by Sharon Maas
That was a lucky call – the mix up with Wight and white, and Ma Quint being white, and Dorothea telling a white lie that had come about quite by accident. She nodded. At the same time, she knew of her deception and flushed hot with guilt, but Mums didn’t notice; she seemed pleased. But any more questions, any more details required, and Dorothea would have to tell more lies, and she wasn’t good at that; and lying was a sin. And she might end up in hell, and she wasn’t too sure if today’s adventures were worth an eternity of fire. Lying is just a menial sin, she said to herself. Surely not! But still, it was better to be safe.
‘Well, that’s good company for you. I know it’s a large family; Edmund Wight had several children and they all multiplied. This Winnie must be his granddaughter. Where do they live?’
‘In Lamaha Street,’ Dorothea replied, returning to truth. Her hands were moist with sweat; she was skirting too far along the fringe of honesty, and she was sure her nervousness must show in her averted eyes, in her squeaky voice, in the hunch of her shoulders, which she now straightened.
Mums, satisfied that Dorothea was expanding her social circle upwards, might have continued the questioning but just then, luckily, she saw the hole in Dorothea’s dress. She grabbed the skirt of it and raised the hem.
‘Dorothea! Just look at that! And it’s one of your best dresses! How on earth did that happen?’
‘I – I – I don’t know,’ Dorothea stuttered, and again it wasn’t quite the truth. ‘Maybe a thorn, from the rose bushes?’
‘We’ll have to see if Ivy can fix it. Maybe she can take in the skirt. What a nuisance, and an expense. And speaking of roses – where are they?’
‘Oh! Oh, I must have left them in the yard! Just let me go…’ and she dashed off, back to the yard, back to the spot where her life had turned around for ever.
* * *
And so began Dorothea van Dam’s friendship with Freddy Quint; a secret friendship that, over the following years, would evolve into courtship. With Freddy she could talk or be silent. She could say the things she had never said to any human being. She could speak of the things that troubled her: the domination of the British in the country, for instance. Why were they allowed to dictate everything that went on? Why were white people better than everyone else, looking down on everyone else, afforded all the respect, taking all the good jobs?
‘Not all of them, of course,’ she acquiesced. ‘Your mother is an exception. But everywhere you go, as soon as a white person turns up, everyone just starts mincing and bowing. It’s so unfair!’
She and Freddy were sitting up in the tree-house, their special place; his father had built it for the older boys and it was slightly ramshackle by now, but still strong and sturdy enough for the two of them. A rope ladder hung down; brand new, as the old one had rotted over the years.
‘For instance,’ said Dorothea, ‘I was at the library the other day taking out some history books for school. I was standing in line with everyone else. Then a white girl came up and just went to the front of the line and you wouldn’t believe it – nobody protested, and the librarian served her first! It’s as if she just knew she was superior to everyone else and the worst of it was that everybody else seemed to think so too!’
‘Well, why didn’t you protest?’
‘Freddy! Those were all adult women! How could I, a sixteen-year-old girl, open her mouth in front of them? It would be so rude!’
‘I think if something is just wrong, like in that case, you have a duty to speak up, Dorothea. I don’t think politeness should count.’
Dorothea gazed at Freddy, her eyes alight with love. ‘Freddy! You’re right. The thing is, politeness and good manners have been drummed into me since I was a little girl. But you know, I don’t think that’s how I was meant to be. So often, I want to say things aloud, things that would anger other people, but things that are just right. And it’s just a thin veneer of good manners holding me back. It’s so hard to overcome your upbringing – in my case, utter and complete deference to the British, drummed into me by Mums. But once I opened my eyes, began reading the newspapers … I had to educate myself. Mums would kill me if she knew! ‘
‘Break through it, Dorothea. Just break through it. Speak your mind! You’re meant to be a tiger, a snarling tiger fighting for her cubs.’
‘In my case, my cubs are the people. The underdogs. The poor. It hurts – almost physically! – to seem them mistreated and exploited. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing …’
She launched into a diatribe on colonial politics, and Freddy listened, smiling; and when she was finished he took her in his arms and she felt as if all the anger exploding within her was dissolving into him, and she was at home.
‘I love you so much, Freddy!’ she murmured. ‘You help me to be myself, to find myself. Make me feel – good. Even though I’m not.’
‘Oh you are, you are.’ Freddy murmured back, his fingers massaging the back of her head. ‘You’re good in a very special way. Not goody-goody good: but just good, sound, solid good. You’re going to go far, Dorothea van Dam!’
It was a sweet, slow courtship that was less passion than a meeting of young souls reaching out for completion; he for solid earth on which to root his roving spirit, she for the adventure and the breaking of the walls that imprisoned her, the cracking of the shell that bound her. Over time, even the Sunday secrecy of their friendship became a cage to break out of. One afternoon, they threw caution to the wind and rode their bicycles to the Promenade, the widened area of the Sea Wall where in the afternoons and at the weekends mothers and nannies took their little charges, or courting couples walked hand in hand; where a military brass band played in the circular bandstand. As they walked up the ramp, their arms almost touching, Dorothea said:
‘I feel so exposed, Freddy! So – so daring! What if someone sees us and reports back to my parents! And yet – you know, I don’t care! I’m so tired of all the hiding, all the secrecy! I almost want to be found out.’
