Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel (17 page)

Hear me good. I have a talent for sensing arrival but not for departure. So I don’t know what to think. My sister gone a full day and night. Leave a packed bag in the bedroom closet like she on a planned adventure but just forget the luggage. I wonder if maybe I send her away with my mind. I sure she done try that with me already. But in truth, having my own place for a bit seem like a gift, since Jacob living with his mother and she a salty piece of woman. And besides, Eeona always crazy talking about how she
want she freedom. And just upping and going seem like something she would do. Like Eeona she self say Mama used to do with her episodes. Dreaming and then escaping, just so.

So I admit that I ain look for my sister at all until two days past and the stories start streaming in. First ’bout how somebody see she fling she self over waterfront and swim to St. Croix. A next that somebody see she walk into Western Cemetery, dig out a hole, and then toss she self in like a seed. Other people even talk ’bout how she gone to the old Villa by the Sea, a place Eeona always tell me been burn down long time ago. They says she flow past the Frenchies who working and the tourist them who guesting, and just jump off the villa balcony. All kinds of thing I hear. People come to my window and my door just to give me the deading stories. It come like deading is our family story.

I realize I don’t even know who Eeona’s friend them is. I ain even sure if she have friends. I go to Mr. Barry in the Hospitality Lounge, but when I say I lose my sister, this grown man just bust out in tears saying he lost she, too.

I couldn’t do a thing, I tell you. I had Ronalda to keep my mind on. Even though Ronald helping watch her every now and then, and even though he still treating me sweet like I might change my mind and be his wife again. But I also have something else. I have Jacob.

We first meet at the dance on that Friday night. On Saturday he come to my window in a dream, like the sandman in the American song. On Sunday all three of we—Jacob and me and Ronalda, walk from town all the three up and down miles to Magens Bay—the beach what shape like a heart. On the walk, I hold Ronalda for a while and Jacob carry our bags with blanket and lunch and my books. After a while, he carry her also, the bags on his back. My child, looking to the world like his child, natural in his arms. Like we done belong to him. And he crooning all the way. Singing the Irving Berlin.

Let me tell you. How young and happy he was when he was just a man with rich dreams. He wealthy now—money does that. Make you stingy and mean. But back then, with a disappear McKenzie daddy, he almost poor and he ain care.

As we rounding the corner of Magens Bay road, he make a dash up into Brown Estate. I keep walking, now holding Ronalda, who twisting her head to see where the sandman gone. Jacob say he coming as he slink away. When he reappear, he have a bunch of frangipani petals in he hands like they just float from the sky. He offer the bunch to Ronalda, who is a baby but can still reach out her hand to grab, and when she do, she pick just one, just one. She always been the type that ain sure if she deserving. Then my sandman open his palm over my head. “It’s raining flowers on you,” he said.

“Is so you does bringing me flowers?” I say. We keep walking, the petals slipping down to my shoulders.

“Do you know how pretty you are?” he ask. As if that is an answer.

I know I ain the pretty one, but I like what he saying. “Always bring me flowers,” I say, picking a petal from my tongue.

“I will always bring you flowers.” He take the spitty petal and put it into his mouth, like we doing obeah on each other.

I have my books at the beach because I studying for a teaching position in history, even though I know they don’t want to hire no divorcée. I readying myself anyway, because you never know. Waking up that morning with the sand-colored man on my mind, I decide I ain want to know the future. Knowing the future does ruin it. I have a gift for that, but I ain want it no more. What I want to know is the past. As far as I could see, that ain never ruin nobody yet.

While I studying, Jacob building a fort with Ronalda in the sand. He instruct her to crawl all over the fort when they finished, he cheer her on as she knocking it down. “That’s the enemy,” he bellow. “And you’re the hero!” he shout, like they at war and he the commander. Later, when we in
the water hugging up, he whisper: “Another way of loving you . . .” And point he chin to Ronalda sleeping on a blanket up on the sand. And I know what he mean. That he going love my child because he love me. And I think this a man who know about love. Hold-on-to-me love.

There at the beach he pull out a jar of stewed cherries for us to eat. I hate them things but I eat one or two because is a gift he bring. When he see I ain like them, he laugh and put them away. He say, “I won’t bring them again. You will be my cherry.” And then he kiss me. And he suck on my lips in a kiss more than a kiss; it a grasping, a sexing with tongues doing the work. I know I sweet. I know I belong. I ain faking at all when I hold him back so tight.

