by Ferenc Máté
“They set sail before dawn. By the next day, all the priests were dead. Their bodies were kept aboard for days until they were well clear of the coast. The sail to the Tuamotus is normally easy with the trades, but the big schooner, overloaded and short-handed, struggled, and the four grew exhausted and failed to watch the currents that carried them into the doldrums. They drifted there for weeks and ran out of water. One man became so deranged they had to kill him.
“A storm finally brought rain but it also blew them onto a reef near Raraka. They hauled the treasure from the wreck for nights on end, and rowed it, nearly a half mile to the pool. A lone Chinaman lived on the island diving for pearls. They got him to hide the gold in the underwater cave. Then killed him. During the next storm, they burned the ship to leave no trace. They sailed their skiff and some gold to Tahiti to buy a schooner, but there were none for sale, so they booked passage to Australia to find one. Within days two of them were killed in a drunken brawl. Killorain went to jail for twenty years for manslaughter. He emerged a tramp. I met him a few weeks before he died.”
The wind eased; the ocean smoothed. The sky was blue and cloudless all around, and the ketch seemed to glide atop a blue sphere in clear space.
“Gold.” Guillaume sighed. “Fourteen cursed tons, mon capitaine. All yours.” “And you?” Dugger asked from the helm.
Guillaume smiled. “Me? I’ll be happy with a small pourboire. A tip.” When they all looked skeptically at him, he added, smiling, “I will celebrate my fifty-third birthday next month. At a certain time in life, things such as gold seem, how you say? Silly.”
“But it does buy a roof over your head.”
“Oh, I have a small roof in the Jura. With two rows of vines, even a pond for geese for fois gras and six plum trees for eau-de-vie. And I have a pension when I retire.”
“From cooking?”
“No, Capitaine,” Guillaume said firmly. And he took a deep breath before he added, “From being a spy.”
As if a sudden gust of wind had weather-cocked their heads, they gazed at him, amazed. First Dugger, then Nello, then Kate, imperceptibly drew in arms and legs, as if leaving them extended would reveal things best kept hidden. Only Darina stared at Guillaume with a spiteful gaze.
Guillaume noticed her malice. He straightened up, offended. “I imagine being a spy is a bit like being a nun,” he said. “No one knows who we are, what we think, what we want.”
Dugger felt a strange unease run through him.
“Was it you who tried to start the revolution in Mexico?” he asked.
“The poor people of Mexico, especially the natives, needed a helping hand. France is on the side of the oppressed,” Guillaume said without apology.
Dugger remembered the lieutenant but said nothing.
“Especially if it might give them a stepping-stone to French Polynesia,” Nello said.
“Are you planning to start a revolution in Tahiti?” Kate inquired.
“No, madame. This time I’m hoping to stop one.” Then he added, “I’m hoping to find the man who is.”
Darina turned away, as if she had suddenly found something to hide.
THE TRADE WINDS were steady now, with whitecaps night and day. Rare gusts blew salt spray across the bow and cabin, and it dried to shiny crystals on the varnish and the sails.
“So, tell me, Guillaume.” Nello smiled, as they sat after dinner in the cockpit, Nello steering, Darina washing up, Guillaume smoking a short, thin cigar. “In Tahiti, is it the rich French colonialists rising up against the oppressed poor?”
“We are not colonialists, Monsieur,” Guillaume replied, offended. “At least I hope not. The French have never been like the English or the Spanish—we have no desire to ‘rule the waves,’ or to exterminate les indigènes, or put them in open prisons that they euphemistically call ‘reservations.’ We try to insert ourselves into the existing culture, to learn from it; learn their customs, how to cook, how to dance. It is true that we try to bring peace among warring tribes. The Tahitians—the Marquesans even more so—have been forever at war. And not just island against island but village against village, valley against valley.”
“It is a harsh and brutal land, islands of old volcanoes eroded into canyons, with isolated tribes. When the harvest is poor and food in short supply . . . All we want is for them to live in peace.”
“As long as they live the French way, right?”