They walked down the stairs to the beach and then out along the jetty, the stone wall running out towards the horizon. The tide was out; the dull brown sand baked dry in an undulating expanse stretching out towards the far-off waters of the Atlantic, and even when they reached the end of the jetty the water barely covered the sand. It was hard to believe, out here, that Georgetown itself lay six feet beneath sea level; that the Dutch had built the Wall to protect their capital – Stabroek, as it was then called – from the encroaching sea. All along the coastline, the Wall was interrupted by the sluice gates, the kokers, which regulated the flow of water in and out of the country. British Guiana’s coastline had been wrested from the ocean; it was the only widely populated land in the colony, for beyond this coastal strip lay dense jungle, and beyond that savannahs, and then more jungle, vast acres of green stretching down to the Amazon river.
They reached the end of the jetty and Freddy took her hand. They stood in silence, gazing out to the horizon. Dorothea’s heart was full. Here she was, away from her parents, and with the friend she loved most in the world! What freedom, what bliss! Her fingers reached out and found his; they clasped hands. Eventually, Freddy laid his arm around her shoulder. He chuckled.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Dorothea, wriggling so that she came closer to him.
‘Does this count as touching?’ Freddy said.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because Mam told me, very sternly, that I wasn’t to touch you.’
‘And do you always do what your Mam says?’
‘Well, when I was a boy I almost never did. Now that I’m grown up – well, nearly – I’ve figured that she actually does seem to know a thing or two about life.’
Dorothea knew what Freddy meant. Her new-found freedom was not just about Freddy. It was also about his mother, Winnie Cox Quint, and the home whose doors she flung wide open to allow Dorothea, for the first time in her life, to feel the embrace of a strong, warm family with a woman at its core. It
was a revelation; and Dorothea felt the cold that enclosed her melting and the barrenness that plagued her bursting into life, budding and flowering. Before long she loved Ma Quint more than her own mother; and the feeling was reciprocated.
‘You are the daughter I never had,’ Ma Quint told her on many an occasion. ‘The daughter I always wanted.’
The daughter that died, Dorothea said to herself. The one that came before Freddy.
‘I should never have been born,’ Freddy had said. ‘They’d have stopped long before me otherwise. They only kept having babies because they wanted a girl.’
‘How awful!’ Dorothea said. ‘But, Freddy, can people stop having children just by wanting to? I thought children just came? That God sent them when people got married?’
Freddy chuckled. ‘You don’t know a thing, do you? Hasn’t your mother ever told you about the birds and the bees?’
Dorothea frowned. ‘The birds and the bees? What do you mean?’
‘Where babies come from?’
‘Pa told me,’ said Dorothea. ‘From God. God sends babies to the parents, as a blessing. They are His gift to married couples.’
Freddy laughed, and stroked her cheek. ‘You’re adorable’!’ he said ‘Naiveté and mettle all mixed up. But I think Ma needs to talk to you.’
And Ma Quint did, and Dorothea listened, and blushed and lowered her eyes, so Ma Quint took her in her arms and told her there was nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of and when the time came she would love someone and one day have his babies.
‘I already love someone, Ma!’ Dorothea whispered.
‘I know, my love, I know,’ Ma Quint whispered back. ‘You love my Freddy, don’t you? And he loves you back. It’s such a beautiful thing. You must let it grow, my dear, and God willing, it will become even more beautiful. There is nothing in the world as wonderful as love, especially young love, first love. You must tend and care for it as you would a tender plant, and one day, maybe, it will blossom into an exquisite rose. And then you will be ready.’
Dorothea understood perfectly. She nodded.
Now, standing on the jetty, she said, teasing, smiling into the words: ‘And yet you’re touching me! Disobeying her!’
‘Hmmm – I think she meant something else.’ And he pulled her even closer.
‘You can touch me any time you like, Mr Freddy Quint!’ she murmured, as they separated. ‘And any way.’
Freddy’s eyes twinkled. ‘You honour me, Miss Dorothea van Dam. But you know what? I think Ma’s right. I think the best things in life are worth waiting for.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
They walked back to the Promenade, hand in hand. Dorothea had to get back before dusk, before her parents returned; although, she thought to herself, so what? Let them find out. Who cares? What can they do to me? Yet still – her time had not yet come. She was still playing by the Rules. And then, suddenly, the Rules came to a rude end.
They had just walked past one of the several benches lining the Promenade, on which sat an elderly couple. Dorothea glanced back at them; she thought she recognised them; weren’t they members of her father’s congregation? And at that very moment, two middle-aged English women in flowered hats and white gloves walked up to the bench, smiled condescendingly at the black couple, and asked them to move. Immediately the couple rose to their feet. Afterwards, Dorothea marvelled at the recollection; the moment that red-hot rage descended on her, filled her being, and forced her to cry out, so loudly that people all around looked up to see what was going on:
‘NO! Just NO! Don’t get up!’ She physically, forcefully yet at the same time gently, pushed the woman back down on to the bench. The woman, taken by surprise, let herself be pushed.
