Every Time a Rainbow Dies

  “How do you know she left them?” This was almost an attack. A man reading his Dow Jones gave her a sharp look.

  “She never came back,” Thulani answered. “I waited.”

  “Maybe it’s because you touch them and the mother smell you on her babies,” she said, still on the attack. “You’re not supposed to touch them.”

  He felt steam. He only wanted to let her see that he cared for something, even if they were birds. Like everything else he tried, this backfired. She was appalled or disgusted. There was nothing he could say to change what she thought.

  The train creaked to a complete stop and sat outside the next station. The conductor blamed the delay on a sick passenger up ahead and promised that the trains would be moving shortly. Ysa turned back to her textbook, Thulani to the posters. Three minutes passed. The other riders accepted this delay, but Thulani became restless, heaving sigh on top of sigh. Should have set them free, he thought. Three, now four minutes were too long a time for someone who did not ride the trains. Too long to be trapped. Too long to feel that the person next to him would rather be with her book because she could only make a sound of disgust when he spoke. He heaved another sigh and stamped his foot.

  Ysa tapped his hand and said, “What is that bird that makes that ‘oooh, oooh’?”

  “You mean an owl?”

  “I say ‘oooh,’ not ‘whoo.’ Oooh. You know. Brown, big eyes. Oooh, oooh.”

  “Mourning doves,” he told her. “I don’t have any mourning birds. Only rock doves. Pigeons.”

  “I had them,” she said.

  “You?”

  “Not how you think—in a cage,” she said. “There was this pair outside my window. Male and female. They come to my window ledge every morning. First he comes with straw and twigs and puts them down for her. Then she sits on the nest, and he covers her with his body and his wing. He turns his head to my window to say, ‘Ey, what you looking…this is our home. You, don’t look at us.’ Then he turns to her to say, ‘I will shelter you, keep you safe.’ I hear them every morning making their promises outside my window. Oooh, oooh.”

  There was no dark tunnel. No train delay or people hanging over them. There were only her lips, which he followed. Oooh, oooh.

  He thought of how protective Bruno was with Yoli and said, “I will shelter you…he mean it, you know.”

  “Ha! That is what you think,” she said, breaking the moment. “I see how narrow the ledge is. That it can’t support the nest.”

  “No?”

  “Of course not. The wind keeps blowing it away, but this doesn’t stop him—what do you call him, cock? Every morning he comes with his leaves and twigs, then shows her the new nest and puts her there. ‘Sit. I will shelter you.’”

  “What happened?”

  “What you think?” She showed some disgust, which he now realized was sometimes her natural expression. “She got tired of him building that foolish nest and telling her to stay there.” She opened her book again, and the train lurched forward. “He still comes and sits at my window. Every morning by himself, oooh, oooh.”

  ELEVEN

  Thulani rode the train back to Brooklyn and pictured Ysa’s lips opening and closing. Oooh, oooh. Even as evil as she could be, he was ready to kiss her. If she fell into his arms, closed her eyes, and gave him all that she held tightly to herself, then she would be his. He’d never have to wonder when he would see her next.

  By the time he reached his block, second period had already slipped away from him. He imagined Ysa’s look of disgust if she learned he was late, and for a passing moment he wished he cared the way she did about her studies. He would at least arrive in time for fourth period. This was better than missing school altogether.

  From the other side of the street he could see a blue-and-white ambulette parked before his house. All of his longings for Ysa were knocked out of him in that instant. He trotted toward the house. It could be Eula choking. Or Shakira or Truman. He reached the walkway just as Mr. Dunleavy teetered slowly down the steps. He held on to a lady’s arm with one hand and his walking stick with the other. Thulani stood at the curb and waited. When the old man came upon him, Thulani saw Mr. Dunleavy’s age in the morning light. How frail he was. That each step took a great deal of effort.

  “Mr. Dunleavy,” he said, taking the hand that held the cane.

