Joshua

Joshua had not killed in more than two years.

Spirits filled his dreams but did not rouse him. Above his bed, they bobbed in pools of shadows. Lips torn, teeth broken, they spat and gurgled. Yet Joshua's was the sleep of the dead.

He was in love.

In his thirteen years, Joshua had never seen anyone as beautiful as Carmen Navidad. From ten after eleven until noon, he watched her jet-black hair caress her neck and her backside rise and fall as she walked.

He beamed at her praise. His tingled under her smile. His head spun at her scent of cassava and red peppers. He could hardly believe his luck.

At his previous school, more than one hundred orphans packed a single classroom. Bigger students shoehorned into wooden desks. Smaller ones huddled on dusty cement.

Everything was shared. Pencils. Books. Sweltering claustrophobia. Knuckle-stinging reprimands. The wooden, dangling Christ. Blue-eyed looks of disapproval.

By contrast, the fourteen classrooms at Ronald V. Dellums Middle School sported new carpet and tall windows. In Joshua's social studies class, a string of ten clocks topped a double-length chalkboard. White placards hung above them. Written in block letters were the names of famous cities.

SAN FRANCISCO -- 11:18. NEW YORK -- 2:18. LONDON -- 7:18. PARIS -- 8:18. CAIRO -- 9: 19. MOSCOW 10:18. KARACHI -- 12:18. HONG KONG 3:18. TOKYO -- 4:18.

Two yellow and brown maps -- one depicting the ancient world, another the new -- draped the right wall adjoining the hallway. Below them sat honeycombed shelves stuffed with maps, travel guides and navigational aids. A computer work station stood in the corner. Six high windows, opened with the aid of curved brass handles, dominated the opposite wall. Against the windows pressed a field of black asphalt, rusted crabgrass and silver chain link.

Joshua intrigued Ms. Navidad. He was unlike other blacks she taught. He said "Please" and "Thank you." His white shirts, pressed slacks and polished shoes reminded her of the uniformed schoolboys of her youth. He devoured books with the earnestness of her immigrant father. Tom Clancey. Now that's a guy who knows how to tell a good story, he liked to say. A real American.

Despite being displaced by civil war, Joshua had a solid academic grounding. He was strong in math and geography. His seventh-grade teachers marveled at his spoken English, which they all agreed excelled that of his peers. It's not even his native language. Can you believe it? He hasn't even been in the States for a year.

Still, he needed help if he was going to this semester's state-wide proficiency test. That being the case, Ms. Navidad had during a recent departmental meeting volunteered to tutor him once a week during lunch. Besides, he was already in her fourth period class and, modest protestations aside, her colleagues noted he'd clearly taken a shine to her. Lastly, the school's principal and counselor felt her degree in French Literature, with a minor in developmental psychology, would help Joshua overcome any remaining cultural difficulties. What did she have to lose?

* * * * * * * * * * *

"Well," Ms. Navidad said, glancing at her watch. "We're about out of time. You've got fifteen minutes before fifth period starts."

"It's okay, mademoiselle." Joshua smiled at the thought that he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Using his left hand as an anchor, he wrapped wrinkled cellophane around a half-eaten tuna sandwich. He stuffed it, and a spotted banana peel, into the paper bag he'd used as a place mat, then shoved the parcel into his backpack. With his good hand, he swept errant crumbs off the teacher's broad desk and into a green, plastic trash can.

Ms. Navidad crinkled her eyes at Joshua's lanky frame. "You don't eat very much."

Joshua grinned. "That's not what Sister Marie-Claire used to say." He hoisted his shoulders and planted a fist on each hip. In a high-pitched voice, he said, "Boy, you eat more than a whole village."

The teacher laughed at his imitation. "The Sister was a friend of yours?" She leaned back in her swivel chair, crossed her left leg over her right, removed a high-heeled sandal and pressed her thumbs into the bottom of her foot.

Joshua stole glances at her calves and thighs. They were the color of honey. The nails on her hands and feet were tapered into points and shallaqued red. Dime-sized circles of white and red appeared and disappeared on her pale sole. Suddenly self-conscious, he grabbed the test workbook from the desk and jammed it on top of his leftovers.

"She was at St. Leo's, the missionary school I attended before coming to America. She was more like a big sister than a nun. We all loved her very much." It's all right, just keep talking, he told himself.

