What You Call Winter Page 9

  “Very well. Go and wash your face.”

  In the bathroom he took special pains to scrub so well that no one, not even his mother, could find fault. Rosa found him there and caught him from behind. “Don’t feel sad, baba.” She had saved some dough for tomorrow, she told him, smiling at his face in the mirror. He could help her with the comb. He could eat his kulkuls piping hot.

  St. Hilary Road was alive with lights and laughing people. Street banners wished everyone Best Compliments of the Season and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Guests from town parked in a long, crooked line of cars, and those with drivers pulled up to gates to let off their passengers. Children in party clothes laughed and argued and hopped one-footed in shoes they mustn’t scuff. Some pretended to climb garden walls, and others held with two-handed reverence the gifts or dishes of food entrusted to their care.

  Jude held his mother’s hand. He wore a sweater at her insistence, though the sleeves scratched his arms, and shorts with socks and shoes. His hair had been combed back damply from his forehead. Simon had gone ahead with their father, but Marian had lingered to walk with Jude and her mother.

  In only a few hours Uncle Peter’s yard had been transformed. The garden was hectic with lights. Streamers ran from the compound wall to the guava tree, forming an airy pinwheel; more were looped along the gate and veranda. Someone had raised a flag of India, and the illuminated stars had been switched on, twisting slowly and scattering light like confetti to the packed earth near the veranda steps. Two toddlers were stamping the chinks of light and screamed with laughter whenever the light darted out from under their footsteps. Jude saw people he recognized: Aunty Grace was carrying her new baby; Neil and their cousins, Mark and Ian, were jumping off the second veranda step; and Neil’s sister, Angela, was twirling with three others, tumbling to the ground in fits of laughter. Jude’s cousin Colleen was encased in Uncle Louis’s arms, waving a sparkler in front of her and surrounded by a pack of envious children waiting their turn. Simon and some of his friends stood in a tight circle, flicking a football to one another with their feet and heads. “Careful, boys. Not near the food! Not near the little ones!”

  Jude did not see Uncle Peter anywhere, but tucked into a corner of the garden was the old man’s pyre of wood and brush. The man itself had been mounted on a post, its back turned to the party. Paper sandals were strapped to its feet.

  “You see, godson! I gave him shoes for you!” Aunty Freddy swung toward them the moment they arrived. She wore bright red lipstick and a yellow chiffon salwar kameez with one side of her dupatta trailing nearly to the grass as she bent to seize Jude. She kissed both cheeks and pinched his chin tightly. “So sweet, this fellow! I could eat him up!”

  Jude submitted briefly to this affection, then returned his attention to the garden, determined to stake his claim early in the matter of firecrackers. “Where’s Uncle Peter?”

  Aunty Freddy tossed an impatient hand. “Blowing up his balloons somewhere. Marian, darling, you’re looking lovely! Such a beauty!”

  Marian had worn a plain cotton salwar kameez, the scarf cutting stiffly across her shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, God, none of this mumbling, I can’t abide! And no false modesty! What is the point of it? You are young and pretty, enjoy it while you can! God knows it doesn’t last — am I right, Essie? Come, later on I’ll put some lipstick on you, and something for your eyelashes. And such a complexion, we must play it up. We’ll have a fabulous time. Come, you want to come now?”

  Jude’s mother interrupted. “We’ve brought sweets, Freddy. Where can we put them?”

  “Ooo! Kulkuls, my favorite!” She popped one in her mouth. “Now take them away or no one else at the party will have them!” She waved her hand as she moved away. “Keep them far from me! Go on!” She seemed to have forgotten Marian’s lipstick. They watched as she went skittering through the party.

  Jude’s mother handed the platter to Marian and pointed to a table near the veranda. “Good girl,” she said suddenly. Then she turned to Jude and took his chin in her own fingers, wiping off Aunty Freddy’s lipstick with her wet thumb.

  “Happy now? You’re at your party at last, hmm?”

  “But where’s Uncle Peter?” Jude asked her. “He needs me for the firecrackers.”

  “Uncle Peter can manage without you for a few minutes.” She swatted him on the bottom. “Go. Run and find your cousins and play.”

