AMANIE MATHURIN
The sea come for Ismaida late one night in August, it cold arms reaching into her home, wresting her out of a troubled sleep. Ismaida jump to her aching feet, anxiously searching the one-room dwelling for anything worth saving. Nothing, she decide.
Quick quick she climb to the top of a nearby tree, feeling her way up its sturdiness in a practiced flow of aging limbs. From this perch that she grow to learn well, Ismaida listening as the sea claim the few remaining possessions that mark her eighty-six years of living on this earth. Her single church dress and Sunday hat – the only clothes she had left besides the ones now clinging to her wet skin. The sea had begin its uninvited late-night visits some months ago, and by now the little that she used to call her own lay in its bottomless mouth.
In the morning, after the sea reluctantly retreat, Ismaida carefully climb down to check the damage, a ritual she used to by now. A few more aging boards tear loose from rusted nails. Water soak all the way through her old kabann, the odd collection of ragged clothes where she sleep. She try in vain to squeeze salt water out of the worn bible she pretending to read in church every Sunday. Still, she count herself lucky. Or at least more lucky than the others. She still here.
***
The first to go was Aggie, the old woman from church who walk with a limp and always have half suck mints in the pocket of her floral dress. Aggie, her small home, and all her belongings had disappear just so one night. Is like they never even exist. Ismaida remember that Aggie front yard had roses with bright petals. She think the thorns use to pull her clothes when she walk past Aggie small front yard to reach her own even smaller square of home. Ismaida want to believe she remember the talcum powder Aggie always use to paint across her large breasts. But as hard as she try, she cannot remember Aggie face.
The second person to disappear was… Serita? Now that she think about it… Ismaida not even sure if that is really the woman name. When the woman had first disappear, Ismaida think about how her longtime friend always use to welcome her into her kitchen to borrow a handful of sugar, a hot cup of ginger tea, or to listen to the news on her small transistor radio. But when Ismaida ask her neighbour about their dear friend whose name she somehow can no longer remember, the neighbour think Ismaida losing her mind. What woman? What house? That spot empty years now! Or so the neighbour say. Yet everytime she pass the watery grave, Ismaida swear on the bible she taking a faint smell of ginger tea. And if she strain her ears real hard, she even hearing the radio man talking to the wind.
The third was a man who never had no name. Lucky for him, Ismaida thinking to herself, for nobody can forget what they never know in the first place. The man live in a old, empty fisherman shack just a stone throw away from the sea. Some days he use to help fishermen clean their catch. But only when he hungry enough to work. Other days he just sleep whole day, snoring loud and quarrelling with the sea when it climb through the one broken down window and tickle his toes. Now the shack gone, but nobody can explain to Ismaida why she still hearing the man quarrelling.
Ismaida cannot remember the fourth and fifth people. Or how close to her they maybe use to live. They was men or women? Maybe children? Oh god, she hope not. But she know is five because every night she counting the five notches she carve in the wood frame of her small front door that barely holding on to the hinges. She had start carving the notches about four months ago, after the second person go missing.
But even with the notches for proof, nobody believe Ismaida. They laugh at her and say her mind running away and she not young enough to catch it. The only person who not treating her like she crazy is Celestin, her good friend ever since they small. He had teach her to swim when they was little children, and now in their old age he still greet her with a big smile above his silver beard. She wasn’t sure if Celestin believe her, because he never really talk much. But at least he use to listen and nod his head, his long grey locs hanging over his face while he cleaning fish. He never laugh at her and call her a mad old woman like all the other people she try to warn. Everybody else think just because she is an old lady she don’t know nothing.
***
Ismaida live her whole life here and she remember when she was a child and the sea use to dance playful playful along the shoreline. She use to run toward it laughing, letting the water lick her small toes. She grew up so close to the sea that she never learn how to be afraid of it. Her father use to go out on his small boat to catch fish, and he had promise her that once she grow tall enough to reach by his chest, he would bring her out to sea with him. But that day never come. Before Ismaida had grow big enough to reach just higher than her father hip, the sea had claim him. Just like that. One day, an ordinary day, he leave home well before dawn, just like every day for most of his life. Except this time his boat never come back. And her mother never stop crying, walking to the shore every morning before sunrise, hoping the sea would return her man. Or at least part of him.
Still, Ismaida thought that the sea was only dangerous if you went too far beyond where it agree to welcome you. And so even after Celestin teach her how to swim, she always use to make sure she stay close enough to still see her mother shrinking form on the shore. The sea was their backyard. They could not avoid it. Only learn how to keep a respectful distance from its hungry floor. Now, some seventy-five years after her father had gone and Ismaida had learn to draw her own boundaries with the sea, it decide it want more from her. Is as if the sea grow legs one day and suddenly feel like it want to test them out, crawling closer and closer to Ismaida little house, some hundred feet away from the shore. Bit by bit, the sea decide that waving to Ismaida from the rocky front yard not enough. It want to live inside the small house with Ismaida, curling it fists into her small saucepan. Spreading it palms across the cheap painting of Jesus on the wall. Taking off it shoes and stretching it new toes along her bare floor.
***
The next time the sea come, Ismaida decide she cannot take no more chances. She afraid because by now seven people gone, just like that. Seven people who had live no more than a stone throw away for as long as she can remember. All of them gone in the blink of her old milky eye, in less full moons than Ismaida can count on the twist up, bend up fingers of her right hand. And still, nobody want to listen to her. Nobody care what an old woman like her have to say, even if their grandmother mouth was still wet with breastmilk when Ismaida start learning this sea.
