Travels with Myself and Another (12 page)

When the children sang their traditional lessons in French I listened with pleasure. The teacher chanted the question, in unison squeaky voices chanted the answer. “What are the four elements?” sang the teacher. “The four elements are earth, air, fire and water,” sang the children. They sang history, spelling, arithmetic, and literature. It had much charm and surely trained memory to perfection but lasted rather long, six and a half hours daily with a two-hour lunch break. The lessons could be heard everywhere throughout the metropolis of Gustavia.

As I walked the plank from the
Pilot
to the pier, a young Frenchman, also blond, also named Jean, had been there, observing. He took in the onion skins and fish heads left over from lunch on the deck, the shabby hull and sail, the appearance of the crew, not freshly laundered to start and now positively rancid with dirt, and me, peeling less vigorously but a sorry sight. His face showed that he thought us a mess; on the other hand, I roused pity. I had to be in some grave obscure trouble if I was obliged to travel like this. He suggested leading me to a fine cove after I got rid of my suitcase. He was going to fish for lobster with spear and goggles, an enjoyable way to fish though he wasn’t intent on fun but on food. Food here was scarce and wretched; he fished from need.

Panting in the heat, I followed him on a narrow track through dark stunted jungle. This was not the radiant greenery of St Martin, this was claustrophobic and instantly remindful of snakes. Each island had its own personality and atmosphere. St Barts was spooky, I don’t know why. I felt that the moment we landed, I didn’t like the place, I had no desire to linger, no waves of happiness would sweep over me here. The cove was attractive but nothing compared to the lovely enclosed sand crescents of St Martin. Jean fished with skill and concentration and located lobsters while I swam and hoped for a good wind quick.

We had set out late, walked far, lobster-catching took time, it was dark when we started home. Jean seemed nervous about the time as if he had an appointment. We had asked each other no personal questions, true to war-time form. He spoke of the white inhabitants, saying,
“Ils sont pratiquement gaga, ils ne savent même pas comment se nourrir, ils n’ont pas assez d’intelligence ni d’énergie de cultiver des légumes. Ils passent leur temps en étant fiers d’être blancs comme si c’était un acte de génie.”
If he so disliked his neighbours, why stay? But I did not ask. In the dark a little wild cat, barely more than a kitten, leapt out of the choking woods and bounced along the path stiff-legged like a gazelle. It was perfectly camouflaged for its environment, mottled shades of brown. I caught it and held it.

Jean turned off on an invisible track in the jungle, I proceeded with cat to Gustavia where I fed it condensed milk in my musty room so that it became a purring snuggling attached cat. Now I would have company on the
Pilot.
Loving is a habit like another and requires something nearby for daily practice. I loved the cat, the cat appeared to love me. I could face the oncoming days in the dinghy with better heart, having the cat to talk to and play with.

In the morning I broached the subject of weather. When could we leave? I wanted to go to Saba, a Dutch island, which rose before us like a green volcano in the heat haze. Carlton had grown more defeatist every day. Apart from the unreliable wind, I didn’t know what was the matter with him. He wouldn’t look at me but stood glumly observing his feet.

“They say it takes only four hours to sail to Saba, Carlton.”

“More like eight or ten.”

“It’s twenty-two miles.”

“Some say twenty-two, some say forty-five.”

“I want very much to go there.”

He said nothing.

“What bites you, Carlton?”

“Doan like dis wedder. Saba got no anchorage.”

“Let’s leave early in the morning. I could see the town and we can come back here for the night if you feel it’s unsafe over there.”

Carlton was evidently sick of this journey. Paid whenever we reached port, they had done a little business and a little business was enough. On the edge of giving him hell, a foolish operation, I moved along to the end of the pier and sat there smoking to soothe my temper. Jean appeared and sat beside me. Without preamble, he launched into revelations. He came to St Barts originally to get his boat repaired. I gathered he had been frittering away a small inheritance as a boat bum when the war started. He wanted to leave St Barts and join the Free French; he was ashamed to live in safety on this peaceful island when he should be fighting for his country. But he could not leave; he was chained by the voodoo spell of a witch, an added inconvenience being that the witch was his mistress.

