The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  “Ma!” she declares.

  She takes the photograph of Ma from the wall. A large nail is in the wall. The outline of dust left against the wall marks out the shape of the frame of this photograph.

  “I must ask Gertrude to dust more . . .”

  Ma is in an oval frame. The frame is made of grainy wood, highly polished. The oval shape on the wall, left by the frame, emphasizes the amount of dust collected round the frame.

  “. . . must ask Gertrude to dust better.”

  The face of the woman inside the frame is touched by age: age of the photo itself, and by dark specks and some white ones, too. There is a dead scorpion in the frame with the woman. Its skeleton. But her face is beautiful and round; and her lips are thick, but not voluptuous or suggestive of wantonness; and her eyes are not staring at you but are held down just a little, in prudence, in shyness, in.Well-mannered propriety, and as if she could have been distracted by a voice, a movement of the photographer’s hand, a butterfly coming too close, or a bee buzzing around, just when the shutter was about to be snapped. Her hair is combed back. Sargeant cannot see the style in which her hair is fixed, for the hair is close to the head and there is not much space in the frame for more hair to be seen. Her dress is white. White because it is probably white; and white because there was no colour formula when this photograph was taken. Everything is either black or white; looks either black or white. There is a chain round her neck, round the neck of her high-necked bodice. A plain, large Crucifix is attached to the chain. The bodice of her dress has workings, gathers, pleats, the design common in those days of prudence and chastity in women’s fashions; and it reaches her up to her neck, just below her ears.

  Mary-Mathilda holds the photograph to her breasts.

  Sargeant cannot make the comparison: of size between the two women, of shape, of gait; for one is a mere photograph, a ghost; while the other is standing beside him, and he can smell her presence, her dress and hair and perfume; and also the scent, the smell, the “stench” of his own sensuality that has been in the room all night; and Ma’s breasts are hidden under the heavy, intricate needlework of the bodice of her dress. Mary-Mathilda’s breasts, which he has touched in his imagination, are flattened under her brassiere and the formation of her blouse, which fit like a corset, to give the impression of modesty and that there are no breasts at all.

  “Ma!” she says; and sighs.

  And the love she still has for her mother makes her voice shaky.

  “Your mother,” he says.

  “Come . . .”

  She walks up the stairs, slowly, standing for a pause on each step, and studies each of the photographs that become level with her eyes; takes another step, looks, all the time holding her left hand, which is placed into Sargeant’s, behind her, towing him as she has seen barges and “lighters” towing motor vessels and inter-island schooners, into the safer waters of the Careenage, to touch the walls of the Wharf, softened by old, black car tires.

  With each slow step up, at each pause, he too examines the exhibition of photographs, at his own eye-level.

  Wilberforce is standing near a huge waterfall . . .

  “Kaieteur. In Demerara . . .”

  “And this one?” he asks her.

  On the succeeding step, Wilberforce is in a square, in a place that is not Bimshire. “Vincentia! An ancient, small city in the northern part of Italy. He met this girl there. Mirabella. At first, everything was sweet as a brown sugar cake. Mirabella, Mirabella, Mirabella. You couldn’t hear your blasted ears for Mirabella! Mirabella Vero.Veron . . . Veronesi—I can hardly pronounce the blasted woman surname! Nowadays, I don’t hear one word ’bout this Mirabella. It seem as if Mirabella dead. And a damn good thing, too!

  “No daughter-in-law of mine, with a foreign accent, boy! For my only son? Oh, no! I am not so broad-minded!

  “Prejudiced, maybe. But I old-enough to bear grudges. Old-enough to be a serrigrationist—if you want to call me one, then! You don’t think so? And a lil prejudiced. But a woman with a foreign accent! And for my son?

  “Yes, man! Vincentia—if that’s how you pronounce it. But look what a lovely way they build their houses in Vincentia! Wilberforce tell me that that way of building buildings is a special tradition the Eyetalians have. And the type of buildings they build have a special name. Palades? Is it Palisades? No, man, that’s not the word! I know! Palladios! Yes! The buildings in that part of the world, the buildings you see in the background, with Wilberforce standing in front of one them, are called Palladios Architecture. Wilberforce told me that Palladios built his buildings all over certain parts of Italy. Specially, Wilberforce say, in the cities where the Borgias and other families of Popes lived, all the Piuses; and that in Venice, Verona and Vincentia itself, you will find these buildings; and some of the same Borgias, Wilberforce found out in a book, is black people like me and you, and . . . you didn’t know that, did you?”

