Shielding her eyes, Anasha squints through split fingers until her vision adjusts to the brightness. She lifts the edge of her camisole to dry the tears streaming down her face. There are men with crimson skin from being in the sun too long. They put everyone, young and old, hardy and frail, to stand in queues for inspection, one of which she has now joined. Anasha realises that The People are wearing clothes – good, modern clothes: shirts, skirts, jeans, three-quarter shorts – and that they are all standing in the aisle of a roofless blue-and-yellow Transport Board bus. Dipping and rising upon the sea.
Out of nowhere, the ‘Wheels on the Bus’ song plays repeatedly inside her head. That bus keeps picking up passenger after passenger, driving around for hours with a group of passive-aggressive people with no final destination. The driver keeps opening and shutting the doors, packing as many people as he can inside. The women shush their babies who are sensible enough to cry out in protest. There is no indication of the seating capacity of this bus in the song, and to this very day, The People go up and down all through the town on a crammed bus. Anasha puts her own meaning to the song and wonders, who gives that much power to anyone?
A few of the women and children cough. The men among them heave. One woman swaddles her child who is red with fever. Five men and two little girls who can’t be more than seven or eight years old, their wrists roped behind their backs, are all lifted and tossed into the sea.
There are huge splashes in the water. Gaping eyes and dead stares, but no one moves. Anasha is gutted. Her mouth and eyes hinge open, fixed in fear. She screams at the open sea, ‘I’m sorry.’ She stutters, ‘I can’t – I can’t help you …’ Her tears are as brackish as the air that tickles the back of her throat. Each face sinks lower and lower into the deep blue waters. Each face shrinks from view and Anasha can’t stand seeing them. She springs overboard and, as she dives for the feverish child, she becomes a tumbling droplet of water.
* * *
When Anasha woke, she gasped for air, sputtering until she realised she was only dreaming and had fallen onto the hardwood floor of her bedroom. She shot up and plunged back into bed. The sun wasn’t up, but the sky had slipped its charcoal cover for a lighter shade of flint.
She thought about the people in her dream and realised they were not slaves but a group of persons who sought ‘greener pastures.’ They risked their lives on a treacherous journey upon the seas, because they believed they deserved better, like the crew who came to Barbados ten years ago.
Many things drifted onto Barbados’s shores. Spaceship debris on the east coast. Also those octopus pots, black plastic canisters used for trapping, rumoured to come from West Africa. The sargasso weed that shrouds the sands of the east, west and south coasts. Contraband in the north. And Anasha remembered stepping on a syringe at Cattle Wash that made her wonder about the medical waste on the ocean floor.
It was a drenched and biting morning. A lonely fisherman claimed he saw this ship floating on the swells of Ragged Point, on the Atlantic coast. She heard that even though the man was uncertain about what he was seeing, he motored towards this ship. She heard how overwhelmed this man was by the magnitude of this vessel. It was like Noah’s Ark, she heard. Someone else called it Titanic. Barnacles and other marine life encrusted its corroded body. Anasha heard that the man told everyone who asked about his encounter that he felt as insignificant as a sea cockroach. He called out to this ship, but no one responded and there was no one in sight. He went aboard, and met the horror he described to the media as ‘bleached and salty remains.’ Real-life mummies, Anasha remembered hearing.
Stricken with dread, the man fled for help.
* * *
In Anasha’s mind, death had a way of milking brightness out of everything. Picturesque Bridgetown appeared as if it had the colour drained out of it. The sky was ashen. Even the motionless sea appeared murky. The salt-filled air had the pungent smell of fish and seaweed mixed into it.
The Careenage was thronged with people whose hot accumulated breath made Anasha sweat. The scene was like when she went to school, the hot-chocolate and mocha-coloured people stuck together – porcelain dolls with their arms folded, all in a huddle. People with olive tones gathered in their own groups, too, carrying on in a flurry of gossip. Everyone provided their own versions of what they heard, until the intriguing narrative of a ghost ship called Black Pearl berthed itself in Bimshire.
