Authors: Jamaica Kincaid
Mr. Potter (10 page)
And that morning, when the sun was in its usual place, somewhere between the east and west horizons, Drickie and Annie, my father and my mother, met, and they lived together at Points, in a house that was only one room, quarreled, and when my mother was seven months pregnant with me, she took all of Mr. Potter's savings, money he had stored in a crocus bag under their bed, money he had been saving to one day buy his own car and become the driver of his own taxi, and she left with me growing at the normal rate of a baby in her stomach, and went to live all by herself in another house that was really one room and this house was in Grays Farm. And those last harsh words my mother and father, Annie and Drickie, said to each other, and her murderous action directed at him, taking the money he had saved, with which he meant to make of himself some semblance of a man, and her leaving him to perish again and again each new day in the world of Mr. Shoul, led to Mr. Potter's never seeing my face when I was newly born or anytime soon after, and led to my having a line drawn through me, that space where Mr. Potter's name ought to be is not full with my father and his name, it is not
empty either, it only has a line drawn through it, and that line is drawn through me. And this inheritance I have passed on to no one, I have never claimed it, I have never done anything with it except to look and turn it over in my mind and make note of it, I have passed it on to no one. My name, Elaine Cynthia Potter, crossed out by the line that was drawn through it, I first abandoned and then changed to something else altogether, so that the line drawn through me, now, cannot find me, and if it did, would not recognize me, and that line cannot see me, but I can see it, following me each day as I do some ordinary thing, breathing in and out, for instance, or gazing out a window watching a soft rain fall, for instance, or removing from the palm of my hand the almost fatal lance of an unusual insect, for instance. The line that is drawn through me, this line I have inherited, but I have not accepted my inheritance and so have not deeded it to anyone who shall follow me.
empty either, it only has a line drawn through it, and that line is drawn through me. And this inheritance I have passed on to no one, I have never claimed it, I have never done anything with it except to look and turn it over in my mind and make note of it, I have passed it on to no one. My name, Elaine Cynthia Potter, crossed out by the line that was drawn through it, I first abandoned and then changed to something else altogether, so that the line drawn through me, now, cannot find me, and if it did, would not recognize me, and that line cannot see me, but I can see it, following me each day as I do some ordinary thing, breathing in and out, for instance, or gazing out a window watching a soft rain fall, for instance, or removing from the palm of my hand the almost fatal lance of an unusual insect, for instance. The line that is drawn through me, this line I have inherited, but I have not accepted my inheritance and so have not deeded it to anyone who shall follow me.
And when I was born, in the very early morning of a Wednesday, five o'clock, the sun was not in the middle of the sky then, it was only just below the horizon, only just beginning its ordinary journey to the middle of the sky, to the middle of the day, so tiresome to an observer, so indifferent to being observed, and when I was born, newly out of my mother's womb, I did not cry, and that was to be the signal that I was alive, but I did not cry and the woman assisting my mother in
my being born slapped me, lightly to her and suiting her cruel understanding of the world, but hard to me, just newly born and with no experience or understanding of the world into which I had just entered, and I cried and cried, loud, louder, and more loudly than ever and that strong cry was later described to me as evidence of a strong character, likable when I was just born, but not at all so now. And my mother's name then was Annie Victoria Richardson and my father's name then was Roderick Potter, but only Annie claimed me and this woman, Annie Richardson, held me close to her breast and fed me milk and that was all she had to offer me then, the thin, clear, milky fluid that was called milk, flowing out from the enlarged pores of her breast. And she fed me and fed me her milk and I drank it and drank it and then one day her breasts ran dry, no milk came out of them, and this is just what she said to me when I was three years old and five years old and then seven years old, and then after a time she no longer told me that story, of how she fed me her milk until I sucked her dry, and I reminded her of this one day when I myself had children and had grown tired of feeding them milk from my breast, and my mother said that she did not remember telling me that I had drained her of milk and in any case, she said, such a thing never happened and could not have happened since she could not remember it happening so. And I can see myself in a photograph
when I was seven years old, and from seeing my face, I look vacant, from looking at my face, I seem as if I am without content of any kind, but it is only the absence of Mr. Potter that is written on my face; I have a line drawn through me, and that overwhelms everything that I know about myself at this moment, that line overwhelms the milk I drank from my mother's breast and my mother's name was Annie Victoria Richardson and it was she and my father Roderick Potter who made me.
