The man takes out his wallet and Delores’s heart leaps in her throat. “Give me two of those in a large, the tank in a small.” He points at the Tshirts. Once he makes his purchase, his wife, as though given permission to grab as many local souvenirs as possible, purchases a woven basket—“For your mom”—more bracelets with Rasta colors—“For Alan and Miranda”—and a couple of the rag dolls decked in festival dresses—“For the girls.”
By the time they’re done, they have bought half of what Delores had. Only Delores can sell this many souvenirs in a day, because, unlike the other hagglers, she knows she has a gold mine at home—a daughter she has to support—one who is going to be a doctor. She does it for Thandi. As she stuffs the foreign dollars, which will be saved inside the old mattress on the bed that she shares with her mother, inside her brassiere, Delores is convinced that someday all her sacrifices will be paid back. Tenfold.
Thandi wants more. She searches for it in Mr. Levy’s Wholesale Shop, which is right across the street from Dino’s Bar on River Bank Road—the only road that takes people in and out of River Bank, a former fishing village on the outskirts of Montego Bay where Thandi has lived all her life. Mr. Levy’s Wholesale and Dino’s are the only two businesses left since the seafood shacks closed down. The construction and the drought have not only driven the fishermen out of work, but out of River Bank, leaving behind a community with not much to live off besides the highly taxed groceries each month at Mr. Levy’s.
Mr. Levy’s Wholesale has been around since the beginning of time, it seems. The shop has fed generations of River Bank residents. Like the evolving population it serves, Mr. Levy’s Wholesale has changed owners many times—the business being passed down from father to son to grandson to great-grandson to great-great-grandson. The current Mr. Levy looks just like his predecessors, squinting into the black faces that yell their orders—“Missah Chin, Gimme a quarter poun’ ah rice. Gimme a pound ah flour. Beg yuh a bag a sugah nuh, missah Chin? Me will pay yuh lata. Gimme a cake soap wid baby oil.” Though Mr. Levy’s name is written on the outside of the store in bright red paint, people still refer to the owner as Mr. Chin by virtue of him being Chinese. Mr. Levy’s wife is a stone-faced woman who silently fetches the orders in the back. His two sons sometimes work the register when he slips out with his wife to eat lunch or dinner behind the mesh door, where customers can see them devouring spoonfuls of steamed rice or noodles. The shop carries a small quantity of staple goods like rice, milk, cornmeal, Panadol for colds or flu, Foska Oats, tin mackerel, spices, bread, and butter. Once or twice Thandi has spotted something exotic. Like last month when she discovered a chocolate bar that she had never seen before—the purple wrapper emblazoned with gold letters. Chocolat De L’amour. She tried it. Savored the richness of it on her tongue, on the roof of her mouth. The shop is always hot and stuffy, the warm air constantly being blown by a large fan in a corner. People go in and out. There’s nothing else they can do; if they lingered for too long they would faint from heat exhaustion or the smell of cat piss, courtesy of the big brown and white cat that sits by the counter and licks its paws. Thandi musters up the courage to raise her voice when Mr. Levy squints in her direction. “May I have a pound of rice and a bag of cornmeal, please?” She says this in perfect English, which attracts the stares of some people in the store. But the old “Chiney” man is unimpressed. He absently reaches for the items and shouts, “Five dolla!” without so much as a glance at her. His short fingers leaf through the Observer before him. Thandi wonders if he has ever seen her face. She wonders if he thinks she’s like all the others. With his eyes half closed, all black faces probably look the same to him. Behind the counter, Thandi identifies the Queen of Pearl crème that Miss Ruby told her to get. Another exotic thing Mr. Levy carries.