At the Bottom of the River

by Jamaica Kincaid

  But the light. What of the light?

  Splintered. Died.

  THE YARD

  A mountain. A valley. The shade. The sun.

  A streak of yellow rapidly conquering a streak of green. Blending and separating. Children are so quick: quick to laugh, quick to brand, quick to scorn, quick to lay claim to the open space.

  The thud of small feet running, running. A girl’s shriek—snaps in two. Tumbling, tumbling, the sound of a noon bell. Dry? Wet? Warm? Cold? Nothing is measured here.

  An old treasure rudely broken. See how the amber color fades from its rim. Now it is the home of something dark and moist. An ant walking on a sheet of tin laid bare to the sun—crumbles. But what is an ant? Secreting, secreting; always secreting. The skin of an orange—removed as if it had been a decorous and much-valued belt. A frog, beaded and creased, moldy and throbbing—no more than a single leap in a single day.

  (But at last, at last, to whom will this view belong? Will the hen, stripped of its flesh, its feathers scattered perhaps to the four corners of the earth, its bones molten and sterilized, one day speak? And what will it say? I was a hen? I had twelve chicks? One of my chicks, named Beryl, took a fall?)

  Many secrets are alive here. A sharp blow delivered quicker than an eye blink. A sparrow’s eggs. A pirate’s trunk. A fisherman’s catch. A tree, bearing fruits. A bullying boy’s marbles. All that used to be is alive here.

  Someone has piled up stones, making a small enclosure for a child’s garden, and planted a child’s flowers, bluebells. Yes, but a child is too quick, and the bluebells fall to the cool earth, dying and living in perpetuity.

  Unusually large berries, red, gold, and indigo, sliced open and embedded in soft mud. The duck’s bill, hard and sharp and shiny; the duck itself, driven and ruthless. The heat, in waves, coiling and uncoiling until everything seeks shelter in the shade.

  Sensing the danger, the spotted beetle pauses, then retraces its primitive crawl. Red fluid rock was deposited here, and now the soil is rich in minerals. On the vines, the ripening vegetables.

  But what is a beetle? What is one fly? What is one day? What is anything after it is dead and gone? Another beetle will pause, sensing the danger. Another day, identical to this day … then the rain, beating the underbrush hard, causing the turtle to bury its head even more carefully. The stillness comes and the stillness goes. The sun. The moon.

  Still the sounds of voices, muted and then clear, emptying and filling up, saying:

  “What was the song they used to sing and made fists and pretended to be Romans?”

  WINGLESS

  The small children are reading from a book filled with simple words and sentences.

  “‘Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, whose name was Tom.’”

  “‘He cried half his time, and laughed the other half.’”

  “‘You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking down: but Tom was not.’”

  “‘You, of course, would have been very cold sitting there on a September night, without the least bit of clothes on your wet back; but Tom was a water-baby, and therefore felt cold no more than a fish.’”

  The children have already learned to write their names in beautiful penmanship. They have already learned how many farthings make a penny, how many pennies make a shilling, how many shillings make a pound, how many days in April, how many stone in a ton. Now they singsong here and tumble there, tearing skirts with swift movements. Must Dulcie really cry after thirteen of her play chums have sat on her? There, Dulcie, there. I myself have been kissed by many rude boys with small, damp lips, on their way to boys’ drill. I myself have humped girls under my mother’s house. But I swim in a shaft of light, upside down, and I can see myself clearly, through and through, from every angle. Perhaps I stand on the brink of a great discovery, and perhaps after I have made my great discovery I will be sent home in chains. Then again, perhaps my life is as predictable as an insect’s and I am in my pupa stage. How low can I sink, then? That woman over there, that large-bottomed woman, is important to me. It’s for her that I save up my sixpences instead of spending for sweets. Is this a love like no other? And what pain have I caused her? And does she love me? My needs are great, I can see. But there are the children again (of which I am one), shrieking, whether in pain or pleasure I cannot tell. The children, who are beautiful in groupings of three, and who only last night pleaded with their mothers to sing softly to them, are today maiming each other. The children at the end of the day have sour necks, frayed hair, dirt under their fingernails, scuffed shoes, torn clothing. And why? First they must be children.

