"_Mama, a las siete!_"
It was seven o'clock. Anger, noise, confusion--a cock's lofty crowing.
Opening his eyes, he stood quietly, deciding. In a tall bare room, he
had been warmed in the night first by one adult body, then, an eternity
later, by another. Now he was free of the sense of both.
A sun, immortal, barbaric as any reigning over Black Rock, shot hazes
of purple light on the evening's litter scattered about.
"_Mama, a las siete!_"
Ah, he was not now on the ship. Nor was he at the tailor shop. This
must be--home.
He sat up in bed, gazing at the enormity of things in the room. "Oh,
Mama--" he cried, but no answer came. He jumped off the bed and dragged
on his boots. He dressed and made for the door. He was struck once more
by the glow of the bright Panama sun. The room opened out on a porch,
not very wide, and there was no awning to cool it.
"_Mama, a las siete!_"
Down by the stairs a half-sick, half-clothed little child was crying.
Standing above him was a lank, black, cruel-faced woman, brewing a cup
of hot milk. As soon as the milk was shifted from one cup to the other,
she would turn and stamp at the little boy on the floor.
"Where am I to get it from?" she screamed at him, "shut up, I
say--shut up--before I cuff you--what do I care if you haven't eaten
for two days--your stomach burning you--well go to sleep--you been
already--well go again--sleep, sleep--it will do you good--it will make
you forget you ever had a belly.
"Think I pick up smoked sausage? I've got to buy it. And what have I
got to buy it with? Filth! May the heavens consume you! Shut up, I
say! Who cares whether it is seven o'clock--or eight o'clock--or nine
o'clock? Let me be! The baby's got to eat, and you'd better begone,
you're too noisy. Seven o'clock! Sing it to the birds, sing it to the
canary, sing it to the winds. Winds can wake up the dead. Go try--bawl
it to the winds! But I've got my own song, I've got my own tune. I
don't want to hear you, shut up, I say."
All this in a tongue musical to Gerald, but the cries of the little
boy and the pox on his face and the sores making a batter of his toes
unforgettably moved him.
At the cesspool he espied a girl. Her back was to him. She was of mixed
blood, of assafetida brown, and had once had the smallpox. She was
shouting at the top of her voice to the Chinaman downstairs to "giv'
me wattah, yo' dam China-mang, you giv' me de wattah."
It took a long time for it to treacle upstairs. The water struggling
up at last, she proceeded to bathe Madame's canary. To supervise the
rite, Madame came herself--adding to the Cholo girl's swift parrot-like
chatter words just as swift and as parrot-like.
Madame was a beauty. Wife of a Colombia rum merchant, she was fat and
rosy and white. "Me white," she'd say to the West Indian lodgers in
her tenement, "you no see fo' my skin?" The plate of her jeweled bosom
soared high. Encountering it, one's first impulse would be not to lay
one's head on it, but to cling, climb, sit safely and plumply on it.
Her flat, wrinkled face had been smothered in some starch-like powder.
She was white, as whites on the Isthmus went, but the flour or powder
which she dabbed so thick on her face sometimes failed to accomplish
its task. At intervals the wind or the latitudinous heat dissipated
splotches of the starchy pallor, and Madame's neck, or the rim of
Madame's mouth, or the balloons under Madame's eyes--would expose a
skin as yellow as the breasts of the Cholo girl.
Mistress of the tenement, and using a row of six of its one-rooms,
Madame's love of jewels rose to a fetish. Her suite was full of
jewelry. Her opulent person was ablaze with them. Her bright, thick
black hair was prickly with hairpins of silver, hairpins of gold. She
wallowed in colors, too. Some of the pins were blue, some red, others
green. Her fat, squat arms were loaded with bangles. Her gaping stomach
shimmered in a sea of rich white silk. Walking, it rolled, and dazzled,
and shimmered.
Waltzing by Madame and the Cholo girl, there sallied out of the kitchen
a woman. She was a mulatto. She was carrying a smoking dish of stewed
peas and her head was held high in the clouds. Squat as Madame, she,
too, was mad about jewelry. Her arms were creased with bracelets. And
no jewel-ankled Hindu maiden had finer nuggets of gold flung about her
neck. Her clogged feet sent buxom out at you a belly bursting with a
fat, mellow tumor.
She came clogging straight at Gerald, and smiled. One of the one-room
flats on that side of the porch belonged to her, but on spying him she
swept past it.
"Run down to the John Chinaman's like a good little boy and bring me a
loaf of French bread and a tin of sardine--"
"Come, wash yo' face and drink yo' tea, Gerald, befo' it get cold,"
cried a voice.
