February 7, 1900

The sailor was just off a tramp steamer still reloading in the harbor. He had only that day and part of the next to amuse himself in town, and, after a long bout at the Calipso Bar with cheap rum, he found Marena, settled on a price, and stumbled down the street with her to find a cheap flop house room.

Marena, the third daughter of a poor country farmer, was of no use to her parents, because she was just one too many mouths to feed. She had followed the usual course for an extra girl of her class in Guadeloupe. She drifted in and out of school in Basse-Terre, and then, when she found she had little inclination to schooling and even less prospects thereafter, made her way into the brothel trade where she had been welcomed by the bosomy Madame LaVat.

Although her lithe figure and pretty hair were worthless on the farm, these same qualities recommended her to Madame LaVat who found work for her right away. It seemed all very natural to Marena, not degrading as the preachers claimed. The men were all brutes, of course, but the pay was good and the strenuous part of the work was over soon enough, unlike farming. In Basse-Terre the occupation of whore was a well-recognized, not so high on the social scale as teacher or store clerk perhaps, but every bit as prestigious as waitress or laundry maid.

Charlie Parker, the sailor, was a bit more complex. He was the third son of the Chicago Parkers who owned and operated the famous hotel that bore their name. Unlike his two elder brothers who took to the business naturally, Charlie rebelled against his silver spoon and ran away to sea, first on a lake freighter and then on the hulls that rode the big seas of the world. He was determined to be his own man.

On board ship Charlie did what he was told and kept to himself, but on shore, he strode the world as if it was all his own personal empire.

Inside the tiny room they found on the second floor of the flop house hotel, Charlie suddenly discovered that he had been drinking longer than he realized. He managed to get his pants down, but at that point, he became aware of a certain deadness between his legs. A wave of inescapable exhaustion came over him. He felt very tired, dead tired. He just had to lie down. He stumbled toward the bed and almost made it. He fell asleep the instant his head hit the hard wooden floor.

Marena would ordinarily have taken her money from his pocket and left, but Charlie was sleeping on his wallet and was too dead drunk to budge. It was late. There were already too many girls working the bar across the street. It was an off night. And besides, for once Marena had the whole bed to herself. She stayed, found the sheets smelling relatively fresh, and pulled them up to her chin as she did when she was just a child and instantly fell asleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Charlie woke up with a start. He snorted and rubbed his sore chin. He had sobered up some. His hand found this thing between his legs now crying out to be satisfied. He crept into the bed and began to undress Marena who woke reluctantly and crabby.

"Get off! You big lug," she cried out.

"I ain't got what I come up here for," replied Charlie fumbling about her legs with both hands, gathering her dress as he went. Marena was not ready. This had all happened too fast for her. With a strength far greater than he had ever anticipated, she forced him away and made a break for the door. Charlie grabbed for her clothes, got a handful of sheets and then reeled her in.

"Come on love," shouted Charlie. "give us a kiss." He poked out his lips but Marena just landed a weak punch on his cheek.

"Oh, so you wanta play rough is it, now?" cried out Charlie. He ripped up a stretch of sheeting and tied her wrists, throwing the middle portion of the sheet over the cupboard that stood behind the door.

Suddenly, Marena found herself pinioned against the cabinet door. She kicked and shouted, but in a hotel of this character, no one ever came when a woman cried out in the middle of the night. Now Charlie had her where he wanted her, and he began to do his business in earnest. But as he began to climb up her body, adding his weight to her own on the front of the cabinet, it suddenly lurched forward and fell on them both creating such a racket it woke half the sodden hotel.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" Charlie cried out half in pain and half in pleasure.

"ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!" cried out Marena in complete surprise.

Just then the skies opened up with cooling rain as the humidity reached its climax. Charlies tried to move, but couldn't. Marena tried to move, but hurt her back on the broken door of the shrank.

"Untie my hands you idiot! Then push this thing off me. I'll climb out and prop a chair under it for you," she suggested. Charlie braced himself and gave a mighty heave with his powerful arms. The heavy mahagony cabinet began to lift. It rose up until Marena could escape by scuttling sideways. When Charlie got out from under it, he joined her in righting the old cabinet against the wall.

The rain was coming down heavily now. Without speaking, they both stripped off the remainder of their sweaty clothes and wandered down the curved wooden staircase, toally naked, into the open courtyard. The rain was hard and cold. It washed the passion and the sweat and the smoke that they had accumulated in the bar. They wandered around the courtyard laughing, with their arms held high in the air. No one paid them any mind. Who should bother?

Then the rain stopped as suddenly as it began, in the way rain does in the Caribbean. They looked at each other and laughed, and then wandered back up into the room. When they closed the door, there on the floor, they found letters and papers strewn everywhere. They must have fallen off the top of the cabinet when it fell.