  I shall grow up to be a tall, graceful, and altogether beautiful woman, and I shall impose on large numbers of people my will and also, for my own amusement, great pain. But now. I shall try to see clearly. I shall try to tell differences. I shall try to distinguish the subtle gradations of color in fine cloth, of fingernail length, of manners. That woman over there. Is she cruel? Does she love me? And if not, can I make her? I am not yet tall, beautiful, graceful, and able to impose my will. Now I swim in a shaft of light and can see myself clearly. The schoolhouse is yellow and stands among big green-leaved trees. Inside are our desks and a woman who wears spectacles, playing the piano. Is a girl who can sing “Gaily the troubadour plucked his guitar” in a pleasing way worthy of being my best friend? There is the same girl, unwashed and glistening, setting traps for talking birds. Is she to be one of my temptations? Oh, this must be a love like no other. But how can my limbs that hate be the same limbs that love? How can the same limbs that make me blind make me see? I am defenseless and small. I shall try to see clearly. I shall try to separate and divide things as if they were sums, as if they were drygoods on the grocer’s shelves. Is this my mother? Is she here to embarrass me? What shall I say about her behind her back, when she isn’t there, long after she has gone? In her smile lies her goodness. Will I always remember that? Am I horrid? And if so, will I always be that way? Not getting my own way causes me to fret so, I clench my fist. My charm is limited, and I haven’t learned to smile yet. I have picked many flowers and then deliberately torn them to shreds, petal by petal. I am so unhappy, my face is so wet, and still I can stand up and walk and tell lies in the face of terrible punishments. I can see the great danger in what I am—a defenseless and pitiful child. Here is a list of what I must do. So is my life to be like an apprenticeship in dressmaking, a thorny path to carefully follow or avoid? Inside, standing around the spectacled woman playing the piano, the children are singing a song in harmony. The children’s voices: pinks, blues, yellows, violets, all suspended. All is soft, all is embracing, all is comforting. And yet I myself, at my age, have suffered so. My tears, big, have run down my cheeks in uneven lines—my tears, big, and my hands too small to hold them. My tears have been the result of my disappointments. My disappointments stand up and grow ever taller. They will not be lost to me. There they are. Let me pin tags on them. Let me have them registered, like newly domesticated animals. Let me cherish my disappointments, fold them up, tuck them away, close to my breast, because they are so important to me.

  But again I swim in a shaft of light, upside down, and I can see myself clearly, through and through, from every angle. Over there, I stand on the brink of a great discovery, and it is possible that like an ancient piece of history my presence will leave room for theories. But who will say? For days my body has been collecting water, but still I won’t cry. What is that to me? I am not yet a woman with a terrible and unwanted burden. I am not yet a dog with a cruel and unloving master. I am not yet a tree growing on barren and bitter land. I am not yet the shape of darkness in a dungeon.

  Where? What? Why? How then? Oh, that!

  I am primitive and wingless.

  * * *

  “Don’t eat the strings on bananas—they will wrap around your heart and kill you.”

  “Oh. Is that true?”

  “No.”

  “Is that something to tell childr
en?”

  “No. But it’s so funny. You should see how you look trying to remove all the strings from the bananas with your monkey fingernails. Frightened?”

  “Frightened. Very frightened.”

  * * *

  Today, keeping a safe distance, I followed the woman I love when she walked on a carpet of pond lilies. As she walked, she ate some black nuts, pond-lily black nuts. She walked for a long time, saying what must be wonderful things to herself. Then in the middle of the pond she stopped, because a man had stood up suddenly in front of her. I could see that he wore clothes made of tree bark and sticks in his ears. He said things to her and I couldn’t make them out, but he said them to her so forcefully that drops of brown water sprang from his mouth. The woman I love put her hands over her ears, shielding herself from the things he said. Then he put wind in his cheeks and blew himself up until in the bright sun he looked like a boil, and the woman I love put her hands over her eyes, shielding herself from the way he looked. Then, instead of removing her cutlass from the folds of her big and beautiful skirt and cutting the man in two at the waist, she only smiled—a red, red smile—and like a fly he dropped dead.

