Niko’s Eye

Chapter 42.

"Conviction."

Isis.

"For breakfast, I just want cold meat, tea, butter, bread, eggs, jam and biscuits but no cheese. Cheese, just like oil, makes too much of itself. It wants the whole damn boat to itself and just gives a cheesy flavour to everything. You can’t tell whether you are eating an apple-pie or a German sausage because it all seems cheesy. There is too much odour about cheese."

I could hear the faint ramblings of my old Mami and smiled to myself. She always woke up so early in the morning and gave everybody the run around about what she wanted to eat, all while sitting in her armchair and downing a malt drink with a Cuban cigar, burning slowly in the ashtray in front of her.

I always thought that the malt drink gave her ammunition because nobody’s grandmother has ever been seen with so much energy at 87 years of age.

I made my bed while the aromas of fried bacon and oats filled my tiny room.

My mind drifted to the black Jaguar I had seen parked parallel to the church yesterday.

It had a powerful engine and completed with stark, tinted windows. Which made it very difficult to miss. It was almost as if I was drawn to the vehicle or whatever or whoever was in it.

My mother called me downstairs and my thoughts were abruptly interrupted.

"Coming!" I sighed heavily and made my way downstairs.

Breakfast was just like every other day.

Isis thought about her father as she poked her fork into the eggs on the plate in front of her. He had been a special investigator for the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Sanchez Ramirez Province in the Dominican Republic and one day he just disappeared after the mine was closed down due to the attack on the mining convoy.

They had believed that he was killed in those bombings but his body was never found. He’d travel extensively, hadn’t been there when Isis was born and if he’d ever sent money, Isis’ mother would place it all in the church.

Aisha Kasmira was a prayer warrior. A perfect exemplar for all Christian women. She had contributed to the building of the St Joseph Christian Church in St Lucia and visited the less fortunate in a Mother Theresa-like manner. And that was why it was so important for Isis to follow in her footsteps. It was a prestigious achievement.

Isis watched her mother fold her napkin ever so neatly and moved her eyes to where it rested, on the dining table on her mother’s right. She knew she’d be told to do the same so she spared herself the lecture and did the damn deed. Isis was bored stiff and had no appetite.

She stared at the stained glass in the kitchen and wondered why her mother had Catholic tendencies if they were in actual fact, Christian.

After what seemed like years, her mother had finally finished eating and she got up from the table and thanked Halima, their house help, before retreating back to her room for prayer.

She behaved like such a mongrel, Isis thought to herself as she stared after her mother who was dressed in a polka dot-printed fabric with long, puffed "bubble" sleeves and Jesus sandals.

"Ugg," she exclaimed, and got up to kiss her Mami goodbye as she left for lectures.

"In the blue plastic bag next to the roses sweetheart."

"Thanks Mami." she smiled back at her grandmother and made her way out of the door.

She found the blue plastic bag just as indicated and quickly looked around before she retreated into the corner of the garden to change from her long, modest cotton dress into a pair of blue jeans and a Nirvana sweater, which she struggled to get past her headwrap.

She stuffed the plastic bag with her less appealing attire into her almost-empty backpack and went around the house, across the street and to the bus stop.

As she was walking to the bus stop, she was opening the clasp of the only necklace that she owned and put it on. Along with a pair of hoops, some lipgloss and one final check in her small vanity mirror just in time for the bus to stop in front of her, exhausting smoke from its pipes.

"Come on, I’m wearing white Nikes Giorgio!"

Giorgio was the bus driver and Isis’ very good friend. He was a very attractive man but he was a dropout, which had him resort to bus driving.

"I’m sorry, mi coraçon. I didn’t see you there!", he called back.

All the other students were already getting onto the bus.

But Isis huffed and opened the front pouch of her backpack and took out a small bottle of cologne, sprayed herself back to life and carefully placed it back into her backpack before hurrying onto the bus.

She was unaware that the main zipper of her backpack had slipped loose which had in turn, opened her backpack, allowing the blue plastic bag to fall out of her backpack and onto the pavement.

The bus doors closed and she smiled at Giorgio. She waved and mouthed a ’morning’ at her fellow peers and proceeded to her seat on the bus, totally unaware...