Cataveiro
Page 7
They have been driving for over four hours when the boatman turns from the helm and points towards the coast.
‘Navaranda,’ he says.
The land curves into a half-moon bay, where a rocky beach is backed by steep hills covered in dense forestry. As they draw closer, Taeo counts three small boats dragged up high on the shore. On the far side of the beach, a crowd of around thirty people is gathered.
He can see it, keeled over on its side but rising several metres taller than the spectators: the wrecked boat. The lower hull is dark red, its underside heavily rusted. The upper decks of the boat are white.
Taeo feels a tingle of excitement. This is it.
The boatman draws the sign of the spider on his chest. He must have heard the rumours already.
‘Take us in,’ Taeo orders.
The boatman navigates carefully as they drive into the bay, steering around the submerged rocks that rise murkily below the surface. Waves break dramatically on the beach; this is not a placid shoreline. The mysterious boat would not have had a chance.
‘Closer, I want to land.’
The boatman mutters something about it being a bad place, but heads towards the shore. Evidently his need for cash outweighs his reservations on this particular expedition. Taeo is watching the crowd, who are paying their arrival no attention; they are entirely concerned with the stricken boat. Some of them simply stand there, staring. Others walk around, peering and lifting a hand as if they might touch it, then drawing back sharply. As Taeo watches, one young man lifts a girl onto his shoulders. Presumably her boyfriend, he takes her feet in his hands, and with one strong boost, she leaps onto the boat’s hull. The crowd react with shouts of surprise and alarm. The girl wobbles. She gets her balance. She raises her hands in the air, clenched as fists, in a gesture of triumph.
Their boat scrapes against the seabed.
‘Wait here.’
Taeo leaps out, the cold water splashing up around his booted feet. He makes his way as quickly across the beach as his heavy bag allows – he is leaving nothing with the boatman. By now his arrival has been noticed by a couple of spectators, but they look at him without surprise, as though such a visit were inevitable.
The girl standing on the hull loses her balance and she falls with a shriek. The young man catches her. The girl begins to laugh but another woman admonishes her fiercely.
Taeo works his way through the crowd. He can feel the invisible circle around him, the way the Patagonians shrink away, almost imperceptibly. He ignores it, stepping right up to the boat. A rustle of whispers goes through the crowd. He can hear snippets of the argument between the girl and the woman, the girl defiant, the woman trying to keep her voice low.
So disrespectful.
I don’t care what you think …
A metre-wide hole has been torn through the hull. The boat is covered in seaweed and gravel, its underside riddled with barnacles, but beneath this flotsam the white bodywork makes it highly visible. A boat that wants to be seen.
‘When did this happen?’ he asks the crowd.
No one answers. He repeats the question and at last a man replies.
‘Last night, in the storm. The boat was slamming into the rocks, you could tell it wasn’t going to get back out to sea. We thought it must have come from Fuego. Wasn’t much we could do until the storm had blown out. You take a fishing boat out in a storm like that, you’ll be ripped to shreds.’
At the stern of the boat, Taeo can make out the edge of a letter. He peels away a clump of seaweed. Slowly, very slowly, he brushes the sand clear.
‘Don’t,’ says someone.
Above the gaping hole in the craft, quite clearly in black letters, the boat is named. Wings of Osiris.
A name, or more than a name?
‘Are there any survivors?’
The villagers’ elected leader points and on the other side of the boat Taeo sees the hump of two human bodies, covered by a tarpaulin. He feels a terrible relief and a crushing disappointment.
‘God’s will,’ says a woman. Some nod, others are more pragmatic. Their voices flutter about him.
Didn’t have a chance.
Storm like that.
Fated … cursed …
‘Are all of them dead?’ The Patagonians nod, but Taeo catches the gaze of the girl who stood on the boat, having escaped – or ignored – her scolding. She stares at him insolently, her arm slung around her boyfriend’s waist. He has a large bottle of something in his hand. Spirits, by the look of it. While Taeo is watching, the girl takes the bottle and drinks from it. Taeo has an abrupt, terrible craving for opium.
‘What about the others?’ The voice comes from a child and is quickly shushed. Taeo turns.
‘What?’
The child pushes his face into his mother’s legs, hiding. The mother meets Taeo’s eyes defiantly. Her hair, sheared straight at the jawline, pokes out from her hood in dark strands. The child’s small feet are stood on the toes of her boots, his hands clinging to her jeans. Taeo is reminded of the pilot when she took the holoma, that fear and resolution intertwined.
‘We don’t know anything,’ the woman says. Her fingers clasp the child’s head against her, feeding through the curly hair. Taeo is hit with a jolt of familiarity and loss.
The Patagonians have gathered tightly together now, their expressions wary, unhappy. No one wants to meet Taeo’s gaze. He addresses the leader directly.
‘Did anyone survive? You must tell me, this is more important than you know.’
‘We pulled two from the waves,’ the man mumbles. ‘A man and a woman. Both delirious, raving, they were. We took them to the herbalist. We tried to save them but they were badly injured on the rocks. The woman was worse. She died this morning, nothing we could have done. The other’s not much better. Reckon he’ll die too.’
‘Is it true then?’ asks the mother.
‘Is what true?’
‘You know what. It says it on the boat. The mad man’s saying it. They’re from …’ She hesitates, and looks at the others for encouragement. ‘He says they’re from the sea city.’
The rest of the crowd mutter agreement. Is it true? Is it true? The teenage girl laughs suddenly.
‘The sea city,’ she says, hiccupping with laughter. ‘The sea city, the sea city, the sea city …’ She sits on the ground with a bump, giggling to herself. The sea city. The sea city. The woman she was arguing with earlier pulls her back up to her feet.
‘Get back to the village. You’re a disgrace!’
‘I hate this place! If there was a sea city, I’d have gone to it years ago, you hear me! Years!’
Taeo looks at the murmuring, uncertain crowd. He needs to contain this. The Patagonians cannot keep talking. By midday the news will be all over the archipelago.
‘You said yourselves, the survivors are delirious. Until we know more, there’s no reason to think this boat came from anywhere other than the mainland.’
‘If it’s not from the lost city, then why are you here? You’re not Patagonian. You’re from the south. What do you want with this boat?’
Others gather around the leader, forming a protective unit, urging him on.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Tell us. What do you want with this boat?’
Taeo straightens, making the most of his height. It does not matter what he says now, it is how he says it that counts. He catches the eyes of as many of the crowd as possible, refusing to let them slip away.
‘I can’t tell you anything more until I see the survivor. Now please, show me where he is.’
7 ¦
TAEO FOLLOWS HIS guide up a well-worn path that cuts steeply into the hillside. It is narrow and treacherous to navigate; more than once his boots slip in mud churned up by the heavy traffic. He imagines the villagers dragging the survivors uphill in the last squalls of the storm, hearing the grunt and heft as they lifted the deadweight bodies, perhaps a shout of warning as the rain threatened to wrest them from their hands.
‘How great is a man’s appetite for a story? You can blame Gabs’ cousin down the coast – he sent the news to Fuego and now you –’ he points rudely at Taeo ‘– now you have come.’
‘The name on the boat doesn’t mean anything,’ says Taeo. ‘A name is just a name. Anyone can choose one.’
‘It is a strange thing to choose a name from a city that fell to pieces beneath the waves and is full of rotting souls, or so they say,’ the leader says.
‘Perhaps,’ suggests Taeo, ‘this is a ploy to make us afraid. We should be wary of assumptions.’
‘There is little to be afraid of with those ones dead and this one so close to death. Perhaps that is for the best,’ the leader says. ‘Doors that are closed should not be opened. There is a reason they are closed. The coming of this boat has a meaning. Whether it is good luck or bad luck, we can only wait to see. But it will not mean nothing.’
