by Jane Harris
All this, I glimpsed over the shoulders of the weather-beaten Jacktars in front of me as we proceeded slowly into the square. When, at last, the sailors stepped aside, I push forward; my view expanded and something else in the far corner caught my eye: a wooden structure; two sturdy post about eight feet tall and join together at the top by a long beam; the whole apparatus painted black. A cart sat between the posts, a low tumbrel, harness to a pye-ball mare. On her back sat a thin, sallow-face fellow. Two more men stood in the rear of the cart: ordinary Béké in shirt-sleeves, one with dark, curly hair. The other, who wore a straw hat, was examining a noose that had been strung from the cross-piece of the gallows.
‘They are hanging one of their own,’ I thought to myself. ‘Poor Curly there. I wonder what he did to deserve his fate?’
Then Curly moved aside, and I saw that the tumbrel contained a third person. All at once, my heart knew what my mind would not accept. His hands were tied behind his back; he had a dirty bandage on his thumb. I knew him at once; his form and outline imprinted on my brain. Apart from the bandage, he was dress the same as last time I had seen him, though now his clothes were filthy and torn. Emile. Curly was speaking to him, his words lost in the din of the crowd. As I watched, the man in the hat took a step behind my brother and slip the noose around his neck. Emile just stood there, apparently in a daze, and allowed him to adjust the knot. Curly was still talking in his ear, pointing to the joist above them as though in explanation. Emile tilted back his head but it was hard to tell whether he was gazing at the cross-beam or the sky – or, indeed, whether he could even comprehend what the man was saying.
My knees turn to air then gave way beneath me. I sank to the ground. Before me lay the beaten earth of the square. Tiny stones and grit imbedded in the dirt. The imprint where a barrel had been rolled. A piece of something bumpy-green that look like a shred of avocato peel. Oh, to be a stone, a barrel, a shred of peel, a piece of grit, for none of them had feeling. These Goddams would murder Emile in front of me. Of course, I should save him – but how, among this crowd, these soldiers? In which case, if I were a man, I ought to hand myself in and face the consequence longside my brother. Where was my courage? Where? If only I could turn back time. We could steal The Daisy from White and sail away. Or take foot to the mountain instead of the hospital. Oh, to feel nothing.
Meanwhile the multitude surge forward on all sides. Someone walked into my back and cursed, then another man stumbled over me. Various angry people told me to stand up but I just sat there, stunned, too afflicted to move until several pairs of hands haul me to my feet. Somewhere a baby was screaming. All the heat of the afternoon seem to be concentrated where we stood. Sick in my stomach, my head light, I raise my eyes. There was the gallows again, swimming in my vision. The man in the hat was now speaking to my brother whiles gesturing at the crowd. Emile stared out across the sea of faces. His gaze swept past the place where I stood but I was too small and too far away. The pye-ball mare took a few restless step and the tumbrel rocked back and forth as the rider reined her in. My brother staggered; the rope at his throat grew tight then slackened off as he regained his footing. I found myself calling out in panic:
‘Emile!’
My voice hoarse and ragged, mostly swallowed up by the noise in the square but a few people glanced over to see who had shouted. Before I could cry out again, someone grab my shoulder, hard. It was White, with his pesky rummy face. He thrust my head into his sour armpit and spoke in my ear.
‘Shut your trap. You want to get yourself arrested?’
When I tried to shout again, he clamped his hand over my mouth. Kicking and twisting, I tried to break free. As we struggled, I glimpsed the people and parade ground in flashes. A well-rigged man took the hand of the boy next to him as they both stared at the gallows. Two penny-dog rolled around in the dirt. A few redcoat contemplated our scuffle with interest. For true, White was strong, stronger than me. Though I resisted, I soon grew weak in his grasp and he began to drag me away. More heads turned. One of the soldiers looked as though he might stride over to investigate us but then another voice rang out, this time from the tumbrel.
‘Be quiet. Let the prisoner speak.’
At once, keen to see what was happening at the gallows, the soldiers turned away – as did everyone else. A general cry went up for silence. On the cart, my brother drew back his shoulders. His lips moved but his voice was too low. In order to hear him, those beneath the acacias were oblige to quit the shade. They hurried forward and launched in among the ruck. The mass of people surge toward the tumbrel, straining to catch what Emile said but his words were lost in the roar of voices – both French and English – demanding quiet.
‘Silence! Listen! Écoute!’
Meanwhile, White man-handle me out of sight behind one of the trees. He slam me against the bark, spoke through his teeth into my face.
‘Be quiet. Want to get yourself caught?’
‘Let me go.’
‘To do what? You’ll end up like your brother there. Stupid boy. What are you running for? Your only hope is to come back with us to Martinique.’
‘Please …’
But he held me there, against the tree trunk. All at once, the crowd grew quiet.
My brother was speaking, his familiar voice tired but determined. Just a few broken sentences carried to where we stood, a mix of kréyòl and French.
‘… je suis esclave … nothing but a slave … I had no choice … I was given orders … mwen te gen okenn chwa … on m’don lòd …’
A woman at the front shrieked out:
‘Speak English, you dog!’
