Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel (13 page)

The music from Jacob’s little wooden box sang loudly because Jacob’s tooth didn’t mind the blues. A woman was crooning. My, my. A woman could croon. A woman could sweep a man from his feet. The world was changing. Yes, indeed. The boys pomaded their low-cut hair. Spice had a conch and his hair was pitch-black. Like the pit in Trinidad. Jacob creased his own uniform pants. They all shined their shoes. They had leave that night. They were going out on the town. They were gonna drink. They were gonna dance. Maybe meet a few nice pretty women who could sweep men off their feet.

Ronald’s lips were full and soft. Anette had come to enjoy pressing her own mouth against them. His hands were smooth despite his job of washing dishes. He was a regular man in every other way. He knew this. He felt that regular was something to be proud of. Spice was thick bodied and dark and angry with straight hair that grew like weeds. The French Quarter women
loved being forcefully seduced by him. They had only to catch him in their eyes like a speck of dust and he was in them until he alone wanted out.

Jacob’s body was lean and tall, like the trunk of a coconut tree. He always had a mist on his upper lip, which made women want to lick his mouth. He trimmed his brown pubic hair with delicate scissors. His underarms were always moist and his body gave off the smell of soil. His skin and eyes and hair were all the same wet-sand color. Even the white sergeants could not explain their own desire to root into him. In her letter his mother had reminded him that “there is more schooling still. Do not settle.”

Well, he was getting out tonight. Going to trawl Tremé and the French Quarter. Going to dip his hands into the Mississippi. He was a handsome man and he had the will to do just about anything. He was going to be a doctor if he outlived the war. And he would live. His mother watched over him and his soul was huge. Someday he would marry someone as desirable. But now: “I want to find out which of these Creole ladies going be the mother of my children.”

“Not me,” clarified Ronald. And he took out the picture of Anette that he was always showing around. Held it now beside his face as if the woman were there beside him. Coming with them into town. Jacob smiled at sweet Ronnie but squinted his eyes at the woman in the picture. He wanted to say, “I feel as though I know her.” This would not have been a big thing. St. Thomas was still a very small place. But instead Jacob said, “Put your wife away.”

Together, these three island soldiers made a perfect beautiful man. When they were dropped off at the edge of town, they all stopped to wipe their shoes. Tall and coolie haired and soft lips. The three of them walked puff-chested down the boulevard. And people watched them. Men gawked with approval. They tipped their hats. Even the night women slinked by them, only to stop and look back at the way their muscled buttocks pressed again and again against their pants.

The men were belly hungry for something besides rations and rubber
pancakes. So they didn’t wait to reach the fancy of the French Quarter. The door was flung open. The smell of frying pork reached out. It was a charred smell, a greasy and smoky and bloody smell. The sign said
MAMA’S PLACE
. The name of the joint was all that was needed for Jacob to nod at the two who were his right-hand men. Spice Grenada and Ronald Smalls nodded back. All three walked in. They sat down at the only empty table.

All of a sudden the jukebox was playing too loudly. The lights were dull, except over their table where a solitary bulb shivered, its brightness landing on Jacob again and again. The counter with the hefty lady serving drinks was never empty. The patrons spoke in screams. Pots were banging somewhere. The walls were painted yellow, giving off a noise of their own. Jacob’s tooth threatened to jump out of his mouth. Now his eyes twitched, too, and he held his hand thoughtfully to his face. Spice was cracking mean hearty jokes, but drumming his fingers against the table, making it shake. The other tables emptied and filled. They waited.

“Excuse me, miss. We’re ready to order when you’re ready.”

“Excuse me, ma’am. I see you’re busy, can we just tell you what we want?”

“Miss? A bowl of gumbo. One of them poor boy sandwiches. Please, miss.”

She was thin and middle-aged. Her hair was under a scarf but her eyes were a bright sea green, a disturbing contrast to her milky and sagging skin. She wore a worn-out white uniform. It was short and graying. They felt bad for her. She was kinda pretty with those mossy eyes, and she smiled at them as she rushed by again and again. None of them had a watch, but after what seemed like an hour she finally took their order. “It’s gonna take a real long time,” she said. “You sure you want to eat here, soldiers?”