  By eleven thirty the party had reached its peak. Jude saw his father sitting heavily on the steps of the veranda, a glass near his legs. His mother was in a circle of other women, all sitting in folding chairs, which seemed precarious on the uneven ground. Jude’s cousin Colleen and three or four other children had collapsed at the base of the guava tree in their party clothes. Aunty Grace spread a blanket over them and smiled at Jude. “Such a big boy, wide awake in the middle of the night!”

  Jude wandered inside the house, where Uncle Peter was playing the piano to a crowd of people. Even with all the windows flung open, the room was hot and close. Uncle Peter had rolled up his sleeves, but the back of his shirt was damp. A girl Jude didn’t know shared the narrow wooden bench, singing with her mouth open wide.

  Jude could see Simon and Marian at the far end of the room, but he went to stand beside Uncle Peter. For a moment he hesitated. The room seemed to throb with noise and people and Uncle Peter was at the center of it all, banging out chords. His hands were huge on the keys and even his knees seemed to be jumping. Jude felt suddenly shy. But then his uncle turned his head and grinned as if he’d been waiting for Jude all along.

  “Where’ve you been hiding?” he called. “Come on and sing!”

  “Uncle Peter, is it time?”

  “What?”

  Jude leaned closer. His uncle’s face was slick; he smelled of cologne and sweat and smoke. “Is it time for the old man?”

  The girl on the piano bench laughed. “Better go, Pete! Your public is waiting!”

  Uncle Peter shook his head, smiling, though Jude did not see why. He reached for his drink with one hand, but the other lingered on the piano keys. “What’s the time?” he asked.

  Aunty Freddy’s voice rang out from the doorway, where Jude hadn’t seen her enter. She stood holding Angela, who was four but almost as tall as Jude. “You’ve got twenty minutes still. Give us another!”

  The girl slid up from the bench. “Come and sit, Freddy. You sing the next one.”

  “No, no, I’m very happy here. And you two—such lovely harmonies!” She kissed the top of Angela’s head. “Come, sleepyhead, come, baby. Wake up.” She looked over the child to Uncle Peter, her eyes bright and fierce. “Daddy’s singing for you.”

  Uncle Peter suddenly put an arm around Jude. “You, sir! Come and sit with me.” He slid over and pulled Jude onto the bench, where Jude could feel the heat from his uncle’s body. “Just a quick one,” he said, and began to play. At first everyone joined in—the girl with the wide-open mouth, Simon and Marian—even Jude knew the words. But soon Jude could hear Aunty Freddy’s voice above all the others, clear and strong, and in the end it was only she and Uncle Peter singing together, for that song and then one more. She had tears in her eyes, Jude saw, though the songs were not sad ones. Uncle Peter started another, and just as Jude was about to tug his arm to remind him, Aunty Freddy raised her voice over the cheers and clapping to call everyone outside: they did not want to miss the old man.

  A council of uncles and cousins gathered near the bonfire pile. Neil was hopping from one foot to the other. Jude went to stand near Simon.

  “Look what I have for his pants!” Uncle Peter held up a firecracker. “Come, let’s get this fellow in the fire!”

  He and Uncle Louis lifted the old man, still on his pole, and slowly turned him. For the first time Jude and the others saw the banner draped across his chest that read 1962, and the face Aunty Freddy had painted. Simon’s head jerked up and Ian took his father’s hand. Only Jude spoke.

  “It’s
Uncle Peter!”

  Simon knocked his shoulder.

  “Be quiet, you!”

  “But it is!” Jude wished he dared to kick his brother, but a strange silence had dropped over the whole assemblage. Uncle Peter was still holding the pole, so that the old man stood upright.

  Uncle Peter laughed again, but this time it was a feeble sound, trailing away like smoke. When he stopped, the pillowcase continued to smile its thin brown smile. Aunty Freddy’s sketch was outlined in only one color and was slightly lopsided on the knobby pillowcase head, but it was unmistakable. Uncle Peter’s wide painted jaw sloped to his painted chin. Uncle Peter’s painted forehead arched back into his crisp painted hairline. Uncle Peter’s painted eyes, pinched close to his painted nose, stared back at the Almeidas. Rising above the sound of the party came Aunty Freddy’s cawing laughter.

