In case you're just getting caught up, constant reader, Episode 1 is available here. Now on to episode 2!
***
Walking past the sprawling garden, Mangohead entered the
porch via the small swinging waist-high gate. The hinges complained
vociferously as he edged his way into the verandah. A small waist-high wooden
balustrade ran along the porch which was raised a single step height above the
bare ground. The porch itself was made of varnished wood which creaked under
Mangohead's wary steps.
He rested his hand on the door handle, turning it deftly as
he pushed the huge wooden door inwards. In San Marco, it was unheard of to have
one's door locked. It was a very friendly village where people would greet one
another with smiles and usually everyone knew everyone else's business. The
older heads of the village still acted like that although the younger
generations knew that the encroachment of wealth brought with it the
encroachment of crime. Although there had been no issues of housebreaking in
San Marcos for some time, younger people were ever wary of the danger. Ma
Procop had once told Mangohead that if people locked their doors it was because
they had something to hide, not something to protect. She lived by those words,
Mangohead mused as he let the door close behind him with a dull thud.
The interior of the house smelt of varnish and pinesol -
that ever present smell of Trinidadian household cleaners. Mangohead associated the
smell with Saturday mornings where his mother would come into his room at the
ungodly hour of seven and mop the floor while lambasting him as to how lazy a
son she spawned. Light came in from the rafters and spilled into the room. None
of the windows in the old house was open and the air had become musty and
stale, even though Mangohead figured the place was only closed for a few hours.
Methodically, he set about airing out the house.
He threw open a couple of the side windows in what Ma Procop
would call the Drawing Room, although why, Mangohead was never sure since there
were no drawings in the room and Ma Procop was not known for her pencil work.
The room was a light blue and was almost deserted aside from a small
space-saver in the corner. Space-savers were the major furnishings in the olden
homes of Trinidad; when one was able to afford a space-saver in one's house,
one was considered a bit better than those who couldn't. Ma Procop's
space-savers were all over with all sorts of shapes and sizes. This one was a
single wooden case with an interior protected by sliding glass doors to the
front and a pair of compartments on both sides of the display secured by
swinging wooden doors.
Atop this (Mangohead assumed) very old piece of furniture
sat a couple photographs. He took one up and peered into the depths of the
black-and-white photograph. In it there was the background image of a very
large building and a street where Mangohead could make out a bison-cart just
moving out of the left frame of the picture. Ma Procop was prominent in the
center of this image, hugging a woman who seemed to be of Asian descent.
Looking closer he realized in surprise that it must have been Ma Attong; the
local washerwoman.
As far as Mangohead could remember Ma Attong and Ma Procop
used to regard each other with a certain scorn usually reserved for obscene
skin afflictions or the Australian Cricket Team. Seeing them in such a close
fashion made him think that maybe there was a story to this. Ma Attong died a
few years ago but her daughter Lani carried on the anti-Procop hate campaign,
although if you asked Lani why she did it, she honestly couldn't tell you.
"Mangohead!" a familiar voice called from outside.
Rolling his eyes, he rested the picture down and made his way back to the
verandah.
"What you want eh?" he asked angrily.
"Ma say how you have to come back before the sun go
down," the girl replied, "how it have funny people in the village
these days."
"It have funny people in the village all the
time," Mangohead said dismissively. "You live here ent?"
The girl sucked her teeth in annoyance. Mangohead's sister
Julie was a slender girl, colored deep brown by the Caribbean sun. She wore a
pair of glasses that overshadowed her eyes, making one have to peer past the
reflections to get a glimpse of the brown hidden beneath the surface. Her hair
was plaited in a single braid that ran down to the middle of her back. Her cheeks were full and her eyebrows were dark and brooding. Mangohead thought
that her face looked as though she was always in thought. Either that or
constipated.
