Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  In the minds of many they were the biblical children of Ham and destined to become maids and labourers. Accordingly they were being trained as good Christian coloured folk competent in those tasks for which it was thought they were intellectually capable. The white women who held the future of these black children in their hands firmly believed they were doing the Lord’s work. The idea of a black orphan aspiring to rise above his or her predestined station in life simply never occurred to them. Children such as Jimmy who were demonstrably bright were regarded as potentially dangerous. They would only become frustrated in later life and, as a consequence, turn to crime. It was better to subdue them while they were young so that they didn’t aspire to achieve a status in society they would not be allowed to sustain. This was referred to as becoming ‘too big for their boots’. Jimmy was one of the few children who remained unbroken and thus confirmed this hypothesis when he eventually ended up at Elmira Reformatory, a tough institution for boys.

  The white women gave thanks to a bountiful God when, at the age of twelve, the orphans were required to leave the Colored Orphan Asylum. The girls were indentured as maids in good homes and the young boys were taken on as gardeners on the estates of the rich or as rural workers. The women never failed to pray for the souls of those of their boys and girls who had strayed from the Lord and subsequently found themselves in Elmira or the Hanavah Lavenburg Home for Working Girls.

  The good Protestant ladies took great pride in the fact that they had a permanent waiting list of white folk who wanted their twelve-year-old orphans. It never seemed to have occurred to them that this was hardly surprising – even at the tender age of twelve the children were skilled, passive and submissive domestic servants, and capable and obedient gardeners and farm labourers. They could be snapped up for the cost of the food they ate and the second-hand clothes they wore, and could be regarded as free labour until they grew old enough to leave for salaried employment or, as more often happened with the boys, decided to run away to the city.

  However, singing was one area where the women who ran the institution allowed the children to excel. They accepted that the Lord had especially gifted coloured folk with a talent for music and song, and the Colored Orphan Asylum Children’s Choir had become a famous New York institution that earned the orphanage a great deal of public approbation. The choir often appeared at functions within the white community. They were popular additions to private weddings and funerals and performed publicly at events such as mayoral receptions, gala occasions and the like.

  On several occasions, when a choir in a particular year had been exceptional, they’d appear at the Metropolitan. On the 4th of July it had become a cherished annual tradition for the choir to assemble between the two great Piccirilli lions on the steps of the New York State Library. Here they would sing the national anthem at the raising of the flag, and thereafter entertain the crowd with a medley of patriotic songs.

  In return for these private and civic appearances the orphanage never asked for recompense; instead, a donation to the American Missionary Society’s work in Africa was considered an appropriate response. From the time of Dr David Livingstone, the orphanage choir had helped to fund the work of the society in darkest Africa and this had further helped to boost its reputation as a praiseworthy Christian institution.

  ‘Dat da big joke – we singin’ all dem songs an’ people, dey clappin’, an’ we’s gettin’ money dey gonna send to Africa so da black brothers over der dey gonna have Jesus in der souls. Once I ask da house mother, “Ma’am, we’s black so why’s dey don’t pay us money so’s we can have da Lord Jesus in our souls?” She reply we American blacks, we don’t need to get no money to have Jesus – we got Him for nothing. It only da African blacks dat get da money we send so as dey gonna convert!’ Jimmy laughed. ‘Dem black cats in Africa – dey know somthin’ we don’t know, man! Dey done make Christianity a fine-payin’ prop-o-sition.’

  In his own way Jimmy was right – it seemed never to have struck any of the Quakers as an irony that these were the voices of orphans descended from slaves who may very well have been captured 200 or more years previously from the very tribes being urged to repent their sins and to accept the Lord Jesus into their lives. Or perhaps it did, and they simply marvelled at the mysterious ways of the Lord.

  The choir had become the acceptable – if not celebrated – public face of the Colored Orphan Asylum so that when, from time to time, rumours of the way the orphanage was run surfaced and questions were raised about the uncommonly high number of deaths among its children, they were quietly ignored by city welfare officials. Without exception the politicians of the day regarded people of colour as inferior and a constant drain on the city’s resources. They would have seen an inquiry into conditions at the orphanage as a blatant misuse of public funds.

