Authors: Jamaica Kincaid
Mr. Potter (8 page)
And Mr. Shoul's father continued in his way after his wife died; after his wife died he continued to mingle with the thick bolts of silk that could be likened only to the petals of roses, and the piles of carpets woven from fibers that had been removed from the backs of animals and then dyed with dyes that were so precious and to look at each carpet was to look at some new world that had not been imagined by the person looking at it. Mr. Shoul's father continued in his way after his wife had died, his way of mingling with gold
and silver bangles, some by themselves in small velvet boxes, others all mixed up with each other in drawers; and earrings, too, were things he mingled with, and all sorts of other trinkets, none of it essential, none of it necessary. He was a trader and he started out with things that were necessary, pots and pans and cups made of tin and then painted with enamel, and cloth: cotton it was, madras it was, chambray it was, poplin it was, dotted swiss it was, and seersucker. And that was a profitable business, trading in essentials, things that are absolutely necessary; but even more prosperous was trading in things that promised to make life more beautiful, or promised to make life more worthwhile, but of course could do neither, make life beautiful more or less, make life worthwhile more or less. And inside his little trading empireâit was that, a little trading empireâwas Mr. Shoul's father, mingling and intermingling with a dazzling array of lights and colors: the red of rubies, the green of emeralds, and the at once cool and hot light of diamonds, the blue of sapphires; all this was in abundance, all this not essential to living, but it is the way of the world to devote itself with a wanton fervor to the things that are not essential; and it does so, always, with the anger of a child who is afraid its will has been too often thwarted.
and silver bangles, some by themselves in small velvet boxes, others all mixed up with each other in drawers; and earrings, too, were things he mingled with, and all sorts of other trinkets, none of it essential, none of it necessary. He was a trader and he started out with things that were necessary, pots and pans and cups made of tin and then painted with enamel, and cloth: cotton it was, madras it was, chambray it was, poplin it was, dotted swiss it was, and seersucker. And that was a profitable business, trading in essentials, things that are absolutely necessary; but even more prosperous was trading in things that promised to make life more beautiful, or promised to make life more worthwhile, but of course could do neither, make life beautiful more or less, make life worthwhile more or less. And inside his little trading empireâit was that, a little trading empireâwas Mr. Shoul's father, mingling and intermingling with a dazzling array of lights and colors: the red of rubies, the green of emeralds, and the at once cool and hot light of diamonds, the blue of sapphires; all this was in abundance, all this not essential to living, but it is the way of the world to devote itself with a wanton fervor to the things that are not essential; and it does so, always, with the anger of a child who is afraid its will has been too often thwarted.
And then Mr. Shoul's father died also, not on the road to Damascus or the road going toward Damascus,
but while crossing the threshold of his dwelling place, his home or trading place; it was all the same, home and place of trading; he dwelled in both, and he died when he was not expected to, for that is the way of death, always so inevitable, always so unexpected, and Mr. Shoul's world was shattered at its center, and this shattering was more like the shattering of the glass bowl made of crystal in which were kept the dates and figs his mother loved to eat and this was because his world was precious to him; but to someone else, someone who did not love Mr. Shoul and did not care to take in his tender existence (he was a human being and so, therefore, his existence was tender and deserved to be protected), his world was shattered as if it were an old bottle and its contents nothing but sediment.
but while crossing the threshold of his dwelling place, his home or trading place; it was all the same, home and place of trading; he dwelled in both, and he died when he was not expected to, for that is the way of death, always so inevitable, always so unexpected, and Mr. Shoul's world was shattered at its center, and this shattering was more like the shattering of the glass bowl made of crystal in which were kept the dates and figs his mother loved to eat and this was because his world was precious to him; but to someone else, someone who did not love Mr. Shoul and did not care to take in his tender existence (he was a human being and so, therefore, his existence was tender and deserved to be protected), his world was shattered as if it were an old bottle and its contents nothing but sediment.
“Eh, eh, Mr. Shoul,” Mr. Potter was saying, and it was not really meant to be that Mr. Potter should interrupt the life of the almost, the life of the mind's eye of everyone he meets, any more than it is meant to be that everyone he meets will interrupt again and again his own surprising (to himself, that is) and bewildering (to himself, that is) internal landscape, the view that rests in his mind's eye, the mind's eye being the almost, the as if, the like, the in the vicinity of: the almost. And when Mr. Potter said those words to Mr. Shoul, Mr. Shoul could not hear them for he was in the middle of seeing (almost) and hearing (almost) his
world tremble and then shatter irrevocably and he wanted to move away from it all, but there were smells and sounds and there were pictures of things of pleasure, a light snow falling out of that eastern and middle sky, so unexpected was the snow, so miraculous was that snow, so miraculous, but there was no miracle, nothing to save anyone from the many endings that life will present, the ending that was Mr. Shoul's world; it began when he was born and it died when he was all too alive. Who is prepared for that? No one is prepared for that! But just then, just then, when Mr. Potter said, “Eh, eh, Mr. Shoul,” to Mr. Shoul, the world in Mr. Shoul's mind's eye (the world of almost) whirled about him like snowflakes (he could remember such a thing), like small bits of uncollected dry rubbish in a yard (Mr. Potter was familiar with such a thing), and Mr. Shoul then entered into his world of the transient, the immigrant, the person without a real home, and he was on ships and the ships were tossed about on the ocean and the seas and when inside the ships he was tossed about, his stomach heaving through his windpipe and up through his nostrils before settling down again the way the ship settled on the ocean and the sea, and then he settled on land and this was in Surinam. But Surinam was not restful; they spoke Dutch there and Dutch seemed so harsh to Mr. Shoul because it was so precise; people always mean what they say, so thought Mr. Shoul, and he
didn't like Dutch at all or people who spoke that language, and so he moved on to British Guiana and he didn't like that either, and then he moved over to Trinidad but there were so many people like himself in Trinidad, people from the Lebanon or Damascus, Syria, and they were all selling essential things, like pots and pans and basins and cups made of tin painted with white enamel, and so he moved on, finally coming to Antigua, and there he rested and rested and rested again. He found Mr. Potter and all who looked like Mr. Potter and they were so satisfying, these people who were Mr. Potter and looked like Mr. Potter, that they erased for him the longing for large bolts of silk that could only be compared to petals of roses and the longing to mingle with bangles and bracelets and earrings made of gold or silver and bands of anything studded with precious stones. To win, to capture and so make still, Mr. Potter was everything, everything in the world, everything the world could contain.