"Orright, mama, ah comin'," and he ran away, uncertain of the escape,
leaving the St. Thomas virgin with the _peso_ in her hand, stumped.
* * * * *
Fired by the beauty of the marbles and the speed of the
tops--gigs--he'd go on secret escapades to the alley below and spin
gigs and pitch taws with the boys who'd gather there. He had to be
careful of the _pacos_. He had to be careful of the boys he played
with. Some of them used bad words; some had fly-dotted sores on their
legs. A city of sores. Some of them had boils around their mouths. Some
were pirates--they made bloody raids on the marbles.
One day he was alone spinning his gig. It was a particularly
rhythmical one. It was pretty, too--for he had dabbed a bit of
wash-blue on top of it so that it looked beautiful when it was spinning.
Suddenly a gang of boys came up, Spanish boys. One of them, seeing his
top, circling and spinning, measured it; then winding his up, drew back
and hauled away. The velocity released made a singing sound. Gerald
stood back, awed. The top descended on the head of his with astounding
accuracy and smashed it into a thousand pieces. The boys laughed, and
wandered on.
At marbles some of the boys would cheat, and say, "if you don't like
it, then lump it! _Chumbo!_ Perro!" Some of them'd seize his taw or
the marbles he had put up and walk away, daring him to follow. In the
presence of all this, he'd draw back, far back, brooding....
* * * * *
Sea on top of sea, the Empire mourned the loss of a sovereign; and to
the ends of the earth, there sped the glory of the coronation.
Below Gerald's porch there spread a row of lecherous huts. Down in
them seethed hosts of French and English blacks. Low and wide, up
around them rose the faces and flanks of tenements high as the one
Gerald lived in. Circling these one-room cabins there was a strip of
pavement, half of which was shared by the drains and gutters. But from
the porch, Gerald was unable to see the strip of pavement, for the tops
of these huts were of wide galvanize, which sent the rain a foot or two
beyond the slanting rim.
But it wasn't raining, the sun was shining, and it was the day of the
Queen's coronation. On that galvanized roof the sun bristled. Flaky,
white--the roof burned, sizzled. The sun burned it green, then yellow,
then red; then blue, bluish white, then brownish green, and yellowish
red. It was a fluid, lustrous sun. It created a Garden of the roof.
It recaptured the essence of that first jungle scene. Upward, on one
of the roof's hills spread the leaves of banyan tree. Fruit--mellow,
hanging, tempting--peeped from between the foliage of coffee and mango
and pear. Sunsets blazed forth from beyond the river or the yellowing
rice hills on some fertile roof.
All day, the day of the coronation, Gerald stood on the porch, peering
down on the burning roof. It dazzled him, for up from it came sounds;
sounds of music and dancing. Sounds of half-drunk creoles screaming,
"_Sotie, sotie!_" Flutes and "steel" and hand-patting drums; fast,
panting music, breathless, exotic rhythm; girls, with only a slip on,
wild as larks, speeding out of this room, into that one. All day,
the day of the coronation, the music lasted, the dancing lasted, the
feeling mounted.
A slippery alley connected Bottle Alley and Bolivar Street. Through it
Gerald tiptoed, surreptitiously, to see the _bomberos_ on parade. He
stood at the edge of the curb, gazing up the street at the clang and
clash of red flannel shirts, white pants, brass helmets and polished
black leggings. Behind him was a canteen and it was filled to its
swinging half-sized doors with black upholders of the Crown. Gazing
under a half-door he could see hosts of trousered legs vaguely familiar
to him.
The coronation rags of the bar were a dark, somber kind. Dark green
leaves, black-green leaves--wreaths and wreaths of them.
"Come on, Dina, an' behav' yo'self. Yo' ain't gwine wine no mo' fi'
suit any big teet' Bajan."
"Who is a big teet' Bajan?"
"Who yo' tink's talkin' to? I didn't know yo' wuz hard a hearing."
"Bet yo' ah lick yo' down, if yo' go long talkin' like dat?"
"Say dah again, ni, betcha yo' don't say dah again."
"Look at dese two, ni. Wuh, Bright, yo' ort to be shame o' yo'self,
man, fightin' ovah a chigga-foot gal."
"Who yo' callin' chiggah-foot? Me?"
"Oi ent talkin' to you, soul."
"Ah buss yo' head open fuh yo', yes, yo' go on playin' wit' my Trinidad
uman! See dah stick in de corner--"
"Butt 'e! Butt 'e down! Don' lick 'e wit' de stick! Butt 'e down!"
"Wuh 'bout it?"
"Wuh 'bout it? Wait an' see!"
"Look out, Lucian, befo' he chop open yo' head."
