Travels with Myself and Another

by Martha Gellhorn

  The Higueras’s hotel was made to order for one who had spent much daydream time among demoralized castaways in the South Seas. The ground floor was a single room with the adjacent kitchen behind a bead curtain. A large white kerosene icebox stood in one corner but it had been broken for a year. The other furnishings were a loud sewing machine, operated by a hand wheel, four creaking cane rockers and three small dining tables covered by grease and wine-stained checked cloths. The hotel servant, a black man wearing dungarees and drooping straw hat, was setting these tables as if working out a complex jigsaw puzzle. The trimmings were flies, spider webs, insects suiciding on the kerosene lamp, dirty glasses, overflowing ashtrays and kitchen reek. Basques, at home, are noted for their cleanliness. Exile and heat had not altered the open-heartedness of the Spanish poor. We ate swill, lived like pigs, dripped sweat and were delighted with the Higueras’s hotel.

  I took to my bed. Though pretty bad, it was an improvement on the dinghy. The mattress appeared to have been stuffed with coconut rinds, the sheets and pillowcase indicated both the Higueras’s collapse and the shortage of soap; the smell of mildew wafted like incense over all. I clung to the bed which felt like a rocking-horse, and wondered if the good earth would ever stay still again. I had had enough of the Pilot but another feature of horror journeys is that once you are on them you cannot change your mind and get off them.

  In the morning, the Mayor called for me. He had a fine polished black sedan, a mere six years old; on this island it was like owning the State Coach of England. He was big fair-haired red-faced stout, in his forties, born on St Martin and the local rich man. He drove me to Phillipsburg; the French boy came along to see the unknown world that was Allied. The only boarding house in Phillipsburg belonged to an educated black woman who regretted that she could not take me in. “The place is not fit for a lady just now. We had those thirty-two Dutch survivors here and they drank a lot of punch and smoked a lot of cigarettes, trying to take their minds off things, poor men. I haven’t had time to clean up after them.”

  New survivors everywhere, more ships sunk, German submarines still prowling in their beautiful sea where the rule of life for island people is to give help on the waters, not to kill.

  “Poor men,” the Mayor said, grieving like his legal enemy, the black Dutch citizen. “I have some extra soap, Mrs Thomas, if you need it for the laundry.”

  We were silent, driving back, perhaps they too were thinking about the strange war that could not be seen and the sailors who suffered it. Then the Mayor said, speaking French as politeness to the French boy, “I have done my official duty. You cannot stay in Phillipsburg so you must stay in Marigot. No one could expect me to force a lady to leave in that miserable sloop. I have not known many Americans, Madame, but forgive me, is it usual for you to have ideas like travelling in such a boat in wartime? It would be a catastrophe even in peacetime.”

  “How else could I have visited St Martin?”

  “Well yes, that is true. I doubt if there are ten people here who weren’t born on the island, but half of us believe we are French and the other half believe they are Dutch. We have no frontier between us and our real language is English. We have lived together in peace for three centuries. I don’t think there is any place like it in the world.”

  “You are lucky,” the French boy said. “The island is poor and of no military importance. You can live in peace forever.”

  “We are lucky,” said the Mayor.

  Carlton was waiting at the hotel. “No wind,” he said. “Looks like de wind gone dead forevah.”

  “Good-oh,” said I, happily, copying Mother Stoughten. “Anyway I don’t want to leave. I’d be glad to stay here a month.”

  “Not me, Missus, I gotta take you fars Antigua, den I goin home. Sooner I get home, de better. I smell hurry-cane somewheres.”

  With a picnic, water and heavy sandwiches, I set off to explore. St Martin was a magic island. Secret white sand coves indented the shore. I chose one far from town, walled in by thick bush that the rain had polished and framed by swaying royal palms. Under a china-blue sky, I sat naked in the shallows to watch schools of fish, recognizing only silver baby barracudas. And waded out to swim through glass-clear Nile-green water, where you could see below to the sand and more passing fish, into silky deep sapphire sea. And swam back to munch sandwiches in the shade and swam again. The sun was not a torment but the blessing I had always felt it to be, before sailing in the Pilot. I forgot the war, it was somebody else’s nightmare. I was in that state of grace which can rightly be called happiness, when body and mind rejoice totally together. This occurs, as a divine surprise, in travel; this is why I will never finish travelling.

