The Empty Hammock (4 page)

“I think we should try the crowbar now, don’t you think? We can use a knife to pry open the sides or something, since we can now see the crease.”

“I think I will eat first before I attempt any such task,” Carey said, standing to his feet. “I am starved.”

Ana bit her lips in frustration. There was a thing called protesting too much, and she didn't want her family to commit her to a mental institution.

******

They had their lunch around the wrought iron table on the back veranda overlooking the Bay.

“That is where Columbus landed the first time around,” Ana said, pointing her fork in the direction of a fishing boat that was beached up near the sea wall.

“Dad used to point that out every time we ate here,” Carey said, “he was so sure of the exact spot. But I still think no one knows for sure, besides there is still the debate that Columbus landed at Discovery Bay, near the Puerto Seco Beach.”

“That’s it,” Ana said pointing, “that’s why Dad bought this piece of land. Nobody knows Tainos like my father and if he said it was there. It was there. There was no fresh water in Discovery Bay and besides, which other spot in Jamaica could impress Columbus enough to declare that this was the fairest land he had ever seen.”

Clara snorted. “Your father was so sure that this land had some sort of power that he paid way more than he should for it.”

“The land does have power; it’s soothing. I am so happy I am here,” Ana said, chewing her curried goat.

“Well, I am happy for that.” Clara looked at her daughter and smiled; she was such a beautiful girl. She was sure that Ana could have entered Miss Jamaica and won hands down, but she was so driven and intense like her father. She was a bookworm and paid her appearance minimum attention.

“Ana,” Clara said and cleared her throat. “Your father has piles and piles of things in the basement and I plan to make a big bonfire of them one night. Carey has no interest whatsoever in the history of the Arawaks and Spaniards, so I was hoping that you would help do some sorting. I already cleared out your father’s room but only you, I think, can make head or tail of his Arawak collection.”

“Sure Mom,” Ana said, nodding. “It will make for a nice change. I might even brush up on my Spanish while I’m here; Dad had a huge cassette collection. Can we please go back to the treasure chest now?” she asked looking at her brother eagerly, “now that we can actually see where the lid meets the bottom.”

They went back onto the back verandah and hung over the treasure chest.

“What does JP stand for?” Clara asked curiously.

“It could mean Justice of the Peace,” Carey grinned.

“Or Joseph Parchment,” Ana said thoughtfully, thinking of her first crush, the professor who taught her Business Law. He had looked like a swashbuckling pirate and he always had a conquering gleam in his eyes, such a pity the course was the most boring one for her.

“Or Jamaica People,” Clara laughed. “Mine is the most ridiculous interpretation.”

“Yes it is,” Carey and Ana said in unison.

The crowbar was ineffective against the rusty, sealed edges of the treasure chest and Carey gave up after trying for fifteen minutes.

“Not happening.” He murmured, “we will have to get a welder to use one of those steel cutter things.”

“I will have to call somebody.” Clara got up and went into the house.

“Well nothing like a great mystery to start your vacation,” Carey looked sideways at his sister. “This is even more fun than that country tour we took with Dad when he was hunting Taino artifacts.”

“Yeah, those were great times.” Ana was lost in thought. She was itching to do something. “Carey, do you believe that the past is liquid, that we can go back and change things?”

Carey looked at her and frowned, “if that were the case, then the world would be in chaos. I could go back and move a stone and it could affect the future. The stone I moved yesterday could cause the death of someone and that someone could be the forefather of someone who is instrumental in the shaping of the world as we know it…”

“I get the point, I was just thinking…Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see what could happen if some things didn't happen.” Ana looked in the distance, “for instance the so-called discovery by Columbus.”

“It would be the so-called discovery of someone else, years later,” Carey said, snorting. “I believe that the great man upstairs, orders his world exactly how he wants it. Dare I say, the genocide of the Arawaks, the arrival of the Africans and even turning them into slaves, Jamaica’s Independence, our current society is exactly how it should be. Our history creates the present.”

“I believe we have a choice in how our history is written,” Ana said heatedly. “The choices I make today will affect the future. The choices I make, not you, not Ma. Our father could have chosen not to marry our mother and voila, no you or me.”

Carey laughed out loud, “I have not had such a passionate discussion since philosophy class—the liquidity of the past,” he intoned deeply, “I like it. Herma loves that kind of thing. Maybe you guys can talk about it when she comes back from Miami.”

“By the time she is back my vacation will be nearly over, but I will benefit from her decorating knowledge, so no complaints there. Your wife is a homemaker; it was a blessed day when you married her. Imagine that,” Ana stuck her tongue out at her brother, “three years of marital bliss, I need some nieces and nephews now, high time. Then again, they might come over for the weekend and I misplace them, like that dog I had. What was his name again, Lassie no Nick or was it Bessie?”

“I will endeavor to remember that, no overnight visits to Aunty Ana,” Carey sat back on his haunches, “you know, you have not mentioned who will be missing you while you are here.”

Ana rolled her eyes, “for the final time.” She looked at her mother who was just walking on the veranda, “I have no man. I have been married to my work for three years. I didn't even realize that Nick was missing until his wedding.”

“It’s a good thing it wasn’t you the poor guy was marrying, you would have been shocked when someone invited you to the church,” her mother gave her the evil eye, “I liked the guy, he was a Psychiatrist, just the right man for you, no expensive fees to correct the ‘uncorrectable’.”

“You two are impossible,” Ana grinned, “what did the welder guy say?”

“No can do until Friday.”

“But that’s three days away. I can’t wait until then.”