world tremble and then shatter irrevocably and he wanted to move away from it all, but there were smells and sounds and there were pictures of things of pleasure, a light snow falling out of that eastern and middle sky, so unexpected was the snow, so miraculous was that snow, so miraculous, but there was no miracle, nothing to save anyone from the many endings that life will present, the ending that was Mr. Shoul's world; it began when he was born and it died when he was all too alive. Who is prepared for that? No one is prepared for that! But just then, just then, when Mr. Potter said, “Eh, eh, Mr. Shoul,” to Mr. Shoul, the world in Mr. Shoul's mind's eye (the world of almost) whirled about him like snowflakes (he could remember such a thing), like small bits of uncollected dry rubbish in a yard (Mr. Potter was familiar with such a thing), and Mr. Shoul then entered into his world of the transient, the immigrant, the person without a real home, and he was on ships and the ships were tossed about on the ocean and the seas and when inside the ships he was tossed about, his stomach heaving through his windpipe and up through his nostrils before settling down again the way the ship settled on the ocean and the sea, and then he settled on land and this was in Surinam. But Surinam was not restful; they spoke Dutch there and Dutch seemed so harsh to Mr. Shoul because it was so precise; people always mean what they say, so thought Mr. Shoul, and he
didn't like Dutch at all or people who spoke that language, and so he moved on to British Guiana and he didn't like that either, and then he moved over to Trinidad but there were so many people like himself in Trinidad, people from the Lebanon or Damascus, Syria, and they were all selling essential things, like pots and pans and basins and cups made of tin painted with white enamel, and so he moved on, finally coming to Antigua, and there he rested and rested and rested again. He found Mr. Potter and all who looked like Mr. Potter and they were so satisfying, these people who were Mr. Potter and looked like Mr. Potter, that they erased for him the longing for large bolts of silk that could only be compared to petals of roses and the longing to mingle with bangles and bracelets and earrings made of gold or silver and bands of anything studded with precious stones. To win, to capture and so make still, Mr. Potter was everything, everything in the world, everything the world could contain.
“Potter, me ah tell you mahn,” said Mr. Shoul, and Mr. Shoul made the sign of the cross over himself, and Mr. Potter did not like to see that, a man making a crossroads of himself, a man making a meeting place for the devil on his own body, making himself a meeting place for his soul to become a bargain, and without a serious look on his face, so thought Mr. Potter when he saw Mr. Shoul making the sign of the cross upon himself, as if he was dividing himself into a
crossroads, as if he was offering himself up for a sacrifice and to be made a bargain of at that. And Mr. Potter looked at the ground beneath his feet, the ground in front of him, it was what he always did when the world (and the world was everything he could put his hands on and the world was everything from which he could make nothing) was new and so therefore incomprehensible, or when he understood the world perfectly and yet that understanding led to nothing that he could call happiness, a happiness beyond words; and he looked at the ground beneath his feet and the ground that was in front of him and the ground itself was covered with a thin layer of asphalt that came from a lake containing pitch, not water, in Trinidad and on the ground the shadow of Mr. Shoul was very prominent, so prominent it took up all of Mr. Potter's view. And just then Mr. Potter was thinking to himself, and Mr. Shoul was also thinking to himself, but here is what Mr. Shoul was thinking to himself (for Mr. Potter will always be thinking to himself forever and ever; this is his story):
crossroads, as if he was offering himself up for a sacrifice and to be made a bargain of at that. And Mr. Potter looked at the ground beneath his feet, the ground in front of him, it was what he always did when the world (and the world was everything he could put his hands on and the world was everything from which he could make nothing) was new and so therefore incomprehensible, or when he understood the world perfectly and yet that understanding led to nothing that he could call happiness, a happiness beyond words; and he looked at the ground beneath his feet and the ground that was in front of him and the ground itself was covered with a thin layer of asphalt that came from a lake containing pitch, not water, in Trinidad and on the ground the shadow of Mr. Shoul was very prominent, so prominent it took up all of Mr. Potter's view. And just then Mr. Potter was thinking to himself, and Mr. Shoul was also thinking to himself, but here is what Mr. Shoul was thinking to himself (for Mr. Potter will always be thinking to himself forever and ever; this is his story):
There was the shadow of Mr. Shoul, this Mr. Shoul who was a boy in the Lebanon whose mother had died on the road heading toward Damascus or the road away from that city, and whose father had died on the threshold of a doorway; there was his shadow lying slanted and flat on the asphalt in full view of Mr. Potter. And Mr. Shoul said, “Potter,” and he made the o
in Mr. Potter's name sound as if the letters
a
and
h
had been joined together and he made the
e
and the
r
in Mr. Potter's name sound like the letters
a
and
h
joined together, and when Mr. Potter first heard his name flying out of Mr. Shoul's mouth he did not recognize himself as he knew himself through his own name, Potter, Mr. Potter, for out of Mr. Shoul's mouth came the word “Patah,” not “Potter,” and not being able to say Mr. Potter's name in a way that was familiar to Mr. Potter made Mr. Shoul foreign to Mr. Potter.
in Mr. Potter's name sound as if the letters
a
and
h
had been joined together and he made the
e
and the
r
in Mr. Potter's name sound like the letters
a
and
h
joined together, and when Mr. Potter first heard his name flying out of Mr. Shoul's mouth he did not recognize himself as he knew himself through his own name, Potter, Mr. Potter, for out of Mr. Shoul's mouth came the word “Patah,” not “Potter,” and not being able to say Mr. Potter's name in a way that was familiar to Mr. Potter made Mr. Shoul foreign to Mr. Potter.
