Anyway, we had to give food to the king of the sea and one of the mothers from our house had gone to a nearby shore to collect food for our larder. I said we could have walked there after school, and that made me recall going to school and the things that happened there. But instead of having us walk there after school, grandmother thought it best if the load was brought back by canoe, that it would somehow be quicker. But people had already started taking their offerings for the king to the vidjil, which was where the ceremony would begin, and our mother and the canoeman had not got back yet, even though where they’d gone to was not very far away. So grandfather started to worry. Grandmother worried too, but I remember grandfather’s worrying more. And this was because we hardly ever saw him, so when something happened involving him we were always aware of it. He was worried because, being an adult, he knew only too well that there should be no canoes in the water when the offering to the king of the sea was made, no canoes other than those involved in the ceremony itself. Nobody had ever broken with this custom, or rule, or whatever it was. And it was unusual for anyone to disregard any rule connected to popular beliefs on our Atlantic Ocean island. So my grandfather was worried and he left the house and set off for the shore, hoping to see them making their way back. But there was no sign of them from the beach where the vidjil was, so he thought he’d try a different vantage point, one where you could see further into the distance. So he headed south, increasingly concerned. It had been a long time since anyone had seen him on the beach, for he practically never came down from the upstairs where he lived. So for a lot of people it was the first time they’d seen him for a long time, and they could tell right away that he was worried. He walked all the way to the path that went up to the cemetery and went down to the little beach there, his eyes fixed on the sea, hoping the canoe might appear. If it had been low tide, he could have followed the coast all the way to the place our mother and the canoeman had gone to collect the food grandmother had left behind. On certain stretches he’d have had to come in from the shore, where the cliffs become very steep, and make a little detour into the bush, and if it had been high tide he could have done the same only with more detours. It was because of those detours that there was no coastal path that ran from the big village all the way to where the plantation was. But grandfather was down on the beach and he ran out of sand, by which I mean he got to the end of the small beach by the cemetery and he climbed up on the rocks. He went on walking, his gaze fixed south, anxious to see his daughter and the canoe. The time of the offering to the king was fast approaching and it was unheard-of for anyone to be out at sea who was not part of the ceremony. That offering was one of the most curious things on the island. I found it particularly strange, but although practically everything filled me with fear on the island, this didn’t. I did, however, have my suspicions about it for, as a child, whenever fear didn’t silence my doubts, I was very questioning. What happened when food was given to the king was the following: somebody said that the king of the sea had sent word, from wherever it was he lived, that he was hungry. That’s what was said. Was it the women who talked to the deads who were told the king was hungry? Specifically, was Sabina the one who was told? However it happened, word reached the people of influence that the king was hungry and, at the end of the afternoon, when the sun was setting and everyone was at home, it was announced that on such-and-such a day food would be given to the Saltwater King. That’s what we called the king of our sea on the Atlantic Ocean island: the Saltwater King. So whenever we heard mention of the ‘Saltwater King’, we knew people were talking about our king and not the king of some other sea. In the language of our island we have two ways of saying ‘the sea’ which are equivalent to the words for sea and saltwater in Spanish.
The offering ceremony began with many minutes, perhaps even hours, of orations from the ministrants. They got under way as soon as everyone had brought their offering, whatever they’d decided to pay homage to the king with: a bundle of firewood, a length of cloth, a litre of brandy, a bunch of bananas, a cooking pot, a pineapple, a radio set, a lamp, a small basket of cassava, a giant yam, a bottle of anis; whatever you wanted to give, or whatever you had. Although if what you wanted to give was a white man’s product, then it had to be unopened. Who were we, on our little island, to give the king a half-used product? It was said he’d reject it, and I can’t remember but there was probably some other threat connected to showing him such disrespect. All the offerings were left in the vidjil and then the orations began. And with just a few hours to go until that sombre ceremony got underway, one of my grandmother’s daughters, that’s to say one of our mothers, for as far as we were concerned they were all mothers to us, was still out at sea, on her way back from a place that wasn’t so very far from the big village. It would be the first time such a thing had ever happened. So all the adults in my house were worried and grandfather had gone down to the shore to try and find her. Finally, a long way from the cemetery, standing out on some projecting rocks, he spotted the canoe. He gestured to them and he called out to them, telling them to pull in to the first beach they came to rather than risk rousing the fury of the king. But I’ve already talked about my grandfather’s lack of voice, so I doubt he was able to make himself heard like a man. In any case, if you were out at sea, it was practically impossible to hear what someone on land was saying to you, even if it didn’t seem like you were very far apart. The sea wind simply stole the sound of the words. The person on land might be close enough for you to see them shouting to you, but all you could do was go, ‘Huh?’ for there was no way of hearing what was being said.
Grandfather saw his daughter and the canoeman who was transporting her and he called out to them, and he waved his hands, but they heard nothing. And he got increasingly worried. Was the canoeman about to paddle the canoe onto the main beach in front of everyone, showing himself to be the only person on the whole island who didn’t understand there was an important ceremony taking place? What would happen to them then? On our island, if you ignore a rule or a custom, you’re not given a penalty, in fact no one will say anything about it; they don’t have to, for consequences will catch up with you by themselves: we’re talking about an island where there’s no shortage of catastrophes! Anyway, me and the other children of the household had followed grandfather and we stood on the beach near the cemetery. What could have happened for them to have been so delayed on a journey that ought to have taken less than an hour? Well, we didn’t really deal in hours, but that’s beside the point: there was nothing between the big village beach and the place with the plantation to justify such a delay; there were no big rocks to avoid, no projecting cliffs or especially turbulent stretches of water. What problem had they encountered to make them take so long? You couldn’t even argue that the man had to beach his canoe, hide his paddle safe from the sea, gather his tools, climb up a palm tree with his axe and cut down the palm dates, because they’d already been cut; everything had already been piled up ready to load into the canoe. What had happened to cause them to be the first people in the island’s history not to observe one of its most important customs? The man paddled, gestures were made, words shouted that he didn’t hear. Grandfather was in a state of total despair. He was running out of time to make himself heard, running out of opportunities to get their attention, for there was an islet off the coast near the cemetery and, depending on the state of the sea and the canoeman’s skill, he might go round the islet on the open side, the side that looked out to the horizon, or come through on the mainland side, the side closest to the shore. If the canoeman opted for the open side, grandfather wouldn’t be able to call out to them again until it was too late, until it was too late to stop them from being seen by everyone on the main beach, too late to avoid ridicule and catastrophe. So granddad felt he had to do something to make himself heard before the canoeman reached the islet, had to do something to make the canoeman paddle in to the nearest shore. They’d return the canoe to where it was supposed to go afterwards, when everything was back to normal. The situation was further complicated by the fact that it was impossible to see the main beach from where we were standing, so grandfather didn’t know how close the ceremony was to starting. How shameful it would be for his daughter to be the first person to disobey the rule, a rule of unknown consequences, and in front of everyone, everyone and their tremendous power for gossip!