Mr. Potter (4 page)
Authors: Jamaica Kincaid
And on a day such as that: Nathaniel Potter could hear the faint sound of all that had been capricious and had come to make up his life: his children and their mothers, his ancestors from some of the many places that make up Africa and from somewhere in Spain and from somewhere in England and from somewhere in Scotland. And the faint sound of all that he was made of caused him to grow angry, caused him to grow almost happy and curious but then angry again, and the anger welled up in him and he was all alone in the world, the world that refused to bear any
trace of the capriciousness of history or the capriciousness of memory, the world that had passed away. But Nathaniel Potter could not so simply come into such a day and into such a landscape, for at that moment his very existence was part of all that surrounded him. The very shape of the earth, for instance: he was part of its mysterious and endless beginnings, he was part of its boundaries; the day, the night, the light from the sun forcing its way through the heavens onto the land on which he stood, all this too was part of what made him. How simple he was then, how without knowledge of harm he was then, how beautiful, how innocent, how perfect.
trace of the capriciousness of history or the capriciousness of memory, the world that had passed away. But Nathaniel Potter could not so simply come into such a day and into such a landscape, for at that moment his very existence was part of all that surrounded him. The very shape of the earth, for instance: he was part of its mysterious and endless beginnings, he was part of its boundaries; the day, the night, the light from the sun forcing its way through the heavens onto the land on which he stood, all this too was part of what made him. How simple he was then, how without knowledge of harm he was then, how beautiful, how innocent, how perfect.
Nathaniel Potter could not read and he did not make a child who could do so. He made eleven children but he did not make one who could read and so write. He made a fishing boat with his own hands, he made the oars with which to row his fishing boat, he sat under a tree and made himself a fishing net, and while he was doing all those things his life flowed out of him and then flowed back into him again; and there was nothing he could make of himself, for he was happy sometimes and sad sometimes and angry sometimes and helpless sometimes and without hope sometimes and there was nothing he could make of himself. How it rained when he did not want it to do so, how the rain refused to come down when he wished it would do so, how fast the dark that is night
fell when he wanted the light of day to last longer and to shine brighter, how harsh, as it falls on his bare head, could something so innocent as the rays of the sun be!
fell when he wanted the light of day to last longer and to shine brighter, how harsh, as it falls on his bare head, could something so innocent as the rays of the sun be!
And that boat, how did he come to know the way in which it should be made? When he had been a little boy he had sat next to a man who made boats and watched that man do so. And those oars, how did he come to know the way in which they should be carved? When he sat next to the man who built the boats, Nathaniel watched as he made oars. And that fishing net, how did he come to know the ways of making it and repairing any rent in it? That same man who built the boat and made the oars had been a fisherman also and he knew how to make fish pots and how to make a fishing net, and Nathaniel had sat next to him and watched him do all those things, for Nathaniel then was just a boy and that fisherman was his father. And his father taught him how to do all the things that would eventually shape his life, for Nathaniel became a fisherman also. But his father did not teach him how to make children and his father could not teach him how to make children who could read and write.
And when Nathaniel became a fisherman, that is to say, a man who went out to sea in the deep dark of late night and the thinning dark of early morning to catch fish, he no longer thought of his father or anyone
who came before him. His life was his own and it appeared to him, his life, as itself, not like another life, it came to him without a reference to anything and he was only himself and he was made up of nothing else. And if someone came upon him then, he could not give an account of himself, not even one that began with “I was born ⦔ for he no longer had an interest in when he came into the world. But he was born in the way that all people are born and he was conceived in the way all people are conceived: no one enters the world in the exact same situation.
who came before him. His life was his own and it appeared to him, his life, as itself, not like another life, it came to him without a reference to anything and he was only himself and he was made up of nothing else. And if someone came upon him then, he could not give an account of himself, not even one that began with “I was born ⦔ for he no longer had an interest in when he came into the world. But he was born in the way that all people are born and he was conceived in the way all people are conceived: no one enters the world in the exact same situation.
Oh, memory so fresh, so not! Oh, memory so reliable, so not! His skin, protecting him from the elements outside, protecting him from the emotions inside! The future unimaginable, the past so impossible! The skin had not yet separated from Nathaniel Potter's flesh and bones! He was still young.
