Night Calypso

by Lawrence Scott

  He kept his eyes downcast. It was either shyness or religious training. Only once did the boy look up and glance at the doctor with his green eyes. This was when Father Dominic, amidst many patronising statements, said, ‘But Doctor, Theo’s a very bright boy.’

  Vincent could see in the boy’s eyes that he had looked up to see what the reaction to that statement would be. But it was as if he could not wait to see. The shutters came down as quickly as they had been lifted.

  But he noticed him scratch his left leg with the sandalled foot of his right, lifting his habit indecorously to show his naked legs, which made Father Dominic fidget with his rosary beads hanging down his side, muttering, ‘Coco, Coco.’ The boy winced at the name.

  Vincent thought it odd that the priest should be calling him Coco. Was it a nickname?

  The boy’s actions showed him that he had also relaxed, and that he had found in the twinkle of Vincent’s eyes, and in the smile on his lips, a response to the mention of his intelligence that he had been looking for. ‘That’s wonderful Father, I’m sure Theo’s a bright boy. You are, aren’t you, Theo?’ But there was no reply.

  Vincent concluded the painful interview, trying to avoid the friar’s patronising tone, by asking ‘Theo, would you like to come and stay on El Caracol?’ He risked this invitation, but was almost sure that the boy would say yes. He turned smartly on his heels. They could hear him, the clatter of his sandals, pelting down the corridor.

  Father Dominic looked at Vincent with raised eyebrows. In no time at all, Theo had arrived back at the parlour door and stood waiting impatiently, holding a bulging brown grip, which seemed about to explode at any moment. His eyes darted Vincent a glance which said, Get me out of here, explanations will come later. Vincent noticed all these signs.

  As they were leaving the friary, Father Dominic said to Vincent, ‘Doctor, there’s more to this than meets the eye.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure there is, Father. Would you like to tell me the relevant details?’

  ‘See how you get on with him. We’ve tried everything, all the might of Mother Church and the Grace of God.’

  ‘I see. You’re admitting failure in this regard.’

  ‘It’s not for us to question the ways of God.’

  ‘Far from my intentions.’

  ‘We know about you, Doctor, your free-thinking. But I was struck by the way you were with your patients on El Caracol. Miserable souls.’

  ‘Sick people, Father. Of their souls, I’ve no idea, having not yet discovered them.’

  ‘And the boy, what do you think?’

  ‘He seems to know what he wants when he’s given a choice.’

  ‘Well, you must wait.’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t think it will be the devil that I’ll be encountering. I feel there must be causes other than such outrageous suggestions. Your exorcist has probably terrified the wits out of the mite. I’d like some history, where and with whom this boy has grown up. I hope you’re not keeping anything from me that I should know.’

  ‘Would I do that? You’ve got my letter.’

  ‘Yes. Anyway, I’ll listen to what he tells me when he speaks.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky.’

  Soon, they were at the wharf. Vincent had got the car from the District Medical Officer in Sainte Claire to wait for them. Luckily, there was a boat leaving for El Caracol, one of the bumboats, collecting the new patients to take them to Saint Damian’s.

  A young girl was giving trouble to get onto the bumboat, like a wagon behind the launch, looking like Marine landing craft. Here the patients were kept separate from the other passengers. The girl was being forced out of her mother’s arms. Other patients were being herded in after her.

  Theo had gone straight to the bow of the launch. Vincent noticed him looking at the struggle between the young girl and the warders who were dragging her forcefully. Then one of the women patients comforted her and calmed her down. This was often the case with some of the children. They did not want to leave their relatives. The girl screamed, ‘I don’t have nothing. What you sending me away for?’ The mother, left on the wharf, could not be consoled.

  Theo was taking it all in.

  The family waved as if the girl was going on a vacation. They were trying to hide their shame. The warders did their job, making the separation businesslike. The children did not know where they were going. The bumboat sat deep in the water on the voyage, so the patients got properly drenched by the spray.

  Vincent remembered Theo staring. The mother on the wharf cried out, ‘Christiana!’ But there were no questions. He saw Theo and the East Indian girl lock eyes. She was a girl that he might have known in the country. He saw him taking it all in. He looked ahead, but then kept looking back at the girl.

