by K. E. Silva
When we arrived at Beckford Hall that trip, the customs officer didn’t recognize my mom’s face or my father’s last name, still on her passport, and sent us to the foreigner’s line because I was from the wrong place: the United States.
Maybe that was why she only spoke of me that trip, instead of ever to me, and laughed along with Uncle Martin’s wife when their maid tried to dress me in the morning and I ran down the hall screaming because some strange woman was trying to remove my nightclothes.
I woke in Granny’s second bedroom at Tours, marred head to toe with mosquito welts from the hole at the top of her old netting, to the sound of Uncle George’s booming voice, looking just for me, chanting: Where … is … Jean? … Where … is … Jean?
I ran out to Granny’s living room in my lavender, nosleeved pajamas and short, short hair to the wrong uncle. He wasn’t Uncle Charles from Canada. He wasn’t anyone I knew at all. But he smiled so wide when he saw me, I forgave him on the spot.
It was nice to be noticed. My parents had just divorced, and by that time my dad had already started forgetting to pick me up on the weekends.
It was that first meeting, way back then, that I claimed Uncle George as my own. A replacement for my own absentee father.
I would have followed Uncle George to the ends of the earth, like a duckling imprinting on the first thing it saw. It was as if Uncle George, and all those mosquitoes, were the only ones happy I’d come at all.
* * *
The Beckford Hall airport is at the northern end of Baobique, close to Granny. Most people prefer to fly into Beckford Hall because it is much safer than the De Canne airport, near Bato, the capital and busiest town at the southernmost tip of the island, where the wind off the sea can flip a plane.
In San Juan there are no worries like that. The airport in Puerto Rico is big, more like the ones in the U.S. than on the little islands. And so there I transitioned slowly to my mother’s Third World, not yet required to let go of all my luxuries.
I studied each face in the Baobique section of the airport. From there on out, I would be watched. Every one of those people, save one or two white American or European scuba divers, were Baobiquen, and had already begun watching me, across from my lump of slumbering mother, wondering how I came to be a Pascal.
You are a Pascal, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and tiny graying curls, cropped close against dark, dark skin, addressed me with an accent belying long stints in North America. He pointed to my mom, took the seat directly adjacent to mine. If she is your mother, you must be a Pascal.
I didn’t want to play nice with someone who obviously knew my mother’s family, someone who’d probably side with them if he found out the truth about me. But he knew my name; I had no excuse for reticence. I conceded, I am.
I am Louis Petion. He settled in for extended conversation, left me no out. I am sorry to hear about George. I attended his burial last week. They did a beautiful job of it, out at Godwyn.
That’s my mother’s house. I pointed across the aisle. George was my uncle.
He smiled, small. Encouraged. You know, I was in politics with your uncle. I was on the other side, Peoples’. He was Liberty.
Admittedly, I was curious … Did you know Prime Minister Hill?
Oh yes. I worked directly with him for some time.
I’ve never met any Socialists on Baobique. I only know my mother’s family.
Mr. Petion scooted closer in his black plastic airport chair, looked around him conspiratorially, lowered his voice to almost a whisper. You know … some people think his heart attack was no accident. There were rumors of an assassination. Hill was a very radical man. Too radical for many. He wanted the public cemetery, you know. His family went against his wishes when they buried him on their private estate.
My uncle told me Hill was once imprisoned in Canada for instigating Black Power demonstrations.
That is true. I was there. It was during university. But what is wrong with speaking your mind? Even if it means they’ll lock you up or kick you out, like they did to Hill?
They kicked him out of university?
He laughed, tossed his head back, his chin to the sky. Young Pascal, they kicked Hill out of Canada. He was a troublemaker, I’ll give him that. He made people very uncomfortable.
Mmmm. I can understand that.
Mr. Petion smiled big then, as if I were joking, winked my way. But Pascal, what could a sweet young woman like yourself know of trouble-making, na?
I changed the subject fast, fast, rose to wake my mother for boarding. Well, I would have liked to meet Prime Minister Hill. I’m sorry I never got the chance.
* * *
When there are too many twenty-five-seaters flying in and out of Beckford Hall, its single runway used by both the arriving and departing planes, sometimes you have to circle the island to bide time.
Normally the planes fly through the valley and land toward the sea, rather than toward the mountains. Since it was overcast in the valley, we landed toward the mountains. But the winds are bad that way, the runway short, and there’s a chance you might crash into the rock.
We didn’t. So everyone on the plane burst out clapping the moment we touched down. Outside the oval windows of our plane, I could see a storm coming, dark and gray. In the foreground, each leaf of the long coconut fronds moving separately in the wind, reflecting leftover light.
We hadn’t called Granny to tell her we were coming to address her threats about adding my uncles as heirs to Godwyn. No one in the family knew we were there. So no one was waiting to pick us up. I’d booked the tickets the night before, after I’d gotten the call that the judge had granted us the continuance in Cynthia’s case.
Mr. Petion would not hear of letting us take a taxi.
His brother, come to pick him up, threw my backpack and all my mom’s bags on the flatbed of his truck, ushered us into his cab, but did not speak. The brother climbed onto the flatbed with the bags. Mr. Petion took the wheel.
