by Jane Harris
‘Now Father, you mustn’t upset yourself. What is reckless?’
‘Oh my child. Those Goddams!’
Back then, Goddams was what we sometimes call the English. They had invaded our French Antilles some years prior, causing turmoil, and for small return since a mere nine month later they handed back most of their Caribee spoils, except some few, including Grenada and her sister isles. Now, King George reigned over those territories and the slaves in Grenada toiled for Goddam masters.
‘Father – the war is over, remember? They sign the treaty, three years since.’
‘All the same, those English, one cannot trust them. Why does Cléophas not send someone else?’
Then he said something all gibberish, just a jumble of words, but I was accustom to his ramblings, more frequent these days now he had become diswitted.
‘Father – I’ll be back in one week.’
‘A week!’ Poor old soul; his eyes fill with tears. ‘But if you go, Lucien, who shall bring me my corossol? My cocoyage? What if you never return?’
‘I will, mon père. And the other Fathers will take care of you until then.’
At least, I hoped they would. Now that most of the friar had died or gone back to Paris or St Domingue, only four remained. Les Frères de la Charité in France were suppose to provide replacements, but months had gone by since the arrival of Cléophas with no sign of anyone else, not even a new nurse-man. Young Father Boniface had been ailing for weeks, and Lefébure had no time for quotidian cares, always up to his neck in alchemy, trying to make his special silver rum and planning his distillery. I had my doubts about whether he would remember to take much care of the Good Father.
Damascene sipped his coffee then scowled into the bowl.
‘My piss is darker than this,’ said he. ‘How many times did you use the grounds?’
‘Now then, Father. Soon there will be strong coffee every morning. With those extra field hand from Grenada, we can grow more cane, sell more sugar and make rum to sell. Besides, I shall bring back some old faces you might remember, Father – Céleste and the others …’
‘Ah, Céleste.’
He smiled and, for a flash, seem so much like his old self it occur to me he might be on the mend. Lately, he scarce knew where he was, often wandering from one place to another and talking stupidness. To have such lucid conversation with him was a wide stride, for true. Howsomever, by the time he had drunk his coffee and I bid him farewell, he had already forgot about my voyage, for he told me he would see me that night, and I had not the heart to contradict him.
The boy Descartes I found by the chicken pen, laughing at the hens, mocking them with a ‘buck-buck-buck-A!’ Then he bob his head up-down like a pullet pecking seed and by mistake banged his skull off the hen-house. Well, bless my stars. He yell fit to raise the Devil and jumped about the place, cursing all kind of curse.
‘Tambou! Puten bordow do mèd!! Fé shié!’
It pained me to leave my poor Victorine and the rest at his mercy.
Chapter Six
The St Pierre Hospital sits behind town at the foot of a vast cliff so abundantly overgrown that the forest seem to surge down the rock face like a green waterfall. Just a few years theretofore, I had witness with my own eyes the blockade of St Pierre, prior the English invasion, when those Goddams had dropped anchor offshore and done their utmost to knock the place to fritters with bombardment, firing great guns without cease, their bursting bombs raining down upon us for days until our batteries were silence. It was a miracle that any structure along the waterfront had been left standing. Parts of town were still under repair since the war and through certain gap between buildings you could glimpse the bay. As I walk down the straight road toward the ocean, I saw nine, ten large vessel moored up – drogher, sloops and merchantmen – all floating there, majestic, as though suspended in blue light.
St Pierre has no true harbour and no pier of any account, just the Mooring, an open roadstead. All the big ship coming in, they toss anchor seaward and fasten to a chain brought from shore and any cargo is ferry to land in smaller craft. Here and there among the larger vessel, a few piddling yawl like little children clinging to the skirts of their mother. No sign of any slaver: that was a mercy at least, and no warship either, save one frigate the French kept there now on watch, lest those English Goddams attempt another invasion. My gaze picked out this or that rig and my veins began to tingle as I wondered which ship might be ours and what would be her name. Something impressive and manly, I hoped, perhaps a Triomphant or Persévérante. In those days my head always and ever full of stories about ships such as the Royal Fortune and the deeds of buccaneer pirate like Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts.
