18mm Blues

by Gerald A. Browne

  She slid into the water. He lowered the weighted belt to her and she put her feet into its loop. She pulled her mask down over her eyes. Began taking the rapid, preparative breaths, deep as possible inhales, forceful, whistling exhales.

  A long-ago sound for William.

  Julia did a dozen of those to make reservoirs in her lungs, to oxygenate her bloodstream. With a final inhale she nodded to William and he fed out the line and the weights carried her under and down thirty feet to the bottom.

  She swam along the base of the reef, her legs and bare feet working cadently. No, her feet were not as efficient without the fins but, she thought, it was much better to have them free. She’d disliked having all that equipment on her. She didn’t need it. She swam easily, the back of her mind keeping track of the seconds. She had plenty of time left, air enough to enjoy the underwater sights. She spotted several awabi, told herself to remember to collect two or three on her way back. William loved abalone, as did she.

  She came to where the coral of the reef had given way, swam through the hole there to be in the lagoon. The nearest shallows were off to her right. She headed in that direction, swimming effortlessly, quietly, a sea creature. She came up for air but hardly disturbed the surface.

  She’d come about an eighth of a mile and thus far no snakes. Or oysters. She’d been on the lookout for both. The depth there was only about eight feet, and according to the incline would soon be shallow enough for her to stand.

  She spotted the first oyster at almost the same moment as she spotted the first snake. The big silver lip oyster in clear sight on the bottom up ahead, the snake a shocking pink one doing wide, wary zigzags twenty feet off to the left.

  She went for the oyster.

  The snake went for her.

  She picked up the oyster and deposited it into the laundry bag.

  The snake veered away from her at the last moment, swam from sight.

  Gone to tell the others, Julia thought. She was convinced that sea creatures spoke to one another or at the very least with their own. (Hadn’t there been times when she’d thought she could hear them?) What at that moment was that pink snake saying to the others? She’s over there, let’s get her. Perhaps they were arguing about how to proceed, over who would get the first bite.

  Not to think like that, she told herself, and continued searching for oysters.

  Found another. And another. Put those in the laundry bag. And a bit farther on two more, making altogether five.

  She stood upright on the bottom, her head now above the surface. Her mouth was dry as a result of her body’s call on its adrenals. Her heart was doing at least a hundred and fifty. Deep breaths wouldn’t calm. With so much zap in her system she surely wouldn’t be able to sleep that night, she thought, that is if for her there was going to be a night.

  For a moment she felt extremely out of place. What was she doing in this lagoon, up to her neck in danger? It was total fucking lunacy. The next moment her thinking was what a beautiful, unspoiled place, the turquoise-colored water, the soft blue sand conforming to her feet, the sun warming her soaked, matted hair. And over there on her left, a dark patch of what?

  She submerged, swam to the patch and found it was what Grady had alluded to earlier. A bed full. The lagoon bottom there was covered with Pinctada maximas, one vast, contented congregation of big oysters.

  She swam directly above them, practically skimming them, saw them clench their valves together as she neared. She wanted to assure the four more that she placed in the laundry bag that no more harm would come to them, in fact, quite possibly they were going to be made to feel more comfortable.

  Now she had nine and, she decided, that would be the limit. The bag, heavy as it was and hung from her right hip, would impede her swimming.

  She headed back to the boat by way of the reef, had gone only a short ways before the pink snake returned. Anyway it appeared to her to be the same pink. Julia was terrified but continued swimming, telling herself that each kick and stroke was taking her closer to safety.

  The pink had brought five others with him, three yellows, a smaller pink and a green. They were extremely fast, came at her one after the other, bolted by and circled back to make passes at her from the opposite direction. It was like a competition for them, the object being to terrify her as they sped by, coming increasingly closer. At last there was contact. The length of one ran across the skin of her stomach, the length of another across her shoulders. Their scaly-looking skins were surprisingly smooth. Then they were gone and she saw no more of them all the way to the reef. She didn’t negotiate the reef by the way of the underwater hole. Instead she searched the surface along it and found a place where the sea was washing into the lagoon, a channel of sorts barely wide enough for her to slip through.

  William was waiting on the stern of the ketch. She saw concern leave him, but he didn’t speak, nor did she. They were in routine, preoccupied with their separate responsibilities. She was familiar with the special traditional knot he’d used to tie the laundry bag to the line at her waist. She undid it and he reached down from the diving platform and hauled it up. He removed the oysters from the bag and didn’t have to ask whether or not she was through. Knew she wasn’t. He tossed the bag back to her.

  She reattached it to her waist line and swam back to the reef and through the small channel to again be within the lagoon.

  The snakes were right there, awaiting her. The same six—the pink, three yellows, a green and the smaller pink. They’d been merely treading, but now, as though expressing reaction to her return or hoping to dazzle her, they performed acrobatics. Coils and spirals, intertwined duets and trios. The smaller pink didn’t participate, remained aside, apparently watching the others. Perhaps still learning, Julia thought.

  She made for the oyster bed in the shallows. Swam alternately on the surface and beneath it with the coordination and endurance of an extraordinary swimmer, one who’d spent many hours of most of her days in the water.

  The six snakes swam along with her like they were her escort. Protectors? She wondered if they were a little splintered-off gang of toughs, six that had chosen to hang out together. Or were they emissaries appointed by the mass to see that she wasn’t there to stay and claim some territory?

  Whatever, that was how it went for seven round trips. She didn’t take a rest until after the seventh and then she didn’t go aboard the ketch, rather, she found a flat protrusion of the reef and sat upon that.

  Grady returned empty-handed from his dive around the high point of the island. He climbed aboard the ketch expecting Julia to be there, perhaps not just awaiting him but, as well, with a big, caring breakfast ready.

  No sign of her on deck. There was William preoccupied with something on the bow but no sign of Julia. Probably down in the galley, Grady thought.

  He was about to get out of his diving gear and go below to her when he spotted the many huge oysters arranged in a line on the deck along the starboard side, their rough, ridged, variegated black and gray shells going dry in the sun. Incredible! It was as though they’d decided to accommodate his highest hopes; had, like a collaborative legion, leaped aboard for his benefit. But how actually, had they gotten there?

  He called out excitedly to William, who evidently didn’t hear, remained turned away.

  Then he spotted Julia. Or was it an apparition? Julia perched naked on an outcrop of the reef about a hundred feet away. What the hell was she doing there? She shouldn’t be there. Just beyond her was the lagoon and those snakes. She was too close to danger for Grady’s comfort.

  He shouted to her, shouted that she should return to the ketch. She just turned an ear his way and perhaps his voice was lost in the wash of the sea against the reef.

  He beckoned broadly, frantically, to convey that he wanted her back aboard.

  She waved to him, adjusted her mask, turned and slipped into the lagoon.

  Grady leaped off the stern and swam full out to the place on the reef where J
ulia had been. He climbed up with difficulty because of his fins, stood up and looked for her in the lagoon. Where was she? Not in sight. He quaked at the thought that the snakes had sunk their fangs into her, that she was helplessly dying or already dead somewhere on the bottom.

  That fear was relieved by her head surfacing about a hundred yards away. She’d been swimming underwater and was now swimming on the surface. Shit, look at her go! She’d never told him she could swim like that, Grady thought. You’d think she’d have at least mentioned it. And what was that swimming along both sides of her, alternately above the surface and disappearing under. Yellow, pink, green. They could only be snakes. Christ! they were right there with her. She didn’t have a chance, and it wouldn’t do any good for him to try to get to her. Even if he made it in time, how could he rescue her? Grief was already loud within him: Oh, Julia, I love you Julia, oh Julia, you, you crazy bitch, Julia. Life will be shit without you, Julia.

  She was plucking oysters from the bed. Ten went into the laundry bag this time. One extra for Grady, she thought. Perhaps in that one would be the best pearl of all.

