Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Mango Feast

2017; Duke University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/07990537-4156882

0799-0537

Portia Subran,

Sugarcane Cultivation and Processing

The afternoon sun cast a burning light on Ram's back as the wind licked the heat off his sweaty skin. He gripped the sides of the bison with his ankles as it waded through the shallow brown watering hole. It bowed its great grey head slowly into the murky water, drinking deeply before raising back up to shake the water out of its nose. Ram ran his hands down the smooth neck of the docile beast and leaned forward, closing his eyes to listen to its breath. A low rumble jerked up and down its long throat and its sides expanded with each inhalation.In the distance, Ram could hear the crashing sound of Mr. Rajesh striking the giant circle plough that hung off the bison pen. The single strike echoed throughout the savannah, down to the watering hole. The beasts began to shake the flies off their horns, stamping their slender legs out of the turbid waters. It was the end of the day, for the bison, for Ram, and for his older brother Jag, who would be returning from the cane fields.Jag chased the froghoppers. From morning to evening, he weaved himself through the cane fields with eyes keen on the succulent stalks searching for the tiny destructive insects and capturing them with his small net. All for a few coins at the end of each week.As the bison walked up the slope to the pen, Ram kept his head against its neck, the tips of his fingers brushing against its hairy skin. He slid off the beast's enormous back as Mr. Rajesh guided it into the bison pen. A cigarette dangled from Mr. Rajesh's mouth and wisps of smoke escaped his dark wrinkled lips. Ram stooped down on the ground, watching his brother walk up the slope toward the bison pen, his net tucked under his bare arm. Jag reached his hand down and pushed his bony fingers through Ram's thin hair.Ram looked up at him and grinned, “When I goin to come and catch froghopper with you?”“You have to get tall like your brother first, boy!” Mr. Rajesh called from inside the pen. “But for now, you keep the bison company.”Jag slung his jute bag over his shoulder and pulled Ram off the ground.“Time to go home, boy,” he said. “Ma waiting.”They walked through the savannah and along the train line, cautious of the stray iron edging close to their bare feet. Ram stayed at Jag's side, staring at his toes, trying to match the rhythm of his stride with his brother's. Jag stopped suddenly, and Ram looked up to see the mango groves directly ahead.The mango trees were bursting with new shoots; glistening crimson and purple, they spread against the sky and danced with the gales. The end of the grove marked the start of Kairi Village, and Ram scampered toward the ajoupa, a small mud structure shadowed by Ajie's House.Ram ran inside the ajoupa, trailing his fingers along the rough tapia walls and saw his mother lying on her rice bag bed, massaging her fingers. There was a large red mark across her hand. He slipped into her arms and pressed himself against her small bosom, grasping her hand and placing his fingers near the mark.“She burn you again, Ma?” Jag stood in the doorway and dropped his jute bag to the ground. He kicked the dust from his heels, and his stretched hand teased the edges of the carat leaf roof. Water trickled down his fingers.“Was my fault, Jagraj.” Ma covered the wound with her thin hand.Jag clenched his fists and lowered his head. Ma took up a small earthen bowl that smelled of neem and turmeric and smeared a yellow paste on the red mark before returning to her rice bag.Ram watched her frail body curl up under the ragged cloth she shrouded herself with. Her black oily hair clung to her forehead like spider legs. Whatever blessings of youth she had received had quickly deserted her sooner than anticipated. Her cedar-colored skin was pulled tight over her bones, and she spoke with a voice that trembled until it faded.Ram pushed himself into his mother's arms. “What you do today, Ma?”“Plenty—iron the bedsheets, sweep out the House. Ajie make me comb she hair. I make a nice tomato choka and dhal for she,” she replied.“We gettin some?”