Only after that first beach day, when Jacob leave and I had slide into the bed next to my sleeping daughter did I notice Eeona brassiere there on the cot. The cups round up like hills. It give off a eerie feeling. Like there used to be a woman lying there, only she gone away suddenly and all she leave behind on the cot was her breasts. And is then I remember again that my sister missing. I get up to go fold down the bra so it don’t be there haunting. But is when I tuck it up under the spare sheet that I see the itinerary for a trip to America. The ship stopping in Puerto Rico, then Santo Domingo, then making its way up to New York City. I ain find no ticket so I put two and two together. Eeona gone to the mainland to pursue she dreams, like Mama.

And let me tell you, that fine by me. Ever since I leave Ronald, Eeona ain giving me no peace. I need to keep something to myself. Secret. In truth, I ain even telling you everything.

What Anette is not telling, because she will never tell, was what happened only a week later between her and Jacob Esau. It was night; that much is very important. The sun had set. The sandflies had swarmed and retreated. Down in the city up a small hill in Savan a young woman who had never known her father and had little memory of her mother had just nursed her own baby to sleep.

Anette sat at the head of the bed where she could lean on the windowsill and hum quietly to herself: “Mister Sandman, bring me a dream.” Her blouse was unbuttoned, but she could see the street and could see if anyone was coming. Besides, the lights in her flat were off and no one would even know there was a woman at the window unless they were right on top of her. Anette took in the breeze and thought about how she would pay the rent without Eeona’s half. She had already gone without getting her hair dyed longer than was decent. The red at the roots was beginning to show. But she could manage. It would mean she would have to spare a new outing dress. She would do her own hair dying at home. She would ask at the apothecary if she could keep Ronalda there in the back. She might even have to ask Ronnie or his mother for more help.

Now the sandman came up the street humming. It was a quiet song, but Anette knew it because it was their song. She buttoned up her shirt just as he was saying, “It’s me,” from the darkness of the street. She edged out of the bed and went to the door.

“What you here for?” she asked, with the kind of cut eye and push mouth that made it seem she knew exactly why he was there.

“For you,” he said, reaching to her head and combing a lock of hair back with his fingers. “I here for you.”

They stood in the threshold for a few moments until Anette heard a
sneeze from a neighbor, and then she let Jacob in and away from prying eyes. “It’s not appropriate for you to be here,” she said, but she meant nothing by it.

“I’m not staying. I’m taking you with me.”

“But you crazy. Where we going at this time of night? Ronalda done gone sleep.”

“Is a secret.”

Anette smiled and waited.

He smiled back. “Nettie, as a good West Indian woman you should offer me something to eat or drink.”

“Well, Mister Mac, we don’t have anything to eat or drink. Plus, you quite fast and forward to come here after all of nine o’clock looking for eat and drink.”

“Let we go then.”

“You going to carry Ronalda?

“I going carry you if I have to.”

—

He carried the baby over his shoulder. She was still small and light, and not yet a burden. Anette wore a dark dress and bright lipstick. It was too late and this was too ridiculous, but she was going where he wanted her to go. The only other thing they had with them was his small cloth bag, which she held. She’d rummaged through it with propriety as soon as he passed it to her: a bedsheet, a flask with water, and nothing else.

They walked out of town in the quiet darkness.

“That’s where I was born,” she said, when they passed the road going down into Frenchtown, even though it was nothing she had ever said to anyone before.

“I didn’t know you had Frenchy blood.”

He couldn’t see her smile, but he heard her short, sharp laugh and then her slapping her own mouth for making noise. “I ain no Frenchy,” she said
with a sly whisper. “It’s just where I was born. I ain been down that road once since we left.”

“Not even to visit the radio station?”

“Not a once. And now you know the family secret,” she said.

“Well, Nettie, then let me tell you something you don’t know about me.”

“I listening.”

“I can play the piano.”

“But I know that already.”

“For true? All right. Then my best color is red.”

“Is so easy you is? I know that already, too.”

“Then you know me.”

“Come again. You have me and my child here in the dark of night walking to God knows where. You best give me a proper secret before I scream out.”

Before the war, Jacob might have still continued with silly things. He might have told her that his middle name was Esau. But he didn’t. His middle name seemed like something trivial, though it was not trivial for either one of them. Instead, he told her the thing he hadn’t even yet told himself. “I been wanting you since I seen you in New Orleans.”

