The whole country had been taken by surprise at the death of President Hercules the week before. He had gone into hospital for minor surgery and died under the anaesthetic. The Cuban doctors struggled to save his life, but to no avail. The technician had opportunistically jumped at the chance of videoing the funeral and hoped to sell the film. It was while he was running home to view it that he had broken his leg.
The state funeral of President Baldwin Hercules had taken place a week after his death and the day before the technician’s visit to Hicuri.
The video opened with a blurry and confused shot of the funeral cortège. The gun carriage with the body, drawn by the president’s own sweating white horse, was hurtling down Camp Street in the middle of a thunderstorm with people running alongside to keep up. Curious onlookers stood in the street, ducking the rain, some with newspapers covering their heads, others with umbrellas. Some just stood and stared as if something unpleasant was passing.
By all accounts, the body had suffered from the frequent power cuts while it was in the mortuary freezer. At one point, the mortuary assistants had taken it out and hung it upside-down in the local abattoir. Nor was the preservation of the corpse helped by the fact that one of the employees at the morgue had been found drunk on the embalming fluid. Haste was necessary if those attending the funeral were not to be overcome by the stench. The coffin was jolted so violently that both of the purple boots, emblem of the fallen warrior, had been tossed from the top into the street.
Then a sort of blizzard hit the screen. The villagers waited patiently while the technician explained that there was a gap in the video because he had had to make his way to the sepulchre for the rest of the ceremony.
The film came back on. Watching intently, the villagers saw the coffin being placed on the catafalque.
It was only when the solemn face of Edwin Jeffson appeared on the screen in close-up, giving the funeral oration with tears streaming down his face, that the Lokono Arawak villagers of Hicuri exploded spontaneously into howls of laughter. The more he wept, the more they laughed. They screeched and clutched each other, helpless with mirth, as each politician in turn was shown dabbing his or her eyes solemnly with a handkerchief and throwing flowers reverently on to the coffin. A wild hilarity swept through the whole village.
The sound of the laughter carried right out of Hicuri village, over the creek and into the far side of the forest where the white horse continued to put his head down and forage for grass. His ears twitched at the distant laughter. He ambled to the other side of the clearing, the revenant still asleep on his back. There, beneath the trees, the horse continued to graze patiently, until such time as his sleeping burden should wake again.
Mrs da Silva’s Carnival
The shop isn’t built that would sell a leotard Mrs da Silva’s size.
No way can Mrs da Silva fit into a leotard – any leotard. The Mabaruma-warrior section of her carnival band is supposed to be wearing shiny copper leotards. Mrs da Silva is the mother of the band. She has been matriarch of Rebel War Band for longer than anyone can remember and has not missed one Notting Hill carnival since the whole caboodle began. The sight of Mrs da Silva’s enormous behind, swinging rhythmically from side to side like a huge demolition ball capable of knocking down the houses on either side of the street, has inspired a multitude of revellers. After worried consultations between the band’s designer and the various stitchers and sewers, it is agreed that Mrs da Silva must be outfitted with a voluminous dress of the same copper colour as the leotards. On the morning of the day, Mrs da Silva, out of breath but triumphant, climbs the stairs of the Hanley Road workshops to be garbed in a giant shimmering copper tent.
It is six months since Mrs da Silva suffered her setback. For twenty years, since her husband’s departure, she had enjoyed an illicit affair with Pastor Fritz from the Evangelical Baptist church. At nights, her children would beg for peace as the sound of clacking dominoes and victorious shouts from their mother and Pastor Fritz kept them awake. Eventually, one winter evening long after the children had thankfully escaped into marriages of their own, the Pastor and Mrs da Silva sat on her green draylon settee, trays of food on their laps, concentrating on an episode of Falconcrest where the insane escapee from an asylum, dressed as a nun and having taken a small child hostage, is hiding in the gallery of a church with a shotgun, waiting to shoot the bride as she walks down the aisle towards her bridegroom.
Almost in unison they dip their spoons into dishes of creamy butter-bean soup crammed with yam, sweet potato, boiled plantain, onion and peppers. Just as the insane killer takes aim, Pastor Fritz, overcome by the delicious, steamy food and the comforting warmth of the occasion, turns to his long-time paramour and proposes marriage.
