Caribbean: a novel Part 41

'Your interest in these matters?' he began, and she stopped him: 'My grandfather, Black Bart Wrentham they called him ...'

'I know. He led the fight for independence. Sterling man I'm told.'

'He really was. Struggled to build a profitable cafe, saloon if you will, and became the first police chief under independence. Powerful force, that one. Died Sir Bart Wrentham, because respect for his integrity reached even to London.'

'You must be proud of being in that family.'

'I am.'

'And did you attend school in England?' The question had a chilling effect on Sally, for despite the best intention on Keeler's part when he asked it, the only interpretation she could give it was: Since you are obviously a first-cla.s.s person, your parents must have saved enough money to send you to England for your education.

She was irritated and about to rebuke him, when the door to the meeting room burst open to admit two men. The first was about five feet six, very black, and well regarded on the island as a sensible master of bookkeeping techniques and budgetary controls, but on this night no one even greeted him, because in tow he had the Rastafarian from Jamaica with his frayed s.h.i.+rt proclaiming DEATH TO POPE, h.e.l.l DESTRUCTION AMERICA and his coconut sh.e.l.l clacking against his lute as he walked toward the group.

'This is my friend Ras-Negus Grimble,' the accountant said, 'with messages for us from Jamaica,' and the parlor discussion of abstract negritude ceased, for here in the flesh was the epitome of one kind of real negritude.

Serene, his dreadlocks framing his bearded face, the newcomer flashed one of the most all-embracing smiles that Sally had ever seen, and said: 'I Rasta Man come to help.' His eyes swept about the room, and he added: 'I-man come this I-land help I-&-I I-cover things to happen.' When she, like all the other listeners, betrayed her inability to follow what he said, he lapsed into normal English, with a Jamaican lilt that was most agreeable: 'I have come from Jamaica to help you discover and achieve whatever it is you think ought to happen.'

'Who sent you?' someone asked, and Grimble lapsed into Rastafarian again: 'I-man have vision. "Seek out I-&-I belong All Saints bring I-vine help I-alogue." I-man come.'

'I think you better tell it straight,' the questioner recommended, and the visitor complied: 'I was I-rected, I mean directed, to come here and hold I-alogue with you.'

'Do you mean dialogue?' a man in back asked, and with a big smile he replied: 'Oh yes! I do.'

'And what is your message?' a young woman asked, and after carefully placing his sh.e.l.l and lute on the floor, he pulled up a chair, sat gracefully upon it with his long thin legs wrapped around each other twice, a feat totally impossible for a fat man or for most of medium weight. Flas.h.i.+ng once more his smile of embrace and forgiveness, he explained: 'Rastafari is a belief in peace, in tranquillity, in love of all persons ...'

'How about the pope?'

Without changing pace or expression, he concluded: '... except those of evil intent.'

'We heard that in Jamaica, your people led riots, real violence.'

Turning on his chair, he looked benignly at his accuser and said in low, gentle tones: 'It was Babylon that abused us, never the other way.'

'But don't you say that Babylon must be destroyed?'

'With love. The way Gandhi destroyed the Great Babylon that oppressed him.'

Now Sally spoke: 'Why do you say I so much-what does it mean?'

He turned almost a complete revolution on his chair, and for a long moment Grimble sat silent, twisting his legs tighter together and staring into Sally's eyes until she felt mesmerized by the floating beard, the green and gold beret and those dreadful snakelike braids reaching into his lap as he leaned forward. Then came the liquid, pacifying voice of a totally committed young man: 'In Rastafari we use our own language. I is straight and tall and beautiful and strong and decent and clean. You is bent over and twisted and losing its way and ugly and straight in nothing. So the pure I is given to all human beings. I-man means me. If you were speaking, you would call yourself I-woman.'

'But who is I-&-I?'

'You, those over there, all in this room, the whole world apart from me.'

'I don't understand.'

'So when Rasta Man want to say you, he do not separate himself from you. He mean that you and he are together, you and he and everyone else in this room, we are a team. So it has to be I-&-I, because in Rastafari all people are equal. You cannot exist without a part of him. Rasta Man cannot exist without all you people to help him fight his battles against darkness. It is I-&-I, always the immortal team.'

