Eden Burning

  “Whatever he’ll give, I’ll give more.”

  “But—you want this parrot?”

  “Yes. I want to buy him and let him go free.”

  Clyde was troubled. “If you feel that way about it, I’ll let him go now, right here. I don’t want any money.”

  “No, I’ll pay. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise. And we mustn’t let him out here. We must take him home.”

  “He’ll find his own way. Its just up the Morne.”

  “I want to see where they nest.”

  “They nest high up, in old palm trees. See his strong beak? He can bore a hole with that in a couple of minutes.”

  “I know. But I want to see where.”

  Clyde said reluctantly, “It’s an awfully hard climb.”

  “You don’t want to go? Then I’ll go alone. Here, give me the cage.”

  “Miss Tee, you can’t climb up there all by yourself. You’d get lost or fall or something.”

  “Come with me, then.”

  The way narrowed through ragged banana groves, then mounted steeply among palms and tree ferns which, fanning and crowning into the upper light, formed a crowd of green umbrellas under the sky. In somber shade, the path lay underfoot, dark as the bottom of the ocean. Tee climbed and stumbled. Ahead, Clyde strode easily, swinging the cage.

  “I’ll have to rest a minute!” she called.

  He waited while she leaned against a tree.

  “You know what kind of tree that is, Miss Tee? They call it candlewood because you can make a good torch with it for night fishing.”

  “Père says you’re an expert fisherman.”

  “I like to fish, that’s all. I like the sea.”

  “You like a lot of things. I wish I knew as much as you do, especially about this place where we live.”

  “Well, I do know this mountain like the back of my hand, anyway. I could show you things! I’ll bet you’ve never seen the fresh water lake in the crater. Right inside the volcano. I’ve seen it.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “And there’s a pond not far from here, too hard a climb for you, though. A pond full of blind fish. It’s in a cave. I went there with my teacher. There’s a film on the water that looks like ice—my teacher’s been in Canada so he knows—only it isn’t ice, it’s lime dissolving from the roof. You crack this film and you can see the fish beneath. Hundreds of them. They’re blind because it’s pitch dark in there and they’ve been there for generations. Come on, are you rested enough?”

  Some minutes later there came a change, a feeling of great height. Coolness rippled through the air; the ground was wet and the rocks were covered with moss.

  Clyde pointed. “Just about here is where the cane stopped. You can still see some of it, run wild.”

  “Cane, up here?”

  “Oh, yes! In slavery days the cane covered the islands, halfway up the mountainsides. But now grass and jungle have grown back over whole plantations, whole islands even. Little out islands like Galatea and Pyramid, places like that, where they only pasture sheep today.”

  “What a wicked thing that was!” Tee cried.

  “Wicked? What?”

  “Why, slavery, of course! To own another human being! When I can’t even bear to see this parrot locked up!”

  “You’re softhearted, Miss Tee. Don’t you know there are people even today who wouldn’t lift a finger to abolish slavery if it still existed?”

  “I can’t believe that! I can’t think who would! Can you?”

  “I can imagine, all right.” Clyde laughed slightly. “But there’s no sense talking about it.”

  She felt chastened, as if she had been scolded, the rebuke coming not so much from him as from herself. It had been really thoughtless of her to speak of slavery, to remind him of that terrible past! And she imagined that the knowledge of that past must be a secret, angry shame, attaching itself to a person like a painful burr. Yes, it would have to be like that.

  Clyde whistled. Only a fragment of a tune, the few bars quivered into a plaint, thrusting a question into the neutral air. No, you will not get what you want, Tee thought with pity and foreknowledge, as if she were replying to his question. You’re asking for music and color and brave things. I understand what you want. But you will probably die on this island with your tools in your hands. Père called you a scholar. Yet who will help you? If I could, I would. Yes, yes, I would.

  The path dwindled and failed. Cracked limbs and trailing branches impeded their way. Great loops of lianas, thick as an arm, swooped overhead. Out of dark hollows, ferns cascaded like fountains. This was the world as God first made it, before man came. She felt their presence as intrusion here and was silent.

