Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel (2 page)

Don’t mind I ain born as yet. I is the historian in this family. Teacher of history at the Anglican school where all the fancy families does send their children. So is me could really tell you what happen on Transfer Day. If anyone know the history is me. Nowadays people think historians are stuffy types, but history is a kind of magic I doing here.

Is March 31, 1917. The islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, getting transfer from Danish to American rule. Denmark decide it don’t want we. America decide it do. One find we unnecessary because they way up in Europe. The next find we absolutely necessary because they backside sitting on the Caribbean. Just so we get pass from hand to hand.

The day of the Transfer our men there trying to keep they dignity. Making declarations: “We are pleased to be among the brave and to have our land be among the free.” But for true, money been tough and trade poor. We Bradshaws was wealthier than most, though we not as wealthy as some. Don’t worry what Eeona and them old wives going to tell you. Others much more mighty than we. When he propose marriage, Papa surely had promise Mama all the riches the Caribbean could offer. But all she come to know of these riches is Villa by the Sea, a maid-cook, and a man-about-the-house.

The cook, who is also the maid, name Sheila Ladyinga. She didn’t love we, but she did always look out. The man-about-the-house name Hippolyte Lammartine, and he a good man despite the foolishness that he throw on me later. Mr. Lyte and Miss Lady, they was called by all who know. But Mama Antoinette, she had want what we read in novel them British ladies have, what the governor wife have. A butler. A cook and cleaner—separate. Nanny for each child. A wet nurse. Mama had to give we she own breast. Is like Mama was a radical or something so. She don’t want to give over everything for children. She want to give over to she self. The times ain right or Mama Antoinette ain right. I can’t say. We can’t say. But she what she could do was sew. Had a way with the stitch. Teach Eeona all she know. Ain had the occasion to teach by time I born and reach. But still. Mama had talent. I know. All the old wives say so.

On Transfer Day everybody gone to the military Barracks and wave toonchy American flags and wonder if our V.I. could ever become a U.S. state. Only now that I is a historian myself, I could look back and really see
that it was a funny thing happening that day. The land and the people like we going separate ways. The land becoming American, but we people still Caribbean. Eeona always say Papa was British and Danish, but anybody could watch the picture of him and see that he part Frenchy and plenty Negro.

But look. In America, they have a dream. People from all about the place come together and now they is one nation. It dougla-up, just like the Caribbean. Correct? And the island intellectuals who was writing then, they thinking is only a matter of time before all of we Caribbean going to be part of the United States and then the United States, with the Caribbean as figurehead, like what on ships, going to be a shining beacon to the free world. That what some fools was thinking on Transfer Day.

At the Barracks you seeing men with money wearing blue linen suits. The women dress in white linen with red shawls and big white hats. But watch, they have a few who dye up their white dress until it bright yellow. Them protesting. For real, protest! Yellow is the color of we islands—sunny. In America, yellow mean coward. But not for we. Yellow mean brash. Yellow mean happy and free. These in yellow want we to stay Danish or go join the British Virgin Islands or even be independent like everybody saying going to happen with Puerto Rico. But watch, even them protesters in yellow having a good time. They protesting but they done lose, might as well enjoy the bacchanal.

Eeona, she still a girl and she done pretty, so pretty she could sink ships. And she done the type that see sinking ships like the only thing worth doing. Mama sew she a red dress—which ain scandalous since she still a young girl. Eeona wearing a straw hat that bleach white like bone. Back in them time children was well behaved, quiet. But Eeona was a something else. She like a mannequin for Mama. As far as Mama concern, Eeona there just to receive compliment that belong to Mama. Like Mama sew and stitch the child and not the dress alone. That day Eeona ain even
allowed to lift she head, just in case she beauty end up snaring somebody and distracting from the formalities. So she keep she head low; watch Papa foots as he stroll through the crowd.

Everybody giddy-like. You could just read the newspapers from that time to know. “So-and-so son going to America for adventure,” say one. “Fulano de tal son going to America for university,” say a next. Mama and Papa hearing this but they ain have no son going no place for no reason. Mama ain want no more children, she want to make she glove and dress and make she self the head fashion lady that other fashion ladies depend on. Papa want a son, but he need Mama for this. But Mama only need fancier fabric and industrial sewing machine. All of that easy to come by in America, but close to impossible here on island. Mama ain figure out how to get all what she want.

