There was nothing new to rumors of Eeona sightings. People had been sighting her since she was a girl. But the beggar banality of this one caused Anette to believe that something terrible had finally happened. Perhaps Eeona had had her own Villa by the Sea fright. Or perhaps winning the beaches had now brought her ghost back.
Anette had never been to the inn before. She had never been curious. And after her recent Hibiscus Hotel visit, Anette was worse than uncurious. But now she prepared herself for the ferry ride to St. John.
Little sister, Anette. She did not like boats or ships or any vessel of the sea, but now she walked up the swaying plank without anyone’s help. She spent forty eternal minutes on the boat, which included the time spent with the boat just sitting there, doing no goddamn thing but swaying and shuddering and preparing to sink—so Anette felt. She survived it all by standing at the railing and staring. This seemed brave, but it wasn’t. She was focusing on the sea so she would know where to dive if the boat suddenly broke into pieces. Swimming was natural, she knew. She’d long ago decided that boats were not. It was a late-afternoon journey but there was enough sunshine for her to see a huge sea turtle gliding beside the boat. She saw herself jumping onto the turtle’s back and coasting to safety. Her hands gripped the railing so hard that they ached.
She arrived at the inn in the evening because she had been slow getting ready, reticent really, and had missed the ferry’s morning voyage. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The inn, unlike the Joseph house, was bursting with electricity. It glowed in the dusk.
The groundskeeper opened the door before Anette could even knock on it.
Eeona’s inn was painted blue on the inside and the out. It was ornate with dark mahogany chairs that seemed as old as antiques. It was baroque, old-fashioned. There were elaborate trimmings where the high ceiling and the walls of the foyer met. Cream curtains made of light linen separated the foyer from the kitchen and the kitchen from the hallway. It gave the feeling of an old galleon. Anette felt a bit unsteady on her feet. On one far wall there was a picture of Eeona herself, proprietress, with its own little spotlight perched above and shining on it directly. In the painting the madame was quite young, seventeen maybe, and her beauty tugged all the attention from the room.
Anette sat in the foyer of the room and had the odd feeling again. As though she had been here before. Or somewhere quite like this. As the inn manager stood with her hands clasped at her belly, Anette trailed her own fingers along the windowsills. It was so familiar it was making Anette’s head swim. Finally, she asked to be taken to Eeona’s room, knowing, just knowing, that it would look more like Villa by the Sea than even Hibiscus Hotel had managed. But the inn manager said, with all her professionalism, that that was the one room for which she didn’t have a key. And it was quite locked.
Anette left her one small bag in another room with a bed very much like the bed she had slept in as a small child. But Anette would never have remembered this. Then she hired a gypsy taxi to drive her through the town of Coral Bay and then around the whole island of St. John. She held her aching hands in her lap and called out of the taxi’s window, “Eeona! E-on-a. He Own Her,” into the homes of Coral Bay, and people came out of their houses to watch. The evening stretched out until Anette lost her voice.
Finally, the taxi took Anette to the Emergency Station on the opposite side of the island from the inn. The Emergency Station was the hospital, police, and fire station all in one. Strangely, Anette’s polite words came out in a croaking whisper, though when she cursed, she found the crass words came out clear and brassy. The emergency personnel looked at her in bewilderment, for wasn’t she the dignified lady who began the whole BOMB? Maybe not. They knew for sure, though, who Mother Eeona was. They had directed many a tourist couple to her inn. When last was she seen? Seen a few days ago, but before that, not for months.
Then Anette waited. A group of teenaged St. Johnians came into the station making noise. Their car had crashed into a tree, but they were still well pressed and coiffed. They looked healthy and excited. Anette envied them. Their youth, their togetherness.
