The Last Warner Woman (11 page)

Then she saw a woman who wasn’t dancing at all, who sat in the middle and knitted. Adamine had seen this woman once before in a picture. It was the Original Pearline Portious. Adamine blinked and then she saw Mother Lazarus. She blinked again and could now see a whole congregation of men and women who sat or stood between the dancing Revivalists, floating in the air, a congestion of familiar spirits, each attached in some way to the dancers who were crammed into the clearing.

Adamine saw and she saw and she didn’t stop seeing.

She threw her vision above the clearing and could now see the many humps of dark hills rolling all the way to the Caribbean Sea; she could see patoos flying below her, the spread of their white wings, their big eyes scanning the ground for rats; she could see a few lights burning in shacks, and she could also see inside the shacks themselves: a man who was no more than fifty lay in his bed shitting himself, his eyes permanently trained to one corner of the ceiling. Two young women entered the room. One frowned. “Lawd God. Him messing up himself again, and I just change him a hour ago.”

The other one, “It rough to see him come to this. Last year this time he was still up and hearty, wasn’t that so?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And he still not saying nothing?”

“Not a sound he can make except the heavy breathing you hear him with now.”

In another house, everyone was sleeping, except a gray cat in the kitchen, which was trying to paw the cover away from a pot of stew peas.

At another house a young girl rested her chin on the edge of a bed and watched the sleeping figure of a boy about her age who coughed in his sleep.

At another house an old woman walked the perimeter of the yard, a smile creasing her eyes as she sprinkled black powder around the house. At the same time, in the bedroom, another old woman was watching from behind a curtain, a smile also creasing her eyes, before she sprinkled olive oil around the circle of her bed.

At another house Adamine saw two men. She thought they were twins, but then realized it was the same man standing beside himself. One self was in a rocking chair, but the chair was not rocking. A pipe was on the floor, the tobacco spilled out. The second self was standing, looking at the version of himself that was still in the chair. Then he looked up into Adamine’s eyes and said, “I never expect to leave like this.”

Adamine saw and she saw and she couldn’t stop seeing.

Her vision went out across a wet expanse of black, the sea, which in this late hour had become a part of the sky, but without stars. Her vision stung from all the salt and so returned to land. It saw a tree heavy with red Julie mangoes and parrots sleeping in its branches. Adamine’s vision traveled up a river. It saw a woman with scales for skin, and a fishtail for legs, whose hair was not so long as everyone kept on saying, but tall and majestic like Mother Lazarus. It was River Mumma of course, and she sat on a rock, her belly fat folding over onto her scales. River Mumma looked up and smiled at Adamine, and Adamine knew that the smile was a blessing. She now saw ground spirits, fallen angels, pickney duppies at the top of coconut trees, trying with their spirit hands to shake the fruit free. Then Adamine was back at the clearing and she could see that she herself had now become one of the fallen women, her legs spread wide, and that a Mother had closed her skirt for decency’s sake.

Adamine saw and she saw and she couldn’t stop seeing.

And then her face was being wetted, and her eyes opened suddenly, and it was the daylight of a day she did not even know, and her head was in the Bishopess’s lap, and the Bishopess did not look half so stern as she had on the night when she had been reading the scripture. There were no drums or people dancing or any table set with fruits. It was a whole other day. Adamine tried to shake the grogginess from her eyes. She realized now that Bishopess Herbert was whispering gently, almost a song,
Come back, Ada, come back ya.

