Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You

by Sue William Silverman

  Above the water the rock is warm. I lie on it and feel this warmth slowly seep through my body. I press my ear to the surface, listening until I hear the sound of water throbbing rock. Except—I know what I must truly be hearing is the sound of the rock’s heartbeat, beating safely, beating strongly, protected deep inside solid layers of stone. I listen and listen, as if I can learn this secret language of rock, the only sound I want to be able to hear. I listen until, yes, I hear my own heartbeat throbbing, my own heart beat, safely hidden deep inside the rock.

  A letter addressed to my mother on Kingswood Road in Bethesda, from my father, who is in St. Thomas. It is dated October 29, 1954—their anniversary:

  Dear Precious Ketzie,

  We’re separated again. I hope I can reach you by telephone tonight. I shall call you about 9:00.

  It’s hard to believe that 21 years flew by so quickly. We’ve gone through so much together. There have been many heartaches and much grief, but each year we’re brought closer and closer together. I guess the full and true significance of married life is not realized until the years roll-by. The completeness and oneness and the mysteriousness is not fully understood until the trials and tribulations mixed with untold joy and happiness are experienced year after year.

  I wish so much that we were here both together on this day. I miss you more than I can say. I know that you understand even though you are hundreds of miles away. I love you so very very much.

  All day long, events of the past years have been going through my mind: the train trip to N. Y.; the week on the Georgic; our trip to Europe; our arrival in Haifa; the first night; Passover at Zichron; our week in Jerusalem; the Bar Examination; our trip back on the Polonia; our trip back through Europe; our return to N. Y. and to Chicago by Bus; the episode in the Cleaning Business; my first job in Washington; 2131 “O” St.; our walks to work in the morning; the purchase of our first car; our trip to Mexico; moving to 3920 Southern Ave.; the job at the Library; meeting you at the open window; coming home that evening when you met me, wearing your brown coat, telling me that you were pregnant; the Friday when Kiki was born; the exhileration driving home that night after having seen Kiki for the first time; the war; my induction; then your walking down the steps going to Doctor’s Hospital; Little Susie’s coming; the building of our house and now here. So much has happened: it’s hard to relive all the joy, the happiness and the bitterness and heartache as well.

  Sweet precious. I wish so much you were here with me tonight. I feel so lonely and alone. I hope at least to be speaking with you in a few hours. Good night sweet precious. I love you and miss you so very very much.

  Night Spirits

  St. Thomas: 1953-1958

  In St. Thomas we live in a Danish colonial house next to Blackbeard’s Castle on Blackbeard’s Hill. My bedroom is at one end of the house with three separate entrances. One can enter it from a wood porch which wraps around the mountain side of the house and overlooks the Caribbean. Or one can enter it from the stone terrace on the opposite side of the house, the land side, next to Blackbeard’s Castle and a dead-end street. Or one can enter my bedroom through my sister’s, although she keeps the door between our rooms shut tight.

  The bed in which I sleep is mahogany, a four-poster with a mosquito net that drapes from ceiling to floor. At night, trade winds ruffle the Caribbean, skim the sea, then drift ashore to rustle the leaves of coconut palm and sea-grape trees before sweeping up the mountain to the porch door of my bedroom, trailing scents of the island and of the sea, and disturbing the marquisette netting over my bed before continuing their journey across savannahs and up volcanic mountains beyond.

  From the start, I believe I belong on this tropical island in the Antilles, in the West Indies. This island—immutable, drowsy, swollen with heat—seems familiar. I also believe I belong at All-Saints Parish, an Anglican school where I complete second grade. I must belong here because the religious rituals enchant me as much as I am enchanted by my images of the Egyptian princess. They transform me. Now I imagine the Egyptian princess is decorated with Christian symbols. My fingers grasp a garnet rosary. A cross hangs from my neck.

  At school on Good Friday our foreheads are marked with charcoal. Even though all the children at school have identical crosses on their foreheads, I believe this mark distinguishes me. I believe mine is different. I am the Egyptian princess who has been specially chosen to soothe angry gods—not the other children. My Egyptian body, adorned with Christian amulets, is needed to end a drought, to enhance a bountiful harvest. My body has been selected to save Mankind. With this mark I am anointed. I want it branded into my skin. That night I refuse to wash the mark from my forehead. By morning the cross is a faint blur. I try to darken it with a pencil.

