The Ventriloquist's Tale

by Pauline Melville

  But the vaqueiros and other Amerindians who passed through told a different story.

  It seemed that Father Napier had been setting fire to mission churches wherever he went. In Shea, the villagers looked on in astonishment as he seized a mallet and smashed the skulls of three puppies on the altar of their little church before setting fire to the walls with a kerosene-soaked club. In Sand Creek, it was said that the palm thatch of the roof of the church began to blaze of its own accord as he approached. Others described the priest throwing kerosene in the doorway and using wax matches to light it.

  The priest’s progress through the savannahs had been marked by beacons, blazes, burning timbers, fires, flames and furnaces. Of the twenty-two missions he had founded in his fourteen-year ministry, he had burned sixteen to the ground.

  Wifreda’s face screwed up with the effort of understanding, as she sat at the table with Sam one evening, trying with her left hand to stop their youngest son wriggling off the bench. There were several barefoot vaqueiros standing around drinking coffee. The news came flying in like a swarm of marabunta hornets. Confirmations. Contradictions. Variations. Denials.

  No one had seen Father Napier all day. Eventually, it was decided that Sam should investigate tactfully and ask Father Napier what had been happening. It was late the same night when Sam Deershanks broke into Father Napier’s room which had been locked since morning. The room was empty. Father Napier had already gone.

  It had been dark when Father Napier lowered himself out of the window and on to the ground-level verandah. He managed to slide down the housepost without waking the occupants of two hammocks slung outside and he picked his way as silently as possible towards the track which led to the road. He was heading for St Ignatius. Moonlight flooded the savannahs. The squat shadows of sandpaper trees menaced him at intervals.

  Lately, he had found difficulty in holding on to his train of thought and since the mention of the poison, he had lost some of his confidence in the McKinnons, with the exception of Danny.

  As he walked through the night, his thoughts zoomed off unexpectedly in ways that excited him. They seemed headed for realms of revelation and glory. The rasp of his own breathing and the scrunching of his footsteps were the only sounds to be heard as he strode along. He felt inspired. The idea struck him that he must build a railway for the faithful from Georgetown to Roraima. The Pope would lead the procession on to the first train. He could see the Pontiff leaning out of the first-class compartment, waving and blessing the crowd.

  Halfway to St Ignatius, Father Napier performed a short, wild and ecstatic dance in the middle of the savannah night. Two Macusi men who had come out to hunt deer froze for a moment, thinking that one of the termite nests had started to dance. Then, realising who it was, they waited in a hollow until he had passed.

  Father Napier continued to walk until the moon shifted over to the north-east. Then, sweating but cool, he sat on the earth and gazed up at the brilliant stars. After a few minutes, ecstasy took hold of him again and filled him with enough energy to resume his journey at twice the pace.

  By the time he reached St Ignatius, he was flying.

  ‘Wake up, boys. Wake up. Hurry. We’re going to Georgetown.’

  The two boys, Salvador and Paul, scrabbled around sleepily in the dark and hurried down to the creek to bathe. Father Napier rushed around packing up his tin trunk, hammock and a few provisions. He decided that they would first go to Annai. Once there, he would send a message to Danny to come and take him to Georgetown. Sometimes he forgot why he needed to go there so urgently and then he would remember – of course, to build the Pope’s railway.

  They set off before dawn. On the way, they passed a smallholding belonging to a settler from Trinidad, a surly man who had failed twice at tobacco planting and was now involved in a disastrous scheme to freight turtle eggs to Port O’Spain.

  Father Napier burst into his house and shook him awake. Within minutes there was an argument involving some gramophone records which the man accused Father Napier of stealing. The priest stormed out and soon the trio were headed once more for Annai. The stars began to pale and fade in the dawn light. Objects became clearer. Their three silhouettes stood out on the black line of the horizon, the priest striding jerkily behind Salvador and Paul who walked in single file ahead of him.

