So why did these catastrophes occur? There will never be an answer. The ministrants didn’t know the answer, and back then I thought they knew everything. There will never be an answer. What people sometimes know is how a story began, or rather they manage to work their way back to the origin of a catastrophe. Some draw comfort from the origin, from the first apparent cause, which is enough to satisfy their need for an explanation. Others curl their lips and frown when they get to the origin, the first apparent cause. And people routinely spoke of things that were not food and drink on our island, by which I mean things that were not necessarily tangible. I say all this in case anybody thinks I’m being too philosophical.
By the time the sun pokes its nose over the horizon of a morning, life on our Atlantic Ocean island is already well under way. Most men will already have their paddles in hand and be gliding out into the waves. The many early risers among the women will already be on their way to the plantations. The women set off early if they’re going far, to the south of the island or to the mid part, and also if their journeys involve going up mountains into misty areas, places where the trees sit in the clouds. On our island, it’s said that if you get up with the sun, your feet are lighter, or your hands are lighter, depending on whether you’re a man or a woman, and travel by canoe or by foot.
On our island, the birds fly when the sun comes up. I don’t mean nocturnal birds, which we pay little attention to and in fact curse. Life on our Atlantic Ocean island therefore starts early. Early morning is the time when everyone sees each other and greets each other, when people are full of hope that the day ahead will treat them well. That the fishing will be bountiful, that fully grown tubers will be found under the cassava plants. That the bunches of dates on the palm tree will be ripe, that the plantain will be ready to be cut. In the mornings, those heading in the same direction see each other, greet each other, cross paths. But sometimes there are people you don’t wish to greet, people you try to avoid if they’re taking the same route as you. Sometimes you might even change your plans if you bump into someone you don’t wish to greet, be it because you don’t like them or are afraid of them. And that’s what happened with the incident we all now know about, that horrible thing, the worst thing to ever happen to us, the most wicked thing we’ve ever done.
A man who was father to many children and known to many people left home one morning to cut the ripe dates from a palm tree. Cutting the dates from a palm tree is a job only men do, at least when the palm tree is tall and its branches are high, rather than close to the ground where women might reach them. But this palm tree was tall and so the man set off with his axe and his machete, and the intention of making palm oil. The man left the house early, not knowing what the day would bring, and although people of all ages lived in his house, for he was father to many sons and daughters, cutting down the dates was a task only he could perform. Men on our island climb palm trees by making a special harness out of vines. The man makes a weave of thick vines and feeds it round the back of the tree. Then he pulls the two ends towards him and ties them together behind his back, so that he and the tree stand inside the loop of the harness. To climb the tree he leans back and lets the harness take his weight, then he transfers some weight to his feet, which support themselves in holds he cuts into the tree trunk with his axe. It’s an exercise I’ve seen done many times and a technique that’s taught to all males on the island, once they’ve reached a certain age. So the man leans back in the loop of his harness, sticks his feet in the holds he excavates in the trunk and walks up the tree two steps at a time. And of course he carries his machete and his axe, for he isn’t climbing the tree just to prove he was taught to climb palm trees as a boy, he’s doing it to gather dates for his wife, or any other woman who might have asked the favour of him. Or he might be doing it to extract palm wine, the succulent juice found inside palm trees. For on our Atlantic Ocean island, you don’t chop a palm tree down and kill it to extract the wine: you climb the tree and tap it. Not a drop of wine would reach a single throat if it weren’t for men proving their skills with harness, axe and feet. And with body and eyes too, for it’s an artisan’s job, a job that would be done anywhere else in the world, anywhere other than an island that had nothing, using some kind of eye and face protection, because all manner of things can fall from above.
Anyway, the man left his house and reached wherever it was he was going. He saw the palm tree, he saw the ripe palm dates at the top, and he prepared the harness, all very calmly. He made a quick sign of the cross, stood in the loop of the harness and fastened himself in. The boy passed him his axe … We forgot about the boy. I was talking as if the man had gone there on his own, which would have been very unusual. For one thing, who would have shown the man where the tree was, for men hardly ever went to the plantations on our island? And who would have carried the dates once the bunch had been cut? True, the man himself could have carried them for, though he had a slight limp, he could still walk. But it was more typical for a boy from his house to go with him and for the boy to carry the load on his head. And, before that, the boy would pass the man his axe, and before that he would fasten the man into his harness. The boy did all this, but that’s where the story ends, the story of the man climbing the palm tree, the story of his life. We were never told whether the man did or didn’t cut any dates, whether he reached the top of the tree or not; all we were told was that the man, father to many sons and daughters, fell from the palm tree and landed with the full force of his weight on the ground. Such a tremendous blow shook him to the core and, though his soul wasn’t ripped out of his body there and then, very little life was left in him. It’s said he lived just long enough to utter his dying words to his family. The boy ran to get help and the man was carried home, a man who was at death’s door but for now remained father to many children. And then, as I’ve said, what little life there was left in him expired. And everyone was informed, and everyone went to his house for the wake, for he wasn’t just a father to many children, he was also one of the main ministrants of the island. His death was similar to the death of the doctor: we had lost a man with the power to heal us and we felt orphaned without him, without his care. Yes, I remember now, he was the senior ministrant. Other senior ministrants had died before him and passed the responsibility on to him. So he was no ordinary old man. The wake at his house, ‘his deathplace’, as we call it in our language, was a sight to behold, or rather not to behold, something that was best avoided. At least so I was told. I did pass by the house and I saw a lot of people there, and I heard the laments, though I didn’t know at the time whether the man was alive and injured or already dead, for nobody told me. But I imagine he was already dead. I only passed the house very briefly, for I wasn’t supposed to go because of my age. I went because I was looking for my grandmother, seeking her comfort, and she was there because she knew how to do some of the things the ministrants did. I didn’t really understand why the whole village was there at the time but there were a number of reasons: first and foremost, he was an important figure, because he was the senior ministrant, but there was also the fact that his death had been a tragedy. Looking back I see there was a major barrier between adults and children, and that barrier meant, for example, that I never knew what injuries he died of. The adults never told us. Whether his head was smashed in, or his feet and hands, or his entire body, I couldn’t say; we children never knew. Nor does it matter particularly: the fact is he died. He was buried, and I know nothing about his funeral either, for only the adults went.