All about Skin (41 page)

And so what if they never had any children? Did that mean that they did not love each other? Did that mean they hadn't built a solid and stable life together? He knew the people of Nonsuch thought so—wondered aloud what would happen to him and Urmilla when they got old because children were one's old-age pension. This even from people whose children were driving them crazy. People who had to pay out their little life savings to get children out of prison in Kingston. People who hadn't even seen their children in God knows how many years, since someone else was raising them. Or, worst, people who mistreated their children who lived with them. Emanuel sighed a deep sigh. The old bush doctor he'd gone to see years before was right. If it was a question of just wanting children, he could have gone to the orphanage and gotten as many as he wanted. For years Urmilla had begged him to do this. But he had been stubborn. Foolish. He saw that now.

Getting up off the floor where he was sitting because he was so tired, Emanuel decided he would show Urmilla just how much she meant to him. Just how much she'd always meant to him. He could not believe the silly things that had bothered him about her over the years. He was glad he still had some life left in his body to thank her for being there; and if she still agreed to it, tomorrow, early in the morning, they would get dressed and go on down to the orphanage. Done what they should have done a long time ago. Yes, that is what they would do, if Urmilla was still up to it.

And somewhere in the distance, toward the mountains, toward the bushes he had just left behind as he walked home slowly to his wife, he heard the highpitched “ah-ah-eeeeek” rising on the last note, and the “whip-whip-waaaark” of a bird in flight, and he knew that just like he was, a yellow-billed parrot was heading home again.

Unoma Azuah

M
edua was not expecting to be admitted into the writing program at Brooks University of Virginia. Most of her professors at Heights University had told her not to hope for much. Brooks University was for the elite. She went ahead and applied anyway. When she had heard nothing by late August, she gave up hope and then sent in her letter of acceptance to Lantern University. That same day, when she got to the mailroom, she found a letter from Brooks University of Virginia. They had offered her admission. She was ecstatic and made copies of the admission letter and slipped one under the doors of all the professors who had told her she would never be admitted. She was not an elite but she had never underestimated her capabilities.

Before she set out for Brooks, she made sure she wore the bone pendant her grandmother gave her. She also wrapped her rosary around her wrist. To her, they were totems of good luck.

When she got to Brooks University, most of the housing was filled. Her tour guide suggested Lady Chatterley's mansion: there was always a room to spare though her rent was pretty costly. Lady Chatterley's building was indeed a mansion: four floors with porches and an orchard in the backyard.

Even the one self-contained room she got had its own back porch. Lady Chatterley, tall and elegant-looking, carried herself arrogantly. It was obvious she was a snob. Although she was probably in her seventies, she still wore high-heeled shoes that jabbed hard on the concrete floor of her building and makeup that concealed the many wrinkles on her face. She barely responded to Medua when she said to her, “Hello, Ma'am.” Then she gave Medua instructions on how to pay her rent directly into her account.

Medua fell in love with her room as soon as she saw it: it was spacious and the largest window in the room faced the east. (One of her hobbies was to watch the sun rise.) The room was also cozy enough for loads of writing. And the other students in the rooms close to hers were quiet, studious types. They said few words to her whenever she met them in the common room. But she was grateful, for such housemates were nothing like the party revelers she had had as housemates at Heights University.

Her neighborhood was full of brick houses and massive statues of Virginian heroes. The caretaker of her building once told her that the brick mansions were built by her people: African slaves. Medua didn't know what to make of the information, which she absorbed with a mixture of pride and anger. (And besides, that word—slaves—made her shudder.)

Medua settled into the normal school rhythm until one day, she was running late to Mass and decided to sprint. A few feet away from the church, she noticed that her keys were hanging out of her jacket. She stopped, tried to grab them, and bumped into a lady. She stretched out her hands in apology, but the lady ignored her and swept past.

