KAMARANG…An old stranger calls her by another name

May 13, 2019 News

---

 

By Michael Jordan

It was on a Friday night in mid-July that Vibert Sealey finally saw the girl. He had returned to the old Ritz Guest House, obsessed by the thought that a woman who resembled the girl from Kamarang lived there.
On that Friday night, he had stood by the step-rail talking—rather, listening to a young chap who had bummed an ale out of him, when suddenly, there was an almost indiscernible hushhhh. And there she was, stepping out from the corridor, like a ghost, like someone returning from the dead, and for a moment her eyes had seemed to look into his, and something had seemed to flicker within them; but then she was looking through him as if he didn’t exist, and was, seemingly, floating past him to the bar, where she bought a cider. She then moved towards the punch-box.
She glanced to a corner to her right, hidden by the bar, where Sealey knew there was a table, but then just sat at the opposite side of the room, staring at nothing, just sipping her cider. He watched her like a tongue-tied schoolboy in a party. All the things he’d planned to say and do slipped away like smoke.
Something about her had changed. She was paler, seemed thinner, and yes, she did seem somewhat older, though he wasn’t quite sure what made her appear that way. And these changes made him half-wonder whether the girl who had called herself Carmelita and the one he looked at, were two different people. Maybe he had made a mistake. That could easily have happened. But could two women look so much alike, that he was drawn back to that logie at Kamarang, with the wasted corpse inside? Could two women arouse such lust and that crawling sense of unease at the same time?
Three things had remained the same. She only seemed to drink Woodpecker cider, and she wore that strange, musky perfume that had hung around him after she had gone to the corner. The third thing was that she hadn’t tried to pick up anyone. One man had tried to strike up a conversation, but then had moved on. She had just sat by the punch-box, sipping occasionally at her cider.
Maybe he was wrong; but he had sensed a tenseness in her; a distractedness, as if part of her was somewhere else. She shifted occasionally in her seat. She pressed her thighs together. And when, sometime before midnight, she walked past him, her gait had seemed forced, her forehead beaded with sweat.
He returned the next day, and the next, and she was there also, sitting alone, sometimes out of sight by the side of the bar, always passing him without a trace of recognition. He learned from the talkative young chap that she had only one customer —a fair-complexioned chap in his teens. He wondered, with a mixture of curiosity and unease, who the boy was, and if, or when, he would appear.
The stevedore was standing by the step-rail when Michael entered the Ritz at around eight-twenty. He smiled widely, his eyes widened in exaggerated surprise.
“Hay, wha happen, dread?”
Michael nodded coolly, searching the stevedore’s face for any sign of mockery. “The man just humble. His eyes had already scanned the crowd. No sign of Lucille. Maybe she was in the corner near the bar, or maybe upstairs…or maybe she was gone…
Trying to stifle his disappointment, he moved to the bar. Desmond was serving a tall, heavy-set man in a Kangol, who Michael felt he’d seen before. The barman looked up, and Michael thought he caught a look of dismay on the man’s face before he broke into a grin.
“Hayy, the youth-man come again!”
Michael ordered a beer, then scanned the crowd as the barman groped in the freezer. There was an extra liveliness about the place tonight. Someone had pressed Cheryl Lyn’s,Got To Be Real. He sensed that some of the customers were already past the stage of being just pleasantly high. He sighed. If only—
A flurry of black hair, a white face, a red dress, and he felt his heart leap from its moorings, felt his legs suddenly weaken as if he’d seen a ghost, a pale, black-haired ghost that was floating past two prostitutes who were peering into the punch-box; slanted black eyes looking past him at something…someone…then locking with his…
The icy touch of something brushing his hand broke the spell. He turned away from the girl and reached for the bottle that the barman had thrust at him. But still he stood at the bar, not fully free from her spell, and now she brushed his shoulder and headed to the bar
