The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  “And the history of that song.

  “For the first time.

  “And a funny thing happen. All the people in the part o’ the train with me . . . Mr. Bellfeels by now comfortable, in the part of the train called the Private Car, by himself. But I didn’t mind that, cause it was a place where the smoke from the Cuban cigars those men were smoking was thick-enough to choke a hog . . . the coloureds, as I got to know was how they were addressed. Yes. Coloureds. All the people in the comportment, compartment of the train with me . . . I was very happy to be numbered with these coloured people who spoke as if it was Spanish coming from out their mouth.

  “And as I said, a funny thing happened. No, not a funny thing. It was not funny. These things aren’t funny. Even in appearances. Or even after they happened to happen.

  “A announcement came over the thing in the top of the roof . . . the loudspeaker in the ceiling of the train . . . informing us sitting in that comport, compartment, that the car with food was now open and available. Down the aisle of the train where I was, sitting with all the coloured people, of black and fair-skin complexions, sudden-so, there came so many, so-many-people in droves, that I didn’t even know one train could hold summuch, hundreds o’ passengers! Droves and droves of people. Yes.

  “And all these people coming down the aisle of the train into our compartment—the compartment of the coloureds—with me, now numbered amongst them, cause by that sociation, I was classified suddenly as a coloured-Amurcan—the hordes o’ people marching-through, was white. Yes, boy.

  “Boy, I was classified through sheer sitting-commodation as a coloured-Amurcan. Yes, man! You hear me?

  “One of the white-gents looked at a woman in the seat ahead o’ me, and says to her, ‘Jane, y’all sure enjoying your first trip Nawth, now, ain’t you now, girl?’

  “Or so it sounded to me. The white-gent was using the same language o’ speech as the coloured lady!

  “As if he was talking in a foreign language. In Spanish. And this Jane . . . when I tell you a pretty woman? A pretty, fair-skin woman of about forty years,..Well, Jane just held her head down, as if she was searching for something important in her lap. Yes. In pure embarrassment.

  “I couldn’t figure it out no better than that. Nor, no plainer than that. The other people on the train, in the comportment of the coloureds, in the compartment with me, they-all just kept quiet. Quiet-quiet. While this troop of white-gents passed. Yes.

  “And not one woman who was white passed. Not one white woman walked with the troops o’ white-gentlemen! Isn’t that something!

  “Right down the middle of the aisle of our compartment, these white-gentlemen marched on their way to the Club Car. Such a strange thing! And such a strange place! This Georgia. This Amurca.

  “And the last white man passed. And quick-so. Afterwards. As if they was acting in a play. Reacting to stage directions. Brown paper bags. Plastic bags. And hand towels of blue-and-white cloth, and red and white, like dishtowels. Started coming out. Yes.

  “And the smell! A smell like you never smelled in your whole life before. The smell of chicken. I learned afterwards that those coloured ladies have a special way of fixing chicken. That only former slaves in the Amurcan South, places like Atlanta-Georgia and Alabama could make it. Southern-fry chicken. Southern-fry chicken, yes!

  “This lovely smell took us straight north, north straight outta Georgia, until the conductor-man announce that we were entering North Carolina.

  “But he didn’t pronounce it as North Carolina. He said something like ‘Naaaawthcarlie-nah! Nawthcarlie-nah!’ Sweet-sweet, so!

  “God, how I like to hear Amurcans talk! All shades.

  “Having just passed through Savannah. Another sweet name. ‘Charlessss-ton! Charleston! Next stop, Charlessss-ton!’ Charleston. That sent me back to the dance. Doing the Charleston. You know that dance, don’t you, Sargeant? The Charleston?

  “It was my first trip on a train. And my last. But what a trip! Charleston–South-Carolina. And before I knew it, the conductor-fellow announce Williamsburg-Virginia. And then, the biggest shock.

  “The biggest shock I ever had in my born-days.

  “‘Lynchburg! Lynchburg, next! Next stop, Lynchburg!’ the conductor-man announce.

  “And when the conductor announce, ‘Lynchburg!’ I found myself looking at this Amurcan coloured woman sitting-cross the aisle from me. Watching her close. I watched her close-close to see her reaction whilst the conductor-fellow coming down the aisle announcing, ‘Lynchburg next! Lynchburg! Next stop, Lynchburg!’