  Old Dunleavy did not speak. He just nodded and looked at Thulani with twinkling eyes, as if this were all he could muster. He was then helped into the ambulette by the lady, and they drove off.

  Thulani ran past Shakira, who nursed Eula in the kitchen, and went up to his roof to unlatch the dovecote. He expected Bruno and the others to flock to the opening and charge at him all at once, but they didn’t. It was still early, about the time he’d free them during the summer when he slept late. Even though he had left without freeing them, he did not try to make amends or tell them of last night’s dreams, which by now were fuzzy. Nor did he tell them about his train ride with Ysa. Instead he kept these things to himself while Yoli, Dija, and even Esme cooed and clucked about him.

  “What happened to Dunleavy?” he asked Shakira. “Fell ill?”

  Shakira gave Thulani an incredulous look. “Ill—yeah. It’s called age, Thulani. Old age.” She unplugged Eula and switched her to the other breast. Thulani no longer turned away. He was used to finding Shakira with her housedresses open and Eula attached to her.

  “The social worker took him to a nursing home. He’s not coming back.”

  Thulani was not close to Dunleavy, but he knew he would feel his absence. At the same time it didn’t seem fair that Mommy was young and gone, and Mr. Dunleavy was still creaking along, as old as he was. Ten years ago Mommy said Mr. Dunleavy was no younger than eighty, no older than eighty-five. Not even Mr. Dunleavy knew his exact age. He had been born in the hills of Jamaica and never had his birth recorded. It was by the events he recounted in his chats with Mommy that she deduced his approximate age. Thulani used to squat on the floor with his head leaning against his mother’s calf, while she and Old Dunleavy sipped tea and talked about the lush green hills of home and the people they knew in common. Even when Mommy left and Thulani occasionally collected the rent, Old Dunleavy made it a point to tell him, “You must visit the homeland while it’s still so beautiful.” From time to time Thulani considered going to St. Catherine to see his father and the home he left. He’d quickly remember his mother was buried near his father’s house, and he’d abandon those thoughts.

  Shakira looked up at the clock.

  “No school?”

  “There’s school,” he answered.

  “Well? Why you’re not there?”

  He almost said, “I was riding the train with Ysa,” but he smiled instead.

  Shakira took off the diaper draped over her shoulder, exposing her breast, and gave him a good snap on his torso. This sudden motion startled Eula, whose hands flew up, though it did not stop her from nursing.

  Shakira shook her head. “Stupid bwai.”

  He grabbed his notebook and left for school. Shakira had him up in a girl’s room, grunting and sweating and making babies. It wasn’t her fault, he thought. How could Shakira know that everything about Ysa made him smile and exasperated him? That she gave him reason to get up in the morning and be in the world. That every day was an opportunity to win her, and he had everything to look forward to—talking to her, making her laugh, taking her hand, and reaching that point of knowing they were meant to join. Why wasn’t he at school? Because for one forty-minute train ride, he was that much closer to knowing Ysa.

  He walked in on a film during health class and found his seat in the back of the room. It was an AIDS film. He laid his head on the desk and watched a video game depiction of an immune system under siege. He drifted off to sleep.

  Janine, Julie, and two other girls approached him during the change of classes.

  “So.” This time Julie spoke first. “Did you find her yet?”

  Thulani
said yes.

  Janine then added, “Did she want to be found?”

  He smiled.

  “Look, he’s blushing.”

  Every other day he looked up and saw her at Yong Moon’s, among the plantains, yuca, and avocados. Never the oranges or the grapefruits. She never looked up to find him or wave, so he always made his way over to her. Depending upon what she’d pick out—plantains, mangoes, batatas—he’d guess….

  “Haiti?”

  She’d say, “Don’t be too sure.”

  “Martinique?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve got you now: St. Lucia.”

  “You have nothing. Give up. You don’t know my island.”