  For the rest of the voyage, he stood in the bow, looking ahead. The spray drizzled his cheeks. Vincent came and held on, close to his shoulder. ‘El Caracol,’ he said, pointing to the island in the distance. ‘The Snail. It crawls out of the sea. It crawls out of the slime of the waves.’

  The boy was poised for his future, as they gazed at the island ahead which was to become his new home.

  ‘Look, the feelers of the snail. See how they reach up to the summits, one to La Chapelle, and the other climbing from Perruquier Bay. To the left is Salt Pond, behind the cocorite palms and the blue-green agave.’

  Vincent did all the talking. Theo’s face was stoic before his future. ‘So, El Caracol. You know who gave it that name?’ Their eyes were close and they looked together. ‘Columbus. Great Navigator! He was so great that he got lost here. But you know your history, your geography.’ Theo turned and looked at him quizzically. ‘Father Dominic says that you are a bright boy, yes?’ There was no answer. Vincent talked for both of them. He took a chance and ruffled the boy’s hair. Vincent noticed the slightest wince, the slightest pulling away of the shoulder. Too close, too soon, he thought.

  Then they were passing the bocas on their right. Vincent enumerated and named them for the boy: ‘Boca de Monos, Boca de Huevos, Boca de Navios and then, beyond El Caracol, Boca Grande. All make up The Dragon’s Mouth. Monkeys, Eggs, and Ships!’ A geography lesson became an adventure story. Beyond was the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean.

  The boat entered the wide embrace of Chac Chac Bay. ‘It’s the sound that the birds make, like chac chacs.’ Vincent spoke into Theo’s ear above the drone of the motor launch. ‘Or, it may be the monkeys. But, then again, it could also be the name for cotton on the cotton trees, in a Carib language only the parrots still speak.’

  The water here was the colour of the Orinoco. Silt and algae from its deep upper reaches were emptied through its wide estuary from as far as The Serpent’s Mouth at the southern entrance to the gulf, staining the water around the islands with the yellow and green of callaloo.

  It had been a long first day, the boy not talking at all. Vincent had decided that he would not return to the hospital that evening, despite the new patients. He would leave that to the sister on duty. He felt satisfied, as he knew it would be the impressive new sister from France, the one with the dark eyes, Sister Thérèse Weil.

  He spent his time talking to Theo, who followed him around the house, taking in everything he was saying, but never himself saying a word.

  That evening, Beatrice, one of the patients who had become a helper, when she had overcome the disease, brought food from the hospital kitchens. She came on the back track from Sanda’s Bay, over the hills, on the donkey, Cervantes.

  ‘Evening, Doctor.’

  ‘Hello Beatrice. This is Theo. He’s staying with us for a while.’

  ‘Hello, young fellow.’ Theo stared. Beatrice had lost two of her fingers. ‘Cat bite you tongue?’

  ‘He’s shy,’ Vincent explained. Theo darted a look, then lowered his eyes.

  ‘I bring some nice dumplings. He go like that.’

  ‘Yes, Beatrice, he will. I would like you to stay with him tomorrow when you come over to make breakfast, stay til
l I return in the afternoon.’

  ‘That’s fine, Doctor. I go be here on time. But that donkey slow for so.’

  After eating their dumplings, Vincent and Theo sat on the jetty till it got dark. The boy watched Vincent fishing off the edge. ‘Fish not biting tonight.’ Vincent waited for a reaction. Not yet, he thought, take it easy, he said to himself. Then they went off to bed.

  Vincent woke to a soft voice. At first, he thought it was a dream and could not make out where the voice was coming from. Theo was sitting at the foot of Vincent’s bed. The mosquito net had been pulled out. He was in the bed with his legs stretched out facing sideways. Vincent was astonished. He sat up. Theo was talking to him but not facing him.

  ‘Doctor, doctor. Sleep, sleep. Do Do, petit popo,’ he sang. He rocked himself back and forth. But it sounded like he was trying to put Vincent to sleep. Vincent lay back and closed his eyes. He played the game.

  Then, it started. He had never heard anything like this before. He lay unmoving, hardly opening his eyes, as if the least distraction might stop what was going on. Was this Father Dominic’s devil?