my being born slapped me, lightly to her and suiting her cruel understanding of the world, but hard to me, just newly born and with no experience or understanding of the world into which I had just entered, and I cried and cried, loud, louder, and more loudly than ever and that strong cry was later described to me as evidence of a strong character, likable when I was just born, but not at all so now. And my mother's name then was Annie Victoria Richardson and my father's name then was Roderick Potter, but only Annie claimed me and this woman, Annie Richardson, held me close to her breast and fed me milk and that was all she had to offer me then, the thin, clear, milky fluid that was called milk, flowing out from the enlarged pores of her breast. And she fed me and fed me her milk and I drank it and drank it and then one day her breasts ran dry, no milk came out of them, and this is just what she said to me when I was three years old and five years old and then seven years old, and then after a time she no longer told me that story, of how she fed me her milk until I sucked her dry, and I reminded her of this one day when I myself had children and had grown tired of feeding them milk from my breast, and my mother said that she did not remember telling me that I had drained her of milk and in any case, she said, such a thing never happened and could not have happened since she could not remember it happening so. And I can see myself in a photograph
when I was seven years old, and from seeing my face, I look vacant, from looking at my face, I seem as if I am without content of any kind, but it is only the absence of Mr. Potter that is written on my face; I have a line drawn through me, and that overwhelms everything that I know about myself at this moment, that line overwhelms the milk I drank from my mother's breast and my mother's name was Annie Victoria Richardson and it was she and my father Roderick Potter who made me.
And I can see my face, it is in my mind's eye, and my cheeks are round and fat like Elfrida Robinson's and my nose is fat and thick and spreads out toward and then rests on my cheeks and the plumpness of my cheeks is exactly like that of Elfrida Robinson's and the exact plumpness of my nose occurs in identical form on the face of Nathaniel Potter and this nose also appears on the face of Mr. Potter and all the girl children he fathered. All the girl children Mr. Potter fathered had such a nose, a nose that resembled his own and through his nose he knew with certainly that he was their father. And Mr. Potter said “Eh, eh, eh, eh” when seeing these girls, and sometimes he said it with pleasure, because they had recently been born and he still favored their mothers, and sometimes he said it with annoyance, for he could remember their mothers' annoying ways with their demands on him, and always he said it in anger when those girls who
were born and would die with the shape of Mr. Potter's nose dominating the smooth contour that was their face appeared standing in front of him and asked him for something essential, something essential other than the part he had played in their very coming into existence. Schoolbooks, for instance, not underthings or a hat, but schoolbooks. One day when I was about four years old, the age at which reality and apprehension of reality and bewilderment and uncertainty made up my world completely, I stood in the shadow of Mr. Shoul's garage and waited for Mr. Potter, who was at that time busily ferrying passengers from one place to another in Mr. Shoul's taxi, and one of those passengers was Dr. Weizenger all by himself then, he was not with his wife, and I waited and waited, and waiting seemed so natural to me then, as if it were the sky or the land or oxygen or rainwater, so seemed waiting to me; and I waited for Mr. Potter, and his friend George Martin said he would not come, but I waited all the same, and then Mr. Potter came, driving a car with the brand Hillman or Zephyr stamped on it, and when he saw me, he waved me away as if I were an abandoned dog blocking his path, as if I were nothing to him at all and had suddenly and insanely decided to pursue an intimate relationship with him. “Eh, eh,” said Mr. Potter. And my life began, absent Mr. Potter, in the dimly lit ward of the Holberton Hospital, with my mother's resentment silently beaming
at him, with my mother's love for me and my mother's resentment silently beaming at me, and then I was swathed in yards of white cotton and laid to rest in the pose of the newborn which is also the pose of the dead, my eyes closed, my arms folded firmly across my chest, my entire body stilled, but I was not dead, my chest moved up and down, ever so slightly for I was just newly born and my lungs were getting used to the process of first going in and then going out. And I lay beside my mother in the Holberton Hospital, nestled close to her breast, drinking my first nourishment, her milk, and she lay next to me, feeding me my first nourishment, the milk that had been stored in her breast, and how she loved me as she fed me, and how she hated the person who was part of the process of her feeding me, Mr. Potter, and he was my father. And from the Holberton Hospital, my mother, Annie Victoria Richardson, took me, whom by that time she had named Elaine, after a daughter of Mr. Shoul's, and that name, Elaine, had no meaning to Mr. Shoul at all, but to my mother it was a name she had heard Mr. Shoul's daughter being called, and my mother had loved Mr. Shoul's chauffeur, that would have been Mr. Potter, and my mother now loved me, but after I was born she never saw Mr. Potter or Mr. Shoul or Mr. Shoul's daughter, except in passing, and so for a long time in my life I bore the name of people my mother no longer liked or loved or even wished well and from