"Every day," he continued, "She would come into the courtyard and play soccer. She was very fast." He hunched over like a sprinter, alternately jabbing one arm ahead of the other. "Not even the oldest boys could catch her."

Ms. Navidad nodded. "She sounds very fast."

"Oh yes, mademoiselle. Even in her, her.....I don't the word, q'uest que c'est, outfit -- "

"Habit."

"Yes, habit. Even in her habit, she slipped like a fish through the opposing team." He snaked his head from side to side. "And her left foot. Magnifique!"

"It sounds like you play pretty well yourself." She replaced the shoe, re-crossed her legs and began working her opposite foot.

"I play a little." Joshua's cheeks grew hot.

"Sounds like more than a little." Ms. Navidad's voice was playful, almost teasing.

Joshua said nothing but pleasure brightened his lowered gaze. She raised foreign desires in him yet reminded him of home. He stole glances at her olive skin, her brown eyes, her full, pink lips, the flowing curves of her waist and hips, her bare legs and pedicured feet. Warm waves rolled off her body. He squirmed under a sudden erection.

"Is she still at the school?" Ms. Navidad asked.

Joshua leaned over and fiddled with the zipper on his backpack. Beads of sweat blossomed above his brow. His excitement poked the bottom of his belly. "The Sister?"

"Who else?" The young teacher replaced her sandal, settled her feet together on the floor and straightened her skirt. It fit snugly, despite half-foot slits at the bottom of each side. It was a dark blue and matched her short-sleeved silk blouse.

"Oh, yes, Sister Marie-Claire." Joshua hoisted the backpack onto his lap, as if preparing to leave. Look her in the eye, he thought. When he finally did so, he saw dark chocolate. He jerked his eyes toward the door, as if seeking an escape route.

"Are you all right?" Ms. Navidad touched his forehead with the back of her hand. "You seem a little warm. Are you coming down with something?" She furrowed her brows in concern.

"I'm fine, mademoiselle." He drew away from her hand. Keep talking, he told himself. It will go away if you just keep talking. "A few months before I left, she was sent to a mission in Mambasa. The other sisters said help was needed at a new refugee camp near the Rwandan border. But an older boy, Jules, said Sister was being punished for being too much like us."

Joshua paused, reliving the memory in his mind. The moment seemed to settle upon him like a cool mist, dampening his voice and spirit. His erection ebbed. "Jules, he was from Brazzaville, said Father Delacroix wanted to remind Sister where she was from, that she was an orphan and could be sent back."

"Why would the Father do that?" Ms. Navidad sounded skeptical.

"She was fun." A sad smile punctuated the explanation, which to Joshua seemed more than sufficient.

"I'm sure she's all right," Ms. Navidad said breezily.

Despite her assurances, Joshua wasn't so certain. He glanced at the clock. Six minutes remained until the beginning of fifth period. He intended to savor every one of them. "Are you from the Bay Area?"

"Born and raised." Ms. Navidad stood, turned round and faced the blackboard behind their chairs. Using a dusty eraser, she swiped across it in long arcs. She then plucked a piece of yellow chalk from box resting atop the board's grooved aluminum sill and began writing lecture highlights for her next class.

Joshua ignored the hint. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Two older sisters, Noel and Danielle." She shuttled back and forth across the board as she spoke. "Noel's three years older and lives in Daly City with her husband and her two sons. Danielle is a year-and-a-half older and lives in El Cerrito, just down the street from my mom and dad. She has three daughters."

"Such a big family." Joshua smiled his appreciation.

"Both my parents come from big families," the teacher replied. "My mother has three brothers and two sisters. They live over in the City. My father has four brothers." The chalk briefly hovered as she recounted her lineage. "They'd planned about moving the whole family from Manila and starting a restaurant business but my dad was the only one who left. My grandfather died and the brothers decided to stay and take care of my grandmother."

Joshua glanced at the clock. "Did your grandparents have a restaurant?"

"It more like a big roadside food stall, really." Ms. Navidad set down the chalk and returned to the desk. "My dad said it was enough to support the family but I'm sure it wasn't anything like his place here. Maybe you've been there, Celia's, down on Fourth Street near the freeway?"

Joshua nodded but said, "I've never been there."

Still standing, she shuffled some papers on her desk. "Maybe you can go there with your step-parents some time. My sisters and I worked there growing up. Bussing. Waiting tables. Running the register." She unfastened the strap of her watch and placed on the edge of the desk between herself and the boy. "I worked there all the way through college and graduate school, even though my dad said I didn't need to."

