VOYAGE OF STRANGERS (25 page)

“You are married?” It was hard to speak calmly.

“My husband is dead,” she said.

“Oh.”

“I am as free as the butterfly I am named for,” she said, regarding me steadily, “but less heedless.”

I could not look away. The shape of her mouth and the curve of her breast were the very definition of sweetness. She wore nothing but a clout and a few ornaments of gold and bone, as did all the women here. I thought I had gotten used to it. I now learned that I had not.

“I would alight gently,” she said, “and cause no pain or harm.”

Your presence could never cause me pain, I thought. Your absence might be another matter.

“Let us go and eat some of this hutia stew,” I said, “or Rachel will think we scorn her cooking.”

We did not touch as we walked side by side to where the others had already begun their meal. But I felt the warmth of her like fire upon my skin down the whole length of my arm.

Chapter Thirty

Quisqueya, July 15 – September 30, 1494

“Why is Tiboni named for a waterfall?” I asked Tanama one day. We were engaged in making poisoned arrowheads. She pressed the grated
yuca
to extract its venom, laying aside the pulp to be used in making bread. I dipped the sharpened fishbones, bound to wooden arrows fletched with bright red feathers, in the venomous juice.

“You have not seen our waterfall?”

“No,” I said. “Is it nearby?”

“Neither too far nor too close,” she said, “and known only to the people of the
yucayeque
. To get there, you must cross the first river and follow the second downstream until you come to a cliff top and hear a great rushing sound, like Juracan roaring but more steadily.”

“And Tiboni?”

She laughed.

“His mother swore that he was conceived there. It is a popular place for lovers.”

“Can we go there?” I spoke without thought. Once the words were out, I had no intention of taking them back.

“I have not been there since my husband died,” she said.

“How did he die?”

“Juracan sent a great wind,” she said. “He was hit by a falling tree.”

“I am sorry,” I said. “Did you love him very much?”

“We had known each other our whole lives.”

She said no more. But that night, as I lay in my
hamaca
, I dreamed that Juracan’s breath, as the Taino called a storm, blew so that trees crashed all around me, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled. I woke to find Tanama bending over me. She was blowing gently on my face. When she saw my eyes open, she smiled and put one finger on my lips to keep me silent. All around us, Tiboni’s kin lay snoring. I raised myself on one elbow, setting the
hamaca
rocking. Tanama slipped her warm hand in mine.

“Come,” she whispered.

We stepped out of the
bohio
into a world bathed in moonlight. All color had been leached from trees and flowering vines. The homely shapes of the huts and all the tools and vessels the Taino used in daily life had taken on a ghostly radiance. A full moon rode high in the sky, lighting the
batey
court so brilliantly that we could have played a game then and there, had we chosen to waken the others.

The light was less when we entered the forest, but Tanama drew me onward, sure-footed in the darkness. Like her, I wore only a clout, but the air was warm and caressing. The eyes of small animals gleamed at me from high in the trees. I could not tell how long this dreamlike journey lasted before we came to a river that flowed like silver in the light of the moon. An intoxicating smell of earth and damp and the sweet perfume of flowers rose to my nostrils as we stood on the bank.

“Now we swim.” Tanama tossed her hair, a shimmer of silvery black in the unearthly light, and flashed me a gleaming smile. Then she plunged into the current and started across, head bobbing.

She had not asked me if I knew how to swim. Luckily, I did, though many sailors did not. As a boy in Seville, I had spent many hot summer afternoons splashing in the Guadalquivir. I lowered myself cautiously into the water. It was cool but not unpleasing. I began to swim, parting the silken water with steady strokes.

On the other side, she shook the water off with a sinuous motion of her body and took my hand again.

“It is not far to the second river,” she said.

“You look like a mermaid,” I said, for her wet hair fell streaming around her breast and her body seemed the color of a dusky pearl.

We no longer whispered but still spoke softly, not to shatter the magic of the night.

“What is a mermaid?” she asked.

“It is a woman with the tail of a fish,” I said.

