Eden Burning

by Belva Plain

  “Thanks, no, I’ll walk. Need the exercise.”

  Selfish of him, he thought, going on toward home. But some instinct, and rightly or wrongly he trusted instinct, told him it would be a mistake for his wife to go. She was already drugged on beauty. The beauty of the natural world attracted her, but the charm of expensive objects enchanted her. And Doris would be buying her way through France. It wouldn’t be fair or wise to tempt Désirée with things she couldn’t own and never would own. This was his one reservation about the friendship between the two wives, a friendship for which, otherwise, he would have been totally thankful.

  He passed Da Cunha’s, where in the window there stood, as it had for several weeks past, a handsome five-branched silver candelabrum. Several times Désirée had casually pointed it out. He wished he could give it to her. Probably she couldn’t help desiring such things any more than he could help wanting books, or someone else wanting music or women or drink.

  Lovely Désirée! Again he marveled, again he wondered, at the peculiar chemistry which draws us one to another. Her blackness? As expiation for a subconscious pull toward whiteness? Ah, you analyze yourself too much, Patrick! He knew he did; he had been told he did. By whom? By Francis? Or had it been Kate? Funny how sometimes he confused the two of them in his mind and memory, even though the one had been removed from his life.

  He went by the library and the courthouse. Just beyond lay Boys’ Secondary. He stopped to catch his breath after the climb uphill. A mango dropped at his feet, just missing him with its thick splash of yellow juice, and his mind went back to the mangoes in the yard of the little house at Sweet Apple. Then he thought of Agnes. He had been in Martinique a few months ago; it would soon be time to go again, at least before Christmas. She had failed noticeably. He wondered whether it was simply old age or whether some sickness might be at work within her. Yet her spirits were high, her glance as shrewd and her tongue as sharp as ever.

  “You’re looking thoughtful,” Kate said now, coming up behind him.

  “I was thinking that we’re finally on the way,” he fibbed. They passed Government House. “He’s a magnificent speaker, our honorable member from St. Margaret’s parish. I listened to him last week in the Legislative Council. Very impressive, the whole business, from the silver mace and the bobbies’ silver buttons right up to the queen’s portrait, though that’ll be coming down soon.”

  “Oh, Nicholas knows how, no doubt of that! He’s a vote getter, if ever there was one. The voters will love it that he dresses like a white man, a rich one, and talks like one, too. He’s all the things they never will be and wish they could be.”

  Patrick looked down at the vivid little woman striding beside him.

  “That sounds mighty cynical. I don’t know whether you intended it that way.”

  “I’m not cynical. At least, I don’t want to be. I think I’m a realist, that’s all.”

  “You don’t believe in our party?”

  “Of course I do. The others are a lot of self-seeking country bumpkins who wouldn’t know how to run a government, and luckily, the people have enough horse sense to see it. As for Nicholas, he’s shrewd as they come, but very, very talented. I wouldn’t be working for him if I didn’t think he was.”

  “I’m glad. I would hate to think you didn’t believe in him completely.”

  “Completely? Who said anything about that? I believe in what I see from one day to the next. I can’t look too far ahead. I’ve been disillusioned too often.”

  Francis, Patrick thought, feeling her bitterness as if it were his own. Well, in a different way, it was his own.

  After a moment Kate resumed, “I only wish I could be sure he had your heart.”

  “Who, Nicholas?”

  “Yes. His mind’s brilliant. It’s the heart that worries me.”

  “Oh, Kate, you’re wrong! He’s sterling. I’d stake my life on Nicholas Mebane. The man is sterling.”

  Kate looked up at him. “You’re sterling yourself, Patrick Courzon.” Then, abruptly, “Tell me, how’s Will these days?”

  “The same,” he said soberly.

  Against his will, he was perceiving things he didn’t like in the boy who was now so near to manhood. Something ugly lurked there. Will had a quick brain and extraordinary memory. He could trip Patrick up over a fact or a date, even over something that Patrick himself had once said and then forgotten he had said. “I hate to admit I forgot,” Patrick would tell him, laughing at himself as mature people should be able to do; yet the truth was that he always felt like squirming under the boy’s bold stare.