After a few days, Medua observed that every morning, at about 6:30 a.m., on her way to Mass at Saint Anthony Catholic Church, she'd run into the hooded lady. The lady wore a black shawl wrapped tightly around her head and her shoulders.

Medua decided to follow her one morning and discovered that she always went to the basement of her building and then to work in the orchard.

Medua wondered why the woman turned up so early; it was still dark. Surely, she could barely see the shrubs she pruned. And why spend so much time in the basement when her work tools were in a shack close to the orchard?

Curiosity got the better of Medua, and she began to trail the woman even more closely. Still, always she would stop short of entering the basement. One day, however, Medua gathered enough courage to walk into the basement after the woman. It was too dark in there for Medua to see anything but the blazing red eyes of a cat and its bared white teeth coming toward her. She turned on her heels and screamed her way out of the basement.

She chided herself later for being scared of a cat and wondered how the woman could have disappeared so quickly into the orchard. But when she looked in the orchard, the lady was not there. Medua ran through a gamut of emotions: Surprise. Worry. Then fear. She had encountered situations at home in Nigeria where humans transform to animals, but this was America. In America you were laughed at for even telling such a story.

The next day Medua waited for the woman, determined this time to confront her. The woman did not show. Nor did she turn up the day after. Days ran into weeks and weeks ran into months. The orchard became overgrown with weeds, but neither the woman nor the black cat was anywhere to be found. Then one fall morning, after five months, when the air was a bit chilly, the lady appeared and shuffled past Medua. She looked down; her hooded face was not visible. Medua followed, and she didn't care if the woman knew she was being followed or not. She headed to the basement close behind her.

The lady sat on the floor, on the same spot where the cat sat months ago.

“Who are you, and why do you come here?” Medua asked. She could see the lady's shadow in the dark. There was no response. Medua asked again. This time, the woman cleared her throat but still said nothing.

Medua ran up to her room to get a flashlight. She needed to see the lady's face. When she returned to the basement, for some reason it seemed darker. She directed her flashlight at the spot where the lady sat. She was not there. Medua stepped deeper into the basement. As she moved her flashlight around the basement, she heard heavy breathing behind her. She almost keeled over, afraid, and she felt a stab of a sharp blade on her shoulder. She grabbed her shoulder with both hands. The flashlight fell. She yelled with all the energy she could summon, ran into her room, dialed 911, then ran out and started banging on her neighbors' doors. Nobody answered.

At the hospital, she was taken to the emergency room. And before she was discharged, some of her classmates visited. When she told them the story behind her attack most didn't believe her. Still, some who didn't like Lady Chatterley did. They suggested she sue Lady Chatterley. She thought about it, but couldn't make up her mind. She blamed herself for stalking the strange lady.

Word got around to Lady Chatterley that she was contemplating suing her for the attack in her basement. The next day Lady Chatterley invited her to her ranch. The ranch was another white mansion surrounded by thick woods. There were many horses wandering around the open space. Some Mexican men were supplying hay and cleaning out the stables. Lady Chatterley asked her to sit. They were on the porch of the mansion; it overlooked a lake and more woods. The soft cushion of the matted chair was cozy, but Medua perched at the edge of the chair.

“How do you say your name again?” Lady Chatterley asked, puffing away at her cigar. She flung her long, scrawny legs on a small stool in front of her.

“Medua.”

“Media?”

“No, May-D-U-a.”

“I see,” she said and coughed lightly. A young Mexican woman came into the porch with a large tray filled with assorted drinks, including wine and beer. She smiled at Medua and asked her what she wanted to drink.

“Orange juice will be just fine.”

The maid poured the orange juice in a long glass, gave it to Medua, and kept the rest of the juice-filled jar on a stool next to Medua's chair. She smiled again, nodded at Medua, and left. Lady Chatterley gazed ahead at the sparkling lake, and gnashed her teeth. A twirl of her cigarette smoke hung between her and Medua.

“What happened in the basement?” she asked without looking at Medua.

“I was attacked.”

“Who attacked you?”

