Caribbean (137 page)

“A hilarious contretemps, really, except that it’s so damned important,” but before he could elaborate they were at the entrance to Casa Blanca, the exquisite mansion long held by the descendants of Ponce de León, who represented the acme of Spanish society and influence. It was perched atop a small mound that commanded the beautiful bay, El Morro and the principal buildings of the colonial era. When Americans assumed ownership of the island in 1898 they chose Casa Blanca as the residence for their military commanders, but after 1967 all evidence that they had ever set foot in the place was obliterated, and Casa Blanca became once more a Spanish mansion.

It was a stunning building, with massive white walls, cool patios, windows guarded by beautifully carved wooden spindles and floors of dark blood-red tiles in various shapes. It was a noble house and it breathed Hispanic values, but Thérèse was not allowed to savor it, for even though it was now only seven in the morning, four representatives of the United States delegation were waiting to brief her on the day’s events.

Said the chairman: “It would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetic.
Spain and the United States will be putting up most of the money for the Columbus celebrations, which should be a glorious affair.”

“Certainly, those two nations can’t be feuding,” Thérèse said, whereupon the delegates burst into laughter.

“Oh, you’re so naïve you’re wonderful. Spain and the U.S. are at each other’s throats. Spain wants this to be a celebration of Spanish contributions to the New World.”

“I see nothing wrong with that.”

“But Congress, which designated the members of our delegation …”

“I thought you were our members.”

“No, we’re just the supporting staff. The members have gone home in a terrible huff.”

“Why?”

“The Italian contingent in Congress, and it’s powerful, sent down a delegation one-hundred-percent Italian. New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, leader types, and they were determined to use the Columbus affair to prove that it was Italy that had found the New World and given it the big push toward a wonderful civilization. To hear their plans, there couldn’t have been any Spaniards aboard the three ships.”

“Did Columbus think of himself as Italian?”

“Never wrote a word in that language, so far as we can find. Operationally, pure Spaniard.”

“So what happened?”

“The other nations, laughing disgracefully, would not allow the American Italians to be seated.”

“Did that solve anything?”

“Well, it got rid of our delegation, and maybe the funds which Congress was prepared to authorize, but the Spanish-speaking nations said: ‘Good riddance. We’re not going to pervert history to please the American Congress.’ ”

“So the Spaniards won?”

“Not really, because when they started to take command, to make it a great Spanish fiesta celebrating the fact that Queen Isabella …”

A counselor to the mission, a distinguished scholar from Stanford, broke in: “The real trouble started with that unfortunate word
discovered
. Nations of Central and South America, especially Mexico and Peru, had sent Indian delegates, who cried: ‘Hey, wait a minute!
Nobody
discovered
anything, neither Italian or Spanish. We were already here and were doing rather well. Whoever Columbus might have been, he
visited
us, he didn’t
discover
us. Let’s celebrate this as an important visit.’ ”

“I see some merit in the argument,” Thérèse said, and then, focusing his attention on her, the chairman said: “This is where you come in. Because after the Italians, the Spaniards and the local Indians had finished registering their claims, the black rulers of the Caribbean islands pointed out, quite correctly I believe, that in the Caribbean generally for the last three hundred years it’s been the blacks who have really counted—grew the cane, made the sugar, distilled the rum, grew the tobacco and tended the cotton. They insisted: ‘It should be a celebration of what the blacks of Africa have achieved in the islands Columbus found,’ and since we had no black member of our group to talk with them, they ignored us.”

It was now heading for eight-thirty, when the day’s plenary session was to begin, and final instructions were heaped upon Thérèse, who said, in response to questions: “Yes, my ancestors were slaves on St. John and later heavily involved in Haiti’s fight for freedom. You might say that had I been in attendance at the earlier sessions, I would have supported the black leaders.”

“Excellent. Represent us as ably as you can.”

“Specific instructions?”

“Fraternize, listen, encourage. And above all, let them know they have a friend in America. We hope you can help us salvage something out of this mess.”