“Your Ajie gon call we for supper just now.”But no summon was made. Jag, Ram, and Ma took their enamel bowls and lined up like beggars at the back door. There was a gallery at the front of the House, with chairs where Ajie and Pa, when he was home, would sit, and Pa would smoke his clay pipe. The House was built on stilts and had real glass-paned windows and curtains masking its mysterious insides.Jag went up the steps and knocked on the back door before coming back down. Ajie bumbled out, gripping the railing with her small fat hands. Her beady eyes, although buried under folds of skin, bore into their mother's frail frame. Jag raised his hand with the three bowls, stacked on top of each other.“You have the gall to come beg me for food today?”“What you talkin bout?” Jag asked, his eyes narrowed and fixated on her.“I talking to you? I talkin to that good-for-nothing woman here—burn my nice sheet my son bring from Port of Spain!”Ajie shook her head. She sucked her teeth and grabbed the bowls, returning with them half-filled with dhal, a side of roasted tomatoes and a meager piece of roti. Ma's bowl was nearly empty. They walked sullenly back to the ajoupa.Jag attempted to pour some of his dhal into Ma's bowl, but she protested. With a small scowl, he sat on his rice bag and settled himself to eat. Ma put carpenter tea leaves into three tins that once held condensed milk and took her whistling copper-bottom kettle out of the fire. In the light of the oil lamps, the kettle shone from the hours of labor she put into shining it. It turned the ajoupa into a House for just a moment. Ram remembered the day Pa had bought it for her from town, and she was devoted to it. She couldn't stand for it to be dirty—not even a speck of grime could tarnish it.“Ma, where Pa gone?” Ram asked. She was crouched over the tins, pouring the water into it.“He gone town, beta. He comin back next week.” She held the can against his lips and he slowly drank the tea.“Ma, why you does let him go up in town and leave we here with Ajie?” Jag asked, eating his dhal slowly. “Why you don't tell him something?” His eyes shifted from the floor to the darkness outside as he waited for his mother's reply. But she smiled weakly and watched the steam rise out from the open kettle.A week later, Pa returned. Ma greeted her sons at the village road to tell them. The crimson crest on her forehead gleamed brightly against her black oily hair, which was pulled back into a tight bun. There was a white hibiscus tucked behind her ear. She had discarded her usual ratty sari and had replaced it with a green one with a gold filigree edge. She guided them back through the familiar path, but instead of going to the ajoupa, they went to the front balcony of Ajie's House.Pa sat on a wooden peerha, smoking his pipe, watching as they approached. He smiled at the boys and stroked their hair while Ma beamed. They were allowed to sit on the balcony and watch their father smoke. Ma pressed her head against his side, as Ajie came before him and served him several dishes.Pa talked about staying in town. “People there civilize,” he said. “Everybody in town wear shoes, you know, not like here. You don't see nobody barefoot up there! Man does buy the papers every day and read it. I walk with my umbrella in the morning and buy my papers too.”He would never stay in the ajoupa, and the boys watched their father retire into the House. Aje waited for him to go completely inside before turning to Jag. “Don't feel I forget is Friday.”Jag clenched his teeth and with stiff fingers, unknotted the edge of his dhoti and produced a square of folded paper. He opened it and gave Ajie more than half the coins inside. He blew a snort as he watched her place his earnings into a pouch in her rose-print dress. Ajie clenched his wrist and pulled him close to her stout body, tightening her grip around his hand.“Don't give me no blasted attitude, boy,” she spat at him. “You get that stink blood from your mother. Your father shoulda leave she right on the port. Let them send she right back to B.G. where she come from!”She released him, pushing the disheveled strands of her white hair back into place. Jag pulled Ram closer to him. He led him back to the ajoupa where Ma was rubbing her kettle with a rag. She did so while she watched Jag pass the remaining coin through his fingers over and over.The morning came and Jag took Ram by the hand to the hibiscus bush where he ripped off two twigs for them to brush their teeth. Ram chewed the end to fray it and scrubbed his teeth with it. His gaze fell on the House, and he felt Jag's cold hand press down into his shoulder.“He done gone, boy,” he said as he drew some water from the rainwater barrel and washed his brother's face.Ma came out of the ajoupa. Her face was gaunt, her eyes were red, and her nose seemed unusually large. Her voice faltered as she asked, “Mr. Rajesh does give lunch on Saturday?”