  MAMA SAY, that Mister know about history, that this kind of thing happen before. She say, we go be safe, even if them coolie in the sugar and nigger in the oilfield make trouble.

  When Mama speak like this, she sound just like Mister. Not up here, in the sweet cocoa hills, where the red skin ‘panol and our good old negroes know on which side their bread is buttered. None of that confusion will come here, Mama say, speaking just like Mister. Not looking at her nigger self neither.

  Who say that? Not me that say that.

  Her black skin smooth like the moss rock down by the river, but full of the light that break through the trees. Yellow light on the yellow hog plum.

  My Mama, she could talk! She could talk, oui!

  What was this drama? Vincent listened, terrified. Was he talking about his mother, Emelda, whom he had heard of from Father Dominic. Mister? Who was Mister? Was he talking about the recent labour riots on Sancta Trinidad? And who was he talking to? To Vincent, himself, yes, but to who else? It was the voice of a smaller child at times. But, then, it was a voice as deep as a gully. It was the voice of a child who was a woman with the voice of a man, an accusing voice at times. It found its timbre in a village. Was he speaking in tongues, with an adult’s voice?

  YOU WANT me to tell you how it is, when it happen? Where it happen? You come like a detective, like an investigator? This is inquisition, and me, like a criminal. Who is criminal? Like you don’t believe me, Father?

  Something had happened. Who was the investigator? Not me, Vincent thought. He had hardly pried. Maybe, at first. He became guilty about any questions he had asked him in the day, on the journey from the friary. Was this poor Father Dominic? What had he done? Why really had he got to get rid of the boy?

  Vincent now felt that he had made so few investigations. Something had clicked and he had decided there and then to take him, seeing him standing there with his little, bulging, brown grip. He could not resist him. He felt that he knew him immediately. His instinct told him that the boy had wanted to get out of that friary. What had Father Dominic said in his letter? ‘We need the boy out of the island for a number of reasons.’ Why? He had never asked. These priests!

  YOU HEAR Radio say:

  They want to licen’ me foot they no want me to walk.

  They want to licen me mout’ they no want me to talk

  Theo sang a calypso of the day.

  AND YOU KNOW is this very island, blessed by the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost moving over the hills down by Moruga. I learn it all from Father Angel. Columbus!

  He intoned like a priest at the altar, then, like a schoolmaster on his dais. What had Father Dominic done? Vincent was all ears, sitting bolt upright in bed, listening to the boy at the foot of his bed. Who were these people who had had the care of this boy? What had happened to launch him onto this compulsive nocturnal tale? Now he mimed his story.

  HISTORY and geography scratch on my slate. Spit and wipe off. Scratch it again till you learn it all. Watching from under my eyes for Father Angel wiry tamarind switch, lying there on the desk. Bois, wood, a real snake with venom in it. My blood crawl with scratching the chalk on the slate, crawl with the learning. Chalk on my fingers.

  You want dates Father Dominic? Is not long since I is a small boy. Shock you? All that I know? All that I come to know, so early? Father? Birthday? Birth certificate? Mama say she get Ramdaou the messenger man from the estate, to take the news by the registrar. She want it register proper. But, Ramdaou come back, and say he don’t know who to say the father is. They write down, Il-le-gi-ti-ma-te. But, he put his mark, his cross on the paper, that coolie man. Them old coolie can’t read and write, you know. That’s to say, he sign it. Mama say to hell with the father. Then she say, they go know in good time who the father is.

  Baptism certificate? I go tell you, because you asking me everyday to tell you. Yes. I christen by Father Angel in La Divina Pastora church. The little wooden church with the cemetery, La Divina herself black like we people black. She dress up for a fine party, dress in satin and lace with necklace and bracelet. Ave, Ave, Ave Maria. Father Angel know everything.

  Vincent tried to keep up, as the story moved between different characters and places, in different voices.

  YOU COMING everyday swish swish along the corridor, knock knock, Benedicamus Domino, Deo gratias. And you don’t care where I start?

  Where I go? I know at first I don’t want to talk. Like cat bite my tongue, like fish bone stick in my throat. I choking. I know all that horrify you, to see me choking on my own words. Till one day you find I speak with the force of the waterfall, drum on the rock, drum in the hills, Pampadam. But you don’t like what I say.