"Oh mi Gahd!"
"H'm! Yo' beast! Yo' whelp! Leave my uman alone."
A figure, washed in blood, fell backwards through the half-door on to
the refuse-littered pavement.
* * * * *
All night Sarah sat up, imploring the Lord to have mercy upon them, and
beseeching Bright to mend his reckless ways. His head bandaged up, he
lay on the bed, a ghastly figure, the pain crushing the fire out of his
eyes.
"Yo' ort to tek dis as a warnin'," she said, "an' steady yo'self." And
he only moaned in pain.
All night Gerald was restless, bruised by his mother's sorrow, and
unable to rid himself of the hideous nightmares surrounding it.
In the morning the lodgers grew restive.
"Yo' heah all dah ruction las' night, Maria, like dey wuz bringing up a
dead man up de stairs?"
"Oi taught dey was gwine break down de house--"
"No," flounced Maria, "no ask-ee fuh me, me no no."
"But ent yo' hear um, Miss Collymore? Ni?"
"No harm meant, soul--"
"Didn't you, Mrs. Bright?"
"Yes, I heard it."
"Wha'm wuz, ni? Yo' know?" All eyes were turned upon her. But she
calmly responded, "It was my husband. He went to a ball given by the
tailors and he must have had too much ice cream--"
"Yes?" some one tittered.
"Fuh true?"
"Yo' see, evah since he wuz home he liked to eat ice cream, but it
don't agree wit' him--"
"Yo' don't say."
"No, it don't agree wit' he, an' he nose run blood like a stan'pipe run
water. An' dey put 'e out 'pon the verandah fuh hol' 'e head back, and
he fell asleep an' de moon shine 'pon 'e all night--"
"Oi had a boy who got de moon in he face, dah way, heself."
"Well, you know den. As I wuz--he sit dey all night wit' de moon
shinin' in 'e face, wit' he head cocked back, an' when dey fomembah an'
come out an' look at 'e dey fine 'e had one eye shut up, an' instead
o' stoppin' de blood de moon only start it running wussah."
"Hey, we can't 'elp yo' wid 'e, ni, Miss Bright?"
"No, soul, Oi jess takin' dis fish tea fuh 'e. Dey say it is good fo'
wash 'e eye wid. Dey say it will ca'y way de redness an' de soreness."
"G'long, soul, an' do yo' bes' fuh get 'e bettah."
Taking broth to him, she murmured, "Ain't yo' shame o' yo'self to hav'
me bring yo' something to eat--"
"Oh, God, uman, don't torture me," he cried, tossing in misery and pain.
"Don't torture yo', ni, Oi mus' love yo'--is dah wha' yo' wan' me fuh
do?"
"Oh, God, lemme 'lone," he cried, raving like a bull, "lemme bones rest
in peace, ni?"
"Yo' scamp yo'! Yo' heart ort to prick yo' till yo' las' dyin' day fuh
all yo' do to me an' my po' chirrun--"
"Oh, how many times I gwine heah de same old story?"
"Old? It will never be old! As long as I've got breath in my body--as
long as I is got my boy child to shield from de worle--from de filth
and disease of this rotten, depraved place--as long as I got my fo' gal
chirrun in B'bados in somebody else han'--um can't be a old story!"
"Giv' me de t'ing, no," he cried, tired and exhausted, "if yo' gwine
giv' me, an' le' me head res' in peace. Yo' don't know how bad it is
hurtin' me now."
The day he was ready to go back to the shop, she said to him, "Tek
heed, Lucian, yo' heah, yo' bes' tek heed, an' men' yo' ways--"
"O Jesus! jess because yo' been tendin' to me when I wuz sick, yo' tink
yo' gwine tell me wha' to do, ni, but yo' lie, uman, yo' lie!" and he
sped downstairs, swanking, one eye red and flashing.
* * * * *
To the pirates and urchin gods of Bottle Alley, Gerald was the bait
that lured a swarm of felt-hatted _pacos_ who kept the alley under
sleepless surveillance. It was risky to loiter, play marbles, spin
gigs--and there wasn't enough to keep Gerald occupied upstairs. So he
hit upon the notion of going at dusk to his father's shop. There he'd
gather rum bottles and cotton reels, open up the backyard and inveigle
the Judge's son to come down and play shells--and shut his ears to the
men's vile banter....
One day, after the men had gone, he saw his father take a glass bowl
from a shelf far back in the shop and put it on his machine. He was
drawn to it, for, squirming about in the weed and moss, was a congeries
of little black reptiles.
"Papa, wha' is dese, ni?"
"Leave them, sir!" his father shouted, "an' get away from there!"
