I met Black Maharajin on one of those blue Trinidadian nights
during the Carnival season; an auspicious night for me since it was the
first time my mother let me go to the mas camp at night with my father.
This was my father’s secret life, an old house on Irving Street in San
Fernando turned into a mas camp, away from the scrutiny of our village,
away from our respectable Presbyterian life. My mother never went to
the mas camp. “I didn’t grow up going to no mas camp at night,” she said,
furiously cutting patterns on our living room table when my father, last
minute as usual and less talented than my mother, brought the patterns
home for her to cut. “Is not a place for young ladies,” she told me. And
then she boofed me. “I don’t know why you always keep begging me to
go after I tell you no, is not a place for you.”
But we wore her down, my father and I, and one Friday night
before Carnival my father took me to his mas camp. I was nine
years old. Luckily my father was busy so I could wander about by
myself, maneuvering through the people who had gathered inside
the mas camp and outside on the pavement. Inside, there were men
and women cutting fabric, sewing, and gluing glitter and feathers
to costumes. There were also people liming and drinking, giving
advice to the mas-people, and pronouncing over the fate of the mas:
whether the band would be put together in time for Carnival, or if it
would buss as usual. Outside was also crowded, and that was where
I first saw Black Maharajin, standing in a makeshift wooden booth,
frying phoulouries and accras and f loats in big iron pots. She had
a serious face, and she seemed contented. I saw that despite the
new streetlights she had surrounded her booth with f lambeaux, and
the orange f lares created a romantic street ambience that attracted
everyone. She managed to see me through the people surrounding
her, and she knew, somehow, that I was Larry’s daughter, and that my
name was Annaise. She motioned me inside her booth and poin