  Kate spoke gently. “I think of him as an empty vessel. He was dry so long, starved and dry, until you came to fill him.”

  “I try, anyway.”

  “That’s all any of us can do. Try. Well, I’ll leave you. I turn off here.”

  For a minute or two Patrick watched as she went up the lane toward her house. He knew her routine pretty well. First she would let the dogs out for a run, then replenish the bird feeders. She’d go inside and make her supper, which she sometimes ate at the table in the yard, with a book propped in front of the plate. In the evenings she’d write for the Trumpet or work on party accounts or make calls. Now and then, he knew, she’d go out dining and dancing with men who came over from Barbados or someplace, men she’d known through family, probably, or during her married years. What she did with them when they brought her home he didn’t know; it was none of his business. Whether any of them wanted to marry her or whether she would accept if one should, he didn’t know either; he hoped, at least, she had mostly got over Francis. She never said. But she was being wasted, that was one thing he did know. She was being awfully wasted. This was no life for a woman like her.

  Thinking of women, he thought as always of Désirée. Thank God, her life was not being wasted! She held him with a thousand strands of habit and affection and sex still marvelously fresh; he chafed sometimes, complaining silently about one thing or another, yet knew how tightly he was held.

  He smiled a little at himself and his memories. He remembered how he used to tease her over her devotion to the house. The truth was, he had grown most happily accustomed to the orderly comforts that she provided, the cleanliness of the linens and the pretty, appetizing supper table. More than that, much more than that, he had, quite simply, grown accustomed to her spirit, so that without her listening ear, her trust, her little touch of worldliness, her pleasure in every day, without all these and the balm of her understanding, he would have been parched grass; a withering tree. Yes.

  And he went on now past the central square where Nelson stood with pigeons soiling his shoulders, past the careenage and out toward the savanna, where half a dozen glossy horses were being exercised by their grooms. On the veranda at Cade’s Hotel a pair of pink-cheeked old Englishmen in white suits were enjoying their whiskey and soda. One recognized them as retired civil servants, taking a respite from the English winter. He reflected that someone who hadn’t seen Covetown for fifty years or more would probably find very little changed: the boats, the horses, and the winter visitors would all be familiar.

  Yet change was here, not only the proud promise of meetings like this morning’s, but another kind, tangible and visible, a creeping tide.

  From where he stood the roof of the Lunabelle Hotel rose squarely over distant trees. A long concrete rectangle, a slab with hard edges, it was a machine-age intrusion upon the natural world of curves, in which hills arched against the sky and coves were scallops in the cliffs. He stayed there, looking at the tasteless thing which, not yet one year old, had already surrounded itself with its own small slum. A prediction of what might come unless it were controlled somehow; he must talk seriously to Nicholas.

  In back of the Lunabelle a shantytown had sprung up. Here lived the little army that serviced the hotel, people who had come in from the villages looking for something better than what they’d had, but were now worse off. Here were no garden patches and no shade. In the g
laring heat their shacks stood naked among pools of stagnant water, foul and glistening like sores on the skin. The place had acquired an unofficial name: the Trenches. In Jamaica, in Kingston, he had seen such a place, worse only because it was larger and, being older, had had more time in which decay could spread and young men, idle and angry, could collect, followed inevitably by all the vices.

  Will had friends in the Trenches. The boy was so secretive! You couldn’t ever get at him. Remote, and perceptive enough to understand that with his secrecy he was inflicting hurt, he didn’t care whether he hurt or not! Patrick had so wanted to love him, did love him, and was not loved in return. He wasn’t hated either, simply disregarded, mostly in that cool way just short of disrespect, as Will stood off, thinking his own amused and scornful thoughts.

  In the yard, Laurine and Maisie were sitting among their friends talking about whatever it was that girls talked about, clothes probably.… They gave him joy, his girls. They were fond of him, which was, when you came down to it, most of the reward that parents wanted: that their children should be fond of them.