Dolly da Silva looks shy for a split second before accepting. A surge of affection, tinged with awe, overcomes her as she looks at him dabbing his lips with a paper kitchen towel, his balding head cocked on one side, waiting for an answer. After all, a pastor is a pastor. Not the least advantage of such a match would be the mortification of Mrs Bannerman when she heard the news. Mrs Bannerman had been conducting a mild flirtation with the Pastor for years and her behaviour had long been a source of irritation to Dolly da Silva.
‘Of course I will marry you,’ she said as the credits of Falconcrest rolled and he held out his plate for another helping of butter-bean soup.
The wedding was arranged for the first Saturday in March. Invitations went out to seventy-five guests. The holy-rolling, eye-swivelling, hand-clapping choir of Pastor Fritz’s church solemnly agreed to sing at the ceremony. Her daughters arrived on the doorstep lugging giant aluminium pots for the goat curry. Her sons organised the transport and booked the hall.
The Friday before the wedding, Pastor Fritz, who now spent nearly all his time at Mrs da Silva’s house helping with the arrangements, stuck his head round the door of the front room and told her that he was zooming out to get two more bags of rice.
But Pastor Fritz did not stop zooming. First of all he zoomed down to the Baptist church and removed all the church funds from the safe in the office. Then he zoomed along to Heathrow Airport and bought a ticket. Then he zoomed over to Madison, Ohio, from whence he never returned. Two months later, she received a postcard that said: ‘Hi from Ohio.’
‘All men are dogs,’ said Mrs da Silva.
Mr Norman Foster, Mrs da Silva’s Jamaican postman, had hesitated before delivering the postcard from Ohio. Unbeknownst to her, he had been keeping his own secret surveillance on her ever since his own wife died. This was because he knew she was a widow and, when he made his second delivery at midday, he often smelled mouth-watering aromas of fish stew with dumplings or curried chicken when he opened the letter box. He became wistful whenever he witnessed Pastor Fritz leaving the house in the mornings. He heard with concern and indignation about the wedding débâcle. His almost military formality forbade him from introducing himself but for some time he had hoped to find a way of becoming better acquainted with Mrs da Silva. With a frown he delivered the offensive postcard.
Mrs da Silva, meanwhile, experienced a bad feeling swilling around in the bottom of her stomach whenever she thought of Pastor Fritz. Now the house felt lonely with all her children gone and no more visits from the Reverend. It was only as carnival time drew near that she began to recover her spirits because carnival was the beginning and end of the year for her. She measured the passing of time by carnival. And with this carnival, the year that contained Pastor Fritz and the wedding fiasco would be swept aside and she could start afresh.
‘Good mornin’.’ Mrs da Silva is panting as she waddles through the door of Hanley Road workshops.
‘Good morning, Mrs da Silva,’ chorus the throng of amphibians and warriors in the women’s changing rooms.
This year the theme is Rainforest and the band is divided into tree-frogs, Mabaruma warriors, Ciboney warriors, lizards and devils.
For months, the rooms of the Hanley Street community centr
e have witnessed girls and women hemming, cutting material, gluing, stitching, yawning, gaffin’, limin’, gossiping, quarrelling, painting and sticking costumes and accessories together.
Mrs da Silva finds her costume on a hanger behind the door. It has a warning note pinned to it: ‘Mrs da Silva’s costume. Don’t piss with this. If you piss with this – you miss.’
As soon as Dolly da Silva is dressed in her bronze-coloured tabernacle, she sits on one of the rows of chairs near the door. She is sixty-five years old and entitled to sit and fan herself while others rampage.
Pure mayhem is the order of the day. Sixty people dressing up and shouting for make-up sticks and ear-rings, head-bands, fans plaited from dried grasses, and everybody fixing up theyself and they friends, pushing each other out of the way of the mirror and grabbing the best armlets and anklets. Green lizards dart around looking for someone to help fasten their ridged crests. Mabaruma warriors are squawking as they delve into piles of accessories to find one of the tall head-dresses woven with fine cane and decked with feathers set aside for their section. Someone hands Mrs da Silva a grater from Woolworth’s which she strings around her neck. In her hand she carries a cassava made of papier mâché and raffia. On her nose perches a pair of cheap, pink-rimmed spectacles through which she inspects the scene.