And Nathaniel Potter walked to the edge of the land and stepped into his boat and sailed to the edge of the sea as he knew it and cast his net and gathered all that was caught in it; and found his fish pots and gathered up all that had been caught in them and he returned to the edge of the land where it met the sea and he was disappointed, for he had caught only a few fish; how alone he felt in his disappointment. What is the glory of the world? He was so much a part of the glory of the world and he could not see himself. Naked at all times, no matter what covered his body,
that was Nathaniel Potter. The sun fell into the black before him; the moon rose up from the black behind him: and in between was history, all that had happened, and at its end was a man named Nathaniel Potter and who was only that, Nathaniel Potter. And he asked himself ⦠What? He asked himself, not a thing; not why did this go in that way and something else in another. He grew too large for his shirt and his pants and then after that he became small again, not the way he had been as a boy, he only shrunk from his large manly self, and then he was the size of a boy, but he was not a boy again. And love could have entered into his existence and love, very much so, should have entered into his existence, for almost no one needed it more, but love did not become part of Nathaniel Potter's existence. So unloved he was, but he did not know it and so he could not miss love, for it had never been part of his very being.
that was Nathaniel Potter. The sun fell into the black before him; the moon rose up from the black behind him: and in between was history, all that had happened, and at its end was a man named Nathaniel Potter and who was only that, Nathaniel Potter. And he asked himself ⦠What? He asked himself, not a thing; not why did this go in that way and something else in another. He grew too large for his shirt and his pants and then after that he became small again, not the way he had been as a boy, he only shrunk from his large manly self, and then he was the size of a boy, but he was not a boy again. And love could have entered into his existence and love, very much so, should have entered into his existence, for almost no one needed it more, but love did not become part of Nathaniel Potter's existence. So unloved he was, but he did not know it and so he could not miss love, for it had never been part of his very being.
And the world lay not before him and not behind him. He stood on the very ground that made up his world and nothing was lost and nothing was gained and then again everything was lost forever and ever. One day when he went to his fish pots, they were filled with nothing, and on that day he needed them to be filled with fish. And one day when he cast his net, he caught nothing, not even the stray piece of rubbish produced by the land or by the sea. And at first he was filled with a feeling of awe, of wonderment,
at the perfection of the emptiness: his fish pots, his fishnet, making up, as they did, his life as he knew it, his life as he could feel it; but his immediate need was for a fish pot full of fish and a fishnet, as it coursed through the seawaters not far from the shore, to ensnare scores of anything living in the shallow waters of the sea. And that one day of fruitlessness, that first day of fish pots and fishnet empty of everything, was repeated again and again; for many days after, Nathaniel Potter found his fish pots and fishnet empty of prey, and this prey was the very thing that sustained his world. And after many days of this particular emptiness, of this particular silence, Nathaniel Potter cursed God. And these were his actions: he cut his fish pots from their anchors, letting them go drifting into the shallow and deep waters of the blue sea, and then, removing his trousers, he caused his bare bottom to face the sky and in an angry cry he asked God to kiss it; and his fishnet yielded nothing, not a single thing was trapped in his fishnet, and this fishnet, each knot in it, each stitch in it, he knew well, for he had made his fishnet himself. And he cursed God, it was not a God with any specific character; the God he cursed had only an all-encompassing character, this God he cursed was capable of boundless amounts of good but all of that goodness had been denied to Nathaniel; and this God was capable of boundless amounts of evil and a great deal of it, an intense
amount of it, had rained down on Nathaniel Potter. And at the moment of the empty fish pots and at the moment of the empty fishnet, the boundless goodness of this God, the vast waters of the sea on which he sailed in his boat and its contents which provided him with his life's support, was no longer known to him; and at the moment of the empty fish pots and the empty fishnet he was only certain of the boundless amounts of evil that were attached to this God. And Look! was the very word he said to himself. And he looked and on his left side moving right was the world painted in hues of silver and yellow and red and green and blue and white and purple and orange and permutations of all these; and he looked and on his right side moving toward the left was the world and it too was painted in hues of silver and yellow and red and green and blue and white and purple and orange and permutations of these colors. And he looked again, first to one and then to another; and then again to one and then again to the other. And Look! he said to himself again and then again and again and again, he said this word to himself, Look! And he looked outside himself and he looked within himself and it was all the same. And he looked again, but it was always the same: inside and out, it was always the same. The coldness of all that was real, inside and outside; the long, bleak blankness of all that was real, inside and outside; oh, for a day so brand new, Nathaniel Potter
said to himself, for though he could not read and he could not write and did not know that he could make someone who could do that, read and write, his feelings, all bundled up in a mass of confusion, were not too far back from the tip of his tongue. And he looked again into the abyss that was the dawn before day and then into the mystery that was the same day's end and could not find himself and he looked into his empty fish pots and his empty fishnet and felt how indecipherable was the world, how it could not maintain a pattern of regularity, how uncertainty was attached to everything he knew, how rain could fall beyond necessity, how the sun could shine with such ferociousness that his whole world would long for its cessation. And looking up to the heavens, he cursed the divine being who had made this world of the ground beneath his bare feetâhe did not wear shoesâthe sky above his bare head, the seas whose bounty had so often been withheld from him. The trousers he wore were made of cotton that had been grown in fields not far from the village where he lived and that had then been sent bale on top of bale to England, where in a factory it had been made into yard on top of yard of cloth and sent back to a store that was in a village not far from the one in which he lived and it was there that he bought yards of this cloth and had it made into the garment covering that part of his body. The shirt he wore had the same origin and destination as his
trousers, and shirt and trousers clung to his lean frame as if they were another kind of skin, clung to his lean body as if he had been born wearing only them, and in that way even his body was mixed up with the world and he could not extricate himself from it, not at all could he separate himself from the world. Each intake of breath was a deep cry of pain, each sigh was an expression of unbearable sorrow.
