Beautiful Revolutionary

by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

  ‘Harry, I want more research on this cryopreservation.’ Jim shoos Dr. Katz. ‘It’s very interesting, but Evelyn’s concerns are legitimate.’

  So much for getting to her afternoon lessons with time to spare. Dr. Katz rises, still smirking. ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘You look like you need to be fucked,’ Jim tells Evelyn matter-of-factly once Dr. Katz has let himself out of the cabin. But he loses interest in the thought almost immediately, puckering his lips at the next letter. ‘What’s this? Dear Mr. Whitehead …’

  ‘A thank-you letter to the consul for coming out to the settlement yesterday.’

  ‘No-no-no-no-no …’ Jim groans. ‘Honey, this is horseshit, frankly. Doesn’t say anything ’bout what we know. Get the typewriter.’

  ‘We can’t very well accuse him of being the CIA chief of Guyana in writing, Jim.’

  ‘Ain’t gonna let you put words in my mouth. Get the typewriter.’

  Evelyn flounces out of the room. Peeks her head outside the cabin and whispers to Billy, the guard on duty, ‘Please fetch Frida immediately.’

  She hauls her typewriter out of the cabinet next to the bunks. Flounces back to Jim.

  He smiles sweetly. ‘Thank you, darlin’.’ Patting an empty space on the bed, he looks at her with soft concern. ‘What’s the matter, sweetheart? You look tired.’

  Warily, Evelyn perches on the edge of the bed, lets Jim compress her bony white hand. ‘It’s nothing … I’m just a little stressed about my parents’ visit, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m gonna need you to stay strong, honey,’ Jim reprimands her gently. ‘They’ll be applying pressure. Don’t make me regret trusting you to withstand it.’

  ‘I won’t, Jim.’

  Evelyn pulls her hands away, tucks her hair. Jim re-tucks it, then traces down from her earlobe to her jugular, the pale triangle of bones at the base of her throat. ‘Beautiful revolutionary,’ he murmurs. ‘We’ll be at peace soon.’

  Evelyn gazes steadily past his sunglasses. ‘Dear Mr. Whitehead …’ she prompts.

  Jim is still dictating the letter to her when Frida steals inside, so thin it seems to be her bones and not the keys around her neck jangling. While jungle life has improved Phil’s looks, it has wreaked havoc on his sister’s: pimples sprouting from her square jawline like mushrooms in nuclear darkness; orange freckles across her face and chest; orange tinea joining with the freckles and disappearing into the paleness beneath her tank top. Yet Frida is still young and clear-eyed; still cute with her long hair in pigtails; still knows how to handle Jim.

  ‘Father,’ she breathes, approaching the bed. ‘You’re awake.’

  Jim inclines his head. ‘Frida, darlin’. You here to help us whitemail Whitehead?’

  Frida looks at Evelyn, who flits her eyes down at the letter she’s typing, blinks twice for no, raises her brows at the correspondence by Jim’s pillow and blinks yes.

  ‘Yeah, Father,’ Frida says confidently. ‘We’re gonna nail his crooked white ass at the Embassy tomorrow. Terra got your instructions.’

  ‘Oh, Terra … Terra,’ Jim laments. ‘She’s a good soldier, but she’s been gone from the fold too long. She needs to be near my aura, or she’ll weaken. I can already sense it.’

  ‘She’ll be back next week, Father,’ Frida reassures him. ‘As soon as Phil is done here and can take her place in Georgetown.’

  Evelyn straightens her papers, nicks her finger, brings it to her lips, blood stinging. ‘You should radio Terra,’ Evelyn suggests. ‘It’ll do her good to hear your voice, Father.’

  ‘Yes,’ Frida enthuses. ‘She should be back from her YWCA lunch by now.’

  Evelyn rises, typewriter in arms. ‘I think it’s a very good idea. In fact, I think it would do everyone good to see you up and about. Your presence is an inspiration to the people.’

  Emboldened, Jim swings his legs out of bed. ‘My people need me.’

  In the next room, Evelyn checks her watch: two minutes to get to her Political Science class. They will be discussing Jamaican politics: Manley, Seaga, the joining of hands at One Love last month. Frida joins her by the wardrobe.

  ‘Make sure those documents go out with tomorrow’s mail shipment,’ Evelyn whispers. She glances at the mini refrigerator. ‘And try to get some food in his stomach.’

