The Austin Clarke Library

by Austin Clarke

  She looked at me again and again, and then she took me into her bedroom, and showed me my reflection in the life-sized looking glass. Back in the living room, the white, sparkling white, blanco-cleaned cork hat with the green undersides was clamped on my head. I was now ready for the Easter world!

  “Since you not riding that bicycle outta here, this blessed Easter morning, I am going to give you twelve cent to put in your pocket. Now, walk down. I want you to look fresh when you enter that cathedral church. Now, seeing that it is Easter, and you have friends, you must buy a penny in sweets . . . No, you better buy lozengers to make your breath smell nice; and a pack o’ sweeties . . . For every child like sweeties, and you ain’t no different. And keep the rest of the change for bus fare back home. You could afford to climb in a crowded bus, after church. It don’t matter then if your trousers crease-up a trifle. Now, come back inside this house looking tidy. Not as if you went through a pig mouth, you hear me?”

  She put the twelve-cent piece into my hand, as if it was the last part of her fortune, and which I was to cherish for the rest of my life. I looked up at her, so large, so beautiful, so lovely, and so black—a mysterious queen or something, from Africa, with her hair braided neatly and long; with her old white dress, which she washed three times a week, clutching to the feminine twists and turns of her full body. She looked at me, and she looked at my thoughts; and she smiled. She drew me close, close to her breasts and her rolling soft stomach, where I could feel the love and the blood pumping through her body. And she kissed me on each cheek and said, in a voice that came from the bottom of her heart and her belly, “I praise the Lord that I didn’t throw you in no blasted dry well when your father left me pregnunt with you, seven-eight years ago in this terrible world with not even a half-cent to buy milk with. God bless yuh, son. I proud o’ you!”

  I was ready to go now. Outside the morning was glorious. The sun had eventually decided to come up. And I could see its rays setting the tops of the canes on fire with a golden flame. And the dogs and the chickens and the small children were quarrelling for their breakfast. My own breakfast felt good and heavy and safe in my belly.

  “When you go ’cross the road, and you see Jonesie, say goodmorning. Say goodmorning to Stella. And to Lavignia. I am going to call Lavignia now, and let she see how nice you look.” And she moved from me, and went into her bedroom, and called out for Lavignia.

  “Why you don’t let me say my prayers to God in peace this blasted morning, eh, Mistress Carlton? I here on my two knees, before God, asking Him, who the hell He intend to send to lend me a shilling to buy milk with this Easter morning?”

  “He coming out now,” my mother said, with pride.

  “Who? God?”

  “The bridegroom coming! Come outside, and see how he look.”

  And Lavignia, apparently convinced that her prayers would be in vain, left her spiritual complaining and came out in front of her house to see me dressed like a little doctor.

  “Oh Christ, Mistress Carlton! This boychild o’ yourn look first class! Boy, you should be eternally grateful you have such a nice mother. I hopes to Christ you don’t intend to forget this mother o’ yourn when you come to be a man, eh? ’Cause if you do, the birds o’ vengeance going pick-out your blasted eye!”

  And I had to answer Lavignia with as much respect as I would have answered my mother, and say, “No, please, Miss Lavignia. I won’t never forget my mother.”

  “Good,” she concluded, and adjusted my tie, although it was already adjusted properly. “Now, you go on down in the name o’ the Lord, and sing that solo like if you is a angel. Mistress Carlton, wait, you give this boy some fresh crispy biscuits to help out with the voice? Biscuits good for the voice. If you don’t have fresh ones, I have some. Come, boy, take these biscuits. They does do wonders for yuh voice. Eat them whilst you’s singing, and the people in that cathedral church going think that you is Michael, the Archangel!”

  I took the biscuits and mumbled on them, all the way down the road with the canes bordering it, mumbling, mumbling, trying to take my mind off the torment of the shoes and the threat of the canes. But the canes moaned and the shoes burned.