at the perfection of the emptiness: his fish pots, his fishnet, making up, as they did, his life as he knew it, his life as he could feel it; but his immediate need was for a fish pot full of fish and a fishnet, as it coursed through the seawaters not far from the shore, to ensnare scores of anything living in the shallow waters of the sea. And that one day of fruitlessness, that first day of fish pots and fishnet empty of everything, was repeated again and again; for many days after, Nathaniel Potter found his fish pots and fishnet empty of prey, and this prey was the very thing that sustained his world. And after many days of this particular emptiness, of this particular silence, Nathaniel Potter cursed God. And these were his actions: he cut his fish pots from their anchors, letting them go drifting into the shallow and deep waters of the blue sea, and then, removing his trousers, he caused his bare bottom to face the sky and in an angry cry he asked God to kiss it; and his fishnet yielded nothing, not a single thing was trapped in his fishnet, and this fishnet, each knot in it, each stitch in it, he knew well, for he had made his fishnet himself. And he cursed God, it was not a God with any specific character; the God he cursed had only an all-encompassing character, this God he cursed was capable of boundless amounts of good but all of that goodness had been denied to Nathaniel; and this God was capable of boundless amounts of evil and a great deal of it, an intense
amount of it, had rained down on Nathaniel Potter. And at the moment of the empty fish pots and at the moment of the empty fishnet, the boundless goodness of this God, the vast waters of the sea on which he sailed in his boat and its contents which provided him with his life's support, was no longer known to him; and at the moment of the empty fish pots and the empty fishnet he was only certain of the boundless amounts of evil that were attached to this God. And Look! was the very word he said to himself. And he looked and on his left side moving right was the world painted in hues of silver and yellow and red and green and blue and white and purple and orange and permutations of all these; and he looked and on his right side moving toward the left was the world and it too was painted in hues of silver and yellow and red and green and blue and white and purple and orange and permutations of these colors. And he looked again, first to one and then to another; and then again to one and then again to the other. And Look! he said to himself again and then again and again and again, he said this word to himself, Look! And he looked outside himself and he looked within himself and it was all the same. And he looked again, but it was always the same: inside and out, it was always the same. The coldness of all that was real, inside and outside; the long, bleak blankness of all that was real, inside and outside; oh, for a day so brand new, Nathaniel Potter
said to himself, for though he could not read and he could not write and did not know that he could make someone who could do that, read and write, his feelings, all bundled up in a mass of confusion, were not too far back from the tip of his tongue. And he looked again into the abyss that was the dawn before day and then into the mystery that was the same day's end and could not find himself and he looked into his empty fish pots and his empty fishnet and felt how indecipherable was the world, how it could not maintain a pattern of regularity, how uncertainty was attached to everything he knew, how rain could fall beyond necessity, how the sun could shine with such ferociousness that his whole world would long for its cessation. And looking up to the heavens, he cursed the divine being who had made this world of the ground beneath his bare feetâhe did not wear shoesâthe sky above his bare head, the seas whose bounty had so often been withheld from him. The trousers he wore were made of cotton that had been grown in fields not far from the village where he lived and that had then been sent bale on top of bale to England, where in a factory it had been made into yard on top of yard of cloth and sent back to a store that was in a village not far from the one in which he lived and it was there that he bought yards of this cloth and had it made into the garment covering that part of his body. The shirt he wore had the same origin and destination as his
trousers, and shirt and trousers clung to his lean frame as if they were another kind of skin, clung to his lean body as if he had been born wearing only them, and in that way even his body was mixed up with the world and he could not extricate himself from it, not at all could he separate himself from the world. Each intake of breath was a deep cry of pain, each sigh was an expression of unbearable sorrow.
