Eden Burning Page 26

  “We’ll chance it.”

  “There’ll be a battle.”

  “If it’s battling they want, let them have it.”

  Patrick had risen. The two men, of equal height, stood as if in confrontation.

  “Francis, you’re making a mistake. I know you feel you’re being treated unfairly, not appreciated, and that may be true, but as they say in the labor movement, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

  “So, I’ll break eggs, too!” Words came which ordinarily would not have fitted in Francis’ mouth. “They’ve gone too far this time. This is my land. I’ve treated them well, and if they can’t acknowledge that I’m the master here, to hell with them! And that’s all I have to say.”

  Patrick’s face hardened, surprising Francis, who had never seen hardness in that quiet face.

  “I don’t like the word master, Francis. It’s ugly and it’s out of date.”

  “Listen here, I’ve got thirty-six hours to get those bananas onto the boat. I haven’t time to quibble over words.”

  “You’ve surprised me this morning. I didn’t expect this of you.”

  Francis moved impatiently. “I’m sorry I haven’t lived up to your expectations. But tell me about it some other time, will you?”

  “I can tell you in one sentence right now. You are acting too grand, too feudal for this century.”

  Anger turned to fury in Francis. This—this unknown, whom he had befriended and liked and treated with so much respect, to turn against him, to rebuke him now, like a teacher scolding a child!

  “Grand! Feudal!” he shouted. “After all I’ve done! You ungrateful son—” And he bit off the word.

  “Of a bitch, you wanted to say?”

  “Yes, son of a bitch!”

  “The same to you, then,” Patrick answered. He swung about and the door crashed.

  For a minute or two Francis didn’t move. The explosion in the little room, the voices of anger, left Shockwaves trembling behind. A door had been slammed shut, not the sheet of wood that hung on a frame before him, but an invisible door which up to this morning had been open onto a warm communion between two men. He became aware of his own heavy breathing. He wasn’t used to being this angry. Well, so, that’s the way it is, he thought; I’ve seen his true colors. And then, ironically: True color? No, that’s nasty, I can’t mean that.

  He raced next door to Osborne’s house, across the veranda into the untidy living room where toys and newspapers littered the floor. You’d think, he thought irrelevantly, with the wages I pay, they’d manage better than this.

  “Osborne!” he called.

  “Yes, Mr. Luther?” Osborne came out of the kitchen. “Any luck?”

  “No. I spoke to my friend and got exactly nowhere.” He heard the bitterness in his own voice. “Listen here, I want you to get hold of some Caribs to pick that fruit. You know the chief. He knows me, too. You can pay whatever they ask and damn the consequences. We’ve got just thirty-six hours to get that crop to the ship.”

  Osborne’s eyes were blank,. He’s not on my side, Francis thought, but he’ll do what I order; he wants to keep the job.

  “They can come down the mountain, in through the back way,” he said. “I’ll leave it all to you. I’ve got to take my wife into town. They may have to do a cesarean. Everything seems to have clobbered me at once today.”

  Osborne nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry,” he said, with proper sympathy. His eyes were still blank.

  “You shouldn’t have come. I tried to reach you but you had already left,” Lionel said, adding crossly, “Francis shouldn’t have let you, he ought to know better.”

  Tee explained. “He’d already left for the hospital with Marjorie by the time we got up.” She worried. “I’m sure he’ll call home or here the minute anything—”

  Richard interrupted. “Maybe we should start back right now. The last thing I want is to get caught in a riot.”

  “There’s been some trouble in Covetown,” Lionel said, “but nothing out in the countryside. Yet. And maybe there won’t be. Still, I’d finish lunch and get going fast if I were you.”

  He rang, and the servant came at once with the dessert and coffee. Conversation stopped as she moved around the table, her soft-soled shoes making the only sound in the noon stillness. The table was an island in the enormous, airy room. At the far end of the room glass doors opened to a terrace and a stretch of empty lawn. The house was an island, too, with no protection but a row of glass doors.

