Silence of the Chagos

by Shenaz Patel

  Mauritius, she had dreamed of going there one day, she had prepared for that trip so carefully in her mind: what she would bring as gifts for a few acquaintances, pickled limes marinated in oil and saffron, coconut scrubbing brushes to make waxed floors shine, mats woven from dried coconut leaves for picnics beneath the filao trees. It looked like there were also pretty beaches in Mauritius, she would have a chance to see for herself, but the door still seemed to be open, that wasn’t possible, she must have shut it, she had to, she’s never been in the habit of stopping to close it, the door was never shut at their place, when she went out she just gave the canvas flap a light kick, to keep dogs or overly adventurous red crabs from coming in and making a mess inside, surely she must have done that, but in that case why could she still see the pretty wooden crib that housed a cotton- and coconut-straw mattress that was as soft as could be? She’d taken it out, dusted it, and put it back in a few weeks ago. What if the chickens came through the still-open door to lay their clutch of eggs, and…

  Eight days. The crossing had taken eight days. They were just about to reach the Seychelles when she felt her water breaking in between her legs.

  She found herself alone in a narrow cabin, alone with the anguish of knowing her three children were down below, in the hold, without her while she was without anybody as her swollen belly seemed to feel heavier and heavier, pulling her down. Was it an effect of the sea and its dulled motions?

  Each wave that hit the Nordvaer set off a shock of pain that grew as it moved through her body. Or was it the other way around? Was it the increasingly violent contractions deep within her that moved through her skin, the boat’s sides, and spread outward through the water suddenly seized by a spasm?

  It was so hot. She was stifling in this cabin. Her dress clung to her skin. She looked at the beige flowers breathing on her belly. They were so pretty. She could almost pluck a bouquet to set on the grave of her ancestors when they were meant to honor the dead. Would she be back in November? In five months, of course. She wouldn’t stay in Mauritius for that long. The Nordvaer would need to come back, bring them back. But why was she thinking about the dead? My god, did they come here too… They couldn’t have gotten on the ship with everyone else. It was impossible that they could have dragged all their bones and their souls amid all this hubbub, they couldn’t be here. In any case, they held no grudges against her, she visited them each year, she knew just how important it was to put flowers on their grave, she never failed to do so, she would go, of course, the boat absolutely had to bring them back, or were they trying to tell her something, no, no, this couldn’t be the moment for her to join them, not already, she was carrying a life within her, it was deep within, she could feel it, wait, feel for yourself, her belly was trembling, this life struggling within her, growing within her, pushing its way out, weight bearing down on her, trying its best to come out.

  The flowers trembled. It was suddenly very cold. Had someone opened the porthole? She could see a sun shining through. Beyond that, though, black waters were cast into sharp relief. It had to be like that in the ocean, all who knew it said that it was a strange, mysterious space, as it had to be if the sun could be seen in the night.

  Had the sea come in through the porthole? She was soaked.

  The waves crashed within the hull, each one coming quicker, faster. The sides of her belly enclosed their assaults, concentrated them, my god, this sea was going to break her back. She no longer had any legs to stand on, her elbows could barely find any purchase on this hard berth, the wave surged forth, receded, bent her over completely as it fought against the boat, against her body, my god, my god, have pity on me.

  She couldn’t let herself give in to this fury. The sea wants to swallow me up whole, wants to yank my child out of my womb, wants to smash in these walls protecting it, the sea wants to kill us all. Lord, Lord, help us.

  Her sister-in-law’s face hovered above her. Her worried gaze met hers, as did her shaking hand. Her lower lip trembled as her mouth opened and closed. She said something, but what? The stabbing pain cracked against her ears. She focused on her lips, their distorted movements, nnnnuuuurrrrsssse, that’s what she was saying, nurse. He should have already been there, no doctor was on the boat, she had heard the people saying that as they were dragging her out of the hold to carry her into this cabin. He ought to come and look, it was his fault she was here, maybe that was why he didn’t dare, but she wouldn’t let herself hold that grudge, she couldn’t. Someone needed to go find him, he had to be here, he had to come help her. She shouldn’t be left there without any help.

