(by Malcolm Alves)
Chapter Five | BUY THIS BOOK HERE
By midday of the day we moved, we were in the truck at the Rosignol ferry stelling waiting for the ferry boat M.V. Torani to take us over to New Amsterdam, our new hometown. Mammy, Reena and Sondra were riding in the cabin of the truck with the driver while me and Sunil were riding in the tray with our meager belongings. I was sad and excited at the same time. A feeling of deep sadness had overcome me as the truck had pulled off from our soon to be old house. It was the house in which I was born. It was the village I had known all my life. We were leaving everything and everyone I had ever known for a new beginning in a new location.
Looking at Sunil and how happy he was lifted my spirits a bit. It would be exciting to live in a big town like New Amsterdam if what my friends had told me about it was true. Reena didn’t seem too excited about it and was probably worried about Aunty Doogoo’s reputation and passion for match-making. Mammy didn’t show any excitement one way or the other but she must have been happy to leave a village in which she had just buried husband number two.
Our truck was the second in line of five trucks on the left side of the stelling. On the right side there was a line of just over a dozen cars. The stelling had a high roof which also covered the section behind a high wire fence which looked like the passenger area. People were coming in, buying tickets at a booth and entering another area after surrendering their tickets. There were long benches in there for people to sit on. Below the whole roof the floor was covered with thick planks and I could hear the waves of the river lapping beneath. Apparently the stelling was built a little way out over the river. Toward the river was a gangway which loped gently down toward the light brown water of the Berbice River.
I could see over the wooden wall beyond the cars where there was a small tributary from the river running back parallel to the road to the stelling. Beyond that was a canefield. Sunil had shown me the tower in the distance beyond the canefield and said that was Blairmont Estate where the accident had happened. It seemed a mile away but was probably much more than that.
The ferry was coming. New Amsterdam stelling was on the other side of the mild wide river and maybe three miles downriver. Looking northward I could see the river widened to a larger expanse of water. They said that was the Atlantic Ocean out there. Imagine that; the same Atlantic Ocean Mrs. Seecharran had talked about and had shown us on a map. Across the river from us there was just bush all the way along the bank of the river until you can barely see the stelling and buildings behind that which was more bush and what looked like another stelling. More bush followed, then way down river where the two banks appear to meet but was actually a bend in the river, was a big factory which I later learned was the Reynolds Bauxite company.
The M.V. Torani looked bigger as it got nearer to the stelling. I could see trucks and cars on the lower deck and people standing on the balcony upstairs. For a minute I thought it was going to come straight into and ram the stelling. It slowed as it got nearer. Then it drifted just past the stelling and I could hear a clinging of some kind of communication bells. She drifted to a stop just beyond the stelling with her engines at the back kicking up water which appeared to be lighter than the river water. Ropes were tossed onto the platform at the back and front and caught by workers. These thin ropes were tied to huge fat ropes which were dropped in to the river. Using the thinner ropes the men pulled the stout ropes out of the water and placed them around huge anvil like anchors on the platform. Then sailors on the ferry began working on tightening up the fat ropes from that end. Slowly the ferry boat drifted closer to the stelling and backward until her lower doorway was in line with the gangway below. The heavy metal door was lowered onto the gangway and secured by the sailors then the two doors on the sides of the boat on the upper flat were opened to the elevated passenger gangways up there.
People poured out downstairs before the first car was directed out of the boat. Other people were coming out upstairs then down the stairs on the passenger side. The stelling was suddenly busy and bustling with activity. Verndors were busy, hire car drivers were soliciting passengers going to Georgetown or anywhere between, and the directors of traffic out of the boat were shouting instructions. People were climbing aboard colorful buses waiting beyond the stelling.
I watched all of this with excitement. This was all new to me. I was actually at the starting point of all those vehicles that sped past our house and school during the day. As the vehicles noisily came up the gangway from the ferry they drove out of the stelling then up the road on the beginning of their sixty-seven mile journey to Georgetown. Some cars stopped to pick up their passengers before speeding off. On the passenger side some incoming passengers were greeting outgoing passengers.
Eventually all the passengers from upstairs had disembarked. The passengers from the seated section on our left began climbing the stairs and boarding the ferry on the upper flat. The trucks were now directed out of the ferry on the lower level. The big ferry rocked gently every time a truck rolled off the boat and onto the gangway.
After the last truck had labored its way up the gangplank and had driven out of the stelling a sailor signaled the first truck in our line to enter the ferry. The engine of our truck roared to life. When it was our turn the truck slowly drove toward the gangway then down the gradual descent and onto the boat. I was excited and frightened at the same time. After maneuvering back and forth we were finally parked up against the back wall of the ferry next to the truck that had been first in line. I stood up to watch the other vehicles being directed onto the boat and into parking positions. When the last car was in position a whistle was blown and people with carts and other heavy hand-held items came down the gangway and into the boat. I could hear the metallic doors on the upper floor slam shut. After the last person came onto the boat below the whistle was blown again and the big metal door was slowly pulled up from the gangway.
The big ropes attaching the boat began going slack as the sailors onboard release more rope. The men on the platform then removed the heavy ropes from the metal “anvil” and the ropes, under their own weight, slid off the platform and dropped with loud splashes into the river to be pulled up by the sailors.
The rattling sound that was audible but not noticed before, suddenly stopped. I thought it was all a part of the engine noise by now I could hear the deep drone of the engines. There were some little noises like cables being pulled and bells ringing then I heard the engines rev up and it appeared as though the stelling was moving backward. After a minute I realized it was the boat that was moving forward. We moved past the stelling as though heading out to the ocean and the ferry began turning slowly toward mid river then started heading south.