Sally, s.h.i.+vering at the intensity of his reply, was relieved when another woman asked: 'But I heard a lot of other I's in what you said,' and now he turned his searchlight gaze on her: 'You must understand. We Rasta Men lead simple, pure lives. Only natural foods eaten from this coconut sh.e.l.l. No meat. Every cloth I wear must be handwoven of natural threads. Same with words. From any word with morally sinful elements or negative syllables, we knock out those elements and subst.i.tute I, which is clean and pure.'

'How can a syllable be morally negative?'

Eagerly he leaned forward to explain this basic tenet of Rastafarianism: 'Words with ded, like dedicate, mean dead. Life gone. Word must become I-dicate. Beautiful ideas like divine or divide one's goods, they have die in them. They have to be cleansed, become I-vine and I-vide.'

'You mean you go right through the dictionary?'

'Yes, beautiful words like sincere and sinews must be cleaned up.'

'Why?'

'They have in them the word sin, so they have to become I-cere and I-news. But words with sin which are ugly and cruel, like sinister and sinking, they stay that way. They warn the world of their evil intent.'

'Conversation among your members must be rather painful,' volunteered a black accountant standing next to Harry Keeler. The Rastafarian whipped around to address him, but he falsely a.s.sumed that the speaker had been the white man, the only one in the room. His manner when speaking to Keeler became even more preachy than before, and the light in the room was such that he a.s.sumed an almost Christ-like sanct.i.ty: 'You make a profound observation, my friend. Speech with us is sometimes slow and painful, ideas half expressed, half understood. But we do not speak to conduct idle conversation. We speak to bare the soul, and such words have to be carefully chosen, carefully protected.' Looking about the room, he launched into a kind of Rastafarian prayer, a chant of all the mnemonic words, with Haile Sela.s.sie's name recurring frequently and Negus and Jah and Lion of Judah, all embellished by a blizzard of I-words which he made stand out with grace, dignity and power.

Sally, who understood not a word, whispered to the woman standing next to her: 'It's like Latin in the Catholic Ma.s.s. You're not expected to understand. Each religion has its own mystical language,' but when he concluded, she raised her hand and asked: 'Share with us, please, what you were saying,' and he replied: 'Exactly what I said in your language. That words are important and we must clean them up now and then ... to keep them pure.'

For the members of the group this verbal and visual introduction to the Rastafarians was a mind-expanding affair, but with an innate showmans.h.i.+p Grimble had saved his most powerful impact till last-and reaching down, he picked up his lute.

It was a wooden box, sealed except for an opening over which four strings pa.s.sed. Its neck was a length of board imbedded with seven staples as frets, while a metal bar served as bridge. When plucked, it had a surprisingly good sound, and when the box was drummed on, it echoed deeply.

Sitting with his legs still intertwined, he strummed for a moment, then startled his audience with one of Bob Marley's most powerful chants, 'Slave Driver,' which spoke of days in Africa and nights aboard the slave s.h.i.+p. It was powerful music, even more powerful imagery, and before long he had these descendants of slaves chanting with him: 'Slave driver, slave driver.'

Although Sally was deeply moved by the powerful rhythms, the repeated phrases and the imagery of the natal jungle and the slave s.h.i.+p, she was too a.n.a.lytical a young woman to miss a salient fact about the Rastafarian's performance: That rascal has three complete modes of speech. Colorful Jamaican street language, Rastafarian glossolalia, and in these established songs, perfect English. And he switches from one to another almost automatically.

'Slave Driver' finished, the singer turned to one of Marley's most provocative hits, one composed by another man but preempted by Marley as his theme song, 'Four Hundred Years.' It had a haunting beat, an endless repet.i.tion of the t.i.tle which referred to the years of slavery, and a summons to remember that servitude. Now everyone in the room, including Harry Keeler, who had always liked Marley's music, became a slave a.s.signed to some sugar plantation.

The evening ended with a dozen young people cl.u.s.tered about Grimble, for he had reminded them with music and imagery that some years back he must have been like them, an ordinary black man with an ordinary name. Their questioning pinned him in so tight that Sally had no chance to bid him goodbye, but he was so tall that he was able to catch her eye, and they exchanged glances as she moved toward the exit.

There Harry Keeler waited, and as she neared he asked: 'May I accompany you home?' and wanting to be freed of the Rastafarian mystique, she said almost gladly: 'I'd like that.'

As they walked through the lovely island night, with stars as brilliant as guide lights on distant s.h.i.+ps, she said: 'A remarkable performance. What do you think it meant?'