By the time they reach the top of the path, Taeo’s thighs ache and he is increasingly frustrated by the leader’s evasive replies. But he can see the village ahead, where the hillside plateaus before reaching up again, into the mountains. It is a small affair, twenty or so adobe houses with heavy-duty shutters, grouped around a square. Water baths sit atop the huts and a couple of them support cheap-looking solar panels. Radio antennae stick out from windows. Taeo recognizes the grainy burr of Fuego Station by its irritating jingle.
‘This way.’ The leader takes him through the square, where a couple of goats are tethered, descendants of the engineered variety by the looks of it. Their bodies appear swollen, too large for the spindly legs. Elsewhere there is evidence of industry: washing billowing from a line, fishing tackle strewn about the ground. Taeo imagines the villagers must be relatively self-sufficient here, boosted by occasional trips to Fuego Town, and the forestry will shield the houses from the worst of the coastal weather. He has noticed this before with Patagonians: a pride, sometimes to their own detriment, in asserting their independence.
His trek uphill has collected a small procession of followers. The mother with her child has come along, and the angry girl, with her boyfriend in tow.
The leader takes him to the last of the houses, which is set slightly apart from the others. Plants cover the entire area of the low roof, trailing over its edges. They are sodden in the aftermath of the storm and glint with water, lush and verdant.
There is a line of people outside the hut.
‘Who are they?’ Taeo demands.
‘They’ve come to see the survivor,’ says the leader calmly. ‘They are paying. You’ll have to wait your turn.’
The angry girl leaps ahead suddenly and comes to a triumphant halt at the end of the queue. She beckons her boyfriend, who jogs to join her. She looks back at Taeo, a pleased expression on her face at this apparent victory.
‘You need to get those people out of here,’ says Taeo.
The leader looks at him with slimly concealed dislike.
‘You will pay too. Fifty peso per head. This is the price.’
Not so altruistic after all, thinks Taeo. He pulls out a handful of notes and holds them out discreetly.
‘What say I pay a higher price, and go in now?’
The leader takes the money without glancing at it. ‘You will wait,’ he says. ‘Like everyone else on the island. You won’t be the last here today. Better take your place while you can.’
Seething inwardly, Taeo joins the line outside the herb-covered house. Behind him are the remaining villagers, who are muttering in voices low enough that Taeo cannot catch the words. He begins to wonder how exactly he is going to extract the survivor, who is clearly bringing in a fine profit for the village, not to mention making it almost impossible to contain the story – and it is only mid-morning. The island must be full of these tiny villages. Then there are the larger inland towns. Who knows how many people have already been inside that house?
He reminds himself that he does not yet know the true identity of the survivor. But he has a sense about it. The house tingles. It is humming with importance. Taeo has the same sense he had before he asked Shri if she would live with him. Before they were told that the embryo in Shri’s womb was female. Before the two officials arrived at his home in Vosti Settlement, reading aloud the contents of his transmission, preparatory to announcing his sentence. Taeo is sure.
He waits, barely able to contain his impatience as the queue dwindles. The angry girl and her boyfriend have been in a few minutes when there is the sound of raised voices and the pair emerge suddenly, the girl flushed and angry, the boyfriend trying to placate her.
‘Fuck you!’ she shouts. ‘I paid, all right? I paid my turn.’
The woman behind Taeo puts a hand on his arm and speaks imploringly. ‘Don’t mind Lina. She gets upset, that’s all. Her folks died on the mainland, just this winter it was.’
‘It’s fine,’ says Taeo, pulling away. He does not care about the girl or the girl’s parents, he wants to get in the house. It’s his turn now.
The woman turns to others in the queue, still babbling on about the girl. Do they ever shut up? It was her village, you see, the whole village. The redfleur went through them like a fire; one day they were fine, next they were coughing up bits of themselves. Lina was coming back from her grandmother’s. She heard them first, then she saw them falling about, attacking one another; you know it makes you go mad? When they found her she didn’t say a word, not to anyone, not then, not in quarantine. I don’t know what to do with her …
‘Next!’
