As Flies to Whatless Boys Read online

  She paused—

  Bleed ’em blanc is what they call him here.

  Mum pressed the kerchief against her cheeks. I reached and put my arms round her, feeling her shoulders trembling though the nightdress.

  After a few minutes Georgina returned, rushing into the parlour. She now wore a pale green frock and white sandals. Her face flushed a bright pink, in contrast to the white kerchief tied round her hair—

  He won’t come! Claims he’s too busy—there’s not another soul in that waiting room! No house visits for pauper patients, he told me. I tried giving him the money, he wouldn’t take it. Told me to have Father come to the hospital if he wants treatment.

  Dr. Blanc? Mum says.

  Georgina nodded.

  Did you inform him your father’s not strong enough to get out of bed? less still to walk crosstown to the hospital?

  Now there were tears on Georgina’s cheeks—

  Of course. But the nurse informed me Dr. Bradford would be at the hospital soon. At least we can place our hopes in Dr. Bradford!

  I pulled myself up onto my feet—slow, a bit wobbly—turning round to look down at my mother again—

  We’ll have to carry Father to the hospital ourselves. We’ve carried him this far, a short trip crosstown won’t be anathing a-tall.

  Then I realised something—

  They’ve taken the bloody stretcher!

  Georgina was standing behind me. And after a few moments of silence I heard her voice. Calm, collected—

  They didn’t, she says. It’s just outside. That man—John—he’s left it propped ’gainst the side of the house.

  ___________________

  Five of us toted Papee now. Me behind, in the middle, Mary and Amelia at either side. Georgina and Mum out in front. We didn’t hoist him up atop our shoulders—weren’t strong enough for that—we carried him at waist-height. Which, in point of fact, seemed more awkward and difficult. Yet we didn’t set Papee down a once to rest weself. Not a once. Despite that it seemed to take us forever to get to that hospital. Walking beneath the hot sun down Charlotte Street, crosstown on Duke, turning on Cambridge Street and following it up to the hospital.

  Mum and the girls wearing fresh frocks. But I remained in my tatty, filthy clothes, my ripped-up boots. Still stenching to high heaven, to bloody hell. Mum had at least sponge-bathed Papee—she’d dressed him in fresh drawers and a fresh merino—but she couldn’t find a pair of clean trousers. Mum even tried putting him into she own nightdress to go to the hospital, but Papee refused. He demanded that she dress him back in his ragged pants.

  Mr. Carr’s old blanket had been replaced by a clean cotton one—dyed by Mum and the girls a clear sky-blue—tucked round my father.

  Near noon by the time we reached the hospital. Five of us stomping our rounded shadows into the pitch. By this time there was a queue of patients stretching out the door, waiting to see the doctor: we didn’t have no choice but to get into line behind them.

  But son, we didn’t have to wait long in that queue, sun beating down atop our heads. Because soon as those other patients got a good look at Papee, they parted to let us pass. Straightway. It came as a shock to me—like I’d seen Papee for so long in this condition I’d grown accustomed to it.

  I listened to a Creole woman fleeing the queue—

  Fevah? Fevah? Is only de cholera could give he dat kinda colour!

  And another—

  Dem’s de eyes of Bazil-self, oui fute!

  Once again it took us several seconds of awkward jostling in front of the hospital door before we realised we’d have to carry Papee inside off the stretcher. We set it down on the paving outside and took him up again, all of us together. But soon as we got him halfway through the door the crowd of patients hurrying to vacate the waiting room forced us back. We stepped aside to let them pass.

  Then we pressed in.

  Bouncing up a French nurse in a starched white gown and headdress, her face showing the same shock as all the others. She turned to lead us down a dark corridor, to a tiny operating room at the back. And we all shoved in, all six of us together. Laying Papee atop a worn table hinged cross the middle, with the two leaves turned down to make a flat surface. In one wall there was a small window with spiderweb-encrusted jalousies. Harsh shadows of burglarbars outside. A tall rusty cabinet propped against another wall.

  The nurse spoke from the door, addressing Mum—

  Chacun doit partir maintenant!

