Stark born naked, she raced into the bush after Service, who was by then hiding in the crown of the tree. When she found him, she lay at the base of the tree and twined her legs up on the trunk so the pum-pum would be revealed in all its utmost and provoking glory. Service screamed and bawled insults and refused to look at the bared pum-pum. Aloysius caught up with them and begged Inga to come back to the house and stop tormenting Service. The tree bawled that it was a Christian tree and wasn’t born into this world to hold up no pum-pum for nasty peep show. Bushes raised a deafening clamor about Pum-Pum War reaching poor Jamaica.
There had even been worse rows than this one. Fists had flown at least once in the past week, and Service had been knocked senseless by a kung fu kick.
But tonight there was a relative peace and the three of them were sitting around the fire and gabbling about Japanese, mushrooms, woman batty—the sun, moon, and stars.
Inga kept bringing up Busha. She wondered what a white man was doing in this place, why he had such a big house and so much money, why he owned so much land when everyone around him was so poor. Aloysius said that it was all God’s doing. Service said that there was no God, there was only mud.
“There is a God,” Inga disagreed. “But he is not a conceited old man who must always have his own vay. Vhen ve don’t do his vill, he brings us back to his vorld again and again. I have been back many times already.”
“Mud is God,” Service grunted.
“But I vill never do vhat he vants,” she hissed. “He could bring me back a thousand times, he vill never make me do vhat he vishes. I vill do exactly vhat I vant to do. Do you know vhat he’s going to have to do vith me to get his own vay?”
“Vhat?” Aloysius wondered.
“He vill have to kill me completely. But he can’t do that because it would be admitting that I had won. So vhen I die he always sends me back to teach me another lesson.”
“But Inga,” Aloysius said after a pause, “vhy you just don’t do what God vant? Is only right because God is your Maker.”
Her eyes blazed.
“Vhat am I supposed to be, some old man’s toy? You think that’s vhat my vhole life is for? To give some old man pleasure by scratching at his feet? Vhen he valks past this sheep in the pasture she bares teeth at him.”
“Dat is foolishness,” Service grunted. “Man is mud. Woman is mud. Pickney is mud. Goat is mud. Everything is mud. Parson is mud. De Governor General is mud. De Prime Minister is mud. De Queen o’ England is mud. Bumbo is mud and pum-pum and hood is mud and everything else is mud. Mud, mud, and more mud. Dere is no God and dere is no coming back. When you dead you dead and gone back to mud.”
“Everything that lives has a spirit. The spirit always comes back. Sometimes it comes back as an animal. Sometimes it comes back as a human. You kill a goat one day, and the next day it comes back as a baby parson.”
“Listen!” Service said crossly. “When me kill a goat, it not coming back as no rass parson. Me is a butcher. Me is not a parson-maker.”
“The life in the goat vill come back. All life comes back.”
“Rass foolishness! Where you get dis stupid idea? You say so because you never kill a man. If you kill a man you know better.”
“One time I put a bomb in a Paris restaurant that killed fifteen people.”
“But you never kill a man up close.”
“I killed a magistrate in Rome from ten feet away. I shot him in the head at a traffic signal. I saw him blink just before I put the bullet in his brain.”
Service scuffed angrily at the ground. “Why everything I do you must do one better?”
“Because I am a voman, and you are only a stupid man.”
“Stupid man?” Service screeched. “You think me is a stupid man? Well, I kill one better dan you! I kill me father. You kill your father, too?”
“Me God, man!” Aloysius gasped. “Vhy you kill you daddy?” He reached over and touched Service sympathetically on the forearm.
Service pulled his arm fiercely out of reach.
“Don’t touch me, you mad rass! Touch me and I chop up you bumbo!”
Inga said that she did not believe Service had really killed his father, that he was only boasting. Service swore that God could strike him dead if he was lying, and when God did not oblige, he said that it only went to prove he was telling the truth. Aloysius felt pity on any man who carried such a grievous sin on his conscience and was moved by the need to approach and touch and offer comfort. But when he moved closer, Service screamed that he would chop off the first mad finger that touched even a button on his shirt. Inga told Service to shut up, that if he laid a hand on Aloysius she would personally break it.
