Peeny-Wally

PEENY-WALLY

by Carol B. Duncan

(Content Warnings: Slavery, Intergenerational Trauma, Whipping)

The blows fell swift and fast. One by one, they tumbled down on Saree’s young shoulders and back like when Marmy was seasoning old fowl or pounding conchs and she wanted to tenderize the flesh a little bit to give it more flavour. Is so he did beat she the first time, like he was softening up her flesh for the internal pounding that she would have to endure little more.

Saree was eight years old then. She had wandered from the rest of the small gang of children who used to tend the ground provisions and other vegetables that grew in a patch near to the back door of Marmy’s cabin. Sweet potato, Irish potato and yam, tomato, corn, pumpkin, spinach, cabbage and carrot, onion and c’ives pushed through the earth. Small hands plucked weeds and gently removed caterpillars. “Every mout’ got to eat,” Marmy would say, “but not my cabbage.” Boiled with green banana, okra, and the dry salted coldwater fish they received as rations from driver Trotter, the various vegetable ‘rundowns’ provided sustenance.

On the other side, to the left, the medicine plants like cerasee and bitter bush, single bible, horsetail, and other grasses spilled out in profusion from between the small stones used to separate them. They looked like weeds, things to pull up and throw away, but in their flowers, leaves, seeds, stems, and roots hid Marmy’s healing secrets passed down to her from her mother, Estelle, who people said was able to fly at night. After she took off her woman skin, Estelle would roll through the night sky and look through the big house windows to see what Mas’ and Madame and the other grands blancs people dem were doing.

The children were too young to go and work the cane like the older boys and girls and men and women at Providence estate who left at ‘foreday morning, in the middle darkness. But Saree was by nature a wanderer like great-grandmother Estelle, her mother Malat, and her grandmother Marmy. They roamed in the deepest night walking, or tramping, as Marmy called it, through the wild, green spaces that surrounded Providence. Their feet were equally sure on rocky ground, the soft, squishy mud in the cane fields after the heavy August rains, and the ropy vines underfoot in the forest. Sometimes, even in the broad light of day, if you looked clear through the palms and orange and mango trees that grew beyond the little clearing and the cane fields, you could see a glint looking like steel and light and water mixed together passing swiftly through the bush. In the early ‘foreday morning, between sleep and wake, Saree could feel Marmy re-enter the house, sometimes by the door and sometimes through the window.

At night, just as she was falling asleep, Saree felt the urge to leave the scratchy grass pallet. The drip-drip of water on the floor when it rained through the wattle roof played a liquid rhythm to her breath that would carry her away from here, from this place and this time. She felt as if a part of her could just get up and walk away and leave everything behind: the pallet, the cabin, Marmy’s sleeping body surrounded by the babies she cared for while their mothers stole away on their own wanderings, and strangest of all, her own sleeping form curled in on itself like peeny-wally. But she was afraid, and she would dig her nails into her palms and shake her head like the sensay fowl danced to rouse herself from the heavy feeling of the sleeping-wake. Sometimes, she had even found that her bladder had released itself when none of her ministrations worked, and she had half stepped away in a soft, luminous glow carried by her breath.

Marmy had tried to prepare her for the fall—“Ne tomb’ pas, ma fille!”—in the hope that the special devilment that befell most of the young girls and many of the young boys, too, would somehow bypass her likkle gyal-pickney. Saree was Marmy’s grandchild, second born of twin girls to her fifth daughter Malat, just a few years after Malat had passed her first blood. (The first of the twin girls, Tuline, took one breath in this world, went back to the next, and was returned to the earth immediately.) And if it—the devilment—must meet her do God-bless, let it be swift and bypass the heart. The rest can fix but the heart if it mash-up early can’t fix proper again. No matter what you do, the heart would be shaky-shaky and the little breaks in it would become places where the wounded could be pierced by unrequited love, frustrated longing, and festering anger, again and again. Only with care from people wid power like Marmy, over and over again, would it stay strong. Young mash-up heart made it easier to turn her gran like some of the drivers on the estate whose untended mash-up hearts drove their whips and bodies with fury, as if they could beat out their suffering through bodies of their kin under the lash and in hidden devilment.