And: a curse fell on Nathaniel Potter and this curse took the form of small boils appearing on his arms and then on his legs and then on the rest of his body and then at last covering his face. And the small boils festered and leaked a pus that had a smell like nothing that had ever lived before and all his bodily fluids were turned into the pus that leaked out of him and he no longer cursed at whatever it was that he thought had made him and the world in which he had lived, and he even banished from his mind any thoughts of whatever it was, or whosoever it was, that had made him and the world in which he had lived. And when he died, his body had blackened, as if he had been trapped in the harshest of fires, a fire that from time to time would subside to a dull glow only to burn again fiercely, and each time the fierce burning lasted for an eternity. And he died and his death seemed sudden even though he had been marching toward its inevitability for forty-seven years, he was forty-seven years of age when he died, and his death
was a surprise just the way each death is, and his death made all who heard of it and all who knew him pause, stop, and wonder if such a thing could happen to them also, for the living always doubt the reality of death and the dead do not know of doubt, the dead do not know of anything. And Nathaniel Potter died and left many childrenâhe knew of elevenâand when he died he could not read and he could not write, and he had not made any children who could do so. Among the names of his children were Walter and Roderick and Francis and Joseph and David and Truehart and John and Benjamin and Baldwin and Mineu and Nigel, their names taken from the history that has been captured in the written word and also from the history of the spoken word. And Roderick was my father but he could not read or write either, Nathaniel Potter only made Roderick Potter and he was my father but he could not read or write, he only made me and I can read and I am also writing all of this at this very moment; at this very moment I am thinking of Nathaniel Potter and I can place my thoughts about him and all that he was and all that he could have been into words. These are all words, all of them, these words are my own.
was a surprise just the way each death is, and his death made all who heard of it and all who knew him pause, stop, and wonder if such a thing could happen to them also, for the living always doubt the reality of death and the dead do not know of doubt, the dead do not know of anything. And Nathaniel Potter died and left many childrenâhe knew of elevenâand when he died he could not read and he could not write, and he had not made any children who could do so. Among the names of his children were Walter and Roderick and Francis and Joseph and David and Truehart and John and Benjamin and Baldwin and Mineu and Nigel, their names taken from the history that has been captured in the written word and also from the history of the spoken word. And Roderick was my father but he could not read or write either, Nathaniel Potter only made Roderick Potter and he was my father but he could not read or write, he only made me and I can read and I am also writing all of this at this very moment; at this very moment I am thinking of Nathaniel Potter and I can place my thoughts about him and all that he was and all that he could have been into words. These are all words, all of them, these words are my own.
A
nd many years after Nathaniel's death and burying, I was standing in the graveyard in St. John's, Antigua, looking for the grave of Mr. Potter, Roderickâthe son of Nathaniel Potter. He was my own father, and I could not find it. I consulted the grave master, who was just an ordinary man in charge of such an important department, keeping a record of all who had lived and then died, the inevitability of this, dying, making his work constant and predictable, and when I was speaking to him as he was looking into his large black book, a ledger, he did not loom large and grow in importance, not to me and not to himself; he remained just so, ordinary. He could no longer find the exact spot where Mr. Potter had been buried, but it was registered in his book, it was a day, seventy years after he had been born, and the grave
master remembered it because three or four, or six or seven, or nine or eleven people had fought with each other at the burial sight, at the very grave, and they had fought with each other because they thought Mr. Potter, my very own father, should have loved them best, this very same man who had not loved anyone in his life, in his own lifetime, should have loved them, each of them, best, better than he had loved anything else or anyone else in this world. Someone named Emma remembered giving him bread to eat when he was a boy and had been hungry; someone named Jarvis said that he had pulled Mr. Potter out of the way of a boiling pot of oil that had been thrown at Mr. Potter by a woman who loved him too much. One of his daughters said that Mr. Potter had raped her but she had loved him so much that not before the moment she saw his coffin being lowered into the ground could she tell of the violence he had perpetrated against her. On and on went the stories of love and hatred, and that was all the grave master knew of Mr. Potter. And the world and its events swirled beneath his feet and the world and its events swirled above his head and the grave master said, while looking at me but not seeing me at all, that no one could be really known until they were dead, only when you are dead can a person be really known, because when you are dead then you cannot modify your actions, you are in
