Me Dying Trial Read online

  For Aunt Nora

  Acknowledgments

  A first novel is never just the accomplishment of the author, but of all those who have influenced her from the very beginning until its publication. Thanks to my English and Creative Writing teachers: Margaret Spencer, Robert Polito, Meredith Steinbach, Michael Ondaatje and Kate Rushin and Jonathan Strong who have become dear, dear friends.

  For their unending support, love and advice over the years, many thanks to Sherrard Hamilton, Joan Becker, Noel Johnson, Darryl Alladice, Silas Obidiah, Stephen McCauley, Winifred Powell, Nevin Powell, Selwyn Cudjoe, Shay Youngblood, Kiana Davenport, Carleasa Coates, Elizabeth Hadley-Freydberg, and, of course, Teresa Langle de Paz.

  Introduction

  I remember the first time I met Patricia Powell. I was a new student in Brown University’s Creative Writing program, from which she had just graduated. We were both invited to a party at a faculty member’s house, my first, her last. Over the course of the evening, almost everyone at the party told me I had to meet Patricia. Soft-spoken yet not aloof, she’s a hugely talented writer, they kept saying. And she was from the islands, just like me.

  Finally, I did walk over to say hello, and at the end of our conversation I asked Patricia if she had any advice for a new writer, at least a new student in a writing program.

  “Just do what you do,” she said, “and at the end, if you have one friend left, you’re lucky.”

  I have never forgotten this piece of advice. Indeed, it has served me well over the years. What I heard her saying to me then was that writing, like living, takes some measure of courage. Our work requires it, even demands it, and we can deliver no less. Only when I read her magnificent first novel, Me Dying Trial, did I realize just how extremely talented and courageous a writer Patricia Powell is.

  Me Dying Trial introduces us to Gwennie Glaspole, battered mother of five, whose escape into the arms of another man brings about the birth of her fiercely independent daughter, Peppy. But like all summaries, this does little justice to the scope of Gwennie’s arduous trials, her Herculean efforts at getting an education, and of Me Dying Trial’s well-paced and exquisite narrative. For Me Dying Trial is a book that seduces with its small caresses as well as its larger strokes. And though the broader narrative draws you into its beguiling web, it is the small details that keep you there: the tickle of a blade of grass against the back of a leg, the basin of hot water that is the only salve for bruises, the lilt of voices speeding up to argue, then slowing down ever so lightly to address a beloved child.

  Like all of Patricia’s work, Me Dying Trial digs deep to unravel its own silences. The growing drama, Elizabeth Barrett Browning tells us, does away with the simulation of painted scenes and uses the soul itself as its stage. Here, Gwennie’s soul is laid bare through her abuse, her migrations, and her encounters with changes in her own landscape and her children’s lives. Secrets hover over these characters like ghosts, or a child’s grin, but it takes some effort to see and acknowledge them for the physical and mental anguish they might cause. Though issues of history, culture, gender, and class are often spoken of as though they were separate entities, we cannot separate them quite so easily in an individual life for they always bleed into our personalities to make us who we are. Gwennie can only escape just so far before realizing, as Patricia has said of her own life, that she is like a turtle, carrying her home on her back. If survival is the ultimate goal, then at what cost? Is independence ever really possible for one who is so tightly linked to others? The complex role of community is one of the elements I most cherish in this novel. What would any of us be without our Aunt Coras, who lovingly take us in when our mothers must surrender us for a while? Gwennie’s survival ultimately depends on her community, but along with that support come many burdens that make the shell on her back just as heavy as a stone and brick house.

  Though stirring and luminous, Patricia’s writing never escapes the realities of these very complicated lives. Me Dying Trial is a communal as well as personal narrative, an oral as well as written tale, a stage for many souls. It is also one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful novels I have ever read. Its subtlety hides all its ingenuous seams, yet it is extremely well crafted. At times it reads like a dream. Other times like a nightmare, one from which we hope its characters will awaken, but into which we fear any or all of them might sink again.