  I walked in the middle of the creaking road, forcing my mind from my present predicament and focusing it on the musty-smelling Changing Room in the loft of the Cathedral. I could see the ruffs sparkling white. I could smell the starch in them; and they were ironed so many times by Henry’s mother that they shone, and when you ran your fingers over them they were as smooth as glass. And the crimson robe. And the white linen surplice, all made to fit me, all mine, so long as I remained with an unbroken voice in the choir of this heavenly Cathedral. And I could see myself coming down the steps from the Changing Room with the other choristers, and standing at the entrance of the church, while the Lord Bishop and his assistants waited for a few late worshippers to settle in their seats. And in my mind, I could see the faces of that vast congregation: almost half the population of the island, who came to the Cathedral in droves whenever the Bishop was preaching. Some came to church as they would every Sunday, because they liked church; others, because they liked the resplendent robes, with the hoods of the universities of the ministers—all colours under the sun; so pretty and so impressive; and so learned. And more than once I myself wanted to become a minister in God’s Church of England, to swish my long, flowing robes, and adjust my hood and hat and large ruby Cyclops ring every second of the service; and pour communion wine at the rails; and mumble those few important indistinguishable words, while the sinners knelt before me, and prayed to me, and asked me forgiveness, because they could not see God, nor talk to Him, unless they had first asked me forgiveness, and recognized me as His right-hand man.

  Now, I was walking up the aisle in my mind . . . so long and so smooth, with its marble shining from the long underpaid hours of scrubbing by the cathedral sexton, my voice warbling; and the men and women at the ends of the pews nearest the choir nodding their heads, and complimenting. How they would raise their heads from their unmelodic hymn books, and nod, and turn slightly with their eyes to locate the voice; and I, seeing them, would raise my voice a little bit higher, a little bit sweeter, until the organ seemed silent and voiceless as the dumb man who opened his mouth and sang aloud his soundless praise to God, every Sunday, at matins. And then my solo. The old heads would be nodding, and smiling, because they could not applaud in God’s presence, in God’s church. And the organist, like a spy, glowering at me through his motor-car mirror above the organ keys, anticipating a wrong key, or a blunder . . . and Henry, envious with praise.

  And then, when it is all finished, the choir, and the Lord Bishop, and the ministers walking down the whipped, chastised church, with the congregation dumb and washed out by the sermon and the presence in the church of Christ’s body come from the dead . . . rejoicing, because this is Easter.

  And then the benediction said by the Bishop, and the sign of the cross, which he always made as if he was chasing flies from his face; and the limp people kneeling, to say a last something, a word or two, in thanks to God.

  I passed the first street lamp and continued into the desolate black morning, cramped by the thick, unsympathetic fields of canes which refused to let the sun through to keep me company. On and on, in perpetual misery from my shoes. At last I had to give in. I took them off. I tied the laces together. I strung the shoes around my neck. I pushed the stockings into my pockets. My feet were so numb they felt they had disappeared in seawater. And then I ran, hurrying to the Cathedral before the street became too crowded, before I could be seen, and detected, and laughed at. But nothing happened all the way.

  I reached the vicinity of the Cathedral: the tall tombstones like diminutive skyscrapers, and the trees in the graveyard of the church, and the black birds playing hide-and-seek from tree to tree, and the houses coming alive . . . and finally, the Cathedral itself, facing me like my mother, unapproving.

  I would have to put my shoes and stockings
on before I could cross the threshold of the West Portico. But I had to find some place to sit down, first.

  The bells were ringing now. I looked up to see them, and they filled my heart with joy. And I yearned to be in the choir, in the chancel, singing my solo.

  The congregation was arriving. From where I stood, outside the church wall, I could see women dressed in the white of angels: white hats, white shoes, as if they were proud to be part of this great resurrection morning, as if they had remained new brides, new virgins, all their lives. They were standing in the West Portico, waiting for the service to begin, waiting for their friends and enemies to see their new clothes, waiting for the men to pass and whisper, little controversial words for their ears. And most of the men, in the black of the funeral, wearing their suits of long-ago black, which fitted them like coats of armour, and walking stiff and proud in the morning sunlight spinning through the lazy leaves—they hovered around the North Portico, talking about the test match which ended in a draw.