  Uncle Louis cleared his throat. “Peter —”

  “No, no, it’s fine. Fine. Maybe she had a bit too much of the holiday spirit! Let’s just forget it. The children want their fire. Come, Neil, help me get him up here.”

  But Neil had gone very quiet. He stared up at his father in confusion.

  “Come on!” Uncle Peter gave the old man a little shake. A few bits of straw drifted to the ground. When Neil didn’t move, Uncle Peter seemed to droop as though he too had a post and had just been lifted off it.

  “Not to worry!” Uncle Louis said. He was a tall man, with all his hair already gray but thick and springing and a gentle wiry smile that seemed to match his spectacles. “I know just the thing!” He slapped all his pockets until he’d found a pen. “Hold it steady, Peter. There. See, Neil? See what I’m doing?” He drew a fierce black mustache with curling ends and then — Jude came closer to look — he drew a beard right on top of old-man-Peter’s chin.

  “There. You see, nothing to be sad about.” Uncle Louis put his hand on Neil’s shoulder and called him son even though Neil was his nephew. Uncle Peter was standing just as quietly as Neil, as if each was waiting for the other to move first.

  “We’ll be waiting here ’til next year!” called Aunty Freddy from the center of the crowd. “Does the old man have a wrist-watch?” A cloud of good-natured jeering rose up from the people as Freddy careened toward the old man. “What’s this, you’ve covered up my masterpiece?”

  “Freddy …” Uncle Louis raised his hand as if to call a halt, but Uncle Peter interrupted him.

  “That’s enough from you. We are doing this.”

  “Well, get on with it then. Everyone’s waiting!” She looked around at all of them, lastly Uncle Peter. “What’s the matter with you? It’s just a little paint. Right? Right, darling?” She had caught Neil from behind and bent playfully to kiss him, three, four times. Her lipstick had faded to a drier color, cracked in places like a riverbed in the dry season, but still she left a small smudged blot on his cheek. “I might be taking up painting again in the new year. It’s time to have some fun! You have your fun, don’t you, Peter? But the children may like it. We can paint together, right, my darling baby, all the lovely things we see.”

  A shout rose up around the yard. Uncle Peter had set the old man alight, and the flame crept along the hem of the trousers until it found its first snatch of straw. Soon the whole leg was snapping. Neil stood stock-still near the edge of the fire, right where Jude wanted to be, though Marian had caught hold of his hand and pulled him back from the spitting embers. Then Uncle Peter told Neil to stand back, looping an arm around him so that he was held just out of reach of the fire. Behind a veil of smoke and flame, Jude could see the thin brown eyes that Aunty Freddy had drawn. In a matter of seconds the pale cotton cheeks were singed, the chest and arms roaring. The old man’s hat tumbled off his head, showering sparks and scattering the women.

  It was over soon. The old man crumpled to a common bonfire, the adults sang “Auld Lang Syne.” Neil broke from his father’s embrace and went running after another cousin. Simon was setting off firecrackers. Marian was talking to a group of girls from her school, and Jude’s mother was helping other women carry empty dishes into the house. Jude turned and turned but could not see his father. The ground was covered with silver stars and tiny gold banners spelling Happy New Year. Jude wanted to catch up with Neil, but he didn’t feel like running. He sat at the base of the tree.

  “Another song!” Aunty Freddy called. “Come, everyone join in!” She had her arm tight around her daughter’s shoulders. The singing resumed and Jude lay down. Stars thick as confetti, the sound of voices. He slept.

  When he woke, the singing had ended. The other children at the base of the tree were borne away to bed, heads on their mothers’ shoulders, shoes dangling against their fathers’ belts.

  “Your daddy was ill,” Uncle Peter told Jude. “Mummy’s gone home with him and Marian said she would take you, but I said not to wake you, we would keep you for the night. You can sleep with Neil.”

  “I set off a firecracker,” Neil said when they were in bed. “You missed it. It went up like that.” He snapped his fingers, a reminder that Jude had not learned how.