  At last, abruptly, they broke into a clearing. It was a circular space about the size of a medium room, its floor a matting of low growth, its walls the embracing palms and acomas, tall as the cathedral in Covetown. From the topmost branches, a hundred feet above the ground, hung strong, green ropes.

  “Kaklin roots,” Clyde said, squinting upward. “Would you believe the roots are up there in the tree forks, while the plant grows down? The reason is, the parrots eat the kaklin fruit and drop the seeds in the trees.”

  “These look like roots in the ground, though,” Tee said doubtfully.

  “Yes, because they take root again. It’s all planned out. You’d think the parrots knew what they were doing.”

  “Is this the place where you caught him?”

  “Right here. Shall I let him go now?”

  “Yes, do. Poor thing. Open the cage.”

  The door slid up. The bird, released, stood still a moment blinking into a shaft of light, as if not yet convinced of his freedom; stood flexing and stretching his brilliant wings; then, with a harsh and hideous cry, seemed to catapult himself into the air. Craning their necks, they watched his almost vertical flight: up he soared and disappeared into the crown of the highest palm.

  An instant later the air was crisscrossed by a flight of parrots, a flapping and beating, a gorgeous flash and rush of wings. In seconds it was over and gone. And the stillness fell back.

  Tee was awestruck. “This place is—is magic. I’ll never forget it as long as I live, never. Or forget you for bringing me to see it.” She took Clyde’s hand. “Aren’t you glad you let the bird go?” she whispered.

  “If you are.”

  “Oh, I am! Can’t you see I am?”

  He looked down at her, murmuring as if to himself, “You’re like ivory. Like those little statues your grandfather keeps on the shelves.”

  “Oh, those! Those are white jade. They came from China, ages ago. We had a great-great-uncle in the China trade.”

  “White jade, then. Or milk,” he said. “Yes, pale as milk.” And taking her free arm, he turned it over, to stroke it gently from elbow to wrist.

  She was surprised, so surprised as to know no affront, only confusion. No one had ever touched her like that, with such tenderness, for theirs was not an affectionate family; they did not demonstrate. This was almost hypnotic, this soft stroking. It made a warmth in her cheeks it made a weakness in her. She wanted it to continue and at the same time wanted to pull away: there was a kind of embarrassment in being examined as closely as this, in not knowing how to respond. And as if casually, she tried to withdraw her arm, but could not: he had tightened his hold and taken the other arm, too.

  “You’re lovely,” he said. “You’re one of the loveliest things in all the world.”

  The warmth burned now in her cheeks, burned all through her veins.

  “I don’t know. I never thought I was—”

  “You never thought you were beautiful because you’re not like all the others.”

  How does he know that? she wondered.

  “Because you don’t chatter and preen and do your hair according to the fashion books—”

  She looked down at the ground where dark stems and leafage frothed like ocean spray around their feet. From somewhere a fragrance blew, van
illa-sweet, clove-sweet, making her head swim.

  “You have heart, you have spirit—”

  He drew her to himself, holding her up; she had no strength; he had it all. Never, never had she felt like this, so helpless, so selfless, floating as in a dream. Her head fell back.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she heard him say. And she looked up into a face gone unfamiliar, gone stern and strange. She did not understand.

  “I would never hurt you,” he repeated softly. “I love you…”

  Then suddenly alarm shot through her. Why, why? Something was wrong here, something—She came out of the dream.

  “No, no!” she cried, but the cry was cut off by a hand on her mouth. She was picked up, laid down, stretched upon the ground among the froth and foam of green. Not roughly, but with gentle and determined strength, she was held fast.

  “No, no,” she cried again, struggling against the hand upon her mouth; the other hand had worked quickly, so quickly, on the thin fabric of her dress, beneath which, but for the thinner fabric and lace of her underclothes, she was naked. Her mind ran, clicking like a frantic, racing machine: Yes, yes, this is what it is. Of course it is. This is what Justine was punished for talking about in school. This is it, this was it all the time. And I not knowing. How could I not have known?

