The Roar of Morning

SEVEN

On this island, when a white man outlives his white wife there is often a black woman waiting for him. When he has become a widower, lonely and less of a man, there is always the black woman who receives him with open arms and cares for him lovingly during his declining years.

As I sit on my terrace, half-drunk and brooding on my solitude, the night is my black woman. In the embrace of her strong cinnamon arms I feel at once dominant and protected. Her ancient face has a rough beauty as inextinguishable as the wild north coast, with its rocky monuments carved out by sea and wind. Her eyes, wise but tired from her long vigil, gaze endlessly at a mysterious image, a compound of emptiness, mystery and long distances, that I will never fathom. How often, night after night, I have basked in her silken black embrace. The scent of her black woman’s body merges dream and reality, blurs the outlines of earthly things into insignificant shadows, and blots out the false world and its threats. I press my back against her huge breasts and when the warmth of her flesh transmits itself to my skin I can erase all scarring memories at a stroke. Then I caress her knees and full of gratitude call her the guardian of my drunken nights. And I ask her, although I know she will never reply: have I ever been happy?

The ethereal moon has slid away among the clouds. I take another swig of whisky and listen to the rustling of the creatures that live in the blackness of the night. The great death’s head moth on the side of the flowerpot must have shifted imperceptibly, because it is now in a different position. It has sat there for hours, neither moving nor showing any interest in my presence. Even when I have occasionally got up, to replenish my supply of liquor or relieve myself of the beer I have imbibed, it has not moved but has sat glued to the concrete pot, its wings fully extended, its head, with a tiny glistening jewel set in it, pointing downwards. In popular superstition it is a harbinger of death and, like death, its scientific name, Erebus odora, is both poetic and ominous. It’s strange that people should associate the insect with death, whereas the butterfly is the symbol of immortality. It’s called the black death’s head moth, but now the light is falling on it and you can see that it is not black but dark brown. I did not see it move, but its head is now pointing upwards. Is it preparing to take off? Perhaps that would be best. I do find it slightly unnerving having to sit for several hours less than two yards away from a death’s head.

My bitch Fonda, who has also kept me company for hours, lying loyally at my feet, stretches and raises her head for a few minutes, her eyes focused on a single point in the sky. Then she rotates several times on the spot, as always when she is about to sleep; she does not lie down, however, but begins to rub her body against my knees. I can’t decide whether she is being playful or has been alarmed by something. I stroke her and notice that the skin on her head and neck is taut. At that moment something brushes past, making me start momentarily. At first I assume it is the death’s head flying off, but the moth is still sitting on the flowerpot as serene and motionless as ever. The thing passes again and now I see that it is a second death’s head moth. That is very odd, since one never sees two of these insects together. They always deliver their notifications of death alone. The moth on the flowerpot releases its hold and tumbles downwards, but just before hitting the ground it flutters upwards and joins its companion. The two of them fly back and forth. I follow them intently and suddenly discover that there are four moths hovering around. Am I so drunk that I’m seeing double? I finish my whisky and now see six — no, eight — moths in the air. The swarm keeps growing and I can no longer count them, but there must be at least twenty death’s heads in flight. I’m not particularly superstitious, but this spectacle is taking things a little too far.

If you suspect a disaster or a miracle is imminent, you must prepare. This situation calls for a stiff drink. I go indoors and for the first time the dog comes with me, pressing her body against my legs and almost making me stumble, since I’m seldom very steady on my feet by this hour. I decide to take a brand-new bottle of whisky outside. This goes against all my drinking principles. I have always stuck to the system of getting up and going inside to pour a new drink, which is a good way of regulating my intake. But this is a special night and the usual rules don’t apply. As tender as a mother cradling her infant, I carry the whisky bottle out to the terrace. I forget the beer; this is no time for soft drinks. Sometimes you have to be drunk to understand what’s going on around you. There are things in life, and beyond life, that you can make contact with only when you’ve lost all sense of heaven and earth.

Back on the terrace, I cannot believe my eyes. A gently undulating sea of hundreds of death’s head moths is washing incessantly and almost silently over the garden. Only when the swarm flies into the wind is there a faint rushing sound like running water. I sit down, feeling rather uneasy. Do moths attack people? What if those stupid insects take it into their heads to descend on me all at once? I put my hand on Fonda’s neck; her body is as hard as stone. She is sitting up, straight-backed and motionless, apart from jerking her head slightly to the left and right as the moths fly past, like someone following a table tennis match. I rub her neck and back more vigorously, but it’s like stroking a marble statue. Perhaps it would be best to switch off the light at the front of my house; the swarm might fly off then. Moths are obviously telepathic, for when they surge past me, they do not turn when they reach the end of the fence — as they had done hundreds of times before — but continue straight on. They do not return. The garden is now empty and deathly quiet. The dog lies down at my feet and closes its eyes. I take a stiff drink and wonder who will have the task of placing the ten-cent piece for Charon under the tongues of the corpses of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of islanders who will die tonight?

I must make the best possible use of the respite granted me by the moths’ departure. I decide to go inside for a shower. It is the first time in my life that I’ve showered at two in the morning. The water is ice cold and I feel like drying off quickly and forgoing my intended ablutions. But with a drunk’s stubbornness I persevere. I turn the tap on full so that the water lashes down on my head. After a few minutes it no longer feels as cold. I shampoo my hair thoroughly, twice, as recommended on the bottle: once to remove the dirt, then a good rinse, and the second time to make the hair shine and the scalp tingle with freshness. Then I soap my whole body, paying special attention to the ears, the tender part under the foreskin, and the toes. Astonishingly, I start to enjoy it: after rinsing myself down, I let the water gush over my head for several more minutes. I dry myself thoroughly and sprinkle my armpits and groin with talc. As I am combing my hair in front of the mirror, I notice that I badly need a shave. That is quickly done. I remove the stubble carefully, as I have an innate respect for razors. With a small pair of scissors I also clip the few hairs protruding from my nose and ears. Next, sitting on the lid of the toilet, I cut both fingernails and toenails. Finally I put on clean clothes: all white, underwear as well as trousers and shirt. Right then. Ready for the wedding and for the coffin, as I’ve sometimes heard it said of someone dressed immaculately.

