Travels (43 page)

We rented a beautiful house in Ocho Rios, on the north shore. The house was idyllic—set on a hilltop, surrounded by flowers and hummingbirds—but, despite the warm weather and the pleasant surroundings, Terry and I felt even further estranged as the days went on. Terry was angry at me for leaving her in the first place, and here in Jamaica she was even more angry, because she could see that our reunion was not working out and that eventually I would leave again.

This became an unspoken issue between us. We conducted our days, going on excursions, taking rafting trips and boat rides and so on, without reference to what would happen after the vacation was over and we returned home.

Part of the time we were visited by my friend Kurt and Terry’s friend Ellen, so the pressure was reduced for a while. But finally we were alone again, the vacation was drawing to a close, and the inevitable separation was at hand.

Before we left Jamaica, I wanted to go to Spanish Town in the south, where I had learned there was a new museum of early Jamaican artifacts.
For many years I had been working on a book about seventeenth-century Jamaica, and now I wanted to visit this museum. Terry said she would like to come, too.

On a clear, sunny day, we set off to drive over the Blue Mountains, heading south. Jamaica is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and it looked especially lovely that morning. The mountain road was spectacular and twisting, and I had to pay attention to the driving, but I felt wonderful. Pretty soon Terry said she wanted to talk about “us,” and about our future together. I didn’t. I felt that would only provoke an argument. But when I demurred, Terry pressed—why didn’t I want to talk about it? what was the problem with talking about it?—and pretty soon we had the argument anyway, and were both angry.

The core issue was that Terry didn’t want to break up and I did.

I have never understood this particular romantic impasse—in which one person is dissatisfied while the other person claims not to be dissatisfied at all. I just don’t get it. I always thought that if one person is dissatisfied the other person must also be dissatisfied. It didn’t seem possible to me that the other person could honestly feel satisfied.

For example, hubby is stomping around the house, irritated all the time, and wifey is saying, “Isn’t everything
great?
I think everything’s just great.” But how can she say that? Why is it great? Who wants to live with a permanently irritated hubby? What is he irritated about in the first place? Why isn’t she reacting to this irritation? What’s really going on here?

Nothing good, as far as I can tell. Nothing healthy.

I finally decided that people handled the pain of breaking up by adopting stereotypic roles. There was the role of the Leaver, and the role of the Left; the role of the Complainer, and the role of the Sufferer; the role of the Accuser, and the role of the Accused, and so on. These roles weren’t adopted with any particular reference to what was really going on. They were just accepted and familiar social roles, like the roles you saw on soap operas. Sort of the psychological equivalent of the cheap plastic costumes they sell kids on Halloween. Ready-made roles, not individually tailored to the people, or created by them for themselves.

Now, Terry and I were having precisely this sort of stereotypic interaction, driving over the mountains toward Spanish Town that morning. I was cast in the role of the Dissatisfied Man, and she was playing the role of Placating Woman in the Face of the Dissatisfied Man.

There were long silences in the car while we drove. The landscape, which was previously lush, now seemed overgrown and thick; Terry, sitting beside me, was sullen and withdrawn.

* * *

After quaint Ocho Rios, Spanish Town was startling in its sprawl and squalor. A shantytown west of Kingston, it was poor, colorful, and charged with menace. There were no tourists here; indeed, there were no whites at all; the black faces that stared at us were dull and hostile.

I had been in Jamaica in 1973 and had experienced an uncomfortable hostility toward tourists. Now I had that same sensation once again. I stopped at a petrol station to have the tank filled. The attendant came over to the car. He had a sour expression.

“Nice watch,” he said, looking at my wristwatch.

“Thanks,” I said, immediately pulling my arm inside the car. My watch was an old plastic Casio; I didn’t know what the big deal was, or why he seemed to like it.

“Full up?”

“Please.”

The attendant reached through the window, stuck his hand in front of my face, and snapped his fingers.

“Keys.”

The gas-tank lock. I gave him the keys, and he went away.

“Jesus,” I said, controlling my temper.

“Very nice,” Terry said, nodding. “An ambassador for his country.”

