Little Tobago

Artwork by Joan Giummo

First there was Trinidad, the big island, sweltering, teeming, dangerous. You could get lost forever at the market on Frederick Street in Port-of-Spain, a warren of stalls. There, Black Caribbeans, the descendants of slaves, and Indo-Caribbeans, coming from the subcontinent as indentured servants to work the sugar cane after emancipation, stood shoulder to shoulder selling costume jewelry and transistor radios in the imperial postscript.

Then there was Tobago, the smaller island, breezy at the seaside with callaloo and steel drum. Germans, bleached and blistering from the sun, invaded the coastal villages in Lufthansa battalions. But the jungle interior was still thick with childbirth and family resentments. Brothers fought over tiny scraps of patrimony. Sisters nursed each others' babies. On steep, narrow roads winding through tropical forest people hung off the porches of broken-down shops called snackets that kept the whole place awash in rum and curry.

And finally, there was Little Tobago, a tiny dot in the sea colonized by boobies, geckos and hermit crabs. A British businessman and naturalist bought the island in 1908 to create a sanctuary for birds- of-paradise, magnificent creatures that were at risk of extinction. London milliners coveted the feathers to make hats for ladies to wear to Ascot. The naturalist engaged a man named Roberts to manage the real estate and keep an eye on the birds. He must have been lonely in his quarantine, Roberts, because one day he succumbed to an excess of rum, fell into the sea and drowned.

I didn't know this story when I traveled from Speyside at the eastern end of Tobago to its little sister some thirty years ago with Frank and our friend, Wilford, a fisherman-philosopher. Speyside had an end-of-the-world feel. It seemed as if the stain of modern life had been scrubbed out of the air, leaving a blinding, pre-industrial sparkle. Just waking in the morning at the Blue Waters Inn was astringent. It was all salt and sand and lime and glare. Off shore, the sea was Navajo turquoise and in the distance Little Tobago sat waiting for us. The local man who took us out in the boat distributed orange life vests. He suggested there was a spot out in the middle of nowhere we could try some snorkeling, see the coral and the sea urchins and the parrot fish parading across the deep.

I slathered myself with sunblock. The boatman called the sides of the boat gunwales. I held on to them with the fierce intensity of a woman in labor as the boat rocked up and down, back and forth. It wasn't far to Little Tobago, but it was far enough to entertain myriad final thoughts. I wondered if I would be swallowed by the waves and left to the mercy of the sharks. What would a watery death feel like and what would become of my body, my breasts, no longer buoyant, my mother's blue eyes? I recalled the conversation with Wilford over breakfast. We were eating cornflakes and he was cheerfully talking about death and reincarnation...how the soul moves on when the body dies, to be recycled later on for further use in someone else's body. I wasn't sure...which of us is ever sure...but I thought it sounded like a plausible plan.

In one flowing motion, I lifted the snorkeling mask up on my face, yelled some kind of theatrical battle cry like "I'm going in" and jumped feet first into the sea. For a moment, the three men looked at me in stunned silence. Then, they waved and cheered. The boat seemed to be floating away in the wrong direction, but now that I was submerged in the drink, I felt a strange calm. The only thing I knew with certainty was that the boatman would not let me drown. The sea was his language and while I was in it we spoke the same dialect. He was connected to me, the way, if we pay attention, we are all connected to one another.

I put my face in the water to see the fish, but the sandy bottom had been agitated and I couldn't see a thing, not the coral, not the promised rainbow of colors. All I could see was my life relocating to a new city.

Please share your thoughts regarding this post and my 2019 book Twilight Time: Aging in Amazement by writing to me at seventysomething9@gmail.com