Versione Italiana | Nota biografica | Versione lettura |
Aunt Jen di Paulette Ramsay
Heinemann, 2002
Dear Aunt Jen,
So many things are going through my mind that I feel I have to write to somebody and talk about them. I am still waiting on my friends to write to me and Uncle Roy already knows about these things so you are really the only person I can write to now. Ma says the truth of the matter is that I'm looking for an excuse to write to you.
I think that Flour Hill is changing. It is not just because Uncle Johnny died or because my friends went away. It’s all the many other terrible things that have suddenly started to happen, just like the whole place is turning upside down. Ma says is jus a time of tribulation that is on us and it will soon pass. I hope she's right because we can't take any more of these things much longer. Ma says it started with Uncle Johnny’s death and she hopes to Almighty God it will not end with another young life. It too hard and sorrowful.
It is really true that some of the strangest and most ter¬rible things that happen in Flour Hill happen since Uncle Johnny died. Last week Wednesday Maas Beres’ bull ran him down and almost bucked him to death. It ripped off all his clothes. Maas Beres had to run naked as the day he was born from all the way over Cane straight to his house. Ma says she has never seen anything like that in all her days on this earth. She says is a shame because Maas Beres is such a nice, humble man and he doesn't deserve to suffer such a disgrace. That same evening Maas Beres sent for Mr Whitelocke with his gun and they shot the bull. Maas Beres says he could never keep an animal like that for one more day. We hardly see him these days. People say he hasn’t got over the shame. Gramps says he should jus laugh about the whole thing now and forget it or shame will kill him if he takes it so serious. Ma says Gramps can talk because it didn’t happen to him. I believe it must be a hard hard shock to get over, so I think I understand how Maas Beres feels.
I know I didn’t tell you about Miss Jane because it happened so soon after Uncle Johnny died. I was so sad about Uncle Johnny I didn’t really think about poor Miss Jane. Ma says you used to like Miss Jane because she used to bring tamarind balls and stewed June plums for you every time she made them. She says she doesn’t know why but Miss Jane had a special special liking for you because one time she even gave you a white rooster that you always used to love. She used to ask for you all the time and Ma says she always tells her that you send howdy-do for her even when you didn't mention her, because she said is a shame that you don’t seem to remember somebody who was so good to you.
Well you will be shocked to know that Miss Jane burnt up in her bed. People say she was reading her Bible with the lamp in the bed, fell asleep and the lamp turn over, catch the bed a¬fire and burn her up. They say Miss Jane burn she burn she burn she burn to nothing. Miss Lize says, in all her eighty odd years she never see anything like it where somebody jus burn like paper or wood.
As if Miss Jane’s death was not bad enough, the night of her nine night Raleigh, who was the main gravedigger for Uncle Johnny’s grave, dropped out of Miss Jane's breadfruit tree and broke his two legs. He’s still in hospital with his feet tied to the bedposts - at least that is what I hear. Ma says he’s lucky because bruk up bone better than death.
Well Miss Jane’s death was awful, the bull chasing was disgraceful and Raleigh’s situation was bad (although Ma says it was also kind of funny because he was out of order to be in the breadfruit tree in the middle of the night picking what don’t belong to him). But when I tell you what happened yesterday in Flour Hill I think you will be shocked shocked. In fact I think you will jump on the next plane to come and find out what is going on in your district and make sure you see your old parents before anything happens to them (or me).
Yesterday evening was Miss Clara’s daughter’s funeral - Miss Clara from Bowen’s Pasture, not Miss Clara from Cross Roads. We are not so sure what happened but she went to Lucea to have her baby and died before the baby was born. Anyway, yesterday when they were marching with her body from the Salvation Army church to the burial ground, the funeral car got out of control as it was coming down the hill and crashed into the big plum tree at our gate. It crashed into the tree so hard that the coffin flew right out of it and landed on its side in the middle of the gate. The dropping was bad enough but when the coffin burst open at the sides everybody started to scream and shout. Some started to run and Major Rankine started to shout, ‘Demons of hell! Demons of hell! Be gone with you!’ She shouted even louder when all kinds of things started to tumble out of the coffin - scissors, broom, needle and thread, baby nappy, baby bottle, baby pin, olive oil, vials with other oils and a whole heap of other things that I couldn't make out. When the things stopped tumbling out everybody just stopped bawling and screaming at the same time. Everybody stood there waiting to see if the body would drop out too. When they waited for about a half a minute and nothing happened Miss Clara threw herself on the ground and started to roll and bawl. Some men ran and lifted up the coffin and started to push back the things into it. Major Rankine said, ‘Sweet Jesus, resurrector of Lazarus, what is this? Deliver us from the enemy's trap. Demons of hell be gone!’ Well it seems as if Major Rankine’s teeth couldn’t take the pressure any more so by the time she started to say ‘Gone’ again, the teeth flew right out of her mouth and landed on the pile of things that dropped out of the coffin. I thought Major Rankine would run and grab them up, but instead she just pulled up her white Salvation Army uniform above her knee and ran and ran shouting, ‘Thave me Jesus, thave me!’ I don't think any of us could catch her at the speed she was going.