the Holberton Hospital she took me to Grays Farm, into a house which was really only one room with some windows and two doors. And as I grew from only a newborn, going into the first full year of my life, the milk from my mother's breast was augmented with porridge made of cornmeal or arrowroot. And I grew all the same, and could talk before I could walk and I was a marvel to see, a marvel to observe, but Mr. Potter never saw me then, not when I was a baby and in need of him, not when I was a little girl and in need of him, Mr. Potter never saw me at all, for he had caused a line to be drawn through me, and my mother, using her formidable will, anger, and imagination, had driven a sharp knife into the heart of Mr. Potter and that heart was the little bundle of money meant to be the beginning of a life Mr. Potter had in mind for himself, and in that way another line was born, this line was drawn between me and Mr. Potter and that line was firm and for our whole lives it remained unbreachable and love could not touch it, for hatred and indifference were its name.
were born and would die with the shape of Mr. Potter's nose dominating the smooth contour that was their face appeared standing in front of him and asked him for something essential, something essential other than the part he had played in their very coming into existence. Schoolbooks, for instance, not underthings or a hat, but schoolbooks. One day when I was about four years old, the age at which reality and apprehension of reality and bewilderment and uncertainty made up my world completely, I stood in the shadow of Mr. Shoul's garage and waited for Mr. Potter, who was at that time busily ferrying passengers from one place to another in Mr. Shoul's taxi, and one of those passengers was Dr. Weizenger all by himself then, he was not with his wife, and I waited and waited, and waiting seemed so natural to me then, as if it were the sky or the land or oxygen or rainwater, so seemed waiting to me; and I waited for Mr. Potter, and his friend George Martin said he would not come, but I waited all the same, and then Mr. Potter came, driving a car with the brand Hillman or Zephyr stamped on it, and when he saw me, he waved me away as if I were an abandoned dog blocking his path, as if I were nothing to him at all and had suddenly and insanely decided to pursue an intimate relationship with him. “Eh, eh,” said Mr. Potter. And my life began, absent Mr. Potter, in the dimly lit ward of the Holberton Hospital, with my mother's resentment silently beaming
at him, with my mother's love for me and my mother's resentment silently beaming at me, and then I was swathed in yards of white cotton and laid to rest in the pose of the newborn which is also the pose of the dead, my eyes closed, my arms folded firmly across my chest, my entire body stilled, but I was not dead, my chest moved up and down, ever so slightly for I was just newly born and my lungs were getting used to the process of first going in and then going out. And I lay beside my mother in the Holberton Hospital, nestled close to her breast, drinking my first nourishment, her milk, and she lay next to me, feeding me my first nourishment, the milk that had been stored in her breast, and how she loved me as she fed me, and how she hated the person who was part of the process of her feeding me, Mr. Potter, and he was my father. And from the Holberton Hospital, my mother, Annie Victoria Richardson, took me, whom by that time she had named Elaine, after a daughter of Mr. Shoul's, and that name, Elaine, had no meaning to Mr. Shoul at all, but to my mother it was a name she had heard Mr. Shoul's daughter being called, and my mother had loved Mr. Shoul's chauffeur, that would have been Mr. Potter, and my mother now loved me, but after I was born she never saw Mr. Potter or Mr. Shoul or Mr. Shoul's daughter, except in passing, and so for a long time in my life I bore the name of people my mother no longer liked or loved or even wished well and from
the Holberton Hospital she took me to Grays Farm, into a house which was really only one room with some windows and two doors. And as I grew from only a newborn, going into the first full year of my life, the milk from my mother's breast was augmented with porridge made of cornmeal or arrowroot. And I grew all the same, and could talk before I could walk and I was a marvel to see, a marvel to observe, but Mr. Potter never saw me then, not when I was a baby and in need of him, not when I was a little girl and in need of him, Mr. Potter never saw me at all, for he had caused a line to be drawn through me, and my mother, using her formidable will, anger, and imagination, had driven a sharp knife into the heart of Mr. Potter and that heart was the little bundle of money meant to be the beginning of a life Mr. Potter had in mind for himself, and in that way another line was born, this line was drawn between me and Mr. Potter and that line was firm and for our whole lives it remained unbreachable and love could not touch it, for hatred and indifference were its name.
