Serpents in the Sun

by Cave, Hugh

  "Yes, Cliff?"

  "Come here a minute. Please." He sat up and reached for her.

  She went to the bed and he put an arm about her, pressing his face against her tummy for a moment before letting her sit down beside him. "Honey, why not do it?" he said then. "You want to. You know you do."

  "What if—Cliff, what if they said I was terrible? What if they laughed at me?"

  "No one's going to laugh at you. You're a beautiful girl with a beautiful voice, and you sing those old Jamaican songs in a way they've never been sung before. Everyone says so. Even the workers. In fact, especially the workers—and that alone should tell you how good you are."

  "But what would your folks say, having a singer for a daughter-in-law?"

  "Well, they probably wouldn't like it very much if you were singing in nightclubs—that kind of thing—but Terry says you won't have to do that. He says you won't even have to use your real name."

  "He told me that, too."

  "They could give you a name like The Caribbean Solitaire, he says, and build you up as someone—hey—mysterious, so people would wonder who you really are." Cliff suddenly decided it was silly for them to be just sitting there. Lying back, he drew her down beside him and put his mouth against hers. It was quite a while before he was able to speak again. Then he said, "About the music, hon, what do you say?"

  "Will you go with me?"

  "Of course."

  "And stand beside me while I'm singing? Because I'll be scared, Cliff. I'll be really frightened."

  "I'll hold your hand. I promise."

  "Well . . . all right," she whispered before his fondling, as it usually did, led to other things.

  After the loving-making, Luari slept. But Cliff lay awake on his back, with his hands behind his head again, thinking about her promise. Would it help the situation here at Glencoe, her going to the studio and recording some songs and having the Bennetts hold their breath, so to speak, to find out if Terry Connor was right about her?

  It might. And almost any change in the present situation would be for the better, wouldn't it? Since the party for Kim Tulloch on her ninety-fifth birthday, when the newly organized workers had left their ultimatum on the veranda railing, Dad had been drinking more and more, and Mom had been more and more depressed.

  First, they had lost the Reids asfriends. In the beginning, Dad and Desmond had made an effort to be civil to each other, and so had Mom and Milly when they chanced to meet, but it was not the same as before. Then the Gleaner had published a statement by the Osburn brothers, accusing Dad of being a foreigner criminally seeking to destroy Jamaica's proud old Osburn Hall.

  Desmond Reid should have refuted that lie. A simple letter to the newspaper, explaining what had happened, would have done it.

  But he had not. When a refutation finally did appear after some two weeks of silence, it was in the form of letter laboriously but honestly written by Posey Nichol and Matthew Mullen, the two men who had signed the workers' ultimatum. Since then, the Bennetts and the Reids had been strangers.

  Maybe if Luari began singing again . . . around the house, on records, whatever . . . it would be like the sun shining through after a long spell of dreary weather? Anyway, she ought to do it for her own sake. A God-given talent like hers shouldn't be wasted.

  Cliff turned to look at his wife and saw that she was awake, watching him. He leaned over her. "Hey . . . I love you," he whispered.

  "I love you," she whispered back.

  Terry Connor came out to Glencoe that weekend, and they told him. His brother's recording company was on Bell Road, he said. "You drive down Spanish Town Road, and it's on your left just before you get to Hagley Park Road." Both the latter were main thoroughfare that Cliff and Luari knew well. "I'll tell Chris you'll be there by ten o'clock—okay? —and you bet I'll be there waiting for you! And look," he said to Luari, "don't worry about what you'll be singing. You know a million songs by heart. Probably all Chris will do at this first session is provide a couple of backup guitars and let you sing what you want to."

  All the way to Kingston the following morning Luari was apprehensive. To keep her from being too much so, Cliff talked about things far removed from what they were doing. He told her more about his childhood on Gorton Pond in Rhode Island. Of how scared he had been at the prospect of moving to Jamaica where he would know no one, of how glad he was now—because of her—that his parents had taken that fateful step. "Mom was scared, too, you know. Dad's the one really responsible for our being here."

  Luari turned her head to look at him. "She's the strong one now, though, isn't she?"