Down at the quayside, people crowded around the market stalls. One bacchanal in the place: invalid soldiers and sailors begging, some blind, some with blacken stumps where once grew an arm or leg; whole dugouts full of fishes for sale, longside fruit of every hue and form piled up in basket; the whisper of naked feet on the stones mostly drowned out by high-pitch cries of vendors calling their wares in a mish-mash of French and kréyòl, their words alone enough to make your mouth fill with water.
‘Çe moune-là, ça qui lè di pain aubè?’ ‘Ca qui lè bel avocato?’ ‘Mwen ni bel poissons!’ Who wants my little loaves this morning? My avocato? My beautiful fish? ‘Oh, qu’ils sont bons, mes patisseries! Oh, qu’ils sont doux!’ Oh, my pastries are good! Oh, they are sweet!
I spotted Father Cléophas and Emile at the end of the quay among the barrel at the Sugar Landing so I headed toward them through the crowd with a ‘Good day’ and a tip of my hat to those of my acquaintance. ‘Bonjou – Bonjou ché – Bonjou Manzell – Bonjou Missié.’ The friars sent me somewhiles to market and often as not, I had to persuade sellers that they should hand over fish or other goods with promise of payment in sugar ‘tomorrow self’ or ‘next week’. More than anything, I hated to beg, ashame that my masters so poor. Thus, by way of compensation, I always tried to be extra genial, quick with pleasantry and laughter, offering compliments fore and aft and up and down so no one heart would groan if ever they beheld me coming.
My brother now wore a battered straw hat. The face on him hard-hard like stone; his shoulders up; his arms folded. Father Cléophas carried his old burlap bag on one shoulder and, on the other, a satchel made of leather. He was clearly holding forth to Emile in earnest and though I felt disoblige that they had left me behind, I took some comfort at having escaped an ear-load of friarly chatter.
Out in the shallows, I could see the usual flotilla: a few large canoe or pirogues, but mostly about a dozen flat-bottom ’ti canot or tub made of tea-chest and the like. In these preposterous craft, little boys sat entirely naked, paddling about the bay hoping to be hire to take passengers, messages or small cargo to and from the ships at anchor. From my previous trips to town, I knew some of these wharf boy – the ’ti canotié. They were younger than me, by and large, so I mostly ignored them but I had an inkling they would be impress by the great adventure I was set to embark upon. The Father had warned us to be discreet once we reach La Grenade but he had said nothing about here in La Matinik. I thought it could do no harm to drop some hint to those boys, just enough so they might wonder about the important mysterious business I had been chosen to conduct. With this in mind, I waved and call to them as I approach the water.
‘Hé! Zenfants-la. Kouté.’
But right then old Cléophas descended on me with a cry.
‘There you are.’
And before I could say a word to the boys, he sent me off on some blasted errand, to get a scoop of fried Jackfish and some Kill-Devil, alias RUM.
‘Tell the vendors I’ll pay them next week, in sugar,’ says he. ‘And be sure to get the cheapest tafia, just a small jug – a sealed one. Then come and find us. We’ll be down there on the sand.’
Seem to me the old man just wanted rid of me. I curse my lot, having to beg yet again – and on this of all days. Old Blackbeard
, before he set sail for some ruffian escapade, you can bet nobody sent him to market upon the spunge for Jackfish.
My brother let himself be led away, walking stiff and stilted as a heron. By the time I persuaded two vendor to give me rum and fish for a promise of sugar, he and Cléophas had reach the sand. Emile watch me approach, the look in his eye telling me something – but what I did not know.
‘Viens, Lucien. Vite,’ says Cléophas when he notice me. ‘Ah! My Jacks.’
He grab the parcel from me since those fishes a delicacy and his favourite. The rum he refuse to take.
‘No, no,’ says he. ‘That’s for Captain Bianco. Give it to him when you go aboard. Just be aware, my son, as I’ve been telling Emile, your skipper is a Spaniard but he’s also a deaf mute. He cannot hear what you say but makes himself understood with signs and he’s an experienced sailor. You’re in safe hands with Bianco, yes, quite so, pas de problème.’
Behind his back, I could see my brother. He raised an eyebrow, poked his tongue in his cheek: his sceptic face. No doubt, so far as he saw it, the friars being poor and scrimp of means, Cléophas would have found the most cheap and nasty vessel that could be hired in the whole Caribees.
