“Every house in the Tenantry was brought low-low-low by Darnley the Hurricane. It reminded me, as Ma continued giving me the commentary of Mr. Bellfeels exploits, not because he was acting like a real Sea Scout for three days and three nights only, but she was giving me details more as a means of softening the hardness she knew I carried in my heart for that bastard. Yes.
“But anyhow, every house was lay-waste; brought low; at one with the earth; roofs lick-off; whole sides of houses in the Tenantry blow-way, as they were all built with board, deal board mainly; wood; now reduced to piles o’ matchsticks; the mission-houses that were opened to serve God, stripped bare to nothing, back to the ground, to the land. It reminded me of the words in a Christmas carol we used to sing in school . . . the hurricane hit we in December, when people had-start varnishing and stripping and painting furnitures for the holidays; the ingreasements for the Christmas cake already soaking in jimmy-johns with raisins and rum, yes; that’s why the hurricane remind me of the Christmas carol ‘O Holy Night.’
‘People on your knees, await your deliverance . . .
’ “And I think another part of the same carol goes something like this:
“‘Long lay the world in sin and error pining . . .
Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices.’ Yes!
‘Fall on your knees . . .’
“We certainly did fall on our two knees those three days and three nights of Darnley. The only buildings that was left standing when it was over, were the two elementary schools, the Church, the police sub-station and any wall-house made with cement and coral stone. Everything-else gone! At one stage, it was unsafe for anybody to stay in their house, so Mr. Bellfeels made a human chain with the people holding one another’s hands, and he guided them, with him on the horse, from throughout the Tenantry, going from door to door, and led them to safety in the two Elementary Schools now without roofs; and who couldn’t fit in the schools were guided to the Church, Sin-Davids Anglican Church.
“The other Churches in the Village, the Pilgrim Holiness, the Church of the Nazarene, the First Baptist and the First Congregation of the Shakers of Bimshire that people like the field hands and labourers, and people-so worship at, were all reduced to piles of matchstick. Raze to the ground. All. Gone. Yes.
“God in his wrath spared the .Wellings of the mighty, the rich and the powerful. And reduce-to-rubbles the habitations of the humble, the meek and the poor. I asked God, as young as I was, ‘Why?’ Why this vengeance visited upon the heads of the poor, the same poor which He said could go through a eye of a needle, and will inherit the earth? Why? Why, God? God, why?
“The answer is clear. We had sinned.
“We had sinned in our actions, in our lives, in our dealings with people living amongst us, with the truth.
“But, praise God, not a life was lost. Not a living-soul of this Village lost his life.
“But the slaughter of the stocks, the sheeps, the goats, the cows, horses, mules and donkeys—not to mention the fowls, the ducks and the turkeys—pure carnage. Bodies .Well-up, bloated, eyes staring at you like the visages of mad people, but dead; bare circles, dead eyes that look like glass instead of pupils.
“And the stench that rose over the entire Village when the flood waters drain off, through the gullies, down the hills on their journey to the sea; the trail of destruction and desolation that was disclosed in their wake, my-God-in-heaven, it was as if the entire Flagstaff Village was transform into a huge abattoir of dead and rotting animals. A battlefield of the fallen, at the end of a fight. Something like in the Bible. That was the work of Darnley the Hurricane.
“But that is not all. Mr. Bellfeels. After he shepherd the other Villagers from their houses into the Elementary Schools and the Anglican Church, to safety, he came back for Ma and Gran and me. He take the three of us round to the back of the Main House, which faces the gully that looks out over the North Field, and surrounding fields, from where you could see the back of Guvvament House, where His Excellency Sir Stanley live; and into a shed which I think I told the Constable was built originally as a Dutch oven, to bake bread and cassava-hats in, but now was converted into a cottage. It was one large room, with four windows with shutters, with walls of raw cement, not painted, nor plastered too good; and the floor was the same raw cement as the walls, that wasn’t treated. Two cots against one wall, and separating what look like the space for a bedroom from the rest of the room was a blind made out of a crocus bag, henging on a string made of herringbone twine. A one-burner stove, a wooden table, two upright chairs and nothing more. I felt, over the years, that Mr. Bellfeels had-bring us to the place where the cows that were with calf, and nearing birth, were tied before delivery. Or-else, the place where Watchie, the night watchman, changed. But it was safe. And it was clean. And dry, but with a touch o’ dampness. The four walls were as thick as the walls of a fort or a castle, thick as the walls in a underground tunnel that runs underneat this Great House, thick as the walls of His Majesty’s Glandairy Prison, then. Or Sin-Michaels Lighthouse, at Needhams Point.