a state of such stillness, the permanent stillness that is death, you cannot reply to accusations, you cannot make a wrong right, you cannot ask forgiveness, you cannot make a counteraction so as to make a wrong seem not to have occurred at all, you make the wrong perfect in the imagination, you make the wrong perfect in actuality. All this he said and then he said, “Eh, eh,” and he walked away from me and I followed him not too closely, and he wiped away droplets of glistening moisture that had gathered on his forehead with his hand, and this was not to make himself more comfortable, it had no meaning, this removing of droplets of moisture that had gathered on his forehead. He wore a shirt and trousers, and they were made from cotton, but the source of this particular fabric would not have caused him to think of anything, not a moment's pause, not the time it took to make a pronouncement, not anything at all. And the grave master took me to a worn-down mound of earth, and this mound of earth was overwhelmed by clumps of a deeply rooted grass and an equally deeply rooted white lily that bloomed only at night in July. And the grave master said, “Eh, eh,” and again he said, “Eh, eh.” And always when he said it, “Eh, eh,” his voice was filled with surprise, as if everything that was happening right then was so unexpected, or as if everything happening then was like a memory, only taking
place again. He wanted to show me where Mr. Potter was buried, he remembered the day well, such a commotion was made at the grave site: Mr. Potter's children on one side but not speaking to each other; the woman he had lived with for many years on the other side, but she not speaking to his children. And they all hurled insults at each other for they had been left nothing. Mr. Potter had left all of his considerable fortune to a distant relative who lived on another island quite far away. And that distant relative from an island quite far away returned to his home with Mr. Potter's money, but shortly after, he too died, and Mr. Potter's considerable fortune disappeared before the eyes of his children and the woman with whom he had lived and who had so tenderly nursed him in the last few days of his life. So much suffering was attached to Mr. Potter, so much suffering consumed him, so much suffering he left behind.
nd many years after Nathaniel's death and burying, I was standing in the graveyard in St. John's, Antigua, looking for the grave of Mr. Potter, Roderickâthe son of Nathaniel Potter. He was my own father, and I could not find it. I consulted the grave master, who was just an ordinary man in charge of such an important department, keeping a record of all who had lived and then died, the inevitability of this, dying, making his work constant and predictable, and when I was speaking to him as he was looking into his large black book, a ledger, he did not loom large and grow in importance, not to me and not to himself; he remained just so, ordinary. He could no longer find the exact spot where Mr. Potter had been buried, but it was registered in his book, it was a day, seventy years after he had been born, and the grave
master remembered it because three or four, or six or seven, or nine or eleven people had fought with each other at the burial sight, at the very grave, and they had fought with each other because they thought Mr. Potter, my very own father, should have loved them best, this very same man who had not loved anyone in his life, in his own lifetime, should have loved them, each of them, best, better than he had loved anything else or anyone else in this world. Someone named Emma remembered giving him bread to eat when he was a boy and had been hungry; someone named Jarvis said that he had pulled Mr. Potter out of the way of a boiling pot of oil that had been thrown at Mr. Potter by a woman who loved him too much. One of his daughters said that Mr. Potter had raped her but she had loved him so much that not before the moment she saw his coffin being lowered into the ground could she tell of the violence he had perpetrated against her. On and on went the stories of love and hatred, and that was all the grave master knew of Mr. Potter. And the world and its events swirled beneath his feet and the world and its events swirled above his head and the grave master said, while looking at me but not seeing me at all, that no one could be really known until they were dead, only when you are dead can a person be really known, because when you are dead then you cannot modify your actions, you are in
a state of such stillness, the permanent stillness that is death, you cannot reply to accusations, you cannot make a wrong right, you cannot ask forgiveness, you cannot make a counteraction so as to make a wrong seem not to have occurred at all, you make the wrong perfect in the imagination, you make the wrong perfect in actuality. All this he said and then he said, “Eh, eh,” and he walked away from me and I followed him not too closely, and he wiped away droplets of glistening moisture that had gathered on his forehead with his hand, and this was not to make himself more comfortable, it had no meaning, this removing of droplets of moisture that had gathered on his forehead. He wore a shirt and trousers, and they were made from cotton, but the source of this particular fabric would not have caused him to think of anything, not a moment's pause, not the time it took to make a pronouncement, not anything at all. And the grave master took me to a worn-down mound of earth, and this mound of earth was overwhelmed by clumps of a deeply rooted grass and an equally deeply rooted white lily that bloomed only at night in July. And the grave master said, “Eh, eh,” and again he said, “Eh, eh.” And always when he said it, “Eh, eh,” his voice was filled with surprise, as if everything that was happening right then was so unexpected, or as if everything happening then was like a memory, only taking
place again. He wanted to show me where Mr. Potter was buried, he remembered the day well, such a commotion was made at the grave site: Mr. Potter's children on one side but not speaking to each other; the woman he had lived with for many years on the other side, but she not speaking to his children. And they all hurled insults at each other for they had been left nothing. Mr. Potter had left all of his considerable fortune to a distant relative who lived on another island quite far away. And that distant relative from an island quite far away returned to his home with Mr. Potter's money, but shortly after, he too died, and Mr. Potter's considerable fortune disappeared before the eyes of his children and the woman with whom he had lived and who had so tenderly nursed him in the last few days of his life. So much suffering was attached to Mr. Potter, so much suffering consumed him, so much suffering he left behind.
