Bodily Harm (26 page)

“When you can’t get toilet paper,” says Mr. Abbott.

“Or garbage bags,” says his wife. “But we’ll be sorry to leave it.”

“You don’t see many beggars,” says Mr. Abbott, who is looking at something in the harbour through his binoculars. “Not like India.”

“Do you travel a lot?” says Rennie politely.

“We love to travel,” says Mrs. Abbott. “It’s the birding, but we like the people too. Of course with the exchange rate these days it’s not as easy as it used to be.”

“You’re right about that,” says her husband. “The U.S. borrowed too much money. That’s the whole problem in a nutshell. We should stop living beyond our means.”

“He ought to know,” says Mrs. Abbott, proudly and fondly. “He’s a retired bank manager.” Mr. Abbott now has his head tilted back and is looking straight up.

Rennie decides that Lora must be wrong. Surely two such innocuous, kindly, boring people cannot possibly be
CIA
agents. The question is, how can she get rid of them? They appear to have settled in for the afternoon. Rennie waits for the pictures of the grandchildren to make their appearance, out of Mrs. Abbott’s sensible canvas shoulder bag.

“Do you see that man over there?” says Mrs. Abbott, pointing towards the bar, which is more crowded than when Rennie first arrived. Rennie isn’t sure which one, but she nods.

“He’s an international parrot smuggler,” says Mrs. Abbott, dropping her voice.

“A parrot smuggler?” says Rennie faintly.

“Don’t laugh,” says Mrs. Abbott. “It’s a big business. In Germany you can get thirty-five thousand dollars for a mated pair.”

“The Germans have too much money,” says Mr. Abbott. “It’s coming out of their ears. They don’t know what to do with it.”

“It’s the St. Antoine parrot,” says Mrs. Abbott. “They’re very rare, you know. You don’t find them anywhere but on St. Antoine.”

“It’s disgusting,” says Mr. Abbott. “They give them drugs. If I ever caught him with one of those little parrots I’d wring his neck.”

From the horror in their voices, they could be talking about a white-slave ring. Rennie concentrates on taking this seriously.

“How do they smuggle them?” she says.

“On the yachts,” says Mr. Abbott, “like everything else around here. We made it our business to find out about him. He’s not from here, he’s from Trinidad.”

“Then we reported him to the association,” says Mrs. Abbott, pleased. “It didn’t stop him but it slowed him down. He didn’t know
it was us, though. Some of them are dangerous and we really aren’t equipped to deal with that sort of thing.”

“Not at our age,” says Mr. Abbott.

“Which association?” says Rennie.

“The International Parrot Association,” says Mrs. Abbott. “They’re quite good, but they can’t be everywhere at once.”

Rennie figures she’d better have another drink. If surrealism is taking over the world, she might as well enjoy it. She asks the Abbotts if they would like another ginger ale, but they say they’re quite happy. In any case it will soon be dusk.

“Roosting time,” says Mr. Abbott happily, as he stands up.

This is Rennie’s third rum and lime. She’s fuzzy, but not too fuzzy. It’s occurred to her several times that there’s no boat back and she doesn’t have a place to stay. She supposes there’s always the beach.

It isn’t dark yet, but beneath the overhanging porch roof the waitresses are setting the tables for dinner, lighting the candles inside the little red glass chimneys. The tables outside are full now, with yacht people, and the bar is lined with men, brown and black mostly. Some of them look familiar, but maybe they aren’t. She spots a pair of boots, that one she knows anyway, the man with the South American moustache. This time he’s ignoring her. There are a few white men with the leathery dull skin and the dry albino hair of those who spend constant time in the sun.

While she’s walking back from the bar, Dr. Minnow steps onto the patio. He hasn’t come along the beach but down through the garden behind the hotel. He’s with three other men; two of them are wearing T-shirts that say
THE FISH LIVES
, with a picture of a whale, and, underneath,
VOTE JUSTICE PARTY
. The third man is
white and thin; he’s wearing a safari jacket and tinted glasses. He stays a little behind.

Dr. Minnow spots Rennie and comes over to her at once. The two men head for the bar, but the third hesitates a moment and then comes over too.

“Well, my friend,” says Dr. Minnow. “I see you are covering the election after all.” He smiles his crooked smile.

Rennie smiles back. She thinks he’s treating it as a joke now, and she can handle that. “From a bar,” she says. “All good journalists cover elections from bars.”

“I’m told it is the best place,” says Dr. Minnow. His accent is broader here, he’s less controlled. Rennie thinks he’s had a few himself. “Everyone is here. For instance, that is our Minister of Justice over there. He is preparing himself for his defeat.” He laughs. “You will excuse me for talking sedition,” he says to the white man with him. “This is a compatriot of yours, my friend. He is with the Canadian High Commissioner in Barbados; he come here to see why no one attend the diving program sponsored by the sweet Canadians.”

Rennie doesn’t catch the name, it’s something Middle European, she thinks. A multiculturalism functionary. The man shakes her hand.

“I understand you’re a journalist,” he says. He’s nervous.

“I just do food,” says Rennie, to make him feel better. “Things like that.”

“What could be more important?” he says politely. They both sit down.

“I tell you why, my friend,” Dr. Minnow says. “The sweet Canadians wish to teach the fishermen how to dive so they don’t get the bends and come up crippled. What do they do? They hire an expert who comes just at the lobster season when the fishermen all have to be out fishing. That’s the money they live on. There is no
conspiracy, it is all very simple. Tell them next time they should ask first. Ask someone who knows.”

