Limekiller!

“Beatniks” were also easy for Government to understand (in the Republics, this class was still termed existensialisto), or, anyway, Government thought so. When they had first appeared, long-haired and oddly-dressed, they were assumed to be a sort of White Rastafarians; it was now accepted that this definition was in general too broad, as it was now accepted that not every White man with long hair or beard was a “Beatnik.” But what was it then, about “Beatniks,” which made Government unhappy? Well, for one, they spent no money, or anyway very little. They were given to bathing nude: disgusting! They did not obey the unwritten but perfectly well known local codes about where one smoked weed and where not. And they lived lazy. Bad examples. So Government did not want “Beatniks.” This was also easy for National understanding.

Less easy by far wras the intermittent appearance of foreigners who were not rich-looking, yet not “Beatniks” either. Lack of communication, we are often told, is the curse of our time. But Limekiller did no longer feel his time accursed.

Limekiller: an afternoon at the Hotel Pelican. Bathsheba and he were sleeping together, that is, they had already made love and Bathsheba and he had fallen asleep, only she was still sleeping, her smooth tan body as calm as a child’s next to him; he had awakened. Every room still had the ceiling fixtures for the old, slow- fans; in most of them however there was no longer any fan: there was here, though, and he had paid extra for the room on account of it. Jack watched the fan go humming around and around and listened in complete idleness and utterly complete satisfaction to the slow hum of voices outside. somew hat away.

He did not have to go to the third floor verandah to look down; he knew what he would see, as he knew what he was hearing. On the second floor verandah several young women looked out and watched the slow passage of people up and down the street, watched the children (some of them theirs) either in the yard or right there on the verandah playing and tumbling or sleeping or also sitting and watching; while they, the young women, talked easily as they finished up between them a huge platter (someone was, or had very recently been, both prosperous and generous) of food: rice and beans with chunks of vigorous native beef, chopped hard-cooked eggs, salad and fried plantains. and, to Limekiller and others from the frozen north, incredibly hot (but only pleasurably so to the young women) country peppers with onions and sugar and salt and lime. They ate neatly, delicately licking off their fingers after each mouthful.

“. jumble. ” someone had said. the first words Limekiller clearly heard on awakening. And someone else had said, rather more quickly than the regular tempo of their speech and conversation, “No tahk aboet eet!” So they didn’t talk about it; whatever “it” was.

There was a long, quiet, dreamy moment, during which Jack almost dropped off to sleep again, but didn’t, and almost moved to place himself, spoon-fashion, against Bathsheba’s back. but didn’t. And after that long, quiet, dreamy moment, broken only by the sounds of the mule-carts down below, passing from the Post Office to Corn Meal Wharf where the green-tagged mail sacks would be laden aboard the Egret packet-boat, clup clup, creakcreak, rattle, clup, one of the young women renewed the conversation.

Limekiller, knowing her voice, knew that she would be already dressed for the day by now, in a tight frock which showed bosom and belly and buttocks. She said, “I nevah tehk no mahn fah money, no not me. Eef I like heem I go weet heem, eef he want geeve me money, sometime I let heem geeve. But I nevah tehk no fuhking mahn fah money, no not me. I hyear gyel say, Why you no tehk ah mahn fah fifteen dollah ah night? Suppose I tehk ah mahn fah fifteen dollah ah night ahn right away he mehk me ah beh-bee? What good fifteen dollah? What good fifteen dollah fah wahn night? No, gyel. Eef I no like ah mahn. I no tehk heem. ”

A long moment passed. In the bar beside the yard, men’s voices grew loud, and women hooted with laughter. They were beginning earlv in the bar beside the vard.

But on the second floor verandah: not yet.

“Henrietta, she gweyn to surgeon, surgeon he give she lee peels, so no hahve pickney, no hahve behby. You hear?"

They heard. They had plenty to say, having heard. Limekiller wondered why Bathsheba would neither go nor let him go to surgeon nor pharmacist for little pills or any other contraceptives; he had suggested; she had refused; the subject closed. But the subject of Henrietta was, on the second floor verandah, not yet closed.