It was a day of tropical brilliance, spent in a house whose every aspect recalled those earlier days when men of good will had sat in this white house plotting steps to defeat English villains like Drake and Morgan, forestall Admiral Vernon at Cartagena, and import fresh supplies of slaves on the yearly commercial armada from Africa. There was not even a shadow across the tiled floor to remind anyone that American military officers from states like Kansas and New Hampshire had ever ruled Puerto Rico from these halls, or that the island was now an integral part of the United States. Here, Spain still ruled emotionally.

Thérèse felt that she was achieving little for her government because the delegates from the Caribbean islands spoke so often and so forcefully that she was required to say nothing, but members of the American team assured her: “Your presence is worth two battalions.
Word is circulating. They realize we cared enough to send for you. Sit with them at lunch and let them know your feelings.”

She did so, and when she conversed with these intelligent men and women from Barbados and Antigua and Jamaica and Guadeloupe, she felt an affinity of interest and outlook that ran deep in their consciousness and hers. At several points she cried: “I know just what you mean!” and her enthusiasm was so real that they began to ask her what she did in the United States, and to her surprise she found herself talking about her appointment to Wellesley.

“Is that an important college?” a black from Trinidad asked, and a young woman from St. Kitts cried: “A university, and one of the best. In many respects equal to Yale.”

Later Thérèse could not recall how she happened to reveal that she was engaged to a white man, but when a contentious delegate from St. Lucia asked: “Does that mean you’ll be abandoning your black heritage?” she replied sharply: “The name of the course I’ll be teaching is ‘Black Societies in the Caribbean,’ and it will draw me ever closer to you.”

Late in the afternoon, after some prompting from her chairman, she asked for the floor, and said: “The United States would look with favor upon any kind of exhibition or celebration which would emphasize the considerable contribution to Caribbean culture, economics and government made by the African slaves and their descendants, of which I’m one.”

The group then turned to the delicate problem of how it could best lure the American Italian delegation back to the conference without surrendering the meeting to them, but since Thérèse had to hurry back to the
Galante
before it sailed for the American Virgins, she did not learn whether this attempt at reconciliation worked or not.

That night the Swedish captain stepped before the screen prior to the start of the movie to announce: “We’re sailing with an extraordinary group of lecturers, and if you four will join me, I’d like to make some fascinating introductions.” When they stood self-consciously beside him, he said: “Professor Vaval is not only charming, as you’ve discovered, but she is also a distinguished Haitian. Her ancestor General Vaval helped defeat Napoleon, another served as president, another was a trusted leader under the Americans. You can believe what she
says.” He then moved Dr. Carlos Ledesma forward and said: “This fine scholar is not only one of the most brilliant men in Colombia, but also the descendant of a great Spanish leader who dueled for forty years or more with Sir Francis Drake and won more often than he lost. Other Ledesmas governed Cartagena, where we will end our cruise, with distinction, one of them being a hero of the battle against Old Grog Vernon that you’ll be hearing about.”

Now Senator Maxim Lanzerac of Guadeloupe stepped forward: “And this fine politician will within the next few days be telling you about a sweetheart of a fellow who came out from France with a neat little machine that chopped off people’s heads, and one of the first to go was a Royalist called Lanzerac, ancestor of our speaker, who now strives to see that such things don’t happen again.” He ended with a graceful statement: “So we’re not only sailing in the Caribbean, we’re bringing it with us,” and the voyage became doubly meaningful.

When the fourth lecturer joined the captain, Thérèse realized that she had not known he was aboard or in any way connected with the floating university. He was a white man, in his sixties, gray-haired, slightly stooped and with the relaxed, pleasant face of one who had never participated in the aggressiveness of either business or university life. He had apparently determined his level early in life and found satisfaction in it. “This is Master Michael Carmody, a distinguished scholar from Queen’s Own College in Trinidad,” the captain said, “and he will give a series of six lectures, four of them prior to our visit there. Listen attentively, for he will introduce us to his fascinating island, unique in the Caribbean, half blacks from Africa, half Indians from Asia.”

