The Cay (6 page)

I tried to make a mental picture of that. Several small islands tucked up inside great banks of coral that made navigation dangerous was what I finally decided on.

“You think we are on one of those cays?”

“Mebbe, young bahss, mebbe.”

Fear coming back to me—I knew he’d made a mistake in bringing us ashore—I said, “Then no ships will pass even close to us. Not even schooners! We’re trapped here!” We might live here forever, I thought.

Again he did not answer directly. I was beginning to learn that he had a way of being honest while still being dishonest. He said, “D’place I am tinking of is call Debil’s Mout’. ’Tis a U-shaped ting, wit dese sharp coral banks on either side, runnin’ maybe forty, fifty mile.…”

He let that sink in. It sounded bad. But then he said, “I do hope, young bahss, dat I am outrageous mistaken.”

“If we are in the Devil’s Mouth, how can we be rescued?” I asked angrily. It was his fault we were there.

“D’fire pile! When aircraft fly above, dey will see d’smoke an’ fire!”

“But they might just think it is a native fisherman. No one else would come here!”

I could picture him nodding, thinking about that. Finally, he said, “True, but we cannot fret ’bout it, can we? We’ll make camp, an’ see what ’appens.”

He poured me a half cup of water, saying happily, “Since we ’ave made lan’, we can celebrate.”

I drank it slowly and thoughtfully.

D
URING THE AFTERNOON
, Timothy was busy and we did not talk much. He was making a hut of dried palm fronds. I sat near him under a palm. Now that we were on shore, I again began to think about what had happened to my mother. Somehow, I felt she was safe. I was also sure that a search had been started for us, not fully understanding that a war was on and that all the ships and aircraft were needed to fight the U-boats. I even thought about
Henrik van Boven and what a story I would have to tell when I saw him again.

I tried not to think about my eyes, sitting there under the palm, listening to Timothy hum as he made the camp. I trusted him that my sight would return within a few days. I also trusted him that an aircraft would spot our fire pile.

In late afternoon, he said proudly, “Look, our hut!”

I had to remind him again, stupid old man, that I couldn’t see, so he took my hands and ran them over the fronds. It was a hut, he said, about eight feet wide and six feet deep, with supports made of wood he’d picked off the beach. The supports were tied together with strong vines that covered the north end of the island.

The roof, which sloped back, he said, was about six feet off the ground. I could easily stand up in it, but Timothy couldn’t. Not quite.

Timothy said, “Tomorrow, we be gettin’ mats to sleep on, weave our own, but tonight we mus’ sleep on d’sand. ’Tis soft.”

I knew he was very proud of the hut. It had taken him only a few hours to build it.

“Now,” he said, “I mus’ go downg to d’reef an’ fetch langosta. We’ll ros’ it, to be true.”

I became frightened again the minute he said it. I didn’t want to be left alone, and I was afraid something might happen to him. “Take me with you, Timothy,” I pleaded.

“Not on d’reef,” he answered firmly. “I ’ave not been dere before. If ’Tis safe, tomorrow I will take you.” With that, he went down the hill without saying another word.

My mother was right, I thought. They had their place and we had ours. He did not really like me, or he would have taken me along. He was different.

It seemed as though he were gone for a very long time. Once, I thought I heard an aircraft, but it was probably just my imagination. I began yelling for Timothy to come back, but I guess he couldn’t hear because of water noise on the reef.

The palm fronds above me rattled in the breeze, and there were other noises from the underbrush. I knew Stew Cat was around somewhere, but it didn’t sound like him.

I wondered if Timothy had checked for snakes. There were also scorpions on most Caribbean islands, and they were deadly. I wondered if there were any on our cay.

During those first few days on the island, the times I spent alone were terrible. It was, of course, being unable to see that made all the sounds so frightening. I guess if you are born blind, it is not so bad. You grow up knowing each sound and what it means.

Suddenly, the tears came out. I knew it was not a manly thing to do, something my father would have frowned on, but I couldn’t stop. Then from nowhere came Stew Cat. He rubbed along my arms
and up against my cheek, purring hard. I held him close.

Soon, Timothy came up the hill, shouting, “Young bahss, tree nice langosta.”

I refused to speak to him because he had left me for such a long time.

He stood over me and said, “ ’Ere, touch dem, dey are still alive.” He was almost crowing over his lobster.

I turned away. Sooner or later, Timothy would have to understand that he could not ignore me one minute and then treat me as a friend the next.

He said softly, “Young bahss, be an outrageous mahn if you like, but ’ere I’m all you got.”

I didn’t answer.

He roasted the langosta over the fire, and later we crawled into the hut to spend our first night on the silent island.

Timothy seemed very tired and groaned a lot. Before we went to sleep, I asked him, “Tell me the truth, Timothy, how old are you?”

He sighed deeply, “More dan seventy. Eben more dan seventy.…”

He was very old. Old enough to die there.

In the morning, Timothy began making the fire pile down on the beach. He had a plan. We’d always keep a small fire smoldering up by the hut, and if an airplane came near, he’d take a piece of burning wood from our small fire to ignite the big one. That
way, he said, we could save the few matches that we had.

It didn’t take him long to stack driftwood over dried palm fronds. Then he said, “Now, young bahss, we mus’ say somethin’ on d’san’.”

Sometimes it was difficult to understand Timothy. The soft and beautiful West Indian accent and way of speaking weren’t always clear.

