Ocean Stirrings: A Work of Fiction in Tribute to Louise Langdon Norton Little, Working Mother and Activist, Mother of Malcolm X and Seven Siblings

CHAPTER ONE

1896. A La Digue Morning

From the hills of La Digue they can look down at the ocean, talking secret to the sands, shoo-shooing, playful, intimate, running up and easing back, down there near La Baye, the town that is theirs. People say it is the second town of their island, Grenada, but for those who live there, La Baye, which some also call Grenville, is the first. Sometimes town people act as if town, which is what they call St George's, the capital, is the centre, but to people around La Baye, their town is really the main place for everything - for good king fish from the sea, for crayfish from the river mouth, for a nice new market these days, for cocoa, now that cocoa is in swing, for nutmeg, for everything. It is where they meet and greet each other by Mr Lamotte liquor store, by Mr Rennie on Victoria Street, by the Revenue Office, by the Colonial Bank agency, by the market. They pretend not to see Miss Doodoose, as underneath as ever, standing up at the corner by the pillarbox, watching everything and waiting to run she mouth. Or Mr Joseph, waiting by that same pillar box in his khaki shirt and khaki pants, waiting to see the government workers clear the mail out of the pillarbox at half past two, waiting as if somebody paying him to do that job. Fast he fast so, they thinking. But there is nothing of that in their shouts to one another.

Makoumè, kouman ou yé? How tings?

And

What you know good? Sa ou ka di la?

Épi

Ti fi, ou gadé bèl, wi! Girl, you lookin nice, yes!

And

You don't have to tell me something in the mortar besides the pestle. Uh Uh Uh!

Ou pa ni pou di mwen i ni kéchoy nan pilon-an pasé manch-la

Épi

Woy-o-yoy! Denmou an plas la! Trouble in the place!

Sometimes they have to help up two languages - dé lanng - to tell the story going on around them; sometimes one is enough. And always they laugh out loud, sounding gleeful, as if they have secured the secret to survival. Not that life is easy. Life has never been easy. Sometimes on the hill in La Digue and the surrounding areas, when the rain don't fall to water the hillside land, and when the estate acting as if labourer is river dog, things hard like boli, which is the name their ancestors left them for the calabash, but anyway God good - Papa Bondyé bon - and they making it.

And this thing self they call the estate! All round the place the situation different and some people getting rid of the land because they say it not doing too well, but whether is Vincent in La Digue or those that inherit from Garraway in Union or is Patterson in Marli Cottage or Patterson and Whiteman in Mirabeau and St Cyr, it don't matter who it is, you have to listen out for when land become available and try to make sure you get a piece because land becoming available more and more and a little piece o land is the answer these days for poor people who don't have it. Because even when it there for you to work on and put money in their pocket, that is another story. They say they getting rid of the big estate and helping out poor people, but what they doing is trying to help deyself first. Épi, si ou katjilé asou'i, ou sa konpwann. And if you think about it, it stands to reason. Tout moun ka gadé pou kòyé. Everybody looking out for theyself.

They tell you they going give you an acre of land so you could work it and they ask you to plant cocoa for them in between your crops on your acre while you plant yam and dasheen and other things for yourself. But don't be fooled. Mé pa kité yé kouyonné'w. Oh no! As soon as you finish planting the cocoa for them, they taking away that piece and saying how willing they are to give you another piece. They laughing with you kya kya kya while all of this happening and you just have to watch them and do as if you stupid. You know that is their land, but that as soon as you manage to buy a piece for yourself where you could grow your own food, you done with this nonsense. Ou fini èvèk bétiz sala. And is not only here it happening. My cousin in Sauteurs tell me is the same thing up there.

Maryam is thinking all of this as she stands with arms akimbo, on the dirt road below the hill where their house sits, looking down through the trees at the sea in the distance. She gives a quick swish to the light blue cotton skirt, stamps her feet, puts her hand up to touch the plait circling her head, and stamps her feet again. A cricket or a mybone or something. Some insect trying to bother her. She moves a hand across her shoulders, brushing, looking around; she sees nothing, focuses again on the grey-blue sea, foaming down below.

She can't hear it, but she can imagine that swhooshing sound of the sea as it moving in and out, looking so calm over there near La Baye. These days, is like she always hearing talk about how blue and peaceful are the seas around the island. Hmm. Is the children she hearing the talk from. Is high-up people that does talk that talk, and it come to her mainly through the children, who get it wherever they get it, but the sea looking good down there in truth, wi, even from far - the white foam on the blue, speckling it up like - well, it lookin good - well good.

Maryam thinks of her big son Eero. At seventeen, eh - seventeen dèggè dèggè years! - and with what his father calling a independent streak. At seventeen, what kind of independent streak is that he having? Ki kalité andépandans i ni a dissèt lané?

Anyway, mouth open, word jump out, yes. At seventeen, me self already had more than enough on my plate. Hay-a-yay! And in spite of herself, Maryam laughing out loud at this thought so that Dolly - walking down the track just at that moment, coming from her garden further up the hill along this road that they calling Waterfall, with a bundle of wood poised over a straw hat on her head, a brown skin mami sipot in one hand and a short-blade cutlass in the other - Dolly stop and talk.

"Ay ay, Maryam! Blag sala byen dou. That joke well sweet. I want piece of it. Mwen vlé yon mòso."

Maryam turns to face Dolly, smiles, stands with her feet apart on the track, and moves the outside part of her right thumb across her chin. "Kouman ou yé, Dolly? How you do?"

You have to be careful, she thinking. The same ones laughing with you kya kya kya just waiting to pick up story and run with it.

Dolly looks at Maryam curiously. "Mwen la. I dey. But you self, Maryam, you more than dey! Mé ou menm, Maryam, ou plis ki la. You and who else enjoying thing so? Ou épi ki moun ki ka pasé bon tan kon sa? Bagay bon? Thing good?"

Maryam is still smiling, calm, watchful. "Me and me alone, girl. Sé mwen épi mwen tousèl. Is my mind giving me good joke like that. Sé lèspwi mwen ki ka ba mwen bon blag kon sa. Épi sé lanng épi dan ki ka édé mwen kon sa. And is tongue and teeth that helping me out so." Maryam laughs out loud again, and Dolly smiles, still looking curious.

"Lanng épi dan, sé dé sala, yé danjéwé, eh. Those two, tongue and teeth, they dangerous, you know." And Dolly moves her head slightly to one side to give emphasis to the point. Maryam smiles too, her face crinkling as she lifts a hand to rub it across eyes gone suddenly cloudy, as if rain does fall when you least expect it. She thinks, Yes, I know. Wi. Mwen konnèt. She turns to her right, jumps over the cocoa leaves, across the small drain, indicating that she is going to walk back up to her house on the hillside.

"Well, see you again, Ma," says Dolly. "Let me put foot to road and go make sure pot on fire. Kité mwen mété pyé asou chimen èk alé mété chòdyè mwen asou difé-a. Take care of yourself, okay? And say howdy for me."

"Wi, doudou. Mèsi. Yes, my dear. Thank you. Di bonjou pou mwen osi. Say howdy for me, too."

Dolly, her dark face glistening with sweat, her long brown skirt down over black waterboots,the underarm of her blue and white short-sleeved t-shirt visibly wet as she lifts an arm again to steady the load on her head, turns to continue down the hillside. Maryam walks up the hill through the red bougainvillea she had planted on both sides of the stony path.

Her brain is at it again, not making her laugh out loud this time, just turning things over so she could read them inside her head and try to make out anything that might be wanting to hide in the margins. Lanng épi dan. Hmm. Tongue and teeth. Yes. She know they dangerous. Anyway, she must go back inside. She just had to run down the hill and get some air. She like to look down at La Baye from the bend in the road, especially when the head feeling kinda full. Something about that particular bend-in-the-road view always make her feel better.

They will christen the little girl tomorrow...