Excerpt from Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Chapter Fourteen

Jummai stood under the Parsons' veranda, wringing her hands on the apple-dotted apron Ms. Katherine had recently insisted she wear when cooking. Her eyes raked the compound for Elijah. He liked to doze in the hammock behind the Reverend's house or she'd find him crouched against the cowshed, playing a game in the dirt. 

She spotted him in the grapefruit tree, his whitish-looking hair peeking out of a cluster of leaves like a rooster's comb. She waved at him to come down. "Elijah! You know Nami is coming." "I know, I know," he said.

"You have to be ready with your books."

"I already am," he said, hopping out of the branches. A greenskinned fruit plopped off a limb, thumping the ground and rolling down to rest near his shoes.

He sprang up, brushing the little stones and dirt from his knees. "Jummai, I found something. Can I show it to you?" "No, you have to soon eat," she said.

"Please?"

"Elijah, if you make me burn my yam porridge—"

"It'll be quick! I promise."

She followed him on the path that curved behind the house. Last time, the child led her to a harmless spotted snake he had killed with his slingshot. This time, he ran ahead of her to Dr. Landry's house, which was a short slanted walk from the Parsons', past a pineapple patch and plants with flowers as red and bright as tomatoes. The three houses on the compound formed a triangle. Dr. Landry's house faced the front gate. The Parsons and Reverend Jim's houses, with the same roof and blue-painted walls, flanked the doctor's and faced each other. If you stood on the Parsons' veranda at night, you could see into the Reverend's parlor and find Reverend Jim writing sermons with a Bible at his side or reading at one of his two desks. A cowshed and chicken coop also abutted his house. 

On the days Manasseh was not working, Jummai cleaned Dr. Landry and Reverend Jim's houses, so she knew the inside had the same structure as the Parsons: a parlor with enough space for a dining table and chairs made by local carpenters, bedrooms in the back of the house, and the toilets near the bedrooms. The kitchens were connected to the dining room through one door and had second entrances that led outside. Each kitchen had shelves, wood stoves, bottled gas ovens, and kerosene refrigerators. 

"Over here," Elijah said, grabbing Jummai's hand.

She fixed her wrapper to her hip and yielded to his pull. They walked deeper into the doctor's yard, between robust stalks of banana plants, whose leaves were tattered from the wind.

"See," Elijah said, giving a stalk an unnecessary kick. "I told you. All the bottles I found. Look—it's a lot of them."

Jummai pushed aside the large leaves. Elijah had unearthed empty bottles of varying brands: Guinness, Heineken, and Stout. The unlabeled ones must have held palm wine. The green and brown glass glittered like beetle shells in the sunlight. Elijah had heaped the scooped-out dirt around the hole, and the pit contained enough bottles to entertain a number of tables at Shigudu's beer parlor. Had someone sneaked into the mission compound and put rubbish in the doctor's backyard? Her second thought— Dr. Landry was drinking—was probably closer to the truth. The doctor did not remind her of her father who used to stumble home late at night after drinking, stubbing his feet against her and her mother's sleeping bodies and cursing in the darkness. Was she not used to seeing things and shutting her mouth? When Tin City beat her mother, had Jummai said anything to anybody? No, she had simply gone and minded her business. They should leave Dr. 

Landry's yard and go back to the house.

"It's rubbish," she said to confuse Elijah.

His grin lapsed. "No, it's not. It's like Treasure Island."

"You're here wasting my time. You're too old for such things."

Excerpted from Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian. Copyright © 2024 by Afabwaje Kurian. Excerpted by permission of Dzanc Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.