  Time had stopped, I wanted to stay in motionless time, finding new coves, walking in the jungle, and making up stories about the island people. The Higueras had not explained how or why they escaped from Bilbao to Marigot and discretion is a by-product of war too, one does not probe into personal affairs. Nor did I know what revulsion or fear moved the French boy to flee from France. Invented stories were already twining around them. I hadn’t felt so carefree since my girlhood travels with a knapsack, discovering Europe.

  The wind stayed fair, which is to say dead, for four days. Each day I swam from a lovely cove and wandered in the jungle, finding orchids and flowering lianas, listening to birds and the stories in my head. Happiness had become chronic. Then reality returned in the form of Carlton announcing a useful wind and his impatience to be off. I said au revoir sadly and shook hands with most of Marigot and climbed back into the dinghy with a new umbrella.

  Our next stop was St Bartholomew, always called St Barts, another French island. We anchored in the harbour of the capital, named Gustavia because St Barts had once been Swedish. The capital was a handful of houses, the school, a church, a tiny shipyard at work on a potato boat, nice smell of new wood, a bar, and a pathetic general store.

  Though a very small and destitute island, St Barts was snobbishly proud; more whites than blacks lived here. The white population was the remnant of some ancient Norman seafarers. Having intermarried for centuries, they were poor meagre people with bad teeth and sick-looking ugly faces and often addled brains, but they were certifiably white. Behind the small port, a few sturdy stone houses remained as a legacy of sturdy Swedes, though jungle had crept around them and even into them. I was offered a room in a house left empty for two months by its owner and had to push my way through vines and creepers up rotting wood stairs, and duck and struggle through tight bush to reach the latrine and bathhouse in the back.

  St Barts had no Mayor, no Gendarmes, and no red tape. It was even farther from the war than St Martin; the residents were simply not interested. The one sign of changed times was the singing that began and ended the children’s day in the school next door to my new home. The songs had been sent and learned by order of the Vichy government. The tunes were merry and the words surely meant nothing to the little black kids. “Save France, Maréchal, we follow you.” Before they had sung “Allons enfants de la Patrie” and would sing that again after we won the war. I was annoyed by this enforced Maréchal worship, I despised the booby old father-figure who lent his name to collaboration with the Nazis.

  When the children sang their traditional lessons in French I listened with pleasure. The teacher chanted the question, in unison squeaky voices chanted the answer. “What are the four elements?” sang the teacher. “The four elements are earth, air, fire and water,” sang the children. They sang history, spelling, arithmetic, and literature. It had much charm and surely trained memory to perfection but lasted rather long, six and a half hours daily with a two-hour lunch break. The lessons could be heard everywhere throughout the metropolis of Gustavia.

  As I walked the plank from the Pilot to the pier, a young Frenchman, also blond, also named Jean, had been there, observing. He took in the onion skins and fish heads left over from lunch on the deck, the shabby hull and sail, the appearance of the crew, not freshly
laundered to start and now positively rancid with dirt, and me, peeling less vigorously but a sorry sight. His face showed that he thought us a mess; on the other hand, I roused pity. I had to be in some grave obscure trouble if I was obliged to travel like this. He suggested leading me to a fine cove after I got rid of my suitcase. He was going to fish for lobster with spear and goggles, an enjoyable way to fish though he wasn’t intent on fun but on food. Food here was scarce and wretched; he fished from need.

  Panting in the heat, I followed him on a narrow track through dark stunted jungle. This was not the radiant greenery of St Martin, this was claustrophobic and instantly remindful of snakes. Each island had its own personality and atmosphere. St Barts was spooky, I don’t know why. I felt that the moment we landed, I didn’t like the place, I had no desire to linger, no waves of happiness would sweep over me here. The cove was attractive but nothing compared to the lovely enclosed sand crescents of St Martin. Jean fished with skill and concentration and located lobsters while I swam and hoped for a good wind quick.