  At mid-morning, they stopped at the Macusi village of Mora. The village was empty. Almost the entire population had gone to Annai early that morning to barter gun-caps, eggs, farine and fish for provisions. Only one woman stayed behind, sitting on the ground and lethargically spinning cotton. The priest’s party did not stop at the village but pushed on. An hour later they had reached two lean-to sheds where the Mora villagers normally sheltered on their way to and from Annai. Still, Father Napier refused to stop and rest.

  Six miles further on, Father Napier put his tin box down and collapsed on the ground exhausted. Salvador and Paul waited in silence some twenty yards ahead. The sun lashed down on the priest. Mounting panic drove him to change his mind about their destination.

  ‘I think we had better head back to Pirara,’ he called to the two boys, trying to combat vertiginous rushes of giddiness. They all turned back.

  They reached the same two sheds which now struck Father Napier as folorn and desolate. He badly wanted to find Danny McKinnon. He split the boys up, sending Salvador to Pirara with a note for Danny who frequently passed through there. He instructed Paul to go back to the village of Mora and return with fresh cassava for them to cook.

  When the boys had gone, he sat down on the ground under the palm-leaf shelter. He opened his tin trunk and took out some papers showing his register of baptisms for the Taruma Indians. A light breeze took them and scattered them so that he had to dive after them.

  Experiencing a huge weariness in his bones and scarcely able to stand, he managed to blow up a fire so that when the cassava arrived he would be able to cook it. He trembled. His black habit was drenched with perspiration. He took it off and with it his shirt and hung them up. He stepped outside but his knees gave way and deposited him on the ground. He lay there with his cheek against the hot, gritty earth.

  After a while, he could not resist pushing a big kokerite leaf, which lay nearby, into the flames. For a few seconds, he was enthralled by the beauty of the flames which looked like sacred, jagged leaves.

  Almost immediately, the shed walls caught fire and then the roof which was lined with oily consit paper. The sheds were wholly ablaze within minutes. Father Napier rushed inside to rescue his tin trunk and papers. He snatched his cassock from the beam, shoved some books and diaries into the trunk and dragged it outside. Even ten feet away from the fire, he could not stand the heat. He left the trunk and ran further away. Gradually, the fire subsided but his hammock, shirt and camera had all gone. So had the two sheds.

  Night came. There was no sign of Paul and the cassava. He lay on the ground, exhausted but unable to sleep. He prayed but there were unaccountable gaps in the prayers where he could not remember the words.

  At daylight, he set off back to Mora to look for Paul. He thought he knew the way but the numerous forks of the trail confused him and before long he found himself in the middle of a treeless expanse of red, lumpy ground having lost sight of any trail at all.

  He unbuttoned his soutane under which he wore nothing but his trousers and braces. He walked fifty yards in one direction and then changed his mind and stumbled fifty yards in another. Then, to his immense relief, he recognised a large rock and some shrubs that meant he was a matter of yards away from the village which was in a slight dip in the landscape.

  He walked towards the houses. Some fowls scratched around. The place still seemed deserted. Then, through the window of one of the houses, he saw young Paul asleep in a hammock. The same woman who had been spinning cotton the day before was there again, still working. He asked her to bake some cassava for him. She refused. Annoyed, he set about baking it for himself in one of the outhouses. He foun
d a small turtle which he told Paul to boil. Paul did as he was told but added so much salt made from vegetable ash that the meat was inedible. He excused himself by saying that the sun liked milk and salt. Father Napier shook his head in exasperation and flung the meat away.

  The villagers ignored Father Napier, turning away from the voltage of his blue eyes. No one would give him anything to drink. He asked for cassiri. They told him it was finished. He begged for something to eat. One by one they all disappeared into their houses. In counterpoint to the ecstasy he had experienced during his night’s walk, he now felt a groundswell of unease.

  That night, he slept on open ground outside the village. When he opened his eyes in the morning, the first thing he saw was the small figure of Paul setting off with his hammock over his shoulder, along the trail which skirts the mountains. The boy walked steadily away beneath the blue sky, never once looking back.