"What are these?" Charlie asked.

"I don't have any idea," Marena responded. She stooped to gather them up and then got back into bed, leaning her wet back against the wall. She reached over to the table to turn the oil lamp up so she could read. Her undried body cooled as the humidity began to rise again after the rain.

Charlie positioned a chair near the bed, but immediately after seating himself, he jumped back up and turned the chair around so he could lean his chest against the chair back. His arms dangled in front of himself and, without giving it much thought, he began to pick fleas off his arm and squeeze them between his fingernails as she read. There is a languid moment just after love making. These letters had insinuated themselves in that secret, dark moment, filling it with mystery.

Marena pulled on the neat red ribbon to untie the knot, even though it no longer held the papers together. It seemed to unlock a magic key. The paper was old, heavily laid paper. The top sheet was so dirty that its words were obliterated, but the next letter was dated September 5, 1836. There were perhaps only 6 sheets in all. They had once been folded in three ways, but now each lay flat in Marena's lap for the first time in more than half a century. Marena put the parcel up to her lips and blew off a thick load of dust that still clung to the top sheets. Who knows how they got there?

"What's it say?" Charlie asked indifferently while picking away at the heavy fur on his right arm.

"They're just old letters," Marena said, and a photograph.”

"Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen, Denmark." Photograph by Niels Elsing

"My dear sister," each started. They were written in English though each was headed, "Cap-Haitien." At first Marena could only pick out a few letters, but slowly her reading gathered speed.

"After spending a few of my first days in Haiti, in about as much bewilderment as if I had dropped onto a new planet, I am beginning to fall into the line of my new duties, which consist of delivering merchandise, receiving coffee, cocoa and dye-woods, and collecting debts. The first two are pleasant enough tasks, but the last is tougher than mastering the toughest Greek passage which ever puzzled the brains of a poor schoolboy. We have some two hundred customers upon our books, and they are expected to make a payment every fortnight."

The letters, it turned out, were sequential so Marena took to reading them in order so as to get the drift of the narrative.

"Some of our clients are very punctual and require no looking after, but others are not of this class; and my business is to pay a visit every Monday morning to each of them in turn, with words soft or hard, as the case requires. I do most earnestly endeavor to elicit something in the way of a payment. Saturday and Sunday being the market-days, Monday is naturally that day on which they are expected to have some money or goods on hand. Some, like their more fashionable proto-types, insist that they are 'not at home' to us, but when they give us this dodge, they only expose themselves to an afternoon visit—very unpleasant. If they are again not in, I write down in my book to visit them the next day as well, only not with such courtesy as before. I am not at all ceremonious the next morning."

"One hot day, I approached the home of Madame G, at the outskirts of town. I was very dry and hot, and although she had an abundance of water in her kitchen, she offered me none. I was inclined to be short with her. Too many times had she screwed me out of another long, hot walk without reward."

"'Madame G...y!—let me immortalize thee! Thou art the Queen of Artful Dodgers! Thou owest a balance of money (never shall I forget thee). Thy husband was a captain in the army and owned sundry lands and horses, and much cattle—beside thyself.'"

"Oh, that was low!" squealed Marena, instinctively crushing the letter to her chest. "I hope they come to blows soon."

"'And with all these worldly comforts, thou hadst no bowels of compassion for your luckless Monday-morning visitor, who after a walk of a mile, under a heat at least eighty-six degrees, is always sure to find thee 'not at home,' or else thou art ready to face me with some newly revamped tale, and thus effectually keeping me at bay for a time, though you must know this cannot go on year after year.'"

"'O woman! woman!—many a difficult dollar have I screwed out of your hard-hearted pockets,' I screeched at the top of my lunges so the neighbors would be sure to hear. 'In the exercise of my vocation I know thee as thou art—the hardest customer of them all!'"

"Now I was getting into it. I raised up my hand over the very head of the silent woman and carried on. 'What a shuffling, wheedling, hypocritical, flattering, scolding, whimpering, whining, deceitful old stump thou art! Ugh! My head aches when I think of those hot tramps, old woman.'"

"Bill collectors have the same complaints the world over, I think," observed Marena. "I think I knew this man in my old village." In another letter, somewhat crumpled, Marena read, "My dearest Jean."

"Do you think she is a sister or a lover?" asked Marena.

"I will be dead by the time you read this. I cannot live without having you near. Our mother has sent you away from me, but she cannot banish you from my heart. Adieu." Marena looked up started. Charlie was particularly focused on something climbing on his arm.

"What? Oh, read again," he said. She did and then turned to the next letter. "My dearest lover, I am ashamed to write to say that I am not dead but live in shame. You did not come running at the announcement of my death and do not love me. I only wish I could hate you as well and be free of this passion."