I go back outside feeling both physically and mentally rejuvenated. The effect of the alcohol seems to have been largely washed away by the shower, so that I can begin again with new zest. Strange how physical cleansing can create the illusion that your soul is also being purified. I feel like the leading man in a play who has taken off his makeup after the show and is himself once again — and I succumb to an overpowering urge to understand myself completely. I sit down in my old place on the terrace and nestle in the lap of my black woman, who has waited passively for my return. She is the all-comprehending Holy Caribbean Mother, the slut who has eagerly received many a snow-white penis in her black belly. My hands clasp her knees, my forearms rest on her thighs and my back lies on the great water bed of her softly yielding breasts.

Without moving the rest of my body, I grope cautiously for the whisky bottle with my left hand. Gripping the neck of the bottle with three fingers, I unscrew the cap with my thumb and forefinger. I put the bottle to my lips and take two swigs in succession, a serious departure from the standard method for polishing off whisky. I feel a new warmth in my chest and press my body more firmly against my woman. She reciprocates by putting her black arms around me and squeezing her thighs together, making me feel almost claustrophobic. My lower back is clamped against the warm slit between her legs and I can feel the throb and pull of her ancient vulva. Little spasms of exaltation travel through my body as in a diffuse orgasm.

But whenever a man and a woman are together, even in a make-believe nocturnal paradise, they hear the writhing and hissing of accursed, shambling creatures. Every spark of the human spirit has its antidote, every sensory delight a grain of venom. Again and again, whenever a feeling of contentment starts to well up in me, it is overwhelmed by a snapping sound that crudely tarnishes everything.

I start to feel that certain organs in my body have speeded up their functions. My blood is pounding wildly through my brain and is being sucked from my head in torrents; my temples are pressing inwards. I become dizzy and hear a deep male voice intoning a rapid singsong prayer, occasionally interspersed with children’s voices in short, uneven bursts. A small bell tinkles and after a brief silence a monotonous hymn rises from the throats of hundreds of schoolboys in the playground. I see myself hurrying to an empty classroom and taking the teacher’s telescope from the cupboard. I return to my hiding place behind the flower tubs in the corridor and, unseen, follow the progress of the ceremony down below. I put the telescope to my eye, but I do not see my classmates taking communion; the playground is empty. I realise I am using the instrument the wrong way round and have pushed everything and everyone far away from me. I am utterly alone.

I feel I’m starting to fall apart and at the same time have the sensation of myself being at the other end of the telescope, observing myself through the narrower aperture and gazing into my own enormous eyes. Through the transparent cornea of those eyes I can see how the beams of light are refracted and then projected onto the retina as images of the outside world. But I myself am the outside world, because I am at both ends of the telescope. I can see the reflections of that other world that have been retained by the retina, but the pigment cells have recorded only banal images, nicely rounded representations that are of no use at times like this. I want to look more deeply inside myself, past the myriad fibres of the optic nerve into that soft, never-resting mass that regulates our bodily functions and mental processes, where the protozoic and the divine soul eternally cohabit and generate all my actions. I want to decipher the architecture of the cells that so arrogantly determine the pattern of my life, to decode the circuit of impulses that manipulate me like a puppet, to enter the territory of my body’s creator and ask him timidly for some explanations.

As usual, every attempt to understand myself fails, every yearning for God is punished. I hear the telescope smash to pieces on the tiled floor of the corridor, disrupting the celebration of mass in the playground. I am dragged roughly back to my terrace and my knees start to go weak. The dizziness worsens. I need a stiff drink but don’t have the guts to reach for the bottle.

On the news this afternoon it said you can see a star exploding in the night sky with the naked eye — an explosion that took place 170,000 years ago. I realise how ridiculous it was of me just now when I presumed to crave a few minutes’ attention from the Ruler of the Universe. I force myself to grab the bottle and put it to my lips. The merciful liquid brings the constantly metamorphosing hills in front of me back into focus. I hear again the girlish cries of the small birds of prey that sail along on the wind like children at play. Why lick wounds that never heal, mourn what’s over and done with or boast of sins only cowardice stopped you committing?

The nausea and weakness disappear. I feel almost cheerful and look with renewed interest at the splash of blood on the garden path. The oblong stain, which looks like a map of Italy, has dried up completely; it has gone dark brown and occasionally gives off a sickly smell. Yesterday afternoon I slipped up when changing guard dogs, and the two males that hate each other most came face to face. Not for long. With terrifying growls and dingo-like battle cries they flew at each other with a ferocity I had not expected of my faithful domestic companions. I managed to end the furious duel quite quickly by drenching them both with the garden hose. One of the dogs had received a nasty bite in its neck which was bleeding profusely. I rubbed lots of red ointment from the magic tube onto the wound and the bleeding stopped. Of course, I should have hosed the pool of blood off the path at once, but I didn’t bother. When the cruel tormenting spirit passes through the land on its tenth circuit and sees this bloodstain, it may pass over my house in silence and proceed to my neighbour’s, where it will slay the eldest son.