(“Cider…”) voice sweet and clear as a steel-pan played on a still night. He watched as the barman returned with the cider. Swirl of black…white…red, and she was floating past the staring customers, past a muscular, red-faced man sitting at a table near the punch-box with two other friends, shifting out of view in the corner—their corner, at the side of the bar. But yet, part of her seemed to remain swirling around him, leaving him numb and light-headed.
He turned to see the barman staring at him. Again, that speculative, almost worried look, followed by a forced smile. “Well, enjoy yuhself, youth-man,” Desmond said, eyes shifting meaningfully toward the corner where the girl now sat.
Michael shifted away from the bar and stood near the stevedore, playing it cool, trying to shut out the voice that was telling him to rush over to the girl, even though she had acted as if she hadn’t seen him.
The stevedore turned to him. “Where you been all this time, dread?” He laughed. Got woman fighting over you…”
“What you talking about?”
The stevedore took a quick pull at his ale. “After you left that night, Abby cuss up yuh girl and chuck she.” The man nodded to himself. “Yuh girl cool, though. She just smile and walk away.”
He could feel the rage building in him. “She better keep away from me tonight.”
“The stevedore snapped his fingers. “Shucks. I forget that you ain’t come around fuh a good while.” A note of seriousness crept into his voice. “Abby in hospital, dread. She take in the same night.” His voice lowered reverently. “Centipede sting, boy.”
“Where she get bite—on she mouth?”
The stevedore gave a gasp of surprise. “Hayy, you ain’t so far off.” He paused, then said: “The woman got bite on she face.”
Michael shivered involuntarily. He touched his cheek as an image of a large centipede on Abby’s face came to him. He’d heard of big men vomiting and getting fevers from centipede stings. And to have one of those hundred-legged things crawling on your face. He shivered again.
“The stevedore was speaking again. “It happen right in room three. She been in there with a old chap.”
He had been in the same room with Abby, when the prostitute had tricked him into believing Lucile was in there. It could easily have been him in hospital…
The stevedore was saying that from the way Abby had screamed, how they had thought that the old man was murdering Abby, but then she had bolted naked from the room with her hands to her face.
By the time they took her to hospital her face was swollen up like a football. They hadn’t found the centipede…
But Michael had tuned him out. What was important was that he apologise to the girl and explain what had happened. But would she accept his explanation after her humiliation? Would she accept his gift?
The stevedore nudged him. “Wait, you ain’t going and talk to yuh girl?”
Was his need so obvious?
The stevedore laughed. “Wait…doan tell me you and she fall out over Abby.”
“Nah…”
Still grinning, the stevedore turned towards the middle-aged man in the Kangol, who was bracing the rail. “This chap got he own luck, mister. He come up hay, like the new kid in town, and cop the woman that making styles on everybody else.”
The man in the Kangol grunted. “That is life.”
The stevedore turned again to Michael. “You see that big-skin man sitting near the punch-box? Is whole night he staring at she. Look…he watching in the corner again.”
Michael lifted the beer to his lips, while watching the man that the stevedore had pointed out. He didn’t like what he saw. A balding man, with a large head and longish nose that made Michael think of an old but still dangerous lion. Tied-dyed jersey tight around big arms and shoulders. A mouth that seemed to grin and sneer at the same time.
His hand tightened around his bottle as he thought of the man touching Lucille; maybe forcing her to do strange things and then boasting about it over a round of beers.
Someone was replaying, Got To Be Real. Michael tapped a hand on the rail. “Nice music,” he said. He had his move planned out now…
“Yeah,” The stevedore said. Raising his voice and glancing to the bar he added: ”That cheapskate finally get some real music…”
First, he’d head over to the punchbox…
“Like that daughter, Donna Summer too…” the stevedore said.
“Yeah…sexy…” Then he’d lean over the punch-box, taking his time to select a tune.
Then he’d move, before he chickened out, and say…and say… what would he say?
