East of Suez (14 page)

The chief of the guides called: “Cinch up!” The sound of metal flanges fitting into metal or hard plastic slots nearly deafened me.

In pairs, we jumped into the water. After the first four had gotten wet, one of the crew joined them. I got it: there would be a crew member for each group. This sounded safe enough to me as I moved to the side of the float and launched myself into the deeps. I could see strings of bubbles from my predecessor as she returned to the surface. I did that too, and found it took me a few minutes to adjust my breathing to the tempo of the Aqua-Lung I was using. It rationed the air, so getting out of breath was inadvisable, dangerous even. In this buoyant salt water, the instinct to throw off the tanks and make for the surface was almost too much for me. I also didn’t care for the way the straps holding my twin-set of tanks cut into my shoulders. A finer adjustment on the float might have saved me that. I made a mental note and quickly forgot it again as another diver plunged into the water above me in a shower of bubbles.

From the instructions we had been given, I gathered that the ocean side of the reef was dangerous because of strong currents running by that side. The lee side of the reef seemed calm enough, but I didn’t feel that the reef was moving past me at all; it just bobbed up and down along with all the hundreds of tiny and larger fish which moved away from me with lazy, half-bored expressions.

The trim form of my buddy flicked by me. She was examining the coral structures on the wall of the reef. She took a few exposures with her camera and moved on along the rampart of the coral mass. I followed her at a safe distance, moving a little lower to see what the coral mass was anchored on: more coral, as it turned out.

Since my conversation with my client, whose name I had now forgotten—underwater exercise hadn’t limbered up my memory, I discovered, and my notebook wasn’t waterproof—I had been thinking that this reef was somehow central to whatever mess she and her husband the football player were caught up in. It wasn’t quite international waters here, so close to shore, but it was far enough away from dry land to be beyond the hard look of an overworked coast guard unit. Shore people could leave things out here to be picked up later by offshore boats, and, contrariwise, the offshore people could leave things for the local people who knew where to look. Exchanges could be made between trusting parties, with nobody, not even the coast guard, seeing who was making the exchanges. I owed this much to my client. How far away and long ago that conversation now seemed.

I felt good about this scheme. When it worked, the world spun around as usual, but when something went wrong, gravity came to an end, spinning all the players off into outer space. The thought that the players might be as confused as I was made me feel less guilty about enjoying my underwater swim on “expenses.” Of course there was danger. I was taking a chance down here. A moray eel might jump out at me from the reef and bite through my flippers, I mean fins, or something. Sure, I was taking a big chance for my old friend What’s-her-name.

As I was swimming along an underwater wall of mossy coral, one of the guides came in front of me, indicating he wanted a word in his office above. I followed him to the surface, where both of us stripped off our masks.

“Current too strong that way,” he said through my sputtering. “Dangerous current.” He indicated the direction of the fast-moving water, pulled his visor down again, and was off like a traffic cop looking for more offenders of the Highway Traffic Act. Slower at re-attaching my visor and mouthpiece, I followed him at a distance.

Giving a last look at the dangerous side of the reef and thinking that Tarzan wouldn’t be pushed around by teenagers with yellow slashes, I caught something at the edge of my vision. On a small shelf close to the junction of the fastmoving current and the calmer waters I was heading for, I spotted a yellowish something. When I turned, I could see it was a rubber or canvas bag, trapped inside a chain-link mesh. The color was almost washed out by the clear green of the water, which had made my own flesh look as though it had been in the water too long. The bag appeared well anchored to the reef: I saw a chain disappearing into the coral mass. I reached for my camera and tried taking a few pictures without looking at the accompanying instructions. And just in case, I marked the spot in my mind before continuing to follow my guide into safer waters. Here I could feel the ocean current tugging at me like an insistent magnetic invitation. I was tempted to follow it, but I kept my head. On my first serious dive, I wasn’t going to follow the Sirens’ song.