Hurriedly Marena went on to the next letter. It was damaged by water and hard to read until the middle of the front page. "And then what a variety is included in our visiting list!—not only in color, but in circumstances, and dispositions, and manners. Here a snug little colored lady, with a snug little shop of dry goods, the clothes neatly folded on the shelves, and the punctual little money-bag all ready to be brought forth with a pleasant smile." It started raining again, but now only gently.

"Next perhaps you enter the domicile of a black lady, who sports a pair of ear-rings big enough for bracelets, and a dozen heavy gold rings on her fingers, and a necklace of coral beads. This last ornament is considered a sort of talisman against disease, such as bleeding at the nose. And I have been gravely told the coral changes its colors, according to the health of the wearer."

"The black lady opens upon you as soon as you come in sight; scolds because you come so early in the morning; says she has no idea of running away; and moreover, that the last lot of goods (she sells salt-pork, beef, fish, cheese, soap, etc.) was very high priced, and she never will make another payment until you consent to make a great deduction from the same. You begin to think that though you came for wool you are likely to go back home shorn."

"You prepare a manly broad-side in return. Filling your eyes with daggers, you face your foe. When you suddenly see the muscles of her face gradually relax, her double row of ivory teeth appear, then batten down for a rising storm, the sound of her uproareous laughter. She draws forth a big canvas bag of specie and pours out a pile of bills on the counter, clucking and laughing to herself as she counts out each sou.

She has had her laugh and now it is time to pay."

"How is it possible, that your countenance is now just as radiant with good humor as before it was dark with disappointment and rage. Having booked the receipt, and pocketed the cash, you take your leave with a very polite bow, and the very moment your back is turned, you can hear her scream to her Jeannette, 'Push up the fire there, and put those bananas to cook, for I am famished hungry. It's time for me to breakfast. Don't dawdle when I talk to you!' ''

Marena turned to the next sheet.

"My dearest one, Why do you write of nothing to me? Why do you not write? Why do you not write to me, your lover and sister of so many years and days. I count them on my heart. I miss you."

The next sheet is also damaged. "Your next salute is to a fat lady, even next door perhaps. She decides upon the moment that it is likewise time for her breakfast, and so she has nothing to pay you today. 'I am eating!' she says by way of feeble explanation, though there is no sign of food about her."

"You make your next bow to the lady standing before her door with her arms bared to the elbows. She stands at her cutting table, with a big wooden bowl in the center. She is chopping at a dish of greens. The never failing bunch of plantains sets at her elbow, ready to join the red herring she had just skinned. She sees you and calls out to her slave, named after the day on which she bought him. 'Lundi, bring a chair here for the gentleman so he can sit himself down and discuss with me the state of trade on the island.' This strikes me as a wholly new ruse, since three-quarters of the trade on this island is in the hands of the ladies, who know it better than any mere money collector. What should I be able to tell her that she does not already know, except from what quarter of the globe she will obtain the funds she owes?"

"Like her neighbor, she is never idyl, but always occupied with the little cares of domestic economy which make up all but a tiny piece of the island's exchange. In the strange world of Haiti, this woman may be a member of the aristocracy, but is never ashamed of her useful avocation. From her humble front door, she exchanges the 'good day' with every passer-by. Nothing escapes her; no wave set off at the smallest village will not ripple past her door. She is always there, carefully tuned in to receive it. No manners can exceed those of the Haitiens."

The letter goes on, but Marena is impatient and throws the words of the cad aside to turn to the next letter in a feminine hand.

"Dear Jean, I am writing you to inform you of the sad circumstances under which your loving sister took her own life today. I am sorry." Marena drops the letters into her lap and begins to cry. Charlie gets off his chair and puts on his shirt and pants. He drops the bills on the bed without a word and then pulls on his boots. Without a word, Charlie leaves Marena crying on the bed and emerges from the courtyard into the street.

The buildings all around the hotel remind Charlie of the letters. Tiny wooden shops with long french style doors, line the street. Each door is surrounded by double shutters used to keep out the hurricanes. Yet the shutters and door shut out as much as they keep in.

It is still raining and Charlie pulls up the collar on his shirt against the rain.

There is a sense of wonder in a seashell. It emerges from its watery universe as a souvenir of a whole world of which we can know almost nothing, and yet, standing on the shoreline, looking over the surface of the waves, we have the illusion that we can hear the din of the undersea world carrying on its ancient intercourse.

Back in the hotel, Marena has pushed the chair up to the cabinet and replaced the letters, neatly tied in red ribbon, back where they came from. Here they will continue to swim in the primordial sea which gave them life.