Obeah

by HENRIETTA FORT HOLLAND

My mother’s maid Ann was from Montserrat in the British West Indies and she had been with us quite a long time when we took her to Bermuda one year. She didn’t feel much like a Montserrat girl any more, and she readily took on the general snobbish attitude of the other Bermudian girls toward the “West Indias.”

Unlike the “West Indias,” Bermudian colored girls wore shoes, on Sundays proud patent leather ones, or shining white; dresses of cotton in lavender or pink or yellow, and great serious straw hats. The majority of them worked for English people, and they knew the Anglican church service as accurately as their employers did. And Ann was like them, attending the Episcopal cathedral in Hamilton every Sunday, carrying the prayer book in her huge brown hands encased in their white cotton gloves.

She could have been taken for a real Bermudian, except for her speech, which was still broadly and unmistakably Montserrat, while Bermudians spoke in a fine Dickens manner in the. identical fashion of Samuel Weller. “Should I throw away that wine?” they would inquire of their mistresses politely, inquiring not as to the disposition of a remnant of Chianti, but of a green trailing plant; and they always spoke of the “wegetable garden.”

Ann did, however, approximate their extremely haughty attitude toward the “West Indias.”And she was particularly distant toward Danny. He was a “West India” man who drove us in his carriage on errands mostly, back and forth to the grocery in Hamilton. She was very remote with him, but to us Danny was indeed a fascinating man. He may have been thirty-five, but to us children he seemed venerable, and possessed of an infinite wisdom. This impression was heightened by the two pairs of spectacles he wore, his white helmet, and the wonderful, mysterious things he said.

One day Mother was riding with ns, with Ann. And Ann had just asked Mother how her sister’s asthma was.

“Oh, not very well, Ann, thank you,” my mother said. “The doctors don’t seem to know what to do about it.”

Danny turned around and peered at Mother behind his two sets of spectacles. “Tell she to eat rah cockroach, Mistress,” he tossed back at us, and turned again, briskly flicking his whip over the horse’s back.

I could see that Mother was trying to keep from laughing. She took out her handkerchief and pressed it against her mouth. But Ann had a different kind of look. She pursed her lips and glared disapprovingly at Danny. Then she began to shake her head furiously from side to side.

When my mother had finally regained her composure she embarked on what seemed a safe subject. “You know, when I’m down in these islands,”she said to Ann, “I always think of that eruption of Mount Pelée in Martinique. I hope there aren’t any volcanoes around here.”

“No, there are not, Mahdam,” said Danny, whirling upon us suddenly again from the front seat. “It happen in Martinique because they crucify the pig.”

“But why, Danny — ” began my mother, and then retired again, choking behind her handkerchief, while Ann again darted that furious look at Danny, accompanied by the grave shaking of her head.

We drove along in silence then, over the white coral road, between the houses with the purple bougainvillaea, and in a minute we were in Hamilton. So we heard no more about the “rah" cockroach or the mysterious crucifixion of the pig.

But that night, when Ann was putting me to bed, I ventured to ask her aboul it. Why do they crucify a pig in Martinique, Ann?" I asked. And did it really make that volcano start!

Ann pursed her lips again, and shook her head the way she did in the carriage. “ My bless, Miss Henry, she said. “Don’t ever ahsk about ting like that. Dahnny a very ungahdly malm.”

And she let down the Venetian blind, and crushed a grasshopper beneath her foot, the way you almost always have to get rid of something when you go to bed in Bermuda.

2

THAT was all the satisfaction I ever had about the many mysterious things Danny told us. When we were going for a drive with him, we used to try to get out to the carriage before Ann, so that we could talk to him, because she seemed to disapprove so heartily of him and his conversation.

One morning I told him about a mouse that had been in my room the night before.

“And it squeaks,” I said. “Little squeaks, like this.” I tried to imitate the sound. Danny listened, his head, in the white helmet, inclined thoughtfully to one side.

“That,” he said, “are a singing mouse, Mistress.” He looked at me gravely behind his two pairs of spectacles. “Never let they kill that mouse, Mistress,” he said. “Never let they kill she.”