  Quite tired now, she headed back to the reef. The laundry bag felt more than heavier by one oyster as she towed it along. The six snakes accompanied her, swam circles around her, and as she approached the reef they must have sensed this would be her final trip for they whizzed by her full speed one at a time, and peeled off right and left as though saluting farewell.

  Grady had anxiously watched her return progress, had pulled and prayed with her every stroke, seen her head change from a distant round thing with indistinguishable features to his Julia. She came out of the lagoon by way of the little channel. Grady swam to meet her, saw she was laboring and tried to relieve her of the laundry bag. He had trouble undoing that knot and it required more of her energy to tread and let him undo it, but she didn’t want to deprive him of being helpful.

  They climbed aboard the ketch. At once Grady got out of his diving gear. Julia let her mask drop anywhere. Her legs were wobbly. She walked somewhat lock-kneed to the foredeck. Stood there nude while William hosed her down with fresh water. Grady wondered about that. It was like something prearranged.

  She let the air dry her. She let William massage her calves and thighs. Grady took the cue and massaged her arms and shoulders. She let them know with little inside sounds how good it felt.

  They put off giving attention to the oysters until Grady had held her for a while and until she’d gone below and put on a fresh pair of shorts and a sheer shirt, guzzled a bottle of Kirin and chomped down a Brie sandwich.

  Their catch totaled seventy-three oysters. Some were slightly larger than others, but on the whole they were about the same size and otherwise identical. They were in various stages of opening. The ones brought in earlier were gaping by now, and it seemed to Grady he could reach right in and easily divest them of their pearls.

  Julia jerked his hand back, and he realized she’d saved him a hurt finger when he saw how fiercely the oyster clamped down on the cork she inserted between its valves.

  They worked systematically with three corks, the one from before and two taken just then from bottles of 1985 vintage La Tache that anyway would be best after some breathing. William was in charge of inserting the corks, Grady removed the pearls, Julia returned the oysters to the sea.

  From the seventy-three oysters came fifty-seven blue pearls. So, not just a remarkable color but a phenomenal yield. Twenty-seven of the fifty-seven were huge beauties, approximately eighteen millimeter in size. Eleven were just as beautiful though not as large, around fourteen millimeters. The remaining ten were various lesser sizes. What’s more, all but twelve were spherical enough to qualify as rounds.

  Grady had them spread out on a linen hand towel on the galley table. He and Julia and William sat at the table in an appreciating daze, poking at the pearls, rolling them to cause them to throw blue iridescence, picking up this one, then that one, trying to decide which was best, which was the favorite.

  Grady had at one time or another seen extraordinary lots of Colombian emeralds, and exceptional lots of D-flawless diamonds, but he knew that nothing that his eyes had ever set upon were as precious as these pearls.

  They weren’t his. They belonged to Julia and William, he thought. He told them that.

  “Three-way split,” Julia said.

  William agreed.

  Grady didn’t even consider refusing. He dropped the blue pearl from the oyster he’d found in with the others, making fifty-eight. He got three glasses from the cupboard and poured some of the ’85 La Tache. They toasted their wealthy selves, toasted the overlooked island, the generous lagoon, the prolific oysters and even the obligingly dispositioned snakes.

  They were well into the second bottle, feeling heady and happy, looking at the world through wine-colored pupils, when Julia said rather thick tongued, “Tomorrow I’ll dive for more.”

  “No,” Grady told her, “no more.”

  “There’s a whole bed full more in the lagoon.”

  “Yeah, and maybe tomorrow’ll be a down day for the snakes.”

  Julia shrugged resignedly.

  Grady opened another bottle and toasted Harold.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  An hour before the next dawn’s light, Grady got up for the head and decided he might as well stay up. He had too much of a hangover to bother with shaving, just brushed away his wine mouth, promised a more thorough brushing later and went up on deck.