  A final rip of her flesh, a cry. This was how she finally gave birth.

  Borne by this feeling of falling that plunged her into an odd numbness, she looked at the sleeping baby that was breathing so slowly, nestled beside her on the berth nailed to the dark cabin wall, and she thought of the cradle she had prepared for the baby, back there, in their house. The cradle that the chickens might already have taken over.

  The order came a little later. Raymonde was dozing as she enveloped her baby in her warmth. The sea had regained its calm, she only felt a vague swaying that rocked them both. She would have liked to stay there for a long time, not moving, not doing anything that might upset this swath of stillness and silence, this respite.

  The pause was short-lived. Behind her, she could hear the cabin door opening. She was pulled out of her torpor by some muttering, shaken awake completely when she heard the word “disembark.” Who were they talking about?

  She wanted to pretend she was still sleeping in order to hear the rest, but someone shook her shoulder. A man’s voice whispered that she needed to get up and get ready. Both she and her baby would have to disembark.

  Raymonde tried to get up. She thought it was supposed to take far longer to get to Mauritius. She felt like she had just nodded off. The idea of having slipped into unconsciousness unnerved her. But her child was there, curled up by her breast, she could feel him breathing peacefully, his belly rising and falling gently, his heart beating so rhythmically that it slowed her own pounding pulse. All would be okay, the worst had gone past.

  They shook her again. They needed to disembark. She felt so weak. Her limbs were shaky, her head heavy. But she thought about how she would get to see her other children and her husband, how she could make sure they were okay, especially the littlest one, who was always getting caught up in her skirts, she must have been so scared, all these sudden changes, this unknown boat, this crossing without her mama. She wanted to see them, touch them, take them into her arms, soothe them by singing their favorite lullaby, she would go down, she would disembark quickly.

  The cabin door shut on the man giving them instructions. Her sister-in-law took care of what she could around her.

  “Nou’nn fini arive?” Raymonde asked.

  “Degaze, bizin desann.”

  “Nou’nn fini ariv Moris?”

  “Moris? Non, nou kot Sesel la.”

  They were not at Mauritius. They were on the coast of the Seychelles. How was this possible? This wasn’t their destination. They had been told that they were going to Mauritius. And why would the men want them to disembark there?

  She didn’t have time for further questions. The man was back. Two women helped her to get up, a third held her hands out for her baby. No. Nobody would touch her baby. She leaned down to pick him up. A sudden half-darkness dimmed her gaze, a whirlwind in her mind that sped up, a buzzing that made her ears pulsate. The darkness faded away, she saw the walls of the cabin deforming, distorting, drawing away from her, she was going to fall. Many hands caught her shoulders, she curled up over her baby who she clutched tight to her bosom and her belly.

  “We can’t move her like this. We need a stretcher.”

  “You know there isn’t one here.”

  “We can carry her on a bed.”

  “The door’s too narrow, you idiot.”

  They finally got her out of the cabin, brought her up to the de
ck, step by step, telling her repeatedly to hurry up. Once she was out, they set her in a lifeboat, her baby huddled tight, and they lowered her.

  She had gotten scared because she didn’t see her family on the deck, she was terrified of being abandoned on the high seas, with her baby, she hadn’t done anything wrong, she hadn’t meant to, it just happened, she couldn’t have held the baby back, they couldn’t hold that against her, they couldn’t punish her like that, she wanted to stay on the boat, she hadn’t complained, she wouldn’t complain, for god’s sake, please don’t do this.

  They hadn’t heard her. She had no idea anymore whether she had enough strength to open her mouth and tell them all that. They set her in the tiny boat and lowered it. Inch by inch. Her berth swayed, rocked on its ropes, banged against the hull of the Nordvaer, she was going to fall out, she clutched her baby even more tightly and he woke up and cried, they were going to throw her overboard with her baby.