  A few days after we arrive on the island, we learn many islanders believe that the bank my father has come here to open is for his gain, not for their own, as he claims. They organize a demonstration—a march from Market Square to Emancipation Park—to burn my father in effigy. He decides to go to the park to address the crowd and alleviate their fears. He will remind them that, while still with the government, he helped pass the Home Rule Bill for the Virgin Islands. He will tell them the next step toward economic independence for the islands is this bank, the West Indies Bank and Trust Company. Before, blacks had kept their money at home, not earning interest, not receiving loans. My father’s bank is to encourage tourism, to give loans to islanders who want to start small businesses, to sell stock to the islanders at low rates.

  For protection during the demonstration, my sister and I are locked by ourselves in Riise’s rum warehouse on Main Street, a thick brick and stucco building constructed to withstand hurricanes, fires, and pirates. My sister and I press our ears to the arched metal door. Shouts, the pound of drums echo against the walls. The smell of smoke seeps across the threshold. Through the keyhole I glimpse fiery torches. Nevertheless, I believe I would feel safer outside than in this massive warehouse, dimly lit by a few bulbs dangling from the high ceiling.

  “Do you think they’ll be okay?” my sister asks—meaning our parents. I stare at her, stunned, confused. I didn’t know my sister felt fear. I nod, suddenly transformed into the older sister. “Of course,” I say, nodding to reassure her, then not even afraid of the warehouse.

  Soon there is silence; soon we grow tired. We wander to the rear of the warehouse, full of mahogany rum barrels. The sweet smell of rum and mahogany, the lingering scent of smoke, make us dizzy. We sit on the brick floor propped against a rum barrel.

  “You want me to rub your back?” my sister asks. She knows I hate to have my back rubbed; rather, I know she is the one who finds it soothing.

  “How about if I rub yours first,” I say, knowing this is what she intended. She lies down, her face on my legs. My fingers trickle across her back, round and around. My legs go to sleep, my arm is cramped, but I continue, not wanting to lose my sister. If I stop she’ll pull away from me, and I love my sister.

  Later, in the distance, I hear cheering. Of course my father is a hero. His bank will be a success. Most who know my father respect and admire him. I am proud of him. He is my father. I am grateful for how much he loves me.

  Almost every night my parents dine at the Virgin Isle Hotel, entertaining potential investors for the island. While it is now possible for me to be away from my mother during the day, this is not true for night. The more nights I am scared by night, the more nights I need her, need her to protect me from it. I don’t want her to go. Dusk in the West Indies is fleeting and as soon as the sun sets, the fear begins. So to try to keep my mother from leaving me, I throw myself against the wall, I scratch myself, I cry. She can’t console me. She rushes out the door behind my father and doesn’t hear me say good-bye.

  After their car drives down the mountain, I silently lie on my bed, listening, waiting. The folds in the mosquito net cast shadows. At the base of the mountain, I believe I hear the murmur of waves. I close my eyes. I know what will soon
come. For even though I seem to be alone, I am not. Now, just past dusk, it is the moment, it is the time, when the sighs and tremors of Caribbean spirits begin. Some spirits are as gentle as white petals of ginger flowers. Others are as dark as a long Caribbean night. For at night these dangerous spirits extinguish the sun, cloak the moon, snuff out the stars, veil the sky. This is when, if I’m not careful, these spirits—with their red-red mouths and whispering fingers—might discover my drowsing body. So every night I must believe, truly believe, my body is swaddled in soft ginger and hibiscus petals, slowly curling inward for night, protecting me from dark spirits of night.

  Later, much later, my restless body senses my parents driving back up the mountain. Even in slumber my body snuggles deeper inside its petaled armor.

  For third grade I transfer to the Antilles School. After school I take the bus to town. There, I either wait for my father to drive me up the mountain or else I, like my sister, begin to wander the island, drifting farther from home. I explore fields of guinea grass and royal poinciana trees. Sometimes I attend movies at the Center Theatre. I see The House of Wax, Mojave Firebrand, The Man with the Steel Whip, Fury of the Congo.