“Say something on the sand?” I asked.

“So dey be knowin’ we are downg ’ere,” he explained patiently.

“Who?”

“D’mahn in d’sky, of course.”

“Oh.” Now I understood.

I guess Timothy was standing there looking at me, waiting for me to say something or do something. I heard him say, “Well, young bahss.”

“What do we do now?” I asked.

His voice now impatient, he said, “Say somethin’ wid d’rock, wid many rock; eeevery rock be sayin’ somethin’.…”

I frowned at him. “I don’t think I can help you, Timothy. I can’t see any rocks.”

Timothy groaned. “I can see d’rock, young bahss. But what do we say?”

I laughed at him, enjoying it now. “We say ‘help.’ ”

He grunted satisfaction.

For the next twenty or thirty minutes, I could hear Timothy dropping rocks against each other,
singing softly to himself in calypso. It was a song about “fungee an’ feesh.” I’d had “fungi” in Willemstad down in the blacks’ market at Ruyterkade. It was just plain old corn meal. But most food has different names in the islands.

Soon, he came to stand over me. “Now, young bahss,” he said. He seemed to be waiting.

“Yes?”

There was a silence until Timothy broke it with anguish. “Wid d’rock, say ‘help.’ ”

I looked up in his direction and suddenly understood that Timothy could not spell. He was just too stubborn, or too proud, to admit it.

I nodded and began feeling around the sand for a stick.

He asked, “What you reachin’ for?”

“A stick to make lines with.”

He placed one in my hands, and I carefully lettered H-E-L-P on the sand while he stood above me, watching. He kept murmuring, “Ah-huh, ah-huh,” as if making sure I was spelling it correctly.

When I had finished, Timothy said approvingly, “I tell you, young bahss, dat do say help.” Then he happily arranged the rocks on the sand, following my lines.

I felt good. I knew how to do something that Timothy couldn’t do.
He couldn’t spell
. I felt superior to Timothy that day, but I let him play his little game, pretending not to know that he really couldn’t spell.

I
N THE AFTERNOON
, Timothy said we’d make a rope.

On the north end of the island, tough vines, almost as large as a pencil, were laced over the sand. It took us several hours to tear out a big pile of them. Then Timothy began weaving a rope that would stretch all the way down the hill to the beach and fire pile.

The rope was for me. If he happened to be out on the reef, and I heard a plane, I could take a light
from our campfire, follow the rope down, and touch off the big fire. The vine rope would also serve to get me safely down to the beach.

After we’d torn the vines out, and he was weaving the rope, he said, “Young bahss, you mus’ begin to help wid d’udder wark.”

We were sitting up by the hut. I had my back to a palm and was thinking that back in Willemstad, at this moment, I’d probably be sitting in a classroom, three desks away from Henrik, listening to Herr Jonckheer talk about European history. I’d been tutored in Dutch the first year in Willemstad so I could attend the regular school. Now I could speak it and understand it.

My hands were tired from pulling the vines, and I just wanted to sit and think. I didn’t want to work. I said, “Timothy, I’m blind. I can’t see to work.”

I heard him cutting something with his sharp knife. He replied softly, “D’han’ is not blin’.”

Didn’t the old man understand? To work, aside from pulling up vines or drawing something in the sand, you must be able to see.

Stubbornly, he said, “Young bahss, we need sleepin’ mats. You can make d’mats.”

I looked over in his direction. “You do it,” I said.

He sighed back, saying, “D’best matmaker in Charlotte Amalie, downg in Frenchtown, b’total blin’.”

“But he’s a man, and he has to do that to make a living.”

“B’true,” Timothy said quietly.

But in a few minutes, he placed several lengths of palm fiber across my lap. He really was a black mule. “D’palm mat is veree easy. Jus’ ovah an’ under …”

Becoming angry with him, I said, “I tell you, I can’t see.”

He paid no attention to me. “Take dis’ han’ hol’ d’palm like dis; den ovah an’ under, like d’mahn in Frenchtown; den more palm.”

I could feel him standing there watching me as I tried to reeve the lengths, but I knew they weren’t fitting together. He said, “Like dis, I tell you,” and reached down to guide my hand. “Ovah an’ under …”

I tried again, but it didn’t work. I stood up, threw the palm fibers at him, and screamed, “You ugly black man! I won’t do it! You’re stupid, you can’t even spell.”

Timothy’s heavy hand struck my face sharply.

Stunned, I touched my face where he’d hit me. Then I turned away from where I thought he was. My cheek stung, but I wouldn’t let him see me with tears in my eyes.

I heard him saying very gently, “B’gettin’ back to wark, my own self.”

I sat down again.

He began to sing that “fungee and feesh” song in a low voice, and I could picture him sitting on the sand in front of the hut; that tangled gray hair,
the ugly black face with the thick lips, those great horny hands winding the strands of vine.

The rope, I thought. It wasn’t for him. It was for me.

After a while, I said, “Timothy …”

He did not answer, but walked over to me, pressing more palm fronds into my hands. He murmured, “ ’Tis veree easy, ovah an’ under …” Then he went back to singing about fungee and feesh.

Something happened to me that day on the cay. I’m not quite sure what it was even now, but I had begun to change.

I said to Timothy, “I want to be your friend.”

He said softly, “Young bahss, you ’ave always been my friend.”

I said, “Can you call me Phillip instead of young boss?”

“Phill-eep,” he said warmly.