Esperanza Street by Niyati Keni

Author:Niyati Keni
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philippines, contemporary fiction, literary fiction, novel, community, debut, freedom, crime, progress, realism, infrastructure, women’s literary fiction, Manila, Michael Arditti, Steinbeck, Filipino, panorama, coast, port, Esperanza Street, urban, hero, Vanessa Gebbie, Joanna Luloff, Suzanne Joinson, Jim Pascual Agustin, development, coming of age
Publisher: And Other Stories Publishing
Published: 2014-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

‌Sea Blue, Blood Red

My father leaned forward, his forearms resting on the pew in front. He stared up at the life-sized wooden Jesus on his cross. Jesus’ paint was peeling and his robes, which had once been a blue the colour of the sea out over the reefs, had faded to early-morning sky or, in places, chipped away altogether to reveal the grain beneath. It had been a while since my father had brought me here and I hadn’t rushed to remind him. He’d been quiet all the way from the jetty but, looking at him, I was sure he had something to say. There was no one else here now. He’d waited for the last person to leave and still he glanced anxiously at the door, fingering the bamboo pendant about his neck – another cross with a minuscule Jesus on it, which I remembered playing with as a kid, hopping it up a mountain of peas that my mother had asked me to shell.

‘Missy says you asked about … some girl.’ He said the last two words delicately. I felt my skin bristle. I should have realised she’d go to him. He waited and when I didn’t say anything he added, ‘You don’t have to fix anyone else’s mistakes, Joseph.’

He watched me as he said this and though I knew I shouldn’t have, I said, ‘Why is everyone so sure it’s not my mistake?’ The question rang out louder than I’d intended in the close air of the chapel. My father’s face grew livid. His grip tightened on the wood of the pew till the skin over his knuckles was stretched and pale. He looked up at Jesus, his eyes apologising for his son.

‘You think it’s a joke?’

I slumped back in the pew like a child. ‘You took in Lorna. That wasn’t your mistake,’ I said quietly.

‘What has this to do with her? I’m older than you. You’re at the beginning of your life.’ In fact, I felt at that moment as if I were at the end of it, as if everything was worn out. I looked about me at the shabby chapel. I could imagine a hundred places I would rather have been with my father and yet I’d obligingly followed him here. I waited for him to say something else but he closed his eyes and bent his head to pray. I sat without moving, my hands balled in my lap until he’d finished. When he was done, he stared up at Jesus again, at the hands and feet bleeding red paint, and said with an air of finality, ‘Missy won’t help you. Neither will Bee. You stay out of other people’s trouble.’ And he started to his feet before he’d even closed his mouth again, afraid perhaps of allowing me any chance to respond. I thought to myself that he might just as well have stayed seated, for his words alone left no room for mine. He inched round into the aisle, his knees

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