“Is all right,” Service scowled. “Dat how white woman treat negar man in Jamaica. Negar man used to it by now.”
“Don’t call me a vhite voman, you bitch!” she hissed.
“Service,” Aloysius pleaded, “you know dat Inga don’t love that name. Vhy you call her so all de time?”
“What happen?” Service glowered. “Her skin not white? She not a white woman?”
“Call me that one more time and I show you something good!”
Service shrugged. “Is all right. Me is a negar man. Me used to hard life and wicked treatment. Me no know ’bout anybody else. Me only know ’bout me. Me is a negar man.”
“Me auntie used to tell me dat me daddy was a Coolie,” Aloysius boasted. “So me not whole negar. Me is only half.”
“One thing ’bout tree,” the tree cut in. “Tree no white, tree no black, tree no Chiny, tree no Coolie. Tree is pure tree.”
“Same wid bush,” a bush mumbled. “We is all one wid God family.”
“Praise de Lord!” another bush cried.
“Hallelujah!” a third rejoiced in the distance.
All over the pastureland, other bushes took up the shriek.
“Bumbo,” Aloysius moaned. “Dem think dis is a church.”
“Now him hear bush talking again. Or tree,” Service grunted. “Mad shit!”
They fell silent. Inga stared with longing and hatred at the lights from Busha’s house.
“This is the vay God vorks,” she said, pointing at the lights. “He plant a very rich man right among very poor people. He gives one child cancer and another child genius. He makes one voman beautiful and another voman ugly. Then he forces ugly voman to ride side by side in the same compartment of a train for thirty hours vith the beautiful one. I saw this once myself on a train. The ugly voman hid her face for shame and vouldn’t look at the beautiful one. The beautiful voman polished her nails and read a magazine. I said to them, ‘You know who is doing this, don’t you? It’s God.’ ‘Vat you mean?’ the beautiful voman asked. I said, ‘Look at that ugly voman sitting across from you. You think this is coincidence that you take a train from Istanbul to Paris and right across from you is an ugly voman vhen you are so beautiful?’ The ugly voman got mad at me and rang for the porter and complained that I insulted her. I said to the porter, ‘All I said vas that she is ugly. Look at her yourself. Did I tell a lie?’ The porter called a policeman. Vhen I explained to the policeman vhat I had said, he took me by the elbow and valked me to another compartment. ‘Listen,’ I told him, ‘it’s not my fault. It’s God who does this. If I vere God, I vould make everybody beautiful. I vould be a better God than the one ve have.’ He laughed and said that he vas a Moslem and that he believed that everything vas God’s vill also. ‘My own vife is ugly,’ he said. ‘I always swore I vould marry only a beautiful voman, but then Allah made me to marry my brother’s vidow, who is very ugly. Now even my children are ugly like their mother. But you can’t discuss these religious topics on a train.’
“But that is God’s vay: He always giving us tests just like a schoolmaster. He always grading, grading. In return he expects love, humility, and obedience. If he vere a human being ve vould say that he vas mad and put him in an institution for his own good.”
“I goin’ tell you how my God wo
rk,” Service said. “My God is mud. Mud don’t give nothing, mud don’t take nothing. Mud don’t make nobody sick and mud don’t make nobody better. Mud don’t listen to no preacher and mud don’t hear no prayer. Mud don’t want nothing except more mud. Mud love mud. Mud love mud so much dat all mud want in dis life is dat everything, everybody turn to mud. And sooner or later mud goin’ get him way.”
“Vhat you think, Aloysius?” Inga asked, turning to him where he sat hunched against the trunk of a tree, listening.
“Me brain confuse,” Aloysius mumbled.
“What brain?” Service sneered.
“God do things dat me don’t understand. Every day me see him do things dat make me ask, ‘Why you do dat, God? Vhy you bring trouble ’pon dat poor ole soul?’ Vhen me was little boy, me auntie used to say, Aloysius, you have such a big brain. If you get a chance you bound to be a barrister.’