But what a wickedness this whole thing was! Ah-yu-oh! The big house in the distance with its white painted columns like bleached bones, the everlasting sun, the cane and the molasses and the rum, the ships at the harbor, Mas’ and Madame Crowther, and the beatings and poundings of body and heart which were the scourge of the children here at Providence and the sorrow of the adults. Marmy wondered, why it have to happen to us? Any of it? How we did end up here, in Île Marie-Joséphine, or Marie-Josèphe (as it was commonly known) in the first place? Marmy knew some of the answers, at least ones provided to her. Preacher, coughing into his handkerchief, his pink hands trembling as he held his special book, say you have to accept what God has given you. Well she never believe it then and she nah believe it now neither! There were other gods and the Old Ones who listened and talked back to you, and they had different answers. Marmy often thought of Old Man’s story and the way the Old Ones spoke and looked at her through him.

Old Man say dem tek him from him mumma at twelve years from across the sea in a place called Kromantin. Even now, Old Man still fret in his sleep about the grand bateau and the putrid smell of shit, piss and vomit, fear and loathing and anger all mixed into one big crème and smeared on the bodies below deck. He dream about the big water and his mother, with her gap-tooth smile, missing him. Old Man does always search the faces of the saltwater people when they arrive at Providence estate to see if he can see any trace of her and to try and send a message through them, through their eyes, to somehow let her know that he was alive—he was not doing the best—but still alive. He was sure that worry for him and his sudden disappearance when he was caught could have killed her or at the very least made her sick, the kind of woman sickness that does make old woman belly swell up and mek dem bleed well past dem breeding time. And so, he had a reputation for being boldface, meeting the gaze of every man, woman, and child who entered Providence estate, en esclavage, with a searching, wary intensity. The arrivés were marched from the market near the wharf in town on muddy paths and steep traces over low hills and then on the stone path through the forest built by the red-coat soldiers and their prisoners generations ago. Old Man even take beating for his boldface ways as he would sometimes forget himself and where he was and what he had been forced to become and he would hold the gaze of even grands blancs, grands dames, and the drivers. But he wasn’t boldface so much as he was carrying out his sacred obligation, his faith that he had developed in this new land which consisted of the never-ending search over the last sixty years for a glimpse of his mumma in the eyes of others.

***

These were the things on Marmy’s mind day and night behind her smooth brown skin, flecked with freckles at the nose, and her quick black eyes that saw nearly everything at Providence, the plantation on which she was born, in the year of our Lord 1750, during harvest time. She saw nearly everything except when Saree slipped away that early afternoon past the rum distillery house near the edge of the cane field.

“Eh heh. Me cyatch yuh!” the driver did say, dragging the small girl from sight to the cover of the cane field.

Now, to walk about on Providence was not really a crime, because otherwise how else was the work going to get done? But like most things ‘round here, the rules were made up it seemed to suit the situation. Right now, the driver decided that a small child taking a small liberty was against the rules. This is how disorder does start when people doan know dem place, he thought. When him finish with her, nothing was ever the same again.

It was Big Boy, one of the boiler men, who found her in the grassy narrows between the edge of the estate’s cane field and the forest, as he carried a load of cane to the sugar mill, balanced on his lean, muscled shoulders. He heard gurgling sounds like the earth giving up a piece of itself at La Soufrière. The muslin of Saree’s skirt was matted with blood and mud, and her neat brassy plaits were half undone.
“Ahhh, doux-doux,” he muttered under his breath. The rest he dared not say aloud, That dyam driver again. Why he nah leave people pickney ‘lone?

He hid her beneath some of the cane plants and vines and his rough cloth sack. “Doan worry, doux-doux. I goin’ send message to your gran and let her know where you is, just now, and she go come for you. Hold on now.”

They got her, later that evening, under cover of darkness just as the sun went down. Marmy and another elder woman, MaTante Jeanne, on their rounds to check on pregnant women and the sick, made a quick detour to fetch Saree. They washed and dressed her body and prayed. They called on the Blessed Virgin to intercede for Saree.
“Good Lady, hear we prayer. Heal the body of the wounded and the soul of the afflicted. Let this child come to know goodness and kindness. Let she grow big. Let her heart heal.”

