Boy-chirren different. A daughter will always be yours, but boy-child come like guava: brace yourself; it might have worm. My son, Shiva, was like that; something was eating him from the inside, till he rotten through and through. 

But it have good boys. Like this one here, my nephew, Sheldon. We in the gallery, smoking, like how we does every Friday. Me in a plastic chair, Sheldon lolling off on the banister with one hand on the clothesline spanning the gap between this concrete house and the old family house—the wooden one—where he does live with my favourite-sister and she string-band of chirren. Sheldon is the onliest one get me out my room this last month, since Shiva dead. You see, I always had a soft spot for this boy. Me, with my whoring, Sheldon, with he dreadlocks and he black-man father who breed and leave: we is the two outcast in this family. And from small, this boy spirit always match mines more than my own son, Shiva. 

Oh Shiva, Shiva! I been crying forty days. And tonight, even though Sheldon and all of St James so excited for Small Hosay parade, I can’t celebrate because one thought steady beating me like drum: Lord, forgive me for Shiva! 

So when Sheldon take a drag on he ganja post, then ask, ‘Is how big people could just starve a lil child, ent, Aunty Pinkie?’ I mistake it for accusation. 

‘Catch your damn self, boy. I never starve nobody.’ 

But he was talking ’bout the Hosay story: ’bout Ali-Asgar, the Prophet great- grandson, and how the infidel-them kill the child during the Battle of Karbala. The story why Muslims does make small tadjahs—baby-size Taj-Mahal-looking tombs—and parade them like funeral through the streets. I did learn that story back when I was a girl in Muslim school, but Sheldon, poor soul, he only now finding out. 

‘Cease and settle, Aunty. I not accusing you,’ he say, sounding real hurt. 

I pull on my cigarette, soften my tone, and say, ‘I know,’ hoping he don’t notice how my eye-them full like the barrel catching rainwater to wash he dreads. ‘I just saying: my child, Shiva, never starve. I wasn’t perfect. Me and he father used to war, so I wasn’t there all the time, but I always make sure that lil boy never starve for nothing.’ 

That part true: I used to make grocery, pack cardboard box and tote that bugger up the mountain—me one—to go feed my son. 

But it have other parts I can’t tell Sheldon: like when I did get lay-off from the Chinee laundry, and I couldn’t even pick up a Mister or two to tide me over (’cause I did went with a Vincy sailor-man and catch a bad case of the runnings), so to buy groceries I had-was to pawn my most prize possession, the gold bera bracelet my grandfather make with he own hand and give my father, who then give me. It safe now, under my bed, but to buy it back, I had-was to sex the bowsie-back Mister in the pawnshop. Shiva was worth it to me, though. 

Suddenly, the sound of a tassa drum ripple through the night air, like the rifle fire we does hear whenever gang war break out in the valley. You see, St James come like a big amphitheatre—the sea in front, the mountains behind—so every noise does bounce and come back louder. More drums go be starting up soon enough. Nobody eh sleeping tonight. But for me, that normal, because I eh sleep in a month. If Shiva was here, he woulda point he finger and say: Yes, Mammy, no rest for the wicked! 

But he not here. He dead as Ali-Asgar; onliest difference is my Shiva eh bury yet. And that’s what bothering me this whole month: how to send my son to rest in peace? When I-self wasn’t at peace with my son. I wasn’t on good terms with Shiva, neither he wife; I did stop going by them long time—must be five years now. We was living like strangers. 

‘Aunty, everybody else in that Karbala desert was big people who coulda fend for theyself. But them soldiers watch a baby and just murder it? When Jameel tell me that story, I cry, you know.’ 

‘You must cry,’ I say, and in the darkness, under this low-watt green bulb, I take a chance and let my own tears run wild from cheek to jaw, like carailli vine on a rusting fence. ‘Lord, was murder, in truth.’ 