Julie had been born a couple years before Mangohead and had
garnered the privilege passed on to the 'first child'; a legendary talisman
that made sure that the child whose unfortunate lot it fell to was always first
in line, whether it be for beatings or for candy. That said, Julie was very
skillful at avoiding trouble. Mangohead once thought that she might have a
sixth sense when it came to figuring out when to make herself scarce.
One extremely memorable episode in Mangohead's memory was
when he was six and his mother was repainting the back wall. Mangohead had
excused himself from the hard labor (as he so often did), but passed around
back every now and again to check on the progress, in the true curious sense of
youth. The last time he passed he realized that the tin of paint his mother was
using lay on its side with the red color seeping out of it and discoloring the
concrete floor. Being the good child he was, he righted the paint pan only to
have his mother seize him and scold him for wasting her paint. He had to sleep
on his stomach for three days due to that beating. The curious thing was that
each time Mangohead passed to check the completion of the painting, Julie was
there. All except the last time.
It was because of episodes like these that Mangohead did not
trust Julie very much. There was a slight resentment towards her, but through
it all, they were still related and as much as he loathed her methods, there
was somewhere deep inside him that felt a sort of fondness for the demon child
that his sister was.
"Make sure yuh buy bread when yuh coming home
ehh," Julie said as she left. "Ma coming home late this evening and I
going to get hungry later."
"Why you doh buy the bread then?" Mangohead
chided. "Ent is on your way home?"
"Yea, but I ent hungry yet," Julie flung back
logically.
Mangohead sighed as the outer gate swung close with a crash.
As he turned around to go back inside a flicker of color
caught his eye at the very edge of his field of vision. Truth be told, if
Mangohead was older, the flickering yellow that flapped in the intermittent
breeze might have been overlooked, but the sharp eyes and keen perception of
youth prevailed and Mangohead made a bee-line for the peculiar object.
It was a piece of fabric, probably ripped from a shirt or a
blouse. It was plain cotton, and very light. Mangohead ran it through his
fingers, feeling the rough texture of the fabric. Had Julie been wearing
something this color, he pondered. No, she was dressed in dark, earthy colors,
as she usually did. This was from someone else. As he seized up the fabric he
turned around slowly until he was facing the house. Directly in front of him
was the zaboca tree.
Mangohead's eyes narrowed. Silently he counted...six full
zabocas. Looking from the tree to the fence and gripping the triangle of fabric
in his hand the cogs of his mind got turning. This looked fishy. But how could
he know for sure that someone was filching the zabocas? He would have to wait
and see; that would be the only way. Casting an eye around the garden again he
turned to go into the house.
Mangohead knew that the way Ma Procop talked, it was very
possible that the entire village knew about her absence. That didn't bode so
well for him as Ma Procop's new tree-caretaker. He had no dogs to tie to the
tree that could bark when intruders came to steal. He would have to find
another way to keep watch.
Ideally, he could stand guard near the tree all day, but
then at night while he slept, the culprit could sneak in and pocket as many
zabocas as his greedy little pockets could hold. He could theoretically ask a
couple of the village boys to stand guard with him, splitting the watch between
them, for a small sum of money that he could give to them after he sold the
zabocas. But how trustworthy were the village boys? There were a few he
trusted, but even one of them could be the thief. If there even was a thief.
Maybe he was overthinking it; he though as he walked out of Ma Procop's gate
and latched it shut. Maybe he should just go buy the bread and forget about the
zaboca tree for now. Maybe, he thought, he could get some kurma from the
kurma-man’s shop to take his mind off his worries. Kurma was an East-Indian
sweetmeat made from frying a certain mixture of flour and spices in oil and
dusting it lightly with sugar. The thought already began to make his mouth
water.
“Aye Mangohead,” a hard, dangerous voice shouted to him from
the side of the road.
“What?” Mangohead replied, as he looked around for the
source of the call.
The bull-grass that lined the road parted and two boys
emerged unto the road, one quickly rushing to block his path to the front and
the other capping his retreat. Things suddenly got a whole lot more
complicated.
***
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