The Mountain (F)

Therese Marie LeBlanc is 103 today.

I met Granny T ten years ago, three days after my 12^th birthday. My father was appointed the island’s chief administrator and so we moved there from Martinique.

Our house, painted white, was the last one on the left high up from the town which scattered about the lower hills and stretched out just above sea level toward the volcano.

I just now remembered the first words Granny T spoke to me. I was outside our fenced yard, playing with my yo-yo in the street.

“You! You, there. You have time for toys, young man?”

Startled, I meekly replied, “Good morning.”

She shielded her eyes from the low sun because the breeze lifted the brim of her straw hat.

“Maybe. May be if the mountain doesn’t blow its head off and burn us to death.”

I stood there. At 12 I didn’t know anything about burning to death, not really, not enough to speak about such a thing to anyone, much less a stranger.

Fortunately my mother stepped out on the front porch and called me in. I gave a sort of wave, a slight raising of my forearm, and trudged inside.

The island is really two seamounts, the steaming one rising more than a mile, the other end—my end—several hundred feet. Between the two the half mile stretch of black sand which lures tourists to pay any price for beach rentals during the high season.

Granny T’s house was the only one which faced directly the volcano, and being at the very top, she could see the string of islands to our west but we could not.

One morning I pushed my bike up the last hundred feet or so and stopped at our mailbox. Just as I reached for the latch, some movement appeared in the corner of my eye.

Granny T was at her mailbox.

“You, there, young man! Oh, yes, I can see your draw for today, The Hanged Man—Le Pendu. Oh, yes, most certainly, The Hanged Man.”

Hanging? Like hanging hanging? A rope around my neck, I wondered.

I, speechless, merely nodded and gathered the mail and rolled my bike into the front yard.

At the first chance I searched for The Hanged Man on our computer. There: The Hanged Man calls you to release the old mental models and behavioral patterns that no longer serve you so you can see your world from a new perspective and embrace new opportunities.

Mental models? Did I have mental models at 12? Well, I certainly had behavioral patterns. Up early to walk Molly, breakfast 2 pieces of buttered toast, a tall glass of orange juice—no ice, some days fishing at the pier, and schoolwork. Sometimes schoolwork, not very often.

“The plume goes straight up in the morning and evening. If not, a storm is coming.”

Why does she keep talking to me? That moment was when I decided to walk uphill the 20 paces or so. I stood outside her picket fence.

“Good morning, Madame.”

“Is that all you are capable of saying?” She set down her garden basket. “Do you understand what time is?”

Time? Like what time is it? I looked at my watch.

She cackled. Truly, her laugh was, in fact, a cackle. “Is that where you keep your time, on your wrist?”

Granny T came over to the fence and reached out and took my right arm in hers. She placed two fingers on the bare wrist. “Ah, your time is speeding up. How are you called?”

“Pierre.”

“Pierre. Pierre. Yes, I have known Pierres. Can’t be helped I suppose. It’s the sea breeze that blows the steam off the mountain.”

I swallowed, and then, “Why did you say the Hanged Man to me?”

“Time will tell.” Laughing, she turned away. “Time will tell.”

I just shook my head and went home.

Two weeks later, when I was letting Molly in through our gate, I heard my name called.

“Young man, Pierre! Come! I have something for your mother.”

Dutifully I walked over to her.

“This sack, guavas. Good for jam. And, here, these flowers.”

I looked at them.

“They are a hibiscus grown only on this island. My husband’s cultivar.”

“Thank you. Your husband?”

“Dead 24 years. Today’s draw—your card—yes, The Fool. No doubting the matter, The Fool.”

Before I could say a word, she was gone, back to her house.

Of course, I looked it up. The Fool: Just like the young man, you are at the outset of your journey, standing at the cliff’s edge and just about to take your first step into the unknown.

Thinking back now, what did I know then? Then, I worried about standing at the edge of a cliff. Who would step off a cliff?

One day some of Granny T’s mail ended up in our box. I took it uphill to put in her mailbox and just as I opened it, Granny T stepped out on her porch. I waved the mail at her. She came down the steps slowly and walked over to me.

“When the fire comes, young man, great rocks the size of houses will come down on you. You will be burned to a nothing, maybe sitting at your desk in school, or standing out in your yard, or fishing at the pier. Ashes, on the wind. Gone. Do you understand, Pierre? Fire, ashes, gone.”

I remember how my shoulders slumped. She took her mail and walked off.

Lyman 2022