IRA MATH­UR

This week’s Guardian Book­Shelf spot­lights Di­ane Bertrand’s mem­oir “The Gospel Ac­cord­ing to Di­ane – Be­tween Vestibule and Al­tar”. I was mes­merised by this mem­oir in its nascent stages in a work­shop held by Earl Lovelace be­fore the pan­dem­ic. Bertrand has the lit­er­ary abil­i­ty to mes­merise the most hard­ened athe­ist – her sto­ry­telling is that com­pelling.

“The Gospel Ac­cord­ing to Di­ane – Be­tween Vestibule and Al­tar” is the sto­ry of a girl grow­ing up in a vil­lage parish of In­di­an Walk in south Trinidad amidst a large Catholic fam­i­ly, so de­vout that her par­ents con­vert­ed their fam­i­ly home in­to a church “where a pro­ces­sion of holy men cel­e­brat­ed Mass for a tiny but fer­vent con­gre­ga­tion.”

Bertrand’s par­ents were lead­ers in that com­mu­ni­ty. Her fa­ther was the head­mas­ter of the gov­ern­ment school in In­di­an Walk and her moth­er at­tend­ed not just to her eight chil­dren ( in it­self a her­culean feat) but looked af­ter the vil­lage parish as she would her own blood.

Bertrand’s nar­ra­tive de­vice of de­light­ful and hon­est per­son­al vi­gnettes cov­er­ing 44 years demon­strates how her par­ent’s val­ues of kind­ness, ser­vice, hard work, and in­tegri­ty took pri­or­i­ty over ma­te­r­i­al gain (though that came too, along­side a sound ed­u­ca­tion) and was em­bed­ded in her fam­i­ly life.

Wo­ven in­to Bertrand’s sto­ry is an abid­ing faith that a high­er pow­er is at per­pet­u­al play and, along­side that, a sense of won­der and re­solve that some­times reads like mag­ic re­al­ism, a Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez nov­el. De­spite its re­li­gious na­ture, this mem­oir has no traces of sanc­ti­mo­nious preach­ing or dog­ma.

Bertrand wrote this mem­oir as a road map for her chil­dren, Olivia and Math­ew, but “The Gospel Ac­cord­ing to Di­ane – Be­tween Vestibule and Al­tar” is more. This mem­oir is a mas­ter­piece of im­mense cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance in new world is­lands, a peo­ple still search­ing for a cen­tre in the af­ter­math of bru­tal colo­nial ar­rivals when en­tire lan­guages, cul­tures, and his­to­ries were stripped. Some­how in the telling, we re­mem­ber that our es­sen­tial hu­man­i­ty and good­ness tran­scends the trau­ma of ar­rival.

The fol­low­ing is an ex­cerpt re­pro­duced with full per­mis­sion of the au­thor.

“Bow Legs! Pop Eye! Black­ie! Dark­ie! Big Bot­tom! Big Teeth, Plum-seed head!” These were a chain of in­sults thrown at me dai­ly by my cru­el class­mates. When I com­plained, Mum­my col­lect­ed and strung them to­geth­er like beau­ti­ful pearls, tri­umphant­ly hang­ing them around my neck. The chil­dren in my class emerged from homes made of Tapia walls and Li­pay floors. Every night, they fell asleep in their ab­ject pover­ty to cussing lul­la­bies and phys­i­cal beat­ings, which made their rest­less sleep the safest hid­ing place. Yet in the morn­ings, they picked up from where they left off the day be­fore, turn­ing up for school, their bare feet co­conut-oiled and shin­ing, ready to share the abus­es of the night be­fore with their class­mates. Be­ing the Prin­ci­pal’s daugh­ter gave me a spe­cial help­ing of the ugli­est names they could muster, de­signed to top­ple the in­vis­i­ble pedestal on which they had placed me.

Com­plaints to my moth­er were met with com­pas­sion and em­pa­thy as she ex­plained the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances of my class­mates’ lives, “Her fa­ther is un­em­ployed, and it is tough for the fam­i­ly; she does not mean to be so un­kind, poor child.”

How­ev­er, just at the point when I want­ed to ac­cuse Mum­my of not de­fend­ing me, she played her mas­ter­stroke, “It is not im­por­tant how your class­mates see you… they on­ly see the sur­face. What mat­ters is who you are be­low the sur­face, in your heart and soul. Child, can’t you see how unim­por­tant those names are?”

Or at an­oth­er time, “She is call­ing your large, beau­ti­ful eyes’ pop eyes’?”

My moth­er’s voice dropped dra­mat­i­cal­ly to a hoarse whis­per, her tone in­cred­u­lous, as if my class­mate was the cra­zi­est per­son in the world.

“You mean she does not re­alise that large eyes are beau­ti­ful?

“Ah­h­h­hh, poor ‘di­a­ble’ she is just a child; she does not know bet­ter, have some com­pas­sion for her.”

She al­ways sprin­kled her speech with pa­tois words when she want­ed to con­vey the enor­mi­ty of a sit­u­a­tion.

“When you get old­er, you will see just how beau­ti­ful your eyes are! Then these names will not mat­ter.”

Mum­my’s slow, con­sis­tent dis­man­tling of the sting of the in­sults met­ed out every day, cou­pled with heavy serv­ings of love and com­pas­sion to­wards my class­mates, neu­tralised the ef­fect of the ver­bal bul­ly­ing.

Af­ter a while, I stopped re­peat­ing these in­ci­dents of the school­yard. At that ear­ly age, I felt my­self look­ing at my tor­men­tor and imag­in­ing the chaos and ter­ror of the night be­fore. I imag­ined Christ­mases with­out presents and spe­cial treats, and in­stead of re­sent­ment and wound­ed­ness, I felt sor­row and out­rage for the things my tor­men­tor lacked. The nar­ra­tive was re­pro­grammed suc­cess­ful­ly in my head, and so had my re­sponse to it.

End of Ex­cerpt

Di­ane Bertrand re­tired from cor­po­rate life in 2019. She is cur­rent­ly the Pres­i­dent of the Shrine Com­mit­tee of Our La­dy of Montser­rat in Tor­tu­ga, Trinidad. Bertrand leads pil­grim­ages across the globe seek­ing the Face of Christ un­der the aus­pices of her Spir­it Jour­neys Pil­grim­age Group.

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian colum­nist and the win­ner of the non-fic­tion OCM Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture 2023.

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