Twelve Months (17 page)

Trying to make up for the time that would be lost, I worked on the puzzle until we absolutely had to leave for the airport. It was a good thing we kept the luggage out. Two of the bags weren't even unpacked from the last trip.

I was feeling worse but kept it to myself. Like termites through an old house, I could actually feel the cancer spreading, poisoning one organ after the next. No matter, with the selflessness Bella had shown by spending her honeymoon healing my soul in Vietnam, it was going to take more than cancer to stop us.
If our recent trips have taught me anything, it's so important to get away and make memories with the pe
o
ple you love – cancer be damned!

I'd jumped on the net and did the research. Barbados meant “the bearded-ones,” named after the island's fig trees, which had a beard-like appearance. According to the pictures, it was paradise on earth.
And it's about time
, I thought.

With Riley's help, I was able to make the plans, pack the bags and keep my secret.

Right up until the time we pulled into the airport's icy parking lot, Bella was relentless. “Okay,” she said, “I know we're going on a trip. But where?”

“Will you stop,” I laughed. “I packed your mittens and scarf. You'll know soon enough.”

We checked in at Gate 11, Flight #7438, destination, Barbados.

“Oh Don,” she squeaked and nearly crushed my disappearing body with a bear hug.

On the plane, I reported my findings to Bella. “Barbados was founded by a tribe of cone heads, overtaken by a tribe of cannibals who probably ate them, conquered by the Spanish, and later colonized by the English. I figured it was perfect for you!”

She laughed. “I bet it is.”

The flight was rough, but as we circled a rugged strip of land, I looked out the small window and saw miles of white sand beaches. I nudged Bella and pointed. “Welcome to Barbados,” I whispered. All along the shore, large stretches of white sand were broken by beautiful coral formations. We placed our trays back into their upright positions, fastened our seat belts and smiled. Anywhere that land met ocean, a little piece of heaven could be found.

The airport was under heavy renovations, so we had to exit the plane on the tarmac and make our way through a maze of scaffolding to the terminal. The heat was almost as oppressive and punishing as Vietnam. I pulled at my collar and looked over at Bella. She was huffing and puffing too. “Hey, it beats the snow,” she said with a grin.

Customs consisted of two people who looked very unhappy with their jobs. With no air conditioning, I didn't blame them. After a couple of bad looks, our papers were stamped. “Thank you,” I said to the girl. If I didn't know better, I would have sworn she snarled at me.
You'd fit in well at the Department of Motor Vehicles
, I thought and tipped a local boy to drag our luggage out to the curb.

The cab driver drove us from the airport to the parish of St. Michael located between Bridgetown and Speightstown.

The hotel sat right on the beach but didn't look like much from the outside. Once we crossed the threshold though, I quickly realized why I'd paid as much as I did. It was gorgeous, maybe even the paradise they showed in the pictures.

There were three crystal blue pools that layered one atop the other, dumping into a final lagoon by way of a giant rock waterfall. “Gorgeous,” Bella sighed and hugged me from behind.

We unpacked and spent the first day adapting to our new surroundings. It's funny how my memories of this play out in fragments – a late breakfast that I found repulsive because the cheese was sweating and the warm pints of milk showed a grinning goat on the back of the cartons; entire families of Brits and Australians on holiday by the pool; trays of strawberry and banana daiquiris. I can still picture the young con artist trying to peddle his fake jewelry on the beach and me shooing him away from Bella, as if he were an RV salesman. We ran into the cleaning lady three times. From her broken English, I learned that her name was Rosa and she worked three jobs. I can still see my beautiful wife lying on a white lawn chair under a palm tree, reading a book and laughing. Everyone smelled like coconut and everyone was smiling. Lunch was buffet style with hot dogs and barbecue chicken. Though I hid it from Bella, I couldn't eat. I'd been sick to my stomach since we landed and it wasn't just from motion sickness. Forgive the graphic detail, but my stool was starting to show increasing traces of blood again each time I managed to go. And, there were moments when I felt like I'd swallowed a handful of broken glass. I tried breathing through it each time.
One, one-thousand…two, one-thousand…three, one-thousand…

Bella asked, “Are you feeling sick?”

“Not too bad,” I lied. I didn't need Bella's futile worrying to slow us down. Bottom line – I was dying and nothing was going to stop that. From here on, as my friend Billy Hutchins would say,
We need to drive this thing until the wheels come off and we head into vi
c
tory lane – out of gas, all banged up, and the doors torn right off it.

At dusk that first night, I was invited to play cricket on the beach with some of the young natives who'd gotten off work from the hotels. “Come on, Mon!” a skinny man with long dreadlocks yelled at me, extending a flat paddle in my direction.

I couldn't resist and got up from my beach chair. As I slowly made my way down the beach, I warned them, “I used to play baseball when I was a kid.”

I swung and missed three times. They all laughed and kept on laughing. I looked up to find Bella taking pictures and laughing right along with them. The sun was just going down. It was beautiful. I suppose they took my age into account and gave me a few extra swings. I took a couple deep breaths and by the fifth swing, I connected and looped one into the ocean. “Yoohoo!” my wife cheered and the men took turns congratulating me. For such poor people, they seemed so happy. They were friendly and relaxed, and from the looks of it, not overly burdened with the worries of most. I watched as the sun shimmered on the horizon, throwing off colors I'd never seen before. Having been born in paradise, my new friends had been blessed and obviously knew it.

