The Calamity of Miss Pearl

Isn’t it interesting how the lives of some of the world’s greatest people on earth aren’t recognized of admired until after they’re gone? It seems like these fantastic lives have to be over and gone before they’re fully noticed.

 For Miss Pearl, this is not the case.

Miss Pearl was known as Miss Pearl since anyone in the town of Poplar Patch, Prince Edward Island could remember. She was a tough woman; never gave up on anything, kept her promise to you no matter what even if the secrecy took her to the grave. Miss Pearl had the greatest stories, too. I remember when I was a little girl, sitting on Miss Pearl’s worn down, peeling blue paint porch step gazing out into the burning evening sun, listening to her stories of being a nurse overseas in World War Two, the hilarious happenings of her years in Spain, her time in New York at the Ed Sullivan Theatre, listening to the Beatles play. She would always start her stories off, “Let me see know Lily-girl.”, her little nickname for me. To my childish fancies, Spain, New York, and other great cities of the world mentioned in her numerous stories seemed like great walled palaces of elegance and excitement. I felt lucky to know someone who had been to any of these places.

 Miss Pearl never married. Or had children for that matter. She loved her independence and thought it wasn’t worth wasting on a man who would, “be bald and fat in twenty years”, as she put it. Eventually though, Miss Pearl’s fantastic journeys had to come to an end at some point. At sixty-five years old, she had seen everything, done everything, and wanted a simple life in her simple hometown to do her final years of aging. She moved back to Poplar Patch, in the house next to mine, the year I was born. Everyone in this little community knew that it was in Miss Pearl’s blood to be free and enjoy life while you still had it. Well, Miss Pearl’s eloquently lived life is about to come to an end.

This is Miss Pearl’s last story.

I raced over to Miss Pearl’s house the minute my mother told me she was sick. The hot and humid July night stank the house with heat. The darkness, usually wrapping itself around me protectively like a blanket, seemed to tighten its grip around my neck, making me nervous.

 "Miss Pearl!” I gasped as I entered the tiny candle-lit bedroom where she lay. Miss Pearl’s skin of rich, lustrous dark chocolate appeared oily and wrinkled in the darkness. Her hair of snowy white was the same, but seemed almost ghostly now. She lay in her bed like a normal person, not a sick one, a person waiting for the dreams of sleep to wash over them and wake up drowsy and refreshed from it in the morning.

 “Lily-girl, come over here and stop gawking at me, I ain’t dead yet.” I obeyed almost instantly and sat down on a little stool beside her bed. Miss Pearl’s faint light blue eyes still glittered as brightly as gems. I stifled back a few tears, knowing that Miss Pearl wouldn’t want me bawling like a baby.

 “You know what, Lily,” she spoke to me as if it were just making conversation. “I remember when you was that tiny white little baby, and I held you for the very first time, I made you a promise, Lily.” She spoke wisely. “A promise your ma and pa don’t even know about.” I forgot all in the world at that moment, eager to know what that promise was. Miss Pearl put her hand on mine.

“I promised you I’d be your grandma, no matter what.” I couldn’t help but give a warm smile as Miss Pearl tossed her head for expression.

 “You were a grandmother to me.” I stated. “And I can’t thank you enough for that.” We sat there is silence for a few minutes, hand in hand. Eventually, the conversation continued on.

 “And,” she began. “As your grandma, I tell you, it’s time for one last story.” I gleamed with excitement. It had been years since Miss Pearl last told me a story I hadn’t already heard.

“Let me see now Lily-girl.” She started as usual and I couldn’t believe this was the last time I would hear it. “I was twenty-three years old. I was visiting Dakar, Africa. The place of my grandmother’s homeland. Seeing wildlife, window shopping at the little crowded marketplace, tasting fresh picked mangos-ah yes, the mangos. This is where our little story begins.

 "I was told by a local that the freshest, juiciest mangos in all of Dakar could be found on a family’s little farm just outside of town. Curious, I found myself walking the six mile stretch out of Dakar to the little farm. The blazing sun beat down - hotter than I had ever experienced, even in my trips to Egypt – and the great plains of Africa surrounded me as far as the eye could see on that thin little dirt road. My mouth was as parched as ever could be. Finally, I reached that little farm, full to the brim of mango trees. I approached the first person I saw, a large bulky woman with her thin straw-like hair pulled back by a faded bandana, hanging laundry on a clothes line. I startled her, and she looked at me strangely as I begged desperately for water, but she didn’t seem to understand. After my many attempts, she must have gotten tired of my complaining, got up, and left. Just left me sitting in a courtyard full of mango trees. About ready to drop, she finally came back with a boy, about my age. His bright white teeth stood out against his heavy black skin, I distinctly remember was the first thing I noticed about him. Eyes that blended with his hair and his skin. Tall and stately too.

 “I told him I walked the heat of the day and was in desperate need of water. He merely smiled and muttered something to the woman in a foreign language who walked off immediately.

“’ I apologize for my mother.’ He muttered in broken English. ‘She speaks none of your language.’ The woman arrived back soon enough with a deep gourd full to the brim of fresh cold water. I drank it in one sip and lay flat on the ground in the shade of a mango tree. The boy sat down beside me.

 “’My name is Enitan.’ He spoke.

“That was the beginning. Enitan and I soon fell in love.” Miss Pearl sighed. I was now fully captivated in the story. “We spent every waking hour together, mostly under the mango trees, hiding behind them to get a moment of privacy.

“Enitan wanted me to marry him, live with him in Dakar, learn the language. Begged me to. I was too unsure, too afraid. There were so many other places in the world I wanted to see. Too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, I thought.

“So, I left Dakar, on my scheduled plane, leaving Enitan heartbroken. I spent two miserable months in Amsterdam thinking nothing but Enitan. I tried to get my mind off it, but I just couldn’t. We were in love, and that’s something you don’t find every day, Lily.

“After being depressed for two months, not enjoying Amsterdam to its fullest, I hopped back on a plane to Dakar. I walked the six mile stretch of memories of a young sweet love, eager to see Enitan again. I had dreamed of this day. I would walk in, surprise him, and from then on we’d be inseparable. I wondered what my mother would think. When I reached Enitan’s house, I found one of Enitan’s many brothers.

 "’Enitan died of a sickness two weeks ago.’ He explained in barely understandable English.

“Lily-girl.” Miss Pearl grabbed my hand once more, with a cold seriousness in her eyes.   

 “I have never, ever, told one single soul this story.” I sat there dumbfounded, wanting to speak but nothing came out, tears rolling down my cheeks.

 “Do not, what-so-ever, run from love.” She continued. “You hear me?” I nodded slowly.

 “Enitan.” I whispered. “I like that name.”

 “It means, ‘Person of Story’” Miss Pearl smiled.

 Miss Pearl died that night, at the age of eighty-one years old.