‘I need to persuade the authorities to let me have that job of going around the villages and towns where our patients come from, to talk to people.’
‘I’m keeping you back. You’d be better off without me.’
‘No. I’m not saying that. I want you to work with me.’
‘But what about my father?’
‘We’ll deal with that as well. I promise you.’
‘Can we go to Europe?’
‘That’s possible. Once we settle things here first.’
‘Everything is so uncertain. And Theo? We’ve got to see to Theo, now that we know the truth about the past.’
‘We’re not going to abandon Theo. This rehabilitation work with Singh will be a job for him. He’s been in on it from the beginning.’
‘Will he abandon us?’ Madeleine asked anxiously.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sometimes, I don’t know what goes on in his mind. Like now. He’s gone off. He’s not told us a thing.’
‘I think that’s fine. He needs that kind of freedom.’
‘I wish I could be that certain. I’m so anxious.’
The thunderhead cumuli had lifted off the gulf. There was a blinding white light and glare.
Theo could be anywhere on the island, Madeleine thought. The heavy rain, and then the sudden flood of light, had meant that there were an abundance of butterflies, which had spawned in thousands. Madeleine kept to the boundaries along the barbed wire fence. The butterflies were everywhere, trembling in the light. She followed them.
The razor grass had cut her legs. She was not dressed for this hike with her new red dress, and wearing her open sandals. A nun’s habit might have been better, she laughed to herself. She took the path which descended the hill on the other side, going down towards the sea. She remembered that this must be the path to the midden that Theo and Jesse had talked of. This was a place that Theo might go to. She descended the steep slope, leaving the butterflies, who preferred the wild flowers along the road.
Very quickly, she was in the forest which was loud with small waterfalls. She saw what would be a prize for Theo, a Mort Bleu. It was large and dark blue, sailing down the valley, settling on ferns right in front of her, and then moving off to settle again further along.
Eventually, she was out into the light again, onto to what seemed an utterly deserted beach, with the relentless waves breaking, and the air suffused with the spray and sea mist, behind which was the overwhelming white light of the afternoon. She walked to where she thought the midden lay.
She sat on the high sands and stared. She began to dig, bringing up the fragments of coral, dead mens’ bones, shells as delicate as porcelain, chip chips and oysters, conches and scallops. She dug up the bones of the sea, centuries of bones.
She thought of Theo’s story, of those who had leapt to their death rather than be captured, those who had flown. Sauteurs, the place of the leap. Might he come here, or to the cliffs above, to throw himself off?
She imagined ochre bodies falling, falling before her eyes, against the white light and the pounding ocean, more bodies, rolling in, one on top of the other.
There was no Theo. Sitting there, hunched over her knees in her new red dress, she hugged herself warm. How little she was, against the immense sea. There was a sandpiper skittering along the hard shore. Such a small thing against such a great force.
Then her mind filled with stories she had been reading in the papers of the camps, things she could hardly imagine. It might be that they were not true.
On her return to the house, there still had not been any sign of Theo. Vincent said they should wait and see if the boy did not return in the night. He did not want to raise a search in the dark. In the morning, he would alert Jonah and Krishna if the boy had not returned.
Strangely, they slept soundly. On waking, they realised that they had not been wakened by Theo. They had come now to always expect to be woken. But also they had not heard him come back.
Madeleine was the first to look in on Theo’s room. The bed was empty. She went downstairs and out to the verandah. The jetty was deserted, the water tank outside the kitchen was equally abandoned.
Vincent and Madeleine bundled into the dinghy. He had no fears to take her along with him. Not now, not today.
They were both alarmed. Theo had never stayed out all night. Where had he slept? But above all, what would the reason be? What was he saying to them by this action? ‘He must’ve gone quite some way. I was down on the beach yesterday afternoon, the other side, and all along the back track. No sign of him,’ Madeleine described.
‘Well, who knows. He might be close. At least, we know that there’s a reason for everything which has been happening. But I can’t believe he will leave us now.’
