In the Heat of the Day.

• Author: Mujica, Barbara

By Michael Anthony. Portsmouth, N. H.: Heinemann, 1996.

The year is 1903. The place, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. The British rulers have presented a bill to install meters wherever there are taps with running water. If the bill becomes law, the government will charge for water, and few Trinidadians will be able to afford the amount they need for their daily activities. The atmosphere is filled with tension, and the people are ready to revolt. The primary object of their hatred is Walsh Wrightson, the director of public works, but the governor and the police are also targets.

The Trinidadian leaders represent a range of political perspectives. Mzumbo Lazare, a solicitor and landholder, is a law and order man. Clear thinking and hardworking, Lazare loves his people but also respects the British sense of honor and jurisprudential tradition. He has done his best to maintain a dialogue with the colonial government, and now, on the eve of the waterworks debates, he struggles to prevent violence. In contrast, Edgar Maresse-Smith is a fire-brand. Educated, articulate, and tough, Maresse-Smith believes that it is time to confront the British and stop negotiating. Whatever their views, all of the leaders know that the waterworks question has to do with more than just water. The real issue is whether or not the British will continue to make decisions that affect Trinidadians without consulting them, and whether or not the people of Trinidad and Tobago will ever have a say in their own government.

Eva, Lazare's niece, sides with Maresse-Smith and his band of radicals. Along with Lolotte, a candy and pastry seller known for throwing stones at the police, land Greasy Pole, a notorious jail-breaker, she works to incite the people to express their opposition to the water bill at the government headquarters, known as the Red House. She also plots to get her [uncle out of town and leave the crowds in the control of Maresse-Smith on the day of the waterworks debate.

Although Eva is partial to Clement, a handsome young man who wants to move in with her, she strings along Captain Darwent, the fire inspector, for whose family she works as a washerwoman. Darwent is a white Trinidadian who sides with the black masses on the water issue. The English see him as a traitor, not only because...