  Tee rose abruptly. “I’m ready,” she said.

  They drove cross-island. “Looks peaceful enough,” remarked Richard.

  He didn’t, naturally, know the difference. Not a soul was at work either on the roads or in the fields. The stillness was oppressive, like that ominous, waiting silence in the last sultry hour before storm strikes, when the wind dies and birds hide. And thinking this, Tee thought at the same time, It’s my nerves, I am overreacting, as usual.

  In a wide valley between the hills that roll toward Morne Bleue, only a mile or two beyond Eleuthera, they came, suddenly, upon a crowd. On foot, on muleback, in farm carts and battered cars, men, women, and children had converged upon a broad, mowed field. At its center a simple platform had been set up, from which a man was making a speech.

  “I wonder what’s going on,” Richard said. “Let’s have a look.”

  “I don’t think we should. They might not like it.”

  “We can just sit in the car and leave in a hurry if we have to,” he argued, curious as always.

  Facing the sun as they were, it was difficult to see the speaker, but his voice carried clearly, for the crowd was remarkably quiet.

  “For centuries the grandeur of England rested heavily upon these islands.” The accent was faintly British and the tone reasonable, almost conversational. “The wealth that came from sugar was princely. Most of it went abroad. I saw great houses in England that make our grandest estates look like cottages, and they were built on sugar. People who had never laid eyes on St. Felice lived on the wealth drawn from its earth. And what was returned to St. Felice? Nothing. Nothing. And what did you, who produced this wealth, get out of it? You know the answer: Not very much.

  “It’s true that things are a lot better now than they were back then, or even a few years ago. Some of you are old enough to remember when an estate worker earned twenty cents a day. On average we’ve come a long way from that, and some planters, a very few, are doing better than average. That’s all true.

  “Yet it’s still also true that you are the victims of a system which leaves two thirds of you unemployed from January to June, once the peak season in the cane fields is over. So out of crop season you have to scrounge for work. Your women take jobs breaking stones on the roads. Your men leave the island to look for work elsewhere. And they say you have no family structure! No family structure!”

  With scarcely any change in pitch the voice revealed, nevertheless, a passionate intensity, so that Richard whispered, “My God, the fellow’s an orator!”

  “When I was a teacher, I listened to the children. From them I learned more than you can ever tell me about drunken husbands and frustrated youths and babies who cry all the time because the houses are so crowded, so noisy, that they can’t sleep. These are the facts of daily living.

  “So then, what do you want? You want higher wages, and it should be simple enough to understand why you must have them. They say they can’t afford to pay more. Well, the way things are run here that may be so. What is needed here is investment, is planning. Why, take coffee alone! We raise the beans, then we send them to England to be processed, and we import our own coffee to drink! Could anything be more absurd? Take sugar: why can’t we refine our own sugar, make our own bags, manufacture molasses, rum, and bottles for the rum? Our people are crying for jobs; the population is growing. Ah, well, let me sum it up. With some intelligence and will, things can be changed. Now that every adult has a vote at last, you must learn to
use it wisely.” Here the speaker flung his arms out. “It’s funny, I was asked to come here to talk about the strike and I’ve done so, but I couldn’t help making a pitch for a bigger thing, for the kind of government which will be so responsive to your needs that strikes won’t be necessary. I didn’t intend this to be a political speech. I’m not a politician. I’m not a labor leader either, for that matter. I’m just a citizen who wants to improve things, that’s all. And that’s why I’m putting in a word for Nicholas Mebane, who couldn’t be here today. I was asked to stand in for him and that’s what I’m trying to do. Nicholas Mebane—you know him—and the New Day Party!”

  Cheers came from the crowd.

  “He’s a white man!” Richard cried. “Look, Teresa! I think—no, no he isn’t. Almost, though. I wonder who he is?”

  The speaker raised his hand for silence. “What we want is a twenty percent raise. That sums things up for the moment. You’ll refuse to work and you’ll not give in until you get what you’re entitled to. It’s as simple as that.”

