ANASTASIA’S TUCK SHOP

“My mother died in eighty-three at the age of thirty-eight.”

        Daria repeated the words over as she bounced down Tyrrel Street. Sometimes she marveled at how those numbers rolled around in her mouth like tamarind seeds until they popped out in the right order. Today she fancied, “What if they came out mixed up and I said – My mother died in thirty-eight at the age of eighty-three!” A giggle that started in her stomach suddenly burst out into the tropical air and she knew right away she would have to confess to Father Paul and do penance for such irreverence about her dead mother.

        What would he recommend? What is payment for speaking carelessly about a person who you really never met; who died the very day you were born so that your every birthday was a wake?

        “I’ll think about that tomorrow.” She started to skip. This summer’s storms had been especially squally to Grenada, and the streets of St. George’s were hot and steamy.

        Miss Ellie was sitting on a kitchen chair outside her open door applying pomade to her long graying hair. She always smiled and asked Daria how was her Daddy and Daria almost always said “Fine, Miss,” before the question was even posed. It happened again this day and Daria felt a warmth rush to her cheeks. She looked down to her untied shoe and added, “Thanks for askin’, Miss.”

        Just two more doors and she would be in Miss Anastasia’s shop and all of this bother would be forgotten.

        The shop could really be a boat, Daria thought. It was long and narrow and it would be simple for two or three strong men to push it down Baines Alley and into the harbor. From there it would sail out past the breakwater to the blue sea, if it weren’t for the air spaces between the floor boards, and it would contain everything she and Miss would need for a long and happy time.

        Walking through the door of the shop she saw the glass display counter with its single wrapped sweeties, little bags of curly corns, flashlight batteries, and loaves of bread. To the left and right of the door were always boxes of whatever had come down Tyrrel Street needing to be sold. That day, it was bunches of rock bananas and plantains on one side and three big breadfruits on the other.

        Miss Anastasia was bending low over a box of evaporated milk cans trying to decide where to place them on the sagging shelves. Miss had figured out that all the heavy cans of lard and sacks of flour should go onto the bottom shelves and every shelf going on up to the ceiling would hold lighter and lighter things until you got to the toilet tissue at the very top.

        Miss looked up. “Had your lunch yet? Eat one of those bananas. They won’t all sell today. Too hot.”

        Daria went around the case and helped stand the milk cans on the third shelf. This made sense, she thought, because right below were the large cans of juice and just above were boxes of sugar and the jam jars.

        She sensed the aching in Miss Anastasia’s back as she held tight to her sides and straightened to her full height. Without her pouf of gray hair, Miss would be very short for a full grown lady. But the cloud of hair added some inches of importance to her small brown frame and gave no uncertainty as to who was in charge of that tiny portion of the island. On the days she wore one of her hats, especially the droopy straw one, the whole shop took on a Soca beat and even the customers moved a little faster. Like on Tuesday when Mrs. St. John came in for her usual five pounds of chicken back n’ necks for the broth of her noted callaloo soup.

        Miss and Mrs. St. John had known each other since they were seven years old. Most days one could have seen them hiking up the rutted banana road to the old Victoria stone church that had been slightly renovated to hold in its sanctuary one hundred wiggly uniformed little bodies for the duration of a school day. Together they had learned their alphabet, parsed sentences, and vied to see who could multiply three digits by three faster at the chalkboard.

        The two had slowly drifted from each other as time and distance and marriages settled in but Miss always smiled when Lucia came through the door. The fact that Lucia St. John had to pass two shops in Gouyave and one in Grand Roy to make her purchases at Anastasia’s was not lost on anyone who knew them at all.

        After a brief greeting Mrs. St. John gave her order. Daria cast a hasty glance at Miss and rolled her eyes. Miss and Daria were both aware that the electricity had gone off for a while the day before leaving a great frozen mound where the chicken parts were supposed to be and Mrs. St.John was always in such a hurry to get back home and proceed with her soup. Luckily, Miss was wearing her straw hat and so with not a doubt in her head, Daria watched as Miss Anastasia marched to the freezer, picked up the glacial mass and pushing past gaping customers strode to the street where she smacked that bag on the cement over and over. It wasn’t long before she was back asking, “Was that five pounds you needed, Mrs. St.John?”

        The sun had gone down. The shelves had been feather dusted and the eggs removed from their box and carefully placed in the glass bowl on the counter and just before Daria left the shop she blurted, “Miss, I have to go soon.”

        “Yes, I know, but you’ll be back tomorrow, please God.” Miss Anastasia was sitting on the high wire stool, rubbing her swollen feet that now barely fit into her felt slippers.

