A Lesser Dependency by Peter Benson

Author:Peter Benson [Benson, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Indian Ocean, Empire, racial conflict, island, eviction, Winner of the Encore Award
Publisher: Alma Books
Published: 2012-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

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One Tuesday, Odette begged seventy-five cents, cooked a meal of boiled fish and carrots, collected eight buckets of water, four bundles of scrap wood and chopped it. Leonard begged ten cents, watched his mother for a few hours, talked with her for ten minutes and helped Odette find some rope. Maude begged nothing, and felt her husband hang over her like a huge leaf, or a steady, personal shower of rain.

On Diego Garcia he had smelt of fish, salt, sweat and hair, a hint of woodsmoke and sometimes rum. Never much. Unlike other Ilois men, he’d always been careful with drink. He believed that the sea could smell drink. It would get jealous; drown a two-timing man. ‘You never know,’ he’d say, and sometimes stroke her hair or her cheek.

She stroked her own cheek. Odette watched for a moment before going outside, kneeling over a pile of sticks and striking a match. She fanned flames, fetched a pot of water and set it on a square of bricks around the fire.

Leonard was in disgrace. He sat on a wall by a wheelless car and shared a cigarette with other boys. He didn’t notice the weather and didn’t know what day it was. He wanted to but other things blocked his mind. Food, drink, clothes. Clothes were why he was in disgrace. His sister was ashamed of him, all his mother could say was, ‘Is it cooked?’ A short story.

He’d walked into Port Louis. He rubbed his stomach, picked his teeth and nodded at women by taps and children carrying baskets to school. People on buses, policemen directing traffic. He counted cars, the sun was hot all day.

He sat under the royal palms on Place d’Armes, enjoyed the shade and admired the clothes smart people wore. Bankers, merchants and civil servants. Officials in long cars swept into Government House. He watched them.

He was joined in the shade by a man who unwrapped an ice cream and sucked it. ‘Lick?’ he said to Leonard.

‘Me?’

‘Sure.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’ Leonard wiped his mouth. ‘Thanks,’ he said again, and licked.

The man asked questions. Leonard didn’t have any answers. All he knew was his name, the name of his home, the few things Paul taught him on Peros Banhos, the few things Odette and his mother had shown him, the fact that Ilois couldn’t go home. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘But you live in Port Louis?’

Leonard nodded.

‘And you’re Mauritian?’

‘No. I don’t think so. If you wanted to know, really, you’d have to ask my sister. She knows.’

‘Your sister?’

‘Yes.’

Leonard looked at the man and wondered why he was asking questions and sharing his ice cream. He asked him, ‘Why you want to know?’

‘Just curious…’

‘Curious?’

‘Sure.’

‘Why?’

‘I like to know about people.’ The man bit a piece of the ice cream and chewed it. ‘It’s my hobby.’

‘Hobby?’ Leonard didn’t know the word. ‘Where is your hobby?’

‘Where? It’s not anywhere.’

‘Then…’ said Leonard, but didn’t know how to finish. He had feelings about the man. He stood up. ‘Then I have to go, anyway.’

‘Goodbye, then.

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