  He leaped down from the platform and was engulfed in the crowd. All was swirling movement, a pushing toward the center of the field, a streaming out and a noise of many voices.

  Richard leaned from the window as he backed away, calling to a black man who was passing. “Who was the speaker? Who was that?”

  For a moment the man in overalls regarded Richard in his linen jacket and Tee in her lilac summer dress. Why do you want to know? his silence challenged. Then he answered.

  “He writes for the Trumpet. And he knows what he’s talking about. Name’s Courzon. Patrick Courzon.”

  For young Will the long night had begun at the supper table. Patrick worried. “I don’t like the looks of things. On the way back from my speech I passed two police stations that somebody’s smashed up. It looks as if some tough elements want to take over.”

  Désirée changed the subject, just when it was getting interesting. This habit of hers exasperated Will. She always steered away from anything the least bit ugly. Fear was ugly, as were poverty and dirt.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to hear you,” she said soothingly. “You didn’t tell me you were going to speak.”

  “I didn’t know it myself. I was on the way back after that fiasco with Francis Luther this morning when they got a message to me. They wanted me to pinch-hit around the island in support of the strike. ‘The New Day Party supports you all the way’—that sort of thing. I wish Nicholas hadn’t left just now, though,” he added darkly.

  “You’re more upset about Francis Luther than anything,” Désirée said. “It’s really not worth your being so upset, Patrick.”

  Patrick didn’t reply to that.

  Will was alert. “What happened? You have a fight with Mr. Luther?”

  “Now Will, it’s none of—” Désirée began, but was interrupted.

  “It’s all right, the boy can ask. I’m too tired right now to talk about it, Will, but when all this business is over, I’ll tell you.”

  Laurine spoke up. “Pop-pop told me the police are thick all along Wharf Street. They must be expecting something to happen.”

  “I hope to God not,” Patrick said. “A strike is supposed to be an orderly way of obtaining one’s due, not a celebration for hoodlums.” He got up from the table. “Anyway, it’s a good night to stay indoors, just in case things do get out of hand. Where you going now, Will?”

  “Just out to the shed to look over some stuff.”

  From the shed you could slip around the garage and down the hill without being seen. If there was anything going on in town, his friends would be there. Most of them didn’t have fathers as strict as Patrick and could spend their evenings hanging around where they wanted to, anyway.

  At the next corner he fell in with two of them going to town; by the time they reached the foot of the hill where several roads met, a stream of boys of every age from twelve to twenty was pouring toward the center. The stream grew wider and moved faster.

  “What’s up?” Will asked his neighbor.

  “I don’t know. Somebody said there was stuff going on downtown.”

  The boys began to trot, their shoes slapping the pavement. Evening was melting into night; lights went on and houses became alive. Doors opened; voices shot out into the streets. Excitement rang like radio waves in the air; it pulsed through Will’s veins, tingled in his chest. He felt like laughing. He didn’t know why, only that it was good to be running like this in the center of a crowd, all together, all one, running toward action!

  Where Wharf Street cut across their path a line of police brought them sharply to a halt.

  “Blocked off! Blocked off!”

  “What for? What do you mean?”

  “Order of the governor, that’s what for.”

  From far down the street came a tumultuous shouting, car horns, the crash of glass, and the low whine of an ambulance.

  “Da Cunha’s!” someone cried. “Yeah, they’ve got the old man’s diamonds! Da Cunha’s, isn’t it?”

  The black faces under the proud white police helmets ignored all questions.

  “Aw, let us through! Let’s see!”

  The uniformed line drew tighter. “Back, boys, get back. Nobody gets through.”

  Next to Will someone had an idea. “Round the square! We’ll get in at the other end!”

  The group swung about, raced past Nelson in his wrought-iron enclosure, whooped past the careenage, hurled a few stones gaily through the windows of Bata Shoes and World Travel, came out at the other end of Wharf Street, and once more were halted.

  “Shit,” Will said.

