Marble Pitch
Phedra Deonarine
Pay attention to the young boy on the top of the hill. His name is Naren and he is nine years old. Naren tries to keep up with Krishna, his elder brother, but Naren’s shoes are troublesome. They’re old nurse’s shoes, his elder sister’s cast-offs. Naren cut off the tassels and dyed the shoes black to match his school’s dress code for boys. He stuffed the toe caps with crumpled newspaper to make the shoes fit, but now the paper pressed uncomfortably against his toes. Krishna clutches Naren’s hand, pulling him along. It’s midday, but Naren is excused from school because his father has died.
The house is full of strangers. Naren wants only to find his mother. He sees her in the rocking chair, hair plaited, ankles crossed. A tattoo of a ship’s steering wheel is on her right forearm. Naren knows from school that only bad women have tattoos. She makes no move to cover it, even in this crowd. His mother married his father when she was eleven and his father was thirty-one. She is a good woman. Not like other East Indian women with tattoos.
Naren is frightened and doesn’t want to be alone. He lifts his chin, blinking his eyes rapidly because only crybabies cry. He moves through the crowd. He’s small and unaccustomed to speaking to adults. Some pat his head, saying, “He the young son.” Naren stays silent.
He parts the beaded curtain and enters the bedroom. He slips under the bed and pushes aside the Lipton Tea tin with all his belongings. The box is shaped like a treasure chest, complete with a latch in the front. Naren squeezes his eyes and sees his father before him, a frail man stooped over a bowl of curried bananas and dry roti. His father needed help to eat because of his stroke. Naren sees the spittle on the side of his father’s mouth and feels the grip in his stomach children feel when they encounter illness. He wipes his father’s mouth, afraid of this old man’s unsteady movements. The basement will be empty now. Naren is ashamed to feel relieved that he’ll no longer have to go down there. But then he sees his father’s smile and Naren knows that he’ll be alone. His throat hurts. He curls up, tucking his chin between his knees. He starts to cry. Snot runs down his nose and his chest heaves. Why Pa have to leave him so?
▱
After two months, people in school cease feeling sorry for Naren. The other students stop whispering when he passes. His teachers stop giving him extra time for his homework. Other parents stop giving him treats. He doesn’t get to sit in the first pew in the school’s church.
Now, his sister, Savitri, squeezes his shoulder. “I can’t believe Krishna. He gone and decide to leave Mammy and go to Toronto. He acting like he don’t owe we nothing, like he raise he own self. But I done tell Mammy, it don’t matter. Is me who does help with your schoolwork. We don’t need he. Is only because he a man he feel he important. What a man ever do for we except up and leave? At least he promise to take you to the Red House to get your name change.”
Naren furrows his brows. “Why I have to change my name for?”
“You have to have a more Christian name.”
“But we not Christian. The pandit give me my name. What I have to change for?”
“Stop back-chatting Naren. This isn’t the time. It go be better for you to have a Christian name. Tell your school you convert. It go be easier that way.”
“But we Hindu. Pa Hindu. Why you doing this for?”
“You want your mammy to lose she house? You know how them Christian is. They does tie up everything with paper and act like only they legal. Go in the bedroom. Grown-ups have to talk. You can’t be acting up so.”
▱
His mother says they must go to town. She, Naren, and Krishna take a taxi to get there. Naren is pleased to be traveling in a car. He wears khaki pants and shiny shoes. His mother wears a shalwar. The three of them arrive at The Red House an hour later. Port-of-Spain is very different from their little township in the south of Trinidad. He doesn’t see many East Indians. Suddenly he’s embarrassed by his mother’s clothes. He disentangles his hand from hers and looks at The Red House. It’s big and looks exactly like its name. The mixed lady at the front desk giggles when she sees them, but Naren knows he’s purebred and she isn’t. His family sits in the waiting room. It has a terrazzo floor and stainless steel chairs. Naren hates waiting and wants to leave. His mother promised to take him to the Botanical Gardens and he’s excited. He’s never been there before.
A bald-headed black man calls them into the cramped office. He asks Naren’s mother and Krishna a series of questions. His mother unrolls Naren’s birth certificate. “It say he have no father. Is because he father and me did marry in Hindu rites and them don’t recognize Hindu marriage.”
The man snorts and pulls out a form. “What you want to change the boy name to?”
