Yellow

(shortlisted for 2019 BCLF short fiction contest)

The day came in a thin stream of too-bright-for-the-season light boring into my cheek from a crack in the curtains. I shifted, languid under new sheets, holding on to sleep from the old year. The sun crept across the pillow to find my eyes so that when I finally opened them, all I could see were yellow spots for long minutes afterwards. There was lemon candy in a dish on the lowboy in the foyer, the whole pineapple on the coffee table in the living room filled the entire apartment with its syrupy scent. In the kitchen there was fresh ginger on the counter, and I was even going to have scrambled eggs for breakfast. There was a selection of new panties that were hand-washed the night before draped over a hanger in the closet. Neon yellow with white polka dots, white with yellow trim, gold.

Sometimes I didn’t wake up until one in the afternoon because the revelry from the night before still swam in my bloodstream and my breath stayed heavy with champagne and Barbancourt. Other times I actually got up at a decent hour to go visit with grandma and the aunties listening to crackly recordings of rara and cooking, with Madan Francis strings stuck in my teeth. Actually, I never did any of the cooking. I only watched, then ate. I knew the home smell, I knew the rousing taste of good joumou, and I knew when a batch was trash, but my own hands had never prepared the thing that was vital to this day.

I jumped when my cell phone rang and answered it without bothering to look at the name on the screen. The voice was urgent. Someone had died, or had been arrested, the world was on fire, or some other horrible thing I couldn’t make out because he was incoherent and nothing I said would make him slow down.

“I tried, I didn’t know what else to do, I can’t believe it, I just don’t know what the hell to do now...”

“Wait, slow down, what happened?”

I couldn’t make out the flow of words that staccatoed from his mouth in a frightening alien tone. I pictured the six feet six of him, draped in hand painted symmetry, gripping a phone, squeezing his voice into the receiver, waiting for a reaction from me that would somehow make whatever this situation was manageable. I was not accustomed to being the rescuer. There was a list of names I kept hidden between the pages of a book, tucked among other books on a shelf in the living room, of people who had saved me from ruin so far. I didn’t know how I would repay them, or how to even approach the subject if the subject ever came up at all. Every time I pulled the list to add another name I assigned to it a weight of obligation that kept running from me, always a few steps ahead. I chased, with empty hands, hoping that my gift would materialize in the catching. In those early hours of the first day of the year, I pressed the phone to my ear and scrambled upright to hear better.

“Can you come to me? Come here, come to me as fast as you can...”

I thought I heard a grunted yes, but then static took over. He rattled off more words that I couldn’t make out, and that tone. It was the sound of a train skipping off its rails, barreling down a mountain track toward disaster with no brakes and no way of switching to a safer lane. It was also the sound of a wild black pig racing to the blade it knows will sacrifice him, screaming with liberation.

The line cut and I leapt out of bed, not sure of what to do first. I needed to use the toilet, charge my phone, put on clothes, un-wrinkle my face in case he was close and knocked on the door right away. I rinsed and splashed, eyes wide open, propelling myself into preparedness for what I suddenly knew had to be done. Whatever came, I had to be ready.

I stepped into the gold panties, determined. My head spun as I rushed to the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator door, frantic. For the first time, and with no practice, I would do the thing that was done on this day and I had to come through. Not for a pat on the back or a benevolent smile for having tried my best, but to actually conjure the taste of revolution. I mined my mind for the right ingredients with the strongest flavours to call on an initial surge of energy. I reached for sharp scallions, bold garlic, bright parsley, courageous thyme, and biting cloves. I chopped quickly and with a precision that terrified the tops of my knuckles. I don’t remember sharpening the blade, but it cut through my fear and dared me forward. My pilon still had an unused wood smell but I knew that morning would leave it perfumed forever.

I danced from refrigerator to stove to sink in a deft rotation of steps that sent a jolt of emergency from the frizzed tips of my hair to the bare soles of my feet. The flame on the stove burned on high and the boiling pot yawned for heavy halves of gutted giromon, stray seeds floating up, dying off, knowing that the cut open hearts of malanga and turnips were next. My elbows and shoulders conspired in a Yanvalou down my sweaty back. I felt outmatched, there was no way we could do all this so fast. I was afraid there’d be bits of finger in the pile of carrots and celery, the taste of blood was not meant to mingle with joumou (or was it?), but cooling cabbage and rooted potatoes were waiting, trusting, knowing we could win. I dug for the peeler that I hadn’t used in years, tossing a wine opener and bottle stoppers into the sink in my search. The meat, some pieces in cubes, some pieces still hanging onto marrowed bone, was in a glass bowl and I sprinkled salt and pepper, the pounded épis, and Scotch Bonnet in measurements that I wasn’t too sure of, but applied decisively all the same.

The calabaza rolled in the water, separating from its skin and I almost felt sorry for how it had transformed. It gave off the smell of an old house crumbling away then rising again as a true homestead. The water turned pale orange and the fibers from the rendered flesh floated up to the surface, asking me how it would all turn out, but I couldn’t answer. What I did know was that there would be casualties: snapped heartstrings and broken bones. That was the invariable way to growth and the opening to freedom.

I turned the heat up on a deep pan and dropped in an entire stick of butter. The meat had marinated for an hour but I worried whether it was enough. I had no way of knowing if the flavor had the voice to say the things I couldn’t possibly begin to remember because I was never there. When I sent the squash through the blender, would it be smooth enough? When I added the measure of chicken stock, would it be heavy enough? My fingers were stained by then, I wasn't sure of what I was doing, but I wasn’t afraid anymore. The meat browned in the pan and I turned it around, angling my wooden spoon as if I had been using it my whole life. I stopped asking questions when the bubbling and hissing sounds sang in unison that they were ready for the horn, ready for the moment of truth.

The utensils spread in unplanned formation across the counter and I left the tall pot covered to simmer. The stained knives lay in the sink still sharp, even after cutting though all that flesh; there was no crying, no wailing for what could not be stopped.

When the buzzer rang, I breathed an unceremonious yes into the intercom and hurried to prepare the table. Two white bowls on blue placemats with folded paper towels and spoons, cold water in two tall glasses. On its way up

in the elevator was an apocalypse trailing vetiver smoke and indigo sweat in the wake of its steps. It was a hurricane of revelation that comes to every man when he’s ready for his true name. The wind shook the hinges and rattled the panes, it demanded empty hands and what could come from them. That morning it was soup. I flipped the locks and flung the door open wearing only yellow, sun, gold, flame.

“We’re at the beginning, dear heart. Everything starts today."

#BCLF #BCLF2019 #ElizabethNunez #Caribbean #food #caribbeanstories #haitianwriter #pitipeyi