by Shani Mootoo
WARTIME WORRIES
Saturday after Saturday, Mrs. Sangha worried about this invisible war. She would have been happy for Dolly’s company as she listened to the radio, but Dolly, seeing dirty clothing piled up, would make her way downstairs as tactfully as she could and begin her work. Returning home in the taxi one day, she saw an unusual jeep painted with splotches of brown, ocher, and various shades of green. The low, wide jeep with oversize tires would have been an attraction on its own. But the moment the passengers in the taxi saw that the jeep, open at the back, was chock-full of white-skinned men, obviously soldiers, dressed in uniforms colored exactly like the vehicle, conversation came to a sudden halt. The men on the jeep, their helmets pulled low on their heads and their rifles with unsheathed bayonets slung on their shoulders, chatted among themselves and laughed, seemingly unaware of the motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians who had slowed to watch them. Mr. Walter broke the shocked silence, reporting that along his route, he had seen other jeeps transporting soldiers. He had heard that restaurants and bars in town were being frequented by these white soldiers, who dressed to go to these places exactly as they had just witnessed, guns and all.
Remembering Mrs. Sangha’s fears about food shortages, Dolly said aloud, “As long as the sun does shine and rain does fall, as long as it have fish and shrimp in the sea, crab on the beach, coconut, mango, and lime on the tree, rice in Central, cock and hen in the yard, a cow in the area, and provisions in the ground, I can’t see what it have so to worry about. I ent got no oven to bake cake. If flour get hold up, what that have to do with me? I never yet hear of pitch-oil-can sponge cake. You?” It was the most she had ever said in the taxi, the most by far. After she spoke, there was a silence as stunned as when the jeep had been sighted. Then everyone in the taxi, encouraged by her forthrightness and disregard for the symbol of war, started to talk at once. There was a general disdain for the presence of foreign soldiers on their soil, and for the idea that this foreign war was any of their business. The boy was proud of his mother, surprised by that side of her he had never before seen or heard. There was, at the same time, much high-pitched excitement, for they’d had the courage, the proud audacity, to criticize and dismiss what they had seen with their own eyes.
It didn’t matter to Dolly as much as to Mrs. Sangha, who wasn’t able to bake as much as she had in the past, that flour was already being rationed, that you had to stand in a line outside the shop and wait sometimes for a good hour before you could even step foot inside. The sight of jeeps and white-skinned soldiers from time to time never became entirely ordinary but was soon commonplace enough that citizens of Guanagaspar stopped being afraid or too reverential in their presence.
As always, on Saturday night back in his mother’s house, the boy was already looking forward to next week’s visit to the Sanghas’ house. Friday night, come bedtime, sleep was slow to come. He would be so excited that he would be restless in the bed, thinking and planning what games he and his friend might play, what books they would read, what butterflies he hoped to catch, which plants would be blooming in the yard, what clothing and sweet food his mother’s employer would send home with him and his mother. Mrs. Sangha sent less lately than she used to, but he always came home with something, no matter how small.
Lately he listened intently to the night. He knew better than to meddle in big people’s conversation, but he wasn’t deaf to Mrs. Sangha’s noise about the war, or to the contents of the turned-up radio. He would lie staring at the ceiling of the house with his eyes forced wide open, not entirely sure on moonless nights whether they were indeed open. When his mother’s breathing told him that she was asleep, he would feel alone and frightened, as if the burden of protecting his home fell on him and depended on his wakefulness. He was sure he could hear far-off bombs and airplanes. He clutched in a tight knot at his neck the cotton cloth that protected him from mosquitoes and listened hard against the wind in the trees and the crashing of ocean waves. He listened so hard that his eardrums stung and his head throbbed, and that throbbing sound blocked out all others. He would, several times, scrunch his eyes shut, then release them open again, checking that he was able to see in the black room. He expected each time that the red jumble of starlights and pinpoints that blossomed and crowded out his vision would give way to the face of a strange uniformed man or group of men who would speak with him in gruff sounds, snapping words and commands that he would not understand. Although he knew nothing of where Germany or Japan might be, he knew the Germans and the Japanese to be conquerors. He pictured them alighting one by one out of the ocean’s froth, their boats unseen, scrambling up the beach, beating through crocus and guava patch in the darkness of night. The invaders, German and Japanese alike, he imagined as tall skinny white men who looked not unlike the Americans on his island. Rustling trees sounded to him at times like men speaking strange sounds—sounds he was sure were either the German or the Japanese language. He needed to be able to decipher and distinguish wind crawling through trees, and waves exploding in the sea, from German and Japanese invaders. He imagined that he would be the men’s first contact, their first prisoners, Raleigh their first stop on the trek to conquer the island.
The all-night staccato chirping of cicadas and the drone of the sea would measure the night’s slow passing. A dreaming cow, mule, or goat might cry out, startling him and slicing apart the darkness, giving shape briefly to the village. As he lay next to his mother, his mind would eventually slow down, and her deep breathing and slight snoring would grow louder than his thoughts, louder than the sounds of bombs and low-flying airplanes and men speaking in strange languages outside. He would slide into a dreamy state and then under into sleep.