'I doubt that a white man is qualified to summarize.'

'But you know the islands. You know revolutionary movements, Frantz Fanon and his breed.'

'It's a powerful breed, a necessary one. If I were a young black-without a university education, that is-I do believe that Brother Grimble might exert a strong and perhaps constructive influence on me.' He paused, then brought the evening together in a tight knot: 'Blacks really are "the dispossessed of the earth," as Fanon claimed.'

'So you think that Rastafarians ...?'

'Don't jump the gun. As a white junior official who wants to see his society held together, I also know that Rastafarians really do believe that the police are the Great Babylon.' Turning to look at her lovely face, he warned: 'I think I can predict that in the weeks ahead your father, as commissioner of police, is going to have a basketful of trouble.'

Irritated by what she interpreted as a white putdown of a black idea, even though it was grotesque, she drew apart from him as they strolled. And in those moments these two might have been any couple of mixed color in any of the Caribbean islands: a very dark man wooing a Martinique girl of very light color who dreamed of bettering herself on the color scale, a man in Cuba whose family claimed with great vigor and invention that they stemmed in line directly from soldiers of Ponce de Leon who had brought their Spanish wives with them: 'And never was intermarriage with black slaves allowed.' They were also much like the hesitant Hindu la.s.s on Trinidad who finds herself admired by a nearly white Church of England businessman in Port of Spain.

In All Saints that winter night it was Sally, the daughter of the commissioner of police, walking slowly with Harry, the promising young economist from England, who would be returning there one of these days with a universe of experience in Algeria, Ghana and the Caribbean. How valuable to world society he was as he strolled that night, how precious she was as the new Caribbean black who could accomplish almost anything in her island society. Two young people of immense value, restrained by inherited taboos but at the same time set free by recent revolutions, they walked for some moments in silence, and then her prejudice against an ancient enemy softened and she said, changing the subject: 'Who do you think'll get the top appointment in the Tourist Board?' and he said quickly: 'It better be somebody d.a.m.n good. For the next dozen years this island sinks or swims depending on how it handles its tourism.' He walked for several steps, then turned to face Sally: 'Insist to your father that we can't afford to blow up over the Rastafarian. Remind him that some years ago the Rastas nearly destroyed Jamaican tourism. I saw figures which suggested that Jamaica lost millions of American dollars.'

'Must we always sell our soul to the American cruise s.h.i.+ps?'

'Correction. Not a single cruise s.h.i.+p that stops here is owned by the Americans. Great Britain, Holland, Swedes, French ...'

'But it's the American tourist they bring, with his American dollars.'

'Correction. With her American dollars.'

'You're a clever lad, Keeler,' she said, and he replied: 'I try to be,' and from his front window Police Commissioner Wrentham watched as his daughter kissed the young economist goodnight.

Harry Keeler was one of the only two leading citizens who were white, himself and Canon Ess.e.x Tarleton of the Church of England; all others, from the governor general on down, were either black or brown. Because he had enjoyed his earlier experience in Africa, Keeler found it easy to work under black leaders, and he encountered no difficulty in adjusting to their sometimes arbitrary ways. He never allowed them to dissuade him from a right decision, but he was considerate and willing to spend a good deal of time in explaining why this or that move ought to be avoided and a better plan adopted.

For example, his sometimes radical innovations regarding tourism had produced rather better results than he had predicted, and the island now had an airport capable of handling medium-sized jets, a first-cla.s.s tourist hotel at spectacular Pointe Neuve on the new road in from the airport, and a set of some two dozen bed-and-breakfast places at York, which had never before shared in the tourist dollar because of a frightening mountain road which separated it from Bristol Town. Keeler had said: 'Straighten the hairpins on that d.a.m.ned road, or announce publicly that you're going to let York starve.' This had made him a hero in York, and many tourists reported their stay in the homes of ordinary black families along the sh.o.r.e of Marigot Baie was 'the highlight of our trip, not only to All Saints but to the entire Caribbean.' Such reports came, of course, from the hardier travelers; the others preferred the deluxe accommodations at Pointe Neuve.

Keeler was proud of his contributions to All Saints: 'It's possibly the best-run black country on earth, and that includes everything in Africa.' But whenever he indulged in this comparison he drew back for two reasons: 'Country? Can an island with only a hundred and ten thousand people be called a country even if it is represented in the United Nations? And its present prosperity does hang on the nebulous thread of tourism.' And success in tourism, as he knew, was mercurial. It required that rich Americans be kept happy.

