I
Place and People, 1945-1956
The island of St Augustine is shaped like a gigantic prehistoric fish, tail fin stretching and thrashing against the tempestuous waves of the Atlantic, head resting in the calm waters of the Caribbean Sea. On the hill at the cliff edge, where the eye of the fish protrudes, stands an ancient coral-stone edifice. It was erected three centuries ago by seafarers from England who swaggered ashore and colonised.
The walls, porous yet solid, support a spire that soars above the tallest mile tree and fades into the clouds until only the bell tolls from on high. Beneath the roof, rafters hewn from a variety of timbers crisscross—those English settlers having axed the dense rainforest to make way for the planting of cane on plantations and the enormous profits of sugar for the high teas of their lords and ladies at home. The arched door was cut from tamarind wood, the pews carved from the trunks of mammee-apple trees and decked with mats woven from the aerial roots of the bearded fig. The altar is of the finest mahogany, polished with reverence, and bears a simple cross of bamboo. On the wooden floor alongside stands a large clay pot containing a scarlet poinsettia representing the blood of the Saviour. The pulpit, also of mahogany, is engraved with the image of a sea serpent, tongue on fire.
The stained-glass window above the altar is enormous—it would take thirty little children holding hands to ring around the rim. Secured in its lead frame are five thousand, three hundred and twelve exquisite discs of glass in varying sizes—each one in place around the central moonstone. A rose window, though there is no pink—instead, the colours of the rainbow display their brilliance in concentric circles. It is as if a deity from on high had flattened the universe by laying an imperial hand onto the white light of the full moon and, pressing down through the indigo of the night sky, the blue of the sea, out to green fields, golden shower bloomed and the border of flamboyant blossomed in flaming red.
The origin of the church and window have outlived all memory—the people who live here have no record of when they were constructed nor by whom. And, perhaps, they prefer that to remain an enduring mystery. As descendants of enslaved Africans, they renounce the past—let bygones be gone, let old-time memories be interred with the ancestors.
How they would rather forget the history of exploitation and injustice, though it persists—all too evident in The Master’s Great House, a whitewashed concrete fortress overlooking their rickety, two-little-room wooden huts perched on coral-stone blocks. Massa, the old folk still call him, for to them he owns not merely the land on which they live but their very being.
The people, numbering no more than two hundred, squat outside his pitiless gate. As tenants, they cut his cane and eke out a living by cultivating plots on the fringes of his plantation. Rab land, they call it—stony with a thin layer of topsoil and often parched, for there are no rivers or streams on the island, the ponds sink and stagnate during the dry season, and springs from underground offer a mere trickle.
Still, they have named their village Good Hope and look forward together—England’s war is over, as loyal colonialists; their own young men have returned with the King’s medals pinned to their chests. Never mind one was on crutches with half his right leg gone and another had lost his left arm, they were honoured as heroes at the grandest ever Empire Day celebration in Parliament Square in Charlestown, the capital. The Royal Commission Report has been published, at long last, and the Mother Country pledged to make good on the recommendations therein—so they have been given to understand from news that trickles down. There will be progress—a new school, a health clinic, proper employment, decent housing with sanitation. A glorious future lies ahead. All that is required on their part is patience, so colonial officialdom informs them, for such large-scale developmental endeavours require extensive planning and preparation—a commission of enquiry, task force and working party, deputations and delegations.
The people have adopted the church as their very own place of worship, Christianity as their faith. The Rainbow Window is the heart and soul of the community, the symbol of solidarity and survival and, like the all-seeing eye of their God, the custodian of ethical principles. Everyone is aware, though that should the slightest spark from a cane-fire find its way in, the age-old timber would catch and blaze, the glass discs melt in flames ten times higher and hotter than any from hell.