After staying awake for so long, he would not hear his cock or the area cocks crowing as dawn came, and he would resist his mother nudging him awake in the morning. She would stroke his face, push the hair from his forehead, and call his name softly. Sometimes she would resort to saying playfully, “You don’t want to go by your girlfriend today?” and this would surely draw him from his sleep. He would immediately awaken, a smile on his face. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Today is Saturday?”
THE PROTECTOR
They had traveled hardly any distance in the taxi, yet there was traffic backed up, and the normal speed had been reduced to a crawl. Mr. Walter opened his car door, got out, and announced that he could see cars lower down turning around, and white-skinned soldiers directing the traffic to turn back. Dolly sat up abruptly. She muttered, “Eheh, don’t tell me war arrive.” Mr. Walter said that the road was caked with tracks of unusual oversize wheels. The passengers in the car stiffened. They became quiet. The woman on the far side of the backseat pulled out a rosary from her purse, and though she remained quiet, she fingered the rosary, every few seconds clutching and massaging one of its beads, and then seconds later, the next one. Mr. Walter carried on at crawl pace down the road until the car approached one of the soldiers, who directed him to turn around and go back the way he had come. The passengers shrank into their seats as they watched the soldier. His face was that of a young man, his body fit, his hair yellow and cut close to his head.
Mr. Walter leaned his body against the door and stuck his head out of the window. In an unusually formal manner, he addressed the American soldier. “Good morning, sir. What’s the matter? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“Bridge construction. Carry on, now. Steady, don’t hold up the traffic.”
“How long it will take to complete, sir?” His persistence and politeness surprised his passengers.
“A day or two.” The soldier clapped his hands to hurry them on, but Mr. Walter had another query.
“What happen? The old one collapse or what?” This sudden confidence relaxed the passengers.
The soldier didn’t answer; he clapped his hands more impatiently and said, “Move it. You’re holding up the traffic, sir.”
Mr. Walter hesitated. He beamed. These white men were not at all like the
ones from the mother country. He had heard so, in truth, and now he was seeing it for himself. They did their job, but they were respectful, calling him “sir” and speaking with him like a person and not a taxi driver. He was happy that he, too, had called the soldier “sir.” Mutual respect. They were behaving like civilized people, living and working together, even in wartime.
As Mr. Walter completed the U-turn, the passengers looked back down the road. They saw tractors being driven by white-skinned soldiers, and more of them digging up the road, some working away in the ditches that had been made.
Mr. Walter had obeyed, but as he drove along in the opposite direction, his spirits were buoyed by having dared to ask a question, to ask it of a soldier, and a white-skinned one at that, and to have been addressed with a great measure of respect. He had to take a route into the town that would practically circumnavigate the cane fields, bypass the town, and come around to enter it from the east. All the talk in the taxi was of the foreign soldiers who were in their country, of their generosity in doing manual labor, building bridges and roads, the kind of work only idlers and alcoholics or gamblers took to make quick money once in a while.
By the time they reached Marion, it was the middle of a blistering day, and they were perspiring. Even with downturned windows, the car was rank with the odor of skin overheating and the perfumed soap that Dolly and one man in the car wore. When they stopped to fill up with petrol, it was almost noon. They reached the Sanghas’ house almost four hours later than usual.
Although she had experienced Mrs. Sangha’s leniency and kindness time and again, Dolly was taken aback to find her worried more about her and her son’s welfare, that they might be hungry and thirsty, than that she was late. She knew Mrs. Sangha was interested in the war abroad, and Dolly was excited to be the one bearing news for a change. She told Mrs. Sangha about the bridge and how she herself had seen with her own eyes how the white soldiers were doing dirty street work that you couldn’t get even Guanagaspar men in desperate need of work to do. Mrs. Sangha treated Dolly as if she had come from a long and arduous journey bearing long-awaited, life-giving news. When Mrs. Sangha dragged out a chair for her, coaxed her to sit, and poured a glass of ice water for her, Dolly, enjoying the respect and attention, carried on. She reported what Mr. Walter had said and embellished everything, said that soldiers were filling up the restaurants in town, bringing trade to the town, which was to prosper from the abundance of Yankee money. She had never said the word “Yankee” before. She liked the authority it imparted to her. She offered her opinions. She was impressed, she said, by the good work these soldiers were doing, that they were not sitting around idly waiting to be sent off to where the war was actually being fought in another country, that they were building up rather than destroying a country.
Mrs. Sangha didn’t immediately tell Dolly that what she had just described seemed to be bad news. Later that day she wondered aloud if all the repairing and widening of bridges and roads and building of highways all over the country was not an indication that war was at the doorstep of the island. But Dolly wasn’t able to see what one set of events might have to do with the other.
At the end of the day, Dolly put on a freshly pressed dress, and pinned her long hair in a bun. Mrs. Sangha and her daughter stayed at the top of the stairs as Dolly descended with her son to leave for Raleigh. She hadn’t made it halfway down when a man’s shrill voice boomed from out of nowhere, crackling in the hot and hazy Saturday air.