“Whatever way they choose, but without the wars, without the cannibalism, without the infanticide.”
“And without their dances?” Darina looked up at him from the aft deck. “My brother wrote that you even outlawed their feasts and dances.”
“Ma chère soeur, it was not the French government that forbade them to dance, but your Catholic Church. And you would sympathize if you had seen the dances. They start out so beautifully, romantically. But as the night wears on, they become—and I don’t say this disparagingly—savage. Their wild nature overcomes them. The whole tribe. Women have been known to die from the ecstasy. And I don’t mean le petit mort, I mean le mort finale. Sorry to be so frank, Sister. I’m sure this kind of physicality is not something you . . .”
Guillaume watched her blush deeply. She clasped her hands. He looked at them for the first time: they were not the pale, limp, soft hands of a nun. Between the thumb and forefinger the muscle bulged round, as did the heel of her hand. The knuckles were large, worked; the hands creased, the fingernails worn. And underneath the thin shirt he saw strength in her arms.
You do know physicality, Guillaume thought. About flesh and bone. Maybe you would understand the way they danced, in the firelit steamy night. Their wild smiling eyes. The sweat running down naked limbs, their chests. Their flowing movements; then their violent movements. Exuberant, uncontrollable joy. Your God must look with pride at the bodies he had created. So perfect. So perfect for that moment which he made them for: for the power and the beauty. Not to bend or kneel in limp supplication, but to dance. To dance with utter abandon, under the moon, the stars, to the rhythm of the drums, the roar of the waves; up to that supreme moment, that fleeting, everlasting moment of ecstasy. The ecstasy.
Chapter 12
The last trace of light drained out of the sky and the ketch sailed suspended in an enormous darkness. Kate was at the helm softly humming, then she fell silent and there was only the sound of the stern wake folding behind them like a sigh.
Darina sat near her in the cockpit, wrapped in her blanket, with eyes open wide staring at the stars. She was afraid to go below and sleep, for now, when she closed her eyes, Maeve Flynn’s mother stood before her, holding out her arms. “Go away,” Darina whispered to the darkness.
She and her brother had turned fifteen that day, more than a year after Maeve Flynn drowned. She was running home on the path with a stringful of shiners from the harbor when Maeve Flynn’s mother stepped out of her little yard. She held out a flimsy package wrapped in brown paper. “It’s Maeve’s favorite dress,” she said. “I bought it for her on her fifteenth birthday.” She had taken extra work combing wool on the mainland to afford it. Maeve had no father. Some people said he had been lost at sea, others said he was lost in a pub in Galway, but they all said it was his blood that made Maeve so wild.
The mother held out the package: “It will fit you now, now that you’ve filled out. How nice you’ll look. You’ll add color to the island. And what a joy it will be to see you bounding up the hill.”
She was afraid to tell anyone at first. Their father said never to accept anything. “Every man must look after his own,” he said. Not that anyone on that poor island had anything to spare. Maybe he had said it because he had nothing to give.
The first summer storm blew all through the night. She couldn’t sleep. She heard her brother get up at first light, heard him pick up his boots, walk in his bare feet, and softly shut the door. She just lay there. You can’t do it, she told herself. You just can’t. But she rose and watched him walk over the hill.
Then she slipped off her nightgown and pulled the package from under the bed.
She put on Maeve’s red dress; it clung to her every curve. She looked in the mirror while tying her hair to one side, like Maeve. Then she softly shut the door and went out into the dawn. “Such a pretty dress,” she mumbled.
Kate glanced back. “Pardon?”
Darina shook herself from reverie. “Just remembering,” she blurted. To avoid being asked more, she added quickly, “Where did you wear your first nice dress?”
“In church,” Kate said, surprised at the sudden memory, “walking with my father, with everyone looking at me. I was wearing a long white dress, holding flowers.”
“Your wedding?”
Kate hesitated. She could only see isolated faces and the slanting light. “I don’t know . . .” she said finally. “I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember your wedding?”
Kate concentrated on keeping the ketch on course. “No,” she said, “I can’t remember very much beyond the past four weeks.”