  A man was dogging his footsteps. One of the Mora villagers, a lame man of about forty, was following the priest’s every move. Finally, he addressed Father Napier in Macusi.

  ‘I wish you would go away. We don’t want you here.’

  Father Napier was now ravenously hungry. He appeased the man by preparing to depart. The task of packing his trunk should have been easy but he kept taking out as many of the papers as he put in. In the end, by dint of frantic efforts, he replaced all his effects in the tin trunk.

  The man became even more insistent that he leave. Father Napier began to fear that the man might take his bow and arrow and shoot him. He lifted the trunk and staggered slightly. As he moved off, he realised that he had left his soutane on the other side of the village, but it seemed unwise to try and retrieve it.

  For the first time ever, he walked in the savannahs without his black habit. He wended his way downhill, picking his path between rocks. Travelling on an empty stomach, his mouth felt parched but he was sustained by extraordinary rushes of gaiety.

  It was the hottest day he could ever remember. Soon the feelings of gaiety wore off. His throat felt like a rough wooden board with tiny flints set in it. He sweated. He felt weak. He longed for milk even though it pained him to swallow. Dizzy and light-headed, he struck out in part of the savannah where there was not a single tree for shade.

  The whole country had dried up. Some farmers had set fire to the land. There were charred clumps of grass on the blackened earth and some of the grasses had formed what looked like a web of grey hair. He looked for the presence of cattle, thinking they would be near water. Spotting a small group of cows some way off to his left, he took a detour over stony ground, but when he reached them they barely lifted their heads. Their hides and flanks were covered with sores. And there was no sign of water. He found his way back to the meandering trail and pushed on, supporting the tin trunk first on one hip and then the other.

  He held on to the idea that Danny McKinnon was the one man who would help him and determined to head for Pirara in the hope of seeing him. But there was no map and there was no trail that he could see. He did have a compass which remained intact in his trunk. He consulted it and kept changing course. He managed to carry the trunk, although he had to stop and rest with increasing frequency. By now his skin was hanging off in strips like ribbons which fluttered in the breeze as he walked.

  He was in a furnace. If only he could escape the roasting sun for a few minutes, he would be all right. Every so often a tremendous roaring engulfed him on all sides, as if the sun had turned into a jaguar on the attack. Each time this happened, he lifted his hand involuntarily as if to fend something off. However hard he tried to pray and keep the image of Christ before him, the stories told to him by the boys always surfaced in his mind: the sun dressing the jaguar in yellow to represent him on earth; the sun disguised as a red macaw; the sun selecting a brown wife from those offered by the water spirit because the white one and the black one both melted. The jaguar sun roared and slashed at his skin again.

  Out of nowhere came a voice.

  ‘It come like the sun trying to burn up the world.’

  Startled, Father Napier looked up to see a man and a boy of about twelve facing him. It was the man who had spoken. He was smiling in a friendly way. They took him to their camp. There was only farine to eat. It felt like gravel in his throat. That night he lay by their fire tossing and turning.

  When he awoke, they had already left. Under some trees, he spotted a small stagnant pool. He rinsed his mouth and bathed but did not dare drink. He was unable to put his trousers back on because they chafed him and so he continued his journey without them.

  The sun hammered relentlessly down on the figure of the stark-naked priest picking his way slowly across the savannahs.

  A Macusi farmer brought the note to Mr Herbert, an elderly, grizzled settler from the coast. The note was signed by a Brazilian rancher from Bom Success. It read:

  I have just come across Father Napier wandering about the savannahs quite mad. He is headed for your place. Secure him and hold him until the police can come from Annai.

  When he arrived, Father Napier was invited to lie down on the couch and rest. Suddenly, he felt he was being strangled. He opened his eyes to find the Macusi pulling a towel round his neck as hard as he could while Mr Herbert stood at the foot of the couch with ropes. He lost consciousness. When he came to, he was bound hand and foot. The two men took him to Annai.

  Waiting there was Danny McKinnon.