“Eh, eh, Potter, me ah tell you,” said Mr. Shoul, and these seven words served sometimes as a greeting, a welcome, a declaration of affection, a declaration of disapproval of the world in which they both lived, of the world in general, of Mr. Potter and his fellow taxi drivers whom Mr. Shoul employed, of Mr. Potter in particular. And the heat of the sun was harsh from the beginning and the light was harsh also, almost as harsh, to Mr. Shoul, as it had been in Beirut, the Lebanon, or somewhere close by, and Mr. Shoul was no longer a boy, accepting passively the events of the day, natural or artificial; he felt the heat of the sun to be pleasing or not pleasing, however it suited him at any given moment, and he was standing in front of Mr. Potter and his shadow fell between the two of them and his own shadow fell in with Mr. Potter's shadow and in their shadows they were one. And so was Mr. Shoul one with the other drivers of his many
cars and their names were Mr. Martin and Mr. Fabian and Mr. Hector, and Mr. Shoul had no real notion of them, except for Mr. Burt, and he liked Mr. Burt for no real reason, not one that he could think of, only that once, when he could not remember the name of that doctor who came from Czechoslovakiaâit was Dr. WeizengerâMr. Burt knew it was Dr. Weizenger; Mr. Burt knew that and only that and he knew nothing more, as far as Mr. Shoul could tell. And Mr. Shoul was one with all the drivers of his many cars but he was only so, one with them, in the shadows. And so, too, in the shadows lay Mr. Potter's mother Elfrida walking into the sea forever and ever and his father Nathaniel cursing God forever and ever, and Mr. Shoul's mother dying on the road to Damascus or the road leading away from Damascus over and over again and his father collapsing into eternity time and again and it would not halt; and they could not speak of it, all these shadows, all these pasts that had been gathered up in the shadows and even then were gathering up in the shadows, for the shadows grew thicker and thicker, and Mr. Potter and Mr. Shoul could never speak of them, their shadows; the world would not allow them to do so, speak of the shadows in which they lived, the world would first shudder and then shatter into a million pieces of something else before it would allow them to do so.
cars and their names were Mr. Martin and Mr. Fabian and Mr. Hector, and Mr. Shoul had no real notion of them, except for Mr. Burt, and he liked Mr. Burt for no real reason, not one that he could think of, only that once, when he could not remember the name of that doctor who came from Czechoslovakiaâit was Dr. WeizengerâMr. Burt knew it was Dr. Weizenger; Mr. Burt knew that and only that and he knew nothing more, as far as Mr. Shoul could tell. And Mr. Shoul was one with all the drivers of his many cars but he was only so, one with them, in the shadows. And so, too, in the shadows lay Mr. Potter's mother Elfrida walking into the sea forever and ever and his father Nathaniel cursing God forever and ever, and Mr. Shoul's mother dying on the road to Damascus or the road leading away from Damascus over and over again and his father collapsing into eternity time and again and it would not halt; and they could not speak of it, all these shadows, all these pasts that had been gathered up in the shadows and even then were gathering up in the shadows, for the shadows grew thicker and thicker, and Mr. Potter and Mr. Shoul could never speak of them, their shadows; the world would not allow them to do so, speak of the shadows in which they lived, the world would first shudder and then shatter into a million pieces of something else before it would allow them to do so.
And “Eh, eh, Potter, me ah tell you,” said Mr.
Shoul, and at that time his face had been young, but only for a short time (one year), or only for a long time (three hundred and sixty-five days). And Mr. Potter's face itself was indifferent to the passage of time, short or long; and the skin covering Mr. Shoul's face was slack and then bulging thick with blood, and there were many small veins contained in his skin that would reflect accurately his ups and downs, his many travails, even if he did not want them to. And he often did not want them to. And by that time all of Mr. Shoul's memories of youth were mostly held in the flesh that filled up his cheeks and his arms and the middle of his body and his thighs and all these areas of his body, their fullness, could seem to be evidence of prosperity, evidence of Mr. Shoul's prosperity, but his flesh had grown full just at the moments when his life was most turbulent, just when his life was filled with abundance and just when his life was filled with scarcity, and a smile covered Mr. Shoul's face regardless and a smile was a constant, covering his face in its entirety until he met Mr. Potter, and to him Mr. Potter was empty and without importance, which was the exact way he, Mr. Shoul, was feeling about himself. And how the world's turning in its up-and-downness, so dramatic from one thing to the other, and not gradually going from one thing to the other, but one thing and the other were the same, and one thing and the other were complete opposites, and this caused Mr.
Shoul great pain, for he could remember; and how indifferent to the world's turbulence was Mr. Potter for he too had memory, something so essential to human existence; but how indifferent to the world's turbulence was Mr. Potter; he could not imagine or know of his importance to all the turbulence in the world, how necessary he was to the world of silks and gems and fields of cotton and fields of sugarcane and displacement and longing for places from which mere people had been displaced and the flourishing centers of cities and the peaceable outlay of villages and the disappointments of young women in those peaceable villages and the anger of young men in those peaceable villages and the screechy tears that flowed first through the voice and then from the eyes of mothers living in those peaceable villages and the sinful determination of fathers who lived in those peaceable villages to worship abominable actions. And Mr. Potter had no inkling of the turbulence: silks, gems, fields of cotton, fields of sugarcane, and centers of power and villages that lay in peace because of the violence perpetuated by those in faraway centers of power.
