God forbid I should take a risk, said Rennie.
The girl pulls the baby off her breast and switches it to the other side. Rennie wonders if she should give her some money. Would that be insulting? Her hand moves towards her purse, but now she's surrounded by a mob of children, seven or eight of them, jumping excitedly around her and all talking at once.
"They want you to take their pictures," says Dr. Minnow, so Rennie does, but this doesn't seem to satisfy them. Now they want to see the picture.
"This isn't a Polaroid," says Rennie to Dr. Minnow. "It doesn't come out," she says to the children. It's hard to make them understand.
It's noon. Rennie stands under the violent sun, rubbing lotion on her face and wishing she had brought her hat. Dr. Minnow seems to know everything there is to know about this fort, and he's going to tell it all to her, brick by brick, while she dehydrates and wonders when she'll faint or break out in spots. What does he want from her? It must be something. "You shouldn't take the time," she's protested, twice already. But he's taking it.
The number of things Rennie thinks ought to happen to her in foreign countries is limited, but the number of things she fears may happen is much larger. She's not a courageous traveller, though she's always argued that this makes her a good travel writer. Other people will want to know which restaurant is likely to give you the bends, which hotel has the cockroaches, she's not the only one. Someday, if she keeps it up, she'll find herself beside a cauldron with an important local person offering her a sheep's eye or the boiled hand of a monkey, and she'll be unable to refuse. The situation has not reached that point. Nevertheless she's a captive; though if worst comes to worst she can always get a lift back with the other tourists.
Now Dr. Minnow is speculating on the methods of sanitation used by the British. It's almost as if they're extinct, a vanished tribe, and he's digging them up, unearthing their broken Queen Anne teacups, exhuming their garbage dumps, exclaiming with wonder and archaeological delight over their curious customs.
The fort itself is standard Georgian brickwork, falling into decay. Although it's listed in the brochure as one of the chief attractions, nothing has been done to improve it or even to keep it in repair. Below is the muddy open space cluttered with tents, and beyond that a public toilet that's ancient and wooden and looks temporary. The only new structure is a glassed-in cubicle with an antenna of some sort on top.
"They have a high-power telescope in there," Dr. Minnow tells her. "They can see everything that comes off the boats. When it is not so hazy you can see Grenada." Beside the cubicle is a square hut that Dr. Minnow says is the prison bakery, since the fort is used as a prison. A goat is tethered beside the toilets.
Dr. Minnow has scrambled up the parapet. He's remarkably active for a man of his age. He seems to expect Rennie to climb up there too, but it's a sheer drop, hundreds of feet to the sea. She stands on tiptoe and looks over instead. In the distance, there's a blue shape, long and hazy, an island.
Dr. Minnow jumps down and stands beside her.
"Is that Grenada?" says Rennie.
"No," says Dr. Minnow. "Ste. Agathe. There, they are all sailors."
"What are they here?" says Rennie.
"Idiots," says Dr. Minnow. "But then, I am from Ste. Agathe. The British make a big mistake in the nineteenth century, they put us all together in one country. Ever since then we have trouble, and now the British have got rid of us so they can have their cheap bananas without the bother of governing us, and we have more trouble."
He's watching something below them now, his head with its high-bridged nose cocked to one side like a bird's. Rennie follows his gaze. There's a man moving among the refugees, from group to group, children following him. He's handing something out, papers, Rennie can see the white. He's wearing boots, with raised heels, cowboy boots: when he pauses before a trio of women squatting around their cooking fire, a small child runs its hands up and down the leather.
Dr. Minnow is grinning. "There is Marsdon," he says. "That boy always busy, he's working for the Prince of Peace. They're making the leaflets in the People's Church, there is a machine. They think they have the one true religion and you go to hell if you don't believe, they be glad to send you. But with these people they will not get far. You know why, my friend?"
"Why?" says Rennie, humouring him. She's tuning out, it's too much like small-town politics, the tiny feuds in Griswold, the grudges, the stupid rivalries. Who cares?
"Always they hand out papers," says Dr. Minnow. "They say it explain everything, why the sun shine, whose arse it shine out, not mine I can assure you of that." He chuckles, delighted with his own joke. "But they forget that few can read."