‘What do you mean? Leave? Fly? Fly away? That’s what I thought down at the midden.’ She sat in the bow while Vincent rowed.
‘Well, we’ve had the attempt at fire. There’s a kind of logic at work. There’s a pattern. There’s the repeated journey to be made. That’s what I realise now. Over and over, till something breaks it. Till he decides, or it’s decided for him to disrupt it.’
Father Meyer waved from his verandah. ‘Have you seen Theo?’ Vincent called out.
‘Not this morning.’ The priest cupped his hands. He had not seen him since yesterday. He was sure that he would be roaming with his butterfly net.
Vincent waved back. Madeleine ignored the conversation. ‘That man, that man! I can’t bring myself…’ Then she broke off.
Vincent looked at her and smiled. He enjoyed her rebelliousness.
Saint Damian’s came into view as a flight of pelicans landed in front of them.
At the jetty, there was the usual busy activity of loading and unloading. Vincent and Madeleine tied up, and made their way up to the pharmacy, where Vincent knew he would meet Sister Rita at least, and hopefully Singh, who might have some idea about the boy and know where Jonah was. Jonah would be able to organise a group of fellas who could do the walking which would be necessary to cover the island search.
Madeleine followed behind Vincent. She was wearing her red dress which made her conspicuous. Her hair was coiled into a chignon. Some patients greeted her, some turned away in embarrassment, as did some of the Sisters.
Mother Superior would be in her office. They would avoid her if it was possible.
There was some alarm, apparently, on the early morning news, about Japan. Vincent decided to catch the lunchtime news.
Hopefully, Theo would be found by then. There was a great deal of activity over at the main jetty in Perruquier Bay. And Chac Chac Bay had suddenly become full of barges and tugs, a destroyer and a mine sweeper.
It had turned out to be a blazing hot day, high, deep indigo skies, dazzling sea out on the gulf, and blistering heat. ‘Make sure all the fellas have enough water. And good shoes!’ No one had seen Vincent so agitated.
Jonah was overseeing one of groups that would take the road up to the lighthouse, from there they would send pairs to different parts of the north coast. Jonah would go up into Indian Valley with another group, Singh would lead another. They needed to question people whether they had seen the boy. They would fan out, covering the forest paths. Everyone would be strict about not including the Yankees.
‘I’ve sent a message to Jesse for his assistance,’ Vincent declared to Singh and Jonah.
‘You can never be in a financial jam when you working for Uncle Sam,’ Jonah teased cynically.
‘With France, Russia, Japan, Czech Slovakia, I think the safest place is to live is in America.’ Singh added to the mamaguy, with Tiger’s calypso.
‘And what about Atilla,’ Jonah loved the excitement. ‘The Yankees launched a real social invasion.’
‘We don’t want any Yankee here. The dollar is one thing, but not the rest.’ Singh was adamant.
Vincent ignored the joking.
Jonah’s group would do a hut to hut search, questioning people
of Theo’s possible movements.
‘Ask them all. You see the Doctor boy? Ask everybody that,’ Vincent instructed.
Madeleine and Vincent, with some of the older boys taken out of the school, would make their way first to La Tinta and then to Salt Pond.
The groups would communicate with each other across the island by blowing the conch. One blow to gain attention, two blows a positive find, three if it turned out to be negative.
The search went on all morning to no avail. There was no sound of the conch from any part of the island. The heat grew with the approach of noon. The glare was blinding.
Madeleine and Vincent got the boys to search all the caves in La Tinta Bay and the surrounding cliffs. After Salt Pond they inspected the shoreline beneath the navigation light.
As they stood on the rocky cliffs, covered with agave and cacti, they looked down to the peninsular. It was just possible that Theo could be among the mangrove. But from where they stood, they saw nothing moving on the shores of the Salt Lake.
