The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (51 page)

Adam was in the hospital for another week. I had the CAT scan done. It revealed no especial abnormalities. His corpus callosum was unusually large, but this is also seen in musicians who have been trained from an early age. (Adam, however, said he had played no instruments.) His amygdala and hippocampus also appeared unusually dense in neurons.

What was most interesting, however, was that the burst blood cells that indicate mini-strokes, which everyone past a certain age has, were almost entirely absent. The technician suggested that the film stock might be defective.

‘You gave me quite a scare,' I said at our first consultation after he was discharged.

‘But did I create any doubts in your mind?'

‘Well, I will say that your case is not what I thought it was.'

‘You notice anything strange when I was back in the past?'

I told him about the changes in his skin, hair and fingernails. He only nodded.

‘Perhaps you could change your skin tone now,' I said.

He shook his head. ‘It only works when I'm under real stress, when the memories are controlling me.'

‘And that doesn't normally happen?'

‘No. I remember my past selves as I suppose normal people remember themselves as children or as teenagers or as young adults. They are you, but you are a different person now.'

We discussed the seventh account, of his life as a planter before the abolition of slavery. I suggested that he had created this sadomasochistic scenario as revenge for abuse he had himself undergone. He disagreed. ‘I was just the product of a brutal culture. If it was revenge, then the object should have been a man.'

‘Unless you are hiding the facts from yourself.'

‘Except that you are reading these accounts as true confessions of my unconscious mind. You say I feel abandoned by my mother. But my mother was very attentive and she didn't die till I was in my mid-twenties. Bit old to feel abandoned, I think. And no woman ever really abused me in these accounts. That only happened twice, and both times it was men who did it.'

‘I see you read Hume. Do you recall what he wrote about miracles?'

‘“No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish”.'

I was surprised both at the exactness of his quote, and that he remembered it at all. It was the kind of logic someone suffering from delusions would naturally reject.

‘So you will admit that your testimony is insufficient?' I asked.

‘Only if you assume that my rebirths are miraculous.'

‘Well, they are miraculous in the sense that other people do not have such experiences.'

‘I think there are probably others like me. Not many, though.'

‘Then why haven't we heard about them? Especially since they would all have been around for centuries, maybe even millennia.'

‘Because they probably lose their memories at birth, like me. They might even go through their whole lives never remembering they have lived before. I think that's quite probable, also. Besides, if they do remember, they'd be highly motivated to keep their immortality secret. Otherwise, other people would think they were mad, right? And, even so, stories of immortals — who aren't gods, I mean — are ubiquitous to every major culture.'

I must admit that, for some moments, even I found his argument convincing.

‘So why do you think you've remembered your pasts?' I asked.

‘I'm not sure. Because I have lived in a particularly violent place for the past five centuries. Because circumstances resulted in my leaving written records in four out of nine lives.'

‘And why are these conditions necessary?'

‘Because there has to be a trigger. Even if reincarnation is possible, preserving memory across the rebirth isn't, since the brain is entirely new. The memories would have to be preserved externally, or in the DNA. I don't believe in a disembodied soul.'

I was fascinated. ‘So you're assuming that the DNA of the newborn is the same as the previous body's?'

‘You notice that I have green eyes in every incarnation?'

‘Yes.' I must confess that it took me some moments to remember that I was a professional. ‘All of which is very interesting, Adam. But, if we adhere to Hume's dictum, it is more productive to follow the path we have been.'

‘You mean of assuming that I'm mad as a coot. What is a coot, anyway?'

‘Of assuming that you have some conflicts you have to come to terms with.'

‘Very well. But I don't like euphemisms. They're just a way of avoiding the truth.'

‘Do you think you're “as mad as a coot ”? It's an aquatic bird of the genus Fulica.'

‘No, I don't think so.'

I asked him if he had been taking the Clozapine. I had not done so before, because I wanted to maintain trust. But I was concerned at his lack of progress.

‘As prescribed,' he replied.

‘Have you noticed any difference?'