“It’s Mama’s place,” Ronnie remarked with a hungry smile. The woman nodded and repeated that it would take some time and wouldn’t they want to eat somewhere else? Maybe deeper down in the Quarter?

“What is exactly going on?” Spice said this directly to the mossy
waitress who stepped back and looked afraid. He was pressing his fingers into the table now, trying to fight the urge to slap her, trying, instead, to leave his prints in the wood.

Jacob interrupted. “We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am.” He fixed his pretty eyes on her. Commanding her in the way he could always command women. His tooth was aching. Perhaps hunger made it hurt, too. “Just bring us some chips and some drinks to start. We’ll be fine.”

“You boys not from around here,” she said, and nodded.

Grenada watched her walk away. He watched her give the meal ticket to the large woman at the counter. Watched them whisper. Watched the waitress’s head nod again. The big one was Mama. This was clear. And Mama stared out at Grenada as if he indeed were his island and she was the
Pinta
or the
Santa María
, her big boat self, come to eat him alive. He should keep an eye on her, but his staring was rude and she was his elder. So he turned away. He suggested out loud to Jacob that it was time to leave.

Ronald Smalls rubbed his palms and belched. His belly was beginning to fill with gas. “Nah, partner. We about to get serve right now. We’ll go somewhere else and wait a next hour.”

The gray waitress moved back and forth. Now she didn’t smile or even meet their eyes. They called her. “Miss.” “Excuse me.” Finally, Spice elbowed Jacob to go and then Jacob did something. He whistled at the waitress to come.

Sure, Jacob had had some awareness of Jim Crow when in college. But he’d never really believed it applied to him; and he’d been working too hard, isolating himself so well that he’d never had to find out. Sure, his school was all Negro and the shops he frequented were all Negro and the waitstaff at his job was all Negro, but that’s how home was, too. There was no American Jim Crow in St. Thomas—Negroes, light and dark, were the majority and he assumed that’s what it was back in D.C. and now in New Orleans, too. And how could Jim Crow apply anywhere now that they were here in uniform, pledged to die for everyone in this joint? Besides,
New Orleans was so like St. Thomas—the verandas, the ladies smiling at him, the music thrumming in the streets. How could he be anything less than the coveted mangrove man that he was?

But when he whistled, it was as if everyone, every single one at every single table at Mama’s, had been waiting for that signal. It was as if the show had now begun and Jacob was an unexpected player, because the place went quiet except for the box playing something loud and eager. Jacob’s tooth pulsed with each rush of his blood and he wanted to cry out because the pain had become unbearable.

“Hey, now. Niggers can’t be whistling at white women—not in the state of Louisiana.” A big man with the omniscient words stood. He wore his hat even though they were indoors. His clean white shirt was belted in by suspenders. They held up plain but pressed black pants. The big man was dressed old-fashioned, but he was younger even than Ronnie and Jacob. He walked over to them calmly. And though he was only a few yards away, during this walk a few couples managed to scuffle out of Mama’s joint. The big man also managed to duplicate himself so that by the time he reached their table there were seven or eight who looked like he did standing just beyond his shoulders. In the eyes of the soldiers, the suspenders gave a comical look to these men—only young schoolboys wore suspenders back home. Ronald Smalls thought hopefully that this big fellow was the owner’s son and they could make him apologize for the bad service. Jacob didn’t twitch. He looked at his men. Ronnie’s eyes were open wide and watering. Grenada looked ready, just ready. “Did this youth just call me a nigger?” Jacob was incredulous, not even meaning to be bold.

The big guy put his big hands flat on the edge of their table. He was smiling. “Let me clarify for you. I don’t think you soldier boys are in the right place.” He looked at each of them one by one. “You giving Mama a hard time.” His words were steady but there was a bit of shrillness to them, as though his voice had just broken. He gesticulated toward the big lady at the counter, but the soldiers didn’t move their gaze. They were trained
well. They kept their eyes on the talking enemy. “We’re all American patriots here, but we ain’t going to stand for disrespect.” How old was this youngster in small-boy suspenders? Who did he think he was?

Jacob was in charge. Jacob was the leader. He felt something warm and moist worm its way around his mouth. “We just want to eat, man.”

“This ain’t your eating place, soldier.”

