As Flies to Whatless Boys

by Robert Antoni

  But when we got to the other side we didn’t continue up the hill, back to Samaan’s Repos. We turned, and I led Marguerite in the opposite direction. Down. Towards the bay. Following the footpath along the bank for another half-hour. And after a short while the river opened up into her wider bocas. The bank became muddy—it smelt of rotting leaves—and the tall trunks beside us turned to marshy mangrove, smooth red roots arching up out of the water. And we left behind us forever all those bright overhanging trees, reaching down they long limbs to scratch at the still surface.

  ___________________

  Soon enough we were crossing Marine Square, between the two lines of dusty almond trees. Towards Kings Wharf, walking beneath the blazing sun. In the distance, tied along the jetty, we made out a handful of harbour-ferries. A small group gathered on the pier before one of the boats.

  I turned to look over my shoulder—out over the sparkling bay—searching for the Miss Bee. But what enabled me to identify Captain Maynard’s sloop was the barge tied off her stern, its giant crate lashed down to the gunwales. In the distance, beneath the blistering sun, it looked like a flaming matchbox.

  Now I recalled the little box tucked inside my own pocket. Slipping my hand under the lapel of my frock coat, feeling its edge hard-soft through the smooth lining. But I didn’t take it out. Not as yet. I waited a minute more. Till we got near enough to identify—amongst the people gathered there—Mr. and Mrs. Whitechurch. Mum and my three sisters.

  I came to a slow halt, turning to Marguerite—

  I’ve a small gift, I say. But I want you to wait till we’ve gone before you open it.

  I paused—

  Nothing fancy. A little keepsake. Till we get back.

  I smiled, best as I could manage. And reaching into the breast pocket of my frock coat, I took out the little box, buttons inscribed cross the lid. Pressing it into Marguerite’s hand.

  Mr. Carr shook me awake. For the second time—third? Not saying nothing. Just setting his calabash cup down on the table before me. Gesturing towards it with his gray-stubbled chin. Vanishing just as quick behind my back.

  I slept again.

  Yet somehow, from the depths of my sleep, I recalled the cup—I remembered Mr. Carr shaking my shoulder, setting his cup down on the table before me. I watched him gesturing his gray-stubbled chin at it. But I couldn’t be sure if that wasn’t my dream, this the waking part? I couldn’t be sure which side was which. And I remember telling myself, even within the confines of my own dream—you’re asleep now dreaming of a cup of water waiting for you to wake up and drink it—and somehow, from the depths of my sleep, I managed to wake myself.

  Not before I’d swallowed it halfway down did I realise it was filled with rum. I choked, coughing, spitting it back up. Rum spilling down my chin, soaking my already sweated-up merino. Tiny rings of fire searing round my nostril-holes.

  Thinking—Mr. Carr’s been feeding Papee rum?

  I raised the cup again. Draining it dogbone-dry.

  *[www.whatlessboys.com/bruitnoir]

  When I opened my eyes I found Esteban and Orinoko. Sitting at the dining table before me. John and Mr. Carr at my sides. All four of them with they heads bent low over they balizier-plates, eating a breakfast of boiled mashed plantain. Chips of fried cassava for spoons to scoop it up.

  I felt peculiar. Everything looked peculiar, like I was still asleep. Like I was seeing the world through water—all the air thickish, sluggish, its cast over objects dull. Yet at the same time oddly shiny. Everything perceived as if from a slight distance. A small separation. Like feeling the touch of you own skin through numbed, tingling fingers: you don’t fully exist. That’s how I’d feel for the next two days and nights—numbed, half-asleep. Not till two days later would I fully wake up.

  I watched them eating another minute, the sight of that gooey mashed plantain turning my stomach. I’d never felt so thirsty in all my life.

  Suddenly I remembered Papee. I sat up straight, turning on the bench, staring at Mr. Carr—

  He’s dead, I say. My own voice startling me, coming out low, harsh, coarse.

  Mr. Carr looked up from his plate, white disk of cassava poised in the air like the priest’s communion bread—

  No, lad, but he’s not doing well. Not so very well a-tall . . . Now take some sustenance, son. You’ll need it for your journey.