“But God never give me de chance to reach me ambition in life. God take me outta school before me learn to read and write.
“Den me grow little bigger and me see everybody ’bout me have a mummy and a daddy, and me used to say, ‘God, vhy me don’t have a mummy and a daddy, too? Vhy all me have is one ole aunt? Vhere my mummy, God? Vhere my daddy?’ But him don’t answer me, Inga. Me talk to him till me run outta breath and him still don’t answer me.”
“Mud don’t have tongue to talk to madman.”
“God doesn’t talk to his sheep. He only vants to hear them bleating at night. It helps put him to sleep like the sound of running vater.”
“All me know is dis, Inga: God give me a big brain but him didn’t give me a chance. But if me did get a chance me would be a good barrister. And if me did get a mummy and a daddy me would be a good son. Me vould be de best barrister and de best son in all Jamaica. A-hoa!”
Lost childhood, missed chances came flooding sorrowfully upon Aloysius, making him sob.
“Hush up you mouth, damn madman!”
“You shut up. Let him cry if he vants to cry.”
“Why you must always stick up for him against me, eh? Why you must talk to me like me is a boy?”
“If he vants to cry he can cry. And if you don’t like the vay I talk to you, you can go to hell.”
“God do me plenty injury, Inga,” Aloysius said in a broken voice. “But me not raising me hand against God. Him is still me Daddy.”
They fell silent. The fire cracked the wood like a dog with a bone. Stars hung over the brow of the dark mountain, whose dim outline loomed in the thin blue night.
“I vill have to go home,” Inga said finally. “There is no more money.”
Aloysius leapt to his feet with alarm.
“No, Inga,” he protested. “You can’t go home. Ve is family here. Jamaica is you home. Right, Service? Dis is Inga home, eh?”
“Me no family wid no madman.”
“All three of us can work, Inga,” Aloysius continued hopefully. “Me can get a job with Busha, digging ditch. Service butcher goat. You can work, too.”
“I can’t vork. I am a foreigner. Ve are not allowed to vork vithout permit.”
“Look ’pon me, Inga. Six years now me live in de bush. It not hard. You have fruit to eat, you catch a crab here and dere, you eat fish. You can live so, Inga. Nobody get fat from dis life, but is life. You can get through.”
“Busha sits upon that hill vith all his money vhile we stay down here vith nothing.”
Service squinted at the lights burning outside Busha’s house. “Busha probably don’t even lock up him door at night,” he grunted.
Aloysius walked over to Inga and touched her gently on the shoulder.
“Inga, you mustn’t go. What me goin’ do without you, eh? You is de only family me have.”
“Only pum-pum, you mean,” Service sneered.
“Shut up!” she snapped. “He is being sentimental. I like sometimes sentiment. Be sentimental vith me, Aloysius.”
“Me not sentimental, Inga. You can’t go home. Vhat me goin’ do vithout you? Who me goin’ have to tell joke to? Before you come is only me one and de tree and a whole heap o’ bush. Who me goin’ hold discussion with?”
“Who me goin’ grind?” Service mocked.
“Aloysius!” the tree cried. “Me and you keep company. What happened? You don’t like me company anymore?”
“But you is a tree!” Aloysius cried. “You good company, but you is a tree.”
“Is because me don’t have pum-pum,” the tree said sullenly.
“No, man!” Aloysius replied.
“Is true!” the tree screamed spitefully. “All dem night and day dat you and me hold discussion, everything all right. But now pum-pum come ’pon de scene, everything change us. Now everything is pum-pum, pum-pum, pum-pum. Aloysius, remember what de parson dem say ’bout pum-pum.”
“Now you have de rass madman chatting to tree,” Service scowled. “You mad up him brain again.”
“Me not mad,” Aloysius said. “De tree jealous.”
“Jealous, you rass!” the tree screamed angrily. “Go ’way wid you damn pum-pum! Heaven is where me goin’, and pum-pum don’t cast no shadow dere.”
