth fairy had taken away my front teeth even though I was such an old woman. And we thought he was funny! That boy! If you weren’t tidying out their room and tried to put some order in his toy box you wouldn’t have found my denture in his Lego house.” Mrs. B sighed.

“Mama, back to the question. Do you like Silas?”

“Do I like him? He’s Lizzie’s child. He’s my grandson. He’s my descendant.  He has my DNA.”

“But do you like him?”

“Shouldn’t I? I should, shouldn’t I? I am his grandmother. Grandmothers usually like their grandchildren. It is expected of us. Though I will grant that he’s a bit unusual. Not the usual run of the mill grandchild. Still, for all that, he’s my grandson.”

“Mama, the question remains. Do you like Silas?”

“Do I like him? You really want the truth, don’t you? And you won’t stop badgering me until I answer.”

“Yes, Mama. I want the truth and nothing but the truth so help you God.”

“You remind me of Marsh, a student I used to teach. He had to have the answers to his most annoying questions. No wonder he’s a lawyer today. Okay. Since you insist, let me stop beating about the bush. I don’t like Silas one bit. I feel like swearing whenever he’s around and I long for his departure. Let me tell you the raw truth since I have gone this far. I don’t like the little brat at all. He doesn’t have any respect. That child respects no one, neither God, nor man, nor animals nor plants. My poor dogs, my cats, my chickens and my garden suffer just as much as we do when he’s here." 

Getting up to stand by the open window to look at her beautiful garden in bloom, she continued. "The very thought of him coming here for the summer gives me goose pimples. We haven’t yet recovered from the havoc her precious Silas wreaked on us when he was here two years ago and here she is asking us to have him here for a whole summer without her. Anyway, with or without her makes no difference. Do you like Silas, Clara? This is a moment of truth. You have heard my truth. Let me now hear your truth.”

“No, Mama, I don’t like him. I definitely feel too uneasy and uncomfortable around Silas to like him.”

“Well, that makes two of us. It’s not the feeling a grandmother and aunt would wish to entertain for their grandson and nephew but we are being honest and that is how it is. Did Lizzie say why she’s sending him on the plane with strangers? That’s so unlike her. Why is she sending him away? Did she say?”

“She says he needs some good old-fashioned tutoring in the fundamentals and that since we are both in the teaching field, she wants us to get him well-grounded in the three ‘Rs’.”

“Really! Lizzie used to say that these are modern times, the age of modern science and technology and that what computer can’t teach is not worth worrying about. I wonder why she is retrogressing to the old-fashioned methods.”

“She laments that his school reports are way below the class average. Seems he’s clever but not academically clever.”

“Poor Silas! I don’t have any desire to spend my summer teaching such a disruptive child.”

“Me neither,” said Clara, her head in the letter. “She says here that the main reason for sending him is that she needs space, her own space to cement the bonding between her and her new doctor boyfriend.”

“I am not surprised that she has to send away Silas to get enough space to do anything. That boy encroaches on everybody’s space and even pushes you out of your own. Tell me something, Clara, since you are still young enough to understand this boyfriend business. Is that girl of mine going to use bonding cement on the doctor-man? Putting fun and joke aside though, can anybody tell me how two ordinary, down-to-earth parents like Ben and me could produce such a strange out-of-this-world creature like Lizzie?”

“The people she moves with don’t find her strange, Mama. Maybe we are the weird ones.”

“Not on your life, Clara. Anyway, be as it may, you listen to me carefully now, I want you to drive down to Mrs. Clark and ask her to allow you to make an emergency call to Lizzie. We will pay for it same time. Don’t call collect because Lizzie done told me that collect calls are not on. That’s exactly what she said. ‘Mama, collect calls are not on.’ She said they depleted her meagre resources. From Lizzie been living abroad, is only once we ever made a collect call to her and she been there fifteen years now. So then, mi love, go and call Lizzie for me and tell her to cancel all arrangements re Silas’ visit. That it just is not on. Use those words, ‘not on’."

"I will give her your message word for word." 

