RETURNING TO Trinidad after many years of living abroad was easy. Wanting to go back is even easier.
The sad fact about any homecoming is that you are not the same person and you never return to the same place. As early as 500 B.C., Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, had observed, "You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in."
I had flowed out and was now flowing back in, accompanied by two "Bajan" infants and their Guyanese mother. Barbados had been our home for over six very enjoyable years. Before that, I had lived in Boston, Washington and, much earlier, Ottawa. But Trinidad is my home and here I was, leaving the Pan American Health Organisation and the comfort of being an international civil servant behind me, hoping for a bend in the river and the opportunity to build a new life. In many ways, I was looking for Hannah Campbell.
In the middle fifties, the Headmaster of the Carapichaima E.C. School, Mr. P.A. Forde, was transferred to Picadilly E.C. in Port of Spain. My parents believed in Mr. Forde and so I was also transferred. This was a different river altogether - East Dry River, behind the bridge in Port-of-Spain. Picadilly and its environs, Laventille, Duke and Nelson Streets, Charlotte and George Streets, were by far the toughest part of the country.
In those days it was the home of the first steelbands and major gangs, the Marabuntas, Desperadoes, and later the Renegades. A teacher who had come to the school after working at the Youth Training Centre had to be hospitalised after a severe beating from some of his students.
The place I had left, Carapichaima was a rural, cane-field community, with one main road and many rum shops. I was a little boy of East Indian descent with a low haircut and a shy smile, neither of which was suitable to the situation. Eventually, the hair and I grew. The smile remained.
Perhaps this is what attracted Hannah Campbell. We were in the College Exhibition Class together. She was slim and dark, with a handkerchief pinned to the shoulder strap of the school uniform. She had a wry twist to her face, and a very sad look. I had no idea where and how she lived, but we smiled at each other almost every day as the boys played "rescue" and the girls looked on.
One day the magic show came to Picadilly E.C. For the price of six cents, we would be entertained by Mr. Jang Bahadoorsingh, an itinerant magician. I wanted to go but had no money. Hannah wanted to go too. When she found out that I could not go, she gave me her money. She stood in the stony schoolyard watching me go in, sad yet smiling.
I went to the show. It ended abruptly when, following the intermission, the magician did not return. He had been mugged by some of my classmates and his money stolen. Ironically, the magician remained on the ground and the boys disappeared into thin air. As did Hannah, eventually, when the river of our existence split into different tributaries. I went south, to Siparia. She, into some magic place where generosity is rewarded and love remains forever pure.
Hannah Campbell is for me the essence of Trinidad. While, in this thirty-eighth year of Independence, there is much to lament, there is still much to be proud of, to be grateful for, to accept and to change. It will be a long time before we find Hannah Campbell again. Perhaps, the search is more important than the solution. Maybe, when we get to the destination, Hannah herself has changed. She might even be out of the country, seeking her solutions elsewhere. Or could she be looking for the little boy with the shy smile to get her six cents back?
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that Trinidad and Tobago was .38 years old this week. If it wants to ever become .45 or more, it needs people of a higher calibre, like Hannah Campbell.
