Mr. Moon said, “Forget about girlfriend. Too much trouble. Make you late for work or leave work early.” He shook his finger at Thulani and warned, “Girlfriend get you fired.”
When Thulani closed down the store and pushed the carts inside, he saw her standing across the street with her bag of produce. She had been waiting for nearly an hour. He crossed the street and told himself not to fall. Not to drink her in. Not to want her. Not to smile. Not to walk too fast as he crossed the street.
When he reached her, she said, “You’re not going to walk me home?”
They started down the block toward Franklin. In the middle of the block she said, “You can take my hand, but you let go when I say let go.”
He could do this. He could let go. He said, “All right,” and took her hand.
FIFTEEN
Ysa caught him aiming the camera lens at her and gave him a severe look. These looks did not work on him as they once had. He could see the smile underneath her supposed annoyance.
“One more,” he promised. “Just one.”
“You take too many already,” she said.
To both Ysa’s and Mr. Moon’s discomfort, Thulani used nearly a roll of film taking their pictures. He also took pictures of the produce and caught shoppers poring over yams, melons, and nectarines.
Since he had rescued the camera from the junk pile, he couldn’t put it down. He spent many hours taking it apart to study the insides. Instead of going to class he sat in the library and perused books and magazines to learn about lighting, shutter speeds, and framing shots. The camera was not junk, as Truman had pronounced it. In fact Mr. Dunleavy had kept it in good condition. It simply had not been in use. Now that the camera was his, Thulani was rarely without it. He began on his rooftop, in the little time he spent there, waiting for his birds to fly off or return, trying to capture them in flight against the Brooklyn backdrop. In the house he took pictures of Shakira and followed his crawling niece, who seemed to enjoy being a subject.
Next he brought the camera to the market and tried to photograph Mr. Moon, who greeted Thulani’s aim with his head down and arms up. Ysa was a bit more willing to pose, particularly if she wore one of her own designs. He liked to photograph her, regardless of what she wore. It was through the lens that he learned about her, such as how she could be completely serious about performing a task as small as comparing strawberries.
He hurried to frame her—the fruit in her hands and the street in the background—before the sun set. She appeared to be listening as he went on about what new thing he had learned about the flash. As he focused the lens, he could see that her expression clearly changed. Her two brows arched into one. Her jaw tightened. What was it? He put the camera down. The little strawberry baskets fell from her hands as she pushed past him and stormed down the narrow aisle to get at a woman at the yam bin. Ysa stood not more than two feet from the woman’s face and screamed, “How does it feel to know you are the mother of a rapist?”
The astonished woman looked at her. Everyone did. Ysa was not deterred.
Thulani came up behind her, hoping to calm her. “Ysa…”
She put her hand up. Leave me. To the woman she said, “How does it feel to know you raise an animal? A dog? A piece of shit?” The woman tried to walk away, but Ysa stayed on her. “When you cook yam, do you know you feed the belly of a rapist?”
Mr. Moon implored Thulani to pull Ysa away. Thulani touched her shoulder, but she threw his hand off.
The woman was now angry. She said, “Little girl, you be careful how you speak to me.”
Ysa hollered to the gathering crowd, “Look at her! Look at her face. Get a good look. If you see another face like it, it’s the rapist’s. Run. Hide your daughter.”
“You want them to see something? I’ll show them something,” the rapist’s mother bellowed, and at that moment Thulani could see that the woman had tolerated Ysa up until now and was not to be trifled with. She set down the bag of yellow yams and slapped Ysa across the face. Hard.
Ysa stood with her feet turned out to anchor herself. You can’t hurt me. Waving her arms about, she shouted, “That’s right. Mother of animal. Mother of dog shit. You don’t make a human being. You make an animal. You make what you are.”
The woman raised her arm to take another swing, but Thulani pulled Ysa away. He had to struggle. Ysa, who was all arms and legs, swung and kicked in every direction. With one wild swing she knocked his camera, still around his neck, against a pillar that stood in the aisle. He heard the cracking of glass but couldn’t think of that. He had to get Ysa out of the store.
