The House of Plain Truth by Donna Hemans

Author:Donna Hemans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zibby Books

11.

TOO TIRED TO READ THE SUNDAY GLEANER, PEARLINE nods off. The paper slumps in her lap, catching drool and crinkling when she startles and tries to force herself to wake fully. A dream holds her, paralyzes her, and she fights herself to rise out of it. She hears hooves beating, tamping the ground in rhythm. There’s the sound of a truck engine too, and she can’t tell which is closer—the horses or the truck—or whether the truck’s rumble is coming from the main road outside her gate. Around her, people run, grabbing children too young to make great strides, leaving clothes out to dry, a tin of kerosene, a young goat tethered to a tree and bleating loudly, a jar of money buried in a soft mound of earth rounded to look like a yam hill. The action spinning around Pearline is like a movie, as bright and loud as any action film. She doesn’t feel like she’s a part of it, but she knows she is.

“Any money you have,” a man begs. “If they take me, I want to go back home with something.”

Pearline backs away, waves her hand, spins around. She knows she should be running too. But she doesn’t. Pearline turns in the direction of the sun and calls for Arturo, Gerardo, and David. None of the boys come. She turns again. The truck is nearer now, and she feels the sound in her chest wall. Men lean against wood rails, their mouths open to shout messages for the families they can’t see or reach. Pearline scans the faces, all shiny with sweat and oil, contorted with anger and despair and uncertainty. Spanish, French, and English words flutter from the men’s lips like leaves blown about by a strong wind, a babble of voices that sound like a hundred parrots screeching. She wants to reach out and tell the men everything will be all right, but just then, a voice shouts, “You. Jamaiquino. You are next.” A finger levels at her face, and a whoosh of air breezes her forehead. A woman’s scream rips through the air. And then another, and another.

Pearline spins and shouts again for Arturo, her call more urgent now. She stretches out a hand and grabs a child’s collar, turning the child to see whether it’s Arturo or Gerardo or David. She turns again, and it is her father who is holding the boy and shouting. Except her father is not a young man. He’s elderly, grayed, and weak, the very way he looked when he lay outside on the veranda insisting on calling Claudia “Arturo.” They’re both stuck there in that moment, calling a child who never comes. Except Pearline feels the cloth rough against her fingers, the child’s clammy skin, and the child pulling away from her. She holds on tighter, hears another scream, feels a soft hand against her own and then a stronger, firmer pull.

“Sister Pearl.”

Another voice, deeper, more urgent, is close to her ears. Fingers pull at hers, shake her shoulders, and the grip gets stronger, rough almost.

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