After my fisherman opened the necessary talks on island politics, my landlady was quick to follow. She appeared one evening, under the pretext of fetching various ripe fruits which had fallen from trees in the backyard.

She chided me ever so gently for letting good fruits go to waste. I reminded her that I was but one man and could not possibly eat all the fruits the ridiculously huge backyard offered up.  This led her to wonder about my living alone like that.  I quickly changed the topic to the weather and offered how pleasant the weather had been for the past few days. She agreed, delighted that we were alike in our love for pleasant weather.

When her delight over us having something in common was almost spent, she dragged the conversation back to wondering at my living alone in such a huge house.  She confessed that she had been very surprised to learn that the person interested in the largest of her properties was a single man.  A single… not-so old man at that.  Then, she was back to chiding me for letting good fruit go to waste.  And, before long, she was chiding natives in general for doing the same, and in turn, the local government for not placing a more serious focus on agriculture.

She informed me that much of the island’s foods- ground provisions and such- were shipped from a nearby Dominica on what was commonly known as “fig boats”.  She herself is a Dominican native. Two to three decades ago, she migrated to Antigua- as a very young girl of course.  Back then, she had to get used to being mocked by Antiguans who accused her of having arrived on a “fig boat”.  She didn’t really like the looks of the island when she first arrived. (That was another thing we had in common, but I decided to stay mum lest she should get very delighted again.)

“Antiguans don’t really like foreigners,” she stated simply, arranging the guavas in her basket so that they sat atop the mangoes and passion fruits.   Guavas, mangoes and passion fruits arranged- she grinned up at me:  “or maybe that’s just something the politicians want us to believe.”  After almost three decades on the island, she had it all figured out.  And she was quite willing to share her findings with me.

As far as she was concerned, “the foreigner thing” was just something politicians on either side used to their advantage to drum up fear and in turn capture native and foreign votes.  She, herself, got along very well with most Antiguans.   Her Antiguan friends often joke that she is really no longer a Dominican. She has, in fact, over the years, learnt to prefer seeking out Antiguan friends over her fellow Dominicans.  She had long discovered that in a land other than her birth, there was no one as dangerous as her fellow Dominicans.

By the time I had fetched the lemonade and was serving her, she was on to discussing the need for a bit of chaos in the political system. Things were too balanced- the two parties too alike.  A third party was needed- a third wheel of sorts to make things uncomfortable for politicians and a people who had gotten too comfortable. Though she was sure a third party would never be successful in a small island- she was adamant that one was needed.

However, a second glass of lemonade later, she was settling for a two-party state – if only fresher and less corrupt blood was introduced to the system. Three parties might create confusion with a third party having “deal breaker” power.  She was still very much surprised that I was living all alone in such a huge house.  But, she really didn’t mind that arrangement so much. Indeed, if there was a Mrs. Damien in the picture, she would very much be a third wheel, since between work and a wife, I wouldn’t have time to sit like this with her.

(V).Damien