She chuckled, the dancing of moonlight on water made into sound.

“That does not sound very nice.”

“Mermaids are very beautiful,” I said. “They live far out in the sea, and the sailors say that no man can resist them.”

“If they are made like a fish and not like a woman, the man who catches one must be very disappointed.” She chuckled again. “Come.”

When we reached the second river, we turned downstream and walked along the bank. The silvery flow drew us on. The earth was soft and still warm from the day. When we crushed grasses underfoot, a faint scent arose from them like a memory of sunlight. It did not seem long before we heard a rushing, then a roaring. The water flowed ever more swiftly until we came to the falls. The river seemed to come to a halt in midair. Tanama beckoned me onward, indicating branches, vines, and jutting rocks that I might use to steady myself, until we could peer over the edge. The water fell to a pool far below, sending a white spray foaming upward, as if Ha’shem poured milk from a pitcher.

“Can we get down there?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “There is a path, but it is hidden. You must follow me.”

Cautiously, we picked our way downward over jagged rocks and through tangled foliage. The river roared louder as we came closer to where it met the pool. Tanama said something that I could not hear. I shook my head and pointed to my ear. She leaned close and put her lips to my ear.

“There is a cave behind the falls. Be careful. The rocks are slippery.”

The rocky ledge had indeed been worn smooth by the ceaseless tumbling of the falls. I slipped several times on the wet path. She tried to take my hand, but I didn’t let her. If I fell, I didn’t want to take her with me. Sheer rock rose above us to the cliff top on our left. On our right, moonlight shone through the falling water, turning it to a curtain of silver. I kept my left hand on the rock face for balance, so I felt it curve inward. I had been watching my feet as well, but when I looked up, I saw Tanama standing under a crystalline overhang. At her back, the dark mouth of the cave yawned.

“Come,” she said once more, her voice audible now but echoing a little.

The roar of the falls subsided as we walked deeper into the cave. Spears of crystal rock thrust upward and hung down from the low ceiling like giant fangs. The cave was dry, but I shivered, and Tanama put her arm around my waist, pressing herself close to my wet, naked body. When we reached a point where the cave mouth behind us was no more than a dim circle of moonlit darkness, Tanama came to a halt. She pressed her palm against my chest.

“Wait.” She knelt.

I heard the striking of flint against stone. A spark flared, then a flickering light as Tanama lit a torch made of rushes held upright in a crevice in the rocks. She knelt on what seemed to be a heap of dried rushes and wildflowers strewn on the floor of the cave. She beckoned, and I knelt facing her. The torchlight turned her skin to flame. Her eyes, her lips, her whole body seemed to smile at me. She took my trembling hand and laid it against her breast.

Papa was right. There is much pleasure when it is done correctly.

After this, we went often to the cave. Once the full moon passed, the night was too black to risk the climb by night. But the Taino made little distinction between work and play, nor, indeed, worship, and none remarked on it when we left some task to finish later and disappeared toward the river. My joy and reverence for Tanama’s body resembled worship. I was glad that Adonai did not frown upon pleasure and call it sin, as the Christians did. I loved her with all my heart and all my senses. And I believed that she loved me, though I did not press her to tell me so. She called me her beloved, and that was enough.

“What is it,
nanichi
?” she asked one day as we lay sunning ourselves like lizards on a flat rock in the pool below the falls, drowsy with the act of love. “Why do you look troubled? This moment is perfect.”

“I am thinking that this perfect moment must end.”

“You must not,” she said, rolling closer so that she could draw her lips across my forehead, kissing away the thoughts that wrinkled my brow. “It makes no sense, for we have only this moment. So it is always. Do your people believe that tomorrow has a soul, that the future can fly like a bat in the
guayaba
trees? We are not so foolish.”

“The Taino have a gift for happiness that we lack,” I said, kissing her. “I cannot help thinking about the future. Rachel and I must go back.”

“But not today.”

“No. But I cannot be easy, not knowing what is happening at Isabela. I don’t even know if the Admiral has returned.” I could not bring myself to speak of my fear that Margarit and his rapacious band might be roving deeper into the mountains. If I knew, perhaps I could protect this peaceful village. I could not bear the thought of Spaniards falling on it without warning.

Tanama kissed me.

“Why can you not stay with us forever? Are you not happy?”

I kissed her, holding her to me so fiercely that she had to push me away, laughing, to draw breath.

“I have never been happier,” I declared. “I wish with all my heart that I could stay. But it will not do. Rachel, especially, must go back. Our parents must grieve for us, thinking us dead.”

“Why can she not marry Hutia? She is already one of us. All have seen the way they look at each other.”

“It will not do,” I repeated. I had been trying not to see the way Rachel and Hutia looked at each other. Tanama but confirmed what I feared. Rachel was only fourteen. I could not let her bear Hutia’s children and perhaps one day be slaughtered by Spanish soldiers. I could not even consent to her going bare breasted, a fashion I had so far succeeded in forbidding her.

“You think that we are doomed.”

A shadow seemed to fall upon the sunny day.

“I have not said it.”

“You don’t have to speak for me to know your mind, especially when you think of matters I understand, as when your thoughts concern the Taino.”

“Hutia will return soon.” When he offered to travel to the coast and bring us whatever news he could, I had accepted eagerly. I realized now that I had been as eager to separate him from Rachel for a while as I was to hear of the progress of the colony. “I must know more before any decisions are made.”

“Then think no more of it until then,” Tanama said. She slipped into the water and laughed up at me, droplets sparkling like diamonds in her hair.

“You look more like a mermaid than ever,” I said.

She was right. Our happiness was a gift from Ha’shem. I must not throw it away by letting a future I could neither predict nor control intrude on it. I pushed myself off the rock and landed with a splash beside her, treading water to remain afloat as I took her in my arms. Her legs curled around mine.

“I believe I know how your fish-tailed mermaids make love,” she said. “Would you like me to teach you?”

Chapter Thirty-One

Quisqueya, October 3-6, 1494

Hutia returned three days later.  “I have much to tell you,” he said.

We sat on a log outside Tiboni’s
bohio
, Hutia sitting much closer to Rachel than he was to me. Their clasped hands were tucked into the narrow space between his thigh and hers. I pretended not to notice. Hutia’s news was more important, for the moment, than what I could see only as a calamity I must somehow prevent.

“Has the Admiral returned?” I asked.

“His ships appeared off Isabela three days ago,” Hutia said. “I did not wait to see what happened when he came ashore. I thought you would wish to know as soon as possible.”

“We must go back,” I said.

Rachel opened her mouth, no doubt to protest, but Hutia squeezed her hand, and she didn’t speak.

“There is more,” Hutia said. “Three ships arrived from the land across the water—Spain—three moons ago. They bore food, for none of the settlers trouble themselves to cultivate the land, and they will not even let the Taino who serve them build
conuco
, which allow our crops to grow without much labor. They also carried the Admiral’s brother, along with many more of the
arijua
.” He held up a hand, forestalling my question. “Not he who is already here, trying to govern in his absence, though none obey his will. Another brother, Don Bartholemew.”

“I have not met him,” I said, “but he is said to be more forceful than Don Diego. Has he restored order?”

“Perhaps now that the Admiral himself has returned, the two together may be able to do so. But until now, he has been at a loss, for the evil Margarit has continued to do whatever he pleases. But a hand of suns before I reached the settlement, he and the angry
bohique
stole the three flying ships Don Bartholomew brought with him and returned to Spain.”
Bohique
was their word for priest.

“Mutiny!” I exclaimed. “This is worse than I expected. I am surprised that Fray Buil made common cause with Margarit.”

“They are both Catalans,” Rachel said. “From a region in the northeast of Spain,” she explained to Hutia, “where they have their own language and customs.”

“So they are brothers.” Hutia nodded. “I understand.”

“At least,” I said, “this must mean that Margarit no longer ravages the Taino
yucayeques
.”