Suddenly, a wild cacophony, a huge pandemonium of hooters and sirens were heard coming from the bay. As they made their way back to Perruquier Bay, they could see the Stars and Stripes being run up the rigging and unfurling in the bright light. ‘What’s going on?’ Vincent exclaimed.
When they arrived in the bay below, they went out to the jetty to get information from some of the Marines who were working there. This was when they heard the news. The Japanese city of Hiroshima had been bombed. The Atomic Bomb had been dropped on the city. ‘That’s all we know, Sir.’ The GI turned away to his fellow soldiers.
Madeleine and Vincent met up with the boys who had gone to search La Tinta. They picked their way through the mangrove to Saint Damian’s. The boys were running along with the excitement of the sirens and hooters which were still going. They met a Marine coming along the shore. ‘They’ve dropped Little Boy on the Japs,’ he shouted boastfully.
‘What did you say?’ Vincent stopped him as he was hurrying past.
‘Little Boy, the Atomic Bomb.’
There was a strange, ordinary reality about everything. Apart from the noise, everything seemed as usual and just itself. Nothing had changed, nothing was amiss. The Atomic Bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. It was quite simple.
Back at Saint Damian’s, they joined the crowd outside Mother Superior’s office, where the radio was on loud, coming from the verandah. The news they had heard was repeated. It had occurred at 8.15 am Greenwich Mean Time that morning. It was a clear sky, said the news announcer, as if it were a weather report. Everyone stood silently, listening.
It was difficult for Vincent and Madeleine to get hold of the enormity of what had taken place. The search for Theo had to continue. The search parties regrouped under the almond tree. Everyone was to be fed properly, and then the search would be resumed. Elroy had one bit of news to report. An old woman in one of the huts had said that she thought she saw the boy climbing the barbed wire fence into the base yesterday. He was carrying a butterfly net and she had thought nothing of it at the time. ‘So, he might be in the base?’ Vincent said. ‘Get hold of Jesse.’ They could trust Jesse to be discreet, to conduct his own search within the base. What was Theo up to now? Jesse had grown fond of Theo and understood the need for discretion. He would keep Vincent informed.
Jonah and Singh reported a strange unease at Saint Damian’s. The talk of atomic bombs, fired cities, spread its own terror among the patients. Not all the facts of the war on the Japanese side were at hand, and the soldiers at the base came under verbal attack from patients.
They did not like the boasting. Fellas who rowed at night to Carenage to go to the clubs in Porta España returned with stories of the sweet life, the money, the good time. People had work and good pay. They also told of the drunken sailors and how men were complaining that their women were going with the Yankees. This angered those who had been listening to Jonah’s and Singh’s arguments under the almond tree. One of the tunes people were singing now was from The Growling Tiger:
With the circulation of money
at the advent of the Yankee
Take this advice from me
Because I am sure that after the war
Things are not going to be as they were before.
The jokes and the carnival rhythm of the calypsos masked the anger and spoke the irony in the feelings of people. The drunken soldiers themselves laughed at the lines of Rum and Coca-Cola, working for the Yankee dollar.
The fellas under the almond tree were now singing another version. ‘Rum and Coca-Cola / Kill the Yankee soldier.’
When after two days there had been no news of Theo, Vincent and Madeleine remained at the house. Krishna and Jonah knew that they were there, and any news of Theo’s presence was to be brought to them immediately. The search parties were combing the coasts for a washed up body. The fishermen were asked to be alert. Jesse had not reported back any evidence of Theo’s presence on the base.
The days after the Hiroshima bombing continued to be blazing hot. The white light, the intense glare. It was unusual weather for early August.
On the morning of the 9th of August the sombre tones of the BBC announced that a second plutonium-type bomb had been dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Vincent and Madeleine were up early having their coffee on the verandah. They listened in silence. Their hearts heavy at Theo’s continued absence, they listened stunned by this enormous, far away event. Only this week they had been reading in the American papers, which Jesse had passed them, a press release which told of $2 billion dollars spent on the greatest scientific gamble in history which they, the Americans, had won. The article had continued with:
We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city… If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.