They didn’t move. But then there was a sudden change in gravity as the white man-boy spoke again. “If you niggers leave quietly, me and my friends won’t drag you out by your dicks and throw you in the river. Are you understanding?”

Yes, Jacob Esau McKenzie understood. Here was a story like his schoolmates had told. Here it was. And here he was. He was going to be a doctor. Could play piano better than anybody. Could swim like he came from the ocean. This kid in suspenders couldn’t see all that. But surely he could see that they were in uniform. That they had shined their shoes.

Still, Jacob Esau McKenzie, with his so big soul, pushed his chair back slowly. It made an achy, grating noise against the ground. A sound like something ill being exposed. The others followed. The big boy leaned back and let the soldiers who had pledged to die for this America walk out on Mama. And Jacob didn’t pause. Not even for a minute. Just walked straight out. And the men followed Jacob out into the street, where he spat thick dark blood onto the pavement.

They walked until they found the water. But the river wasn’t the sea. So they kept walking in their darkness until a truck of military supplies passed and made room for them among the fresh white linens.

Plenty woman does marry safe and then see the shadow of regret on their children’s faces. It was the 1940s. And for a good while I had believe I was happy enough. I save Ronnie life, in a way, and now Ronnie give me a life. See, is just me and Ronnie mother cooking and keeping house and my belly there growing big. And me talking to her or Eeona about my dream, which is to be a history teacher. And his mother challenging me that maybe I ain know much more than nothing about being a homemaker, how I going to go be a teacher? Or Eeona challenging me that maybe I need to go pass teacher and be a professor and go America. Them woman. They think that their dreams supposed to be mine. I ain studying them. I know what I want.

Before Ronnie leave for New Orleans, he had come home from training in Puerto Rico. I have a sense for arrival. I put on a red dress that I know fit to make me a siren. Those short weeks that he on leave with me, we go out and have fun or stay in and have fun. We don’t see Eeona. We barely see he mother and she right there in the house with we. I know for sure that I was every husband’s dream wife for all the ruckus I there making in the bedroom. The next morning his mother would be all hide in she bedroom like she shamed of us. The boil eggs and tea on the table like we is guests in a motel.

Eeona never forget that she a lady from a genteel family. Me? I forget all the time. I laugh with my mouth open wide-wide. Life was easy, let me tell you. I could make it so. Then when the Army drag Ronald to New Orleans, I discover I get myself pregnant by him. Eeona start coming over late in the evenings. I live on the other side of town now but still she showing up in the evenings to rub my feet with olive oil. Sometimes she even
come and stay late until after Ronald mother done gone in. When I live with my sister, she never pay me so much mind.

I am one of those woman love being big with child. It easy for me. I is at my best. When I pregnant, everything have me happy. I pick mangoes from Mrs. Smalls’s mango tree and they taste sweeter than sweet. I walk to the grocery store at the head of Pave Street and my legs feel strong and my belly feel tight as a muscle. A milkman and a fisherman come down our street every morning carrying icebox on their backs and they always come to me early, so I get the fish and milk freshest. People rush to help me even with a bag of plums. Man run down the street to open a door. Me and Gertie liming and though she belly flat, is still me getting watch. Everybody serving me, even the trees bending to me with their fruit and flowers.

I get some dye slap on my head, and though my hair ain turn black-black like I hope, the red now hide beneath a nicey brown. My skin moist and soft. My nails grow. I looking pretty. My belly big but I look the best I ever look. It even come like me and Eeona might get close. Be like real sisters. After all, she coming to where I live just to rub on my foot and spend time with me. We talk ’bout things.

In fact, is really she bend my ear. Even though later she act like she so surprise when I reach back from the ship without Ronald. Is
she
turn my head. She act like she forget.

“Anette.”

“Yes, Eeona?” I lay on the sofa chair with my head fling back. I there staring at a high part in the ceiling, studying its curves and bumps. My sister’s fingers slipping around my ankles. She rub rough, it had hurt but feel good at the same time. Then she move to my heels. I feel the squeezy motion travel up my calf and settle warm in the bottom of my spine. I sinking into the chair. Oh, Eeona was good with feet, I tell you. Where she learn that, I can’t say.

“Anette, you seem quite happy in your marriage.”