“Take her outside! Take her outside!” Mr. Moon said. To the rapist’s mother he said, “No want trouble! No more trouble. Out! Go!”
Thulani led Ysa away from the rapist’s mother and from the people who had gathered for the spectacle. He had felt this before. The people watching and their mouths moving as he and Ysa walked down the street. He had felt this that first awful night that he struggled to bring Ysa home. Not that any of these people cared about “that girl.” They simply wanted to keep their mouths moving.
They walked past her house on Franklin. He couldn’t bring her to Tant Rosie as hysterical as she was. Instead he brought her to the park, where she ranted in Creole and English, sometimes to him, sometimes to God. He just let her talk and talk while they sat on a bench.
“You see? You see? They grow up with mother. They grow up with father. Someone to say, ‘Go to church, wash your face, study hard. Don’t start trouble. Don’t steal.’ But they’re dirty. They knock me down. Beat me. Rape. Vyole. They take everything from me. Everything.” Finally she pushed herself into his chest and began to cry.
“Not everything,” he whispered into her hair.
“You don’t know,” she sobbed. “You want to know, but you can’t.”
He knew she was right. He only wanted to comfort her. She dried her eyes on his T-shirt and began to rock herself in his arms. She said, “Before, I like everything about me. I like the sun shining on me. On my colors. I feel free: Open. Good like you are supposed to feel. But they take that. They take that from me.”
He shook his head. “No, Ysa,” he said. “You always have colors.”
“Why? Because I kill a rainbow?”
She meant to make him laugh, but he didn’t. He just held her.
“Stop being nice to me. I break your camera.”
“I’ll fix it.”
She shook her head no. “I wouldn’t let you touch my portfolio because your hands were greasy, and I break your camera. You should be angry. Go ahead. Curse me.”
“Stop it,” he said. She looked up at him, a little surprised. He said, “Stop pushing me away. You think it’s safer to be alone.” He should know. He did everything to keep Truman and Shakira out.
He wanted to make her feel better, but all he could do was let her cry. When he was sure she was finished, he unzipped the camera case and took out the black-and-white photo of the three schoolgirls. He had planned to share it with her earlier, before everything went crazy. He looked up at the park lights and said, “It’s not dark yet. I hope you can see this.”
She wiped her eyes. “This photograph is old,” she said. Her voice was husky from sniffling. “This is in your country?”
“Jamaica,” he said, then wiped her eyes with his T-shirt. “Look close. What do you see?” He pointed to the schoolgirl in the middle.
“Your sister? No. Your mother?”
He nodded.
She smiled. “She is you.”
“I look like my father too,” he said with pride. “He’s in Jamaica.”
“And your mother’s here in Brooklyn?”
He shook his head. “She died when I was thirteen.”
She was silent, then finally said, “So sorry, my Tulani.”
Rather than dwell on her simple declaration that he was hers, he said, “Why? Did you do it?”
She laughed a little but was still sad.
He did n
ot think he could tell another soul about losing his mother, but this was no longer true. Ysa was not another soul but was becoming a part of his, even more than before, when he had thought of her every minute. Now all he wanted was to open himself to her.
“I wrote these letters almost every day when she went to Jamaica,” he said. “My older brother knew she was going home to die, but I didn’t. I mean, I knew she was sick, but I thought she’d get better. I begged her every day, ‘I want to come. I want to see Daddy. Let me come. Why can’t I come?’ Every day, ten times a day. Can you imagine?
“I haven’t seen my father since I was three. My father wouldn’t come when we left for Brooklyn. I know he’s in St. Catherine, but I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for him. I barely remember him.