He drew back, afraid. The place was silent. He watched his father
furtively. His face was clouded, agitated, aflame. He tore off his
coat, peeled back his shirt sleeve, and revealed a red, sore arm. He
squeezed it, the while gritting his teeth. He moved over to the bowl,
wincing in pain. Gerald was stricken dumb. Up to the bowl his father
crept, taking one of the shiny, slimy reptiles and planting it on the
red sore, to feast there. Uncomprehending Gerald patiently waited.
Later he was in bed, half-asleep, listening to the storm. A hurricane
of words passed by--hot, carnal words. The fury subsided, and there
ensued a sober sympathetic calm.
"Lucian, darling," he heard his mother say, "wha' yo' doin' fuh de arm,
ni?"
"Oh, Oi is orright."
"Yo' bin to de doctor, man?"
"No."
"An' you mean to tell me yo' gwine sit down an' not do nutton fuh dah
han' yo' got dey. Hey, man, yo' know wuh is good fo' yo'self?"
"Oh, Oi put a leech on it teeday. Dah ort to draw out all de bad blood."
As the nights advanced, the heat became more and more severe. It was
useless to try to sleep. Body smells, body vapors, the room's need of
oxygen--grew tense, exacting.
"Yo' know, Sarah, dis t'ing is really hurtin' me; why um is worse dan
Oi taught um wuz. Um is stickin' me jess like a needle."
"H'm, tell yo' so--tell yo' yo' won't men' yo' ways."
"O Christ," he roared, "why yo' don't say yo' glad an' done?"
At Sixth and Hudson Alley there was a branch of the Plymouth Brethren,
and Sarah suddenly went about the business of securing "acceptance"
there. Now, so far as running it went, the shop was out of Bright's
hands. He was ill, and had to stay at home. One of the men, Baldy, a
mulatto Antiguan, took hold of things.
By way of the Sixth Street Mission, his mother rooted religion into his
soul. Every night he was marched off to meeting. There, he'd meet the
dredge-digging, Zone-building, Lord-loving peasants of the West Indies
on sore knees of atonement asking the Lord to bring salvation to their
perfidious souls. In the isles of their origin they were the tillers of
the soil--the ones to nurture cane, and water sorrel, stew cocoanuts
and mix Maube--now theirs was a less elemental, more ephemeral set of
chores. Hill and vale, valley and stream gave way to wharf and drydock,
dredge and machine shop. Among the women the transfiguration was less
brilliant. Dull. The "drops" and cakes and foods and pops vended to the
serfs and squatters on insular estates found a husky-throated market
at the ends of the pay car lines.
Thursday night was prayer meeting. Religiously Sarah and Gerald went.
All the brothers and the sisters took a deep and vital interest in him.
They'd bring him sweets, and coppers, and stare long at him, their eyes
wet, and soft. They came, a drove of them, to the house, all dressed in
black, which set the neighbors talking.
He was not a child of the Lord, he did not believe in the Scriptures,
but it did not serve to rob them of their sense of charity. So they
came to see, and give words of courage to the family of the sick man.
They'd read passages of the Bible to him, and marvel at the priceless
wonders of Christ Jesus. And then one day he said to her, "Sarah, I
think I ort to go to the horspitral--I can't see--my eyes is painin' me
so bad. Oi wondah wha' is de mattah wit' dem."
"Didn't de medicine de doctah giv' yo' do yo' any good, Lucian?"
"Oh, that bitter t'ing? Good wha'! Oi feel like Oi could cut off this
bleddy old han'--"
"It still hurtin' yo, Lucian?"
"Cuttin' me like a knife."
After they came and got him, Gerald began to feel things ever so much
more keenly. His vision, too, grew less dim. But a pallor fell on
things. In the morning he went to the cesspool to whistle to the canary
while the Cholo girl washed it. But as he approached she fled in terror
screaming "No, no, don't touch--go 'way--yo' no good--no clean--me no
like yo' no mo'." The little boy, the seven o'clock one, refused to let
him come near him. "No, no," he also cried, "me mama no like--" None
of the old gang, who'd been willing to elude or defy the _pacos_ and
foregather down in the alley came any more. And he didn't go to the
shop, either. It was so dark and silent over there. Only Baldy looked
on--all the other men, one by one, had gone to other places to work.
Dust grew high, thick. Spiders spun webs on the very frame of the door.
