Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel (10 page)

Beauty is a parlour trick. It is in how you sit in the light. It is in how you turn your head and how you breathe. A man will never see his wife with pure eyes after he has smelled the tiny space behind my ear.

Men may marry despite their inabilities. We women must seek a life based on our abilities. The ability I have always had is that men will love me. It is the magic I have. It did not seem to me that I could choose my true self and still keep a child. In this way, my mother and I were alike. It is only that we had different ambitions.

I only wanted some land and a villa. I only wanted a ship. I only wanted a father for whom I was the favourite. That had been stripped from me too quickly, you see. Even I was aware that my beauty may not last forever.

Of course, I would have mourned my Anette dying. I mourned her living all the same.

All hail our Virgin Islands.
Em’ralds of the sea,
Where beaches bright with coral sand
And trade winds bless our native land.

—ALTON ADAMS, “VIRGIN ISLANDS
MARCH”

Nothing ever happen just so. It must be a story. But when I break from that fever, the first thing I see from the bed was a boy there watching me. At this time I had only know Ronald as a boy who I see sometimes with my friend Gertie when she dress up nice and ain running with me in the street. The smell of his mother’s cooking more than once had me sitting beneath his window dreaming. But now this Ronald here watching my body before he catch he self and look up at my face. I ain self realize that I just laying there in my flimsy nightie and I been sweating out this fever so the whole thing wet like I been drowning. All what God give me there for Ronald to see. “Anette, everybody saying that if I kiss you I going to die. But I don’t believe them.”

“Believe them,” I say scratchy and quiet because I ain use my voice in a long while.

He leave and come back with a glass of water. I reach for it but my hands them slippery. Is the fever breaking? My chest and all busting water. But I ain care. Ronald put the water to my lips. It going down like prickles but it feel good enough. “Thank you kindly, Ronald.”

“You going to be at school, Anette?”

I don’t know what the ass this boy talking. When we was rich Eeona had a tutor and then get send away to Tortola for more tutoring. Me? I was too young for the tutor when Papa and then Mama gone. The free grammar school finish at fifth grade, so is a good while I ain been in school. Eeona don’t have me in private school because she had say we can’t afford the tuition and the books and the uniform. I know how to read, I know my numbers, I know history and social studies what people talk in the street. That’s my most recent schooling. But I lie to Ronald, because now I thinking maybe if I say yes, then yes will make it so. “Yes, I will see you at school.”

“It will be good to see you.”

“But you seeing me all now.”

He gulp. I ain care. He there in the doorway to the bedroom, and I wondering what to do to get him to go away so I could go inspect my body and see if it come nice or shrivel-up. But I can’t just close the door in the boy face. So I ask him. “You want kiss me now?” His eyes pop open like he seeing me naked, which he almost is for how light and wet this nightie is I wearing. “I’ll see you in school, Anette.” And he spin round fast-fast.

See, me? I had never want what my sister want. Eeona want to have things. I had want to be had. I had want to be claimed. I ain shame, put it on my gravestone:
Anette get love up good.
And that is what my life has been about. Only not as I thought it would be.

That very week it come out in the paper and announce in the churches that public school expanding and now going up to the end of twelfth grade. Everything free, even the books. Is not a choice, is a big word: compulsory. American law in your bawna. Eeona have to send me. And she glad to send me away.

—

That Sunday Eeona want to take me to see the new American Anglican bishop and get a blessing because is only by the grace of God that I
recover—so she say. In truth, I thinking her carrying on is just for show. But she insisting that is a real blessing that I going to school.

I think we walking to church but Eeona hop on Nelson, the ass. I don’t like this animal, let me tell you. And I don’t like riding sidesaddle like as idiot. Eeona have the damn ass ears tie up in blue ribbons to match her own blue dress. Like we is a pappy show. And the donkey is a male, so I can’t see how it could like the ribbons. But Eeona just swing she leg around so she can ride sidesaddle. Her hands so tight around the reins she knuckles turn bone color—and despite what she think, she ain a white woman, so this mean she holding them reins tight, you hear.

“I could walk,” I say.

