IRA MATH­UR

This Sun­day Guardian WE Book­shelf fea­tures Trinidad-born lawyer and self-pub­lished au­thor Tri­cia Chin whose books in­clude “Ta­ban­ca and Oth­er Sto­ries”, “Parang the Wrong House”, “For the Dead”, and “A True Tri­ni Christ­mas”.

Chin, who grew up in Bras­so, cen­tral Trinidad, says from the time she wrote her first sto­ry, “Ta­ban­ca”, in 2020 dur­ing the pan­dem­ic Trinida­di­an pa­tois and his­to­ry came to life for her.

Chin’s “love for words” in­ter­twined with her pas­sion for West In­di­an his­to­ry in sto­ries set be­tween 1798 and 1900. Writ­ing his­tor­i­cal sto­ries re­mains for Chin, a means of ex­plor­ing “Caribbean peo­ple, our cul­ture and his­to­ry.”

Chin “in­die pub­lished” “Ta­ban­ca and Oth­er Sto­ries” in 2021. She print­ed 36 copies us­ing a lo­cal print­er, ex­pect­ing to sell to fam­i­ly and friends, but the book quick­ly found its au­di­ence. Chin says since then, she sold copies of “Ta­ban­ca and Oth­er Sto­ries con­tin­u­ous­ly” in lo­cal book­stores.

Ex­cerpt from Ta­ban­ca and Oth­er Sto­ries by Tri­cia Chin with ex­press per­mis­sion from the au­thor ex­clu­sive­ly for the Sun­day Guardian:

“When Mr Fred­er­ick woke up that Mon­day morn­ing be­fore Christ­mas, he woke up with a song in his heart. It would be wrong to say that the song was in his head be­cause, in all hon­esty, he heard the song from his chest first, and so if any­one had asked him, he had wok­en up with a song in his heart. It was an old song, one he’d heard maybe in movies first and lat­er some­times played on the pi­ano. He knew it in­stant­ly, though he’d not heard it in years. For a lit­tle bit that Mon­day morn­ing, be­fore he swung his legs off his bed and in­to his bed­room slip­pers, he lay in bed, hum­ming the tune, try­ing to get his mind to catch up to the song that his chest al­ready played. “Yes”, he found him­self shak­ing his head and get­ting off the bed. “Yes, that’s it!” He snapped his fin­gers and danced to the gramo­phone he kept ser­viced and well-cov­ered in the liv­ing room. He found the record he want­ed in his li­brary, put it on the turntable and set the nee­dle. The song came out with that smooth, rich sound of the 1950s even as he boiled his morn­ing cof­fee and oats. “The old Dick Haymes,” he sang to him­self that morn­ing as he set out a morn­ing suit for the day’s walk. “The old Dick Haymes,” he hummed as he shined the brown leather shoes that had been left at the back of his cup­board, un­used for years. “The old Dick Haymes.” He shook his head as he snatched up the ivory-head­ed cane that his nephew in Mary­land had sent him years ago but he’d nev­er used. He gave him­self a lit­tle spin, twirling in his leather shoes and soft wool socks. He tipped his brown felt hat to him­self in the mir­ror and thought, I’ll put a poin­set­tia in the band of this hat. Yes, why not. And he left his house for the first time in a while with­out Priscil­la Han­ni­gan putting her head out the win­dow and ask­ing him where he was go­ing. As Mr Fred­er­ick slipped down the road, bare­ly walk­ing, he felt so light, al­most as if he was float­ing, the song played in his head again and again. And he hummed it with soft joy and rev­er­ence. For such a joy-filled char­ac­ter, it’s hard to see how the phrase “all hell broke loose” could pos­si­bly ap­ply. But on that Mon­day be­fore Christ­mas, in the vil­lage of Ma­yaro, it could be safe­ly said that hell, all of it, had well and tru­ly bro­ken loose. We know what hap­pened un­til Mr Fred­er­ick walked up that hill; poor Ms Priscil­la would nev­er for­give her­self again for not putting her head out the win­dow and telling her neigh­bour “Good morn­ing”. So many things wouldn’t have been such a sur­prise, she told her­self, over and over again. But what hap­pened af­ter the hill over which Mr Fred­er­ick had dis­ap­peared with a mas­sive pot­ted red poin­set­tia in hand? For that, my friends, we go to Lucy, who was just leav­ing the post of­fice and couldn’t help her­self; she just had to fol­low Mr Fred­er­ick down the hill with his poin­set­tia in the crook of his arm, un­both­ered about dirt on his clean, crisp suit, and walk­ing down the road, jol­ly as can be. As Lucy fol­lowed, she saw Mr Fred­er­ick take his fa­mil­iar turn in­to Lee’s shop. She en­tered the shop and told her­self she had some things to buy there, but lo and be­hold, when she en­tered the shop, the en­tire shop stood still and qui­et. When her eyes ad­just­ed to the dim light of the build­ing Lucy could see Mr Fred­er­ick, propped up on the counter, hold­ing the hand of Ms Lee her­self! Lucy al­most dropped the chick­en she had bought that day at the mar­ket right on the floor! The sight of Ms Lee, the old­est, most crotch­ety woman in all of Ma­yaro, blush­ing and smil­ing as Mr Fred­er­ick whis­pered to her across the pot­ted poin­set­tia! No one in the shop knew what to do. Hen­ry peeped out from be­hind the corned beef as if the tins could de­fend him. Vashti looked around the blue soap, hop­ing no one would see her. Lit­tle Tall­man peeked up from be­hind his grand­moth­er Ma­ma Strongy’s skirts, and Ma­ma Strongy her­self, a woman giv­en to few sur­pris­es in this life, could on­ly hold the pack­age to her chest and watch on in alarm. What was go­ing on here? Was the col­lec­tive thought as Mr Fred­er­ick fin­ished his whis­per­ings, tipped his hat to Ms Lee and every­one else in the shop, and am­bled out as if noth­ing had hap­pened. When the spell was bro­ken, and every­one looked at each oth­er, em­bar­rassed though they could not say why, Ms Lee was nowhere to be found. On­ly Young Patrick, who kept the shop for her af­ter school and on week­ends, was be­hind the counter. The pot­ted red poin­set­tia was nowhere in sight. What re­al­ly hap­pen­ing here? Lucy won­dered to her­self as every­one went back to their busi­ness. Lucy re­played the whole scene to Ms Priscil­la over the tele­phone in the next hour, de­scrib­ing every­thing. But Ms. Priscil­la could make nei­ther heads nor tails of the whole thing, so she called Ms Na­man to do the whole analy­sis. It was that call that Ms Na­man took, and it took so long that she for­got the peas she had to cook for her hus­band. By the time poor Mr Na­man came home from San Juan, all he could get was corned beef, bread, and a whole head­ful of talk about Mr Fred­er­ick. That whole week, the vil­lage of Ma­yaro felt like it was on ten­ter­hooks.”

–End of Ex­cerpt

Tri­cia Chin is a Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion (Eras­mus Mundus Pro­gram) schol­ar­ship win­ner who earned her Mas­ters in Law in Spain, The Nether­lands and Ger­many) be­gan writ­ing in 2020 dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ira Math­ur is a Trinidad Guardian writer and the 2023 Non-Fic­tion Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture win­ner. www.iras­room.org

Woman au­thors in­ter­est­ed in be­ing fea­tured on this page can con­tact Ira Math­ur at iras­room@gmail.com