The children caper in Marsdon's wake, holding the squares of paper up in the air by their corners, waving them, white kites.
Another car drives into the muddy space and parks in front of the bakery; there are two men in it but they don't get out. Rennie can see their upturned faces, the blank eyes of their sunglasses.
"Now we have the whole family," says Dr. Minnow. "This kind does not hand out papers."
"Who are they?" says Rennie. His tone of voice is making her jumpy.
"My friends," he says softly. "They follow me everywhere. They want to make sure I am safe." He smiles and puts his hand on her arm. "Come," he says. "There is more to see."
He steers her down some steps to a stone corridor, where at least it's cooler. He shows her the officers' quarters, plain square rooms with the plaster falling away from the walls in patches.
"We wanted to have a display here," he says. "Maps, the wars between the French and English. And a gift shop, for the local arts and culture. But the Minister for Culture is not interested. He say, 'You can't eat culture.' " Rennie wants to ask what the local arts and culture are, but decides to wait. It's one of those questions to which she's already supposed to know the answer.
They go down more stone stairs. At the bottom there's a line of fresh washing, sheets and flowered pillowcases hung out to dry in the sun. Two women sit on plastic-webbed chairs; they smile at Dr. Minnow. One of them is making what looks like a wallhanging from shreds of material in pastel underwear colours, peach, baby-blue, pink; the other is crocheting, something white. Perhaps these are the local arts and culture.
A third woman, in a brown dress and a black knitted hat, comes from a doorway.
"How much?" Dr. Minnow says to the woman who's crocheting, and Rennie can see that she's expected to buy one of the white objects. So she does.
"How long did it take you to make it?" Rennie asks her.
"Three days," she says. She has a full face, a pleasant direct smile.
"That if your boyfriend not around," says Dr. Minnow, and everyone laughs.
"We here to see the barracks," Dr. Minnow says to the woman in brown. "This lady is from Canada, she is writing about the history here." He's misunderstood her, that's why he's showing her all this. Rennie doesn't have the heart to correct him.
The woman unlocks the door and ushers them through. She has a badge pinned to her shoulder, Rennie sees now. MATRON.
"Do those women live here?" she asks.
"They are our women prisoners," Dr. Minnow says. "The one you buy the thing from, she chop up another woman. The other one, I don't know." Behind her the matron stands beside the open door, laughing with the two women. It all seems so casual.
They're in a corridor, with a row of doors on one side, a line of slatted windows on the other, overlooking a sheer drop to the sea. They go through a doorway; it leads to another corridor with small rooms opening off from it.
The rooms smell of neglect; bats hang upside down in them, there are hornets' nests on the walls, debris rotting in the corners. DOWN WITH BABYLON, someone has scrawled across one wall. LOVE TO ALL. The rooms farthest from the sea are damp and dark, it's too much like a cellar for Rennie.
They go back to the main corridor, which is surprisingly cool, and walk towards the far end. Dr. Minnow says she s
hould try to imagine what this place was like with five hundred men in it. Crowded, thinks Rennie. She asks if this is the original wood.
Dr. Minnow opens the door at the end, and they're looking at a small, partly paved courtyard surrounded by a wall. The courtyard is overgrown with weeds; in a corner of it three large pigs are rooting.
In the other corner there's an odd structure, made of boards nailed not too carefully together. It has steps up to a platform, four supports but no walls, a couple of crossbeams. It's recent but dilapidated; Rennie thinks it's a child's playhouse which has been left unfinished and wonders what it's doing here.
"This is what the curious always like to see," Dr. Minnow murmurs.
Now Rennie understands what she's being shown. It's a gallows.
"You must photograph it, for your article," says Dr. Minnow. "For the sweet Canadians."
Rennie looks at him. He isn't smiling.
Dr. Minnow is discoursing on the Carib Indians.
"Some of the earlier groups made nose cups," he says, "which they used for taking liquid narcotics. That is what interests our visitors the most. And they took drugs also from behind. For religious purposes, you understand."
"From behind?" says Rennie.
Dr. Minnows laughs. "A ritual enema," he says. "You should put this in your article."