“Time to eat,” Bella called out. I looked up to find her waving me to her. My body tingled and I wondered,
Lord, what did I ever do to deserve such a wo
m
an?
I still loved my wife as passionately as the rainy day we'd met.

The hotel's restaurant was an open veranda glowing in candlelight, illuminating the smiles of those who dined under its giant thatched roof. Dinner was formal, by reservation only, and though I still felt exhausted and terribly ill, I didn't want to miss anything. The beat of the calypso band and the certain disappointment in my wife's face made me bite my tongue and endure with a smile. From the length of Bella's smile, it was well worth the discomfort.

I awoke earlier than Bella and stepped out onto the small balcony that overlooked the beach. In the growing light, I read one of the hotel's many tour advertisements:

Bella stirred from her sleep. I went to her.

On our first morning walk, we came across an older man raking seaweed on the beach. “Good morning,” I called out to him.

“Good morning to you,” he said with a smile, “and a glorious afternoon and evening, too.”

“We hope.”

“Name's David,” he said, “if you need anything, please feel free to call on me, yes?”

I stopped. “Actually, my wife and I are interested in touring your beautiful island, but don't want to do it from the windows of a bus.”

He leaned on his rake and looked at me, but said nothing.

“We'd like to get a native's perspective of the island and…”

“I see,” he said and thought for a moment. “I have a friend, Philip, who knows every road and back, but…” He looked embarrassed to go on.

“Yes?”

“He charges one hundred fifty U.S. dollars for the day.”

“That's reasonable enough,” I said. “When can he take us?”

“I can arrange it so that you leave tomorrow morning, yes?”

“That would be great. It'll give us a full day.”

As promised, at first light, Philip waited for us at the hotel's front gate. He opened the Toyota's rear door for Bella and greeted me with an extended hand. “Good morning, sir,” he said.

I was pleased to discover that his English was better than mine. “Good morning,” I said, “but please don't call me sir. I'm Don and that pretty lady right there is Bella.”

Both he and Bella smiled. He nodded. “Okay then, Don and Bella,” he replied, “let's go tour the island.” One handshake later, we were heading away from the luxury we'd known for two days toward poverty unlike anything I'd ever seen.

As we drove, I prompted Philip to describe his world. Without hesitation, he explained, “The first settlement in Barbados was Holetown, originally named Jamestown after King James the First of England. It acquired the name Holetown because of the off loading and cleaning of ships in the very small channel located near the town. Speightstown, however, was the first major port and commercial center of Barbados. Neglected over the years, I'm happy to say it's since been revived. There are excellent hotels and restaurants in the area, as well as a new art gallery.”

As he spoke, Bella and I pointed out the shacks with no windows, tin roofs and naked children running around barefoot.

Philip's first stop was at the
Baobab Tree in St. Michael. “Out of little seeds, great things can grow,” he said and opened the door for Bella to get out and take a closer look.

The tree was enormous. “It's also known as the Monkey-bread tree,” he explained. “It would take fifteen adults joining with outstretched arms to surround its circumference.”

I whistled and bent to read the inscription on the wooden plaque:

Without another word, Philip allowed us the time we needed to take in the experience. Bella leaned into my ear. “Make sure you thank David when we return to the hotel. Philip's a fabulous guide,” she whispered.

“He is,” I said. “And I will.”

Our second stop was at St. James Parish Church in Holetown. Philip cleared his throat. “Built in 1847, St. James Parish Church is among the four oldest surviving churches in Barbados. In the southern porch of the church, a bell with the inscription, ‘God bless King William, 1696,' can be found. It pre-dates the American Liberty Bell by fifty-four years.”

My wide-eyed wife and I toured the place. There were ancient mural tablets, stained glass windows and a dilapidated cemetery at the rear of the chapel.

As we pulled up the long drive to St. Nicholas Abbey, the well-preserved mansion showed off its curved Dutch gables and chimney stacks. “This place was built in 1660,” Philip said. “The rubble walls are made of boulders held together with a mixture of egg white and coral dust. There was no cement available when it was built.” While he hovered around the car outside, Bella and I purchased two tickets and took the tour.

Past the deplorable slave's quarters, we were led into an old horse stable where we sat in metal chairs and watched a 1930s film on sugar plantation life. Meant to attract tourists, it had the opposite effect for Bella. She was appalled. As we walked back to the mansion, the tour guide said, “The history of our slaves is quite interesting.”

Bella grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Can we please leave?”

I nodded and looked back once at the old sugar plantation's slave quarters. It was unimaginable how civilized people could treat others not so long ago.

Philip smiled when he saw us marching back to the car. “I'm not surprised you did not want to stay,” he said and threw open Bella's door.

Back on the road, he explained, “With the need to harvest sugar to make rum, it was the Dutch who first supplied the forced labor from West Africa. The slaves came from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Cameroon, though many of them did not survive the journey. For those thousands who did reach their destination, they found their plantation owners to be cruel and without mercy. To meet the labor demands – kidnapping, as well as welcoming convicted criminals onto its shores, were two other popular means of obtaining servants.”

Bella stared out her window in silence until Philip brought the car to a sudden halt and leaned over the front seat. “Wait till you meet this character,” he said.

We got out and watched as a grown man scurried up a palm tree with a machete clenched in his teeth. With one swipe, he cut down two coconuts and slid down the tree to greet us. With one coconut bouncing in his left hand, he spun it in a circle, whacking at it three or four times with his machete. He then gave it one final cut, threw a straw into the small hole and handed it to Bella.