Bodily Harm (18 page)

Dr. Minnow is grinning. “There is Marsdon,” he says. “That boy always busy, he’s working for the Prince of Peace. They’re making the leaflets in the People’s Church, there is a machine. They think they have the one true religion and you go to hell if you don’t believe, they be glad to send you. But with these people they will not get far. You know why, my friend?”

“Why?” says Rennie, humouring him. She’s tuning out, it’s too much like small-town politics, the tiny feuds in Griswold, the grudges, the stupid rivalries. Who cares?

“Always they hand out papers,” says Dr. Minnow. “They say it explain everything, why the sun shine, whose arse it shine out, not mine I can assure you of that.” He chuckles, delighted with his own joke. “But they forget that few can read.”

The children caper in Marsdon’s wake, holding the squares of paper up in the air by their corners, waving them, white kites.

Another car drives into the muddy space and parks in front of the bakery; there are two men in it but they don’t get out. Rennie can see their upturned faces, the blank eyes of their sunglasses.

“Now we have the whole family,” says Dr. Minnow. “This kind does not hand out papers.”

“Who are they?” says Rennie. His tone of voice is making her jumpy.

“My friends,” he says softly. “They follow me everywhere. They want to make sure I am safe.” He smiles and puts his hand on her arm. “Come,” he says. “There is more to see.”

He steers her down some steps to a stone corridor, where at least it’s cooler. He shows her the officers’ quarters, plain square rooms with the plaster falling away from the walls in patches.

“We wanted to have a display here,” he says. “Maps, the wars between the French and English. And a gift shop, for the local arts and culture. But the Minister for Culture is not interested. He say, ‘You can’t eat culture.’ ” Rennie wants to ask what the local arts and culture are, but decides to wait. It’s one of those questions to which she’s already supposed to know the answer.

They go down more stone stairs. At the bottom there’s a line of fresh washing, sheets and flowered pillowcases hung out to dry in the sun. Two women sit on plastic-webbed chairs; they smile at Dr. Minnow. One of them is making what looks like a wallhanging from shreds of material in pastel underwear colours, peach, baby-blue, pink; the other is crocheting, something white. Perhaps these are the local arts and culture.

A third woman, in a brown dress and a black knitted hat, comes from a doorway.

“How much?” Dr. Minnow says to the woman who’s crocheting, and Rennie can see that she’s expected to buy one of the white objects. So she does.

“How long did it take you to make it?” Rennie asks her.

“Three days,” she says. She has a full face, a pleasant direct smile.

“That if your boyfriend not around,” says Dr. Minnow, and everyone laughs.

“We here to see the barracks,” Dr. Minnow says to the woman in brown. “This lady is from Canada, she is writing about the history
here.” He’s misunderstood her, that’s why he’s showing her all this. Rennie doesn’t have the heart to correct him.

The woman unlocks the door and ushers them through. She has a badge pinned to her shoulder, Rennie sees now.
MATRON
.

“Do those women live here?” she asks.

“They are our women prisoners,” Dr. Minnow says. “The one you buy the thing from, she chop up another woman. The other one, I don’t know.” Behind her the matron stands beside the open door, laughing with the two women. It all seems so casual.

They’re in a corridor, with a row of doors on one side, a line of slatted windows on the other, overlooking a sheer drop to the sea. They go through a doorway; it leads to another corridor with small rooms opening off from it.

The rooms smell of neglect; bats hang upside down in them, there are hornets’ nests on the walls, debris rotting in the corners.
DOWN WITH BABYLON
, someone has scrawled across one wall.
LOVE TO ALL
. The rooms farthest from the sea are damp and dark, it’s too much like a cellar for Rennie.

They go back to the main corridor, which is surprisingly cool, and walk towards the far end. Dr. Minnow says she should try to imagine what this place was like with five hundred men in it. Crowded, thinks Rennie. She asks if this is the original wood.

