Night Calypso

by Lawrence Scott

  From the window of the clinic, Vincent was surprised to see Theo in the crowd standing next to Christiana. They were smiling and laughing. Then Singh joined them and they all three went off towards the pharmacy. When had the boy learnt about love and got rid of his fear? This must be the gradual, healing magic of his own stories.

  The door opened. Vincent did not turn around until he had regained his composure. When he did, he saw that it was Madeleine. ‘Why are you here? You know the rules.’ She, also, held a letter in her hand. The envelope carried innumerable stamps, telling of its travels, its crossing of borders, getting by censors, approved by many different bureaucracies.

  ‘There’s been another deportation from Drancy to Auschwitz.’

  She spoke the names as casually as if they were neighbouring islands. She announced it like it had happened yesterday, paying no attention to the interval between the occurrence of these events and the time it took for the news to travel. She sounded unaware of all the things which could have happened since that news was sent. Time played its tricks with her hope and faith.

  ‘A sister at Notre Dame du Lac, you remember, the Abbey near Montreal, has a brother in the Free French in London. They managed to get the message through on a convoy which made a safe crossing. He has written a letter, sending it through their organisation’s underground, giving us the most vivid accounts we have yet had. Sister Rita brought it up to me this afternoon. She smuggled it out of Mother Superior’s mail bag. My nightmares are true.’ Madeleine stood at the open door transfixed, blurting out the account.

  Drancy, Auschwitz: now the names came from another planet, another life. Thérèse’s father, a prisoner of war, not because he had been fighting and captured, but just because of who he was, a Jew.

  His brother Bernard, missing. He remembered a trip to Paris and a train journey through Normandy. Verdun, Somme. His father had said that he must visit those places. Constantly now, this sense of life here and life there, life elsewhere. The West Indian regiment, the Empire. The century was falling apart.

  Singh had lectured this morning to his university of hunger of the great Labour Movement, the rights of workers. Vincent saw his patients under the almond tree listening patiently, their rotting limbs, their blind eyes, their legless bodies; casualties of a war that was fought along their nerve ends. This would be his war effort, the life and health of these patients, shunted onto this island with a voluntary nursing force. Who was the war for? Not them. Not Madeleine’s father.

  She came to stand at Vincent’s side. She saw the open letter and the telegram on his desk. At any moment, someone else would enter, they thought. She stood with her hands under her scapular like a good nun, her fingers worrying the beads of her rosary which hung at her side, not in prayer, but in agitation. Once she had her habit on, she possessed a certain demeanour. She felt that if she did not hide her hands, occupy them, she would stroke the nape of Vincent’s neck. She would bend and kiss that naked nape which she could see under the white collar of his shirt as she stood behind him. She could see down his brown back to a depth of three vertebrae. She now stood back from the chair.

  Vincent continued to stare out to the bay and then down at his mother’s letter and the telegram from the Colonial Office in London.

  ‘You’ve had news?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She would have to extract it from him. She was so open with her terror, her news. He now felt so angry. He had had to keep back his tears when she entered the room, holding back his emotion. She with her own story, as ever, now irritated him. All these emotions were confused and confusing. He had better sit and not get up and look at her.

  ‘Is it from England?’

  ‘Yes, and a letter from my mother.’

  Vincent began to fold the letter and the telegram back along their creases and put them into the envelope. ‘Ti-Jean brought them up this morning.’ It was something to say, to fill the silence. He could feel her behind him.

  Their minds and hearts were somewhere else, hers with a father and his with a brother. He did not know where Bernard was missing, whether it was over Germany or France. A letter was following. It would take a while. His mother had hope, hope got her over this time. What would get him over this time? Vincent stood up and pushed back his chair. She moved to the door. Vincent turned and looked at her.

  ‘Don’t leave.’

  She stood with her hands on the handle of the door.

