The night Estelle arrived in Canada it was cold. As cold as a dead man, dead a long time ago. Estelle filed past the Chinese stewardess, while jets of white fire came from the mouths of the other passengers, and from her mouth, as if she was a dragon. She looked at the shining macadam of ice, and at the words of the aeroplane attendant, spoken in cold vapours; and she wished she had never left Barbados.
“Have a nice holiday, ma’am,” the Chinese woman said, “and goodnight.” She smiled, and took Estelle’s parcel from one hand, and placed it under Estelle’s armpit. She was now able to negotiate the shaking cold iron steps better. Half-way down, she looked back up at the Chinese stewardess for moral support, and the smile on the latter’s face carried her safely down the steps. But still, Estelle was not in a good mood. In her mind she carried the face of a small boy, who had looked at her during the flight, and had then looked at his mother and shouted, “Aunt Jemima.” It could have been that the woman was not his mother; that she was his aunt, Jemima. But Estelle assumed immediately that he was calling her Aunt Jemima. After the incident, the Chinese lady (Estelle felt she was the only lady on the plane) had given her some chewing gum, and a copy of Maclean’s to read. The Chinese lady had winked at her, when the other stewardesses were not looking, and had nudged her and said, “Never mind.”
She was walking in the dead-man night, in the long line of passengers, filing like crabs, shuffling and scratching; silent as monks and nuns going to vespers. The line was going towards a door at which a man in white coveralls was standing. He held a torchlight in his hand. The bulb was red. He was the same man who had brought the plane to a stop, with the same red-bulbed torchlight. Now, he held the light, the bulb off, pretending that it was nothing at all for him to bring a big jet aeroplane safely from air to ground. He didn’t even smile himself a pat on the back! “This way, please, this way, please,” he was saying. When Estelle drew alongside him, he stared at her; and a puzzled look came to his face. Estelle became tense. Looks are so deceiving, Estelle, so deceiving … the man was staring at her because the temperature was ten degrees below zero; and he, a born Canadian, wrapped in two pairs of longjohns, three sweaters plus his insulated coveralls — and she, from the tropics (“Hey! look at that goddamn lady, from the south! Well, goddamn!”), was wearing a silk dress, with no coat; walking as gaily as a nightenbird, goddamn and I’m clapping my hands on my shoulders one crossed over the other, like a goddamn penguin, hey! Bill, look at that goddamn broad! And Bill, who had already seen her, and had looked and had disbelieved, was himself like a penguin, flapping and breathing from his mouth like a humidifier, whispering, this is a bitch! — meaning the cold. The crabs before her were walking too slowly. The two men remained outside, like ice sculptures, clapping with vigour and vapour, pounding themselves and the cold which sneaked into their bodies, while they watched Estelle. But Estelle was boiling inside.
At last, she reached the gate marked INCOMING PASSENGERS; and she scratched along with the others through a shiningly bright passageway, through a glass door which swung in her face because the man in front was not a gentleman. The door struck her gently in the face. Finally, she was in a large room, on fire with electricity. Looking around, searching for a face to smile with, her eyes caught sight of a black woman sitting on a large bench. At the other end of the bench — it seemed miles away — was a white woman. Although they were both on the same bench, Estelle felt they were sitting on two different continents. Her eyes roamed again. In another corner was a black family: man, woman, two children and a box marked CAPTAIN MORGAN RUM, all huddled in a family portrait of warmth from the cold of stares, and fears of the winter. They looked so strange in their winter garments that Estelle found herself laughing at them. This family possessed and ruled a bench all by their dictatorial-selves.
Then the passengers went up to a man with CANADA CUSTOMS printed in gold on his shoulders (Estelle noticed there were four others dressed similarly, waiting for the passengers), showed him their passports; said something to him, in that close, secretive manner she had come to notice so well on the plane; and then passed on, without too much fuss, into another room, where some other CUSTOMS men stood guard. Trunks were tumbling onto a revolving conveyer platform; and some red caps, vague and suspicious about the best-goddamn-tipping-arrivals, were studying the passengers, as if they were studying the markings on a spinning wheel in a gambling casino. The family group of man, woman, children and Captain Morgan, was watching Estelle. They had been watching her very closely: (once, out of boredom, Estelle passed her hand over her behind, and just caught herself in time, before giving it a satisfying scratch; and frightened to be caught scratching she glanced round, and there! staring at her, with rivets in their eyes, were Mr. and Mrs. Captain Morgan, the children and the rum case).