  “I don’t know what I was expecting. Whether I was expecting that all the coloured Amurcans were going to stand up and walk straight to the door and step down the metal step, and get off, jump off, at Lynchburg. Or, if they were going to stand their ground. To protest against retaining a name awful as that. Lynchburg.

  “Can you imagine those Amurcans, of any stripe, and complexion, living-through that history, while white Amurcans, like the white-gents who marched down the aisle . . . and listening to that name, naming a town on a train line, a train station Lynchburg? Lynchburg? After all the lynchings that goes on in Amurca? My God-in-heaven!

  “It is the same thing as naming a residential district in Israel Auschwitz Boulevard, in these present times, now that we know more about the Nazzies and the Jews. You don’t think so? It is a ironical thing to do. As if somebody is making a joke. Yes.

  “Lynchburg!

  “After that, I lost interest in watching the places we were passing in that train journey. And in Amurca.

  “So I took out my Bible, at Philippians, and read . . .

  “‘. . . whatsoever things are true,

  Whatsoever things are honest

  Whatsoever things are just . . .’

  “Fields fly-past, and I didn’t notice them; nor like them; and I didn’t pay them no mind. Field after field of Indian corn. And other things that I didn’t know the names thereof. And all I could think of was Lynchburg. And the coloured Amurcans sitting in the coach with me, in the compartment of the coloureds, eating their delicious Southern-fry chicken, in a serrigated train.

  “But at last. Buffalo! Our final destination. The final solution to Mr. Bellfeels problems! Buffalo, where Mr. Bellfeels had come to buy second-hand Amurcan equipment for the Factory. And machineries. And cane-grinding engines.

  “And it was in Buffalo, a pretty little town, near the Falls of Niagara, that I tasted my first Buffalo wings.”

  “A buffalo don’t have wings, Miss Mary!”

  “Try them!”

  “Buffalo wings? A buffalo don’t have wings, Miss Mary. A buffalo is a animal!

  “They are named after the City of Buffalo. The wings, that is. Nor after water buffaloes, Percy. Chicken wings!

  “Oh!”

  “You eat them . . .”

  PART TWO

  “THAT EASTER MONDAY, twenty years ago . . . twenty years ago? . . . when I noticed you noticing me, my right hand had-in a water jug I was carrying, on orders from Ma to Mr. Bellfeels. The jug had-in rum. Bellfeels Special Stades White Rum. My closeness to him, through Ma, and later as he started to have me, first as house servant, and then as kip-miss, this closeness to him came with a smell, and a taintedness. It came strong from him, and became my own. I started to smell like him.

  “All these years, from servant passing into kip-miss, I brought him his waters, at the dot of three o’ clock. Cocktail hour. A saying he picked up in Buffalo.

  “This smell of white rum. Yes.

  “Wasn’t long-after that first Sunday, when I looked upon the face of that man that looked so tall, with the sun shining in my face, facing Mr. Bellfeels; looking up, looking up to the top of the water tank, as if I was looking to trace the plight of a kite caught in a tree.

  “Kite-season was times of love and niceness, colours and the humming of kite-tongues, laments of joy and fear. The kite-season was the first act to the tragedies of the hurricane season. The hurricane se
ason. With a different humming sound. Not the kite-tongues this time. A greater humming. The humming of the wind. And the licking of the lightning, fork-lightning lighting-up the skies, and coming at you like a knife aiming for your throat. Death and murder. Misery and loss.

  “In the kite-season, a poor boy loss a kite. And he break down in tears. A simple, cheap penny-kite, made from shop-paper. But to that poor boy, a priceless jewel.

  “In storms and hurricanes, the loss is much more greater. Life. Deaths. Stragedies. I mean, tragedies. Water and wind. Winds and water turning into floods covering the land, covering the fields, the North Field of canes just planted; eddoes, yams and sweet potatoes, and the South Field planted up in corn, Indian corn, washed-away.