  When the orphanage was closed in 1946, public examination of its often mouldy but extensive and carefully kept basement records showed that several hundred children had died in its care, with the term ‘accidental death’ on death certificates too common a thread through the files not to have caused major concern had the orphanage housed any other than coloured children. Instead, the Negro and American Indian orphans who ‘Passed away in the arms of Jesus’ were buried quietly and forgotten in unmarked graves in the Bronx and Westchester cemeteries.

  In fairness, the existence of the Colored Orphan Asylum spanned 110 years during which time standards of hygiene and basic medical care changed enormously, with most of the childhood diseases that commonly led to death eradicated over time. While the conditions in which the children were housed and the way they were cared for might today seem reprehensible, they would not have been atypical of the domestic accommodation and health facilities available to working-class communities at the time. Moreover, they would have been considerably better than those existing in the slums of Manhattan the year Jimmy was born.

  When I’d asked Jimmy to come to the island with me I’d naturally assumed his life in an orphanage in New York and time spent in Elmira Reformatory were about as far removed from mine on the island as it was possible to get. I promised him long, lazy days diving for crays, surfing (I’d teach him how to ride a surfboard), fishing or simply lazing about on the beach. It would be, I told myself, a wonderful new experience, something someone with his background would have difficulty comprehending at first. Or so I fondly imagined.

  In fact, children are by nature tough, irrepressible and optimistic souls and make the best of such means as are put at their disposal. A bank of the Hudson River formed part of the orphanage boundary, and in Jimmy’s time the river had not yet become polluted by industrial effluent. It was clear and clean and often referred to as ‘the blue Hudson’. I recall on one occasion talking enthusiastically about catching the large island crabs that Sue, the family expert, would cook on an open wood fire on the beach and serve with her secret Chinaman’s sauce. I’d made it sound quite idyllic and expected Jimmy to express his bewilderment. Instead he volunteered, ‘Yeah man, dat sound good. Catchin’ dem crabs to cook an’ fishin’ and swimmin’, we done dat in da Hudson River. It good fun and den we take tomatoes and onion and potato from da garden and we make us a fire down by da river and cook a dee-lish-us fish stew in some ole boilin’ pot we find on a garbage heap.’

  It was a rare glimpse into a universal childhood I’d not allowed Jimmy Oldcorn to experience. Instead I’d created my own mind-pictures of his time in the orphanage, and they hadn’t allowed that even the most underprivileged children have fun. By inviting him to the island I was to be his benefactor, allowing him the catch-up experiences denied him in childhood. Now that I think of it, it was both patronising and presumptuous. He told of climbing the stone wall surrounding the Mount St Vincent monastery and stealing apples, cherries and strawberries from the monks’ garden. Of visits to Coney Island, sponsored by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, and once a year a visit to Radio City Music Hall sponsored by a Jewish businessmen’s charity in the Bronx. Also, of
the pig-outs that would occur after the choir performed at the various receptions, where they were allowed to eat all they could stuff into their hungry stomachs but forbidden to take anything away with them. Jimmy laughingly recalled how the boys concealed cakes in their shirt fronts while the girls did the same in their knickers. ‘One girl, we called her Cup Cake Connie, when her knickers full put two o’ dem cup cakes where her boobies, what she ain’t got none, suppose to be!’

  As his twelfth birthday approached and the time for his indenture drew closer, Jimmy, who hitherto had conducted a fairly casual relationship with God, now took to getting down on his knees and praying to Jesus in earnest. He was asking for a reprieve from being sent away to become a farm labourer somewhere unfamiliar and lonely. He was big for his age, naturally intelligent and not afraid to assert himself. He was also popular with the other children, who saw him as their leader. As a consequence he was regarded as somewhat of a troublemaker, and he knew the orphanage would be anxious to see the last of him. But he was also an exceptionally good boy soprano, and while he retained his childhood voice he knew he was safe. The choir needed him. He was a charismatic performer with a smile that made an audience grin. His solo during Handel’s Messiah had been commented on by the resident music critic of the New York Times, who lamented the fact that he had not been discovered earlier in his life and better use made of his exceptional voice. And so Jimmy prayed to the supposedly loving Jesus that the onset of puberty would be delayed.