  As I finished this novel, I was reminded of Janie Crawford from Zora Neale Hurston’s groundbreaking Their Eyes Were Watching God, who, upon her return to a hometown where she’s slighted and scorned, tells her friend Pheoby, “you got tuh go there tuh know there.” Perhaps we have not been where Gwennie has been, but through Patricia’s lyrical and remarkable narration, we feel very deeply what she has been through. This intimacy between writer, reader, and character is in part what makes Patricia Powell a captivating storyteller and one of the most exciting writers living and writing on the island that is the Caribbean-American hyphen.

  EDWIDGE DANTICAT

  Miami, Florida

  PART ONE

  I

  Friday evening, and the old country bus was ram-packed with market women and school children as usual. At every corner, the bus would bend over so badly, all the baskets with yam, banana, fish and breadfruit mad to fall over, not to mention the people—pack like fresh sardines on top one another. Gwennie hang onto the railing, her bag with the potato pudding she bake overnight clutch tight underneath her arm. Through the tiny square windows of the old bus, she could see the shops sailing by, canefields with stalks bowing in the wind, the cemetery with break-down tombs, Aunt Emmy’s house, the old church, the pond . . . Gwennie yank the string and the bus rattle and squeal to a full stop rolling all the dry coconuts down the aisle and on top of people’s corn toes. She tread her way careful, pushing pass sweaty market women, big baskets and boxes until finally she jump off the bus.

  Outside, she brush the market smell and bus grime from her blue pantsuit and walk up to the brown gate. Nothing ripening-up yet, only sweet-smelling yellow blossoms on the trees lining the gate and plenty bees flying round. The ground was still damp from the rainy season, and the weeds spring up tall in Grandma’s garden choking the roots of her fern and morning glory. Tomorrow, sure as rain, Grandma going to send her to pull them out. A little wisp of grass tickle the back of her leg, and absently Gwennie use her foot, scratch the spot. It tickle again, and as she turn round to see what it was crawling up her leg, her face meet with a large grin covering over Luther’s face.

  ‘But look at me dying trial! Luther, you here playing games. There it was. I thought it was bees or something.’

  Luther laugh. ‘Jesus, Miss Gwennie, you deaf just like an old horse. You know how long I been standing up here?’

  Gwennie look up in his face. She like the way the little sprinklings of grey at his temples make him look older than his twenty-five years. But then him would laugh, and the two dimples pinching his cheeks and the gap in his front teeth would remind her that she at least five years older. ‘Couldn’t be that long. I just come off the old bus.’ She brush her suit again.

  ‘I was under the orange tree’, him point, ‘shading from the sun. It sure is a hot one today. Can’t talk long though, I have to get back to the bridge now.’

  ‘How’s that coming along?’

  ‘About four more weeks left before it ready.’

  ‘Bet you don’t want to leave. Not with all that good food mama cooking. Look how you stout-up and everything.’

  Him laugh again. ‘You better stop teasing me, Miss Gwennie. And why stay here anyway, all the good women gone. Not much choice from what left.’

  ‘You not looking hard enough, man.’

  ‘Maybe.’ A faraway look come into his eyes
, and as him stare into the hills surrounding the little district, Gwennie had to wonder how come she never set eyes on him long before two months ago, or even before she marry Walter. Him was such a gentleman: kind, church-going and everything. Even with the children, him was real good. Whenever she bring them down to visit Grandma, him was always playing with them, taking them out on Grandpa’s old donkey June, telling them Anansy stories and buying them all kinds of nonsense. Last time she come, him even teach her to play dominoes. And after few games she was giving him big-big six love.

  ‘Well, I must get back to the bridge, Miss Gwennie. But I will see you.’

  Her good-bye stuck in her throat, and she watch until his shirt-tail turn the corner and she couldn’t see him anymore. She brush her pantsuit one more time, pick up the bag with the pudding, lift up the latch and step through the gate.

  Grandma was sitting in the front room as usual, her little scraps of cloth all over the place. Her head was bent forward and she hummed, swaying back and forth, the rhythm going with each stitch.

