by D R Sherman
“It is gone,” he said quietly.
“Call it!” the girl cried out. “Call it back again.”
The boy shook his head. “He has gone for today. I will not see him again until tomorrow.”
“But why?”
“I do not know,” the boy answered. “But it is his way.” “Try to call him!” the girl pleaded.
“It would be a waste of my time,” the boy said.
He moved into the bow and began hauling in the anchor. He lifted it into the boat, and he felt the effort stretch the muscles in his back. He sat down on the fore thwart and motioned her to be seated. He got the oars out and began pulling for the shore. He checked his direction once and then he bowed his head and rowed on in silence. He realized dully that there were no fish to take home, but somehow it did not seem to matter.
The girl sensed the sadness of his mood. “Will you be coming to play with him tomorrow?” she asked hesitantly. “Yes.”
“Will you take me?”
“If you want to come.”
The girl was silent again for a while. “You told me that he saved your life,” she said at length.
“Yes, he did.”
“Tell me.”
“I was spearing, and there was this requin which came and began to circle me in the water.” He stared at her apathetically, without really seeing her, and there was a look of blindness in his eyes. “He was closing with me when from the deep water on the other side of the reef Marsouin came in and struck him like a harpoon with the beak of his head.”
“He killed the requin?” the girl asked incredulously.
“No,” the boy said, “he only drove him away, but it is sure that he saved my life, and that is why I think he loves me as he does.”
He spoke without thinking, but then he thought about it and he was surprised at what he had said. But he knew it was the truth, even though it was too obscure for him.
“But that is foolish, Paul,” the girl protested. “Surely it is the other way around? It is you who love him because he saved your life.”
“That is true,” the boy said, and then he looked up at her suddenly, searching for the words to give meaning to the thoughts in his mind. He struggled with it a little longer, his mouth working, and then it came to him.
“What you have said is true,” the boy went on. “But he loves me because he knows that I have recognized with my own love the act by which he saved my life. It is a very great thing,” he finished simply.
He still did not understand it very well, but he knew with an unshakable conviction that it was so. He shipped his oars and stood up, and then he picked up the bamboo pole and moved past her into the stern of the pirogue. As he stepped over the thwart he saw that the girl was staring at him with a strange, bewildered expression on her face. He shrugged mentally: he knew she did not understand, but it did not really matter.
He ran the pirogue aground. He shortened the anchor rope and threw the heavy stone out as far as he could. It landed with a splash in the shallow water, burying itself halfway into the sand.
He picked up his speargun and his mask, and after that he picked up the harpoon and jumped down out of the boat. He started off without a word or a backward glance, splashing through the ankle-deep water. The girl stared after him for a moment, a faintly puzzled expression on her face, and then she scrambled out of the pirogue and hurried to catch up with him.
“Is something the matter, Paul?” she asked.
“No,” the boy said shortly. He did not look at her.
“Is it something I have said or done which makes you angry?” she went on.
“No it is just the way I feel.”
“How do you feel?”
The boy shrugged and remained silent. He could not explain it to himself, so it would be pointless in trying to tell her about it. He splashed through the last of the shallow water and continued up the sloping beach. The girl paced beside him, watching him covertly. It was a mystery to her, this shell into which he had withdrawn, and it made her feel uneasy.
“Come home with me,” she said suddenly, “and I will show you my speargun.”
The boy halted abruptly. He studied her, and he was wary, because he did not believe that she had meant it. Straightaway he perceived her sincerity. His eyes came alive, sparkling with excitement. He wanted to see this wonderful gun which she owned, and hold it in his hands. Suddenly he became conscious of the way he was standing, with his weight on his left foot and his body thrust awkwardly to one side. The life in his eyes went out, and he turned away from her, shaking his head.
“I must go,” he said quickly. “I have work to do.”
“Will I bring it tomorrow?” the girl inquired anxiously. “And the flipper feet, should I bring those also?”
“If you want to,” the boy replied, and he started up the beach again.
“I will wait for you tomorrow, Paul,” the girl called after him.
“All right,” he said dully, and he limped on up the beach towards the low seawall, very conscious of the hard unyielding nature of the land.
The girl watched him in silence. She turned away after a while, but the retina of her mind held the picture of his funny limping walk. She felt a sudden tightness in her throat, and she wished she had not called him jambe dopante before.
SHE went out with him every day for the next five days. She no longer walked up and down across the lawn between the front of the house and the seawall, and she did not pretend to herself that it made no difference whether or not he came. She waited for him openly and anxiously, and she did not care about his knowing that she was waiting.
She sat on the wall now, the seventh morning she had waited for him. She sat astride the wall, her speargun and the mask and the flippers all ready on the ground beside her. She stared intently at the line of trees which swept right down to the edge of the beach, and she was oblivious to everything else as she kept her vigil. The grass on the lawn was soft and springy, and she did not hear her mother’s light-footed approach.