  "If I could just get him to slow down on the drinking."

  "And the smoking, Cliff."

  "That too. I swear the only time he doesn't have a cigarette in his mouth is when he's sleeping."

  "He needs a friend, Cliff. With Desmond gone, all he has is you.”

  They had arrived at the Bell Road address given them by Terry: an old, two-story wooden building with a sign, JARIB RECORDS LTD., beside the doorway. Stopping the car at the curb, Cliff jumped out and hurried round to open Luari's door for her, then took her in his arms on the sidewalk and kissed her.

  "Remember now, honey, you're special." Together they climbed a flight of stairs. "Very special," Cliff added, squeezing her hand.

  At the top he opened a door. Terry Connor, standing with a group of men inside, saw them and strode toward them with a shout of welcome.

  Luari sang fourteen Jamaican folksongs that morning, beginning with Water Come a Me Eve and ending with Hold Me Hand. She sang each of them twice—the first time with Terry's brother Chris accompanying her on a piano, the second time with two guitars and a whispering drum added to the backup. Cliff sat silent, in fact almost motionless, at the rear of the room, watching with love in his eyes.

  The session over, Terry and his brother insisted on taking Luari and Cliff to lunch at a restaurant in Half Way Tree. A jukebox there played some of Jarib's reggae recordings. "And will soon be playing yours, Luari," Chris promised. "You wait and see! Every box in town will be playing The Caribbean Solitaire before long!"

  On the wayhome to Glencoe, Luari sang in the car—not the way she had at the studio, but softly, dreamily, with all her nervousness gone. Cliff listened and smiled. But when they approached the old church in Richmond Vale, at the junction of the steep, rough road to Wilson Gap, Luari stopped singing and said quietly, "Remember, darling?"

  "Remember what?"

  "The day Mr. Bignall, the shopkeeper, brought me to Glencoe?"

  She had been only seven years old then, Luari recalled. A frightened seven-year-old whose whole world had been destroyed by fire the day before. But at Glencoe, Alison and Lyle Bennett had taken her in and loved her. And now their son—her husband—loved her even more.

  "Cliff . . ."

  He turned his head. "What, hon?"

  "Just in case your mother and father don't approve of what we've done today . . . can we promise them we won't tell anyone who the Solitaire is? That we'll keep it a secret from everybody?"

  "Of course we can."

  "Because I can't do anything to hurt them, Cliff. Not ever."

  "We'll be playing your record around the house, you know."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Anyone at Glencoe—Ima, Beryl, Kim Tulloch—will know who the Solitaire is, the minute they hear it."

  "I mean outside. People outside."

  "Right. We promise Mom and Dad to keep Solitaire's identity a deep, dark secret." Cliff laughed. "Hey, you know something? This sounds like fun!"

  Luari reached out to put a hand on his knee, and at various moments from then on they talked about their secret again and laughed together like children. But on arriving at the Great House, they were met by an unsmiling Alison whose expression of concern instantly sobered them.

  She met them in the doorway, having heard the car come down the drive. "Cliff, we have to take Ima to the doctor's," she said without preamble.r />
  Cliff reached for his wife's hand and the two stood there staring. Luari was the one who said, "Mother Bennett, what's wrong?"

  "I found out only this morning—she's had a sore on her leg for weeks. A bad one. And Tom Kirk said—you remember what he said—if anything unusual happened, if she became ill again, we should tell him at once."

  "Why didn't she say something?" Cliff demanded. This was a far cry from the joyous occasion he'd been anticipating: the gathering of the clan, so to speak, for a telling of Luari's triumph.

  "Cliff, I don't know. She was afraid to, I suppose. But Tom has to see her, and right away, because it could mean a return of her trouble. She'd be at Tom's right now if your father hadn't—“

  "Hadn't what?" Cliff said.

  "He couldn't take her. He"—Alison's face suddenly wore a look of despair—"he began drinking again when you two left for Kingston. Now he's in bed."

  "Cliff, I can go with you," Luari saidquickly. "Where is Ima, Mother Bennett?"