  Other afternoons I play with my friends, kids of different ages from the Antilles or All-Saints Parish schools. Patti, with silky red hair and blue eyes, lives with her divorced mother. Always, there are whispered rumors about her mother and married men, and dust from these rumors seems to settle on Patti as if she is as involved with these men as her mother. When I spend the night with Patti, we trail our fingers across black negligees, red slips, lacy bras found in her mother’s dresser. We inhale the scent of mimosa and frangipani perfume and decorate our faces with crimson lipstick and violet eye shadow. I don’t associate these colors or scents of sex with my father. In fact, if asked what I know about sex, I would blush and say, “Nothing.” To me, this would not be a lie. I never define my relationship with my father. The secret we share is given no word. I would never have called it “sex.” To me, this would be the lie.

  Maria’s house hides other secrets—hides her mother, who drinks silently, seldom leaving the house; hides her father, who, when he drinks, beats his children. Maria and Mike, her brother, shrug off their bruises. I know Maria from All-Saints Parish School, and when I spend the night with her, her mother, whom I see only at prayers, makes us pray on our knees before sleeping. The room is in dark green shadows. Her mother smells of incense, of rum, of sleep. In low voices we mumble “if I should die before I wake …” I believe this could be true.

  Inga and I spend hours reading on her cool stone veranda. I hear the rustle of lizards, the turning of pages, the flutter of dove wings in the bushes. Inga tests our reading skills to determine who can read the most pages in ten minutes. She always beats me, except when I cheat, turning two pages at a time, feeling a need to win, to beat this girl who seems perfect with her curly blonde hair and her silent home, a silence that reflects the cool, frosty blue of her eyes. I crave this cool, this frost, and dread the moment her mother drives me home. Sometimes I stay for dinner. We eat in a formal dining room with a large mahogany table, a table set with blue Wedgwood plates and cut crystal. Her father wears a dinner jacket and bow tie; her mother, spotless, unwrinkled linen. She tinkles a small glass bell when the maid is to serve platters of food around the table. If her father doesn’t like the food, he makes no mention of it.

  My friends and I meet in the deep curve of horseshoe-shaped Magens Bay. Maria and I chew bitter sea grapes and dribble wet sand into castles. Inga lies on a towel, reading. Patti, in her red suit, stares out to sea, watching for the Danmark, a training ship of young Danish sailors. Every year it sails into port, and every year a dance is held with local schoolgirls. We are too young to go, but still Patti waits. Not far from shore, Skip and Billy splash and toss a beach ball.

  Late in the afternoon we explore the rocky peninsula jutting into the sea. Spindrifts crash against limestone boulders, spraying us with salty water. Sunlight skates across the lavender, azure, turquoise surface of the sea. Although we move slowly, mindful of sea urchins hiding in shallow tidepools, I pretend I am racing toward the horizon, that I’ve just spied a pirate ship—Blackbeard—his galleon skimming the waves. I am marooned—no one can find me—he has come searching for me, to rescue me. I call to him. I beckon. Even from here I see sunlight glancing off the ruby earring he wears in the lobe of his ear. His gold sword sparkles. And I will sail away with him in his galleon, with the scent of rum, with wind smacking the sails. Climbing these rocks, in the shadow of towering mountain peaks, I do not notice the endless, deserted horizon, the empty, empty sea.

  Soon dusk slides from these mountaintops into this sea. The sun punctures the water. We glance toward shore, by now almost too tired to trek back on rocks that are slippery and uneven. We are too hot, too thirsty. No one has remembered to bring fresh water. We are ill-prepared in the nurturing and nourishment of our bodies. When we finally reach our towels we are angry and sullen, too exhausted to speak. Always, I believe my friends suffer from the same exhaustion as I. Always, I am disappointed no pirate has sailed to the island for me, that I will not wield a gold sword or wear a ruby earring in the lobe of one ear. I will not feel thick hemp rope in my calloused hands. These images are neither fantasy nor daydream. This habitat of truthful magic is where I live. It is a secret that is mine.