“My mother I remember. Games we played when I was little. Her voice, when it was stern or cheery. I know her recipes. She stood over me and taught them all to me that last year.” He smiled, recalling to himself a particular cooking lesson. Oxtails. “I remember her giving my sister-in-law my baby clothes; I was mad. And her telling my brother to take care of the house. You know, as much as I pestered her, I can’t tell you her last words to me.”
Ysa said, “You still have a father.”
“Somewhere.”
Ysa kissed his face and his closed eyelids. She moved down on the bench, put his head in her lap, and gently rubbed his temples. “My Tuli, Tuli, Tuli. You try to know everything about me, so I tell you nothing, even if you guess right. So now I will tell you.”
She traced the outline of his face with her fingertips and played with his hair as his dream girl had done on his rooftop. Except Ysa was not a dream. She would not run away.
When she was ready, she said, “A man left his wife and child in Haiti to come here for work. The wife is young. She grows lonely for her husband, so she packs her few things, puts her baby in her arms, and sets out to catch the ferry to Florida. That is where her husband is working. Florida.
“There is much confusion in Haiti. Unrest. Everybody wants to leave the island. The people come and come to take the ferry, but there are too many people. The ones who own the boat see this, but they don’t care. They just want the money. God sees everything. He says, ‘I’ll show you greedy!’ and in one breath the ferry tip over—and so close to Florida!
“Everywhere the people are drowning. Packages, people, floating in the water. There is screaming, shouting, crying. It is chaos. There are helicopters in the sky and boats everywhere. The coast guards shine lights all over, but they don’t see everyone. It is night. Pitch-black. There are people in the water. Some swim to the boats. Some try to swim to shore. Some drown.
“A woman is calling out for her husband, ‘Anton! Anton!’ but he does not come to her. She asks and asks, “Eske ou te wè Anton?” but no one has seen the old man. It is crazy. People are just trying to save themselves and their things. In all the craziness someone puts a parcel in the woman’s arms. She thinks it is clothes, but it is me. All night long she holds me tight in her arms and cries out, ‘The ocean has my husband. Anton, Anton, Anton.’”
Thulani and Ysa shared the silence on the park bench as if they could see the scene before them. His thoughts whirling from her story, Thulani broke the silence and asked, “You never saw your mother?”
“Yes,” she said right away. “Many times, when I was a baby. Tant Rosie overheard my mother tell another woman, ‘My husband found work in Florida. He sent us money to come.’ That is all she knows about my mother and father. Each year, she says, “Ah, Ysa. You look like the woman standing on the ferry, with your nose turned up and your eyes staring like so.’ I know that is just for me, so I can pretend I know what my mother looks like.”
But this was not all that she did not know. She did not know her true name. Her parents’ names. The date of her birth. Anything.
At least he knew something of himself. He had thirteen years with his mother. Her recipes. Her stories. He had a picture of his father in his mind and the sound of his work boots. The songs he sang. Memories.
Ysa began to hum a melody, sad and slow. He felt the vibration of it through her body as his head lay in her lap. It did not seem right that she should cradle him. He lifted his head from her lap and sat up to hold her. She fell into the curve of his body.
She told him, “That was my lullaby when I was little and scared. She always sang that to me, my tant Rosie. ‘The ocean has my husband. Anton, Anton, Anton.’” She looked up at him and said, “Sing that to me.”
“What if you fall asleep?” he whispered into her hair.
“You will be here with me.” She settled into his chest and said again, “Sing that to me, and I won’t be scared.”
And he did.
SIXTEEN
Thulani left his camera on his dresser and went to the fruit stand to see if he still had a job, especially after leaving Mr. Moon to close the store alone. As he expected, Mr. Moon gave him a hard time and turned his back as Thulani tried to explain Ysa’s behavior.
“Too much trouble,” Mr. Moon said. “Girlfriend bring too much trouble.”
“She couldn’t help it,” Thulani said. “She saw the mother of the guy who…raped her.”
“You not stop her,” Mr. Moon accused.
“I couldn’t,” Thulani answered, knowing Mr. Moon would not understand. Ysa had to face that woman. It would have been wrong to stop her.