"Where did you go to college?"

"Cal-State Hayward." She crossed her arms and looked squarely at him. "It's time for you to go, young man. You don't want to be late."

Although tempted to linger, Joshua thought better of it. "All right, mademoiselle." He scooped up his belongings, slung his backpack over his right shoulder and ambled toward the door. When he reached the crescent-shaped door handle, he looked back over his left shoulder. A bientot."

* * * * * * * * * * *

Remembering Sister Marie-Claire pulled Joshua out of his amorous reverie. His family was gone yet he was no longer an orphan. He knew he was supposed to feel thankful but instead felt a vague emptiness. The realization made him feel guilty. He imagined Father Delecroix squinting behind gold-rimmed glasses atop his bulbous nose, chiding Joshua and "his kind" for their innate ingratitude.

During the months he'd been with them, Fred and Audrey Gilreath had been diligent about making Joshua feel at home. Immediately upon his arrival at Oakland International Airport, they piled into a rented minivan and, after satisfying themselves that the boy wasn't too tired, hit the road.

They told him all about how they'd first met while undergraduates nearly 20 years ago at a little restaurant/bar called Spat's, located just beneath the university on Shattuck Avenue. They shared stories about their families. Both only children, he'd been born in Sacramento while she was from Boulder, Colorado. And -- with the help of photographs Audrey had packed in a box from Crate & Barrel -- they reminisced about their annual vacations to Africa and the Caribbean. When we travel outside the U.S., Audrey explained, we like to be around black folks.

In four weeks, they swept through twenty-one states, twelve baseball stadiums and thirty-seven rib joints. Between stops, they sang lyrics by the Commodores, the Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind and Fire. Ultimately, Joshua's undeniable talent forced Fred to yield the falsetto tenor leads. Audrey opined the words sounded better with Joshua's French overtones. Fred grudgingly agreed.

After returning home, the couple took Joshua to the recently opened Ikea outlet in Emeryville. After visiting the showroom, they wandered through the adjoining warehouse where, with the help of a forklift, they pulled a queen-sized bed, a chest of drawers and a desk from a labyrinth of quadruple-decker metal shelves. Despite renting a pick-up truck from U-haul, ferrying the furniture required two trips. Assembling the booty took several hours.

The next afternoon, they searched for finishing touches at Stonestown Mall. After some debate, Audrey permitted Fred to purchase a 15" television and Sony Playstation. To their surprise, Joshua opted for a poster of Michael Jordan to go with one of Liberian soccer star George Weah. "I am not, how do you say, a space man," he explained. "How could I not know 'Be Like Mike?' "

Joshua liked Audrey from the start. Her grace and quick wit echoed that of his maternal aunts. An attorney, she never hesitated to tell her husband what she thought, invariably eliciting blustery objections trailed by conciliatory chuckles.

Try as he might, he could not love her as he had his mother. Her embrace was too lean, like the long-distance runner she once was. Her tuna casserole was too bland. And in the evenings, when she bid him goodnight, her gaze was studied in a way that made him uneasy.

Fred acted nothing at all like Joshua's biological father. Although he never hesitated to accompany Joshua to his monthly checkups at Children's Hospital, he wasn't much of a conversationalist when Audrey wasn't around. Unfortunately, his inherent shyness was misinterpreted as aloofness, a feeling reinforced by long periods spent away from home during which he tutored students and chaired faculty meetings at UC Berkeley's African American Studies Department, or acted as informal advisor to Dorthea Davis, the city's sole Aframerican city councilmember.

In truth, while initially ecstatic over Joshua's presence, the couple wasn't used to sharing their time. Child-rearing was more exhausting than they'd presumed. As the weeks and months passed, guilt and apprehension generated increasing tension. Actualized and self-aware, they sought advice from friends and colleagues with children, none of which proved particularly enlightening. I don't think that really speaks to the issue, Fred often groused.

That Saturday, Joshua was left largely to his own devices, which given the feelings dredged up by the recent conversation with his teacher, he was more than happy to deal with. After assuring Audrey he would be okay, he shooed her to the 10 a.m. session at the Seventh Heaven Yoga Studio. Fred, meanwhile, escaped to the tennis courts at San Pablo Park. Much later, they gathered in the living room for veggie pizza and a Blockbuster version of "The Titanic."