“Mr. Bellfeels delivered us there. Safe. But drowning-wet, like three rats. To the skin. Thank God for small mercies! Yes.
“And I being only fourteen or fifteen—I can’t remember which—but in more than a minute’s-time sleep overtake me, and I collapse on one of the cots which Ma moved from the bedroom-area, out into the other space, probably to give herself some privacy. Gran scotch-off, meanwhile, on the same cot, with me . . .
“. . . and drifting off to sleep, with the rumbling of the thunder no longer so close, and in my eardrums, but far off in the distance, over the West Coast, and the lightning flashing just as much as earlier, but no longer like a knife, sleep overtook me. In two-twos, both Gran and me were in another world. Yes.
“I don’t know why. To this day, so many years after Darnley the Hurricane, I don’t know why. I can’t find the answer. And I don’t know if it is my imagination; I don’t know if it is what I saw with my two eyes; I don’t know if it is what I wanted to see and to happen, and that I wished it in my recollection of that terrible Sunday night of the hurricane. But I swear that as the light of the dawning of the new day peeped through the shutters, the Monday—the hurricane had-begin on the Friday evening, and raged through the Friday night, Saturday morning into Saturday night, and was at its worst before it fizzed out, tired and exhausted, on the Sunday night—but with the first rays of the breaking morning, Monday, the start of a new week, the wood-doves didn’t even start to coo yet, stupid-me, thinking that I was still home in our house, opened my two eyes, stretched, break wind and got up, not noticing that it was Gran side-o’-me, in the narrow white canvas cot. I headed in the direction of what I thought was the back door leading to the paling of our house, to wee-wee in the yard . . . I found myself in the next room. Partitioned from me and Gran by the crocus bag blind . . . there, on the cot was Ma. With Mr. Bellfeels on top of her. Yes.
“Transfix by thus seeing my mother, Ma, underneat Mr. Bellfeels, all I heard after this vision was ‘Huhn, huhn, huhn, huhn, huhn,’ coming from Mr. Bellfeels, muffling his voice, as if he didn’t want who was in the next room, Gran and me, to hear; and Ma shaking her head, as if each huhn was a knife driving-in her heart. ‘Huhn, huhn, huhn, huhn, huhn . . .
’ “You remember that I begin this Statement by telling you that when the hurricane petered-out, Mr. Bellfeels was so exhausted that he sleep-through the Monday morning, the Monday night, the Tuesday morning through the Tuesday night, and didn’t wake up nor come-to until the third day, the Wednesday?
“Well, this is how I know! Yes.”
The room is quiet. From the BBC Overseas programme come the voices of the choirboys of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. Mary-Mathilda holds her hands in her lap, and her eyes are fixed on them, as if she is inspecting them for cleanliness; but she is picturing herself in Church, at Sin-Davids Anglican Church, instead of sitting here, talking about a hurricane. Sargeant looks like a man numbed; over
come by some drug, the effect of the story of Hurricane Darnley on his mind; and he thinks of the mercilessness of the hurricane which brutalized the Village; and he tries to recall his own experience of the three nights and three days of blackness and rain and thunder and lightning which descended upon the land. His mind does not go back over those years to pinpoint his own experience of that tragedy. And this is what causes the expression of numbness upon his countenance. He cannot recall many details of Hurricane Darnley.
