Mahogany Birds

MAHOGANY BIRDS

by Carol B. Duncan

Content warning: insects, hurricane, Caribbean post-slavery era, colonialism, intergenerational trauma

Four mahogany birds flew with desperate intensity across the wooden room, kerosene lamp light flickering on their dark brown, shiny wings beating the air at hummingbird speed. One maneuvered a short distance from the chiffarobe, which held the Beaulieu children’s church clothes and good shoes. It landed on Shirley’s left big toe. Tenting the white, cotton sheets over herself, her toe was probably not an intended target but merely an obstacle in its flight path. Shirley’s head was protectively covered, swaddled in the bedclothes, with a small opening left for her eyes to look out on the dimly lit room, as she lay on her back in her bed. Patchwork quilt wings peeked out from her white cotton sheet cocoon. This position was unusual for her as she typically slept on her stomach, her legs making a shape like a big number four, her head turned to the right towards the west door and the passageway leading to the modern part of the house constructed after the Second World War. She always looked because sometimes she felt like somebody was watching them. You ready for what you might see? Cousin Luke would tease her.

Shirley was a big girl now. The mosquito net covered cot, in which she had slept in her grandparents’ room, had been set aside. She had finished infant school and was in her first year at St. Mary’s. She was six years old and going to big school like her brother Georgie, her elder by two years, and their cousin Luke, who was twelve—and the Last Room’s self-appointed guardian.  

She put on a brave face as she peeked at the mahogany bird. Truth be told, she regarded the large, shiny dark brown antennae-waving insect with a mixture of fear, revulsion, and curiosity. 

Outside, the storm, forecast earlier that day by the local radio station, gathered strength. It swirled like a windy John Bull at carnival, wielding its whip, and butting and tossing anything not nailed down or removed for safety. Rain soaked the covered chicken coop and two small, one room structures in the yard. The one with a door and windows used to be a home. It was a small one room chattel house, perched high on its solid stone legs off the ground, as the rainwater rushed underneath. The windows were permanently battened down and the door locked and bolted. A rain barrel, which usually leaned against the back of the small house, had been put away. Only the cistern tank, a permanent structure, was left to collect precious rainwater, which would be used later for bathing, drinking, and cooking.

The open-air structure was used for cooking before Shirley’s grandparents added a modern kitchen with an electric fridge, gas stove, and a flush toilet and shower, inside the house. No night soil collector came by anymore.

Granpapa and Maman, their grandparents, valued thrift and self-sufficiency, yet the small house was rarely opened, and its contents mouldered. It was a reliquary of unknown family saints. Fragments of the generations after slavery days and before the world wars were stuffed into trunks and cases. Dry goods receipts nestled next to faded letters and bird’s eye cotton. These became the dwellings of creatures like bookworms, cockroaches, spiders, moths, and termites who could turn paper, cloth, and wood into food. On the rare occasions that the house was aired out, the scent of camphor balls permeated the air. The warmth, sunshine, and breeze from outside did little to refresh the atmosphere. 

A pre-electric sewing machine with a treadle sat next to a trunk. The children explored the trunk’s treasures including leg o’ mutton sleeve dresses, a drop-waisted silk gown with tiny holes where it had been eaten away and two straw boater hats with blue grosgrain ribbons. At the bottom of the trunk was a pair of white, high-heeled women’s shoes and an old time creole woman’s dwyiet outfit of faded plaid madras in muddied red, yellow, and blue with a faded eyelet hole and lace petticoat. Georgie wore the white high-heeled shoes whenever the house was opened. Now a tall eight-year-old, his feet neatly fit the shoes. Precariously balanced, he clip-clopped from the house to the yard, heels making croops-croops-croops sounds as he tottered. Luke busied himself with a ledger book trying to make out the faded names written in the columns, and the amounts owed and paid off for salt fish in 1896.

The outdoor kitchen was still used to scale pounds of fish before they were fried in hot oil with scallions, pepper, and thyme, the delicious odour wafting into the yard. Cassava was pounded in the mortar and pestle. Reminiscing about her sister Maisy, Maman roasted breadfruit and yams in the embers of her coal pot, bringing heat to the clay, which still bore the subtle prints of the potter’s hands.  

Continued in Augur Magazine Issue 6.2...