“I lose customers,” Mr. Moon insisted.
Thulani implored Mr. Moon to look around him. There were plenty of customers in the aisles.
“I don’t want trouble,” Mr. Moon said, shaking his head and waving his hands. “No fruit, no Moon. No fruit, no Moon.” This was what picketers chanted when they marched outside his store three years ago.
Thulani thought of Mr. Dunleavy, although Mr. Dunleavy would never have stolen. Stealing was beneath his needs and dignity. It was that Mr. Dunleavy was the only elder Thulani knew besides Mr. Moon. He easily placed Mr. Dunleavy’s face on that of the old man who had taken the plums. He couldn’t understand why Mr. Moon, a man well into his sixties, did not have pity.
“He was old,” Thulani said.
“He stole my plums,” Mr. Moon fired back.
“He was hungry.”
“He stole.”
“He was an old man. It was hot, and he was hungry.”
Mr. Moon slapped his palm flat on a melon hide. “My plums! My plums. Thief!”
“That woman’s son stole from Ysa,” Thulani said without raising his voice. “More than plums. I know you understand me, old man.”
Mr. Moon did not want to hear it, let alone understand anything about it. He tried to move away, but a customer stood in his path holding a watermelon that needed to be weighed. Mr. Moon threw up his hands and pointed to Thulani. “He weigh.”
Thulani worked hard to make up for last night. In the evening he broke down all the wooden crates, tied up the cardboard boxes, pushed the carts inside, and hosed down the sidewalk alone. Then he went home.
Thulani let himself into the house. First he would go straight up to his birds and check on them, then he would wash up and eat. He had stopped counting his birds for some time now. They always returned and nested in the dovecote until the next morning. And if one did not return, what could he do?
As he entered the front room, he heard a strange voice say, “…once I tear down these walls, we can get the ball rolling.”
Thulani couldn’t move. He got an eyeful of the man who had spoken. He was a strapping, broad-shouldered man in his fifties with peppered hair and huge rings on his chubby fingers. Truman did not introduce them when Thulani entered the room. Nevertheless the man nodded to Thulani as he was quickly ushered out into the foyer.
Thulani sought out Shakira.
“Who’s that? What’s he talking about, tearing down walls?”
Shakira, nervous, said, “Talk to Truman.”
“I’m talking to you.”
For the first time sinc
e he had known her, Shakira was deliberately evasive. Uncomfortable. She got up and said Eula needed her.
Thulani cornered her. “It’s seven-thirty. Eula’s asleep.”
“Talk to Truman” was all she would say. She wouldn’t even look him in the face.
The man drove off, and Truman returned.
“It’s done,” Truman said. “The house is sold.”
“You can’t sell Mommy’s house,” Thulani said.
Truman was disgusted. “D’year that? Grown man talking Mommy. The house is sold. I told you we had plans. Not everyone sits on the roof watching opportunity go by.”
“You can’t sell the house,” Thulani argued. “Half is mine.”
“The house was left in my name. It is mine to sell.”
“Mommy said take care of the house, not tear down the walls.”
“I do as I see fit.”
This was getting him nowhere. Truman had already made up his mind. The house was sold.
“Then give me the money Mommy left me.”
Truman turned to Shakira. “Hear him? Give me, like he’s a man.” To Thulani he said, “We need that money.”
“No,” Shakira spoke up. “It’s Thulani’s. We’ll have more than enough from the sale alone.”
Truman turned to her and said, “Woman, this is between brothers.”
Thulani said, “I need the money to live.”
“You’ll live with us in Jersey. Finish school. Work.”
“I’m not living under you,” Thulani said. “Once we close these doors, I go my own way.”
“You have to come,” Shakira said. “Where will you go?”
Truman said, “There’s no other family to stay with. Where a go? Jamaica? You don’t even know your father. You might as well don’t have a father.”
“You took this house, Truman. You can’t take my father.”