Mr. Potter by Jamaica Kincaid Read Free Book Online

been born, and the grave
master remembered it because three or four, or six or seven, or nine or eleven people had fought with each other at the burial sight, at the very grave, and they had fought with each other because they thought Mr. Potter, my very own father, should have loved them best, this very same man who had not loved anyone in his life, in his own lifetime, should have loved them, each of them, best, better than he had loved anything else or anyone else in this world. Someone named Emma remembered giving him bread to eat when he was a boy and had been hungry; someone named Jarvis said that he had pulled Mr. Potter out of the way of a boiling pot of oil that had been thrown at Mr. Potter by a woman who loved him too much. One of his daughters said that Mr. Potter had raped her but she had loved him so much that not before the moment she saw his coffin being lowered into the ground could she tell of the violence he had perpetrated against her. On and on went the stories of love and hatred, and that was all the grave master knew of Mr. Potter. And the world and its events swirled beneath his feet and the world and its events swirled above his head and the grave master said, while looking at me but not seeing me at all, that no one could be really known until they were dead, only when you are dead can a person be really known, because when you are dead then you cannot modify your actions, you are in
a state of such stillness, the permanent stillness that is death, you cannot reply to accusations, you cannot make a wrong right, you cannot ask forgiveness, you cannot make a counteraction so as to make a wrong seem not to have occurred at all, you make the wrong perfect in the imagination, you make the wrong perfect in actuality. All this he said and then he said, “Eh, eh,” and he walked away from me and I followed him not too closely, and he wiped away droplets of glistening moisture that had gathered on his forehead with his hand, and this was not to make himself more comfortable, it had no meaning, this removing of droplets of moisture that had gathered on his forehead. He wore a shirt and trousers, and they were made from cotton, but the source of this particular fabric would not have caused him to think of anything, not a moment’s pause, not the time it took to make a pronouncement, not anything at all. And the grave master took me to a worn-down mound of earth, and this mound of earth was overwhelmed by clumps of a deeply rooted grass and an equally deeply rooted white lily that bloomed only at night in July. And the grave master said, “Eh, eh,” and again he said, “Eh, eh.” And always when he said it, “Eh, eh,” his voice was filled with surprise, as if everything that was happening right then was so unexpected, or as if everything happening then was like a memory, only taking
place again. He wanted to show me where Mr. Potter was buried, he remembered the day well, such a commotion was made at the grave site: Mr. Potter’s children on one side but not speaking to each other; the woman he had lived with for many years on the other side, but she not speaking to his children. And they all hurled insults at each other for they had been left nothing. Mr. Potter had left all of his considerable fortune to a distant relative who lived on another island quite far away. And that distant relative from an island quite far away returned to his home with Mr. Potter’s money, but shortly after, he too died, and Mr. Potter’s considerable fortune disappeared before the eyes of his children and the woman with whom he had lived and who had so tenderly nursed him in the last few days of his life. So much suffering was attached to Mr. Potter, so much suffering consumed him, so much suffering he left behind.
    The grave master led me through the graveyard looking for Mr. Potter’s grave and I followed him, but not too closely. A small mound under a mahogany tree might be the