Rennie wonders whether he's telling the truth, but it's too grotesque not to be true. She's not sure the readers of Visor will want to hear about this, but you never know. Maybe it will catch on; for those who cough when smoking.
Dr. Minnow has insisted on taking her to lunch, and Rennie, hungry enough to eat an arm, has not protested. They're in a Chinese restaurant, which is small, dark, and hotter than the outside sunlight. Two ceiling fans stir the damp air but do not cool it; Rennie feels sweat already wetting her underarms and trickling down her chest. The table is red formica, spotted with purplish brown sauce.
Dr. Minnow smiles across at her, kindly, avuncular, his bottom teeth clasped over the top ones like folded hands. "There is always a Chinese restaurant," he says. "Everywhere in the world. They are indefatigable, they are like the Scots, you kick them out in one place, they turn up in another. I myself am part Scottish, I have often considered going to the Gathering of the Clans. My wife say this is what makes me so pig-headed." Rennie is somewhat relieved to hear that he has a wife. He's been too attentive, there must be a catch.
A waiter comes and Rennie lets Dr. Minnow order for her. "Sometimes I think I should have remained in Canada," he says. "I could live in an apartment, or a split-level bungalow, like all the sweet Canadians, and be a doctor of sheep. I even enjoy the snow. The first time it snowed, I ran out into it in my socks, without a coat; I danced, it made me so happy. But instead I come back here."
The green tea arrives and Rennie pours it. Dr. Minnow takes his cup, turns it around, sighs. "The love of your own country is a terrible curse, my friend," he says. "Especially a country like this one. It is much easier to live in someone else's country. Then you are not tempted."
"Tempted?" says Rennie.
"To change things," he says.
Rennie feels they're heading straight towards a conversation she doesn't really want to have. She tries to think of another topic. At home there's always the weather, but that won't do here, since there is no weather.
Dr. Minnow leans across the table towards her. "I will be honest with you, my friend," he says. "There is something I wish you to do."
Rennie isn't surprised. Here it comes, whatever it is. "What's that?" she says warily.
"Allow me to explain," says Dr. Minnow. "This is our first election since the departure of the British. Perhaps it will be the last, since it is my own belief that the British parliamentary system will no longer work in this place. It works in Britain only because they have a tradition, there are still things that are inconceivable. Here, nothing is inconceivable." He pauses, sips at his tea. "I wish you to write about it."
Whatever Rennie's been expecting, it isn't this. But why not? People are always coming on to her about their favourite hot topic. She feels her eyes glaze over. Great, she should say. Good idea. Then they're satisfied. Instead she says, "What on earth could I write about it?"
"What you see," says Dr. Minnow, choosing not to pick up on her exasperation. "All I ask you to do is look. We will call you an observer, like our friends at the United Nations." He gives a small laugh. "Look with your eyes open and you will see the truth of the matter. Since you are a reporter, it is your duty to report."
Rennie reacts badly to the word duty. Duty was big in Griswold. "I'm not that kind of reporter," she says.
"I understand, my friend," says Dr. Minnow. "You are a travel writer, it is an accident you are here, but you are all we can turn to at the moment. There is no one else. If you were a political journalist the government would not have been happy to see you, they would have delayed your entry or expelled you. In any case, we are too small to attract the attention of anyone from the outside, and by the time they are interested it will be too late. They always wait for the blood."
"Blood?" says Rennie.
"News," says Dr. Minnow.
The waiter brings a platter of tiny corncobs and some things that look like steamed erasers, and another of greens and squid. Rennie picks up her chopsticks. A minute ago she was hungry.
"We have seventy-percent unemployment," says Dr. Minnow. "Sixty percent of our population is under twenty. Trouble happens when the people have nothing left to lose. Ellis knows this. He is using the foreign aid money from the hurricane to bribe the people. The hurricane was an act of God, and Ellis thinks that too. He hold out his hands to heaven and pray for someone up there to save his ass for him, and bang, all that money from the sweet Canadians. This is not all. He is using threats now, he says he will take away the jobs and maybe burn down the houses of those who do not vote for him."
"He's doing this openly?" says Rennie.
