Kingston by Starlight

by Christopher John Farley

  “You won’t need a fireplace in Jamaica.”

  “But I will build me one nonetheless! And I’ll chop wood every day to keep it burning!”

  Rackam laughed.

  “Let us get a head start on our relaxation,” he said. “A game of chess, perhaps?”

  So we stopped speaking and started playing. Or perhaps we were speaking through our playing. Locked in combat with him, I felt we were continuing our conversation, but in a differing form. His pawns were anecdotes, his opening gambits were monologues, his sacrifices seemed, to me at least, to be confessions of some sort. With every move, I felt our minds were in communication, not just about the stratagems of chess, but about other things as well. Our game lasted for what could have been hours, and soon, my advantage was overwhelming— he had but a king and two knights and I had my king and two queens.

  He considered the board, both hands propped up behind his head. He stood up, paced about the cabin, and sat down again. He reached for one piece, drew his hand back without touching it, reached for another, and then pulled back again.

  “You are . . . formidable,” he said. “Before you and Read, I’d not been beaten at chess, nor even challenged. But ahh— here’s the move to foil your plans!”

  And then a curious moment: his eyes flickered from the board for a moment and locked with mine briefly before settling back on the board. What did I sense in his eyes? Embarrassment? Surprise? These were all uncharacteristic emotions for so worldly a mariner. And then I realized that he had been reacting to something he saw in my own eyes— that, almost due to a force outside my will, I had, for all this time, been fixing the captain with a look of the most intense longing. There are moments in life when one feels one’s emotions play nakedly on one’s face but cannot by any means control them; in part one wants desperately to hide whatever feelings are on display, but, in another part, one wants them to be seen for some reason only the Divine Providence greatly understands. I struggled to compose myself but found that I could not. Was I some lovesick maid? No! I was a sea-dog like all the rest!

  I jumped to my feet.

  “Must you go now?” said Rackam. “’Tis your move!”

  “I need a few winks before my next watch,” I said, turning quickly to the door of the cabin. “I have to go.”

  I left the cabin. Were there holes in my ruse? Had I let my guard down overmuch? My original purpose forgotten— asking for a switch from the starboard shift to the larboard— I went immediately to the lower decks to get my bearings and consider the strange signals and statements I had been presented with that day. I did not return to my quarters, knowing that Xbalanque would be getting off his shift soon, and I had no wish to have truck with him. Instead, I went to one of my newest hideouts: the sail room. This was the area where the spare sails were folded and stored; the light was dim and the quarters were tight, but the area was quiet and clean. Ahh— here was a place where a man could get some solace.

  Alas, not tonight. When I arrived at my place of refuge, Read was already there before me, waiting for my arrival.

  chapter 19.

  The room had been dark when I entered; the sail room, by custom and regulation, is kept in such a state, with no lamp lit, to protect the sails from any spark or conflagration. Suddenly, an oil lamp’s glow came before my sight— I heard the striking of the match, smelled the sulphur— and its illumination spilled onto Read’s face. Ahhh, his visage! In this light, what had seemed rough and tumble before now took on a kind of beauty, like some rugged peak illuminated by a morning sky. His blue eyes, which seemed hard as gem stones before, now reminded me of something fragile and fair, robins’ eggs perhaps. I started to speak, but I found I could say nothing save in my high-pitched maiden’s voice, and so I said nothing.

  Read too, said nothing, and betrayed little with his expression. He neither smiled nor frowned. He took a step forward and I gasped a little. He paused and set down his lamp, a safe distance from a stack of mizzen-top sails. Then he quickly closed the distance between us ’til he was standing so close I could feel his exhalations on my face.

  Read was breathing hard, as if he had just completed some task of physical exertion, as if the simple act of walking toward me and standing close was a labor of Hercules. Even in the dim light, I could see that color had come into his cheeks, and his broad chest heaved like a swimmer surfacing after long moments in the deep fathoms. His eyes did not look directly at me at first, but were focused mostly on the floor, and he shifted his feet a bit from side to side as if he could not get his bearings.

  Now, he took my right hand in his left and he brought our clasped hands up to his face, almost touching his lips but not quite. He closed his eyes and his breathing steadied a bit, and his feet stopped shuffling and found their stance. His hand was surprisingly gentle; he held me firmly, but not too hard, and his hands were not as calloused and rough as I might have imagined them but rather soft and small. Now, with his free hand, he stroked my left cheek a little and then held my face. Now I found myself experiencing the most intense emotions. My own breathing was arrested, and I could feel a hot flush arise in my face. I wanted to turn and run, but found that I could not move. Read’s eyes looked up from the floor and met mine. His gaze was steady now, like a ship running under full sail under a strong wind. There was silence in the room save for the pounding of an immense drum, which I soon recognized was the sound of my own startled heart.

  Read leaned forward and kissed me; at first his lips barely grazed mine, like some doctorbird buzzing ’round a blossom; then his lips found mine again and his arms drew me in entirely, and he kissed me with passion and force and almost a kind of desperation, the way a man forgets all manners and tears at food, having been denied victuals for a lengthy period. His lips were hot and his cheek was smooth; I would not have expected a man who fought so fiercely and lived so roughly to have such supple skin.