That night as Saree laid on her side, her wounds dressed in mud, spit, and Marmy’s poultices, a necklace of single bible, fragrant herbs, and crushed flowers hung around her neck, she felt the tug and pull to wander stronger than ever before. The pungent smoke from green bush embers burning to keep mosquitos and insects away illuminated the space around her pallet. She could hear Marmy’s breathing punctuated by gentle snores and the murmuring of some of the younger children in their sleep.

A heaviness came over her and this time she did not resist.
A shard was loosened within her heart. Her body sank down, down, down into the pallet, deeper than the thin layer of grass, old straw, and rags, deeper than the grave they dug for the babies who drew one breath, or a few, or none, and who were given back to the earth immediately. She felt heavy as though her limbs were made from the iron that the blacksmith MacIntosh used to fashion weights, chains, shovels, tools, and the pots that Cook used in the big house. She could hear other voices whispering similar to her own and the other children in the small gang who tended Marmy’s garden.

“Saree!”

She heard her name drifting like steam from Marmy’s dovin pot cooking a rundown. Out of the inky black of the shadows, she saw one and then what looked like the silhouettes of hundreds of small-small children. They were perfectly formed with quick movements as they melted away to show their individual selves from the darkness of which they were also a part. They were smaller than waist-high to Saree, about the size of Marie-Rose’s baby son, who disappeared down the bottom of the gully, but they moved with a swiftness that she had never seen of any baby.

“Saree!”

Is how they know she?

Softly and then more insistently, “Saree! Come wid we nar?”

Their combined voices sounded like the breeze just as it stirs to let you know that rain is coming. And then she was borne up by these small night children, face up, for her iron-heavy limbs could not work, her joints were seized. She could see the moonlight through the small cracks in the wattle roof and wall of the cabin.

“Sareeeee!”

Saree felt as if she was floating. They toured her all around Marmy’s small shed. She could see Marmy sleeping on her pallet with two of the younger babies snuggled into her side. They stirred in their sleep as if they could sense the spectacle of the parade passing by. After two rounds of the cabin, the door was creaked open and she was out in the open air, still face up, tiny hands supporting her body from head to toe.

She could smell the burnt, sweet smoke coming from the sugar mill where the cane was crushed and the production of juice for rum production was in high gear. Big Boy and the other boilers would have to work all day and all night. (She heard a boiler fell into the sludge one time and they didn’t fish him out and the rum was still distilled and shipped off in the big boats.)

The tiny ones picked up speed and she was galloping as if on miniature horse’s legs past the place where Old Man and the other vieux slept, past the disgusting pit called the negrillon house where the saltwater people, newly arrived, lay in restless slumber, past the mill and the boiling house where they made the sucre and the rum and the molasses. Faster and faster they ran, melting in and out of the darkness as they traversed the cane fields, including the place where the devilment had befallen her earlier that day. She could see Marie-Rose and several of the other cane field workers tying bundles of the long, giant sweet-filled stalks together in the moonlight. How come no one greeted her? She tried to call out, but her voice did not sound like her own. It sounded hoarse and harsh like a bark. Some of the tiny runners laughed at her attempt to speak.

Finally, they reached the edge of the cane fields and entered the forest. The verdant dark was fragrant with the scent of flowers that bloomed at night. They ran farther and farther into the forest, farther than Saree had ever gone on her tramps when she had escaped for a petite liberté, farther than where Marmy, Old Man, and the other big people would gather near the silk cotton tree to talk to the Old Ones, the long-ago parents, Preacher’s bible God, La Vièrge, and the powers from Guinee. They ran further than where King had sworn that he smelled and then saw the short, stout, man-beast crouched on his haunches sheltered in a hollow under giant elephant ear plants and ferns. They reached where the echappés, the escaped ones, those who had not taken the path through the waves at low tide carried on the backs of the fish women with their cool, slippery scales to the next island and beyond, were said to hide away from the estate and its rules until the moon grew full again.

The moonlight shone on the large ferns that grew thickly on the forest floor. It was a full moon, big and round and yellow, like a giant ball of fungee in the calabash of the night sky. The running now over, Saree was still held up with her back to the ground.

Bong-a-bong-a-bong-bong-bong!

The little ones danced all around her, melting in and out of the darkness, and her heart responded to the rhythm with a counterpoint syncopation from its tiny, dislodged sliver.