Hours later, two police officers drove Anette back to the remote side of the island, back to Eeona’s inn. The officers rarely drove to this side of the island and they were weary of being out here in the darkness, for there was not one streetlight for the entire journey. But the officers were also thrilled to have the opportunity to drive someone around instead of the sacks of potatoes and rice their wives made them transport in the backseat. Anette sat quietly in the back of the cruiser and dusted off the grains of rice. With the bars between her and the men, she felt like something dangerous. The only illumination ahead of them was their own headlights.
When they finally arrived at the inn, Anette had her mind decided. She gesticulated that they should open Eeona’s suite. But the police could not bust the lock, as the owner had not given permission. “But the owner is missing,” insisted Anette now, her voice feeling choked and meager. The inn manager went to fetch the deed. But no, Eeona had years earlier made Youme the official owner of the entire inn. Who knew? Well, Youme knew. But that was a secret between her and her aunt.
“You moomoos! The owner is my child,” Anette shouted now. “She a motherscunting minor. So I have the blasted say.” The police officers stepped back, like they’d seen something more dirty than they could handle. Anette looked down and started to weep.
But the police stayed around and asked the guests and staff questions. Anette heard that Eeona had been seen days ago wandering the roads at night like a ghost. That she had been polite and accepted a can of fake crab as if she were a cat. But that just last night she was a cat with long silver fur in mats and curls. Here was the mystery Anette had expected, but this was not the Eeona who was expected. Yes, Eeona must be having an episode. She would be found, she would be returned, she would be okay. Anette tried to pull herself together.
One of the officers turned to Anette and, putting his index finger to his temple and twirling it around, asked: “Crazy?” But Anette did not reply. She couldn’t answer.
Maybe sister Eeona had finally gone crazy. No children. No husband. And all that nastiness Mr. Lyte had talked about. Imagine the secrets Eeona must have pooling in her head. Anette couldn’t really blame her for racing away. Anette herself had sped from Jacob, now that she knew what she knew.
It was too dark now to even consider driving back to the other side of the island, so the officers called their wives. Then they asked the inn manager politely if they could each have a complimentary room, even though it was clear that they would need the room and they would not need to pay. They took to their beds and didn’t stir.
It was night and almost everyone was in bed so Anette went to the groundsman, who was in the kitchen prepping ahead for breakfast because he was the cook as well, and commanded slowly: “Open the door.” He shook his head no. “Sorry, Mrs. Joseph. I can’t do that.” Anette set her fire eyes on him and then from deep in her chest she started growling. “Open the fucking door before I broke it down.” It was an American curse word and the worst she could think of. And it was like it was a magic word, because the man scrunched his face into a ball and brought out a large key from the secret folds of cloth at his chest. It was so like Eeona, to give a man the key to her room. It was like so many of the women of her time and place.
Anette and the groundsman went up to the third floor, past the rooms of the inn now empty save for the police officers who were snoring and the newlywed couple who were too fogged with their love.
At the suite, which was more than a room, but was what people once called “apartments,” the groundsman opened the door. When he did, they smelled an alive smell. It was something like molt and moss. Like someone had turned their own human body inside out. But it was cool, a wind was coming through. And yes, the room was very familiar. But Anette would never have remembered that it was a copy of her
mother’s room.
“Eeona,” Anette called. But no one was there. Eeona’s blue clothes, though, were everywhere. Blue pantaloons and long-sleeved blouses patterned with bluebells. There were also opened food tins and uncovered pots rattling slowly, as if they were alive. There was a sticky liquid on the floor. There were magazines, torn and moist, laying like a crazy carpet, their corners lapping. On the glossy covers were women in fancy American clothes. The bed, a large grand mahogany antique with gauzy mosquito netting, was sooty and unmade. Then there was the writing on the wall. Actual paragraphs of Eeona’s script written in pen. Up and down the walls. Sideways or in columns, down close to the floor or up at eye level. But all neatly done as though the room were a cave and the writer needed to preserve this writing for future discovery. Once Anette stood close enough, she could see that the writing was scraps from Anancy stories and Duene stories and other story stories.