Darina wasn’t sure she had heard right. “What do you mean you can’t remember?” she said.
“Not clearly. My oldest whole memory is one night, four weeks ago now.” She gazed at the compass as if at a crystal ball. “We fled from a snowy village in a cove. Dugger, Nello, and I. There were big mountains, a full moon, tall trees, deep snow. And terrifying carvings of beasts. But I can’t remember things clearly before that. Just pieces. I only know my name because Dugger kept saying it.”
Darina looked away in confusion. Mother of God, she thought. How can this be? All my life I have been trying to forget. Pretend things never happened. With hard work, and prayer, and Sister Claire’s help, I nearly managed. Inside the Magdalenes’ walls, it was easy. Everything was in order like the beads of a rosary. But out here, on this ocean . . . in this darkness . . . if only the dawn would come. Hail Mary, blessed be thy name . . . And she instead, poor child, blessed with no memory. When she turned back, Kate was staring at her.
“It’s not so bad, really,” Kate assured her.
“Amnesia,” Darina blurted. “Did you hit your head? Or have some kind of shock? Sometimes it comes when you are trying to forget.”
Kate stared at the faint glow of the candle flame flickering in the binnacle. “Sometimes I get a glimpse,” she whispered.
“Can’t Dugger tell you what happened?”
Kate hesitated. “He doesn’t know how bad it is. I don’t want him to worry. He worries enough about everything already.”
Darina moved her fingers along the stitching of the blanket’s hem as if over a rosary.
“Here,” Kate said. “Let’s have some liquid courage.” She held out the flask Nello had left her. Darina took a sip, then gave it back.
“To your health,” Kate said, and took a long draught.
“And yours.”
Down below, the ship’s bell struck eight times. The watch had ended.
The moonglow spread above the eastern horizon as if the dark of night had begun cautiously to bloom.
Chapter 13
The trade winds strengthened throughout the dawn and there were whitecaps when the sun scorched the circle of the sea. The companionway hatch slid open, the smell of fried bacon filled the salty air, and Dugger climbed up, squinting into the searing light. He looked around the vast emptiness as if there could possibly be something new to see, walked without a word past Nello at the wheel, lowered the canvas bucket over the side, and scooped the top off a wave. Awkwardly, with one arm, he pulled the bucket onto the deck, washed his face and neck, hung the bucket back in its place, then, staring with yearning far ahead, he came and sat down beside Nello.
“You’re a half hour early for your watch,” Nello said.
“Too many people down there,” Dugger muttered.
“We could throw some overboard.”
“Should have done that in Mexico. You want me to steer?”
“No. But you could stop grumbling.” He was gauging the latitude of the rising sun. “We’ll cross ten degrees north by noon,” he said. “That’s nearly two hundred miles a day. Not bad for ship with a one-armed captain, eh, Cappy?”
“Wonderful,” Dugger said.
In the white haze that masked the curve of the horizon, a short black line drifted north into the sun.
“Did you see it?” Nello said, his voice full of excitement.
“Oh, good,” Dugger said, blocking the sun with his hand. “More company.”
“Come on, Cappy. A month is a long time on this raft. There’s nothing wrong with fresh faces.”
“You really like her, don’t you?” Dugger said.
“Who?”
“The death mask with blue eyes.”
“She’s a nun,” Nello said.
“Like no nun I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s still coming,” Nello said, fixing his gaze on the horizon.
The dark curve showed clearly now, rising, falling, thickening in the sky. It dropped at great speed until it nearly touched the water, then as it neared the ship it banked sharply north, its drooping wings stretching across the sun.
“It is beautiful,” Dugger murmured.
“We’re a blessed ship, Cappy,” Nello said. Then he slipped open the hatch and called below, “Ladies and gentleman, we have an albatross.”
KATE’S TOUSLED HEAD was first out of the hatch, followed by Darina, with dark shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep, and a moment later Guillaume, excited, holding in each hand a gutted flying fish.