While the attendant filled the tank, several loitering black men came over and stood around the car, peering in at me, and at Terry. Their expressions were sullen and angry. They didn’t speak; they just walked around the car and looked.

“What are they looking at?” Terry said, growing agitated.

“Who knows?”

One of the men kicked a tire in front of the car. The others looked to see what we would do. We didn’t do anything.

After a moment, Terry said, “You don’t think anything would happen here?”

“No, I don’t think so.” And I didn’t think so. These men no doubt enjoyed frightening us, but I doubted very much that anything would happen.

Still, the tension was unmistakably there, and I was glad when the attendant returned, I paid him for the gas, and we drove off.

“This better be good, the reason you wanted to come here,” Terry says as I pull out.

“I told you, it’s research.”

“Well, it’s certainly
that
.”

Now, Terry can, if she wants to, slip into her traveling investigator’s mode and accept all sorts of difficulties with good-natured humor. But right now she is annoyed at me, and so she’s just sitting back, not helping me at all, letting me squirm.

Within Spanish Town there are few street signs, and the map I have gotten from the tourist office is sketchy, listing only the main thoroughfares. Sometimes as I drive I see a green sign, “Museum” with an arrow pointing, but as I follow streets they loop back on themselves; there are no further signs; eventually I see another sign pointing toward the museum in the opposite direction to the way I am now going. Everywhere the streets were crowded with people, traffic, belching buses, crying kids.

According to the map, the museum I am trying to get to is near a cluster of formal government buildings: the courthouse, the archives, the post office.

Eventually I drive past a high white colonial building. I feel I am getting close.

There is a large crowd of black men in front of this building. One street is blocked off; a policewoman directs traffic. I pull over to ask her help.

“Move along! Move along!”

“But—”

“Move along, I say!”

I pull my car over to the side of the road, get out, and walk back to her.

“Excuse me, I’m lost.…”

“Yes, that’s clear.” In a singsong voice, very irritating.

I grind my teeth. “Can you help me? I’m looking for the museum.”

“No museum here.”

“Yes, there is a museum. The Historical Society Museum.”

“Not finished yet.”

“But where
is
it?”

“I don’t know. Not here. That’s obvious.”

All this time she is directing traffic, not looking at me. I am ready to kill her now. I have been driving in difficult traffic for almost an hour, trying to find my way around this city, and I finally come upon a policewoman and she won’t tell me anything. I know she is lying. The guidebook says the Historical Society Museum was finished the year before. I will have to find my own way.

At least, I think, I can get her to help me orient myself now.

“What’s the building right here?” I say, pointing to the large white colonial building.

“What does it
look
like? It’s the courthouse, of course.”

“Courthouse?” I am suspicious. “Then why is it blocked off?”

“These men are here for their court appearances; they are waiting for their appearances, but there is no room inside to house them. Now, get back in your car and move along.”

I go back to the car. Terry is waiting for me. I get in the car and slam the door.

“Goddamn it!” I say.

“Never mind,” Terry says. “Lester can help us.”

I turn.

There is a black man in the back seat of the car.

“Hello,” he says. He looks about twenty-five years old, tall, muscular, and strong. He extends his hand for me to shake.

“This is Lester,” Terry says.

I twist around in the car to shake Lester’s hand. I am very uncomfortable to have this stranger in my car.

“Lester’s a guide,” Terry says. “At least, he says he is.”

“That’s right, I can guide you,” Lester says. “Anywhere you want to go.”

Lester doesn’t look like a guide to me. A large knife scar runs down the side of his neck from his ear, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. His clothes are dirty. He smells of liquor.

“Where did you meet Lester, Terry?”

“He walked by the car while you were talking to the policewoman, and I asked him where the museum was, and he said he would guide us.”

I think: If he walked by the car, then he is part of this crowd of men outside the courthouse. He is waiting for a court appearance. This man is just what he looks like: a criminal.

“It’s nice of Lester to help,” I say, “but I think we can do this by ourselves.”