And there was a balcony, a very small one, but still. This is where the breeze was coming from. The linen curtains were plump, like the sails of a ship. Anette went to the balcony, but no one was there. There was just enough space for two people to stand and embrace. She looked over the ledge. But no one was there either.
The groundsman began to shiver. “I should not have, I should never have let you in.”
“Is me,” Anette said finally in her own sweet voice. Then she guided the man out of the suite with her own arms. She faced the rooms alone. She went to the tiny kitchen. There was expensive champagne. In the fridge there was milk in a glass bottle, juice with its hand-squeezed pulp. All gone rank and sour. In an old-fashioned bread box there was fine butter bread now hard as rock.
Anette began to make up the bed with fresh sheets. She swept the floor and folded the clean blue clothes. She dumped papers into the downstairs bins. Dumped the sooty laundry into the washing machine downstairs. She fastened the balcony door shut. And she didn’t cry.
That night she lay in the room that resembled her childhood room. She rubbed her hands with the lotion she found in the bathroom. She wore a proper nightgown, knowing that Eeona would appreciate such a thing. It was new and felt stiff on her body. There was a rack for hanging the damp underwear she had rinsed in the sink. A small bureau where she rested her toiletries. A shallow closet where she hung the matching house robe. The bed was large and high with little steps leading to the mattress. Beside the bed was a phone. Anette called Franky and told him, her voice finally her own, of the futile day and the sad room. She did not tell him about the antique furniture, the curtains, or about the possession of her speech. She couldn’t explain that.
“When you coming back?” asked Franky, without a hint of the desperation he felt.
“Is summer time. I don’t have to teach for a next month. I waiting the witch out.”
“You know something, a light just come on for me, yes,” he said. And Anette wondered what he knew. It wasn’t like him to speak in metaphors. If he’d suddenly realized something, it couldn’t be good. Did he know, somehow, about her and Jacob? She waited silently for him to continue.
“You hear me?” he said.
“I listening,” she said.
“A light come on. The house bright like daytime, yes. I surprise them children ain wake up, for how blinding this thing is.”
“You mean the electricity? The current came on?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “What you think I mean?”
—
There was no screen on the windows at the inn and that night the bugs came at Anette like they had been starving. She kept the standing fan on all night, thinking the mosquitoes would grow tired flying into its wind and drop dead. The fan whirred an oscillating rhythm. Through the walls Anette could hear the newlyweds melting into each other in a great boiling.
98.
Baby sister Anette dreamed of waking up to her elder sister beside her when Eeona had disappeared for so long that other time. But when Anette awoke, Eeona was not there in the bed. Instead, the sun was coming through the louvers. Despite the nightmare and the mosquito bites bubbling on her legs, Anette felt grand. After all, she’d taken a boat and had not been drowned. She’d slept in this too familiar house and hadn’t been sucked back into childhood. Yes, this island of St. John was nice as everyone always said. Maybe she’d even find a beach and go for a swim.
She smelled sweet bush tea and pork sausage coming through the windows. She put on lipstick and shuffled into house slippers and the matching housecoat. She walked down to the main room and saw the groundsman, the maid, the police officers, and the newlyweds all at the breakfast table like a family. A gathering of empty utensils and plates lay like new bones before them. The groundsman, standing to clear the table, looked at Anette and then raised his eyes upward.
Anette, who was not a young woman anymore, took the stairs fast, like a fish against the current. Ahead, at the end of the hallway, Eeona’s rooms did not release a glow as though a witch were there waiting. The door did not pulse or make odd sounds. It was just the room of an old lady who had faced her past. Anette knocked on the door. Eeona did not answer. She called, “Eeona. Sister.” There was no answer. Anette stared at the lock and thought perhaps there was a time when she could have turned the dead bolt with her mind. But today she stepped back and charged the door with her shoulder. “You motherscunt!” she yelled out, and gripped her shoulder with the pain. She was not a young woman anymore, and the door did not open. Anette put her face in her hands and moaned; it was not crying, it was just a sounding. Then she reached forward and turned the handle. The door opened.