I said I knew they would. They had killed many live things in my little bedroom.

“Don’t you tell them about she, Mistress,” he said. “Don’t you tell.” He stepped close and whispered. “That mouse,” he said, “are a Token.”

I never had a chance to ask what a Token was, because Ann came out just then. It probably wouldn t have been any use anyway, for Danny would never explain these mysterious matters. So far would he go and no farther. Ann got into the carriage and we followed her. She never liked to leave us children alone with Danny at all if she could help it.

One night when she was putting me to bed, I tried to ask her again about Danny. “What are all those funny things ho said?’ I asked. “What do they mean?”

Ann pursed her lips and shook her head. “ He very foolish,” she said. “Very ungahdly.”

“But what do those things mean?” I said, thinking of the “rah” cockroach and the pig and the singing mouse.

She shook her head. “Ahl wickedness,” she said. “Obeah they cahl it. Mahgic they mean. You never ahsk about ting like that,” she said. “He not very sensible.”

And she tiptoed mysteriously from the room. I let her go, without any more questions, because I was so afraid the mouse might begin to sing.

It was some time before I heard any more about “obeah.” In fact, weeks afterwards.

One afternoon, when my mother was having people for tea, and Ann was too busy in the house to go, we were sent for a drive alone with Danny. I still think it was one of the most wonderful afternoons of my life. We drove along the coral roads at a leisurely pace, not the brisk one we had to assume when we were going into Hamilton marketing, and Danny talked to us and told us about everything. Though never quite enough. When we started to question him, he closed up like a clam. But he was generous with time at least. That afternoon, whenever we wanted to investigate anything at the side of the road, he stopped and allowed us to get down.

The first place we stopped was by a little pool. It was inland a short distance from the sea. The marsh grass waved thickly about it, and it sparkled in the sunshine — a magical blue, the color of larkspur. We took off our shoes and socks and waded happily in. But suddenly we heard something gliding through the shining grasses. My sister ran screaming to the carriage.

“Danny!” she cried. “Maybe it’s a snake!”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “No snakes in Bermuda. But snake would not be here in the daytime anyway. In my home, Trinidad, we have a sayin’: ‘Black Mamba — she only wahk at night.’”

He knew everything. And we ambled on through the sunny hot afternoon, at the same delightful lazy pace, stopping to look at things.

At another curve, we came to an old pink stucco house set on a hillside, its weathered green shutters hanging crazily. “Oh, Danny!” we cried. “Let’s go in there! A deserted house!”

But he shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not in there. Best not, little Mistress.”

When we asked why, he stopped the horse and turned around to gaze at us solemnly behind his two pairs of spectacles. “ Lahst time, he said, lahst time I go an’ see that house—”

“What, Danny?” we shrieked.

“I go in an’ tread very cautious,” he said. “Cautious, as not to waken the dead. For the house hahnted, little Mistress.”

“Ooh, Danny,” we said. “Ooh.”

“But when I go in I see a real live wooman. A woman I know of next pahrish.”

“Yes, Danny?” we cried.

“An’ she sit in rocker in parlor. She sit in rocker an’ rock she baby in she lahp. But sudden I gaze an’ —”

“What?” we shrieked. ”What?”

“The baby turn sudden to frog, and rahn away,” be said. He touched the horse lightly with his whip, and we started slowly on. “No,” he said. “Best not go in there. Best not go in there, little Mistress.”

We rode quietly on through the dreamy Bermuda stillness, wondering about the baby who turned into a frog. We knew it would be useless to question Danny further.

So we sat in the back seat tactfully waiting for his next revelation. It was not long in coming. “This,” he observed, turning again to face us behind his goggles, “this the North Shore Road. It is here I think,” he said, checking the horse, “yes—just about here — that I met the donkey.”

“The donkey? ” we asked in unison.

“Yes,” he said. “Just about here. A big donkey, blahk and white— very fierce and strahng. An’ he hahve cigar in he mouf.”

We laughed.

“A donkey with a cigar, Danny!” we said. “How funny!”

