The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  There was always this distance. Small in its nature, gigantic in its social significance. But always uncrossable in all its other meanings.

  Here now, in this house that bears just a trace of the smell of burnt sugar cane, from the cane fire that raged many hours earlier on this Sunday, which the wind blows in from the fields; and with the smell of lady-of-the-night, but more of burnt trash . . . perhaps, it is because he can see through the windows, in the distance, the red smouldering cane fires near the North Field; and on his way here, on his bicycle, still some distance from the burnt-out cane-field fire, the illumination from the distant fire reflected in the skies made Sargeant feel closer to the fire, and caused him to start wondering who had committed this arson; he can see the golden, sparkling flames so clearly, and hear the crackling of the canes, that he can easily smell cane juice being burnt; and can taste the burnt sugar-cane juice.

  It is the wind that results in this breeze coming strong from the Factory, half a mile from the Plantation House, in the short distance away. The Factory is grinding canes. It grinds the canes tonight, and every night, as it will do right through the night until daybreak; and start up again, perpetually, without turning off the machinery; and the breath of the wind coming from a farther distance, from the sea, is the scent that he is smelling. And he is smelling the night. Just the night. A smell that is the mixture of all the smells of the day, combined into the sensual, thick, passionate smell of the lady-of-the-night. And at this time of year, the smell of the raw cane juice, which the Villagers call “crack-liquor.”

  And then, suddenly, he hears the whistle of the Factory. The sound is thin, and like a wail; and it makes his skin crawl; it does not add to his comfortableness in this room, and sets his nerves on edge. The sound of this whistle rattles him, each time it goes off.

  It goes off now, to signal a change of shift. New men arrive at all hours of the night, during Crop-Season only, to feed the crushing machinery and engines with canes. The whistle signals the departure of worn-out men and tired women, every three hours, and up to midnight. And others who live in houses that surround the Factory and the Plantation. And when the whistle goes, it is also the signal that corresponds to the time for food; and the hour to bring food; or make food.

  Food. Something to eat: to put into the belly.

  All the inhabitants of the Village call it by this name. Food. In spite of the time of day or night, when it is served. In any other part of the outside-world, it is called breakfast, lunch or dinner.

  So, when the shrill whistle is blown, from inside some part of the Factory, and the spurt of steam comes out, and the noise inhabits the entire Village, and covers all the land, and all the roads, and all the back-alleys, and the laneways, and the pastures, with its shrieking high pitch that unsettles the nerves, the women know automatically that it is time to take food to their men. They know what time it is.

  “Time to tek this lil bittle to that man,” they tell one another. “The man wukking hard, so he hungry, child!”

  And just as suddenly, as if it has heard the voices of the women, the whistle stops blowing. The whistle stops blowing. And in the silence which comes as sudden as the wailing had begun, the night goes back to its former sleepiness. And lounges in its soft fragrant, discreet darkness, as if somone has poured a bottle of Eau de Cologne No. 4711 gently, and evenly, over the entire land.

  “Did you know that I saw Amurca?” she says. Her voice, and her words, what they are telling him, are as surprising as the sudden turning-off of the Factory whistle. “Yes. Once. Amurca. Yes! Amurca! And every time I hear the Factory-whistle blow, I remember my journey to Amurca. And how that train whistle was blowing to announce stations and towns. And destinations.

  “It was Buffalo. The Factory-whistle remind me of Buffalo. It remind me of the train, every time I hear it blow. What a trip!

  “Mr. Bellfeels had to see some machineries and engines, equipments and parts for the Factory, and he had to go up to Buffalo. It was during the times that things between the two o’ we was still sweet. I remember those good times. How he uses to come over here, to this Great House, at six o’clock in the evening, just as the sun going down below the hill there; and he would take off his riding boots, and lay-down on the floor, on the hardwood floor, bare and by itself; and pore-over magazines with coloured pictures in them, like English Country Life and the London Illustrated News, and the brochures that Wilberforce subscribed to, with such lovely pictures in them in Technicolor; pictures of machines and machinery made in Amurca; and heavy equipment; and I think one magazine was named Heavy Engineering and Equipment. And one afternoon, it was a Saturday, he decided all of a sudden to invite me to go up to Buffalo with him. To Amurca. Just like that. He up and say, not ask me, nor request of me, he just say, ‘I tekking you to Amurca. Get some clothes ready. We tekking a plane to Miami-Florida. And train to Buffalo. I got business up in there. Machines for this fecking Factory. The fecking Factory always brekking-down.’

