Joseph?’ Mrs Peters asked. ‘Joseph, is that you?’

My body stiffened. From the moment we had burst into the house, me with the Glock and Slash with a cutlass and crowbar, I had recognised Mrs Peters, my former English teacher at Arima Senior Comprehensive. She was standing in front of a big armchair holding a book in one hand, her figure still slim though her hair had gone halfway grey. An even older, heavy-set woman in a flowered dress was sitting in the next chair, her mouth gaping open in shock.

‘What on earth do you boys think you’re doing?’ Mrs Peters demanded, her voice as precise as ever, and as low-keyed.

‘Shut up!’ Slash shouted, going into our usual routine. ‘Shut your focking jaw and get down on the floor!’

Mrs Peters gave him a look that I recognised, a slanted look with her head tilted to one side that meant ‘You think you’re fooling me? I see straight through you.’

Slash dropped the crowbar on the floor with a thud and advanced towards her, drawing back  his left hand to hit her across her face. Whap! Her neck twisted sideways

‘Irene!’ the other woman cried out.

Slash grabbed Mrs Peters’ shoulder and pushed her down to the floor. He was a thin, dark guy with a bumpy face, hair in dishevelled cane-rows, shapeless calf-length jeans worn low down on his bottom to reveal dirty red briefs, and a powerful body odor.

I waved the gun I was holding at the other woman.

‘Get down on the floor,’ I growled.

Slowly, she bent and crooked her knees to go down on all fours, her forehead creased with the effort.

‘On your belly, head down!’ Slash ordered, glancing at me.

Usually, I took the lead at these home invasions. First you had to terrify them shitless, I told my dogs. Then they wouldn’t bother you while you were working. I was the one who would initially shout, slap and threaten till some of them pissed themselves. But Mrs Peters’ presence had thrown me off balance. She had been my favourite teacher at school, sharp as a razor, both in speech and personality. She always seemed to know exactly what was going on among the reprobates at the back of the class and would pull us up with an irony that had half the class falling over laughing. We respected her for that, as well as for a kind of fondness that lay under her disciplinarian stance.

‘Where allyou have the cash in this house?’ I demanded.

Mrs Peter’s voice came from the floor, a bit muted.

‘There, in the first drawer of the sideboard,’ she said.

I glanced around. The whole place was full of gleaming mahogany furniture. Which was the sideboard?

‘Behind you,’ said Mrs Peters. She raised her head and gestured.

I went to the sideboard. In the first drawer was forty dollars, neatly folded.

‘This is not no money,’ I growled. ‘Where the rest?’

‘We haven’t got any other money.’  She seemed to put the stress on the word ‘any’ as though she was still teaching me grammar.

Slash took a step and kicked her in the side. She yelped.

‘You better tell me where the focking money is,’ he shouted, poking at her stomach with the cutlass, ‘else I will kill your scrawny ass tonight.’

He kicked her again. I flinched. The other woman’s shoulders began shaking.

‘You go and look in the bedroom,’ I said to Slash. ‘I will watch them.’

He went to a door, past a bookshelf choked with books. I could feel Mrs Peter’s soul there. She lived for Shakespeare, Emily Dickenson, metaphor and grammar. I had fallen under her spell during my school days and ended up getting an A in English in my final exams. Mrs Peters had been so full of praise for my essays and short stories that I had dreamed that I could become a writer. But I failed everything else and ultimately had had to follow the career Destiny had promised me to: gangster. I had four brothers and sisters and no father. With my exam results, I couldn’t get a job that would earn me enough money. I was strong and hefty, and other guys followed my lead automatically: bandit suited me perfectly.

I heard Slash pulling out drawers and throwing them on the floor. He kicked and smashed things, cursing loudly, went into another bedroom, then returned bare-handed.

‘Where the fock allyou have the jewels?’ he bawled at the women.

I heard Mrs Peters’ voice behind me.

‘We don’t wear jewellery,’ she said. ‘We are Seventh Day Adventists.’

‘Well, where the focking money?’ he screamed. ‘Allyou want we to kill allyou here tonight?’

I knew what was coming. We’d have to brutalise them into handing over their valuables. I went to the second woman and pointed the gun at her.

‘Where allyou have allyou money?’ I asked.

She began sobbing.

‘Allyou will be sorry if allyou don’t cooperate,’ I said.

I heard Mrs Peters’ voice again.

‘We have no money,’ she said emphatically. ‘All our money is in the bank. Take what you got in the sideboard and go.’

‘Take what we got and go?’ Slash screamed. ‘We ain’t going nowhere until we get what allyou have here!’

He grabbed her by the shoulder and punched her in the mouth.

‘You like this?’ he asked. ‘And this?’

He punched her again. She crumpled to the floor with a thud. The other woman screamed and began sobbing loudly.

‘Please,’ she begged, ‘please leave us alone. We don’t have anything.’

He turned towards her.

‘Shut your kiss me ass mouth, you mother cunt!’

He took a step in her direction.

‘Leave she!’ I snapped. ‘They really don’t have nothing. Let we go!’

He turned towards me.

‘Leave she? You focking gone mad? They must have money hide up somewhere.’ He went back to Mrs Peters and grabbed her shoulder again. ‘You playing focking brave, you bitch? You want me fock you up here?’

No sound came from her.

‘Dog, I tell you they ain’t have nothing!’ I bawled at Slash. ‘Let we get out of here before somebody come.’

‘These two bitches have nothing? Well, I will do for this one!’

He moved back to stand over Mrs Peters. ‘You full of mouth? I will give you something in your mouth!’ He began yanking at his jeans and underwear. ‘You ent have no money? Only big English? Well when I done with you you wouldn’t be able to talk.’ He reached inside his underwear for his cock.

I heard a whimper from Mrs Peters. She shifted a little way from him.

‘Stop it!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. ‘Slash, leave the woman alone! Let us get out of here!’

‘No!’ Slash screamed. ‘She feel she brave. I will show she…’

I grasped his arm, pulled him towards me and started shoving him towards the door. He wrenched himself away and turned towards Mrs Peters’ prone figure. I grabbed his shoulder, twisted him around and pointed the gun to his head.

‘Let us get out of here,’ I said slowly.

At that moment Mrs Peters seemed to come alive again.

‘Joseph?’ she said. ‘Joseph, is that you?’

Slash tried to wrench himself out of my grasp again. As we struggled, I heard Mrs Peter’s voice in the background.

‘Joseph, what are you doing?’ she asked.

Slash escaped me again. I grasped his shirt.

‘Is this what you’ve come to, Joseph?’ Mrs Peters continued. ‘You were such a talented boy.’

‘Shut up!’ I shouted at her, and my grasp slackened. Slash went towards her again, his penis in his hand.

‘Slash,’ I cried, ‘I warning you. I going to shoot.’

He glanced at me. I kept the gun focused on him as Mrs Peters’ precise voice rose from the floor again.

‘You had such a bright future,’ Mrs Peters said.

Suddenly, I grew irritated. What did she know, with all her Shakespeare and Keats, with her proper English and neat clothes?

‘Your mother was so proud of you,’ she murmured. ‘And this is what you’re doing?’

I felt a rage beginning to grow in me. It grew rapidly like a tsunami. She’s trying to manipulate me, I thought, drawing on our joint history to stop us robbing her, using even my poor mother for her purposes. The rage expanded in my guts and seemed to want to explode through my mouth.

I released the safety catch of the gun, shifted it away from Slash and shot Mrs Peters in the chest.

 

∞

 

 

Niala Maharaj is a Trinidadian writer resident in the Netherlands. Her novel, Like Heaven, was published by Random House in 2006.