Night Calypso (30 page)

Vincent made all well. Or that is what he hoped, as he got Ti-Jean back to bed.

I
TELL YOU
, I see Achilles at the periscope. He have our island in his sight. He see us from where he is, under the ocean wave. He know the
boca
. He know the gulf. He give us the slip.

They get the signal when he cross the magnetic loop, deeper than the cold current. Deeper than a shoal of cavalli. He come to rest on the sea bed. He wait and wait all afternoon for the darkness of the night. He only hearing ping, ping.

Through the water, the sound of the anti-submarine trawling for his silver fish in Orinoco water. An iron killer whale!

They give up the search. They scan the sea from the sky.

I there when he reach the proper depth and send the periscope up. The coast clear. The darkness complete. He break the surface. I there too when he climb out of the hatch. The cool breeze in his face. I there. I see him. He tall and blond with blue eyes.

What he see is the Mokihana all the way from Baltimore in Maryland. She have cargo to unload before she sail for the East.

Achilles line up his ship with the Mokihana. She is his target. The sea calm like a pond. Darkness hide him. Fishing pirogues anchor in the gulf.
Flambeaux
burning so close, he smell the kerosene. The torpedo ready. She shake. He give an order to starboard, the rudder swing, and she shudder. She let loose another torpedo.

Now the Mokihana explode. Is a mountain of water in the air.

Siren bawl. Achilles dive. It too shallow. He get stick in the mud. He break the surface again. He run for the
bocas.

I there, looking into his blue eye, and seeing his blond hair blowing in the breeze. He dive into the ocean.

Theo stopped his story exactly where Vincent could continue with what he himself had witnessed. Theo walked across the room, entered the bed and curled up next to the doctor and slept.

Madeleine watched them both from where she stood at the door, listening with her fear.

Vincent woke to Madeleine stroking his brow, humming a tune.
‘Oui, oui, c’est seul, c’est l’amour, c’est l’amour seul.’
The room was flooded with sunlight, and then shadow; shadows of leaves, shadows of branches of leaves as the light cotton curtains lifted with the sea breeze.

A cock crowed in the distance.

She sat at the top of the bed, and raised Vincent’s head onto her lap. The boy’s body was flung sideways across the bed, having kicked off his pyjamas as usual. He lay on his stomach. She stared at his scar.

Listening to the boy’s tale last night, the first she had heard, allowed her to dispel her fear, to rid herself, for the moment at least, of her panic and dread. The story had saved her. But the tune she hummed, as she got ready to leave, was still the love song of the blue-eyed, blond-haired sailor.

She rested Vincent’s head on the pillow and left the room, got dressed in her religious habit. Then she slipped out of the kitchen door, tucking her hair firmly beneath her skull cap and veil. She was now, again, Sister Thérèse, girdling herself with her rosary beads, as she crossed the scorched sorrel patch, and entered the bush for the hills.

What Theo had called Achilles’ killer whale, the sleek silver fish which had nosed its way into the Porta España harbour, torpedoing the Mokihana from Maryland in Baltimore, had also blown a hole in the routines of Saint Damian’s. This iron whale was now more famous than the first natural one, which had been beached at La Tinta. While that one had brought a sense of wonder into everyone’s life, this one had brought a sense of danger, that the world could be toppled at any moment.

Stories and rumours flourished under the big almond tree. Jonah and Singh had to keep an eye out for trouble, their kind of trouble, for the peoples’ politics, the barefooted troops of El Caracol’s long revolution on the march, whenever given the moment; no other kind of trouble, sabotage on the Yankee fences.

The people had not forgotten Michael Johnson. They knew too well what even the innocence of children had managed here. These were the myths that warned. They needed others to comfort and to transform their lives.

Bolo and Elroy were called upon, yet again, to repeat their tales of the
macajuel
of Caroni and the turtles of Matura. Sunil Ramchand was encouraged to tell and retell of the visible, invisible
manatees
of Manzanilla. ‘All you ever see them thing, or the way a fella does throw out a net in the ponds for the
cascadu
?’

‘Tell them Sunil, tell them.’ That was Mohan, who people seldom saw, as he lived right at the top of Indian Valley, and hardly came down by the almond tree to be with people. He was one of those in the care of Sister Thérèse.

‘He too ugly to show himself to the world,’ a young brave said, refusing to believe that he himself could become like that within a
year; have his face collapse, become that lion-face look, or his hands disappear.

This need for stories was a great hunger. Even the most disillusioned collected under the almond tree when the doctor’s son, as Theo was now known to everyone, was among them. Those who wanted to be irreverent, like Robert,
The Midnight Robber,
as he was known to the young girls, found himself elaborating, ‘How the doctor have a son, so big, after such a short while with that woman living in his house?’ Some laughed, but others reprimanded him.

Ma Cowey always chorused up with support for Doctor Metivier who had saved her leg from the gangrene. ‘All you, watch what all you say about Docta Metivier. That is a good man,
oui,
some of all you wouldn’t be here now to laugh,
kee kee,
if it wasn’t for him.’

‘Okay grandma, we ent doing the good doctor no harm. We joking. Is
ole talk.’