Meanwhile, a canoe had come skimming to shore and out jump Descartes. That boy was everywhere. Only a short while before, I had left him back at the hospital. My brother must have recognise the boy, for he knew his name.
‘Bonjou, Descartes,’ he said. ‘Peace be with you. How is your mother? And how’s my friend your brother? And your cousin, Baptiste – is he well?’
Here I saw a vestige of the old Emile. Our mother was of the Mandingo people and she had taught him to greet acquaintances in ritual manner by enquiring about the health of every family member, every sister, brother, father, mother, every cousin, uncle, aunt. Emile like to observe the custom and would have continue to question Descartes about more distant relatives had Cléophas not grown impatient.
‘Enough,’ he said and then he made us all kneel down on the sand whiles he offered up devotions. I must confess, a few line into the prayer, I open my eyes and took a peek at my brother. Back in Grenada when I was small, he use to carry on all kind of macaque during prayer. He might pretend to smoke an imaginary pipe or knock back invisible drams of rum, then yawn and stroke his chin as though bristles had sprouted there, or find suppositious insects in his hair, or a lizard or a crab – all to try and make me laugh. But those days were gone. Now, he contemplated me with an expression most grave before bestowing upon me the strangest smile, full of melancholy. Then with a sigh, he closed his eyes.
Descartes had hunched over, his face hid from view. Cléophas, meanwhile, was lost in hocus-pocus, head tilted back, smiling up at his compeer, the Divine Being. No other friar did pray quite like Cléophas. He always talk directly to God, smiling or chuckling now and again over some badinage that only he and the Supreme Being could hear. The way he spoke with the Lord you might suppose they were the best of friends; that Cléophas knew more about his Creator than anyone; perhaps he knew better about the Almighty than even God knew himself. Sometimes the old goat palavered on so long his orisons were like a monologue in six act but mercifully, on that day, he made short work of it. In his final remarks, he knew the Lord would watch over our journey; he knew the Lord would assure our safe return to Martinique; he knew the Lord would want to provide us with fair winds and untrouble seas; old Cléophas he knew the Lord back and front and upside down – yes he did, for true.
After we said our Amen, the Father bestowed his blessing upon us and handed over our tickets – written passes to show to anyone who might accost us, each in a small burlap bag with string to hang around our neck. He gave Emile the leather satchel then thrust us toward the ’ti canot.
‘Go now, my sons, vite, vite.’
Descartes held the canoe steady whiles my brother and I climbed aboard, fore and aft; Emile so careful with the satchel you might suppute it full of holy relic.
‘What’s in there?’ I asked. ‘A pique-nique?’
Naught but a slice of corossol had pass my lips that morning and my belly was biting me. My brother open the bag. Inside, muslin-wrapped, the jars of herb from the morgue; also the Power of Attorney and a flask of water. Nothing else. Emile gave me a consoling wink.
‘Never fret, little one. I’ll make sure you eat.’
‘You’re the one fretting,’ said I. ‘Nothing amiss with me.’
Descartes shove the boat out and sprang inside, between us, perfectly balanced and fit as a flea in a hound-dog ear. The canoe sat low in the water but it did not seem to bother the boy. As we pulled away from shore, Cléophas called out:
‘Emile, I have every faith in you.’ And then: ‘Be sure to tell Lucien your slight change of approach.’
I looked at my brother.
‘What change of approach?’ I asked.
But he just shook his head, with a glance at the boy. Then he lean forward and spoke to him.
‘Give me that paddle.’
‘Non mèsi,’ Descartes said. ‘We change places now, we tip over. Besides, I’m use to paddling.’
‘Who is your master now?’
‘Monsieur Siboulet. He’s half kill me six times. But I’m hired out for a few week to the Father. If I can show them I work hard then they might buy me.’
‘Oh well,’ said Emile. ‘In that case, keep paddling.’
Instead of heading for any of the big ship out at anchor it seem to me that we were bound only a spit and stride offshore toward a dilapidated craft no bigger than the smallest kind of fishing yawl. She had a tattered mainsail fit for a twopenny pirate, a dirty, flapping mizen and her hull needed a coat of pitch. A leanish colonial type stood amidships, arms a-kimbo, observing our approach. Emile grinned at me as much to say ‘I told you so’, his pessimistic prediction come true.