  We had set out late, walked far, lobster-catching took time, it was dark when we started home. Jean seemed nervous about the time as if he had an appointment. We had asked each other no personal questions, true to war-time form. He spoke of the white inhabitants, saying, “Ils sont pratiquement gaga, ils ne savent même pas comment se nourrir, ils n’ont pas assez d’intelligence ni d’énergie de cultiver des légumes. Ils passent leur temps en étant fiers d’être blancs comme si c’était un acte de génie.” If he so disliked his neighbours, why stay? But I did not ask. In the dark a little wild cat, barely more than a kitten, leapt out of the choking woods and bounced along the path stiff-legged like a gazelle. It was perfectly camouflaged for its environment, mottled shades of brown. I caught it and held it.

  Jean turned off on an invisible track in the jungle, I proceeded with cat to Gustavia where I fed it condensed milk in my musty room so that it became a purring snuggling attached cat. Now I would have company on the Pilot. Loving is a habit like another and requires something nearby for daily practice. I loved the cat, the cat appeared to love me. I could face the oncoming days in the dinghy with better heart, having the cat to talk to and play with.

  In the morning I broached the subject of weather. When could we leave? I wanted to go to Saba, a Dutch island, which rose before us like a green volcano in the heat haze. Carlton had grown more defeatist every day. Apart from the unreliable wind, I didn’t know what was the matter with him. He wouldn’t look at me but stood glumly observing his feet.

  “They say it takes only four hours to sail to Saba, Carlton.”

  “More like eight or ten.”

  “It’s twenty-two miles.”

  “Some say twenty-two, some say forty-five.”

  “I want very much to go there.”

  He said nothing.

  “What bites you, Carlton?”

  “Doan like dis wedder. Saba got no anchorage.”

  “Let’s leave early in the morning. I could see the town and we can come back here for the night if you feel it’s unsafe over there.”

  Carlton was evidently sick of this journey. Paid whenever we reached port, they had done a little business and a little business was enough. On the edge of giving him hell, a foolish operation, I moved along to the end of the pier and sat there smoking to soothe my temper. Jean appeared and sat beside me. Without preamble, he launched into revelations. He came to St Barts originally to get his boat repaired. I gathered he had been frittering away a small inheritance as a boat bum when the war started. He wanted to leave St Barts and join the Free French; he was ashamed to live in safety on this peaceful island when he should be fighting for his country. But he could not leave; he was chained by the voodoo spell of a witch, an added inconvenience being that the witch was his mistress.

  Every time he tried to go, he was struck down. On his first attempt to escape, he had lost his boat, a complete shipwreck, and was lucky to get back in the dinghy. Since then, when a rare passerby offered transport, he was always stopped by paralysing illness. He unfolded this weird tale in bright sunshine, while we smoked and swung our legs from the jetty. Assuming he was not a nut, he had been on this spooky island too long. I told him bossily that voodoo spells were rot and he could come with us and make his way to England from Antigua. Bossiness seemed to invigorate him. He would join the good ship Pilot but asked that we sail at night and swore me to secrecy lest the witch hear of his plans.

  He then took me home, a woven reed hut in the jungle, and I too was impressed by the witch. She was beautiful; tall, lavishly curved, smooth brown skin, thick wavy brown hair to her shoulders and long green eyes: living proof that miscegenation does a power of good. Standing in the doorway, with her hands on her hips, she stared at the peeling blonde visitor with undisguised contempt and dislike. I couldn’t think how to respond. Cringe or snub? Jean, apparently sure of himself by daylight, ordered her to bring food. Rice and lobster and fried bananas. Delicious. Perhaps her cooking compensated for her witchcraft. She moved slowly, graceful as a panther, showing resentment in every gesture. She refused to speak or eat with us.

  Not feeling exactly wanted, I returned after lunch to the open harbour front, away from the uneasy woods, and met the schoolteacher, a middle-aged Frenchman married to an island black. He wasn’t bubbling over either, and talked about the mistake of marrying a black woman; you sank into their slovenly customs, and fathered litters of noisy stupid half-breed kids. It was senseless to try to teach the schoolchildren. Why would they need the culture of la belle France on St Barts? But he didn’t suggest joining my ship to escape. I clambered up to my room and fed my purring cat, the one contented form of life I had met so far.