  I must say, at that time, I gave no thought to safeguarding my virtue and modesty, so caught up was I in the emotion of the moment. Ahh, the fire in my blood had been stoked and now was raging in a manner that was most uncontrollable. I felt as if I was between worlds— the land and the sea, between maidenhood and manhood, between chastity and the devil’s sin. I was floating on air, like some spirit, the winds of chance blowing me where they would. He embraced me and I stroked him in turn and my hands began to explore the mysteries of masculinity, the secrets of which had haunted me these many years.

  But what was this? As my hands explored his body as eagerly as any conquistador ever explored the Caribbean, I came across an unexpected region. Now, tho’ I had made a study of men, I nonetheless lacked firsthand experience, as it were. And yet, based on the instinct given to us by the Creator who resides in the blessed realm of heaven with his host, I had some notion that something was not as it should have been.

  I stepped back a pace, out of his embrace.

  His look at first was one of concern, and then of understanding turning toward mirth.

  “Come now, my sweet. Be not concerned that the physical commerce in which we are engaged is, by some means, unnatural, or in deviance with the laws of the Divine Providence.”

  Read opened his canvas shirt, grasped my hand, and placed it on his breast. I then had confirmation of what I had suspected, for his bosom, hidden from the eyes by the bulk of his clothes was, when touched, rounded and full, and not unlike my own. His exhibition of battle scars for the other men, in which he had shown much but clearly revealed little, was part of an exuberance that served to distract from what I saw now— Read was so forthright about what he wanted that he had convinced the world to take him for who he wanted to be. I was shocked, but somehow not surprised. That is to say, the revelation that he was a woman was certainly a momentous thing, in that it would perhaps change the relationship that existed between us, but at the same time I saw how it laid the groundwork for all that had passed thus far. There is a secret connection that exists among members of my sex, contained in sof
t glances, muted laughter, and flitting hands. We learn to conceal our feelings and thoughts from the prying eyes of men, reserving our communications for one another. The sweet songs of birds may be only breakfast music to some, but to the creature of the air, it may be poetry, conversation, and the very substance of information. Now, with our disguises pierced, I saw that, all along, Read and I had communicated and connected as only two of the fairer gender could.

  “Now you know my secret,” she said. “There is nothing to keep us apart. We are as opposite in gender as Adam was from Eve, Orpheus from Eurydice, or Antony from his Cleopatra.”

  She kissed me hard again, and, by my faith, the sensation was not unpleasant and, in the unreflective instant, seem’d far from unnatural. What was the measure of a man? I wondered. Was sex to be found in attitude or in flesh? For, in truth, Read was more of a man, and less of a woman, than any man or woman I had ever met. And yet, to some degree of truth, the opposite was also accurate. But, ahhh, I am no philosopher, just a mere mariner, and such questions of the heart and head are perhaps best left to others with schooling in the arts of metaphysics and the like. So again I stepped back.

  “Are you not pleased?” said Read.

  Now she had to be told my secret. This time I grasped her hand and brought it to my bosom. She smiled at first and then, as realization set in, her blue eyes widened. She stumbled back a bit, and fell upon a pile of sails.

  “Like Actaeon when he came across fair-limbed Diana bathing in the wood,” I said, “I fear we have both gazed upon that which our eyes should not have witnessed.”

  “What is this tale you tell?”

  “Actaeon was a youth who, in the ancient tales of Ovid, came across Diana bathing in her secret pool.”

  “I know this tale, tho’ I have never read it. The goddess, in her fury, changes the boy into a stag and sends his own hounds after him in the chase.”

  “Yes— and Actaeon is ripped, flesh from bone, a meal for dogs.”

  Read smiled. “But we are two Dianas here. And there are no dogs in sight.”

  At that, I smiled, and so, too, Read began to laugh with much gusto and I joined along with her. She pulled me down to the sails with her and we held each other and lost ourselves for the moment in the frivolity and jolliness of our situation. She kissed me first on the forehead, and then on each cheek, right and then left, and then she pressed her mouth to mine. We lingered in that kiss for some time and then we stared into each other’s eyes, wondering what would come next.

  It was then that Rackam, who had been in the shadows watching throughout this entire encounter and had seen all and now understood all, chose to step out of the dark and into the oil-light.

  chapter 20.

  Sleep took my hand, leading me away from shore and wading into a sea of imaginings. A dream I had then, one that was turbulent and filled with ill portents. Many questions I had, about Read, about Rackam, and, most certainly, about my own future on board the Will. Now that my secret was known, and Read’s as well, I remember’d with some foreboding the clauses and regulations that were contained in the contract I had signed when I first join’d the crew; I thought, as well, about what punishments I might soon endure, with drowning, marooning, and execution by pistol among their number. It was not death I feared, but disgrace. No, perhaps that does not quite capture it— I dreaded revelation, the dissemination of information that would separate me from my fellows, and permanently brand me as the other, despite all my hard work. But how could it be avoided now? All these questions and quandaries floated about my sleeping head, like dead things in fetid water, but soon I was plunged into the fathoms below, drowning in the currents of my own mind, the concerns and queries of my day left far behind on the surface.

