In World City Read Online Free PDF Page A

The babies seemed pleased to see her though, and Dion soon gave up trying to listen to the words, concentrating instead on the extraordinary sight of a new life just arrived, perfect in itself, as much a part of his grandmother’s world as anything in the forests or rivers.
    People believed Dion’s grandmother actually made the things she foretold happen, and Dion, growing more confident with her, asked if this was true. She nodded her head from side to side, neither affirming nor denying.
    After some moments, she said, “People think what I do is like what they teach in that school you go to... sometimes.” – a pause and a smile, then, “Listen, they think I work like you work with a spanner or one of those computers – just make the right moves and everything work okay. It not like that, Dion. Spanners is a way of doing things that don’t cost you nothin’ – nothin’ personal. You just make the right moves, apply the right muscle and you get what you want. What I do is different. What I do is like going on your knees to the bank manager. Ask nicely and maybe you get that loan you want. You watch me, Dion, and you see I deal with the plants and things round here same as your dad deals with his business people. But there’s plenty know how to talk to business people but not many know how to talk to what’s on this island. They think it just in the way – all that jungle, all those rocks and stuff.
    â€œBut you know all this, Dion. You don’t need me tellin’ you. You saw it all one time. Stick around me and you see how I do it.”
    Dion watched carefully and came to realise his grandmother could see the future because she was living so closely with the world that she felt its intentions in ways that others – who saw that world as an obstacle – could not. He remembered best one evening when they were sitting quietly on the veranda together, his grandmother’s gaze settled on some distance beyond seeing and Dion watching the deep lines that framed her expression ease and flex as she pulled on a clay pipe that had in it something that certainly wasn’t tobacco.
    Abruptly, she took the pipe from her mouth and pointed with its stem. “You see that dog, young Dion? You watch ‘im.”
    A mangy stray was nosing excitedly along their street. The dog cocked its leg against the corner of their veranda, releasing a yellow splash of urine. “Him pissin’ now,” Dion’s grandmother said. “You watch ‘im piss.”
    Dion felt her delight at the spectacle – a dog doing what dogs do. “Him sniffin’ now. Him sniffin’ where that big black bugger that hangs around with Jackson’s boy done pissin.”
    They both watched intently and Dion felt a momentary shift inside himself. For a moment, just a moment, he was on the inside of the dog. He could almost smell what Jackson’s boy’s dog smelt like. “Now you see ‘im go,” Dion’s grandmother urged in a sudden whisper, and the dog pricked up his ears and shot off around the far corner, leaving them laughing, entirely unknowing as to what had set the animal running. Then she pointed to the thin crescent that had just resolved itself in the gathering twilight above Morne Diablotin. “Moon comin’ up now,” she said.
    *
    Dion got to be confident enough with his grandmother to ask what he had seen up on the Cabrits that time when she killed the cock. What had it been that had wheeled across the clearing between the ruined blockhouses?
    â€œNothing you need to know the name of, young Dion,” his grandmother warned.
    Dion persisted. “Suppose I wanted to call him. Would he come if I did the same things you did?”
    â€œDion Lefevre, I tell you what happen if you try that kind of thing,” his grandmother said, staring him straight in the face, more severe even than when he had asked if she turned herself