  He kissed them. “Where’s Will?” he asked.

  “Back in the shed.”

  He needn’t have asked. Will and his steel band had struck up again behind the garage. They had constructed their instruments out of spare parts, mostly rusty. Will played the tock-tock, the most important of the instruments. He had made it himself out of the bottom half of a kerosene tin. One of the boys had made a tom-tom out of goatskins and a rum barrel. Another had made his own shack-shack out of a bamboo cylinder filled with pebbles.

  Patrick sat down on an upended barrel and watched. The watching was as much a part of the entertainment as the listening; the concentrated vigor of the players, their rhythm and sway were a dance in themselves. Sometimes on Saturday nights he’d pass the dance hall near the wharf where the young hung out and he’d wonder whether the girls in their earrings and bright skirts knew that they were basically dancing the calinda, brought out of Africa. Perhaps they did know. The racket now in the shed assaulted his eardrums, but his feet were swinging in time, nevertheless.

  “That’s great!” he cried when the music stopped and the boys began to leave. “You practically set fire to that thing, Will! Almost burned me to a crisp just watching you!”

  Tom Folsom poked Will. “Oh, when it’s setting fires, Will sure knows how! Always did. Biggest and best fires of all time.” He bent over, laughing.

  Will’s fist struck Tom a fearful blow between the shoulders. “Damn fool! Damn loudmouth son of a bitch of an ass!”

  Tom straightened and sobered, his eyes aghast. And while Patrick stood astonished, the two boys stood staring at each other until, flinching under Will’s fury, Tom picked up his books and sidled out.

  “What the devil was that about?” Patrick asked.

  “Nothing important.”

  “You were pretty mad about something unimportant.”

  Not answering, Will busied himself with a pile of music sheets. Patrick frowned, trying mentally to reconstruct the swift byplay.

  “Fire. He said something about you setting fires.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s an idiot.”

  “One of your best friends, isn’t he?”

  “So?”

  There was a silence. Something lurked in the air. Something serious was being hidden. The least suspicious of men, nevertheless Patrick made a connection.

  “You ever set a fire anywhere? Tell me, Will.”

  “Sure. Kids make bonfires all the time, don’t they?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Oh, it was preposterous, what he had meant, too hideous to consider, and yet he was considering it!

  “Then what did you mean?” Will looked up boldly.

  “‘Biggest fire of all time.’ Isn’t that what he said? Like the one—at Eleuthera, maybe?”

  “Bullshit!”

  “I’m asking you, Will: did you have anything to do with that?”

  “I did not!”

  “Is that the truth, Will?” Patrick’s palms were sweating. “Because if you had anything to do with that, I’d not only have to give you up to the law, I’d have to give up on you. And that’d break my heart.”

  “I said no, didn’t I? What more do you want?”

  I want to believe you, Patrick thought. Please God that you’re telling the truth. Those hard, bright eyes of yours—I never really meet them, never get behind them. How can I know who you are?

  And taking out a handkerchief, he wiped his hands, swallowed a painful lump in his throat, made an inner resolution to go forward hopefully, and changed the subject.

  “We had a fruitful meeting this morning. Thought maybe you’d like to hear about it.” Make contact with the boy, share your interests with cheer. Bury those ugly fears. “Nicholas will be leaving soon for the constitutional conference in London. When he comes back he’ll have it all signed, sealed, and delivered. Independence.” The word fitted the mouth, a crisp, snappy, prideful word. He smiled, wanting to coax a smile from Will, but none came.

  Will asked only, “And then?”

  “Well, elections, of course. The New Day will surely get in, unless there’s some unexpected coalition of all the splinter parties. No, we’ll surely get in,” he repeated, adding brightly, “and then our work begins.”

  “What part will you play?” Will inquired.