  It took me several seconds before I could respond to this—

  Journey?

  But it was John who answered. With me turning to my other side to look at him—

  We go carry you Papee home, boy. Jus’ like you say youself—back home to you mummy n’ sistahs!

  A long beat before I could respond again—

  A ship, I say. Your kite’s signaled a boat? your madbull-slinger?

  John looked at me, smiling, shaking his head like I gone vie-kee-vie again—

  No boat, boy. You ent hear me say we go carry you Papee home? Tote he ovah we shouldahs sure ’nough! Cause dey a ole Arawak trace crosses ovah de mountains. I nevah see it, but Steban n’ Rinoko know it good. Lead we clear from here to Port-España!

  John bent back to his breakfast, not saying nothing more. I was too thirsty—my head was paining me too bloody much to study it out now—to try and make sense of what he’d said.

  And it was whilst dipping out my second cup of water from the rain barrel a minute later that I spied John’s madbull-slinger. Propped against the side of the almond tree.

  John had stretched a hammock over the #-shaped bamboo frame. He’d wrapped the hammock round the poles and fastened it taut, round all four sides of the rectangle. The pole-ends sticking out at the top & bottom & sides.

  But I still didn’t have no idea what it was.

  III

  Home

  18 January 1845

  16

  Flow

  We set off well before the heat of midday. Time as the sun was high overhead we’d be shaded beneath the forest canopy. Esteban and Orinoko toting out in front, John and me behind. Each pair around the same height. This way the stretcher toted tilted-down—enabling Papee to see where we were taking him—with a kinda built-in forward momentum, instituted by gravity. And since the upper part of Papee’s body was heavier, his weight carried more-or-less evenly distributed. More-or-less. Each of us with a strip of canvas folded into a pad to cushion our shoulders, extensions of the shorter poles resting snugly cross them, our necks fitted into the opposing Js where the bamboos crossed. This way we could grasp hold of the crosspoles for more stability, ease the weight off our backs. Or we could walk with the crosspoles resting on our shoulders just so for a short while—arms swinging free-and-easy at our sides, giving them a little rest. Shacking down the blood.

  So ingenious was John’s stretcher that for the first few minutes, toting Papee over level ground, it felt like no kinda effort a-tall.

  Mr. Carr following us as far as the top of the gardens. Talking the whole time, breathless, like he’d eaten parrot. Offering encouragement and consolation to Papee, issuing instructions to John—

  Soon as Tucker’s safely delivered, you must go straight away to Cap’n Maynard. Don’t tarry, hear? You’ll find his office on Kings Street, cross from the Customs House. Inform him we’ve many sick members at the Prescott Estate—most desperately ill!—have him come in the Miss Bee at once to collect them.

  We were walking alongside the stream’s embankment, just beyond the gardens. John nodding over his shoulder to Mr. Carr as we went. Soon we reached the place where the stream narrowed and seemed to shallow-up at the same time, where we’d cross over. But John directed us instead to the shade of a tall poinciana tree, telling us to set Papee down—

  Leh-we catch lil rest fore we start de climb in trut.

  It made me vex—we hadn’t been toting Papee any time a-tall. None of us were tired yet! I wanted to cover some ground. Make a good headway. Then I understood John’s intensions, four of us leaving Papee alone with Mr. Carr.

  W
e walked a few yards down to drink from the stream. Time as we got back both men were dripping in tears.

  We hoisted Papee aloft again, Mr. Carr stumbling beside us the last few steps, grasping Papee’s hand over my shoulder—

  Chin up, old man!

  Then his hand slipped-way, as the four of us trudged into the shallow stream. Leaving Mr. Carr behind. I imagined him standing there, tears washing down his sunburnt face, beneath his battered West Indian wife. But I never turned to look.

  ___________________

  I was the only one of us wearing my torn leather boots. My longsleeve canvas shirt and long trousers. Papee’s other three stretcher-bearers barefoot & bareback & wearing only they severed-off shorts. Belted round they waists with bits of rope. We’d dressed Papee back in his trousers before shifting him onto the stretcher. But he still wore the same filthy merino, reddish-brown stain leaking out his ribs, Captain Taylor’s holeefied blanket still wrapped round him. When we stomped up out the stream my pants were soaked high as my thightops, boots soppsing, heavy as bricks. Yet by the time we ducked into the cool shade beneath the canopy of leafy trees—a few minutes later where the thicker woods began—already my boots felt dry. Dry as they were ever going to get in the humidity of that rainforest.

