by Mark Helprin
Integral to the scheme, he remembered fighting not only in North Africa, but also in Europe. In these recollections he posited a universal bleak and cold, a soul cold, of armies and winter, the automatic and trancelike state of a soldier caught up not just in a given army in a given time, but in a phenomenon which is to man as waves are to the sea, working through the tapestry in solid unbreakable threads. That was why, Livingston thought, he in his tank shell of steel, knights in armor, and modern soldiers in armored carriers and halftracks had the same neutral faces, and went on like animals in herds and mystical migrations, part of a great calculated web. And yet even in a species parody of wild beasts, with steel weapons and sanctity and illusion, there was a beauty, an affirmation. Livingston had believed strongly in the white halls and green hills of the Hudson—horses and music, and pinnacles overseeing great river beds. In the depth of his despair on a winter field in Germany when blood was all around him, he had believed. Driving through Jamaican highlands and canefields, he hoped with all his heart that Marshall too would turn out to be a stubborn, steadfast believer.
In the thick of his dreams as he drove up a mountain by the sea and finally reached a great house of mahogany and porches and a red tile roof, he turned with emotion to his adopted son, and found him asleep. That night they ate fish from the Caribbean, and sat on a terrace high above the sea, enmeshed in the rich hard delight of a million stars in black. For Livingston it was a return to the timeless frames of Arizona, North Africa, the sea. It made Marshall think of Columbine.
High View was a property of five hundred acres on the side of a mountain rising from the Caribbean. Opposite the small town of Oracabessa, limited in the east by the Oracabessa River, and in the west by a porous rock escarpment, it dissolved rearward in the rain forest and found its northern border in a strip of reef-protected beach a quarter mile long. Due to the riverine effluents, fish abounded in quantities sufficient to feed the village and some of the inland population. Every day and night the small bay was filled with nut-colored wooden boats, from which spearfishermen ranged in the light, and on which at night compressed gas lanterns glowed splendidly two to a boat to draw the fish netward. Marshall learned to spearfish, and was frequently dispatched in late afternoon to bring back several large groupers, bass, or bluefish for dinner.
Every week the banana boat came through the inlet, a Swedish or British freighter which brought sharks in its trail. The wharves exploded with movement. As in war, the roads were covered with open trucks, but rather unwarlike, they carried only bananas. Scandinavian sailors sometimes left their ship for a minor debauch in the town, though not often, since they were usually tired from sex and drinking in Kingston. When the banana boat was in, so were all the people from the interior; and the ceaseless labor, massive lighters gliding in quiet precision to nestle against the ship (sometimes crushing a mans foot or arm), contests of strength, spider bite emergencies, romances, dances, shootings, and time passing in light and glory made much work for the constable and his several relatively dullard assistants. Music accompanied the loading. The ship stood off the port as white as an iceberg or a Greek island city on layered cliffs. The deep throbbing of motorboats filled the hot nights like drums, involving even black waters and unseen fish in the omnipresent fertile industry.
Their shirts were of pastel colors, and bristol blue or indigo. They worked as if they were shoring up the earth, and when day came they had some pounds and shillings and deep bodily satisfaction. As the generator grew sleepy, the electric lights would sometimes pulse, but never die. The generator would revive and the workers, fallen silent to a man, would upon hearing its resumed vigor echoing down from the town give a shout in unison and then start to work as if the entire family of man had just been rescued from the gallows.
Halfway up the hill was the small cottage of the estate foreman or, as he was called, “the bouche.” He was a little brown man with brown hair and brown eyes. He dressed only in brown cloth or suede, wore a brown hat, rode a brown horse with a brown saddle, carried a brown-handled pistol and a brown leather lariat. One was not surprised when he introduced himself by saying, “Hello, I’m Brown,” which was his name—Ismail Brown, an Egyptian Copt who had been shuffled around the world and somehow placed in a little lantern-lit cottage on the side of a mountain in Jamaica. It suited him. He felt as if he were in the Sudan.
