< Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket #13
I stopped on my way past her home the other day. I usually wave and ask
how she's doing. I thought she would want to hear the news. I had just come
back from Georgetown where all the talk was about the videotape of a
Pastor caught in a compromising bedroom situation.
"Sprawled between two naked women," I told her. "A videotape is on the
internet. That means people all round the world seeing it."
She was in her verandah chair, her arms neatly folded, looking out at the
afternoon sky. I didn't want to appear like a passing street vendor of gossip,
so I added. "Is true what you said. These church men really wicked."
What people in Georgetown and around the world would not know is that
Mrs. Bunbury had first hand knowledge of the wickedness of our pastors.
Years before this Georgetown videotape, we had a Pastor Brown and his
Church of Divine Principle, here in Canal District; who, depending on your
point of view, helped save or fracture the lives of several women.
Mrs. Bunbury was among the women fractured. Or saved, depending on your
point of view. She and her daughter Agnes.
"I bet the women of his church still support him," she said, shouting at her
her dog to be quiet. "Some women will kneel for the devil they know. I gone,"
I said, preparing to move on.
I thought she might toss a verse after me, from the Bible, about judgment
day in the courtroom of the Lord. "Okay, then," she said, nothing more; as
if quietly tracing the hours to sunset, and the start of her night; cicadas
in quavers outside.
~ * ~
Pastor Brown lived in Georgetown but operated his church in Canal District.
Mrs. Bunbury was a strong church-goer, after her husband passed. Took
her daughter Agnes with her.
Agnes was one of my best students. An active, pretty girl, eager to learn.
I would not have gotten close to her mother, had I not observed a change
in her behavior. From patient to petulant; to chatting when she should be
listening.
I got her interested in Library studies; maybe going off somewhere to get
a degree and coming back to take over from the hair-pinned ladies at the
Public Library in Georgetown.
Losing focus, falling behind in homework assignments, in her final year, I
considered a danger sign. Discipline, at every junction, discipline! I say to
them.
I met her mother one day, and mentioned the behaviour change, only to
learn of Pastor Brown (balding reader from the Holy Book) and the big wedge
he'd driven between Agnes and our high hopes for her.
~ * ~
This came about when the Pastor offered to take Agnes to Barbados "as his
secretary", to a conference on church leadership, he said. It was her first
trip outside the country. When she returned she seemed quick to temper.
Confining herself to her room, I learnt. Slow to start and complete household
chores.
A strict but communicative parent, Mrs. Bunbury could not understand. Agnes
was "answering back". She was no longer the good girl we knew.
The explanation emerged one evening. At the dinner table. After Agnes
had not bowed her head in prayer, and seemed to be waiting to begin.
Daughter and mother had lived trusting each other. Now, perhaps tired of
holding things in, her daughter revealed the swelling on her chest.
That trip with the Pastor? She had been "seduced", she said. In the Barbados
hotel. He talked to her, prayed with her, talked some more until she
removed her clothes; caved to his pressing. Doing things she had never
imagined doing. With him. With the room lights on.
Her bright, bare limbs facing his insistent older man's nakedness ̶ it must
have been frightening. She cried in a towel, fiercely and completely. She
emptied her stomach of shock and embarrassment. She spent hours
stretched out (first time) in the hotel bathroom tub of warm water.
No, she hadn't spoken to anyone about it. Until now. No, she didn't think
she was pregnant. Didn't think she was? She was definitely not pregnant.
At some point the conversation halted. It happened, alright? Agnes said,
as if a mound of the past had settled over it. She left the table, and Mrs.
Bunbury said she felt a pain heating up her head. She believed right there
and then she was having her first "nervous breakdown", and could no
longer tell her daughter anything.
~ * ~
"But how could this happen?" she asked me over and over. I cautioned her
not to act rashly. Her daughter had been made physically aware of her age,
and the many faces of authority.
Had Agnes returned in visible distress, her eyes frequently filling with tears,
it might have made sense to confront the Pastor. What would be the point of
inflaming the matter now? As adults we had responsibilities.
I promised to keep Agnes focused at school. I encouraged her to be patient,
to refrain from any kind of "punishment". No fits of haranguing to ferret out
new disclosure.
Agnes came through despite our fears. We were surprised and relieved her
application to the university in Jamaica had been accepted. Then came the
second thrust of the wedge.
