The “windward” side, Dad had called it. It was rugged and gusty, and the blue waves arrived in towering rows all the way from Africa. They glided across the ocean like a conquering navy and crashed against the shore, which was fortified with huge skull-shaped boulders crowned with spikes of sharp rock. The waves kept coming, but Barbados didn’t budge an inch. I figured if a wave ever hurled me against one of those prickly skulls I’d be gutted like the fish we had been eating for dinner each night. There were small inlets of pink sandy beach as smooth and soft as slices of melon, but signs everywhere warned about the undertow. And we had been lectured by Dad against going down the steps carved into the face of the coral rock to play on the beach. Just to make sure we wouldn’t get near the ocean, he told us the story of the two German girls. He gathered us on the wooden balcony overlooking the shore. The wind was briny with salt spray and blew our hair and clothes to one side, so that we looked like the small, twisted trees bent toward the land.