  As long as she came to the market to buy a dollar’s worth of plantains, yuca, onions, peppers—little things she could get at any corner market—he would not give up. Sooner or later she would come to the market and not buy anything.

  He continued to meet her in the mornings. He’d rise, free his birds, and run to her house just to walk her to the train station and take the ride with her. He didn’t have much to say. Neither did she, but they rode together, and she seemed pleased to see him, though it was not her way to say so.

  That Monday of the second week of riding the train he offered to carry her portfolio, but she said no. While she read her book, he took out his notebook and finished his math homework.

  On that Tuesday he fell asleep on the train and rested his head on her shoulder. She didn’t push him away.

  In the meantime postcards from the Department of Attendance came to his house every day stating, “Thulani Wright was absent periods one to four,” on such and such a date. Truman said nothing about the absences, but Shakira wouldn’t let them slide, warning him that any girl who would keep him from school was not worth the time she stole from him.

  On Friday Ysa stopped him at the turnstile before he could drop his token into the slot.

  “Tulani,” she said strongly.

  “What?”

  “Go to school.”

  “I’m going.”

  “Now.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to study in the morning,” she said. “You distract me.”

  They were tying up the turnstile, and commuters wanted Thulani to move.

  “So you don’t want to see me.”

  “That’s what you say. I say I need to study.”

  “I’ll go to school if…”

  “If?”

  “If I can see you.”

  “You’ll see me,” she told him.

  The bell sounded. Her train was coming.

  “Tell me again.”

  “You’ll see me,” she said, then ran down the steps to catch her train.

  TWELVE

  “You waste my water,” Yong Moon said.

  Thulani had been standing over the red leaf lettuce with the hose, watering one head of lettuce until a leaf separated from the head. He looked up and turned off the hose.

  “She’s not come today,” Mr. Moon told him.

  He had to face it. Once again Ysa had disappeared. Just when he had a grasp on her laugh, her ways, her smell, just when he was so close to kissing her—a near possibility he could taste—Ysa vanished.

  She wouldn’t let him ride the train with her, and she was never at Paterson Silks to walk home in the evening. She stopped coming by the fruit stand altogether.

  It had been different when he thought of her and did not know her. Her absence made him wonder who she was. Now that she was within his reach, her absence gave him pain.

  He crushed a grape between his thumb and index finger. He didn’t have to go through this. There were other girls at school who flirted with him, although he never took them up on it. He could just as easily like any one of them.

  Thulani crushed another grape.

  He hadn’t done anything to offend her. If anything, they were becoming closer. He felt it happening. Why should he seek out another girl when the one that he wanted was right there?

  He had to talk to her that evening. If she was suddenly afraid to leave her house because of the ones who raped her, then he would be there to protect her and do whatever she needed. If he found out that she was all right but didn’t want to see him, he’d have to face reality and leave her alone. Either way, he had to know.

  He gave Mr. Moon three dollars for a bouquet of field flowers, a bunch of blue flowers that clung to the stems. Mr. Moon shook his head no and pushed the money on the counter toward him. Thulani also shook his head no and slid the money to Mr. Moon. This went on two more rounds until Thulani took his flowers and left the money on the counter.

  Thulani pressed the buzzer and waited. His grip on the bouquet was such that he bent one of the stems. When he left her house, he would have either a girlfriend or no one.

  The door cracked open. “Oui?” came from the other side of the chain. The door opened fully and revealed Tant Rosie, a short, squat woman wearing a somber housedress, her hair pressed flat and neat against her head. Ysa, he noted, had none of her aunt’s traits.

  “Can I see Ysa? Is she here?”

  Tant Rosie waved her hand from side to side and said, “No, no.”

  “Is Ysa okay?” he asked.

  The woman only repeated, “No, no.”

  He was about to walk away when he heard an exchange from behind the door and recognized the other voice as Ysa’s. The door opened. Ysa’s eyes greeted him first, bright and welcoming; then she spoke. The pain he had felt earlier vanished.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey.”