  A great shock. Gray all around her and a hard surface behind her back. She’s in a boat, a bigger one than the lifeboat. A few minutes later, her husband joined her. He touched her cheek, took the baby in his arms, uncovered the cloth in which she had swaddled her newborn. With a hint of a smile, he reassured her that the children were okay, that he had left them with his sister.

  The roar of a motor. Raymonde saw the Nordvaer’s flank pulling away. It was leaving them, and their children were aboard. Her husband tried to reassure her. It was anchored. It would wait for them. They had to dock to declare the child’s birth.

  Raymonde tried to calm herself down. She looked up above. A few clouds lolled in the sky. She wanted to be left alone, not to be touched, not to be moved, so she could sleep and find herself at home, opening the door that she had of course shut in any case, sweeping away the dust that had settled in their absence, tidying the mess they’d left behind in their rush, turning over the mattress in the cradle, patting it several times so it would settle into place, and gently setting her baby within, leaning over him and watching him sleep, dream, and sigh.

  “Sex?”

  She must have missed something. She was suddenly facing a man talking to her sharply in an office she didn’t recognize. He was diligently filling out paperwork in his left hand. An old fan was barely circulating the air. The pen squeaked against the paper. The man raised his head, looked at her momentarily, squinted, or maybe it was just the shadows in this dimly lit room. He asked again:

  “Sex?”

  Her husband elbowed her. She vaguely realized she was supposed to answer. But what? What did they want?

  “Dir li. Garson, tifi?”

  “Ki ete?”

  “Baba la! Garson, tifi?”

  Boy or girl, that was what he wanted to know. Boy or girl? That was what she wanted to know, too. If only to give him an answer so they would leave her alone. She unwrapped the cloth around her sleeping baby, who trembled. A boy. The baby was a boy. The man stared at her. He almost seemed to be hesitating. What did he want? He looked down, went back to writing, asked again:

  “Name?”

  “Georges Désiré.”

  That was the name his father had chosen for the baby if it turned out to be a boy. She did not hesitate at all. The man, however, seemed puzzled. Maybe he hadn’t heard, she was so weak, she had trouble getting her voice out. He repeated:

  “Name?”

  She of course repeated what she had said. He went back to writing and didn’t look up again. She left the office clutching the sheets of paper he had given her.

  They made a detour to the hospital, a doctor examined both the baby and her, he said that the newborn was okay but she had to be careful. She would have liked to rest a bit there, but they didn’t give her time to. They took her straight to the harbor. She had to get back aboard, clutching the baby to her chest, and struggling against this feeling of wooziness that overwhelmed her body and her legs.

  The small boat glided over the smooth sea. When she opened her eyes again, it was about to pull in at the base of a white cliff imprinted in black letters with the name Nordvaer. They had to endure the grueling ascent in a wobbly lifeboat that sent her heart into her throat with each swing. Finally she was on the deck, then in the cabin. She thought to herself that she might finally get to sleep. But the calm was short-lived. Only a few minutes had gone by when she felt the all-too-familiar tremor beneath her. The boat lifted anchor while revving its motor as if to move away as quickly as possible.

  Raymonde reached for the glass of water set beside the berth. Her hand glided across the paper that the man had given her. She unfolded it. Beneath the heading of La Colonie des Seychelles was the declaration of the birth, on June 2, 1973, at 23:30, of Georges Désiré Désir, off the coast of Victoria, on the Nordvaer.

  She thought she ought to call her husband over, tell him that there was a mistake, that they had to stop the boat, go down again, head back, talk to the man, and ask for another paper. But the noise of the motors overpowered her voice. She tried to get up, but she didn’t have the strength to fight the black hole threatening to swallow her up.

  She had no idea how many days she had lain in that semicomatose state, it was the engines stopping that woke her up, she had gotten used to their constant rumbling which had kept her in a soft haze. The silence and the lack of movement had shaken her.

