St. George’s, Grenada, October 12, 1983
After spending much of the night awake, Felicity napped for most of the day. She had just settled in for one when the living room door banged open.
“Sorry, Felicity,” said Neville, not sounding sorry at all. “We need the radio. There’s someone broadcasting news offshore.” He bounded over to the cabinet and turned the dial.
“How do you know that?” Felicity asked. Her throat was dry, and her head felt fuzzy, thanks to her consumption of a large portion of several bottles of sherry from the government reserves, consumed over last night’s dinner.
“Them.” With his thumb, Neville indicated the protestors outside the gates. “One of them managed to get a note under the door.” The unremitting static broke for a second and admitted a fraction of a word. “There it is.” Neville turned slowly, and the voice came into focus. Neville, Claude, Lee, and Melvin cheered.
“… to evacuate American students,” said the announcer.
“Americans? Are they coming here to —” said Lee. Everyone shushed him.
“… six hundred and fifty, at St. George’s University —” the announcer continued.
“Most of it isn’t even in St. George’s,” Lee said.
“Sssh!”
“… but so far, this is only a rumour. What we do believe to be true is that the American president has asked the Mark Henry government to guarantee their safety —”
Now the room exploded into commentary. “The Mark Henry government!”
“Look at Mark, so bold-bold.”
“Their safety! What about ours?”
“Who is we? Who is that on the radio?”
Felicity sat up and hugged her knees. She vacillated between not wanting to show her ignorance and needing information. She chose. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”
Neville said, “There’s a medical school here, for Americans. Ones whose scores are just a bit too low for US med programs, so they come here, and we educate them and they go back.”
“I said we should shut it down,” said Lee. “Now look, it’s bringing us nothing but trouble.”
“You wanted to shut down everything, Lee,” said Claude. “We needed the money. Six hundred and fifty Americans with rich parents, who could turn that down? They don’t bother us, and we don’t bother them.”
“Well, now they are,” said Lee.
“No, they’re not,” said Neville. “It’s just that evil president they have. The donkey’s arse doesn’t know anything. Like how he’s convinced that our runway is for Russian warplanes.”
“It won’t be good for anything,” Claude said. “If they don’t stop interfering with our tourism.” He turned to look at Felicity. The ferocity of his gaze made her throat constrict. “They’re telling lies in America and Europe, saying our beaches are full of barbed wire, that it’s not safe here.”
The door opened. Pat entered. She walked straight to Claude, and he put his arm around her. “What are you doing?” she asked. Her gaze swung to Felicity, a laser beam of suspicion.
“We found a radio station,” Claude began to explain to her, their bodies angled away from Felicity on the couch. Felicity closed her eyes and concentrated on trying to hear more of the broadcast over the babble in the room.
“The curfew remains,” said the voice. “Anyone found violating it will be shot on sight. Take it very seriously.”
The word shot arrested Felicity’s heartbeat, holding it hostage within the cavern of her chest. A bullet would stop it forever. She tried to calm herself the way she did before a performance — breathing deeply, in and out, focusing on the task before her and nothing more.