“How do I know? I heard it had happened before to one of your tenants.”

“I do sympathize with you. That's why I'll be taking care of your medical bills.”

“Why?”

“It would save us both quite some stress. And you don't pay rent for the next couple of months.”

“Okay.”

“I need to tell you something, though. I know that your people believe in spirits and the unusual.”

Medua sat back on the chair. For the first time, Lady Chatterley looked into her eyes without blinking. And she told her a story that haunted her.

Lady Chatterley's grandfather was a slave master. Among his numerous slaves was one called Lucia. Lucia was one of his best plantation hands until she had her seventh baby. Lord Chatterley felt that Lucia's baby was distracting her from performing efficiently at the plantation. He threatened to sell the baby, but nobody would buy a baby that young. So he locked him up in the basement. The child crawled into the well in the basement and drowned. And Lucia jumped in and ended her own life.

It is said that Lucia's ghost never left the house. She keeps searching for her child. Lady Chatterley had invited many ghost-busters to lead Lucia to her final rest; none worked.

Part of what Medua's grandmother did as the keeper of her village shrine in Nigeria was guide restless ghosts who were trapped on earth into the beyond. Medua remembered watching her grandmother perform the rituals. But where was she going to get the tooth of a black cat, cola nuts, white chalks, and palm fronds? She was surprised that Lady Chatterley provided every piece of item she asked for. When she asked Lady Chatterley why she provided some teeth instead of one, her response was that she had asked her gardener to get rid of her oldest cat; she needed its whole teeth. The ranch mansion was also haunted.

On the night of the ritual, it was full moon. Medua faced the east. The sacrificial bowl was beside her and she shivered. She pulled the massive white cloth around her shoulder closer, knotted the ends tighter, and lifted the bowl into the night. She was not sure about how high her grandmother lifted it, so she raised it as high as she thought was right. A thunderous howling of foxes startled her and the water-filled sacrificial bowl almost fell from her hands. She held the bowl firmer; it tilted and some water splashed on her face. She spat out the water and the foxes shrieked even louder. She was chanting words, words that only her grandmother could have understood, and she heard the deafening sounds of a million human steps scuttling into the night, tearing into the woods. Then the wailings foxes were silent. She looked back at Lady Chatterley's mansion, and saw her peering through the red curtain of the smallest window in her mansion. A candle flickered behind her.

Xu Xi

For my muse Jenny Wai

I
went to
Derma
the week before Christmas to buy an
american
skin. I was apprehensive because
Derma
's expensive and doesn't allow trade-ins. But their salesman gave me credit on pretty generous terms, and let me take it away the same day, which made me feel good.

This was not an impulse purchase, you understand. I've been pricing
americans
for donkeys' years. My last topskin, which I got fourteen years ago at
Epiderm International
, was an
immigranta
. It was OK, but only really fit if teamed with the right accessories. That got to be a pain. Going
american
, though, is a big step. After
Derma
, there's no place else to go but down, at least, not as long as they're number one.

You see, my history with skins is spotty. I stay with one a long time, sometimes too long, because change makes me itch. The thing about an old skin is that even if it's worn or stained, it hangs comfortably because you know where it needs a bit of a stretch or a quick fold and tuck. Before
immagranta
, I wore
cosmopol
for seven years. The latter was always a wee bit shiny between the legs, although I knew enough to deflect glare with
corpus ceiling-glass
, my preferred underskin, from
SubCutis
.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. A chronology of my history with skins will keep names and dates straight. It's sort of like skinning a lion. First, you have to shoot the beast.

Like most folks on our globe, I got my first topskin from my parents on my eighth birthday. Now I know there are some who start off at six or even as young as five, like the wearers of
nipponicas
and
americans
. We were a conservative family though, and when I slipped into
china cutis
, the only product line
People's PiFu
sold back then, I was the proudest little creature strutting around Hong Kong. This was in the 1960s. My idea of skin began and ended with
china cutis
, basic model.