Serpents in the Sun

by Cave, Hugh

  Yes . . . the week was one of ups and downs. Then at five o'clock Saturday afternoon Desmond Reid came calling.

  Excitement added a swagger to Reid's cowboy stride as he hurried from his latest car, a fairly new English Prefect, to the Great House steps. "Got something to show you!" he boomed when Lyle appeared in the doorway. "Can you come to the factory with me?"

  "Your new pulper has arrived." Lyle guessed with a smile.

  "That was yesterday. We've been working on it all day and now it's in place, ready to go! Come on! Come have a look at it!"

  "Let me get Cliff. He'll want to see it, too."

  Cliff was with Luari. These days, with their wedding only three weeks away, he almost always was. To Lyle's surprise, he seemed reluctant to go to the coffee works, but did so when Lyle insisted.

  On an April Saturday nothing much was going on at the factory. Like Glencoe, Osburn Hall had its fields to look after, but the coffee did not begin to ripen until the fall. The only sounds of activity came from the cooper's shed where, Desmond explained, two men were stacking staves that had come in that morning.

  The sorting room with its long wooden tables was empty.

  From October through January, when the crop was in, there might be twenty or more women seated there, hand-sorting the finished coffee beans to make sure no damaged ones went into the barrels in which all Jamaica Blue Mountain was shipped. There would be no careless hands, either. A sample of each shipment had to pass inspection by the Coffee Industry Board's sharp-eyed experts before any could leave the island.

  On through the silent factory Desmond led them, to the room where the new pulper had been installed. It was at the back of the building, close to a platform where, at crop time, the coffee cherries were received. If from Glencoe, they were delivered by truck. If from one of the hundreds of small farmers who brought their coffee here, they would arrive on the back of a donkey or mule. Then the farmer would watch while his cherries were measured in half-bushel coffee boxes and would be handed a receipt which he would exchange for cash at the office. If he had nothing better to do then, he might stand around talking to friends while the coffee he had just delivered began the complex journey that would change it from bright red, cranberry-like cherries into clean, silver-gray beans ready for shipment.

  How many coffee drinkers, Lyle wondered, had even the slightest idea of how their drink came into being? Not many, he was sure.

  First, the planting. Early in the morning, gangs of men would start up the mountains tracks to a selected site. Their job would be to clear it of undergrowth, grass, and small trees, leaving some of the larger trees standing for shade. The clang of machetes would be heard all day long, and when the men trooped down again in the evening they would be a weary lot.

  If the bushing out were not too difficult, a crew of ten men could clear an acre in a day or so. The next task was to line out the land and dig holes.

  In theory the field was lined out first and the future holes were marked with pegs. That could be expensive; cutting pegs took time. In the hands of experienced workers the two jobs were combined and the men lined out as they dug, measuring with sticks. There were men in the district who were able to dig three hundred holes a day, even in rocky ground where a pickax had to be used. But the job was paid for by the hole and an ambitious man would arrive at the field before daylight, dig until the light was gone, and walk home in the dark.

  It was something to see a gang of twenty or more men on a mountainside, swinging picks or hoes or forks. The nature of the work tended to spread them out in a long line. The tools flashed in the sun. The earth flew. The sweat spurted. Each man was doing his utmost to dig as many holes as possible so as to swell the pay he would receive Friday evening. Writers who called the Jamaican country fellow lazy should watch such a performance, Lyle thought—if they were energetic enough themselves to toil for an hour or more up steep mountain paths to see it. True, the average country fellow would do his share of dissembling when paid by the day, but at task work he could be a dynamo.

  When the holes were dug, weather became all important. Rain was needed, for while coffee trees were hardy and would survive under the most unlikely conditions, a tree well soaked at planting time would "catch" faster and grow better. Rain was not wanted on the day of planting, however. Blue Mountain rains were cold, and a man or woman soaked to the skin, shivering, was not likely to work with care. The ideal planting day was a warm and sunny one with rain due in the evening.