  “No!” Sargeant says. “Popes? . . . like Pius-the-Third, Fourth and Fiff . . . black Popes? What you trying to put on me?”

  “Yes!” she says. “Eyetalians are a black tribe, like me and you.”

  “Yuh lie!”

  “Read the book!”

  “So, the three V’s were the birthplace of black Popes, you must be. . . !”

  “What you referring to, about three V’s, Percy?”

  “The Palladios cities! Venice, Veronica and Vincentia! All V’s!”

  “Never thought of them so! But, yes. The three V’s! Must be important. Those Eyetalians are smart bastards, I tell you. They have black in them, that’s why. Imagine that these pictures hanging inside this house, on the same wall for years, never touched nor moved safe when Gertrude cleaning and dusting, or when the painter paint the place, once every blue-moon, and I never, never-ever thought of seeing them as the three V’s! The three V’s . . . But that’s why you are a detective . . .”

  “A pretty place. I wonder if in my lifetime on this earth I would ever be fortunate-enough to stand up in a square, or a plaza like this, with Palladios Architecture behind me, in the background, and have a snapshot taken of it? I wonder if I would ever see Venice? In the flesh? Or Italy . . .”

  “See Venice and die!”

  “I hear’ somebodyelse say so. ‘See Venice and die.’ But what it mean?”

  “It means that you could-as.Well drop-down dead when you see Venice, because there isn’t no-other-place-else-on-earth that can touch Venice! Nothing-more in life, to see. Perhaps it is another meaning to the Palladios Architecture that I was just telling you about . . .”

  They are at the top of the flight of stairs. They have climbed thirteen steps. Sargeant did not intend to count them, but he is intrigued by being inside this house; and now that he is inside it, he is not at ease, as he would be at the Harlem Bar & Grill, in the Selected Clienteles Room, and he needs to get his bearings, and perhaps would be comfortable. This is why he has counted the stairs. Thirteen of them. With each step, the stairs creak, groaning under his weight and under her weight. They creak in the same loud way as new shoes cry out in a silent church, where noise is not normal, when the congregation are kneeling and praying.

  The flight she has just taken him up is steep. He has run his hand, the one she is not holding, over the mahogany banister; and his hand picks up the sweet smell from the patina on the wood and the polish.

  Looking back down the thirteen steps he has just climbed, to the carpets on the hardwood floor stained in brown, he feels he is in the Changing Room of the Choir, up in the Loft. Revern Dowd calls it the Crow’s Nest. A slight giddiness suggests itself in his head. He closes his eyes. And in a moment, the giddiness is gone.

  She leads him along the hallway. It is about twenty feet long. It has the two large windows that face the fields; and on the side opposite, on his left side, is the whitewashed wall that has two French doors painted white, with frosted panes of glass, covered in lace through which he can see the eight rectangles of glass. She leads him thr
ough this door.

  He is in a bedroom.

  Is this her bedroom?

  This room has more space than the house in which he lives. His house is down the hill from this Great House, near the intersection of Highgates Commons and Reservoir Lane, through a set of mahogany trees, one mile from the sub-station, half a mile from the Harlem Bar & Grill, walking distance to the Church and the Elementary School.

  He is inside an enormous bedroom. He is standing beside a huge bed. With a canopy. King? Or queen? Four sturdy legs of polished mahogany stand like guardians round the pillows and the sheets and the bedspread. The bed is like a monument in the graveyard of the Anglican Church: about three to four feet off the floor, and the size of a tomb built for three stout bodies.

  Everything in this bedroom is white. The six pillows, three on each side, are white; and brocaded, with white patterns in them, like flowers. The bedspread is white and thicker than the material with which the pillowcases are made. The bedspread hangs on the left side of the bed, on the right side and at the foot. The pillows, high, and fluffed and soft-looking, are as large as four bags of flour, but softer and lighter. The sheets are made of silk. At the bottom of the bed is a folded white clump of cotton. It is her nightgown. There are two large windows in this room. Covered with white curtains, which move from the outside of the frame of the window inwards, as if the wind, like an invisible hand, soft, though, as a kiss on the cheek, is breathing on the lace of the curtains.

