Sheila knew that it was her duty (appointed or not) to make certain that Dragon Wings managed to obtain local capital to independently fund the project as well as she knew that the success of the enterprise hinged largely on the success of her task, so she spent long hours compiling an exhaustive list of potential local investors she would in due time approach with an offer to join the ranks of Dragon Wings. Nevertheless, Sheila knew perfectly well that it was the name at the top of that list which would make the most dramatic difference in the future fortunes of the airline. The remaining names were more like a balm for the spirit, an insurance policy for her mental health, some safe ground to fall back on, in case Uncle Glen—her primary target, really—failed to show the interest she hoped she would be able to stir in him.
Sheila was aware that in the foreseeable future no credit would be forthcoming from the local banks. The two largest institutions on the island had suffered tremendous losses in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis and had ultimately been merged with the Caribbean Central Bank in St. Kitts. The resulting Indigenous Bank of Anguilla was still, one year after its incorporation, trying to find its feet on the treacherous ground of financial markets, struggling to secure enough capital to cope with the toxic debt it had inherited from both precursory institutions, and adapting its strategies to the limiting conditions imposed by the regional authority. In this unpromising context, Sheila completed the forms and presented an application for a million-dollar credit more as a moral obligation than in the hope that anything would come out of it. But at the same time as she put together the company’s proposal to the banks, Sheila spent long hours preparing an attractive proposal, carefully crafting a convincing presentation, compiling an exhaustive list of potential local investors who could be persuaded to join forces with the nucleus of the Jones family in the realization of the most ambitious enterprise ever heard of on Anguillan soil. At the top of that list was Glenallen Rawlingson, an influential ingredient in the island’s social fabric and one of the five members of the board of directors of the Indigenous Bank of Anguilla.
Sheila knew that at this stage all she could use to lure investors into the company was trust, which in the language of business translates into shares, so her methodical process of selection and approach started when she picked up the phone to call the person whose name was written right at the top of the list. The day when Sheila contacted the man who had once tried to deport her husband from Anguilla, she addressed her uncle, Glenallen Rawlingson, with the distance, the respect, that characterizes business propositions for the first time in her life. But Uncle Glen’s initial response was colder than she had expected, and the percentage of shares she offered did not please him, and you mean we family ain’ controllin’ dem shares already? and his reluctance to sell a worthy piece of land for the sake of a shapeless company was obdurate, and by the end of a long conversation Sheila understood why she had spent so many hours compiling a long list of potential local investors to embark with her and the rest of the nucleus of the Jones family in the creation of the first-ever commercial airline to be based in Anguilla.
After the end of a long, frustrating conversation with the man whose name was at the top of her list of potential local investors in Dragon Wings, Sheila gathered her strength, decided to produce thirty copies of the thick folder that contained the proposition to join the airline, spent one whole week plugged into her mobile phone, driving around the island, delivering with hope and determination the documents that she thought would ensure the company’s future.
While Sheila went about her self-appointed duty of finding independent means of funding Dragon Wings with solemn dedication, Nathaniel Jones kept from her the good news of an agreement for a subsidy from the Hotel and Tourism Association. He had exaggerated the importance of this development to Dragon—after all, half a million dollars would not keep a commercial airline afloat for very long—in a final attempt to get him fully committed in the process of building an actual, rather than just a hypothetical, airline, but Nathaniel’s own involvement in Dragon Wings was heavily conditioned by his inclination to manipulate people’s expectations, to commercialize potential, to make something out of nothing. Nathaniel was aware of Dragon’s reluctance to get Jones Investments any more involved in Dragon Wings than it already was; he was aware of Dragon’s disgust at their need to depend on Jones Investments for the purchase of the Queen Air, and he actually shared such repulsion. But he shared it for different reasons: Dragon Wings verily combined Dragon and Nathaniel’s interests, but it did so only by virtue of keeping their own resources out of the enterprise, of enticing external capital—confidence, trust—into the venture. Nathaniel knew that in case of extreme need he could persuade Dragon to use further assets from Jones Investment as collateral for a credit, but he also knew that this would represent failure in the speculative game of trade and trust he loved most. So Nathaniel kept the news of his agreement with the president of the HTA from Sheila to put pressure on her to find independent means of funding the enterprise either within her family or in the small circle of influence that was the most active portion of Anguillan society.
