Paperman was embarrassed at the suggestion. "It's quite all right," he said. "You're entitled to an advance, of course. Would you like the check now?"
"I'd sure appreciate it."
"Well, fine. Let's go to the office."
Lorna said as Paperman went by the desk with Akers, "De afternoon plane just came in wit five guests. Ain't nobody to meet dem."
"Well? Those people this morning got in all right."
"Dey come very mad. It says in our brochure we meet dem. Thor he always met dem." She held out some keys on a chain. "Dese are for de Rover. Thor said for me give dem to you."
Norman took the keys with a shrug, went into the office, and wrote the check for Akers. The contractor said, blowing on the check, "Thanks. If you're going to the beach now, I'll come along."
"Don't you have to stay with the men?"
"All they have to do is finish off that wall. I told them to stop there and quit, so I don't reckon they'll knock down the rest of your hotel." Akers giggled, tucking the check in a dusty khaki pocket.
The new gondolier, exerting himself to put on a show for his employer, drove the boat to the shore with a dozen strokes, his ribbons a-flutter in the wind. "Millard, I think maybe you've got yourself a new job," Paperman said. The man's ebony face glistened with elation.
Akers showed Paperman how to start the Land Rover, an oversized British machine like an enclosed jeep. "They're great machines. I've got one," he said. "The only thing is, if you need a spare part it comes by slow boat from England. See you in the morning. Those rooms are going to start sprouting up tomorrow like mushrooms after a rain."
4
Seven angry tourists with a high heap of luggage awaited Norman at the airport. Their anger was directed equally at the Gull Reef Club and at a cab driver asleep at the wheel of a taxi parked close by: a Buick of about 1938 vintage, newly painted bright yellow, with patches of rust eating through the paint, and half of one door rotted away. When they had asked the driver to take them to the Gull Reef Club, he had said that he was busy, though there was no other visible business for him at the dead terminal. He had then slumped in a doze.
Paperman saw that without this taxi he would have to make two trips. The Land Rover couldn't hold seven people and the great pile of luggage. He went and rapped at the cab window. The driver opened one eye, then both, and sat up with a spry grin. "Yes, suh, whah to1?" He reached for the rear door handle.
"Gull Reef Club."
"Sorry," said the driver. "I busy." He slouched back and closed his eyes.
There was no time to probe this puzzling outrage. Drawing on his vast experience with New York cab drivers, he rapped again, this time with a hand holding a ten-dollar bill. "Are you very busy?" he said.
The driver contemplated the ten and swallowed. "I got to leave dem off by de post office. Den dey got to walk."
"All right. Take the people, and I'll take the luggage."
Nobody offered to help him load the Rover, and of course there was no porter. So Paperman, who was not supposed to carry heavy weights or otherwise overexert himself, piled seventeen large suitcases into the car, with the western sun frying his back. He was not expert at this kind of thing, and when he started to drive off, the first stiff lurch of the Land Rover sent nine of the bags slithering out on the sticky tar road. He got out, repacked the bags, and tied them with a rope he found on the floor, mopping his streaming face with a sleeve, and easing his spirit by roaring at the waving sugar cane all the obscenities he could think of. He climbed into the Rover, jammed the accelerator to the board, and held it there. He was distinctly lightheaded by now. Rocking and swooping like a roller coaster, the machine tore along the highway, whistling past the decayed Buick about halfway to town.
The wharf once again was crowded with irritated whites. The gondola was moored alongside, and at the oars Millard slumped, his face tragic. His hat was gone. Nearby on a bollard sat Senator Pullman, and the senator was holding the hat.
"Hello Mr. Paperman! I'm glad you're here. I think I've saved you some very serious inconvenience, not to mention legal difficulties of humiliating proportions."
"Why? What's the matter now?"
The senator waved the hat. "Did you knowingly allow that person now sitting in your boat to operate it?"
Paperman explained why he had drafted Millard as a gondolier. The senator looked increasingly serious, lighting a cigar and puffing at it with nursing lips. "Mr. Paperman, that person is not a citizen. He is an alien, a bonded worker from the British island of Nevis. His bond only allows him to work as a gardener, since there is a shortage of Kinjan gardeners. There is no local shortage of unskilled labor, such as rowing a boat and wearing this hat would entail. You have to employ a Kinjan citizen for this position."
"I'll be glad to. It's an emergency, Senator." He reached for the hat.
The senator pulled it away. "I'm endeavoring for the friendliest motives to spare you considerable hardship. If an Immigration inspector were to find this person performing unauthorized employment-and they snoop around constantly-you might have all your alien workers' bonds cancelled forthwith. All your chambermaids and kitchen maids are bonded from Nevis. You'd have to close your hotel."
'Senator, tell me what to do and I'll do it," Paperman said. "Where can I get a Kinjan to row this boat?"
'There's only one place. The Amerigo Employment Division keeps a current list of Kinjans seeking job opportunities."
"Fine. Where is their office?"