Anasha looked around. There were pleasure vessels, some sport-fishing boats, but she snapped her head around for the ‘ghost ship’ that had everyone disturbed, only to wonder what the hell this fisherman was on about. Fear magnifies the minutes of matters, and in Bimshire that goes without saying. She made click-click sounds with her mouth. Her right mind told her it was not what the fisherman said, but what everybody said the fisherman said.
Soon, Anasha discovered that half the tale was nothing but a case of Chinese Whispers. The twisting of stories made her think of the formation of the coral limestone that created the island. Barbados wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t an accumulation of skeletal fragments and minerals. To her eyes, the ‘ghost ship’ appeared to be nothing more than a mere boat, a little bigger than a pirogue and too small for pleasure.
Anasha heard the people ask, ‘Anybody know who the body is?’
‘You mean bodies.’
‘I hear is Af-free-cans.’
‘Is Africans?’
Her mind wandered. Who were these men? Pirates, searching for Treasure Island? Slaves, abducted against their will? Illegal immigrants in search of the land of milk and honey? Where were they sailing to?
‘I doan know why they cahn stay where they live,’ the people said. ‘Why come here to die? Wunna gine stress immigration now.’ All you go tell the sea where to make a deposit? Someone else cut in after catching the absurdity. ‘Immigration? Fuh dead people?’ Someone else chimed in. ‘Steupse … Is true that I cahn believe how them come stress we but you have to remember them ain have proper food where they come from. Them aint have work.’
People talked about how Africans disowned their brothers and sisters in the Caribbean. How Africans feel them brighter and better than who living in the Caribbean. They talked about voodoo and the spread of ebola.
Anasha began to sort everything out in her head. Never mind the cou-cou on their plates, the Bantu knots and other elaborate coifs borrowed from African culture. Never mind the Kente cloth worn for Emancipation Day, Black History Month and Independence Day, the African prints imported and the dashiki styles sported on the island. Never mind Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Miriam Makeba, Angélique Kidjo, Akon, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, celebrated in life and death on the stage, page, walls, radios and television sets. Never mind Steel Donkey and Shaggy Bear. Never mind Anancy stories. Anasha sucked her teeth in disgust.
* * *
Weeks later, the island received the official findings of the investigation. They were eleven men from Cape Verde and they were on a journey to the Canary Islands. Next day people spoke differently than before.
‘Poor dem. Uh feel flattered to know they mistake bout hay fuh Canary Islands. Some good Af-free-cans come outta Af-free-ca. Is a pity them aint had nuffin to eat.’ ‘Cahn trust them Spaniards though. Wicked set of people in truff.’ They spoke of the captain who abandoned the boat, probably after running out of food, fuel and water.
Anasha learned there were fifty strong on that rusty blue and white boat. Fifty whittled down to eleven, risked their lives for money – the root. All they wanted was better for themselves and their families, she understood. A brief note, written by one of the men before he died, was released to the public:
I would like to send to my family in Bassada (a town in the interior of Senegal) a sum of money. Please excuse me and goodbye. This is the end of my life in this big Moroccan sea.
Anasha asked a question, to no one in particular, just the air in the room where she was sitting. Was he sorry for leaving his family? Anasha t
hought she wouldn’t leave the family she had always wanted. She wondered if maybe someone, a close relative, like a first cousin or even his brother (if he had a brother), had tried to talk him out of making the trip. Why did he ask to be excused? This baffled her to the point that she felt the burning in her eyes and something compressing tighter and tighter inside her chest. Did he regret his decision? Was he sorry that at the time he was dying he would leave his loved ones with an insurmountable deal of heartbreak over his death? Was he sorry to die without his family around him? Or he could be sorry that he didn’t live to help his family back home, and had just a few dollars to send, which wasn’t enough to sustain them. Maybe he promised his family something that he really and truly couldn’t fulfil and was sorry for that. If so, Anasha thought, this man was selfless and humble and giving, so much so that even in the end he thought not of himself but of his family.