That was the danger he had perceived that night when he met with the island's first Rastafarian: 'Who can forget what happened in Jamaica when that gang with their hideous dreadlocks and their fierce animosity began to molest white women and elderly millionaires? Tourism was wiped out for years. Untold losses and a change in government. That sort of upheaval we cannot afford.'

But even while these apprehensions worried him, he was experiencing a euphoria he had not known for years. Miss Sally Wrentham was proving to be as exciting intellectually as she was provocative physically; she had a sense of humor, a knowledge of her island's history, a judicious att.i.tude toward race. She did not believe, as some on the island did, that blacks were somehow superior in their understanding of Caribbean problems, but she would never concede that they were inferior. The quiet, effective way in which her grandfather Black Bart and her father Thomas had manipulated their white superiors until total freedom was gained had so convincingly proved that blacks could run a country that she had never wanted to leave All Saints for either London or New York, and Keeler appreciated that firmness of mind.

Indeed, as he pursued his more or less serious courts.h.i.+p of Sally he told himself: I would be quite happy making my life here. Helping the island to self-sufficiency, and yes, stepping aside in later years when blacks I'd trained took over. And if I made that choice, what better than to have a superior woman like Sally for my wife?

Three solid reasons, which he did not need to review, made such conclusions viable. He had no yearning desire to return to the drab village on the edge of Yorks.h.i.+re from which he had come; life there had been oppressive and hemmed in. His memories of his failed marriage to Elspeth were enough to make him groan at night when he recalled them, and he wished no repet.i.tion; on the day their divorce became final he felt as if a village cart had been hauled off his chest.

His third reason for feeling content on All Saints could be appreciated only by another Briton. In previous centuries and in the first half of this one, the various parts of the British Empire had been ruled by well-disciplined young Englishmen who had attended the best boarding schools and either Oxford or Cambridge. They were sent out to India or Africa or the Caribbean as young administrators, deigning to spend a few years bringing civilization to G.o.d's children before returning home to retired glory as Lord This or Sir That, or at least with a civil medal of some distinction. Young men of the middle or lower cla.s.ses, who had edged their way into lesser English colleges known collectively as 'the red-brick universities,' or the Scottish universities, who wanted to serve overseas were eligible only for minor posts. So in those days the British presence was almost invariably represented by an Englishman of good family at the head of government, flanked by young aides of social background much like his, and supported by a corps of men like him who could rarely hope to attain any position of major leaders.h.i.+p.

Great Britain suffered by adhering to this restrictive system. In India, of course, it worked, for there a succession of n.o.ble viceroys gave stable and sometimes brilliant leaders.h.i.+p, but in lesser places like All Saints the posting of well-bred, inadequate men to positions of leaders.h.i.+p often resulted in disaster. The last governor general was an example. Just before World War II the Colonial Office had said: 'It's time to give good old Basil Wrentham something or other,' and so they dispatched him to All Saints, where he marched ash.o.r.e in solemn majesty with only three qualifications: he was so thin and erect that he epitomized the archetypal English governor general, he was a noted cricketer, and he was the second son of the Earl of Gore. He had been a social success and a political catastrophe, striving even as late as June 1939 to engineer a pact of some kind between Great Britain and n.a.z.i Germany. His uncontrollable daughter, Delia, had married a German baron who later became the brutal gauleiter of a large section of Belgium, where the baron's abused subjects hanged him just before Christmas, 1945.

Keeler was one of the new postwar breed of British colonial officers; the son of lower-middle-cla.s.s parents, educated in ordinary schools and a red-brick university, he had progressed because of natural ability and hard work, and he found life overseas so congenial that he had no desire to leave. Consequently, marriage with an island girl like Sally was not only acceptable, but almost inevitable; he'd experienced a wife who had little interest in anything but her husband's income and her own social triumphs.

As his studied courts.h.i.+p progressed, he found himself looking at Sally Wrentham as a possible wife-to-be. So on a Sat.u.r.day morning he dressed in his best whites, drove to her house, and invited her to accompany him to the one-day cricket match in York at the far end of the mountain road. Her reply: 'Can I pack a lunch?' His response: 'That would be great,' and off they sped in his Volkswagen.

