Ishmael and Fareeda

A recent event paste on to my mind and can’t unglue. It is meeting Ishmael and he wife, Fareeda.

We meet them after an uncle living in the USA ask a favour.

My uncle send some dollars for Ishmael with a family friend, and he ask my mother to collect the cash and deliver it to Ishmael. Uncle say that Fareeda got cancer.

Ishmael used to be the driver for my uncle, when my uncle was working with a local manufacturing company. As soon as my uncle get word about Fareeda, he send the cash.

Now why would I agree to visit a forty-eight year old woman I ain’t know, who dying with cancer? As if I ain’t hypochondriac enough? As if life in this blasted place ain’t full o’ suffering enough?

Well, apart from the fact that my mother preach it into we head that we must visit the sick and dying, I like to go to strange places. I like to sit in the car while somebody else drive, sit like them floppsy-ears, lolling-tongue dawgs that enjoy car-ride.

So off we went into the village with the old, brukuh down roads that narrow like lanes. Past rusty wire fences and bright walls. Past li’l, old wooden houses that look in extra need of paint, especially ‘cause they living near brand new concrete homes. Was a quiet morning, just them trees along the way going woosha-woosha, shading them lanes, sprinkling sunlight.

Ishmael got a spacious shop with a red concrete floor. He and Fareeda live in a small apartment behind the shop…I could see the kitchen through the open door in the background…oh man, that lunch that Ishmael been cooking had my stomach revving up though I don’t eat meat…fry boulanger…eggplant with chicken.

Above the shop, Fareeda sister and family live. The yard so clean that the smooth concrete driveway shine, I swear. Next door is open land and breeze.

The thing that mar the charm of the place was a spot further up the road. Right at the foot of a sign that say littering is an offence, a man in the village dump garbage. And the other joke is, the garbage truck does collect every Tuesday, so there ain’t no need for the man to dump.

When we give Ishmael and he wife the money, is like somebody switch them on…I never see people face light up so. Ping, zing. It humble me in a way I never expect. When we visit them another day, they tell we how they use it to pay for medicine.

The first time we visit, we talk to them at the front of the shop, through the wrought iron grill. Ishmael tell we how the doctor here get vexed because they seek medical treatment in Trinidad after seeing the doctor here; they did want a second opinion.

But they couldn’t afford the treatment in Trinidad so they had to beg and beg the doctor here to do the surgery on Fareeda. The doctor here do the surgery then said there was no hope for her.

Ishmael take care of her at home. She say she musta do something good sometime in her life to have such a caring husband, Allah bless him, she say. He look at she with he grey-green eyes, and she stare at he with she black, black eyes.

They say how plenty people kind to them; some send soup; the village nurse come and give her medicine, look after her, no charge; and the cancer society too been very kind and caring.

The second time we visit, we sit in the bedroom, Fareeda lie on she bed, then she get up to show we a photo album.

The thing that strike me was how I ain’t see despair or fear in her eyes.

Before I could stop it, my mouth went into gear. “Are you scared?” I blurt out. Then I sit quivering, worrying that I offend her.

But she answer quiet, not the least upset. “Scared? No, I ain’t scared,” she say.

As if I ain’t learn enough to keep my mouth shut, I blurt out more, “Not me. I scared…”

“You scared?” she say. “I just sad that I ain’t gon see my children and grandchildren anymore. You know, material things don’t matter to me now…”

She die last Friday, bury on Saturday. Rain fall in heavy grey sheets the whole morning then stop in the afternoon. Was an almighty big funeral, like the whole village turn out. First, they had the funeral at home, then them men head on down the muddy, pot-holey road to the masjid…mosque…with the coffin, a long, long string of men in white and black.

I don’t know why meeting Ishmael and Fareeda stick in my mind so…maybe is the whole thing about being part of a couple, love and loss…I keep thinking, it ain’t good to get attached to people, but it ain’t good to NOT get attached either…