The grave master led me through the graveyard looking for Mr. Potter's grave and I followed him, but not too closely. A small mound under a mahogany tree might be the place, he said, and then he said no, perhaps it was not too far from that flamboyant tree over there, and there were many flamboyant trees, the graveyard had many of that kind of tree growing in it, and so I could not tell which tree in particular he meant. He remembered the day well, he said, the sun was shining very bright, there was not a cloud in the
sky, and I did not say to him that the sun always shone very bright here and there was never a cloud in the sky, and is there something to be found in that, the cloudless day, the sun so bright? But I did not say anything to him, I did not agree, I did not disagree. And he remembered the day, he said, the angry people gathered around the grave, the coffin being lowered and people singing hymns for the dead. He heard them sing, he said; they sang, “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died.” They sang, “Wh-en I sur-vey/the won-drous cross/ On whi-ch the Pr-ince/of Glo-ry died.” And did their voices go astray, I wondered to myself, each leaving the other, bending the melody to suit her purpose and his need. And he said, “Yes!” and he pointed to a mound, an eroded mound, a thinning mound, and he said this is where Mr. Potter was buried, this was where he believed Mr. Potter was buried, and perhaps that is the moment he grew weary of me and wanted to get rid of me, for I had made so many demands, and so he showed me the mound under which Mr. Potter had been buried. And the mound was not bare, it was covered with a wormwood, a plant used by my mother and her friends as the main ingredient in an elixir they drank when they wanted to clean their wombs; it was also covered with a plant I now know as
Tradescantia albiflora.
And the grave master said, “Did you know Potter?” This is what the grave master asked of
me, he said, “Did you know Potter?” And I said, “Mr. Potter was my father, my father's name was Mr. Potter.” And when I had said this to the grave master, in the most straightforward way I knew, concerning my relationship to Mr. Potter, his intimate knowledge of my mother and the way he had made me and had contributed to my appearance in the world, I was transported back to how I began again, nine months lying in my mother's stomach, warm and curled up and feeding from her own very physical existence, and I knew nothing of Mr. Potter and my own self. And at seven months in my mother's stomach, I lay coiled up not like something about to strike, not like a thing about to be unleashed, but like something benign and eternal, something for which I do not yet have a name. And I am imagining this and yet it is true, this thing that I now imagine is a fact, is something true, it cannot be denied: I lay in my mother's stomach for nine months, but when I had been in my mother's stomach for seven months, my mother, whose name then was Annie Victoria Richardson, left my father, whose name then was Roderick Potter, and this remained his name until his death. And the grave master was not at all interested in my beginnings, for he was concerned only with the well-being of the dead, or at any rate he had only to convince those living that he was a crucial part of their general concern for the dead. And people in the midst of their sorrow and their loss came
to him believing that he had never seen such a thing as their sorrow and their loss before, and he did not tell them otherwise and he did not compare so much sorrow and loss here with so much sorrow and despair there. And he asked me, though not speaking to me at all, for he was looking toward the sky or rather toward the heavens, if Mr. Potter was my father (“You Potter pickney?”) and when I said “Yes” he did not show me kindness or unkindness, he remained indifferent. And the grave master's name was not Hector or Baldwin, and as I was looking at him, standing near the place where he said Mr. Potter was buried, near the place where he thought Mr. Potter was buried, near the place where, because he had become tired of me, he insisted Mr. Potter was buried, I thought of Mr. Potter for he was my father. And Mr. Potter, like his father Nathaniel, could not read and neither of them could write, and their worlds, the one in which they lived and the one in which they existed, ceased, and the small, irregular stumble that their existence had made in the vast smoothness that was the turning of the earth on its axis was no more and was not celebrated or even regretted by anyone or anything. And from Mr. Potter I was made, and I can read and write and even love doing so.
