“Tell me a story of your childhood and I will tell you a version of your name-story your mother never told you.”
* * *
Sam bringing Alan, the next artist-friend, over the Lady Young hills into town. The sun now going down over the West peninsula and Alan make Sam stop at the lookout. He get out and light a cigarette, standing above the city. The smoke light blue against pink clouds and gold sea. And the land darkening quick now to black. Dragon Mouth rocks. The Bocas. Sparkling diamond lights coming on along the coast bringing brightness, climbing Central Bank twin towers, twinkling up Port of Spain and skirting round the dark green Savannah. Sam know the view without looking. He watch this white man smoking and taking it in, breathing blue flames and raising he big nostrils up to the sky. He snort and stamp on the cigarette butt, returns to the car, and they begin the descent.
* * *
It was a brief love story Ata told Fraser as the light faded. One her mother had written about her birth and used to read aloud to her. She had given Ata the written text when she turned eighteen.
“Poetry,” Fraser called it, groaning deeply and rubbing her arm before beginning his tale about her namesake. “And you, my dear, have a strange destiny…”
The dusky room becomes an Arcadian forest. Ata watches Iasus climb the wooded slope, steadily, to a clearing on the hill. He rests the baby girl down on the cool grass, and the long poplar shadows lean closer. He walks away and doesn’t look back. She is not the boy he wanted.
The earth rumbles under her arm, a throttled breath between ribs. A bear. In the thick and furry inky night, a she-bear melts to the baby’s cry. Padded claws and milk-warm breath, Ata suckles a leathery breast.
“In the forest den she grew with the bears, until hunters found her and raised her with their own, until she became a woman. But as a woman Atalanta became known for her skills in male activities. A headstrong huntress, an athlete, a warrior, she was the only female Argonaut in the quest for the Golden Fleece. And she outdid the lust-filled Meleager and other men in the Calydonian Boar Hunt. Her strong sexual aura created havoc, but the fame of her prowess reunited her with her father. He was the one who wanted her to marry.
“This woman”—Fraser pauses, breathes slowly, and wets his lips—“this woman had killed the centaurs who tried to rape her. She could outrun any man. Angered by the fools who were struck by her beauty, she declared she would only marry the man who could beat her in a footrace — but she would kill the suitor if she won. A good few men died …
“Melanion fell in love, deep love, with her. But knew he could not win a fair race. He asked Aphrodite…”
The familiar race, with the three golden apples forcing curious Atalanta to pick them up and lose, flashes by. Galloping hearts and thumping veins magnify the scent of crushed grass and the fragrance of pommecythere. The mouthwatering sharp, juicy smell blends with green essence of chadon beni.
Fraser had stopped. Ata raises her head off his shoulder and he smiles sideways at her. “You know it.”
“Of course I do. But not like this.”
The thin air in the temple, completely still between the columns and alabaster gods, tingles. White, compared with the darkness of this room — clear thin white light. Atalanta feels her body heat spreading like the red stain on the floor, drawing Melanion onto her, warm and cloying, into her. The cold immortal stare of marble eyes traps them.
“Sex, in the temple of Zeus. Right under Aphrodite’s perfect nose. Melanion, stroking, suggested that Atalanta’s breasts could be compared to hers — no wonder she turned them both into lions. And in those days, maybe even now, lions could not mate with each other, only with leopards … destined to a frustrating life, sounds like to me — if you can’t mate with your mate.” He pulls a big flipper onto her shoulder. “What were your parents thinking?”
“Well,” Ata draws in her breath and sits up, “I never liked the idea of my parents giving me a Greek name, to begin with. It’s a good story, though—”
“Some say they had a son, who knows?”
“People expect stories to have a specific meaning, don’t they? A reason why. Once the characters are true to themselves and the action, each reader journeys with their own map. I mean their own knowledge, so every interpretation is different. Anyway, when in life do we know the full meaning or reason — as the thing unfolds?”
“You telling me? Who the hell knows. Hear this one, ‘The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell.’”*
“I like that one!” Ata switches on the table lamp. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you?” She inspects his lively eyes and they hear the noisy arrival of Alan, the next artist-friend.
“You bloody well be feeling better!” he booms, bouncing into the room and into Fraser’s embrace. “You better get your arse up and … it’s Carnival, for God’s sake!”
“You got here,” Fraser croaks through the tight bear hug.
“Finally, yes. Did you think you could keep me away? Idiot. Atalanta, my dear, what have you been doing to this poor man?”
Alan’s Sussex accent reminds Ata of rich England too.
“She’s been raping me in temples and working local spells.”
Alan rattles his big self-assured laugh in the small room. “I have no doubt there’s an obeah cure. What is it, charcoal, aloes, and lime?” He shakes his chesty sounds out again, coughing, and Ata leaves them to call Pierre and see if Sam is still outside.
The air had changed. Alan had walked in with all his smoke-tinged-male, cold-weather, airplane, and stale-cologne scents. They lingered comfortably in the apartment.
TINGALING, aling, aling, ling — bram bram bram! The rhythm section set off three hundred steel drums, shaking and glittering Panorama night alive. Silver metallic notes clutter and hustle the crowd. Herds of wheeled band frames, thousands of feet and hands pushing, down the street-corral to the Savannah stage. This Saturday night finals is the biggest, the excitest, mixest set of people and action. More important than Carnival Monday or Tuesday itself, this is the people’s core of the bacchanal.
Ata and Pierre met Vernon, Fraser, and Alan among the parked cars. Helen and the others are arriving too. They step from the red glow of dust and parking lights, into the stream of people flowing to the little food stalls enclosing the corral. Fraser’s gait is loose, awkward, with his shrinking size, his long arms flapping at his sides. Alan bumbles along close by, broader now than his friend. He almost stumbles forward to touch and feel Trinidad again.
This is the exception for Pierre, and for many others who don’t partake in the madness. Young and old, visitors, country, town — all kinds come to see, and play in the bands. Despers — the strongest, from wajang Laventille, holds the legacy tuned and tight, pinging and pounding traditions high on their hill all night.
The oil-drum segments crawl like a massive centipede, electric black and shiny. Ripples of floating legs slide it forward, adrenaline anticipates the bite. Hair raising.
The small group of friends fall in with the chipping, buddoom boom bam, buddoom boom bam … melody, it’s only a melody … Renegades, Catelli All Stars, Exodus, Invaders, Solo Harmonites, Carib Tokyo, and Phase II Pan Groove — the big bands and little straggler Panberi tuning and rehearsing in the queue.
Ata, Fraser, and Alan push up between the canopied frames of Despers, inching closer to the iron section.
The others stay on the edge, moving along with the band.
In a break, when only the shuffling of feet and the muted jangling of empty drums fall on their steel-deafened ears, they get right up to the rhythm section.