Dr. Minnow opens the door at the end, and they’re looking at a small, partly paved courtyard surrounded by a wall. The courtyard is overgrown with weeds; in a corner of it three large pigs are rooting.

In the other corner there’s an odd structure, made of boards nailed not too carefully together. It has steps up to a platform, four supports but no walls, a couple of crossbeams. It’s recent but dilapidated; Rennie thinks it’s a child’s playhouse which has been left unfinished and wonders what it’s doing here.

“This is what the curious always like to see,” Dr. Minnow murmurs.

Now Rennie understands what she’s being shown. It’s a gallows.

“You must photograph it, for your article,” says Dr. Minnow. “For the sweet Canadians.”

Rennie looks at him. He isn’t smiling.

Dr. Minnow is discoursing on the Carib Indians.

“Some of the earlier groups made nose cups,” he says, “which they used for taking liquid narcotics. That is what interests our visitors the most. And they took drugs also from behind. For religious purposes, you understand.”

“From behind?” says Rennie.

Dr. Minnows laughs. “A ritual enema,” he says. “You should put this in your article.”

Rennie wonders whether he’s telling the truth, but it’s too grotesque not to be true. She’s not sure the readers of
Visor
will want to hear about this, but you never know. Maybe it will catch on; for those who cough when smoking.

Dr. Minnow has insisted on taking her to lunch, and Rennie, hungry enough to eat an arm, has not protested. They’re in a Chinese restaurant, which is small, dark, and hotter than the outside sunlight. Two ceiling fans stir the damp air but do not cool it; Rennie feels sweat already wetting her underarms and trickling down her chest. The table is red formica, spotted with purplish brown sauce.

Dr. Minnow smiles across at her, kindly, avuncular, his bottom teeth clasped over the top ones like folded hands. “There is always a
Chinese restaurant,” he says. “Everywhere in the world. They are indefatigable, they are like the Scots, you kick them out in one place, they turn up in another. I myself am part Scottish, I have often considered going to the Gathering of the Clans. My wife say this is what makes me so pig-headed.” Rennie is somewhat relieved to hear that he has a wife. He’s been too attentive, there must be a catch.

A waiter comes and Rennie lets Dr. Minnow order for her. “Sometimes I think I should have remained in Canada,” he says. “I could live in an apartment, or a split-level bungalow, like all the sweet Canadians, and be a doctor of sheep. I even enjoy the snow. The first time it snowed, I ran out into it in my socks, without a coat; I danced, it made me so happy. But instead I come back here.”

The green tea arrives and Rennie pours it. Dr. Minnow takes his cup, turns it around, sighs. “The love of your own country is a terrible curse, my friend,” he says. “Especially a country like this one. It is much easier to live in someone else’s country. Then you are not tempted.”

“Tempted?” says Rennie.

“To change things,” he says.

Rennie feels they’re heading straight towards a conversation she doesn’t really want to have. She tries to think of another topic. At home there’s always the weather, but that won’t do here, since there is no weather.

Dr. Minnow leans across the table towards her. “I will be honest with you, my friend,” he says. “There is something I wish you to do.”

Rennie isn’t surprised. Here it comes, whatever it is. “What’s that?” she says warily.

“Allow me to explain,” says Dr. Minnow. “This is our first election since the departure of the British. Perhaps it will be the last, since it is my own belief that the British parliamentary system will
no longer work in this place. It works in Britain only because they have a tradition, there are still things that are inconceivable. Here, nothing is inconceivable.” He pauses, sips at his tea. “I wish you to write about it.”

Whatever Rennie’s been expecting, it isn’t this. But why not? People are always coming on to her about their favourite hot topic. She feels her eyes glaze over.
Great
, she should say.
Good idea
. Then they’re satisfied. Instead she says, “What on earth could I write about it?”

“What you see,” says Dr. Minnow, choosing not to pick up on her exasperation. “All I ask you to do is look. We will call you an observer, like our friends at the United Nations.” He gives a small laugh. “Look with your eyes open and you will see the truth of the matter. Since you are a reporter, it is your duty to report.”