* * *
Every Sunday morning, just after the early blackbird chorus, the man in black shorts, a vest that once was white and a yellow crochet tam sits motionless with his back against a gravestone, elbows on knees, hands dangling, eyes alert and fixed on the Rainbow Window. He is slim and sinewy, possibly in his late twenties—no one has asked, to do so would be disrespectful. Dreadlocks hang over his shoulders, his complexion is dark—as dark as the midnight sky that tinges to blue. A purple birthmark obliterates his left cheek. “Not he fault at all, at all,” the people agree. “Coulda happen tuh anybody, just so, when the mother expec’ing and craving jamun plum juice.”
Neither do they know his real name—Birdman, they call him, for his yard is a sanctuary to birds with wings buffeted and broken by strong winds or limp and flapping, having been snared in chicken wire. He shelters cattle egrets, gaulins, yellow-breasts, sparrows, and doctor-booby hummingbirds. There’s a scarlet ibis blown off course by the trade winds; a frigate bird with spiked feathers drooping, too exhausted to fly further; a pelican, its throat pouch ripped open by jagged black coral as it flew over shallow waves; a wood-dove, slow to take flight on creaking wings and easy prey to the pebble from the guttaperc of a thoughtless boy.
He lives alone in the gully on the outskirts of the village, preferring the company of his birds—understanding their language, imitating twitterings of contentment, calls of greeting, mating coos and the occasional squawk of alarm. No woman, no child and whatever family he has far away on the island of his birth—no one remembers which, or when it was he arrived. His voice has a singsong lilt, though few have heard it—his thoughts are private, feelings unknown. “Cuh dear, like he neva had nuh mother tuh teach he how tuh talk,” the people say.
His solitary existence is strange, yet he’s not seen as snobbish or standoffish. No matter he is “from foreign”, his naval string buried elsewhere, he is a man of the village—well-respected, without pity. He is their champion stick-licker, winning the village competition, every year, and it is to him that the people bring essential items to be fixed—pan-carts and bicycles, pipes and drums, hoes and brooms loose on handles, chairs with seats to be recaned, washboards to have notches recarved so that sheets can be scrubbed clean and white. He it is who invented the gadget that exterminates mosquitoes—saving many from high fevers, chills and shakes
And he is the guardian of their Rainbow Window. Beside him is a harness and a bucket filled with pure spring water. A white cloth of the softest sea-island cotton is tucked into his back pocket. He twists his locks into the tam and slips off his sandals—just leather strips attached to old tractor-tire soles. He straps himself onto the wooden bar of the harness with the coconut husk ropes and secures the bucket, then tugs on an elaborate pulley system and winches himself to the top of the window— agile as a green monkey.
Wind saturated with sea salt is the main peril—it erodes everything, even glass. There is also mould and cane-ash, the droppings of birds, lizards, ants and cockroaches, dust upon dust from the digging of graves beneath. He soaks the cloth and polishes the discs, one by one, until their colours shine and sparkle like sunlight on seawater. At last, he spirals towards the centre—to caress the white moonstone.
It’s as if he hasn’t seen the raggle-taggle children sitting cross-legged ten feet below, sleepy-goggle-eyed yet spellbound, peering up at his dangling feet. Pearlita Jones at eleven, the tallest among them and as ungainly as a fledgling emerging from its nest, clasps the back of her neck with both hands. Just as it’s about to crack, he flicks water onto her upturned face—highlighting the glint in her wild brown eye as bright as one of the polished discs.
She half-stands—he’s chosen her, she is the first. But he turns away and twirls the wet cloth to shower the other children, too. They shriek with glee.
He spins the bucket overhead and around—not a drop spills.
The children clap hands then fall silent.
He cocks his head—eyebrows raised, a tease on his lips. He knows what they are waiting for.
The children hold their breaths in readiness.
He kicks against the wall of the church, swings upside down like a trapeze artist, soars high into the air, somersaults and lands on his toes—light as the breeze itself.
The children jump and cheer, “Again, more, gi’ we more.”
“Yes, Mista Birdman,” Pearlita whispers, “please tuh fly high one more time, jus’ fuh yuh chosen one.”