Forgive me for the man Shiva grow to be! A man who stab he wife dead in front their chirren then drink poison and murder he-self, all because she wanted to leave him. Since it happen, I eh leave this house. To come out and go anywhere, I woulda have to walk down the hill, past all my neighbours; I woulda have to walk wondering if they done put two and two together and realise the latest murder-man in the news is my son. Wonder if they calling me La Diablesse, a devil-woman who does breed beast or if they still watching me as just a innocent ex-jammette. And even if I get past my neighbours, then I woulda have to walk past the cemetery where, rumour have it, all Shiva neighbours done chip in and bury he wife. And even-self I get past the cemetery, then, to turn left is to face Forensics where Shiva still lying down, waiting for me to claim him. To turn right is to face the crematorium where he always say he did want to go (‘No worm must eat me, Mammy. Just burn my ass.’). So, forty days I asking myself: How to come out from inside of here? 

I so shame. 

Sometimes, the shame does be so deep in my belly, it does bend me over and have me on the floor, twitching up like fits. Yes, we wasn’t on good terms, me and Shiva, but a mother does feel guilty for everything bad in she chirren life; whether they do it or receive it, she does feel is she fault. 

Sheldon say, ‘I wish I could go back in time and fight for the lil boy. You know wha’ I mean, Aunty?’ 

And, instantly, I wonder if is Allah sending message in code: Pinkie, if you don’t fight whatever it is keeping you from your boy-child, if you don’t go down there and claim him, who go do it? Time ticking. 

Is true. I used to brush a old police from CID, so I know them fridge-and-them in Forensics barely working. I know Government can’t keep Shiva long, maybe one more week; then is plywood box and pauper funeral. Rotten and stinking. No headstone, no name. 

I bolt from the chair, lean over the bannister and retch…but only water coming up. Belly too empty. 

‘W’happen Aunty?’ Sheldon rubbing my back and I coldsweating. ‘Must be gas. Look, sip the sweet-drink,’ he say. 

I wipe my mouth on my duster sleeve and take the cup. Sheldon know I does only drink old-time, glass-bottle Cokes—not the horse piss they selling in plastic bottle—so he does buy six every week and bring for me. More than Shiva ever do. I always used to feel that boy had me in he craw, and he father used to chook thing in he brain against me. And is he father whey force my son to marrid that country-bookie girl who  come to Town, get bright and make Shiva run me like dog from their yard. 

Still, I sorry. Every woman have a right to go. Why he kill the girl? 

The Cokes burn slow, going down, till a different question pop in my head. ‘But, Shel, how you end up by Jameel, for him to tell you the Hosay story?’ 

He was delivering fabric, he say, for Jameel-and-them to make their flags and big tadjahs for Hosay. ‘Them was now knocking the wood-frames together. I make a joke and say if it have Small Hosay and Big Hosay parade, it should have ‘Medium Hosay’ for half-breed like me to party. But the man get irate, oui! Call me ignorant and make me  listen the whole history.’ 

A grunt drop out my mouth. I agree with Jameel: young people ignorant bad. But is who make them to be so…ent is old people? That’s the question I can’t escape: What I ever do to make Shiva so ignorant till he want to kill? And I keep coming back to one answer: is not me, is he father have him so. Yes, I coulda bring Shiva to live with me here, but I don’t see how that woulda work. A boy should never watch he mother making fares. A boy should never know. That’s why I did always keep my two worlds separate. It easier for people to love half-pound, rather than the whole weight of you. 

‘Then, Jameel invite me to build with them,’ Sheldon still explaining. ‘If you see how them men does sacrifice—so much nights building tadjah and tuning drum in fire—all for their God. Tonight, I go be pushing a small tadjah that I build. Come and watch me, nah, Aunty? It go help you.’ 

I study him hard. I start to wonder if he know ’bout Shiva, if somebody tell him that was he own family on the front page of every papers. Me eh think anybody inside here know—nobody say boo to me—except my favourite-sister; she did knock quiet quiet on the door one day and say, ‘Pinkie, girl, I sorry.’ And she wouldn’t run she mouth. She know I never like all the marish and the parish in my private affairs. 

