AYASHA AYURBE
I heard my mama talking about Miss Wanita before she even passed through.
“Poor devil. She don’t even have on any shoes while walking this rocky road but she is a pretty woman,” she said to the other washerwomen as they swished and swashed soapy linens with their knuckles.
“Pretty can get you compliments but nothing much else. And pretty ain’t no pardon pass,” Tantie Fig said as she strangled the sheet dry.
“Aww,” my mom started, “but she seems to be on some pilgrimage, she has on…shush! Here she comes.”
The rhythmic washing ceased as Miss Wanita approached the ladies with a clanging. She wore an off-white smock with large pockets and a brown ribbon belt that held her enamel coffee cup and a brown bag with small change which sounded like chains as she came closer. Her skin was sun ravaged and papery. Her lips were blistered. Her two natural cornrows, down to her waist, had expired and her sandals were so thin that it looked like she was barefoot save for the little silver buckle that shone in the heat like new hope.
“Salut, ladies,” she said, as she nodded to the congress of washerwomen.
“Good day,” they replied collectively. Each looking at their washing work with little care and no swish swash sound.
“May I please have some coffee? I have come a long way and need the courage to continue. I can pay,” Miss Wanita said, lifting the bag of change.
Tantie Fig, looked at the woman’s feet, saying, “No pay necessary but you look like you need more than that.”
The congress of women huffed in agreement. Miss Wanita stood firm like an oak tree amongst dandelion weeds and said, “I do. And I’m on my way to more after the coffee.”
“Oh no, we will give you a hand of bread and butter too to get you to your next meal,” my mom said, pausing her work in the wash basin to go to our little tin-roofed shack and pick up the remainder of our bread and a sliver of butter.
Tantie Fig had provided the hot coffee with a spoonful of sugar and Miss Wanita inhaled both food and drink in two breaths. She leaned on a rigid rock and looked past the misty mountain miles away. The congress stared at her. What axe of tribulation had chipped away at this mighty oak? they wondered. The rhythmic swish swash had become slower as I returned to playing jacks with dried goat knees. Soft silence swallowed our collective humdrum for what seemed like hours until Miss Wanita’s next words shifted the mood just as rain clouds do.
“I know that you have heard of me because news travels faster than courage ever could but nonetheless, I am Wanita of Malbranche and I am on my way to Yaminsa Forest.”
The last two words had toppled basins and slapped the congress so hard that all you could hear were noisy chickens and a drunk passerby who said, “That woman is crazy like a hen without chicks.”
“The Forest of Yaminsa,” Tantie Fig said, in a gasp that signaled that all of the washerwomen would be drinking Vervain tea with a pinch of rock salt that night for the nerves.
Silk cotton tree, Hope Gardens, Jamaica.
The Talking Forest of Yaminsa was a myth to white folks who visited Mount Yasa in the hopes of capitalizing on its magic. They had named it “The Talking Forest,” which was curious because many, many pale faces had made it there only to find towering cedars and voluminous oaks with thick roots resembling giant spiders. Visitors of that kind didn’t stay long, mentioning an eerie, angry air in the foliage and yet, there was no sound; no rustling leaves or birds could be heard. Poking and prodding whites felt invisible hands propelling them out of the forest. Natives of Mount Milieu or others who were deemed worthy, those whom only the sun blessed, recounted a starkly different experience.
Papa Blanchard, credited for constructing the town of Mount Milieu, was documented as saying that upon reaching the forest, he would be greeted by the sound of laughing children, which he believed to be seedlings. Each tree would echo his name until he had reached the grandest of them: an oak standing so tall its foliage covered the forest like a lush blanket with roots that seemed to bend outward towards the other trees. Blanchard said when that monolith spoke there was a silence even in his breath and the tree had spoken its name “Yaminsa”. Therefore, that is what the natives called it after hearing Blanchard’s story.
Shortly after the discovery of the ‘Talking Forest,’ people traveling as far as Croix des Bouquets, had confirmed the name and the townspeople heard various accounts of its allure. Some heard children laughing as they entered; others heard women wailing or men chanting, a cacophony of joy. All confirmed the name but no one dared reveal anything further. They would pass through Mount Milieu in various stages of life: young mothers, virile men, weeping widows, forbidden lovers, withering women, arrogant men and the lot.
There was a local bread maker who came back brittle and left the town hours after his visit. Most returned with a spark so bright their smiles competed with the morning sun but witnesses said the once boisterous bread maker had walked back mute and deaf from his experience. Only Marcel Boudaire had returned completely crazy and required constant supervision against possible suicide. And that had aroused fear of the Talking Forest of Yaminsa, even though Boudaire was a man of ill repute who had committed crimes that nobody dared to repeat. Over time, most of the town’s residents had allowed fear to rob them of their good sense, which is why Miss Wanita with the barely there sandals and the silver buckle of hope had startled the washerwomen so.
Tantie Fig had stopped washing altogether and stepped over the soapy water of her now abandoned wash bin to say:
“Wanita of Malbranche, the Forest of Yaminsa is cursed and therefore, should be avoided. It is my hope that you find another way to remedy whatever ails you so. My advice is not often given but you are already woeful. Do not allow the trouble on your head to fall on your shoulders. Find another way. Our priest, Father…”
“No,” Miss Wanita said, with her halting hand stretched close to Tantie Fig’s chest, “no priest can help me. My relief, my medicine, my salvation resides in that forest, waiting for me and I must go to it. I can tell you part of my story now.”
Upon which all the women set their basins aside to listen. Some even unraveled their head scarfs as their heads demanded freedom for their ears to hear every syllable. Miss Wanita, sitting on my wicker chair that had been brought out as it was new and therefore, sturdier than the others, pulled a picture from her bra and turned it over for the others to see without a glimpse for herself. It was her wedding picture with a man twice her size but similar blessings of fair face and smooth hair.