My mother, between us, was utterly useless, moving only when told to, from one seat to the next, saying nothing. I was embarrassed; me, not even Baobiquen, calling on help like that from a stranger.
Along the way, a tinge of rust on all things metal: red and green tin roofs, cars, street signs, fences, empty aluminum cans strewn by the roadside. Red Stripe. And Fanta.
We drove mostly in silence, half awkward, half not; pulled up the drive at Godwyn, the crotons and small palms leading us to the car port.
Outside the truck, Mr. Petion’s brother handed me my backpack. I asked him, Can I help with the gas? Reached for my wallet.
They laughed at my foolishness. And asked me how long I’d be visiting.
Until I can talk some sense into my grandmother, I joked.
Ha ha! Into Granny Pascal? Then you’ll never leave! Mr. Petion joked back.
He pressed his business card into my palm. An accountant in Bato. Call me if you need anything, young Pascal. I will be back soon.
They had another hour on the windy road south.
CHAPTER 13
Almost a year had passed since I’d set foot on Godwyn. It was the last place Susan and I’d made love, before we got caught and Uncle George requested my departure, half-paralyzed, from Granny’s second bedroom. Patriarchs buried in its breast, the house my mother wanted to keep as home. Her crumbling, wooden Godwyn: plastic on rotting cedar planks to keep the outside out; plastic on antique chairs, over the armoire, to keep them dry just one more rainy season; bats in the attic; rats in the crawl space below, where the dogs slept. Yet, all with an elegance calling out from its front porch, its red tin roof and deep purple bougainvillea, all demanding their due respect. It might merely be a matter of time before the next strong winds of the season take down a weight-bearing wall, but there is something more to that house than its structure. Godwyn stands, time itself.
The wind from the coming storm wrapped me with its long arms; hugged me tight, tight; squeezed the breath f
rom my lungs. Baobique had me once again, and I feared it would never let go.
But my mom seemed to have lost at least a touch of her inertia. She wandered off, out past the graves, as if ordered by some silent voice that it was time to switch seats.
I let her go: down the dirt path, reddish-brown between green, stopping only for the sharpest of thorns or sticks beneath her feet, padding her way to the edge of memory; a girl, once again, taking along a dog and a cutlass, even though the path was overused by the squatters in Grampy’s garden; through the small guava trees, bananas, and tall arching coconuts, she’d make her way in the rain-wet bush to where she could see. When she got there, she’d stand silent, holding the dog tight, tight, so he wouldn’t break her peace. And she’d look out over the tall grass and thin trees, across the valley to the next mountain, and the next, and the next. And she’d lean on her Morne Volcan. Rest.
Behind her, the constant roll of the Atlantic, its soft call never leaving her ears.
She passed from my sight.
I turned to Godwyn, unlocked first the top, then the bottom of my mother’s locks. The entrance more shutter than door, I twisted the long wooden arm that acted as a knob, pointed it straight up, and pushed through to the dining room. Yesterday’s doors. Bright green against a whitewash of walls.
Like the door, the shutters throughout the house had been closed tight from people, animals, and wind, but it was getting dark, and no sign yet of the dogs, so I only opened the window with glass, the one in my mom’s room. From her bed I saw the sun setting over the rough Atlantic, out past the guava trees, the baobabs, and the graves. I had never known Godwyn to hold more than one body. But it wasn’t just Grampy anymore. Uncle George was out there, too.
In my head, I could almost hear my grandmother weeks before, how she would have been the day they buried her son, such an important son, next to the body of her husband in this little place.
I could almost hear the wind. The ocean. And it was as if I were there, squatting at the side of the house, digging my fingers into the ground to pull up ginger my mom would boil and sweeten for beer.
I heard Granny, still in my thoughts, from the house: These girls are so stupid. They can’t do anything right. I told them to put the paper serviettes out on the table, and look, they’ve put out the cloth napkins! Here, take these back to the kitchen and bring me the stack of paper serviettes. People will be coming soon. Look at the table! Oh my God, that dog is in the house … People will be coming!
I pulled a slow, full breath to the bottom of my lungs, held it until it was no longer needed, let it seep out on its own. Wrestled for control. With the next inhalation, not as deep and more metered, my thoughts plunged my head, wet, toward the bottom of the ocean, and the rest of me followed. The slick of the water against my arms and legs and pushing hands oiled my descent into the coral at Tours Beach, masking depths I could not fathom. Coming to the surface, the ripples of the water licked my face with their tiny tongues.
I could hear Susan, too, the night before Uncle Martin—small banana—and Mr. Williams followed us out through the bush, waited, watched until they’d had their fill. I could almost hear her whisper softly in my ear, We don’t have much time. Please. No one is watching. We’d been right there. On my mother’s bed. I kept thinking I’d seen someone outside the shutters, kept thinking I’d heard something just outside the door as she lay on top of me, removed her clothes and mine under the white cotton sheet I kept pulling back up every time her movements pushed it off. Her long fingers grabbing at the back of my arched neck, claiming me hers with each quick breath. Her mouth on mine; her hands gripping, pushing, pulling. Our bodies pressed so tight together I could feel the blood in her veins. Yet my eyes never leaving that window. Distracted.
