Oonya Kempadoo - All Decent Animals

Sam pull out onto Wrightson Road. Some of the construction workers out, big cranes moving. Soon all this place here will be the International Waterfront. And all them big-shot offices go rush to move into them fancy skyscrapers. Is skyscrapers he have to call them ’cause that is what they going to be, taller than the ones already marking town, twenty-six stories, they say. They go add more shiny glass and glitter for sure, more cityness. Sam don’t know how the traffic going to work but he thinking now, design is a helluva thing. It could change things one-time, forever. So easy. Waterfront, walkway with café, and what they say again? “Outdoor cultural amphitheater” and “communal space to enjoy the vast views.” It go be well light-up and patrol too. Town, eh. Is what really does make town a city? ’Cause is the city of Port’a Spain.

Right now, though, looping back to go to Independence Square, people clearing up the leftovers of the madness that had ramsack these same roads for two days running. Painting over ole-oil mess and taking down shop-front barricades. Just so Sam feel. This must be how it does be, when you putting back things in order after a hurricane or a war.

* * *

Pierre finds Moussey at her U.N. desk when he pops in to pick up some documents. She jumps, as if caught eating crumbs.

“How come you’re here today? The place is empty.”

She blushes and ducks from the big compliment. “Everybody is not like one another, yuh know, Mr. Lacroix.”

“I’m not staying,” he says.

In his office, he picks up a folder with his notes from the last meeting and remembers the big distraction at the end of it — progress on the new plans for Port of Spain. As he leaves the building, he looks for the name of the street, the sign. But this signpost is empty. All the streets and major road signs were to be redone in two languages, English and Spanish. Not because of a desire to do business with Venezuela or Latin America, but because any world-class city must have bilingual signage. A high-speed ferry from San Fernando to the city, and a monorail, would move them from developing country to developed. Some were looking forward and everyone agrees these are at least some of the better plans.

The time was coming to renew his contract — or not. Pierre thinks about this as he drives. The Savannah is a sea of quickly disappearing litter. The municipal authorities are pretty good at clearing up immediately. By afternoon every speck will be gone and then they’ll start dismantling the stalls and the treacherous North Stand. A worker lifts a large net-and-feather back piece and throws it into the chewing dump truck. He remembers Ata always answering his questions with more questions. Who has the space to keep the costume remnants, anyway? And what if half of this effort could be channeled into less waste, more necessary things? But wasn’t this temporariness and constant change the very essence of this island’s history and culture?

Pierre had seen the blueprint for the Academy for the Performing Arts to be built right on the square of green near the museum. “Copulating slugs,” Slinger had aptly described the heavy representation of the national chaconia flower. State of the art and seating for fifteen hundred. Everything was set to become “state of the art”—lighting, acoustics, accommodation. And the Carnival and Entertainment Centre for the Savannah, to seat fifteen to eighteen thousand. What wealth. It was to be completed without any consultation with the performing artists themselves. And for all the U.N.’s “participatory approach” and “good governance” support, they were as ineffective as the uncoordinated small protests from the artist community. Why bother, Pierre asks himself, when — he was constantly reminded and knew for himself that this was not his battle — he is a white foreigner? Dear old Fraser himself had washed his hands of the Vision 2020 plans. He was horrified and then a little pleased when he discovered that after rejecting his proposal they had used some of his elements in the new Breakfast Shed building. “The t’iefing fools can only bastardize things,” he grumbled.

But at the same time he had begun to suspect his own fine art was better than his architectural design. His sketches for the waterfront development were more than impressions, they were wonderful inky pieces on their own. Fraser’s way with a brush or marker was a thing of great talent. It was a type of talent he, Pierre, could understand and respect.

That was the last good conversation he had had with Fraser, before this deterioration. They had gone down to see the refitting work on the tiny basement flat and he had opened up then. Quietly, knowing that Pierre truly appreciated, and always remarked on, his sketches more than others. He had confessed his doubts about becoming a great architect. It wasn’t just the weariness of battling with the planners or convincing clients to stretch their vision. He thought that, maybe, he could be happy living cheaply in his own little grotto, just painting and drawing. He could survive off the rent of the rest of the place. He had seriously wondered if he wouldn’t find more peace from doing that, and freedom, than fighting up with the burden of his practice and the restrictions of design. He had asked Pierre, though, never to mention it to anyone else. It would damage his reputation as the most distinctive and promising contemporary architect and scare off prospective big clients. That’s why it was a confession — he couldn’t dare acknowledge it even to himself.

Pierre had encouraged him then to think about it some more, as mad as it might seem, to put aside old expectations and any disappointments and maybe … The brevity of his life now had cut them off. It put aside that brief illuminating conversation, folded it like a piece of a sad letter, and placed it under a brick being laid in the wall. Fraser wasn’t even attempting to sketch, since his first hospital days.

* * *

At home, Pierre finds Ata sitting in the shade by the pool, looking out. She looks so small and frail and displaced. He sits next to her, puts an arm around her shoulder, but doesn’t know what to say. The same as with Fraser. And sometimes Pierre thinks Fraser understands, that he feels his empathy, but other times it looks like he was hurt by it. Pierre tries to reassure himself that because of Fraser’s understanding of British ways, he knows he is there for him from a distance. Ata sometimes helps him to remember this.

Her discomfort flitters like the light bouncing off the water on her skin. Unreachable nonfragrance of the yellow false-poui. She touches his leg and says thanks with her eyes. Her eyes also say she wants to sit there some more, alone with the lostness.

THE INSIGNIFICANT FRUIT catches blight on the tree. And all sugar apple trees are full of black biting ants. But the measly trees bear bountifully, and the birds, bats, rats, children — and a few adults — enjoy sugar apples. Fraser is one of these adults, and Ata shares the little joy with him, late morning. Trying hard to be in his true form, he couldn’t just like sugar apples, he claims he loves them.

“You see that is exactly it,” Fraser launches off, breaking open his sugar apple over the plate on his lap. “That’s the difference between tropical and temperate, the wild and exuberant exotic and the controlled and logical North.”

“Too messy and too many seeds. Too sweet,” Pierre had said when Ata introduced him to the fruit. He didn’t like the bumpy, crusty skin either.

Ata eases off a piece of the soft apple-sized fruit and sucks off the flesh-covered seeds. The fingernail-sized segments of crust fall apart in her hand. Fraser tries scooping the white flesh into his fingers to avoid the disintegration mid-lifting action. The juicy blebs slip out of his fingers smooth as tadpoles.