Читать книгу Gardens of the Caribbees - Ida May Hill Starr - Страница 15

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It was not to imitate Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith in the least that we said we must find a white umbrella, and yet even had we wished to imitate Mr. Smith, could we have followed in the way of a more delightsome traveller? It was simply because we were conscious that a white umbrella, with a soft green lining, is a necessary adjunct to life in the tropics. It is in harmony with its environment, because it is almost a necessity; and being such, we were not to be dissuaded from our desire. So, with that definite intent to our steps, we started to find the white umbrella.

Was every one else hunting for one, too, that the crowd was all going in our direction—surely not! No sun could ever blaze strongly enough to penetrate those woolly tops. We go on a little farther, and then we begin to understand from a wave of odours sweeping over us that it’s to market we’re going with all the rest; and so for the time we are led from the purpose of the morning.

The stench grows more pronounced; we become a part of a black host, with babies, children, men, women, and donkeys crowding into the square, where a long, low-tiled market-building and its surrounding dirty pavement becomes the kitchen for the whole of Port-au-Prince; a place where filthy meats and queer vegetables and strange fruits are sold, and where all manner of curious, outlandish dishes are being concocted. The black women crouching on the ground over little simmering pots and a few hot coals, jabbering away at their crouching neighbours, were more like half-human animals than possible mothers of a republic. And in amongst the women were the babies, rolling around on bits of rags, blissfully happy in their complete nakedness. But there was something about those black, naked babies which seemed to dress them up without any clothes. Does a naked negro baby ever look as bare to you as a naked white baby?

Stopping a minute, where a louder, noisier mob of women were busy over their morning incantations, my eye chanced to dwell for a second longer than it should have done, on a pudgy little pickaninny, which was lying in its mother’s lap, kicking up its heels, with its fat little arms beating the air in very much the same aimless manner that our babies do. Seizing upon my momentary interest in the youngster, its mother caught up the wiggling, naked thing, and with all the eloquence of a language of signs, contrasted her naked baby with what seemed to her the regal splendour of my white shirt-waist. For an instant I weakened and caught at my pocketbook mechanically, but, as I did so, I glanced up just quickly enough to see her ladyship give a laughing wink to one of her neighbours, as much as to say: “Jest see me work ’em!”—and I caught the wink in time to turn the solemn face into a crooning laugh, when, with the worst French I could muster—and that was a simple matter—I told the mother her baby was all right. It didn’t need any clothes; I was just wearing them because it was a sort of habit. People would be lots more comfortable in Haïti without them. For a minute, those black, beseeching eyes had had me fixed, but, fortunately for our further peace of mind, I looked once too many times.

The air was thick with horrible smells and horrible sounds as well. We became a target for begging hands, and “Damn, give me five cents,” was every second word we heard. Where the poor creatures ever learned so much English, would be difficult to say, but it was well learned. Over the black heads, over the little cooking breakfasts, over the endless procession of donkeys, carrying sugar-cane and coffee and all sorts of stuff from off somewhere we didn’t know about, to the market we did know about—there arose an arch which was even more barbaric than the naked babies and their half-naked mothers. It was just the thing for the market—it fitted in with the smells; it was something incredibly hideous and archaic. It was not French, it was purely an African creation, made of wood, in strange ungraceful points and ornamented with outlandish coloured figures; and yet it was an arch, and we ought to forgive the rest.

But the white umbrella! were we never to begin our search? We left the market and took the shady side of the street. But, being a party of four, we all wanted to do different things, yet, being a very congenial party of four, we went from one side of the street to the other, as one or the other happened to catch sight of something novel; thus, back and forth, zigzag, we made for the white umbrella.

Laddie, in far-off America, had been promised stamps; in fact he had been promised almost the limit of his imaginary wants, if he would only stay with Grandmamma by the sea, and not mind while we were off for the Islands; so it was not only a white umbrella which kept us moving on up the sunny streets, but Laddie and his stamps. Thus the post-office stepped in where the white umbrella should have been ladies’ choice.

A nondescript following conducted us to the post-office, where we met a very different type of man. The officials spoke such beautiful French that we became at once hopelessly lost in our idioms. When the Creole postmaster discovered our self-appointed escort of ragamuffins crowding the entrance to the office, his black eyes flashed for a second, and some terrible things must have been said to the crowd, which we did not understand, for the office was emptied in short order. Here, we thought, was the true Haïtien; the market-people were the refuse.

A Public Fountain Port-au-Prince, Haïti

Another zigzag, and we stopped in at a pharmacie to ask about the white umbrella. We were met by another Haïtien, a courteous, delightful gentleman, the chemist of Port-au-Prince, a man of rare charm and courtly manner. He gave Little Blue Ribbons and Sister some pretty trinkets as souvenirs, at the same time pointing the way to a shop very near, where without fail we could find—you know! Ah! But between that shop and us there was—well, what to call it I find it hard to say, for it certainly wasn’t a soda-water fountain, or an ice-cream haven, but into it we went, all of us, and we sat down, while Daddy ordered wonderful things for us to drink, and we had real ice, too; and in my glass there was more than the limes and sugar and ice, which Sister was sipping. There was certainly something more than mere lime-juice in my glass, for I didn’t care, after taking one taste, nearly so much about the umbrella as I did before, and Daddy was so relieved. We sat there very contentedly for quite awhile, but the little girls grew restless and said we must go on to something else, so gathering up the fragments of our Northern energy, we were out in the street again.

A sleepy, honest little donkey, loaded with baskets of very diminutive bananas, came our way. With malice aforethought, we made a raid to the extent of three pennies’ worth. The keeper sold reluctantly, for he said we would surely die, if we ate bananas and walked in the sun. So we walked in the sun and ate bananas, and didn’t die; no, indeed not. We lived to be very thankful for those bananas, as you shall hear later. And then we went on past the guard-house, where the slumbering army dozed by their stacks of rusty muskets; past unnumbered hammocks, out of which long black legs hung in listless content; on past the sellers and buyers of coffee who stood marking the weights of enormous sacks, swung on huge, antiquated scales; on past the women, crouching over their stores of pastry, fruits, sweets—on to the shop where at last we found the white umbrella, with a green lining, and then there was peace in the family for awhile!