One approached her and said, “I know who you is, Saree. We make together. We arrive together and then you stayed and I left.”

At first, Saree's mouth did not work when she tried to respond to her sister Tuline, and she cried in soft whimpers for her grandmother and mother.

"Is what you sayin'? We doan have time for dis stupidness, you know. None ah we here have parents and we good."

Saree found herself stuttering, "Tuline-girl, is r-really you for true?"

Tuline moved closer to Saree, her body melting in and out of the dark, her gait nimble in spite of her legs being turned backwards from the knee down."Doan worry yuhself, girl. You could stay wid we and play in di forest wid di animals. We have plenty food to eat from di trees and we does run and play all night."

"Tuline, Marmy will miss me. You doan miss we?"

Tuline kissed her teeth in derision and the sound bounced off the nearby trees. "Streuuupppps, gyul! Miss what? Is what I really missing? A whole set a' work day in and day out. Beatin' and ting. No darlin' da' is not for me. I go stay here in di forest wid me frien and dem. Allyuh esclavage people does even run and come to di forest from time to time. We does see allyuh when you run away."

"Tuline, I not supposed to be here. I supposed to be back wid Marmy and di day people."

Tuline laughed, soft and bark-like, her head melting in and out of the forest dark. "Well den go back!"

And with that last charge, Tuline stepped back and became one of the faceless, small, shadowy children gathered around her. A sister at last who had not died or been sold to another estate or disappeared into the big house like the others. But Saree wanted the day and Marmy’s warm hugs more in that moment.

Saree had always known that Tuline, her identical twin, perfectly formed with a full head of tawny hair, took one breath, went back to the other side, and then was returned to the earth immediately. She only knew this because she had overheard Marmy talking with her friend, MaTante Jeanne. Marmy grieved the loss, but in the custom of the community, those who took few breaths or none were returned to the earth immediately. In the bush and under special trees, the mother-baby connections were also returned. These little beings were the retournées, the unbaptized, soon-dead fruit of their mothers’ wombs, taking shape and form in the night. Many were seeds sown in bitter entanglements on board the big saltwater bateaus before they even reached here at Marie-Josèphe or from devilments in the cane fields, cabins, and even the big house. The practice of return helped the mother to move on and to focus on the living, even if she felt half-dead herself. Each year, some of the babies that were born at Providence arrived with little or no breath, gasping to stay alive on this side, their tiny lungs heaving and shuddering with effort. It was no wonder given the scarcity of food and the hard work of their mothers, some of whom went from field to labour bed with scarcely a break. It was a rare occasion, but Marmy and MaTante Jeanne would try to cover for these women while they stole a broken-up nine days to welcome the new one to this world and to rest.

Saree was still unable to move her limbs, and both fear and confusion gripped her. In the dark beyond the clearing, she could glimpse larger shapes that looked like big people moving silently through the thick growth. She felt herself slipping down, down again, this time through the forest floor, the roots of plants tickling the soles of her feet and the mineral-rich scent of the soil soft and moist in her hands, mouth, and nostrils. She breathed in the dirt, bones, blood, and dust chewed through by crawlers whose electric bodies illuminated the night soil. The million-and-one chorus of small voices started to fade away as the darkness of the night turned from spinach berry juice deep-deep night to ‘foreday morning. She felt herself rising through the earth, the tickly roots of plants and the soil made of bark and bones and sinew.

And then, suddenly, she was alone in the clearing with the first light of dawn beginning to shine through the thicket in the distance. Her limbs ached, but she was able to move them as the iron-heaviness that she had felt last night was gone.

And then she was running, running, running, fast-fast-fast like the shimmer that you sometimes see if you squint and look at the bushy thicket in the distance through the first morning light. Air caught in her windpipe and her heart drummed scattered beats like the repetitive work rhythms that Big Boy and the others would pound out when they worked the fields during harvest. Just then, she felt the pallet beneath her and Marmy’s soft breath on her forehead saying prayers over her. Saree felt her feet being massaged and heard the soft “Tt-tt-tt” of Marmy’s good friend, her co-mère, MaTante’s mellow voice.

“Ay, she go be all right. But they go come for she again.”