In the Barracks everybody nyamming down some pick-up saltfish. The place smelling like ocean. The talk keep talking: “Our family is moving to Atlanta, Georgia. My husband has taken a position . . .” Mama couldn’t stay and listen to that, so Eeona get jerk this way and that. Lose Papa legs. Mama stand by the Frenchy women selling straw bags. These woman faces brown even though they white like white people. The Frenchy woman-them poor, but they have a fashion. They make their nice hats and their simple clothes and back in the day they was from a French island. Even we know that French mean fancy. Don’t mind that our Frenchies poor. Mama lime by them, gripping Eeona until some other woman of Mama class stroll by and Mama hook she self and Eeona on to these.

Now the Barracks coming loud and garrulous. They close to the Yard. That place always rough. Even during the Prohibition anybody could get a shot of rum from time daybreak start. So is a real bacchanal going on this morning. Like a carnival. Man-them singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a quelbe flute leading. Woman, like Mama, clapping dainty.

The brass brand finally and officially begin to play the Danish national anthem. Twenty-one guns shoot out from the boat in the harbor.
Each fire pound through Mama Antoinette stomach, for she pregnant and is me in there. The Danish flag inch down. Some of the man-them actually weeping. The guns go off again. The new anthem start up and everybody get quiet-quiet. Papa ease up to Mama and Eeona, stand by them at this important time. Don’t say nothing ’bout where he just reach from wandering.

That American flag go soaring up, and Papa soar up Eeona to his shoulders so she could watch America up there on the gazebo stage. Eeona too big for going on anybody shoulders, you hear. She a girl, but she ’bout to be woman any minute, getting her bleeding soon-soon. People watching the flag and people watching the woman-child and both making them stare and stay hush. Mama Antoinette pull Eeona dress so it cover the knees at least. Mama say: “Observe, Eeona. That is freedom.” And you could see even now from the pictures in the archives, how them men looking sharp in their military uniforms. Gold buttons glinting. Mama could see that freedom does be well dressed and fashionable. And that’s what happen. Danish West Indies become United States Virgin Islands. And just so, we go from Danish to American like it ain nothing. Like it ain everything.

The evening after the Transfer, Antoinette and Owen Arthur quarreled in Antoinette’s bedroom. Eeona awoke from a nap of damp sheets and went to squash her tender ear against the door that linked her room to her mother’s. Miss Lady, who knew everything, came in and slapped Eeona’s behind and sent her off—though Miss Lady stayed to listen herself.

Papa’s voice was loud and insistent. Mama’s voice was soft and appeasing. This is how they always fought.

“Nettie, I understand you snubbed the Baskervilles because they said they are sailing for New York.”

“I did not snub them, Mr. Bradshaw.”

“Is it that you are jealous?”

“Please excuse me for repeating, but I did not snub them.”

“Madame Bradshaw, it has become clear that we cannot leave the sea. It is my business. Our livelihood.”

“What business, Mr. Bradshaw? Tell me. How exactly is the business going? Or am I merely a woman and so therefore unable to understand that there will be no real business without the rum . . .”

“Antoinette. Please. I am a ship captain. This is the sea I know. What would you have me do on the mainland?”

“It is not that I am interested in moving per se, Mr. Bradshaw.”

“Madame Bradshaw?”

“I am only concerned that those of us who do not move to the Continent still be allowed access to the niceties of our new country. Are we not to be American citizens?”

“Yes, of course. In time.”

“American women may vote. Here, our men will be less than women even. Here no one will be able to vote at all. But if we are on the mainland, we will vote, we will gain the things we desire, fabrics of silk or lace . . .”

“Now, Madame Bradshaw, you have just said that you don’t need to be in America. You are losing your logic. You are going into one of your episodes.”

“You will not speak to me like that! I am not a small girl. I’ve carried how many of your children in my womb as they hurried toward death? I don’t want us to move permanently. It is only that I had hoped we would have access to the Negro artists and actors of New York, and perhaps I could contribute my dresses for the stage and perhaps Eeona might take singing lessons like a proper lady. We need not live there forever, but we
must do what we can to bring these things here. You are a ship captain. Is this not in your power, Owen . . .”

“Hush, Nettie! What is this nonsense about Negroes? Your episodes are making you ramble. You speak of our child, but your influence is causing her to have your same wildness. She is becoming bold, going beyond herself.”

“What are you saying?”

“What am I saying?” he shouted, gathering himself. “I am saying that you must forget this. We must first demonstrate good character.”

“Good character? Did America not look us in the mouth before the buy?”

“Stop this, Antoinette. Stop this now. As a St. Thomas seaman I stand to benefit greatly from this transfer of nations. Can you not see already how all the other islanders are coming here? It is like when they built the canal. Half of St. Thomas went because Panama was the promised land. Now we are the promised land.”

“I don’t want to be half an American. I want full and free access. You knew I wanted this when we married. You even said then . . .”