5
ALWAYS TIRED from a full day in the sea or on horseback, Marshall went to bed early and arose to watch the dawn. He customarily entered the half-dark kitchen and made his way barefooted among the scorpions, or “lanwinkies,” as some Jamaicans called them. Watching to make sure that they did not graze over to his feet, he would take a large white bread, cut off the crusts, and, with much exertion, mold the innards into a ball. He sliced this in half, coated the halves with margarine, and stood for ten minutes shaking salt, pepper, and Tabasco onto the two hemispheres, which he rejoined and further compressed. If he felt mean, he would break off a few pieces and feed the scorpions, who then died. Most of the time, though, he took a big knife, cut each scorpion in half, and swept the pieces out the door. He called his breadball “the Jamaican sunrise,” for after chopping up the scorpions he always took it with him to the terrace—a thousand feet above the sea, nearly at the mountain’s very top—and ate it as he watched the sun burn over the eastern hills. He drank from the swimming pool. The water was chlorinated, but the Tabasco was strong. On exceptionally clear mornings he could see Cuba ninety miles to the north, a pale green line, the Sierra Maestra taking in the morning sun.
They kept a spotting scope on the terrace. With it they could see ships plying between Jamaica and Cuba, hundreds of small inter-island freight boats still under sail moving slowly and gracefully like an albatross on the wind, sliding across the compacted emerald between the islands. Halfway through his spherical breakfast, Marshall was watching the palms and banana trees beginning to stir in the dawn wind, when his eye was drawn to what looked like a tiger moving on a path across the valley. It moved intently. Even though he could not make out what it was, he could tell that it was hurrying. Still chewing, he went to the telescope and swung it around toward the tiger.
Everyone was sleeping. He swept down the opposite hill until the path fell into view. Then he calmly took his eye from the aperture and sighted the moving image. Returning to the telescope, he followed the path in the direction of his quarry and overshot it. It had been a blur in the circle of his lens. With the patience of a gunner, he waited, bringing the instrument to sharp focus on large leaves near the path. Five armed men flooded the circle. As he tracked them he felt his heart go wild. Their long hair was covered with red clay. They had rifles and submachine guns, trident spears, sacks over their shoulders, urgent expressions, strong steady gaits, and something which made Marshall drop what was left of his bread. The second in line was carrying a mans head, grasping it by the hair.
Marshall caught the wrought-iron terrace rail to steady himself. Mr. Brown had said that he carried a pistol in case a cow or a horse broke a leg. Suddenly Marshall knew better. And the shots they heard at night were not drunks firing into the air. Then he froze to the rail. The path on which the raiders traveled led down into the valley, across the river on a rope bridge, and up the mountain past High View, coming within a hundred feet of it. It was possible to veer off onto other routes, but the main line of travel to the interior was right there. Its wonderful roof and dark woods standing out on the bluff, High View was beautiful and conspicuous. Marshall immediately thought of the automobile and the swimming pool, and how their presence might lure the bandits in for dessert.
Everything came clear, and the choices stood before him like a pilots head-up display. Livingston was still sleeping, as were the servants. He dared not waste time in warning them, since they tended not to heed him.
His fear translated to pure speed and strength, and he went to his room, put on shoes, and then ran incredibly fast toward Mr. Browns house. He moved like an ant
elope, leaping on the downhill run high over logs and walls which crossed the familiar path, flying on the steeper parts so that he felt as if he would be taken far into the air, just touching the dark earth briefly to spring up and out and downward. When he got to Mr. Brown’s he beat on the door, shocked that he seemed to have lost no breath on the flight from High View. Mr. Brown came out in a nightcap. Marshall’s face was enough, but he said, “The Rastas. Coming on the path. Five, with guns. They’re carrying a man’s head. Hurry.”