Krishna answers, “Barry. Barry Lal.”
“Sign here.”
Krishna touches his mother’s hand. “You want me to do it, Ma?’
The black man laughs. “How you go sign it? You not the father. It have to be she.”
His mother shrugs off Krishna’s hand. “Naren is my child. I go sign.” She marks an “X” on the line.
“Indians always illiterate. The affidavit will come in two months in the mail.”
Krishna turns back, but his mother tugs his arm. “Now not the place.”
Krishna pulls away. “We have to stand up for weself, Ma. Everyone done think Indian don’t know how to be man.”
“Not in front of Naren. I don’t want any hold-up getting his name change.” She re-arranges her shawl, adding, “Don’t study it.”
“He have to see that Indian can be man too.”
“I don’t know where you get this own way from. I wasn’t like that.”
“And neither was Pa.” Krishna puts his hand on Naren’s back. “Come. I go buy you a snow cone with condensed milk.”
They leave the Red House and walk to the Botanical Gardens. The sun burns the back of Naren’s neck. He slurps his snow cone and holds his mother’s hand. The plants don’t look like the jumbled garden at home. Everything is neat and orderly, with labels bearing the plants’ real names. The family stays until closing time. Naren isn’t afraid of being robbed. Krishna is with them, and no one will approach them if a grown-up man is there.
One week later Krishna leaves for Toronto. Naren doesn’t cry. This time he’s prepared.
▱
Naren hides from Savitri under the dining table. He reads a neighbor’s “Thor” comic book. His sister doesn’t like him reading comics. Naren doesn’t know much about Nordic mythology, but he likes this god who is banished from Asgard for vanity and works as a scientist on Earth. He doesn’t care for the books he has to read in school, but he likes these thin volumes and how powerful the superheroes are. Sometimes they are even scientists in real life. He likes those the best.
He hears footsteps and tries to put away his comic book, but he isn’t fast enough.
Savitri snatches up the plastic tablecloth. “Ent, I tell you to stop reading that nonsense?” She yanks him by his ear. “You better do your maths now.”
“I finish them long time now.”
“Well, do some extra! You have time to read garbage, then you have time to do more maths.”
He screws up his face and earns a smack on his head. Savitri sits next to him. They stay up until midnight. She gives him a late-night snack of crackers and guava jam. He eats while she checks his sums. The soot from the kerosene lamp forms a blackish-brown ring on the ceiling.
“Pay attention to your maths. You can’t be anything unless you can do maths.”
“Yes, didi.”
She ruffles his hair and he pretends to be offended. She laughs. “Go and wash up before you sleep. I go clean up in here. I don’t want you tired in school. You getting better in your schoolwork.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. Don’t tell Ma I give you guava jam. She don’t like you eating sweets at night.”
“I won’t, didi.”
▱
He pitches marbles during recess. He calculates the angles quickly, makes allowance for the uneven asphalt. He wants to win a bright blue marble he can trade for a “Thor” comic. His very own copy. He’ll put it under his textbooks in the box in his bedroom. He might even paper it with clear plastic wrap from his mother’s kitchen so that the edges won’t crease.
He ignores the jeers of the boys around him and concentrates on the angle. He squeezes his fingers to just the right tightness, flicking the green marble with his thumbnail. His marble clacks against the big, bright blue marble and he grins. One step closer to Thor. He wipes his palms on his pants and goes to collect his prize.
The boy, Sookram, shoves Naren. “I not giving my marble to some dougla boy.”
Naren pushes him back. “I not a dougla.”
“No Indian have a flat nose like you. What Indian have a name like Barry?”
Naren shoves him again. “What you know about anything? You a big dunce in class. You must be the dougla. No Indian that stupid in Maths.”
Sookram kicks Naren’s shin. Naren grabs Sookram’s collar and knees him in the stomach. The boys around them clap and shout.
One boy breaks them apart. “Man, Sookram, you have to give him the marble. Who care if he a dougla?”
Naren shoves the boy. “I not a dougla. I a purebred Indian. My mother and father both Indian.”
“Man, Barry, I on your side. I don’t care what you is. If you say you a Indian, you a Indian.” He shrugs at Sookram. “You have to give the man his marble.”
Sookram screws up his face and throws the marble at Naren’s feet. “Let him pick it up then.”