He always enjoyed driving this scenic highway whose newly revealed beauty was the result of his headstrong effort, and he was delighted when Sally said: 'You must be pleased that your new road works so well. They were really after your scalp there for a while.'

'It's a road that was needed,' he said as the vistas which his men had chopped through the forest revealed the distant Atlantic.

The cricket match had occasioned much comment, for it was Bristol Town versus The Rest, and although the capital eleven traditionally smothered the team composed of the best players from outlying parts of the island, this year it looked as if The Rest might have a chance. The town of Tudor in the north sent two brothers who had set records as bowlers, York had several strong bats, and there were also two really good cricketers from London on temporary duty installing a new radar at the All Saints airport playing for The Rest; it had been agreed that although they were citizens of England, they had been working during a prolonged stay on the island, and were thus eligible.

A one-day match posed special strategic problems. Team A could bat first starting at ten-thirty and score 300 runs in powerful but dilatory fas.h.i.+on before its tenth and final wicket fell, but then it would probably not have time to get all the batsmen of Team B out before the end of play at five-thirty, in which case the match, with Team A leading 31657, would be declared a draw. Proper strategy would be for Team A to bat merrily, score about 190, declare their innings ended even though they still had four players eligible to bat, then try to get all ten batsmen of Team B out before five-thirty and before they could score 191. In that case, Team A would win. But if Team B, in its innings, belted the ball over the boundary with abandon and scored a surprising 191 before five-thirty, they won.

In no other game played throughout the world was strategy and taking bold chances so much a part of the contest as in cricket; American tourists, of whom there would be a busload coming over the mountain today, never appreciated the wonderful intricacies of the game and the way a clever captain would first use two fast bowlers to chop up the pitch, then slip in a new bowler with a googly or a left-handed chinaman to take advantage of the roughened turf to take the batsman's wicket. Nor could they see how adroitly the captain placed his nine fielders-not counting the bowler and the wicket keeper-so that one of his men was positioned right where the careless batsman was likely to pop up an easy catch.

If cricket had been a mania back in the early 1930s when Lord Wrentham's XI visited the Caribbean, it was now a compelling obsession. Part of the excitement of this day's struggle on the field at York grew out of the fact that several older men who would serve as selectors for the next West Indian team to play England would be watching carefully to see just how good the two brothers from Tudor were as bowlers and whether the well-regarded batsmen from York could defend themselves on a b.u.mpy pitch. They would also be watching Harry Keeler, who had established himself as a superb fielder at silly mid-on and a reliable batsman against all but googlies; he was a white man, but he had turned in his British pa.s.sport for an island one on the reasonable grounds that 'if I'm to live here the rest of my life, I may as well do it right.' This made him eligible to play on the West Indies team conscripted from all the islands. He was most eager to make the team, for although he did not wish to live in England, he would relish a return there as a test-team cricketer.

When Keeler and Sally turned off the mountain road and into town at a quarter to ten they saw that the tourist bus from Bristol Town had arrived as well as six other buses from the north end of the island and three from the airport. 'I hope,' he said to Sally as they parked their car, 'that no airplane from Barbados arrives at one this afternoon in trouble and needing ground support.'

Nothing in the British islands of the Caribbean was more important than cricket. Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados might disagree on the economy, airfares between the islands, the management of their one university, and what taxes should be imposed on Trinidadian gasoline, but when the time came to build a West Indies team for a tour of England, India, Pakistan or Australia, all differences were submerged and funds were mysteriously found to pay for the trip. Local prejudices drove the islands apart, cricket bound them together.

Today's game was a brilliant affair, a sky-blue Sat.u.r.day, with flowering trees in bloom, fruit abundant in the open marketplace, people of all complexions seated in the tiny stands or lying on the gra.s.s-and everyone caught up in the excitement of a one-day match. Cricket purists did not appreciate such condensed and often rowdy affairs; they preferred the more stately matches that covered two, three or even five consecutive days, for then captains could engage in intricate strategies, depending on weather forecasts and the likely effect on the condition of the pitch. In a series of five matches it was not uncommon for two or even four to end in draws. One of the beauties of cricket was to watch a resolute captain whose team faced almost certain defeat swing things about to deprive the enemy of a sure win by prolonging the battle until time ran out. In such circ.u.mstances, a draw was almost as good as a win and sometimes more exciting as men batted against the clock. A proper five-day match with a little rain to cause uncertainty was cricket at its best, but in the islands a rousing one-day struggle had equal merit but of a more noisy nature.