Shoul, and at that time his face had been young, but only for a short time (one year), or only for a long time (three hundred and sixty-five days). And Mr. Potter's face itself was indifferent to the passage of time, short or long; and the skin covering Mr. Shoul's face was slack and then bulging thick with blood, and there were many small veins contained in his skin that would reflect accurately his ups and downs, his many travails, even if he did not want them to. And he often did not want them to. And by that time all of Mr. Shoul's memories of youth were mostly held in the flesh that filled up his cheeks and his arms and the middle of his body and his thighs and all these areas of his body, their fullness, could seem to be evidence of prosperity, evidence of Mr. Shoul's prosperity, but his flesh had grown full just at the moments when his life was most turbulent, just when his life was filled with abundance and just when his life was filled with scarcity, and a smile covered Mr. Shoul's face regardless and a smile was a constant, covering his face in its entirety until he met Mr. Potter, and to him Mr. Potter was empty and without importance, which was the exact way he, Mr. Shoul, was feeling about himself. And how the world's turning in its up-and-downness, so dramatic from one thing to the other, and not gradually going from one thing to the other, but one thing and the other were the same, and one thing and the other were complete opposites, and this caused Mr.
Shoul great pain, for he could remember; and how indifferent to the world's turbulence was Mr. Potter for he too had memory, something so essential to human existence; but how indifferent to the world's turbulence was Mr. Potter; he could not imagine or know of his importance to all the turbulence in the world, how necessary he was to the world of silks and gems and fields of cotton and fields of sugarcane and displacement and longing for places from which mere people had been displaced and the flourishing centers of cities and the peaceable outlay of villages and the disappointments of young women in those peaceable villages and the anger of young men in those peaceable villages and the screechy tears that flowed first through the voice and then from the eyes of mothers living in those peaceable villages and the sinful determination of fathers who lived in those peaceable villages to worship abominable actions. And Mr. Potter had no inkling of the turbulence: silks, gems, fields of cotton, fields of sugarcane, and centers of power and villages that lay in peace because of the violence perpetuated by those in faraway centers of power.
A
nd on that day, the sun was in its usual place, up and above and in the middle of the sky, and it shone in its usual way, so harshly bright, making even the shadows pale, making even the shadows seek shelter: and that day the sun was in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky, but Mr. Potter did not note that, so accustomed was he to this, the sun in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky. How young Mr. Potter was then, on that day when the sun was in its usual place, on all those days when the sun was in its usual place, up so high in the sky and shining harshly, making everything it touched wish almost that it had never known light; how young Mr. Potter was then and he walked in a stylish way, pressing the heel down first and then coming forward on the ball of his foot with each step he took as he
moved forward and forward to his destination and sometimes his destination was the garage and sometimes his destination was the houses in which the many women he loved lived. Love, love, what was that, and “Me ah wham you” (“I give you a warning against that”) is what Mr. Potter would have said in regard to love and all these many women whom he visited in houses that were made up of one small room and the houses had four windows and two doors and a galvanized tin roof, and when rain fell on this roof it made such a beautiful sound, a music perfect for love or dreaming or singing or thinking or eating or love again, but no rain ever fell, the sun being so always in its usual place. And Mr. Potter was a young man, so young he could make his tightly curled and unruly hair lie flat on his head, and his shirts were always so well washed and ironed by one of the many women living in houses with only one room, and each one of these women was the mother of one of his children and all these children were girls but none of them was me. I was not yet born, my mother was just leaving Dominica after many violent quarrels with her father over the direction her life should take, my mother did not yet know of anyone named Potter and so could have no inkling of me, her firstborn, her only daughter. And Mr. Potter knew many women and he would lie down in a bed with them for brief periods of time,
sometimes for an entire night and sometimes he even fell asleep in the same bed with them, and all this would take place in the night, in the dark night, inside the houses with one room where these many different women lived. And these women bore him children, all of them girls, all of them his very own children, his very own issue, and all of them a burden, all of them, these daughters, needing support of one kind or another: food, clothing, and then schoolbooks and above all, his love, and why above all, his love; why include such a thing as love? There they were, appearing before him, one after the other, asking for one thing or the other, appearing before him sometimes at his station just outside Mr. Shoul's garage, sometimes at the jetty as he waited for a passenger disembarking from a trip, and they appeared, their forms wrapped in malice and general ill will, just as Mr. Potter was feeling fully how good it was to be him, Mr. Potter, and not someone else, like Mr. Shoul for instance, or like his friends (Mr.) Martin or (Mr.) Fabian. And who was Mr. Potter in all his full goodness? Who was he? And those daughters of hisâand one day I would be among them but at that time he did not even know my mother, Annie Victoria Richardsonâthose daughters of his with their cries of hunger and illness and ignorance, and their mothers who had words that were like weapons specially forged
to make fatal wounds, and their sullying of his good name, for his name was good, his name was Mr. Potter, and accusing him of unfairness and betrayal of his fatherly duties and not being a good person. These daughters had ordinary names just like ordinary people: Jane, Charlotte, Emily, but I was not yet born and so none of these were mine. And these daughters had ordinary names just like ordinary flowers: Rose, Reseda, Lily, Iris, Heather, but I was not yet born and so none of these names were mine. And these daughters had ordinary natures just like ordinary people: mostly good, mostly rotten, mostly without any real interest in the world around them, mostly indifferent to any kindness shown to them, and also cauldrons of malice, mostly incapable of showing kindness to others. And all of these daughters lived with all these mothers in houses that had only one room and four windows and sometimes two doors, and Mr. Potter did not love them, not the daughters and not their mothers, and not the houses in which they lived, or the streets where they lived in the houses, or the villages with the streets and the houses that had only one room. And all these daughters looked like him, they all bore his nose, a broad piece of bone covered with furled flesh lying in the middle of his face, and his nose was itself, just his nose, and could reveal nothing about him, not his temperament, not his inadequacies, not all that made up his character, his moral
character, his nose revealed nothing about him, only that all his children, girls, bore his nose, their noses were exact replicas of his.