“Yes, Ma,” Jag said. “You want me to—”“Just make sure this one here eat, eh, Jagraj.”“What you goin and eat, Ma?” Ram asked.She stroked his cheek and pushed him toward Jag. They left her waiting at the back door of the House, a bucket of fresh water in her hands and a grey-headed mop leaning against her small chest.For lunch, Mr. Rajesh cooked fat cassava dumplings in a coal pot. Jag asked Mr. Rajesh for some to carry home, but he just shook his head. “I have plenty to feed, boy,” he said, handing out the dumplings on cocoyea sticks. “I already feedin your lil brother. You hadda understand where I coming from.”On the way back from the cane fields, they followed the train line and came to the mango groves. The branches were weighed down with fruit. Jag stood for a while, observing the base of the tree, where a putrid black mound of rotting mangoes had accumulated. A halo of flies circled it. He threw down his jute bag, gripped a low branch, and pulled himself up into the tree. He crept along the thick boughs and shook the tree. Ram watched as the precious gold and pink fruit dropped to the ground. He scrambled up to gather them into his brother's bag.Jag went from tree to tree, tossing mangoes down. Ram dashed after each one on his short legs and kept collecting until the jute bag began to burst at the seams. They came home with the bag brimming with mangoes and poured them into a heap before their mother.She cradled them before her, each one brilliantly gold as though a boon from the sun. She cut the skin with her teeth and pulled it back to reveal the curve of stringy orange flesh. Her face was washed with the sticky juice that then poured down in streams from her wrists to knobby elbows. She sucked each fruit ravenously until all that was left were white hairy seeds, as though her hunger had aged them into old men.Every day, Jag and Ram brought home a mango feast for Ma. They threw away the bird-pecked ones, but kept the ones covered with sap. Ram eagerly tumbled them onto the rice bag in their ajoupa and sat with her as she ate. He had never seen her face so full and her eyes so bright. He laid his tiny body on her lap and she played with his hair as she sang. Jag sat near the doorway, looking up at the House, his fingers sliding over a single coin.But as the rains came, the groves became bare. Jag and Ram came home with empty hands, watching as their mother's body retreated once more into itself.“Don't think I forget, boy!”Ram rolled out from his mother's arms. He looked out the window and saw the moon bearing its silver light down on him. Jag's silhouette was standing before him.“She outside the ajoupa, or callin from the house?” Ma asked.“Right outside, Ma.”They both went to the door, with Ram sleepily trailing behind them.Jag folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. Ajie strutted up in her lace-edged nightgown, her hands on her hips.“Like you en't hear me, boy!” Ajie cried, stamping and kicking some dust on the ground. “Is Friday, en't you get pay?”Jag did nothing but tuck his lower lip into his mouth.“Jag, beta, give Ajie some coin,” Ma said softly.Jag slowly shuffled through the folds of his dhoti and produced the folded paper. Before he could open it, Ajie snatched the entire envelope. Jag stood, stunned in silence. “Ajie—” he began.“Your Pa say he en't coming down here again, and he en't paying nothing for all you no more, boy.”“En't coming down here again?”“He get married to a Catholic in town. He en't have no more business here with you. But like all o' you forget you eatin my food and livin on my blasted land.”Ma fell forward and grabbed on to Jag for support. Jag held her, her emaciated arms weakly wrapped around his neck. Ram clutched at the folds of her sari. “Married? He can't do that,” Ma's voice trembled. “He is my husband.”“Husband?” Ajie scoffed. “That rubbish you had in this backyard wasn't no real marriage. Only Christian thing legal here, you en't know that? My son say he en't want no business here again with you or here. And don't bother me for nothing again.”Jag pulled Ram and his mother back into the ajoupa.“She go settle down tomorrow,” he said. Ma cradled Ram in her arms and sobbed into the wisps of his thin hair.In the afternoon, they gathered at the back of the House. Jag crept up the stairs and knocked on the door. He knocked again and again, but no one came out. Jag and Ram went back to the ajoupa, but Ma stayed outside the House, knocking her enamel bowl against the back door. She stood solitary in the growing darkness, her large sunken eyes peering. She waited, never shifting until the darkness covered her.