The Choir of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields is now singing Hymn 126. They have now reached the fourth verse. Sargeant knows this hymn by heart; and so, silently and to himself, he sings along with the voices coming through the speaker in such beautiful pronunciation and musical perfection. He sings the tenor part, along with the Choir, to this verse
“‘The pains of hell are loosed at last
The days of mourning now are past.’”
and wishes for the second time tonight that he was in the Choir of Sin-Davids Anglican Church, and away from this Great House, in spite of its seductive pull upon his heart and his body, a pull he is trying both to accept and to reject.
She surprises him, by singing the last two lines of the fourth verse:
“‘An angel robed in light hath said,
“The Lord is risen from the dead.” ’”
“Thirty-six hours ago,” she says. Sargeant does not pay any attention to her. He is still thinking about Hurricane Darnley. “Thirty-six hours before this,” she says again, “I was a different person.”
“That is how life is,” he says without interest.
“Yes! And thirty-six hours later, I am here.”
The silence falls upon the room. She and Sargeant go back to listening to the Choir from St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.
“In police-work,” he says, “’specially when you’re on a ’vestigation, some of the strangest things does come into your mind, Miss Mary. Some o’ the strangest things. With me, it is the fear that the man I tracking-down going-play a trick on me and get away. But not many have get-away from my paws. Not many. If I had one-hand only, I could count the number o’ escapees on half the fingers on that one-hand who escape. But according to what you just said, in regards to the differences that time bestow, I, many-a-time stand-in-awe and tremble when it get dark, like tonight; and I not ’shamed to tell you that I fears that the man that I am tracking-down, could, if he get the chance, kill me before I nab him. Or kill him. But not one, so far, get that chance.
“The last murder in this Island, tek-place five years ago; and I was in-charge-of-the-’vestigation; spending many a dark night tracking-down that son-of-a-bitch—pardon my French, Miss Mary . . .”
“Boysie-Boys, you mean! Boysie-Boys terrorize the whole Island . . .”
“. . . many a night tracking-down Boysie-Boys in the canes, in the gullies, in the caves back o’ this very Plantation, in the woods; under cellars, and every step I take in the darkness, I imagine that Boysie-Boy have a knife to my throat. I could even feel the coldness of the steel in the blade of the knife in the crux of my neck. And taste my own blood.
“But I tell you, Miss Mary-Mathilda, God was with me. The very next night, I see-heem, crouching under a cluster o’ pigeon-pea trees. I hold-on-more-tighter on my bull-pistle. All eighteen inches of it. And I creep-up-on-heem. Slow-slow. And quiet as a micey. And I measure-he-off, with regards to the distance he was from me, and the length o’ my bull-pistle, plus the length of my hand holding the pistle. Whapppp! Miss Mary, when I drive the first lash in Boysie-Boys arse, he tremble. And then he shake. And then he stann-up. Straight-straight-straight as a arrow. And whapppp! Jesus Christ, when the second blow hit heem, Miss Mary, pardon my language, but when the second-one-hit-heem, and the bull-pistle land whhhapps! in Boysie-Boy’s arse, excuse my . . .”
“He was terrorizing the whole Island!” she says.
“When the third lash hit-heem, I-myself was sorry for him!”
“Good-God! But still!”
“That was the last murder that tek-place in this Island.
“I sometimes does-think that some of the crimes I read-’bout in magazines that my daughter send-down from Amurca, dealing with murders and crimes in the Canadian North, and ’pon the Prairies, where the snow does be ten feet deep, and white-white-white, falling ten months outta twelve, and the Mounties and the RCMPees tracking-down criminals and serial killers, on foot and sometimes on horseback, when I read about them crimes, I does imagine that I am facing the same breed o’ criminals and mass murderers, in this Island.
“In a magazine, I read about a fellar who kill thirtyfive women in three months . . . in Canada.”
“thirtyfive murders? And all women?”
“At the ratio of thirtyfive murders to three months, that comes out to seven killings every month, or one every twenty-eight, or thirty-one days, as thirty days hath September, April, June and November, all the rest have thirty-one days, excepting February alone, which hath . . .”
“. . . but twenty-eight . . .”
