Dragons in the Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  “What do you think of Simon, then?”

  Charles smiled his slow smile. “I’ve never met anybody before who wasn’t in our century.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aunt Leonis—he belongs to whenever it was she belonged to, and maybe it wasn’t a whole century ago, but it certainly isn’t now.”

  “We have to take care of him, then, don’t we?”

  Charles was silent for so long that Poly thought he was not going to answer. Then he said, “Someone has to. I don’t think Cousin Forsyth is going to.”

  Poly looked interested. “What about Cousin Forsyth?”

  “What Simon’s Aunt Leonis calls sense of smell—”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s not Cousin Forsyth. But my sense of smell is giving me warnings.”

  “About what?”

  “I’m not sure, Pol. I just get a sense of anger, and fear, and it’s coming at me from all directions. Too many pheromones.”

  “Have you spoken to Daddy?”

  “Not yet. It isn’t definite enough.”

  Poly looked at her brother with absolute seriousness. “I don’t like it when you get feelings.”

  “I like it if they’re good ones.”

  “But this isn’t?”

  “It’s strange. I’ve never felt anything like it before. It seems to come from almost everybody, and to have something to do with Cousin Forsyth, and that just doesn’t make sense.”

  “I wish you’d speak to Daddy.”

  “I will, if anything begins to focus. It’s all vague and fuzzy now.”

  “What about Simon?”

  “Simon is our friend,” Charles said.

  Simon lay awake in his bunk. Cousin Forsyth snored. Simon had never slept in a room with anyone else before. In Pharaoh he and Aunt Leonis each had a private cubicle, his made out of what originally had been a small storeroom. He was afraid to move about lest he disturb Cousin Forsyth. He started to drift into sleep, and woke up with a jerk, dreaming that the fork lift was pursuing him, and the fork lift was alive and wild and hungry, with red eyes and smoke, like a dragon. Simon was prone to occasional nightmares, and at home he would go out to the kitchen and brew a cup of tea, and Aunt Leonis always heard him and came out to him, and they would sit and drink tea and talk until the nightmare had dissolved in the warm light of the kitchen, and he could go back to bed and sleep.

  Cousin Forsyth’s snoring was rhythmic and placid, but it was not a restful sound.

  Then the Orion began to rock gently in the night swells of the ocean, and this living movement was as comforting as the lit candle in the kitchen at Pharaoh. Thoughts of fork lifts and dragons receded, and he went to sleep.

  In the cottage at Pharaoh, Miss Leonis was reading by the bright light of a resiny fire. On the small table by her side lay her Bible, closed. She was not certain that consulting it had caused her to make her decision to open Quentin Phair’s letters and journals, unread for so many generations, instead of waiting to leave them for Simon.

  But ever since Mrs. O’Keefe had dropped her at Pharaoh, after an exhausting and stimulating afternoon, she had been restless and unable to settle down. Her sense of smell kept telling her that something was wrong, but not what that something was, except that it had to do with Simon, Simon who was miles away at sea in a small freighter heading into the Caribbean. Had she been right to accept Forsyth Phair’s invitation to take his young cousin to Caracas with him? It would be a journey of less than two weeks; they would be returning by plane after leaving the portrait in Caracas. Surely this was an opportunity for Simon which should not be turned down?

  —Something is wrong, something is wrong, an inner voice continued to nag.—Simon is in danger.

  Had her concern over Simon’s future dulled her sense of smell over Forsyth? He had come with documents tracing his descent from one of her great-uncles who had moved out West after the war. She knew that this shared ancestor had undoubtedly played politics with the carpetbaggers, but Forsyth Phair was not to be blamed for that, after all, and perhaps it was old-fashioned prejudice which made her hold this against him.

  In any event, Forsyth was a Phair; his nose and chin told her that, the high-bridged, hawk-like nose—though Forsyth’s eyes crowded close together, unlike the wide-spaced Phair eyes. But he had the strong chin softened by an unexpected dimple which usually turned into a formidable cleft by middle age. In Forsyth the cleft was almost a scar. Yes, he was a Phair, and hanky-panky with those who wanted to get rich on the troubles of the South was hardly to be blamed on him. His talk of his life in Caracas sounded serious, and surely it was commendable that he wanted to return the portrait to his adopted country rather than to keep it himself?

