The Black Pearl (5 page)

"No. I have looked and do not see him anywhere."

At that moment a thunderous sound engulfed the canoe. It was as if the sky had fallen in upon us. Then mounds of water rose on both sides of us and met over our heads and filled the air with spray. There followed a groan, a rending of timbers^ and the canoe rose crazily and tipped and I was pitching slowly sidewise into the sea. As I fell my mind raced back to childhood. I heard my mother say, "The Manta Diablo is larger than the largest ship in the harbor. He has seven rows of teeth."

I could not see the old man but from a distance I heard him shout. My first thought was the pearl. I thrust a hand inside my shirt, fumbled around and at last found it, and set out for the shore. The old man was there ahead of me. I crawled out of the water and got to my feet and held up the pearl to show him that it was safe.

"Throw it back," he cried. "El Diablo is waiting for the pearl and he will not rest until he gets it. He is there now."

The bay was quiet. I saw nothing except the splintered canoe drifting away in the moonlight. There was no sign of the manta, and yet I knew it was one of these sea creatures that had wrecked our canoe, by chance or otherwise, for they abound in the Vermilion Sea.

"We have the pearl," I said, "and we are alive, if very wet, and if we go now we can reach La Paz by daylight."

"I do not go there with the pearl," the old man said. "I stay until morning to find the canoe. And the pearl belongs to you. I did not find it and it is not mine."

He drew back from me as if I held a serpent in my hand.

"You will change your mind," I said. "The pearl has great value."

"Never will I change my mind," he answered.

"There are three pearls lying in the shell on the beach," I said. "I forgot them."

"Those I will throw into the sea," he said.

"As you please," I said.

"And the big one you should throw there also," the old man said. "If you do not, señor, someday the Manta Diablo will have it back and your life with it. Of this I warn you."

We said farewell to each other and I started down the shore toward the lights of the town, holding the pearl tight in my hand. A rough trail led to La Paz and three leagues long, but I was there before daybreak.

I went first to the office of Salazar and Son and bolted the door behind me. I unwrapped the pearl and placed it on a piece of velvet and laid it in the scales. The pearl weighed 62.3 carats.

Then I left the office and walked up the Malecón, the pearl hidden in my shirt. Dawn was breaking over the mountains, but there were people on the streets, so I greeted them as I usually do and even stopped to talk to the woman who sells hot chocolate outside the calabozo.

Our house is on the plaza and has a big iron gate, which is locked at night from the inside. I rang the bell and when one of the Indians opened it I said good morning and strolled to the kitchen and ate a large bowl of mush, as if nothing had happened, as if the most beautiful pearl ever found in the Vermilion Sea was not tucked away in my shirt.

I went to my room and put the pearl under my pillow and lay down to sleep. I tried to be calm. I tried not to think of the pearl nor of what my
father would say nor of the Sevillano. But half the morning passed without sleep and as I lay there I remembered suddenly that I had forgotten to lock the door of the office, so I got up and put the pearl back in my shirt and started down the hill.

As I passed the calabozo the woman who was selling chocolate beckoned me over. Sometimes she had small pearls to sell. She also had a long nose with which to scent things out.

"You walk back and forth much this morning," she said.

"It is a nice morning to walk," I answered.

She beckoned me closer. "Do you know Cantu the fisherman who lives at Pichilinque?"

I nodded.

"Well, this Cantu, a crazy man, came by just now and said that a great pearl has been found. Have you heard this news?"

"Every week a great pearl is found," I said, "and every week the story is untrue."

I did not want her or anyone else to learn about the pearl until my father came back. It was he who must decide how and when the news would be given to the town. It was not proper for me as his son to take this honor from him, so I bowed respectfully and quickly left.

As I rounded the corner and started down the Malecón, I saw that a crowd was gathering outside the office of Salazar and Son. I decided to turn around and go home, but someone shouted, "Hola, Ramón."

Everyone turned to look and I knew that if I went home they would follow me, so I walked on and made my way into the crowd.

A dozen voices cried, "The Pearl. The Pearl." A dozen more cried, "Show us."

I tried to look surprised. "What pearl?" I asked.

I threw up my hands and looked puzzled and went into the office, bolted the door and put the pearl in the safe and sat down at the desk. In a moment a boy peered through the slit in the wall. He was standing on someone's shoulders and soon he began to tell the crowd what he saw. I opened the ledger and this he reported. I wrote something down and this too he reported.

Outside, the throng grew until by noon it filled the street. The boy peering in at the slit got tired and disappeared. But I sat at my desk and wrote
down things that I made up, and thought of the great pearl and hoped that the fleet would come before it was time for me to leave and face the throng again.

The fleet sailed in at two o'clock. My father must have wondered about the crowd, for he was the first ashore. He came running up the beach and as I opened the door he burst into the office out of breath, fearful of bad news.

"What passes?" he said.

The boy was again looking through the slit, but I opened the safe and removed the pearl and held it out to my father.

"This," I said.

My father took it in his hand. He turned the pearl over in his palm and said nothing, as if he could not believe what he saw.

"This is not a pearl," he said.

"Yes," I said, "a pearl!"

My father stared at me. "It is a joke," he said. "There is nothing in all the seas of the world like this." He looked at the pearl. "You have made it. You have taken blister pearls and glued them together and polished them carefully on a wheel. You are a very clever young man, Ramón."

"I have glued nothing," I said. "It is a pearl. I found it."