an installment of a testimony spoken to the wind

Shhhhhhhhh

Sometimes this Writer Man will take five different stories and make them into one. Sometimes the things he put down not untrue, but they never happen in that order. The first time I go to the Revival Church they was meeting in the balmyard, not in no forest. And that was the night they send me to Mother Herbert, who had been calling unto me. But there came another day when I did fall in the Spirit, and for true, I did stay fallen for days. So let me tell you what it was like: I did see ancestors, ground spirits, fallen angels, archangels. I see River Mumma sitting on her rock. I see Baby Duppy wrestling with coconuts, Injan Duppy jangling her bangles, Rolling Calf shaking him chains. I see a future of earthquakes. I see the past that is a haunting unto man. I go down to river-bottom and I see alligators, and I go up to the sky and I see a line of crows. Maybe you shake your head, but let me learn you a lesson right now: plenty knowledge is in this world. Enough knowledge that you can pick and refuse. And if you want, you can refuse to know plenty things, don’t care how true those things be. I know things you does not know, and things you will never know. And it is sake of that—sake of this knowledge—that people have looked on me and called me old fool or crazy. They treat me like I is retarded. Imagine that. I is the idiot because I know what they don’t know. Donkey say the world nuh level, and the world not level for true. Plenty knowledge is all bout you, but ongly some knowledge you will accept. So I learn to keep things in my breast. Telling it and shouting it not going to make no goddamn difference to anything or to anybody. I understand how this life go. Whatever white man believe in with all his heart—that thing name religion; whatever black woman believe in, that name superstition. What white man go to on Sunday, that thing name church; but what black woman go to name cult. What white man worship is the living God himself; but what black woman worship name Satan or Beelzebub. Whatever it is that white man accept in his heart is a thing that make all the sense in the world; but what black woman accept in her heart is stupidness and don’t worth a farthing. Sake of what black woman know in her heart, sake of her knowledge, she will get thrown into the madhouse and she will feel the pain of electric shock. So sometimes is best she keep silent. After all, don’t care how you want to sit there and deny the knowledge of River Mumma sitting on her rock—don’t care how you deny the knowledge of fallen angels who can jump into your body as they please, or the knowledge of ancestors who sit beside your bed and watch when they not harkening on to the sounds of drumming—don’t care how you deny any of it, all of it is still true. All of them things still exist, because them do not need the permission of your belief. But I talk these things careful and slow, cause I learn my lesson good. I taking time with my story. I know the value of silence. Sometimes silence can save you from being locked up. Sometimes silence is all that we have left.