  When it seemed likely that such a rain would fall, the seedlings were carried to the field, either bare-root if dug from nursery soil or in plastic pots if they had been grown that way. The work was not favored for the actual planting; a worker trying to earn a few extra shillings might fail to exercise proper care. Planters were paid by the day, therefore, and could be expected to handle about two hundred trees in the course of a day's work. Women would plant fewer, but were likely to be more conscientious.

  So . . . was that the end of it? Not on your life. A coffee field in Jamaica's Blue Mountains required weeding three or four times a year. In the same length of time each tree had to be given at least two applications of fertilizer. Pruning was an annual chore because coffee cherries grew only on new wood.

  But—ah!—with its glossy leaves that seemed dipped in darkgreen enamel, its snow-white blossoms that filled the air with fragrance, and its brilliant red cherries, a coffee tree was one of the most beautiful trees in the world. A picture of one ought to appear on every package or tin of the finished product, to acquaint consumers who had never seen one that they were drinking pure beauty.

  But growing the coffee was only half the story. When ripe, the cherries had to be picked. That was done by hand, and here in Jamaica it was done—usually by women—only when the cherries were red ripe. Perversely, they never ripened all at once; sometimes the same tree had to be visited four or five times over a period of as many weeks. And then when the cherries reached the factory . . .

  The new pulper now being admired would be only the first step in the processing. With the help of water—lots of water—the seeds or coffee "beans" would be squeezed from the red pulp and the pulp floated to a waste pile out in the yard. Then the beans would be "fermented" in tanks of water to loosen their coating of silver skin, and with the skin removed they would be partially sun-dried on concrete outdoor platforms—which, of course, meant moving them to covered shelters at night or when rain fell.

  After a final trip through indoor drying machines they would be turned over to the women at the sorting tables. And then at last, in wooden barrels assembled here on the premises, away they would go to final destinations where most of them would more than likely end up as the "flavor coffee" in very expensive blends. It was a little hard to believe—wasn't it? — that in the beginning the natives of Africa, where coffee was first discovered, ate the red pulp for the lift it gave them but threw the beans away as being of no value.

  "Well, what do you think of it?" Desmond Reid was asking. Lyle had been walking around the new pulper, admiring it. "No more broken beans, eh?"

  "Not nearly so many, at any rate. Cliff, what do you say?"

  Cliff had been gazing off into space. "What? Oh, yes . . . yes . . . it looks good."

  Desmond laughed. "I guess you don't realize how long I've wanted this."

  "Oh, yes . . . I do. It's fine."

  Lyle sent a questioning glance at his son. During their walk through the factory Cliff had scarcely spoken. The frown now on his face seemed to say he wished he were somewhere else.

  But if Desmond Reid noticed, he kept it to himself. "I can't wait to try it," he said. "And if it does makea difference, maybe I'll push the Osburns to invest in a new dryer as well." He gave the pulper a slap and turned away. "Anyway, thanks for coming. If you've seen enough, I'll run you back to the Great House."

  "Can we walk, Dad?" Cliff asked.

  "Of course, if you want to."

  "You don't have to," Desmond proteste
d. "It won't be any trouble for me to—" A grin of understanding touched the William S. Hart face. "Oh, I get it. With the wedding coming up, you've things to talk about. Of course."

  But it was not his forthcoming marriage to Luari that Cliff wanted to discuss, Lyle discovered. As they trudged homeward from the coffee works, his son said nothing at all until asked what was wrong. Then, halting, he turned to Lyle with a frown that seemed to add years to his face.

  "Dad, listen. On my way back from Kingston yesterday I stopped at Brian Lindo's place and—"

  "You what?" The Lindo coffee factory was in Mount Charles. To come home that way, through Gordon Town and Mavis Bank, Cliff would have had to ford the Yallahs at Mahogany Vale, where there was only a footbridge. Glencoe people did that only when the usual route to town was under repair or impassable.

  "I knew the river was low, Dad, and I wanted to talk to Brian. Dad . . . he told me some things I don't like."

  "Told you what?"

  "We're being cheated." Cliff had learned to speak softly when angry or upset—perhaps Luari had taught him—and his voice was carefully under control now. "Dad, Desmond Reid paid us forty-one shillings a bushel last crop. Right?"