Sunil began climbing off the truck. When I asked he said he was going upstairs and if I wanted to come. I carefully climbed down after him. He jumped on the step to the cabin and told Mammy we were going upstairs for some fresh air. Reena decided she wanted to come with us since she wanted to use the toilet.
Sunil led us through a passage way in the back wall. We passed a doorway which apparently led downward to the engine room since the sound of the engine was very loud in there. Beyond this led to the back of the boat where some people were sitting on some stacked eight by four feet wooden frames that functioned as seats. I could see the clearer looking water kicked up by the double propellers. We climbed short metal steps into the upper floor of the ferry. There were more wooden platform seats with people there looking out on the river. We went through another doorway into the boat. I guess we were directly above the trucks on the lower deck at that point. There was a shop in the front section and most of the space was occupied by rows of long wooden seats back to back along the length of the boat. People seated on them faced the sides of the boat. I could see the four closed metal doors which allowed passengers to disembark when opened.
Sunil led us toward the front of the boat. In the front walls were the two entrances of the bathrooms labeled “Men” and “Women”. Reena headed in the women’s but was soon out with her nose cringed up in revolt. She told us she had changed her mind.
We followed Sunil out onto the front deck where I had seen people standing when the ferry was approaching the stelling. It was breezier out there and quiet. We couldn’t hear the engines. There was not a seat in sight. We looked out and down the river where New Amsterdam awaited us. I looked around at the other people. Most of them were well dressed, especially the women and children. A few vendors came around hawking peanuts, sweets, or cigarettes. We stood leaned against the rails like many others out there.
“This river big boy,” I said.
“Is not the biggest river though,” Reena said.
“Who say so?” I challenged.
“You duncy, you ain’t know Essequibo river bigger than this?” Sunil said.
“How big that is so?” I wondered in awe.
“Where you think the Titanic sink?” said Sunil.
“You mad? Titanic ain’t sink there boy,” Reena said then laughed.
“Where it sink then?” said Sunil.
“In some ocean, but I bet you it ain’t sink in no Essequibo river,” Reena said.
“So is on this boat all them cars does be coming,” I said in awe. “All of them going to New Amsterdam?”
“I guess so,” Reena said.
“Maybe they going to Corentyne,” Sunil said.
“Where Corentyne is?” I asked.
“Somewhere past New Amsterdam,” said Sunil.
We were distracted by a moderately fat Portuguese man shuffling his way past the seated passengers with a tin cup in one hand. He was dressed in khaki pants pulled very high up with striped white and orange shirt buttoned down to the wrists. The clothes were wrinkled and slightly soiled but everything was well tucked in with a robust leather belt holding the fort at the waist. Stuck on his head was what looked like a well used hat and his unshaven face had a permanent smile and the general affable expression of a child. People seemed amused as they watched him waddle his way around.
“Dario, what you doing on this boat?” a lady asked. “You went to Georgetown?”
“My name is Dario Gomes,” the man said in a soft voice and seemed oblivious to the question posed by the woman who by now had fished out her purse from her bag and was reaching into it.
“You went to town to get a wife?” she continued. The other people seated around were laughing. She dropped a few coins into his cup.
“My name is Dario Gomes,” he repeated.
“Aye Dario, why ayo don’t stay in the Mental instead of bothering people out here,” said a sailor who had come from within the passenger section inside and went toward the stairs leading to the lower deck. The man showed no sign of having heard him. The sailor disappeared down the stairs.
Reena and Sunil stared at the man.
“What is the Mental?” I asked Reena quietly.
“The Mental Asylum, the Mad House,” she whispered.
We stared at the man. We all knew that the only mental asylum in the country was in New Amsterdam but this was the first time we were actually seeing a mad man. Had the sailor not said anything we would not have known he was mad even though he did appear childish in his expressions. I wasn’t sure what to expect from him; maybe he would suddenly go berserk and attack everyone. But the other people around seemed to know he was a madman but they seemed anything but afraid.
The man continued circulating among the passengers on the deck the received coins in his cup from many. Then he shuffled off inside the boat again. We returned our attention to the river.
The ferry was closer to the other side of the river now. We could see a tributary wide enough for the ferry to travel up but we glided right past it. The New Amsterdam Stelling came closer but the ferry seemed to be drifting past it instead of straight to it. We passed a good six hundred yards away from the stelling. For a moment I thought the captain had fallen asleep or was drunk. Then I heard pulled cables rustling and bells ringing. We couldn’t hear the engines. The ferry then began making a wide turn toward the shoreline then toward the stelling. After a while it slowed down and slowly drifted closer to the platform of the stelling where the whole trick with the small and big ropes was repeated by the men on the stelling and the sailors on board.
Me and Reena were urging Sunil to return to the truck below but he said he had time since all the cars had to come out first before the truck could move. It made sense. We peered over the side rails as people on deck began getting up and moving inside the ferry towards the doors on that side. When the large ferry settled in its final position the heavy door below clanged open and was lowered onto the gangway of the platform. Then the two doors on top dropped open. Me and Reena were anxious and were going to leave with or without Sunil.
By the time we got downstairs and back on the truck there was much noise with the vehicles roaring to life and people shouting to each other. Some men who I later learned were taxi drivers, were standing to the edge of the stelling beckoning to passengers in the boat. The sailors began directing the cars out of the ferry. By the time it was the trucks’ turn to exit, most of the outgoing passengers were gone.
Our truck labored up the gangway and onto the wooden platform which rumbled beneath the its weight. Then we came out from beneath the roof of the stelling and onto the stelling road. We were in New Amsterdam at last.