Far Tortuga (19 page)

The copulating man and the man dying wear small street hats.

On hands and knees a black, thick-bodied girl stares at the sand. Her ragged shift is up around her waist. Because of her big belly, the man has mounted her from behind; except for his street hat and a pair of ragged shorts hung on one ankle, he is naked. A knife glints by his hand. His ear is pressed to the girl’s back, as if he were listening for the life in her. One hand clutches her right breast, the other a bottle of
aguardiente
that is stuck into the sand at her left side. Heavily he fucks her, stops a while, then fucks again.

The girl lowers her right arm to the sand while keeping her buttocks high. With her left hand, she reaches back and wrenches at the bottle and drags it forward, but before she can drink, she loses interest. Slowly the bottle falls.

The fluid leaks onto the sand.

Raib rights the bottle. The girl raises her hand as if to brush sand from her eyes but does not complete the gesture; the hand falls back. She lowers both forearms to the sand and rests her cheek upon her hands, her mouth forced into odd disfigurement.

On the lee side, in stained shallows, wavelets lift melted labels, floating feces, a pale plastic bottle. In the offal is the bobbing head of a green turtle; its shell and guts are scattered on the sand. Another turtle lies upright on the beach, facing inland. Its flippers are bound, and its great weight, unsupported, slowly smothers it. When Raib turns it on its back, it blinks, gasping its ancient sea sound, and sand grains falling from its lids stick in the fluids from its eye.

Leaves and twigs on the broken bushes do not bend downwind, but twist and fly in tumult. The dawn sky is swelling with the light, but at the horizon the sun is hidden by a squall line of black clouds moving fast toward the south. The squalls emerge from a dark place in a towering mass of gray. With rising light, the bird shriek mounts, piercing the sea boom to the eastward.

In the new sea, a sliver of light flips back and forth over a round green leaf of sea grape. The playing fish arcs out of the water, flashing its silver side, its eye a bright black spot.

Raib stands transfixed. On a coral rock protruding from the sand, a bleeding-tooth snail budges, and a ghost crab, half hidden, extends dry eyes on stalks.

White feather, blowing.

In the beach vine, illuminated leaves spin, dark and pale and dark. Leaf shadows turn in the early light. A floret of purple morning-glory, blowing.

The sea, breathing. The fish leaps into the air.

On the corner of the beach a man sits alone, facing the east. Raib’s bare feet are silent on the sand.

The man’s legs are crossed, and a cigarette hangs from the center of his mouth. The big head bent over the rum bottle is balding and the neck is scarred and tight whorls of sweated hair mat the swart back. Heavy legs are stuck into black rubber boots splashed with red paint, and from ragged shorts a penis hangs out in a tatter.

The black clouds are afire; at the spine of the beach the broken bushes glow and blacken. On the windward shore, the ocean pours across a wave-washed bench of coral, lashing the islet with white dragon tails.

In silhouette against the sun Raib stands motionless, wind curling the frayed edges of his hat.

Desmond Eden nods a little, struggles to rise, sits back again, off balance. He grins, shaking his head; he offers rum to Raib’s silhouette, shielding his black glasses from the sun.

Raib does not move. By his feet, a ghost crab glides away on knife toes, stalked eyes taut, making delicate thin curved slashes in the sand.

Slowly Desmond removes his glasses. His gritty face is poor in color, not bearded but unshaven, with broken eyebrows and a heavy mouth. His left eye seems to protrude; he looks lopsided. He gazes at Raib, bloodshot, then returns the dark glasses to his face.

Raib is silent.

The men aboard ship watch the two figures on the beach. Will clears his throat.

A boy with kinky red hair and pale freckled skin steps from the cabin door of the
Davy Jones
.

Will runs into the deckhouse and returns with Conwell’s packet. He shies the packet toward his son, but the wind catches it; it hangs a moment like a kite, then skitters down into the water. Cigarette packs bob, and spreading comic books in leaking colors.

Cursing, the boy strips his shirt and dives over the side. He grabs at the packs and papers, which shred in his hands. Treading water, he holds the remnants in the air.

Noon.

Raib and Desmond face each other at the rails.

A cigarette butt stirs, shifts, blows across the deck, coming to rest against the shoe of the old man in the chair.

Desmond points.

Byrum ignores him.

Desmond winks at Byrum.

Raib spins in a complete circle, stamping a foot hard on the deck.

Panting, he stops short. The men stare at the still figure in the chair, who seems to smile.

Thin tern cries over wind and water. To the east, in the white haze of the horizon, squall shadows towarding.

Licking his teeth, Desmond spreads his hands and gazes at soiled fingernails. He checks the wind, the sky; he sighs.

He grins ferociously at Athens, who suppresses a hoot. When Desmond speaks again, his voice is hard.

Desmond’s men rig a sling under the chair seat and hook it to a pulley. They remove the old man’s palm hat and tuck it beneath
the old white conch. The chair is hoisted high over their heads, and Andrew Avers, swung outboard by the boom, rides back and forth between the vessels. Over his head, the blue sky fades in a film of white, with tints of green.

Raib makes a thick ugly sound, stops, clears his throat and speaks.

Raib stops speaking. Desmond’s hand has stayed the boom. Over their heads, the old man sways with the rise and fall.

The ships lurch and the chair spins and unwinds again on the rope bridle. Captain Andrew, hands upon his conch, turns west, south, and north. In the wind, old white shank glistens between faded cuffs and a pair of high black shoes warped upward at the toes. As its arc increases, the chair gains momentum; the white hair flies. Unblinking, the old man circles on the clouds that are moving up behind black skeins of rigging.

Raib grabs for the whirling chair but cannot hold it; he is dragged against the rail. Desmond takes the guy line from a crewman and eases the chair down to the
Eden
’s deck.

Raib is panting. Desmond laughs.

Desmond winks at Byrum.