  Pinned down, pinned, nailed, thrashing, with her yellow skirt over her head. Birds, now squawking in the trees. Awful pain, awful pain and shock. Her own voice muffled against the cotton skirt, against the weight that bore upon her. Terror. Outrage. Disbelief.

  In a minute or two it was over. She felt release. She could look up to where he stood above her, where he stood horrified, looking down where she lay naked and weeping.

  “Oh, my God,” he said. Oh, my God.”

  She heard him crashing down the mountain, heard the terror in his feet. A stone struck a rock; branches snapped. The heavy silence fell again. She stood up. I, I, she thought, and stopped crying. She pulled at the skirt, smoothing, smoothing, reached back then for the ribbon that had fastened her hair. In the morning Agnes ties the bow in my room where by eight o’clock the sun strikes between the jalousies and makes a dazzle in the upper right-hand corner of the mirror. Her hands trembled now but she managed a bow, not as neat as Agnes’s. The bow and skirt are self-respect. It is all over and will never happen again, by God, now that I know what I know. But they will punish me for this.

  And she began to run, run as though terror were still at her back, falling over a log where swarming ants stung before she could dash them away, speeding like mad down, down to where the trees ended and high razor grass whipped her legs. Ran and ran.

  “Your dress is all grass stains! Where were you?” Agnes demanded. “Where were you?”

  “I fell. There was a boulder on the path.”

  “Path? What path?”

  “Up the Morne. I went for a walk.”

  “Up the Morne alone? Whatever for?”

  “I wanted to. Isn’t that reason enough?”

  “Reason enough,” she repeated arrogantly, and Agnes stared without answering, silenced by this voice of command which she had never heard from Tee before.

  Of course, the arrogance was only terror and self-defense. For if I let go they will get the truth out of me. But why am I afraid if it was not my fault? But it was mine, partly, wasn’t it? Oh, I could kill him, see him shot before my eyes, torn to pieces, and be glad of it. Still, it was partly my fault. Coaxing, inviting, stupid. Yes.

  It crossed her mind that whenever there had been an accident, a near-drowning or a fall from a horse, they gave you brandy. Père kept it in a tantalus on the sideboard. It had a dreadful taste, bitter and burnt, but maybe it would stop the trembling. So she went to her room with the brandy glass, heard the evening-stir from the kitchen wing when dinner preparations began, heard wood pigeons coo on the lawn, and did not move. The brandy put her outside herself, so that she could see herself, withdrawn and secretive, curled like a cat, with a cat’s wily, secretive face….

  Mustn’t think of it. You can will a thing not to have happened. If you never think of it again, then it never was.

  Père was heard, that day and the next, asking all over the house, “Where the devil is Clyde?” He was furious.

  “He left me with half a wall of unfinished shelves and tools all over the floor. Irresponsible,” he kept saying when, after two weeks, Clyde had not come back.

  “I always told you,” Julia declared over the telephone, “you can’t depend on any of them. And you always said in another time and place he’d be a scholar.”

  “Well, I still think he would. What has that got to do with this?”

  A terrible heat seared the earth for the rest of the month. Then storms came, thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain.

  “What queer, unseasonable weather we are having,” Père remarked. “Is it the weather that’s making you so silent, Tee?”

  “No,” she said.

  I only want to feel the way I felt before, when Clyde and I were friends. I hate the anger that’s in me! Why did he do that? He’s spoiled all the goodness we had. He knew how stupid and ignorant I was, yet he did that to me. And now there’s no one to talk to anymore, not about anything and certainly not about this. I have so many questions. Whom can I ask? No one. No one.

  Inside the house, the walls crushed down. Outside, the dark Morne towered and threatened. The sea glittered harshly. And there was no place in which to hide from loneliness, none, anywhere.

  When the storms ceased, the heat came back to punish the land all that long, long summer. Tee woke in the mornings with her hair wet on the pillow, although she had pinned the mass of it to the top of her head. She sat up and, feeling dizzy, lay back again. Things buzzed in her head, buzzed and throbbed like crickets, like frogs. Saliva gathered in her mouth.