Naren does. “I still win it.”
The boy pats Naren’s shoulder. “Don’t study Sookram. Everybody know you win it. Is like you say, Sookram just a dunce.”
Naren slips the marble into his pants pocket. “Good.” He dusts off his bruised knees. He has to safeguard this marble. He has plans for it. He won’t let some boy who couldn’t solve easy sums interfere.
▱
Naren opens the Lipton tin he keeps in his bedroom. He pulls out a light-up Coca-Cola yoyo, a packet of plastic colored jacks, and a stack of cards with European historical facts. He puts the blue marble in a cellophane bag with four other marbles. His mother just finished frying the bread. Savitri calls him for supper. He tucks it all back in order and scrambles out of the room. He sits down at the table. No one suspects that he’ll soon own his own “Thor” comic book. He’s so pleased he doesn’t even mind that there’s too much Scotch bonnet pepper in the sardines.
▱
He practices pitching marbles alone on the rough concrete pathway in the front yard.
“Aye, dougla boy.” A large man says from outside the front gate. “Is you who thief my son marble in school?”
Sookram is holding the man’s hand, smirking at Naren. “Is him self, Pa.”
Naren shakes his head. “That not true.”
Sookram’s father motions for Naren to stand. “Get up, boy. Your mother didn’t train you to stand up when grown-ups speaking to you?”
Naren stands up, clutching his marbles. “But I win it.”
“He lying, Pa.”
“Get your mother out here. I want to talk to she about the little thief she raising.” He sucks in his teeth. “This is what does happen when a man not around to straighten out boy-child.”
Naren stumbles up the stairs. His mother is in the kitchen. “Ma, a man outside for you.”
His mother goes outside. Naren peeps down at her through the wooden balusters. She adjusts the shawl on her hair and nods while listening to Sookram’s father. She rubs her arms and doesn’t look him in the eye. She calls to Naren. “Go and bring the boy he marble.”
“But, Mammy, I win it!”
Sookram sniggers. “Mammy toy-toy, wailing to his Mammy.”
“Barry. Don’t back-chat me. Bring the boy he marble.”
Naren kicks his way down the stairs and stands next to his mother. He hates her thick lips and broad nose. Why was she wearing those stupid Indian clothes for? He shoves the marble at Sookram.
He holds it and sticks his tongue in his cheek. “Look at him. Still thiefing. He keeping back the green marble I did win.”
“You lying. He lying, Ma.”
Naren’s mother smacks him on the back of his head. “Barry, stop misbehaving so. Give him back he marble.”
Naren tosses the marble at Sookram but the boy dodges it. His mother yanks him to where the marble fell and makes Naren hand it to Sookram, who slips the marble into his pocket, pats it and leaves with his father.
Naren’s mother rubs his back. “Go get your schoolbooks.”
He climbs the stairs ahead of his mother and walks fast enough to keep her hand from reaching his back. He pulls out his maths textbook and sits at the dining table, turning the pages and thinking of Thor.
His mother stands behind him. “Barry, you cannot be wasting your time playing marbles and that kind of stupidness. Do your schoolwork so you go come doctor or lawyer when you get big and buy a big house with plenty land. Your sister go check your work when she come home. What playing marbles could ever give you, bayt? Who care you really win?” She squeezes his shoulder. “I go finish dinner. Let me make up some curry bananas for you. I know how you well like it.”
He doesn’t tell her about the comic book. How can she, an old woman who can only read Hindi and has a tattoo on her forearm understand? She doesn’t know where Thor came from. She doesn’t even know as much Maths as he does. His father probably died just to get away from her.
He hears her making noise in the kitchen and says, “I can’t concentrate.” She is quieter. He folds his lips and imagines his brother in Canada zooming around in a shiny new car, living in a big house made of concrete with carpet floors. He loves this brother, his sharp clothes and foreign accent. He is so far away from this small island. And Barry knows then that he’ll do what his mother wants. He’ll make the most of his schoolwork and use it to leave this place, his unwed sister, and his mother who married young, never went to school, and now can’t even spell her youngest son’s name.
Phedra Deonarine’s work has appeared in Indiana Review, Prism:international, Event, and among others. She is currently working on a collection of fairytales and a doctoral dissertation on representations of land in Caribbean literature.