  The first part of the path felt familiar enough. I began to worry about what we’d do with Papee when it turned vertical, before we reached the caves. How would we get him over that? Yet hardly had the thought passed through my mind when we arrived at a different junction in the path. One I’d never seen before—a fork, one branch continuing west, the other angling north, rising up over a short hill. Bordered on both sides by tall balizier. With a few swift swings of they cutlasses, Orinoko and Esteban led us between the thick clumps. We trudged uphill another hundred yards. All-in-a-sudden the balizier opened up—with a blast of cold salt-soaked air—and we bounced up face-first with the bright blue wall of the sea. Sparkling, right there in front of us—like we could reach we hands and touch it.

  But that sea was already a half-mile below.

  Just then the path curved round west again—it dropped out from under our feet—and over my shoulder I caught a final, inadvertent glimpse of Chaguabarriga: the bright blue belly-of-the-bay with its stretch of gray beach curving round the bottom, stone jetty like a navelhole fixed at the centre; Captain Taylor’s schooner off to one side, propped up in its bamboo cradle—that schooner we’d laboured over so furious, so long it seemed; in from the beach a bit the small circle of sticks that was our compound, then Mr. Carr’s gardens, all those neatly dimpled patches of brown & red & ochre; with the vast emerald expanse of the jungle framing it all, swallowing it whole. A flash, a green breath, gone forever.

  ___________________

  We toted Papee over those mountains. Over the top of them. Along the ridge that formed the knobby backbone of the Northern Range, running roughly parallel to the coast. Like an almost-straight crease protruding cross the top of a square of metal—the island of Trinidad. An ancient Arawak trade route, according Esteban and Orinoko. Stretching along the top of the tallest of three mountain ridges, running roughly side-to-side across the top of the island. Connecting one coast with the next: two separate seas.

  When the trail wasn’t wide enough Esteban and Orinoko cuttlassed our way through. They blades, holstered to they rope belts, out quick-as-an-eyeblink. Swinging before us. Like the twin propeller blades of a tugboat pulling her arse-backwards, spinning out in front. When we encountered a stream we put Papee down to rest weself and drink. Soak our canvas-pads in the ice-cold water. And if Papee was awake and clear enough I’d stoop to hold the canteen against his cracked yellow lips. And Papee would drink too.

  Orinoko and Esteban constantly scouring the forest for things to eat—wild fruit, I suppose, but all they found was coconuts. Tall spindly trunks stretching they shaggy heads above the canopy-crown, into splotches of bright sun. Esteban or Orinoko climbing up without they bicycle to assist them, cutting down green nuts for us to drink. Brown nuts for the hard, dry meat. Only once did we stumble across a cocoatree left behind from some some abandoned estate. Overgrown by bush. Nothing left of that ancient cultivation but its dilapidated cocoashed, the single squat tree. Deep purple pods hanging right from the trunk like a woman’s breasts. We split them between our fingers, scooping out the cottony meat—slurping it up—spitting out the shiny black seeds. Till we felt sick with it—all that oversweet, perfumey flesh. The forest floor at our feet like a little graveyard of broken pods, shiny seeds.

  We hoisted Papee aloft again.

  ___________________

  Only once did he make us stop to set him down—we were trudging along the ledge of a steep ravine, couldn’t hardly find a place wide enough. And soon as we lowered Papee to the ground he ordered us all away. He waved us off—all excepting me. We thought he’d lost his head again. Not so a-tall—it was one of those moments when Papee was clearest.

  After the others had stepped-way, he reached up to grasp hold of my hand. Drawing me close—

  Willy, he says, I want you to promise something. I need you to swear it.

  I stooped to one knee, bending over him, smelling his coppery breath.