She informed her mother Pastor Brown had offered to cover her first year
expenses. The wheels were already in motion. And while her mother and I
fretted, not sure what this meant ̶ why hadn't she simply turned down his
offer? ̶ Agnes announced she was all set to travel; her body eager to own and
explore its future; fierce bright feelings lighting the way.
~ * ~
Far from the city and the internet, Canal District has its network of news and
furtive activity. For instance, it was common knowledge that Pastor Brown
administered to the special needs of some church members, women whose
husbands or partners showed no interest in church-going.
Mrs. Bunbury's had felt no need to be "administered" after her husband died,
but she knew of two women who approached Pastor Brown with an unusual
problem. Their husbands wanted intimacy the moment they returned from
Sunday Service. In the middle of the afternoon.
Indifferent to summons of the spirit (and always expecting to be fed) they
demanded instant undressing.
The women balked, fearful this craving might become a Sunday habit. Which
led to argument and abuse; and feeling betrayed nights as husbands strayed.
Pastor Brown stepped in offering spiritual counsel. He spoke on Sundays
about the importance of family bond. He organized a group for Tuesday
evening Bible Studies. He arranged private sessions for anyone who needed
"a consultant". By appointment. Behind secure doors.
Mrs. Bunbury learnt about these closed meetings when Mrs. Joseph, one of
the participants, came to visit. The private sessions, she said, were a mixture
of pleasure and gratitude and prayer. Complete undressing was not required.
The pastor's manhood like his words filled her up, Mrs. Joseph said, lowering
her voice to a confidential giggle.
The real purpose of her visit, she said, was this. After the Barbados hotel
revelations, Mrs. Bunbury chose to stay away from Sunday service. Agnes had
sworn she wasn't going back. It would have been awkward sitting, listening
as Pastor Brown (perspiring taker of schoolgirl innocence) quoted scripture;
laid out the meaning of gospel story.
Now everyone was wondering why her attendance had lapsed. Pastor Brown
had called her name last Sunday, alerting the flock to Sister Bunbury's
absence. Asking if anyone had been in touch with her.
So here she was. Showing sisterly concern. Sharing sentiments she must have
sworn to keep secret. And speaking with such rushing certainty, Mrs. Bunbury
herself might do well, she implied, to consider making similar arrangements.
What was slope-shoulder Pastor Brown after now? And who else, Mrs. Bunbury
wondered aloud, among the full-bosomed church regulars came to him for
consultation? The loudest singer? The eyes tightest shut?
She sent back word she was doing fine. She was no longer interested in
attending Sunday service. The visitors stopped coming. And Pastor Brown,
not daring to show his face at her gate, stopped mentioning her name on
Sundays.
~ * ~
I couldn't help but admire her strength, the dignity she maintains after the
loss first of her husband, then her only child. I offered comfort, careful not
to seem willing and ready to be her new saviour and tutor. Outside the
support of her relatives I don't know how she manages; how she feels when
she wakes every morning, no snoring head on the pillow beside her.
~ * ~
One last thrust of the wedge came in December when Agnes was expected
back home. Upon arriving in Jamaica she had sent word she had settled in.
Then nothing. Until Mrs. Bunbury heard she had dropped out of the university.
She was living with a Rastafarian. On a farm. And she was bearing his first
child.
Over the years there was little communication. Agnes sent word only at
Christmas. Told her mother not to worry, everything was fine.
She sent photos, of her second, then third child. She promised one day to
bring the children to see their grandmother. I saw photos of little girls in
braids, unsmiling faces quietly looking at the camera.
Mrs. Bunbury didn't share the full contents of Agnes's letters except to say
Agnes had changed her first name. "At least she's staying in touch," I said,
leaving it at that.
She has taken shelter from Pastor Brown and his flock of Sisters. And from
people like me offering to help her understand how her only child, raised
with a stern love, could toss away a sure, safe upward path. And just like
that submit to faith in a man and his island ways. His farming retreat. His
child bearing.
How does the parent mind reel in such precipitous behavior? this craving to
be some other? you might ask.
For now Mrs. Bunbury lives in the pages of her Bible. The words flow through
her eyes and quiets her pain. And so, I suppose, all life flows. Through
Georgetown or London. Canal District. Babel on the internet.
No place in the world, though, like Canal District. Sunday afternoons; that
time of day; day of need.
V. Hemphell
Canal District, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 