‘And don’t talk so about Sister Thérèse. You know is she who bright bright, and does find out things when she looking in that microscope, that does help the doctor to heal we. Don’t talk about sweet Sister Thérèse so.’

‘She better watch she self with the likes of Mohan,’ someone in the crowd shouted.

Everyone laughed at the suggestion, but the irony had not escaped all of those who knew that there were real dangers of infection among the worst of the patients. Sister Thérèse, in her short while in the hills, had already got a reputation for her unsparing dedication to the wretched of this earth, as some of the sisters thought of the poorest and worst affected of their patients.

‘Is not Sister Thérèse you know, girl? Eh eh, you ent here how she is not Sister Thérèse no more. He does call she Madeleine. Jonah tell them. You in the doctor house everyday as if is yours. Tell them about how she is Miss Madeleine now.’ Rumour had excited the young Jean Cordallo.

Jonah ignored the
ole
talk, but the knowing Jean, who knew her catechism and bible story well, continued, ‘Madeleine, is Magdalen,
in truth.’ People looked puzzled. ‘Magdalen, what wrong with all you? She was a Dorothy who Jesus forgive when she went with all them men.’

‘Girl what wrong with you? You calling the woman a Dorothy because she love the doctor? Is love you know. You yourself would want to fall in love, like you see in them
flim
, nice nice love. Girl, have respect. Must because you jealous and can’t get a man to fall in love with you, you so ugly like sin.’

‘Don’t talk so. Don’t insult people. All of we in the same boat. You don’t know beauty is within, and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.’ Lal brought some order to the talk.

‘Tell them, Mr Lalbeharry. Tell them. Them young girl stupid yes. Anyway, why all you don’t listen to good story instead of minding people business.’ Everyone was contributing to the
ole talk.

‘What I want to say to all of you, is that you should know better not to
mauvais langue
we good doctor. Where some of all you would be without that man?’ Lal concluded.

Theo, standing in the midst, from where Vincent could see him from the verandah of the children’s ward, was talking quietly. He was transformed by his story. So quiet, that everyone was edging closer into a tight circle under the branching almond tree.

Apart from Theo’s voice, everything was so quiet that you could hear the waves breaking on the beach down by the jetty. Vincent wondered at this development, Theo telling the story he had told him at the foot of his bed. He had made the bombing of the Mokihana into a myth which instilled fear, in order to dispel it.

Sancta Trinidad and El Caracol were now part of Mr Hitler’s and Mr Churchill’s World War. El Caracol was the front line. And Mr Truman had his Marines right in the backyard. Theo told them living history in a quiet voice.

There were cheers from one part of the crowd, the ones who believed that they did not want any Yankee soldiers on their island, when the Yankees were not giving anything in return that they could see, that made any real difference to their lives.

In fact, one of them had been killed and there was growing danger it might happen again. Those who spoke were the ones who had a fund of stories about what was happening to Dorothy, why Miss Mary Ann, down by the seaside everyday sifting sand, and why all the mothers and daughters of the land had to go down Point Cumana to make a living, as Calypso say.

The children in the hospital were strung out. Those in whom the disease was dormant were less affected. But the really sick children, less resilient, less secure, were constantly waking in the nights which immediately followed the attack on the Mokihana, screaming their nightmares. The story was that the children all had the same nightmare about the destruction of the world. In a sense it was an easier fear to express than the one which erupted in their skin.

It gave full permission for their fear, so that Sister Rita and Sister Marie-Paul took it in turns to bring the children down to the almond tree to join in the fun.

Thérèse had not been under the almond tree to hear Theo’s living history. Now that she did not go to the hospital, but stayed in the hills, she was dependent on Theo and Vincent, and on Jonah’s stories on the jetty in the evening, back at the Doctor’s House, to learn what was going on in the world.

Now more than one of the sisters had to sleep over at the hospital, when before this duty was left to the nursing assistants and warders. The older patients were more philosophical, Jonah explained to her. But everyone was aware now that no matter how many Yankee soldiers there were on the island, no matter how many bombers surveyed the gulf, the Germans had given them the slip and come right into Porta España.

‘They play
ole mas
with them ships in the harbour.’ Now, the fishermen, including himself, Jonah explained, who had been more guarded with their stories before, told of many more explosions they had witnessed, sneaking their way up the north coast out of the sight of the Coast Guard and the navy, hiding in the coves as far Saut d’eau Island. Some of us even reach beyond Maracas, Miss Madeleine, and have to hide out in La Fillette.’ Even Jonah used her new name, when she was not in her habit.

The names were places she did not know, places she had not gone to, on the big island of Sancta Trinidad.

Some days following the explosion in the Porta España harbour, Jonah and two of his
pardners
had found their cavalli net weighed down. When they managed to pull it to the side of the pirogue, they found the body of a sailor which had already been food to the sharks and barracudas; a skeleton as white as coral and dead flesh wavy like weed. Madeleine blanched at the story. Jonah held out his hand to her sitting on the jetty. ‘Take care, Miss. Here, take a little drink of water. I mustn’t tell you these things.’

‘No, Jonah, you too kind. I want to know what’s happening to us.’

