—The Globe and Mail

IRON BALLOONS

“The story comes at you with hurricane force and an irresistible title, ‘How to Beat a Child the Right and Proper Way.’ ‘The Right and Proper Way’ is a big breath of a piece … and something of a tour de force.”

—The New York Times

“A collection of short fiction compiled and edited by author Colin Channer, Iron Balloons offers some of today’s most prominent Caribbean writers.… All eleven authors in Iron Balloons know how to tell a story, how to draw richly human characters possessed of complicated motivations. The pacing is generally expert … events turn surprising, then disquieting. Inconspicuous clues pave the way to unexpected destinations.”

—The Toronto Star

“Editor and contributor Colin Channer brings together eleven short stories that were developed and/or polished in Jamaica’s Calabash Writer’s Workshop … The stories share a focus on lushly drawn, believably human characters, while their settings and moods are pleasingly diverse.”

—Boston Herald

“In ‘How to Beat a Child,’ Channer’s imagery is so vivid that the brutal whipping depicted in the story can almost be heard. But Channer allows the beater, a mother straddling the working- and middle-class worlds who is disciplining her rebellious teen daughter to save her from certain destruction, to gain sympathy as she considers class, skin color and social standing in post-colonial Jamaica … A brilliant story.”

—The Observer (UK)

Also by Colin Channer

Iron Balloons (contributor and editor)
Passing Through
Satisfy My Soul
Got to Be Real (four novellas)

Waiting in Vain is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1998 by Colin Channer

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by One World Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

ONE WORLD is a registered trademark and the One World colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by One World Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1998

eISBN: 978-0-307-77527-6

www.oneworldbooks.net

v3.1

For my wife, Bridgitte Fouche, who believed
before she knew.

Contents

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Book One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Book Two

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Book Three

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Book Four

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Acknowledgments

prologue

On the day he met Sylvia, Fire woke up in Blanche’s arms with a numbness in his soul. It was his ninetieth day of celibacy, and the night before had almost been his last for Blanche had tied his wrists in his sleep and pounced on him.