And I come back to Mr. Potter again and again, he with his chauffeur's cap worn jauntily on his head, his shirt well ironed, the crease down the front of his trousers stiffly in place, his teeth gleaming in the harsh light of the sun, for he had scrubbed them with the tip of a damp cloth dipped in ashes, his black chauffeur's shoes gleaming from the rough rubbing he
had administered to them, his words emerging from his mouth consoling and soothing Mr. Shoul, who every day was entangled in some memory of olive groves and the road to Damascus and hurriedly leaving the Lebanon and trying to settle in Surinam and trying to settle in Trinidad and suitcases filled with pots and pans and yard upon yard of different kinds of coarse cloth and lace; and Mr. Potter's words emerging from his mouth were consoling and soothing to the many passengers he ferried from one part of the island of Antigua to another, and these passengers denounced climates not known to Mr. Potter, climates in which they lived and so therefore hated, and they asked him about the things to be seen through the windows of the taxi: the fields of sugarcane, and just a quick glance revealed the hardship of labor involved in cultivating it, the fields of cotton plants in flower, and just a quick glance revealed the hardship of labor involved in cultivating and bringing it to harvest, the mud houses with straw roofs, the torn clothes drying on the clotheslines, the half-naked children with swollen stomachs, the indescribable and invisible lushness that they could feel enveloping them; and Mr. Potter would say, “Yes, Yes, Yes!” and the “Yes” would be so drawn out, would take so long to come to an end, that perhaps a journey could be made around the world in its entirety before these many “Yeses” were completed. And Mr. Potter's voice was so consoling
and soothing, as if he were an undertaker, embalming each memory of Mr. Shoul's, each observation of his passengers', and doing so without really taking them in, they were all nothing to him, they were only part of what life had visited upon him, and Mr. Shoul would one day go, and Dr. Weizenger would one day go and the passengers in the taxi would one day go, and Mr. Potter would remain forever after they had gone, for he had given meaning to this landscape, the sea, the sun shining so brightly in the middle of the noonday sky, the huge black-colored wind, blowing from the windward direction, devouring the sun that had been so perfectly placed within the noonday sky. He had given meaning to the abolition of forced servitude, he had given meaning to picnics on Whitsunday, something that was revolting to Dr. WeizengerâWhitsundayâbut a holiday that gave Mr. Shoul an excuse to eat more than usual.
had administered to them, his words emerging from his mouth consoling and soothing Mr. Shoul, who every day was entangled in some memory of olive groves and the road to Damascus and hurriedly leaving the Lebanon and trying to settle in Surinam and trying to settle in Trinidad and suitcases filled with pots and pans and yard upon yard of different kinds of coarse cloth and lace; and Mr. Potter's words emerging from his mouth were consoling and soothing to the many passengers he ferried from one part of the island of Antigua to another, and these passengers denounced climates not known to Mr. Potter, climates in which they lived and so therefore hated, and they asked him about the things to be seen through the windows of the taxi: the fields of sugarcane, and just a quick glance revealed the hardship of labor involved in cultivating it, the fields of cotton plants in flower, and just a quick glance revealed the hardship of labor involved in cultivating and bringing it to harvest, the mud houses with straw roofs, the torn clothes drying on the clotheslines, the half-naked children with swollen stomachs, the indescribable and invisible lushness that they could feel enveloping them; and Mr. Potter would say, “Yes, Yes, Yes!” and the “Yes” would be so drawn out, would take so long to come to an end, that perhaps a journey could be made around the world in its entirety before these many “Yeses” were completed. And Mr. Potter's voice was so consoling
and soothing, as if he were an undertaker, embalming each memory of Mr. Shoul's, each observation of his passengers', and doing so without really taking them in, they were all nothing to him, they were only part of what life had visited upon him, and Mr. Shoul would one day go, and Dr. Weizenger would one day go and the passengers in the taxi would one day go, and Mr. Potter would remain forever after they had gone, for he had given meaning to this landscape, the sea, the sun shining so brightly in the middle of the noonday sky, the huge black-colored wind, blowing from the windward direction, devouring the sun that had been so perfectly placed within the noonday sky. He had given meaning to the abolition of forced servitude, he had given meaning to picnics on Whitsunday, something that was revolting to Dr. WeizengerâWhitsundayâbut a holiday that gave Mr. Shoul an excuse to eat more than usual.