The bomb was nicknamed Fat boy.
In a later broadcast, they heard President Truman speaking. ‘The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbour. They have been repaid many fold.’ He went on to describe the Atomic Bomb as a gift of God. ‘We thank God it has come to us instead of to our enemies. May he guide us to use it in His ways and for His purpose.’
Vincent walked to the edge of the verandah and looked out on the gulf.
‘Who is this God? What are his purposes?’
Theo had been missing for nine days. Vincent and Madeleine had given him up as dead. They both went about the house trapped in their own grief. On the 15th of August, the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, the Japanese announced their surrender.
VJ Day was proclaimed, and another day of rejoicings began which allowed people to come out with the tamboo bamboo bands and the steel band. Madeleine and Vincent did not have the heart for the celebrations, though they were relieved that the fighting was over.
At Saint Damian’s there was a red alert. They did not want the celebration to degenerate into a riot. More police were brought in, and the soldiers were on standby. That evening, the destroyers, barges, tugs and mine sweepers in Chac Chac Bay were lit up. There was a fire works display, and sirens and hooters blared across the bay and the hills of El Caracol.
Vincent and Madeleine sat on the jetty at the Doctor’s House and watched the garish display which ran deeply counter to the feelings in their hearts and minds.
After the noise of celebration had died down on Chac Chac Bay that night, the children were put to bed. The older patients made their weary way to their huts.
The following morning, on the crowded jetty, a witness told what she had seen in the night. She had seen a figure running in the night with a flambeaux, and what looked like a large tin of kerosene. As the figure darted in and out of the buildings, a trail of fire streamed out behind.
The fire had burnt all night. Every major building, except the huts and the childrens’ hospital, had been torched. The fire had leapt over in plac
es to the base. Fortunately, people were saying, the soldiers had been up and alert, so that the fire hoses were quickly brought into operation, otherwise all the huts and the hospital with the children would also have caught fire, and been burnt to the ground before the children and old people were brought out, They had been led down to the jetty, and put in almost every available boat in the bay. Some were ferried over to the convent and to the jetty at Perruquier Bay. The judgment was quickly made that Saint Damian’s would have to be evacuated completely.
Vincent, Jonah and Krishna immediately discussed how this could be the beginning of the rehabilitation that they had been planning. This was an ironic gift. It would now be forced on the authorities. All the patients, as far as the sisters had counted, had been brought down to the jetty area. There was a fear that not everyone had made it. But so far, only one or two people were possibly unaccounted for, and the sisters were following up the reports.
In the midst of all of this emergency and confusion, with Vincent fully occupied dealing with injuries and small burns, Madeleine at his side – openly now, no matter what Mother Superior thought – a young soldier found Vincent and told him that Theo’s butterfly net had been discovered, caught on the barbed wire fence on the cliffs behind the convent, above Salt Pond.
This was the first real sign they had had in days. Vincent grabbed Madeleine and told Sister Rita to take over the treatment of burns and bandaging. They made their way, as fast as they could, with Jonah in the pirogue.
They arrived at the nuns’ jetty. From there, they clambered up the slopes to the cliff path above Salt Pond. Vincent wanted to go alone with Madeleine. Jonah waited on the jetty. ‘Take a conch with you, Doc. You could blow conch?’
Vincent took the conch. He smiled. ‘Of course I can blow conch. Wait till you hear.’
There was the butterfly net which Vincent had given Theo as a birthday present, entangled on the barbed wire fence. The pole had got wedged in the ground. The net was torn. A bit of the gauze which was free of the barbs, fluttered in the breeze, like a cluster of butterflies. ‘It’s a flag!’ Vincent exclaimed. Indeed it flew like an SOS. It signalled with its own peculiar kind of Morse. Vincent tried to disentangle it. It proved too difficult and time consuming. ‘He’s trying to tell us something.’
Night Calypso Page 42