I refuse Sheldon invitation. Silence fall. I puff my cigarette; he puff he joint. We exhale the same: aiming the smoke from the house. We know how to stay outta people way. That’s what I used to do when I was young: when my sister-them cuss and kick me here, I used to go there by Shiva and he father; and when he father cuss and kick me there, I used to come back here, by my sister-them. Bob and weave; is so I live. 

Prrrrrrrat-ta-ta-ta-taat! Somewhere down the hill, another tassa drum roll.

Sheldon say, ‘Them-fellas warming up.’ 

‘I hear,’ I say, and my mind follow the drum echo. I thinking ’bout what did happen after Shiva last daughter born. Three months straight, that baby screel out she lungs. I did keep telling Shiva wife, ‘This child born with a caul; she seeing spirit. Let me carry she by a pundit to get jharay.’ And one day, I did pick up the child to go, but the wife start bawling for Shiva. He run from the garden, grab the child and say, ‘You playing best-grandmother? You? The worst mother ever? Go! Nobody want you here!’ 

Them is the last words my son ever tell me. 

How I could barge in Forensics, saying, ‘I name Mother. I want my son’? He didn’t want me in life; why he go want me in death? I know my place. 

‘So, you turning Muslim now?’ I say, trying to swing the conversation, and my own thoughts, back towards Sheldon and the tadjah he so proud of. 

‘Nah, Aunty. I-and-I would never betray Jah. But when I listen Jameel, my heart start gnashing. I had-was to do something with the downful vibes. I had-was to either break something or build something, you overstand? So I build that pretty pretty baby tomb, and it make me feel better.’ 

I nod, again and again, because I know that same feeling: sadness that trying to claw through your chest, restlessness chooking you to do something, but you not sure what or how. 

Sheldon slide off the banister and stand up. He biting he lip and watching me sheepish as he say, ‘I hadda leave now to help them-fellas. But…you go come tonight? It go do you plenty good, Aunty.’ 

Poor heart, like he sense in he spirit: Aunty Pinkie have plenty plenty things she need to bury. He sense I need a funeral more than anybody else in St James tonight. 

‘I go come, Shel,’ I say, without fully believing it, but I know that deep down I wants to come out from here, and I know if I could even-self crawl out tonight, maybe tomorrow I could stand up in broad daylight. 

I drag the grip from under my bed—old-style grip: cardboard and vinyl, with metal corners. Pa used to call it he ‘valise’. Inside, have all my important business. Me eh open it long time, but tonight, I searching for something—not sure what; I go know when I see it—but I just feeling that the way out this house tonight is not through the front door or back door: is through the past. 

The latch spring open. I lift the lid sl-o-o-w like opening a crypt, like I expecting a evil jumbie. But nothing happen. Scatter ’round, it have some mildew-white envelopes with a setta fading studio pictures: Ma in she best frock, Pa in he one suit, me and my sisters in we dan-dan when we was small, even Baba Khan, my grandfather who did come off the last Indian ship; watch him in he dhoti and jacket. 

Now, look the envelope with only pictures of me—pictures nobody ever see, except me and the man whey take them. When Pa did carry me in Town for the first time, was to pay rent by we landlord, old Mr Stone, and I was thirteen years. And when Mr Stone call me in the back, I did went because Pa say, ‘Go, beti.’ And that day, and every month after that, Mr Stone used to make me lie down on he office couch, and, starting from my head, the man used to sniff me straight down to in-between my toe- them. In all the years, till he dead, Mr Stone never touch me no other way; he never feel me up; he never sex me. He only used to smell me and then pose me and take picture with he big black camera. That’s all. Until I did get to like it—being worship by this old white man, with he red jiggly face and he trembling hand so prune-up as if whole day he jookin’ clothes in tub instead of counting cash behind desk. But I couldn’t show the man that I like it. He did steady telling me, ‘Don’t be afraid,’ because is frighten self he did want me—‘shy and demure’, he used to say—just how he meet me. 

But now, I come so old; things change: nowadays, I does frighten to feel exposed. 