  “Sargeant-boy, I didn’t know one damn thing about Amurca. Nothing at all. Except what I hear on the BBC news. Or sometimes, on the private-set coming in from Latin-Amurca, the Argentyne, Brazil, Panama sometimes. And from a few magazines and books that Wilberforce leff-’bout-the-place. Along with some that Mr. Bellfeels himself steal from the Aquatic Club, or the Marine Hotel, and leave-’bout here. But Amurca? Amurca?

  “Amurca was always a place that frighten me. With its bigness. Its badness. Its richness. But after Mr. Bellfeels extend the invitation, I started to listen more careful, to the radio. The BBC. And the private-set. And I pick up everything that I could. I got to know about this place, Amurca. Yes.

  “I learned myself the ins-and-outs concerning Amurca.

  “I was damn frighten, though, when that plane take off. My heart was in my mouth. I don’t think a word ever issue or pass my two lips. From the time the plane run down the runway of Se.Well Airport, like a . . . like a thunderbolt. And all that time, up in the air, during the flight, I didn’t have the heart to hold over and look out the window and take a peep, to see what a lovely beautiful landscape my Island of Bimshire is from the air. My son, Wilberforce, and his father, Mr. Bellfeels, would always, being more frequent travellers than me, say how pretty this Isle o’ Bimshire is from overhead.

  “Bimshire is the most beautiful scenery from the air. As if they really mean to imply that Bimshire is the worst scenery from the ground! Or that when you’re on the ground, in Bimshire, it is the worst place imaginable in the world. Heh-heh-heh!

  “Well, boy, yes! In the plane. In the air. I didn’t breathe easy, wasn’t myself, didn’t feel normal, wasn’ regular, nothing. No. Not a word, not a iota passed my two lips, till that plane eventually touch-down and land at the airport in Miami-Florida.

  “I don’t remember nothing about Miami-Florida. But the heat. The humidities. My God, the heat? Hot?..Well, I thought Bimshire was hot. I used to walk-’bout here and complain; miserable and with my face set-up like rain, with vexatiousness. I does-get angry whenever you see August come around, and the heat and the humidity hit we, and this Island turn into a oven. But Miami-Florida? Christ, Sargeant, when I step-off the stairs leading down from the lil small plane that had one engine, and was taking the steps down, and the stairs moving and shaking, as if they were about to capsize me, my-God-in-heaven, Sargeant-boy! Yes!

  “When my two feet touched that tarmac, or whatever the word is, Christ-have-His-mercy! The Miami-Florida humidities clutch me by my neck, and nearly kill me right-there-and-then, on the spot. Heat? And the humidities?

  “But apart from that. From the little I was able to see from the window of the motor-car that picked we up from on the tarmac, on the runway of the airport in Miami-Florida, Miami-Florida is not a bad place. The coconut trees. And the mango trees. The oranges. Grapefruits in the grapefruit trees ripening on the trees, things I never see, nor imagined in all my born days. All these things growing before my two eyes, and I don’t have to rely on seeing
them in a picture in a book, to know that they exist. Things of prettiness just a few hours’ journey from where I live. Not from Europe. From here! From right here! In my own backyard. Isn’t that something? Pretty things. And the land, Sargeant! Oh-myGod-in-Heaven, the land! The land!

  “I understand now why over the years there’s been labour schemes on which they have always been men, young men, middle-age men who is husbands, but men only, only men leaving this Island willingly, heading to Amurca, to Miami-Florida to cut canes in that broiling Miami-Florida hot-sun and humidity. With all those snakes!