sky, and I did not say to him that the sun always shone very bright here and there was never a cloud in the sky, and is there something to be found in that, the cloudless day, the sun so bright? But I did not say anything to him, I did not agree, I did not disagree. And he remembered the day, he said, the angry people gathered around the grave, the coffin being lowered and people singing hymns for the dead. He heard them sing, he said; they sang, “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died.” They sang, “Wh-en I sur-vey/the won-drous cross/ On whi-ch the Pr-ince/of Glo-ry died.” And did their voices go astray, I wondered to myself, each leaving the other, bending the melody to suit her purpose and his need. And he said, “Yes!” and he pointed to a mound, an eroded mound, a thinning mound, and he said this is where Mr. Potter was buried, this was where he believed Mr. Potter was buried, and perhaps that is the moment he grew weary of me and wanted to get rid of me, for I had made so many demands, and so he showed me the mound under which Mr. Potter had been buried. And the mound was not bare, it was covered with a wormwood, a plant used by my mother and her friends as the main ingredient in an elixir they drank when they wanted to clean their wombs; it was also covered with a plant I now know as
Tradescantia albiflora.
And the grave master said, “Did you know Potter?” This is what the grave master asked of
me, he said, “Did you know Potter?” And I said, “Mr. Potter was my father, my father's name was Mr. Potter.” And when I had said this to the grave master, in the most straightforward way I knew, concerning my relationship to Mr. Potter, his intimate knowledge of my mother and the way he had made me and had contributed to my appearance in the world, I was transported back to how I began again, nine months lying in my mother's stomach, warm and curled up and feeding from her own very physical existence, and I knew nothing of Mr. Potter and my own self. And at seven months in my mother's stomach, I lay coiled up not like something about to strike, not like a thing about to be unleashed, but like something benign and eternal, something for which I do not yet have a name. And I am imagining this and yet it is true, this thing that I now imagine is a fact, is something true, it cannot be denied: I lay in my mother's stomach for nine months, but when I had been in my mother's stomach for seven months, my mother, whose name then was Annie Victoria Richardson, left my father, whose name then was Roderick Potter, and this remained his name until his death. And the grave master was not at all interested in my beginnings, for he was concerned only with the well-being of the dead, or at any rate he had only to convince those living that he was a crucial part of their general concern for the dead. And people in the midst of their sorrow and their loss came
to him believing that he had never seen such a thing as their sorrow and their loss before, and he did not tell them otherwise and he did not compare so much sorrow and loss here with so much sorrow and despair there. And he asked me, though not speaking to me at all, for he was looking toward the sky or rather toward the heavens, if Mr. Potter was my father (“You Potter pickney?”) and when I said “Yes” he did not show me kindness or unkindness, he remained indifferent. And the grave master's name was not Hector or Baldwin, and as I was looking at him, standing near the place where he said Mr. Potter was buried, near the place where he thought Mr. Potter was buried, near the place where, because he had become tired of me, he insisted Mr. Potter was buried, I thought of Mr. Potter for he was my father. And Mr. Potter, like his father Nathaniel, could not read and neither of them could write, and their worlds, the one in which they lived and the one in which they existed, ceased, and the small, irregular stumble that their existence had made in the vast smoothness that was the turning of the earth on its axis was no more and was not celebrated or even regretted by anyone or anything. And from Mr. Potter I was made, and I can read and write and even love doing so.
And Mr. Potter was not an original man, he was not made from words, his father was Nathaniel and his mother was Elfrida and neither of them could read
or write; his beginning was just the way of everyone, as would be his end. He began in a long day and a long night and after nine months he was born and Nathaniel Potter knew nothing of his existence until one day, when he was on his way to the shade of the tree under which he mended his fishnet, he saw a small boy who walked like him and his face looked like his own face and the boy (Roderick was his name, he would become Mr. Potter) was accompanied by a woman and her name was Elfrida. And on seeing Mr. Potter, Nathaniel looked the other way, for this was his son, but not a son he had wanted, he had never wanted any of his sons, he had never wanted any of his children; and on seeing Mr. Potter walking with his mother Elfrida, Nathaniel thought not of the joy in loving someone, or of the contentedness that comes from a kind and sympathetic companion, nor did he even think of the satisfaction to be had on seeing the sun set on a day in which everything he did was full of purpose and was useful and was complete. On seeing Mr. Potter, the young boy who was Roderick, the boy who would become my father, Nathaniel thought of the many snags that he would find in the thread as he mended the small breaches in his fishnet, he thought of the smallness that was his life, the pain of entering into the beginning of each day, the way fortune had denied him its goodness, his fish pots so
often insufficiently filled, his past never holding a different future. Who am I? never entered into his thoughts, not even when he saw the young Roderick, the boy who became my father, and Nathaniel could not read and he could not write.