Every time he tried to go, he was struck down. On his first attempt to escape, he had lost his boat, a complete shipwreck, and was lucky to get back in the dinghy. Since then, when a rare passerby offered transport, he was always stopped by paralysing illness. He unfolded this weird tale in bright sunshine, while we smoked and swung our legs from the jetty. Assuming he was not a nut, he had been on this spooky island too long. I told him bossily that voodoo spells were rot and he could come with us and make his way to England from Antigua. Bossiness seemed to invigorate him. He would join the good ship
Pilot
but asked that we sail at night and swore me to secrecy lest the witch hear of his plans.

He then took me home, a woven reed hut in the jungle, and I too was impressed by the witch. She was beautiful; tall, lavishly curved, smooth brown skin, thick wavy brown hair to her shoulders and long green eyes: living proof that miscegenation does a power of good. Standing in the doorway, with her hands on her hips, she stared at the peeling blonde visitor with undisguised contempt and dislike. I couldn’t think how to respond. Cringe or snub? Jean, apparently sure of himself by daylight, ordered her to bring food. Rice and lobster and fried bananas. Delicious. Perhaps her cooking compensated for her witchcraft. She moved slowly, graceful as a panther, showing resentment in every gesture. She refused to speak or eat with us.

Not feeling exactly wanted, I returned after lunch to the open harbour front, away from the uneasy woods, and met the schoolteacher, a middle-aged Frenchman married to an island black. He wasn’t bubbling over either, and talked about the mistake of marrying a black woman; you sank into their slovenly customs, and fathered litters of noisy stupid half-breed kids. It was senseless to try to teach the schoolchildren. Why would they need the culture of la belle France on St Barts? But he didn’t suggest joining my ship to escape. I clambered up to my room and fed my purring cat, the one contented form of life I had met so far.

Carlton was furious over the night departure. “Ain’t no reason for it. I doan know dese waters. Stoopid. I gotta tink for de
Pilot.
” I insisted, having promised Jean, and having seen the witch. I’d be jolly glad myself to get away from those baleful green eyes. Around midnight, Jean showed up on the jetty, his teeth chattering in his head, his eyes blood-shot. He was running a high fever; it was all he could do to walk to the harbour to tell me not to wait. Rescue was impossible, he would never be able to leave; he saw his fate with despair. Clearly he believed in black magic but I figured his demon lover could doctor his food with inedible mushrooms, snake venom, cat piss, whatever she found handy and bad for the digestion, every time he acted restless. I urged him to come anyway, sick as he was; perhaps the witch’s spell wore out by nautical miles. He wouldn’t risk my safety, the weather was uncertain enough without evil incantations.

I thought about him as a tragic figure; I imagined his life chained to the green-eyed sullen witch until she tired of him whereupon she would brew a poisonous spell and do him in. Ten years later, I met Jean again on St Martin. He had a pretty white wife and baby, a real house above a dazzling beach, and a pleasure boat. I dared not ask questions and he offered no information about the witch or his release from her clutches. He looked healthy, happy, and prosperous.

Carlton, informed that we now had no extra passenger, spat with disgust and said he was going to sleep in the hold, he wasn’t crazy people, we could leave at dawn. I had a needless night, or half of one, in the dinghy but the little cat was comfortable sharing my pillow. Perhaps the witch, to fix me, arranged the storm. More likely it was the outskirts of a hurricane but storm it was, a wind too big for our patched sail and high foam-capped waves breaking over us. I hadn’t known that cats could get seasick; my cat shivered and mewed pitifully and threw up thin yellow streams, then heaved its sides with nothing left to vomit. I felt a monster to have kidnapped the poor little thing from its home and exposed it to such misery and was too busy nursing the cat to notice my own misery, soaked and bruised, as we plunged up and down the waves to Saba.

Saba is in fact the top of a volcano, and there is no harbour on its steep green sides. Closer to land, the wind lessened; perhaps the storm had passed to the north. Walteh balanced on deck and blew a conch shell, making a noise like a weak foghorn. The towering green cliff of Saba remained silent and no one appeared on the immense ladder of steps cut in stone up the cliff-side. I hadn’t seen such a stairway since Chungking and doubted whether I’d be able to manage it, with legs like spaghetti.