  Carlton was furious over the night departure. “Ain’t no reason for it. I doan know dese waters. Stoopid. I gotta tink for de Pilot.” I insisted, having promised Jean, and having seen the witch. I’d be jolly glad myself to get away from those baleful green eyes. Around midnight, Jean showed up on the jetty, his teeth chattering in his head, his eyes blood-shot. He was running a high fever; it was all he could do to walk to the harbour to tell me not to wait. Rescue was impossible, he would never be able to leave; he saw his fate with despair. Clearly he believed in black magic but I figured his demon lover could doctor his food with inedible mushrooms, snake venom, cat piss, whatever she found handy and bad for the digestion, every time he acted restless. I urged him to come anyway, sick as he was; perhaps the witch’s spell wore out by nautical miles. He wouldn’t risk my safety, the weather was uncertain enough without evil incantations.

  I thought about him as a tragic figure; I imagined his life chained to the green-eyed sullen witch until she tired of him whereupon she would brew a poisonous spell and do him in. Ten years later, I met Jean again on St Martin. He had a pretty white wife and baby, a real house above a dazzling beach, and a pleasure boat. I dared not ask questions and he offered no information about the witch or his release from her clutches. He looked healthy, happy, and prosperous.

  Carlton, informed that we now had no extra passenger, spat with disgust and said he was going to sleep in the hold, he wasn’t crazy people, we could leave at dawn. I had a needless night, or half of one, in the dinghy but the little cat was comfortable sharing my pillow. Perhaps the witch, to fix me, arranged the storm. More likely it was the outskirts of a hurricane but storm it was, a wind too big for our patched sail and high foam-capped waves breaking over us. I hadn’t known that cats could get seasick; my cat shivered and mewed pitifully and threw up thin yellow streams, then heaved its sides with nothing left to vomit. I felt a monster to have kidnapped the poor little thing from its home and exposed it to such misery and was too busy nursing the cat to notice my own misery, soaked and bruised, as we plunged up and down the waves to Saba.

  Saba is in fact the top of a volcano, and there is no harbour on its steep green sides. Closer to land, the wind lessened; perhaps the storm had passed to the north. Walteh balanced on deck and
blew a conch shell, making a noise like a weak foghorn. The towering green cliff of Saba remained silent and no one appeared on the immense ladder of steps cut in stone up the cliff-side. I hadn’t seen such a stairway since Chungking and doubted whether I’d be able to manage it, with legs like spaghetti.

  “Dis here eight faddoms deep,” Carlton said accusingly. “In open sea, Missus.”

  “But the wind is dropping, Carlton. Surely you can anchor until morning. I’ll come back right after dawn. I want to give the cat a rest.”

  Carlton sniffed by way of answer. A Dutch police officer, very hot in gaiters and military collar, had marched down the steps and was waving me ashore from a strip of shingle beach. I paid Carlton the port fare; he had now earned five out of the total seven due on delivery. Irvine and Voosten removed the hatch cover, unlashed the dinghy, lowered it, and Gawge rowed me and the kitten to the pebbles, using one oar astern like gondoliers in Venice. “Goodbye, Missus, I does hope you very happy wid you little cat,” said George, the gentle giant.

  “Not goodbye, George, just good night.” I waited to make sure the dinghy didn’t sink before he could get back to the Pilot.

  The Dutch police officer kindly carried my suitcase though it was beneath his dignity and not his job. I wobbled up the steps behind him, with the crying cat in my arms. Mountain climbing. The village at the top was obviously called Bottom, since it was built on the crater floor of the volcano. Bottom had a dear dinky Dutch charm and felt like a fine September day in a cool country. The streets were neatly laid out in squares and neatly swept. The little houses were made of white clap-board with field stone foundations. White ruffled curtains showed behind sparkling windows. There may have been flower-filled window boxes, I forget.

  The black inhabitants appeared better fed than elsewhere, worthy self-respecting citizens in their clean starched clothes. All along, I had been fascinated by the way these Caribbean blacks took on the tone of the ruling colonial power; you would know the nationality of each island without being told as if national genes and chromosomes had been transmitted down from distant European governments. Judging by the looks of the people on Saba and their town, and the brief glimpse of Phillipsburg, the Dutch were the best colonial power in this part of the world as they had been in the Orient, in the Netherlands East Indies.