Coral earth paved the one flake of road in Waakenam. Gathering depth
and moss, the water in the gutters beside it was a metallic black. It
was a perfumed dawn--the strong odor of fruit and turpentine flavoring
it. For it was high up on the Guiana coast, and the wind blew music
on the river. Vivid flame it blew on the lips of grape and melon, and
ripened, like the lust of a heated love, the udders of spiced mangoes
and pears peeping through the luscious grove.
Now and then, by the grace of the rollicking wind, there appeared in
the dense forest the sparkle of resin hardening on the bruised trunks
of balata. Sometimes, where the water in the gutter streamed, the music
on the Essequibo touched fruit and flower and resulted in a flurry of
orchids floating on to Calvary.
And in the distance, beyond the violent patches of green, flowing to a
reddish upland, smoke--the vapors of boiling syrup--tarnished the white
marl-gemmed sky.
On awakening on mornings Seenie indulged in a rite native to the
Negroes of the region. She'd slip on a one-piece frock, and go outside
to the rain water cask which had a zinc drain pouring off the cabin
roof into it. There her toilet was done.
And as sure as the sun rose, there'd be on the dewy ground, on the
boughs of mango and pine, lovely, quiescent, a gallant cordon of
snakes. Now as she sped forward, the road shone with them. Gorgeously
bedecked ones--two inches of blue, two of mauve, two of yellow--two of
black. Some, the coral ones, a yard or more in length, lovely crown
jewels. Green snakes, black snakes, reaching up to the shady bush and
swamp--drowsy on the sandy road.
When she reached the constable's, a high wooden dwelling in ample
view of the stream, Seenie took charge of the pantry. She tied on the
ruffled bib, stuck a scornful nose in the larder, sampled skeptically
the plantain, stewed in cocoa fat, which she had put aside the previous
evening, following a tradition of the tropics, for any starving ghost
who might pass along in the night.
"T'row de t'ing 'way, gal, um ent no good, um sour," she said, and
heaved it through the window.
There were even limits to Water Spout's gastric feats.
Suddenly a fragrant presence invaded the pantry.
"Good morning, Seenie," said Miss Esteena.
"Mawnin,' mum," replied the girl, sticking a match under the chocolate
kettle in the coal pot.
An illuminating contrast; the girl, grating the cassava for the _bake_
the Sergeant liked so well; with her despairing uncomely face, the
high cheek bones, the sprawling mouth eternally white at the ends, the
tapering chin. On the other hand there was reflected in Miss Esteena's
sullen grace the fruit of a Negro culture as old as the civilization
of the Incas. An Albertown belle, she was tall, brown, beautiful.
Shimmering in white, the collar of her hand-wrought bodice closed high
about her throat after the fashion of the time of Mary Queen of Scots.
"Be sure," said Miss Esteena, in her sharp, pointed tones, "to season
the corass, properly, Seenie. Put plenty of salt and pepper and steam
it long and well with the pot half full of water. Until it begins to
crack. Then call me."
"Yes, mum, when Oi get roun' to it, mum."
But Miss Esteena was used to help of her own hue, and so had come to
shut her ears to the thin veil of obedience in the Bordeaux girl's
voice.
Gathering up the hem of her skirt, she moved austerely from the rice,
green in a dish on the vined sill, to the fresh shelled peas, the tray
of soaking _cashews_, the sugary sour sop, under a wire cage away from
the flies.
"You know, Seenie," she said, "when you get time I wish you'd plant
some mustard seed over there in the garden. Look!"
"Yessum, Oi see--"
Grating cocoanut was a hazardous task. And it required a constant fluid
motion. Grinding it till the skin became thin as a tip of flame, she
had got her palm bruised, and blood spots spattered the white juicy nut.
She leaned over the window squeezing it.
"Under that tree," said Miss Esteena, "see where I mean?"
"Yo' mean--dey--yassum!"
"And perhaps you could stick in a few knots of cane and some pumpkins
on the hedge."
"Passably some carrots, too, mum. But yo' won't want anyt'ing what
gwine gaddah too much bush. Yo' fomembah wha' ole Hart say, he say too
much grass will bring de snakes."
"There you go again, you and your snakes. Can't you think of anything
else to be afraid of?"
"Fi' tell yo' de troot, mum--"
"Gracious me, are they digging again? Look--there--by the
trench--Seenie, what are they digging?"
"Wha' mum?"
"Can't you see it, stupid? There! Are you blind?"
"Oh, yassum! Me taught yo' mean yondah, mum."
"You always think something contrary!"
"It are a grabe dem a dig, mum."
"A grave? Mercy! For whom? What sort of a grave is it?"
"Fo' de baboo wha' chop arf 'im wife head, mum," said Seenie.
"Oh, mercy!"
"Dem gwine hang 'im up dey an bury 'im under de scraffold dem a build
dey. See it, mum? All dem board yo' see dem a pile up dey is fo' de
scraffold dem gwine knock togad-dah fi' hang 'im."
"Well, well, the idea!" exploded the constable's niece, pacing the
pantry madly. "If it isn't one thing it is another. Yesterday, it was
finding a snake coiled up under my writing table, foaming to strike.
Last Tuesday, at the _soirée_ on the Governor's visit to the colony, it
was having a black camoodie secrete itself, the Lord only knows when
and how in the chandelier and as soon as Lady Fordyce-Boyce and Captain
Burt selected to hold their tête-à-tête underneath it, began to burrow
into Lady Fordyce-Boyce's red hair.
"Now by Jove, it is to wake up and find them erecting under my very
window a scaffold to wring the neck of some wife-killing Hindu. I have
never heard the like of it in all my days."
"Dat a fac', mum," meekly murmured Seenie.
The missus strode out, raving. She was going herself to the Sergeant
and ask to be shipped back to Georgetown at once.
"Cho," said Seenie, "she mek a fuss ovah nutton."