nd on that day, the sun was in its usual place, up and above and in the middle of the sky, and it shone in its usual way, so harshly bright, making even the shadows pale, making even the shadows seek shelter: and that day the sun was in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky, but Mr. Potter did not note that, so accustomed was he to this, the sun in its usual place, up above and in the middle of the sky. How young Mr. Potter was then, on that day when the sun was in its usual place, on all those days when the sun was in its usual place, up so high in the sky and shining harshly, making everything it touched wish almost that it had never known light; how young Mr. Potter was then and he walked in a stylish way, pressing the heel down first and then coming forward on the ball of his foot with each step he took as he
moved forward and forward to his destination and sometimes his destination was the garage and sometimes his destination was the houses in which the many women he loved lived. Love, love, what was that, and “Me ah wham you” (“I give you a warning against that”) is what Mr. Potter would have said in regard to love and all these many women whom he visited in houses that were made up of one small room and the houses had four windows and two doors and a galvanized tin roof, and when rain fell on this roof it made such a beautiful sound, a music perfect for love or dreaming or singing or thinking or eating or love again, but no rain ever fell, the sun being so always in its usual place. And Mr. Potter was a young man, so young he could make his tightly curled and unruly hair lie flat on his head, and his shirts were always so well washed and ironed by one of the many women living in houses with only one room, and each one of these women was the mother of one of his children and all these children were girls but none of them was me. I was not yet born, my mother was just leaving Dominica after many violent quarrels with her father over the direction her life should take, my mother did not yet know of anyone named Potter and so could have no inkling of me, her firstborn, her only daughter. And Mr. Potter knew many women and he would lie down in a bed with them for brief periods of time,
sometimes for an entire night and sometimes he even fell asleep in the same bed with them, and all this would take place in the night, in the dark night, inside the houses with one room where these many different women lived. And these women bore him children, all of them girls, all of them his very own children, his very own issue, and all of them a burden, all of them, these daughters, needing support of one kind or another: food, clothing, and then schoolbooks and above all, his love, and why above all, his love; why include such a thing as love? There they were, appearing before him, one after the other, asking for one thing or the other, appearing before him sometimes at his station just outside Mr. Shoul's garage, sometimes at the jetty as he waited for a passenger disembarking from a trip, and they appeared, their forms wrapped in malice and general ill will, just as Mr. Potter was feeling fully how good it was to be him, Mr. Potter, and not someone else, like Mr. Shoul for instance, or like his friends (Mr.) Martin or (Mr.) Fabian. And who was Mr. Potter in all his full goodness? Who was he? And those daughters of hisâand one day I would be among them but at that time he did not even know my mother, Annie Victoria Richardsonâthose daughters of his with their cries of hunger and illness and ignorance, and their mothers who had words that were like weapons specially forged
to make fatal wounds, and their sullying of his good name, for his name was good, his name was Mr. Potter, and accusing him of unfairness and betrayal of his fatherly duties and not being a good person. These daughters had ordinary names just like ordinary people: Jane, Charlotte, Emily, but I was not yet born and so none of these were mine. And these daughters had ordinary names just like ordinary flowers: Rose, Reseda, Lily, Iris, Heather, but I was not yet born and so none of these names were mine. And these daughters had ordinary natures just like ordinary people: mostly good, mostly rotten, mostly without any real interest in the world around them, mostly indifferent to any kindness shown to them, and also cauldrons of malice, mostly incapable of showing kindness to others. And all of these daughters lived with all these mothers in houses that had only one room and four windows and sometimes two doors, and Mr. Potter did not love them, not the daughters and not their mothers, and not the houses in which they lived, or the streets where they lived in the houses, or the villages with the streets and the houses that had only one room. And all these daughters looked like him, they all bore his nose, a broad piece of bone covered with furled flesh lying in the middle of his face, and his nose was itself, just his nose, and could reveal nothing about him, not his temperament, not his inadequacies, not all that made up his character, his moral
character, his nose revealed nothing about him, only that all his children, girls, bore his nose, their noses were exact replicas of his.
Oh, the beautiful blue sky above my head, was not something Mr. Potter ever said to himself as he walked to Mr. Shoul's garage in the early morning of a new day as the remains of the last night's dew disappeared into the heated atmosphere; oh, the beautiful blue of the seawater lap-lapping against the shores of Five Islands Bay, hugging the village of Grays Farm, hovering near the open tract that was Greene Bay, a place where people of no account lived, the beautiful blue sea that could be seen from the village of Crab Hill and the village of Freetown and the village of Urlings, that was not something Mr. Potter thought about as he walked to Mr. Shoul's garage. And the fields of sugarcane, stilled now but with their history of horror unspeakable imprisoned in each stray blade, each stray stalk; and so too the fields of cotton and the rows of sweet potatoes and the rows of Irish potatoes and the rows of tomatoes and the rows of carrots and the rows of onions and the rows of pineapples and the rows of things that could be eaten or worn and the rows of things that could cause pain and the rows of things that could alleviate pain: Mr. Potter never thought of all that was before him, all that he passed by, all that he passed by as it was before him. He walked to Mr. Shoul's garage in his shoes made of thin
linen and rubber and he wore no socks, and his shirt was nicely ironed and without fault and his pants were nicely ironed with their creases set just where they ought to be, and Mr. Potter walked with that jaunt of his; the way he walked would make anyone observing him think that he did not have a care in the world, and Mr. Potter felt that he did not have a care in the world, certainly not the many little girls with their mothers and each of them living in a house that was only one room with four windows, and how sometimes those little girls were hungry and sometimes those little girls were without clothes and sometimes those little girls and their mothers were on the brink of being turned out of their house which was only one room with four windows. And the dew was vanishing quickly from the presence of the early morning sun, and the dew rose up, forming a picture of thin, worn-out old curtains, shielding a landscape filled up with sea and sky and ships with masts and boats for rowing and canoes and men who will fall overboard, never to be heard from again, and women with trays of fruit on their heads on their way to market, and children who are completely absorbed in the child's world that is made up of powerlessness and pain and the margins of joy, and wet clothes hung on a clothesline, and goats bleating and cows crying as they are milked or just before they are slaughtered, and policemen marching to their station at the governor's house, and the governor
just getting out of bed, and the hen laying an egg and the egg being scrambled and then being eaten between two slices of bread and the bread was made by the baker Mr. Daniel, and Mr. Daniel was descended from men and women brought from Africa many years ago and made slaves, and Mr. Daniel, in blissful ignorance, had become a Seventh-Day Adventist. And as Mr. Potter walked toward Mr. Shoul and Mr. Shoul's garage where five cars were waiting for five drivers and Mr. Potter was one of them, small drops of moisture, no bigger than the head of a pin, almost invisible really, gathered in the pit of his arms, in the small crevices of his body, between his toes, on the nape of his neck, behind the lobes of his ear, in the small hidden lines over which the fleshy part of his nose furled, and down his strong calves and down his strong shins and his arms too, and Mr. Potter did not feel uncomfortable; and then a soft breeze blew against his cheek and blew through his entire body and the small drops of moisture evaporated and Mr. Potter did not feel that he had been uncomfortable; and the soft breeze that blew against his body had once been a violent wind which had wreaked so much havoc somewhere far away from the world which Mr. Potter was in just then.