  3.

  Evelyn’s only concession to her date with Phil is a splash of water to her tired face, a flattened palm to her clothing. She cracks the door of the radio shed — mosquitoes be damned. A pleasant morning breeze to dispel the miasma of her and Frida keeping themselves awake with too much coffee and dried cutlass beans. Naturally, Frida has been dismissed early. Phil raps on the door at exactly five-forty-five.

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Evelyn looks up from her paperwork. ‘Let me just finish this.’

  Phil obediently sits his long body on the daybed, waits in silence. She would never keep Jim waiting, but it feels right with Phil; his eyes on the back of her neck, thoughts wandering.

  ‘Sanitation report,’ she explains, after five minutes have elapsed, no more. She stands and retrieves her attaché case. Phil stands with her, slinging his camera bag.

  ‘No problem.’ He smiles.

  Outside, smelling the morning dew, observing the mists rising from the jungle canopy, Phil smiles again and says, ‘Just look at that. Beautiful.’

  Platitudes. Only, Phil has more to him than platitudes. Phil can speak three languages; can devise and crack codes with as much skill as she or Frida; has intelligent ideas not just about world events, but philosophy, poetry, artistic theory. A conversation several months ago, working late at the headquarters in Georgetown, in which they had discussed his combat-zone photography: thatched huts burning; women floating face-down in rice paddies; G.I.s pointing guns at toddlers. The purpose of great art, like Guernica, like The Scream, to alert one to human suffering, human madness.

  He is good with her child.

  ‘How’s the little Man of Peace?’ This is one of Phil’s nicknames for Soul, along with Little King, Shalom, Sunny.

  ‘He’s been calling all animals “doggy”, lately.’ Evelyn feels a sweet tightening at the corners of her mouth. It is easy for her to speak of Soul, when asked. Not many people ask, though. ‘The other day, he came up to me in the yard and said, “Little doggy for you, Little Mother.” Then he stuck the world’s largest beetle on my trousers.’

  Phil laughs. ‘“All animals are doggies.” I like it.’

  ‘“But some animals are more doggy than others.”’ Evelyn smiles crookedly. ‘He’s quite a character.’

  They pass the bakery with its smokestacks; get a whiff of burnt cassava flour. The banana shack. The path branches, narrows.

  She watches the sky lighten, Phil’s features taking shape.

  The Guest House, for obvious reasons, is some distance from the town’s center. Sheltered by trees: palm, titi, tamarind, Surinam cherry, frangipani. A chattering of blue-headed parrots. Phil stops on the path; touches Evelyn’s shoulder. Points upward.

  Monkeys. A family of three. Up in the titi tree, tails twining.

  Phil takes out his camera, shoots: shoom-shoom-shoom. ‘Hey, doggy doggy,’ he calls up the tree, then grins at Evelyn over his shoulder.

  She walks past Phil. Up the path to the boxy cabin on stilts, up the porch, the chemical sweetness of the paint edging her nostrils like a drug. She pushes the door open — no lock on the door, no need for locks; no material possessions; no crime.

  Phil follows her inside.

  Evelyn feels Phil at her back. His eyes on her, even as he keeps his distance. His eyes, as she treads the jatoba floorboards, inspects the twin beds, mosquito nets. Handicrafts by their seniors. On the wall, a watercolor by Sally-Ann depicting a Promised Land of flowers, birds, monkeys, multiracial faces smiling from the greenery as a rosy dawn bleeds overhead.

&n
bsp; ‘Everything seems to be in order,’ Evelyn says. She looks at Phil and his face is so good-natured and attentive that she has to add, ‘It’s beautiful. Truly.’

  Phil smiles wide. ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  There’s a moment. His eyes. Her eyes. Phil leans his back against the doorframe.

  ‘You must be looking forward to seeing your parents.’

  ‘Yes,’ Evelyn admits, and is surprised by her honesty.

  ‘A long time?’ he asks. ‘Since you last saw them?’

  ‘About a year and a half.’

  ‘Soul has grown a lot.’

  ‘Yes,’ Evelyn says again, trying not to linger on Phil’s lazy limbs, the forward tilt of his pelvis. ‘He’s really a little boy now, not a baby.’

  Phil continues to look at her with interest, yet she has run out of things to say. She averts her eyes and straightens purposefully.