  Papee ran his tongue over his cracked eggyolk-coloured lips. He swallowed—

  Should anathing happen to me, I want the rest of you to remain here. You n’ Liz n’ the girls. All together, understand?—here in Trinidad. Because we’ve come too bloody far to go back now!

  He paused, swallowing—

  Mr. Johnston’ll help out. Of that we can rest assured.

  I thought he’d finished. For a full minute he didn’t say nothing more. Then he started up again—

  Now swear it. Say the names. I need you to pronounce them aloud.

  My eyes burnt. I could feel the tears welling up. And for some reason it made me vex, ashamed, because I didn’t want to weep before him. Not now. I couldn’t speak neither.

  Names, he says. I need to hear the names.

  Now my tears did come. Like a dam busted loose—

  No, Papee, I say, best I’m able. None of that kind of talk!

  But all-in-a-sudden he was vex. All-in-a-sudden my father was irate with me—

  Don’t trifle, boy!

  I swallowed, almost a sob—

  All right, I say. Fair enough. We’ll not go back to England—course we’ll not, neither you nor any of us!

  Say their names, he repeats, like he’s not listening. Pronounce them aloud for me to hear!

  Mum, I say quick, quiet, still unsure of what he wants.

  Elizabeth, he corrects. Say Elizabeth.

  I took a breath—

  Elizabeth.

  Go on!

  Georgina.

  Good.

  Mary. Amelia.

  I paused—

  Willy, I say at last, through my tears. Me—Willy.

  Finally Papee let my hand loose. I got up off my knee. And I turned my back to him for the third time, embarrassed for my bloody tears. My fists clenched tight, trembling at both sides.

  I stood looking down over the deep ravine—over all those rolling, gray-green, mist-enshrouded hills. Going on and on. Crouching they way towards the sea.

  Till I heard Papee behind me—

  Now, he says. Now you can call those good chaps back!

  ___________________

  We crossed over the first two shorter ridges—up & down & up & down & up—till, as I say, we reached the top of the third and tallest one. The ancient trade route. We never passed though Esteban and Orinoko’s tiny mountain village of Brasso Seco. The trail forking again, circumventing it just to the west. But just at that point we did encounter the only other person we’d see for the entire hike. An old Pañol-Warahoon woman, shawl draping over her hunched shoulders. Her face like a wrung-rag. Sitting beside a stream on a fallen trunk, smoking her clay pipe. Her two beady eyes following us side-to-side as we passed before her, like she’s watching at a set of jumbies.

&nbs
p; Suddenly Esteban called out, proud and excited both—

  Eh-eh, Granny!

  Then to us—

  Look me granny dey! He nodded at her over his shoulder.

  All right! the woman answers, her gray head already lost in a puff of smoke.

  And son, at that same moment something happened inside me. Inside my chest. A flood of warmth that had nothing to do with any of this, this toting of Papee over those mountains. Unless it had everything to do with it? I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know myself. Only at that same moment Esteban and Orinoko came alive to me. They became real—not a dream, figures from out a dream, caught up inside a dream—and all-in-a-sudden I became overwhelmed by my own emotions. Tears rolling down my cheeks for the second time in under an hour.

  As if that was the signal—that white puff from Esteban’s grandmother’s clay pipe—just then we ascended into the clouds. As we turned due west to follow along the trade route. Already it was early afternoon. We’d been toting Papee four-and-a-half hours—covering only the first four-and-a-half miles. But now we no longer marched steeply up-mountain, through thick forest. We passed open brush, shrouded with cool cloud-mist. Till we ascended above the clouds.

  And just as we rose above them the sun appeared full and strong in our faces again. So bright we couldn’t hardly see the ground passing beneath our feet. We didn’t need to. Because now it was mostly flat, unobstructed. Despite an almost imperceptible rise that wouldn’t taper till we reached the top of El Tucuche Mountain, a full six hours’ march away.

  But already I felt the strain deep into my back like a knife-stab.

  ___________________

  Flow: the only word I can think of to describe it. Or what happens to it, what that pain becomes. Because time, space, the body moving simultaneous through them—that vessel that holds the pain, its privileged container—they all go away. They disappear. Till there’s nothing else. Till nothing else remains: only that pain. Till that pain becomes its own momentum, its own prime mover.