"The Village Washer" is a short story written by Trinidadian author Samuel Selvon, who also wrote the novel A Brighter Sun.
Ma Lambee, the local washerwoman in the Trinidadian village of Sans Souci, falls out of favor with the other villagers when she starts charging higher fees for her washing services despite her work quality getting sloppier and more careless. Fortunately, help comes to the villagers in the form of Ma Procop, who hails from neighboring Donkey City and whose quality of delivery is decidedly superior to Ma Lambee's; as a result, Ma Lambee promptly loses all her customers following Ma Procop's arrival in the village.
Naturally, this does not sit well with Ma Lambee, who decides to get her revenge by invoking the villagers' superstitions about obeah (voodoo, or black magic). To pull this off, she makes claims that Ma Procop is an obeah woman, working all sorts of unholy magic and being responsible for the various inexplicable actions that have taken place in the community.
The question now becomes, how will Ma Procop respond?
Tropes in The Village Washer:
- Abomination Accusation Attack: Ma Lambee pulls this off by accusing Ma Procop of being an obeah woman, stirring up the villagers' fearful superstitions in the process.
- Black Magic: Ma Lambee starts to indulge in this in her efforts to cast Ma Procop in a bad light before the other villagers. Part of her strategy is to accuse Ma Procop of performing the very supernatural activities she herself is doing.
- Blatant Lies: When Ma Procop first starts getting popular with the other villagers, Ma Lambee tries to win back her washerwoman post by saying she's negotiating with a firm in the city to get a new type of washing machine which will make old clothes look like new. Unfortunately, everybody sees through this lie and mocks her for it because of the simple fact that there's no electricity in the village.
- Clear My Name: Ma Procop doesn't really do anything about Ma Lambee's slander at first, other than to take a trip out of the village and come back sometime later with a package. Then she's forced to act when the villagers confront her directly, and she accomplishes it pretty easily by making the sign of the cross and looking into a mirror—things which an obeah practitioner is said to never be able to do.
- Eats Babies: One of the many lies Ma Lambee spreads about Ma Procop.
- Frameup: In a final effort to cement Ma Procop as an obeah woman, Ma Lambee sticks all the magical paraphernalia that she herself has been using inside her rival's house, and also clears the house of all mirrors and objects in the shape of a cross (items which are taboo to any obeah practitioner). Sure enough, the villagers do a search of Ma Procop's house and find the items, but Ma Procop quickly declares that Ma Lambee must have been the one who put them there to frame her, pointing out that Ma Lambee has been jealous of her since she came and took over the washerwoman's post.
- Friend to All Children: Part of what earns Ma Procop the approval of the villagers is her willingness to show kindness to the children, buying sweets for them and telling them stories. Unfortunately, Ma Lambee takes advantage of this in her claims that Ma Procop is an obeah woman—she points out that children are usually the favorite targets of such individuals.
- Gossipy Hens: How Ma Lambee chooses to spread the false rumors about Ma Procop.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Ma Lambee, obviously, despite the fact that she brought it on herself in the first place.
- Hoist By Her Own Petard: The package Ma Procop brings back to the village is revealed to contain a mirror and a cross, which have been safely hidden away at the time Ma Lambee tries to frame Ma Procop for her own Black Magic by clearing out all visible mirrors and cross-shaped objects from Ma Procop's house; Ma Procop uses the mirror and cross in the package to reveal Ma Lambee as an obeah woman. The mirror and cross are revealed to have been borrowed from the most notorious obeah man in the area.
- Lady of Black Magic: What Ma Lambee eventually becomes, and also what she accuses Ma Procop of being while hiding her own Black Magic activities from the other villagers.
- Malicious Slander: When Ma Lambee starts smearing Ma Procop's reputation, she starts simply at first, claiming that her rival has sickly and nasty habits, an effort to wear down the villagers' trust in the new arrival. But it's not until she accuses Ma Procop of being a Lady of Black Magic that the slander really starts taking effect.
- The Resenter: Guess.
- Torches and Pitchforks: A group of villagers, spurred on by Ma Lambee's Malicious Slander, go to Ma Procop's house to confront her directly about the obeah rumors, minus carrying actual torches or pitchforks.
- Witch Hunt
