Land of Love and Drowning: A Novel (27 page)

It may seem so simple to say that it is sea. But it is the sea.

—DEREK
WALCOTT

Ronalda left for college in the States. There she found things to be much worse than she’d expected. When Ronalda arrived, the States was outright racist and outright sexist and outright everything that it could be, and Ronalda was an outsider. True, she’d always felt that way. But in the States feeling that way was righteous—not belonging was a way to belong. And American blacks seemed real to Ronalda. They were on TV. They were in the newspapers. They were in magazines and books and movies. And there they were. Real for all to see. The Virgin Islands barely existed at all.

Then Mary came. Some hurricanes were numbered. Others were named. The latter had an identity, a persona. For years, the named storms were only women, which seemed fitting. They could be in love, they could be envious. Whether this hurricane was the Virgin or the Magdalene, no one knew until it was too late.

The islands had seen storms. The houses were built for them. But the
radio made it sound very serious. Why was this happening? What had we done? The cousins over in Tortola, which the storm was set to ignore, snickered: Those American Virgin Islanders were getting their due punishment for their relentless excess. After all, the dubious spoils of tourism had been flooding the USVI for years.

Hurricanes, like all important things, happen by the generation. Youme and Frank thought they were a thing of Caribbean folklore, like pirates and mermaids, or of Caribbean myth, like Eeona’s Duene and Anancy. But because they were mythic, Eve Youme had also known that they would return. She believed in all the stories.

As the radio directed, the family put up a map distributed by the government and drew a line from where the hurricane had started off the coast of Africa. They gridded in the latitude and longitude. This was a game that the community played collectively. We watched Mary grow, a mutant baby, as she traveled across the Atlantic. Then Mary was there, knocking on the door. Everyone was nervous and a little excited. No school! Early off from work! All the bustling about. Mervyn Manatee announcing on the radio, “Get Ready! Get Ready! Hurricane Mary coming!”

Franky was a Coast Guardsman and so he was the type to prepare. He sent Anette out with Youme to buy batteries to keep things working, and nice things to eat in case the storm made anyone morose. Franky and his son heaved a thick sheet of wood and nailed it over the windows at the front of the house. He called over to St. John and made sure that someone would pass and check on Eeona’s inn. After he’d secured their home, he went to check on the lighthouse. The Coast Guard had relieved him of lighthouse duty until after the storm, for it would be too dangerous. All the ships in the area had been alerted. When he returned, he ordered everyone to move all the valuables up onto the highest shelves.

But then what a sham it all seemed at the start. Mary arrived and she was just measly rain and a little blow.

Dr. Jacob McKenzie and his wife were friendly with some Continentals
and had been invited to a hurricane party. He took his pretty wife to the party in the hills that were now called Peterborg. Once upon a time he’d ran up into these hills and plucked a fistful of flowers to rain over Anette’s hair.

Now with his desirable wife and American friends, he looked over Magens Bay and saw the Atlantic Ocean grow very rough and then settle down a little. The Americans had been right about the storm. It was best to throw a bash and enjoy the time off from work. Jacob’s wife clinked flutes of champagne with a homemaker whose husband was in development. In Jacob’s mind the only disaster was that their Santo Domingan gardener might have to replant the roses.

—

Anette was a historian after all, and though she didn’t really teach Virgin Islands history—because none of the schools thought it necessary—she still listened for the local stories. Anette had heard about the long-ago tidal wave that swam the waterfront and washed up at the Anglican church. She’d been told about the ancient earthquake that had knocked down the Peterson Building. She knew about the old cholera that had taken a son from every family, like a proper plague. She even knew about the sinking of
The Homecoming
. That was all history. Now at their house Franky was telling a story about the one time he saved someone from drowning. In all his honorable years with the Coast Guard, this was the only time he’d saved anyone.

Everyone said that Mary was an angry woman storm—either a jilted lover or a desperate mother. With a name like Mary, we should have known that she would be the worst ever. No one was prepared. How could we be? The hurricane had seemed a storm and then it had not. And then it was, this time for real. We’d underestimated her.

The sepia portrait of Owen Arthur and Antoinette was off the wall and packed up. The cruise ships had just turned away and headed for Jamaica. Ronalda’s dorm was called and called but she was at a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee meeting and didn’t get home until curfew, which
was seven p.m. Phone curfew was nine. At eight forty-five she finally returned the calls and said, “But there’s nothing on the news here about the V.I. at all. It’s going to be okay.”

Then Eeona called from St. John and said, “Listen clearly, Anette. It is not going to be okay.”

