Stories set in the past
This Sunday Guardian WE Bookshelf features Trinidad-born lawyer and self-published author Tricia Chin whose books include “Tabanca and Other Stories”, “Parang the Wrong House”, “For the Dead”, and “A True Trini Christmas”.
Chin, who grew up in Brasso, central Trinidad, says from the time she wrote her first story, “Tabanca”, in 2020 during the pandemic Trinidadian patois and history came to life for her. Chin’s “love for words” intertwined with her passion for West Indian history in stories set between 1798 and 1900. Writing historical stories remains for Chin, a means of exploring “Caribbean people, our culture and history.”
Chin “indie published” “Tabanca and Other Stories” in 2021. She printed 36 copies using a local printer, expecting to sell to family and friends, but the book quickly found its audience. Chin says since then, she sold copies of “Tabanca and Other Stories continuously” in local bookstores.
Excerpt from Tabanca and Other Stories by Tricia Chin with express permission from the author exclusively for the Sunday Guardian:
“When Mr Frederick woke up that Monday morning before Christmas, he woke up with a song in his heart. It would be wrong to say that the song was in his head because, in all honesty, he heard the song from his chest first, and so if anyone had asked him, he had woken up with a song in his heart. It was an old song, one he’d heard maybe in movies first and later sometimes played on the piano. He knew it instantly, though he’d not heard it in years. For a little bit that Monday morning, before he swung his legs off his bed and into his bedroom slippers, he lay in bed, humming the tune, trying to get his mind to catch up to the song that his chest already played. “Yes”, he found himself shaking his head and getting off the bed. “Yes, that’s it!” He snapped his fingers and danced to the gramophone he kept serviced and well-covered in the living room. He found the record he wanted in his library, put it on the turntable and set the needle. The song came out with that smooth, rich sound of the 1950s even as he boiled his morning coffee and oats. “The old Dick Haymes,” he sang to himself that morning as he set out a morning suit for the day’s walk. “The old Dick Haymes,” he hummed as he shined the brown leather shoes that had been left at the back of his cupboard, unused for years. “The old Dick Haymes.”
He shook his head as he snatched up the ivory-headed cane that his nephew in Maryland had sent him years ago but he’d never used. He gave himself a little spin, twirling in his leather shoes and soft wool socks. He tipped his brown felt hat to himself in the mirror and thought, I’ll put a poinsettia in the band of this hat. Yes, why not. And he left his house for the first time in a while without Priscilla Hannigan putting her head out the window and asking him where he was going.
As Mr Frederick slipped down the road, barely walking, he felt so light, almost as if he was floating, the song played in his head again and again. And he hummed it with soft joy and reverence. For such a joy-filled character, it’s hard to see how the phrase “all hell broke loose” could possibly apply. But on that Monday before Christmas, in the village of Mayaro, it could be safely said that hell, all of it, had well and truly broken loose.
We know what happened until Mr Frederick walked up that hill; poor Ms Priscilla would never forgive herself again for not putting her head out the window and telling her neighbour “Good morning”. So many things wouldn’t have been such a surprise, she told herself, over and over again. But what happened after the hill over which Mr Frederick had disappeared with a massive potted red poinsettia in hand?
For that, my friends, we go to Lucy, who was just leaving the post office and couldn’t help herself; she just had to follow Mr Frederick down the hill with his poinsettia in the crook of his arm, unbothered about dirt on his clean, crisp suit, and walking down the road, jolly as can be. As Lucy followed, she saw Mr Frederick take his familiar turn into Lee’s shop. She entered the shop and told herself she had some things to buy there, but lo and behold, when she entered the shop, the entire shop stood still and quiet. When her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the building Lucy could see Mr Frederick, propped up on the counter, holding the hand of Ms Lee herself! Lucy almost dropped the chicken she had bought that day at the market right on the floor!
The sight of Ms Lee, the oldest, most crotchety woman in all of Mayaro, blushing and smiling as Mr Frederick whispered to her across the potted poinsettia! No one in the shop knew what to do. Henry peeped out from behind the corned beef as if the tins could defend him. Vashti looked around the blue soap, hoping no one would see her. Little Tallman peeked up from behind his grandmother Mama Strongy’s skirts, and Mama Strongy herself, a woman given to few surprises in this life, could only hold the package to her chest and watch on in alarm.
What was going on here? Was the collective thought as Mr Frederick finished his whisperings, tipped his hat to Ms Lee and everyone else in the shop, and ambled out as if nothing had happened. When the spell was broken, and everyone looked at each other, embarrassed though they could not say why, Ms Lee was nowhere to be found. Only Young Patrick, who kept the shop for her after school and on weekends, was behind the counter. The potted red poinsettia was nowhere in sight. What really happening here? Lucy wondered to herself as everyone went back to their business.
Lucy replayed the whole scene to Ms Priscilla over the telephone in the next hour, describing everything. But Ms. Priscilla could make neither heads nor tails of the whole thing, so she called Ms Naman to do the whole analysis. It was that call that Ms Naman took, and it took so long that she forgot the peas she had to cook for her husband. By the time poor Mr Naman came home from San Juan, all he could get was corned beef, bread, and a whole headful of talk about Mr Frederick. That whole week, the village of Mayaro felt like it was on tenterhooks.”
–End of Excerpt
Tricia Chin is a European Commission (Erasmus Mundus Program) scholarship winner who earned her Masters in Law in Spain, The Netherlands and Germany) began writing in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.