Yvonne Weekes: Volcano

Yvonne Weekes

Volcano

The ash falling from the volcano has not stopped and my island, Montserrat, is covered with it. It is August 1, 1996. My grandmother is leaving for England and I decide to drive north with my son, Nathan, to take her to the airport.

My world becomes still when my grandmother goes through the departure gate. Suddenly I remember shelling peas with her on her step. I look up at the mountain. It is still spewing its ash, disturbing leaves, trees, flowers, sea, animals, all humankind. I turn to my son. I will not let the volcano take away my memories. In the car, driving back home, I fill my son’s ears with stories about my grandmother. I tell him about the piece of pumpkin and the breadfruit and the few green bananas that my grandmother saved for me “in case me come out.” I tell him about all the meals she made me carry to dark women in faded flowered dresses who had no teeth; about the walking stick she hit me with one day; about how she called me at four AM to tell me to listen to some radio program about spiritual healing. I tell him about the stories she told me about Puppa and Mumma; about the old house at Jack Sweeney where she was born; about how when she grew up she was forced to work like a mule. I tell him that she said my mother was a beautiful golden baby and everyone called her Honey, but she turned out to be lazy. I tell him that the one time my grandmother let me plait her hair, she told me “me hand too hard.” But she showed me how to pick the right aniseed and fever grass bush to make tea. She showed me how to crochet and hold the needle properly so that I didn’t look like a “monkey firing a gun.” She made me drive from town to the north to take her to church just so she could show everyone that her granddaughter had a new car. She corrected me every time I tried to speak dialect because “You is a big schoolteacher at the grammar school.” She told me that she can’t reach heaven on account of Hitler—a name she called her husband.

My son is looking out of the window as I tell him these things. I know he is watching the huge pyroclastic flow and enormous ash cloud rising from the east. I stop my car at Vue Pointe Hotel and join the group of people who have also stopped, fascinated by the mountain. But suddenly the cloud is directly over us. Terrified, I pull my son into the car and head in the opposite direction. Ash and rocks pound down on the car. I press my foot on the accelerator and speed to my friend Patsy, who lives nearby. Inside the house, Patsy and her family are huddled together in a small bedroom. My son and I join them. Soon the electricity goes off. radio Montserrat goes dad. The phone goes dead. Thunder booms, lightening streaks. The children scream. The world wails a loud lament.

Patsy tries desperately to close the windows, but ash seeps through everywhere. The mountain cracks. Crack, crash! She mocks. Crack, crash! She scolds. Crack, crash! She shrieks. Darkness envelopes us, like the end of time. I reach for my son. The darkness is so intense I cannot see my son’s eyes or even his teeth. I remain still and keep my eyes firmly fixed in the black space in front of me. I fear if I move the mountain will get ever angrier. Soon the black clouds move on and light peeps its way into the darkness. For a second I wonder if this light will return my island to its old time. but, no, the mountain pours her dark mud over us, and the darkness returns. It is the beginning of a new time, a world of endless darkness.

I cannot see where my yellow car is parked. Mud is everywhere. Everything outside is covered in a black thick sludge of mud. More mud comes down. It is as if the volcano is defecating on us. We are terrified; no one speaks. I think about all the things I haven’t done with my life, the people I need to forgive, the people whose forgiveness I need, the people I love, the ones I haven’t spoken to. In that terrible blackness with the volcano pouring its ash and its mud down on us, I think about my mortality. For unto us a child is born and He shall be called Jesus: for He shall save his people from all sins. There is no point in panicking now. Not my will but Thy will be done. An hour later the radio comes back on. Ambeth, the head scientist, tell us to remain indoors, to stay calm.

The following week I clear away the ash, mud, and debris that have covered my house. there is so much ash outside my house I can barely breathe. Nathan begins to wheeze. There is no medication at the nearest clinic. I cannot find a doctor, and the hospital has been destroyed by the volcano. I drive to the north of the island to a school that has now become the hospital. A nurse puts Nathan on a nebulizer, but first we have to wait for it because another child is using it. I resolve then and there to leave the island before the volcano kills me.

From April to the end of school term, I teach under a dark green tent. The volcano has destroyed the school building where I would usually be giving out my lessons. It is now buried in ash and mud. The teachers are angry and frustrated; the children are irritable and even more restless than usual. Ash blows in our faces, in our hair, our noses, our ears. Our shoes are dirty as soon as we leave our homes. When it rains, water drips through the holes in the tent, the ground gets muddy and the children have to sit on their desks, a circumstance they use to distract themselves. When the sun dries the mud, the dust rises and we cough incessantly. At home I clean constantly, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot get rid of the dust. I wash my toothbrush before I brush my teeth. I was my comb before I comb my hair. Within a few minutes after I take food out of the refrigerator, it is covered in ash. I sit down to watch television and I am sitting in ash. The ash is all around me. every morning before I go to work I have to wash the ash off my ears. Ash seeps into the upholstery and onto the floor of my car. There is enough ash in my car to plant a field of sweet potatoes.

I am sick of hearing the announcement on the radio: “Now for your daily volcanic report…” I am sick of seeing long lines of people with yellow and green plastic bags queuing up for their rations of tinned and processed foods. I am sick of the Government telling us that we are safe. I am sick of the Opposition telling us that we are not safe. I am sick of hearing the butterfly joke. I am sick of the noise of the helicopter waking me up every morning. I am sick of running outside to take my wet clothes off the line because ash is falling. I am sick of the dark circle of ash that perpetually hovers over our village. I am sick of the smell of sulphur. I am sick of the constant taste of sulphur in the back on my throat. I am sick of seeing the garbage piled up. I am sick of the ash. I am sick of straining my neck daily to see what the mountain will do today. More than anything else I’m sick of waiting, waiting to see whether our lives will ever get back to normal, waiting to make plans for a future that may not come. I am sick of that mountain controlling my life.

My friend Patsy decides to leave the island too, and the day she leaves for England, I cry as if my whole world has ended. That hateful, spiteful mountain has interrupted my calm existence in Paradise. Nathan cries too. He bawls so much he makes himself sick. The whole airport seems to be awash with tears. Patsy is leaving. Everyone is leaving.

So much water flows in that airport, we almost drown.