  In bed, it seemed to Jude that the party had not ended but twisted into some new form. People in and out of the house, clatters from the kitchen, laughter exploding like firecrackers. Aunty Freddy opened the door and a tilted square of light came swinging over Jude’s bed. He kept his eyes squeezed shut while she leaned over Neil. “Good night, my son, good night, my darling boy.” When she had gone, Jude realized that no one had closed the wooden shutters. Mosquitoes would come in. The breeze was chilly, and no one had said anything about Jude’s cough. Jude wanted his own brother. He wanted to go home.

  He put his foot against Neil’s leg, and Neil kicked it away.

  “Don’t pull the blanket,” Neil told him fiercely.

  It was well past breakfast when Jude woke alone in the bed. Angela was sitting dully in a chair with a book in her lap; Neil was nowhere to be found. A woman with fuzz on her lip and pewter-colored hair came in and told Angela to wash and dress herself properly. “You must be a big girl now, a brave girl.” To Jude she said, “Your sister is coming to get you.”

  Jude went outside without washing his face or teeth and found Neil in the garden. The air smelled of smoke. Tiny foil letters glittered in the dust, and someone had stacked folding chairs in a corner. Neil wore his school uniform, although it was a holiday, and he was crouched in the grass, picking up the confetti piece by piece. Neil kept his back to Jude, but Jude could see that he was crying with sudden shuddering breaths. He scraped his nails through the grass and dirt until another woman — a different woman, the house was full of women — came to call them inside.

  This is what Jude remembers best of that tumble of days before Neil and Angela came to stay several weeks with his family: the wide-open eyes of the old man as he burned and Neil bent over in the yard, picking up bits of confetti. In the confusion of the first afternoon, when nobody knew where Aunty Freddy had gone or that she was gone for good, it was Jude’s mother who thought to hunt for the coat Aunty Freddy had borrowed. The coat was missing, along with a suitcase and all of Aunty Freddy’s gold, an odd assortment of clothes and toiletries, and her paintbrushes. Uncle Peter had called in the police, and the beggars who lived in the abandoned lot were questioned to rule out a kidnapping. One of these, a woman who spent a sleepless night suffering from stomach cramps, reported that she had seen a woman marching down the road. When she passed beneath a sprinkling of Christmas lights, the woman came into clear view. She wore a coat and was carrying a suitcase. No one was with her. The following morning, Uncle Peter came over with a telegram, which Jude’s father read without speaking. Jude wondered what it said, but his mother did not give it to him for practice.

  A few minutes later Jude saw both of them leaning over the balcony, looking out at the road and not at each other. He sidled near and leaned against his father’s leg. His father was the older brother, he knew, but Uncle Peter was taller. Jude tried to imagine catching up to
Simon.

  “They can stay here for a time …” his father said. He had put his hand in Jude’s hair and was rubbing. “In a little while, she’ll settle down.”

  Uncle Peter said something Jude did not hear and his father frowned. “What trouble? Tcha!”

  Jude ducked out from beneath his father’s hand. He wanted to find Simon, who would be going back to school in only a few days, but Simon had gone off on his bicycle.

  That was the day that Jude’s mother had talked in a high, angry voice about her coat, her old coat, her coat that was not so old after all but really her second-best, the coat she intended to give to Rosa when Rosa married. Angela and Neil had not yet come to stay with them, but they were in the garden with Marian, who told them their mother had gone on holiday, to see their uncle. Everyone likes a holiday, she said. When they had grown up, they also might want to visit the house where they’d lived when they were small. Jude thought of the monkey Aunty Freddy had painted, swinging down from the window to greet her.

  Jude ought to have stayed in the garden, but his cough was bothering him. He went to the kitchen to find Rosa instead. She offered to let him make kulkuls later, but for the moment he just sat in her lap and leaned back against her, as though his weight alone might keep her there.

  Half the Story

  Before they’d even checked their bags everything was an adventure to Vee, a lark or a joke, a proof of her new daring self. She clutched Marian’s arm while waited in line, her nails manicured a bright, hard pink. “Can you believe it? Can you believe I’m really doing this?” Marian could not, quite. All afternoon she had been listening to Vee tell everyone they met that this was her first time leaving the country. “I could never do it without you, honey, not in a million years.” She had bought a three-piece set of leather luggage with an extra bag folded inside for all she planned to buy. “My God, the fabrics! The colors! I’ll go crazy, I know I will. We’ll have a ball.”