Her satin dress shone like coconut oil on a road at midday; her compressed cardboard valise was in her left hand; another valise of cardboard which was used to ship Country Life cigarettes before Estelle made it into a valise (and which contained five dozen flying fish fried in lard oil; a Christmas great cake, although it was not even near Christmas; a bottle of pure Caribbean sea-water for purging Bernice’s bowels) was in her right hand. The parcel which the Chinese stewardess had placed under her armpit, was really a box which once contained Lifebuoy, and which now had a large cooked meal of increased-peas and flying-fish, steamed in case Estelle felt peckish in mid-air. But Estelle had felt too embarrassed to be seen eating so much food in mid-air. To her, it was definitely sinful.
The family group was smiling now. But still they looked like a portrait snapped while they were dead; a portrait snapped and snatched with a smile on their dead faces. The smile bothered Estelle. Theirs was similar to the look she thought she noticed on everybody’s face, on the plane. She smiled at them, with them; and straightaway, they looked in another direction. This upset her. In Barbados, everybody spoke to almost everybody. Her eyes wandered again to the black woman sitting on her half of the hemisphere of the bench with the white woman. She smiled at the woman. The woman held down her head, and covered her face under the broad brim of her straw hat which said NASSAU. And Estelle’s smiles were soon buried in the footprints on the cement floor, among the pools of melting snow which outlined the season of the year. When she looked up again, she was standing before a man in a black uniform. CANADIAN IMMIGRATION was written on his shoulders.
“Where were you born, ma’am?”
“In Barbados, in the West Indies, please.”
“Passport, please.” Before she could move, he was saying, “What’s the purpose of your visit to Canada? How long do you intend staying?”
“Just a minute, please, just a minute.” She was fumbling with the parcel under her arm. She put one valise on the floor. The passport was in the valise. The valise was tied with a heavy kind of shaggy hemp rope which Mammy had wrapped round and round it; and this gave the valise a battered appearance, as if the bodies of many snakes were curled around. The rope was knotted in many places, for safety. Estelle realized she would have to untie all these knots, before she could … but when she looked up, the immigration officer had that look on his face. Turning to the man behind her, she said, “If I could only get this parcel opened, if I could get some person to help me get this parcel, hold on to this parcel for me, please.” She turned to the gentleman for help. “Would you, please?” He took the parcel. The same time, the immigration officer held up his hand to prevent the man (who was a minister of the church) from taking the parcel.
“Lady,” he said, in a tone that was both pleading and authoritative, one which had always brought obedience. “Please.” The six or seven passengers behind reacted with impatience, shuffling their thawing feet on the snow-polished floor. Somebody further back said, in a soft voice which carried more than he had expected, or intended it to, “ … hope Canada don’t get like Britain!” No one commented. Estelle was still digging deep down into her valise for the passport. “Lady, please!” This time, the
immigration officer’s voice was tired. “Would you mind stepping aside till you find it, so’s I could attend to these ladies and gen …” But the man of God had raised his hand, signifying a different kind of authority; and the hand caught Estelle in the act of leaving the line. “Continue, my dear,” he said to Estelle; and to the immigration officer and the others, “I don’t mind waiting my turn, sir.” He was a middle-aged man, with grey spreading round his temples. Underneath his white scarf, worn neatly under his coat, was the parson’s collar, barely visible. The immigration officer hadn’t seen it. “Please, lady!” This time, there was more of a threat than a plea in his tone. “There’re others in the line.” He gave the others (all except the man of religion) that look. They returned the look. The nervousness of trying to locate the passport, rushed from Estelle’s hands and erupted through her lips. She swung round and faced the immigration officer; and when the words, But who the hell you think you is? spewed out of her mouth, she realized with terror, that she was not in Barbados. And she said, in a more respectful manner, “But don’t you see me looking for the passport, please. I won’t be too long.” She then lifted her valise and placed it on the counter, in front of the officer. And when she did this, when he realized that it was blocking his vision of her, he shouted, “Lady!” He was coming round in front now, off his stool; but Estelle remained undaunted, outwardly: inwardly, she was terrified.
“My dear man, please attend to her,” the man of God said. He too was becoming anxious.
“But sir!” the immigration officer pleaded, both to the minister and the other passengers. The man of God was firm. He said it did not matter; there were others in the line, he admitted; but right was right; and it was the lady’s turn to be served … and Estelle, finding it impossible to locate the exact corner in which the passport might have been placed by Mammy, not knowing in which corner she had last seen it, whether in the Seawell Airport in Barbados, or in the Main Guard police station where she had got it, where where where the hell did Mammy put the thing, now? when Mammy puts down something, she really puts it down for good! Lord, the last time I saw the thing was … I wonder if Mammy put it in the left hand corner that was my left, or if it was Mammy’s left! But where the hell is my passport, could it be that the plane shifted the thing in the valise, while the plane was moving about over Boston.…
“You will have to stand aside, lady.”