"I am not finished. Explain to her that we still have no electricity because we haven’t yet saved up enough money to buy the three poles the Electric Company says we are to get, so Silas would not be able to operate his video and computer and all those other electrical devices she was planning on sending out with him. Tell her that Silas would be too bored with two old-fashioned school marms who have long forgotten how to entertain 9-year-old boys at home."

"Is that it, Mama? 

"Not quite. There's more. Don’t forget to mention the malfunctioning of the twenty-year-old temperamental kerosene fridge considering that Silas can only take iced drinks. Don’t leave out anything. Tell her exactly what I tell you to tell her so that there won’t be the slightest misunderstanding. You can also remind her that we have plenty flies around the place because of the chickens and the mango season and she knows how Silas hates flies. That is all. Yes, that is all.”

“Mama, should I pass on love to her and Silas from you?”

“Of course, chile. What you take this thing for? The little family courtesies and protocols have to be observed!”

THE END
All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright. 

 

SILAS Part 1

SILAS 

        By Nzinga Nzinga                                                

Part 1

“What's that you reading, Clara?” the older woman asked.

“A letter from Lizzie, Mama,” the younger replied, while she continued reading.

“Lizzie hardly writes. Two short letters a year is her limit.”

“Well, she has written quite a lengthy one this trip and it is addressed to both of us.”

“You don’t have to read the whole thing to me. Just pick out the message. You know the part that says what she wants this time. Tell me what she wants. I can't imagine Lizzie finding time to write us unless she wants something real bad.”

Clara’s eyes skim over the four A4 pages and then she turns to her mother. “Mama, she says that she wants Silas to stay with us for the long summer vacation…”

“Are you sure about that? Does that mean he would be coming alone, without her?”

“So she says.”

“I have to believe you because you have the evidence right there before your very eyes but I can't imagine that Lizzie would let her Silas leave her management for longer than it takes for him to get through a day at school.”

“Well, Mama, she says he has asked to come and she feels quite confident that we will take care of her boy, her ‘one and only’ as she calls him here.” She laughs.

“Why are you laughing, Clara?” Miss B asked.

“Because of what she says here. Lizzie says that she is sure there will be mutual benefit all around from Silas’ visit.”

The mother screws up her face. “Benefit? Who says? And mutual benefit at that? Lizzie is a lawyer but there is a lot she still has to go and learn. We are not prepared to entertain a little New York boy. And for a whole summer at that? I mean there is no T.V, no video, no modern games and toys and the kerosene fridge breaks down more times than it works and when it does, it’s empty anyway because we can't trust anything much to it. Moreover, he has a very sweet tooth and we don't use sugar anymore.” Miss B sighs.

“It says here that he is bringing all these things with him, T.V, video, cassettes, computer and loads of games and toys so he won't be bored. Says she doesn't want him to be bored,” Clara said as she reviewed the letter.

“She can find money to buy all those things and yet she couldn't find the little money I asked her to lend me to help us put in electricity.” Miss Lizzie reminded her older daughter. “Pappy show! I wonder what he is going to plug all those things into. Since she sending him with all those electrical contrivances, she must be sending generator with them.”

“She hasn't mentioned any generator.”

“Trust Lizzie to overlook the obvious. She can’t see the woods for the trees. Anyway, knowing how Lizzie is, she would want every blessed thing sent back. Clara, she can reconsider it, you know. It costs a lot to travel these days and with all that overweight coming and going…”

“Mama, she has already bought the ticket and arranged with some friends of hers for him to travel with them. Everything is set. It’s only left for us to pick him up at the airport. She is not really asking our permission. She thinks she is doing us a great favour.”

“Favour mi back foot! That is no favour. To foist a young hyperactive boy on two fusty old women! That’s no favour I can tell her.”

“Tchach, Mama. I am not exactly an old woman, even though my last child is 17 years old. However, I really don't want to earn my long deserved summer holidays away from those ebullient boys at school only to be saddled here with one even more buoyant for twenty four hours a day. Lizzie is as unreasonable as ever.”