  "In her cottage. She was in the kitchen with Beryl when I discovered the sore on her leg. Beryl was helping her put a bandage on it, and I walked in." Suddenly Alison's eyes were wet. "It's bad. I mean it's as big as—it's three inches across, at least— and you know it has to be hurting her. I made her go and lie down."

  With a glance at her watch, Luari took charge. "Cliff, it's nearly four o'clock, and Dr. Kirk should be in his office. Come on."

  At the cottage in the yard, she opened the door without knocking, and Cliff followed her in. Ima was on the bed, but fully dressed and awake. Going to her, Luari sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her hands.

  "Ima, we're taking you to see Dr. Kirk."

  The big brown eyes gazed up at her, unblinking. Usually, Ima's famous grin accompanied that kind of look, but not this time. The grin had not been in evidence lately, Luari realized.

  "Now?" Ima said.

  "Yes, dear. Now."

  Ima struggled to her feet and without protest accompanied them to the car. She walked without limping, Luari noted—one reason, perhaps, that none of the Bennetts had been aware of her trouble. Instead of letting her sit alone on the rear seat, Luari sat with her, leaving Cliff alone in front. On the way to the Bay, she held the Jamaican woman's hand and quietly talked to her.

  "How long have you had this sore on your leg, Ima?"

  "I don't know, Miss Luari. About a month, I suppose."

  "Does it hurt?"

  "It does sometimes. Not all the time."

  "You should have told us, you know."

  "I didn't want to be any trouble. Look at you now, only just back from Kingston and you have to drive to the Bay because of me."

  "We want you well again." But, Luari asked herself, would Ima ever be well again? After the operation at the University Hospital, the doctors there had warned Mr. and Mrs. Bennett that the cancer might reappear in some other part of Ima's body. Even with the radical surgery they had done, they might have been too late.

  Only a few patients sat in the anteroom of Tom Kirk's Morant Bay office. Luari spoke to the doctor's nurse, who asked Ima a few questions and then vanished into the inner sanctum. A moment later the bearded medic with the booming voice appeared.

  Nodding to Luari and Cliff, he took Ima by the hands and talked to her—not in his usual voice but gently, as though to a child who might be frightened. Then he walked her into his office and shut the door.

  When he came out alone some thirty minutes later, his face and eyes wore an expression of sadness. With a word of apology to his waiting patients, he drew a chair up in front of Cliff and Luari and sat to talk to them.

  "I'm afraid she'll have to go to the hospital again. Not to University this time—more surgery won't help—but to some other institution where they can look after her as it gets worse."

  Cliff leaned toward him. "You mean—?"

  "I don't believe she can get over this. It's probably all through her body. She never had much of a chance, really. We discovered it so late."

  "But can't we take care of her at Glencoe?" Luari asked.

  Kirk shook his head. "With the medication, the special care she'll require, it would soon be too much for you. There's a nursing home for cancer patients in August Town. She'll probably end up there."

  "What—what do we do now, Tom?" Cliff asked. "I mean right now."

  "Leave her here with me. I have to seea patient in Kingston this evening; I'll take her in to Kingston Public." He stood up. "Say goodbye to her in my office, why don't you? Briefly, if you will. I'm afraid I've kept these people waiting too long as it is."

  In the inner sanctum Ima sat beside the doctor's desk, looking frightened. What, Luari desperately asked herself, did you sayto someoneyou loved who was going to die?Who hadn't been told she was going to die, but probably realized—by now—that something awful was happening to her. Not knowing what else to do, she went to Ima and again reached for the woman's hands.

  "Ima . . . Dr. Kirk is going to take you to Kingston to—to have your leg looked at. You're not to worry, you hear? Just as soon as you're able to return to Glencoe, Cliff and I will come and get you."

  "You're going to be okay," Cliff said. "Dr. Kirk just wants to have this thing on your leg looked at . . . then you'll be fine."

  Did Ima know they were lying? She clutched their hands and reached deep for a ghost of her old smile. But the smile did not light up the office as it should have . . . and when Luari looked back to voice a final "Goodbye for now, dear," two large, shining tears were in motion under those wide brown eyes.

