Page 14 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

track to the top of a hill where, amid spectacular views of the
mountains to the north and the ocean to the east, a modest
house of concrete and stone guards the former plantation that
spreads out across the valley.

It is a bucolic scene, despite the obvious presence of poverty
scattered like decaying leaves amidst the landscape. Sheep and
goats — some tied to trees, others trotting along one foot-
path or another in a tight huddle — bleat loudly as if they are
being chased by an unseen demon. Not far off, over the hill,
where the land drops off steeply, there is what appears to be a
village, a tight-knit group of houses, nothing more really, but
something besides the banana fields and endless mango and
pawpaw and breadfruit and orange and grapefruit trees that
seem to occupy the better part of the island.

Outside Lord’s Gate, on the main road, adjacent to the spot
where Harry and his wife stand disconcertedly in the intense
midday sun — having just been deposited on the disintegrating
macadam by the “conductor” of a Toyota mini-van carrying 20
intrepid travelers over treacherous mountain roads at excruci-
ating speeds — the land drops off precariously to a green valley
lush with bananas and dasheen. Notwithstanding the irony of
a cow and a family sharing analogous quarters, Harry appreci-
ates — with an enormous stretch of the imagination, mind you
— that someone living at the top of the hill might once upon a
time have referred to this spot as the entrance to the kingdom
of God, since seen from where he is now standing, the path to
the top of the hill does seem to stretch endlessly skyward. In all
other respects however, Lord’s Gate appears to be the entrance
to yet another impoverished West Indian community.

12