“Dis here eight faddoms deep,” Carlton said accusingly. “In open sea, Missus.”

“But the wind is dropping, Carlton. Surely you can anchor until morning. I’ll come back right after dawn. I want to give the cat a rest.”

Carlton sniffed by way of answer. A Dutch police officer, very hot in gaiters and military collar, had marched down the steps and was waving me ashore from a strip of shingle beach. I paid Carlton the port fare; he had now earned five out of the total seven due on delivery. Irvine and Voosten removed the hatch cover, unlashed the dinghy, lowered it, and Gawge rowed me and the kitten to the pebbles, using one oar astern like gondoliers in Venice. “Goodbye, Missus, I does hope you very happy wid you little cat,” said George, the gentle giant.

“Not goodbye, George, just good night.” I waited to make sure the dinghy didn’t sink before he could get back to the
Pilot.

The Dutch police officer kindly carried my suitcase though it was beneath his dignity and not his job. I wobbled up the steps behind him, with the crying cat in my arms. Mountain climbing. The village at the top was obviously called Bottom, since it was built on the crater floor of the volcano. Bottom had a dear dinky Dutch charm and felt like a fine September day in a cool country. The streets were neatly laid out in squares and neatly swept. The little houses were made of white clap-board with field stone foundations. White ruffled curtains showed behind sparkling windows. There may have been flower-filled window boxes, I forget.

The black inhabitants appeared better fed than elsewhere, worthy self-respecting citizens in their clean starched clothes. All along, I had been fascinated by the way these Caribbean blacks took on the tone of the ruling colonial power; you would know the nationality of each island without being told as if national genes and chromosomes had been transmitted down from distant European governments. Judging by the looks of the people on Saba and their town, and the brief glimpse of Phillipsburg, the Dutch were the best colonial power in this part of the world as they had been in the Orient, in the Netherlands East Indies.

The Dutch police officer deposited me at the Government Rest House. Being a cleanliness addict, as I have made abundantly clear, I was beside myself with joy. Here you could eat off the floor, if so loopily inclined, and furthermore eat fresh eggs and butter and milk and newly baked bread. There was a real shower bath that ran plentiful water, an authentic twentieth-century toilet, a functioning refrigerator, a sweet-smelling bedroom with a big four-poster and snow-white bed linen and a bedside electric lamp, an immaculate wardrobe complete with clothes hangers. I told the cat that we had fallen on our feet at last. There was also Alberta, the Rest House maid, wearing a starched white dress and Panama hat, aged sixty-four, spry and solicitous and speaking Caribbean-style English with a Dutch accent.

“You from Ammurica, Moddom?”

“Yes, Alberta.”

“Oh Moddom what we do widout Ammurica? Ammurica help me every day of my life. So many noice coloured people from Saba goes dere to work and dey send us barrils of cloze and food. God bless Ammurica, Moddom.”

I thanked her on behalf of the United States and she asked about the war but before I could answer, she said, “When we hear dey attack in Holland, Moddom, dere warn’t a droi oi on de oiland. Let us not speak of de war.” I wanted to speak about nourishing food for my cat and get busy on myself with soap and water. I hungered for that beautiful clean bed.

At sunset the rain started and the wind rose in gale force. Acetylene zig-zags of lightning flashed in the sky and thunder roared like artillery fire between the circling mountain walls of the crater. Cold and sleepless with worry for the
Pilot,
I consoled the cat for whom I felt greater guilt every minute. Why had I snatched it from familiar life in the St Barts jungle? What was happening to the crew? Finally I told myself that they were professional sailors, this sea was their home territory, they must know how to cope. And slept uneasily to wake at dawn and hurry down the long steps.

The
Pilot
had disappeared. I dithered in a frenzy, imagining it sunk with all hands, until an old fisherman told me the boat had sailed away as soon as I was out of sight, climbing to Bottom. He said that Saba was no place to anchor in this weather, their own small fishing boats were beached on the opposite side of the island. Carlton and the other men had the
Pilot
and their lives to consider, I didn’t blame them, but wished they had at least said goodbye, then remembered that George had done so, nicely. Now I was marooned on Saba. Always be grateful for mercies large and small; how fortunate to be marooned here instead of on grisly St Barts.