  Phil straightens, too. Shuffles out to the porch and announces, ‘Yolanda! Great timing.’

  He isn’t speaking to Evelyn, of course, but to the beautiful young woman coming up the dirt path with a basket of flowers.

  ‘We thought it would be nice to have some flowers,’ Phil explains to Evelyn, though he isn’t looking at her anymore; he’s looking at Yolanda.

  Evelyn looks at Yolanda, too. Stares, really, with a kind of shell-shocked neutrality at the tight corkscrew curls, the round young breasts, the itty-bitty waist. Evelyn recognizes her as one of the wet-T-shirt girls from the day before; recognizes the body. Not the body of a thirty-two-year-old woman. Not the body of a thirty-two-year-old white woman.

  Yolanda stares back, doe eyes unfazed, like she’s used to being stared at.

  Phil steps down from the porch. ‘You look straight out of some pastoral idyll,’ he tells Yolanda. He looks into her basket. ‘Those ones with the red stripes are out-of-sight! Are they from your grandma’s garden?’

  ‘They’re not from any garden.’ Yolanda smiles slyly and lowers her voice. ‘If you walk toward the falls, there’s this little place …’

  As Yolanda launches into a description of where the rarest wild orchids are to be found, Evelyn concentrates on keeping her face a polite blank. ‘Righteous,’ Phil enthuses, and Evelyn is sure he’s never looked at her as he’s looking at Yolanda. ‘You’ll have to show me sometime, Yo’. I’d love to take some photos.’

  ‘Sure. “Sometime”,’ Yolanda says archly, and gives an inexplicable little laugh.

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The two laugh together. Evelyn checks her watch pointedly and refolds her arms.

  Phil notices. Gallantly, he offers, ‘These orchids are really something.’

  Evelyn ignores him. To Yolanda, she says, ‘Make sure you put those in water.’

  Yolanda nods with such vacant-eyed courtesy, she may as well be saying yessum. She sneaks a glance at Phil and they laugh again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Phil tells Evelyn. ‘But this light …’ He gestures helplessly at the sunrise, Yolanda. ‘It’s perfect. Do you mind?’

  Who is he talking to? If Evelyn, she doesn’t answer. If Yolanda, she throws her head back, showing white teeth, the fuchsia inside of her mouth. ‘Ohmygod, Phil. Are you serious?’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Phil repeats. Then, to Evelyn, ‘I’m like a moth: always chasing the light. Thanks for letting me keep you up so late … early? You probably want to catch some z’s, I bet.’

  Offended by the implication that she needs sleep, Evelyn blinks fast, murmurs, ‘Yes. Well.’ She checks her watch again. ‘Honestly, this has taken longer than I expected.’

  At that, Evelyn steps down from the porch like a queen vacating her throne.

  ‘Please don’t leave those orchids without water too long. It would be a shame for something so beautiful to die.’

  It is better once she is out of Phil’s sight, walking the luscious path back into town alone. Better, to walk alone. Better, not to dwell on things that are essentially unsurprising. Brown skin. White teeth. Fuchsia mouth, laughing. High ass and tiny waist and pert breasts. Why wouldn’t Phil look? Phil is a man, and men are shit.

  Men are shit; she has known this since Percy, who took her virginity on the sand dunes at Santa Cruz but never called her back for a third date. Since Jean-Claude, who let her fly from the country she had grown to love and back to the one she hated, without ever thinking to follow. Since Lenny Lynden, who accepted Terra as her replacement as easily as pancakes instead of French toast. For as long as she has been a woman, Evelyn has understood the fundamental indifference of men.

  Evelyn passes a crowd of male workers, dispersing loudly from the Dining Tent. Her nose wrinkles, as if she is indeed smelling shit. Further down the path, she sees a flock of children being shepherded to breakfast. Her nose unwrinkles — Soul is among them. Soul, who may someday be a shit man, but who for now strikes her as the most perfect creature in the world.

  ‘Mmmmom!’ Soul bursts out in his froggy little voice. He jumps up and down, waves his arms above his head. Evelyn smiles, waves back. Soul turns to one of his friends, a kinky-haired girl called Tenille, and boasts, ‘That’s my mom: Little Mother.’

  Her child. Her child by Jim. Evelyn clings to this thought, for it is everything.