  “Because. The place is too pretty. Damn pretty, if yuh ask me! God’s country. And close-close in climate to here. What a expanse o’ land! If I had it in me to travel, or if my fate and fortune had-o’-held travel in it, I would pick Miami-Florida over any place in Europe. And after Miami-Florida, any other place in Amurca. You think you would catch me harkening after Europe? I used to think of Paris, but no more. Placing Europe in the status and preferences that that overeducated boy I gave birth to, Wilberforce, tell me I must do? Europe is too old for me. And miserable. And cruel. And violent. And thiefing, thieving. Slaves, minerals, raw materials and silver. And they already kill-off all the Indians in this part of the world, where we live.

  “You could only like Europe maybe if you didn’t have a grain o’ history in your blood, and inside your head. Or if you-yourself was another European.

  “I have it from my son, who has visited Europe and lived in Europe, and those other foreign strange places, that this same Europe that he worships-so is the cause to the sufferations of the black race.

  “I already mention the Indian tribes of this part of the world.

  “’S’matter of fact, the white races, too! And don’t talk ’bout the brown races! Those people who found this-very Island of Bimshire. And those other brown people who live in Latin-Amurca. Brazil and the Argentyne. Cuba, too! The Canal Zone.

  “The Europeans do whatever they like. Filled their greed and wishes with anything that they could lift and car-way, found in these parts of the world. Lay-claim to it. And anything they could put their two hands on, anything that was light-enough for them to lift and haul-way, they steal. Yes!

  “This is my definition of a European.

  “Wilberforce always refer to this part of the world where we live as the ‘New-Whirl.’”

  “So, gimme the New Whirl, over the Old World, any day! Miami-Florida! Then, any-other part of Amurca, anytime! But that train ride I was telling you about . . .

  “And the stations the train stopped at, like Stations of the Cross on Good Friday! And the land, again. The land. Passing through towns. Passing through cities. Through neighbourhoods. And through communities. Passing through fields. Pasing herds o’ cows. Passing horses. Their bodies shining in the sun, in all colours of grey, dark-grey, brown, brown-that-is-like-red and a few black-black horses, reminding me of a racehorse Mr. Bellfeels had-own. Man o’ War! Yes.

  “Passing wild boars and wild animals that you see in cowboy movies and in the magic lantern shows the Department of Social Development and Culture Put-on in the Village; and wild animals like they shoot for sport on safaris, in Africa, big-game hunting. Passing whole stretches o’ land where nothing grows, laying barren, places more bigger than the whole of this entire Island. And in all this time, travelling by now hundreds and hundreds o’ miles, Mr. Bellfeels is seated in a different section of the train, invisible to me, and separated from me. Mr. Bellfeels is sitting in one section, a reserved compartment of the train, a sleeper. And I in a next section they called third-class, sitting-up, my back hurting me, all throughout this journey north.

  “And when I finally notice that something wasn’t setting too good with me, that something was not normal, at first, I could ony shake my head.

  “I was serrigated from Mr. Bellfeels.

  “I was travelling through serrigated country!

  “It hit me in the pit o’ my guts. Like a sledgehammer.

  “I am sitting with all coloured and black people only. You hear me? And with me, is all these coloured people; and they are talking in such a pretty language; as if they have molasses, or sling, cane syrup, on their tongues; but in a language nevertheless that sound like English, but wasn’t really English, but that was more sweeter than English, sweeter than the English that we speak in this Island; and the words coming outta their mouths were sounding more like what Ma told me my great-gran used to speak. Like African.

  “I didn’t understand one iota of this African language they were using! In a journey that take-up sommany hours. They’re speaking amongst themselves; and once in a while, they would turn a eye towards me, and smile; and one started talking to me; and I couldn’t understand one blasted word she was saying! I not shame to tell you. But I was shame as hell to let on that I didn’t understand a damn thing of this African-sounding language they were speaking. Or hardly anything.

  “But then, my mind tell me that it couldn’t be African they were speaking. They were dress like Amurcans. They were not wearing African robes, or nothing so.