"Across the street from the church. Unfortunately on Thursdays they close at one o'clock. I doubt that you can get a man anyway, to be frank. The season is on, and the list is usually empty by Thanksgiving."
Paperman stared at the senator's placid, sober round face. "But Senator-if I can't use bonded help, and I can't get a Kinjan, who is going to row this boat?"
The senator nodded with approval. "Well, you understand the situation, then. I feel you have a knotty problem."
"Jesus H. Christ," said Paperman.
"Perhaps you should put back the former boat boy. You can see that we cannot allow aliens to fill temporary shortages," said the senator. "Otherwise there would never be any shortages, and this island would have an unemployment problem. As it is, there is no unemployment in Kinja."
"I can well believe it. I'll take the hat." The senator passed it to him, and Paperman added, "Can you tell me while we're at it, why a cab driver wouldn't pick up my guests at the airport, and then wouldn't deliver them to this landing?"
Senator Pullman rolled his cigar inside a tolerant smile. "That is the fault of your policy."
"My policy? I got here yesterday."
"The Gull Reef Club sends a car to meet its guests. The taxi drivers' association feels this takes the bread out of the mouths of Kinjan citizens." He wrinkled his face, and seemed to age twenty years. "Now that the Gull Reef Club has a new proprietor, it's a golden opportunity to revitalize your policy on meeting guests."
Paperman walked to the gondola. "Millard!" The gardener looked up dolefully. "Give me a hand with the bags."
"Yes please." Millard scrambled eagerly out of the boat.
Paperman felt a tap on his shoulder. Senator Pullman said, "Handling luggage also is not a job certified by the Amerigo Employment Division for alien labor." But something in the suffering, cornered-rat look on Paperman's face caused him to add, "I don't see any Immigration inspectors on the waterfront right at this moment. I'm speaking of policy."
"This is completely against the policy of the Gull Reef Club," said Paperman. "Pile as many as you can on the rack, Millard."
"I feel that you will soon adjust to Kinja," said Senator Pullman.
Once again Norman Paperman rowed a boat full of luggage and people, including the big sad gardener, across the harbor, leaving behind a squalling, complaining huddle. Having no place else to set the hat, he put it on his head. It was nearly three o'clock now, and he was glad of the shade. The western sun on his head was making him ver
y giddy.
Putting at defiance any Immigration inspectors lurking in the shrubbery, he ordered Millard to bring the bags to the main house. He hastened to the bar and told Gilbert to man the boat. Gilbert was shocked and balky. "Suh, I make good drinks. I got a order now for six planter's punches."
"Gilbert, I'll make the punches. Or they can wait. Those people have to get over here."
"I work de cash register, just like Thor. I handlin' de money good."
"I'm sure of that. This is just until we figure something out. Please go to the boat. Now, Gilbert." A cloud descended on Gilbert's face; his African lips pouted; his eyes became slitted and opaque. "Yazuh."
Paperman followed him through the lobby, not at all sure that he meant to obey. But he saw Gilbert saunter to the gondola and cast off.
Lorna at the desk was staring at Paperman, and giggling behind her palm most peculiarly. "Suh, Mistress Tramm she in de office."
"Oh, yes, of course." In the rush of events-this was easily getting to be the longest day of his life-he had forgotten Iris's offer to help.
She had several ledgers open on the two desks, and she was sorting out dining and bar checks of different sizes and colors. Big black glasses gave her a cool executive look. She was not alone. A bearded white youth, perhaps twenty-one or so, with a heavy shock of straight brown hair, stood slouching against the wall, his elbows clasped shyly behind him. He wore red bathing trunks and a faded blue sweatshirt with a flung-back cowl.
"Hi, we're doing big business today," Iris said. "I've got Thor's system figured out. It's good." She took off her glasses, looked somewhat startled at him, and then burst into silvery giggles. "My, my, well-anyway, this is Church Wagner. Church is an artist. There are some of his pictures. He wants to know if he can display them in the lobby. They're rather nice."
With a sheepish smile, Church showed oils and water colors: palms and the sea, tumble-down houses, dancing natives: mere bright vapid posters. Church himself, however, was a wonderfully handsome lad, with a lean rugged face softened by sensitive, almost girlish brown eyes.
"Is that what you do for a living?"
"Well, sir, I've been teaching painting at the high school. It sort of didn't work out, and so-I apologize for the way I look, sir, I just sailed over in my cat."
"Your what?"
"Catamaran, sir. That blue one, the two-hulled boat by your pier, with the blue-and-gold sails."
"Oh, Lovebird." Paperman had had to maneuver the gondola to avoid the odd craft.
"Yes, sir," said Church.
Paperman, reduced to clutching at straws, said, "Can you by any chance mix drinks?"
Church's poetic face broke into a beguiling grin. "Well, I worked my last year through college tending bar at parties."
"Want a job?"
"Gosh, yes."
"Right now?"
"Sir, I'll jump at it."
"Come with me."