Her rival in life, Mrs Bannerman, a middle-weight sixty-two year old, puffs up the stairs and sits down next to her. Mrs Bannerman has scored over Mrs da Silva recently by becoming a widow herself and getting everybody’s sympathy, a sympathy which Mrs da Silva resents more than ever because of Pastor Fritz’s defection.
Mrs Bannerman has managed to shoehorn herself into a green tree-frog costume. Her eyes slide up and down Mrs da Silva’s shapeless copper tent, taking in the sight with satisfaction. She preens herself a little and leans the giant leaf – which all tree-frogs must carry – against the wall:
‘Hello, m’dear. How you do?’ She lowers herself into the chair next to Mrs da Silva and continues without waiting for a reply. ‘I did see Marjorie Taylor last night, you next-door neighbour. She very distress.’ Mrs Bannerman is pleased both at Marjorie’s distress and at being the first to tell Dolly da Silva about it.
Mrs da Silva grunts, annoyed with Marjorie that she should have got herself distressed without bothering to inform her, Mrs da Silva, first.
‘What happen with her?’ she asks grudgingly.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Bannerman conspiratorially. ‘Yesterday Marjorie went shopping and bought some vegetables and so on and some liver. She came home and put the liver in the fridge. She went out back again to pick up one or two more things and when she came in back,’ Mrs Bannerman lowered her voice in order not to alarm any of the younger women, ‘the liver had got out of the fridge and was walking up de wall.’
Mrs da Silva adjusted her spectacles, leaned back and stared at Mrs Bannerman.
‘What are you tellin’ me? Yuh mad? Liver caan’ walk.’
‘I am tellin’ you that the liver was walkin’ up the wall. It was about so high off the ground.’ Mrs Bannerman raised her hand above her head.
Mrs da Silva began to fidget with annoyance. She glared at Mrs Bannerman with scorn, then spoke to her as if she were a child.
‘Mrs Bannerman. The liver ain’ got no lungs. The liver caan’ breathe, so how de liver can walk up de wall?’
‘The liver did walk.’ Mrs Bannerman bridled with resentment at Mrs da Silva’s scepticism.
‘The liver don’ have legs,’ Mrs da Silva continued with infuriating logic, ‘and so the liver caan’ walk.’
‘The liver mussa did crawl.’
‘And how it did open the fridge door?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Mrs Bannerman, bristling, the colour rising in the face. ‘The liver come from a cow. The cow had cancer and cancer is a livin’ thing. THAT’S how the liver could walk up de wall,’ she announces, triumphantly.
Silenced by this coup de science, Mrs da Silva snaps her mouth shut like a turtle and clenches her fists secretly under her costume. By god’s grace, she is saved from further humiliation at the hands of Mrs Bannerman by the explosive arrival of the band’s designer, Lulu Banks.
Lulu, double-chinned, hair piled high, bursts in, late and hysterical, having frightened all the other drivers on the Hornsey Road by leaning out of her car window in full lizard gear, to offer them colourful abuse at their slow progress. She wrinkles her nose at the smell of greasepaint, glue, old gauze, paint and sweat before wading directly into the maelstrom.
She bangs both hands on the table and shouts, ‘All tree-frogs please make sure you are carrying a giant leaf. Mrs da Silva, you need a head-dress. The head-dresses are in a pile by the radiator.’
Grateful for the excuse to move out of Mrs Bannerman’s superiority zone, Dolly da Silva shuffles over and fishes out a head-dress from the tangle of grabbing arms.
‘Where’s my costume?’ A hand flicks down the rail where each person’s outfit hangs labelled, finds the leotard and snatches it up. Some of the band are Amerindian warriors. Some are tree-frogs and green lizards. The men are divided into warriors with a small section of tree-frogs and an even smaller section of traditional devils with tails and three-pronged forks.
Amidst the bustle of Mabaruma tribeswomen fixing their faces with lipstick and sticky sequins and sparkle dust, people are beginning to steal each other’s accessories. Filching on a mammoth scale takes place – head-bands, neck ornaments, spray paint. A tall female warrior with skinny breasts is wrestling with a child for a pole with a fan on it.