  When Jimmy talked about the past he seemed to return to it physically as well as in his mind. His face and mannerisms took on the concerns of the orphan child he’d once been, and his voice seemed to rise an octave. He was, and still is, a consummate actor and could turn a simple explanation into a compelling performance, which made it almost impossible to refuse him anything he desired. He’d never quite forgiven the Lord Jesus for being able to resist his considerable powers of persuasion. ‘Brother Fish, dat last year I pray every night to da Lord Jesus – I ask him to keep mah voice so it not broke. “Lord, let me sing yo’ praise,” I says to him. “I done good in dat choir singin’ for you, Jesus. Maybe yo’ read what da man say in da New York Times? I worth keepin’, Lord. I done mah best singin’ da gospel. Now I needs a small favour. Jus’ one more year, please Lord? Jus’ one more year to be a boy soprano – after dat I ain’t gonna ask no more favours no more. Please Jesus, let me keep mah chile voice. Praise yo’ precious name, Amen.”’

  When a month before his twelfth birthday his voice broke and his name appeared on the dreaded orphans’ indenture list, his days as a praying man were over. Jimmy had a forgiving nature, particularly if he thought a genuine mistake had been made. On the other hand, if a deliberate effort to bring him undone was attempted or he became aware of malice towards himself or a friend, he became an implacable enemy. He was also no respecter of persons and the Lord was no longer his friend and saviour. As far as he was concerned the Lord had deliberately let him down, and in his book that meant they had nothing more to say to each other.

  ‘Brother Fish, I’m outta der an’ goin’ who-know-where, man! It Jesus’s fault. I’m twelve years old an’ croakin’ like a big ole frog. All dat prayin’ to Him ain’t done me no good what-so-ever. He don’t have no time to do no lis-nin’ to no orphan nigger! I wore out da knees o’ mah britches prayin’, man!’ He looked up, appealing to me. ‘Whaffor I done that? I ain’t never got mah voice back neither!’ He saw me grinning. ‘Ain’t no joke, Brother Fish. Frank Sinatra done got his voice back. Bing Crosby he got his voice back. Sure, dey white folk, natcherly Jesus love dem. Satchmo, he bin raspin’ an’ croakin’, he don’t get no voice back! He black, Jesus don’t love him. Ray Charles he got his voice back but da Lord He done take his eyes away. He blind now, dat da payment for his voice.’

  As far as I knew Ray Charles had always been blind, but I refrained from saying so. ‘What about Nat King Cole?’ I asked.

  ‘Ha! Dat mah point! Dat mah exact point!’ He sang a few bars of ‘Mona Lisa’ in what wasn’t a bad imitation of the butter-smooth crooner. ‘Dat not a voice for a black guy, man! Dat a cockamamie white-man voice, dat a voice to shame a black man! Dat a faggot voice. Jesus done punish him special.’

  I’d learned that there wasn’t much point in arguing with Jimmy. Anyway, most of the time he was secretly laughing at himself. The orphanage placed Jimmy with a tomato farmer in New Jersey, a Lutheran family named Kraus who’d migrated from Germany in 1920. The Kraus family were so stereotypically German that they were almost comic-book material. The father, Otto, parted his hair in the centre and wore a waxed moustache turned up at the ends. His twin sons, Fritz and Henrik, were tall, blue-eyed and alarmingly blond with all the predictable mannerisms inherited from their Aryan forefathers. Had they been born in the Fatherland, Adolf Hitler would have rejoiced in their racial perfection. They were respectful, polite, stood to attention in front of their elders, and were obedient and unimaginative, while being neither clever nor excessively dull.