  * * *

  The sea, the shimmering pink-colored sand, the swimmers with hats, two people walking arm in arm, talking in each other’s face, dots of water landing on noses, the sea spray on ankles, on overdeveloped calves, the blue, the green, the black, so deep, so smooth, a great and swift undercurrent, glassy, the white wavelets, a storm so blinding that the salt got in our eyes, the sea turning inside out, shaking everything up like a bottle with sediment, a boat with two people heaving a brown package overboard, the mystery, the sharp teeth of that yellow spotted eel, the wriggle, the smooth lines, open mouths, families of great noisy birds, families of great noisy people, families of biting flies, the sea, following me home, snapping at my heels, all the way to the door, the sea, the woman.

  “I have frightened you? Again, you are frightened of me?”

  “You have frightened me. I am very frightened of you.”

  “Oh, you should see your face. I wish you could see your face. How you make me laugh.”

  * * *

  And what are my fears? What large cows! When I see them coming, shall I run and hide face down in the gutter? Are they really cows? Can I stand in a field of tall grass and see nothing for miles and miles? On the other hand, the sky, which is big and blue as always, has its limits. This afternoon the wind is loud as in a hurricane. There isn’t enough light. There is a noise—I can’t tell where it is coming from. A big box has stamped on it “Handle Carefully.” I have been in a big white building with curving corridors. I have passed a dead person. There is the woman I love, who is so much bigger than me.

  * * *

  That mosquito … now a stain on the wall. That lizard, running up and down, up and down … now so still. That ant, bloated and sluggish, a purseful of eggs in its jaws … now so still. That blue-and-green bird, head held aloft, singing … now so still. That land crab, moving slowly, softly, even beautifully, sideways … but now so still. That cricket, standing on a tree stem, so ugly, so revolting, I am made so unhappy … now so still. That mongoose, now asleep in its hole, now stealing the sleeping chickens, moving so quickly, its eyes like two grains of light … now so still. That fly, moving so contentedly from tea bun to tea bun … now so still. That butterfly, moving contentedly from beautiful plant to beautiful plant in the early-morning sun … now so still. That tadpole, swimming playfully in the shallow water … now so still.

  I shall cast a shadow and I shall remain unaware.

  My hands, brown on this side, pink on this side, now indiscriminately dangerous, now vagabond and prodigal, now cruel and careless, now without remorse or forgiveness, but now innocently slipping into a dress with braided sleeves, now holding an ice-cream cone, now reaching up with longing, now clasped in prayer, now feeling for reassurance, now pleading my desires, now pleasing, and now, even now, so still in bed, in sleep.

  HOLIDAYS

  I sit on the porch facing the mountains. I sit on a wicker couch looking out the window at a field of day lilies. I walk into a room where someone—an artist, maybe—has stored some empty canvases. I drink a glass of water. I put the empty glass, from which I have just drunk the water, on a table. I notice two flies, one sitting on top of the other, flying around the room. I scratch my scalp, I scratch my thighs. I lift my arms up and stretch them above my head. I sigh. I spin on my heels once. I walk around the dining-room table three times. I see a book lying on the dining-room table, and I pick it up. The book is called An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Butterflies and Moths. I leaf through the book, looking only at the pictures, which are bright and beautiful. From my looking through the book, the word “thorax” sticks in my mind. “Thorax,” I say, “thorax, thorax,” I don’t know how many times. I bend over and touch my toes. I stay in that position until I count to one hundred. As I count, I pretend to be counting off balls on a ball frame. As I count the balls, I pretend that they are the colors red, green, blue, and yellow. I walk over to the fireplace. Standing in front of the fireplace, I try to write my name in the dead ashes with my big toe. I cannot write my name in the dead ashes with my big toe. My big toe, now dirty, I try to clean by rubbing it vigorously on a clean royal-blue rug. The royal-blue rug now has a dark spot, and my big toe has a strong burning sensation. Oh, sensation. I am filled with sensation. I feel—oh, how I feel. I feel, I feel, I feel. I have no words right now for how I feel. I take a walk down the road in my bare feet. I feel the stones on the road, hard and sharp against my soft, almost pink soles. Also, I feel the hot sun beating down on my bare neck. It is midday. Did I say that? Must I say that? Oh me, oh my. The road on which I walk barefoot leads to the store—the village store. Should I go to the village store or should I not go to the village store? I can if I want. If I go to the village store, I can buy a peach. The peach will be warm from sitting in a box in the sun. The peach will not taste sweet and the peach will not taste sour. I will know that I am eating a peach only by looking at it. I will not go to the store. I will sit on the porch facing the mountains.

