My week in Barbados was divided into two parts. I spent nearly 24 hours in Bathsheba, a small town on the Atlantic coast. I stayed at a charming hotel that had once been a train station on the railway line that used to cross the island from west to east. At sunrise, I went for a walk along the path that runs along a wild coastline where the waves crash against the rocks. I passed through villages with pastel-colored wooden houses. People and animals were going about their morning routines before the sun got too hot. I ended my walk with a visit to the beautiful Andromeda Botanical Garden.
For the rest of the week, I worked during the day on the campus of the University of the West Indies, but I stayed in a soulless hotel belonging to an international chain on a beach not far from the center of Bridgetown, the capital. Of course, I took advantage of the mornings to go swimming in the peaceful, turquoise waters of the Caribbean coast. I had even brought my mask and snorkel to go looking for turtles. But I quickly realized it was easier to spot them in Bridgetown’s marina, where they’re fed from the boats carrying tourists.
I found the same contrast between traditional Barbados and mass tourism in Glenville Lovell’s novel, “Song of Night”. Cyan is nicknamed “Night” because her skin is very dark. She is still a teenager when her father, whom she adores, is arrested and then hanged for killing a man who had been making advances toward his wife, Obe. Night grows up in the village of Bottom Rock. She must navigate the gossip of her bigoted neighbors, the mood swings of her mother—who constantly brings abusive men home—and the leering glances of boys and men drawn to her slender young body.
She roams the beaches selling souvenirs to tourists. There she meets a wealthy couple—he a local doctor, and she, Koko, an African American woman—who hires her as a domestic worker. Koko soon becomes more than just her boss; she serves as a mentor and encourages Night to design dresses for a tourist shop. But with tourism comes the temptation of easy money. Many men, in the evenings at bars, buy Night a glass of rum and invite her to dance.
Night becomes pregnant. Will she have an abortion? Or will she give the child up for adoption to a wealthy American woman, a friend of Koko’s?
“Song of Night” is a superb novel that, through Cyan’s tragic fate, powerfully and subtly captures the soul of a small, splendid island, torn between its history and culture and the riches brought by the waves of tourists.