“Look here, mad man. I out in the middle of the night with you. My only child in your arms. Don’t go telling me that you have me mix up with some woman you meet in America.”

“No, Nettie. A fellow in the Army had your picture in his pocket. Carried it everywhere.”

Anette thought of silly Ronnie showing her picture around. Thought of both of these men looking at her face and feeling like she was something to stay alive for. It was sweet to think. But also it seemed so slack. Did Jacob fancy her because of a picture alone? But then again, didn’t she fancy him because of a picture in a yearbook and a picture in the paper? Anette and Jacob kept walking, the moon was up, but it wasn’t clear at all where they were going.

“This one time,” he said, “I touched the picture.” He stopped speaking and they stopped walking. They had arrived at a lonely beach. Anette knew that another woman would be afraid right now. This was either a major mistake or this was the man of her life—that these two things could be the same thing did not occur to her. “It was like I could feel your face,” Jacob continued. “And when I went into that restaurant ready to shoot up the place, I did it for you. I mean, I did it for myself. I even swore on my mother. But I did it for the girl who I was going to love. I knew you was Ronald’s wife. But is like you were my girl, somehow.”

They laid Ronalda down on the sheet on the sand. She squirmed a little, for the ocean was sending in a breeze. Jacob took off his jersey and covered the child. He was only in his white undershirt now and it lit him up like a glow. They sat on the sheet and he held Anette as they looked out toward the sea. They were on Lindbergh Bay, where later Americans would build a hotel for its close convenience to the new airport. But for now there was no hotel and there was only the Navy plane hangar down the road. The waves were rhythmic as a lullaby. The trees were rustling like whispers. The beach was speaking and singing.

“I lived through a war,” Jacob said quietly. “They say there might be a next coming. But when this one come, I don’t plan on going.”

“So what you planning on?”

“Us. Me and you. You’re what I’m planning on.”

Ronalda was already asleep. Jacob undid his pants and shuffled quietly out of his shoes. Anette slipped off her blouse and skirt and slip.

“Can you swim?” Jacob asked, as they walked into the water.

Anette didn’t look at him, for she didn’t like her answer. “I never learned.”

“Lean forward into my arms,” Jacob said, once they were waist-deep in the cold water. His arms were lit up by the glowing worms of phosphorescence. Anette could live in those hands. His palms were up in a way that meant he would be touching her. Very much so. She was scared. It was too
dark. Who knew what was in the water. What would claw her at the ankle and carry her out to sea. The water was cold. So cold. “You can do it,” he said. “I’ll make sure.” Assumptive, like the way he put his hands on her.

Actually, he didn’t know why he said something so sure and foolish. Something he couldn’t honor at all. But Anette leaned into his arms, his palms at her belly. He felt her stiffen and yelp but she swallowed the noise. Her feet were going furiously, but not in that big splashing of his fellow island soldiers when he’d tried to teach them. “Kick,” he told her, but she kept her legs under. “Harder,” he said. He felt himself growing unsteady because of her propulsion. Then she stopped. “It’s too dark, I can’t see,” she said. “That’s nothing,” he said. “You don’t need to see to swim. Your hands are out in front, they see for you.” He stood and demonstrated in the air. Then he stooped and showed her, his arms slicing slowly through the water. “And more splash,” he said, because that was how he had been taught.

“But splash will wake the baby. Bring the sharks.”

He smiled and cupped his hands around her waist. “Sharks don’t come out at night.” Was that even true? He didn’t know. Maybe they would drown together. But he wasn’t thinking of sharks or the baby sleeping, abandoned on the sand. He was thinking of wanting and not getting. He was thinking of cooling and relaxing and not wanting to cool or relax.

“We trying again,” he said.

Anette felt the sand coming and going beneath her feet with the waves. She didn’t like standing in water where she couldn’t see the bottom. And just then, as though the sky had read her thoughts, the clouds swam apart and revealed the moon, bright as it could be. At Anette’s feet she could see the sand now. See the silver of tiny fish.

“This time hold on to my waist,” he said. And when she did, she was right there where he, it, was. She could imagine the thick outline of it inside his wet shorts. When she lifted one foot and then the other, she
couldn’t just hold his waist with her hands. She had to pull until she was hugging his waist, but then her face was at his belly. Then she could feel him. The coarse hair, that announcement. That trail of welcome. Her cheek at the hair, where it would leave an imprint on her face. “Let’s try a different way,” he said.