“Must you be such an obstacle, Anette?” Eeona there holding Nelson reins in one fisted hand and a frilly white parasol with the other like she a queen. “If you walk, you will miss all of Mass. Climb on the back of the animal.” Is like she commanding me.

Now, I know how a donkey could be kitten in the front but tiger in the back. Nelson know that I ain like he. As I sit, he begin to adjust he rear, and I thinking the damn donkey going let go a fart and we going to end up in church stinking like ass of ass. Eeona clear her throat and hold her mouth tight, as though tightening up her own lips going make the donkey fart hold inside. But instead the donkey rustle and rustle and then slowly lower he backside to the ground so that I go sliding like is the kiddie slide they have for Carnival. If Eeona ain reach out her foot, she would have been there bum first beside me. Instead, she standing over me looking vex and, damn she, more beautiful for it.

“What have you done?” she ask. I want to tell her is this fool-fool burro. Instead, I say, “Let me try again.” Again and again I try but each time I climb on, Nelson just sit down as if he get tired. How the damn donkey know is me when he ain even look back, I can’t say. I could see now why they sell this animal to Eeona for cheap. I sure ain no one could ride that beast but Eeona Bradshaw.

Just so Eeona leave me there in the house and ride that ass to Mass so she could at least catch the second reading. “I shall pray for us all,” she say, as she canter away. Then she call back without even turning her head, “Fetch water from the standpipe for cooking. Please roll some dumplings for us. Go to the Hospital Ground fish market and fetch an oldwife. No other fish will do. Oldwife only. Now that you are recovered you must make an attempt at usefulness.”

And let me tell you, Nelson never let me ride he. The problem is that Eeona always have chores for me while she gone to the Hospitality Lounge where she get a piece of job sewing and stitching, or when she gone riding to church to thank God that I gone school and give she some space or what have you. Fetch some sweet pepper and limes from the market, she say to me. Haul water from the standpipe for brushing our teeth. Get fish from Hospital Ground, never from Frenchtown. Eeona claim that I jumbie Nelson because I trying to get away with being dependent on my sister for everything. But I say again, I don’t believe in these things—jumbie, obeah, voodoo. I believe in me.

And watch what I mean: I never even went walking that first Sunday for fish or water. For true. I just sit down in the tiny flat we renting and think of the fish frying and the water springing. It come like I procrastinating, but I wasn’t a lick surprised when Ronald rap on the door again and say he just had an idea to pass with some fresh fish and he have some fresh water in this here bucket. Is the fish oldwife? Yes. He also bring the sweet pepper and limes for the fish. Man, Ronald even clean and cook the fish, you hear. He a boy but he learn it all from his mother.

What can I say for Ronnie? He was a good boy and he come a good man. But I ain really that special to Ronnie. Is not me alone he would do things for. Anybody ask him for a dollar, he reach in his pocket and give them ten. Is good to give, you know. But Ronald give like he don’t
know when to stop. Man, Ronnie even friend with the tourists that walking about drinking rum like water and sweating like they is standpipe. He offer them rag to wipe off. He jump into the water when the tourists throw a dime—fetch it for them. From his own cup he pour them Coca-Cola for their rum.

But woy, the boy could cook. Eeona there thinking that maybe I might be worth keeping around because I learn how to make johnnycake and paté, red pea soup with dumplings. I like I learning in my sleep. But once she gone down the street on Nelson back, riding sidesaddle with that too-warm crochet shawl around her shoulders, I would just think on Ronald and then Ronald and Gertie would come and knock on the door to see if I need anything.

See, after that first time where he make the fish and dumplings, Ronnie never come by he self. Because really and truly it just ain proper for a young man to be in the house alone with a young girl. He come with my friend Gertie. And while he in there fixing fish and fungi, Gertie and me there playing cards—go fish. When food cook, all a we eat.

Eeona spending all her time working in the Hospitality Lounge, planning some plan to get she self rich again. But she ain talking ’bout sending me St. Croix. And I ain going no how. St. Thomas come sweet. Besides, once I big enough I even start helping with the rent—working at the apothecary after school as cashier—those child labor laws from the States ain yet take proper effect for we. The food that Ronnie make every Sunday lasting the whole week. I barely seeing Eeona at all. Is like we sisters living each in our own land with the sea separating. But is fine with me. Is pretty fine. Is fine for years. But it only take a few years for a war change up all of that fineness.

