Magic of Grandma V’s black cake

Christmas in a time of conflict

Dara E Healy

The mountain too hard to climb

It taking a length of time

Meh knife ent too good

Ah can’t cut the road

As ah really should

– Lord Kitchener, Mount Olga, 1947

JOEL KICKED in the front door of the humble home and moved forward, military style. He hummed an old-time calypso as he cradled a gun in his left palm. Almost every inch of his body was covered in black. Behind him three other men similarly dressed, moved in choreographed precision, a perfect execution of the training they had received from the Police Service and Defence Force.

In a corner of the small living room was a Christmas tree with coloured lights blinking rapidly. On the floor, gifts wrapped in colourful paper. An elderly woman came out from one of the bedrooms and on spotting the men she started screaming.

“Shut that bit-- up,” growled Sniffy. Without hesitation, Zuro stepped forward, knife flashing in the lights of the Christmas tree, and slit her throat. Joel observed what happened and continued into the other bedroom. Zuro following closely behind was about to stab the children to death, but Joel blocked him.

“Aye Z, move from here with dah crazy shi- nah,” Joel whispered through his teeth. “Look for the jewellery and money. Dais it.” Joel stared at the two children lying on a mattress on the floor, holding on to one another, crying while the baby slept. He heard a man shout and another woman scream. There was a struggle, two gunshots and then silence.

Joel and the others ransacked the small house quickly and efficiently. By the time they finished, they had a bag filled with jewellery, cash and cell phones. “Take the gifts too,” Sniffy barked.

Joel stood looking at the dead family, lying in a river of blood, illuminated by the blinking lights of the Christmas tree. Stones pulled him away and they ran down the street as one of the children started bawling. The entire robbery had taken less than ten minutes.

They ran to the back of the cemetery, to a space covered in overgrown bushes and unkempt graves. Zuro, from Venezuela (or some part of South America, nobody knew or cared), started to prattle excitedly in Spanish while polishing his knife. Sniffy, snorting pinches of a white substance into his nose, sat looking at Joel. Suddenly, he pressed his gun against Joel’s forehead. “Wha you doing J-man?” Zuro and Stones stopped laughing. Joel looked at Sniffy. “Wha you mean Sniff? Look at ting we geh.”

“J-man, wha you doing just standing up in de house. You want dem ketch we or what?” “Ah sorry Sniff. Yeah, buh if you wanna kill meh go ahead.” Joel pressed his head into the gun. Sniffy laughed. “Ahright J-man, relax wid yuh mad self. Come, come and see what you want. The big man in the bank ent go know.”

In the evening, they left one by one, planning to rendezvous at the main gang house. Joel watched Sniffy, Zuro and Stones leave, then he got up and walked to one of the graves. He gently touched a headstone that read "In loving memory of Virginia Williams, August 1, 1930-December 24, 2000."

Although he was still a child when she died, Joel’s memories of Grandma V were strong. He remembered sleeping on a mattress with his brother and sister, dying to open the gifts under the tree. Grandma V would take charge of all the Christmas preparations, while humming Lord Kitchener’s calypso Mount Olga. (Many years later he laughed out loudly when he found out the calypso was not as innocent as he had thought.)

The smell of grandma’s black cake was his favourite, especially as she would secretly give him a little taste of the soaking fruit. “Stop spoiling de chile,” his mother would shout, but Grandma V would ignore her.

Joel lay down on his grandmother’s grave and wept, ashamed of what he had become. In his tear-filled sleep, she came to him, singing the calypso, hugging and kissing him like she used too. She smelled of black cake and love. Joel lay on his back in his grandmother’s grave and stared at the stars. He put the gun inside the dirt around her grave and walked out of the cemetery and away from a life of crime forever. It was Christmas morning.

Dara E Healy is a performing artist and founder of the Idakeda Group, a cultural organisation dedicated to empowering communities through the arts