‘Gloat all you like,’ says I. ‘But we won’t fit forty-some slave in that calabash.’
‘Ksst! Do you never listen? This is just to get us there, you and me.’
Back onshore, the Father all smile-smile and waving. He called out a few word but the breeze snatch them away.
‘What’s he say?’ I asked.
My brother stitched up his lip like he might spit but made no reply.
‘I di, bon chans, mes fils,’ said Descartes.
Since Cléophas had wished us luck, I yell back thanks to him across the water.
‘Mèsi, mon pè a mwen. Ô rèvoi. Mèsi.’
And then Emile did spit: noisily, over the side, into the blue-green ocean. All at once I consider myself insulted for it seem to me this constituted some kind of a slight against me for calling out pleasantry and thanks to the Father. I glared at my brother, all fired up.
‘What do you mean by that? You want to say something then say it.’
Emile gazed at me, perfectly serene.
‘Easy now,’ said he. ‘We should try and keep our temper.’
Well, of all his habit this infuriated me the most: when he took on superior airs of condescension. I might have jumped on him there and then, at least for a tussle – except I feared that the ’ti canot might flip and neither of us could swim a stroke even though we had resided by the ocean all our days. And so, instead, I spat over the side myself; a great big crache that landed near his. We watch the pair of foamy oysters float off on the unruffle surface of the sea. I hoped my sputation would overtake his or that the two would drift apart; whereas, in fact, the water stirred up by the paddle carried mine forward, such that the two spit join together and became a single entity.
Thus far the day had presented me with but one vexation after the other.
I turn to take a closer look at the yawl. Some letters had been etched on her hull in paint now flaked and barely legible. Two short word and I could spell them both: THE DAISY. An English-sounding appellation, for true, but – at the time – that did not strike me as strange. All I could think was that we would make our voyage in a vessel named after a pretty littl
e flower and how that fairly put the cherry on the cake.
Chapter Seven
Captain Bianco was a pale-eye Béké: small and wiry; russet-skinned; his beard trim neat with a scissor. He wore tight britches and, in his belt, a keen-blade cutlass that glinted in the sun. As we came alongside, Descartes grab the yawl to steady the canoe whiles Bianco lean down and helped us climb aboard. Then he indicated where he would have us sit: me amidships and Emile in the prow.
I gave Bianco the Kill-Devil and – not forgetting his affliction – made a big pantaloonery of obeisance, pointing toward the shore where Cléophas still stood. The skipper eyed the jug with some amusement as though he had surmise it contain the worst kind of gut-rot. By the look on his face, this hombre knew the Father of old. In jest, he pretended to jettison the rum but he only made-believe to pitch it overboard: fact of the matter is, I saw him stash it in a coil of rope. Then he face the island and – putting thumb and finger to his lips – let forth a piercing blast of a whistle, his other arm raised. In response, Cléophas gave a last wave then picked up his bag and began to walk back toward Place Bertin. I watched him go: a lonely figure now, diminish by distance.
Meanwhile, Emile had stowed his precious leather satchel and slump down glumly in the prow. Something had vex him, no question. I would have given my left liver to know what Cléophas meant by a ‘change of approach’ but if Emile thought I would sweat him for answers he was sore mistaken; I cared the devil of a Hindu dam for his condescending ways. When I turn back, the captain produced a silver denier from thin air and flipped it so it fell, twirling and glittering, toward the ’ti canot. Quick as a skink, Descartes caught the coin and stowed it in his mouth for safekeeping. Then with a muffle squeak: ‘Ô rèvoi,’ and a wave, he took up his paddle and set off for the shore.
After that we had a lot of dumb show as Bianco pointed to his ears and shook his head; and pointed to his lips and shook his head; then pointed to his brain-pan and NODDED wide-eyed just to let us know he was nobody fool. Then more pantomime as he warned us not to bang our skulls on the boom or fall overboard or get underfoot whiles he went about his boat business. Next, he chopped open a few green coconut and gave us the sweet water to drink and, presently, when he lean down to rummage in a basket, I heard my brother, behind me, speak in an undertone: