Divina Trace - Softcover

For Marķa Rosario de Medina Antoni 1891-1986

DOMINGO FAMILY

I

FROGCHILD ON THE DAY OF CORPUS CHRISTI

1

Granny Myna Tells of the Child

THE BOTTLE was big and obzockee. I was having a hard time toting it. It was the day before my thirteenth birthday, seventy-seven years ago: tomorrow I will be ninety years of age. I am still a practising physician, and as I sit here in this library, at this desk of my father’s, of my father’s father – lugged as a trunk of purpleheart wood by six Warrahoon Indians out of the misty jungles of Venezuela, floated down the Orinoco and towed across the Caribbean behind three rowing pirogues, my grandfather calling the cadence stroke by stroke in a language nearly forgotten – I can still hear him, sitting behind this desk, looking out of this window at this moon above the same black, glistening sea. I can still hear him. I know my grandfather’s voice, even though he died ages before I was born. Even though I could not remember who told the story or when I’d heard it, nor did I know what those words meant or whether they were words at all, as I carried the huge glassbottle my steps suddenly fell into the rhythm of his voice: Na-me-na-na-ha! Na-me-na-na-ha! Na-me-na-na-ha!

I was bareback, wearing only my baggy school short-pants and my old jesusboots, so skinny my navel stuck out in a tight knot. I held the bottle against my chest. My arms were wrapped around it, my fingers cupped into the hollow of the bottom, the top butting up my chin with every step. I couldn’t look down, so I didn’t have to see what I knew was inside. It was a very old bottle, the kind used to preserve fruit, made of thick glass with wire clamps to hold down its glass lid. I was sweating. My stomach kept sticking to the bottle. My bung navel rubbed against the glass, sometimes pinching and sending a shock down my legs to my toes. I sucked in my belly as I walked.

The sun was already rising behind me, rising with the dust stirred up by my hurrying feet. I was thinking: Maraval must be ten mile from Domingo Cemetery at least. How you could foot it there and back in time? Thinking: Ten mile from Domingo Cemetery to Maraval Swamp fa the least. Daddy ga box you ears fa true if you don’t get back in time. This bottle heavy like a boulderstone. And these arms only crying to drop off. But how you could stop to put it down?

There were no people yet on the trace, only some potcakes curled up among the weeds pushing out in the middle, and a few old billies on their way to pasture, lengths of twisted rotten cord dragging behind them. They were as tall as I was, and they came at me snuffling, pressing their bearded faces into mine, staring at me through silver eyes from another world. I kicked them away, thinking: How she could be dead if she eyes aren’t closed? But if she isn’t dead, and you are home in you bed dreaming all this, then how you could be tired toting this bottle? Thinking: You know they ga start with the funeral first thing as she was so hurry hurry. So you best just keep on walking, and don’t even bother templating bout stopping to put it down to waste no time, and anyway you don’t want to have to look at he face neither.

There were small villages along Divina Trace, the footpath which began behind the convent, weaving its way through tenements in the outskirts of St Maggy, and passing behind the graveyard. Then it stretched out through cocoa and coconut estates in the country, cane-fields, finally ending with the Church of Magdalena Divina at the edge of Maraval Swamp. Now, outside of town, the trace curved through bush – with the shanties and roukou-scrubbed mudhuts half-hidden behind giant tufts of bamboo, schools of yardfowl scurrying in dust-waves as I approached, the odours of cooking coalpots, stench of rubbish – unless the trace traversed one of the estates. Then it ran straight, mossy grey cocoa trees on either side, with nutmeg or brilliant orange immortelle in between to shade them from the sun. Otherwise the trace passed among thick groves of coconut palms, their fronds rustling in the breeze high above, or it would be closed in by purple walls of cane, the air sweet-smelling, charred if the field had been scorched to scare out the scorpions for harvest. There were hills from which the mountains could be seen at one horizon, hot black sea at the other.