  “Then, it occurred to me it was a different language.

  “They spoke something that sounded like Spanish. I recognize it as Spanish . . .”

  “Spanish?” Sargeant says. “Do you speak Spanish, Miss Mary?”

  “Not that I know Spanish to speak it, Sargeant. I know Spanish only in the way that I recognize it as Spanish when anybody speak it. Or when I hear it on the ‘private-set,’ in a programme on the Voice of the Andes. No, I do not know how to speak the brrrrrrabbarrrrabba of the Spanish language.

  “The people on the train with me, was most of the same complexion. Negro people. Some a lil more lighter than others. Some more darker. But all with a lovely smooth-skin complexion. Coloured people. And I felt so happy to be amongst them. To be in the company of these Amurcans.

  “And the train passing big buildings. Buildings touching the sky. Building after building. One that looked like a tower. A small tower. Painted red. Reddish. With one window. Later, after we reach Buffalo, our destination, Mr. Bellfeels would tell me that that tall reddish brown building with the one window was a silogranary. For holding wheat. I even seen wheat growing, with my own two eyes!

  “We are passing cornfields, now. Fields o’ Indian corn. Fields as big as from one end of this Island, Sin-Lucy in the North, and you drive straight-straight down South, passing the hotels for tourisses on the West Coast, and come, come, come-right-down to the other end of the Island, the South Coast, to Oistins Town, in Christ Church. I never knew such bigness before! Couldn’t contemplate that bigness. In anything. In the fields. In the size of the cows. The cattles. Or in the land. That a field of Indian corn could be more bigger, seen from a train, than the whole o’ Bimshire! My God-in-heaven, Percy! Amurca is such a pretty place. Such a lovely place—”

  “Not meaning to interrupt you, Miss Mary, but what the time is?”

  “Check the hour gainst the grandfather clock there, Percy.”

  “Nine.”

  “Nine? Only nine?”

  “I have to keep an eye on the clock.”

  “I know, Sargeant. But we just sat down.”

  “I still have the Statement, and my report to . . .”

  “We have time, Percy, we have time.”

  “I know we have time, Miss Mary-Mathilda, we have time. Not that I rushing you . . .”

  “Nine o’ clock, though!”

  “And I listening . . .”

  “So, going north, now . . .”

  “From Miami-Florida?”

  “. . . and we stop at a place called Atlantic. No, not Atlantic. Atlanta! Atlanta-Georgia. I knew Georgia. I knew about Georgia. From the title of a Negro spiritual, I think it is. But I didn’t know Atlanta. Georgia is also the place where they had the most slaves. And the worst slaveholders and slave-drivers. Wilberforce studied that in the History of the Laws of Slavery, at Oxford. In all the years he went-school at Harrison College, one of
the most reputed and best institutionals in the British Empire, not one Master who teached him ever mentioned to him a word about this History of the Laws of Slavery! He left without knowing the history of . . . what-you-call-it? . . . the history of himself.

  “But getting back to Georgia. And Wilberforce. His name, Wilberforce, you may or may not know, is a historical name.

  “And it was the history in his name that cause him-himself, he told me, after he went up to Oxford, to vestigate his name in relation to history and slavery and the Laws of Slavery. Yes.

  “But when that train was passing through Georgia, all I could think of was the refrain that we used to sing almost every Saturday night, right here in this front-house, when Mr. Bellfeels played the piano. ‘Georgia.’

  “We would sing that song, sometimes in the presence of Mr. Bellfeels and his friends, like the Solicitor-General, the Vicar, Revern Dowd and them-so, when they visited, to gamble and drink rum; and to see how Wilberforce was progressing, prior to his going-away. And sometimes, Mr. Bellfeels sang ‘Georgia’ along with we.

  “All those years, and all those times, me and Wilberforce put on that performance for Mr. Bellfeels and his friends without knowing what the hell we was really doing. Yes.

  “It is only then. Travelling through Georgia, Atlanta-Georgia, on a train, on that serrigated train, that I knew, then-and-there, what the hell that song mean.