  And then, Forsyth was the last of the Phairs. Simon was a Renier. The male line of Phairs had been prone to accident and sudden death.

  Pride of name, she thought wryly.—Is that part of it?

  Pride. Pride was always her downfall. When Simon’s mother died she had concealed the fact of her poverty from the Renier relatives. They had wanted the boy to come to them, to his father’s people. She had had to battle to keep him, and she respected the Reniers for letting Simon, in the end, make the choice. They would be ready to take him to their hearts when she died. They would see to it that he was properly educated, that he went to medical school. If she had asked them for money they would have given it to her. If she had asked them to buy the portrait they would have bought it—but then she might have lost Simon.

  Pride. Forsyth Phair was Simon’s one link with his mother’s kin, with Miss Leonis, with Quentin Phair; indeed, with the very name of Phair. Not only pride was involved in her feelings here. The dying of a name was as real as the death of a person. If Simon kept in touch with Forsyth Phair it would keep the name alive a little longer.

  —I am a foolish, proud old woman, she thought.—In eternity the end of the Phairs makes no never mind.

  She was suddenly full of misgivings. Was Forsyth really all that he appeared to be? Had pride of name made her too eager to accept this kind and considerate stranger who had appeared out of the blue?

  She fed old Boz, and then walked slowly around the house with him. There had been sunshine in Charleston that afternoon and the air was warmer, but now the sun had set and she was glad to get back to the fire. She reached for her Bible. It opened to Nehemiah, and the first words she read were, “And Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear.” This could hardly be construed as a suggestion that she open Quentin Phair’s letters and journals; besides, she considered people who opened the Bible, put a pin on a word, and expected an answer to their problem, to be superstitious at the least, and idolatrous at the worst, and she wished to be neither.

  “What do you think, old Boz?” She fondled the dog’s ear.

  The old hound sighed and put his chin heavily on her knee. Then he walked arthritically into her small bedroom, where she kept the carved wooden coffer which had once contained jewels and now held Quentin Phair’s journals and letters. After a few moments she followed the dog. She took two of the journals and a few packets of letters from the coffer and returned to the fire.

  She took one of the journals out of its oilskin casing and opened it at random. The ink was brown and faded, but the script was elegant and still completely legible. She read, “ … when I returned from Dragonlake today Umara showed me our baby. It was an extraordinary feeling to take this tiny brown thing in my arms and to know that he is my seed, that his fair skin comes from me. Now ‘I have shot my man and begot my man.’ I am not the first, nor will I be the last, of the English regiment to leave my seed here on Venezuelan soil, but my Umara is not like the usual women we soldiers meet. Indeed, the Quiztanos seem a race apart as well as a world apart, a gentler world. I do not want to leave my son, my first son, here in this strange place, but I cannot send my Umara home to my mother and cold England. Why am I so unduly disturbed by what, after all, is nothing unusual?” />
  Miss Leonis closed her eyes. She sat, unmoving, until the fire died down and the room grew cold and the old dog began to whine.

  In the cabin next to Cousin Forsyth and Simon the two professors prepared for bed. Dr. Wordsworth was brushing strong black tea through her luxuriant hair; Geraldo left her a pot of tea in the cabin each evening immediately after he had cleaned up demitasses and glasses. “I learned about brushing black tea into my hair at bedtime from an Armenian ballet dancer,” she said, “and I don’t have any grey, which at my age is not bad.”

  Dr. Eisenstein had heard about the black tea before. She looked at herself in the mirror, not pleased with what she saw. She reached for her toothbrush. At least she had all her teeth, which was more than Ines could say. The brownish circles under her eyes did not vanish when she had enough sleep. The study lines about her mouth and nose were graven deep; too much staring into books and not enough living. But when she could not see herself her inner mirror gave her a younger, more pleasing image. She did not feel nearly sixty. She brushed her teeth vigorously, and for a moment she was intensely irritated by Ines’s glossy black tresses.

