43 pages • 1 hour read
No Telephone to Heaven
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Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “Organ Harvester”
In London, Clare meets an African American Vietnam veteran named Bobby. They embark on a romantic relationship together, and Clare leaves the university so that they can travel Europe as a pair. Clare exchanges a series of letters with Harry/Harriet about their relationship, and Harry/Harriet congratulates her. Harry/Harriet also mentions that Clare’s aunt and uncle have fled Jamaica for Miami, and Clare’s grandmother has left Clare her land.
Bobby has a wound on his ankle where his skin splits open and “yellowness drip[s] from a bright pink gap” (143). Clare attempts to heal the wound—applying a variety of ointments and tinctures—but it never improves. Bobby’s explanations for the wound also vary, but ultimately, he claims the only thing that matters is “that it [will] always be his—something he must learn to live with” (147). He asks her to “bury her curiosity” because his “war cannot serve [her] purpose” (151).
The novel explains that Bobby suffers from a strange reoccurring nightmare (which he does not tell Clare about) wherein he must harvest American organs from a sea of cloudy water, carrying them in a green Glad bag. In the nightmare, he always encounters a petite white woman whom a group of soldiers holds and kills.
Clare and Bobby talk about the complexities of their different racial experiences. Although Clare explains that in Jamaica, “everyone is Black […] It’s a question of degree” (153), she also bemoans her sense of in-between-ness as someone who is neither white nor black: “You are so lucky, Bobby,” she tells him, “to be one and not both” (153).
In Paris, Bobby’s mental health deteriorates. He confesses to Clare that he was a deserter and expresses deep distress when she reveals that she is pregnant with his child, telling her she must abort the fetus unless she wants “a little Black baby with no eyes, no mouth, no nose, half a brain” (156). Bobby’s nightmare then begins to fuse with reality as he associates Clare with the woman from his dream. He leaves without an explanation, and after searching the streets of Paris (and receiving a compelling letter from Harry/Harriet), Clare decides to return to Jamaica.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Magnanimous Warrior!”
Chapter 7 is a brief ode to Queen Nanny of the Jamaican Maroons, a Jamaican national hero. The passage extols her bravery and devotion to her people, frequently referring to her as “Mother” (163). The chapter closes by describing the disappearance of Nanny, speculating that “[s]he has starved to death,” and “[h]er children have left her” (164). Bemoaning Nanny’s loss, the novel closes this short chapter with the question: “Can you remember how to love her?” (164).
Chapter 8 Summary: “Homebound”
Clare arrives in Jamaica to find that Harry/Harriet has changed her name to Harriet and adopted a solely female identity. Harriet explains that while she can’t afford to have a formal sex change operation (because her biological parents officially cut her off upon her announcement of her decision), she has decided that “Harriet live and Harry be no more” (168).
Harriet has also become a registered healer after years of studying healing practices both with professors at the university and old women in the country, learning everything from the properties of roots to the methods of casting spells. Harriet notes that despite her connection to these women and fellow healers, they do not acknowledge her sex:
None of her people downtown let on if they knew a male organ swung gently under her bleached and starched skirt […] Had they suspected, what would they have been reduced to? For her people, but a very few, did not suffer freaks gladly—unless the freaks became characters for entertainment. Mad, unclean diversions (171).
Harriet nurses Clare back to health through a post-pregnancy infection of the womb. In a morphine-induced haze, Clare dreams of an earthquake in Jamaica. She recalls her mother’s stories of a quake so strong it opened the graves of the dead, mixing long-dead bodies with newly-dead bodies. No one could tell how many people died in the quake because of this. When Clare wakes up, a doctor coldly informs her that because of her infection, she is now “probably sterile” (169).
When Clare feels restored, she ventures with Harriet to the land her grandmother has left to her. She finds the space consumed by “ruination,” so covered with green the house is no longer visible. As she and Harriet cut a path through the green and explore a river running through the property, Clare remembers a moment when—as a young child—she ordered a black woman washing in the water to leave “[her] grandmother’s river” (172). The woman laughed, telling Clare that “only Massa God could possess a river” (173). Clare recalls many other memories of her childhood play and self-discovery to Harriet, explaining that this is where her mother “was alive, came alive” (173).
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
In these chapters, Bobby’s distressed abandonment of Clare is aligned with her mother’s earlier abandonment. The traumatic pregnancy, miscarriage, and sterility Clare experiences just after Bobby’s departure confirm this connection of abandonment to motherhood. Furthermore, the exodus of Jamaicans to America and Britain suggests a link between the abandonment of a child and the abandonment of a country.
Clare no longer feels capable of living in an “in-between” state, much like her mother when she decided to return to Jamaica. Harriet’s brave choice to fully inhabit a female identity ultimately serves as a model for revolution, change, and rebirth. It is a fraught decision, however, that still requires its own variation of living “on sufferance” and navigating “in-betweens.” The novel suggests this with the reflective passage about how Harriet’s “people […] did not suffer freaks gladly” (171).
Christopher likewise becomes a powerful but troubling symbol for his people. As “Neger Jesus” (179), he is subject to both the kindness and mistreatment of those who approach him in the streets of Kingston. As a wandering god-like figure who reflects the morbid character of his landscape, Christopher thus fulfills the earlier preachings of Brother Josephus.
Like Harriet and Christopher, Clare undergoes her own complex personal revolution. Clare’s interview with the group leader continually returns to questions of motherhood, aligning the love of one’s native people with the love of one’s children. Although the interview ends on an open note—Clare never confirms whether she will kill for the movement—she concedes the necessity of desperate measures: “Weren’t women supposed to accomplish superhuman feats when their own children were endangered? Would she? Had her own mother?” (191). Clare’s realization arrives in the form of “in-between” questions, ones that offer no clear conclusions.
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