He threw open the flap and shielded his face against the morning sun with his hand. The bow of a sixty-foot wooden fishing vessel curved over him as it nudged the raft like a collie herding a lamb. The vessel was local to the region, with an assortment of garish whites, blues, yellows, and reds painted over the wheelhouse and curved glassless windows.
An older man leaned over the side of the bow, staring down at Jonah, his dark face framed by day-glow-orange hair and beard. Two middle-school-age boys stood beside him, resembling him in the way that only sons resemble their father. They looked a little young for pirates, a good sign.
“Assalamu alaikum,” said Jonah, using the traditional Islamic greeting.
“Subah wanaagsan,” said the father, smiling to reveal a jack-o-lantern grin and pink gums.
“English?” asked Jonah. The father shook his head. Jonah smiled back, stuck an index finger in the air signaling for the man to wait, and briefly ducked into the tented raft again.
“I think we’ve got a ride,” Jonah said to Klea. “But they don’t speak English.”
“That won’t be a problem,” she said, pushing her way past him to reach the tent flap.
Jonah realized he shouldn’t have been surprised when Klea stuck her head out of the tent and spoke to the father in rapid-fire dialect. He wasn’t able to see what was happening, but Klea seemed to be holding her own in the very animated conversation. While he’d been in prison, he didn’t pick up much more than the essentials of Moroccan-accented Darija Arabic; Klea’s fluency was more evidence that she was a quicker study than he was. Within moments, she ducked her head back inside.
“So?” asked Jonah.
“So he’ll help us. I told him my husband accidentally set our ship on fire, and we were forced to abandon it. He says he’ll bring us to his home, but he can’t guarantee his village is safe for westerners.”
“Thanks for making me look like a moron,” Jonah said with a laugh.
“My pleasure,” said Klea with a sly smile. “Thanks for playing the part so ably.”
The fisherman navigated his boat to the side of the raft, using its mass to shadow against the intermittent ocean breeze. Jonah grabbed a waterproof bag, stuffed his pistol inside, and climbed up first, standing to reach the scuppers, then pulled himself up like a rock climber. It felt good, wonderful even, to stretch and use his muscles after three days of virtually no movement.
Fighting off a wave of hunger and dizziness, he brought himself up to his full height on the deck, easily dwarfing the father and two boys. The sons laughed and poked at his neoprene wetsuit with their fingers, amused at the sponginess of the futuristic material.
Jonah wondered what he was supposed to do now. Shake hands? Bow? Hell, he’d dance an Irish jig for the fisherman if thought that would help. The father just smiled at him, offering no clues. Jonah pressed his hands together like a prayerful child and bent slightly. “Thank you,” he said with every ounce of earnestness he could muster. He hoped his appreciation translated, but couldn’t tell for certain. The father, still smiling, waved Jonah away. It’s nothing, the gesture seemed to say.
“Here,” Klea called, stretching to hand over the remaining water bottles to Jonah, who took them and handed them to the boys. The two boys scampered away to secure the bottles in some unseen corner of the painted wheelhouse.
Plumbing his last reserves of energy, Jonah reached down and lifted Klea out of the raft, pulling her light frame to the safety of the wooden deck. The father clicked the wheezing engine into gear and the life raft slowly fell by the wayside, bobbing in the waves, as the fishing boat pulled away. Jonah knew the life raft would someday wash up on shore of some distant coastline, be it days or months. It’d be pushed against some sharp rock or branch and puncture, deflating like a cast-off skin. The bright orange would fade to a gentle pink and eventually to a dirty white. Sun damaged, it would slowly disintegrate into strips. And then there’d be nothing left of the proud Horizon.
The father, still smiling his wide nearly toothless smile, slapped himself on the chest gently and said, “Burhaan.” He pointed at Jonah and Klea.
With a glance at Klea, Jonah patted his own chest and said, “Jonah.”
Klea repeated the process and then pointed at the boys. Burhaan beamed as he introduced his sons, Qaasin and Madar, and then he took Jonah by the hand and led the two Americans into the wheelhouse. It was then that Jonah noticed the man had only one arm—the other, which Jonah initially thought was hidden behind the man’s back, was missing from the shoulder joint, without so much as a stump to indicate where it should have been. Still, with deft movements, he opened a clean wooden box to reveal a slab of thick, doughy lahoh bread covered in lamb and onions and swimming in a dark red sauce that smelled of basil and sweet tomatoes. Jonah’s mouth started watering, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Burhaan spoke to Klea, pointing at the food.
“He’s asking us to eat,” she said.
Jonah didn’t need to be told twice. He and Klea dug in with their bare hands polishing off half the contents, but making sure to leave enough for their rescuers.
Soon the food settled and Klea nodded off, her body fatigued with the effort of digesting an unexpected meal. Jonah lifted her into a hammock in the wheel house just as she was about to fall out of her chair, and then joined Burhaan and sons on the rear deck.
The fishermen cast their nets overboard with a skillful twist. Jonah watched as the nets spun open and sank into the light blue waters. With another twist, the fishermen drew the nets back, empty more often than not, but occasionally with a host of wriggling, flopping fish. There was a casualness to the affair, a simplicity. The brothers each pointed out their larger catches and laughed when the other brought up an embarrassingly small catch or drifting plastic from a far-away land.
Qaasin, the older of the two boys, saw Jonah watching and gestured for him to take his net. His father scolded at first, but then allowed to attempt to duplicate the elegant twisting, flinging motion. With his first try, Jonah managed to dump most of the net directly overboard. When he drew it back, it was a hopeless, tangled mess without so much as an errant piece of seaweed trapped within. Jonah aped helplessness and sent the boys into peals of laughter.