Mr. Brown said, “The horse, saddle the horse. I’m coming,” and went inside to put on his boots and get guns. Marshall ran to the stable and saddled the horse. He did it so quickly that he had time to saddle a second, and lead them out. Brown jumped the steps. He was wearing his pistol and he had two rifles slung across his back. In his hands were another rifle and bandoliers of ammunition, which he gave to Marshall, who slung them and mounted. Slower in mounting, Brown ordered Marshall to wait. He did not want a divided front, least of all with a boy leading. The horses were spooked like warhorses, and when at last Brown was up, they burst out of the compound onto the road galloping and thundering their hooves. The force of their start pushed Marshall deep into his saddle.
Marshall admired Brown. He was a responsible man. He was riding up the mountain with his guns, perhaps to fight, perhaps to die, when he did not have to. He was, simply, brave. Marshall was surprised that this bravery elicited from him great affection, something he would not have expected. When nearly at the house, Brown signaled Marshall to slow. Then they dismounted and left the horses to graze, running over a field littered with rotting mangoes. The cocks were crowing. Marshall imagined the Rastas in the house, and evidently so did Brown, because they ran faster, and, with weapons unleashed, charged in from the front entrance. Sweating, looking like madmen or soldiers in the heat of battle, they ran onto the terrace. Brown grabbed the telescope (which belonged to him) and skillfully scanned the path. Almost as if pleased (but it was hard to tell) he said, “They’re coming. Wake your daddy.”
Marshall burst into the Livingstons’ bedroom and shook Livingston, who was rather surprised to see a Mauser and a strap of shiny bullets in Marshall’s hands. “What’s the matter?” he asked, and Marshall composed his first précis.
Livingston got out of bed. Mildly puzzled, he walked to the terrace. Then he lay down with Marshall and Mr. Brown and took up a rifle, methodically stuffing the magazine with cartridges. He had always regarded Egyptians as unreliable and overemotional, and with a touch of contempt he said, “Mr. Brown, what is this all about?”
“That,” said Mr. Brown, pointing to the five men not three hundred feet away, the head bobbing up and down, “is what it is all about, Mr. Livingston.”
“My apologies,” said Livingston, as the three of them took aim.
“Don’t shoot them,” said Brown, “unless they come to the house. If you kill some of them, they will come back and kill all of us, as sure as God wills.”
The bandits paused and unslung their guns. They looked at the house, and began to argue. Had they deployed to raid High View, lowered their shoulders, held their guns in that telling way of raiders, moved off the path toward the house which they thought to be innocent and asleep, they would have been felled to the last man.
But they moved on. “Shall we kill them anyway, Mr. Brown?” asked Livingston. The head, and their unkempt appearance, had aroused in him a positive dislike.
“No sir. We’d best leave them alone. They will not likely return.
” “As you say, Mr. Brown. You know the country.” After a while they sat up against the rail, Livingston in blue pajamas, Marshall in khaki shorts, Brown in boots, pants, and a nightcap. It had really been quite tense. They were shaken. In an unprecedented request, Brown said, “Mr. Livingston, I know it is only dawn, but could you get me a Bloody Mary?”
6
THE PHONE rang as Mr. Brown was drinking his Bloody Mary. The constable wanted him to take the High View truck and evacuate casualties from Jacks River. The Rastas had knocked out the bridge to Oracabessa, but a runner had crossed the river and brought news of two women and a man who were badly off. Marshall and Mr. Brown set out in the four-wheel-drive truck, going over rough paths and streams to get to Jacks River by the back roads. Brown knew the complicated traverses and secret ways, whereas the constable did not. Presumably the constable was preparing for the chase, although everyone was aware that he would arm his frightened deputies, walk a few miles into the jungle, and be unable to find a trace of the Rastas, who moved in back country with the stealth of moonlight.
Marshall and Mr. Brown had their weapons. Having done so well that morning already, Marshall stood in the back of the truck in a near Napoleonic pose, eyes sweeping the jungle for ambush. Of course the noise of the truck and the thick cover made him an easy target, but Brown thought he deserved a reward for his vigilance. Smiling from underneath his nightcap (which he forgot to take off that day) he let Marshall stay, since by that time the Rastas were probably ten miles in the bush, pistols in their waists, their gaits still ferocious because of the cocaine and because they had been up all night.