Soon I caught up with my buddy, who was still examining the coral walls where I’d seen her last. She turned her head and nodded, sending an ambiguous signal to me. I couldn’t read it accurately, but I assumed it was a sign of friendly recognition. She was taking her responsibilities as my buddy seriously. I couldn’t see anything bad coming of that.

Suddenly, I could see the leering snout of a moray eel staring out at the woman from a safe crevasse in the coral display of waving noodle-like appendages. Swimming alongside, I tapped my buddy on the shoulder while pointing in the direction of the danger. I could see her face through her mask, a smile even. She moved a foot or two away from the mossy wall and waved a friendly paw in my direction. I watched her progress for a while, then made a few more exposures on the camera just to keep my hand in. The mug of the eel is still the best of my underwater collection. I suspect that he hangs out at that part of the reef expressly to get his picture taken. Everybody wants to get into show business. There’s no stopping them. I also had a few shots of the hiding place I’d found. This, at last, was something to show my client when I presented my bill. Some sort of ray moved steadily under me, looking for a free lunch. I was beginning to feel peckish as well.

TEN

THE LOVELY SEA NYMPH
turned out to be a graduate of Sarah Lawrence. Her name: Beverley Taylor. When the voyage back to the mainland was over, we had a drink in the small canteen at the outfitter’s. The ceiling was covered with fishing nets and festooned with green and blue glass floats and the shells of various sea creatures. Beverley laughed at my theory about the show-biz ambitions of the moray eel, but said that she had known a few and wouldn’t put it past them.

Most of the divers from our group were in the bar as well. The dive had worn some of the frost from most of the party, except for the New Zealanders, who still pretended to be traveling alone. The Brewsters were collecting the names and addresses of their fellow adventurers and taking snapshots of those of the party who had warmed to them.

“I’m from Boston, but I’m a class traitor: I’m doing graduate work at Yale. So I’m living in New Haven.” I nodded vaguely and she kept going. “I’m writing a book based on my thesis about Ruiz. The writer. It’s time somebody took a look at him. Luckily, my supervisor introduced me to his New York publisher.”

“Ruiz? Sounds Spanish. Sorry, I don’t know him.” I tried to say it in a way that suggested that I might know any other writer she cared to mention.

“If you haven’t heard of him, you will. Jaime Garcia Ruiz has written a dozen novels set in Paris in the 1920s. He uses real people, the artists: sculptors, models, musicians, and painters who lived in Montparnasse, wining and dining in the cafés. You know the sort of thing—Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald mixing with fictional people, Picasso and Miró sorting out undercover matters of state, Modigliani nailing a corrupt dealer in fake masterpieces.”

“I don’t think I’ve run across him yet.”

“He’s a big international best-seller. And they’re shooting a film based on one of his books in London as we speak:
Murder in Chrome Yellow
.”

“I’m not very with it, aesthetically. I’m not much of a reader. Try me on the prime ministers of Canada or the states of the union.” Having said that, I was determined to redeem myself. “Why come here, then? Shouldn’t you go to Spain?”

“Sorry? It’s the noise in here.” I repeated what I’d said once more. She smiled at me across the table and leaned into an explanation: “Two reasons. Have you got an hour? First, Ruiz isn’t Spanish, in spite of his name. It’s made up. I think he’s English. He’s something of a mystery man. Nobody knows anything about him. His publisher’s lips are sealed. I think, for reasons I won’t go into, that he lives here. Which brings me to my second reason for being in Takot: I love the underwater swimming. That brought me here in the first place. I fell in love with marine biology reading Steinbeck when I was young,” Beverley said. “He studied it at Stanford, but didn’t take his degree. He did a bunch of odd jobs before he started publishing books.”

“Who is this again?” I asked.

“Steinbeck. John Steinbeck. His middle name was Ernest or Ernst. I guess that was his German forebears talking. He won the Nobel Prize.”

“Oh yeah.
Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden
. I remember a book about a wino collecting all of the unfinished drinks at a bar to make a near-lethal cocktail.”

