"AND YOU CAN DRINK THE WATER" 13

of tourist brochure description occurs when Ursa returns to this beach
(a favorite site of hers) several years later. Marshall describes the
deserted beach in terms that emphasize the cleanliness, emptiness,
and naturalness central to tourist guide descriptions: "And there it all
is as she emerges from the trees: the wide white-sand beach that follows
unerringly the curve of the bay, the overreaching sky that is absolutely
clear except for a ridge of clouds, left over from the rain, that can be
seen hovering along the horizon; and there's the wide, wide sea spread
before her." (Marshall 378) Even within this seemingly ideal tour book
description, however, Marshall plants the seeds of its undoing: this
beach is as Ursa sees it as she emerges from the trees. The apparently
empty beach is already inhabited by the Caribbean subject, and, as
this section of the novel is told from Ursa's perspective, it is actually
impossible to have the beach at all without her presence. Marshall
completes this process of replacing the Caribbean people who are
erased from the landscape in Caribbean Ports of Call in the very next
paragraph:

 Not a soul in sight. The beach empty from one great wing of the bay
 to the other. She's too late for the fishermen who left at dawn and too
 early for the women who will come later in the morning to help with
 the catch when the first boats return around noon. Tomorrow, Sunday,
 will be another matter. People like peas on the beach from the time
 God's sun rises. (Marshall 378)

This passage makes it clear that the emptiness is temporary and re-
inhabits the beach with the people of Triunion; in so doing, Marshall
changes the beach from a potential tourist site of natural beauty, which,
as we have seen, must be empty, to a local site in which people live
and perform their daily activities.
 Cliff employs a similar strategy in No Telephone to Heaven. Clare
and her friend Harry/Harriet have a picnic at "the most beautiful beach
on the island," at which they consume fruits that they have gathered
from the pristine tropical landscape:

 Not another human in sight, they spread their picnic on the thin strand.
 The green coconuts, shot clean between the fronds, rained around
 them, thumping and rolling on the sand. Harry/Harriet sliced two
 open with his cutlass, and they poured rum into the sweet water....
 Soon they would be covered with mango juice, salt water, and the
 spicy oil of the meat. Resting from riding the breakers, warmed by