The Empty Hammock (18 page)

She was standing at the doorway of the Cacique’s house when Basila ran up to her.

“Ana we are going to have a huracan.”

Ana looked at the bright day, the sun was hot on her exposed limbs. “How can you tell?” She eyed the frantic Basila.

“The birds are heading south. The animals are quiet; the ants are nowhere to be seen, all the plant life is still.”

Ana looked around her. It was just an ordinary day to her.

“Okay,” she nodded.

Basila paused and pointed at the thatched roof of the hut. “They are not tight enough, I will get some men to tighten and strengthen them.”

Ana nodded and watched as Basila scurried away worriedly.

What was that all about?

She had wanted to take a canoe trip with Guani. It would be her first time out in the authentic thing.

Orocobix walked toward her a basket of pineapples in his hand. “Sorry about the canoe trip,” he grinned at her and placed the basket at her feet. “An offering of peace.”

“You have finally forgiven me for what I said about Chief Guacanagari.”

Orocobix nodded and exhaled, “not only that, I have arranged for the men to sharpen long sticks for the coming evil men.”

Ana almost laughed out loud, obviously she could not change the tide of time. What could she do? Jamaica did not offer anything in the way of defense against the coming men and she was no war planner.

“Why do you look like that?” Orocobix asked fretfully, “as if you have swallowed a giant iguana?”

“I…I…it's nothing,” Ana gave him her biggest smile. “Do what you are doing with your defense.”

They went inside the house and lay in the hammock together.

“I have something to teach you,” Ana said, looking at Orocobix, she could hear the growling thunder in the distance.

“Teach me,” Orocobix whispered in her ear.

“When the evil men come I want you to greet them like this.”

Orocobix stared at her lips as she spoke. “Hola, ¿Cómo estás?”

He repeated after her obediently. “What does that mean?”

“It means. ‘Hello, how are you?’ in their language. The language is Español.”

“Español. That’s easy to say. Could you teach the children in the village? They would love to know it.”

“Better yet, I am going to teach everybody in this village. I wonder why this never occurred to me before. My father was half Spanish; he learnt the language from his grandmother. I learnt it from him.”

******

The first winds lashed the island at nightfall. Ana was huddled in a corner while the excited voices of the villagers came through the covered doorway. They were singing and dancing in the driving rain.

Orocobix was also outside glorying in the elements and Ana wondered if she was going to die in her dream as she heard the wind blow and the sweeping branches of trees swishing by the hut 

How can they be out in the storm? Lightning flashed and they whooped with laughter. She had no idea that they celebrated the weather.

Don’t they realize how dangerous it is out in the storm? She would give anything for storm shutters and a dark room right now, where the fingers of the lightning would not illuminate her shivering body.

“Come on Ana,” Orocobix came to the doorway, “don’t tell me you are afraid of the Great Spirits laughter.”

“Oh that’s what this is?” Ana frowned. He stood gloriously wet and naked at the doorway of the hut.

“It’s the cleansing of the land.” Orocobix grinned.

“No thanks, I’ll pass.”

“Your family Basila is the same, she is afraid of the Great Spirits laughter.”

“Well, I’ll wait this out with someone who has sense then.” Ana crawled from her place on the floor and looked outside, it was pitch-black and rain was coming down in sheets. “On second thoughts I’ll stay right here.”

“I’ll return soon.” Orocobix left and joined the villagers as they chanted songs, about ‘center of the wind’, ‘island of blood’, ‘spirit of the White Mountain.’ Gibberish if you asked her.

She huddled in the corner sleepy, when Guani came into the hut.

“You were not outside.” He looked at her shivering form, his youthful expression hungry.

“I prefer to stay right here.”

Guani sat down beside her on the cloths and touched her hand. “I understand. I used to hate the rain dance but it is the first of the season so everyone participates.”

Ana felt herself go warm all over. This boy was really something else. He treated her with a gentle maturity that she found curiously attractive.

She was attracted to him and she knew he was to her. Would he act on it?

Guani distanced himself from her as if reading her thoughts. “You are the Chief’s woman. He would have me killed, if I touched you.”

Ana looked at him curiously. “Why do you seem to know what I am thinking most of the time?”

Guani wrapped his hand around his legs and huddled over. “I love you, Ana.”

Ana gasped. He averted his head, his shoulder length hair swinging wetly in the dim light of the fire.

“I don’t know what to say.” Ana grimaced, she sounded inadequate.

“I know that too,” his eyes searched hers and then he groaned low in his throat. “I just had to tell you that. Please don’t tell the chief.”

She shook her head. “I won’t.”

“We are going back to Maima soon. I have a feeling I will never see you again.”

Ana absorbed what he was saying in silence.

“Tell me about the future. Will there be no sickness there? Will everyone live in peace?”

“No, Guani.” Ana’s heart went out to the man/child. “That’s Coyaba—heaven. The future is pretty much indescribable. I wouldn’t know how to tell you.”

“Will there still be seas and trees?”

“Yes, and canoes that can travel very fast.” Ana searched for words he would understand, “and canoes in the skies that can take people all over.”

“The people who are coming are they related to Agita?”

Ana shrugged. “Gait speaks a language called English. She must be from Britain or whatever they call the country in this century. How she came here is a mystery to me though.”

Guani sighed. “Canoes in the sky. That must be crowded.”

Ana laughed, he scooted closer to her and took her hands; his damp palms were cool to the touch.

Ana leaned toward him and he hugged her, his lissom body hard and smooth. She could feel him harden against her. His breathing accelerated.

