Anyway, where was I? Yes, that’s right—my journalistic curiosity, my propensity for trouble, whatever you care to call it. Whatever it was that propelled me forward on my bicycle that morning, not backward; whatever it was that made me advance into the riot, not retreat. I don’t know where it came from, whether it was the clamor of my Lightfoot blood or some quality particular to me, Lulu. As I recall the scene—as I watch myself from a distance, reckless girl-woman on a bicycle in wartime Nassau—I think of what my mother said, when I arrived home in the taxi Lightfoot’s secretary had called for me, that day I absconded to Manhattan. She didn’t take me in her arms and shower me with kisses or anything like that, because she wasn’t that kind of mother. She came up to the taxi window and paid the driver and then marched me into the house, into the kitchen, where Leo and Vanessa sat in their pajamas, eyes like pies. Mama took my plate of supper from the oven and set it before me. Meat loaf and canned peas, I remember that. Also the familiar blue floral pattern along the rim of the plate, and the chip on the side near the peas. As I ate, she watched me, and when I was nearly finished she said (now this is important, so pay attention): I don’t know what you’re looking for, Lulu, but whatever it is, it’s going to kill you before you ever find it. And the tone of her voice was that of someone reading her own eulogy.

I think of my mother’s words often, because they hung over me from that day onward, and they sometimes return to me still, as when I recall the Burma Road riot. Certainly I had never in my life felt more vulnerable than when I pushed my bicycle into that crowd of black Bahamian men making their way down Bay Street with their pine clubs and their fury. I had also never felt more alive, more filled with purpose.

I kept my head down and drove forward. I focused my determination on the lamppost across the street, while men poured around me and into me, shouting and chanting, and the sound of smashing glass went off like a series of bombs. I don’t think they even noticed me; they were intent on a larger purpose than one foolish white woman and her damn bicycle. Someone stumbled into my rear wheel and swore and moved on. A shoulder banged against mine, but I think that was an accident. As I reached the other side of the street, I looked up and traced the stream of humanity down Bay Street. About a hundred yards away, a truck bearing the Coca-Cola logo was parked against the curb. A man stood at its open rear door, handing out crates and crates of bottles, and the rioters were pitching them through windows, into walls. I clapped my hand over my mouth and turned back, but in that moment of inattention, a force took hold of my bicycle. I looked up into someone’s ferocious face.