The boy who peered at us through the slit shouted to the crowd, repeating my words. A shout went up in the street. My father turned the pearl in his hand and held it to the light and then slowly turned it again. Then he opened the door and held up the pearl so that the sun shone on it and all could see.

Silence fell over the crowd. There was not a sound except the small waves breaking on the beach. Then my father closed the door and looked at me and said, "Madre de Dios." He said these words three times over and sat down and stared at the great black pearl that filled his hand.

W
HEN MY FATHER AND
I
WENT HOME
that evening it was like a parade. News of the monstrous pearl, found by Ramón the son of Bias Salazar, had spread through the town. It was as if the news had been written across the sky in letters of fire.

Farmers from the hills, idlers, fishermen, pearlers, merchants from their shops, women and children from everywhere, even Father Gallardo from the church, but not the Sevillano, were in the parade that followed us along the Malecón and up the hill to the plaza. Some carried torches and all sang and shouted to celebrate the great black pearl. For the town of La Paz lives by the finding and selling of pearls and therefore everyone in the town and the country around shares somehow in the fortunes of the sea.

The crowd followed us to the gates of our house and when we went in, it milled around the plaza and grew larger as more people heard the news of the pearl. It was a bigger celebration than the town has on the Cinco de Mayo.

In our home is a small workshop where my father changes gems that are not perfect and here he took the great pearl. He closed the door, so the Indian servants could not see what he was about.

First he placed the pearl on the scales and balanced the weights. "It is 62.3 in carats as you have told me," he said. "And it is exactly round. But you are wrong about its perfection." He held the pearl to the light. "Look, and you will see the smallest of flaws. It lies in the first layer or somewhere beneath, I cannot tell for certain."

I had seen the flaw already, and because I did not want to see it I had decided that it was too small to be important. "If you cut the pearl, you may find that the flaw goes deep," I said.

"If the flaw does go deep," my father said, "then it is not a great pearl. Which would you rather have, the Paragon of Pearls or just one that is good?"

"The Paragon," I said.

Still I did not wish him to cut the pearl, for I had seen many fine pearls destroyed by this cutting.

"If the flaw lies deep we have nothing," I said. "Now the flaw is small and whoever buys the pearl may never see it."

"The flaw will be seen first," my father replied, "and even though the pearl weighs more than sixty carats and is round and of rare orient and color, it is only the flaw that will be talked about. So fetch another lamp and turn up the wick on this one, and while you do this pray that God guides my hand with the knife."

I turned up the wick and lighted another lamp, as I was told to do, but I did it with my heart beating loud. From the plaza came the sound of singing and through the window I could see the flare of torches. In a moment or two, I feared, there could be nothing to celebrate, for the townspeople or for me or for anyone.

I began to pray, but somehow the words would not come. I kept hearing the old man's words, "The Manta Diablo will have it someday, the Manta Diablo will have it back." I stared at the pearl and the knife lying beside it. Would Soto Luzon's words come true? Would the knife my father was about to use destroy the pearl forever?

My father picked up the small, sharp knife whose edge was slightly curved. He took the pearl firmly in one hand and breathed deeply and held his breath and laid the edge of the knife against the pearl. There was the faintest whisper as the knife nicked the surface. Then a peeling that was thinner than the thinnest paper came free and slowly, slowly grew in length and at last, after what seemed an hour, fell lightly upon the table.

Outside, the singing had grown louder, but here in the room there was not a sound, except the sound of my father breathing again. He put down the knife and held the pearl under the lamp and stared at it for a long time. I watched his face for some sign that the flaw had disappeared. His face did not change.

My throat was dry and choked with fear. "What do you see?" /tried to say.

He did not answer me for my words came out in a hoarse jumble that no one could understand. At last he shook his head and again picked up the knife. I walked to the window. I looked out at the night sky and began to pray.

"Watch," he said. "Someday you may need to do this yourself."

I came back to the table and stood over him and watched, still praying for the life of the great black pearl, as the knife made its slow, endless circle. Then a curled wafer fell to the table and lay there, dull in the glow of the lamp.

My father held the pearl to the light and turned it around and around, and studied it from every angle. Suddenly he thrust the pearl high above his head, as if he wished to show it to all the world.

Then he gave the pearl to me and said, "The flaw is gone. You have in your hand the Pearl of the Universe. The Paragon of Pearls. The great Pearl of Heaven!"

T
HERE ARE FOUR PEARL DEALERS
in our town of La Paz, as I have said, not counting Salazar and Son. There are many others of course who sell a few small pearls on the street, like the woman at the calabozo. But these are the four who buy and sell the fine pearls that come from the Vermilion Sea.

About a week after my father had cut the pearl, the four men came to our home. At first my father had talked about taking the great pearl to Mexico City, but he had done this once before with a rare pearl and the long trip had been a failure because the dealers there are very smart. So we decided to sell the Pearl of Heaven to the dealers in La Paz. Not any one of them could afford the price, nor two nor three, but the four together could raise the money we would ask.

They came early in the afternoon, dressed in their best black suits and carrying a scale and calipers and their money in a crocodile bag. The excitement in the town had died after a couple of days, but when word got around that the dealers were going to the Salazars to buy the great black pearl a crowd followed them and stood outside our gate.

My mother and my two sisters had come back from Loreto, for they too had heard the news of the pearl, and so the fountain in the patio was turned on and the parlor was fixed up with flowers and all the furniture shone.

The four men wore serious faces and they put their calipers and scales on the parlor table and their brown crocodile bag. They sat down and folded their hands and said nothing.