“
Yuck!
” she said, making a sour face. I winced at the thought myself and cleared it from my mind with a mental image of the fair Fiona. Here, within days of my arrival, I’d met both a professional and an amateur marine biologist. What more can the oceans hold for my entertainment?

“What do you do that’s new and exciting?” She was twisting a lock of dark hair around a finger in a nervous way. I wanted to help her to take it easy.

I watched her eyes go indoors as I explained the joys of selling ladies’ ready-to-wear in Grantham, Ontario. “It’s only eleven miles from Niagara Falls,” I told her, as though that fact took the curse away from being a small city directly across Lake Ontario from the Ontario capital. I went on and on until I ran out of gas. By then a real question had lodged in my brain. “Do you know Fiona Calaghan?”

“Damn it all to hell! Can’t I go
anywhere
without being asked that after five minutes’ conversation?”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Am I right?”

“We used to share an apartment, as a matter of fact. Are you struggling under her spell?”

“In the five minutes I spent with her, she seemed pretty impressive. Do you know Father O’Mahannay? The priest who talks like a guidebook? Well, he put me on to her. Blame him. Why are you down on her?” Again I had to repeat my question. The noise in the place wasn’t that loud, and we were sitting close enough for ordinary purposes. She took a breath and considered the question seriously.

“You’re right. She’s the best friend I have in Takot, so I should get off her case. But it bugs me that in a year’s time, when I’m going down the Nile or up the Amazon, some halfway decent-looking paddler will ask me that question. Isn’t there anything that bugs you?”

“My older brother is a rich, successful surgeon and I’m always asked if I’m his brother.”

“Same thing!” she said with mild triumph in her eyes.

“I’m Sam Cooperman’s brother, Benny, by the way. Are you staying here in Takot?”

“Yeah, I’m up on the hill, inside the old walls, across from the big temple with the yellow dome. Are you confused enough or do you want more?”

“I can’t remember much of anything, unless I write it down. Mind if I make a note to myself?” I pulled out my Memory Book. She watched as I made my notation. “How long have you been here?” She worked on her answer while repeating the information she’d already given me.

“I first came two years ago, just for a couple of weeks. I stayed longer the next year and now I have a lease. Like the most insidious kind of lichen, the place grows on you. It’s the spell of the place, I suppose. It’s not that I’ve come to enjoy the look of the beggars in the markets or the sad way they treat stray dogs and cats, it’s just that everything else in the world seems less real somehow. In time, you’ll love Takot. You’ll see.” I watched her when she’d finished, as she picked up her beer again. “It’s a funny place, Mr Cooperman. I don’t think I’m real any more unless I’m on my way out to the reef or feeling the current begin to snatch at me on the seaward side. Coming back here afterwards is like changing from Technicolor to black-and-white.”

“You sound like you’re a prisoner of your freedom.” Had I said that? I was surprised. Once in a while I catch myself being cheaply poetic. I should stick to the facts, just like old Joe Friday used to say on television. She was still chewing over my observation.

“Takot has spoiled me for other places,” she said. “I go diving whenever I can. I haven’t missed a month in nearly a year.”

“You can dive a reef or a wreck elsewhere.”

“Of course. But I leave them for other divers. I’m stuck on this place. It’s like it has a secret that I have to discover in order to break a spell.” She was worrying the strand of hair into obedience. “I keep using these fairy-tale images. I’m sorry. It’s as close to being the prisoner of a dream as I’ve ever come. And I’ve been around more than most.”

“You make it sound ominous, almost frightening.”

“I guess it is. It’s like that windward side of the reef. You can get caught by the current and enjoy the show of the passing things you see on the reef. It’s almost hypnotic, like a spell. Then, when you try going back, that’s when you feel the power of the current, that’s when the reality sinks in. It can be frightening. I don’t recommend it.” She fixed her hair back with a silver clasp and, at last, left it alone.