“Oh, no,”said Danny, looking solemn. “No, little Mistress. Not funny. He ahsk me for a light an’ when I say I hahve none, he say —”

“What?” we squealed.

Danny drew back his lips in a dreadful leer.

“He say, ‘See my teef? See my teef?’”

That seemed to be that, too. Danny silently turned the carriage around toward home.

When we reached there, Ann appeared to have been very anxious about us. She rushed out and seized our hands, with scarcely a curt nod to Danny.

“You late!” she cried. “What make you so late?”

3

DURING supper, which we had in the kitchen because of the tea party in the front of the house, Ann inquired about our afternoon. Knowing her prejudice, I was careful to avoid any allusions to Danny’s stories, but my sister was not so wise.

She told the curious story about Danny and the donkey he met on the North Shore Road.

And Ann was not amused. She was, in fact, quite furious, as I knew she would be. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “He very ungahdly,” she said. And she rushed us through our supper and to bed.

Just as she was letting down the blind, I made a last effort to find out about things. “That about the donkey,” I said. “Was that obeah?”

“It was tahk,” she said. “Tahk of a foolish mahn. An’ you never ahsk about ting like that,” she said.

After that day, she was always careful that we never were in the carriage with Danny unless she was there. And if he embarked on one of his anecdotes, she changed the subject in a very reproving manner.

Once when we were driving along, ho whirled around, the way he always did, and offered to tell our fortunes. But Ann suddenly became very much interested in the grocery list and began to question him about it. “Is the pound cake to be hahd at the grocery?” she asked, and other limitless questions until we trotted right into the center of Hamilton, and he had no chance to tell our fortunes.

But of course Ann had no use for fortunes anyway. I remember a charity garden party she took us to once, over on the Devonshire side of the island. There was an English lady there, dressed as a gypsy, who was telling everyone’s fortune for a shilling, for the hospital. But Ann had refused to have hers told, shaking her head and laughing. “My bless,” she said, “I know my fortune. To work hahd all my days.”

Fortunes were evidently another foolish and ungahdly subject.

Not long after that we left Bermuda. Danny drove us down to the boat, and we were sad to see the last of him, with his white helmet and his two pairs of spectacles. But up North, we were too busy with school and everything else to think much about him or the wonderful stories he would never explain. Or obeah.

Almost two years later, he turned up again in a most unexpected way. One night Ann appeared at the parlor door, and spoke to my mother. “May I see you for one moment, Mahdam?” she asked.

Mother got up and went out to the kitchen. She was gone for some time.

When she finally came back to the living room, none of us could quite believe the news she had to tell: Danny had become a cook on one of the West Indies boats. “You remember in Bermuda he was a chef before he was a driver,” my mother said. “He took the job shortly after we left. Whenever his boat has been in port, he has been seeing Ann. And amazingly — she has married him!”

“Is she going to leave?” we wailed anxiously. It was our only reaction. We even forgot to wonder if we should see Danny again, and if Ann would let us hear his mysterious stories now. And if he would really explain them.

“Oh, no,” said my mother. “He keeps his job on the boat, and she keeps hers here. She only thought I should know.”

It was just after Thanksgiving, and the next day Ann was in the dining room, lingering over her carpet sweeper and talking to us, as she sometimes did.

“Danny was home at Thahnksgiving,” she said. “An’ he brought a present. A turkey he cook heself on the boat.”

“Oh, Ann,” I said. “How wonderful! Was it good?”

She shook her head. And suddenly she pursed her lips in the old way. “I do not know,” she said.

“Not know, Ann?" I asked. “Weren’t you hungry?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ann. “I made myself a cheese sahndwich.”

“A cheese sandwich?” I said. “With all that good turkey Danny cooked?”

“My bless,” she said. “Yes. A cheese sahndwich.” And Danny’s bride resumed her task with the carpet sweeper.

“I never eat ahfter he,” she said.

“I never eat ahfter he.” It was something that would have no explanation. Like how she ever came to marry that ungahdly mahn. Or singing mice, or talking donkeys.

You just never ahsk about ting like that.