In retort, a few of the French in the crowd yell back at her. Then people began to jeer and curse in both languages and the cacophony escalated. Emile faltered, his voice overwhelmed. White pinned an arm across my chest. He peered out from behind the tree and soon gave a bitter laugh.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Fisticuffs,’ he said. ‘They’re fighting.’
‘Who is fighting? Emile?’
‘No – silly fools in the crowd, French against English.’
He clamped one hand across my mouth and began to drag me toward the empty side street. I stumbled along in his grasp but, by the time we had reach the corner, the crowd-brawl had broken up and a hush descended on the parade ground once more. White glance back to see what had happened.
I could not help myself. Could not help it.
I turn my head and look toward the gallows.
Chapter Sixty-One
What I saw can never be unseen, never forgotten. All my life, over and over again, that same scene repeating in my mind. At one shift, time seem to slow down yet quicken. The two Béké leap off the back of the cart just as the pale-face rider kick the flanks of the mare. Off she sets, at a trot. The tumbrel rolls forward causing my brother to sway and lose his footing. His toes scrape along the cart-bed for a few moment and then the vehicle lurches away, leaving him to drop but a few inches. There he hangs, suspended, swaying gently like a human pendulum, his hands still tied behind his back. Presently, his toes begin to point downward. His body quivers and then, in tiny increments, his knees draw up until he appears to be sitting in mid-air. I want to close my eyes, to turn away – but find I cannot for if I do I will never see my brother again. This sad and grisly image is the last I will have of him. A strange and crazy dance it is; his movements so graceful they seem deliberate – but I must assume that they were involuntary.
White craned his neck to get a better view. He grip my collar. All at once, I knew I must get away from him. I ducked and step backward, wriggling out of my shirt, leaving it empty in his hand. Sametime, I shoved him so hard that he hit the ground. Then I ran off down the empty street.
The sun beat down on my skin, bright and dazzling, burning hot, but inside myself I felt dark-dark, black as night, and every particle of me shivered as though frozen to the marrow.
I stumbled onward, blindly. Saying my brother name.<
br />
Emile.
Emile.
Emile.
Chapter Sixty-Two
I heard White shout but when I turn the corner and look back he was still trying to get to his feet. I kept running along the wharf – also now deserted. Everyone had gone to the square. Halfway along the esplanade, I glance back again and saw White turn the corner, giving chase. I ran faster, past the last houses, toward the red cliffs on the edge of town. Here, the trees began. Old Bianco had fallen behind, out of sight. At the first chance, I dived into the undergrowth and began to climb. I crawled up the sheer overgrown rock face using the thick screen of bushes, hanging on with both hands to liane. About halfway up, I could go no further so I stopped, one set of toes in a crack in the rock, the other foot on a thin branch. Somehow, I knew in my bones that the Englishman would search for me alone. If he call for help, made a fuss, people would ask questions – and the last thing he wanted was questions. I concentrated on regaining my breath, counting to fifty and more before I heard him down on the road, stumbling and grumbling, apparently reluctant to venture too far from town.
A line of ant crawled across my arm but I moved not a sinew. I waited and waited. After a while, I peered out through the foliage and saw White retreating back down the road toward Fort Royal, no doubt intent on consoling himself with a tot of rum. Only when my hands and feet grew numb did I clamber down from my perch and head away from town, slipping into the woods by the coast as soon as I was able.
When I finally came to my senses, I found myself on the narrow shore north of Fort Royal, near the mouth of the river. I cannot remember how I arrived at the waterside or how long I had been standing there. The memory of what happened at the gallows was already seared into my brain, burned into my breast.
Gradually I became aware of a horrible sound, a sound that grated on my ears, waking me from my nightmarish stupefaction: a guttural scream, like a cry of terror, repeated, over and over. It made my skin crawl. For a moment, I wondered whether I myself might even be the source of this racket, my grief turned into violent lamentation, for it almost sounded like someone giving voice to the agonies of torture, whether spiritual or otherwise. But then I turn my head and saw a group of fishermen on the shore. They had gathered around, bent low, each with his machete, hacking a huge turtle to death. The screams of the helpless beast, the din of its death throes, added to the horror in my heart. I had to escape from that terrible place, escape the torment I felt inside.
The sea looked clean and soothing and so I walked into the green shallows, let them lap at my ankles. The water felt only a mite cooler than my skin. I stepped in further to where it tickle my knees. Every so often, a wavelet gave me a gentle push but I push back, kept wading until the breakers crept up past my waist then further still, though the water rocked and shoved against me. Once it was around my chest, I lifted my feet and let my body topple and roll. I close my eyes and open my mouth, allowing myself to slip beneath the salty waves. A cold current did suck me in, gently at first, and then it began to drag me down and away.
PART ELEVEN
Tjenbé Rèd; Pa Moli
Chapter Sixty-Three
My life ought to have ended there and then. By rights, I should have handed myself in to stand beside my brother on the gallows, but I had a lack of courage, the kind of courage that Emile possessed. All my days, I have lived sorrowfully with that knowledge. That is why – when I imagine him now – I like to think of him as an old man, taking his ease in the conservatory of this stately built house where I am employed. His hair is grey. He walks with a stoop. I pretend that somehow I saved him and that we work here together, tending the gardens and hot-house. I have long conversations with my brother and consult him on the best way to grow vines and vegetable. Alas, all that is simply my imagination. I let him down and – in my grief and shame – surrendered myself to the ocean like a coward.