  I sit on the porch facing the mountains. The porch is airy and spacious. I am the only person sitting on the porch. I look at myself. I can see myself. That is, I can see my chest, my abdomen, my legs, and my arms. I cannot see my hair, my ears, my face, or my collarbone. I can feel them, though. My nose is moist with sweat. Locking my fingers, I put my hands on my head. I see a bee, a large bumblebee, flying around aimlessly. I remove my hands from resting on my head, because my arms are tired. But also I have just remembered a superstition: if you sit with your hands on your head, you will kill your mother. I have many superstitions. I believe all of them. Should I read a book? Should I make myself something to drink? But what? And hot or cold? Should I write a letter? I should write a letter. I will write a letter. “Dear So-and-So, I am … and then I got the brilliant idea … I was very amusing … I had enough, I said … I saw what I came to see, I thought … I am laughing all the way to the poorhouse. I grinned … I just don’t know anymore. I remain, etc.” I like my letter. Perhaps I shall keep my letter to myself. I fold up the letter I have just written and put it between the pages of the book I am trying to read. The book is lying in my lap. I look around me, trying to find something on which to focus my eyes. I see ten ants. I count them as they wrestle with a speck of food. I am not fascinated by that. I see my toes moving up and down as if they were tapping out a beat. Why are my toes tapping? I am fascinated by that. A song is going through my mind. It goes, “There was a man from British Guiana, Who used to play a piana. His foot slipped, His trousers ripped…” I see, I see. Yes. Now. Suddenly I am tired. I am yawning. Perhaps I will take a nap. Perhaps I will take a long nap. Perhaps I will take a nice long nap. Perhaps, while taking my nap, I will have a dream, a dream in which I am not sitting on the porch facing the mountains.

  * * *

  “I have the most sensible small su
itcase in New York.

  “I have the most sensible small car in New York.

  “I will put my sensible small suitcase in my sensible small car and drive on a sensible and scenic road to the country.

  “In the country, I live in a sensible house.

  “I am a sensible man.

  “It is summer.

  “Look at that sunset. Too orange.

  “These pebbles. Not pebbly enough.

  “A house with interesting angles.

  “For dinner I will eat scallops. I love the taste of scallops.

  “These are my chums—the two boys and the girl. My chums are the most beautiful chums. The two boys know lumberjacks in Canada, and the girl is fragile. After dinner, my chums and I will play cards, and while playing cards we will tell each other jokes—such funny jokes—but later, thinking back, we will be so pained, so unsettled.”

  * * *

  The deerflies, stinging and nesting in wet, matted hair; broken bottles at the bottom of the swimming hole; mosquitoes; a family of skunks eating the family garbage; a family of skunks spraying the family dog; washing the family dog with cans of tomato juice to remove the smell of the skunks; a not-too-fast-moving woodchuck crossing the road; running over the not-too-fast-moving woodchuck; the camera forgotten, exposed in the hot sun; the prism in the camera broken, because the camera has been forgotten, exposed in the hot sun; spraining a finger while trying to catch a cricket ball; spraining a finger while trying to catch a softball; stepping on dry brambles while walking on the newly cut hayfields; the hem of a skirt caught in a barbed-wire fence; the great sunstroke, the great pain, the not at all great day spent in bed.

  * * *

  Inside, the house is still. Outside, the blind man takes a walk. It is midday, and the blind man casts a short, fat shadow as he takes a walk. The blind man is a young man, twenty-seven. The blind man has been blind for only ten years. The blind man was infatuated with the driver of his school bus, a woman. No. The blind man was in love with the driver of his school bus, a woman. The blind man saw the driver of his school bus, a woman, kissing a man. The blind man killed the driver of his school bus, a woman, and then tried to kill himself. He did not die, so now he is just a blind man. The blind man is pale and sickly-looking. He doesn’t return a greeting. Everybody knows this, and they stay away from him. Not even the dog pays any attention to his comings and goings.