The albatross reached the top of its rise, then, dropping its head, came downwind at speed. Its enormous black wings, as wide as the stern, drooped in a curve from its white body, and swept gently upward at the tips. Its long, gull-like beak yellowed in the sun, and its dark, knowing eyes seemed to glance with calm amusement over the ketch and crew.
Darina murmured, “They say it’s a lost soul.”
Guillaume raised the flying fish so they glittered in the sunlight, then he threw them in an arc behind the ship. The albatross let them fall, then plucked them from the sea.
“We must already be at ten degrees north,” Nello said. “There’s an island east of us.”
“Will we see it?” Kate asked anxiously.
“It’s more than five hundred miles away,” Nello said.
“Good God. How can it fly so far?”
“It doesn’t fly,” Nello said. “It glides. Watch. It rarely flaps its wings.”
Guillaume waited until he was sure Nello would say no more then he politely added. “Their wings lock, I believe. Isn’t that so, Mr. Nello?”
“I didn’t know that,” Nello said.
“There is a sheet of tendon,” Guillaume went on, “that locks their shoulders with the wings extended so they remain outstretched without using a muscle. In fact its heartrate is no more in flight than at rest. See how it catches the vertical air off the face of a wave, then it glides to the next one? For every foot of height, it can glide twenty feet. Sort of sails on the wind. Like us.”
“Just more quiet,” Dugger said.
“And less grumpy,” Nello said.
AFTER THE ALBATROSS ARRIVED, life changed on the ketch.
They all moved about less, spent time watching the bird as it followed, watched it soar in gusts, then dive deep and come up with small squid, or come close in when Guillaume waved his hands full of galley scraps. And they spoke less, searching the sky silently when the bird glided away, and breathing sighs of relief when, an hour later, it returned.
Watching the bird, they began watching the sea and sky: the movement of clouds, their changing colors of pinks and grays and whites, the narrow curtain of rain falling far away slanted by the wind, the way the waves curled, then broke, the way their long, smooth backs flowed like liquid silk.
And that night they began at length to watch the stars.
DARINA HAD GONE BELOW at four bells, shut the door of her small cabin, and, without lighting the
lantern, sat on her berth with her feet flat on the floor. Then she closed her eyes and prayed. Watching the bird, she had missed her prayers at vespers, so first she begged for God’s forgiveness, then said the Lord’s Prayer, but said it all by rote, not hearing a single word until “Forever and ever. Amen.”
When she opened her eyes, the moonlight was dancing on the bulkhead through the port light. She went to the small mirror bolted to the bulkhead. With no mirrors in the convent, she had to steal a glance in the shop windows in Galway on those days before Christmas when the Magdalane Penitents took their yearly outing. But those were fleeting glances and all she ever saw were her big cheeks reddened by the cold.
Now she looked pale and ghastly in the moonlight. With her high forehead, jutting cheekbones, and the moonlight leaving dark shadows in the hollows, if she had no eyes and lips, she could have passed for a skull. She ran her hand over her shorn hair. It was growing out; felt silky to the touch. She had been used to her bristly shaven head. She rubbed her cheeks softly until she gained a blush. You look almost alive, she thought.
She clasped her hands and mumbled a childlike rhyme that she’d first heard Sister Claire say alone in the chapel behind the Ortus Conclusus, the walled garden near the pond. It was a small, secluded chapel where she liked to go and pray, until that winter evening when she found the thick door locked and the window shuttered. She heard a man’s voice inside murmur a prayer against demons. Then another voice, impossible to say whether from man or beast, bellowed, howling, in utter agony. Sister Claire said it was an exorcism. She never returned.
She crossed herself, climbed into her berth, and lay against the hull. The water rushed noisily close to her head. She felt the wind through the port light ruffling her blouse. As she drifted off, she whispered, “And give eternal rest to the soul of Maeve Flynn.” She was nearly asleep when she heard herself say, “And the child.”
Chapter 14
Kate’s watch was to begin at midnight, so Darina was surprised to find Nello at the wheel. “Good evening,” she said, trying to hide her confusion.