  She takes him to the side of the bed, which reaches him up to his waist, and from which he can look through the large window down into the valley, where his house sits among thick trees.

  What he sees has a dramatic effect upon him. Looking out from this single window, he can see the fuzzy outline of the entire Village and place the location of every house lying within it in his mind.

  He wonders if this Great House was built purposely on this promontory of land, in order to observe the Villagers below; if it was placed in this position, to record their daily movements, to be the overseer of their private lives.

  She takes him now, out into a short passageway. They walk through this passage, and face another large window, with a seat and a cushion in the seat, and Sargeant sits on the window seat, just to see how it feels; and if it feels similar to the one in the Commissioner’s home in the Married Women’s Quarters, a name for a residence which Sargeant finds as puzzling and intriguing as the row of red brick apartments themselves; the Quarters are close to the Savannah Tennis Club; and now sitting on this maroon cushion, as flat as a bake through use, in a window of this Great House, he sees, and he feels no difference between this one and the one in the Commissioner’s apartment . . .

  The cushions in the window seat at the Commissioner’s apartment are all navy blue, with buttons stitched in them, the way motor-car seats are made.

  “Yes!” he says.

  The passageway leads out from her bedroom.

  Before she touches his shoulder, pointing him outwards, he has noticed a large black chest, with an oval lid, strengthened with clasps of iron and pointed with large brass studs; and he thinks of children’s books of fairy tales and tales of adventure in Indian caves and temples, and the mysteries of the Far East; and treasure chests of pirates; and of Captain Morgan who, like a pirate, seduced tall ships coming from Englund and the Spanish Main and from Africa with slaves and other treasure, to land in shallow waters round the coasts of Bimshire. These ships were captained by pirates; and Captain Morgan caused many of these ships to be beached upon the craggy shore, after sailing with confidence into the bright glare of lanterns placed strategically high up in coconut trees, mistaking them for beacons. Those slave ships and galleons, schooners and tall ships filled with gold were fooled that these coconut trees were the blinking eyes of the Needham’s Point Lighthouse; tricked; wrecked; had; “was took!”; and run aground; half sinking. Then, in the dimness of dawn, and placid sea, they were plundered by Mister Captain Morgan, wading through the floating bodies of pirates and of slaves, and Western-rolled and crawled with strong swimmer’s strokes, through the quiet waves and oozing blood from the dying bodies; and stole their loot; “stole the shirts from off their black backs,” treasures to be pocketed; English sailor-pirates to be buried with hymn and Prayer Book, Churched as if it were a wedding, given benediction and quiet burial in Sin-Davids Anglican Church’s Church Yard, following the admonition that “the Office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptized, or excommunicate, or have laid violent hands upon themselves”; hearing the lugubrious words of Job: “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”: slaves to be carried back out, into the broiling waves, and fed dead to the sharks. And Captain Morgan became a millionaire. Good ole Cap’n Morg also became powerful and respectable like the clan of men, the Six, in the photograph with Mr. Bellfeels; went into politics; “did good,” gave money to the poor and black, and gave his name to a bottle of rum; “Jamaica him come fram!”; and ended up as a legislator on the Legislative Council of Bimshire . . . And there is a looking glass, framed in wood, which swings just like the blackboards in his Elementary School. It is large enough for him to see from his black boots right up to the top of his head, in a single glance. The looking glass is poised at an angle of about forty degrees from the floor. And there is a horse; he calls it a horse. She would know it as a valet. On this horse is a dress, spread around the coat hanger that is built into the horse; and what looks like a woman’s camisole is thrown over the dress. The dress is of white cotton. The camisole is of silk, and is white.

  “Yes!” he says.

  She leads him out of the dressing room, and back into the bedroom. She does not know why she is doing this. He walks to another large window with a seat, and sits on it, and wishes it was daytime, and that the sun was shining, and he could see down into the valley, could see his own house from this window, and mark in clearer daylight vision the distance he is from that chattel house in the valley.