* * *
Days later, she was in a little village shop when she read in the local newspaper how the state would have to bury the men, as their own government couldn’t afford to have them shipped back home. Anasha heard the grumbling voices of the people again. ‘Who gine pay for that?’ one customer said.
‘We funds low, too,’ said another.
‘Taxpayers will pay, who else?’ the shopkeeper responded.
‘That’s why they shudda stan where they live instead of being a burden pon we gov-ment – now I want a Christening frock for my chile, de Minister ain got de money to give me,’ someone said, before pushing off her lips in a disgusted pout.
A burden, Anasha mouthed. The words caught in her throat and they lodged themselves there until she felt strangled. She began to shiver. She sized up each manjak, standing steadfast like the highest grade of granite. Through the shop window, the clouds above her appeared sorrowful and dark. If it rains, it will not wash the people of their transgressions. It will not be enough to soften callous hearts. She lowered her head in shame.
She thought the people were like crab grass with stubborn roots buried deep within the soil. Even the roots of her lime tree came to mind: if she didn’t shear its bulbous thickening roots, it wouldn’t bear strong fruit.
* * *
When the landlord came to spray the yard, she paid him the rent that was due and the following month’s, and told him of an upcoming business trip, involving a lecture on harmful pesticides. She had added vacation time. Anasha had learned of free genealogy testing on another island and wanted to make the trip to have that done.
She stripped off her sweaty clothes and walked into the shower. Anasha didn’t expect to slip and fall hard on the tiled floor – to hear the cracking of her skull and the snapping of her neck – to see her juddering body, as her spirit leapt out to sit its nakedness on her toilet lid. She wondered how long it would take before she’d be discovered. Maybe her landlord would find her when the rent was due next time.
Now the centipede’s visit made sense. It was the warning of her own imminent death. She wouldn’t be the first to die alone. She knew she wouldn’t be the first woman to be found, dead, long after the stench and fumes of decomposition had dissipated – to have not been missed. Would her face be shrivelled and shrunken like a sundried tomato? Would she be crisp with flesh or a cascading pile of dissolving skin, bones and teeth? No one expected to die without his or her dignity. No wonder when a letter was found on the ghost ship, written by one of the eleven men, he wrote, ‘Please excuse me.’
The Maala
Mikoyan Vekula
Niue
Taro shoots in bags of bush-clad green,
hand-woven hat, cover from the heat
as grandma would say.
A winner of contest
or the broomstick for sin,
go with the elements,
be like one in times of need.
The wisdom passed
as if to nourish.
I listen without judgment,
she hands me food for the
toil ahead,
punu povi,
taro, boiled green bananas,
rice, cabin bread
and sun-dried mackerel.
And by the way, all that giggling
you and your wife do in the
small hours, I am old not deaf,
I want more grandchildren
not jokes.
I feel grandma’s dare on my backside
like welts of harmless love,
it’s priceless as
affection streams from above,
a rainbow curves.
The first taro shoot
into the ground.
Unaccounted For
Tracy Assing
Trinidad and Tobago
In case you’re wondering how we got here, I can affirm that greed played a major role.
There is a story told in Trinidad about the origin of the Pitch Lake in La Brea, one of the largest natural deposits of asphalt in the world:
The hummingbird was revered as the spirit of the ancestors, but the people became greedy and proud, and soon began to hunt the hummingbird for its colourful feathers. Once there was a slaughter, so hungry were the people for adornment for a coming parade. They spent all their energies in preparation for the festival and lost track of every other thing … This could not last. The gods became angry and sought to avenge the spirits of the ancestors by setting a spell in train, which saw the village being swallowed by a huge black mass, which then solidified into the Pitch Lake.
According to the scientific description of asphalt, it is formed from the remains of ancient, microscopic algae and other once-living things. But the inhabitants of Iere are hard of hearing.