How stately the scene appeared when the eleven players from The Rest, who had won the toss and elected to bat last, strolled casually onto the field, their white cricket gear standing out against the carefully tended green playing area. The men, who represented eight or nine different gradations of color, were handsome, at ease, smiling at their friends in the crowd; but how the tension grew when the opening batsmen from Bristol Town, protected by heavy leg pads and batting gloves, strode out, bats dragging behind them, to make their stand against The Rest bowlers!

One of the two umpires was always Canon Ess.e.x Tarleton-with ruddy face, white hair and a rotund body that looked like a Toby jug. When he marched onto the field, with a dignified waddling pace, there was decorous clapping, for he was a much-loved figure who reminded them of John Bull, and of other aspects of England which they still treasured.

What made him especially memorable was his garb, for cricket umpires traditionally wore their trousers and white s.h.i.+rt under a linen duster that reached halfway down the calf, but the canon (an honorary but inaccurate t.i.tle awarded him by his s.h.i.+pmates aboard a wartime cruiser) wore instead of the duster a heavy ribbed sweater made of natural wool from the Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland. As soon as the day heated, which was early in the West Indies, Tarleton removed his sweater and tied its arms in a tight knot about his ample belly, so that the bulk of the sweater covered his rear. Many photographs were taken of his umpiring, and most showed the heavy sweater drooping from his waist.

In cricket, at the climax of a close play, the umpire was not required to render a decision unless there was a formal appeal, and this took the form of a shouted question: 'Howzzat?' There was difference of opinion as to whether the curious word meant 'How was that?' or 'How is that?' but when six or seven fielders shouted at the same time 'Howzzat?' Canon Tarleton came into his glory, for he stood as tall as he could, stared at the supplicants, and delivered his judgment, which was never appealed. His word was law.

Keeler's side batted first, but neither he nor his fellow batsmen accomplished much. One of the Tudor bowlers tricked Harry with an off-breaking fast ball, which he popped up for an easy catch by silly mid-off for a score of only 13. Bristol Town was in poor shape at the lunch break, when Sally broke out a small feast which players from both teams shared in easy companions.h.i.+p. 'I think we have you on the hip,' one of the Tudor men warned Keeler. 'They tell me those two chaps from the airport are powerful batsmen.'

'We'll see,' Harry replied. 'And if it looks bad for us, Sally here will pray for rain.' In that case, no matter how poorly Bristol Town did after the lunch break, the match would be a draw.

Bristol did quite poorly, the Tudor brothers proving that they were bowlers of almost test cla.s.s, all out for 133, leaving The Rest with ample time to win.

They sent in a cautious batsman first, paired with one of the good players from York, and although the cautious man went down quickly, the more experienced player hit out strongly and scored well. But when the next batsman came in, one of the tragedies of cricket unfolded. To score a run, both batsmen had to run, at the same time, exchanging creases, and it sometimes happened that a poor batsman would be too daring in his decision. He would try to run when the odds were against him; his partner, starting out of his safe area just a little late, would be thrown out through no fault of his own. Cricket being a gentleman's game, the good batsman did not in this moment of frustration thump his inept partner over the head with his bat, but he would have been justified in doing so.

That is what happened: the poor batsman was safe, the good one out. So The Rest lost two wickets in a hurry, but then one of the radar men from the airport came to bat, and it was obvious after his first few runs that he had played a good deal of high-quality cricket in the English counties. He was good, and it looked as if he might notch a century when Harry Keeler made a remarkable play. The airport man hit a well-placed ground ball which rolled rapidly out toward the boundary. If it escaped the fielders, it would be a four, and even if someone from the Bristol Town side did run it down, two or perhaps three runs would be scored. So the batsman and his partner set out confidently, but Harry, running at startling speed, overtook the ball, reached down without stopping, grabbed it with one hand, and with unbroken motion threw it with great force right into the hands of the distant wicketkeeper, who deftly ticked the bails, the two wooden crosspieces atop the wicket, into the gra.s.s. The play was very close. Did the runner reach safety before the bails went flying, or had the ball beaten him? 'Howzzat?' shouted the Bristol men, and Canon Tarleton stood impa.s.sive. Then, after a dramatic pause, he signaled the runner out. A cheer went up from both sides in tribute to Harry Keeler's mighty throw which had dismissed The Rest's leading scorer.