  Dr. Wordsworth patted her cheeks with cotton soaked in astringent lotion. She sighed. “I wish Phair hadn’t come aboard at Savannah. It’s brought up a past I hoped I could forget.”

  “He seems very pleasant,” Dr. Eisenstein said.

  Dr. Wordsworth’s voice was bitter. “If you will remember, my youth in Caracas was not exactly happy. I’ve deliberately tried to forget as much as possible.”

  “I know,” Dr. Eisenstein murmured.

  “You don’t know. You didn’t know Fernando.”

  “I know what you told me. I know he treated you abominably and made you very unhappy.”

  Dr. Wordsworth laughed harshly. “That’s putting it mildly. I don’t know why I let myself be talked into coming along with you on this trip.”

  “Inés, it’s supposed to be a rest for both of us.”

  Dr. Wordsworth yawned elaborately, patting her wide-open mouth with her scarlet-tipped fingers. “I’m exhausted, all right. And I admit to being curious about your Quiztanos. Fernando was mostly Levantine, but he had a touch of Quiztano in him.”

  “You’re still trying to understand him,” Dr. Eisenstein said softly.

  Dr. Wordsworth finished wiping off her face cream and threw out the astringent-soaked cotton. “No, Ruth. I’m trying to understand myself.”

  “Then why are you so upset about meeting an old acquaintance?”

  “I don’t feel logical about my past, and he reminds me of it.”

  “He appears to be very much of a gentleman, and he plays an excellent game of bridge.”

  “As long as he doesn’t presume on mere acquaintance—”

  “I’m sure he won’t,” Dr. Eisenstein reassured. “Anyhow, it’s only a few more days before we debark at Port of Dragons and he goes on to Caracas.”

  Dr. Wordsworth got under the covers. “I look forward to your Quiztanos, Ruth. Twentieth-century civilization has lost its appeal for me.”

  Dr. Eisenstein put her notebooks away. She felt a stirring of envy. Fernando may have caused Ines great pain, but at least she had known life and love. There had never been a Fernando in Dr. Eisenstein’s life, and she felt the poorer for it.

  Simon was awakened by his cousin’s stertorous breathing. It was so loud that Simon smiled into the darkness because it seemed a strange and primitive sound to be coming from Cousin Forsyth. He thought of the two professors in the next cabin and wondered if they could hear it through the walls, and what kind of conversation two such different people as Dr. Eisenstein and Dr. Wordsworth would have with each other.

  Aft of Simon and Cousin Forsyth was cabin 5, the cabin with the portrait, the Bolivar portrait which was the reason for this journey. The thought that once they left Caracas he would never see the portrait again gave him a sharp pang of regret.

  —Pride of possession, he thought.—Aunt Leonis told me to beware of that.

  Cousin Forsyth gave an extra-loud snort which evidently woke him up. Simon could hear him turn over in his bunk and start to breathe quietly.

  He lay in a strange bed on his way to a strange land. Now that the snoring had stopped he could hear again the soothing sound of wind and wave. He remembered that he had new friends on board. He tried to feel adventurous and brave like Quentin Phair. He tried to feel that one day he, too, might be a hero. The ship rocked like a cradle. He closed his eyes, turned over, and returned to sleep.

  3

  THE WORD “UMAR”

  Captain van Leyden had teenage children of his own at home in Amsterdam, and he enjoyed the presence of the three young ones on his ship. After breakfast the next day, which pleased and astonished Simon by consisting of platters of sliced Gouda cheese, sausage, salt herring, freshly baked rolls, honey, jam, peanut butter, and boiled eggs, the captain gave them a grand tour of the Orion, introducing them to the crew, and then took them up on the bridge. “You may come up whenever you wish,” he told them, “except when the pilot is coming aboard. Consider this to be your ship. I can see that you are careful young persons.” He instructed them in detail on the use of each of the vast array of instruments, and then showed them his radar machine, of which he was obviously proud. “You see,” he explained, “it not only blips around at various distances—ten miles from shore, five miles from shore, and so forth—but look: now you see a photographic representation of sea and shore at various distances—not now, of course; all we see is water. But after lunch you will be able to see Cuba, from the starboard side, and if you wish to come and look at it through the radar machine, you may.”