  I didn’t have no idea what she’d said, but the girls understood. They tucked the sky-blue blanket round Papee, kissed him one-by-one, and filed out.

  I looked at Mum—

  I’m not leaving.

  She didn’t answer. Several seconds. I could see her strength of character—I knew it good enough, I’d known it all my life—but as I stood there before her in that little operating room, at that moment, it was as if I was seeing it for the first time—

  I shall deal with this Dr. Blanc, she says. I’ve dealt with him before. You’ve done your part, Willy. Now go and rest yourself.

  I left, reluctant.

  On my way back down the corridor I passed the French nurse, then this Dr. Blanc heself. I knew him straightway—a tiny man, hardly reaching past my shoulders, his baldhead so shiny it glowed in the dim light. Big walrus-moustaches and a gold monocle flashing up at me—

  Merde, he says, shoving past.

  In the waiting room I found my sisters sitting on the single bench. Not a one of those other patients had returned—that’s how startled they were. And now, all-in-a-sudden, I felt the exhaustion. Descending like a bucket of warm water poured overtop my head. Dripping off my numbed fingers. I stumbled past my sisters and slumped down to the flooring in a far corner. Sitting up against the wall, my legs stretching out straight before me, my ripped-up boots. But my eyes remained open, watching at my sisters’ three backs. And after a few seconds my vision went blurry.

  That night, after only a week in Port-Spain—and having struggled the entire day with the other men rescuing Mr. Etzler’s half-sunk Satellite—I was awakened by a distinct, though slightly subdued buzzing noise. Accompanied by a soft breeze across my forehead. Then I heard a succession of three quick zoops, followed by a violent thwack against the screen. Not twelve inches from the side of my face.

  I lay there dazed, still half-asleep, my eyes closed. Fighting off my curiosity. Then I rolled out of my hammock, wearing only my drawers and merino vestshirt. Stumbling out the back screened door and hearing it clap closed behind me. Down the three steps. The night moonless, lit only by a profusion of streaming fireflies. Yet as soon as I looked over towards that corner of our little yard—where I slept several feet above on the other side of the screen—I spotted the tiny creature. Lying on the freshly turned dirt. Just beside the ginger cutting Papee had planted in the half-shade of a groundsill.

  All-in-a-sudden my legs felt energised. I hurried the few paces over and got down on my knees in the moist dirt. Even in the dark I could make out the emerald-glittering breast, little sapphire head twisted backwards at an angle I knew was unnatural. I saw the black dot of an eye, still glossy with life. But what drew my attention most was the tiny pulsating heart. Swelling up and contracting beneath its shining emerald shield. And son, as I watched the little breast moving in-and-out, in-and-out, I heard my own chest. Beating out the cadence for this tiny creature.

  I knelt another minute, looking at the little bird. Then, as gentle as I could manage, I took her up. Shorter than the length of my middle finger. I carried her into the porch, screen door clapping behind, setting her atop the dining table. Then I took down the pitch-oil lamp from its hook and lit it, bringing it over.

  I sat watching the tiny movement within the bird’s breast. Swelling up and contracting, slowing more and more. Till it stopped altogether. Eventually, exhausted, I outed the lamp.

  ___________________

  How long I slept again I couldn’t tell you. Maybe I never fell back asleep
a-tall? All I can say is that after a time I found myself wide awake. I rolled out of my hammock and went back to the table, relighting the pitch-oil lamp. But before I sat down—without any clear notion of my own movements—I went over to the sill at the other side of the porch. Taking up Mum’s small sewing box.

  I sat on the bench, examining the bird once more. This time, as I took her up, I didn’t feel no trepidations a-tall about touching her. First I twisted her tiny sapphire head back round to its natural position. When I’d brought her in her head had quivered slightly inside my palm, loose. But already the neck was stiffening, tightening.

  I realised I had to do this thing quick—whatever-the-arse it was I was going to do, because I still didn’t know myself—before the creature stiffened up altogether.

