House of Dreams

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House of Dreams.2

Manuel passed the House of Dreams.  He passed it every day to and from the field where he tied the goats before and after work. The house was two storeys high, pillared, with a veranda running around the upstairs storey. It was painted a brick red and the pillars and windows were white. Green plants hung from the first storey baskets, some with yellow blooms, some with purple and white ones. The windows were of the large French colonial kind that opened out and curtained out the curiosity of his bean black eyes. The young teacher-lady lived in that house with her old grandmother. This family was old, and one never said their names without “miss” in front of it, out of respect.  Manuel wondered what lay inside that big big house. And why two women would have all of that, when his mother who had had twelve children to shelter had to do it in a two-bedroom shack that barely kept the rain out.3

The grass he was carrying atop his head waved cheerfully as he went up the road. It shielded him from the sun’s scorching blaze. He wondered what disturbed insect might crawl out of the grass and into his ear, and make a nest of young ones in his brain. He always wondered that when he brought home bush for the goats.  There were five of them now and they gave good milk. Milk that the teacher-lady’s maid would buy from him.  She had told him that the teacher-lady could not drink cow’s milk. The thought of not being able to drink cow’s milk had never dawned on him. And when he asked why, the maid informed him in no uncertain circumstances that the milk of a cow could kill the woman because “it sicken her to she death.”  Yes, those people were strange. 4

But he could see himself there. The sun had not burned his smooth skin to a dark brown piece of cow’s skin leather. It was light brown as it had been when he was a boy. And he was dressed in pressed linen trousers and a matching white linen shirt. And he leaned against the uppermost pillar on the second storey surveying the street as Dulcie brought him some ice water—  rich people don't drink water!5

No… rum— rum?6

Too hot….  Some pineapple juice…in one of those tall glasses, with the nice crystal cut on it and Dulcie would have to curtsey instead of looking at him with her nose pinched as though he was smelling of something the cow had done on the side of the road and she was something more than a servant.  7

Manuel was lost in his musings as usual and so he almost did not catch the flicker of a window. Almost. But he did, and turned. He was sure the curtain had now settled back into its place. An unearthly feeling shivered through him making the hair on the back of his neck prickle a bit. The idea that he had been staring at the house daydreaming… and someone had been watching him angered him a bit. And so, he spat disdainfully at the side of the road that had done him no harm and walked on, prodding one of the dawdling goats in the way. It bleated a bit and tossed its wilful little head. But he sucked his teeth and she knew he meant business and ran on ahead.8

He was a little way past the house when he heard it.  A scream so loud it startled the goats and they pointed their faces into the air and looked around as if sensing something exciting happening.  Manuel dropped the bush on the side of the road and made his way back down to the house at a run. By the time he reached the gate, he could see Dulcie running out in a panic with the teacher-lady hot on her heals. Manuel was so shocked he wondered if he was supposed to bow or curtsey.9

“Is a snake!” Dulcie told him.  There is some hidden communication between men and women. In Dulcie’s simple statement was communicated as well:10

YOU ARE THE MAN.  ARE YOU NOT? IF SO YOU MUST KILL IT!11

And having been taught this mystic hidden language, Manuel leapt into action. The true hero. The potential prince of any local fairytale. Fate had reached a pivotal point; whether to let the young hero fail, like so many others, like his father before him and the fathers before… right back to the first father.  Or whether to let him succeed in slaying the dragon.12

Wielding his mighty cutlass he re-entered the yard. The teacher-lady had thus far said nothing so that her voice rang out like the Church bell when she said to him, “It’s in the foyer”.  Manuel stopped before her, drinking in the golden coffee of her skin and the part of her full lips and the pearls of her white teeth and the tip of her pink tongue.  And he saw the way her dark hair was undone in waves that fell to her pink brown shoulders. And he realised he had never looked at her before. And that there was certain glory in those pale brown limbs in what seemed to be the very first time they had been exposed so completely to the sun. Or to the sun of his eyes. In her light dress, he saw not the teacher but a woman. And not just any woman. The one he wanted. 13

But who told this insipid little insect that he should look on her that way, or even dare to desire her house and herself for his pleasure? Dulcie, seeing instantly the plight, swooped down as Fate’s emissary and nipped his budding infatuation in its pale-petaled beginnings.  14

When he entered the rooms Manuel’s heart was pounding. He did not fear the snake. No serpent stood a chance. He’d killed countless ones between boyhood and now, his first timorous steps into manhood.  15

It was the house. He felt like he had stepped out of the world of reality and stepped, as a real man, into the world of his dreams making them real!  Everything was darkly beautiful. Curtained rooms that were strewn with small treasures, a grandfather clock, a rug so plush his feet sunk in, a crystal vase filled with simple sprigs of cut flowers, a large mirror set over a mahogany table, a carved chest that looked to be made of solid purple heart wood, sconces, a crystal chandelier with tear drops that danced in the streaming muted orange sunlight and paintings illuminated in that evening glow.  16

When finally they reached the foyer, the ladies waited outside and down the hall. And Manuel went in alone. It was a large room, with wide-open windows facing the tree-shaded back yard and white curtains tied back so that they fluttered gently. An open book lay on the floor where it had been hastily dropped. The greenness outside poured in the open window with every breeze. There was a cup of tea and a half eaten croissant on the side table. Manuel’s eyes almost missed the serpent. In its black and coral pink and white jewelled camber, he almost mistook it for one of the treasures so completely at home in this house. 17

It was small, not even the length of his arm from shoulder to fingers.  And it watched him with shining black eyes, raising its head ever so slightly like a pet that had seen its master in the distance.  The delicate coil of its body entranced him in the shining light. 18

Manuel raised the cutlass. He was dazzled by its beauty. Never had he seen such lucid grace in a form.  Even when the small head came up to strike at him. He knew its bite was a poisoned kiss.19

He brought the cutlass down swiftly, ending it deftly in one blow.  With the tip of the cutlass he lifted the limp, severed body and flung it from the window into the suitable green-blue satin grave of grass below. 20

When he strode back into the hall, he did not look at either woman. Dulcie hustled past him into the room and he heard her murmuring about the soiled carpets. The lady stood outside watching him. He wondered what she saw. A serpent? He felt compelled eventually to look up.  Her black eyes were watching him. She had thrown a red shawl over her exposed arms and the curve of her pale gold breasts. Standing there, draped with fabric, with her head cocked slightly to the side and her hair swept upward in some futile veneer of neatness she a living, Venus de Milo. Those glittering black eyes were hooded themselves before she struck, “thank you”.  He almost shivered. Instead, he nodded, with his head slightly bowed away from those eyes.  “I wish that it did not have to be killed,” she said softly, “But it is us or them.”21

Manuel was grateful for the sunlight when he stepped back out into it. Dulcie led him to the gate and let him out. He walked along up the hill carrying the discarded bush and his cutlass. The goats had moved on ahead of him, knowing their way home. He could see the little white tufts of their tails as they moved up the green hill in the waning orange light diluted with dirty pools of purples, reds and blacks. 22

He turned back only once to look down upon the House of Dreams and then he went into his own small yard. He closed the goats into their shed and went into his own adjoining one. 23

“Yes” he murmured to the soft plaintive bleat from the next room, “It is us or them”. 24

By25

Gypsybelle.26