‘Just let me hold it for a minute. I’ll give it back to you, I promise.’ The child relinquishes the pole and the girl scoots down the stairs with it and settles in one of the vans waiting outside to carry the band.
Downstairs, the yard is a turmoil of tree-frogs, lizards and warriors trying to sort out the big blue canoe on wheels that is supposed to be the centrepiece. A brown dummy stretches luxuriously in the boat. Mrs da Silva’s eldest son Cuthbert, an exemplary devil with red horns, is brandishing his trident trying to direct the operation. He stops for a moment and moves away from the noise, cupping a hand over one ear while he makes a call on the mobile phone to his wife who is in the first stages of labour at St Mary’s Hospital.
‘Everything all right, Jean?’ he shouts over the pandemonium in the background. ‘You’ve got this number. Ring me when it gets close and I’ll be right there. The route is near the hospital so I can be there in a tick. Bye, sweetheart.’ He dashes to save the dummy from being tipped out of the canoe.
Upstairs, Mrs da Silva is fighting gamely with a wig of coarse black raffia hair that is supposed to go under her head-dress.
Scoobie, Mrs da Silva’s other son, a council education officer disguised as a tree-frog, is standing next to the truck listening to his hand-held radio. This year the police have been issuing warnings about violence. They are expecting violence. They are anticipating hand-bag grabbers. They are prophesying lost children. They are foreseeing the picking of a million pockets. They are predicting muggers. They are extinguishing joy wherever possible. They are announcing doom over the airwaves. Scoobie pulls a dismal face. Then he hears another item of news on the local radio station. Scoobie lets out a cheer. Rebel War Band’s greatest local rival, Tigermonger Band, is stuck in the warehouse because their giant butterfly wings are too huge to pass through the doors. Right there on the pavement, Scoobie performs a natty, triumphal dance that involves much hip and groin movement.
Lulu, already hoarse, is now yelling in the street, ‘Tree-frogs and lizards. Will you please line up for your photographs.’
Everybody mills around.
She makes last-minute adjustments to people’s costumes, tying a headscarf here, instructing someone else to wear bangles, adjusting wigs, reminding warriors to carry their bows and arrows. Gradually, under the grey sky, tree-frogs, lizards, Mabaruma warriors and devils have their photographs taken outside the dismal, pre-cast concrete community centr
e and settle down in the three mini-buses waiting to leave. The moving pyramid which is Mrs da Silva makes a dignified descent down the iron staircase to the yard. Avoiding the mini-bus containing Mrs Bannerman she clambers inside another one, taking up two seats amidst a forest of spears, one of which occasionally jooks her in the neck.
Lulu Banks is raging on the pavement. All the mini-bus seats are taken. There is no room for her. No one will budge to give up their seat. Tears of frustration spring into her eyes. Everyone looks somewhere else, gazing out of the window, staring down at their laps as she stomps up and down the street.
‘I am never doing the designs again. This is the last straw. Is pure selfishness. I never playin’ maas again.’ Finally, she yells in fury, ‘You all are behavin’ like white people.’
Some music starts up from the truck. The street is momentarily filled with pan music jangling in the background as the familiar voice on tape blams out:
Rant, rant, rant, rant,
Rant and rave,
Ho-old something
And misbehave.
Lulu Banks, in full lizard gear, is magically transformed, sweetened in an instant by the music. She stops yelling and starts to wind her waist. Soon her hips are moving suggestively, her behind wagging its provocative little lizard tail, her arms raised in the air. The lofty grey council blocks on either side of the street look down on her. Smiling and with an expression of sexual bliss on her face, she lays down a serious pattern of steps on the pavement. Somebody laughs and claps. There is a round of applause and a cheer and whooping. People shift up and she climbs on board, beaming.
Two hours late, the band sets off. The truck with the towering sound system and the dummy in the canoe follows on behind.
On arrival at the appointed spot, having successfully negotiated the van under the bridge by the flyover, Cuthbert and Scoobie wave their passes and argue bitterly with police, stewards and organisers about their route and the starting point. Eventually, Rebel War Band draws up in a side road off Ladbroke Grove.
The Migration of Ghosts Page 3