He began to fumble in his pockets. He removed four twenty-five cent pieces, made an elaborate show of making them jingle, then said, his voice sounding high-pitched and false even to himself: “Going and press a couple tunes.”
“Cool,” the stevedore said, then added, as Michael began to move off, “Say goodnight fuh me.”
He swaggered off, feeling the stevedore’s eyes on his back, heading for the punchbox, which seemed a lifetime away, thinking, why do I feel like this has happened before? then remembering that it had happened before, that first time… He trembled a coin into the punch-box, then peered into the grimy case at the music list. The typewritten words seemed blurred, meaningless. The nape of his neck tingled as he sensed eyes on him. He saw that there indeed d a few new additions. He selected Marley’s Kaya, and Get Down by Gene Chandler, then tried to look at the girl out of the corner of his eye. Shit…she was out of line of his angle of vision. All he was seeing was the empty bench at the opposite side of the table. He realised that his hands were trembling.
He turned, and felt, for the second time that night, as if someone had punched him to the gut. She was turned towards the punch-box, a hand in her thick black hair as she stared at him. The shadow of a smile touched her eyes and her wide mouth.
He felt a tightness in his throat. He felt the prickling of something at his eyes that he knew couldn’t be tears. He stepped towards the table like a swimmer pulled by a tide that he knew would drown him, but not caring; not seeing the grinning, red-faced man sitting a few feet from the punch-box; unaware of the staring, middle-aged man with the Kangol. He stood at the table, again uncertain, but the girl’s smile was one of welcome.
“Stranger,” she said. Her voice a song.
He took a deep breath, then sat next to her. He sensed that something about her had changed. Somehow, she seemed slimmer and paler then he had remembered. Despite her smile, he sensed a tension in her. He hesitated for a moment, then placed a hand on hers.
“Mi-kal…”
Again, he felt a tightness in his throat, a prickling behind his eyes that he knew couldn’t be tears. “Lucille, I want to explain—”
She squeezed his hand. “Mi-kal, it’s alright.”
But still he wanted her to know that he hadn’t betrayed her. “Lucille, I didn’t—”
“I know,” she said. Then she leaned forward, and the soft, wide mouth was on his; her arms encircling his neck, one smooth thigh on his. Suddenly she broke away and cried out softly in his ear. He clung to her, gorging himself on her softness, wondering how he’d been so foolish to stay away from her.
“Mi-kaal.” Again, that pain-wracked cry. “I can’t—I can’t…” He felt her arms tighten around him. A kind of tremor ran through her, and he stifled a cry of surprise as she bit down hard on his shoulder. Holding her, he was suddenly seized with an intense, disturbing feeling that they were no longer in the brothel, but somewhere else; alone in a place of trees and rivers—a cave?
“Still playing yuh games, Spanish girl?“
The voice nearby, loud, contemptuous, startled him back to reality. Michael turned.
The large-headed, red-faced man was standing near their table. He was staring at them—at Lucille, really—grinning and sneering at the same time.
“Ankoko!” he said. “Near the Venez border! —Yuh still doan remember me?”
Up close, the man looked more intimidating. Someone had cut him badly long ago on the right cheek. He smelt of cigarettes and whiskey.
The girl clutched Michael. He stole a quick glance at her. She was staring at the man, a slight frown suggesting puzzlement, the slanting eyes suggesting disinterest.
The man grinned and rubbed his balding scalp. “I had all me nice, curly hair back then. I was looking at you whole night and saying, “No, Jason Marcus, it can’t be!” Now he shifted the empty bench away from the table and leaned to Lucille. “But I know is you, Spanish girl!”
Despite the punch-box music, Michael sensed a perceptible lull in the sounds around him. Even the occasional clinking of glasses seemed to have subsided.
Michael’s hand tightened around his empty ale bottle. This man was hunting trouble. Where was the barman? He wanted to turn around to see if the barman had noticed what was going on, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off the man. Then Lucille spoke:
“Mister, I am not the one you want to make trouble with.” Her voice was soft, seemingly devoid of anger.