… you, listen to me, Mister White Man … everybody in the room was listening and watching; and the black woman, and the black family were looking, with that look; and they were more embarrassed than the others, because it was one of them causing all this disturbance. It made them very uncomfortable in front of all these white people. The other immigration officers stood idle for a while, to watch and listen; and a few of them smiled. The minister of God was enjoying himself … Christ! you think that because I am a stranger in this damn country, you could treat me like dirt! Let me tell you, I am a Bajan, a Barbadian by birth, and we don’t treat foreigners so! I looking for the passport, so wait a minute, please, Mister Man … and just as the minister laughed, and as the scene was becoming tense, Estelle found the passport. It was in her bosom. She held it up, in the air, triumphantly. But before she gave it to the officer, she took her time closing the valise (some of her underclothes were visible) … All these blasted white men’s eyes looking at my panties! … and re-tied the knots.
“This is my passport, please.”
The immigration officer opened it, flicked the pages without actually reading anything on them; and then gave it back to her. Estelle thought: I could have done without the damn passport, if that is the way you read, my man!
“Name?”
She deliberately refused to answer at first; but she thought better of it, and said, almost shouting at him, “Estelle!”
“Last name, or the first?”
“Shepherd!”
“Is Shepherd the first, or the last?” He too was deliberately obstinate.
“Estelle Shepherd!” and to herself, she wondered, You can’t read? But he must have heard, or read her thoughts. He ordered the immigration officer nearest him to attend to the minister and the other passengers (his line had been served by this time); and in a rage, his face full of blood and cherries of anger, fumbling with his ball-point pen, taking three attempts to get it clipped into his breast pocket, he himself snatched up her valises and the parcel, and said, “Come with me, lady!” He went in the direction of the cubicles, glassed-round and penned-off, and on fire with an even stronger bulb of electricity. When he moved off, he did not even look back. He was confident that she would obey and follow. The black family held down its head in shame and embarrassment; the black woman sitting on the other side of the ocean from the white woman, averted her eyes; the man of God was now busy talking to the other immigration officer, and Estelle suddenly felt cold and lonely. Once more, she saw the pink face of the small boy on the aeroplane; and it was close to hers, peering into her eyes; and she could do nothing now, for the face was suspended in mid-air, and it had no neck and no body. She felt she was in the plane again, and the Chinese lady was not there. And the plane was spinning. A moment before she entered the glass cell, she looked back; but the black woman and the black family had already anticipated her gesture for sympathy, and they had already started to count the lakes of the melting overshoes, in the floor patterns. Estelle then looked up, and noticed the round electric clock on the wall, which said it was nine o’clock. She wondered what time it was back in Barbados.
All the way to the airport, Bernice was grumbling about Mrs. Burrmann, to Dots and her husband, Boysie. Boysie was making the 1942 Chevrolet compete with Cadillacs and Corvairs on the highway. Before Bernice could leave the house, she had to settle the children in bed; she had to bathe them; she had to cook their dinner of boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, boiled lamb, and warm milk. She’d turned her back to run upstairs and make up their beds, and when she returned, their plates were clean, except for swishes and curves of gravy where the forks had passed swiftly over, as the boiled potatoes, boiled carrots, boiled lamb had skidded into the garbage pail. But God blind you, kids! You-all don’t know they is thousands o’ children all over this world tonight starving like hell? and you two, you-you-you… Bernice was in a rage. “Mrs. Burrmann!” she shouted. But when Mrs. Burrmann came into the kitchen (where the children regularly ate their dinner), Bernice decided not to inform on them. “I was, I was wondering if you need more firewood in the fireplace, or something, ma’am.” Mrs. Burrmann looked puzzled; stared at Bernice for a while, and went back to the sitting-room where she was lighting small cones of incense. (The party was on again: but it was being called a sherry party now.) The children sniggered. They were not hungry, they said; they wanted wiener-sausages and potato chips, which Bernice gave them. They ate it, bathing it in tomato ketchup, and washed it down with Coca-Cola. And they were happy as angels. And after they had fought and screamed in their battles of pillows, and had lost and won, they settled down.
The Meeting Point Page 6