  ‘You are hurt. I can see that. Why don’t you share with me what hurts you? I do.’ She stood looking at him pleading with her eyes, her tears brimming and trickling out of her huge black eyes. The sound of the yard was coming through the open window. They could hear the other sisters and patients walking in the corridor above. Now, suddenly, it sounded as if someone wanted to come into the surgery. Thérèse held the door firmly. She raised one hand to wipe away a tear.

  ‘It’s my brother. Bernard. He’s missing. My mother had the telegram yesterday.’

  ‘I’m sorry. To imagine it, the danger of it, those flights. I look at the planes here and I think of the men in them. The body’s so fragile.’ She held up her hands and made as if examining them medically.

  ‘He had always wanted to fly. Flying excited him. He would’ve been so excited when he went out.’

  ‘He must’ve been afraid too? Yes?’

  ‘Yes, I expect he was. No, he must’ve been. I would’ve been. But then Bernard was different, is different. He wanted to go to the war. He was obsessed by my father’s stories, when he told them, when he was capable of telling them.’

  ‘My father wanted to save life,’ Thérèse declared.

  ‘I’m sure he will. That must be what he’s doing.’

  ‘Its a work camp they say, making the best use of people.’ She comforted herself with her explanation.

  Again, Vincent focused on the wisps of black hair straying from beneath her veil. He wanted to lean out and touch them, take them between his fingers. ‘Some of your hair has escaped.’ She had begun to stroke the nape of his neck. With his finger, he prized up the edges of the tight cotton cap beneath her veil, a surgeon’s fingers tucking away, preparing to stitch it up. The palm of his hand brushed against her cheek. He held her hand. He was examining her skin. ‘What’s this I hear from Ti-Jean about you having Cococbay.’

  ‘Nonsense. You know how rumour spreads. It’s because of my work in the hills with the very bad patients. I’m fine. Look, look Doctor.’ She held out her hands.

  He pulled her close to him and kissed her.

  Someone was just outside the door where there was a cupboard with fresh linen. They stood waiting. The cupboard was closed, and then the person retreated down the wooden floor of the corridor. They could tell it was one of the other sisters, by the swish of her habit, the click of her rosary beads. Why were they putting themselves through this?

  ‘I’ll see you later. You must take extreme care always.’

  She smiled closing the door gently behind her.

  Back at the house that evening, Vincent continued to think of Bernard. His fear had not hampered his desire to fly. It had propelled him. At that moment, he remembered one of Bernard’s letters. He could not give much away about the actual operations. But he did talk about his feelings. Bernard’s letters to Vincent were more explicit about mess life than the letters he wrote to his mother.

  “After a flight I can’t wait to get to the bar. The first pint is the best. I knock it back in one. I’m not complete again until I have that drink, chased by a scotch and then lots of cigs, and another pint and then it really gets going, the stories we tell each other. Some of the lads fight.” He had become so English. “They have to fight to rid themselves of all the horrible feelings. They have to get something out of them. It’s all that fear exploding, all that real pleasure.”

  Then, Vincent realised more profoundly that he might never see him again. He missed the life he had not had with his brother.

  ‘Fear excited him.’ Vincen
t was very close to Madeleine’s face as she bent over his shoulder.

  Transformed from a nun, she wore her forever-blue cotton dress with the forget-me-nots.

  ‘My fear is in the pit of my stomach,’ she held her hand there.

  As if he were her doctor, Vincent turned towards her and pressed his hand on her stomach, pressing his hand, here and then there. ‘Does that hurt?’ he smiled.

  ‘What’re we doing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Your brother, my father.’

  ‘Us.’

  ‘Us.’ They echoed each other.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Kiss me.’ He heard her soft invitation. He could hardly breathe. He had hardly room to move. They were already so close. He turned his head and touched her lips with his mouth. They each listened to the familiar world out there, conscious of the world beating in their chests. Vincent smelt the vertivert which she wore. He smelt the scent of the soap in which her underclothes were washed. He smelt the smell of her sweat. As he kissed her, her body as a nun came back to him; the body he had so long desired. They were back at the boathouse that first time, as if they could not move from there. They rose. He took her dress off, as he had done her habit and her veil, and made a soft bed for them to lie down right there, on the floor of the drawing room. As they fucked hard against each other, a vision of her shaven head came to him as she fell to the floor under him. When they got up they were astonished at what they had done. They stood and looked at Theo, sitting on the jetty, fishing.