He installed Church Wagner in the bar, showed him the bar and dining checks and the cash register, and stayed long enough to watch the lad start the planter's punches. "This is a well-equipped bar," Church said, happily pouring and stirring and rattling. "I'm not dressed very appropriately-"
"You look fine. Picturesque."
"Well, this is sure my lucky day. I was a little short of eating money, sir, to tell the truth."
"I'll talk to you about salary later. Meantime you can eat here."
"Sir, thank you. That's a real help."
"He's a boat fellow like Thor," Paperman said to Iris, returning to the office. "So he has a screw loose. We'll just have to wait and find out which screw. I can keep a close watch on how he handles money.
Meantime he's a lifesaver-what in the hell are you laughing at? What's Lorna been giggling at?"
"Look in the mirror," said Iris, compressing her mouth.
Paperman turned and regarded himself in the dirty little round mirror on the wall. He saw his face dust-streaked, sweat-beaded, sunburned, haggard, his gray hair hanging down, disheveled and dark with sweat, and crowning all the gondolier's hat with the red and gold ribbons.
He turned to Iris and flung his arms wide.
"O sole mio," he bawled, "O sole mio-"
Collapsing with laughter, Iris came and put her arms around him, and they harmonized.
Lorna looked into the open doorway, startled. With an understanding and salacious giggle, she backed away and closed the door.
5
Norman staggered off to the White Cottage for a bath and a nap, too "horossed" for lunch, or a swim, or even a beer. He had done far more running around and more heavy labor in one morning, all under high nervous tension, than he had believed he could do and survive. Yet his heart was behaving; or, if he had had palpitations and pains, he had been too busy to notice them. He thought he would pass out for hours, but a soak in a tub restored him. He drew the bath hot and full, with a defiant snort at the sign on the wall: Please don't waste water. Take brief showers. Afterward he felt so good that he couldn't sleep. He was anxious but buoyant, and very wide awake. He tossed, and tossed, and finally got up and dressed. It was useless. Something terrible might be going wrong up at the main house. That was where he belonged.
But everything was fine at the main house. Nothing had changed in forty minutes. Guests were frolicking or sunning on the beach. The bar was full of idle gossiping drinkers, and in the lobby elderly people were reading magazines or making talk. The tarpaulin swayed and bellied; behind it, silence. He slipped into the old dining room. The wall was gone, the rubbish swept away. A rectangular space like a huge picture window opened on the calm sea, the bright sky, and some promising thunderclouds.
If only it would rain! It was the terror of running out of water, he decided, that was eating his nerves. The thing was to learn the hard facts about the water system right now. He fetched Gilbert out of the gondola.
"Gilbert, Thor showed you all about the water, didn't he?" Gilbert regarded him with heavy, unhappy eyes. "I mean the valves, the cisterns, the pumps-you know. The water."
From below his diaphragm Gilbert brought up a growling ''Yazuh."
"Well, show me."
"Yazuh."
Gilbert trotted ahead of him to the main house, and through the lobby to the kitchen passageway. Norman heard Sheila trumpet, "What? Gilbert, you git on out of my kitchen. You just trouble, mon. Go on, git out."
Gilbert mumbled, "Mistuh Papuh he say show him."
"Yes I did, Sheila," Norman said, as bravely as he could. "We won't be long."
Driving the girls before her, talking disconnectedly at the top of her voice, the cook left.
The heat in the tiny kitchen was unbelievable; Paperman thought it must be a hundred and twenty degrees. A heavy fish odor jetted from a grumbling vat on the stove. Gilbert slipped an iron hook into a ring sunk in the wooden floor, and heaved; most of the floor came up; he took a flashlight from a shelf and shone it into the square black hole. "Dah," he said.
Paperman edged up to the hole, bent over, and peered in.
"Why, I can see water, quite a bit of it," he said in tones magnified by the resonance of the cistern. "How much is there? Do you have a gauge?"
Gilbert dropped a plumb line, and brought it up dripping. The line was dry except for the last foot and a half, which was soaked black.
"Well, with all that area," Norman said, "even that much must be thousands of gallons."
Gilbert pointed near the top of the wet part. "De pipe suck dah."
"You mean all the water below that goes to waste?" Gilbert nodded. "That's an idiotic way to build a cistern. I'll get Akers to move the pipe down."
Gilbert ran his finger down the cord. "Below is wha' de stuff settle."
"Stuff? What stuff?"
"Stuff offen de roof. Like leaves an' bird droppin's, an' mud, an' dead caterpillars, an' dead centipedes, an' dead tree toads an* spiders, an' a few field mice, an' like dat."
Since his arrival at Gull Reef, what with all his perspiring, N
orman had already drunk a large amount of this interesting water. He felt a strong wave of nausea, and backed hastily from the hole. It would hardly do to add vomit to the strange contents of the hotel's drinking water. He walked unsteadily out of the kitchen and leaned against a wall. Gilbert put the floor back over the cistern, and came out.
Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival Page 16
