Marietta – A local ‘Halloween’ tale of intrigue (Part 1)

Oct 29, 2017 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
Two evenings from tonight a number of Guyanese will likely observe Halloween, American-style. It’s

not a Guyanese thing, but few would be unaware of its supernatural elements. Ghouls and other macabre apparitions are both feared and ridiculed even as the living remember long-dead saints and martyrs, poke fun at vampires and witches, and scare the daylights out of the living.
The following story does neither of the first two, and of course the third is, well, just a figure of speech. Or is it? Continue reading if you dare. And when darkness falls on Tuesday evening, decide whether or not you’re going to sleep with the lights on; and pray there are no blackouts.

As a young woman, Marlene DeJonge could hardly be described as a beauty, unless one was drawn to that combination of heavy features and extreme shyness that seemed to typify girls of a certain region and ethnicity in Guyana. In fact, she had such a nondescript appearance that at first few of her peers bothered to befriend her or find out from which part of the country she had come, in April 1971, to live on Dowding Street, Kitty, in Georgetown.
She had just turned 19 and had become recently orphaned after her parents had been killed in a boat accident on a hinterland river, but no one knew, or cared. Except her neighbour across the road, Roger Coates.
Tall, lanky, and handsome, Roger at 20, was deceptively muscular, and a skilled football player. For reasons he didn’t quite understand, he was immediately drawn to Marlene, even though he had a steady girlfriend, Myra, a slender, feisty, brown-skinned girl, also nineteen, with a figure that had other young men staring, and young women envying.
She knew it too; that’s why she felt so confused and more than a little hurt when she realized that Roger had started chatting up the still bashful ‘new girl’ who couldn’t hold a candle to her own striking looks. Marlene lived two houses from her on the same side of the road with some cousins, and she would often see the girl washing clothes in a large, old-fashioned wooden tub, her upper torso outlined under a wet cotton blouse, while her long jet-black hair cascaded round her face and partly concealed an ample bosom.
Surely Marlene wasn’t Roger’s type. She, Myra, was, and every other young man’s in Kitty it appeared. Even Surujpaul, the middle-aged cartman from down the road, would throw ‘friendly’ but sometimes slyly suggestive remarks when she passed on her way to Commercial Classes on Vlissengen Road.
But as he was usually in varying stages of intoxication, Myra would let it go and even occasionally throw back a tantalizing remark or two to the effect that he could barely handle his two horses and the stubborn old jackass that had one day just appeared in the adjacent vacant lot where he tied his horses, much less her.
Suruj would just snicker or laugh out loud. Then he would wonder about the donkey that appeared suddenly, two weeks after his brother, Nas, had mysteriously drowned in a nearby gutter in less than a foot of water.
One Saturday, Roger’s friend Sammy hosted a dance at his ‘bachy’ on Thomas Street, just for a handful of friends. Obviously Roger and Myra would be there, along with the drinks, food, and music all flowing. Myra had a new halter top, and knew she would be the talk of the night. She wasn’t prepared for rivalry. But then just as the food was being dished out, ‘she’ appeared. Roger stared. He didn’t remember inviting her, but concluded he must have said something that suggested it was okay for the new girl to show up there. And unbelievably, like Myra, she wore a halter top.
But the likeness ended there. While Myra’s slim curves were accentuated by her revealing halter and tight bell bottoms, Marlene accessorized her top with the miniest of miniskirts and three-inch heels, which revealed not only hitherto hidden curves, but also a pair of flawless legs and calves that might have been carved on a fine workman’s lathe. She wore no make-up, but her long black hair was loose, fanning a soft round face defined by almond shaped coal-black eyes and full lips that parted to reveal almost perfect teeth as she smiled – at Roger, seemingly unaware that all eyes were now on her.
Bur there was something else about her that drew their attention, and it had little to do with her physical appearance. With her arrival the atmosphere had changed, barely perceptibly at first, but definitely after a few minutes.
The glare from a string of coloured bulbs above the apartment door softened, the air grew cooler, and there was just the hint of that peculiarly pleasant earthy scent you sometimes get when rain begins to fall on a dry, windy day. It mingled with another – that of some kind of bouquet, or other floral arrangement.
It took Roger back to the three weeks he’d spent with his great-uncle in the Canje River in the late 60s where for the first time he’d eaten wild meat, drank creek water and had a romantic encounter with a young mixed girl that had left him in a stupor for days after. The sensual, naturistic emotions he’d experienced then came sweeping over him now as he gazed at Marlene transfixed.
Suddenly the spell was broken, as Myra, awash in jealousy and with an anger alien to those who knew her, walked across to where Roger was and without saying a word, landed a stinging slap to his jaw. He barely flinched and without acknowledging the assault, kept staring at Marlene.
Slowly, as in a daze, he started walking towards her. Myra screamed at him, “Roger, what happen to you? Roger, don’t do this to me. Who is this girl an’ why you invite her to the party?” But there was no answer. As he reached to where Marlene was standing, Roger began to feel dizzy. Then he staggered, stretched out a hand in the girl’s direction, and fell, shattering the glass in his hand after spilling blood-red wine on her white mini skirt.
Chaos erupted as Sammy and two other young men struggled to get Roger to a bedroom cot. Another rushed outside to get a car to take his unconscious friend to the hospital. Chairs were scattered everywhere. The music stopped. Boxes of food lay open and uneaten. Myra had started crying hysterically and was being comforted by an older woman. Everyone seemed to be in a state of agitation, except Marlene. She had gone outside and was standing under a huge, gnarled tree at the edge of the yard; and she was smiling, in the way someone does when she or he knows a secret that can’t be shared.
Myra stood at the door now, her tears dried to a mascara smudge, and looked at the strange girl she instinctively knew had caused the unnatural disruption. She was barely aware of a full moon that had risen from behind a cluster of coconut trees and which now bathed the Dowding Street yard in an unearthly glow.
Without moving the rest of her body, the girl turned her head to stare fully at the moon, enabling Myra to see that her smile had widened, to an almost feline snarl. A moment later she was jolted by the sight of two canine teeth protruding from her upper lip, whiter than the rest, like tiny porcelain daggers.
Myra started to tremble uncontrollably. Suddenly a cold gust of wind swept in from the Atlantic, bringing with it a high-pitched wail that rose in intensity as it wafted past her before fading to a long, low moan that erected the hair at the back of her neck and sent a tremor down her spine. Marlene turned back from the moon and looked at her. She was smiling again like an angel; or a demon. And in the dream realm which had spawned her, she was known as Marietta!

To be continued

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