The black, sticky, semi-solid liquid was used by Sir Walter Raleigh around 1595 to caulk his ships as he sailed around the Caribbean in search of El Dorado. When he landed in Trinidad, it was the island’s indigenous inhabitants who showed him the lake. Three hundred years later, asphalt from the Pitch Lake was used to pave streets in New York and Washington, DC, and other cities in the United States.
Indigenous land rights and the direct relationship between those rights and mineral extraction have long been debated in North and South America. Unfortunately, these issues have never had a place in national discussions in Trinidad and Tobago.
Traditionally, indigenous people do not believe in land ownership. The monetisation of land and natural resources came with colonialism. The indigenous have always believed that a close relationship to the land is crucial for survival. Respect for the land is key to indigenous ideology.
Our indigenous history and story of survival have not been documented consistently or comprehensively. For decades, school textbooks in Trinidad and Tobago referred to ‘warlike Caribs’ and ‘farming Arawaks,’ when in fact more than a dozen tribes were documented on these islands, with names like Taino, Yaio, Nepuyo and Karina. There is archaeological evidence to suggest that these tribes travelled and traded with the South American mainland and up the Caribbean island chain.
When the Spanish arrived in the fifteenth century, control was achieved with the sword and the cross. The indigenous did have a choice: Christianity or death. Those who resisted lived in the forest and those who were converted were given work, clothing and religion. Even after the Spanish conquest, after it was recorded that the indigenous were wiped out, the registers at the Roman Catholic churches in Arima, Toco, Paria, Sangre Grande, Arouca, San Fernando and Princes Town bore out that there were ‘indios’ among the faithful. These ‘indios’ were indigenous descendents who had been stripped of their identities for fear that any sense of their indigeneity might lead them to think they had a right to some title of ownership for the land on which they were born and raised. So even as the Catholic missions were engaged in the systematic erasure of indigenous culture, their records provide evidence of our survival story.
The Mission of Santa Rosa de Arima was established in the foothills of Trinidad’s Northern Range in 1789. There has never been a box to check i
n the national census for indio, Carib, Arawak, Amerindian or any such signature, but today the indigenous community enjoys some level of ‘recognition’ nationally through the annual Santa Rosa Carib Festival and the National Day of Recognition, celebrated in August and October, respectively. Indigenous people have been agitating for land rights, but only recently has there been some response from the government, with the Santa Rosa community being granted permission to begin work on a model village, conceived by the Carib Chief and President of the Santa Rosa Carib Community Ricardo Bharath. Add to that bounty a one-time national holiday in 2017. Now we are part of the tourism product. We are included and simultaneously contained.
* * *
I am the daughter of Ricky Assing and Marlene Ballantyne. The sister of Che. I am the granddaughter of John Assing and Mary Verna (born Medina), also Thaddaus Ballantyne and Veronica (born Amoroso). John Assing was the son of Thompson Assing and Clemencia (born Hill) and Mary was the daughter of Ambrosia Medina and Marie Lopez. This is what I remember off the top of my head. This is the way I was taught to introduce myself. It was a way of saying that I never walked alone.
My grandparents all had brothers and sisters, and not everyone settled in Arima. Some stayed in Caura, Paria, Brasso Seco and Tamana, while others settled in Lopinot, La Laja, Morne La Croix, Mamoral, Blanchisseuse and Sangre Grande. We grew up with a strong sense of family, of strength and safety in the family bond.
I grew up in Arima. We lived on the bank of the Arima River, in an area that was part of the old Torrecilla Estate. My father had grown up nearby. By fate, my mother’s family came to live at the top of the hill off Mount Pleasant Road, and soon she was passing by my father’s house every day on her way to school.
My father attended the all-Catholic Holy Cross College on Calvary Hill and my mother the all-Catholic school run by nuns down by the river in Torrecilla. My mother had me in 1975, when she was sixteen and both she and my father were still attending secondary school.
So Many Islands Page 10