Some people ran into our house and Ma shouted, ‘Don’t tek it in dere at all at all.’ Miss Clara’s husband picked her up off the ground and told her to stop disgracing herself and let them hurry up and finish off with the funeral. When they scraped up everything and put it into the coffin they put back the coffin in the car and about ten men decided to push the car straight to burial ground. They didn’t take out Major Rankine’s teeth though. The Lieutenant said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, let us be calm. This is a terrible terrible thing that has happened but the devil must not have his way. We are going to give this young lady a decent burial. Cease the weeping and wailing and let us sing, “We are marching to Zion”, until we get to the burial ground.’
Well, Ma took off her hat and gloves and said not a funeral for her. Aunt Sue joined in with her and the two of them went and got kerosene oil, matches, white rum, salt and Ma's bottle of Good Friday water and they sprinkled the whole place where the accident happened and then they set it on fire. Ma says she doesn’t want any more trial and crosses in her yard. She doesn’t want any evil from those things to follow us. When all the grass on the area finished burning Aunt Sue went to her house for incense and lit it in an Ovaltine tin and walked round and round the house with it.
It is the most horrible thing I’ve seen in all my life. I thought that coffins only had the dead body in them. Ma says that's how it should be but some people have all kinds of stupid ideas about different things that they should put in it with the dead person. She says that when she was a girl if a woman died in childbirth it meant that she died unhappy so they would give her all the baby’s things and other things to keep her busy so she wouldn’t come back and look for the baby. She said she didn't know that people still do those things but that is how life is. She says Miss Clara is not upset that the coffin drop, she jus shame that everybody find out what she did in secret. She said I must take it as a warning that everything done in darkness will come to light one way or another. She says in Miss Clara’s case, she is a big big Christian who goes to church every Sunday speaking in tongues and casting out demons, so after all and after all she has no business getting mix up mix up in that kind of thing. She says those things are from the world of darkness and Christian people must stay away from them. Well, I was a little confused so I asked Ma if the sprinkling and burning that she and Aunt Sue did were not from the world of darkness too, but she said not at all at all, that was just chasing away evil. I told her I thought we should pray to chase away evil and she said yes of course you pray but you do those things too to help the prayer.
I hope this letter will help me to get that awful picture out of my mind. Usually writing helps me to stop thinking so much about things. Last night I didn’t sleep because I just kept seeing the things fall out one by one from the coffin. Ma says the worse part about it is that it happened at her gate as if she don’t have enough worries in her life. If Uncle Johnny was alive he would laugh so much about the whole thing. Gramps says he doesn’t know how Clara will live down this one for it worse dan Maas Beres’ disgrace. I'm just hoping I’ll forget about it soon soon because I need to sleep at nights.
Write and tell me what you think about all these things. I’m sure this doesn’t sound like the Flour Hill that you know.
I am anxious,
Sunshine
PS: I’m telling you Aunt Jen, if all these changes continue like this the whole place will be strange strange when you come.
Dear Aunt Jen,
Today I sat and thought about you for a long, long time. I thought about how strange it is that you’re my mother and I am your daughter and you are there and I am here and we don’t know each other and if I came to England or if you came to Jamaica we would pass each other on the streets and you would not know me and I would not know you ... We would pass each other and not know that we are flesh and blood. That is really strange.
I tried to picture you sitting in your house in England. I can barely see a body. Maybe it’s a body like Ma's, only a little younger. Maybe it’s a body like mine, only older. It’s very hard to see a picture of you in my mind. I can’t see a face. I tried to imagine the face of a lady who looks like Uncle Roy and Uncle Johnny but it’s not working. I tried to picture a lady who looks like me, as Uncle Eddy said, but that does not work either. It’s like trying to see my own face in a dirty mirror. I’m still hoping you will send me a photograph of yourself.
Your daughter
Your dau
Sunshine