"On the radio, my friend," says Dr. Minnow. "As for the people, many are afraid of him and the rest admire him, not for this behaviour, you understand, but because he can get away with it. They see this as power and they admire a big man here. He spends their money on new cars and so forth for himself and friends, they applaud that. They look at me, they say, 'What you can do for us?' If you have nothing you are nothing here. It's the old story, my friend. We will have a Papa Doc and after that a revolution or so. Then the Americans will wonder why people are getting killed. They should tell the sweet Canadians to stop giving money to this man."
Rennie knows she's supposed to feel outrage. She remembers the early seventies, she remembers all that outrage you were supposed to feel. Not to feel it then was very unfashionable. At the moment though all she feels is imposed upon. Outrage is out of date.
"What good would it do, even if I wrote it?" says Rennie. "I couldn't get it published here, I don't know anyone."
Dr. Minnow laughs. "Not here," he says. "Here there is one paper only and Ellis has bought the editor. In any case, few can read. No, you should publish it there. This will be of help, they pay attention to the outside, they are sensitive about their foreign aid. They would know they are being watched, that someone knows what they are doing. This would stop excesses."
Rennie wonders what an excess is. "I'm sorry," she says, "but I can't think of anyone who would touch it. It isn't even a story yet, nothing's happened. It's hardly of general interest."
"There is no longer any place that is not of general interest," says Dr. Minnow. "The sweet Canadians have not learned this yet. The Cubans are building a large airport in Grenada. The CIA is here, they wish to nip history in the bud, and the Russian agents. It is of general interest to them."
Rennie almost laughs. The CIA has been done to death; surely by now it's a joke, he can't be serious. "I suppose they're after your natural resources," she says.
Dr. Minnow stares across at Rennie, smiling his cramped smile, no longer entirely kind and friendly. "As you know, we
have a lot of sand and not much more. But look at a map, my friend." He's no longer pleading, he's lecturing. "South of St. Antoine is Ste. Agathe, south of Ste. Agathe is Grenada, south of Grenada is Venezuela with the oil, a third of U.S. imports. North of us there is Cuba. We are a gap in the chain. Whoever controls us controls the transport of oil to the United States. The boats go from Guyana to Cuba with rice, from Cuba to Grenada with guns. Nobody is playing."
Rennie puts down her chopsticks. It's too hot to eat. She feels as if she's stumbled into some tatty left-liberal journal with a two-colour cover because they can't afford three colours. She's allowed this conversation to go on too long, a minute more and she'll be hooked. "It's not my thing," she says. "I just don't do that kind of thing. I do lifestyles."
"Lifestyles?" says Dr. Minnow. He's puzzled.
"You know, what people wear, what they eat, where they go for their vacations, what they've got in their livingrooms, things like that," says Rennie, as lightly as she can.
Dr. Minnow considers this for a moment. Then he gives her an angelic smile. "You might say that I also am concerned with lifestyles," he says. "It is our duty, to be concerned with lifestyles. What the people eat, what they wear, this is what I want you to write about."
He's got her. "Well, I'll think about it," she says limply.
"Good," says Dr. Minnow, beaming. "This is all I wish." He picks up his chopsticks again and scrapes the rest of the squid into his bowl. "Now I will give you a good piece of advice. You should be careful of the American."
"What American?" says Rennie.
"The man," says Dr. Minnow. "He is a salesman."
He must mean Paul. "What does he sell?" says Rennie, amused. This is the first she's heard of it.
"My friend," says Dr. Minnow. "You are so very sweet."
There's a small stationery shop across the street from the hotel, and Rennie goes into it. She passes over the historical romances, imported from England, and buys a local paper, The Queenstown Times, which is what she's come to the shop for. Guilt impels her: she owes at least this much to Dr. Minnow.
Though it's becoming clear to her that she has no intention of doing what he wants her to do. Even if she wanted to, she could hardly run all over the place, talking to men in the street; they don't understand the convention, they'd think she was trying to pick them up. She can't do proper research, there are no books in the library here; there's no library. She's a hypocrite, but what else is new? It's a Griswold solution: if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. I'm dying, she should have told him. Don't count on me.