* * *
Lightning pulsed outside the bedroom window and I was not myself—eyes wide and open; subsided, and I was back—closed. I sat at the edge of the bed, lay back.
In the streets of Bato above my uncle’s law practice, my youngest cousins yelled out from their second-floor balcony to men who lived on the streets—Buller! Buller!—ducked back inside before they were seen. Bullers are poor male prostitutes; my cousins, respectable children among the island’s elite.
* * *
My mind drifted toward fatigue. I remembered the man with the bad eye from Sommerset I’d seen during my last visit, saw him slip through the open window, felt his hands closing in around my neck, closing in between my legs. He slipped through while my guard was down, tore off my costume—my heterosexual façade—left me bare and exposed in front of my whole family, all of whom just stood there laughing, letting him grab me, place his one good eye and two strong hands on my sleeping skin.
CHAPTER 14
The dogs barked me awake from under the open window. Outside it was pitch black, except for a sliver of moon on the water far below, fast clouds moving past.
My heart hit my throat, stole my breath on its way up: They could not have arrived on their own.
Barking, barking.
Out there, in the country, I voiced a cautious yell … Mom! Received no reply.
Rascal and Lucia had quieted down but I still heard their movements in the front, by the carport. If they were alone, they would have been here already, running muddy inside the house.
I reached under the pillow, felt for the harmless handgun with shaky fingers, found it, and took hold.
Who’s there?
A voice from the bottom of the drive. Hello, hello! Young Pascal, it is Mr. Petion. I’ve found your mummy’s dogs … And I’ve a friend for you to meet.
Embarrassed, I slipped the pistol back underneath the pillow, padded over to the still-open front door and halfway down the drive to meet them in my bare feet, the dogs at my heels, turning red with mud.
It’s a good thing those dogs remember your smell. A tall, lanky stranger in slacks and a button-down dress shirt like the one Uncle Martin wore to the beach the last time I was here extended his free hand to mine and we shook. His mannerisms vaguely familiar—something about his easy smile.
I’m Jean. Souza. Sophie Pascal’s daughter from California. My name meant nothing without that point of reference. Have we met before? I feel I know you from somewhere.
Mr. Petion shared his friend’s easy smile, let me in on their secret. This is Leonard Hill, my business partner. I am godfather to his second child, Susan.
Hill looked me straight in the eyes. Seeing me prone, perhaps, on top his daughter, in the dirt, doing our filthy nonsense. Maybe he was there to get back at me for touching Susan.
My knees grew weak, unstable. If I were a true Pascal, I stammered, I’d have something to offer you … some coconut juice, a snack of fried plantain. I clenched and unclenched my hands behind me, backpedaled toward the house, tried to stay calm, feet on the ground in the cleared bush, and continued, I’m sorry I have nothing for you.
I didn’t think I had time to reach the gun. Rascal and Lucia, still at my side, knew the men too well to attack. I had worked myself into some mess. Who was I to go there, armed with only my mother’s last name, two strikes against me—what I’d done and who knew it. My eyes began to tear.
I was treading water. Barely. Something in their look made me suspect they could see my arms flailing underneath the surface.
You came back, na. For your mummy’s house. To me, that has Pascal written all over it … George’s funeral was the first Susan’s been back to Baobique in a year, and your grandmother made such a fuss! It was Mr. Hill who spoke.
Maybe they weren’t the other side. I broke. Look. I’m sorry. But I don’t see my mother and I have to find her. She hasn’t been well of late …
My mother was missing again and I couldn’t negotiate Godwyn without her. Even if I’d known how to unlock her phone, I couldn’t call the police. That’s not how you solve your problems there.
Apparently enlisting their help, I asked them: Where did you find my mother’s dogs? They hadn’t been here
when Mr. Petion dropped us off from the airport.
We didn’t find them at all. They found us. Met us at the edge of the road and your mummy’s drive. Down by the access road.
The access road had been cut by Grampy when he got the idea about the bay trees. They grow exceptionally well in Baobique.
The only thing I remember about bay, growing up, was not to eat the leaves in the spaghetti sauce. But in Baobique it makes rum. Grampy had twenty of their forty acres at Godwyn covered with bay. Bay got him the land at Milieu, got Uncle George and Uncle Martin educated in England; Uncle Charles, in North America.
The access road cuts all the way through the estate, runs clear to the port at Sommerset. And the rough types there.
I need to find her. I went to my backpack, fished for my running shoes, sunk deep to the bottom, rooted them out, forced my feet in, laced fast. I need a flashlight, or something.
You cannot walk that road at this time of night, you are not accustomed to its footing. Mr. Hill tried to tell me what to do. He must have thought I was Susan. Continued, And a storm is coming soon.
I noticed, then, the banging shutters of my mother’s open window—began to panic. Storms could get big that time of year.
I was brusque because I was scared, and they needed to know I was serious. I grabbed the flashlight and my mother’s machete off the hook by the back door, where she always kept it, cut them down to size, told them: You are not my father. And I have to find my mom. She’s all I have.