“You mustn’t believe all the things you are told.” He shook his head, but softened when he saw his wife’s desperate face. “Oh, Nettie. Negro theater? That is an American thing. We Bradshaws are British and Danish for goodness’ sake.”

“We’re hardly British or Danish, Owen.” And now she glided her hand along her own brown arm. They were not arguing anymore about leaving or voting or access to the arts. They were having the argument they always had. She would align herself with whomever would have her. She had heard that there were rich people of all complexions in America, ones who might fall for her fashions and not worry about her pauper personal history.

It was like this when she was having one of her episodes. The episodes
were a state where she wanted and hungered and that took many slights of magic to calm. The doctor said it was a nervousness brought on by the pregnancies and miscarriages. A woman’s wildness.

But instead of appeasing her, Owen switched off his charm to face her challenge. “Go back to Anegada where I found you, Antoinette Stemme. That dry atoll where there are more lobsters than people. Go marry your fisherman instead of this ship captain. Maybe he will row you to America.”

“My mother married a fisherman, Owen Arthur. It would do you well to be careful with your words.”

“Your mother is dead, Antoinette, and so is your fisherman father. I am the man of this family and we will become American by staying right here on the island. With or without your consent.”

“I am your wife. From whom else do you seek consent?”

“Please, Nettie. You want too much. You always want to go and go. You are a lady. You must be still. Consider your condition . . .”

“Is there someone else to whom you have committed to staying near? Someone else keeping us away from moving or visiting even?”

Then something broke. Not a dainty glass, but an entire dresser crashed to the floor and the photographic portrait of the couple on their wedding day on top of it. Owen Arthur Bradshaw streamed downstairs and he called for Mr. Lyte, the Frenchy groundsman who was also their fisherman, to bring him a glass of rum. This is how the husband and wife always ended their bouts. Antoinette would then call for Eeona, who would go to her. And Antoinette would say, “I shall make you a skirt of linen. Be still. Be my doll.”

But when baby Anette comes, it will be different yet again. By the time Anette is old enough to know why Papa and Mama are fighting, there will be no more fighting between Papa and Mama. Because there will be no more Papa and Mama at all. Then Anette will be the sister who muddies the family water, just like a wave overtaking a mound of loose sand.

Madame Antoinette S. Bradshaw was still early in her pregnancy. It was also early, only weeks, into Americanness. Antoinette was the type of woman who only became ill when lying in the morning sun. It was an irony, of course, that a woman who had thrown away so many babies was a woman whose pregnancies were relatively sweet journeys. Antoinette Bradshaw looked the most lovely when she was pregnant. Her hair did not fall out. Her nose did not spread. Her feet did not swell. Her breasts did not burn and her back did not ache. She did not lose her bladder. None of these things that average women experienced. Instead she became queasy in sunlight, and, as if she were regressing, she would seem spritely and fresh-faced, like a girl.

Normally, her bleeding was clockwork. To the day, to the hour. And that was how she knew, the morning of the family leisure voyage, to take her special bush tea so the not-yet-baby would wash out of her. Any sickness that came as a result, she would blame on the sea. The voyage was a husband’s kind of penance, a slight giving in.
The Homecoming
would not take them to America, but Owen was the ship’s captain and he could take them somewhere, take them to the British islands and the Spanish. A bit of adventure to calm his wild wife. He hoped the child in her might be a son. But now Antoinette was on the ship and her blood was coming. She stood and looked for her living daughter.

Eeona herself had only just started to bleed, and Antoinette had decided that if Eeona did not pitch away her virginity, for she was a girl too aware of her beauty, they would marry her off early. Antoinette and Owen Arthur had already been bickering about sending the child away. Antoinette thought the neighboring British Virgin Islands would be a good place for a young lady’s education or perhaps Puerto Rico, where Antoinette herself
had attended finishing school. But strangely Owen had mentioned Britain or Denmark, maybe even America, and though Nettie fancied his ideas, she didn’t quite understand her husband’s desire to send their daughter so far away. Especially without them. In the meantime, the girl needed womanly education—one gained from an elder woman kin. For Antoinette, the most vital lesson of womanhood was knowing how to rid yourself of an unwanted child before it became a child.

“Make haste,” Antoinette snapped. The child was so fast with her father.

Eeona had been sitting on a sack of sugar that was about her size. This was not a work sailing trip, so the ship was not stocked with all the ship hands and the livestock to feed the ship hands. Eeona had seen the ship like that. She had also seen the ship empty with no one but herself and her father. She liked it both those ways. She did not like it now, with her mother at her father’s side. Though Eeona did like that the kitchenhand and the deckhand stared at her until the ship matron would tug them by their aprons into the bowels of the ship.

