To Run Across the Sea

by Norman Lewis

  A mile or two back from the shore traditional Goa awaits. By comparison with India as a whole, it is underpopulated. It is possible, as nowhere else in the sub-continent, to find oneself quite alone among green fields and woods. It is agricultural country, full of calm, rustic scenes from the past. The friendliness and hospitality of the people is tinged with a certain gravity picked up, it is to be suspected, through their long association with the Portuguese—least ebullient of the Latin races.

  Sightseeing is comfortably done by buses which wander everywhere along the country roads. There is no better sample run than to take a trip from Dabolim airport to one of the northern resorts. This should be broken for at least a couple of hours to explore the capital Panjim, which remains in part as Portuguese as Lisbon, serves authentic Portuguese food in its restaurants, and possesses cafés in which customers still sip port and listen to fados on Saturday nights.

  Such journeys are best started in the cool of the morning to experience the sight of buffaloes in the paddies, dragging their ploughs through the mist, and churches and temples sparkling along the edge of ghostly lagoons when the sun breaks through. The shoulder of a mountain looms in the vapour. Peasants in straw hats are bent double to transplant rice. Cranes take off. This scene appears to be more the work of a classical painter of old China than an Indian landscape. Magnificent old Portuguese estate-houses dominate some of the villages, and the concentration of baroque churches is greater here than in Portugal itself. Catholics and Hindus live in comfortable association, with little evidence of the barriers of caste and religion which are still prevalent in other parts of the country. A few miles from Calangute on the north shore, a small roadside temple is dedicated to the Nāga (snake) deity. I was invited in by the English-speaking priest, who was sorry not to be able to show me a sacred snake, as the last one had died of old age, and they had not been able to replace it. ‘We have limited resources,’ he said. ‘There is a bigger place down the road where you may see a good example.’ The Nāga temple also kept rats, which he was happy to display. These, and the snake when they had one, were fed on rice and milk. They were very peaceable, he said. He was eager to dispel the possibility of doctrinal confusion. ‘It is not worshipping rats, we are. More it is an expression of solidarity with animal creation.’

  Calangute is set in shaded gardens, planted with areca, pepper-trees and coconut-palms. Here people lead open-air existences, occupied with such unhurried cottage industries as the production of coconut fibre and its transformation into rope. A woman pokes at the embers under an enormous witches’ cauldron boiling the day’s rice; a man gives his white goat a morning scrub-down, then stands back to admire the result; children, gobbling like turkey-cocks, race round the playground of an infant school called Toddledom; bells summon to the services of the church. The environment is saturated with sober pleasure.

  The centre of the village, being close to the beach, is dressed up for the benefit of the tourists, with astrologers working from auto-rickshaws; sincere-mannered purveyors of tribal bric-à-brac; a sidewalk pharmacist offering remedies for fits, gas, itching of the extremities, cholera, loss of memory, and sudden fright; and a resident holy man who lives by the display of his deformities.

  Tucked away behind the souvenir shops, Calangute’s little market must be one of the liveliest anywhere. It is full of long-snouted, darting piglets, and small, delicate, docile and beautiful cows, who stuff themselves without ill-effect on discarded packaging material and empty cardboard boxes (buy one a handful of spinach and it will follow you about like an affectionate dog). The local people come here not only to shop, but for the day’s quota of excitement; for the ritual tussle between buyer and seller, the venting of minor indignations, the triumph of the small bargain, for the noise, the smells, the laughter, the hour’s freedom from household chores.

  The Souza Loba restaurant is within easy reach down a sand-clogged track leading to the beach, and many shoppers burdened with their bundles make for it for a cold beer or a pre-siesta snack. Despite its local renown, it is a self-effacing place, concerned single-mindedly with the preparation of good food, and oblivious to visual appeal—almost even to comfort. Tables and chairs rock, piratical cats scramble in through the windows (a guard with a cane makes no more than a pretence at striking out at them), and a dark, lacy butterfly may come planing down to suck at some stickiness on the table-cloth. It is hard to find a seat, waiters rush about shouting ‘soon it is coming’—a routine and usually empty promise. The food, nevertheless, when it at long last arrives, is a symphonic fusion of Portuguese and Indian culinary art—just as reported.