  ‘Who that humming so sweet that hummingbird ownself would shame to hear it?’ Gwennie walk silently into the room.

  ‘Gwennie! But see me dying trial,’ Grandma cry out loud, dashing down the material and hobbling over to her daughter. ‘But how you mean to frighten me so? Every day I think about you, child, wondering when you coming to look for us. How the worthless man—Walter? You pappy worried sick about you. Him plan was to come and see you since I can’t do the walking sake of the foot. How you do, child?’

  Gwennie hug her. ‘Doing okay.’

  ‘How Dave and the bad knee?’

  ‘Doing much better.’

  ‘That poor pickney,’ Grandma mutter, seating herself and picking up the sewing again. ‘Fall down mash-up his knee cap. If I did just have me own way, I would bring him to the science doctor meself so him can sprinkle a little water over the pickney’s head. You’d be surprise to see how quick him get better. I keep telling you . . .’

  ‘You know his father,’ Gwennie say to her. ‘You know him don’t believe in those things. How’s your leg?’

  ‘Same way,’ Grandma slap her hips. ‘Real bad these days with all that rain. They just pull right up. Only the good Lord can heal it, medear, nothing else.’ She show Gwennie the material. ‘Making underpants for your papa.’

  ‘Him out working, cutting cane as usual?’

  Grandma nod. ‘You know nothing will stop him. Is harvest time for the cane crop now, so him working harder than usual. Doctor say his blood pressure okay, but him complain of headaches all the time. When is not one thing, is the other.’

  ‘I just see Luther,’ Gwennie say, sitting next to her on the bed, watching the stubby fingers with the break-off fingernails grip the needle and make straight perfect stitches with the thread.

  ‘Yes, medear. You papa have to tell him that even though him only staying for a little while, this is a house of God. Him can’t be bringing in young gals from out the street in here as him please.’

  ‘What him do now?’ Gwennie ask her.

  ‘All the time young gals from about the place just push open the gate, not even close it back so the dogs won’t go out the street, and come right in, asking for him. I get tired, man.’ She kiss her teeth and push up the cat-like spectacles leaning on her nose. ‘When him just come,’ Grandma slap her knee, ‘every Sunday, him get up early and have prayers with us. These days, huh, him come in all hours of the night.’ She stick out her two lips and start to hum.

  Gwennie never say anything. She remember that even when she engage to Walter, she still couldn’t come in after nine. Her very wedding day when she take careless quarrel with Grandma, Grandma slap her jaw and tell her, ‘I don’t care how old you be. You must have respect.’

  ‘Him good about the boarding fee, though,’ Grandma tell her. ‘Always pay up on time, and respectful too. Not a bad fellow a tall.’

  II

  She never see him again that evening, and as cock crow the next morning, him gone.

  ‘Don’t stay round much,’ Grandpa tell her. ‘Him is the foreman, so they keep him busy.’

  ‘Walter gone back to church yet?’ him ask, as them sit down outside on the verandah peeling and eating sugarcane and the little pudding Gwennie did carry.

  She shake her head.

  ‘That man is a hard man,’ Grandpa say, his face sad. ‘Remember how the church used to pack when him go to preach? Everybody want to hear to his sermon. And Lord, him could preach.’ Grandpa shake his head, eyes far back remembering. ‘Now him curse and drink white rum like a blinking jackass. What a shame.’

  Gwennie look up in the old wrinkle-up wrinkle-up face. People say they were two of a kind, soft-spoken and just plain good-natured. She wish him never have to work so hard tending animals and cutting sugarcane all the time. All of a sudden she notice how him quiet-up, not saying a word. Gwennie start wonder if him was turning fool-fool, if him forget altogether that them talking. But Grandpa only in deep thought.

  ‘How him treating you, better?’

  ‘As usual. Sometimes him okay, other times . . .’