Taeo feels a surge of excitement as he stoops to enter the small house. Inside it is hot and dark and smells of smoke and pungent herbs. A small woman is perched on a stool by a methane fire, tending to a simmering pan. She has her back to Taeo.
‘Move quietly and don’t talk,’ she says. ‘I won’t have him disturbed.’
‘I’m sorry, but I will have to speak with him.’
The woman turns. She has a deeply tanned, freckled face, brown eyes webbed with fine lines. Her features tighten with wariness when she sees who has entered.
‘So, an ice man. I suppose we must be honoured.’
‘I need to speak with him,’ Taeo repeats.
The herbalist looks far from happy about the situation. She rises and pulls aside a thin screen which curtains one corner of the room.
The scent of the stuff overwhelms Taeo. His lungs inhale sharply, snatching at the residues of smoke on the air. He feels suddenly shaky, euphoric, a desperate craving. The herbalist gives him a sly glance as she sits back down.
Taeo forces himself to take in the scene.
Lying on the floor is a single man. Despite the blankets covering him, he is shivering violently. His dark hair is soaked and salt has dried in crusts about his hairline and eyebrows. He clutches at the blanket, muttering incomprehensibly.
‘Do you know his name?’ asks Taeo.
The herbalist shakes her head. ‘He hasn’t been lucid.’
Taeo kneels beside the delirious man. He is beginning to get control of his reaction to the fumes, or perhaps they are infusing him with confidence.
Bending closer, he catches snatches of words. Not Spanish words. He hears ghosts. Land … other syllables he does not recognize. Something that could be a name.
‘He’s speaking in Boreal.’ He looks at the herbalist. ‘The language of the lost city was Boreal, wasn’t it? Boreal English?’
She shrugs. ‘The lost city is lost, is it not, so who knows.’
‘I …’ The delirious man speaks softly, but with sudden clarity.
‘Yes? I’m here, what is i
t?’
‘I … I need water …’
‘Water, quickly! Please, he’s trying to speak.’
The herbalist brings a mug of water and places it by the delirious man. There is a knowing expression on her face, as though she has seen this tableau before and knows no good will come of it. Taeo ignores the expression. He lifts the man’s head and tilts the water towards his lips. The man drains the mug eagerly, then falls back, pulling the blanket close to his chest once more, shivering. Taeo places a gentle hand on his shoulder. He locates his Boreal English.
‘We’re here to help you,’ he says. ‘Tell me, where are you from?’
‘Where is this?’ Now the man sounds afraid. His eyes are open but unseeing. ‘Are you ghosts?’
‘There are no ghosts here. You’ve reached land. Your boat was wrecked on the shore.’
‘They look like her …’ The man’s eyelids shutter closed. His breathing hastens. He twists, pulling the blanket up around his body, and Taeo sees a bloodied bandage is tied around his upper right leg. How bad is the injury?
He tries again. ‘You must tell me. This is very important. Where have you come from? Is it from the sea city?’
‘Osiris,’ the man whispers. ‘Yes, Osiris. We come from the city. We’re looking for land. The storms are worse today.’
For a moment the man’s eyes open, bright with some unknown anguish. Then the shivering grows worse and he lapses into babbling.
Taeo sits back on his heels. The herbalist stirs her pan, fixedly round and round, as though she will never be moved from it. She cannot have failed to hear.
She already knew, he thinks. She’s known right from the start. They all know, and they’re making a tidy profit from it, feigning ignorance because sooner or later the game won’t be theirs to play any more. A bigger fish will come.
The sound of the stranger’s restless words flows with the hiss of the gas and the low bubble of the herbalist’s concoctions. He looks at the stranger’s clothes. You can’t get cloth like that here. The man’s features suggest Indian ancestry.