        “No, mam, I mean I have to go away soon. My father has decided that he can’t take care of me all alone. It was okay, I guess, when I was little but now he thinks since I am getting older that…”

        She couldn’t go on. Something really big and swirly had come into her throat and closed it tight. Miss Anastasia had been like an umbrella to her. As long as she knew Miss was down at the shop, Daria had always felt sure that things would work out just fine. But she recognized, now, that she was about to lose something important, forever.

        It felt like the time her cousin Jude had convinced her that Dad’s giant coral shell would float. “After all,” he had pointed out, “Corals are full of air holes and any dummy knows that things light will float.”

        She had taken his dare and would never forget the ache of watching its gleaming, sink slowly beyond her outstretched hand and out of her sight. Forever.

        “Where will you be going?”

        Daria suddenly felt older with the hearing of her own reality.

        “My Auntie Esther lives in Brooklyn and he says I will go live with her but I don’t want to go to Brooklyn. They don’t have mango trees, do they, Miss?

        “Well, child, I don’t know. I have never been.”

        Daria turned away slowly and stepped toward the door. “Goodnight, Miss.”

        Seeing her reflection in the glass of the door, Daria realized that she had not changed her school uniform before she had come. Now her white blouse was no longer stiff and starchy and her necktie was looped over her shoulder. This would not require a penance but it would bring a slow shaking of the head from Father and that familiar sucking sound he made around the toothpick in his mouth. “Just one more reason,” she thought.

        The next day was Sunday. Nothing was more still than the island on Sunday.

        Daria went to St. Mary’s on the hill at seven thirty that morning with her father. The Mass was the same. Nothing had changed. But she now could count the days before she would be leaving on one small brown hand.

        The cruise ship from yesterday was still tied at the dock but there was no movement, no tourists. The shops were closed. After a lunch of fish cake and bake, she wandered out into the heat of the sun to the harbor where the bright blue and yellow fishing boats filled with yesterday’s lambi shells and lacy coral were roped to salty buoy posts sunk into the shallow debris of the harbor. Daria thought it funny that even the chickens that usually roamed the streets and laid their eggs in the bushes and walked their chicks through gardens looking for grubs were strangely quiet on Sundays.

        Daria looked up at Her Majesty’s Prison, a long yellow cement building that clung to the side of Old Fort Road. Often on a weekend she would gaze there and wonder what the prisoners did in there all day long. Some had been there for as long as she was alive, paying for what they had done during the intervention time. She made a quick note to ask Miss what she had done during that time when the Americans came.

        School on Monday went slowly. High gusty winds had blown through the wire windows of the classroom and scattered her papers more than once. Miss Braithwaite had called on her just as she had given in ever so slightly to the awesome boredom that accompanied math class and her head thumped the wooden desk as she tried to remember where she was.

        Her friend Letitia was sent to cut a tamarind switch for the teacher to whip the back of her legs for not remembering her “fours.” She had to go out three times for she had picked such switches that would not hold up the first two times. And lunch was Daria’s least favorite chicken roti, which didn’t bother her, since she had forgotten her thirty-five cents on the sink at home.

        She arrived at the tuck shop just in time to see Miss Anastasia standing on a stool waving a broom handle at the top shelf of toilet paper. Glenda Antoine from school was standing at the glass case folding and refolding a dollar that she had brought to make a purchase for her mother. With one last fanning of the stick Miss swatted three rolls from their perch and a fourth landed squarely on her nose and bounced on down to the floor. A perfect silence followed.

        Reverence and a tinge of fear filled the air. Then Miss let out a ‘whoop!’ and that settled the direction that the rest of the afternoon would take. All three laughed until they ached and Daria finally had to take Miss Anastasia’s arm and help her down from the stool while Glenda scooped the soft rolls from the floor.

        “Well,” Anasatasia said, when her breath came back to her, “I’ve never been attacked by toilet paper before!” And the giggling began all over again, tears pouring down their dark honey faces.

        For the next hour the conversation was concentrated on school, maths, Letitia, and whether or not the sugar apples would last to be sold tomorrow.

        Suddenly Daria leaned against the counter and asked, “Miss, what do you remember about the intervention? Where were you when they came? Were you scared?”

        “It was only nine years ago, child. Yes, I remember. I was right here in my shop just like today” She paused a full minute. Then she gathered up her figuring pad and pencil, looked around the shop, and beckoned the child to follow. She closed the door behind them. In the bright sun on Tyrrel, Daria blinked as she followed Anastasia to her house next to the shop.

        The front door had just been replaced by a craftsman so its raw wood stood out from the gray boards of the house. It was a louver door that let the air in from the street but didn’t stop the car sounds or the arguments that erupted on Friday nights between the men who had stood too long liming with their friends in front of Mr. Murray’s rum shop, partaking of the nectar from the canefields. None of this ever seemed to bother Anastasia. She lived in a zone of safety from years of knowing everybody’s Momma.