  Guessing what was coming, Lyle nodded.

  "Lindo paid his people more. He paid them forty-three."

  "So you think we ought to sell our coffee to him."

  "Yes."

  "Son, have you thought this through?" Worried by the intensity of Cliff's stare, Lyle tried to use just the right words. "Osburn Hall is next door to us. Our transportation cost is almost nothing. If we were to truck our crop to Lindo, wouldn't that eat up any extra money he might pay us? Remember, the Yallahs is usually high at crop time. We'd have to go the long way 'round, through Kingston."

  "He said he would haul our coffee at his own expense, Dad."

  Cliff was facing him now, feet firmly planted and hands on hips. "And anyway, that isn't the point, is it? The point is that Desmond Reid is supposed to be our friend, but he's cheating us and he knows it!"

  "I wonder."

  "You wonder what?"

  "If he does know that Lindo is paying more."

  "Dad, of course he does! He can tell you everything there is to know about Blue Mountain coffee, right down to how much of it was sold to Japan last month." Though still under control, Cliff's voice had a metallic ring to it now. "And what about the small farmers—the very people who work for us? Even if it doesn't make that much difference to us, he shouldn't be cheating them!"

  It seemed silly to be discussing Glencoe's problems while standing in the road like a pair of Haitian fighting cocks about to have at each other. Lyle reached out to take his son's arm. "Come on, let's walk while we talk, hey?" Then as Cliff reluctantly complied: "Will you be satisfied if I promise to speak to Desmond about this?"

  "I think you promised that before, Dad."

  "Did I? Well, perhaps . . . but try to see this from my point of view. And your mother's. When we came here to take over Glencoe, all we knew about coffee farming was what we'd read in books. Not much of that applied to Blue Mountain coffee, believe me. If Desmond hadn't helped us solve some of the problems, we might never have made a go of it. You understand that, don't you?"

  "Well, yes, but—"

  "And if Milly Reid hadn't been so kind to us, your mother might have wanted to go back to Rhode Island when our year was up, as I'd agreed to do if she didn't like it here. So do you see the awkward position I'm in? For me to confront the man who has helped us from day one and accuse him of short-changing us—"

  "And the small farmers, Dad. Don't forget he's doing it to them, too."

  "But is he? Perhaps he hasn't much say about what the Osburn brothers are paying for coffee, Cliff."

  "Well, he ought to have. He's been managing their factory ever since they established it."

  "True," Lyle admitted. "But he's still just an employee. Maybe he's asked them to pay a higher price and they've turned him down. The Osburns aren't farmers, you know. They're businessmen."

  "They're politicians," Cliff corrected.

  Side by side they walked along in silence for a while, but at the top of the Glencoe driveway Cliff stopped again. "It's a promise then, Dad? You'll talk to Desmond? Because look—Brian Lindo told me he'd be paying an even higher price for this year's crop."

  "It's a promise. Just give me time."

  "Not too much time. Please."

  "Cliff, I know you mean well. I know you're thinking of the small farmers, too. But at present we're talking about only a few cents a bushel, and I can't believe we ought to risk losing the Reids' friendship for anything that small. Not with Ima in the hospital and Lee and Carey and little Carita coming here for your wedding."

  "Well . . .”

  "There's something else, too. You mentioned it yourself, a few days ago. Manny Traill—"

  "I know. He's up tight about something."

  "So uptight he's not doing his job. Much as I hate to say it, we may have to let him go—which will mean putting him and his woman out of the headman's house. I'm losing sleep over it, Cliff. I like Manny. He's been with us from the start and he's a good man. But I don't like that brother of his and never have." Lyle took in a big breath. "Just be patient with me on this coffee-price thing, will you? I'll get to it, I promise, but I need time to think." With what he hoped was a convincing smile, Lyle put out his hand.

  Cliff promptly clasped the hand, held it, and nodded.