Shhhhhhhhh

Mr. Writer Man is not always a patient man. I telling him my story in its own way, in its own time. But some days is like he not listening. He looking off into the distance, through the windows and unto the snow. He tapping his pencil against the table like he not concerned with anything I saying. Irritation all over his voice when his mind finally come back to the room and he tell me to stop, stop … just hold on a minute. He flip the tape around in his recorder and before he press the buttons to start again, he ask me,
Adamine, please, we’ve been through all this already. You’re telling me the same things over and over. When are you going to tell me about England?
Well, well. I don’t take talk like that from him. No sir. I set my voice firm as iron and tell him,
we will get there when we get there.
I tell him,
look all around you. England is now. But every now didn’t simply reach so by itself. Every now have its before. Every destination have its journey. The Apostle Paul did have to walk the Damascus Road, and the Savior did have to walk up the steep hill of Calvary to get to his cross.
I tell him just like I will tell you now—
be patient, be patient. I wasn’t always this old woman. I have a past that I need to sort through.
If he puff up his face when I say something like that, then I get up from the sofa and I say,
listen now, it was you who did come knocking on my door. I was contented and at peace living where I was living. The world did long ago forget bout me. But it was you who did take up your own self one evening and come asking for me. I frown when I hear the name on your lips, Pearline Portious, because I tired of explaining that that is not my name. I ask you what is it that you want? You ask me if I is the same Pearline Portious who … and you pause for a short while … who was once at Saint Osmund Mental Hospital in Warwickshire. I try hard to close the door on you. I wanted to slam it. I feel so afraid. I think you want to take me back to that place. But it was you who beg me please, please. You make big promise that you don’t mean me no harm. You say you just need to ask some questions. So I let you come in and I let you say what you had to say at last. You walk in circles and circles like you was walking the surface of the earth. You keep on stopping and looking toward me. You finally say, I never had an idea of what you would look like, but I never imagined you would look like this. You reach to touch my face, and I move away. Who the hell was you to be familiar like that? And I still ‘fraid. I cannot stop from nervous. I tell you to please talk whatever it is that you have to talk. So at last you say to me, Miss Portious, I have a strange proposal for you. I stop you. First thing’s first, my name is Adamine. Adamine Bustamante, and that is my true true name. You will please to call me that. You lift your eyebrows high like you confuse, but you say, alright … Adamine, Adamine … like you testing my name in your mouth … well, that’s a pretty name, isn’t it? I don’t answer you. I tired of white people talking down to me like they think I is a stupid pickney or something. You continue—Well, I was saying Adamine, I know you will find this strange, but I would like you to consider coming to live with me for a few months. I think I start to choke right then, but you was still talking—I have a comfortable place and an extra room all set up for you. You look at me and I see that you was serious. Your green eyes was waiting right then for an answer. So I start to laugh. I don’t laugh so hard in years. Like I suddenly alive again. I thinking, maybe you is the man I used to dream bout who was supposed to come and take me out of every goddamned place they lock me up in. But you come too late. I wonder who you really is then … who is this young white man putting question to an old woman like me, as if he trying to court me? Who is this man who want to pull an old woman from her life? I laugh and I laugh some more. But you never even crack a smile. You wring your hands round and round. I’m serious, Adamine! You say it sharp, I want you to come and stay in my flat … I want you to consider it. You see, I am a writer … Oho! I say, you is a Writer Man? Of books and all them things? Yes, you say. And I need your help with the book I am writing now. It’s about a Warner Woman. And that time I look at you serious. I never hear an English man talk bout “warner woman” before. The words sound funny in your mouth, with your speaky-spokey accent. I get curious and sit down. Tell me more, Mr. Writer Man, I say to you. Well, Adamine, all I would like is for you to talk. That’s all really. Just talk to me, tell me about your life, and I will listen. I get real quiet then. One and two and three minutes pass us by in that silence. Neither me nor you saying a thing. I will tell you now what was going on in my head—I was thinking bout my life. I was thinking bout the sixty-two useless years of my life—this life that somebody was suddenly interested in. I look it over because that is what you do when somebody come and ask you to borrow a tablecloth or something. You look it over to make sure it is presentable. But see here, my life wasn’t presentable at all. There was gaps everywhere. Big gaps like when the rain fall heavy and a piece of the road fall away and you can never walk that way no more. That is what my life was—a whole bunch of wash-away roads, none of them leading nowhere. I wonder to myself, how I could lose so much life just like that? Where it just vanish gone? My life—like a ruined tablecloth that can’t give out to nobody. You was waiting so patient, but I decide my mind and I tell you no. I say it simple and quiet and sure. No. And you said, Please, Adamine. I know it may seem strange … My no became louder then.
NO!
Hear me now, Mr. Writer Man, I sick and tired of sitting down and talking things that make people look on me funny. I is not no lunatic. I is not from Mars. I come from Jamaica. And that is just so, it don’t need no explanation and it don’t need no story. What the hell you want to know bout warning? All you want to know is that you can write down that I is a crazy mad smaddy. But hear this—plenty people beat you to that already! Plenty people done write down that I mad, and maybe they is right. You don’t need my help or my permission. So go on bout your business and leave me in peace, Writer Man. My answer is no … Then you reach out toward me, and is like I could feel you holding my hand and I never want to pull it away. Please. You was trembling, and you say please as many times as I could say no. You promise me you would be patient. You promise me I could tell you my story in my own time and in my own way. And I tell you the God’s truth, that was the best thing you could have said. It move me. I start thinking … my own story, in my own time. My own story, in my own time. I thinking if I do that, maybe I can find the lost roads. I thinking, finally somebody will hear me out proper. I wanted to do it. I wanted to tell you everything I could. But always remember, it was you, Mr. Writer Man. It was you that promised to be patient, to listen to my story in its own order. So why now that I doing just that, you have started to frown? Why now that I is here, in your house, telling you how it really happen, you have started to change up my words as if it was ever your story to change? And why the hell did you come looking for me in the first place? You take me out of a place where I was not troubling a goddam soul and your bring me to a place of bad memory and tribulation.