  Some weeks later, there was another letter conveying the deepest regret and confirming that Bernard was considered missing, having failed to return from ‘an operational sortie.’

  They now knew that his aircraft had left to take part in an attack on the city of Hamburg, and that after take-off, there had been no further contact with the flight. They conveyed that they were of the opinion that the crew would have been able to make use of their parachutes in case of an emergency. The exact circumstances were not known. They were not advising that they should hold high hopes. They mentioned that Bernard was a keen officer, popular with his fellow officers and always ready and willing to get on with the job. They would pass on any other news immediately. Bernard’s belongings were being kept at the Central Depository.

  He was dead and not dead.

  One afternoon, later that month, when he had returned to the doctor’s house earlier than usual, Theo brought Vincent a cup of tea out on the verandah with a composition on “Catching Butterflies” that he had written the previous evening, with the help of Madeleine. Compositions and stories were proliferating. Vincent was re-reading and reflecting on the impersonality and particular poise of the official telegraphic prose, and then comparing it with Theo’s descriptively charged words.

  Theo sat opposite him and looked over the corrections that Vincent had made to his composition, in addition to those which Madeleine had made.

  The night-time stories had subsided. There had not been any more for some time, since the one who came at night, galloping through the window on a horse. There was no more talk of the cold key.

  Vincent was not reassured that this was the end. No. It was probably only a respite.

  The quiet of the afternoon, and the reflections of the boy and the doctor on the different kinds of prose and their purposes, was interrupted by the sound of a pirogue coming into the bay.

  Theo got up and went down to the jetty, as he often did when a boat came close to the house.

  Vincent could see that it was not Jonah, nor any of the fishermen that he knew. Unusually, they looked like holidaymakers. There were many holiday homes on the archipelago. But it was very unusual to find holidaymakers down the islands at this time, with the restrictions made by the Americans. He got out his binoculars. It was a family group, possibly even a family that he knew, though he so seldom went into town now. He wondered who he would recognise.

  The boat had come in quite close, but was not showing any signs of wanting to come into the jetty. Vincent took in the whole scene. An older woman sat in the middle under a parasol, and a man, who he presumed was her husband, was at the tiller. A young girl, about Theo’s age, with long blonde hair blowing in the breeze, was sitting in the bow. A younger boy was next to the older woman. The man was the first to wave. Vincent waved back. The man kept on waving as if he had not got the attention that he sought.

  Vincent looked at Theo on the jetty. He stood with his arms at his sides staring at the pirogue in the bay. They had come in so close. It was now very clear who they were.

  They were a white creole family. Vincent was sure that he recognised them, but then he had not met them for a long time, since his family had moved into town, and he had gone away. Vincent heard quite distinctly the man call out, ‘Coco!’ Hearing the name from the tale shocked him. He looked for Theo’s reactions.

  The boy remained stone-still, staring out to sea. He did not respond to the waving, or to the man calling out. The man called again, ‘Coco!’ He cupped his hands to his mouth like blowing on a conch. The pirogue circled the bay once more, so at one point, the boat with the blonde girl in the bow came in very close to the jetty. ‘Coco!’ the man called again.

  Vincent felt a chill down his spine.

  Then there was the girl’s voice, ‘Theo,’ and she waved.

  At first, Theo did not respond. Then, as the pirogue raced off, leaving a wide wake, the girl stood in the bow, and over the head of her father, mother and brother, looking down the length of the boat, waved wildly. Vincent noticed Theo raise his arm and wave very deliberately, and then his arms dropped to his side.

  ‘Theo! Theo!’ she called again and again. The girl stood staring at the bow until the pirogue left the bay.

