Through the BMW's almost-black windscreen, he could see a bottled gas truck and a small maxi-taxi parked in the middle of the single-lane bridge, facing each other bumper-to-bumper, the drivers gesticulating at one another to go back. It was a game of patience, now, because both drivers were African; if one was Indian they would already be out of their vehicles, the hand-waving going to the face; but, no, he corrected himself on second thought: no Indian would get out of a car here, in the middle of the impoverished African urban community they still called "the village:" out of habit.
In his boy days-he sighed, thinking his 75th Christmas was approaching-it was in fact a village, although, if you put your mind to it, you could walk to the Savannah in an hour. In those days, before Dr Williams, before Black Power, before Abu Bakr, even old black people treated him, a young boy, with respect. Today, he wouldn't allow his own children to let his grandchildren go out into the street. His first Christmas gift to his first grandson had been a plastic playground a fast food restaurant might have envied: let them play inside their own compound; every space they had here, they had made for themselves. Every gain, every step up. His father had fled the poverty of the motherland and, here, had made his fortune.
He looked across the river. The first hovel he had known as a boy had replicated itself, like a virus. Bare red brick walls, held together by the thinnest layer of cement, topped by ceiling-less galvanized sheets. It probably still had the dirt floor that would get muddy if rain fell long enough. When the river rose, they would be marooned. The family was much bigger now. He could count the gene- rations by the single-room extensions tacked on to an existing wall. In each room lived-how many? Four? Five? Six? Seven? He shook his head in disgust. How come, he asked himself, it was only the African who did not progress in Trinidad? But he knew the answer: they were uneducated (but his own father had been illiterate); they hated hard work (but his own sons preferred to race powerboats and hire an outsider to unstuff containers); they depended on government handouts (but a local industry needed a protective tariff to survive and provide jobs); and, more than any- thing else, they were thieves, stole their children's inheritance in drink and drugs and mindless feteing; and stole from those who would treat them well.
Fleetingly, a deep sadness welled up in him; he rubbed his eye by reflex and it passed. On the bridge, the truck driver was leaning back in his seat, smoking a cigarette; the maxi-driver was still waving frantically but he had already lost; his travellers were looking at their watches. He leaned over the passenger seat and peered across the river at the woman sitting plaiting the child's hair on the top step of the shanty. She was fat and her front teeth were missing; but he was stout himself, now, and bald. Could that be her? No. She had been too pretty. The woman looked up at him suddenly and he drew back sharply, even though he knew she couldn't see him. The last young police officer who'd stopped him to ticket him because his tint was illegal had, when he'd rolled down the window, politely asked for his driver's permit, not even insurance, and waved him on.
She was the reason he'd come to hate black people as strongly as he'd loved her. He had been 15, she 13. His father had found them, luckily, not his mother, in the garage storeroom. His father had simply chased her off; she'd run down the hill and across this river, to that very shack. Without pan-ties.
When his father found out he'd been visiting her at the hut across the river, he'd banned any further contact. He had refused at first; but then his father had told her she'd been stealing money from the jar in the kitchen every time she came to do the ironing. He had not believed, had planned never even to mention it to her; but, when he did, at last, after she had pressured him over why she could not return to the big house, he had seen the truth in her face. So it was real bonds between individuals were broken and artificial prejudices shored up between groups: through someone abusing trust. His heart had hardened to them all to avoid breaking to her alone.
They, alone, of all Trinidad's tribes, were stagnated. For every one who finished secondary school, there were ten who couldn't read. For every teacher or policeman there were a hundred who became bandits. For every doctor or lawyer there were a thousand who dreamed of nothing more than church, fete or flat screen TV. A year before, in front of that very hovel on the steps of which she sat so ungraciously, a man had been shot dead. Her son? Grandson? Did she care? Would she ever do anything about it? Did she, or any of them, want more for themselves and their children than a bucket of fried chicken?
There was a loud sound of changing gears. He looked up to see the maxi had reversed and the bottled gas truck had moved off. He let the maxi, and the string of vehicles behind it, cross the bridge and pass him before he shifted into "D1". He glanced across the river. The fat, ugly woman was staring at his car. He drove off without looking at her again. The BMW purred like a fat, happy cat.
BC Pires is a Pentecostal preacher who teaches the Koran.
Read more of his writing at www.BCraw.com