  What was astonishing on the occasion of my visit was that, after a profoundly exotic meal, the waiter should reappear to place before me a large helping of Swiss roll, leaking jam into a puddle of congealing custard. This, along with the rusted aspidistras of the surroundings, was clearly part and parcel of a cultural intrusion from the old India of the British Raj. The Goans at the next table had been served a similar mess and were tucking in with obvious relish. The waiter explained: ‘Swiss roll better for bodily organs after intake of spiced food.’

  ‘And you don’t have anything else?’

  His smile was kindly, but firm. ‘In Goa we are all eating Swiss roll.’

  He seemed to be keeping me under surveillance for a while until a customer called him away. An exceptionally handsome sacred cow had stationed itself under the window in readiness for the occasional windfall, but I waited until the waiter was well out of sight before taking action.

  THE LAST BUS TO MARMELADE

  I EASILY SURVIVED THREE extended trips to Haiti during the reign of Papa Doc, but when Baby Jean-Claude picked up his crown my feeling was that the end was at hand. Blessed are the poor, says the Book, but it could hardly have been commending this kind of poverty. The newspapers spoke without surprise or shame of a normal situation in which two families were reduced to sharing the ownership of a single sheep. In the fishing villages along the north coast all the boats had long since fallen apart, and the fishermen now cast their nets with poor success from long rafts tied together with home-made sisal rope. There was nothing to be done about it, and no hope for the future.

  For all this, the mysterious charm of Haiti, deriving from the innate nobility and debonair style of the oppressed majority of the population, remained intact. Despite the ravages of neglect it was still a beautiful place, with an indulgent tropical grace, now only half-concealed by ruin.

  Three incidents occurred in rapid succession, which, taken together, led me to suspect that I was on the island for the last time. The first arose as a result of the Haitian urge to cover blank spaces, such as the adobe walls of the cabins in which many live, with decorations of a spirited and fanciful kind. The best examples of this urge for self-expression were to be found in villages accessible only on mule-back or on foot. Once in a while a fine example turned up in a town, and I came on one in Carrefour, a seedy outer suburb of Port-au-Prince.

  A man, probably fresh from the country, was painting the white-washed wall of his garden. This he had transformed into a scene, as if viewed from above, of a lively river pouring through flower-ornamented banks, with a variety of fish frolicking in its wavelets. My arrival coincided with that of two policemen in a squad car. One held the man while the other went into the garage across the road, returned with a canful of sump oil and with this obliterated the artist’s work. My mistake was to photograph the occurrence. The policeman with the can came over, gestured to me to give him the camera, took out the film and threw it into a hedge. ‘Take this as a warning,’ he said.

  The second discouraging incident took place next day, within a mile of the same spot. It was a rowdy street-scene after dark. A man rushed out of a bar clutching his neck with both hands, blood trickling through his fingers. He kicked at the door of the car and I got out. ‘Someone just cut my throat,’ he said. He took a hand away to show a slash over the windpipe which drooped open like a pendulous li
p. In the case of fatal severance of the jugular vein, blood fountains. In this instance it dripped. ‘Get into the car,’ I told him. ‘I’ll run you over to the hospital.’

  At the hospital there was little sign of life. The nightly power-cut had affected this part of the town. Torchlights could be seen bobbing about in the rooms like grave-robbers at work in a cemetery, and a weak current provided by a hospital generator pulsated in a single bulb suspended over the reception counter. For a time nothing happened, then I rang the handbell and an old man in pyjamas shuffled into view. I asked him who was in charge, and he said, ‘I am, but we’re not taking in any emergencies. Come back tomorrow.’

  ‘This man’s dying,’ I said.

  The would-be patient, who had collapsed into a disembowelled armchair and was bleeding darkly, gave a loud groan, and took his hands from his neck to expose his wound. The old man looked at it. ‘Superficial,’ he said. ‘Take him to number 10 rue de Réunion. They’ll fix him up. I have to give you a note, and the fee will be five gourdes.’