Clara obviously did not think too highly of her sister.

“A lot of cheek, I'd say. That boy will find fault with everything from the way we speak, the way we cook, the way we look and smell, the whole house, the latrine out back and everything else his eyes happen to light on.”

“I know, Mama. Mama, I want to ask you something.”

“Go on. Ask me.”

“Do you like Silas?”

“Silas? If I like Silas? Why you asking me that? Which Silas you mean though?”

“Mama, there is only one Silas remaining in this family. Lizzie’s little spoilt brat, who is supposed to come to us this summer to bless us with his enchanting company though I can see it only as a curse, is the Silas I mean. Remember him, Mama? Lizzie named him after Uncle Silas thinking he would leave some of his money to her child. Of course he didn't leave him even one red cent in his Will. Uncle Silas hated to be in the same space at the same time with that child, but being a man of few words, he never let his true feelings show to Lizzie. You know very well who Silas is. Don't try to dodge the question, Mama.”

“What question, Clara?”

“Oh, come on, Mama, stop playing games. Do you like Silas?”

“Well. He has a nose…”

“…that pokes into everything.”

“I wasn't going to say that. I was about to say that he has a cute nose.”

“His nose is quite ordinary, Mama, not in the least bit cute. There is nothing cute about that child.”

“His eyes are…”

“…always darting all over the place to see if he can cause some trouble.”

“I was about to say that his eyes are always so shiny, so full of…”

“…mischief, you mean.”

“His feet are…”

“…swift to kick. Do you remember how he kicked every one of those children who came to his birthday party and Lizzie said the children here need to be more aggressive if they want to survive because it’s a jungle out there and only the fittest of the fit can survive?”

“Yes, Clara. I remember that episode and how you never talked to Lizzie for two days. I was only going to say that he has dainty feet. His feet are quite small, you know, for his rather bulky size.”

“Mama, do you like Silas?”

“He’s my grandson, Clara, just like how your four boys are my grandsons. The difference is that your children don't make me feel old, ugly and scared. Remember how Silas tore down the only framed picture we have of your father, broke the glass and tore up the photograph saying that the moustache and beard frightened him and gave him nightmares? I still can't believe that a little boy like that could say that his grandfather was a little too long in the tooth! And his mother telling me that I was too intolerant and fussy over what was only an old worn-out photograph and that she couldn't see what all the excitement was about. She said that she herself had never liked it anyway. Lizzie is my daughter but at times she makes me want to get rough with her.”

“Mama, don’t forget how he locked up the puppy in the old shed down the farm after tying up its mouth with my new scarf and we didn't find the poor creature until late in the night.” Clara couldn't help laughing now that the incident was safely in the past.

“And he was as pleased as punch that he had outsmarted us. Lizzie just laughed and 
said, ‘Boys will be boys.’ I tell you, Clara, that boy never lets you forget him,” the grannie said.

“Ah, Mama, remember how the little rascal threw a packet of blue dye in the water tank saying that he wanted to bring the sea into our yard? And what did his mother say? The besotted girl said, ‘Oh, my son is so creative, so artistic! A budding Picasso!” Clara gritted her teeth at the memory.

“Clara, do you remember the time he emptied the sugar from the sugar bowl and substituted salt? All Lizzie did was tell him that it would have been better if he had done it the other way round because not everyone likes so much salt in their tea or coffee. That is after nearly everybody had spoilt their tea with an abundance of salt.” Granny laughed. Silas was far away so she could see the funny side of it though at the time of that incident she did not feel like laughing.

“Of course I remember. How could I ever forget that episode? Do you think I will ever forget that living nightmare? And the time he put the rubber lizard on the armchair of the headmaster’s wife and she there patting him and telling him what a cute boy he was. That boy was there smiling with Mrs. Brown while he was busy putting the lizard on the arm of her chair so that when she turned around, her hand came in contact with this fearsome looking creature. I can still hear her screams before she fainted.”

To be continued

 All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright. 