The play did not aid Bristol much, because the other airport man teamed up with a strong batsman from York, and runs were added at a pace that seemed to doom Bristol. Keeler came up with another dazzling defensive play, a falling dive parallel to the ground to make a one-handed catch off the York batsman, but another stubborn man took his place, and with help from the high-scoring airport man, The Rest scored the necessary 134 well before quitting time.

A visitor from Barbados, an elderly black man who had as a youth once toured England with Sir Benny Castain, took the trouble to find Keeler at the end of the match: 'I'm John Gaveny, selector from Bridgetown, and I must say any team could use a world-cla.s.s fielder like you,' but before Harry could feel elation, Gaveny added: 'That is, if he could be relied upon to put together twenty or thirty runs.'

Harry and Sally were among the last of the Bristol Town contingent to leave York, and after darkness fell at a quarter past six like a curtain in a theater cras.h.i.+ng down, they stopped at one of the niches carved in the side of the mountain for the pa.s.sage of buses and kissed with some ardor. When they reached home, Sally said: 'Come in and have supper with us,' and they found that the housekeeper had waiting for them and the commissioner a bubbling stew made of island vegetables, potatoes brought by s.h.i.+p from Ireland and beef flown in from Miami. After asking how the game had gone, Commissioner Wrentham said: 'Those brothers from Tudor, if they can master a change of pace, they'll be on the test team for sure,' and Sally said: 'If you'd seen Harry's defensive plays, you'd put him there too.' After supper Wrentham said: 'I have work at the station,' and he left the young lovers alone, satisfied on all counts: he had raised a splendid daughter who was being courted by a man worthy of her.

But the courts.h.i.+p, so appropriate from every outside evaluation, did not go smoothly, because two weeks after the cricket match, Laura Shaughnessy, from the governor general's office, said to Sally: 'Let's take tomorrow off. The Rastafarian wants to see the north end of the island, and I said I'd take him in my car.'

For Sally, what had started as a casual excursion turned out to be a day of tremendous significance, when values were up for review. It would prove to be totally different from the genteel ride with the Englishman Keeler to the cricket game at York. That had been essentially a trip back to England, with a break for tea, and an almost fanatical observation of the little niceties of the game.

Today would be a harsh, almost brutal ride into the realities of a new black republic with its dominant African heritage extruding at a dozen unexpected points. Laura, several shades darker than Sally, drove her small car with Ras-Negus Grimble hunched up beside her in the front seat and Sally tightly packed into the rear.

The difference between the two excursions started immediately, for instead of taking the mountain road south, Laura headed north, and as soon as they left the town, the Rastafarian took command, as if he were a young king and they his concubines. What he wanted to see was the lay of the land, its capacity for agriculture, the crops it was already growing, and how the little farms that peppered this apparently empty part of the island were positioned. Twice he ordered Laura peremptorily: 'Stop! I want to visit that farmer,' and when he left the car to talk with the black people occupying the hut he spoke about crops with such obvious authority, that Sally thought: I'll bet his ancestors inspected their fields that way in Africa.

When they were about two miles south of Tudor, Sally accompanied him on a walking visit to a third farmer whose fields were off the road, and was amazed at the turn their conversation took. 'Can you grow a good ganja on your back fields?'

'Never tried.'

'If I brought you number-one seed, would you try?'

'How I gonna sell ganja, suppose I grow it?'

'Great Babylon Americans hungry for ganja. Very good price.'

'We don't grow much here All Saints. Don't use it much.'

'All that's going to change. Remember. I told you. Great G.o.d Haile Sela.s.sie say so.'

On the short hop into Tudor, Sally asked: 'Isn't ganja what is usually called marijuana?'

'Ganja is the sacred herb of Rastafari. Opens all doors.'

In Tudor he was electric, moving about among black people, who were overwhelmed by his tremendous locks, his colorful s.h.i.+rt, the secure manner in which he conducted himself. Sally noticed that he tended to keep away from people of light color like herself; his message was for the black farmer, the black storekeeper, the woman who washed clothes, and it was always the same: 'Black people gonna rise all over the Caribbean. G.o.d comin' back to earth in Ethiopia, reconquer the world for us.'