Guani’s heartbeat joined with hers erratically as they hugged with the elements crashing around them, creating a heat that was theirs alone.

“I love you Ana,” his breath touched her ear. She melted into him, she was married to the Chief, this was wrong. But the rains and the glorious heat created such a sensual cocoon.

“Ana.” His mouth was close to her ear.

“Ana please wake up. I need to know if you are alive or on the verge of death.”

“Ana.” Guani’s voice was changing into her mother’s.

Her mother’s!

She gasped, not again. The future didn’t seem so exciting these days.

“Mom?” Her voice was groggy.

“I told you not to wake her,” Carey said in the corner of the room. A room that had crème colored walls and big chunky furniture, she felt disoriented and weak.

Then she looked across at the dresser, there was her wedding necklace, with shells and gold interspersed throughout. What was this, a cross between the past and the future?

“My necklace,” she pointed at the wedding joining necklace. “I can’t believe it.”

Carey held it up. “I knew you would like it, I found it in the basement.”

“It’s mine. Basila made it for me.”

“That’s it. I’m calling a doctor,” Clara said, and Ana took a good look at her mother. She was dressed differently from the last time she saw her.

“What time is it?”

“It's five o’ clock on your second day of vacation,” Carey said helpfully. “And you haven’t eaten a thing, so your mother decided that you were going to die, but Mom,” Carey swung to look at his mother with reproach, “I am the medical doctor.”

“I have soup.” Clara ignored Carey and left to go to the kitchen.

Carey looked hard at his sister. “I know you needed a vacation and some time to sort yourself out. I think sleep is the best thing for you right now.”

Ana opened her mouth to speak; she looked down at herself in the voluminous t-shirt and felt out of place in her clothes.

“It was only a dream Ana.” Carey said when he saw her confused expression as she touched herself and patted her hair. “There are some dreams that actually provide you with an alternate reality, I think you had one of those.”

“You have no idea what I dreamt,” Ana said wonderingly.

“It has something to do with this?” Carey held up the necklace.

Ana nodded, “I got married and went to Maima that was my wedding necklace.  I was almost cheating on my husband when I woke up.”

“It is a wedding necklace,” Carey said, holding it up.

“It was worn by the women who married the Cacique.”

“Well, well, you must have gone into Dad’s things at some point because that’s what they are. It’s real gold too.”

“I know,” Ana lay back on the pillow. “I even know a cave where there is gold lying in the walls.”

Clara laughed as she came into the room, “I once dreamt that where the Harvey’s are building their guest house down the road, there were masses of pineapple growing there. There was just this vast greenery and jungle like expanse and pineapples of all shapes and sizes.”

Ana stopped her spoon mid-air, her hands trembling slightly. “It’s true.”

“What’s true?” Clara raised her eyebrows enquiringly.

“There were pineapples growing there. They called it the land of Anana”

“You know it's funny that’s the same thing your father said to me. He also said that where we are now was called Beakie or something like that.

“Bieke,” Ana said softly. “Meaning small land.”

Carey sighed. “Now everybody is a dreamer and visits the past, I am the only sensible one here.”

“I am sleepy again,” Ana said after Carey’s outburst.

They left her alone after some very broad hints and she gazed at the walls, contemplating her dream.

Was there really a Bieke?

Fact and fiction, dreams and reality, became muddled in her head and she drifted off to sleep.

******

The rains pelted the island, the day before Colón decided to explore. Juan wrote the date in his journal, April 23, 1494. There was thunder and lightning and he sat under one of the thatched huts with ten other men. It was the worst weather they had experienced so far.

The thunder clapped overhead and the lightning forked ominous patterns in the sky. The rain poured all night until there was a leak in the thatched roof of the hut, the water dripped on the hard packed dirt floor of the hut and the men huddled far away from the dripping.

“Do you think we secured the ships properly?” Pablo asked for the third time, “where exactly is the direction of the breeze?”

He was fretting because the chests were on board the ship and he wanted to be able to go back to Spain whenever he was ready, without having to depend on any other ship.

Martín snored in the corner, his unfashionably bearded face, dipped toward his chest and he twitched. Juan could see him twitch every time the lightning illuminated the hut.

Francesco, who had been a monk, until he was kicked from the order, was sitting closest to him, his puritanical expression was disturbing. “This is the end of the world,” he said calmly. “I am happy.”

“Why are you happy?” Juan asked exasperated. “I heard you have more gold than the rest of us.”

Pablo guffawed beside him. “And you have had more of the delicious women than both of us.”

“We will go to a place where we won’t have to fight for gold anymore.”

“Not you,” Pedro said from the corner. “You will fight for the gold on the streets of heaven. You killed Ricardo and framed the natives. I saw you with my own eyes.”

Everyone was silent, even the twitching Martín, seemed to be still.

“I told Colón,” Pedro continued in the silence. “But he refused to believe that ‘Mr. Holy Monk’ could do such a dastardly deed.”

The men started whispering and those who were closest to Francesco shifted.

“Ricardo was a bloody thief,” Francesco snapped. “He stole my gold, he deserved to die. As for framing the natives, they are going to hell because they have no one to pray them out of purgatory. Why not add another sin to their blackened souls?” The lightning flashed and Francesco’s sneer could be seen in sharp relief, “I will kill anyone that is not worthy to go to heaven.” His voice lowered. “It is my duty.”

Everyone was speechless after that, the rain pelted outside and each man sat up valiantly to stay awake, afraid of Francesco the monk.