DUST TO DUST Part 2

                                                DUST TO DUST 

                                                  By Nzinga Nzinga

Part 2

“Awright. As you know, they have these red skin people over in a part of St. Elizabeth near where my people come from. Not light skin like mine but real pale skin, light, light almost white. Beside them I look dark. They are so light they can pass for white. As a matter of fact some of them pass for white, even now, in America.”

“I know the type. We have some near where my mother was born. In a place called German Town. Straight hair, blue, grey, hazel or green eyes, and when they get oldish, their skins get spotted just like real white people’s skin.”

“Same kind. As I said they pass as white in America.”

“Belle, you notice how is only in America that our people have to be doing all kinds of silly things to pass as white?”

“That is America, my dear. Free for some but not free for all. The matter of colour still predominates and colour white, or rather, colourless is still king. Anyway let me tell you about what happened to these whitish people. This very light-skinned man by the name of Jacob Jenkins, died. He was the head of the family. People called him Maas Jakey. A tall heavy-set man with a crop of silky white hair. 

The funeral was scheduled for the Saturday afternoon. The body was travelling from a funeral parlour in Kingston to lie in state for two hours before the funeral service. Up to the time the service should start, it still had not arrived and a phone call put through to the funeral home indicated that it had left at the appointed time.”

“What caused it to be late?”

“There was a terrible accident in Manchester on Spur Tree Hill, where an oil tanker had overturned and blocked the road and there were no by-roads on which to divert the traffic so the hearse and family escort had to sit there while the traffic piled up on that busy Saturday afternoon.”

“What a shame!”

“True. The church was packed with people from all over the place, and plenty big shot cars parked in the churchyard and far along the streets in both directions. Maas Jakey’s children were nearly all big time professionals and their friends had turned out from all over the island and even from abroad, some coming from as far away as Alaska, Switzerland and Australia, to support them in their hour of grief. All together there were seven sons and three daughters. Hear what happen now. The mourners were there, waiting inside and outside the church, for as large as it was, it was packed like sardine. They had heard about the accident which had claimed the life of the tanker driver and was the cause of the long delay.

“At last the cortege was arriving. A large luxurious black hearse with a family member sitting beside the driver and the assistant undertaker turned into the churchyard. It was preceded by five police outriders. There were sixty black cars carrying immediate members of the family, relatives and friends following although many of them had arrived earlier or on time and were already seated in the church.

“The casket, a bronze and copper coloured modest but expensive casket  was carried into the church by six members of the family and placed inside the church, just below the altar. There were so many wreaths! Since time for viewing the body had long past and the service was already two hours and a half late, one of the five officiating ministers announced that only the immediate members of the deceased would be allowed to view the body. One of the assistants from the funeral home, who was standing respectfully by, opened the peephole.”

“Lawks, Belle, don't call it that. It gives me the creeps. It sounds too morbid. Lawks, these oranges are so sweet. They sweet till they scratch. Wow, wow!”

“Anyway when the wife or rather widow, a tall very blue-eyed, freckled, straight hair woman, who was the first to go up to look on the face of her late beloved husband for the last time and bid him a fond farewell, took one look into the casket and screamed one dutty outa order scream: ‘Oh my God, is not Jakey. It’s not my husband. Is a ugly big face black man dem put in Jakey coffin!’ and she fainted across her husband's casket.”

Lulu interrupted to have a point clarified. “Do you mean that she fainted because the corpse was a black man or because the man was ugly or because the man was not Jakey?” she asked mockingly, not knowing whether to believe the story or not.


“Look, chile, don’t take serious ting make joke. Is true thing happen. I know the family personally. They have a colour problem. Everyone of them bound by considerations of colour so I want you to understand the shock the woman must have felt. All her life and her husband’s life not to mention their parents, they did everything in their power to keep their family ranks as ‘whitish’ as possible and here at the end of old Jakey’s life, the man was to go to his Maker, a black man, and not even a good looking one at that, but an ugly black-as-pitch one. 