  Father and sons worked hard and kept a model fifty-acre farm with the fields planted in perfect rows. The beech trees lining the evenly gravelled and raked driveway leading to the well-kept farmhouse were equally distanced and perfectly aligned, all of them the same size and shape. If an errant bough should disrupt their symmetry it would be quickly lopped to conform. The Kraus farm was a consistent winner in the New York State 4-H competition for working farms on fifty acres or less, and had made the national finals on two separate occasions. Their tomatoes had earned a host of blue ribbons at various agricultural shows and these ribbons hung in line along one wall of the packing shed spaced precisely three inches apart, the red, the blue and the green each in their own section.

  The two barns and packing shed were freshly painted, the roof tomato red with ‘kra us tomatoes ’ painted in large white letters that could be seen by motorists travelling along the nearby highway and by the aeroplanes flying out of Newark Airfield. The walls were the colour of freshly churned butter. The outlines of each of the farm tools were painted on one of the inside walls of the main barn, and each piece of equipment was hung accordingly. The John Deere tractor was hosed down, refuelled and checked after each day’s work and parked, always in precisely the same location between two white painted lines on the barn floor. The ploughs and harrows were freshly painted at the end of each summer. The packing shed was in perfect order, the conveyor belts oiled and running at their optimum efficiency and the soft pine timber for the tomato cases stacked and sorted according to size.

  The twenty per cent aerated soil in the seedling trays resting on wire racks in the hothouses was correctly formulated. The ambient temperature and precise water-misting routine were designed to maintain the humidity and to produce seedlings of an even size. The young tomato plants stood at rigid attention, never yellowed or mysteriously wilted, and seemed to know that they were destined to produce future American Beauty tomatoes of the correct shape, preferred size and absolutely top quality.

  Otto’s sons, while thoroughly trained by their male parent in the way of their Teutonic forebears, were nevertheless proudly American and fanatical New York Yankee fans. Both had been offered baseball scholarships to Columbia but Otto Kraus, who wanted his boys to remain on the farm, had forbidden them to take the scholarships. In his opinion a college education wouldn’t make them grow better tomatoes. He had recently purchased a further hundred acres adjoining his own and, when the time came for the two boys to marry, a home would be built for each that carried its own separate title for fifty acres. In Otto’s mind there was no room for discussion – the future for his sons was settled, and it had never occurred to them to resist his will.

  But storm clouds were beginning to gather. In 1940 they’d been required to register as aliens, meaning German-born American citizens. With the increasing likelihood of America entering the war, the American-born offspring of German, Italian and Japanese migrants were preparing to face the prospect of their parents being
interned as enemy aliens. Furthermore, at the age of twenty, the twins would almost certainly be conscripted, which was another reason why Otto wasn’t preparing the newly acquired acres. He had hatched a plan whereby the twins would volunteer for the armed forces in an attempt to prove, with two sons fighting for America, that he was a loyal American citizen, and so he might escape internment. If this failed he conceded that they would be forced to cease the production of tomatoes for the duration of the war, putting the farm into mothballs and leaving Frau Kraus to take care of things until they returned.

  Frau Kraus was a solidly built woman of peasant stock. She had small, sharp blue eyes set into a face as expressionless as a scrubbed potato. Her cheeks were blushed with tiny surface veins and her top lip carried the suggestion of an errant moustache. The pinpoint brightness of her eyes in so plain a visage suggested a natural shrewdness, but if this was true she had little opportunity to exercise it because Otto made all the purchases and important farm and household decisions. She seldom smiled or spoke unless personally addressed, and the expression she assumed for everyday use was one of disapproval. Her mouth was turned downwards even in repose, as if she’d decided that her life had little chance of being enjoyable and was simply to be endured in silent protest. There seemed not to be the slightest suggestion of frivolity in her makeup. She spoke functional English in a heavy Bavarian accent, though she hadn’t mastered the language to the point where she could understand the jokes on the radio or in the Sunday comic papers.

  She was referred to as Frau Kraus by both her husband Otto and her twin sons. Moreover, because her Christian name was unpronounceable to the American families who attended the Lutheran church, they too called her ‘Fraukraus’, joining the two words into a single Christian name. When required to adopt a more formal approach they referred to her as Mrs Otto.