  The sun was just beginning to set. The light caught the girl’s blonde hair in the breeze, and the spray from the fast moving pirogue. She disappeared into the white light.

  Madeleine had left her work and come out onto the verandah, having heard the voices calling. She looked at the scene: Vincent watching Theo waving, the girl waving from the fast disappearing boat. And the man, still with one last shout, calling out, ‘Coco!’

  Then Theo let out a piercing cry. ‘Chantal!’

  Mister

  That night, Vincent noticed that Theo was like he had been when he first arrived at El Caracol. He was impenetrable. He knew that the cause was the appearance of Mister. He had never wanted to know the identity of the family that Theo always talked about. He knew the name well, Marieneaux. But he had lost touch with the families on the estates, particularly after being away for seven years in England. He had also agreed with Father Dominic that the whereabouts of the boy would not be disclosed to the family. Something had happened to break that promise.

  This would put Theo back, maybe months. He feared most of all that the boy would think that he had betrayed him. What would Theo do? He recalled snippets from earlier tales, earlier nights spent with his turmoil.

  AND NOW, I want to fly. I hear a woman in Chen shop tell Spanish one day that people uses to fly, just so. They see them over the hills Tortuga way. Just so, they take a hoe in the yard, in the cane piece, and fly. Fly away. They never come back.

  Some say they yearn for Africa. Africa? Yearned?

  Father Angel say, Catch the spirit.

  Spanish say, That is a lot of stupidness.

  What a wonder it would be to fly! Me, Popo, Chantal and Jai. Fly away.

  Me, Popo, Chantal and Jai. Vincent grew sad for the loss of the boy’s childhood. There she was, Chantal, on the bow of the boat this afternoon. Vincent had to confess to himself his interest in this girl, an emblematic interest in the destinies of this boy and this girl. For sometime he had noticed some concurrence with his own story. But theirs was a terrible fate. Chantal, a girlfriend! Vincent left that sad fate for the more urgent understanding of Theo’s desire to fly. Then he remembered one of Father Dominic’s earlier accounts, before he had lost touch altogether, of wh
at had been going on in the friary.

  “One day, the boy tells me I’m not seeing what is under my nose. When I leave his cell I must check for matches. And when he tells me I am not seeing what is under my nose, I think that that is what he means. Being sacristan, he could easily have some which he brings to his cell. He smiles when he sees me looking. There is a sense of humour there, or something else. ‘You think I go burn down the place, Father?’ he laughs. Maybe, we’re becoming friends.”

  Father Dominic had a definite fear that the boy would resort to fire. Vincent’s mind was running. He could not put any boundaries on Theo. He was left all day alone. He had access to everything. He had complete freedom. Vincent believed that that trust was paramount in the regaining of the boy’s full health. But, with this regression, what was he to do? Fire was apparently part of Theo’s pattern in the past. Theo’s voice from the past moved and frightened him.

  Flying and fire!

  That night Theo was at his bedside with a fleeting tale.

  AU REVOIR! Adieu! Ba-bye!

  I see Father Angel and Mrs Goveia. I see Ma Sybil and all the children. The yard standing out and waving. I see far up on the hill where the verandah use to be, where Chantal use to be. Nothing. There is nothing. Pillars, blackened pillars! There is nothing, nothing.

  First the dolly house and then the big house.

  The stories were catching fire in Vincent’s mind, and his imagination was running away with him. He read through some of Father Dominic’s other letters the next day.

  “That particular morning is an example in question. How to pick up the pieces? I thought, Oh, Lord God, and I excuse myself to take the Lord’s name in vain. It is a prayer. For I needed to have all the assistance, both divine and worldly to deal with what I had to deal with that particular morning. And I had to swear Brother Stephen into my confidence, that this was not a matter to trouble the Father Superior with at the present moment, But in good time, I would let it be known what had happened. As indeed, I had intended to do. This was not an untruth. I intended, once I had brought the boy some harmony, or he came to it himself, that I would give a full report to Father Superior about his state.