  She waved him in, then uttered something in reassuring tones to Tant Rosie, who backed away from the door.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I came to see you….” His voice trailed off, hoping she would cut him off and say, “Don’t be silly.” Instead she eyed the bouquet, which he had forgotten. He offered it to her.

  “Winter flowers,” she said as she took them. “I don’t like these so much. They’re not so pretty.” She examined them with her nose scrunched up. “You don’t have to bring me things.”

  He was too glad to see her to be offended. “My mother told me to bring a gift when you visit someone’s home for the first time.”

  “I never heard that one,” she said, and led him inside.

  Tant Rosie said something entirely uncomplimentary about le fle as she took them from Ysa to put in a vase. This he knew by the lengthening of her otherwise round face. He imagined she said, “You see? He is bringing flowers because he wants your pussy. Don’t be a fool.”

  Tant Rosie beckoned them both to the kitchen. “Come. Sit. Eat,” she offered in her limited English.

  He took in everything about the house, hoping these things would tell him more about Ysa. Except for a mounted crucifix whose fake rubies and emeralds sparkled on the wall—but not so much the faded portrait of a haloed Christ—he did not sense Ysa’s touch in the home. The knickknacks, the blue-and-white ceramic grand duke and duchess lamps, the crocheted afghans spread across the plastic-covered couches told him more about Tant Rosie.

  He searched for decorative plates or straw mats, any souvenir to proclaim their island, but there was nothing of that sort. Ysa seemed to know that this was what he was looking for as he turned his head in every direction, and she gave him her telltale grin that said, “You don’t know my island.” He grinned back: “I’ll know soon enough.”

  When he was sure the old woman could not hear he whispered, “She said you weren’t here.”

  “No, no. You misunderstand.” Ysa defended her aunt. “She was telling you it’s too late for you to come.” Ysa pointed to the clock. It was almost eight.

  His mind returned to that first night when he stood outside the door and heard the slap. “She won’t hit you…me being here?”

  Ysa laughed—a laugh he knew well. It was how she lied to him and pretended everything was all right.

  Tant Rosie placed a small plate of rice and beans, or, as Ysa said, riz collés,
with a few slices of plantain before him. He nodded his thanks to her, hoping she would disappear after she served the meal. Instead the woman sat in a corner with a crochet hook, yarn, and a watchful eye.

  Thulani ate the food. He was hungrier than he had realized. Within minutes Tant Rosie put another plate before him. He held up his hand—“No, no”—but she would not hear of it. He cleaned this plate as well.

  “I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you.” Again he sought Ysa’s absolution, but she only ate. “You don’t come by the market.”

  “I don’t need any fruit or vegetables. We have enough.”

  “You don’t let me ride with you in the morning,” he said.

  “I told you. I need my train ride to study.”

  Tant Rosie took his plate away and washed it. She was smiling but speaking sternly to Ysa in Creole. Ysa nodded to her aunt.

  Thulani had to know once and for all. If she told him what he didn’t want to hear, he’d leave her alone.

  “Am I bothering you, Ysa?”

  “Bothering me?”

  “Is it, you don’t want to see me?”

  “I see you now,” she said, but would not look at him.

  “I think about you every day.”

  “Don’t say this nonsense.” She glanced at her aunt.

  Thulani thought, Let her hear what I’m saying. I don’t care. He told her, “I think about you riding the train in the morning.”

  “Ha! You are asleep when I am on the train.”

  “I think about you wrapped up in one of your rainbows.” He referred to her skirts, the ones with many colors.

  She kicked him under the table. “Sssh.”

  “I don’t see you—”

  “I have exams,” she said. “I cut back my hours at work so I can study.”

  “And that’s why I don’t see you?”

  “I’m trying to get into a top school for design. It’s very competitive.”

  “So you study all day and make…designs?” He didn’t know what else to call it.