Her father had taught her to swim in the open ocean. And now Eeona wanted to glide naked in that very sea and then collapse into her father’s arms. But not with her mother around. Eeona hadn’t given any thought to things like how she would bathe with her mother here. If she had, she would have begged to stay home, keep the villa with Miss Lady. They had not had a family sail since Eeona had begun puberty, since her secret had appeared.

On this trip they would port up at many small islands, lounge on the beaches, and pay visits. Antoinette’s elder cousin, who taught French in the neighboring British island of Tortola, would host them for a week. She would teach young Eeona some smart things to say in that lovely language. An old comrade of Owen’s would meet them in Fajardo, at the tip of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was where Owen had sent Antoinette during their
engagement, so she could learn to serve tea and coffee, to sit like a lady. These visits were now exploratory, for perhaps Eeona would end up in one or the other. They were also places Antoinette knew and loved, but they would not visit the place she knew and loved best, which was Anegada. The place where she had learned to walk and talk and swim—the place where she was born. The place where she had had her first kiss and first love. It was just there, but they didn’t sail in that direction. It was true that her parents were already dead. But it was also true that the lobsterman she had almost married was quite alive. That man had promised Antoinette a life of labor and love, but Owen Arthur had promised her leisure and liberty. Since making her vows to the ship captain, Antoinette didn’t dare visit, for she knew the danger of old fire sticks, how quickly they alight. Owen, wise, never offered to bring her when he docked there. They were sailing elsewhere.

Now Antoinette called to the deckhand to lower the rowboat. Where was Eeona? The mother snapped her fingers and Eeona slugged over. “My child, stop being molasses.” Eeona climbed into the rowboat with her mother, and they were lowered down toward the sea.

They rocked unsteadily and Antoinette opened her arms to Eeona, who seemed unafraid. “Balance yourself,” Antoinette said into Eeona’s ear as their rowboat slapped onto the sea. Antoinette undressed herself then looked at her daughter. “You, as well.”

The child looked around. There was
The Homecoming
looming large beside them. There was the ocean around her. She should swim away. She was a very good swimmer, which was extraordinary in these islands, especially for a girl. She should call to her father. She should tell Mama Antoinette that she was ill and must go back up. That she had her monthly period and so should not be so close to water for fear of sharks. Miss Lady had given her this warning, but her mother, an Anegada woman and so a seawoman herself, didn’t believe in those fearful excuses. Eeona couldn’t
think fast enough. “May I wash your hair, Mama?” The child stroked her own hair as though it were a pet. This kind of distraction worked on her papa.

“No, Eeona. My moon is full now.” Antoinette paused. “Right now.” And then the blood, the almost-baby, began to drain out of her.

Though Eeona also bled, it was not with the command her mother seemed to have. Her bleeding came unexpectedly and left unexpectedly and was generally a nuisance. She stared at her mother with awe. She squeezed her thighs together, to hold her own brightness in.

Antoinette’s face was set and cold as she pressed the rags between her own legs. Readying for the gurgle and the pulp. “Bleeding is not a curse,” she said to her daughter. “It is a blessing.” She checked the cloths and pressed them to herself again. “But it is only a blessing if you own it.”

Eeona wanted to be brave. So she began to unbutton her dress. Beneath her dress Eeona was wearing pantaloons that puffed around her hips. She held her breath as she took those off. Then she waited for her mother to look at her.

“Eeona,” Antoinette said, “soon you will have desires . . .” It was the beginning of a lesson. But Eeona would not sit. Instead she pushed her pelvis out.

Antoinette looked. She had been trained to be a lady, so she knew how to retain her composure. Now she simply sucked in air. Then she reached out her hand to touch her daughter. She wasn’t quite sure of what she was seeing.

Here was Eeona’s secret: The hair growing between her legs wasn’t brown and bushy like her mother’s. It wasn’t black and wiry like Miss Lady’s. It was gray and thin. Like an old lady’s. Like the little wisps at Papa’s temples. In Eeona’s mind they were from Papa. Their private secret in her secret private place. No one had seen, except Papa. He had told her then that it meant wisdom, just before they’d stood on the ledge of
The
Homecoming
together like castaways and dived into the sea.

“Let me see,” Antoinette now said sternly. “Let me see what is wrong.”
Perhaps it was just ash,
the mother thought madly, as though the daughter might be smoldering in her intimate places. But no, the gray color did not come off in Antoinette’s hands.

Eeona sucked in her own breath. Since she could remember, only her father had ever touched her there.