  The Antilles School is high on a mountain. Its veranda and classrooms overlook the entrance to the harbor, drenched in tropical sunlight. White sails billow. Seagulls wing across the blue vault of sky. I am restless. School is boring. While I want to concentrate, I can’t. I have trouble listening in school, for these are not the voices I want to hear. I gaze out paneless windows until this magical power I possess finally gusts me outside and I am flowing into newly discovered scents and sounds of the West Indies. The flutter of hummingbird wings. The drip of frangipani leaves after a tropical rain. This soothing language is one I believe belongs only to me. I am with these scents, of these sounds, while able to leave my dull, dull body far behind.

  Yet I wonder: Is this body alone or is it with Dina’s? If it’s with Dina, are two bodies actually present? Sometimes I feel as if strands of her black hair are braided tight with my own. She must know what I do; I know what she does. Even so, we aren’t the same. There is a difference. For at other times our hair unravels and we are attached by the thinnest of membranes. It unravels at night—when she is the one who waits for my father—while I grasp filaments of a spiderweb and climb a silken ladder to the most distant planet or star. These are the times I’m able to watch her from a distance, the times I don’t have her feelings, the times her experiences don’t have to be mine.

  So who is it—Dina or me—this afternoon on the school veranda? I’ve been the one playing volleyball, and I am the one now holding a white paper cup, waiting in line with my friends at the bubbler. We are allowed only one cup of water, far from enough, and I am the one who is thirsty. Now, on this particular day, I am also exhausted from heat and faint after finishing my water.

  At first, upon waking, I feel the cement floor beneath my legs. Then I hear the voice of the school handyman, a black man, fanning me with a palm-leaf fan and offering me a second cup of water. Through the thin paper cup I feel the cool water against my fingertips. I am so grateful I’m almost afraid to drink it, not wanting, ever, to finish it.

  “Go on,” he tells me. “It’s for you. Drink it.”

  I do, and after I finish he helps me to the far end of the veranda, where I sit at a table to rest.

  Two older boys come and sit across from me. Tough, sullen, they say, “You let that native man see down your blouse, but you don’t let us, you know what they’ll say about you?”

  I recognize something familiar in their eyes and I know I am not supposed to answer.

  “Nigger lover,” they say.

  I collapse the paper cup in my fist and stare at it. They laugh at me and say: “Nigger lover, nigger lover, suck
your nigger titty. You let us look, we won’t tell anyone what we saw that nigger do.”

  Of course I know nothing happened while I fainted. Even without looking I know my jumper is safely snapped. But I have this fear I’ll never be able to speak again or explain anything. So when they tell me to lean under the table, I do. They unsnap my jumper and stare at my flat child breasts. At first they laugh nervously, but then they simply stare. They don’t touch me.

  It is now that I know—this is the moment—I am no longer me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, my hazel eyes fade into Dina’s black ones. It is Dina’s gaze that shamefully turns from the boys to blankly watch the ground.

  The headmistress catches us—catches me. I am ordered to the bathroom, where she washes my mouth with soap. She calls to tell my mother. When I get home my mother takes off my pants and hits me with a belt, but by this time I know she is right, know my body deserves to be punished. I believe everything she says about my body is true. I expect to be punished. I relish it, even believe that with her strikes my body is purified. I believe my mother is the only one capable of cleansing my body.

  My mother tells my father: Sue was caught showing her breasts to the boys at school.

  His jealousy shows me how much he loves me. That night he bites my nipples until they bleed, tells me they belong to him, that I am never to let another man see them or touch them, that he will kill me next time, that he can make my body into a body no man would ever be able to stand to look at. My body can only be his.

  Yes, Daddy, I believe you, for I know it could never be mine.

  He is right. For in the heat of St. Thomas my father, too, is thirsty. He, too, doesn’t have enough to drink, so he must drink my sweat, my blood, my saliva. He must drink and drink and drink.

  My mother throws a pair of my white cotton underpants at my feet. There is a stain on them, she says, and she will not give them to our maid, Sylvanita, to wash. She would be embarrassed. I should be embarrassed. She orders me to wash them until every trace of stain is removed. We have no hot water in St. Thomas, and I stand at the bathroom sink for over an hour scrubbing with cold water. The bar of soap melts to a nub. My legs ache from standing. My fingers are numb. I don’t know what the stain is. It is slightly yellow, murky, a shameful leakage, an evil discharge from my body—no, Dina’s body, I tell myself. And I know my mother is right that it must be removed.