But he bows with a flourish, untangles his harness, empties the bucket and loops the handle over his arm. The children scramble to their feet, ready for his next move.
As the first rays of sunlight appear over the horizon, he raises a finger to beckon them into the church. They run ahead and stare up above the altar—hearts beating double time.
Lo and behold, the sun beams through the Rainbow Window, flickers along the rafters, down the walls and across the pews, onto the children’s outstretched hands—blessing them with a profusion of multicoloured lights.
They stare, enchanted, and whisper in wonderment, “Like magic.”
Not even Pearlita notices Birdman disappear down one side of the hill—just as a tirade of mothers, aunties and older sisters march up the other to haul hard-ears children home to bathe, dress in their church best and return for the tedious-as-ever Morning Service and Sunday School.
* * *
Christian Religion and Moral Education are the twin pillars of local culture, the very lifeblood of the community—instituted by the Church of England for the purpose of teaching all future generations to know their place, with a mandate to prohibit critical thinking that might initiate upliftment or even, God forbid, foment rebellion. Morning Service and Sunday School are led, respectively, by the two icons of Good Hope—the Priest, Father Pilgrim, and Headmistress, Miss St John. Attendance is compulsory for every man, woman and child—not to be present is evidence of ungodliness and potential nefarious dealings, perhaps even a pact with the devil. Only Birdman is absent, excused with knowing nods—“Causen he got he own kinda worship wid rosary and incense, holy water and prayer in Latin.”
Father Pilgrim is short and rotund as a pufferfish with a peaky face and pointy red nose. “Like a mongoose,” the people say, their lips twitching with mirth, “when he did a baby, he mama mussee roll over in the bed and lie down ’pon he ear.” A young man fresh from theological training at The Trinity Seminary in Charlestown, he wears a black cassock and white clerical collar. Word, that he does not deny, has it that his fore-fore-forefather had captained the expedition that claimed to have discovered the island, christened it St Augustine after the founder of their faith, named the main town after their King, Charles I, and brought civilisation with them.
He mounts the coral-stone block he’s had placed behind the pulpit to raise himself by a foot and a half, then pulls a large white handkerchief from under his robe to cover the fiendish sea serpent carving. He puts on wire-rimmed spectacles, leads the congregation in the Lord’s Prayer and a reading from the Bible, then raises one hand, palm open to the heavens, to begin his sermon. As prolonged as ever, this one targets carnal knowledge and begins by cautioning against the evils of polygamy and matrilineal lineage, and the eternal damnation that ensues from coveting one’s neighbour’s wife and donkey. This is the signal for Miss St John to gather up all fifty-three children for Sunday School. They follow her out to the Good Hope School, a wooden shed, a few short steps away.
A charity school—though established by the Church, it was branded a “ragged school” by the island’s clergy. Miss St John dismissed the epithet in no uncertain terms and also ignored official protocol to exclude the “ragamuffins”—those children in tatters, barefoot and born illegitimate. “That,” she retorted, “would reduce my attendance by over seventy percent.”
The school’s one room measures thirty by twenty feet, less than half the size of the church, and is divided into sections by age—three in all. The little ones aged five to six are on mats on the floor, those from seven to eight kneel beside low tables, while each of the nine-plus-year-olds has a desk with a chair attached. As Class Monitor, Pearlita sits at a table at the front, next to Miss St John at her high-up desk. Behind them is the blackboard, above which loom gold-framed pictures of Jesus, the King and the Governor with the words: THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM.
Miss St John takes her seat and draws the children to attention with a gentle shake of her tambourine, she has no need of a whistle. Sunday School begins—after a quick prayer and a happy-ending version of Joseph and his coat of many colours, there’s a hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I know…,” during which she drums her fingers on the edge of her desk as if it’s a piano keyboard….