linen and rubber and he wore no socks, and his shirt was nicely ironed and without fault and his pants were nicely ironed with their creases set just where they ought to be, and Mr. Potter walked with that jaunt of his; the way he walked would make anyone observing him think that he did not have a care in the world, and Mr. Potter felt that he did not have a care in the world, certainly not the many little girls with their mothers and each of them living in a house that was only one room with four windows, and how sometimes those little girls were hungry and sometimes those little girls were without clothes and sometimes those little girls and their mothers were on the brink of being turned out of their house which was only one room with four windows. And the dew was vanishing quickly from the presence of the early morning sun, and the dew rose up, forming a picture of thin, worn-out old curtains, shielding a landscape filled up with sea and sky and ships with masts and boats for rowing and canoes and men who will fall overboard, never to be heard from again, and women with trays of fruit on their heads on their way to market, and children who are completely absorbed in the child's world that is made up of powerlessness and pain and the margins of joy, and wet clothes hung on a clothesline, and goats bleating and cows crying as they are milked or just before they are slaughtered, and policemen marching to their station at the governor's house, and the governor
just getting out of bed, and the hen laying an egg and the egg being scrambled and then being eaten between two slices of bread and the bread was made by the baker Mr. Daniel, and Mr. Daniel was descended from men and women brought from Africa many years ago and made slaves, and Mr. Daniel, in blissful ignorance, had become a Seventh-Day Adventist. And as Mr. Potter walked toward Mr. Shoul and Mr. Shoul's garage where five cars were waiting for five drivers and Mr. Potter was one of them, small drops of moisture, no bigger than the head of a pin, almost invisible really, gathered in the pit of his arms, in the small crevices of his body, between his toes, on the nape of his neck, behind the lobes of his ear, in the small hidden lines over which the fleshy part of his nose furled, and down his strong calves and down his strong shins and his arms too, and Mr. Potter did not feel uncomfortable; and then a soft breeze blew against his cheek and blew through his entire body and the small drops of moisture evaporated and Mr. Potter did not feel that he had been uncomfortable; and the soft breeze that blew against his body had once been a violent wind which had wreaked so much havoc somewhere far away from the world which Mr. Potter was in just then.
And breeze or no breeze, no wind or wind wreaking havoc on the world, not a thing made Mr. Potter uncomfortable as he walked toward Mr. Shoul and
Mr. Shoul's garage, where, lying quietly and so still as if they could never know movement, were Mr. Shoul's cars. And one of them, the navy blue Hillman with brown leather seats, had so often been assigned to Mr. Potter that it was always referred to as “Potter's car,” but it was not Mr. Potter's car, it belonged to Mr. Shoul, this car. And when Mr. Potter sat at the wheel of this car, the navy blue Hillman with brown leather seats, he felt himself one with the car, he felt he possessed the car and that the car possessed him, and the car had no feelings, because a car can never do such a thing, have feelings of any kind, and the car really did belong to Mr. Shoul, and when Mr. Potter felt at one with Mr. Shoul's car, he placed himself with blissful ignorance in Mr. Shoul's possession. “Eh, eh, Potter, me ah tell you” was how Mr. Shoul would greet Mr. Potter as they met so early in the morning in the space that was between the street and the entrance to the garage, and Mr. Shoul greeted Mr. Potter with a warm feeling, a loving feeling, a feeling so expansive and filled up with love that the whole known world could have been healed by it, if only the whole world knew that it needed to be healed by it, this greeting of love and some of its permutations from Mr. Shoul to Mr. Potter. And many years later, many, many years later, when I was about four years old, I saw Mr. Potter standing in the space that was between the street and the entrance to the garage, and that was the first time
I can remember seeing him standing between the street which led to me and the world beyond and the entrance to the garage, which held inside it all the darkness of the world when it has been reduced and made small and powered by evil; and at that time I waved to Mr. Potter, for I could see his face (or I could see what I thought was his face, though I never saw his face at all, not then, not later when he was standing in front of me), and I could see his hat sitting on his head just above his face, and he must have had arms and legs and a body to go with all that, and all of these things that made up Mr. Potter to me, this little girl child of four, who was innocent, all of those things made up Mr. Potter to me and I was in a state of ignorance, for I did not know something that was crucial to understanding my position in the world: when I had seen Mr. Potter, standing between the street and the entrance to Mr. Shoul's garage, I had waved at him, I had stood before him and wished him a good morning, and I had said, through gestures only, that he was mine and I was his, that the world, in all its parts, was complicated, with plates beneath its surface shifting and colliding, with vast subterranean cauldrons of steam and gases mixing and then exploding violently through the earth's crust, that the seemingly invisible spaces between two people who shared a common intimate history were impossible to destroy. And when Mr. Potter saw me wave he did not frown
on me, he did not dismiss me with a wave of his hand, he did not curse under his breath my very existence, he only rolled his shoulders, both at the same time, forward and backward, backward and forward, and looked at the spot on the street which I occupied, the street that was filled up with many things, the hustle and bustle of life, the foolish things that make some people's lives laughable and those same foolish things that make some other people's lives a call to death. Not only did he ignore me, he made sure that until the day he died, I did not exist at all. Only waving at him, not crying out of hunger for him, not wanting a roof over my head from him: not anything did I ever come to mean to him, nothing close to his heart did I come to mean to him, and I remember this incident of waving to him because my mother has told me about it and through my mother's words, I have come to see myself waving to Mr. Potter, waving and waving to Mr. Potter as he stood in the space between the openness that was the street and the dark closed space of the garage in which lay all the world of Mr. Shoul, who was from the Lebanon and the areas surrounding that place. And Mr. Potter could not read and he could not write and that time when I stood in the sunlit street waving to him and he refused to see me and then turned and entered the closed dark of Mr. Shoul's garage, I had been sent by my mother to ask him for sixpence to buy a tablet of lined writing paper,
for at four years old I could read and I could write but I did not know that Mr. Potter was not capable of doing so, I did not know Mr. Potter at all. I only waved at him and then he turned his back to me. And all this is what my mother has told me and her name was Annie Victoria Richardson and she was born in Mahaut, Dominica, and she is now dead.