The man smiles and takes out a cigarette, a brown one, and screws it into a black holder. Rennie decides this is pretentious. It embarrasses her that her country’s representative is wearing a safari jacket. Where does he think he is, Africa? He could at least have chosen a different colour: the beige should not wear beige.

“You know what they’re like,” he says. “Governments have to deal with governments in power, which does not always produce the most accurate information.”

“Are you going to win?” Rennie says to Dr. Minnow.

“Yesterday,” Dr. Minnow says conversationally, his eye on the Canadian, “the government offer me a large sum of money to go over to their side. Minister of Tourism, they offer me.”

“I take it you didn’t accept,” says Rennie.

“Why cut your own throat?” says Dr. Minnow, who seems very pleased. “I have not read Machiavelli for nothing. If they offer, it means they are scared, they think they could lose. So I turn them down, and today they are slandering me in a new way. Before it was Castro, now they say I am in the pocket of the Americans and the plantation owners. They should make up their minds, one way or the other. It confuses the people: they may think I am neither, which would be the truth. If we begin to believe the truth here, that would be the end of Ellis, and also of the Prince of Peace, as he calls himself. He think he got the true religion, all right.” He stands up.

“Tomorrow I will make a speech on the problems of garbage collection, among other things,” he says. “It is one of our most urgent problems on these islands, what to do with the garbage. You should attend, my friend.” He bestows one more smile upon Rennie and moves away towards the bar, the neutral-coloured Canadian trailing.

As she’s coming back from the bar again, Rennie sees the two German women climbing the stone steps. The bottoms of their dresses are dripping wet and their hair has come unglued and is hanging in wisps and strands; their faces are dangerously pink. They seem to have abandoned their suitcases. One of them is supporting the other, who is limping and uttering little shrieks of pain. Both have been crying, but as they enter the bar and the ring of curious faces that quickly surrounds them, they pull themselves together. Someone offers a chair.

“What on earth?” says Rennie, to no one in particular. Everyone in the place is peering at the German woman’s foot, plump and white and pink-toed, stuffed-looking, which her friend holds up like a trophy.

“She stepped on a sea urchin,” says Lora, who’s back again. “They always do it, they should watch where they’re going. It hurts at first but it’s no big deal.”

The woman is lying back with her eyes closed; her foot sticks straight out. After a few minutes Elva comes through the doorway that leads to the kitchen; she no longer has the box, she’s wearing a red and white checked apron and carrying a lime and a candle. She kneels in front of the outstretched foot, appropriates it, peers at the toes. Then she begins rubbing with the cut lime. The German woman screams.

“Keep still,” says Elva. “It nothin’. This will be gone tomorrow.”

“Can you not take them out?” says the other woman. She’s anxious, she’s almost incoherent. This is not according to schedule.

“They break off and poison you,” Elva says. “You got matches?”

There’s no doubt who’s in charge. Someone from the circle produces a box of matches and Elva lights the candle. She tilts it and drops the hot wax over the toes, rubbing it in. “You should of pee on it,” she says to the other woman. “When this happen here,
the boy pee on the girl’s foot or the girl pee on the boy’s. That take away the pain.”

The German woman opens her eyes and gazes at Elva. Rennie recognizes the look, it’s a look you can give only to a foreigner, a look of hope, a desperate clinging to the illusion that it’s all a translation problem and you haven’t really heard what you know you’ve just heard.

Several people laugh, but not Elva. She’s got the other foot now, the uninjured one, she’s digging her thumbs into it. The German woman gasps and looks around for help: she’s been invaded, this is the wrong foot. She has the controlled, appalled expression of a visiting duchess who knows she must not openly disparage the local customs, however painful or revolting.

Elva digs harder. She’s smug now, she has an audience, she’s enjoying herself. “Your veins block,” she says. “I unblock your veins, the blood carry the poison away.”

“I wouldn’t let her near me,” says Lora. “She’s got thumbs like hammers. She’ll total your back as soon as look at you. She says she can cure just about anything but I’d rather be sick, thank you very much.”

There’s an audible snapping sound; the tendons, Rennie thinks. The German woman’s face is twisted, her eyes are screwed up, she’s not going to yell or moan, she’s determined to preserve her dignity. “You hear the veins cryin’ out?” says Elva. “That the gas, movin’ in them. You feel lighter?”

“There’s no rooms,” Lora says to Rennie. “It’s full up, it’s the election.”

“Maybe I should phone the other hotels,” says Rennie, who is still watching Elva.

“Phone?” says Lora. “Other hotels?” She laughs a little.

“There aren’t any other hotels?” says Rennie.

“There used to be,” says Lora, “but they’re closed down now. There’s one for the locals, but I wouldn’t stay there. A girl could get seriously misunderstood. I’ll try somewhere else for you.”

“It in the hands,” says Elva to the onlookers. “It a gift, I have it from my grandmother, she give me that when I small. She pass it to me. You feel this lump?”

The German woman nods. She’s still wincing, but not as much.

“Your mama give you a blow when you small,” Elva says. “You too small that time, you don’t remember. The blood lie down, it make a lump. Now it have to move or the poison grow into a cancer.” She digs in both thumbs again. “The pain is your youth, risin’ up now.”

“The old fake,” says Lora. “Give her a tourist and she’s happy as a pig in shit. Even if they don’t believe her they have to act like they do. There’s no doctor around here anyway, so they don’t have a whole lot of choice; if you sprain your ankle it’s her or nothing.”

“I think this is maybe enough,” says the other woman, who’s been hovering around like a concerned parent.