It was easy. There was war. We had to prove something to the nation, it seemed. Prove we were worthy of the U.S. passports they’d allowed us. Every man in St. Thomas knew he was going to be drafted. And every man who put on a uniform wanted to leave something behind. A wife. Something to return to. They were in high school now, but Ronald had been in love with Anette for years; since on a dare he’d snuck into her flat to try and kiss her.

Ronald came from a decent family. This was not important to Anette. This was important to Eeona. It is true that Eeona did not take to Ronald. In fact, she thought his picky hair would surely sully the Bradshaw genes. But Eeona needed two things: First, to be free of her unwanted charge in a way that still kept the family dignity. Second, very second, though it should have been first, to keep Anette away from the wrong mangrove man with the McKenzie name.

But what Anette needed was to fall in love in such a way that she was hooked to that man as if with an invisible cord. A cord not unlike the one fastening you to your mother at birth. Only this is one you cannot see and so cannot easily cut away. Still, Anette thought she liked Ronald enough to go around with him. It was easy to think this. Many girls liked Ronald—he was likable.

Just after turning eighteen Ronald Smalls got the letter, which all our young men were getting, that said he was drafted. Instead of howling out of fear, he went to the beautiful Eeona. He told her the lie that he was enlisting, and the truth that he would like Anette to be his wife. He sat in their little outer room and answered all of Eeona’s questions. “Will you love and obey her?” “Yes, Miss Bradshaw.” “Will you promise to not die?” “I promise to try not to.” “You do know that she does not love you?”
Ronald did not know this. He sat there and blinked with his mouth slightly open.

“Young man, love is not everything.” Eeona said this with authority. Poor Ronald. “It is fine, Mr. Smalls. You will do.”

So Eeona gave her blessing for the marriage and began, as her mother had before her, to sew Anette a dress. Eeona also began to consider her savings, her possible means, the clearest trajectory, the shortest time frame to her backward escape. But there was one thing that she did not consider: that Ronald Smalls and Jacob Esau McKenzie would both end up as soldiers in Port Company 875.

We ain really know it have a war. We there living good, you know. The Navy there in Sub Base, but who really studying them? The Navy boys just like to drink and cause confusion. The Coast Guard repaint the Muhlenfeldt Point lighthouse and install bright lights that blink up the sea at night. But nobody ain really study the Coast Guard since the Rum Wars done. Me and Gertie try to get out to the lighthouse point for a picnic but the keeper, a old Yankee, run we off. And then all the sudden there was a war and they say they starting up companies just for Virgin Islanders. Army. Coast Guard. Even some special boys with good last names end up in the Navy proper. Everybody say that if the boys serve good, they going let we vote and let we have our own governor. The statesiders bring the Puerto Rican soldiers and sailors over to show our backsides they mean business. See those P.R. boys, sharp-sharp in their white uniforms. Walking in the street with some broad shoulder as if they is
men even though most of them is seventeen or eighteen, like me and my classmates.

All a we went to Charlotte Amalie High then. Only one proper high school on the island so everybody know one another. It have a McKenzie in my class and his name is Saul. Them McKenzies used to get skip or hold back depending on whether the teacher think they brilliant or stupidee. Saul is a stupidee, so he actually older than the rest of us, but he a nice fellow. I hear he have a brother who younger than him but in college already. That brother, supposedly a brilliant, name Jacob. And one time, I open the yearbook and that selfsame Jacob smiling from the seat of a piano. But that’s the most I think on that McKenzie.

Plenty girls had like my classmate Saul. He dull but still a McKenzie. But he ain studying none of we. It turn out he don’t fancy girls at all. No matter, because when the war come, every girl in the high school had a Puerto Rican soldier or sailor boyfriend, even if only in she mind. Puerto Rican music now taking over the radio waves, Spanish boleros on everybody tongue.

