Caribbean

  But when the animated discussion was at its height a young brown woman named Laura Shaughnessy who worked in the governor general’s office appeared belatedly, bringing with her the young white Englishman who had come out from London seven years ago as economic adviser to the island government. Some of the discussion group were disturbed that a white official had been inserted into their group, for they feared his presence might inhibit the free flow of ideas, but the young woman who had brought him allayed their fears: ‘This is Harry Keeler. You’ve seen him about the halls. I invited him because he had been a British official in Algiers during the troubles and witnessed the economic and social data on which Fanon based many of his concepts.’

  After that introduction, Keeler made a brief statement about his experiences in Algeria and Tunis during the anticolonial revolutions, and then submitted himself to questioning. He could see in the dark faces of his audience their intense interest in his generalizations, so he refused to water down or in any way soften his conclusions: ‘Negritude is a powerful unifying force when fighting to gain independence, but I doubt it provides much effective guidance when it comes to governing the territory you’ve won.’ When he was hammered on this conclusion, which most of his listeners did not want to hear, he stuck to his guns and reiterated his message that whereas Frantz Fanon would have been an admirable guide to browns and blacks of All Saints fifteen years ago, what they needed now was an understanding of how General Motors and Mitsubishi operated: ‘When your Caribbean islands rejected federation in 1962, I wept. It was your chance to build a viable union of all the big and little English-speaking islands, and you frittered it away. Problem now is to evolve some sensible alternative.’

  When this evoked a storm of comment, he listened attentively, made notes of the salient points, and then asked for the floor. He was careful to speak only as an economist and only on those matters about which he had acquired expert knowledge, but he ended forcefully: ‘I’m not sure you understand what I’m saying. We’ve allowed the discussion to become too adversarial. It shouldn’t be that. Fifteen years ago on this island, I’d have been a follower of Frantz Fanon on one simple principle: “It’s high time!” You and I won that battle. I fought for it in an African country gaining its independence. But tonight it’s an entirely different battle, and Frantz Fanon is too impractical to teach us about how to take our next steps.’

  His words were so judicious and so straightforward that when he finished, Sally Wrentham went up to him and said: ‘Mr. Keeler, you made great sense as a white man looking down from above. But how about us blacks who have to look up from below?’ He noticed that although she could have been considered white in many societies he had known, she preferred to call herself black, a good sign in his opinion.

  ‘Now wait a minute, Miss Wrentham. You’re the police commissioner’s daughter.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ and he spoke with charming diffidence, as if he had no right to a strong opinion on something which concerned him intellectually and her emotionally, ‘that we must look neither from above or below, but from dead-eye level … at the reality.’ The idea was strong and expressed so cogently that Sally offered no response, so he added: ‘In the old days on All Saints men like me were up and blacks like you were down. Your question then would have been quite pertinent. But today I believe that on this island, there is no up or down … just level eyes sighting level horizons.’ With the fingers of his right hand he built an imaginary bridge from his level eyes to hers, and, gesturing, he touched her cheek … and an electric thrill passed between them.

  On that evening throughout the world, as the sun drifted to sleep in the west, thousands of young unmarried men in a hundred different countries met socially in groups to talk with young unmarried women, and with reassuring frequency some man would see in a flash some woman of intelligence or understanding or sympathy or sheer attractiveness, and his breath would catch and he would find himself assailed by ideas which he had not entertained even ten minutes before, and everything would be changed.

  ‘Your interest in these matters?’ he began, and she stopped him: ‘My grandfather, Black Bart Wrentham they called him …’

  ‘I know. He led the fight for independence. Sterling man I’m told.’

  ‘He really was. Struggled to build a profitable café, saloon if you will, and became the first police chief under independence. Powerful force, that one. Died Sir Bart Wrentham, because respect for his integrity reached even to London.’

  ‘You must be proud of being in that family.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And did you attend school in England?’ The question had a chilling effect on Sally, for despite the best intention on Keeler’s part when he asked it, the only interpretation she could give it was: Since you are obviously a first-class person, your parents must have saved enough money to send you to England for your education.