Mr. Shoul's garage, where, lying quietly and so still as if they could never know movement, were Mr. Shoul's cars. And one of them, the navy blue Hillman with brown leather seats, had so often been assigned to Mr. Potter that it was always referred to as “Potter's car,” but it was not Mr. Potter's car, it belonged to Mr. Shoul, this car. And when Mr. Potter sat at the wheel of this car, the navy blue Hillman with brown leather seats, he felt himself one with the car, he felt he possessed the car and that the car possessed him, and the car had no feelings, because a car can never do such a thing, have feelings of any kind, and the car really did belong to Mr. Shoul, and when Mr. Potter felt at one with Mr. Shoul's car, he placed himself with blissful ignorance in Mr. Shoul's possession. “Eh, eh, Potter, me ah tell you” was how Mr. Shoul would greet Mr. Potter as they met so early in the morning in the space that was between the street and the entrance to the garage, and Mr. Shoul greeted Mr. Potter with a warm feeling, a loving feeling, a feeling so expansive and filled up with love that the whole known world could have been healed by it, if only the whole world knew that it needed to be healed by it, this greeting of love and some of its permutations from Mr. Shoul to Mr. Potter. And many years later, many, many years later, when I was about four years old, I saw Mr. Potter standing in the space that was between the street and the entrance to the garage, and that was the first time
I can remember seeing him standing between the street which led to me and the world beyond and the entrance to the garage, which held inside it all the darkness of the world when it has been reduced and made small and powered by evil; and at that time I waved to Mr. Potter, for I could see his face (or I could see what I thought was his face, though I never saw his face at all, not then, not later when he was standing in front of me), and I could see his hat sitting on his head just above his face, and he must have had arms and legs and a body to go with all that, and all of these things that made up Mr. Potter to me, this little girl child of four, who was innocent, all of those things made up Mr. Potter to me and I was in a state of ignorance, for I did not know something that was crucial to understanding my position in the world: when I had seen Mr. Potter, standing between the street and the entrance to Mr. Shoul's garage, I had waved at him, I had stood before him and wished him a good morning, and I had said, through gestures only, that he was mine and I was his, that the world, in all its parts, was complicated, with plates beneath its surface shifting and colliding, with vast subterranean cauldrons of steam and gases mixing and then exploding violently through the earth's crust, that the seemingly invisible spaces between two people who shared a common intimate history were impossible to destroy. And when Mr. Potter saw me wave he did not frown
on me, he did not dismiss me with a wave of his hand, he did not curse under his breath my very existence, he only rolled his shoulders, both at the same time, forward and backward, backward and forward, and looked at the spot on the street which I occupied, the street that was filled up with many things, the hustle and bustle of life, the foolish things that make some people's lives laughable and those same foolish things that make some other people's lives a call to death. Not only did he ignore me, he made sure that until the day he died, I did not exist at all. Only waving at him, not crying out of hunger for him, not wanting a roof over my head from him: not anything did I ever come to mean to him, nothing close to his heart did I come to mean to him, and I remember this incident of waving to him because my mother has told me about it and through my mother's words, I have come to see myself waving to Mr. Potter, waving and waving to Mr. Potter as he stood in the space between the openness that was the street and the dark closed space of the garage in which lay all the world of Mr. Shoul, who was from the Lebanon and the areas surrounding that place. And Mr. Potter could not read and he could not write and that time when I stood in the sunlit street waving to him and he refused to see me and then turned and entered the closed dark of Mr. Shoul's garage, I had been sent by my mother to ask him for sixpence to buy a tablet of lined writing paper,
for at four years old I could read and I could write but I did not know that Mr. Potter was not capable of doing so, I did not know Mr. Potter at all. I only waved at him and then he turned his back to me. And all this is what my mother has told me and her name was Annie Victoria Richardson and she was born in Mahaut, Dominica, and she is now dead.
