by D R Sherman
He snatched up the speargun and rammed the mask down over his face. He moved up into the bow and then jumped into the sea, holding the mask tightly. In half an hour he speared three parrot wrasse and a large mottled grouper. He was very pleased about the vieille babone. It was about six pounds, and all Chinamen seemed to consider its flesh a delicacy.
He wondered how much the old robber at the store would give him for it. Perhaps three rupees, he thought, knocking the grouper off the harpoon and into the bottom of the boat. Thinking about it he began to shake his head.
I do not think he will give me more than two rupees, he thought, and if he is not in a good mood it might quite easily be as little as one-seventy-five or one-fifty. He decided that he would take nothing less than one-fifty for it.
But what if the Chinaman offered him only one rupee? He bridled at the idea, but calmed down quickly. It would still be enough to buy some real tobacco for his father and a little coffee and sugar. But then thinking about the rupee he began to get angry again. He shook his head stubbornly. It would be better to eat it than give it away.
He hauled in the anchor, coiling the rope down as it came in dripping wet and cold to his touch, and he continued with his dream about the money he was going to get for the grouper from the Chinaman at the store. If he did get one-fifty for it he could buy extra sugar and coffee and there would still be enough left over after buying them to get himself a handful of those large sticky sweets that were so stuck together they had to be dug out of the glass jar with a long knife.
He pressed his tongue up against his palate, and he could almost remember what it was like to suck the honeyed sweets. The memory of them was so real and vivid that he felt saliva collecting in his mouth. He smacked his tongue up and down once or twice, and through the bitter saltiness he imagined he tasted the sweetness of the big sugary balls.
He licked his lips, and that was when he remembered they had no rice, and that it would be better to spend the last of the money on something which both the man and himself could enjoy.
He heaved the anchor inboard, and as he lowered it into the boat he swore to himself about the rice. But there was no heat in the words under his breath, because it was a way of life and living which he understood, and he had long ago become resigned to it, even though it was difficult at times.
He rowed the pirogue shoreward till the water was shallow enough to use the pole. He shipped the oars after that and drove the boat straight for the line of the shore till it ran aground in the tidal water beyond the deep channel where he had been fishing. He shortened the rope on the anchor and then threw it out over the side.
He grubbed about in the bow of the boat, and he lifted out an old strip of palm fiber. He examined it with idle curiosity. Vacua, he thought, and he pictured the tree that looked like a sisal plant when it was still young and then changed out of all recognition when it matured. He tugged at the strip to test its soundness, and he nodded with satisfaction. It was far better than rope from the fiber of the coconut palm, which did not last long. He wondered how long it had lain there, this vacua in the bow of the pirogue.
He threaded the three wrasse together, passing the strip of fiber through the gill of each fish and then out through its mouth. He threaded the grouper to the string last of all. He picked up his speargun and the mask, and then the handline and the big killing harpoon. He jumped out of the boat and down onto the sand. He waded through the ankle-deep water, and he began to wonder again how much money he would get for the grouper.
If I do get more than one-fifty, he thought, then there will be sufficient to buy the rice and I will still have enough left over for some candy. He began to get the taste of them in his mouth once more.
He limped up the gently sloping beach. He kicked idly at a red starfish which the tide had left behind. It slid along the sand and came to rest with its yellowish-white underside facing up. He saw the blunt arms stretch, and then the tips, which had grown pointed, writhed and curled aimlessly in the air. He knew it would die there on the sand, and the next tide would wash it farther up along the beach.
He glanced up suddenly, wondering if the girl was anywhere in sight. He did not see her, and his mind busied itself once more with the delightful thought of the money he was going to get.
He reached the seawall. He jumped up on top of it, and then down on the other side. He walked through the grove of coconut palms, through the sunlight and the shade that lay spread below the dark green fronds. He turned to his left, heading in a direction that would take him out of the trees and onto the road right alongside the Chinaman’s shop.