  3

  The house they rented was the best in the village and belonged to Verrelle's leading citizen, who had happily moved out so his beloved Dr. Aldred might have it. Of wood, two stories high, it was equipped with a second-floor veranda from which Lee loved to watch the passing parade of Haitian country life. Had the veranda been attached to the rear instead of the front, she would have had a spectacular view of the country's most important river, the Artibonite.

  But she was not watching the passing parade of people and donkeys this morning. While Carey attended to some last-minute chores at the hospital two and a half miles distant, Lee worked in the kitchen with their housekeeper, assembling the things needed for a weekend trip to Roddy's resort on the north coast. Carita, of course, had to help. In almost everything Lee and Carey did, except when they were at the hospital, their daughter had to do that.

  She really thought she was helping, too, as she picked things up and trotted with them to the kitchen counter where Lee filled a wooden box to be carried out to the Jeep when Carey returned with it. "We need some caimites, don't we, Mommy? And some figs for our cereal in the morning?" The first Creole word meant star-apples; the second was pronounced feegs and meant bananas.

  Having learned to talk by conversing with her mother and the Creole-speaking housekeeper, this active little girl with the brown eyes and light brown hair spoke a blend of two tongues. Breadfruit croquettes with salt fish might be that one day but croquette veritab avec morue the next.

  "Honey, we're only going to be gone two nights," Lee admonished her, lifting a package of cornmeal from the child's hands. "Put this back in the cupboard now. Please?"

  "I can do that, madame." Knowing she would be in the way if she tried to help at this point, the housekeeper had been seated on a kitchen stool with her arms folded, smiling at Carita's antics. A woman of some bulk, she now shrugged herself to her feet and stepped forward.

  Lee handed her the cornmeal. "Merci, Tina. And fill the thermos jug with boiled water from the fridge, will you, please?" Though the sun was only just up, the day promised to be a hot one, and with nearly two hundred miles to go they might be hours on the road. You never knew in this country.

  Lee finished packing the supplies they would need and looked up at the kitchen wall clock. Carey had expected to be back before this. Even as the thought put frown-lines on her face, she heard the Jeep pull up outside.

  "Li ici, madame," Tina said. Then, proudly, in the English Lee had been teaching her: "He is here!"

  "And I t
hink we're ready. Just let me have a last look around, to be sure I haven't forgotten anything."

  With her daughter trotting at her side, Lee quickly toured the house. She and Carey had made surprisingly few changes since moving in nearly five years ago. In the beginning they had been happy enough at finding a suitable place so near the hospital; then they had actually grown to like the house for itself. To be sure, the locally made furniture was sort of blocky and so layered with varnish it seemed coated with glass. And when Carita raced across the wooden floors, the sound effects were a little like the drumming at a voodoo service. But the furniture really was comfortable and some of it was of the country's most beautiful wood, taverneau, even prettier than the Haitian mahogany so prized by tourists; and Tina insisted on polishing the floors weekly with the flat side of a halved coconut husk, so they fairly gleamed. And the house was so open, so full of air and light, that you hardly ever noticed the heat except on the hottest summer days.

  They had been lucky. And even luckier to have a landlord who was so certain that Carey had saved his life. Lee would never forget the day the man's wife had come rushing into the Kelleher, wailing that her husband was dying of la fiev. Normally the lady would have been questioned before any action wastaken, but Carey, jumping into a Jeep, had gotten here in the shortest possible time and discovered the "fever" was pneumonia. So he probably had saved the man's life. In any case, M'sieu Valebranche believed he had and was grateful.

  There was no electricity here, of course. No one in the village had that. But she had known all about kerosene stoves and fridges from Glencoe, and using lamps had turned out to be no great chore—especially with a devoted housekeeper who insisted on filling and cleaning them every day. She had become used to having a garbage pit in the back yard, too, and to using water from the sky even though there was a river nearby. In Haiti an outsider must never drink river water. People upstream were bound to be washing their clothes or themselves in it, or using it for a john. The wonder was that the peasants were not all dead of typhoid yet typhoid was not a major problem. Perhaps the Haitian peasant was born with some kind of immunity. But let an outsider drink the same water they did and his chance of becoming ill was high indeed.