“Attention. Attention.”
They all froze, their eyes widened. Dolly and the boy turned and rushed back up the stairs into the house, and Mrs. Sangha locked the door behind them. The boy went to his little friend and slipped his hand into hers. She curled her fingers around it. Mrs. Sangha came up behind them and pulled both against her. She stood still, listening. Dolly went to the window and peeped from the side of it, afraid for the first time. Amid the crackle of a PA system, the voice of the man announced again, “Attention, attention.” The sound had gotten considerably closer.
As the words were continuously repeated, they recognized it as the accent of a Guanagasparian man. Relieved but still perturbed, the four of them ran to the verandah to see what was happening. A car with a public address system mounted on its hood was crawling down the street and was almost in front of the house. There was a man sitting in the front seat next to the driver, speaking into a microphone, and his voice boomed out of the large silver horn on the roof. He was calling the people of the neighborhood to listen to his address. Dolly and Mrs. Sangha could see people coming out of their houses and gathering on their verandahs, some even coming down to the roadside. Mrs. Sangha hushed the two children as they whined to be lifted so that they could see better over the high verandah banister. She rested a hand on Dolly’s shoulder.
The car came to a halt, and the man with the microphone stepped out onto the road and began to read aloud from a script he held in his hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Your attention, please. This is a message from the minister of national security.”
There was crackling and a long pause.
“I repeat: this is a message from the minister of national security. Please do not panic. Remain calm and listen carefully. Our country is presently in a state of emergency.”
Mrs. Sangha became frightened, but at the same time she seemed to have a sense of satisfaction. She said as if to herself, “If anything happen to any one of us, it will be our fault self. The signs have all been there, but not a soul wanted to believe that such a thing could happen to us, like if we immune. They think this is paradise and that God live on paradise. But where God reside, so does the devil also reside.”
“A state of emergency has been declared. From this moment on, be advised that for your own safety, no more than two people will be permitted to gather on the streets in daylight. Be further advised, no one will be permitted on the streets from sundown to sunup until further notice. If you have no urgent business outside of your house, please remain indoors during the day. In the event of an attack on our island by foreign aggressors, a siren will sound. During the nighttime, if you hear the siren, turn off all lights and take cover on the ground floor of your house or under a heavy table. No candles or flashlights are to be used. All vehicular traffic is suspended from this moment on until further notice.”
Dolly looked at Mrs. Sangha with disbelief. What were they to do? How were they to get back to Raleigh? Mrs. Sangha read the unspoken questions on her face and said quietly, “Don’t panic. Everything will be all right.” She pressed her finger to her lips, telling Dolly to be quiet so that she could hear what else the man had to say.
“There is no radio service at the present time. You will be updated regularly by this public address system. I repeat, a state of emergency has been declared. Thank you.”
The driver got back in his car, and the car rolled away.
For some seconds everyone stayed right where they had congregated. An airplane flying low was heard approaching but not seen. In a flash, everyone disappeared into his or her home, and people who were far from their own homes ran in to houses that were nearby. Doors and windows were being closed. You could hear the banging shut of wood shutters right along the street. The sound of the airplane faded and was not heard again.
Five minutes later, the voice of the messenger, faint in the distance, could be heard delivering the same message elsewhere.
Mrs. Sangha went around the house drawing the curtains, shutting and locking the two doors between the rest of the house and the verandah, and as she did so, she spoke to Dolly.
“Well, you have to stay here tonight. You can’t get home.” There was a look of worry on Dolly’s face, and on Mrs. Sangha’s a look of Well, I told you so, I kept telling you that it was serious, but all she said was “That is just the way it is, and there is nothing to do about it.”
Mrs. Sangha’s daughter had become serious, staying very close to the boy. He, too, had become worried but wa
s breathless with the excitement of war and danger. It meant that as the only male in the house, he had to assume some posture of confidence and courage. Mrs. Sangha began to plan where Dolly and her son would pass the night. There was a servant’s room downstairs, but she had not for a long time had a live-in servant, and though the room had a bed in it, it had been used mostly for storage and had, for as long as Dolly worked there, been locked with a key.
“The room downstairs have few boxes on top the mattress, and it have some furniture in there, too. I will come down with you and unlock it. We will have to move everything outside the door. You can stay in this house as long as you want. I will make sure the four of us are as safe as safe in times like these can be. I sure the room will be dusty-dusty, but we will clean it good. Is a long time now nobody gone in there. I myself will give it a good wiping.” She turned to the boy. “You be a good boy and give it a proper sweeping. You and your mother will sleep there. You will be safe in this house. Go out in the backyard and take some cuttings from the hibiscus tree to make toothbrush, and I will give you baking soda. And Dolly, go and take a towel from the linen cupboard. It don’t have water down there, so you can use the bathroom upstairs in the back room. Let us go down now, before it gets too dark and we can’t use lights. You will come upstairs after and eat dinner with me.”