And so, under the light of the moon her hands, thick with a lifetime of work, start to tear the small shack apart, board by board. She tie the boards in a neat bundle and strap it to her stooped back. Rusted nails jangling in her pocket and Ismaida running. Fast. Further inland. Rain pounding at her from all direction. The sea hear her heavy footsteps and now it hot on her tail, chasing Ismaida relentlessly, it frigid tongue lapping her calloused heels. Over the hill and away from the sea Ismaida run, her skirt tie up in two big knot to keep her from tripping over it. With each nervous glance over her shoulder she notice the sea retreating. For now. Panting for breath, she unburden herself from her load, carefully laying the weather-beaten boards along a grassy ledge. She dust her hands and plant them on her formidable hips sighing, “Mwen las!” Weariness. Not of old bones, but a tired spirit.
Ismaida cautiously feels her way around before climbing to a high branch she hope to use as a lookout. The sea far enough that she can barely hear it. Still, she listen to the distant roar, hoping that it cannot see her. When she satisfied that she safe, at least for the night, she begin the work of piecing back together her small home. Within minutes she patch up the thin walls and wooden windows almost instinctively, a skill she grow used to as of late.
Artwork: LaVaughn Belle. Chaney Series (We Live in the Fragments)
The final puzzle piece is the doorframe. A heavy rock smashing against the nail as Ismaida pounding the frame into place. Then her fingers running along the seven notches carved into the ancient wood. She counting. Slow. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight? Her fingers tremble against the unfamiliar notch, her nimble mind quickly searching for the details of its appearance. But despite her best efforts, Ismaida have no memory of this eighth notch. No idea when she carve it, or whose life she was trying to quietly commemorate.
***
That night, as she lay her aching bones along the thin kabann, Ismaida calculating how she can protect herself. She ease herself off the floor and strip bare. Slowly, intentionally, she turn her dress inside out before slipping it back over her tired shoulders, the three small buttons to her back, instead of against her withered breasts. For good measure. The things that happening these last few months is anything but ordinary, and Ismaida living long enough to know not to take any chances.
Ismaida try to sleep, but she cannot. She dreaming of friends with no face, screaming out to neighbours with no name, her voice a strangled whisper caught in her throat. She see Aggie running and Ismaida try to chase her. But when Aggie stop to turn around and Ismaida think she will finally see her friend face again, instead is a thick grey beard brushing Aggie powdered neck, long silver locs hanging over her face like a curtain.
***
When she wake up in the morning, Ismaida thanking the lord she run. Celestin gone. The news not yet begin to spread, but Ismaida know. She wake up knowing. His house and boat gone too. They had survive many storms. Ismaida stare at the dirt under her long finger nails, deep in thought. She wondering if maybe she will ever meet Celestin again, feel the kind smile behind his bushy silver beard.
“The sea don’t have no back door,” she mutter to herself mournfully.
***
The next night, Ismaida sleeping when she feel a freezing, wet hand around her throat. Almost out of habit, she get up to run. But she tired. Tired of running. Tired of taking the house apart and putting it back together. And so Ismaida walk calmly toward the sea, so angry she feeling the blood boiling close close to her skin.
“Ki sa ou vlé?” The sea howling, drowning out her shouts. What you want?
“Mwen pa ni anyen ankò.” Quieter now. Pleading, almost. I have nothing again!
Suddenly the sea leap forward in the darkness and Ismaida stumble to the sand in shock. She try to scramble to her feet but cold watery arms trawling her back down. Desperate, she pull herself free and begin to run. The sea taunting at her back. Still she run.
She looking for someplace to hide but all around her is emptiness. Not a house in sight. She think she screaming but she not sure. Nobody around to hear her. Ismaida run until the sun come up, painting the sky orange above her. And her feet still going, bringing her towards a row of houses she know had to be somewhere around the corner. But the more Ismaida flee, the more she feel lost. Nothing to help her get her bearings right. Miss Pauline house suppose to be not far from the big patch of seagrapes trees. If only she can reach, somebody must help her. The sea was dangerously close. She could feel its chilly fingers grasping at her ankles.
But there is no house. Only emptiness where Miss Pauline and her six unruly children should be. And emptiness next to her where Magdalene had build the small house with the money she make plaiting shells into the white people hair on the beach. Emptiness where the small rumshop use to be. Ismaida listen for the sounds of reggae music that use to come from the shop every day for the last twenty-two years. Silence.
The sun set and Ismaida still running. She never had to go so far before. She can feel the sea edging close close. Surrounding her from all sides. Towering above her. Pulling the beaten path out from under her bare feet.
“Jézi Kwi!” Jesus Christ.
The wall rise up in front of her as if from nowhere and Ismaida feel the blood pouring from her forehead as she dash headfirst into the thick layers of brick. Stunned, she gather herself in a daze and start to move quick right alongside the wall, feeling her way along the hard concrete. She believe that somewhere beyond that wall there must be a path that will eventually lead her to the big road. The new one with all the loud cars carrying people up and down. She never see it with her own two eyes, but she hear the fishermen talk about it. She hear mothers warn their children about going near the new road. About how the cars had already eat three little boys, leaving their mothers to pick small broken bones from between metal teeth.
Finally, the concrete end and her fingers grasp metal. Thick bars that she start to rattle, shouting in desperation. A man in a uniform staring at Ismaida through the metal bars, shaking his head gravely and pointing to a sign. Ismaida’s milky eyes cannot see the sign, and even if she could, the letters spelling out HOTEL GUESTS ONLY would mean nothing to her.
Ismaida pulling at the metal bars in despair, screaming. The roar of the sea filling her ears now, smothering her own cries. She feel the water grabbing at her neck and her arms and legs flailing in vain. The sea cold, unforgiving. Pulling her down into its liquid tomb. As the saltwater fill her lungs Ismaida briefly wonder who will carve the ninth notch above her doorframe. Who will remember she was here?