“Danielle—” the woman said softly.
The girl spun round, startled. “Ohh—it is only you,” she said with relief.
The woman laughed. “Only me?”
“You startled me,” the girl explained quickly. “And then I find it is only my maman, and of course I have nothing to be startled about.”
The brief smile she gave the woman was full of a sudden warmth and gratitude, and then she turned and once again took up her unblinking vigil.
“You are going again with Paul to fish with him and play with his dolphin?” the woman asked.
“Yes.”
The woman studied the beautiful profile of her daughter’s face. She bit nervously at her lip, wondering how to begin and say the things she had in her mind. It was all so difficult, especially after what she had said that first day when she heard her daughter calling the boy limpleg. For a moment she was tempted to make some innocent remark and hurry back inside the house. Her earlier determination faltered, but she forced herself to stand where she was. It was a thing which had to be done, and the knowledge that it was necessary brought her fresh strength and courage.
“Danielle,” she began hesitantly, “do you think it is a good thing to go out with Paul so often?”
“Oh yes!” the girl replied enthusiastically, missing the tone of censure and apprehension in her mother’s voice. “It is wonderful to be with him and play with his fish. Only yesterday I rode on him farther than I have ever ridden before. I think that today he might allow me to ride like Paul.”
She spoke quickly, and she kept her eyes fixed on the line of green trees where they came down to the edge of the shining beach that glared whitely in the morning sun.
The woman drew a quick, shivery breath, and she felt sick at the thought of what she was going to say. Her heart was beating painfully, and the noise of it was so loud in her ears that she was sure her daughter would hear the pounding thunder of its beat and turn to face her in ques
tioning amazement. She waited tensely a while longer, expecting it to happen at any moment. But the girl continued to stare at the line of trees, and the woman woke from her trance and smiled inside herself at the foolishness of her thoughts. She took another deep breath, and it steadied her a little.
“I do not think you should go out with Paul again,” she said.
For a moment the girl appeared not to have heard, but then she turned slowly towards her mother, a look of shock and astonishment spreading across her face.
“I have heard you, Maman,” she said quietly. “But I cannot believe that I have heard you correctly.”
The woman squirmed wretchedly, but she clenched her hands and stilled the trembling inside her. She looked away, unable to bear the expression on her daughter’s face.
“I will repeat it so that you may believe what I have said,” she told the girl. “I do not think you should go out with Paul again.”
“Do you mean from today?”
The woman hesitated, and she weakened. “Perhaps not today, but after today.”
“I understand,” the girl said stiffly, but the woman could see that she did not understand it at all.
“It is my wish, Danielle,” she said.
“Is it that his clothes have now become too old even for you?” the girl asked, and there was a terrible hushed stillness in her voice.
“No, Danielle,” the woman said quickly, and deep pain came alive in her eyes. “You know it is not that, and also that it could never be such a thing.”
“what is it, then?”
“You are seeing too much of him,” the woman said. “And it is not a good thing.”
“Are you afraid that I am beginning to like him too much?” the girl asked, and a note of curiosity crept into the stiff formality of her voice.
“Perhaps it is something like that,” the woman said uncomfortably.
“And is that a bad thing?” the girl challenged fiercely. “Have you not told me that he is a good boy, and that his poverty is not the measure by which to judge him?”
“It is not that,” the woman said, anger sharpening her voice. “I have my reasons.”
“What are they?”
“You are no longer a child, Danielle,” the woman said stiffly, and her eyes touched briefly on the swelling buds of her daughter’s breasts. “I have watched you these last few days, and this is no longer the affair of children.”
The girl glanced towards the line of palms which came down to the edge of the beach. She saw the boy climbing up onto the seawall. He stood poised for a moment, and then he jumped down and turned to stare in her direction, his face lifted up so that the light shone on it. She slipped off the wall and gathered up her equipment. She turned to her mother, and her face was cold and closed.
“I would never have thought it of you, Maman,” she whispered, and the words were full of her own pain and bewilderment. “And if those are your reasons, then I will not do as you ask me.”
“I will tell your father,” the woman threatened, but there was no conviction in her voice.
The girl understood this, and for a moment she felt a hurting compassion for her mother. “He would only listen to me, Maman,” she said softly, and then she turned and ran past the woman and down the steps which led to the beach.
The woman stared after her. There was a look of desolation on her face. But behind it all was her shame, because of the things which she had been forced to say.
The boy waited for the girl. He watched her running approach, but he did not see her really, because he was looking inward on all the troubled thoughts that were there in his mind. He had told his father about the big fish each day, and about the girl, and each time he told him about it all he saw was the bitter sadness in him growing. He did not say anything, but it was there, and the boy knew he was thinking of the big killing harpoon and the dolphin all in the same thought. He felt the distress of his father as his own pain, but there was nothing that he could do about it.