Though it was early, the sun was murderously hot. Birds the color of red velvet flew through the patterned forest in swooping curves. With not a cloud nearby, a white and silver sun beat down hard as the truck chugged through the brush. Marshall sweated and the water dripped off him. He heard birds and other animals screaming: their chatterings were deafeningly loud. With the rifle in his hands and salt stinging his eyes he understood for a moment why the Rastas did what they did, although he could not justify it. The heat and light, the rhythm of a struggling truck moving on a soft forest floor, his beating heart, made him want to die. He wanted to die. It seemed a perfect thing to do in that hot jungle. And because he wanted to die, he wanted to kill. He wished that they would meet the Rastas, that he would fight them and kill some before they killed him. He wished that his body would be maimed and thrown to the side of the path to be consumed by crows and jackals. But this was dispelled when they sped into a clearing on the outskirts of Jacks River and Brown said, “Maybe they give us a cold beer in Jacks River.” Marshall was put off by the idea of anything as wild and dissolute as drinking beer in the morning, and told Brown just that.
At Jacks River—a settlement on the road, a few houses and a little store outside of which fly-covered lamb carcasses hung for days—one of the women had died. The man who was supposed to have been wounded ran off into the bush when he heard the truck, leading Brown to believe that he had been a former resident of Kingston Jail, who did not need the hospital. The other woman was really a schoolgirl, who had a serious stomach wound. She screamed and writhed, and then would become entirely quiet and look around with a quizzical expression, amazed that she was still alive, not knowing quite how to act when wounded. Then she would buckle up in agony and behave in just the requisite way. They put her on a cot in the back of the truck and sped east to the hospital. There had been much screaming and hysteria, but the strange presence of a white boy as armed escort quieted the girl and her family. They stared at Marshall, not knowing who he was or why he was there.
At the hospital they took the girl into an open operating room and operated. Everyone waited in the courtyard, where relatives of the patients were busy cooking breakfast over open fires. The patients themselves lined the porches of the tropical buildings, looking wretched and sad. Every single one had a white bandage somewhere on his body. In one of the wards a dogfight began, and the mangy dogs were chased out by a man who ran after them gracefully, swatting them with his crutch.
After several hours they wheeled the girl onto the porch. She was sleeping peacefully, and the doctor told her mother that she would soon recover. The mother wept in waves, and the doctor put one of his hands on her shoulder and shook her. He smiled. She became silent as he rattled three lead slugs in his hand. “You should not weep,” he said. “She is a lucky girl. And a strong girl. She helped me
find the bullets. A fine girl. You can’t keep the young down. You will see. Tomorrow she will eat like five strong men. In a week she will be dancin’ again.” The mother, a handsome woman with a light blue kerchief over her hair, wept uncontrollably, and smiled.
Looking at her face, high cheeks, and sweet eyes, Marshall was ashamed for what he had thought on the way to Jacks River. Even at fifteen, having been up since dawn and run himself to exhaustion in a hot, different, black country, he suspected that men without women are subject to the peculiar madness he had felt that morning. Its pressure was as deafening as the overwhelming cries of the animals. Those on the truck hadn’t stared at him because he was white. They knew white men, and frequently saw Lucius Pringle, or his brothers, before all the brothers were killed by the Rastas. But when they had seen Marshall, he had had a savage, hard look.
Anyway, that night they celebrated with a big meal, and a jump-up, in which everyone danced, happy to be alive, in a kind of New Orleans funeral for the ones killed at Jacks River. Rifles were stacked in the corner, and Mr. Brown wore his pistol in the house. As always, the stars were as white as rocket flares, and cool winds swayed the large trees, in which birds slept. At about midnight a ship appeared near the horizon, blazing bright. They watched in silence as it moved off the curve of the world, and then everyone went home. Marshall fell asleep laughing, with a tear in his eye. He remembered the blood on the schoolgirl’s dark blue uniform, the rush through the trees up to the hospital, the heat, the way she looked sleeping in white sheets, and what the doctor had said in his lilting bittersweet Jamaican dialect—“In a week she will be dancin’ again.”