‘No. But I didn't expect to.'

‘Why is that?'

‘I'm pretty immune to drugs. My system seems to just absorb them. I think it's related to my healing ability. Remember how I overcame the poison?'

‘Oh. So the Clozapine has had no effect on you at all?'

‘No.'

I realised that he had not been taking his medication.

‘Would you mind trying another prescription?' I asked.

‘No.'

‘But you don't think it'll make a difference?'

‘No.'

‘So why don't you mind?'

‘Well, doc, I have to test my belief system against yours. And vice-versa, I suppose.'

‘Oh.'

I gave him Piportil. This is an anti-psychotic drug that releases over a four-week period. Thus, the patient cannot cheat. I injected the dose myself.

We spent the rest of the session speaking about the sadistic personality. I felt he should understand the insecurities that drove such a psyche. At the end, he gave me his eighth account. That afternoon, I got the lab report on the pages from Adam Chardonbois's diary. According to the lab, the pages were authentic.

Mammy use to sing a song about mi last self.

Chardonbois et Diab'la c'est un

Chardonbois et l'est deux,

Chardonbois et forte, creal et mauvous

Chardonbois et roi-la dans son pay.

It is the first song I remember as a chile, and Mammy use to tell me Chardonbois would come for me when she did want to discipline me but was feeling too lazy to use the guava whip. So I always thought ‘Chardonbois' was a patois word for ‘monster'. Only when I was ten and mi bosom did start to grow did Mammy tell me what the song was about. ‘Men like the devil self,' she say, and I hear all about she friend Ophelia and what the master use to do to she. Mammy tell mi the story many times, and it always ended the same way. ‘And as soon as Emancipation come, Ophelia run Venezuela.'

In later years, when I was now starting out as a stickwoman, I tell Caliban about Ophelia and she massa. Caliban was now getting famous as
a mait kaiso
, and the first cariso he compose for me to sing when I fight in the gayelle come from that story.

Ophelia, O Ophelia, she had a massa

Who used to gi she licks like fire,

When massa day done, Ophelia make a run

She make a run an gone Venezuela.

And the chorus.

Massa couldn die

Massa couldn done cry,

Massa couldn buy

Toute bagai!

I didn know at the time was miself that I was singing about. I didn know how it was that from small I could speak English as good as patois. Remembrance was to come later, bringing bacchanal with it. Because, in all the times Mammy tell me that story, she never tell me she play a part in it. Mammy's name was Beneba.

Mammy never tired telling me how lucky I was to be born free. I didn know what she did mean. I couldn see in mi mind's eye the people around me being slaves, even though most of the grownups had been. But I watch them in the market in the bright sunshine, laughing and talking in the patois, voices free like birds singing. And I couldn imagine them singing to the lash of the whip. I watch them working in field or factory or yard or dock, maybe hard, maybe easy, but in a way that say ‘I could work'. And I couldn see somebody making them work. I watch how the men and women dress up with care, and how they walk with a spring in dey step, and how the men watched the women and the women either walk back with head held high, or put a little more swing to dey full-skirted hips, or watch back at the men with laughing eyes. Everybody always
metti limie
– in English, ‘cast a light'. ‘Light' also mean ‘good spell'. And maybe is really magic that people could be so free in spirit after being slaves in body. Because I couldn see them as slave. But maybe you can't know what is like to be a slave when you born free.

