Caryl Phillips: Crossing the River

I was in the kitchen, wringing out clothes in the sink. I happened to glance up. I saw him, standing at the front gate. I knew that it was him. I knew that one day he would come looking. That he would find me. I could hear myself breathing. But apart from this, I was calm. I surprised myself. He had a piece of paper in his hand that he kept glancing at. Then he’d look back up at the house, then back down at the paper. Then he pushed the paper into his pocket. Alan was at work, and the kids wouldn’t be back from school until four o’clock. The first thing that occurred to me was that he’d chosen his time well. That maybe he’d planned it all right down to the last detail. I looked at his hair. It was too short to be styled into that greasy Teddy Boy look. I hated that look. He unlatched the gate and began to walk up the path. I wasn’t going to be able to pretend that I wasn’t in. I waited until he’d knocked once. Then when he knocked a second time I went to the door and opened it. We stood and looked at each other, me drying my hands on a tea towel. My God, he was handsome. Come in. He seemed shy. Come in, come in. He stepped by me, dipping a shoulder as he did so in order that we didn’t have to touch. I closed in the door but for a moment I didn’t turn around. I was ashamed. I wasn’t ready. Standing there in a plain dress, with my lank hair, and my bare legs, and my slippers looking like the left-over scraps from somebody’s fluffy rug. Forty-five years old, and I knew I looked awful, but there wasn’t any time to fret over appearances. Not now. I took a deep breath and turned to face him. I almost said make yourself at home, but I didn’t. At least I avoided that. Sit down. Please, sit down.

I hear a drum beating on the far bank of the river. A breeze stirs and catches it. The resonant pounding is borne on the wind, carried high above the roof-tops, across the water, above the hinterland, high above the tree-tops, before its beat plunges down and into the interior. I wait. And then listen as the many-tongued chorus of the common memory begins again to swell, and insist that I acknowledge greetings from those who lever pints of ale in the pubs of London. Receive salutations from those who submit to (what the French call) neurotic inter-racial urges in the boulevards of Paris. (‘No first-class nation can afford to produce a race of mongrels.’) But my Joyce, and my other children, their voices hurt but determined, they will survive the hardships of the far bank. Only if they panic will they break their wrists and ankles against Captain Hamilton’s instruments. Put 2 in irons and delicately in the thumbscrews to encourage them to a full confession of those principally involved. In the evening put 5 more in neck-yokes . Survivors all. In Brooklyn a helplessly addicted mother waits for the mist to clear from her eyes. They have stopped her benefit. She lives now without the comfort of religion, electricity, or money. A barefoot boy in São Paulo is rooted to his piece of the earth, which he knows will never swell up, pregnant, and become a vantage point from which he will be able to see beyond his dying favela . In Santo Domingo, a child suffers the hateful hot comb, the dark half-moons of history heavy beneath each eye. A mother watches. Her eleven-year-old daughter is preparing herself for yet another night of premature prostitution. Survivors. In their diasporan souls a dream like steel. I praise His holy name that I was fortunate enough to be born in a Christian country, amongst Christian parents and friends, and that you were kind enough to take me, a foolish child, from my parents and bring me up in your own dwelling as something more akin to son than servant. Truth and honesty is great capital, and you instilled such values in my person at an early age, for which I am eternally grateful to you and my Creator . Enduring cities which whisper falsehoods through perfectly shaped wooden lips. A dream began to wash through her mind. Martha dreamed that she had traveled on west to California, by herself, and clutching her bundle of clothing. Once there she was met by Eliza Mae, who was now a tall, sturdy colored woman of some social standing. Together, they tip-toed their way through the mire of the streets to Eliza Mae’s residence, which stood on a fine, broad avenue . For two hundred and fifty years I have listened. To voices in the streets of Charleston. (The slave who mounted this block is now dying young from copping a fix on some rusty needle in an Oakland project.) I have listened. To reggae rhythms of rebellion and revolution dipping through the hills and valleys of the Caribbean. I have listened. To the saxophone player on a wintry night in Stockholm. A long way from home. For two hundred and fifty years I have listened. To my Nash. My Martha. My Travis. Joyce. That was all he said. Just, Joyce. I could see now the gap in the middle of his teeth. At the bottom. And then he reached out and pulled me towards him. I couldn’t believe it. He’d come back to me. He really wanted me. That day, crying on the platform, safe in Travis’s arms . For two hundred and fifty years I have listened. To the haunting voices. Singing: Mercy, Mercy Me. (The Ecology.) Insisting: Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong. Declaring: Brothers and Friends. I am Toussaint L’Ouverture, my name is perhaps known to you. Listened to: Papa Doc. Baby Doc. Listened to voices hoping for: Freedom. Democracy. Singing: Baby, baby. Where did our love go? Samba. Calypso. Jazz. Jazz. Sketches of Spain in Harlem. In a Parisian bookstore a voice murmurs the words. Nobody Knows My Name. I have listened to the voice that cried: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have listened to the sounds of an African carnival in Trinidad. In Rio. In New Orleans. On the far bank of the river, a drum continues to be beaten. A many-tongued chorus continues to swell. And I hope that amongst these survivors’ voices I might occasionally hear those of my own children. My Nash. My Martha. My Travis. My daughter. Joyce. All. Hurt but determined. Only if they panic will they break their wrists and ankles against Captain Hamilton’s instruments. A guilty father. Always listening. There are no paths in water. No signposts. There is no return. A desperate foolishness. The crops failed. I sold my beloved children. Bought 2 strong man-boys, and a proud girl . But they arrived on the far bank of the river, loved.