Inside a long manila folder, I find the deed paper for this property: 33 Terre Brulée Road. From Mr. Edward Stone to me, Pinkie Khan. This coulda be Shiva own. I never tell he wotless father ’bout this, and I never tell he neither. I did hold back because I didn’t want no man—not even my son—to love me for land. But now, I eh know what go happen when I dead; it go be one setta commess: somebody go find this paper, and then they go hadda find Shiva chirren—the boy and two girls. I sure the wife family take them. Wherever they is, though, I staying far. Ent that’s what Shiva wanted? I’s over sixty years now; I can’t fight up again for chirren love. I go make do with Sheldon alone. 

My hand fall on a plastic bag. As I loose the knot, a smell hit me. Baby powder. I pull out a vest with blue piping and press it to my nose. I did put this on Shiva to bring him home after he born. I dip again and find the plastic ID-band the nurse-them had on him. Watch how small it is, nah! Hard to believe a man hand does start off so small and then grow so big it could damage a body. This was the first time my child name ever get use in this world. I read it out now, ‘Shiva Gopaul,’ and the sound cause that trembling again, deep in the ravine between my chest and my belly as if my butchette drop or I take in with naara strain. 

I shub the ID-band in my duster pocket, not sure why, but I feeling like I have to carry it with me tonight to that parade. 

And now, a next bracelet on my mind. I shifting things until I glimpse the old ‘Y de Lima & Co’ box. Oui-papa! In one blink, I see all the man I ever truly love parading through my mind Indian file: Shiva, Pa, Mr. Stone and Baba Khan. He was the best jeweller in Coolie Town; de Lima used to send for him whenever they had big-shot clients who want ‘exquisite’ things. That’s how this bera get make. I take it out the box and heft it—so heavy, the gold bright, the rod thick like my little finger and glittering with carailli cut-diamond pattern; then each head is a globe swirling upward to a point, like the dome of a tadjah or even the great Taj Mahal. What a bracelet! I remember the store did order it for a client who never pay, so Baba Khan keep it because is the first one he make with this design, and he didn’t know if he would ever make something so perfect again. He did give Pa, and Pa give me. And when I did make Shiva, I hold the same lil plastic ID-band and promise he newborn ears that, when he come a big man, I woulda give him this bera instead. But one day, one day congotay!—that day never come. 

I drop the bera in my next duster pocket—it going parade too! And I have no time to ask myself why because a fresh setta hurt start collecting in my chest, like somebody turn on a stand-pipe full blast. I open my mouth to cry out, but my throat have a pressure valve that lock off while my eye-rim overflowing. Then—Bam, Bam, Bam!—somebody pound the door. 

‘Aunty Pinkie! Sheldon say you walking with we to watch Hosay! You ready?’ 

With the sheet hem, I wipe my face. I hurry to close the grip. Stop crying now; I need my energy to walk out this house and do something with this bera and this ID- band—I not sure what the hell yet—but I know I go feel better afterwards. 

Is midnight, and we heading downhill: down Terre Brulée Road, down Bournes Road. Them chirren—my niece-and-nephew-and-them—talking a setta shit ’bout Sheldon. 

I hearing them, eh, but I not listening. I feeling so strange since I leave the house. Is like everything around me, things I seeing my whole life, looking so weird like I watching them for the first time. Is like St James grow big big over the forty days I was inside. Every lamppost taller; every streetlight higher. Till the night come like a roof over a mansion for giants, and I’s a midget on this pavement. I so lost, me eh even notice when we pass the cemetery. 