  I took her up again, squeezing her between my palms. Holding her little head in the proper position. And she more-or-less retained that posture. Now I laid her careful on her back, stretching out the undersized wings at each side: they recoiled, but not altogether so. I opened Mum’s box and took out the pincushion, removing two of the pins. Pressing them through the apices of the wings, fixing them to the plank table. One pin at either side of her little breast. Using two more, I tacked down the tail.

  I moved by instinct. All I had to go on, really, was the method I’d observed two or three times over the past few days. Watching fishermen at the wharf—or mongers at the fishhouse—gutting they catch.

  Mum had two pairs of scissors in her box. One tiny, the points slightly curved like a nail-scissors, and a larger pair. I took up the small one and blew on the fuzzy feathers at the base of the abdomen, just at the top of the tail. I watched them separate, till I found the bird’s vent. This was where I inserted the point of the small scissors, tip curving up, lifting a little and making a short incision. Sufficiently shallow so I didn’t cut no deeper than the delicate skin.

  But the process felt awkward. Like I was all thumbs.

  I put the scissors down to search through Mum’s box again. Amongst the various spools of thread, the wad of cotton wool and other paraphernalia, I found a little wooden box with the word buttons written in Mum’s script across the top. Lifting off the lid, I found a thimble and a pair of tweezers, crowded in amongst a dozen different sized & shaped & coloured buttons. I turned the contents over onto the table—a neat little square—put the empty box aside.

  Holding the tweezers in my left hand I used them to lift the skin a bit, pulling it away from the little body. With the pair of scissors in my right hand I made a shallow incision, slow-and-smooth. Up across the little abdomen. All the way to the base of the neck: a single clean cut. Then I lifted the severed skin and stretched it to both sides of the little breast. The tiny rib cage—various internal organs assembled inside—lying glossy and exposed before me.

  Utilising Mum’s sewing instruments, with a patience that surprised even me, I dissected out the bird’s innards. Organ by organ. Then I packed the hollowed-out cavity with bits of cotton wool. Tearing them off the wad in fragments, moistening them with saliva, and rolling them up into tight little balls. Twelve-to-fifteen of them—because I was concentrating so hard I couldn’t stop to count them out.

  From Mum’s pincushion I selected a large sewing needle, threading it with a length of coarse thread. Working the tweezers again with my left hand, I lifted the edge of the emerald-feathered skin at the base of the neck. Pressing the needle through—tougher and more resistant than I’d expected. Then I passed the needle through at the other side of my incision. And I pulled the two sides together over the rib cage, now packed tight with cotton wool, and tied my first suture: a simple double-knot. Snipping off the excess thread at each side. Suture by suture, I joined the skin together over the bird’s abdomen, working my way down towards the tail, in a direction opposite to my original incision. Seventeen sutures in all. Because now I did stop to count them out.

  Son, I would guess that I worked on my little bird for maybe an hour? maybe two? I had no way of knowing. Time seemed to flow and fold in on itself as I sat working. I wasn’t even aware of the yellow morning sunlight already sifting in through the screen—pooling up on the plank table like spilled water. Just beside my elbow. Making the pitch-oil lamp at my other side redundant. The table strewn with all the various objects from Mum’s sewing kit: the small piece of cloth with the piled-up bird’s innards, tidy square of buttons, the little empty box.

  I removed the four pins and returned them to Mum’s cushion. Now, holding the bird in both my cupped palms, I pressed the wings gentle against her body again. And after a minute I lay the bird down on her side, reaching my arms up above my head. Stretching. Leaning back on the bench to examine the result of my labours. A few minutes later Papee arrived, wandering out onto the porch behind me, also wearing his drawers and merino vestshirt. He looked over my shoulder a long minute. Studying the little bird. But I didn’t turn round. I sat there feeling his presence behind me, his warm breath on the back of my neck.

  Then he leant forward over the table, raising up the little glass of the pitch-oil lamp, blowing it out.

  Sometime later I became cognizant that the waiting room was filled with patients again, a man sitting on the flooring at each of my elbows. So many people it took me a full minute to realise Mum was there in the waiting room now too—sitting with my sisters on the bench—they four backs turned towards me.