“Look at that fool!” Ajie had opened her window and called out to no one, “She want food from this House? Let she beg!” She screamed with laughter.Ma continued to toil in the House every day, while her sons went to the cane fields. They ate what food they could from Mr. Rajesh.“What about Ma?” Ram asked, chewing on a bit of sada roti and pumpkin.“She go sneak from the pot, boy. Everything good.” Jag watched Mr. Rajesh in the distance as he tucked his own lunch into his pocket. He had already received his envelope of coins. He gripped his knees in frustration because he knew Ajie would be waiting by the roadside for him.It was nearing the end of the dry season when Jag and Ram walked under the blooming mango groves after working in the cane fields. The tiny yellow flowers flew through the air in great bursts, littering the ground with the small blossoms that quickly rotted and turned black like tar. Ram pushed his toes into the sticky mounds as they walked under the grove and then scraped it off as they reached the village road.It was Jag who saw her first, draped over the back steps of the house like a discarded rag. He picked her up and felt his cool skin burn against her rising fever. In the ajoupa, Jag poured water in her mouth, but she was unable to swallow. He ran out to the House and pounded on Ajie's back door, bawling her name, screaming for help.“You leave she! You leave she outside to die!” He tore at his chest and his clothes. He went to the neighbors' homes, but all the doors were closed, each window tightly shut.“Stop,” Ma whispered, her voice fading with each uttered word. “Tell him stop.”Ram ran out to his brother, and Jag returned to the ajoupa, defeated. Silently, with a furrowed brow, he boiled the neem leaves in Ma's ever-shining kettle as Ram massaged her hands. Jag cupped her moist face in his palm and tried to feed her the tea, but it spilled from her lips. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she touched his cheek. Her fingertips flitted against his mouth. Her lips trembled to speak her last words, but they never came.The morning erupted in grey, threatening shadows of rain clouds. Jag held Ram and they sat in a corner of the ajoupa, watching her body. Ajie's back door creaked open. She pushed her stout frame through the doorway and erupted in shrieks. Two men from the village came and removed Ma's body.It took some days to pass before Pa sent the money for her funeral. Jag and Ram wore white and were taken to the sea to watch her burn. The flames ate through the wooden pyre—loud cracks and crunches chewing up bones. When they returned to the ajoupa, Ajie was inside. Jag stood at the doorway. The shelves were bare, earthen pots lay broken on the ground. Ram could see his little green enamel bowl on its side far into the corner. She turned over the rice bags and sucked her teeth.“It have nothing here!” Ajie kicked the bowls and crunched the deyas under her shoes. Jag walked further inside allowing the sunlight to push through and reflect the copper off the overturned kettle. She hurried to it and grabbed the black handle in her fat hands.“How this nice thing end up here?”She carried it out of the ajoupa, and as she walked past, Jag gripped her dress. She turned to him and furrowed her brow as she tried to pull away from him.“Leh meh go, boy!”He rolled the hem of her dress around his hand, pulling her closer. She screamed.Jag caught her wrist with his other hand and wrenched the kettle away from her. She grabbed for his neck and squeezed until he dropped the kettle and fell to his knees. She scrambled for the kettle and caught it by the handle. Jag grabbed her, jerking her entire body closer to him, and he sank his teeth into her breast, letting the sticky trails of blood run down the corners of his mouth.Ajie screamed and dropped the kettle. Jag lunged at her, groping her dress, and tore away the pouch of coins. He wiped the blood with the front of his vest and spat the rest out onto the floor. Ram stared at the weeping trembling pile of flesh that was his grandmother.“Pick up your bed,” Jag called to him. Ram looked up and ran toward his brother. Jag looked out toward the grove of mango trees in the distance. “Pick up your bed. We gon walk.” They folded their rice bags and held them under their arms, Jag's fingers tight around the black kettle handle.In the grove, tiny green mango buds peeped through the new shoots, purple and glossy, guarding them for the new season to begin.