  Even I, Father, with this blood running in my veins, can hear those drums. I don’t have to cut myself to show you the blood. You see it in my face, in my brown-skin arms, in my legs like red mahogany and my eyes like green glass-bottle at the bottom of the river.

  This was a story for Father Dominic. It was a night-time confession accompanied with laughter and scorn. It was the continuation of something. Vincent kept his eyes shut and listened. He dared not move in case he interrupted the flow.

  BUT TOO, is because is words that make me from small. Is words that tell me everything I know. Every touch he touch me with, was with a word. You hear the calypsonian, Caresser. Always, a whisper in my ear: Coco, Coco, Cocorito. Bird language and all! Trying to fool me.

  In my Mama’s bed. Smell my Mama. Onion on her fingers, vanilla on her tongue, ginger between her breasts, sweat from big house under she arms. Smell my Mama when she move and change her bloomers. Like salt fish that need some lime. Eh eh. You want me to stay there, eh, Father Dominic?

  You say, Theophilus, because you call me Theophilus, Stay with it mon garçon, stay with it, mon petit garçon, stay with your pain. Pain? Pain yes, Father, and then a funny kind of pain that was a funny kind of pleasure. Nice, nice. Nice eh? Pain, a funny kind of shame. Nice shame. Me, shame?

  Stay with it, mon petit garçon.

  I carry it always, his voice. You-want-to-see-it-you-want-to-see-it? Whispering all the time. Like a lizard in my ear.

  Then I hear you, Theophilus. Theophilus, be still. Brother Theo, be still. Together now, Je vous salue Marie pleine de grâce, Le Seigneur avec vous, vous êtes bénie de toutes les femmes. Le Seigneur…

  Theo bound his fingers with his black rosary beads, lifted himself from the bed and then collapsed exhausted. Famished, ravished. Like a spirit had entered and then, was gone.

  Then he rose from the bed like a sleep walker, rose from the foot of the bed and left the room. He left with his Hail Mary, the French priest’s prayer, his, Je vous salue Marie pleine de grâce… His chaplet knotted around his fingers slipped and dropped onto the pitch pine floor, rattling like beads in a calabash.

  Here, now, sitting at the edge of the boy’s bed on the mornin
g after, Vincent wondered what he had heard. What had he listened to in the night? A child remembers, a child forgets, a child remembers and reinvents, he thought. Theo was slowly coming into consciousness, and Vincent left him to doze while he got dressed for work and went downstairs.

  Beatrice had just arrived and was tethering Cervantes in the grassy patch behind the house to graze. ‘I preparing breakfast for both of all you,’ she announced as she came through the back door. ‘Morning, Doctor. Where the child?’

  ‘He’s still sleeping, Beatrice. You must be soft with him.’

  ‘If he sick, you mustn’t keep him here. You know what Mother Superior say.’

  ‘No, Beatrice, it’s not like that. He’s not sick.’ Vincent smiled at Beatrice reprimanding him with Mother Superior’s orders.

  ‘Not sick with cocobay.’ She used the local name for leprosy, because of the name of the bay on the island to which the patients were brought.

  ‘No, Beatrice. He needs love.’

  ‘All of we need that Doctor, all of we.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is you giving him that?’

  ‘With your help, Beatrice.’

  Beatrice prepared some breakfast for Vincent. ‘Is cassava bread this morning, and hot cocoa. And I leaving some aside for the boy to eat when he get up. I better clean the house one time for you today, as I here whole day.’

  Beatrice talked on. Vincent had been thrown by the night. How would the boy cope with the day alone? He suddenly wondered whether he could swim. With the boy here, the house seemed full. His life seemed full of responsibilities, the like of which he had not felt or experienced before. He did not know what it was to have children like this.

  He left a note for the boy to read on the kitchen dresser. Theo, ask Beatrice for anything you want. I’ll see you this afternoon. Doctor Vincent. How was he to do this, if he did not talk. Maybe Beatrice would perform a miracle. ‘Beatrice, the boy must not go in the sea till I get back. That’s my one demand.’