However, my life did not end there. Apparently, the fishermen saw me wade into the water and when I sank beneath the waves and fail to reappear, two of them swam out to look for me. Since they hunted daily for shellfish they were familiar with the currents along that stretch and well use to diving. They soon found my limp body not far from where they saw me disappear and brought me back to dry land. At first they took me for dead but one of their number turn me over and squeeze the ocean out of my lungs until I could breathe again. Though I had not drowned, the salt-water in my chest scorch so bad I thought it would be the end of me. They laid me in the shade of the boat-house to vomit and recover. After a while, three of them return to work, dividing up the turtle meat to take to their masters, whiles the oldest man kept watch over me.
In due course, when I could sit up, he started to ask questions. Who was my master? What was I doing there? Did I know how to swim? I avoided answering mostly by coughing, pretending to be incapable of speech. However, it seem to me that he had guessed who I was because he began to talk about the escape and the missing boy, the boy from Martinique, brother of the ring-leader.
‘If I was that boy, I would be careful,’ he said. ‘If I was him, I would leave this island first chance I get, go back to Martinique. For true, I couldn’t help such a boy myself. But I would tell him, get away from here. They will hang you, boy – that would be what I would say to him.’
As soon as I regain some strength, I gasped a few word of thanks to him and stumbled away into the strip of forest between the beach and the coast road. Somewheres in the midst of those woods, I curled up neath an almond tree, too chicken-hearted to return to town, too stupid to know what to do except lie there weeping and wait for the fishermen to leave for the day. Once they were gone, I had resolved in my mind to go back into the water and drown myself, for true.
After a while, I began to wonder how long they might leave Emile on the gallows. By carrying out the execution in the most public place where the whole town would see, they had ensured that the news would spread across the plantations from Salines to Sauteurs. No doubt, the Béké would cart him to the hospital estate in a few days and display his corpse to scare the runaways into continued submission. Then, most likely, they would dig a shallow hole somewhere on the low slopes of Morne St Eloy and drop him in. I could only think about all this for moments at a time, before the pain made my heart ache so badly that I had to thrust it from my mind.
Toward the end of the afternoon, I heard the fishermen pack up and leave, cursing each other and giving joke. I waited a while and then crept back to the edge of the wood. The sun had put fire to the sky in the west. I quitted the trees and walked to the edge of the pink and orange sea. In less than an hour, it would be dark. I took one step, then another – but as soon as my toes touch the water I realise that I no longer had the courage to wade in.
I was not even brave enough to put an end to myself.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Some time after nightfall, I found myself stumbling along the back of Hospital Hill. Below me, in the valley, I could see lantern blazing all around the field cabin and the shadowy figures of redcoats at either end of the bridge and around the perimeter of the quarters. I trudged on, and kept trudging, my leg sore again after running from White. At the inland end of the hill, the mill lay in darkness. Once the harvest began, in a week or so, the place would be lit up all night long. As I slipped on past the buildings, the monster hound began to make a racket, a deep bow-wow, but I knew he was tied up and I no longer feared him. Somewise further on, I join the highway where it pass the riverbank. Back on the day we had arrived in Grenada, my brother had drag me down the other side to hide from those Capuchin monks on mules. We had lain among the rushes and Emile had held me tight-tight. Now, that day seemed like a lifetime agone. In passing now, I turned my head the other way, too broken to even look for the place.
Soon, the road curved east through a valley, around the back of a hill. As I carried on inland, through the night, my leg ached worse and worse. Every time Emile came into my head, I began to panic and had to fight for br
eath. My heart throb so much with guilt and shame, I had to keep pushing all images of him from my mind. My overwhelming urge was to lie down at the side of the road and fall into the sleep of death. Years hence, some fellow might stumble upon the huddle of my bleach bones and wonder who I had been in life. To keep going, I had to chant to myself, under my breath, in time with the rhythm of my walking, step and step:
‘Tjenbé rèd. Pa moli.
‘Tjenbé rèd. Pa moli.
‘Tjenbé rèd. Pa moli.’
Sometimes, only the thought of Céleste kept me putting one foot in front of the other. Céleste in the morning, with drops of water glittering in her hair; Céleste in the afternoon, the dark curve of her arm as she reached out to wipe the forehead of some patient; Céleste in the evening, giving joke, a spark of merriment in her eye. I tried to imagine where she was right at that moment. Since it was night, she might have sought shelter. Where would she hide? Her belly so big, I doubt she could climb a tree but perhaps she might find one with low enough branches. Or perhaps she was already in the high mountain, in a cave. Somewhere near fresh water. She would have found herself some fruit to eat, to keep her strength up. She might even have gone to the big lake, to look for those Maroon. They might take pity on her and give her shelter. Whatever the case, she was so practical and sensible, no matter what her situation, she would make the best of it. If anyone could survive in the forest, it was Céleste.