Mama Antoinette forgot her own body. She pitched her blood-spotted cloths into the sea and scooped seawater into buckets. With fresh rags she rubbed a log of soap into suds. She spread Eeona’s legs and began to wash her there. “What have you done, Eeona? Why did this happen?” She dipped the cloth into the bucket again. Eeona said nothing. Perhaps her mother would get the gray off. The girl didn’t want it gray, despite what Papa said. She wanted hers dark like Mama’s or Miss Lady’s. She also wondered.

Oh, but she knew. She knew. She had liked it when Papa kissed her there. She knew she shouldn’t, but she had. Now, she would shrivel into an old lady all over. Or she would become plump at the belly—forever pregnant like Mama. Eeona just stood there as Antoinette scrubbed harder. Eeona wanted to tell Mama that the scrubbing hurt, but she didn’t. The cloths Antoinette had cast out were gone, but Eeona stared at the spot where they had settled into the sea as her mother went at her as if Eeona were the deck of a boat.

Eeona’s skin became raw until the color that came on the cloth was the dark rust of blood. Antoinette had forgotten her own bleeding, which had slowed, which had stopped, the child inside her no longer in danger.

“This cannot be real,” Antoinette whispered softly. The hair had not revealed itself to be brown or black or even a saving yellow.

Instead, the hair between Eeona’s legs now glittered clean like silver and Eeona felt her mother’s breath on her like a lover’s. Now Eeona found the silver curiously beautiful, but she knew she should be ashamed of this thought. She held her breath and tried to drown the feeling. And in a way
this is how she would be for long after. Either trying to bury herself under a foot of earth or trying to burst free from under a foot of water.

Above them on the deck was the ship’s matron
.
At this moment her job was to guard this side of the boat so that Madame Bradshaw and Miss Bradshaw could bathe without the men stealing a peek at them from the deck. Now Owen Arthur approached and looked to walk past her. “Captain, the ladies are bathing.”

He nodded and stepped forward.

“Captain.”

The matron was not large, but she was wiry and younger than Captain Bradshaw, who stepped again.

“Captain, the women,” the matron said, this time sternly as though she was not speaking to the captain at all.

Owen cleared his throat. “And whose women are bathing?” The matron looked at the captain. “Your women, sir,” she answered, understanding the intention of his question. He nodded and walked around her. She turned to see him go. He spoke back to her, without turning: “Keep your post.” The command was gentle and gruff at the same time. The matron turned, so that now she was guarding Mr. Bradshaw as well.

Owen leaned over and peered down at his wife and daughter, the ship on one side of them, the sea on the other. His eyes filled with tears. “Christ Lord,” he whispered, and did not feel it was in vain. He wanted to call to his women. He wanted them to look up so he could see his wife’s breasts out in the open like this. So he could witness Eeona’s tight belly.

Owen Arthur had not, after all, won the lucrative sugar shipping deal with Mr. Lovernkrandt. Instead, with liquor soon illegal, Captain Bradshaw had squeezed out some hauls of strange things—a shipping of shoes from Santo Domingo, bull bones from Ponce, oil in barrels from Port-of-Spain—the bones being his most frequent cargo. For now, his only faith was his love for his wife and daughter. But he knew there was something
wicked in his wanting to see even a harmless part of his daughter’s body in the same way he wanted to see his wife’s.

But perhaps it was not Eeona whom he lusted for at all. Antoinette, with her sewing, was not often obliging. Perhaps he just needed to visit Rebekah more often. Mrs. Rebekah McKenzie, the piano teacher and market lady. Her husband, a Navy man, had disappeared for good a few months ago. The meté was that Rebekah had disappeared him.

Owen had been with Rebekah at times when her husband shipped out. He remembered how being with Rebekah had been like walking on the land after a month at sea. He’d even bought her the piano. It was made in Florida, and he’d picked it up on a haul to San Juan. But now, watching his daughter and wife, Owen felt somewhat calmed. He’d been with Rebekah recently. That time he’d tried to claim her. “Mine,” he’d said to her open legs, “Mine” to the smooth of her shoulder. He could do that. Own a woman. Look how easily he’d tugged Antoinette from that lobsterman on Anegada. Now he would own a woman who might bear a son for him, damn the American law and its rule of legitimacy.

He looked down at the little boat one last time. He could see the bodies of his wife and daughter against each other’s like courtesans, then a glint of silver.

Down below, in the small boat that did little to separate her from the ocean, Eeona had stopped crying. Now she looked hard at her mother and spoke harder. “Stop, Mama.” Antoinette finally ceased but her alarm solidified. Now the women faced each other, hard as mountains.