        She had brought a can of pineapple juice from the store and moved on out to the kitchen where she set it in the sink. Daria, following close behind, startled at a flutter of wings as two large swifts hopped to the windowsill and quickly dispatched themselves out of the open window to the tree below. Bread crumbs had been spread on the drain board of the sink. The question that came to the child’s lips was unnecessary as Miss Anastasia smiled.

        “They come here every day about this time,” she said.

        “But they have so much to eat outdoors! They have ginger flowers and ripe mangoes that fall from the trees, and if they want they can eat seeds and little…” Daria’s voice rose higher. “Why do you let them into your kitchen? My father wouldn’t let them in. I know he wouldn’t. Not in the house, Miss.”

        Anastasia shook the can of pineapple juice and poured a glass for each of them. Daria’s questions were still on her face.

        “They must like the bread crumbs better.” Her smile was gentle.

        They went into the small living room. There was a couch and a small table and two upright wooden chairs and a chest with doors. On top of the chest, each standing up, were a dozen or so greeting cards. Some said “birthday,” some said “Easter,” and others had poinsettias. One had a large silver star with glitter. Miss showed them one by one to Daria with a glow of pride, like a curator of a fine museum. Noted on the back were the dates they had arrived and the relationship of the person from whom they were sent.

        “It is good to have friends,” she said softly. Then, “You asked about the intervention. Some call it the ‘invasion’ but that’s all opinion. Our little country was being run by two strong men and there came a struggle between them. So each one got his following and rose up against the other. One day we heard that the Americans were coming to save some of their students from possible harm, but, by that time there was some killing – right up there at the fort. You can still see the bullet holes in the stone wall.”

        “ Some people were so scared that they jumped from the wall of the fort to the rocks below. Others ran to the beach and shook their fists and shouted, ‘Let them come. We are ready. Let them come!’ Our land had always been approached from the sea and so this time they were surprised to see that they were coming from the air and they had big planes.”

        Daria’s eyes were focused on Anastasia. She saw a kind of halo around her face like when the clouds were around the moon. “What did you do, Miss?” The air had a slight chill. It must be past six o’clock.

        “I closed all my doors and windows and crawled under the bed,” she grinned, “and when all the noises stopped, I crawled out and got my little coal pot and two eddoes. I peeled the eddoes and sliced them into a pot of water and put it on the lit coals to boil. Then I dragged the whole mess under the bed so that no one would see the smoke, and I cooked those eddoes for dinner.”

        “Weren’t you scared, Miss? You must have been so scared.”

        “Oh yes, but I was more hungry than scared,” she said.

        Daria giggled.

        Anastasia reached over to a small paper sack that lay on the table. “Have you ever played bones?” Without waiting for an answer she dumped the contents of the sack onto the table. “These are pebbles but when I was little we used old cut up chicken bones.”

        Daria felt a shiver of relief at that news. After all, she didn’t like chicken in any form and especially not in the form of cut up old bones! “How does it work?”

        “Well, you toss the stones out and when you are ready, you throw this little ball up and you try to scoop up first time one stone, next time two stones, and so on…here, you try… you get to the point where you have to pick up all the stones and catch the ball at the same time.”

        Daria’s attempts were a source of more giggling. “I can’t do it!”

        “Try again, you can’t give up. Not so soon.”

        Eventually, Daria captured the whole mess and caught the ball with seconds to spare. Anastasia replaced the stones and ball in the paper bag and handed it to Daria. “Keep these,” she said. “Remember, don’t splay the stones out too far apart or you’ll never get them all back, but don’t just throw them into a little pile because that makes the game too easy. It needs to be a little tricky to be fun. Take these along with you. I can get more.”

        “I’ll send you letters,” Daria promised, “and I’ll send you pictures so you’ll know who to look for when I come back.”

        Miss Anastasia gave her a quick hug. “Get along, now, the siren’s already rung so it’s way past six. Say ‘Hello’ to your father for me.” She opened the door and Daria stepped out into the coolness that came so quickly after the sun hid behind Fort George.

        She walked slowly up the bumpy street. Miss Ellie was inside her room and the aroma of a rich stew teased Daria’s nose. It probably had green dasheen leaves, some pumpkin and coconut milk and a big dash of nutmeg. It couldn’t miss being delicious as good as it smelled.

        An old man carrying a sack of roasted corn approached her. “You best run on home, Daria, your daddy will be out here! I goin’ home right now. You call me when you reach.”

        She smiled.

        Daria walked a little faster up Convent Hill and turned left onto Melville Street toward home. The lights of a distant cruise ship blinked like stars. Waves lapped in slow rhythm against the rock wall at the end of her hill. She fingered the stones in the little paper sack and made a solemn promise to herself. She would never throw them in a pile for that would make the game too easy. But she would never, ever, splay them so far away that they couldn’t come back.