‘You too!’ Dorothea commanded the man: ‘Sit right back down.’ And he, too, obeyed.
She turned to the white ladies, who were so astonished they merely stood there, open-mouthed in shock.
‘How dare you! How utterly, revoltingly rude of you! Where were you raised, in the gutter? You despicable people! Just go away and leave these decent people in peace! Go back to your gutter!’
The two women gasped. ‘Really – I …’ began one of them, but the other grasped her elbow and muttered something in her ear. The first woman seemed about to fight, to stand her ground, so the second woman spoke even louder.
‘No, Penelope. Let’s go. Can’t you see? The natives are all watching!’
Indeed, a small crowd had gathered, for Dorothea had not kept her voice down. People were smiling and nodding, nudging each other, tittering. One man clapped. And only then did Dorothea come to her senses and fall with a thud from her cloud of outrage.
‘Oh, Freddy! What have I done? Come, let’s go!’ She grabbed Freddy’s arm and they hurried off, to a splatter of more clapping and a call or two of ‘Well said!’ and ‘Bravo!’
Dorothea couldn’t walk fast enough; she sprinted to the bicycle stand, Freddy right behind her. And only there did she collapse into his arms, half laughing, half whimpering in mortification.
‘What have I done, what have I done?’ she repeated through her gulps of half-laughter. ‘Oh Freddy, Freddy! I’m terrible! I’ve made a scene and I bet you it’ll be in tomorrow’s newspapers!’
‘You’re wonderful!’ said Freddy, and clasped her in his arms. ‘You’re my bold brave wonderful tiger. You did right. And so what if you’re in the newspapers? You did right and I’m so proud of you!’
And they rode home, their bicycles wobbling because they were laughing so much.
To Dorothea’s great relief – for her time had not yet come – the incident was not in the papers. But she had made a stand and she knew with a clear cold instinct the trajectory her life would take. It was a good knowledge.
* * *
Sometimes at night Dorothea lay in her bed and listened to Freddy playing his mouth-organ. She hadn’t known it was him at first. Even before they’d met she had heard those sweet, poignant strains rising above the tropical night chorus, that raucous croaking of frogs and the whistling and screeching of a thousand night creatures that starts as soon as dark descends. There was something so sad in that music, a longing for something unattainable, a mystery that could never be solved. She had not even known that the music came from the Quint house; it seemed to hover over the roofs of Georgetown, without source, played by an ethereal musician floating through space.
And then one Sunday when they were together, sitting on the Quint kitchen steps eating from bowls of grated green mango spiced with pepper-and-salt, Freddy brought out his mouth-organ and played a few bars, and she knew it had been him all along. Her excitement knew no bounds.
‘There’s one tune I love especially,’ she said. ‘Play it for me!’
‘Which one? Hum it.’
And she hummed the opening bars of the melody she loved best. Freddy’s eyes lit up. “Danny Boy!’’ he said. He put the mouth-organ to his lips and played it from beginning to end.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said. ‘It makes me want to cry.’
‘I love it, too. When we were small, Mum used to gather us around the piano every evening and play us songs and we all used to sing along, the whole family. I miss those evenings.’
‘You mean, there are words to it as well? It’s a song?’
In answer, Freddy sang it for her:
‘Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.
And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an ‘Ave’ there for me.
And I shall hear, tho' soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
If you'll not fail to tell me that you love me
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.’
He had a rich, strong voice, a pure tenor that not only hit the notes but filled them with deep fervour and feeling, conjuring vivid pictures in her mind. She listened, rapt, until he’d finished. He looked up.
‘Don’t cry!’ he said, and wiped the tears away with his fingertips.
‘But it makes me cry! What does it mean?’
He shrugged. ‘There are many interpretations. Ma thinks it’s a father singing to his son going off to war.’
‘That’s so sad!’
‘Don’t be sad! Here, I’ll play you something happy instead!’ And he played ‘Daisy, Daisy’, and she laughed, and sang along, and the sadness blew away.
* * *
All week long she longed for Sunday; in church her heart beat faster, for escape was nigh. The moment her father’s car backed out of the yard she slipped between the palings, ran down the alley and navigated the Quint backyard to run up the kitchen stairs, two at a time. She grew to adore the Quint house and the loud, bumptious life within it, light and joyous, so different from the staid monotony of her own dark home. And she, who had never before questioned Pa’s regime or even knew there could be life without it, felt that new thing growing within her, the thing that had shown its fangs that day on the Promenade; a small wild animal coiled in her bowels which she nourished with crumbs of resentment and even anger, so that it grew big and strong; but, caged as it was, she was safe from its gnashing teeth and scratching claws. She knew it was there, and feared it, for once let loose it would tear apart the only life she knew – and then, what next? So Dorothea learnt the secret art of beast-taming, forced her wild creature into docility, and lived by The Rules as laid down by Pa, but only on the surface. She became a skilled actress, playing the part of obedient daughter, walking the giddy tightrope between rebellion and conformity.