“Then get over here, Eeona.”

“There is no time. Anette, the entirety of Anegada is being evacuated. The atoll may go under.”

“What does Anegada matter?”

“It matters.”

Perhaps we have forgotten Anegada, but Eeona had not. What she knew to be true was indeed true. What would Anegada be like without its walk-through-mountains people? What would happen to the few trees? Eeona, strangely, found herself more concerned about that land than about her own inn.

“Eeona, just make sure you take care. Is anyone with you?”

“Our grandparents’ graves are in Anegada. That is our history there.”

“Oh, Eeona. A whole island can’t be taken by the sea.” As if no one had heard of Atlantis.

Youme and Frank were sleeping with the depth of teenagers. They didn’t even notice when the electricity went out.

The rain was fighting to come into the house. Then pieces of galvanized tin were knocking on the door. Then the wind sounded like a woman howling out her broken heart. The radio station stopped its mix of American soul and island quelbe. Frantic men and women and children started calling in
and screaming that their roofs were tearing off their houses. That their children had gone out into the rain that we’d thought before was just a little drizzle. Help! We live in Tutu. We live in the new housing development. We live still! Save us!

The call came over the radio that all emergency personnel were needed. All. Police and doctors and firemen and, of course, the Coast Guard. Report now. Immediately.

Jacob was still in the hills of Peterborg and the folks at the hurricane party were beginning to get the hint that this wasn’t a lark after all. The host burst into the dining room and hollered, “They need the doctors!” Jacob rested his wineglass and took his wife by the elbow to their car. They lived in Wintberg, so though the drive home was treacherous, it was short. As soon as he arrived at their house, he began to pack his medical bag. Seeing his hands trembling, his wife turned to him and said that he mustn’t go. He might die. She didn’t say what her real fear was: that he might find himself dying in Anette Bradshaw’s arms.

Besides, Jacob was afraid of the storm. Hadn’t he done enough? Fought for his country? Withstood racism? Lost his soul and lost the love of his life?

He resisted his little wife for a little while but was grateful for her big fears. When the radio called again for doctors, he turned it off. Then Jacob and his wife lay in their bed and listened to Mary screeching. And then, so he could feel like a man, he rolled onto his wife, hoping they would make a boy child.

—

When the call for emergency personnel came over the radio in the Joseph house, Franky looked over at Anette. “I have to go,” he said. Franky was in the Coast Guard, but he’d never dealt with a major emergency. When he’d joined the Guard, there hadn’t even been formal training for that sort of thing. Most of his work was keeping the lighthouse, for goodness’ sake.
And despite that, he’d never even seen a ship wrecked. He wasn’t a surfman or even a coxswain. He’d once saved a drowning person on Coki beach when he was off duty. That was it.

But he was going anyway.

Anette watched him dress. Her husband was a seaman, in a way, but the sea seemed as though it had swiveled upside down. Was coming down on top of them. They would soon drown. Anette watched how Franky put on the heavy boots and jacket that he wore when they’d all gone to the States just a month ago to see Ronalda settled. They hadn’t thought much of America then, it had rained in the morning and the afternoon and into the night without even one break for sun. Who had ever heard of such a thing, raining all day? But now it was indeed raining all day. And Anette was glad that at least one of her children was away from here. But Papa Franky wished that Ronalda was here. She was the child he most trusted to be in charge.

“I’m going to be fine, Annie. Is a man I is, yes.
You
be safe.
You
don’t give me cause to worry.”

Anette nodded and felt the tears behind her cheekbones. Her husband had never called her by a nickname before. It seemed too intimate for the time, as though there were something grave between them that must be given a sweetness.

The rain was knocking hard against the back windows. In the living room Youme and Frank had gathered, unable to sleep anymore. It was one in the morning. Franky didn’t like the idea of everyone there saying good-bye to him. He wasn’t going to his death. He was going to save lives. He would be heroic. He would return.

Anette didn’t like it either. Her firstborn child was safe but so far away. Her sister safe and closer, but not close enough. Anette wanted most to be with the ones she loved and who loved her.

Frank hugged his father. Then Franky went to Youme and tapped her head gently as though she were a small child. Finally, he kissed
Anette on the mouth, which was not something the children had ever seen them do before. Franky opened the heavy front door with a fierce push. The rain came sleeting into the living room. They all gasped and stepped back. Franky stepped forward. He slammed the door behind him. Anette looked at the closed door, still seeing her husband’s back and the storm before him.

Then Anette wished Franky would die.