For this world of Mr. Potter's, with its desires fulfilled and its desires thwarted (and, unknown to Mr. Potter, it was a familiar pattern to most human beings), this world of his was a constantly boiling cauldron of bad and good, but the good things boiled more rapidly and disappeared quickly, evaporating and going up in wisps and then vanishing altogether in the air, and the bad things boiled and boiled, sending up froth and bubbles, and the bad things boiled and boiled, forever and ever and increased in volume. And
Mr. Potter's self, after a day of being in his car, filled up with false goodwill toward people he would never really know and people he did not wish to really know, and the earth itself revolved as usual on its axis and it was beyond indifference to Mr. Potter's existence; and it was the end of his day with Mr. Shoul, Dr. Weizenger, and the people who came from climates they did not like and who had made for themselves a regular escape from this climate they did not like altogether, and Mr. Potter exhaled loudly a soft sound, a sigh, and he went from the day's end at Mr. Shoul's garage to the many houses which were really one room with four windows and he could see all the women who were the mothers of his girl children and all of those girls with his broad and fleshy nose, and he looked at his children, all of them girls, and he looked at their mothers, women who longed for his presence and for his presence to remain a constant day after day, and that when he went away he would return with the same intensity and self-possession as when he left. And they longed for his presence, and they longed for his presence over and over, and how they wanted his presence to be permanent. But Mr. Potter's caresses and embraces were like a razor and each woman and girl child of his who had received one of his embraces was left with skin shredded and hanging toward the floor and blood falling down to meet the floor and bones exposed and sinew, too, and nerves;
and after all that, the person, the mother with her girl child, was recomposed, not made new, only recomposed into an ordinary mother with her girl child, and their tears could make a river and their sighs of sorrow and regret could make mountains, and the pangs of hunger in their stomachs could make a verdant valley, and they cried to Mr. Potter, these children and their mothers who lived in houses which were really a single room with four windows, and their tears fell like fat sheets of rain and their cries made no difference, no difference at all to anybody.
Mr. Potter's self, after a day of being in his car, filled up with false goodwill toward people he would never really know and people he did not wish to really know, and the earth itself revolved as usual on its axis and it was beyond indifference to Mr. Potter's existence; and it was the end of his day with Mr. Shoul, Dr. Weizenger, and the people who came from climates they did not like and who had made for themselves a regular escape from this climate they did not like altogether, and Mr. Potter exhaled loudly a soft sound, a sigh, and he went from the day's end at Mr. Shoul's garage to the many houses which were really one room with four windows and he could see all the women who were the mothers of his girl children and all of those girls with his broad and fleshy nose, and he looked at his children, all of them girls, and he looked at their mothers, women who longed for his presence and for his presence to remain a constant day after day, and that when he went away he would return with the same intensity and self-possession as when he left. And they longed for his presence, and they longed for his presence over and over, and how they wanted his presence to be permanent. But Mr. Potter's caresses and embraces were like a razor and each woman and girl child of his who had received one of his embraces was left with skin shredded and hanging toward the floor and blood falling down to meet the floor and bones exposed and sinew, too, and nerves;
and after all that, the person, the mother with her girl child, was recomposed, not made new, only recomposed into an ordinary mother with her girl child, and their tears could make a river and their sighs of sorrow and regret could make mountains, and the pangs of hunger in their stomachs could make a verdant valley, and they cried to Mr. Potter, these children and their mothers who lived in houses which were really a single room with four windows, and their tears fell like fat sheets of rain and their cries made no difference, no difference at all to anybody.
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