  “The water was like in the Great Flood. When God was vex with this world. This time, God was vex with Bimshire. A deep layer of death and misery and drowning. It started on the Friday afternoon, just as the labourers had come in from the fields, and were lining-up in the Plantation Yard, under the tamarind tree, waiting to hear their names call-out to get their wages. Waiting for the bookkeeper to call-out their names. And a flash, Percy. When I tell you a flash? Of lightning. Like a sword. The Sword of Damocles henging over Bimshire. That was the first sign of dreadful things to come. Then, all o’ we stanning-up under the tamarind tree . . . one wondering if the Shop have mackerel from Canada in stock, as promised; another woman wondering if her child-father coming round this weekend with any money; the third woman, poor soul, just wondering, wondering where the hell she going-get the balance of the money for her rent. It overdue three weeks now. Yes. We were there, lining-up for wages, with our minds on other things. What storm? What hurricane? Life this Friday afternoon is no different from other Friday goings-on, as per usual. Then, Percy, when I tell you without warning, a clap o’ thunder! It shake the earth. The big tamarind tree in the Plantation Yard shudder. As if it was going to uproot itself, by itself. The half-ripe tamarinds start falling outta the tree. The labourers start to scatter, not waiting for their wages they were so frightened. And the rain came down in buckets-o’-drops. Men and women scamper for safety under the verandah of the Plantation Main House the minute the bookkeeper, scared as everybody-else, drop the few coppers in their hand. And then, they beat it cross the gap; cross the fields; for those who the fields was a shortcut to their house, and would take them home more faster; cross the long road of loose marl and gravel, heading for the tenements, and the junction of Highgates Commons and Reservoir Lane, bounding home. For shelter and safety. And that was the moment when the men and the women fleeing in all directions, like ants, that was the moment when the deluge of rain poured down upon our heads.

  “In those days, they didn’t give names to hurricanes and storms. But we, those of we who survive the three days and three nights of horror, we christen this one with a man’s name. And pick Darnley, to call it by. Using one of Mr. Bellfeels Christian-names. Darnley the Hurricane. Or Hurricane Darnley. We christen it Darnley the Hurricane, the day after it ended.

  “But you should have seen that man, Mr. Bellfeels. Like most of his type, he had-join the Sea Scouts as a boy, the First Bimshire Sea Scouts, despising as his clan does the other scout troops, namely the Land Scouts, as we used to call them. Being a Sea Scout at this hour of need came in handy and saved us.

  “The lightning flashed. Like a knife. Whhhhhhh! Three seconds later. You could have count-off the time with a watch. Blam-blam! Over the North Field. Whhhhhh! Whhhhh! The lightning turn-into fork-lightning. The skies light-up. People bawling. Scared. Blam, blam, blam! Blam! The drops of rain so thick, coming down like a curtain o’ lead, can’t see two feet in front o’ you.

  “‘Come-come! Come!’ I hear the voice, and I couldn’t move. Percy, when I hear the voice, I had to look round to make sure the voice addressing me. I thought it was the heavens talking to me. In times of natural disasters and fear, the very times become supernatural, like in the Bible.

  “I look-round. And there is Mr. Bellfeels. On his horse. Holding-down, waiting, to grabble-me-up and put me in front o’ him, on the saddle. ‘Come-come! Come! I tekking you home to your mother. This blasted rain is a night-rain. A hurricane coming.’..Well, when the next thunderclap came after the flash o’ lightning, whhhhh, I was on that horse, my two legs straddling the saddle like any man. And through the downpour Mr. Bellfeels take me galloping, splatter-up water in the road, and deposited me at my front door. Ma was already home. I can’t remember why; but she was home when Mr. Bellfeels deposited me, sliding down offa the horse, making my alighting more easier; and he put me down on the coral stone step.

  “‘I checking on the people,’ he tell me. ‘I have to see that the blasted labourers, nobody, don’t drown ’pon the Plantation property. Tell your mother, if things go all right, I stopping-off when I pass-back. You hear me, girl?’

  “I was either fourteen or fifteen.

  “I had-barely step-in the house before the wind slam-back the door, luckily keeping me inside the house, before a limb from the mango tree growing at the side snap; and when I tell you, brugguh-down! It slam against the very front door, nailing the door shut, and me inside it, safe. Yes.