Everything seemed now to be on alert. Theo was the swift messenger from the encampments of coastal artillery guns, going up faster than you could say Uncle Sam, along the coast from Point Girod to the lighthouse at Cabresse Point. Because he had been all ears, tagging along behind Jesse whenever it was possible, he had positioned the new coastal artillery guns on his map along the coast of Sancta Trinidad at Point Liguore and at Point-à-Pierre. ‘Them is to guard the oil refinery.’ He explained to Madeleine as they stood before the new map that he had added to his wall display, a veritable Caribbean theatre of war.

They were together this afternoon for a lesson. Vincent had suggested that Madeleine give Theo French and Latin lessons. But it was Theo who was now taking the geography lesson, or the combined history and geography lesson. They were in Theo’s room, a sanctuary never entered into without invitation.

The new map of Sancta Trinidad was beautifully drawn and crayoned, displaying the best work learnt at the hands of Father Angel. The outline was in black. The coastal contours were ochre and blue, with dashes of green, except for the swamp areas which were a khaki colour. ‘This is the Caroni, the Oropuche and the Nariva swamp. Here, is mountain range.’ These were a darker green, almost jade, crayoned with an intensity which made them shine like enamel, smooth to the touch where Madeleine stroked them with her finger, turning to smile at the
boy who was enjoying her admiration for his artwork.

‘Porta España, San Andres. Them is not the real colours.’

She laughed, throwing back her thick black hair, tidying it behind her ears, knowing exactly what he meant, imagining what he said about the colours of the rivers and the sea, the vast enclosing ocean, labelled prominently in black. He was a schoolmaster with his cane. ‘East and south, Atlantic Ocean. North, Caribbean Sea. Continent, Port Guira, Golfo de Ballena on the west.’

The archipelago running from the north-western tip of Sancta Trinidad, each island and
boca
clearly there, ended dramatically with their very own island. ‘El Caracol,’ Theo concluded with a flourish and decisive tap of his cane, a well-wattled piece of guava wood. ‘The snail of that fantasist, Columbus,’ the boy declaimed, with a touch of his mentor Father Angel de la Bastide.

Madeleine threw back her head again and laughed, and then crouched to read something lower down the wall. Theo stood behind her, eager to see what she had noticed and which he had not yet explained. She was running ahead of him.

‘Wait, Miss.’ He enjoyed it when she made it back earlier than her usual arrival in the dark. He liked her transformation from nun to young girl.

The wall display had grown far beyond anything that even Vincent was up to date with: newspaper clippings from
The Gazette
in Sancta Trinidad, the
London Illustrated News
from Father Meyer, and the
New York Times
brought in by Jesse.

There was also a gigantic wall map of the continental coastline marked with the shipping lanes coming up from South America, and those advancing north to the American eastern seaboard. Theo had little pins stuck into the map, with fluttering labels, each one recording a torpedoing.

‘Galera Point is the tip of the torpedo triangle.’ Theo had it clearly illustrated. ‘Achilles responsible for all of them there. Here, and here, other warriors, Ulysses,’ he explained to Madeleine, as part of his lesson. Each pin, with a flag attached, carried the name of the warrior responsible.

Madeleine read the names, whispering them to herself, as she worked down the wall, Theo hovering at her shoulder, ‘Patroculus, Philoctete.’ Myths and histories of wars became echoed in this war. The Caribbean became the Aegean.

They broke to listen to the news on the World Service which crackled with the events in deserts, seas, mountains and cities across the world. These were instantly recorded on the upper reaches of the wall.

There were the campaigns of Montgomery. ‘That is Monty, the Desert Rat,’ Theo reached up with his cane.

The face of the fat man with the cigar was pinned up. ‘Mr Churchill, he like a bulldog on the radio.’ Madeleine enjoyed Theo’s running commentary. She admired her pupil, who would rather take the class, than have her instruct him in irregular French verbs, or Latin conjugations and declensions. Though his love of learning did encompass those as well, at the appointed time.

Theo’s general knowledge was expanding beyond anything that Father Angel had originally taught him. While life was giving him the education which Jesse thought he should have, and Vincent had desired for him, this was now being developed by Madeleine, with whom he was now having more formal classes, not only in French and Latin but also in the science that came out of her research. It had not been possible to get him back to Singh.

This was how lessons in geography and history were mostly conducted, and he was lapping up the stories in the book of Greek myths which Vincent had left lying around the house.

He got his maths from the talk on fathoms and sea miles, the fractions and diameters of guns, their shooting distances. Jesse was his master there, not to forget his lessons in archeology at the midden, and the history in the jazz, in the blues’ laments, blown on Jesse’s saxophone.

All this learning was making him ready for his life ahead.

‘What is this here, Theo?’

Theo knelt next to Madeleine and looked over her shoulder where she was staring at what looked like the torn fragment of a letter, faded Antillean blue. It was pasted onto an old envelope,
which carried a Canadian stamp. It was part of a paragraph, torn from its context….
news to London. The speculations of our agents in and around Paris is that the those transported to the work camp at Drancy are inevitably for transport to a work camp in Eastern Europe. The numbers reported are
…