  I woke up to the sound of song. The words were different, the melody altered, and the voice lower— but something in the essence of this tune reminded me of Ma, and I had a clear vision of being suckled at her breast. The sweet amen smell of mother’s milk was in the air. I arose from my bed. I knew not whether it was night or day or what the watch was; my cabin was dark, and as I left the lower decks to go to the main deck, all was bathed in a half-light that could have signaled either dawn or dusk. The soft melodious voice that I had heard on previous occasions echoed across the quarterdeck. The music seem’d to have no words. It was a song in a series of clear and direct tones, each one bright and full. Then, in a shift as subtle as leaves turning from summer’s green to autumn’s tan, the melody seem’d to reorganize, and words were made distinct, but in a language I could not recognize.

  What were the words? The music conjured images of infidel ships from the African coast, crew’d with turban’d men with dark brows and serene eyes. I saw bright blades falling and rising again, soaked in crimson. I saw gold-filled Spanish galleons broken open like eggs. I saw flames reaching up into the night like drowning swimmers as coastal Caribbean cities burned. Did I imagine these things or were they wrapped up in the true import of this song? Hard as I would listen, this song seem’d to have no theme, or its particular meaning seemed always just beyond my reach. But what things I saw in it nonetheless! And what sadness and sweetness and violence was wrapped up in its cryptic strains! I followed the sound, determined, this time, that I should uncover the identity of the singer. It spoke to my soul— so intertwined with loss and conflict— and now Hark! I saw a long shadow at the forecastle, and the shade was lost in the ecstasy of performance. Drawing closer, I saw that the singer was the ship’s surgeon, Zayd. He was kneeling on a rug, his eyes bowed and his hands open at his side. He was stripped to the waist, and I have never seen before or since a man of his exquisite musculature. His muscles were lean and black— a blackness so dark, he seemed to be cut out of the night sky and poured into human form. Indeed, the lights of the sky were reflected on his shiny, smooth muscles, as if his very being was a map of the constellations.

  Zayd hardly moved, but seem’d as still as any figure ever carved in granite. He moved his hands up, gradually up, as if reaching toward heaven, and the starlight danced on his muscles in a dazzling show of white fire. It was a cool night, and yet his skin was slick with sweat, and tendrils of steam seemed to rise from his body, curling upward like fallen angels fighting their way back into Paradise. There was a rich, musky scent in the air as well, like pimento logs burning in fire, or some grand soap purchased at an Oriental shop. It was an aroma that both awakened the mind and quieted the nerves.

  Gazing upon Zayd’s form, I was filled with the most curious sensations and emotions. Although I had not exerted myself, I felt my breathing grow labored, as if I had been in the midst of a long sprint. Next, I felt a warmth spread from my bosom throughout my body, as if I had drunk a pot of warm tea spiked with Jamaican rum. My body felt buoyant, as if it was ready to cut its tether to the earth and ascend to the celestial realm. My hands became small birds and they fluttered about my body, alighting here and there, but never perching for long. An enormous unnamable need welled up in me, like a giant dark wave taking shape off a battered coastline. I wanted to cry and laugh and scream and so, caught between actions, I was near-paralyzed.

  Still the music continued, and its fashion and form were both sacred and profane. There were words and no words, like a monk’s chant that perhaps once had definition but now has only meaning. Images and sounds and feelings came to me and I felt as if I was being carried, once again, into the visions that come with slumber, only now I was caught in a waking dream. The sharp smell of a lemon rind, a line of black ants marching across an open palm, a severed finger in a pewter bowl. The images were meaningless to me, and yet filled me with terror. The slick muscularity of a horse’s haunch, the burble of a mountain stream passing over rocks, a girl’s tongue licking the edge of a sword, the smell of barbershops. Enough! I wanted to escape these things, but I felt confined, grown over, like something knotted in the trunk of an old oak. And still the dread tune continued: the chill that comes with an approaching rain before the first drops
fall, the silence between the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder, a black ship riding on a tall dark sea.

  Suddenly, Zayd paused and his eyes met mine.

  “So at last we talk,” he said.

  “We have conversed before.”

  “Only in passing.”

  “What is the song you sing?”

  “Do you know my song?”

  “I would not have asked if I did.”

  “The melody is an old one from my homeland. The words are verses that I have fashioned, and they tell the story of Laurens De Graff.”

  “The greatest privateer of them all! What do you know of him?”

  “He was, as you say, supreme in these waters. Where others commanded single ships, he led a fleet; twenty and two ships at its height, and three thousand men.”

  “Three thousand!”

  “Aye, and fully armed. On one expedition, De Graff led a force of privateers— Dutch, French, even English and Irish Jacobites, supporters of James the Second of England who had, at that time, recently been deposed from England. De Graff set upon the eastern tip of Jamaica, landing at Cow’s Point and ravaging the island. He made a feint toward Port Royal, and when the English sent troops to meet him, he used the opportunity to return to his vessels and escape, the holds of his ships heavy with loot. It was a magnificent operation, and no privateer has staged its like since.”