Rennie reacts badly to the word
duty
. Duty was big in Griswold. “I’m not that kind of reporter,” she says.

“I understand, my friend,” says Dr. Minnow. “You are a travel writer, it is an accident you are here, but you are all we can turn to at the moment. There is no one else. If you were a political journalist the government would not have been happy to see you, they would have delayed your entry or expelled you. In any case, we are too small to attract the attention of anyone from the outside, and by the time they are interested it will be too late. They always wait for the blood.”

“Blood?” says Rennie.

“News,” says Dr. Minnow.

The waiter brings a platter of tiny corncobs and some things that look like steamed erasers, and another of greens and squid. Rennie picks up her chopsticks. A minute ago she was hungry.

“We have seventy-percent unemployment,” says Dr. Minnow. “Sixty percent of our population is under twenty. Trouble happens
when the people have nothing left to lose. Ellis knows this. He is using the foreign aid money from the hurricane to bribe the people. The hurricane was an act of God, and Ellis thinks that too. He hold out his hands to heaven and pray for someone up there to save his ass for him, and bang, all that money from the sweet Canadians. This is not all. He is using threats now, he says he will take away the jobs and maybe burn down the houses of those who do not vote for him.”

“He’s doing this openly?” says Rennie.

“On the radio, my friend,” says Dr. Minnow. “As for the people, many are afraid of him and the rest admire him, not for this behaviour, you understand, but because he can get away with it. They see this as power and they admire a big man here. He spends their money on new cars and so forth for himself and friends, they applaud that. They look at me, they say, ‘What you can do for us?’ If you have nothing you are nothing here. It’s the old story, my friend. We will have a Papa Doc and after that a revolution or so. Then the Americans will wonder why people are getting killed. They should tell the sweet Canadians to stop giving money to this man.”

Rennie knows she’s supposed to feel outrage. She remembers the early seventies, she remembers all that outrage you were supposed to feel. Not to feel it then was very unfashionable. At the moment though all she feels is imposed upon. Outrage is out of date.

“What good would it do, even if I wrote it?” says Rennie. “I couldn’t get it published here, I don’t know anyone.”

Dr. Minnow laughs. “Not here,” he says. “Here there is one paper only and Ellis has bought the editor. In any case, few can read. No, you should publish it there. This will be of help, they pay attention to the outside, they are sensitive about their foreign aid. They would know they are being watched, that someone knows what they are doing. This would stop excesses.”

Rennie wonders what an excess is. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but I can’t think of anyone who would touch it. It isn’t even a story yet, nothing’s happened. It’s hardly of general interest.”

“There is no longer any place that is not of general interest,” says Dr. Minnow. “The sweet Canadians have not learned this yet. The Cubans are building a large airport in Grenada. The
CIA
is here, they wish to nip history in the bud, and the Russian agents. It is of general interest to them.”

Rennie almost laughs. The
CIA
has been done to death; surely by now it’s a joke, he can’t be serious. “I suppose they’re after your natural resources,” she says.

Dr. Minnow stares across at Rennie, smiling his cramped smile, no longer entirely kind and friendly. “As you know, we have a lot of sand and not much more. But look at a map, my friend.” He’s no longer pleading, he’s lecturing. “South of St. Antoine is Ste. Agathe, south of Ste. Agathe is Grenada, south of Grenada is Venezuela with the oil, a third of U.S. imports. North of us there is Cuba. We are a gap in the chain. Whoever controls us controls the transport of oil to the United States. The boats go from Guyana to Cuba with rice, from Cuba to Grenada with guns. Nobody is playing.”

Rennie puts down her chopsticks. It’s too hot to eat. She feels as if she’s stumbled into some tatty left-liberal journal with a two-colour cover because they can’t afford three colours. She’s allowed this conversation to go on too long, a minute more and she’ll be hooked. “It’s not my thing,” she says. “I just don’t do that kind of thing. I do lifestyles.”