The next morning, they brunched at Saul's, poked their heads in Black Oak Books, then headed up the street to the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. Although not deeply spiritual, Fred and Audrey appreciated the church's tolerant, activist bent. Indeed, its pastor, Stephen Hightower, was a long-time friend who'd played a significant part in helping with Joshua's emigration. He'd even recommended a medical specialist who wound up fitting Joshua with a prosthetic hand.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Esmarelda Navidad was in one of her moods. Big trouble brewed whenever she started flapping her arms and hands around. When they were young, the girls nicknamed their mother "the chicken," though they'd have gotten a slap across the face if she'd ever heard them say it. Carmen decided the best thing to do was just ride it out.

"Really, dear," the older woman said, peering over her daughter's shoulder to survey the restaurant floor. "I don't understand why you're spending so much time on this one student. He'll probably end up dropping out anyway."

Carmen checked the impulse to roll her eyes. "I told you, mama. He's not like the others." She craned her neck and followed her mother's gaze. The latter watched as Jackie, a recently hired waitress, chatted with Izzie, a long-time patron. "She could rest a tray on that butt."

Esmerelda stifled a giggle. "She's a good worker." Her attention returned to her daughter. Lowering her voice, she said, "I just wish she'd get here on time. I know she doesn't have a car but what is it with these people?"

"It's not easy getting around on public transportation, mama," Carmen said. "Have you ever ridden the bus?"

"Of course not," her mother replied. "You know better than that."

"All I'm saying is it's not easy," her daughter said. "Still, it was nice of you to hire her."

"We all have to do our part."

"That's all I'm doing, mama."

Esmerelda sighed. "I suppose so." She uncapped a small, glass bottle and began applying a clear finish to her nails. "Where'd you say he was from?"

"The Republic of Congo."

"The Republic of Congo."

"He's had a hard life," Carmen said.

"We've all had it hard," the older woman said. "Your father had it hard, coming here by himself at 18-years-old, $300 dollars in his pocket. That's hard."

"I know, mama."

"At least this boy has a family, not like the others."

"His step-parents are very nice," Carmen confirmed. "I met them at the last open house."

"Are they black or African?"

"Mama!"

"Don't 'mama' me," Esmerelda said. "It's a simple question."

"They're African American."

It was her mother's turn to roll her eyes. "What's the difference? Negro. African America. Black is black." She paused and peered through her glasses at the nails on her left hand. The rectangular frames were perched low on her nose. A thin gold chain snaked behind her head from the top of one ear to the other.

"You know better than that," Carmen said.

"Oh, please," Esmerelda said. "Every class you were in, the blacks were the dumbest ones, from grade school on up." She pursed her mouth and puffed on her nails. "I don't care if it's politically correct or not." She pawed both hands in the air for emphasis. "It's true."

"There weren't very many in Catholic school, anyway."

"See what I mean?"

"That doesn't prove anything."

"Doesn't it?"

"What about Bobby Dawson?" Carmen said. "He was third in our senior class."

"You mean the basketball player?" Esmerelda snorted. "He was third in your class?"

"Yes, he was."

"Well, there's always an exception," the older woman said, shifting her efforts to her opposite hand. "That doesn't prove anything."

"White people used to say the same thing about Filipinos, mama."

"That's true." Esmerelda's brows furrowed. "But I don't see Filipino kids selling drugs and shooting each other on TV." Her forehead stretched out in triumph. "What do you say to that, Miss Smarty Pants?"

Carmen laughed at her mother's audacity. "Nothing, mama."

"Well, then," her mother said. "Now, don't you have anything better to do than bother me on a Saturday?" She finished coating the nail on her right pinkie and replaced the small brush inside the bottle. "You know I have to do the books."

Carmen played along. "I know, mama."

"Then why don't you go home and correct some papers or something?" She slid the glasses off her nose, leaving them to dangle over her collarbone. "Better yet, go find a nice young man and start making me some grandchildren."

Carmen reached down to retrieve her purse from the floor. "I told you, mama. I already finished the papers. I'll do the tests tomorrow."

"On Sunday?"

"After mass."

"I guess I should thank God for small favors." She crossed herself, replaced her glasses and watched Jackie as she moved behind the cash register. "What time are you coming by in the morning?'

"The same time as usual, mama. Eight-thirty, just like always."

"Well, don't be late." She continued looking over her daughter's shoulder. "You know how your father gets when we're late."

"Am I ever?"

"Just you don't."

"Yes, mama."

* * * * * * * * * * *