And all this my mother has told me, all of this my mother has told me, my entire life as I live it is all my mother has told me. She is now dead, she is dead now. There is a wide undulating plateau filled with yellow grass growing thickly and straight up from the moist dark earth, and the yellow grass grows determinedly beneath a clear blue sky and birds are flying and singing in the morning right after they fall out of sleep and then flying and singing in the evening just before they fall into sleep and their sleep is without trouble and this world of undulating plateau filled with yellow grass and moist earth and blue, blue sky and existence without threat is not the world into which I was born. There is a very large room, it is a house really, and this room is filled up with the treasures of the world, maps and jewels and chairs covered in silk and tables made from the trunks of species of trees that are very hard to find and this room is filled with species of people that are very hard to find and animals that can no longer be found and this room is filled with many things that have been subdued and with people who have been
subordinated, and this room is filled with comfort and earthly joy, but I was not born into such a room. I was born in the Holberton Hospital in St. John's, Antigua, on the twenty-fifth of May, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, at five oâclock in the morning. I had by then been in my mother's belly for nine months and I caused her so much discomfort, the nine months I spent in her belly introduced to my mother much pain, a pain she had not known existed or a pain she did not know could exist, and that pain was made up of loving someone whose face was not familiar to her and missing someone whose existence she had not wished for or longed for, and that pain, even as it registered in every part of her body, was also registering somewhere else, somewhere outside her and yet inside her, over there and yet right here, present as if she could touch it, and yet what was it, for it was new and unfamiliar and it came with me, this pain, and the newness of this pain brought a warm feeling and my mother called it love when she could manage it, bear it, and she felt these feelings of pain which she could not control as a violation when she could not manage it, and all of these feelings, love, violation, hatred, came to my mother and they were new to her and I was new to her and as I came into the world on that Wednesday morning at five o'clock so new with that pain, her self, her physical self, being split open, not into two pieces, just her one self being split open, and
I came out of this split and for the rest of her whole life she could not be wholly and only one, just herself, just Annie Victoria Richardson, for the rest of her whole life I stood between her, between this one part that had been split open. And it was through this opening from which I came, this opening that once becoming so could never join up together again, it was because of this opening that an unbridgeable gulf rested between my mother, Annie Victoria Richardson, and myself, and this gulf was not caused by Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter was not central to this gulf, and yet he was an essential element of it, profoundly incidental and so arbitrarily essential, for he was my father. And on that day I was born, at that moment, there existed no love between Mr. Potter and Annie, for she was called only that then, Annie, though later she was called Miss Annie and then Annie Drew, but then she was called Annie, and Annie and Mr. Potter hated each other but it was a hatred with no real consequence for they had done nothing that would result in the death of each other, it was not a hatred with a power to harm either of them, it was only a hatred which caused me much suffering, a hatred which caused Mr. Potter to deny me the protection of his patrimony; a hatred which because I do not know their past as they had lived it together, their past when they had lived it apart from each other, their past when I was just a figure in the distance, a figure
unknown to them; this hatred that existed between them became a part of my own life as I live it even today and I do not understand how this could be so, but it is true all the same. And Mr. Potter had no patrimony for he did not own himself, he had no private thoughts, he had no thoughts of wonder, he did not have a mind's eye in which he could wander, he had no thoughts about his past, his future, and his present which lay in between them bothâhis past and his futureâand he was not ignorant, he was not without a conscience, he could not read and he could not write and he could not render the story of life, his own in particular, with coherency and I can read and I can write and I am his daughter.
subordinated, and this room is filled with comfort and earthly joy, but I was not born into such a room. I was born in the Holberton Hospital in St. John's, Antigua, on the twenty-fifth of May, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, at five oâclock in the morning. I had by then been in my mother's belly for nine months and I caused her so much discomfort, the nine months I spent in her belly introduced to my mother much pain, a pain she had not known existed or a pain she did not know could exist, and that pain was made up of loving someone whose face was not familiar to her and missing someone whose existence she had not wished for or longed for, and that pain, even as it registered in every part of her body, was also registering somewhere else, somewhere outside her and yet inside her, over there and yet right here, present as if she could touch it, and yet what was it, for it was new and unfamiliar and it came with me, this pain, and the newness of this pain brought a warm feeling and my mother called it love when she could manage it, bear it, and she felt these feelings of pain which she could not control as a violation when she could not manage it, and all of these feelings, love, violation, hatred, came to my mother and they were new to her and I was new to her and as I came into the world on that Wednesday morning at five o'clock so new with that pain, her self, her physical self, being split open, not into two pieces, just her one self being split open, and
I came out of this split and for the rest of her whole life she could not be wholly and only one, just herself, just Annie Victoria Richardson, for the rest of her whole life I stood between her, between this one part that had been split open. And it was through this opening from which I came, this opening that once becoming so could never join up together again, it was because of this opening that an unbridgeable gulf rested between my mother, Annie Victoria Richardson, and myself, and this gulf was not caused by Mr. Potter, Mr. Potter was not central to this gulf, and yet he was an essential element of it, profoundly incidental and so arbitrarily essential, for he was my father. And on that day I was born, at that moment, there existed no love between Mr. Potter and Annie, for she was called only that then, Annie, though later she was called Miss Annie and then Annie Drew, but then she was called Annie, and Annie and Mr. Potter hated each other but it was a hatred with no real consequence for they had done nothing that would result in the death of each other, it was not a hatred with a power to harm either of them, it was only a hatred which caused me much suffering, a hatred which caused Mr. Potter to deny me the protection of his patrimony; a hatred which because I do not know their past as they had lived it together, their past when they had lived it apart from each other, their past when I was just a figure in the distance, a figure
unknown to them; this hatred that existed between them became a part of my own life as I live it even today and I do not understand how this could be so, but it is true all the same. And Mr. Potter had no patrimony for he did not own himself, he had no private thoughts, he had no thoughts of wonder, he did not have a mind's eye in which he could wander, he had no thoughts about his past, his future, and his present which lay in between them bothâhis past and his futureâand he was not ignorant, he was not without a conscience, he could not read and he could not write and he could not render the story of life, his own in particular, with coherency and I can read and I can write and I am his daughter.
Other books
Slumbered to Death by Vanessa Gray Bartal
Tempting Donovan Ford by Jennifer McKenzie
Dark Wolf Running (Bloodrunners) by Rhyannon Byrd
All the Dead Fathers by David J. Walker
WALLS OF THE DEAD by MOSIMAN, BILLIE SUE
The Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver
The Empire of Yearning by Oakland Ross
Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
Un trabajo muy sucio by Christopher Moore
Every House Needs a Balcony by Rina Frank