  I could see Henry, my arch-enemy, standing near them, and with him were some of the boys in the choir. I lingered near the tall wall that kept the Cathedral hearing-distance away from the fish-cries and the whore-cries of the nearby market and the street of floating women. How was I to get into the churchyard and sit on a tombstone and put my shoes on my feet again?

  The organ began to rant and swell, breathing its powerful cruel chords into the ears of the disinterested congregation. Everything was fresh. Everything was new. The organ was breathing now like a monster. Somebody important was arriving. From where I stood, looking over the tip of the wall, over the tops of the short croton trees, and over the head of the white angel, silent and stationary in polished marble, I could barely make out the roosters sitting on the helmets of the governor of the island and his party. The Lord Bishop, with his robes fluttering like the Union Jack in the breeze, came out to meet His Excellency at the North Portico. I could see the prime minister of the island and some of his ministers standing uncomfortable in their official clothes; and the lords and ladies of the island, all untitled, but all rich and white, coming to this cathedral church old as Christopher Columbus, so early in the morning. And they all seemed half asleep to me.

  As they disappeared into the church, I threw my shoes over the church wall and jumped behind them, onto the soft dew in the grass, near a dead sailor who slept in a tomb. It said he was an ensign.

  They were coming towards me now, coming up the aisle, as I peered through the west window. The important people, and the choir. I saw Henry grinning into the pages of his hymn book. I saw the choir pass the multitude of people of all colours: the black, the brown, the light-skinned, the light brown, and approach the front pews of the church, where the Governor and the white people and the rich black people always sat.

  I was fighting with my shoes.

  And as they filed into their seats and into their stalls, all that was left was the wide white aisle, like a swath in a cane field, running straight out into the road, through the east gate.

  There was a beggar-man standing in the silhouette of the gate, in the road, drinking from a small paper bag, with which he was conducting as the music romped and played.

  I was fighting with my shoes.

  And all the time my tears were falling on the clean, freshly ironed cotton shirt, and into the shoes, as I tried in vain to get them back on my feet. And when I looked up and the film of sadness dropped with the tears, and I could see, I saw Henry step into the middle of the aisle, in the chancel, and my heart broke. And straightaway I saw my mother, standing at the entrance of the gate, waiting: waiting to examine my shoes.

  A SHORT

  DRIVE

  This Saturday afternoon at three, with the first real light, and the first cleansed skies washed so blue after the rains, there was a constant breeze and upon the breeze came the coolness and the strong smell of patchouli and summer flowers. It was tantalizing as the smell of saltiness and of fresh fish brought out of the sea on a beach in Barbados. Gwen was a woman with a touch of this saltiness on her breath. And the woman back in Toronto, on Lascelles Boulevard, she too carried a trace of the smell; but her real smell was of lavender.

  Calvin sat nobly and like an emperor, stiff, with the pride of new ownership, behind the steering wheel, reduced to the size of a toy wheel against his imposing size, of the Volkswagen which he had just bought, “hot,” he said, for seventy-five dollars. He called it his “Nazzi bug.” And he too looked clean, as the skies. His skin, on his arms up to his elbow; his neck, right into the V of the black dashiki; his legs from below the knee and down to his toes, all this flesh was “oiled, Jack,” he said. He had “shampooled” his round-shaped Afro, and it was glistening although he had used Duke Greaseless Hairdressing for Men. He had given me some, but my hair did not accept the same shine as his. He looked clean. And he looked like a choice piece of pork seasoned and ready for the greased pan and the oven. He would not like this comparison. But I have to say he looked clean.

  His legs were thin and had no calf. This was the first time I had seen Calvin dressed in anything but grey-green plaid trousers and blue blazer. Today, he was in cut-down jeans, which gave me the first glimpse of his legs. I could not believe his long stories over beer in frosted mugs and Polish sausages, about playing running back for the college football team. The black dashiki with its V-neck and sleeves trimmed in black, red, and green, tempered somewhat the informality of his casual dress.