One of my nephew say, ‘Sheldon not stupid. This hadda have profit in it for him.’ A next one say, ‘Must be some Muslim girl he tracking…’ 

Steups! This modern generation believe in scheme and con. They can’t believe somebody could just have a good heart and decide to sacrifice for somebody else. Hear them talking big as if they wise, but they don’t even know where the roof over they head come from. Is me. It come from me. Pa did always tell me, ‘If Stone ever ask what you want, say you want to own where your navel string bury. He ha’ plenty land; he could gi’ you this one easy.’ So I was ready when the opportunity did come, when Mr Stone take in sick and send for me one last time. I was seventeen when I ask for the land and them pictures; he give me without a fight. I over-cry when that man dead a few months after; I did studying who go love off on me so again? Then I did meet Shiva father by the laundry, and, to this day, I feel I woulda never put myself with he if I wasn’t  still grieving Mr Stone, and I woulda never ever stay if I didn’t get pregnant with Shiva. I didn’t want the child until he come out, and I watch he, and he watch me, and I feel this is the one man who go be worth any sacrifice, even my own soul. 

We reach we usual spot: the traffic light opposite Luckput Street. Small crowd, just like any other Small Hosay. Is only die-hards on these first few nights of Muhurram month. Most people only interested in tomorrow night, Big Hosay, with all the big tadjah that almost touching the telephone wire. You see, most people could only understand BIG things. But, simple as you see me here, dumb and stupid with no education, I know it not good to scorn small things. Small things carry plenty goodness, press down like seed. You never know what hiding inside a small thing. I know, though—I been small all my life. 

Suddenly, in the nearish distance, I hear tassa: small drums rolling (prrrraat-ta-ta- ta-taat) and cymbals chiming (ching-cha, ching-cha, ching, ching). 

In one pocket, I grab Shiva ID-band; in the next pocket, I slip on the bera. I feeling like I in between baby-Shiva and man-Shiva, holding on to both same time. 

‘They coming.’ Somebody say it; then everybody repeat, ‘They coming…they coming…’ and people start craning to see down the road, and the night start to change, and the air start to crackle like fire. 

‘Who in front?’ I ask my niece. ‘Jameel Yard supposed to be first. That’s the order from since I small.’ 

‘Me eh know, Aunty. I only seeing the tassa boys.’ 

‘Look behind. Check the flag-them on the kathiya platform. What colour flag you seeing most? Purple?’ 

‘Yeah, I think so.’ 

‘That’s Jameel Yard. Sheldon with them. He coming.’ 

My heart pick up a pace. Breeze twirling my dress, I’s a lil girl again: standing up beside Baba Khan watching Firepass ritual, hearing the drums and feeling excited and scared same time because I know God about to pass and touch some people, and it have a chance I could be one, and I want that, but I don’t want it same time ‘cause I don’t know what He go want me do in return. ‘Pick a drum,’ Baba Khan used to tell me, ‘and listen it good. It go talk one of these days and tell you what God want.’ 

‘They coming!’ 

The drummers near enough for me to feel the dhol, the big bass make from tree trunk and goat skin, vibrating through my body. My heart start to pump in time—dhung-dunk, dhung-dunk—and my lungs turn harmonium. Ever since I small, I did always like this feeling, this oneness with something powerful. For me, big drum was  always the closest thing to God—although, it never really say nothing to me. 

But tonight, I pick the small drum. Or rather, I feel when the small drum pick me. It happen just now: the moment them tassa boys change their rhythm from the slowness of the ‘Marching Hand’ to the fastness of the ‘War Hand’ that supposed to make everybody think of the Battle in Karbala. The drum say, ‘Pinkie! Is war! Is war!’ 

Well, I shock, oui! I born and bred in St James; I see countless Hosay and a good few Firepass, but a drum never talk my private business before. Yes, is war self I been fighting this last month, war between the love I still have for my boy-child—the eight-pounds baby I did born from between my two nashy leg—and the disgust I feeling for the man he turn out to be. War, between this feeling that I coulda do something different as a mother and this knowing that you does make chirren, but you don’t make their mind. Is war! I start to shake. Everybody shaking because tassa playing, and their body want to dance, but I shaking different. I shaking from a war that want to fling me down in the road, just how it had me fling down on my bedroom floor whole month, and pappyshow me for everybody to see my vulgar shame. 

I falling but—quick!—I drop everything in my pocket and grab my niece on one side and my nephew on the next. 

‘You ok, Aunty?’ 