Now it coming clear that Ronald, despite all that cooking and cleaning, wasn’t no man to hold me. Ronnie ain even try again to kiss me on the mouth all these years we going school together. He ain fraid of no Spanish influenza, he just one of them too-proper boys. But still, he have people thinking we going around steady. But I was a fast girl, always spinning on my own axis, and I ain have no patience for Ronald who don’t know how to hold on tight.

When the Puerto Rican boys liming in Emancipation Garden, me and Gertie go and lime, too. Manie, is what I call each of the soldiers them, even though I ain know if they name Manuel or Manuelito or any such thing. Is just that they really doing the man thing, you know? They say bold things in Spanish. Encantada. Bonita. Everybody on St. Thomas know enough Spanish to buy provisions on the Santo ships when they come in, or beg the Ponce man who own the movie theater for a Clark
Gable. ¿Cómo estás? we say. Bien. Hombre bonito. Por favor. The boys know enough English, because they does learn it in school in San Juan. They ask if we have boyfriend before they even ask our names. When we exhaust the languages, the boys start taking we by the hands, walking about the garden like we going steady. When we walk, they leading; a little guide go that way, a little turn let we stop here in the shade, and a little dip let we sit at this bench. Smooth as water in a glass.

Now I ain thinking that sitting down on a bench with a boy is no big deal. But that evening I reach home and Eeona tell me, “Your suitor came calling.” I only wondering how that Manie find our flat. I thinking Eeona going to yabba me good:
Who, pray tell, is this ragamuffin Puerto Rican who cannot even speak English knocking on our door?
But then I thinking it might even end up okay. Eeona might like the young man because he light-skinned, you know, and we could all pretend he descend straight from Magellan or Columbus or something so.

Just as I thinking this through, Ronald Smalls knocking on the door. He ain wait to answer but he come barging in even though the sun going down and it ain really appropriate for him to be in our place so late. “I hear that one of the Puerto Ricans has been going around with my fiancée.” He ain even looking to me.

“Fian-who? What you talking about, Ronnie?”

Ronald look at Eeona as though he and she have a pact. “I hear Miss Anette Bradshaw has been courted by a Puerto Rican from the . . . Navy.” You could see it was hard for him to say the last part. Because it’s true, them man in uniform was sweeping up woman like cobwebs.

“I ain your fiancée, Ronnie.” And when I say this, Eeona open her eyes until her eyebrow mash into her forehead. “I don’t see no wedding band saying who I for.” I wiggle my ring finger at them both and go into the bedroom. I flop down on our one bed and fall into a sweaty sleep.

That very week me and Gertie strolling down Main Street each with a little blue and red scarf around we neck because anything in the American
colors is fashionable now. Somebody come running past. Then somebody else. I hold one of them. “What all you chasing?”

“A local boy looking to fight one of them P.R. boys in the Garden. They fighting over some girl,” he call over his shoulder. Then he stop and turn to me. “In fact, is you they fighting over. You is Anette Bradshaw, right?”

Is a big running me and Gertie do. We reach down to the Garden. No big-big crowd, just a scattering of men. But is only men, because even watching a fight ain a lady thing. So me and Gertie, we find a place behind some bougainvillea and we watch Ronald there shouting and carrying on to nobody in particular. And his friends, who is our friends, because everybody in the same school, there holding him back. But no P.R. boy in sight. I don’t want to see Ronald get beat up, so I considering going to him and telling him I’ll be his girl if he behave. But just then a gang of Ricans come strolling in. I had feel bad for how scruffy our boys look. I ain even think the Manie who sit with me is among these, but one boy walk straight up to Ronald, and before anybody could say begin or ring a bell or what have you, he put a cuff on Ronald so hard Ronnie there on the floor sprawl out like he dead.

Everybody flock around Ronald. Even the P.R. boys bend down to see if the boy okay. But next thing the military police come sirening in and everybody scatter this way and that. Somebody look to pick up Ronald and drag him, but they find he is deadweight so they drop him and gone. Is clap and beat the MPs knock about everybody until the place clear out. Only then me and Gertie sneak out from behind the bush to go see if Ronald dead or alive.

