No Pain Like This Body Read Online Free PDF Page A

the green stuff went out­side the cut. She took her fingers and ran them gently down her forehead. Then she loosed her orhni from her head. Her hair was black as a black fowl, and much longer than a leather belt. She held the silky headdress with both hands, then she ripped a piece off with her jaw teeth. She took the strip and dressed the wound. She took the orhni and tied up her head again.
    The rain didn’t care about Tola. Rain was pounding the earth. Ma and Balraj saw the drops; they looked like fat white worms invading the earth from above. God was trying to tie the earth and the sky with the rain drops. The whole of Tola was dark and dismal.
    The wind didn’t care about Tola. The wind was beating the rain and the rain was pounding the earth. There were no lights in the sky; all that Ma and Balraj saw were layers and layers of blackness and rage. The choking sound of the thunder came from the sky zip zip zip crash doom doomm doomed! Then the lightning moved as a gold cutlass and swiped an immortelle tree beyond the river.
    Balraj twisted as a shadow with fright. He did his hands so, and his feet went so, and his lips shook as two dry leaves shak­ing in the wind. His teeth were hitting each other as dry bamboo twigs toorot toorot tat tat toorot. He breathed hoosh hash hoosh hash as a carpenter’s saw.
    Ma sat with her back resting against the heavy mango trunk. She sat just as a piece of old cloth rammed into the cor­ner of two tapia walls. The water ran down the mango trunk and fell on her back clat clat clat, then it ran behind her back and the tree and fell inside the drain.
    When the lightning struck the tree in Tola Forest, Sunaree, Rama and Panday stood up like pillars in the trace; they were afraid; their hearts were beating dub! dub! dub! They tried to see the forest, but they barely made out the long mango tree. The rain was falling as if God was cleaning out the sky with water and rage. They stood together and prayed, but the rain drops touched their skins as needles, and they felt fear and pain covering them up. It was painful, but they had to move on. They were still running south along Tola Trace; they ran until they reached the long mango tree. Ma saw them.
    Ma was shocked. She thought all the time that they were safe inside the house, safe from the wind and the rain, safe from Pa too. Ma called out, “Where all you goin chirens?”
    Sunaree and Panday ran under the tree. Rama stood on the trace and watched the mango tree fearfully. “I not goin under dat tree,” he said. “Dat mango tree leanin over de trace. I (raid it fall on top me.”
    â€œIt not goin to fall,” Ma said.
    â€œBut it leanin over de trace.”
    Ma had a hard time proving to Rama that he was going to be safe under the mango tree. She argued that the lightning was not going to come under the tree, because God was guid­ing the lightning through the darkness and the rain with his bright eyes. Rama still didn’t believe that; he just stood by the drain and watched Ma with fear and doubt in his eyes.
    Ma got up. She held Rama’s hand and brought him under the long mango tree. She made him sit on top of Balraj; Balraj didn’t like the idea of Rama sitting on his lap, but he didn’t say anything. Sunaree and Panday sat on the ground. Ma tried to shelter them from the wind and the rain. She placed her hands against the rough bark as if she was holding up the tree. But Ma was a fool. The wind didn’t care and the rain didn’t care. Ma was not a banana leaf; she was not strong as iron; she was not as fat as a ricebag; she was thinner than a burnt sugarcane and her hands were thinner than cutlass wire. Large black ants began climbing down the tree. One stung Ma in her right hand.
    â€œAll you chirens move from by de tree!”
    Balraj, Sunaree, Rama and Panday moved from under the tree. They stood on Tola Trace and looked at Ma.
    Ma stood under the tree and thought of