“This young, fierce woman once broke a ceramic chamber pot full of piss on her husband’s head in exchange for him raising his hand and voice simultaneously. That woman was me. I left him the next morning and made my way back home to my mother with nothing but this dress, all of my jewelry, especially what he had given me. I considered it a recompense for the experience. In retrospect, I should’ve been more focused on Ave Maria than his charm but youth repels all warnings, as you know.”
The washerwoman nodded in agreement as she continued.
“I had been on the three-day journey for three weeks when I realized that some force was resisting my desires…I had…”
“Did you try the Mary, Undoer of Knots novena?” Marigo, my mom, interrupted, as the other women sucked their teeth at her. I watched as my mom flinched as if being flogged at the disapproval of the women.
“Shut your beak, Marigo,” Tantie Fig said, with gravel in her voice, “and let the woman finish. Continue, my child.”
Miss Wanita didn’t get a syllable out before she started coughing. As an apology, my mother had walked over to pick up Wanita’s cup. Thankfully, Miss Wanita nodded her acceptance when my mom served her cool water in the ceramic cup. She took a deep gulp of it and smiled at her before she continued, “I tried to call them at night when I knew people would be home but there was no answer. Finally, when that didn’t work, I chose the poor miser’s way to reach them. The way our ancestors used when they had no way to get home…”
The congress was split at this point as the elders, like Tantie Fig, nodded their knowing but the younger ones, like my mom, were unsure and waited for her to continue in short breaths. She shifted her skirt between her sun-showered thighs to squat and said:
“I bought a farmers’s candle made of beeswax and spoke to that candle as if it was just as much of a person as I am. I lit it with a burning branch from under a kind woman’s cooking pot and covered its light with my hands and stared at it as if it were going to respond but it didn’t.
“I got my response hours later as the same woman with the pot gave me a straw rug to sleep on in her little house. In exchange for stories about life with a man who takes care of his woman and the repercussions of such ‘care’, she let me sleep there for three nights. I guess she was deciding if her life was missing a man and the stories gave her perspective. Either way, I was heading here on the third day because I dreamt of this very forest calling me to it. I think…no, I know with every muscle and bone in me that I must go to it. Not just to get back home because there is no guarantee at home now but I know it will lead me somewhere because of its magic and how it calls to me.”
“Surely, Wanita, you must know that not everything that calls to you is good for you, specifically the Forest of Yaminsa. I can see you were raised by a woman if not for the fact that despite your journey, you are enveloped in cleanliness. If your family took such care with your physical hygiene, it is certain as agitation that they taught you some spiritual hygiene as well. Were you not taught to burn your hair from the comb and brush before discarding it?”
Miss Wanita smirked as she said, “Absolutely, I can tell you there isn’t a nurtured person in our little lobster claw of an island that isn’t instructed in spiritual practices in the physical sense. I mean, ancestral mysteries saved our beloved Ayiti from the weak and wicked French so we, its inhabitants, are all indoctrinated. So yes, I have been instructed by all manners of matriarchal instincts down to the simple bath for minor curses. But what of the soul in this skin? Should I not mind it?” She stood then, displaying the shell of herself like one would a dusty coat or a shoe without soles.
“Yes, Wanita,” Tantie Fig began, with the congress of washerwomen, nodding behind her, “and that is why there is church. God minds your soul for you. Don’t you see? You don’t need anything but God.”
Miss Wanita, who stood no higher than a groomed hibiscus bush, had grown in size and height with her anger, as she said, “You cannot tell me about God. I will not dare to assume that you do not know the wounds of abuse, the stings of being spoken to like a dog, the slap that gives you only two choices and the feet that steady you in your choice. Do you know where hope comes from? It doesn’t reside in just prayer. God has called to my insides from this tree just like foolish judgment has called to you. I will not insult your kindness because as you have said, I was raised well but rather, I will allow silence to settle my sentiments about you and your flock and store the memory of you where I have my very first dirty diaper.”
At this point Tantie Fig’s mouth opened as wide as a rain gutter. The washerwomen each stood silently in poses of surprise. Hands on heads, hands on chests, or a combination of both. I can tell you that my mother and I were the only ones who weren’t suspended in any particular pose. Wanita of Malbranche threw the remainder of her water (and at this point, any regard for the women) on the street, dried her cup with the hem of her dress and walked off with such conviction, the distance between her and the forest seemed to shorten by sight.
None of the women spoke after she left though there were a lot of “hmmmmms” and “huhhhhhhhs” and sucking of teeth for a couple of minutes until Fafoune, the Bernard’s servant girl, told them that she saw the little lady about to reach Mount Yasa towards the forest.
“Well, I guess an elder’s breath smells too bad for ears to listen,” Tantie Fig said, shaking her head.
The other women hummed collectively and began their second washes with vinegar. My mother pulled my arm and whispered (or so she thought) my instructions.
“Take Madame Rozaire’s backyard to go up the mountain but don’t put a toenail in the forest. Just leave this calabash of water on the pathway down should she be thirsty. Run but don’t hurt yourself and don’t interrupt her walk either. Then, come back to report to me and Tantie Fig.”
I nodded my compliance and started through the dusty backyard. For the first time, since my mother had been beaten by her lover, I had been tasked with a mission that I did not follow as instructed. I walked up towards the entrance of the forest where I heard my name echoed in the voices of children all around me. I saw Miss Wanita with open arms, preparing to hug a tree that said to her, “Wanita the Wanderer, you have made it. You are here” before I ran back down the mountain with a thousand voices calling my name.