He began to think of the candy again, and he wondered suddenly whether the dolphin might not also like them. He did not think so, because he had never heard of a fish eating candy. It was a pity, he thought, because he would have liked to have shared them. It was then that another idea fired his imagination.
I will save some candy for the girl, he told himself, and he began to hope that she would really come out in the pirogue with him tomorrow.
He walked on, thinking about the girl and the candy and the big fish who was his friend. His eyes were bright with the magic of his dreams. A flash of movement to the right caught his attention. He swung round quickly. He froze in his tracks as he saw Pierre Vigot step out from behind the trunk of a breadfruit tree fifteen yards away. He wanted to run, but his muscles had turned to mush, and he knew at the back of his mind that running would be a waste of time, because he could never outstrip the giant Creole, not with his leg the way it was.
Fear made a hard knot deep down inside his belly as the Creole advanced towards him. He wondered whether he had found out somehow about the tobacco, or whether he had been waiting for an opportunity to get his revenge and carry out the threat he had made yesterday, there on the side of the mountain. He felt terribly afraid, and in the blindness of his fear he mistook the expression of awe on the Creole’s face for one of cruel anticipation. He was on the point of turning and trying to make a run for it when he remembered the big killing harpoon he was carrying. It posed more of a threat than even the speargun.
He dropped the handline and the necklace of fish, and then he snatched the harpoon from his left hand and gripping it in his freed right hand three-quarters of the way down the shaft he drew his arm back and tensed himself to hurl it with all his might. He focused on a mark he made quickly with his eyes. Pierre Vigot was seven yards away, and the mark was in the middle of his chest.
“Stop!” the boy cried shrilly. “Stop or I will kill you!”
Pierre Vigot halted, but the expression on his face did not change. He gazed at the boy with the same trance-like stare, unmindful of the quivering harpoon that was aimed at him. He shook his head fretfully.
“No, Paul,” he said thickly. “I do not seek to do you harm.”
The boy lifted his eyes from the mark on which he had been concentrating and stared at the blunt-featured face. He scrutinized it objectively, and he realized with a sudden start of disbelief that the big Creole was himself dreadfully afraid. For a moment he thought it was the menace of the harpoon in his hand, but the fear he saw in the dark eyes was of more than the terror of death. He stared a while longer, not understanding it, and the harpoon wavered uncertainly. He lowered his arm hesitantly, but he remained on guard, alert and mistrustful.
Thinking about what he had been ready to do he felt a sudden blind panic. He knew without a doubt that, if it had been necessary, he would have killed Pierre Vigot. And if he had killed him, what then?
He pursued the inevitable sequence of events in his mind, and the conclusion he reached appalled him. Even the mountain forests would not hide him, and when the police hunted him down and caught him they would take him to Victoria and lock him up in the jail just outside the town and he would never again feel the movement of a pirogue beneath his feet or hear the singing sound of the sea slipping past its hull.
But then he remembered the big fish, and how he had ridden it through the
water, and he knew they would never catch him, because he would mount his beautiful fish and ride it right across the oceans and the sea to some other land far away. He felt the coldness leave his heart, but he was glad just the same that he had not killed the big Creole.
“What is it, Pierre Vigot?” he asked, and his voice was guttural with the choking relief that clogged his throat.
“I I saw you,” Pierre Vigot began in a whispering stammer, and his eyes rolled fearfully with the memory of what was in his mind. “In the beginning I could not believe what I had seen, and I thought that I was in a dream. But the dream did not go away, and that was when I realized that the truth of the matter lay in one of two directions. Either I am going mad, which is not what I think, or—” he crossed himself quickly, and his dark eyes rounded with awe “or you are the greatest sorcier I have heard of in all my life.”
His agitation and his words puzzled the boy, but he kept his face impassive. He knew now that Pierre Vigot was afraid of him for some reason or other, but he couldn’t even begin to guess what was behind his fear. He was alert enough to appreciate the advantage it gave him, though, and he did not intend to lose it through any inadvertent admission which might reveal his own ignorance and arouse the other’s suspicions.