No time to answer. The tassa boys reach alongside: every man have a cloth round he neck holding he drum, and he forehead frown, and he lip press, and he two  drumstick lashing the goatskin like he killing the poor animal again. And every roll getting longer—prrrraat, prrrrrrraaat— like the drum begging now, ‘Pinkieeee, doh fall  down! Time to stand up for your childddd!’ 

I glimpse the kathiya now, the silky flags fluttering and mirroring streetlight. Then the drum-hand change again; it slow down lil bit, just as the kathiya reach where I could see it in full: a square platform surrounded by flag poles but, in the middle, a small tadjah resembling a wedding cake, when is really a tomb. The white walls, the domes shaped like the ends of the bera in my pocket, the crescent moon and shimmering star. Yes, is just cardboard and paint, glue and paper, but it looking like it build from magic and love. 

‘Sheldon!’ somebody call. 

And is true, he right there, behind the kathiya, wheeling it forward. He have on the same black track pants and t-shirt from when I did see him earlier. He right: is a funeral. All of we shoulda be wearing on black. 

‘Dougla-Gong!’ somebody say, and Sheldon wave. Then he spot me and—voosh!—he dash over. 

‘Aunty Pinkie, you really come!’ He hug me tight and lift me off the ground. And that’s when the drum talk again: Let go the child, so you could bury the man. 

I whisper in Sheldon ears-hole. ‘Go with the tadjah by the sea later.’ 

He put me down and say, ‘Ok,’ but he eye-them groping my face like they trying to find the door in a wall. 

‘Take this,’ I say, and I fold Shiva ID-band into Sheldon palm. ‘Chook it inside the tomb before allyuh push it out to sea.’ 

‘Ok,’ he say again, but this time he eye steady, so I know he understand. ‘I go do that for you, Aunty. I promise.’ 

He run back to the kathiya. It passing us now, but he glancing back at me and smiling. The tassa hand change again, get even slower. I recognise this rhythm and remember the name from Muslim school: The Hands of Sorrow. 

They does beat this rhythm to symbolise the Battle done. 

Well, I lean on the traffic light, and right here on the Western Main Road, I spread open my heart and surrender. The sadness ease out wet and gentle, like when you peeing down yourself in a dream. And the dream I seeing is the future—what Sheldon go do by the sea later. I don’t need to be there to see it; I could stay right here because I done see it happen so much times in the past. He and some next fella go jump out the pickup truck but leave on the low beam to shine a path to the water. Sheldon go hold one side of the base, and the next fella go hold the ’nother side, and they go lift the tadjah out the tray and walk, in the light, down to the shore. Then he go say, ‘Wait, bai,’ and they go rest it down so he could pull off he sneakers and hoist he track pants as high as it could go. Then, they go walk into the sea with the tadjah. They go walk careful, careful, feeling with they foot. They go walk as far as the beam from the van could stretch, and when water hit them high enough, they go float the tadjah and push it ’way into the Gulf. And it go make the water ripple for a minute, and, in the van light, it go  look like is God zipping open the black sea. But wet cardboard and paper don’t take long to sink. Blink twice, it go disappear: a watersoak tomb for two innocent lil baby: Ali- Asgar, the Prophet great-grandson, and Shiva Gopaul, Pinkie Khan onliest son. 

‘Look the next Yard coming!’ somebody say, and is so I remember where I is. Yes, it still have six more tombs to parade, but I done get through with the first one. 

Now is time to bury the man. Not everything could clean off in water; some things does take fire. So Baba Khan did say, a time when we was watching Firepass, and I did ask him why so much people does walk them red-hot coals. Shiva did always insist he want to cremate. Maybe he did know a secret that the rest of we didn’t know. Maybe he did understand that he had something inside him that needed to burn ’way for   he soul to come pure gold. 

I will go for him tomorrow. But I have two stops to make first: one by the crematorium to find out the price and one to pawn the bera to pay that price. 

And this time I don’t want it back. This time, it go belong to my son. 

2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Shortlist: Issue 3