or write; his beginning was just the way of everyone, as would be his end. He began in a long day and a long night and after nine months he was born and Nathaniel Potter knew nothing of his existence until one day, when he was on his way to the shade of the tree under which he mended his fishnet, he saw a small boy who walked like him and his face looked like his own face and the boy (Roderick was his name, he would become Mr. Potter) was accompanied by a woman and her name was Elfrida. And on seeing Mr. Potter, Nathaniel looked the other way, for this was his son, but not a son he had wanted, he had never wanted any of his sons, he had never wanted any of his children; and on seeing Mr. Potter walking with his mother Elfrida, Nathaniel thought not of the joy in loving someone, or of the contentedness that comes from a kind and sympathetic companion, nor did he even think of the satisfaction to be had on seeing the sun set on a day in which everything he did was full of purpose and was useful and was complete. On seeing Mr. Potter, the young boy who was Roderick, the boy who would become my father, Nathaniel thought of the many snags that he would find in the thread as he mended the small breaches in his fishnet, he thought of the smallness that was his life, the pain of entering into the beginning of each day, the way fortune had denied him its goodness, his fish pots so
often insufficiently filled, his past never holding a different future. Who am I? never entered into his thoughts, not even when he saw the young Roderick, the boy who became my father, and Nathaniel could not read and he could not write.
A very long “Oooooohhhhh!!!” sighed Nathaniel Potter just before he died and many times before that and it was his only legacy to all his children and all who would come from them: this sound of helplessness combined with despair: “Oooooohhhhh,” they all cried and cry, all who came from Nathaniel Potter. And the months were August through September, December through February, and April to the end of July; and the years were the same and the weeks were the same as the years and then so too were the days and the minutes and Nathaniel was trapped in all of thatâyears and months and weeks and days and hours and minutesâand then he died, the way all people do, he died, and he left Mr. Potter, his son, and Mr. Potter was my father, my father's name was Roderick Potter.
And the end of Nathaniel's life did not bring a beginning to another life. His life ended in the silence so common to everything and in that way he was extraordinary and in that way he was not. And as he was dying, crazy from pain and misery and not with despair, despair did not enter into it, his whole life did
not pass before him, and the faces of his children did not float in the invisible air in front of him and he did not call out any names, not his children's, not his own mother's and father's, not his own name. And he did not curse the day on which he was born, he only cursed the day on which each and every one of his ancestors was born. And if all the diseased efforts of his ancestors could come to a resounding end with his death, what would the world be like then? But it was too late for that, already there existed Mr. Potter, Roderick Nathaniel Potter, and that man, Roderick Nathaniel Potter, was my father.
not pass before him, and the faces of his children did not float in the invisible air in front of him and he did not call out any names, not his children's, not his own mother's and father's, not his own name. And he did not curse the day on which he was born, he only cursed the day on which each and every one of his ancestors was born. And if all the diseased efforts of his ancestors could come to a resounding end with his death, what would the world be like then? But it was too late for that, already there existed Mr. Potter, Roderick Nathaniel Potter, and that man, Roderick Nathaniel Potter, was my father.
And Mr. Potter, the man who became my father, the man named Roderick Nathaniel Potter who lived to be seventy years old and who in all that time could not read and did not learn to write, was born on the seventh day in January in nineteen hundred and twenty-two and died on the fourth of June in nineteen hundred and ninety-two. And in those seventy years of his life, he did not wish to be anyone better than himself and he most certainly did not wish to be anyone worse; and in those seventy years, each day held its own peril, and each day's peril was so unbearable and then so ordinary, as if it were breathing, and in this way suffering became normal, and in this way suffering became life itself, and any interruption in this suffering, be it justice and happiness, or more suffering and injustice, was regarded with hostility and anger
and disappointment. And at the beginning of his seventy years, how unimaginable such an expanse of time, seventy years, was to Mr. Potter, and at the end of his life, all he had been seemed like a day, whatever that might be, a day.
and disappointment. And at the beginning of his seventy years, how unimaginable such an expanse of time, seventy years, was to Mr. Potter, and at the end of his life, all he had been seemed like a day, whatever that might be, a day.
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