  Inside Jim’s cabin, Frida is already snoring like a lumberjack on the top bunk. Mona is on the bottom bunk lacing her boots, but scoots to the floor when she sees Evelyn. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’ Evelyn nods, puts down her attaché, and begins to remove her own shoes. In a hush, Mona adds, ‘Sally-Ann took Soul to the nursery on her way out.’

  ‘Yes. I saw him.’

  ‘We had to put him in odd socks. One black, one navy.’

  ‘Odd socks for an odd little boy.’ In fact, Soul is a reassuringly normal child.

  Once Mona has left, with a rustle of her straw bag and a creak of boots on jatoba, Evelyn strips down to her tank top and underpants and pads into Jim’s room. He is asleep. A rounded form under the covers of the queen bed, wide mouth parted, sunglasses in place.

  Evelyn removes the sunglasses carefully. His face in repose still has something doglike, bearlike, warmly mammalian in its handsomeness, which makes her want to draw close and stroke it. She lifts the covers and climbs into bed.

  Jim stirs, without waking. She strokes a dyed sideburn and whispers, ‘Is this okay? ’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ Jim groans. His eyelashes flutter like dark moths. ‘… The tsar’s agents are plotting to kill us, darlin’.’

  ‘We are well-armed,’ Evelyn reassures him. ‘And we have many troops.’

  Jim murmurs something in Russian, reaches blindly for a breast.

  ‘There’s a young woman who wants a personal relationship with the Cause.’ Evelyn continues to stroke the black sideburn, the black hair. ‘Yolanda.’

  ‘Yo-lan-da,’ Jim repeats, moistening his lips.

  It could almost be his idea; perhaps it will be when he awakens. She kisses him gently.

  ‘You’re the most loving man on earth. We would die without your love, Father.’

  It may be the other way around; maybe he would die, if she left him. Or he would have her killed. Certainly, he would not be indifferent.

  Whatever he is, he is not indifferent.

  Evelyn keeps stroking, kissing.

  4.

  ‘There she goes again, leaving us with the dirty work,’ Elly Bud taunts, flashing her eyes at Sally-Ann from over Sister Corazon’s foot fungus.

  ‘Sayonara, Elly-phant!’ Sally-Ann waves theatrically. Actually, Elly’s the opposite of an elephant: skinny legs and smoothest skin you ever saw. ‘Corazon, I owe you a foot-rub.’

  ‘Whassat?’

  If it were up to Sally-Ann, Elly would be in the meeting party with her. Mom and Dad had liked Elly, the times she brought her to the Berkeley house to eat ging
er snaps and talk shit around the walnut dining table. And, of course, Elly liked Mom and Dad; everyone does.

  But Martin Luther and Jin-sun are already monkeying around with Soul in the playground, where they agreed to meet. ‘Auntie! Watch me!’ Soul yells from the top of the slide, then leaps straight over the edge and onto Martin Luther’s back.

  ‘Whoa! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a … Soul ?’ Sally-Ann rushes over; grabs hold of her little nephew’s ankles and suspends them as Martin Luther charges around, Superman-style.

  By the time they set Soul down, his face looks like an apple. ‘Grandma-grandpa are coming on a plane. From America,’ he informs them.

  ‘Do you know where America is?’ Jin-sun asks, bouncing his baby son, Bam, on his chest. Soul points at the sky.

  ‘Up.’

  It’s not long before Phil Sorensen shows up with Billy Younglove. Like Jin-sun, Billy’s got a wife coming home from Georgetown; he looks ready to burst, he’s so excited. Phil, well, he just looks like he’s ready to read the news or something. But that’s enough to get Soul throwing himself at Phil’s leg. ‘Brodder Phil!’

  ‘I think he’s in love with you or something, Phil,’ Sally-Ann says. ‘Where’s Evie?’

  ‘She’s just finishing up some paperwork.’

  ‘She is coming?’ Sally-Ann tries not to sound annoyed, but it’d be just like her sister, missing something like this for paperwork. Instead of waiting for an answer, she turns to Billy, digs him in the ribs. ‘I know you’re real excited to see Alice … just don’t pee your pants, okay?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s gonna be pee in his pants,’ Martin Luther swoops in, and all the guys laugh. Guys are pretty gross, most of the time. That’s something she and Elly agree on.