  There was a moderate breeze coming from the northeast. Moderate this early it would get stiffer later, Grady thought. He was anxious to be under way, to get back to where his and Julia’s and William’s new riches could be transformed into various other pleasant realities. It was, he decided, a normal attitude, not really such a venal one.

  He turned on the global satellite receiver for a readout. Turned the receiver off and on again, double-checking the position. He repeated the position to himself several times, aloud several times. He’d never forget it. He thought it best not to write it down, one less concern if he didn’t write it down.

  Wait until dawn? No, no reason to. He pulled up anchor and hoisted the mainsail and within a few minutes was well clear of the island. He wouldn’t need to rely on the engine today, not as long as the breeze kept up. He unfurled the headsail and set all the others. Christ, what a great boat, Grady thought as he adjusted to be on course, he’d get one just like it, keep it in a marina over in Tiburon where Harold would have to see it all the time. Better boat than Harold’s. Julia had sure been right about this trip when on the plane coming over she’d predicted he was going to do well. He again wished that he’d been more of a believer. Maybe she’d make him one, she could. He’d been right too, though, right about her. Some woman. He deserved her, he told himself. Some woman. Would he ever be able to accept that she’d taken it on her own to go into the lagoon after those pearls? He tried to imagine what her thought processes had been at the time. She was more courageous than foolhardy, he believed. It was better to have a woman with such courage, self-sufficient, able to put all her potential to use. It was, he had to admit, also somewhat intimidating.

  Julia came on deck then, with mugs of fresh-brewed coffee. “I really needed this and so, you benefit,” she said, handing him his mug, handle first.

  The mug was so hot it burned his knuckles and he nearly dropped it. And, yet, she’d carried it all the way up from the galley without so much as an ouch. He took a slurp and asked, “Do you still think we ought to get married?”

  “Have I ever thought so?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “Not that you know. What an oblique, cowardly way to put the question.”

  “Was, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose if we ever did get married that’s how you’d ask for sex.” She mimicked him, “Do you still feel like having sex tonight? Gawd.”

  “Would asking be necessary?”

  “I should hope not. Maybe way down the road,
but as things are now, maybe not even way down.”

  “An article I read said that a sexual fit is the strongest possible foundation for a marriage.”

  “Is that what we have, a sexual fit?” she smirked. “What’s that mean, mine’s tight enough, yours is big enough?”

  “You’re a mess.”

  “Want me another way?”

  An emphatic uh-uh from Grady. After another slurp he asked, “Seriously, you see any reason we shouldn’t get married?” He was fairly sure she’d say no quickly, but she gave it some thought. “Money, maybe,” she said.

  “Money’s good for a marriage,” Grady contended.

  “Not always, possibly not most of the time. Maybe married people who have to dig in together and kick the crap out of not having stand a better shot in the long run.”

  “We should throw our pearls overboard?”

  “Do what you want with yours,” she said, “I’m for marriage with money from the word go.”

  Some woman, Grady thought, liking his future.

  The ketch was making good time, running at a reach with all sails set, averaging fourteen knots. At that rate, Grady figured, they’d be out of Burmese waters by midafternoon and pulling into Bang Wan Bay before dark.

  At eleven William spotted the helicopter gunship. On the horizon, low over the water. The helicopter came right at the ketch, passed directly over it, clearing the top of the main mast by only about ten feet. A noisy, yellowish-brown chopper with the scarlet and royal blue flag of Burma painted unmissably on its underside. It executed a banking turn and made another close pass over the ketch for a stem-to-stern look. It climbed sharply then and leveled off and kept going, its interest apparently satisfied. Soon it was in the distance, as small to the sight as it had been when William first spotted it. What a relief!

  Grady kept the binoculars on the chopper. Watched it bank to the north. Followed it and saw it continuing around to be coming at the ketch again, this time from starboard.

  At a range of seven hundred feet it launched one of its 2.75-inch rockets. An accurate warning that hit and exploded about fifty feet off the bow of the ketch.