  “Oh, we do wish,” Poly said. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Tomorrow I will have the chief engineer, Olaf Koster, take you all over the engine room. It will be hot and dirty, so please dress accordingly.”

  “We will.”

  “You are amused?” he asked them several times.

  “We’re having a marvelous time,” Poly assured him.

  “You are not bored?”

  She stretched with enjoyment. “I’ve never been bored in my life. And certainly I couldn’t be bored on the Orion. Where is the hearse going?”

  “To Caracas.”

  “What about the bullet hole in the windshield?”

  “It was sold at what you would call bargain price.”

  “And all the big boxes and cases?”

  “They contain mostly equipment for oil fields, refineries.”

  “The Orion carries almost everything, doesn’t she, Captain?”

  “We are an all-purpose ship.”

  “You know that list of cargo on the table in the salon?”

  “For the information of the passengers. Jan ten Zwick made the translation.”

  “Maybe sometimes his English is a little peculiar.”

  “Peculiar?”

  “Well, it says 5 boxes reefers. What are the reefers, Captain?” Poly was simply curious. She did not think for a moment that the little ship was carrying marijuana.

  The captain looked at her in surprise. “Reeferigerators, Miss Poly. They are expensive in Caracas, and not as large as American reeferigerators. If one is successful, one has an American car, or a Mercedes, and one has an American reeferigerator.”

  Simon and Charles were looking at each other with laughter in their eyes, but all three of them kept polite and straight faces. Poly said, “I see. Thank you. And all the grain down in the hold?”

  “That goes to various places. Port of Dragons, for one. We should see the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela by Friday evening—three more days.”

  Poly looked across the vast expanse of water. “That’ll be exciting. But it’s even more exciting to be in a small ship in the middle of the ocean and to see no land at all —almost as though we were like Noah.”

  The captain said dryly, “Noah, I assure you, was very happy to see land.”

  After lunch the three children went
to Simon’s place in the prow of the ship. The adult passengers had retired to their cabins for a siesta. On the promenade level two young sailors were swabbing down the deck. Others were running up and down the ladders, carrying ropes, buckets. On the boat deck a young sailor was painting the white rail, while another was polishing the brasses. The sailors smiled or waved at the children while continuing about their business.

  In the prow the wind was still chill, and they were well bundled up. Ahead of them, and to starboard, was a shadow of land.

  “Cuba,” Poly said, “but I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere near enough to get an idea of what Cuba’s like. I wish we could see it better. Geraldo says we’ll be close enough to see something on the radar by mid-afternoon.”

  Simon looked at Cuba, which revealed nothing, and then down at the water, which was a deep dark blue, streaked with white caps. He braced his feet against the gentle rolling of the ship. Around the prow the water looked like fluid marble and he thought it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. “Hey, look, yawl. Liquid marble, sort of the way rock must have been when the earth was being formed, only that was boiling hot, and this is cold.” He shivered. Geraldo had given him an extra blanket in place of a coat, and he pulled it more tightly around him and sat on a crate of oil-well machinery in the lee of the wind. “It occurs to me,” he said in his old-fashioned way, “that I answered a lot of questions last night, and there are some questions I would like to ask you.”

  Charles perched in his favorite position on another crate. “Ask ahead.”

  Poly sat on the deck between the two boys. “We ought to have a name for our place.”

  Simon’s face lit up. “So we should! What?”

  “Let’s each think about it till after dinner, and then tell each other what we’ve come up with, and we can decide which name is best. What did you want to ask us, Simon?”

  “How come you two’re going to Venezuela with your father, and leaving your mother and everybody else behind?”