…Miss St John is thirty-four with a honey-toned complexion, voluptuous bosom and a strong will, all inherited from her mother. Her father bestowed short stature, five-foot-two, hard hair and dark eyes along with an incredibly insistent sweet tooth—the upper right incisor that would be her undoing. Her ever-busy, never-sit-still, always-in-a-hurry temperament is of her own making, and her short afro ahead of its time—most women still straighten their hair with heated combs that scar their scalps. She wears a navy blue skirt below the knee and a long-sleeved, high-necked cream blouse, nylon stockings and sensible lace-up shoes, as befits her status, though totally inappropriate for the local climate. On her wrist are three silver bangles and, over her shoulder, the strap of a large satchel— black leather with two golden buckles and crammed with all essentials along with the most mouthwatering treats.
Unlike Father Pilgrim, she is highly regarded and deeply appreciated, although that doesn’t shield her from a little fond repartee. “Eye sharp like cane-blade, she does guh sleep wid all two both open,” the people say, and the old folk add, “She got second sight.” The children, too, are well aware of the uncanny ability of those ever-watchful eyes to see whatever goes on behind her back, to predict their every intention.
Like so many others in the village of Good Hope, Miss St John was an outside child—her father having subsequently married a woman who’d left for America and with whom he had a son. No stigma there and, indeed, nothing outside about her—the family pedigree on her mother’s side being high-brown respectable. Yet her mother spurned the primary code of middle-class propriety—she would have nothing to do with marriage, not even after the father of her child was promoted to the Good Hope village policeman. PC Humphries, having expected her to be honoured by his proposal and fall into his open arms, had been totally flummoxed by her response. “Matrimony,” she’d said, stepping back and folding her arms, “represents a form of submission akin to bondage.”
Oh, but how he’d been captivated from the moment he set eyes on his daughter—his firstborn child. There, lying in the crib and reaching her tiny hands up to his, was the sweetest cherub, glowing with energy and intelligence, eyes so alive with curiosity—just like his. He signed the birth certificate without hesitation—accepting, most reluctantly, the fact that, as a result of the mother’s stubborn stupidity, his daughter would not carry his surname. She would, however, thanks to his own brand of manly obstinacy, be christened Beulah after his much loved grandmother.
When she reached the age of twelve, he arranged for her to be tutored in town, at Miss Forde’s Private Academy for Girls, where the pupils were of fair-skin complexion and the curriculum embraced refinements such as piano and ballet, embroidery and crochet—thence to England for teacher training.
Miss St John had returned to Good Hope with tangible evidence of the successful outcome of his enormous investment in her hugely expensive education, at home and abroad. Her accent, for all to hear, was proper posh—the King’s English to perfection sprinkled with “gosh”, “golly” and “goodness me”, the vocabulary boundless. “Like she nyam the full-English dictionary fuh breakfas’,” the people said with warmhearted admiration.
His daughter, light of his life. How proud he was when she assumed her position as Teacher and later, Headmistress of the Good Hope School. Unbeknownst to him until some years later, though, was her conviction derived from courses on early childhood development that children should be raised without corporal punishment. When he found out and expressed his misgivings in a scowl that said, Right, le’ we see how that going work, she pontificated, “No such thing as wickedness in a child. All are born pure, naughtiness merely a matter of innocent immaturity” —to be handled with empathy and reasoning, supplemented by moral guidance every Sunday morning.
Duty done, Miss St John ushers the children back into the church, by which time Father Pilgrim has calmed down, though his nose is even redder. “It could pick a chigoe flea from under he toenail,” the people quip, “doan’ mind it could never reach pas’ he belly.”
He mops sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his cassock and begins to draw his longwinded sermon to a close. Talk-yuh-talk—the congregation sighs in unison, stifling yawns and pinching arms, for in this sacred space nodding off constitutes yet another transgression. The children, too, fight sleep—they have, after all, been up since first light.
Father Pilgrim raps his fingers on the pulpit—a prelude to his ultimate admonition, “Spurn the sins of the flesh.”
Whatever they are—Pearlita knows not and, being motherless and raised by her Great Aunt Myrtle, a virgin and as upright as a broom handle, has no one to ask.