“It was nothing,” he said calmly, infusing the words with what he hoped was just the right amount of arrogance.
Pierre Vigot nodded with a ready servility. “It was a shark, was it not, Paul?” he asked reverently.
The boy had no idea what he was talking about. His mind raced frantically as he tried in vain to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. But none of it made sense, and he knew it would be dangerous to hesitate much longer.
“Yes!” he declared firmly. “It was a shark.”
“I thought it was,” Pierre Vigot said quickly. “I did not believe what my eyes told me at first, but when I gave it my attention I recognized you, and I knew it was a shark upon whose back you were riding.”
In a sudden burst of comprehension the boy understood exactly what the big Creole was talking about. He wanted to laugh, but he kept his face grave.
So my fish is now a shark, he thought. Very well, he told himself, if it is to be a shark, then it will be a shark.
“What kind of requin was it, Paul?” Pierre Vigot went on deferentially.
“A tiger shark!” the boy replied without hesitation, naming the most ferocious of the species with which he was acquainted.
“Mon Dieu!” Pierre Vigot breathed fearfully. “How is it that anyone can tame such a whore of the sea?”
“I did not tame it,” the boy replied smoothly, and then with the sudden inspiration that had come to him he went on and embroidered the tale. “I put my spirit into the requin, and at the same time I made the demon within the shark enter my own body.” He lifted his head haughtily. “It is easy to ride on the back of a shark when such an exchange has been made.”
He watched the big Creole covertly, trying to assess the effect of his fabrication. He saw him start nervously, and it was only with a great effort of will that he prevented himself from bursting into laughter.
Pierre Vigot blanched. He felt a violent trembling take hold of his great body and shake it as if there were no substance or strength to his flesh and bones. Over two hundred years ago his ancestors had first landed on the island, fettered with the chains of slavery. They were a black-skinned people, and they came from a land he had heard about but never seen, and the name of the land was Africa. They had brought with them their own beliefs and superstitions, and even now, two centuries later, with a thousand miles of water separating them from the dark forests and great plains of their native land, the children of those long-dead slaves believed and feared them.
Pierre Vigot shuddered again. He recalled the tales of his childhood, and then he remembered the old sorcier who lived up in the mountains near Cascade, and how he could kill a man or cause him to vanish from the face of the earth by taking the sand on which a single foot had printed its mark and mixing it with the magic of his evil heart. He had heard of this, and many other things, but he had never in all his life heard of one who could enter into the body of the fiercest of all the creatures in the sea. He stared fearfully at the boy, and he believed him and every word of the story he had told. He glanced at the crippled leg and shivered. That too was a part of the spell: the devil worked hand in hand with the maimed and deformed.
“I —I beg of you, Paul,” he cried in anguish. “I beg that you forget the words I spoke in fear and anger yesterday.”
The boy stared contemplatively at Pierre Vigot for a moment, and then he swung his gaze away and assumed what he thought was an expression of thoughtful deliberation. He felt the anxious eyes of the Creole on him. He held the suspense a little longer, and then he turned suddenly to face him once again. He remained silent for a while, watching the other’s mounting agitation.
“I will think about it,” he said at length.
“Merci, mon Paul, merci,” Pierre Vigot whimpered ingratiatingly.
The boy scowled. It was the only way he could ease the aching tension of the muscles which were threatening to rip his face apart in laughter. He stooped quickly, and transferring the harpoon to his left hand he reached for the hand-line and the necklace of fish.
Pierre Vigot hurried forward. “Let me carry the fish and the line for you,” he said.
The boy looked up at him, from where he was, half-bent towards the ground. He saw the other’s desperate anxiety to please. The idea appealed to him for a moment, to take his revenge and sanction this final abasement, but the cringing subservience in the dark eyes only made him sick at heart. He shook his head quickly and scooped up the coiled hand-line and the fish that were strung together on the strip of vacua.