XI
Thirteen sails flutter, neatly lined up side by side along the deepest end of the bay at Sandy Ground. All but two jibs are up and no boats sail across the flat surface of the sea straight ahead, all of them still attached to their provisional moorings on the beach. The starting gunshot should have gone over two hours ago but Anguillan timekeeping can be trusted to be late even for Champion of Champions, the most important race of the calendar. Suddenly, I feel thrilled. It can’t be long before they start so I accelerate down the steep hill.
As part of the carnival celebrations, Anguillans devote an entire week to their national sport: sailing. During boat-racing week, large crowds gather on the beach to support their favorite—often their local—boats. But long before the beginning of the race, and again immediately after the silhouettes of the sails lose their sharpness and recede into the distance, the supporters engage in a collective revelry that involves copious amounts of sun, rum, and enthusiasm. Until, that is, the return of the boats four hours later, which is greeted with a roar of confusion, indignation, arrogance, as the ostensible leaders of the race start to emerge closer to the bay. Despite the fact that gauging distances from the shore is almost impossible, or perhaps because of this, claims and counterclaims develop quickly and loudly among the different sets of supporters who boast to each other as soon as the faintest of opportunities arises. Nor are these arguments settled by the outcome of the race. On the contrary, pseudo-technical disputes carry on long after the last of the sailboats has been pulled out of the water, using the rigorous evidence provided by diagrams drawn, wiped, and redrawn on the wet sand or on the sandy surface of the bar to settle the unsettleable, until the time when transit to the evening entertainment at the carnival village becomes appropriate.
Champion of Champions is the main race of the season because only the best boats—those that have finished within the first five positions in the previous races—are entitled to take part in it. Recently, Champion of Champions has been dragged back to coincide with August Monday, the biggest and liveliest party of the year in Anguilla. But August Monday actually starts on the wee hours of Sunday night with J’ouvert—a bouncing procession (people actually jump all the way) that heralds the dawn of the big day while it slowly (you can only jump so quickly) makes its way through the streets of The Valley until it reaches the steep slope than leads to Sandy Ground, sometime around noon.
Champion of Champions was scheduled to start at one, but at three it still hasn’t begun. If the previous races are anything to go by, it will last until the early hours of the evening, and the celebration will drag until people decide to go to the village to attend what seems to be the overall favorite show of the carnival: the Leeward Islands Calypso Monarch competition. But the true believers, the hard-core sailing fans, have come down today to witness the resolution of the most exciting
sailing season since, well, it’s hard to tell with any certainty because years are not commonly used in Anguilla to place a situation in its historical context. Instead, landmark events—often tragedies—are used as a frame of reference. So, it seems like for the first time since Hurricane Lenny, more than two boats have made it to Champion of Champions with possibilities to clinch the title: the new 2Kool, rebuilt for a second time; DeRoque, newly rescued from the bottom of the sea; Condor, winner of the Anguilla Regatta—a tough round-the-island competition, the second most prestigious race of the calendar—and Bumblebee, all theoretically have a chance to claim the bragging rights that will last through the rest of the winter.
Over the course of the week, Bumblebee has become my favorite boat. Apparently it crashed and sank a few years ago and remained sidelined until this season. I’ve never seen Bumblebee win anything: though it’s come second eight times in a row, it is yet to win a single race this season. The other day I was speaking to a Dominican friend—that is, a friend from Dominica, not the Dominican Republic—who was explaining to me the local theory for Bumblebee’s inability to win: the new shell of the boat was designed and built, plank by plank, by Tyrone “Sharp” Rook, a crazy Rastafarian who claims to have, among many other talents, a natural gift for boat building, a relentless libido that finds no respite even in the simultaneous solace of several tourists, and an uncanny ability to communicate with disembodied spirits. It seems Sharp had a not-so-minor disagreement with Einar Cumberson, the owner of Bumblebee, before finishing the job (and here the argument is yet to be settled by popular gossip whether the matter in question concerned Einar’s wife, a mutual girlfriend, or the rightful monetary remuneration expected by Sharp). Whatever the case, Sharp was left with little choice other than to leave the work unfinished (and unpaid for) or to accept Einar’s terms. He could have deliberately boycotted the potential of his own creation, but artisan ethics and a received tradition of pride kept him from attempting such cheap tactics. Instead, he made a concerted effort to exceed himself and build the most decidedly unbeatable boat to have sailed the coastline of Anguilla in the history of time. Then, one night, just past midnight—once the keel was ready to go, just before it got the first coat of white paint—his neighbors heard a desperate clamor, a beastly disorder, arise from his backyard. It was the sleepy pleadings of the three egg-bearing hens he had snatched from his corral with one quick motion of his huge right arm. Sharp walked that night—distilling a trail of rum, sulfur, and hatred that could be sensed for days—toward his place of work, at the end of a private dust road, somewhere in South Hill. When he reached the naked skeleton of his craft, Sharp loosed the suffocating grip his right hand had over the joined necks of the three hens and dropped them half-dead on the floor. Panic-stricken, wounded, and almost asphyxiated, the desperate animals barely made an attempt—certainly not an audible one—to save themselves. With a savage, ruthless motion, Sharp pulled off the heads of each of the hens with his own hands, while his poisonous breath uttered a curse of failure to be sealed upon the skull of Bumblebee by the warm sprinkle of innocent blood, by the evil stare of his devilish eyes, and by his final sacrifice: eating the raw skulls of his victims.
The fact that the bodies of the three killed hens were only found after the fifth consecutive second place by Bumblebee this year seems to have raised no suspicion. The additional fact that after three months the bodies in question were nowhere near the state of putrefaction you would expect them to be seems to have confirmed rather than challenged the theory of a black magic ritual. Bumblebee is forever doomed—destined—to second place. Thus, considering the current state of affairs, no one, not even its sailors, thinks my boat is a rightful contender to the title today: they need to win and hope that the remaining three contestants fail to finish “in the points” (i.e., second to fifth) to complete the triple miracle of turning a donkey boat into a winner, clinching the Boat of the Year Award with only one win over the season, and, most importantly, chasing the haunting spirits of a hoax spell, a certain obeah, that, so far, has been the determining factor in its performance.
The sand is warm on the beach but the white grains are so thin along the southern and western coasts of the island that they seldom get hot enough to burn the soles of your feet. Past the dunes, I reach the bay and head up northward. The final two jibs are up. The tense confusion that precedes the start of every race reigns; all sails glow in the sun, bloated by the wind; the thirteen keels look west at precisely the same acute angle; ashore, two inebriated sympathizers put their drinks aside to hold tight the rope that binds their boat to within five meters of its position on the grid; wayward sailors run from booze stand to booze stand gathering the members of their crew, taking advantage of the opportunity to take a final swig “for the ride,” their flamboyant life vests firmly strapped around their waists the only distinguishing element between them and the maddening crowd.
Boom! Somehow the imminent blast manages to catch half the beach by surprise. Only a fraction of the boats aligned sail away. Three or four of them linger impatiently by the shoreline, fighting the impulse of the wind until the entire crew has climbed over the side, until the final bags of ballast have been loaded. I watch mesmerized as this cacophony of shapes and colors moves away from the bay, the boats slowly merging and becoming indistinguishable from one another as the width of this unbounded course shrinks when they approach a buoy drifting out at sea—the vortex of an imaginary funnel, the eye of the needle each of the boats will have to thread before they can turn back and head for the finish line.
Suddenly, the heavy arm of a clearly influenced SamB clenching my throat, toppling me to the ground, brings me back to reality.
XII
Carnival in Anguilla, like in most other English-speaking countries in the Caribbean, has very few religious connotations. The privations of Lent and the excesses that precede it play no role in a celebration that begins almost four months after Easter because it commemorates not the death of Christ but the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. The focal point of Anguilla’s carnival is August Monday, the first Monday of the month. The Law of Abolition of Slavery received Royal Assent on Thursday, August 29, 1833, and came to effect on Friday, August 1, 1834. Hence, the significance of the first Monday of the month remains a mystery, but contradictions like that abound in Anguilla: a dry island with little fertile soil where most plantations—tobacco, sugarcane, cotton—failed long before 1834, where consequently the effect of the abolition of slavery was relatively minor, given that most slaves had already been at least partly enfranchised for economic reasons, anyway; an island where independence from the colonial master in 1967 was greeted with a civil insurrection against the central government of St. Kitts, Nevis, and Anguilla—the new state, which threatened to perpetuate and legitimize the neglect the English had brought upon the island though centuries of total disregard by effectively extending colonial powers over Anguilla to St. Kitts, by far the largest and most populous island of the tripartite entity; a civil insurrection—a revolution—that was waged for more than two years, claiming a grand total of absolutely zero lives at all—not one death—and culminating, after twelve more years of political negotiations, in the re-annexation of Anguilla as an autonomous nation with the status of Dependent Territory to the British Crown; a British colony, after all, where sailing is more popular than cricket.
Like cricket, sailing is a summer sport. Not that the weather plays much of a role when it comes to deciding what to do in Anguilla. For the untrained eye of a foreign visitor, summer and winter are notions that do not apply here: the subtle, minor variations that make of Anguilla a much nicer place in December than in June—the change in the direction of the tides and consequently of the temperature of the sea, the slight breeze that picks up in April and dies out in August, the five-degree difference between the warmest day of the summer and the coolest day of the winter—pass by most tourists unnoticed. Strictly speaking, there is only one season in the year
that is ruled by the weather: hurricane season. The rest can almost safely be described as a nonseason. Which is why people in Anguilla merely adopt the lingo of the rest of the northern hemisphere, say it is winter when it snows in Massachusetts or in Rome. That, and the fact that during the “winter” the fluctuating population of the island doubles with an invasion of northern tourists, making it the period of abundance when the local population must amass the provisions that will take them through the long, long “summer.” There is no time for sailing in the winter. Sailing, like cricket, like carnival, is a summer sport.
But August Monday falls right at the peak of the Anguillan summer, and on August Monday Samuel Bedingford was among the first people to arrive in Sandy Ground, sometime before noon, a good hour prior to the scheduled start of the race. He knew the starting gun would not spew its puff of smoke before two o’clock, and he knew Dragon would not show up on time—he hadn’t for the vast majority of the previous races. But Samuel Bedingford could not wait to get down to the bay and partake in the collective revelry, because on this particular occasion, Champion of Champions featured competitors from “the neighboring nations”—i.e., both sides of St. Martin—which guaranteed the presence of a refreshingly foreign crowd among the spectators. When he got to the beach, SamB was immediately struck by the fifteen, twenty motorboats tightly squeezed together, moored on two rows to the north side of the pier in Sandy Ground. His beautiful smile gave away the joy he felt as he approached a stall and ordered the first Cuba Libre of the day, even though the digits of his watch indicated to him that it was still a.m. SamB usually never drank anything alcoholic before noon, but today was a special occasion: today was August Monday; today merited a break from the sobriety—the calmness—that characterized him; today was a day of fun.
On the Way Back Page 6