Read Online Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jamaica Kincaid
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white chambray and sleeves with cuffs of white chambray, and she crossed her arms across her body, just above her waist and just below her breast, as if she were her own child and needed soothing and encouragement just before a difficult task. She wore no shoes, for she did not have any of her own. Her eyes were closed as she walked along the road; on either side of her were landscapes, brown clay heaving up, brown clay sweeping downward, and her eyes were closed not to shut out a beckoning world, not to shut out a world that might tempt her to love it; her eyes were shut because they were so tired, they had been open for so very long. And the world, satisfied in its ordinariness, moved this way and then that, as usual, and Elfrida Robinson, who was even then Mr. Potterâs mother, walked without doubt and without purpose toward the sea.
And she walked from the flat center, which was formed by clay, toward the south and southwest, which was hilly for it had been formed by long-dormant volcanoes, and then she walked north and then toward the northeast, and she passed the Bendals
stream, which was near the village of Bendals. But a stream, so often a symbol of the gentleness of life in its slow, calm, steady flow, the tender sound it so humbly makes, its very existence a repudiation of so much that is harsh and violent and frightening in the world as we human beings find itâa stream of water could not come to her attention; a stream anywhere, what was that? And she walked toward the sea, but not toward the sea as it was to be found at English Harbour, or Old Road Bluff, or Willoughby Bay, or Nonsuch Harbour, or Booneâs Point, or Wetherell Point, or Five Islands, or Carlisle Bay, or Lignum Vitae Bay, or Dieppe Bay. She walked toward Rat Island, a small formation of rock that in silhouette resembled a rodent exposed to its enemies and vulnerable, and this formation of rock was connected to Antigua by a narrow sliver of land, an isthmus. And many years later, for her life ended in nineteen hundred and twenty-seven or sometime not far from around then, my own mother would take me to Rat Island to teach me to swim and I never learned to do that, and on Good Fridays, after the sad mourning service for a man murdered many years ago, my mother and I went to Rat Island to dig for cockles and search for a pink-colored seaweed; we never found enough of either to make a meal, but even so, each year we went again and again after Good Friday services to Rat Island. Nothing of
any use grew there, it harbored families of wild pigs, pigs that had escaped domesticity and had grown ferocious, though they were not dangerous, only frightening if you came upon them unexpectedly. And once, while I stood on the shore watching my mother swim in the waters off Rat Island, she took a deep dive and disappeared from my sight and my sense of loss, loss of her, my mother, was so beyond my own understanding that to this day, just to remember it, places me on the edge of just before falling into nothingness, a blank space that is dark and without borders and will always be so. But it is to this place that Elfrida walked, Rat Island, into the bay there, and the seas took her in, not with love, not with indifference, not with meaning of any kind. And it was at Rat Island that Elfrida Robinson died and it was at Rat Island that I falsely thought my mother had died, but at the time of the incident with my mother, I did not know of Elfrida Robinson, I did not know of Mr. Potter, but he was my father all the same and Elfrida was his mother.
And Elfrida Robinson walked into the sea, as if the sea was life and so was to be joyfully embraced, and the sea swallowed her and then twisted her dry like a piece of old clothing and then ground her into tiny bits and then the tiny bits dissolved and vanished from sight, but only from sight, for they are still there, only they cannot be seen. And the moment she surrendered her life was not the very moment the
And she walked from the flat center, which was formed by clay, toward the south and southwest, which was hilly for it had been formed by long-dormant volcanoes, and then she walked north and then toward the northeast, and she passed the Bendals
stream, which was near the village of Bendals. But a stream, so often a symbol of the gentleness of life in its slow, calm, steady flow, the tender sound it so humbly makes, its very existence a repudiation of so much that is harsh and violent and frightening in the world as we human beings find itâa stream of water could not come to her attention; a stream anywhere, what was that? And she walked toward the sea, but not toward the sea as it was to be found at English Harbour, or Old Road Bluff, or Willoughby Bay, or Nonsuch Harbour, or Booneâs Point, or Wetherell Point, or Five Islands, or Carlisle Bay, or Lignum Vitae Bay, or Dieppe Bay. She walked toward Rat Island, a small formation of rock that in silhouette resembled a rodent exposed to its enemies and vulnerable, and this formation of rock was connected to Antigua by a narrow sliver of land, an isthmus. And many years later, for her life ended in nineteen hundred and twenty-seven or sometime not far from around then, my own mother would take me to Rat Island to teach me to swim and I never learned to do that, and on Good Fridays, after the sad mourning service for a man murdered many years ago, my mother and I went to Rat Island to dig for cockles and search for a pink-colored seaweed; we never found enough of either to make a meal, but even so, each year we went again and again after Good Friday services to Rat Island. Nothing of
any use grew there, it harbored families of wild pigs, pigs that had escaped domesticity and had grown ferocious, though they were not dangerous, only frightening if you came upon them unexpectedly. And once, while I stood on the shore watching my mother swim in the waters off Rat Island, she took a deep dive and disappeared from my sight and my sense of loss, loss of her, my mother, was so beyond my own understanding that to this day, just to remember it, places me on the edge of just before falling into nothingness, a blank space that is dark and without borders and will always be so. But it is to this place that Elfrida walked, Rat Island, into the bay there, and the seas took her in, not with love, not with indifference, not with meaning of any kind. And it was at Rat Island that Elfrida Robinson died and it was at Rat Island that I falsely thought my mother had died, but at the time of the incident with my mother, I did not know of Elfrida Robinson, I did not know of Mr. Potter, but he was my father all the same and Elfrida was his mother.
And Elfrida Robinson walked into the sea, as if the sea was life and so was to be joyfully embraced, and the sea swallowed her and then twisted her dry like a piece of old clothing and then ground her into tiny bits and then the tiny bits dissolved and vanished from sight, but only from sight, for they are still there, only they cannot be seen. And the moment she surrendered her life was not the very moment the
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