Home Fires (10 page)

“Pleased to meet you, sir.” The young man offered his hand.

“I’m honored,” Skip said. “You fought the Os?”

“Yes, sir. Forty-second Combat Elites.”

“Doubly honored, in that case.” The sharp stench of the harbor had crept through the opening ahead, a smell of salt sea, dead fish, and wood smoke. “I didn’t quite catch your name.”

“It’s Al Alamar, sir. Albano Alamar, really, but call me Al.”

“Want to come with us, Al? Do a little sightseeing and have some lunch?”

“I can’t, sir. I’m in one ninety-seven. But I’ll be going ashore on the next launch, sir.”

“Perhaps we’ll see you then. You’ll be welcome to join us.”

When he had gone, Chelle said, “That wasn’t Jerry. Did you think it was?”

Skip nodded. “Or Jim. Yes, I thought it might be.”

“Jerry. It was Jerry. I’m almost sure.”

“I see.”

“I’ll know as soon as I talk to either one.” There was something bitter in Chelle’s smile.

“Really? How?”

“He’ll smirk.”

“I see.” Skip sighed. “Did I, Chelle?”

She stared at him.

“That morning in the Northwestern Inn at Canam? You stayed the night. We got dressed in the morning, collected Vanessa, and went down for breakfast. Did I smirk?”

A steward rescued her by asking to see their cabin cards.

*   *   *

The launch was crowded but comfortable, topped with a wide awning of restful green; brawny rowers, seated along its sides fifty centimeters below them, sent it skittering across the blue water like a bug.

“Look at the ship!” Chelle had turned in her seat to see it. “My God! Just look at it!”

“Polymer hull and fiberglass masts,” the man seated on her left told her. “The old-time ships never got half as big. The sailing ships I mean. They were wood, except for iron right at the end.”

Chelle turned away from him. “The
Rani
. Isn’t that what they call it?”

Skip nodded. “The SQ
Rani
. It means it’s square-rigged.”

“It must be the biggest ship in the world.”

Skip doubted it but said nothing. This small port, certainly, held nothing of comparable size: another launch, and eight small craft that were presumably fishing boats. The drying nets draped everywhere made him think of theater curtains. Fishing nets had been made of synthetics once, he reminded himself. (This from the caption on a picture in a travel brochure.) There had been no need to dry them. Now they were cotton or hemp, and would rot if they were not dried. Vendors were gathered at the pier, awaiting their arrival. How much money had Chelle brought? And what was it she planned to buy with it?

They filed out with the rest. The launch’s crew was pushing aside vendors for them. Seventeen little horse-drawn vehicles—buggies? chariots?—lined the broad street beyond the pier, each drawn by a lean and far from attractive horse. Chelle shook her head when Skip asked whether she wanted to ride, striding imperiously along as if on parade.

He paused to give a nora to a beggar. She stopped and looked back frowning, then smiled. “Poor man!”

The beggar bowed his head and held up the hooks that had replaced his hands.

“He can’t work,” Chelle said.

“I know. That’s why I gave him something.”

Other beggars were gathering. Skip flourished his walking stick and glared.

Chelle said, “I’m going to buy him something to eat. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to come.”

Skip pointed. “There’s a place over there, the Sea and Shore.”

Sadly, the beggar shook his head. “They not let me go in, mon.”

“You must eat somewhere,” Chelle said.

“Park? We go park, lady?”

“You can eat there?”

The beggar nodded. “My name Achille.”

Achille led them down several wide and quiet streets flanked by buildings with badly fitted doors and flaking paint. The park boasted palm trees, shade trees, huge green bushes with big pink roses, and a small fountain, a fountain that, amazingly, still played. They chose a shady stone bench not far from the fountain, Chelle with Skip to her left and Achille to her right. One vendor sold them spiced meat and boiled corn wrapped in corn husks, another cool water mixed with papaya juice.

“I suppose we’ll get typhoid,” Skip said, “but they can cure that pretty quickly.”

“Could he stay in business if it made people sick?”

“Perhaps not.”

“Then it won’t make us sick, either. Achille’s really hungry. Did you notice? I thought I was ’til I saw him.”

“I take it the Army fed you well enough.”

Chelle nodded. “We worked twelve or fourteen hours a day, ate like wolves, and slept like babies. This was on Johanna, which was where I was.”

“It was habitable.”

“Sure, real Earth-type. That’s why both sides want it so bad.” Chelle turned to Achille. “That enough?”

He nodded.

“Good. The gentleman here gave you a nora?”

Slowly Achille nodded again.

“I’m not going to take it away from you.” Chelle held out a bill, displaying it between mismatched hands. “This is a hundred noras. See the numbers in the corners? I’m going to give you a chance to earn that much. If you can do what I ask, you get a hundred noras. If you can’t—or won’t—you don’t.”

Achille nodded.

“I want to buy a pistol, a good one. You take me to somebody who’ll sell me one right now, with a little ammo, no questions asked. Do it, and I’ll pay you a hundred noras.”

Skip said, “Are you sure this is wise?”

“Hell, no. But somebody’s tried to kill my mother. You ever try to buy a gun back home?”

He shook his head.

“Neither have I, but people used to tell me how tough it was if you couldn’t get a license. One guy I knew—this was before we went up—stole an Army gun, got it out, and sold it. He got three thousand and said the guy he sold it to was going to offer it for six. So I could buy one, maybe, but it would take a hundred-day or more.”

“I could—”

Chelle interrupted. “I know. You could steer me to somebody back home. If we got caught they wouldn’t do a lot to me. I’m tail and a vet and all that shit, but you’d lose your law license. This is better.”