See me there kneeling by Ronnie side, I ready to cry and be a widow even though just the other day I tell the man I ain nothing to him. Is then he choose to open his eye. “I beat up that P.R. man for you,” he say, alive as can be.

Gertie start one big laughing. I smile, but out of pity I nod and say, “Yes, I heard.” He move until his head there in my lap and I thinking to myself that this man take after Nelson the ass, what with his big head.

“Let we get married, no, Anette?”

I watch the man bust-up mouth say those words, and think to myself,
He must be lose he mind
. “I going think about it,” I say because I feel bad I is the cause of this man going crazy. He smile despite his swole lip.

How Eeona find out about the ruction, I cannot tell you, but this island small. Eeona give me a talking to about the indecency of me causing a riot. Her face tight up like she make of dirt. I suck my teeth and tell Eeona is woman I is. Eeona ain miss a beat of she stitching, she just look up at me with her eye them sharp and say, “Well, finally. Perhaps you will use your womanly sense to marry this good man. You have been on my hands far too long.”

Is then I really watch what she there sewing and I see it looking white and lacy and bridal for true. “You marry him, then,” I say, and slam myself into bed again. In my dreams I hearing somebody playing piano and I there going up the church aisle in lace.

Maybe a next week later a bunch of us walking home from school and Saul report that his brother get drafted into the Army. His little brother who suppose to be immune from war because he been in college. Saul vex because his brother should have go to the Navy, because that’s where their father Benjamin McKenzie used to be before he went Puerto Rico to dead in the rain forest. “You mean your brother who does play piano?” I ask Saul, and everyone give me a funny look because I ain never even meet the boy, so how I know he play piano? But I think of that boy from the yearbook with the mangrove look. He look like somebody. I think of him in a uniform. I think that, yes, he probably look good in a uniform. Navy or Army, no matter.

But imagine this. Next I see Ronald he have on a little triangle Army
hat. I say, “What you doing in that costume?” “It’s not a costume,” he say. “I fighting fire with fire. I going to the Army.” Fool-fool. But who more foolish, me or he? Because on high school graduation day he stand up for his diploma in the tent hat and I watch the man and think,
He ain look bad
. And when we there afterward drinking punch and Coca-Cola at the reception, he come to me and say, “You think about marrying me?” I say, “I still thinking.” He say, “I leaving on that ship that in the harbor now. Shipping out in days.” I look across the room and see Gertie there with her beau. A boy from our class who enlist in the Army, like Ronald say he do. Gertie Army boy ask her to tie the knot and just today she accept. So she have a man to put his hold on her. I say to Ronald, “So I must make up my mind in days?” I suck my teeth. “Go on your boat.”

But Ronald say he ain going until I give he the answer one way or another. I want to tell the man no, but I ain have the heart. I figure the military going take him and there ain nothing he could do to stop it. He don’t have the magic to stop and start things like I do. But I tell you, that ship sail without Ronald. It have some paperwork he ain fill out or maybe that wasn’t his boat in truth. But hear this. Just weeks later we get the news about the ship going down, all the sweet Puerto Ricans on it, plus Gertie very boyfriend. Bomb somebody say. Either way, they sink to the bottom. Everybody dead. Gertie hysterical. I in a damn daze. Like the only reason Ronnie ain dead on the boat is because I was considering his proposal. I undead him. Maybe the magic giving me a sign. So Eeona push the white lacy dress and I marry Ronald like marrying him is my duty. Just so.

Eeona hold a little reception at Lindbergh Bay because we can’t afford a hall. Gertie come to the wedding despite her grief. I don’t have no father to do the last dance with me, like is the custom in the States. Ronnie come dance with me. But he can’t dance good at all. We sit down, feet in the sand, most of the time.

But still. I feel good. Ronnie here. And Ronnie want me. And it have a
war. And everybody marrying like is the style. I move into Ronnie mother house, giving Eeona that relief she want. For a week, just a smallie week, everything looking like it in the right place. Then Ronald ship out.

And I ain miss Ronnie one ounce. In fact, I happy-happy. I is seventeen years old. But even I know that something wrong if I happy when the boy I just marry gone to war.