  3

  In the four months that Virgilie Valcin had lived with the Aldreds, Lee had twice visited the child's mountain village. On the first occasion she had driven there with La Petite Directrice and talked to Virgilie's aunt and the Chef de Section. The second time, she had gone there with Carey and spent most of an afternoon talking to villagers.

  She and Carey had agreed that they owed it to the child to be absolutely sure.

  They were sure now. The second visit to Virgilie's village had taken place only a week ago, and they had been discussing it ever since. This Saturday morning, both of them free of duties at the Kelleher, they sat on their veranda and talked about it again while the good people of their own little village paraded past below them.

  Saturday was market day in Verrelle—the day when the big open market area in the center of the village changed from a ghostly forest of poles supporting roofs of thatch to a bustling inner city full of color and sound.

  There in the market one could find a fantastic assortment of fruits and vegetables neatly displayed on long, rickety tables.

  In another section live chickens were for sale; in still another, fresh-killed beef and pork. At times even shirts, pants, and dresses were displayed, hanging from wires stretched between the poles. Once, visiting the market with Carita and Virgilie, Lee had come upon a woman selling little boxes of matches. When asked how she could make a profit selling them for the same price she had paid for them in Port-au-Prince, the marchande had said with dignity, "From each box I take a few matches out to sell separately. That is my profit. Not much, perhaps, but I like being here on Saturdays, talking to people."

  The market was nearly finished this Saturday. People on the street were coming from it, not going to it. Most were women with baskets on their heads, chattering away happily while striding along in groups with the consummate grace of the Haitian peasant woman. Some, happening to glance up, waved or called out a greeting. "Bon soir, Docteur Aldred! Bon soir, Madame! Comment ou ye?"

  Without fail, Lee and Carey returned the greetings.

  Suddenly Lee leaned forward on her chair. "Here they come!" she said happily. "Look at them, Carey. At heart they're sisters already, you know. Admit it!"

  The "they" were her five-year-old daughter Carita and eight-year-old Virgilie, and it was true; despite the slight difference in their ages and the color of their skin, the two were like sisters now. Side by side, the white
child carrying a small basket filled with fruit, the black one balancing a larger one on her head, the two flowed along with the crowd, chattering away as the others did. No one casually watching them would have noticed that one of Virgilie's legs was artificial.

  "Carey?" Lee turned to look at her husband, the unspoken question shining in her eyes.

  Carey frowned. "But suppose we decide to leave here, love? Suppose what's happening here becomes too much for us to stomach. Would Virgie be happy in the States?"

  "She would be at Glencoe."

  "Hey, I can't practice in Jamaica. It's either here where I'm needed or back to the States."

  "Here, then. Duvalier can't last forever, even if he has named himself president-for-life. He's diabetic. He's had that massive heart attack.”

  "He doesn't have to last forever," Carey argued. "He's got a son waiting in the wings to take over. And after what's happened here lately—"

  Lee looked away and was silent.

  He was right, of course. Their beloved Haiti was a country so full of fear and suffering, its future was unpredictable. The Jeremie horror of last August was proof of that. Calling themselves Young Haiti, a handful of brave young expatriates from the States, determined to rid the country of the leader who had already caused hundreds of their fellow countrymen to flee or be murdered, had landed at the remote southern peninsula village of Dame Marie and tried to seize the army barracks in Jeremie. Tragically they had failed. Then at the president's command the corpse of one was flown to Port-au-Prince and placed on a chair on a busy city sidewalk where people going about their business would have to pass it. For ten ghastly days it had remained there, alive with flies while it festered in the heat. Only after protests by a foreign ambassador had the president's Tonton Macoutes allowed it to be removed.

  That had been but one of many recent atrocities. Add them all up, and Duvalier's presidency had become a nightmare from one end of the country to the other. People were fleeing in terror, the elite by air with what they could carry of their possessions, the peasants thinking themselves blessed if they could find some dangerously overloaded sailing craft to carry them to an illegal nighttime landing in the Bahamas or Florida.