“Sit down,” came the elder sister’s voice. The windows were closed, but the balcony curtains were fluttering. That door was ajar, allowing a little light. Anette sat down in a chair she found in the shadows, for she had placed it there last night during her cleaning. “Oh, Anette. Do cross your legs at the ankle, not at the knee like some common tart. If you insist on being a tart, my dear, you might as well be a classy one.”
Anette could see that a big comfy chair had been pulled close to the small balony. It couldn’t fit out there, but it was close enough. Sitting in the chair, Eeona looked small and regal. Anette pulled her chair closer and pushed her chin forward to face her sister.
“How are you, Eeona?”
“I am fine, dear.”
The sisters stared at each other’s bodies through the chiaroscuro.
“Where were you?” Anette asked, trying, like Youme had, to read minds. “America? That’s where Mama went to run away from us. You’ve been to America? You see Ronalda when you there?”
“You think such foolish things.” Eeona stared at her sister and right into her.
Anette grew quiet. Though she did not feel an intruder in her mind, she still tried to clear her thoughts. “Eeona, you went to Villa by the Sea?”
“Now why would you think such a thing?” Eeona eyed her silent sister for a moment. “No, little sister. I have my villa here. I went after something more.”
99.
On Anegada there are more crabs than people, we say. More shipwrecks than crabs. Eat lobster for breakfast and lunch and dinner, we say. You can fish for shark when in need of variation. Submerged island, we say. The tip of Atlantis. Onegeda. Anigeda. Anegada. Perhaps you’ve never heard of this place. Perhaps that is for the best, because if you hear too much you will hear it calling, like anegando en mis llanto—your own tears drowning you. But we’ve come this far.
Besides, it called Eeona.
The truth is that Anegada was still beautiful. Was still bare and barren. The people lived in homes stacked on a gathering of loose rocks with sandy land around them. The people who lived there were the people who belonged to the land. People who the land claimed as its own. There was no golf course. No all-inclusive hotel. Eeona had stepped off the boat and an old woman, a woman, for God’s sake, laid her eyes on Eeona’s lovely face and said: “You family t
o me.” And she was.
There was one small inn on the island, which is where Eeona was heading, but this woman whose last name was Norman but had been born Stemme said, “Come stay by me. The best lobsterman on island is my man.”
Mrs. Norman was an oldish lady. Old like a grandmother, maybe, but she walked with her back straight, and her legs were thick and smooth. And as the two women passed the water, Mrs. Norman poured her arm out toward the sea where her lobsterman could be seen. He was nothing more than a silhouette at the edge of a little dock. The black shape of a man against the setting sun. His backward-facing feet under the water where no one but the fish could see. The sea was waving at his shins as he raised his machete to the lobster and chopped it into pieces.
Mrs. Norman hollered at the shadow man. “One more, my love!”
Then the man stepped up the dock and out of the sun’s darkening.
It was Owen Arthur.
Or rather, he looked to Eeona just like Owen Arthur. His hair was silver and his face was worn, but it was the same sand-colored skin. The same shape of nose. His same face uninterrupted by a mustache.
“What mood are you in, pretty lady?” called the lobsterman. “I want to know before I approach.” Eeona thought she must be the pretty lady, but no . . .
“I in a sweet mood,” said Mrs. Norman. “Come meet my cousin.”
But surely Eeona had come to face her deeds. Surely her running away had finally taken her to a haunted place where the past greets you at the door. The man who was not her father but looked so much like him held a bucket of lobster bodies in each hand. His feet, on land, faced forward.
“Nothing new in family,” said Mrs. Norman, as they walked to The Settlement and to her house. “People always coming back here trying to find out who they belong to.” She smiled at Eeona with her mouth turned down, as though they had a secret. “Lyonel came back years ago. We’s cousins. Third or fourth with thrice removal, but family still.”
Land of Love and Drowning Page 33