  She was irritated and about to rebuke him, when the door to the meeting room burst open to admit two men. The first was about five feet six, very black, and well regarded on the island as a sensible master of bookkeeping techniques and budgetary controls, but on this night no one even greeted him, because in tow he had the Rastafarian from Jamaica with his frayed shirt proclaiming DEATH TO POPE, HELL DESTRUCTION AMERICA and his coconut shell clacking against his lute as he walked toward the group.

  ‘This is my friend Ras-Negus Grimble,’ the accountant said, ‘with messages for us from Jamaica,’ and the parlor discussion of abstract negritude ceased, for here in the flesh was the epitome of one kind of real negritude.

  Serene, his dreadlocks framing his bearded face, the newcomer flashed one of the most all-embracing smiles that Sally had ever seen, and said: ‘I Rasta Man come to help.’ His eyes swept about the room, and he added: ‘I-man come this I-land help I-&-I I-cover things to happen.’ When she, like all the other listeners, betrayed her inability to follow what he said, he lapsed into normal English, with a Jamaican lilt that was most agreeable: ‘I have come from Jamaica to help you discover and achieve whatever it is you think ought to happen.’

  ‘Who sent you?’ someone asked, and Grimble lapsed into Rastafarian again: ‘I-man have vision. “Seek out I-&-I belong All Saints bring I-vine help I-alogue.” I-man come.’

  ‘I think you better tell it straight,’ the questioner recommended, and the visitor complied: ‘I was I-rected, I mean directed, to come here and hold I-alogue with you.’

  ‘Do you mean dialogue?’ a man in back asked, and with a big smile he replied: ‘Oh yes! I do.’

  ‘And what is your message?’ a young woman asked, and after carefully placing his shell and lute on the floor, he pulled up a chair, sat gracefully upon it with his long thin legs wrapped around each other twice, a feat totally impossible for a fat man or for most of medium weight. Flashing once more his smile of embrace and forgiveness, he explained: ‘Rastafari is a belief in peace, in tranquillity, in love of all persons …’

  ‘How about the pope?’

  Without changing pace or expression, he concluded: ‘… except those of evil intent.’

  ‘We heard that in Jamaica, your people led riots, real violence.’

  Turning on his chair, he looked benignly at his accuser and said in low, gentle tones: ‘It was Babylon that abused us, never the other way.’

  ‘But don’t you say that Babylon must be destroyed?’

  ‘With love. The way Gandhi destroyed the Great Babylon that oppressed him.’

  Now Sally spoke: ‘Why do you say I so much—what does it mean?’

  He turned almost a complete revolution on his chair, and for a long moment Grimble sat silent, twisting his legs tighter together and staring into Sally’s eyes until she felt mesmerized by the floating beard, the green and gold beret and those dreadful snakelike braids reaching into his lap as he leaned forward. Then came the liquid, pacifying voice of a totally committed young man: ‘In Rastafari we use our own language. I is straight and tall and bea
utiful and strong and decent and clean. You is bent over and twisted and losing its way and ugly and straight in nothing. So the pure I is given to all human beings. I-man means me. If you were speaking, you would call yourself I-woman.’

  ‘But who is I-&-I?’

  ‘You, those over there, all in this room, the whole world apart from me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘So when Rasta Man want to say you, he do not separate himself from you. He mean that you and he are together, you and he and everyone else in this room, we are a team. So it has to be I-&-I, because in Rastafari all people are equal. You cannot exist without a part of him. Rasta Man cannot exist without all you people to help him fight his battles against darkness. It is I-&-I, always the immortal team.’

  Sally, shivering at the intensity of his reply, was relieved when another woman asked: ‘But I heard a lot of other I’s in what you said,’ and now he turned his searchlight gaze on her: ‘You must understand. We Rasta Men lead simple, pure lives. Only natural foods eaten from this coconut shell. No meat. Every cloth I wear must be handwoven of natural threads. Same with words. From any word with morally sinful elements or negative syllables, we knock out those elements and substitute I, which is clean and pure.’