“You’ll have to go through customs when we leave the ship.”

“Sure. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.” She turned to the beggar. “What about it, Achille? Can you do it?”

“Other side mountain? You go?”

Chelle nodded.

“I find good mon. Good driver. You wait.” Achille trotted away.

Chelle stretched. “How do you suppose he lost his hands?”

“Cut off for stealing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, which is why I grabbed on to him. He must have been in the EU.”

Skip shook his head. “I doubt it.”

“Well, it’s sharia law, and that’s only in the EU.”

“Not now,” Skip told her.

Achille returned, riding in the front seat of a battered taxi brown with dirt and rust. “This Hervé. Hervé drive us.”

Hervé looked as old as his taxi, and lugubrious. “Go north side mountain?”

Skip said, “Correct.”

“Come back?”

“Yes.”

“Hundred nora.”

Achille began to argue frantically, an argument that lasted five minutes or more. At last he said, “Ten nora.”

The driver spoke to Skip. “Thirty for each.”

Another argument.

When it was over Hervé held out his hand. “You pay now.”

Achille whispered something to Hervé, who got out and opened the door for Chelle. Skip walked around the taxi and got in on the other side.

Winking over the back of the front seat, Achille whispered, “I say we go Tante Élise.”

“She must be a good woman,” Chelle remarked.

“Strong, this woman. Mos’ strong!”

*   *   *

There were goats in the road during the long drive up the spine of the island, and once a pig. Once, too, they passed a young woman, graceful, brown, and barefoot, who was carrying a huge bunch of green bananas on her head. From time to time they stopped briefly at remarkable views; and when at length they reached the highest point on the island, the
Rani
appeared no bigger than a toy boat in a bathtub.

“I want to get out and stretch my legs,” Chelle announced. “Can I do that, Achille?”

“Better we come not so late.”

“Just for a minute.” Chelle got out.

Skip asked, “Are you afraid the store will close?”

“Start cer’mony. You go temple?”

“Would you come, too, if we do?”

Achille nodded.

“Then I will. It might be interesting.”

“You got dance, mon. Unter Boy lash you proper if no dance.” Achille laughed aloud. “Sharp spur got old horse cut caper. You dance?”

“I dance,” Skip affirmed.

“We go temple. I say, good mon, good lady. See pray. Buy after. Give hundred nora?”

“Chelle will,” Skip told him. “I won’t.”

*   *   *

The moon was up by the time they arrived. When the ancient taxi rattled to a stop, they heard chanting and the feverish thumping, rumbling, and tapping of drums. Skip paid. “Wait here. We’ll hire you again for the ride back, and give you a ten-nora tip. Will you wait?”

“I wait,” the driver said, and sprawled across the front seats. When Skip turned to look at him a moment later, he saw the flare of a match; it was followed by a puff of cigar smoke.

The temple was walled with rough masonry, although open to the night sky. A gate of weathered slats wound with barbed wire swung wide to admit them. Inside, a throng of ragged men and women danced in an intricate pattern around a score of flickering candles. Achille joined their dance at once.

“What’s this?” Chelle whispered.

“Church,” Skip told her. “Let’s dance.” He took her arm, but she hung back.

A boy of twelve or so ran toward them, yelling and flourishing a rattan.

“What’s he saying?” Chelle’s eyes were wide.

“Dance or he’ll—” The rattan flashed down. Skip tried to block the blow with his arm, with only partial success, and noticed that Chelle did not wince. “Hit us,” he finished. “There are no spectators, only participants. Would you care to dance?”

They did, following the chant as well as they could, stepping this way and that, clapping, gesturing in time with the drums. The dance went on for a time that seemed very long indeed.

As though at some secret signal, it stopped. The tall woman who had led the dance sprang onto the seat of a chair with astounding agility and began to shout to the night sky—almost, to howl.

Achille insinuated himself between Skip and Chelle. “She Tante Élise. Sell gun.”

Mopping his face with his handkerchief, Skip said, “We’ll see.”

“What’s she saying?” Chelle asked.

“Call dead,” Achille whispered.

“Ghosts?”

Skip said, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts.”

“Hell, no. There aren’t any.”

The other dancers were resting now, some squatting, some sitting on the grimy stone floor. Skip and Chelle sat, with Achille squatting behind them.

The shouting continued, and the deepest-mouthed drum took it up, not beaten but scraped by the callused fingers of its owner.

After a time that might have been five minutes or ten, another drum joined it, beaten, but beaten so slowly that the woman on the chair might have shouted a hundred words, or twice a hundred, between its chthonic thuddings.

“That’s not a regular drum, is it?” Chelle, already sitting as close as possible, whispered her question into his ear.

Skip shook his head. “A hollow log. The ends are plugged, and there’s a cut down the middle to let the sound out.”

“Can you see it from here? I can’t.”

“I noticed it while we were dancing.”

“They were all looking at us. Did you notice that, too?”

Skip nodded.

A new woman seated not far from them began to howl, a wordless, animal sound.

Chelle leaned forward. “Will the dead come, Achille?”

“Many come, lady. Many dead.”

A third drum joined in with an excited tapping; and Skip, following the gaze of others, saw the wire-wrapped gate swing open.

The woman who entered walked stiffly. Her unblinking stare focused nowhere, on nothing.

The woman on the chair ceased shouting to issue an abrupt command.

The newcomer’s mouth closed.

“We used to hold the whole of Johanna,” Chelle said. “The Os drove us off most of it. Then our Navy shot up their fleet, and we started driving them back. That was when I got there. Reinforcements, you know.” Chelle’s tone was almost conversational.