I’d been to Maraval Swamp many times before, but I didn’t want to believe it was ten miles away. I kept thinking: Maybe it’s not so far as that? You know it is ten mile at least. How many times you been to the church with Mother Maurina and the whole of St Maggy Provisional to see the walking statue and hear bout the Black Virgin? How many times you been to the swamp with Papee Vince and the whole of form three science to collect specimens fa dissections? With daddy and all five troups of seascouts to catch jumping frogs fa the summer jamboree? Thinking: You know it is ten mile fa the least. How many times you been with you jacks to catch guanas to pope them off on the Indians by Suparee fa fifty cent fa each? Running and grabbing them up quick by they tails and swinging them round and round until they heads kaponkle, and they drop boodoops sweet in the crocasssack! And the time you get a dollar fa that big big one, and you eat so many julie-mangoes fa that dollar you belly wanted to bust froopoops! How them coolies and Warrahoons could eat them things? But Granny Myna say Barto used to eat guana all the time in Venezuela when they was first married, and they had the cattle ranch in Estado Monagas where daddy was born. And the time Barto try to bring one inside and she chase him out with he own cutlass, because one thing Granny Myna wouldn’t stand in the house is no kind of creature curse to walk on he belly, and it is from eating that nastiness that kill Barto young so. But daddy say a Warrahoon bring him a stew guana to the hospital once, and he couldn’t tell the difference from fricassee chicken.

I didn’t want to think about the contents of the bottle, about the ten miles ahead, and I didn’t want to think about getting back too late for the funeral. I’d been up the whole night, and I was already tired carrying the bottle. I’d only just left the cemetery. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep that night, turning in my bed thinking about old Granny Myna. She’d told me a story once about a frog she’d seen suck out the eye of a woman in Wallafield, and I could not dissolve from my mind the image of this woman struggling with the huge, white frog. It was one of those flying frogs, and the woman had been sitting good as ever beneath a tamarind tree. As soon as she looked up the frog flew out and stuck frapps to her face. Granny Myna told me it took two big men to pull off this frog, and when he came off the eye came out too. She said that if Barto had not been there to pick up the eye from out the mud, to spit on it and rub off the mud and push it back in, the woman would have walked away from that frog without an eye.

It was not unusual for me to awaken in the middle of the night and begin thinking of Granny Myna and one of her stories, but I remember this time I could not put her and the frog out of my mind. My grandmother was ninety-six, always talking about dying, yet Granny Myna had never known a sick day in her life, and I was convinced she’d live forever. I couldn’t fall asleep, so I woke up my younger brother to ask him about the woman from Wallafield. He cussed me and rolled over again. I remember I lay there listening to the oscillating fan, its noise growing louder with each pass, until it seemed to be screaming in my ears. I threw off the sheet and jumped out of bed. I pulled on my shorts, buckled on my jesusboots, and walked quietly down the hall. Papee Vince, my grandfather on my mother’s side, had his room at the end. I hurried past and on down the stairs. Granny Myna’s door was open, so I stuck my head in. She was sitting up in her bed waiting. I went and sat beside her. She looked at me for a long time, reached across me to put her gold rosary down on the bedstand, and she began to talk.

HE WAS BORN a man, but above he cojones he was a frog. It happen so, because Magdalena Domingo was a whore, and a black bitch, and on top of that she was a bad woman. Magdalena make this practice of going every Sunday to Maraval Swamp, because I used to follow her and sometimes she would meet there with Barto beneath the samaan tree, she go to Maraval Swamp because she like to watch the crapos singando. Magdalena just love to see the frogs fucking, and is that she must have been looking the moment she conceive the child, because Barto used the same principle to create a zebra from two donkeys by putting them to do they business in a room he have paint with stripes. So too again everybody take you daddy for another St John, because above my bed I have the picture hanging with him still smiling happy on the dishplate that I used to look up at it in all my moments of passion, and that is why you daddy have that same crease right here in the middle of he forehead, and how else could it be you daddy is the only Domingo with those eyes always watching you just like St John? You see how Papa God does do He work? In the same way Magdalena make that child with the face of a frog to mimic she own, and with the cojones of every man on this island of Corpus Christi!

When Dr Brito Salizar see this child coming out, he only want to push it back inside Magdalena pussy and hide it from the rest of the world. Dr Brito know nothing good could come from this child that is the living sin of all the earth. Because it take Magdalena only one look in the face of this frogchild to kill sheself dead: she press the pillow and hold up she breath until she suffocate. By the time Dr Brito have realize and cut the pillow from out she lock up jaws she was already dead. Feathers was gusting back and forth in that little hospital room like a blizzard. Dr Brito blow into the air before him to clear way the floating feathers, he cross heself, and Dr Brito open he mouth wide to bend over to bite off the cordstring from the belly of this crapochild to join the world of the living with the world of the dead for the whole of eternity!