Then the tree began to sing a shrieking hymn, spitefully. It was a raucous vulgar hymn that the tree had made up, one that screeched about crossing the River Jordon to the Heavenly Land where no Pum-Pum abounded and no Hood abided. The refrain was something about, “Hood and Harp Keep no Company among the Heavenly Ewes.”
“Lawd God, him goin’ drive me mad wid de singing,” Aloysius moaned, squatting again before the fire.
“Shut up vith that damn singing or I chop off another limb,” Inga said to the tree.
“Now dis madman have you talking to tree, too,” Service said sourly.
“Inga,” Aloysius moaned, “you can’t leave me.”
Another brooding stretch of silence fell over them.
“I am certain he has money up there,” Inga hissed, glaring at the lights of Busha’s house.
Service squirmed. “Me broke five house in me day,” he boasted. “House not hard to broke.”
They fell silent. All around them the night grunted and hissed and wheezed its familiar cacophony. Insects and frogs wailed like lost children. Croaking lizards hawked in the dark treetops like nasty pensioners.
As the fire gnawed on the edge of darkness and no one spoke, some nameless, palpable, and ancient thing drifted out of the night like a whiff of foul air and settled among them.
Aloysius sensed its presence first.
“Break Busha’s house?” he cried suddenly. “Ve can’t thief from Busha! Dat not right!”
Chapter Eighteen
It was like death, this thing that had come among them. It was a thing that they imagined could not happen even though they knew it would happen, a thing that they tried to ignore even though it was always on their minds, a thing that stalked between them morning, noon, and night, that was always there but not there, like death, this thing that had now come among them.
It put fire in Inga’s eye and a spring in her step and gave her a greater craving for hood so that she would slink off into the bush with one or the other of her two men sometimes three or four times a day until one of them was broken and the other complained of a bad back and she scowled around the small house kicking at its walls and pacing feverishly over the commons with this thing trailing after her.
Service kept the thing close to him like a selfish child clutching a favorite toy to its bosom and he sat outside the small house and sharpened and resharpened his knife and machete and longed for butchering jobs so he could give voice to the thing he felt in his heart, and eventually, restless and tired of idleness and pum-pum and carping at Inga, he went off into the bush, stole three chickens, chopped off their heads, and sat grinning as the headless birds fluttered across the yard splattering a wake of blood in their maddening death dance.
The thing drew Inga and Service closer. It was his body she wanted now that the thing was among them. It was to him that
she came in the morning, and at noon when he wasn’t away butchering in the fields, and at night when the croaking lizards hidden in trees coughed up phlegm from their throats and filled the woods with their nasty sound, it was Service that she drew into the darkness with her.
Inga was the rider during this lovemaking. With the heat of the thing on her now she was always the rider, pinning her lover to the ground, clutching his wrists and holding him down in the spread-eagle position of crucifixion, and impaling herself on him with an anger and roughness and passion that made Service burn with resentment and wounded pride and caused him to flail and struggle under her during this lovemaking. The thing was like a fire inside her, a fire that she tried to quench with founts of fierce lovemaking, but when it was done and they walked back to the small house, the thing would still be there, always waiting.
Aloysius sulked and brooded during these days. He went into the bush alone and took long walks over unfamiliar pastures and down footpaths leading to distant villages. He talked to bushes and to trees and recited his thousand names to a curious lizard.
But the thing would be there too waiting for him when he came back to the small house.
And Inga would be there, with lust burning in her eyes. Service would be there, smoldering with hatred and discontent, temporarily useless as a man and despising Inga for making him so.
Sometimes Inga would then invite Aloysius into the bush, where she would wreak passion on his private parts and bellow, “O-lsopropoxyphenyl!” leading him back to the house with a ringing in his ears and a deadness to his hood.
She could not get enough from these two during these first days when the thing shambled among them.
“Negar man not make for white woman to ride morning, noon, and night,” Service grumbled one afternoon when she wanted hood from him.
The Lunatic Page 14