  ‘My, my! That man is something in truth. What is wrong with my son-in-law? But, you know, as I always tell you, take your things and your three children and come stay with us. Mile Gully School always looking for good teachers. No matter if you don’t have your certificate. They will still take you. This house never too small for me children and grandchildren. Take your things and come.’

  Gwennie sigh deep. She wanted to go, bad-bad too. But she couldn’t put up with the eight o’clock bedtime every night, the prayers, church service, night service, and Bible study, three and four times a week. She couldn’t put up with the coming in early after she go out to any night function, and that she couldn’t come and go as she please without telling them what time she coming back. She was a big woman, not a pickney.

  And the way Mile Gully’s people love to know and carry people’s business, she couldn’t put up with them a tall. Them would must want to know what happen to the lovely romance between she and Walter that cause them to pick up themselves and take off like breeze go get married. Now she come back with her face heavy, them was sure to laugh behind her back. Not saying that life rosy living with Walter, for only God alone know how bad she want to leave him. God alone see the bruises and the way Walter possessive and treat her and the children. But it not so easy picking up and laying down roots elsewhere.

  ‘I don’t know why you won’t stop having them,’ Grandma tell her over and over. ‘Stop, man,’ she would say pushing out her two lips. ‘If him treat you so bad, stop. Go to doctor. Make them put you on something. Or tell him to go to hell.’

  ‘But I tell him,’ Gwennie would say to her, a little bit weak. ‘All the time, I tell him. But him don’t care.’

  ‘Because you too soft and him know that. Huh, I would set out for that wretch, get scissors or something, and God help me. What I wouldn’t cut . . .’

  But Gwennie know better than to take any more of Grandma’s advice. She find out now that she no match a tall for Walter when him come home drunk. Last time she lick him with the piece of board Grandma tell her to keep under the bed for protection, him drag it out of her hand and knock her with it instead. She still have all the black-and-blue marks.

  III

  She see Luther that evening though, and him was his old playful self as usual.

  ‘Miss Gwennie, how about a game of dominoes?’ him whisper through the crack of her door after she already put on her night-clothes and say her prayers.

  ‘Sure.’ She creep out of bed and tip-toe out the room and down the hall so Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t hear from next door.

  ‘Last time you give me six-love. Huh, tonight I going to show you who is the man,’ him laugh, setting up the game on his bed.

  ‘We will see,’ Gwennie say, looking about the room and noticing how bare and untidy it was, with his trousers fling over the door, his shirt hang lim
p from a nail. ‘We will certainly see who the man is,’ she say again, sitting next to him on the little single bed.

  ‘You going up back Sunday as usual, Miss Gwennie?’

  She look hard at the dominoes in her hands and nod her head.

  ‘They having a party up the street. Bet you couldn’t tell when last you shake your foot?’

  It was true. When she and Walter first get married, most every Saturday night them gone to party. Then one night him and another man catch up in a fight. Him claim that the man dance with her much too long. So from that night, them don’t go out much. And then since the babies start to come, one right after the next, she just lose the urge.

  ‘Me is a big respectable married woman, Luther. What you think people would say?’

  Him suck his teeth. ‘If you spend all your time worrying about other people, you won’t get any place. So you better come.’ Him nudge her, upsetting the dominoes in her hand, causing them to scatter on the bed.

  ‘See what you do.’ She nudge him in return, upsetting his hand as well.

  ‘Well, what you say, yes?’

  She hesitate. If Walter find out, him bound to quarrel with her. Just like that other time when she did go to that party with Isaiah. Walter and Isaiah used to be best friends. Work and teach side by side at the same Agricultural school. Now Walter don’t even talk to the poor man.

  ‘Come on, Miss Gwennie, man.’ Him nudge her again, and this time his arm stay next to hers.

  And she could’ve moved his arm, for she never like the way her belly was starting to tremble, but the warmth from his arm seem to send little tinklings up her back and she like that. And them stay like that for a while, his arm on hers, and the little tinklings running up and down her back. Then his hand start run lightly up and down her side and she could’ve gone back to her room, but all of a sudden it was feeling real nice to be snuggling up next to him.