You must also realize that it doesn't matter if that black man looked as handsome as Paul Robeson, that set would still consider him, by virtue of his black skin, as ugly as sin. Digest those facts. So we are where the wife faints and falls over and lands on the casket, almost knocking it over. Pandemonium. Chaos. Mayhem. Disorder.” Belle was addicted to crossword puzzles.

“Everybody wanting to see or hear with their own eyes and ears if it was true. But is only one little peep...Sorry, I mean the little window on the coffin so is only one person or two at a pinch who can peep through it. First time such a shocking thing happened in the lives of the people assembled there. They wanted to add it to their repertoire of most amazing things they had seen. Family members rushing to see if Mama is right and only one small opening so it’s only one or two persons can see into the casket. Mama is lifted off the casket bearing the repulsive corpse, the sight of which has sent her into an unconscious state, and taken to the vestry where her doctor son and her own blood sister matron attend to her. 

The word passed around swiftly like when fire get ‘way in a gas station. ‘Is not Maas Jakey.’ ‘Is not Mrs Jenkins’ husband.’ ‘Is another man, a black man, at that.’ ‘Is a big ugly black brute.’ ‘Lawd, that is supposed to kill Miss Jenkins dead. I hope she recover.’ ‘A black man? I don’t believe it. The Jenkins don’t have nothing to do with black people except to work out they soul case or to trade with them.’ ‘Serve them right, stuck-up people. They too colour prejudice.’ ‘I would give anything to know what pass through Mrs Jenkins’ mind when she came face to face with that fake corpse. A black body!!’

Someone from Kingston who had just lost her uncle remarked, ‘For all we know, he died from some kidney disease. That can turn a fair-skinned person black. We buried my aunt last week. The last time we saw her, she was as light as Lena Horne but when we saw her in the coffin, she was black as me. They said her kidneys had packed in and that was why she turned black.’

“These were just a few of the mixed sentiments that a small minority of the mourners and curiosity seekers expressed. The family banned any picture taking and a grandson who was a well-known professional photographer took his camera back to his car and sat in disgusted silence like most of the members of his class and their elitist friends. It took over half an hour to restore some vestige of order in the church and have the congregation return to their seats. 

The organist tried to drown out the disorder with some loud funereal hymns but he was not very successful. The older and more influential male members of the family, the five ministers, and some deacons, huddled together near the coffin in some sort of whispering discussion. 

“Then one of the sons, the judge, made his way up to the pulpit and made a plea for the attention of the congregation. They cooperated and he informed them that there was a most terrible mistake with the corpse so he was asking their forbearance and please could they just sit down quietly while they removed the casket to the hearse to be returned to the funeral parlour. Meanwhile they would have a private family discussion in the vestry and return to tell them what decisions they had made.”

“Before the undertaker’s assistant could close up the window of the casket and set it up to roll it out to the hearse, another son of the deceased who was not one of the refined and influential ones, but an out-and-out loud mouth, ready-to-fight-at-the-drop-of-a-hat, grabbed the assistant and thumped him down right there in the church, causing him to fall across the casket, almost overturning it. 

He was just about to hit his victim again when the judge said in a stern voice, ‘Stop it, Stanley. You are in the house of God. It is not our father who lies in that casket but it could or should have been. Show some reverence and respect. Violence cannot solve this problem of ours. Will somebody help that man, please?’ Two people did. They lifted the stunned assistant undertaker to his feet.

"Stanley who was always afraid of his soft-spoken elder brother cooled down and went to the vestry to see what had become of his unconscious mother. The assistant was feeling weak so he was escorted to the hearse while the driver and someone else rolled the casket down the aisle. They could not sneak out the side door since members of the family were standing there. 

The habit of playing while the coffin leaves the church was so ingrained in the organist that he got set to play but wasn't sure what funereal piece to render while a wrong corpse is being wheeled out of a funeral service not intended for it, so he settled for Swing low/Rock of Ages/Fly Away Home. Some members of the congregation uncertain of the correct procedure, but preferring to err on the side of commission stood up in respect as the wrong corpse of an unknown blackman was wheeled down the aisle to the hearse.”

To be continued

 All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright.