Feel the breeze on your face. Like Christmas breeze. I think of the Coco doll with its head pull off.
You going away. Papa say you going away. Chantal blow on the windmill.
Yes. I going town. Father Angel say he don’t think I could make Exhibition Class again. But he say the big words will come in handy.
Coco.
Chantal, is Theo. My name is Theo. Call me Theo. I see in her face something I see in the mirror.
Theo.
Chantal.
I wave. She wave.
Theo hopped off his perch. In the shadows, Vincent watched him disappear through the door. A streak of moonlight coming from the skylight in the corridor, fell on his back, and Vincent saw the scar and wondered again how that story went. How did Mister, Chantal and Emelda enter that story?
In the morning, Vincent found Theo’s pyjamas on the floor.
The boy got the news first on his crystal set, and by the time that Vincent had relayed it to Jonah, and they had arrived at Saint Damian’s, they were just in time to see the children processing out of the church ahead of the statue of La Divina Pastora. The children were throwing frangipani petals, which they held in small aprons, onto the path of the procession.
Vincent noticed Singh and Christiana at the door of the pharmacy as he watched Theo run off to his science lesson. As Theo approached, Christiana walked away.
Acolytes were carrying lighted candles. Six of the most able-bodied of the male patients were carrying the canopy over La Divina Pastora, the Divine Shepherdess. The whole congregation of able walkers and those on crutches, together with the nuns and other Roman Catholic patients, were in full throat with Ave Ave Ave Maria. The Hindus also processed as fervent devotees of La Divina Pastora. Others lined the way. It was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Vincent left Jonah to tie up at the jetty, and joined the procession just behind Thérèse. ‘The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbour. The Americans are in the war,’ he whispered.
Thérèse turned around abruptly, ‘Shoo,’ gauging the reactions of the other sisters. Mother Superior was way ahead in the procession.
‘America is in the war. With Britain, they have declared war on Japan.’
The news spread through the procession of nuns.
At the altar of Our Lady, which the children had decorated in the garden of the hospital, Vincent went and whispered the news to the chaplain. At the end of his homily, he announced the news to the congregation.
‘Pearl Harbour? Where is Pearl Harbour?’ people turned and asked each other.
Then, there was silence. The war suddenly seemed much closer.
By the end of the week, Germany had declared war on America.
As Christmas of 1941 approached, the news which was to transform life on El Caracol even more radically than the killing of Michael Johnson, alias ‘Charlie King,’ or the havoc of the hurricane, was announced at a special meeting by the Governor’s representative who had come to see for himself the worsening conditions at Saint Damian’s. Krishna Singh, Dr Vincent Metivier and Mother Superior sat and listened to him announce the new arrangements.
El Caracol
1942-1944
Rum and Coca-Cola
El Caracol had been transformed. Vincent had seen the map in Major McGill’s office at the lighthouse, pinned to the wall, and described at his meeting with the Mother Superior. The line indicating the barbed wire fence, the boundary, the frontier, over which no one must trespass, looked like the knots in a line of stitches. It was a tight cordon around the leprosarium and convent. It was as if the map had been sewn together at that point, a zigzag over the contours of the island, a suture, a wound that needed time to heal.
The prohibited areas were clearly marked and were to be observed strictly by the nuns, staff of the hospital, and the patients of Saint Damian’s. There was to be little or no consorting with the Marines and soldiers. ‘It’s forbidden,’ said Major McGill, in a midwest accent. A seaplane, landing in the bay, drowned his monotonous voice. ‘You cross the boundary, you’re on American soil. You can be shot on sight.’
‘These are patients, Major.’ Singh’s anger was rising.
‘This is a war,’ the major came back.
‘Yes, but it’s quite plain they’re not Germans.’
‘They’re used to quarantine, should not be too difficult.’
‘I don’t expect to see a soldier attempting to shoot a patient,’ Vincent said bluntly.
‘They’ll be ole mas in the place if you shoot a patient,’ Singh added.
‘Ole mas?’ Major McGill queried.
‘Riot!’ Singh quickly exclaimed. ‘Don’t underestimate the people.’
‘Whoa! Gentlemen, are you running a hospital or a revolution?’
‘Well, Major, I’ve asked myself that question before.’ Mother Superior seized her opportunity.
Major McGill folded his map. ‘I’m sure good sense will prevail. My men will want to make their contribution.’
‘We’ll be very happy to allow them that opportunity,’ Mother Superior concluded the meeting.
‘For fifty old destroyers,’ Singh sang as he descended the steps of the verandah, whistling the calypso tune.
Vincent smiled. ‘Let’s watch it, Singh. By the way, Krishna, I wanted to talk to you about something else.’
‘Not right now, Doc. Look, Theo coming.’ Theo brought the news of all developments on the base, getting about the island on Cervantes. Somehow, the boy was able to travel the island, despite the ‘Prohibited Area’ and ‘Trespassers Will be Prosecuted.’ Vincent could hear him as he entered the yard ‘For fifty old destroyers,’ a tune he had picked up from Singh, referring to the price the Americans had paid the British for the base.
‘Our young revolutionary is learning his songs well,’ Vincent smiled.
‘My science student. I must go. My other student, Christiana, coming soon.’ Singh moved off.
‘I see. Okay. Later. But, you know the boy. He’s vulnerable, he’s very impressionable. Be careful with him.’
‘I know where that boy come from.’ Singh waved.
Across the yard, the young girl, Christiana, was at that moment climbing the steps to the pharmacy for her science lesson. Vincent watched Theo approach the pharmacy and then turn and leave, going off to the school.
‘For we land!’ Singh spat out, standing in the yard with Jonah below the window of the clinic. ‘Theo, I go see you in the pharmacy soon.’
Vincent listened to the men. He felt cut off. He had felt hurt when Singh said, ‘I know that boy’, just now. Did he, though? He watched Theo ignore him and walk away.
Singh continued, ‘Is oil, man, and the shipping lines from down south, the Yanks come to protect.’ Singh and Jonah had started again to agitate about the fact that there had been none of the promised improvements since the hurricane.
‘I know why they here. That’s one thing. You think them Germans coming all this way for oil?’ Jonah protested in disbelief.
‘Coming? They here already, boy. You not hear the talk from them fellas going out in the boca to trawl. They going to put a stop to that trawling. I think they stop it already, but them fellas from Carenage way don’t heed no instructions. The German’s out in them seas. Fellas see them. And the Yanks building air bases on Sancta Trinidad, just like they doing here.’
‘They taking over the whole place,’ Jonah announced.
‘Wallerfield and Carlsen Fields. North and Central. They defending oil refinery and sugar factory. Don’t forget the sugar. Usine Sainte Madeleine, that is the biggest factory in the Empire. You know that!’
‘Yes, all of that good, them fellas from Carenage could say what they like, but I still asking what they giving us. Because the Japs bomb they arse they decide to join the fight. But, what they giving us?’ Jonah protested.
‘Giving us, boy? Well you know what they giving us. They could tell you in town what they giving us. They all about town, you know, all down Wrightson R
oad, drunken sailor. What they giving us is what them girls on the corner getting, and is not only dollars that coming with the Yankee wood, eh. I tell you. You ent hear the calypso they bring, Mother and daughter working for the Yankee dollar.’
‘Boy, is so?’
‘Like you ent go in town for a long while. Well, you better watch what you catch. Listen to the tune. They have young girls going mad.’
‘Is so, boy?’
‘What happen Jonah, you getting old? Time to return to Moruga by that wife of yours.’ Singh was jaunty today. ‘The young girls say they treat them nice and they give them a better price.’
‘Boy, I tell you. No joking, Singh. These fellas can’t come here just so. Look how people living! They getting to operate, take over the place, and make no contribution.’
‘No, you right. We go have to start the movement again. The people quiet, because of the battering they take from the hurricane.’
‘They ent even begin to regain themselves since then. Singh,’ Jonah changed his tone, ‘you know the Doc asking about Christiana. The boy say he see all yuh.’
‘See what?’
‘You know what I saying. Watch yourself.’
‘You don’t know what you talking about.’ Singh was on the defensive.
‘Still, watch yourself.’
‘Jonah, you watch your own business. Where your wife? She gone down the main?’ Singh broke into the popular calypso. ‘Matilda, Matilda, Matilda she take me money and run Venezuela.’
‘Is a young girl you playing with, you know.’
‘What you know? Mind your own business, man.’
Vincent could see that the garrisons he had noticed on Major McGill’s map had been camouflaged by the thick forests, and the natural contours of the land. El Caracol was now a hidden fortress with its strategically placed guns at Point Girod and Point Romain, guarding the bocas. No one would know that there were two hundred American soldiers stationed here. The safety of Porta España and Sancta Trinidad depended on these fortifications.
As Vincent trailed his hands in the wake of Jonah’s pirogue, he realised that in many ways their daily routines were unchanged by the presence of the Yankees.
He watched Theo in the bow. He had gone silent again. He had asked to return on the boat, leaving Cervantes to be grazed by Ti-Jean in the grass behind the children’s ward. What had caused this? Vincent edged closer to where he sat in the bow looking ahead. The sea was choppy and the spray drizzled on their faces.
The Maria Concepción was crossing with the nuns. Vincent had not seen Thérèse that day. Jonah steered the pirogue carefully. A squall was building in the gulf.
Theo had changed, but something which had disturbed him was pulling him back into his old melancholia. His nocturnal stories seemed to have ceased, or been appeased. ‘How was the science lesson today?’ Vincent edged closer. Of course he knew that there had not been a lesson, but he wanted the boy to tell him himself. The boy’s gaze remained fixed on the jetty ahead.
Then he turned to look at Vincent. At first it was just a glance, then he said quietly, ‘I done with that. I don’t want to go there again.’
‘Why is that?’
Theo turned back to the sea and the approaching jetty.
‘Theo. You must talk to me.’
‘Why? Why I must go back there. Science?’
‘Theo, what is it?’
Vincent waited. ‘Them,’ Theo sneered. ‘Them in the back the whole time. I tell you I see them.’
‘Who is them?’
‘Christiana nuh, and Singh. I thought she was a friend. She is no friend. Not now. She not sick. I don’t see why she here. Them.’
Vincent did not want to explore all of this now, on the boat, just as they were docking. ‘Theo, we’ll talk later. Get your fishing tackle and we’ll talk, okay?’
In the end, Theo did not come down from his room, but stayed up with his maps, not coming down to fish or to have supper. Vincent put his head round the door as he was going off to bed. He crept towards the bed and blew out the candle’s flame which was waving dangerously near the boy’s mosquito net. ‘Night Theo, night, don’t let mosquitoes bite.’
Vincent woke to the smell of chewing gum. Theo was sitting at the end of his bed, perched there again, like the jumbie bird in the bush, making the sound of his ironic nickname, ‘Coco, Coco, Cocorito.’ The boy stared at him. He was chewing gum.
‘Where’ve you got chewing gum from, Theo?’ Vincent wiped the sleep from his eyes. ‘I don’t mind you having it, but I just want to know where you could’ve got it from.’ Theo was mute, unless this tale was his answer. He waited for Vincent to get comfortable, with a pillow behind his head.
THEY SAY they get this far to the edge of the rocks, then whoosh!
Theo made a flying motion with his arms, then adjusted his sitting position on the railings at the bottom of the bed, so that Vincent wondered whether he would topple off backwards.
HERE, THIS PLACE, where is a midden. I ent hear that word before, midden. Father Angel never teach me that word.
This fella have a funny accent like a cowboy in the pictures, when I went theatre with Spanish and Mama down in Couva.
One day we take the buggy, and Spanish get a horse borrow in the yard. He take Mama to the picture. Mama beg him to bring me.
This fella have the same accent and I think he have this accent because he always chewing when he speak.
Vincent wondered whom Theo was talking about.
MIDDEN, he say. Right here, is a midden. His jaws rolling. He move over his syllable, chewing them up.
All the time he slurring and chewing. And I know that lieutenant is different to how they say it in English proper, lieutenant, because Father Angel tell me that.
But he never stop talking, this fella, this GI. He say his name is Jesse. But first I don’t believe he is any GI. Well, well, is because he’s a black man. I don’t know they have black GI. Then he joke and say, Jesse James, the famous outlaw.
He want to know my name, but I stand up so and watch him. He say, Cat bite you tongue, kid? Same question like others use to ask, but it sound different in his mouth with the chewing gum.
He chewing the whole time that he speaking and kneeling on the ground and picking up shell and saying, this is the midden. The Lieutenant tell them they must mind where they digging. But they don’t seem to mind. And the tractor just moving earth and clearing trees. And in no time, the barracks going up, the posts and the barbed wire fence all the way down the road. Red dirt in the green hills. They dragging out tall tall trees. That’s timber, man, another GI say. He chewing too.
And the parrots rise up and take off, screaming across Chac Chac Bay. Whoosh. Les perruches. The GI say the French sisters call them les perruches.
Theo had flown like the parrots, leaping off the railing of the bed to crouch on the floor, and then jump up to sit on the chest of drawers.
JESSE SAY TO ME to come with him down to the shore where the ocean come in. Come and see the ocean. There is a big O in his Ocean.
Theo chewed on his chewing gum, the whole time, getting his tongue around the words as he had heard them.
THE SHORE is hidden, tuck beneath us, under the thick green veils of lianas and vines with broad leaves. I never see the sea like that. So far, yet so near, like a bucket of water, brimful, swelling and overflowing.
Atlantic, Jesse say, trying to embrace the world. Is a wide expanse as far as I can see, swelling, glinting, making a tumult below in the bay. Making a tumult as of many voices speaking at once, like Father Angel say.
Now, I know my geography and I know they have ocean. We does say, come down by the sea, or just, come down by the water. Go by the beach.
Words have a history too, Father Angel say.
This was progress, Vincent thought. This was a story in the present. This was not something from Pepper Hill’s past or from the friary’s past. This was a recent past. Vincent did not worry about the fact that Theo seemed to
have a life on the island that he did not know about. That he had not been attending his science lessons but meeting with GIs in the hills.
THE MIDDEN is down on the shore where there is a landslide, and all you seeing is shells. Jesse crouching there among the shells, raking through with his fingers. Shells. Chip chip, conch, oyster, all kind of sheIl. I can see the pink on the lip of the conch and purple on the mouth of the oyster. What is in shells?
Then he say, stooping down, picking up shells and dead coral, Maybe bones. Bones! Whose bones? Shells and bones like white porcelain.
I know porcelain from Father Angel’s cabinet in the presbytery up Pepper Hill.
It fine so, the shells, the dead coral. Is then that my ears prick up. What kind of bones? He take up something which is not a shell. This is pottery, kid, he say. We does say pottery like poetry.
This here is part of a pot, and he hold it and show me how it is part of a vase or a drinking cup. For truth, yes, it look so.
He say, these are the first peoples on this island. More than five hundred years ago. They must’ve watched Columbus come up through the gulf from the Serpent’s Mouth. Watched his caravels, the sails unfurl, and wonder if it was a whale or something from another world. He naming these people: Carib, Aruac, Taino. Ancient peoples, ancient civilisations.
They build in palms and bamboo. He talk so.
That is why there is nothing to see. They have no ruins. Is part of the palms and bamboo that grow now, is part of the noise that the parrots make, is part of the music of the sea with the shells and bones and broken vases. All of that is part of the sighing of the sea. That is all what remain of their history, he tell me. Just so, chewing gum the whole time.
Theo looked up and paused for a moment, to take in how Vincent was himself taking in the story. Then, he was off again.
AND I WONDER that this black GI, this negro GI, know so much about the islands, as he call them, throwing his arms in the air, making an arc for an arc of islands he say, stretching from Florida to our eastern coasts, the beaches at Guayaguayare, which he say is the name give by those people that he speak of. I excited because I know a word he looking for but he don’t seem to able to find.
Night Calypso Page 22