  At first I took this in calmly enough. Then I pulled myself up onto my feet—feeling like I was about to pitch backwards to the flooring again. Pressing past the other patients. Over towards my mother and sisters. I looked down at them, at Georgina and Mum’s flushed faces. Mary and Amelia’s cheeks glistening with tears.

  I reached down to grab hold of both my mother’s shoulders. Tight. Shaking her—

  You were meant to stay with him!

  She looked up. And although the colour seemed to have drained from her face, her strength of character remained. It reassured me a little—

  They forced me out. They demanded—else they refused to treat him. Said it wasn’t fit for a woman to witness the procédé.

  It took me a few seconds to respond to this—

  What procedure? I ask, loud enough to make the other patients turn round. Staring. All they faces blank.

  I haven’t a clue, she says. But Dr. Bradford’s with him now—at least we should be able to trust Dr. Bradford!

  She paused—

  We have to, Willy. Nous n’avons pas d’autres choix!

  I stared down at her. Trying to calm myself—

  And just how long has he been in there with those doctors?

  ___________________

  There’s a trick physicians used to do with leeches. In the old days: once the leech attached itself and began to draw blood, the doctor used scissors to sever off its tail. That way, rather than the customary five-to-seven ounces they generally drew—till the leech swelled to capacity and dropped off of its own accord—the leech was fooled into believing it was still hungry. It sucked insatiably, interminably, the blood spurting out its severed end.

  The rule was the bigger the leech, the easier it was to fool.

  Bleed ’em Blanc had become an expert at performing this trick, or procédé. Exactly how long he and Dr. Bradford worked together over Papee in the tiny operating room at the back of that hospital, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t have no idea. All I can say is by the time I got up from the bench in the waiting room—without a word to my mother or sisters—and I shoved past the other patients, past the nurse in her starched white headdress, hurrying down the dark corridor to the operating room at the back, I would guess, conservatively, that those doctors had drained half Papee’s blood. If I didn’t get to him first, no doubt they’d’ve drained him dry.

  No doubt—in they combined medical opinions—every one of Papee’s symptoms cried out for bleeding: bleeding to slow his rapid pulse, to cool his high temperature; bleeding to drain the contaminant causing the yellow discolouring of his
skin and eyes; bleeding to ease his depressed spirits, his clouded-over mind; bleeding to diminish the inflammation of those two vile bruises on his buttocks; bleeding to lessen the blood permeating Papee’s bowels.

  This is how I found him: alone, unconscious, lying naked and belly-down on the operating table, its two hinged-leaves turned up to make a triangle. Papee lying over them in what I have come to learn physicians call the jackknife position. Papee’s bamsee standing up tall in the air, four enamel bowls on the floor at the four corners of the table. Into which Papee’s blood dripped—or didn’t drip, because it was everywhere, the whole of that tiny operating room was swimming in it—from incisions made with the lancet in the veins of his wrists and ankles. Dripping from the welts along the lengths of his arms and legs, resulting from an overtorched glass cup. From numerous raised patches of checkerboard-slashes inflicted with the scarificator. In addition to spurting out the ends of a half-dozen leeches, they tails severed, put to work round the margins of those two blisters on Papee’s upturned buttocks. Three more leeches at the margins of his exposed anus.

  Papee’s trousers discarded in a heap in the corner, his drawers and merino vestshirt—together with the blanket, once sky-blue, now sodden and dripping red. Atop the heap a handful of small glass vials where the leeches had been stored. Prior to the doctors putting them to work.

  Son, it was surely the most disagreeable task I’ve ever been asked to perform. But I was so upset that I couldn’t hardly contemplate what my own trembling, blood-dripping fingers were doing. As I picked off those nasty leeches one-by-one, pinched them dead, and pitched them aside. Wherever-the-arse those two doctors were at that moment I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t have no idea. All I knew for sure was that the French nurse had followed me in—she was standing right there behind me—studying me the whole time. Not speaking a word in no kinda language a-tall.