  “My house gotta be somewhere down there!” he says. “If it wasn’t so dark, I could see my house.”

  “Yes,” she says, “and the small piece of land round it. And your pear trees! One day Gertrude brought a pear from one of your trees, and it made a lovely salad. So yellow and thick and fleshy! Chickens your pullet hatched last Saturday . . . all round your yard, Percy . . .”

  “. . . my-God Mary!”

  He shakes his head, in disbelief; but smiling all the time. “You been observing me. All these years.”

  He looks down into the valley, green during the height of day, dark now as the laneways he patrolled earlier tonight, to locate his house; and his eyes in their weak vision travel from memory, in the thick pitch-blackness from the skies, through the half-mile of white marl and loose gravel driveway which Wilberforce had taken earlier, then through the trees in the gully, over the rise of the cane fields and fields of Khus-Khus grass, through the grass piece, and finally down into the valley, and come to a cluster of trees that marks out the boundary of pasture land on which cows and horses of the Plantation graze, on which the Villagers play cricket and football; and run ordinary races, and goatraces every Sunday afternoon; and then, Sargeant can guess, from memory, the location of the Harlem Bar & Grill. In this journey, blindfolded by the pitch-blackness, he expresses some alarm that the Harlem Bar & Grill is hidden almost completely in a grove of fruit trees. But not even this blackness can erase his memory of it. The trees are breadfruit trees, sugar apple, tamarind and a mango tree, a Julie-mango tree; and a puh-paw tree, Manny’s favourite that provides him, year-round, with the thick, yellow, nectarine flesh of the puh-paw, abundant with seeds the colour and consistency almost of fish roe, which “move the bowels so nice, more better and easy than castor oil. My puh-paw tree!” And beside the puh-paw tree, a mayflower tree in bloom. From this distance, from this lofty view, in this graveyard darkness—a quite different pers
pective— he is shocked at the power of his memory, like the game of arranging objects after you have been given two minutes to memorize all of them. He can find his way through any encumbrance, through any maze of evidence, through any entanglement that his presence—the length of time that he is in this House—or any amorous entanglement she, and his physical presence, might conceive.

  He is more confident now of his ability to rearrange, from memory, and in total darkness, objects and persons he has been passing in broad daylight.

  He walks this Village at the level of the centipede and the worm, on bare ground, on roads in the darkest of nights, patrolling. Now, from this window, he has a new elevated knowledge of his Village. There are more trees clogging-up the land than he had imagined.

  “You been looking at me, Miss Mary-Mathilda, all these years! Seeing me almost naked!”

  “To your right . . .” she tells him now, “I’ll be your eyes. To your right, you would see the Pilgrim Holiness Church that Gertrude attends; and to your left, the Church of the Nazarene, where Pounce stands up at the window during revival meetings; and the narrow road, then the alley turning into the lane that leads to the house where Golbourne lives . . . his house need a coat o’ paint bad . . . to the one-roof chattel house where Pounce live; the three-roofed-and-kitchen house where once Mistress Rosa Mary Antoinette Brannford carried on her needlework and making pudding-and-souse every Saturday afternoon, and where now, her husband, Mr. Brannford, live alone, on full disability pension from the Aquatic Club, going half-mad; and the tree at the corner of Flagstaff which his wife ordered him to stand and wait under, until the Governor had-finish eating his food . . . stands big and broad, like a fowl-cock fluffing its wings, boasting of its prowess with hens, showing off his colours amongst the encircling hens in the yard; and the intersection of Highgates Commons and Reservoir Lane that divides the inhabitants of the Village of Flagstaff, and their homes, into good and bad, into decent and worthless; into the rich and the poorest, into the Village and the Plantation; and, man-yes, more than anything, you could see, clearer even in your imagination than the blackness of tonight is allowing you, the steeple of Sin-Davids Anglican Church, where you sing in the Choir. In the Church Yard, if it was day, the tall croton trees, with all their multiple colours and prowessness, like the plumes of the fowl-cock, you could visualize. Tall and powerful, even though, with only this light, you can’t see it. But it is there. And from this distance, the outline of Sin-Davids, and the way it is built from local coral stone from the Village Quarry, and imported marble from Englund. Isn’t it majestic and frightening, at the same time? In this pitch-blackness?”