But he went oftener to the Sixth Street Mission, he and Sarah. The
folks there weren't fickle,--firm, solid, lasting. His mother had
become one of them. He was one of them now. He'd go on Thursday
evenings to prayer meetings. The evenings were long and hot. He
would go to sleep in the midst of some drowsy exhaustless prayer. All
would be silent. Hours of silence to God. Then they'd rise, slowly,
back-crackingly, and he'd be left kneeling, snoring. He would be immune
to pinches, nudges, murmurs. They'd be useless, he would be fast
asleep. His mother'd pinch him, quietly, but he'd be as stiff as a log
till the service was over.
* * * * *
All in black--veil, hat, gloves, shoes, dress.
At Sixth and Bolivar they took one of those modest subdued coaches, not
adorned by any wig-powdered Jamaican Pretty Socks, and bade the driver
take them to the city hospital.
The sun dealt the city some stern body blows. The piazzas were strewn
with folk. Bees and flies and fleas sang and buzzed and added to the
city's noise and squalor. Swinging onto rafts hoisted high on porches
parokeets and parrots screeched and chattered incessantly. In cages
set in the shades of windows bright-feathered and trill-voiced birds
languished half-sleepily. Down on the piazza among the old women and
the children the Duque ticket sellers and the sore-footed heathens,
there were monkeys. Tied to poles greasy and black with banana grime
they were lathering their faces with spit. Slowly they ascended the
head of the street, the chapel of the Christ Church, felt a bit of the
onrushing sea wind, and made the drive. The sea wind beat against them.
It was cool and refreshing. At last they were at the hospital.
* * * * *
A high box, square, gauze-encased and white with a dim black object in
it was set at the end of a back porch--wide, long, screened, isolated.
Facing it was a planted plot, gardened by Asiatics, seen through the
dusty screen. Near the sloping end of the porch the rosebush was
withering; mocking the bitter fury of the sun the sunflowers were
slightly bowing. Accustoming one's eye to the dead reach of things
beyond the screen one saw a terra cotta sky and lank, parched trees
with reddish brown foliage. One saw, sizzling, at the mouths of dying
flowers, blue-winged humming birds--
An eternity had passed since the doctor had brought them there, and
all the sorrow and anguish inside her rushed to Sarah Bright's eyes.
"Yo' mus' pray fuh me, Sarah," were the first words that came to her
from the box square.
"Yes, Lucian," she said, concurring in their finality.
He emitted a groan, and she patted Gerald's face, forcing the child to
look away.
"An' wuh duh say, Lucian," she asked, with piety and anxiety, "wuh duh
say, ni?"
Their eyes were fastened on the fixed intensity of the sun, but their
ears were attuned to the tiniest rustle of the glazed sheets, and the
restless figure under them. Then he said, "Ah'm in a bad way, gyrl."
She took out a little white handkerchief and dried first Gerald's mouth
and nose, then her own glistening eyes.
He groaned, and was restive again. "De doctah say no use--de oil ent no
good."
"No?" there was a quiet suspense in her voice.
"No bloomin' good!" he flung, unearthing some of the old asperity.
"Don't, Lucian," she entreated, "fomembah Jesus."
"Oh, God, dis han'!" he groaned, tossing fiercely.
He ruffled the sheets, and a lizard, a big lanky bark-hued one, slid
down the trunk of the cocoanut tree, after some gawkier prey.
"An' dey ent try nutton else," she said, again exhuming the
handkerchief.
"Oh, dese Yankees don't cyah wuh de do to yo'--dey don't cyah. Duh
wouldn't even giv' yo' a drop o' hot wattah, if yo' ask me. No, dey ent
try nutton else."
"Hush, don't cry, Gerald," she said, hunting for a piece of Chinese
candy, "yo' mustn't cry, son."
"An' wuh dey gwine do, Lucian," she said, reluctantly risking the query.
"Put me 'way--Palo Seco--dah's de colony."
"Don't cry, son, never min', mama will tek care o' Gerald--oh, my son,
you'll break my heart."
"'E love 'e pappy, ent 'e?" he smiled, then turned his moistening eyes
to the black wall behind him.
"Well," she said, her eyes clear and dry, "the Lord wuks His wonders
in a mysterious way. What's to be, will be."
He, too, was weeping; but she held on, driving the mirage to the winds.
"Yo' kin come to see muh, Sarah," he said, "dey allow yo' one visit a
year--yo' mus' come, yo' hear?"
"Yes, Lucian, I'll come."
"An' yo' mustn't call me bad, yo' heah?" he pleaded, the water in his
eyes, like a young culprit.
"God forbid, dear--be quiet now. Come, Gerald, time fi' go, son." She
adjusted his hat, and a bell started ringing.
"An' yo' mus' tek good cyah o' yo'self, heah Sarah, an' don't le'
nobody tek exvantage o' yo', yo' heah, dis is a bad country--"
"Yes, Lucian."