As the speech ended, Thérèse moved across the salon to introduce herself to the new man, and when she heard his magical voice she said: “You must be Irish,” and he replied: “Long ago.”

“I hope you’ll allow me to audit your lectures. I teach Caribbean history and my knowledge of Trinidad is inadequate.”

“They’re not lectures, really. Reflections, ruminations.”

“That’s where learning begins. The raw data about the island I already have, it’s the ruminations and reflections that I need,” and they spent the balance of the evening in the pleasant way that he, using an old English phrase, described as “discussing a rum punch.”

Next day, Wednesday, February 1, was one of intense involvement for Thérèse, for as she left the ship in Charlotte Amalie, capital of the American Virgin Islands, a bicycle gang swooped down upon
her and the lead man used his front wheel to shove her off balance, whereupon the second in line deftly reached out, grabbed her handbag from her arm, and made off with it. Her money and her wallet, though fortunately not her passport, were gone.

When fellow passengers who had seen the bold robbery helped her in reporting to a policeman, the latter shrugged: “It happens all the time. No way possible for us to halt it,” but he did say: “Government has been begging the young hoods not to destroy our tourist business, and it’s had some effect. Chances are the ones who grabbed your handbag, ma’am, will lift the money and throw your bag where we’ll find it. If they do, we’ll return it to your ship before you sail.”

With that ugly introduction to the Virgins, she borrowed funds from a passenger who had joined a small group she was leading to the nearby island of St. John, where the Rockefellers had their huge resort, and they taxied to the other end of St. Thomas, the main island, where a ferry waited to take them the short distance to the smaller island.

There a memorable experience awaited, for another taxi took them to the north side of the island, where at considerable expense the government had excavated and restored some dozen major buildings of the old Danish sugar plantation at which Vavak the slave had labored. Lunaberg it had been called, and as Thérèse led her charges among the ruins she could recall the emotional stories of how the original Vavak had toiled here, watched the terrible executions of his fellow slaves, and run away to Haiti.

When she reached the top of the plateau where in the old days the main buildings had been concentrated, she felt as if she had known each mill and holding pit and storage barn personally, and with remarkable accuracy she explained to her group how sugar was produced, from the planting of the cane, to its cutting and grinding, then the collection of the rich juices and their progressive treatment until the two contrasting products resulted, muscovado for sugar, molasses for rum.

But that was not the end of the process, not by a long shot, and when her group was seated on benches which provided a good view of the hilltop, Thérèse spoke of the immense fortunes made by sugar planters in islands like Barbados, Jamaica, Guadeloupe and Haiti, of the way such owners lived in Paris and London and Copenhagen, and of the importance of sugar in the old days. But after these colorful details had been shared, she became serious and spoke of the
hardships the slaves had endured to make this largesse possible, and when she explained in some detail their daily life, she chanced to point to the exact spot where her ancestor Vavak had had his mean little hut and from which he fled to freedom, two hundred and fifty-six years earlier. She made the slave experience so vivid that when she finished her prepared comments, her listeners kept her among the ruins for another half-hour, asking about the sugar culture of the islands, and it was then that she expressed for the first time a basic truth about the Caribbean. “The one crop we are expressly qualified to produce”—and she herself was not aware that she had used the pronoun
we
as if identifying herself personally with the islands—“is sugar. On all the islands that’s the premier crop, sugar, sugar, sugar. Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad … all the rest. And what’s happened? Why can’t we sell our sugar anymore? Why are our fields left barren?”

The tourists guessed at half a dozen plausible explanations, none of them close to the mark: “German chemists, that’s what killed our sugar industry,” and being a born teacher, Thérèse invited her guests to unravel that conundrum. When they failed, she explained: “In the 1850s, I think it was, German chemists, clever lads, discovered that whereas you could make excellent sugar from cane, you could make it even better, and with much less trouble, from beets, not red beets that you pickle, but huge white things just crammed with sugar. There went our cash crop, and we’ve discovered nothing to replace it.”