Just a simple shocking wish. Just a desire that Franky never return. Wouldn’t everything be fine if Franky would drown? A hero’s death wouldn’t be so bad. Then wouldn’t Anette have done her duty? Stayed by him these years because he’d stayed by her? And then she would be free. And then Jacob McKenzie would arrive instead. Well. How strange to discover that Jacob was still among her best beloveds—and not even among, but above. Anette hadn’t wished anyone dead in so many years and here she was wishing it on her husband.

Youme looked at her mother standing at the door and knew exactly what Anette was thinking. She found her mother’s thoughts peculiar, for hadn’t she and Papa Franky just kissed? Why would Mommy think such an awful thing? That she could read her mother’s mind did not strike Youme as peculiar at all. It seemed to her something that anyone could do. Something family should do for each other.

It struck Anette differently. She felt the intrusion in her thoughts as though someone had broken a window in the house. There was a crack and then a moment of fear. Then she turned slowly to look at Youme watching her. They stared at each other until Youme’s eyes watered and she felt she was doing something wrong.
Me?
Anette said in her head, and Eve Youme heard her pet name echo in her own ears. Then the child did what she would only do for her mother. She turned away.

Besides, Anette didn’t really want Franky gone. He was a good father to all the children. A good husband to her. She would be devastated. She wouldn’t know how to be a sensible woman. How would she cook saltfish
without his pepper sauce? She barely knew how to cook at all. No, no, she didn’t want Franky dead. It was just that she wanted Jacob. That was all. She just wanted Jacob to come. To take her and hold her and be her husband like he had promised. She hadn’t felt such foolishness in years. And it was foolishness. She was just scared. She was just feeling abandoned because of the storm.

Anette focused on the door again. She stood staring at the door for a long time. Conjuring the image of Franky’s back at the threshold. Keeping him alive. Overriding her earlier heedless thoughts. Jacob is married, she now reminded herself. Not free to claim her even if she were free to be claimed. Who says he would be a good husband to her anyway? Who says they would still be in love now if she’d been his attainable wife?
Leave that alone,
she told herself.
Franky is your man. Franky is who you need.

She walked to her daughter and pulled Youme’s face to hers. “You be careful in other people’s heads,” she said out loud. Then she released Youme and went to the kitchen to gather a supply of candles and matches. The candles that had been lit were already melting.

At five a.m. Anette picked up the phone to call the lighthouse and check on Franky. She found her phone line dead. Frank Jr. turned the transistor radio on high. Mervyn Manatee was declaring that everyone should open their windows. This would prevent implosion. This would prevent the pressure inside the house from rising and blowing the roof off. Frank opened the windows in the back of the house. The photo albums were sopping wet. They all felt their ears popping as they watched the roof.

This was now a wild-woman storm.

Frank kept checking on the latches and locks as his father had instructed. Even though he was the youngest, no one told him to settle down. He seemed professional and military-like. Anette observed him with a mother’s secret pride: that mix of attraction and protection.

The radio, on the other hand, was spewing horror. The hurricane had slowed down its movement. Had stopped altogether and settled over the
Virgin Islands, dumping destruction like something premeditated and biblical. Police were radioing in. This home is gone. That roof is gone. Then the directives of meek advice: Hide in the bathtub. Pull a mattress over your head.

Afterward, they would hear the stories of entire families who stuffed themselves into bathtubs with mattresses over them as their houses fell in. Help us! Help is coming. The Coast Guard is coming. Police are coming. Where is the doctor? Where are you? What is your address? Hello? Hello?

The eye of the storm finally passed over. The eye. A perfect metaphor for so many things. There was quiet all over the land. A peace. A light rain. Sunshine coming from the unboarded back windows of the house. The radio warned not to leave your home because no one could know how long this calm would last before Mary started up again.

Frank, who was baby-faced but almost a teenager, wrapped blankets around his body. Anette pretended she didn’t notice he was heading out. She didn’t think she could stop her son, so she didn’t want to try and fail. There was something determined in him. In this chaos he seemed to suddenly be a man. Later, when he was fighting for the revo in Grenada, she would tell this story of him going out into the eye. But now Frank pulled the door that Franky had left through and had not yet returned through, and went out into the stillness.

Youme and Anette laid sheets in bundles under all the doors and at the base of the windows to keep out the water that was seeping in. They didn’t put any at the front door until Frank returned. When he did, a half hour later, he looked scared and brave. “I looked into the eye of the storm,” he said. “Now the bumsie coming.”

The front of Mary had been bad, but her tail, like any Caribbean backside, was worse.