“. . . and twenty-nine in each leap year.”
“God-have-His-mercy!”
“I sometimes think that the level o’ crimes and criminals that I reads about that is part of Amurcan life, and life in the Canadian North, will one day reach these peaceable shores of Bimshire. But I pray to God, and hope not.”
“Oh, North Amurca!” she says. “I told you that I visited Amurca? I did. Didn’t I? But thinking about it now, I don’t even know what I related as a experience undertaken by me actually might not’ve been something that I undertaken. You know what I mean?
“It could be that I was relating a story I read in a book. It don’t matter if I remember actually going to Miami-Florida. If I was actually on that train going north. It is not those facts that I claiming to be true. The story itself is the thing. That experience of living through the story. Wilberforce tell me that you could pick up so much knowledge from travelling, that the more you travel the less you sometimes know exactly where it is that you travel to.
“I see things when I sit-down in my chair, and I am studying. And I see things when I dream. And I cannot make a distinction between living-out a story, and reading a story.
“I think that is how the journey to Amurca happened. It was the story that I wanted to give to you. I may not have visited Amurca. And then-again, I may-have-in-fact visited Amurca.
“But I know that those coloured ladies eating Southern-fry chicken out of paper bags, on the train, is one and the same thing in real life, as in my imagination. It is the fact, and it is the story.
“Also, the Buffalo wings . . . Yes.
“The Buffalo wings. And the eighty-one-year-old woman who I heard singing the blues.”
“Amurcans are real singers!”
“The best in the world!”
“If you don’t mind me putting this to you,” he says, “what we are going do with him?”
“With who?”
“Bellfeels.”
“Mr. Bellfeels, you mean!” she corrects him.
“Mr. Bellfeels. Sorry. What we going to do about Mr. Bellfeels? We can’t sit down here all night and not face facts, Miss Mary. We got to face facts. What are we going do with Mr. Bellfeels?”
“In the matter of this case?”
“In the matter of this case,” he says. “And in tekking the evidence that belongst to this case.”
“In the taking of the evidence.”
“And from who?”
“Who from?”
“Witnesses. From supporting witnesses. ’Leviating circumstances, with evidence in support; and things-so. And it is getting late, although the time is moving in slow motion, like in a magic lantern.”
She remains still; “studying,” as she calls thinking; and the night seems to stand still, too: crickets are chirping; fireflies that were drops and flickers of light, like starlights seen from a distance, disappear altogether; or else are dropping dead, falling off into nothing; the nothi
ng that the night becomes: thick, heavy, shining with blackness; a blackness like death.
“Wilberforce coming into my thoughts,” she says, “with such a heaviness of soul and spirit. Why, at a time like this?
“Very often Wilberforce would be in this same room, sitting down just where you are, and not one word would pass between him and me. And then-again, he and me would be in this room, and would be talking and chatting and laughing our head off. Wilberforce playing the piano, and me singing along. Or else, just listening . . .
“I bet you that the wife of the Solicitor-General, or the wife of Revern Dowd or the wife of either of the two leading barsters-at-Law, even the wife of the Headmaster of the Elementary School, are all women schooled in the ways of appreciating music. And that they could tell you everything about music and art. And beautiful things. Things like the pictures on this wall that we were trying to figure out. We got some answers right. But we didn’t pass the exam, though. Even a simple thing like the meaning of tisket. These simple things that are so hard. And being such, being schooled in these better things of life, even in this Plantation life, is the explanation of their not-ever giving me a invitation into their front-houses, to have tea with them. Or to dinner. Saturday night after Saturday night will come and pass, and you will find me here, watching the stars and the tops of the canes. Watching the four walls, as the saying goes. A invitement from one o’ them bitches to dinner in their home? I would dead waiting for one! Not even for a cucumber sangwich . . . not that their cooking is anything to make your mouth water! So tasteless; and without salt. And don’t talk about no pepper! Yes . . .
“It is not that they are prejudice, and serrigating me. I don’t think they have a dislike for my colour. They just couldn’t be so prejudice and serrigating!
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