  ‘How can a syllable be morally negative?’

  Eagerly he leaned forward to explain this basic tenet of Rastafarianism: ‘Words with ded, like dedicate, mean dead. Life gone. Word must become I-dicate. Beautiful ideas like divine or divide one’s goods, they have die in them. They have to be cleansed, become I-vine and I-vide.’

  ‘You mean you go right through the dictionary?’

  ‘Yes, beautiful words like sincere and sinews must be cleaned up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They have in them the word sin, so they have to become I-cere and I-news. But words with sin which are ugly and cruel, like sinister and sinking, they stay that way. They warn the world of their evil intent.’

  ‘Conversation among your members must be rather painful,’ volunteered a black accountant standing next to Harry Keeler. The Rastafarian whipped around to address him, but he falsely assumed that the speaker had been the white man, the only one in the room. His manner when speaking to Keeler became even more preachy than before, and the light in the room was such that he assumed an almost Christ-like sanctity: ‘You make a profound observation, my friend. Speech with us is sometimes slow and painful, ideas half expressed, half understood. But we do not speak to conduct idle conversation. We speak to bare the soul, and such words have to be carefully chosen, carefully protected.’ Looking about the room, he launched into a kind of Rastafarian prayer, a chant of all the mnemonic words, with Haile Selassie’s name recurring frequently and Negus and Jah and Lion of Judah, all embellished by a blizzard of I-words which he made stand out with grace, dignity and power.

  Sally, who understood not a word, whispered to the woman standing next to her: ‘It’s like Latin in the Catholic Mass. You’re not expected to understand. Each religion has its own mystical language,’ but when he concluded, she raised her hand and asked: ‘Share with us, please, what you were saying,’ and he replied: ‘Exactly what I said in your language. That words are important and we must clean them up now and then … to keep them pure.’

  For the members of the group this verbal and visual introduction to the Rastafarians was a mind-expanding affair, but with an innate showmanship Grimble had saved his most powerful impact till last—and reaching down, he picked up his lute.

  It was a wooden box, sealed except for an opening over which four strings passed. Its neck was a length of board imbedded with seven staples as frets, while a metal bar served as bridge. When plucked, it had a surprisingly good sound, and when the box was drummed on, it echoed deeply.

  Sitting with his legs still intertwined, he strummed for a moment, then startled his audience with one of Bob Marley’s most powerful chants, ‘Slave Driver,’ which spoke of days in Africa and nights aboard the slave ship. It was powerful music, even more powerful imagery, and before long he had these descendants of slaves chanting with him: ‘Slave driver, slave driver.’

  Although Sally was deeply moved by the powerful rhythms, the repeated phrases and the imagery of the natal jungle and the slave ship, she was too analytical a young woman to miss a salient fact about the Rastafarian’s performance: That rascal has three complete modes of speech. Colorful Jamaican street language, Rastafarian glossolalia, and in these established songs, perfect English. And he switches from one to another almost automatically.

  ‘Slave Driver’ finished, the singer turned to one of Marley’s most provocative hits, one composed by another man but preempted by Marley as his theme song, ‘Four Hundred Years.’ It had a haunting beat, an endless repetition of the title which referred to the years of slavery, and a summons to remember that servitude. Now everyone in the room, including Harry Keeler, who had always liked Marley’s music, became a slave assigned to some sugar plantation.

  The evening ended with a dozen young people clustered about Grimble, for he had reminded them with music and imagery that some years back he must have been like them, an ordinary black man with an ordinary name. Their questioning pinned him in so tight that Sally had no chance to bid him goodbye, but he was so tall that he was able to catch her eye, and they exchanged glances as she moved toward the exit.

  There Harry Keeler waited, and as she neared he asked: ‘May I accompany you home?’ and wanting to be freed of the Rastafarian mystique, she said almost gladly: ‘I’d like that.’

  As they walked through the lovely island night, with stars as brilliant as guide lights on distant ships, she said: ‘A remarkable performance. What do you think it meant?’

  ‘I doubt that a white man is qualified to summarize.’