  “The hurricane raged all night; and there was Ma and me, inside shivering through fright; and Ma holding the Bible in her hand, Gran sitting by the table, with her head in her hands, eyes closed, shaking her head from one side to the next, and mumbling words which I couldn’t understand. Ma it was who told me later that it was her native language Gran was talking in, asking the spirits for mercy; and all the time Gran pleading to her African gods in her African dialect, Ma whispering, ‘By Sin-Peter, and by Sin-Paul . . . by Sin-Peter, and by Sin-Paul, don’t let this storm bury we alive in this house. Don’t let this house be our grave in this Flood, please Lord, and overcome we . . .’; and holding the Bible in her two hands, shut.

  “Ma it was who filled-me-in, after Mr. Bellfeels deposit me on the step. And when he bound-off, I had to say that he reminded me of that coloured man in Amurcan History that Wilberforce tell me about, who had-ride for miles and miles in weather that was not clement, through hurricane and storm, enemy fire, gunpowder and mortal danger to bring a message to the troops fighting in the Amurcan War of Slavery and Independence, to liberate Amurca from having to pay taxes on tea that was mannifactured in Englund and which Englund unfaired them with, making them buy this tea at outrageous prices. Yes! Mr. Bellfeels holding-over the horse-mane with his body synchronize with the body of the horse; rider and horse blended into one piece of machinery, driving through the heavy downpour of rain, now for all intents and purposes a hurricane, Hurricane Darnley; and traversing the Pasture, the fields, every house in Plantation Tenantry, ducking from wallaba shingles falling off roofs; galvanize-roofs sailing through the black night like submarines, fast and just as deadly; even coconut trees falling like pins in a game of bowling. And Mr. Bellfeels, according to Ma, who had a soft spot still for that bastard, inside her heart, giving me, after the third day and the third night, a running commentary of the way he behave brave like a hero. During the performance of Hurricane Darnley, Ma was reduce to silence, like the silence in the Church Yard that Sunday after Church; holding her Bible, praying to God, with the pages shut. Ma. Poor Ma.

  “Every house in the Tenantry was brought low-low-low by Darnley the Hurricane. It reminded me, as Ma continued giving me the commentary of Mr. Bellfeels exploits, not because he was acting like a real Sea Scout for three days and three nights only, but she was giving me details more as a means of softening the hardness she knew I carried in my heart for that bastard. Yes.

  “But anyhow, every house was lay-waste; brought low; at one with the earth; roofs lick-off; whole sides of houses in the Tenantry blow-way, as they were all built with board, deal board mainly; wood; now reduced to piles o’ matchsticks; the mission-houses that were opened to serve God, stripped bare to nothing, back to the ground, to the land. It reminded me of the words in a Christmas carol we used to sing in school .
. . the hurricane hit we in December, when people had-start varnishing and stripping and painting furnitures for the holidays; the ingreasements for the Christmas cake already soaking in jimmy-johns with raisins and rum, yes; that’s why the hurricane remind me of the Christmas carol ‘O Holy Night.’

  ‘People on your knees, await your deliverance . . .

  ’ “And I think another part of the same carol goes something like this:

  “‘Long lay the world in sin and error pining . . .

  Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices.’ Yes!

  ‘Fall on your knees . . .’

  “We certainly did fall on our two knees those three days and three nights of Darnley. The only buildings that was left standing when it was over, were the two elementary schools, the Church, the police sub-station and any wall-house made with cement and coral stone. Everything-else gone! At one stage, it was unsafe for anybody to stay in their house, so Mr. Bellfeels made a human chain with the people holding one another’s hands, and he guided them, with him on the horse, from throughout the Tenantry, going from door to door, and led them to safety in the two Elementary Schools now without roofs; and who couldn’t fit in the schools were guided to the Church, Sin-Davids Anglican Church.

  “The other Churches in the Village, the Pilgrim Holiness, the Church of the Nazarene, the First Baptist and the First Congregation of the Shakers of Bimshire that people like the field hands and labourers, and people-so worship at, were all reduced to piles of matchstick. Raze to the ground. All. Gone. Yes.

  “God in his wrath spared the .Wellings of the mighty, the rich and the powerful. And reduce-to-rubbles the habitations of the humble, the meek and the poor. I asked God, as young as I was, ‘Why?’ Why this vengeance visited upon the heads of the poor, the same poor which He said could go through a eye of a needle, and will inherit the earth? Why? Why, God? God, why?

  “The answer is clear. We had sinned.