For all how she use to badtalk man, Mammy did like Pappy too bad. He was a African, not Creole like she. He say he was a Muslim who ancestors had been Yoruba. That is how I get to name Elegba, which Pappy say mean ‘divine messenger'. Mammy leave Chaguanas to live with him in Belmont. He had other chirren, some before, some after, because Mammy couldn have no other chirren after me. But she was always he favourite wife, and I was he favourite daughter. He did spend most a he free time with we. He didn have plenty free time, though. Pappy had been a cooper in he slave days. But after that time he apprentice to a carpenter and learn that trade, too. He was also a sailor. Between all that, and going to see he other chirren, he was always busy. Mammy use to jealous a he other families, but she had sense enough not to let it show. And, except when he went with a ship – and he did only do that if it didn have no other work – Pappy used to stay with we every weekend. I think he would a make Mammy he last wife, if she could of had more chirren. In later years, after all he chirren was grown, he settle down with she. She and he always get along real good. He was a handsome man and the tribal scars on he face, I thought, made him even handsomer. He didn talk patois good like we, because he use to pronounce he words funny and leave out some. But that just made him more nice, I thought, and I know Mammy thought so too. In any case, was he ways she really like. He was always kissing she and teasing she and, any time she needed a little extra money, he use to give she. If he didn have, he use to get extra work to get it. But the thing I remember most clear is how they used to sing together. Pappy had a good tenor baritone and Mammy was soprano and they used to sing all kinda song all the time –
lavways
and chantwells when they was digging the garden, and romances when they was out in the porch in the night. Because everybody use to hear them singing so much, both Mammy and Pappy was in great demand to sing hymns in church, belairs at fetes, and kalindas at the stickfights. People even use to pay them to sing bongos at wakes and
kaitos
at funerals. I use to go with them to all these places, and wasn long before I join them with mi lil contralto.

Pappy use to usually arrive on Friday evenings, just as the sun was going down. He wasn much for going to drink on Fridays like most men. When he come, he use to give me a kiss and a pat on mi head, then give Mammy a bigger kiss and a hug. I always had to go to bed early on Fridays, because that was dey time. I didn mind because I know I had Sunday morning. Mammy and Pappy would eat inside by the light a the kerosene lamp, then sit on the porch and talk. Later, I would hear the deep breathing and grunts and sighs that I knew were sounds a love. On Saturday, they went early to the market to sell. When they came back, Pappy worked in the garden and Mammy close the shop at one o' clock so she could help him. When I was bigger, I did help too. They would cook lunch together. Pappy did hire on as a cook when he do ship work. After lunch, he might sleep or go out to do some carpenter work. I spent the rest a the day playing with mi friends, and in the evening all three a we would eat dinner together.

On Sunday morning, Mammy went to church. Pappy didn go, because he was Muslim. He would spread his prayer mat and bow to Mecca and sing in another language in a way that made me feel sad because the words he sang made me think that the god Allah was very far away. But I was happy to be with Pappy, although I had to sit away from him when he prayed. The part a the morning that I did most enjoy was just sitting afterwards in the porch with him after. We would talk about all kinda things. He would tell about Africa – how big it was and the strange animals it had dey. He would tell me how he get capture, after he city went to war with another city, and how he get sell to the trader for some mirrors and cloth. He would play songs on his guitar and sing for me. We would eat mangoes or zabocas or pommecythere or pomerac or plums or whatever was in season. I would tell him everything I had done since I last saw him, including me digging a hole in the backyard and filling it with water to make mud pies, which the mud ladies I had invited to lunch found delicious, and Salome my best friend losing a tooth and putting it under her pillow but the Tooth Fairy never came and I told her the Tooth Fairy only gave money to white chirren. Pappy was always interested in everything I said.

Most times Pappy would make me a doll while we talk. I did say Pappy was a carpenter, but he wasn just a ordinary kinda carpenter. He didn so much build house as do the fancy fretting that people use to want in their verandah and eaves. He use to make chairs and tables and cabinets and so forth, but mostly for white people. He had assistants to do the rough work, then he would do the fancy legs, or the inlay with leaves and small animals and faces, or designs that look pretty but wasn nothing real. When Pappy came on weekends, he always walk with a piece a branch, and while we chat his knife would be working busy busy, as though Pappy hands had nothing to do with it. Bark strip, small solid pieces flew, slivers gathering at his bare feet. Soon the doll did begin to take shape. Dress, arms, feet. The face did always take the longest, especially making the tiny tiny curls a kinky hair. Sometimes Pappy didn carve a doll, but made her out a bamboo and cloth scraps. A few times, he even made dolls out a mud and baked them in the clay oven.