And is true. I was happy. How much of this was my marriage, I can’t say. Ronald ain barely there for we to have a marriage at all.

Now Eeona speak slow, as if she need me to hear every word good-good. “Do you think you will be an adequate mother?”

I raise my head to get a good look at my elder sister. She ain look up from my foot in her lap. She seem to be concentrating, working both her hands them into my heel. Doing some obeah on me is now what I thinking. But I ain succumbing. “I’m going to be a perfect mother.”

“How will you love the child?”

“How? Like how everybody loves their children, Eeona.”

I rest my head back. Eeona move to the arch of my foot. The oil she using slippery, wetlike. She at the ball of my foot, digging in. We sit there quiet-quiet until she switch and begin massaging my next foot.

“What I mean to ask, Anette, is how will you know how to love as a parent? You did not have parental example.”

But this a odd thing she telling me. Ain she been my example? “My husband love me. That’s the example I’m going to give the child.”

She drop my foot hard onto the floor. I feel the baby in me tense up, even then Ronalda was so sensitive. Eeona reel from me as though I a piece of bush on fire. “Anette Bradshaw Smalls. Love between husband and wife is not the kind of love you give to your children. This is what I am hoping to have you see.”

I feel the laugh come out of me like a cackle. Then I swallow it back in my chest when I see is serious she serious. “You sincerely harassing me with this?”

“Speak proper English, Anette. I am only asking you how you will love your child. How will you make sure you do not communicate an unhealthy love?”

“But Eeona. Love for your spouse is like the love for your child. There ain no such thing as unhealthy love.”

Then she stare at me as though I is a real stupidee. She stand up, wipe she hands on she dress like she wiping she hands of me.

“Eeona, what the ass?”

But she ain study me at all. She turn away and walk out the house. Just so.

Really, I can’t say is all Eeona fault. I can’t say she rub up some obeah on my foot to have me wanting to walk across the water to kill or save my marriage. But them simple question she questioning do me something. Because in truth, I don’t love my husband. I never get the chance to figure the love thing out with him. He gone for the most of our marriage. Now I sit in the room, this baby punching me up from the inside. My foot aching because Eeona just slam it on the floor. My husband gone for what he tell me going be a undisclosed amount of time. I really wasn’t planning on missing him. What the hell love I going to give Ronald Junior or Ronalda for true? What the hell I know about love? In my head, I imagine falling in love supposed to feel big and safe, like a soak in the calm ocean at sunset. And I know, in truth, that Ronald ain never make me feel like that. It ain his fault. Is just so.

I want to shout after Eeona that is
she
was so pushy for this marriage and now that I in it, she just jealous.

But that very night when I there in the bed by myself and not missing Ronald at all, I start thinking maybe I done read too much history love book about Napoleon and Josephine and Caesar and Cleopatra. Because really, what the ass I going to do if I leave Ronnie? Move back with Eeona? So I make up my mind. I going to fall in love with Ronnie. I going magic myself into it. I going learn it on my own, just like I keep myself from deading of the fever.

I plan it: We going to have to live just we. Without he mother snooping behind the door and timing how long we spending our husband-wife fun. We going to install a phone in the house and tell Eeona she have to call before she come.

—

When Ronalda born, Eeona bring nappies and spit rags and all that. She being a good sister again. But she also talking funny—having what she does call her episodes. She say she get these from our mama. Talking about how we need to be free women and how we think we free but we not. Doting off into space when she talking, as if she telling story to people who ain there. But I done with listening to she.

All this time, the rumors been coming about how some of our boys cause a ruction in New Orleans and get in a heap of trouble. We know is over some racial stupidness and we proud of them for all that. More proud than if they been fighting in Germany or Japan. When we find out that war done, I already know what it is I going to do. Radio say the boys coming back on a big cruise ship, like tourists. I start watching Ronnie mother so I could see how to make the red pea soup like he like it. I watch my figure so I could stay thin and nice. I love baby Ronalda. I mean, I love her like any mother love a child. I choose to live. Why I can’t just choose to love? All I have to do is focus on the love that coming on that boat.

I going to be there on the dock with half of St. Thomas waiting for the boys. I going see that Ronnie step off the ship and stoop down to kiss the ground. See me there, my heart open and ready like a mouth for the Sacrament.