“Yes you can, last time I checked you weren't hard up for money. The gold in here will have to wait.” Clara sat down on the floor and patted the treasure chest. “Suspense is killing me too but I want that box in good condition to show off.”

Ana sniffed. “I am going to sleep under the palm trees.” She got up heading for the hammock. The area was close to where the treasure chest was found. The feeling came over her again; there was something that she had to do.

“I am going crazy,” she whispered as she reclined in the hammock. “I am definitely going crazy.”

She drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Ana,” a deep voice intoned beside her ear.

The furry fringes of sleep still held her in its clutches; her limbs felt like weights were tied to them.

“Ana,” the voice was closer to her ears now. The person smelled like jasmines.

“Leave me alone, Carey, I am on vacation, unless the welder guy is here,” she mumbled and then opened her eyes a little. She saw a bronzed arm with an armband.

“What are you doing, playing dress up? By the way, that shade of body paint is just not you.” Ana closed her eyes again and felt the gentle breeze caress her face.

The air felt different, colder… fresher. She bolted upright and the hammock started to swing in earnest. She looked toward the house and gasped. Neither the house nor her mother’s flower garden was there. Instead, there was a huge rectangular hut. She blinked again; the hut was still there.

“Carey?” she whispered frightened. She could not believe that her brother would move her while she was sleeping.

There was a man leaning on the palm tree. He was looking at her curiously.

“Dreaming again?” He asked laughing at her. “What great vision have you seen?”

Ana looked down at herself and screamed. “I'm naked.”

The man left the palm tree and stood in front of her. “Calm down, Ana.”

“Who are you? Where are my clothes? Why am I talking like this?” She was thinking English but talking something else.

Oh my God.

“Ana this is not funny,” the man in front of her looked stern. “You will become my first wife. I want no other but you. Stop pretending.”

“Wife?” Ana looked at him properly. He was about 5’ 9; his hair was long and caught up with a thong. His body was lean and hard, he was bronze all over and his eyes were deep-set and dark. His forehead broad and slightly dented. Very handsome…exotic looking…where did he come from?

“Where is Carey? And where are we?”

“Why do you keep asking for a sea turtle? Was that your vision?”

“Carey!” Ana yelled. “Ma! This is not funny. How can you allow a stranger to see me naked?”

The silence that greeted her was more frightening than the strange man who was staring at her with a wry twist to his lips. “You were always a dreamer, Ana, but calling an animal?” He chuckled.

“Carey means sea turtle,” Ana said. How did she know that? What was going on?

“Where is this?” She whispered, looking at the man in front of her bleakly.

“This is Yamaye. We are in the village of Bieke.” He smiled slightly as if he were humoring her.

Oh no, Yamaye is the Taino word for Jamaica, the land of springs.

Ana jumped from the hammock. Her head felt messed up, like she was rearranged in there.

“This is a hamaca,” she said out loud. She was speaking his language.

Where was the English? Where was the twenty-first century?

The man looked at her and shook his head. “Ana, I would build many canoes for you, but I never understand you. When you are back in your right mind, I will be at the Behique’s hut.”

He walked off, his bearing proud ,and Ana looked around at her surroundings. The two palm trees were there and she was hanging in a hammock that looked decidedly different from the one she fell asleep in—the material was coarser and looked like thick threads.

That was where the resemblance to Jamaica 2007 ended. Beyond the palm trees were round huts made from dried palm leaves and what looked like bamboos. They were a few feet apart and extended to the seaside. The sea looked much nearer than it was in the future. The blue frothy waves beating against the tree hugged shore. The beauty was breathtaking, like a cameo dream.

There was no asphalt road, just a dirt track that seemed as if it had endured the trampling of many feet. There were more trees here than Ana had ever seen in her time. They were tall and thick of trunk. There were no coconut trees or breadfruit trees and her mother’s East Indian mango tree was absent. These trees had an unusual beauty and Ana wished that she were familiar with the flora of the times.

How did she arrive in this place? This was unlike any of the dreams she ever had. To assume that what she was seeing was real would be to assume that she was in the past.  That was unthinkable.

She cringed as a mosquito, three times the size of the ones in the future, latched unto her hand. The sting was twice as hot; she rubbed the spot and winced in pain. Her dream was certainly vivid; she fell asleep in clothes and woke up naked.

“There you are Ana,” a stocky woman with black waist-length hair walked up to her. Her round belly was slightly hanging over a stiff cotton-like skirt. She had a ring in her nose and her full lips were slightly black. She had her hands akimbo and she sighed.

“Why do you run from the feast of the joining? Don’t you want to be joined with the cacique?”

“Joined?” Ana gasped. She was so engrossed with the place that she had forgotten about the handsome stranger who had complained that she did not want to be joined with him. The word joined sounded so primitive and faintly erotic.

Most people didn't have such vivid dreams. She glanced down at her naked body again and shuddered, she was never an exhibitionist or a nudist and this was strange for her. The lady did not think anything of it though, she grasped Ana’s hand and dragged her down the path; they passed huts with thatched roofs and straw covered sides. 

Little, brown children were running around the clearing, which looked like a mini lawn. They were kicking a large oval object that resembled a football.

Women sat at their doors carrying out a number of chores such as cooking, weaving, and planting within their gardens. It all looked so domesticated and surreal.

There were hammocks strung up behind most huts. Ana craned her neck to see behind them as she tried to keep up with the stocky woman pulling her. She stumbled over a soft object and looked down. At her feet was the ugliest dog she had ever seen.

The dog was small and had large ears. Its tail was mid-length and it had huge intelligent bright eyes. There were other dogs as well, their small bright colored bodies curled up at the doorways of the huts.