  The man in the rue de Réunion was a sail-maker who carried out the small repair necessary in ten minutes. ‘I don’t make sails any more these days,’ he said. ‘The hospital sends me all the business I can handle. I get a better result than any surgeon when it comes to sewing them up. It’s the practice that counts.’

  The third incident sprang from multiple beginnings all rooted in the misadventures of my friend Johnson. Previously I had always stayed at his hotel, the Meurice, but now he had closed down so I was forced to put up at the Splendide. As soon as I could I went over to listen to his troubles, arising from a long-standing feud with the authorities, which he could only lose. For the fiftieth time he assured me that he was at the end of his tether. At the time of my last visit three years before, he had been beaten by an army officer almost to within an inch of his life for sounding his horn in protest after the officer had knocked in a fender of his car. Johnson’s fatal mistake had been to complain to the Ministry of Justice, since when he had never been left in peace. Now, when we met again, I was shocked at his appearance. I saw him for the first time since the bandages had been removed. His head hung slightly to one side; one eye was half-closed in a sad imitation of a wink. He told me that he found it physically impossible to smile.

  Although it was midday, his formerly energetic wife was still in bed. She had nothing left to do with her life, he said, and had given up. We went into the garden where the last of his beautiful specimen trees had long since been cut down by invaders for transformation into charcoal. Everything was now smothered with weeds, many of them producing striking flowers. The swimming-pool, although there was no one to use it, was nearly full and remarkably clear. ‘Don’t they steal the water these days?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘about 500 gallons a night.’

  ‘You could empty the pool,’ I suggested.

  ‘I’m not allowed to.’

  ‘I should have thought the pool chemicals make the water undrinkable?’

  ‘They’ve invented a new law against them. It’s called wanton intoxication of resources.’

  ‘What happened to your old Facel-Vega?’

  ‘It had to go in the end. They had an army jeep going round the streets looking for it. Every time I left it parked anywhere they backed into it. A general bought it for 2,000 gourdes.’

  ‘Theft under another name,’ I said.

  ‘The price of a good bicycle. If ever I open up again, the general says he’ll be happy to go into partnership with me.’

  ‘What made you close down?’ I asked.

  ‘They kept up the pressure,’ he said. ‘In the end they had a policeman out in the street all day keeping the place under surveillance. Every time a guest showed at a window he exposed himself.’

  ‘So you’re pulling out at last?’

  ‘I have to,’ Johnson said. ‘The only thing that’s been keeping us here is my step-daughter. She works with one of those aid organisations up in the north. Place called Marmelade. I hoped you’d come. We had bad news this morning. There’s a bridge on the point of collapsing, and they’re stopping the bus service the day after tomorrow. That means she’ll be cut off. We have to find some way of getting a message through to her. I’d go myself, but they won’t let me leave town. We’re in a terrible jam.’

  The bus left the bus station at five o’clock in the morning—in Haiti the most active hour of the day. Johnson had protested. ‘Why should I drag you into this?’ But in reality I had nothing better to do with my time. It was an excuse to see a part of the country that was new to me, and I was happy to be able to do something for this poor, martyred man to whom I had taken a liking.

  A placard was propped against the bus’s side. Dernière Visite à Marmelade, and for the benefit of those who couldn’t read, a vigorous crayon-drawing beneath the lettering explained why. It showed a bridge sagging askew over a river with a bus upside down in its bed. A row of survivors wept and gesticulated on the bank and torrents of their blood ran down to mingle with the water. The dramatic incident thus illustrated had never happened, but it was something that might. Travellers waiting to be borne away to other destinations had gathered to admire the notice and take farewells of operatic solemnity of those condemned to confront the perils of this particular trip.

  Ten hours followed through the exhausted sun-varnished landscape of Haiti before we reached Marmelade. The clouds piled over the gunmetal mountains were as rounded and solid as plaster fruit, but never covered an implacable sun. Negroes with famished bodies and iron faces watched motionless as the bus rattled past through the streets of villages where they sold bisected cigarettes and advertised coffins for hire. The passengers crossed themselves, sweated and groaned, and the chickens, hanging in bundles from the roof-rack, slowly died. At the suspect bridge everyone got out and crossed on foot, and the bus followed, nudging its way cautiously over the sloping surface. When we were about to set off, a passenger wrenched a chicken from one of the bundles and threw it to the driver as a reward.