“Really?” she says. “So far you’ve just driven in circles for an hour. Or did the policewoman tell you what you wanted to know?”

“No,” I admitted.

“I think we need a guide if we’re ever going to get out of this godforsaken town,” Terry says. “Or, were you planning on spending the night?”

“I will guide you, I will,” Lester says. He is saying other things, too, in a clipped Caribbean argot that is incomprehensible to me. Lester seems cheerful and friendly, but I don’t like him. I don’t like the knife scar on
his neck, I don’t like his manner, and I don’t like the fact that he is ensconced in the back seat before I have had a chance to discuss it with Terry.

But he’s there, all right. Waiting.

“Okay, Lester,” I say. “Great. We want to go to the museum.”

“Yes. I will guide.”

“Where’s the museum?”

“Museum?” He looks completely blank. “Museum?” He shakes his head.

“Terry. I don’t think Lester’s a full-time guide, Terry.”

“Well, he said he was.”

I am thinking,
Jesus Christ, will you look at this guy you let into our car? Now what are we going to do about
—

“Stetodengine,” Lester says, in a sudden burst of words.

“What?”

“Stetyoudengine,” he repeats.

“Start your engine,” Terry translates.

“Why?” I say.

“You cannot park here, mon,” Lester says. “The police book you if you stay here.”

In the mirror I see a policeman approaching our parked car. Lester has already spotted him, and that is why he is nervous.
Good
, I think. A policeman coming. We’ll be rid of this Lester in no time at all.

I sit back, do nothing.

“Well, for God’s sake, Michael,” Terry says. “Start the car.”

“No, I—”

“What are you going to do, just
sit
here?”

“I’m thinking.”

“About what? Let’s get going.”

“Terry, I’d like to have a word with you in private about this whole situation—”

“You wanted to go to the museum; that’s why we came here. Fine. Lester will take you to the museum.”

“Lester doesn’t seem to know where—”

“—I know where, I know where,” Lester says, suddenly very agitated. “Start your engine, go left at the next turning.”

“And where is the museum?” I say, still hesitating.

“Go left, and I will guide you. The museum is very near. Very near.”

I think, That’s right; according to the map, the museum must be very near here.

“Only two blocks,” Lester says.

Terry is looking at me, expectantly.

I think, The policeman can come over and I can get this convict Lester out of the car. But I still have my original problem, which is to find the museum—with Terry glaring at me all the time—and meanwhile Lester seems suddenly to have developed confidence about the location of the museum. What the hell. I’ll drive a couple of blocks.

I start the car, and we drive a short distance. Many streets in this area are blocked off, but Lester seems to know where he is going, directing me deftly. Whenever pedestrians block the street, he leans out the side window and shouts at them to get out of the way, and they look at him and then move quickly. Lester has a definite menace about him.

“Stop the engine. Stop the engine. Park here.”

I see we have made a loop, and have returned very near the courthouse. We’re on an odd side street, but I see no museum.

“Lester, where is the museum?” I ask suspiciously.

“There, mon,” Lester says, pointing across the street.

“Where?”

“
There
. Right there, mon, you see the door.”

And then I see a small sign that says “Museum” and the hours. As we watch, a sunburned Scandinavian family in sun clothes, socks, and sandals emerges and sits on the steps.

It’s the museum, all right.

“Thank
God
,” Terry says, getting out of the car. She looks at me accusingly. “I’d say Lester did very well, wouldn’t you?”

Her whole manner implies that I am a suspicious, prejudiced son of a bitch—and that I have furthermore failed to acknowledge properly that it is only through
her
efforts that we have finally found this damned museum.

And I am, in truth, a bit chagrined. I am relieved finally to be at the museum. And I may well have been mistaken about Lester.

But as I get out of the driver’s seat and move the seat so Lester can climb out from the back, as he stands up alongside me, I realize that I am not wrong at all. Lester is six feet four inches tall and powerfully built; he has another scar on the other side of his throat, and he has a strange tattoo on the back of his left hand, a box with an “X” in it. And although he is smiling and friendly at the moment, I have the distinct sense that Lester is
mean
.