“No thank you,” he said stiffly. “I will carry them myself.” “Is there nothing I can do for you?” Pierre Vigot went on shamelessly.
His obsequiousness embarrassed and discomforted the boy. “Perhaps some tabac now and then for my father,” he said brusquely, inviting it only out of compassion.
Immediately the words were out of his mouth he began to wish that he had not spoken. It was not only an admission of their poverty, but more, if Pierre Vigot gave him tobacco, it meant that he would never again have the pleasure and satisfaction of knowing that he had managed to steal it without being apprehended.
“I will go for it now,” Pierre Vigot said quickly. “I have some fine leaves which are ripe enough and dry enough to smoke, and I will bring you the best of them.”
“No!” the boy said sharply, and he felt a deep distress at the Creole’s overt obsequiousness, because in a way he was responsible for his debasement. “I bought some yesterday, and there is enough tobacco in the house.”
It shattered Pierre Vigot, but then he brightened a little. “Some other day then?” he offered. “When he has finished the tabac he has now.”
“I will let you know,” the boy said, and he turned and began to limp towards the road.
“Adieu, M’sieur Paul,” Pierre Vigot called after him. “Adieu, Pierre Vigot,” the boy said.
He walked on without looking back, and he began to feel ashamed of himself, for what he had done to the big stupid Creole. He shook his head suddenly, angrily, and he pushed the thought right out of his mind. It had nothing to do with him, and it was certainly not his fault that Pierre Vigot was a superstitious fool. But his melancholy lingered, because it was always a saddening thing to see the strength and the pride of another man diminished. Only when he saw the Chinaman’s store did he forget about the big Creole and his depreciating behavior.
The boy lengthened his stride, and he began to think about the sweets again. A chicken squawked and fled from his path in a quick beating flurry of wings, and a fat sow snorted in alarm and bolted into the trees with her squealing brood jostling each other behind her. He reached the road and turned left, and as he walked onto the beaten earth under the porch of the small store he wondered
whether he would find the Chinaman in a generous mood.
A LIGHT rain fell steadily throughout the night, and then a little while before dawn the skies cleared suddenly. Though the boy had not witnessed it, he knew it must have been so. He limped down the side of the mountain, and he felt the dampness of the earth under his bare feet and in between his toes. He glanced away to the southeast, searching the blue horizon for a sign of the dark clouds which usually swept in with the monsoon wind. But the sky was clear, and he thought that the sun might shine for him all day.
The rain had cleared the air, and he breathed in deeply. He liked the smell of it, especially after it had rained, because each time he breathed in he could taste the wet richness of the earth and the sweet green strength of the trees.
In his right hand he carried the speargun and his mask, in his left hand the heavy killing harpoon. He had not wanted to bring it, but his father had told him to take it just in case the need for it arose. He knew it could serve no useful purpose, not the way he was fishing: there was another reason for it, and though the man had said nothing, he could guess what had been in his mind.
In the right-hand pocket of his shorts there was a brown paper bag with four large pieces of candy inside it, and as he walked he was conscious of the bulge against his thigh. But he drew no comfort from it, and this morning as he made his way down the side of the mountain there was a heaviness in his heart which neither the bright freshness of the new day nor the sight of the calm blue sea which stretched away below him to the far horizon could dispel.
He had spoken to his father yesterday. He had told him about the big fish, and how it had come in answer to his call, and then he told him of how he had ridden on its back and turned it in the water. He told him about the girl with the beautiful long hair that was a little darker than the color of the sand. He left her behind, and he rode his big fish out to sea where the pirogue was anchored in the channel. She called out to him before he had gone very far though, and she asked him to take her fishing the next day. He knew it was the marsouin, really, that made her want to come with him. But it was his fish, and if she liked the fish she might get to like him also. He was shy about telling it, but it was important to him, and he wanted his father to understand and share the happiness that was in his heart.