This time he held her by the waist and she smoothed her arms in the water. Smoothed her feet. Her feet were pushing so hard and yet they were barely moving at all. Slow motion. Like she was stuck. She felt Jacob’s hands around her waist. Holding her up. Holding her. She kept pushing.

She pushed, but then her legs fell, so heavy she would never fly. Again. Same. Then he stumbled back with the force of her effort and that caused her legs to lift a little higher. Until they realized together that it was his moving away and her following that kept her afloat. Or perhaps it was her pushing and him never going too far. There is more to think on this, but that time will come. For now she was learning how to swim and he was teaching her.

Soon she reached her toe down and there was no sand. And instead of giving in to the depth, she turned to look for her child, as any mother would do at her death. But then she felt that his hands were no longer on her and she knew she was swimming. She looked to Jacob. He could still stand where they were and now his hands were at her waist in two seconds. “I have you,” he said. And she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and he was grateful he could stand, because if not, she would have brought them both under. “You swam,” he said. “I swam,” she said. As if it were a magic he had given her.

Though we old wives know it was her mother’s magic.

Still, for Jacob and Anette this was exactly what they needed it to be. She loosened her arms and legs, and swam a few strokes toward the shore. Then stopped, putting her hand over her mouth, laughing quietly. “I can’t believe it would be so easy.”

Because it was too easy. Easier than it had been for the boys in the Army. So simple and so fast. Like with a baby who has taken its first steps when the mama wasn’t looking and so surprises everyone when she simply gets up and walks. A genius baby. Or a miracle.

—

They had already made their private vows and already Anette’s wet panties were off when Ronalda awoke. It was the time when the child usually awoke to nurse and be changed. Anette released herself from Jacob and slowly undid the child’s buttons, slowly unfastened the wet cloth of diaper. Anette stood, right there in the big moonlight, and her body was like a shadow standing before Jacob. The naked mother and child went to the water. The water was cool and Ronalda gripped her mother tightly but did not cry. She was not that kind of baby.

Anette eased them in until Ronalda’s little bottom was submerged. From the sand, Jacob looked on and knew that this was his life. Anette had wanted him so immediately, believed in his love so instantly. So, yes, that was his confirmation. He felt a valve turning in his body. He had reserved this honor for his mother, and even now he thought of his mother, and though the thoughts were all crossing together, he still felt the tight burn between his legs.

When Anette came out of the water, she and Ronalda were both shivering but everyone was quiet. Anette and Jacob did not know for sure if there wasn’t someone else taking a sleep way down on the beach; they weren’t sure if there wouldn’t be someone walking by to set up early in the market. But they felt ancient and natural, like they were, just tonight and just here, alive in a time before Americanness. A time before any kind of ness.

Anette lay her own wet body and Ronalda’s small, wet body down, and Jacob wrapped them and himself in the embrace of the sheet. Ronalda rooted into Anette’s chest until she found the breast and the swollen ready nipple. Jacob curved his body to mold Anette’s. And he rooted into her
until he found the other ready swell. And it was all bodies and all together. “Claim me like a country,” Anette whispered. He didn’t hear, but it didn’t matter. He already felt they were native to each other.

The waves receded. The moon receded. The sun spied from the horizon. Anette held Ronalda, the child’s mouth on her breast, and Jacob held Anette, his mouth on her shoulder and neck and arm, and Anette felt the rise and the wrongness of having both these things at once, and the knowledge that she wanted, wrong and all. And Jacob held on, one hand grasping for brace in the sand, the other feeling for stomach and finding her stomach and finding Ronalda’s little girl toes and the heel of her little foot and her soft baby calf and still touching and gripping, and it all feeling ancient and right until the sun burst out from the water like sin or a sign or perhaps just like the sun, and showed Ronalda’s eyes open and seeing. And Jacob opened his eyes to see as he came to and there were Ronalda’s eyes looking at him over her mother’s body and it was exactly as though it was her he was making love to. And he felt her little plumpness in his hand and he released himself and never again looked that Ronalda in the eye.

They all three lay there. And Anette knew and felt that it wasn’t right because they’d all, even the child and the sun, been in on the lust and love. Jacob gathered himself, and because he was still a man with soul, he dressed them both. Buttoning them up awkwardly because, as the youngest of his mother’s children, dressing someone else was nothing he’d ever done before.