  “I feel like vomiting,” she said when Agnes came in.

  “Again! It’s pork. I tell them and tell them not to serve pork in this weather, but nobody listens to me.”

  À strong scent came from the vétiver mats on the floor. “No, it’s these mats…. They’re sickening.”

  “They never bothered you before! Why, they’ve a sweet smell! Tee!” Agnes cried sharply, for Tee’s nightgown had fallen off her shoulders, revealing breasts grown noticeably larger. Tee retched in the basin and fell back weakly, the mound of her belly stretching a nightgown too tight.

  “Let me see!” commanded Agnes. “Don’t be silly, you’ve got nothing the rest of us haven’t got! Oh, my God!” Her mouth opened in an enormous O. She pressed her hand against her lips, swallowed, and then, after a moment, spoke very quietly, very deliberately. “Listen to me, I’m asking you: When did you last have—you know—when was it last?”

  “I’m not sure. Well, May, probably.”

  “Oh, my God! Not since May?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think? You don’t know? You don’t know what’s the matter with you? You haven’t looked at yourself?”

  “What is it? What, Agnes, what?”

  “Jesus and all the saints, what is it, she asks! You’re going to have a baby! You don’t know that? Who was it? Where have you been?” Agnes screamed, shaking at Tee so that the gold earhoops swung. “Why, you’ve hardly been off this place since we came here!”

  Tee could not speak for terror, and Agnes’s eyes spread wide, searching the girl’s face. “It’s not—it couldn’t be—it’s not that devil Clyde? Talk! Talk!”

  Tee stood up, swaying.

  “Oh, my God, I told you, Tee, I told you—” And putting her arms out, the woman took the girl in, offering strong shoulders, soft breasts, incoherent comfort.

  “You guessed this, didn’t you? You must have. And were afraid to think it. Oh, you fool, you poor baby, poor child … that devil … what are we to do with you?”

  She heard herself wail, “I didn’t know…. Nobody ever told me.”

  And Agnes keened, “Oh, what are we to do with you
? Dear God in heaven, what?”

  The woman’s terror infected the girl, so that gooseflesh rose on her arms and her teeth chattered.

  “You’re freezing, look at you!” Agnes drew the blanket over Tee. “In all this heat you’re freezing.” She rubbed Tee’s back. She swayed and lamented. “Men! I told you—”

  “You didn’t tell me—”

  “You’re right, I didn’t tell you enough. Men! You can’t trust them, not the best of them, not any one of them. And the sooner a girl’s taught that, the better for her. Oh, but this world’s a rotten hard place for women, yes, yes—”

  “What’s going to happen to me, Agnes?”

  “I don’t know, but I know one thing, I’m going to take care of you, don’t you fret a minute about that. Agnes will take care of you.”

  There, in the flowered room, in the ordinary morning, with the ordinary morning sounds of voices, mowers, and birds beyond the windows, the two cried themselves out, the girl weeping fear, the woman, wrath.

  Like an animal afraid to leave its cage, Tee cowered in the room all week. Agnes brought food on a tray, but she could not eat.

  “What does Père say?” she kept asking.

  “What is there to say? His heart is broken.”

  “Will he ever talk to me again?”

  “He will, he will.”

  She had to know what was going on, what was going to happen. Standing behind her door when it was ajar she could barely hear Père and Agnes talking in his study across the hall.

  “At least our girls are taught how to be careful,” Agnes lamented. “We teach them to carry scissors and hatpins in their dresses.” Then she laughed. “It doesn’t always work, but at least when something happens they know what’s happening! Young white ladies—this poor child—stupid as babies until the day they marry!”

  There came more inaudible talk, and at last Père said, “Well, be that as it may, Agnes, this is the situation…. We love her, and we’ll help her. If her mother were ever to find out—”

  “Oh, God and all the saints, she’d kill her!”

  “Not quite that,” Père said somberly. “But her life wouldn’t be worth living. Not around here, anyway.”