That was how the pounding started, cool and dark. And the sweat that broke out was the kind of sweat brought about by shivering in heat. And the taste of salt on her tongue, rough and bitter, brought in by the sea; on the other side, the sweetness of the mountains hissed lovingly. She grabbed the railing of the verandah, violently, her bangles echoed off the thin wooden planks. What pain had she not felt before? what pain was she unfamiliar to? this mockery.

She wanted to scream, her heart was bursting. The slice of forehead not covered by breaking fingers was on fire, fire. And the sea breeze couldn't cool it, no – couldn't cool it. Could she forget? this wind and the wind before is the same. The same gust that swept through hungry red commanding the flames to burn, burn! burn it all. Keep nothing, hold nothing back.

It only stopped when he called her name, quietly, reluctantly. His marionetta, a dance, his baby. By then the sea was calm and the salt was not there anymore; the sky was turning black though there were no clouds and the time was sharp. She didn't love him the way he thought she did, she noted with savage determination, grim delight; Did you not sleep last night? What a question; she felt unobliged to reply.

But you do not know anything, Marionetta. You are Annette, and Bertha was your mother's name. Or was it the other way round?, I forget.

That was the end of one life and the start of another, dead before it could form. To a mother it would be grief over a child unable to feel but to her it was as it is and as it should be. Cool and dark, with skin so blue. But then the pounding started again and she vanished, quite suddenly, into the night and nobody noticed nor wanted to call her back.



☆


They brought the rum back after much quarrelling and tears. It stood on the coffee table – used for everything except java – and simmered. What else to do but eye it carelessly? The glass they brought with it was short and squat and, most importantly, cheap. When he came knocking on the door she smashed the glass before he could and glared at him with murder in her eyes and cursory on her tongue running over lips dry with hatred. Though he never moved she cursed him again and wrecked the bottle against the wall. And because the window was cracked where the glass went through the smell of the night (and the moon and the flowers he disliked so much) shot in like nervous thieves ready to run. There was so much fear in his eyes.

Terror of a woman so beautiful yet ugly at the same time, it quelled the throb in between his legs. Uncertainty doth drive the man's soul, it is said; she collapsed sobbing in the beaten armchair while the magic woman circled her with impassioned eye on him, stuffed with malice and spitting; I hate it now like I hate you and before I die I will show you

How much I hate you

Before I die

How much I hate you

Hate you.



★


So I took her away because I never loved her and she never stopped loving me and I let her die – oh, many times, many times but pity it never happened. She begged me every day in a weaker voice each time until we reached the house, and I never asked after her again.

This city is a dream, my nightmare, her lullaby. Two nights ago I heard a scream of anguish and the old woman ran out the door to call the postman back. The postman! letters were no longer significant, and the wedding dress laid out in the spare bedroom looked so lovely it drove the breath from my lungs and I grew savage with desire whenever she put it on and twirled before my supper. So thirsty I was when the cook had to soak singed curtains in boiling water, I barely noticed my hunger for the next three days ...

Three days, or three weeks – three months? Occasionally wind from the plains drifted through the large glass windows – there was a break in one of them – rattling the marionette in the hall, my marionette, marionetta, antoinetta; my forgotten bertha.



☆


But I was not forgotten and I was very much alive. When the old woman slept I watched the fire for her, I made sure the sea breeze kept it burning and I could see the flames reflected in my glass eyes. Glassed when I had to break the mirror when it showed me a woman – a creature – I did not recognize. The nutmeg pool, I remembered, hot on a winter's day never frozen over. But there was never winter in the mountains (What is winter?) and I would always feel cool and melted when the sea breeze soothed me to sleep.

They forget my name but I do not forget the dying parrot and what he was telling me to do; Qui est là? Qui est là?! like my mother before me I scream. And when I take the candle I am careful to drench the woman in the oil she keeps in a pouch around her wrist and which smells so much like the fear I was familiar with;

Then I creep out and the world, my world, is red and on fire. No one can approach me but I too have to stay away for the candle drips burning wax on my bare skin not theirs. Where to start? I will fly to her room, then I will skid to his, and when all is done I will fling my trophy away and climb to the roof where I will fall shrieking like I was born to fall. This gust of wind, it follows me everywhere and whispers fiercely Burn, burn! Burn it all; hide nothing, keep nothing back; I swallow my prize and hiss; it springs up again like how he springs up sometimes once upon a dream; I walk down the quiet hall, there are people on both sides of me. But I trip, and I watch my baby roll away, roll away. I do not stay to watch; I pick myself up to dust the hate away so I can run.

Qui est là? I still believe they sometimes ask. They also say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But I am white and so is my mother – Bertha, her name – and so I should not be scared. But that was when the pounding started, cool and dark, and that is another untouched, prejudiced story.