  Her sister-in-law came into the cabin, overcome by emotion. They were arriving at Mauritius. Raymonde needed to get ready. She would go take care of the children in the hold, and then would come back to see her.

  Raymonde gathered her belongings, swaddled her baby in the cloth. Then she waited. Waited. The boat was quiet for a long while. Nobody came to find her. Had they forgotten her and her child? She was relieved when her husband finally entered the cabin. They weren’t going to disembark right away, they were waiting for a guarantee of decent housing before disembarking.

  It would be two more days. Interminable hours. On the ship, the children were already getting restless. Why couldn’t they get off the boat?

  Raymonde and her husband didn’t know anyone who might come find them, to welcome them. Some people had gone down to go see the place where they were supposed to be housed, in Bois Marchand. They had come back furious, declaring the place completely unacceptable. But they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. Raymonde could feel the boat pushing them away with all its force, constricting around them in order to squeeze them out. In the end they were spat out on this quay in Port Louis, on a rainy afternoon. Trucks carried them away, them and their scattered belongings, to set them down a few minutes later in a town of metal shacks: Cité la Cure.

  When Raymonde stepped into the one meant for them, she was overwhelmed by a smell of filth and excrement. The terrified children grabbed at her skirt and did not dare to move. In her arms, a smell roused her from her torpor. She had to change the baby’s diaper.

  She opened the tap. Dry. Next to it, the toilets were blocked. She walked up to the few baskets on the ground, headed to the one where she thought she had packed away the baby’s clothes. When she unfolded the diapers, a few grains of sand fell out.

  Then Raymonde sat down and sobbed.

  Raymonde looked at Désiré, standing in front of her, launching his aggressive questions at her. She wondered how she should explain this. How she should make him understand why they didn’t rebel, why they didn’t fight against this decision to put them on the boat like that, in less than an hour, a handful of minutes that slipped away and that they had no chance of ever getting back. That they could only dream of getting back.

  She herself had come to question what they should have done, whether they could have done anything. How should she explain this? Was it a combination of trust, fatalism, obedience? Or was it a latent fear, a feeling of inevitability that had lodged deep within them as they’d come to realize that the island wouldn’t be supplied anymore?

  She knew that even the strongest winds of fury could not clear away clouds or bring back blue skies. But D
ésiré wanted the truth. He had insisted on his right to know. So she made an effort. Not to gather her memories. Those would always be there, deep behind her eyelids, within every cell of her skin, they were simply waiting until she stopped moving, until she took a moment in the day’s tumult to breathe, and then they would surge forth anew, more vibrant than ever. Not memories, no, beings, places, sensations, feelings far more vivid than her present anesthesia in this valley where her heart beat without any echo.

  So Raymonde told. Of the islands where she was born, after her mother, her grandmother, her great-grandmother. Of the Chagos Archipelago, a string of islands scattered across the northern Indian Ocean, in the mildest zone, safe from the cyclones’ destructive path. Islands where time flowed unhurriedly, as still and sweet as the milk of a tender coconut.

  She only had to think back for her eyes to be lost. Her voice faded. The heavy cotton window curtains dotted with flowers billowed in a breeze that had come down from the mountain. The flowers blossomed, echoing the ones on her dress so many years ago, stretched over her round belly.

  Leaning on the iron railing that ringed the harbor, Désiré scrutinized the horizon as if it were a blank screen. The images that he wanted to see surging forth blurred together, shimmered, and dissipated in the noon’s white glare that erupted light and crushed all color.

  Behind him, the city was teeming with hurried people and rumbling cars, with dry dust that stung his nose and eyes.

  His chest thrust forward, he stared into the sky, its blue diminishing into yellow far off as it touched the sea. That had to be sand that the wind had sent flying, down there. His sand. His island couldn’t be as far as the atlases insisted it was. Surely it had to be there, right there, he saw his mother gazing in that direction every day, from the closed-off end of the deep Vallée des Prêtres. He himself felt trapped beneath this bluish eyelid, one that he wished he could open just a little onto a hereafter refused to him here.