  Another ambulance wailed by. Fire engines clanged; the street lights flickered over the jostling mob on Wharf Street. In his frustration Will’s feet were dancing. For a minute or two the group stood undecided. Then, grumbling and frustrated, they began to disperse. With a couple of others Will walked back to the square. Out of the deepening darkness a fan of light from a streetlamp had spread open over Nelson. With what arrogance he stood on his pedestal, one hand on sword, chin lifted in surveyal as if he owned the place and everyone in it!

  “Bastard,” Will said.

  His companion stared. “Who is?”

  “Nelson. Nelson’s a bastard.”

  The other boy shrugged, not understanding. “Where you going now, Will?”

  Will didn’t know. But he knew he wasn’t ready to go home. Not tonight. He wouldn’t be able to sleep, with so much happening or about to happen, in this place where nothing ever did happen.

  A truck roared on the other side of the square. The driver leaned out.

  “Hey, boys! Want a lift?”

  Will and Tom Folsom ran across. “Yeah, where you going?”

  “Home. St. Elizabeth’s. You live out that way?”

  “Yeah,” Will said.

  “Hop in back, then. I’ve got a crate of chickens on the front seat. Holler when you want to drop off.”

  “How’ll we get back?” Tom whispered as they started out of town.

  “I don’t know. Get another lift, maybe. Or walk if I have to. Anyway, I’m in no hurry to get home.”

  The words were careless and grand. Tom looked at him with respect.

  The truck, an open pickup, careened through the countryside, through tunnels of trees; the headlights, like two feelers, pierced the night ahead. Behind lay only darkness, dark sky over darker land. The wind raced through Will’s hair; it seemed to him that he was flying, that he was powerful and could go anywhere, do anything.

  At a crossroads, the driver slowed and craned his head around.

  “Look there! Jesus, they sure broke that up!”

  The police station had been smashed. The door had been kicked in and lay now on the grass along with a little pile of broken desks and chairs. Just beyond, where a row of cabins stretched on both sides, lights were on and people were gathered outside, far past the hour at which such villages were usually asleep. Will was wide awake.

&n
bsp; “What’s going on?” he called to the driver.

  “Folks got mad, is all. You’ll see two, three more like that along this road. And burned-out cane, probably too dark to see.”

  Tom wanted to know how far they were going. Scared, Will thought contemptuously.

  Suddenly they stopped. “Hey, look there!”

  At the edge of the road, half in the deep ditch, a truck lay on its side, its load of bananas flung into the road.

  “I heard about that,” the driver said. “Happened this morning. Fellow near here up at Eleuthera hired some Caribs off the reservation to carry his bananas to the boat.” He laughed. “Straightened them out, all right.”

  Eleuthera. Lawns and flowers and pride.

  “I turn off here, boys, road to Myrtle. You two didn’t say how far you’re going.”

  Something decided itself in Will. He could not have said why. Simply, it clicked. “I’ll get off now. Got a friend lives just down the road.”

  “Let’s go on to Myrtle,” Tom said. “We can get a ride back from there. Come on with me, Will. It’s late. I want to get home.”

  But Will had already swung down, so Tom followed. When the truck had turned out of sight, Will reversed his direction, toward Eleuthera. Plodding along through the empty night he struggled with his thoughts. Something had happened there today between Patrick and Mr. Luther; he wondered whether the overturned banana truck had anything to do with it. Patrick being the easygoing fool he was, most likely the argument was Luther’s fault, he reflected. But however it had been, it was no concern of his.

  “Where the heck you going, Will?” Tom complained. “I’m tired.”

  “Nobody asked you to come, did they? So put up or shut up, will you?”

  The night was soft. The commotion in Covetown might have been taking place in another world. When Will’s foot kicked a little stone, its clatter startled the silence. Alongside the road, behind a wire fence, he could make out the shapes of resting cattle. The air smelled sweetly of vanilla and hay. Stopping, he took a long, long breath. He walked on, with Tom padding silently behind. Still he did not know why he was walking, why he had come here.