  “Nicholas said this morning he’d want me to be minister for education, which would suit me fine. It’s not all that political, or shouldn’t be! I won’t have a lot of speeches to make, thank goodness. Although I suppose I’ll be asked to do a couple here and there during the elections…. Well, I’ll manage that if I must.” Feeling enthusiasm, he sounded cheerful to his own ears.

  Will didn’t answer. It could be like pulling teeth to get him to talk, but Patrick, accustomed to this reluctance, was usually patient. When a minute or two had passed in silence, however, he became exasperated.

  “Well, haven’t you anything to say?” he demanded.

  “Yes. I spit on your elections.”

  Patrick was astonished. “Spit on them?”

  “They have no meaning, your silly elections. They’re just the old colonial farce with different actors. We’ll still have the bosses. The white man will still have the money and people like you will front for him. Read Fanon. Learn all about it.”

  “I’ve read Fanon. There are truths in him and untruths. He’s too angry, too violent for me.” Patrick paused. “Frankly, I think you’re rather young and inexperienced to have a valid opinion about Fanon.”

  Will looked at him. Often his eyes would slide away in avoidance, but at other times he would switch his head about like a whip so that the eyes came straight at you, narrowed and intent, with a cat’s cold, powerful stare. You’d grow uncomfortable and look away, then be ashamed for allowing yourself to be intimidated by a boy less than half your age.

  “I only meant,” Patrick said delicately now, “you haven’t had enough time to learn and judge, to evaluate and weigh. These men with the fiery messages—they’re fanatics, Will. They can—and have—lured whole nations to their downfall.”

  “Downfall? How much farther down can we go?”

  “A hell of a lot farther. We can go down into tryanny and bloodshed, a slavery worse than you can imagine. Yes, there’s a lot wrong now, but nothing that can’t decently be fixed. Think about it, Will. Look at your own situation, a nice home, an education—”

  Will interrupted. He had risen and stood tensely, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  “How many of my kind don’t have a ‘nice home’? You think I should be happy because I live here, but I’ll tell you I’m not, I’m ashamed that I do!”

  Patrick felt a rise of pity. Thin and tall now, the passionate youth took on again, for an instant, the guise of the terrified and beaten child, tied to a tree. He spoke quietly.

  “Must you think so hard about these things, Will? You�
��ve so many years ahead to watch the world getting better, to help it if you will. Right now’s the time to enjoy yourself, to—”

  “It’s all right for you to talk. Oh, yes! Pass-for-white! A couple of shades lighter and you’d have it made! What chance is there for anybody like me under this system? Enjoy myself!”

  “That’s foolish talk, exaggerated—”

  “That’s why you used to hang around Francis Luther, until he got rid of you the minute you wouldn’t do what he wanted.”

  “That’s unjust, Will. How can you know what’s inside my head? Or anybody’s? I don’t judge people by their color, I’ll tell you that, though. This morning I was with Kate Tarbox—”

  “A fool of a woman! Can’t have children of her own—”

  “That’s a cruel thing to say.”

  “—and doesn’t want anyone else to have them. ‘Overpopulation,’ she says. Yes, of course, overpopulation of our kind! Genocide and nothing but!”

  Patrick was suddenly exhausted. Rational argument had always been stimulating for him, a pleasurable challenge, but this blind ‘thinking with the blood’ had no direction and no end. It was a tiring, infuriating muddle. He got up.

  “I’ve had enough for now, Will. I’m going inside.”

  He went down the hall. Will’s bedroom door was open, revealing not only the usual jumble of sneakers, books and sundries, but also a large blowup of Che Guevara over the bed. Something new.

  He went to his own room. Désirée was posing in front of the mirror. Her lemon-colored dress smoothed her body like a stocking or a glove. She knew how to move as models do, lithely and lightly.

  “Pretty, Patrick?”

  “Pretty,” he said, for once not caring very much.

  “Doris gave it to me. It’s brand new but it didn’t fit her. You have to go to New York to get clothes like this. If,” she said wistfully, “you can afford them.”

  “Lovely,” he assured her. He had no patience.

  Clarence was reading the paper in the front room. He put it down when Patrick came in.