The man’s grin wavered. He now seemed uncertain, puzzled, as if something in the girl’s voice had penetrated his drunkenness. But then he grabbed the girl’s hand. The cider bottle on the table crashed to the floor as he pulled her forward.
Michael smashed his bottle into the man’s face. The interloper stumbled backwards, clutching at his nose, and Michael scrambled away from the table, and followed him. There was a roaring and a heat in his brain that blotted out everything else but the need to inflict pain. Now he smashed the bottle down on man’s head. Glass flew as the bottle shattered. The man’s legs buckled, but he remained on his feet.
Kill him! —KILL HIM!
Michael dropped the remnants of the bottle, and aimed his fist at a spot below the man’s belly, and struck viciously. He heard the man emit a grunt of pain, and he knew that there won’t be any fight in the man, but like a wound-up, punching machine, he was hitting…hitting…hitting…
Someone grabbed him from behind; he tried to scramble free, and then he heard the barman’s voice in his ear saying: “Easy friend, easy…”
But still he tried to break free. The man was now leaning on the table near the punch-box, head lowered as blood streamed from his nose.
The barman shook Michael. “Easy, dread,” and he heard the stevedore say: “Cool yuh head, partner.” Abruptly, the rage faded, and he was trembling and breathing in harsh, ragged spasms. His jersey clung to him, sweat-soaked. His hands hurt. He stared at the faces surrounding him.
The barman relaxed his grip. “Yuh alright, now, youth-man?”
“I…alright.” But he was still trembling.
The barman seemed to hesitate, then released Michael. He watched as Desmond stepped towards the injured man, who was still sitting on the table, with blood dripping onto the floor. A tall, thin man with a receding chin stood near him.
Desmond shook his head as he stared at the injured man. “Jason Marcus, I expect better from a old soldier like you, man. Me and you go a long way, and I just turn me back for one minute to take a piss, and you start trouble in my place!”
The injured man remained silent, head lowered.
The tall man with the receding chin pulled a kerchief from his pocket. He pushed it into his injured friend’s hand. “Jason…hay buddy.”
As if in a trance, Jason Marcus swabbed half-heartedly at his bloodied nose, then dropped the kerchief. As if the act had revived him, he raised his head and stared at Michael. He tried to smile, but instead winced in pain.
Still staring at Michael he said, through a bloody grin, “Sleep…with one eye …open… youth man. In fact, sleep with—”
The barman stepped closer. “Marcus, you threatening my customer? —Wait! You want to brawl with me now?”
The man with the receding chin laid a pacifying hand on the barman. “Ah right, Desmond, he ain’t mean nothing.” He turned to Marcus. “Leh we get outta here now, squaddie.”
The tall man mumbled an apology to Desmond, then put an arm around his injured friend. Wincing, Jason Marcus forced himself upright and Michael watched the two men hobble towards the stairs. Just before they headed down, Marcus turned to stare at him.
“Ask…Spanish girl…about the…boy… by…the border…”
Then he turned and disappeared down the steps…
Vibart Sealey watched as they walked down the corridor. He wanted to shout after the boy, to drag him back, but then the feeling subsided. He headed down the brothel stairs, feeling foolish. All the way home he thought of the girl, who looked, smelled, and acted like the girl from Kamarang: the girl that a drunk ex-soldier thought he’d known in his youth. It made him think of the boy, who he was sure was the same boy he’d passed in Lombard Street about three weeks ago.
He thought of how, on seeing them sitting so intimately, something had seemed to fit together in his mind. He found himself worrying, once again, about the boy. He wanted to return; he regretted he hadn’t called out to him and told him something.
He sucked his teeth angrily. What was he worrying about? Despite his cute looks, the boy could obviously handle himself.
But hadn’t he said the same thing about the other boy, too?
(Taken from the Guyanese supernatural novel, KAMARANG by Michael Jordan. Cover design by Harold Bascom.)
GOOD NEWS FOR FANS: KAMARANG IS NOW ON AMAZON.
You can also purchase a copy at Austin’s Book Store, or contact Michael Jordan for an autographed copy on +592 645 2447, or email address [email protected].

---

---