He could not kill the dolphin. It was his friend, and it had given him his life, and he was afraid that the girl would no longer want to go out fishing with him if he did not have a dolphin. The thought terrified him.
The girl came panting to a stop beside him. “Come quickly, Paul,” she gasped. “Let us be gone in the boat.”
She started down the beach, and he fell into step beside her. There was a look of tension and strain on her face, and in his concern for her he forgot about his own troubles.
“Something is the matter?” he inquired gently.
The girl shook her head emphatically. The boy studied her a moment longer and then shrugged abruptly. He knew that something was worrying her. It was her business though, and if she did not want to tell him about it, that was also her business. When the time came, if it ever did, he would be ready to listen.
He took the pirogue out to sea in silence. Neither of them spoke. He anchored in five fathoms of water. She did not want to spear, so he took her gun, and because it hit harder and shot farther he did his work quickly and more easily. He also used her flippers. In twenty minutes he speared eight fish. He thought it was enough, and he was impatient to be with the dolphin again. He handed her the gun and then scrambled into the boat, coming in over the stern. He pulled the mask off his head and laid it down on the planking, and then he worked the flippers off his feet. He stood up, brushing the water off his face.
He called to his fish, but it did not come. He called again and again till there was no breath or strength left in his body and then in his desperation he picked up one of the oars and beat it down in the water till the last of his strength was gone. When the fish still did not come he knew then that it would not be coming to play with him. He did not believe for one moment that it would never come again, but he knew it would definitely not be coming today. He did not question its right to do what it pleased, but at the same time he felt an acute disappointment. He turned slowly to the girl.
“He will not come this morning, and he will not come today,” the boy said. He swept his glance briefly across the still surface of the sea once more. “I think it must be that he has been far out in the night on some important matters of his own, and he is still far out at sea and too far away to swim back in time for us to play with him.”
“Perhaps he will come in the afternoon if we wait for him,” the girl said hopefully.
The boy shook his head doubtfully. “I do not think so.” “Why?”
“It is his way,” the boy said, and though there was the same hope in him he knew that it was only a wishful dream. He moved into the bow and began hauling in the anchor.
“Where are we going?” the girl cried, and there was alarm in her voice.
“Back,” the boy grunted off the wall and gathered up her equipment. She turned to her mother, and her face was cold and closed.
“Oh no, Paul!” the girl pleaded. “Let us do some fishing for a while.”
“You did not want to spear before,” he pointed out. “But I want to now,” the girl protested.
The boy glanced at her across his shoulder. He said nothing, but his face broke into a grin. He pulled the last of the rope in and then swung the anchor into the boat. He straightened up and turned to face her, and the grin was still on his face.
“So you want to now?” he said.
“Yes.”
“And you will be hoping all the time that Marsouin will come, eh?”
The girl’s eyes widened, and then she smiled shyly. “Yes, that is what I will be hoping.”
The boy shrugged. “He will not come, but I will let you have your hope. It is good to hope while it lasts.”
He sat down on the bow thwart and got the oars into the water. He turned the pirogue so that the bow was once more pointing out to sea and then he turned it a little more so that the high prow was lined up with the far side of Ile aux Cerf. He noticed the girl’s puzzled expression.
“We will anchor on the other side of the island,” he exp
lained. “The water is less deep, and there is plenty of kelp and staghorn coral. I think the fish will be less wary over there, and in any case it is a beautiful sea under which to swim.”
She nodded, and he saw the apprehension leave her face. He settled down to his rowing, and five minutes later he backed water and shipped the oars. He threw the anchor out, and the stone disappeared among the waving stalks of kelp and moss two and a half fathoms down. The boulder-strewn beach of Cerf Island was fifty yards to their left, and past the jutting end of the island and a little farther out to sea the waves broke gently and whitely over the black teeth of the reef which reached up hungrily above the surface of the water.
“Would you like to use the flippers again?” the girl asked.
The boy shook his head. “I swim better than you do,” he said simply.
Resentment flared in the girl, but it did not last. “You are right,” she said. “Without the flipper feet I would not be able to keep up with you, and even with them I will have to swim hard.”
The admission did not anger her as it would have done in the past: she felt grateful only that it was possible for her to make such an admission to him.
They went into the water together, and for half an hour they explored the strangeness of the world through which they moved in silence. They shot only three fish, and the boy got all of them. Most of the time they swam side by side, turning frequently to glance at each other, and when their eyes met they smiled. And sometimes the almost human expressions on the faces of the small fish made them thrash out for the surface where they spluttered and laughed, half drowning as they fought to keep their heads above the water while they gasped for breath.