  I tracked Claudine Johnson down in her office in a parched, wooden street, paralysed in the hard afternoon sun. The office was an oasis of cheerfulness and endeavour in the wilderness of a small town that had turned its face to the wall. ‘She needed a cause,’ her father had said of her. ‘She believes she’s found one and nothing matters to her but that. She provides a respectable front for a racket. The US sends in hundreds of tons of aid—chicken wings, second-grade beef, used clothing—all of which goes on the black market. My daughter’s allowed to distribute dried milk which nobody wants. They’re making a laughing-stock of her.’ She was small, neat and precise, with a ready smile, well-kept hands, every hair in place. A beaker full of powdered milk stood on her desk. She told me that she carried out an analysis on a sample taken at random from each delivery. ‘It’s something I’m very particular about,’ she said.

  She had read her father’s letter and I spoke of her parent’s anxiety at the fear of her increasing isolation, stressing their hope that she could get away for at least a short visit to Port-au-Prince on the bus leaving next day.

  ‘How long are they likely to take over the repair of the bridge?’ she asked.

  ‘Things don’t move fast in Haiti,’ I said.

  ‘No, they don’t,’ she said. ‘Still, it’s surprising how much you can learn to do without. For example—electric light, the telephone, and water most of the time. I suppose if it comes to it we can do without the bridge. There’s always a way round. We have a lot going on here at the moment. In a few minutes I have to go off for talk with Aide Catholique. They’re the Haitians we work with. We’re on the point of a breakthrough. There’s a fair chance of being allowed to expand our operation into the Departement du Nord.’

  ‘That sounds like good news.’

  ‘My organisation will go on handling the dried milk as before for the time being, and I’m taking over the distribution of discarded spectacles. Clothing and meat are comi
ng through nicely now, but we leave that to the Haitians. It’s good for them to share the responsibility. I might conceivably be able to get away for a few days, but no more.’

  ‘As a suggestion, you could take the bus tomorrow, and catch a plane back via Cap Haitien.’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a word with the people I work with and see what can be done.’

  She left to go to her meeting, and I to check in for the night at a hotel absurdly entitled Le Relais du Grand Duc, the only solid building in Marmelade. It dated from the time when the stony, emaciated fields surrounding the town had produced, in the late seventeen hundreds, the richest crop of sugar in the world. The dukedom in which it had been included, conferred on one of his favourites by the Haitian Emperor Christophe, had been seen as ludicrous even in those days. The Relais possessed thirty-eight rooms, but I was the only guest. It was perfumed throughout by the dark, ancient wood panelling all its walls. There were cut crystal handles on the doors, and four-poster beds, and its façade was decorated with a time-worn and faded coat of arms depicting a negro in a cocked hat, wearing a sword and riding on the back of a pig.

  A chicken wing from Oklahoma, fried up with a local plantain, constituted an unexceptional evening meal, but it was washed down with fragrant and delicate Babancourt, the island’s only product of distinction, and arguably the best rum to be found anywhere. While savouring a flavour inherited from the imperial days of old, a sound caused me to glance up and find a fair-skinned and well-dressed young Haitian smiling down at me. He gave me his hands, introducing himself with a bow as Winston L’Agneau. A neatly engraved card described him as Chef du Secteur, Milice Populaire François Duvalier. From this I gathered that in this remote corner of the country the tontons-macoutes maintained, even officially, a presence. The beautifully laundered white shirt, open at the neck, allowed a glimpse of a small gold cross on a chain. When the smile faded his expression seemed tinged with melancholy. ‘It is my great pleasure to welcome you to Marmelade,’ he said. His accent suggested schooling of the better class in France, some acquaintance with the policies of Richelieu and the poetry of Lamartine. ‘I am a petty functionary,’ he said, ‘charged temporarily, due to the absence of a colleague on sick-leave, with the tiresome milice formalities in our town.’