  ‘But you know the islands. You know revolutionary movements, Frantz Fanon and his breed.’

  ‘It’s a powerful breed, a necessary one. If I were a young black—without a university education, that is—I do believe that Brother Grimble might exert a strong and perhaps constructive influence on me.’ He paused, then brought the evening together in a tight knot: ‘Blacks really are “the dispossessed of the earth,” as Fanon claimed.’

  ‘So you think that Rastafarians …?’

  ‘Don’t jump the gun. As a white junior official who wants to see his society held together, I also know that Rastafarians really do believe that the police are the Great Babylon.’ Turning to look at her lovely face, he warned: ‘I think I can predict that in the weeks ahead your father, as commissioner of police, is going to have a basketful of trouble.’

  Irritated by what she interpreted as a white putdown of a black idea, even though it was grotesque, she drew apart from him as they strolled. And in those moments these two might have been any couple of mixed color in any of the Caribbean islands: a very dark man wooing a Martinique girl of very light color who dreamed of bettering herself on the color scale, a man in Cuba whose family claimed with great vigor and invention that they stemmed in line directly from soldiers of Ponce de Leon who had brought their Spanish wives with them: ‘And never was intermarriage with black slaves allowed.’ They were also much like the hesitant Hindu lass on Trinidad who finds herself admired by a nearly white Church of England businessman in Port of Spain.

  In All Saints that winter night it was Sally, the daughter of the commissioner of police, walking slowly with Harry, the promising young economist from England, who would be returning there one of these days with a universe of experience in Algeria, Ghana and the Caribbean. How valuable to world society he was as he strolled that night, how precious she was as the new Caribbean black who could accomplish almost anything in her island society. Two young people of immense value, restrained by inherited taboos but at the same time set free by recent revolutions, they walked for some moments in silence, and then her prejudice against an ancient enemy softened and she said, changing the subject: ‘Who do you think’ll get the top appointment in the Tourist Board
?’ and he said quickly: ‘It better be somebody damn good. For the next dozen years this island sinks or swims depending on how it handles its tourism.’ He walked for several steps, then turned to face Sally: ‘Insist to your father that we can’t afford to blow up over the Rastafarian. Remind him that some years ago the Rastas nearly destroyed Jamaican tourism. I saw figures which suggested that Jamaica lost millions of American dollars.’

  ‘Must we always sell our soul to the American cruise ships?’

  ‘Correction. Not a single cruise ship that stops here is owned by the Americans. Great Britain, Holland, Swedes, French …’

  ‘But it’s the American tourist they bring, with his American dollars.’

  ‘Correction. With her American dollars.’

  ‘You’re a clever lad, Keeler,’ she said, and he replied: ‘I try to be,’ and from his front window Police Commissioner Wrentham watched as his daughter kissed the young economist goodnight.

  Harry Keeler was one of the only two leading citizens who were white, himself and Canon Essex Tarleton of the Church of England; all others, from the governor general on down, were either black or brown. Because he had enjoyed his earlier experience in Africa, Keeler found it easy to work under black leaders, and he encountered no difficulty in adjusting to their sometimes arbitrary ways. He never allowed them to dissuade him from a right decision, but he was considerate and willing to spend a good deal of time in explaining why this or that move ought to be avoided and a better plan adopted.

  For example, his sometimes radical innovations regarding tourism had produced rather better results than he had predicted, and the island now had an airport capable of handling medium-sized jets, a first-class tourist hotel at spectacular Pointe Neuve on the new road in from the airport, and a set of some two dozen bed-and-breakfast places at York, which had never before shared in the tourist dollar because of a frightening mountain road which separated it from Bristol Town. Keeler had said: ‘Straighten the hairpins on that damned road, or announce publicly that you’re going to let York starve.’ This had made him a hero in York, and many tourists reported their stay in the homes of ordinary black families along the shore of Marigot Baie was ‘the highlight of our trip, not only to All Saints but to the entire Caribbean.’ Such reports came, of course, from the hardier travelers; the others preferred the deluxe accommodations at Pointe Neuve.