That night there was such a great rain that the Caronee have overflow sheself, and the next morning there was cocodrilles in the streets and the basements of all the houses. So when Barto arrive now dress in mud up to he cojones, and holding this shoebox in he hands, I grab on to he moustache and I put one cursing on him to say he is never coming inside the house with that crapochild! But Barto is a man that nobody couldn’t tell him nothing once he have make up he head, and he don’t pay no attention a-tall never mind my bawling to break down the roof. I tell him Papa God will kill him and all of us too if he try to bring that crapochild inside, but Barto can’t even hear, because he walk straight through the front door and he put this shoebox down in the middle of the diningroom table. And if I would have give Barto only half a chance, he would have lay this frogchild right down next to Amadao who is sleeping in my bedroom in the crib, born no even six months before.

Well Evelina, she is the servant living with me even in those days, just a little negrita running round the estate when she mummy dead and I take her up, Evelina only have to hear about this crapochild coming inside the house, and she start to beat she breast and shout one set of Creole-obeah bubball on the child, and she run quick to she room to bury sheself beneath the bed. Reggie and Paco, they is the last of the nine boys before Amadao sleeping in the cradle, Reggie and Paco come running to Barto to question him where do he find this chuffchuff frog, and could they please take him in the yard to find out how good can he jump. But Barto only have to make one cuteye on these boys for them to know he is no skylarking, and little Reggie and Paco take off running and we don’t see them again until late in the night. As for me now, after a time I have quiet down little bit and Barto turn to me, because of course at this time I am still nursing Amadao, and he want to know now if I am ready to feed he Manuelito, which is the name Barto pronounce on the child official with salt and water. Sweet heart of Jesus! I look Barto straight in he eyes, and I tell him if he only bring that crapochild anywhere near by me, I will squeeze he cojones so hard they will give off milk like two balls of cheese, and he could feed that to he pendejo frogchild!

But nothing couldn’t stop Barto. Like he want to take on Papa God self. Because next thing I see he have pick up he revolver again to protect against the cocodrilles, and he go outside to the shed for the big cow that we have there by the name of Rosey. And this Rosey have been with us so many years that she have come tame tame, that the boys used to ride her all about the place like a horse, and we have to be very careful no to leave a plantain or anything so on the table, because soon as you turn round she would push she head in through the window and carry it way. So here is me now only standing up like a mokojumbie watching at Barto leading this cow through the mud that is high as Rosey belly, and Barto carry her straight through the entrance hall into the diningroom up on top the table. Oui Papayo! Well now I know I am soon to go viekeevie!

Barto leave Rosey there just so, and he gone to the sea for a bucket of water to wipe off the mud from Rosey pechugas. But when Barto pick up this frogchild out the shoebox, and I have a good look at this frogchild face for the first time, I take off with one set of bawling again because you never see no creature on the skin of Papa God earth so ugly as that! Even Rosey have to jump when she see this crapochild, and Barto have to hold her down to keep her from bolting out the door. But nothing couldn’t stop Barto once he have make up he head, because next thing I see he is untying the cowboy kerchief from round he neck, and he fix it to hide poor Rosey eyes. In no time a-tall she have calm down again, and Barto is holding this crapochild below her with the tottot in the big frogmouth, and he is sucking down milk that is spilling all over the ugly frogface, and he is talking one set of froglanguage like oy-juga oy-juga oy-juga!

That night I am in my bed trying my best to sleep with all this confusion going on in the house, and Barto come inside the room, because Barto used to keep he own bedroom upstairs, in the one you mummy and daddy use now, he come inside the room just here at the end of this bed pointing he revolver at me with he eyes only spitting fire, demanding to know what have I do with he Manuelito. Sweet heart of Jesus! I answer him that this frogchild have make he brain viekeevie now for true, because is no me a-tall to touch that crapochild no even until the ends of the earth, and if he have disappear I don’t know nothing as the last I see him he is still sleeping happy in he shoebox cradle in the middle of the diningroom table. But Barto have reach into a state now over this crapochild, so I decide to go and wake up Evelina and the two of us begin to ransack the house, looking in all the drawers and beneath the beds and all about for this child, that we can’t find him nowhere a-tall and we don’t know what we will do. Just then I hear Evelina scream someplace outside, and I take off running to find her there by the pond for all the ducks to come and bathe theyself, there standing up w...