  They were all in a canoe travelling down the Essequibo River to Bartica. Father Napier lay trussed like a chicken in the bottom of the boat, his head jammed against a sack of woody-smelling cassava roots. He was wearing his soutane again, which Danny had somehow retrieved from Mora.

  ‘Are you going to allow me to be seized like this?’ he expostulated, as Danny manoeuvred the boat to catch the mid-stream current.

  ‘I will do what I can,’ came the reply.

  From where he lay in the bottom of the boat, Father Napier could look up into Danny’s burnished copper face, eyes narrowed into slits against the bright light. His face was surrounded by a halo of suns and for the first time Father Napier recognised Danny as an Indian. He twisted himself round as if trying to shade himself from the glare.

  Later, he bit Danny in the leg.

  Danny was in charge of bringing Father Napier to Georgetown. They camped for three days at Potaro Mouth. Danny told the priest that he was expecting some mail there and they must wait for it. In fact, he had just succumbed to an urge to go hunting round Tumatumari. He took two of the men with him and disappeared into the bush for two days.

  When they finally pulled into the landing stage at Bartica, the town was full of people who had come to attend the annual fair. Few people witnessed the wild struggles of Father Napier as he was dragged out of the boat and on to the land.

  Instead, all eyes were focused on the Ladies’ Stepping Race.

  Four well-dressed black women walked quietly round the three-quarter-mile course in the hot sun. They proceeded along the track in a dignified single file, smiling and thoroughly enjoying being the object of such attention. There was no attempt at competition because there were four prizes for the event. With no need to hurry, the procession wound slowly along, the women acknowledging the sporadic applause and waves from spectators and friends with gracious nods and smiles.

  Five hundred yards away, Father Napier was being manhandled on to the river steamer that would take him to Georgetown.

  Once Danny McKinnon had seen him safely stowed on board in the hands of the authorities, he turned his boat round and headed back to the Rupununi, stopping off near Tumatumari once more to hunt the agouti which seemed to be in abundance in that area.

  Asylum

  Father Napier was driven in an open carriage to the Brickdam Presbytery in Georgetown between two policemen. A passerby paused to see what was going on and witnessed a thin priest in a black soutane, resisting with agitated movements the restraining arm of his escort.

  In the noon-day sun,
the priest’s hair glinted the same reddish gold as the edge of a bible. His pale blue eyes burned with indignation at the affront of being manhandled by the police. He glared at each one of them in turn. His beard and moustache were short, straggly and unkempt.

  There was a scuffle as the police tried to persuade him to leave the carriage. Once they had manoeuvred him inside, another priest took him up the wooden stairs and gave him a cup of tea before driving him to the general hospital.

  They left him in the seamen’s ward that night. All night long he begged for food but was given none. Nor did he catch any sleep, although he had been carried upstairs and placed on a bed. As soon as they left him on the bed, he sat up and began shouting that he had been poisoned and they carried him downstairs again and put him in canvas restraints.

  The next day, despite having been told that he was going to Dutch Guiana and from there back to England, he was taken by ferry steamer to the asylum in Berbice.

  The asylum at Canje was built on the site of the old Dutch barracks. It was set a good way back from the road, near some tall cabbage palms, in an isolated patch of ground near Canje Creek. Local people gave the place a wide berth because a miasma of unhappiness seemed to hang around it.

  All the same, in those days, the asylum possessed some remarkable features. There were two vegetable gardens and an ancient cannon. There was a concert hall with a gallery where musicians from outside would sometimes entertain the inmates and which also served as a theatre where patients could mount their own shows. Those patients who were well enough had formed a band with ukelele, banjo and drum and sometimes boatmen on Canje Creek heard tentative melodies carried towards them on the breeze.

  It was another hot day when Father Napier’s carriage approached the asylum. The carriage had to swerve to avoid a black man standing, naked and immobile, in the middle of the road. His entire body was coated with grey dust that looked as if it had come from volcanic lava. He stood, rigid as a statue, one finger raised as if in remonstrance, pointing to where the Berbice River opened out into the Atlantic. He remained oblivious to the carriage and its occupants as they passed.