  “Pass the paper bag. Glove compartment. Take a sip, brother,” he said, holding the steering wheel with his left hand, and a Salem in the other. “And keep your motherfucking head down. In case the man.”

  The puttering VW rollicked over the gravel road at a slow pace. Its dashboard was cluttered with additional things which Calvin had installed. Cassette tape deck and eight-track tape deck, AM-FM radio and a shortwave radio, a contraption which looked like a walkie-talkie, and two clocks. One he said gave the time in the Northeast, and the other the time of the South, of the city of Birmingham, Alabama, where we were, and had been together since the beginning of the summer semester. Looking at this dashboard, I was reminded of the glimpse of the cockpit of the plane in which I had travelled two months earlier from Toronto to teach the summer course, in which Calvin was an auditor. I had never heard that term before. But Calvin was my student. And as the heavy Southern nights spun themselves out into greater monotony, he became my guide to where the action was, and almost my friend. The noisy VW moved slowly over the rutted road, and I could see in the distance the sights and substance and large properties, the grace and the Southern architecture in the residential exclusive district we were passing on our right hand. We were driving so slow that I thought it was a mistake, that Calvin lived in this district, and that we would turn into one of the magnificent gates, any minute now. One of these mansions I had passed, in the dark last night, searching in vain for Gwen’s apartment. I now could see the structure I had mistaken for the house. It is a white-painted gazebo with Grecian pillars. And in the gazebo is a child’s swing and a white-painted iron chair and iron table. There is no child in the swing, now.

  “Ripple?” Calvin said, after a large gulp, wiping away the evidence with the hand that held the Salem, just in case. “This is the real shit.” Last night, at the bar with the frosted beer mugs and huge Polish sausages, Calvin ordered two gigantic T-bone steaks and two bottles of Mommessin red wine, both of which I paid for. This Ripple wine, which cut into my throat like a razor blade dipped in molasses, must have been a ritualistic thing to go with his cut-down jeans and the dashiki. Or it might have been cultural. I took a second swig from the bottle hardly concealed in the brown paper bag, and squeezed my eyes shut, and shook my head. “This be the real shit,” he said, disagreeing with my reaction.

  On our left hand, we were passing men, slow as in a shutter speed to capture even the whiz of movement, men bent almost in the shape of hairpins, doubled-up, close to the grass which was so green it looked
blue; they resembled gigantic mushrooms painted onto the sprawling lawns, in their broad-brimmed hats necessary to protect them against the brutality of the sun, and the exhaustion that the humidity seemed to sap from their bodies. I could see them move their hands as if they were playing with the grass, but at the completion of each piston-like action, the effort in their movements appearing slowed down by the encompassing grandeur of the afternoon. When this act of slashing the blades of grass was completed, a shower of grass lifted itself on impact, a blade of steel flashed like lightning, and the grass was scattered harmlessly over the lawn.

  “Mexicans,” Calvin said, as if he didn’t like Mexicans, and with some bitterness; and as if he was pronouncing a sentence not only on them, but also upon their labour.

  They were soaked to their backs and their shapeless clothes made them look Indian to me. But the formlessness of their shirts and pants was the designer’s label of hard labour. They could have been Chinese standing up to their ankles in water and growing rice.

  “Amerrikah! Home of the motherfucking free, Jack!” Calvin said. “This South’s shaped my personality, and this university’s fucked it up, with the result that I don’t know who I am. I was happier in Atlanta on ’Fayette Street in the black area.” I did not know what he was talking about. I was admiring the Mexicans. They looked now like figures in a tableau, painted against the bluegrass lawns; and the manner in which they had thrown out the proficiency and precision of the power mower by the bare strength of their hands made me deaf to Calvin’s protestations. And it seemed that they were showing the superiority of their knowledge of nature and things and their own past, in this temporary but scorching menialness of labour, and expressing their own protest, as Calvin was with words, with the violence of their muscular arms.