The next two casts were minor improvements, until the fourth, when Jonah mastered the exact twist of the wrist and the angle of the cast. The net flew out beautifully and dropped into the water. He retrieved it with the reverse motion. A single panicked fish flopped within. Jonah removed it and tossed it in the bed of the boat, the fish landing on a small but growing pile. His rescuers nodded in approval.
The manual labor allowed the stress of the past few days to slough off Jonah’s shoulders. He practiced the precise motion of casting the net, enjoying the reward of a successful retrieval. In what felt like minutes, Jonah noticed the sun was now low in the sky. The father retreated to the wheelhouse, steering the fishing vessel towards the distant Somaliland shoreline, drawn in by a restless sea breeze. They were going home. The fact that it was not Jonah’s home didn’t seem to matter.
Sitting in a hammered-copper tub with his bare knees nearly touching his chin, Jonah let Qaasin and Madar gleefully pour an entire bucket of fire-warmed water over his body. He ascertained he was in the men’s side of the fisherman’s family compound. The home itself was some Soviet bureaucrat’s vague notion of a coastal dwelling. What was left of the mummified structure with its crumbling façade, broken windows, and peeling paint stood surrounded by traditional-style huts and a timber wall ringing the perimeter.
The two boys scrubbed at his scalp and face with fierce thoroughness. Their small hands were better than the high-pressure shower nozzles on the Fool’s Errand. His thoughts briefly drifted to Klea, to the gaggle of smiling young women that had taken her by the hand and lead her away. To the sly smile she shot at him as she disappeared. To her dark brown eyes and smooth pale skin. To her mouth on his, hot with desperation, with the need to feel alive.
Beh
ind Jonah, Burhaan prepared a pan of mysterious, sweet-smelling oil. Orange hair blazing in the cool courtyard, he poured a small amount into his palm from a repurposed bottle of engine coolant. He rubbed his lone hand against his own bare chest, warming the oil. Suddenly, his hand was on Jonah’s neck, shoulders, and back, nimbly finding each tight muscle, each bundled cluster of nerves.
Jonah slumped in the tub, eyes closed, air leaving his lungs in a long, relaxed sigh. Finished, Burhaan motioned for Jonah to stand up. He shooed his two sons away, and they ran off, laughing and pushing each other.
“Okay,” said Jonah, shrugging. He stood up, dirty water flowing off his naked body and into the copper tub.
Burhaan held two small white ceramic bowls in his hand, each with a hinged ceramic cap. He flipped opened the first, revealing a foul-smelling yellow liquid. Before the American could react, the father dabbed two fingers in the bowl, quickly covering Jonah’s slashed shoulder and stitched abdomen with a thick layer of yellow animal fat.
Setting the first aside, Burhaan then did the same with the second, this time with a thinner, lighter shade of the same yellow. He treated Jonah’s developing salt sores, to the American’s profound relief.
I never want to see that wetsuit again, thought Jonah. Not after those three days of suffering in it. He hoped he wasn’t expected to squeeze himself back into it once his wonderful bath was over.
Burhaan placed the ceramic bowls back in their hiding place in a small nook built into the side of the nearest hut, and returned to Jonah’s side with a tin can full of a deep brown powder, offering it to Jonah.
“What is this?” asked Jonah, taking the offering. He pointed at his mouth. “Is this food?”
Burhaan shook his head and gestured to his own orange hair. It wasn’t food; it was henna hair dye, the same he’d used for himself. Jonah briefly considered taking him up on the offer. It’d certainly get a rise out of Klea, might be worth it for that reason alone, but Jonah politely declined.
The two boys returned, carrying with them a kilt-like man’s dress. Jonah stepped out of the tub into a pair of waiting sandals, and allowed the boys to secure the dress around his waist. It was made of clean, soft cotton and dyed with a beautiful red pattern.
The kilt was joined by an open-necked cotton shirt with short sleeves and an intricate abstract sun pattern embroidered on the chest. Burhaan, Qaasin, and Madar wore their versions loose, but the shirt stretched tight across Jonah’s chest, shoulders, and biceps.
A bell rang in the courtyard, and Burhaan ushered Jonah and the two boys inside the main building. The main room had been stripped of walls and converted into a large family gathering area, bedrolls piled in the corner and a low wooden table surrounded by sitting mats. Jonah sat on the father’s left, and the two boys on his right. Three women walked in carrying hot dishes of bony silver fish, yellow rice and minced goat, each with unique and distinctly aromatic chutney, tamarind, and green pepper sauces. The women wore a Somali version of traditional Islamic dress, ornate robes and skirts with sashes and embroidered cloth.
He’s a polygamist, thought Jonah; flashing the father a knowing smile as the women busied themselves with preparing the meal. Not just a polygamist, but probably a village elder as well, maybe even the leader of a small clan.
The beaded entranceway between the women’s side of the compound and the main building parted, and Klea entered with a Somali woman on each arm. She’d been scrubbed clean and clothed in an immaculate wrap-around dress cinched at the waist with an embroidered belt, and her hair shone as it peeked from underneath an ornate purple hijab, complementing her fair skin and dark eyes. She flashed Jonah a little smile and proudly showed him her hands as if showing off a new manicure. The women had been busy—both of Klea’s hands were adorned with an elaborate henna pattern, crossing her palms and the back of her hands before disappearing up her forearms and toward parts unknown.
Klea sat directly opposite Jonah, maddeningly out of reach. He wanted to be close to her again, even if that closeness meant only the soft brush of his fingertips against hers.
“You’re very beautiful,” he said.
“I think this is a wedding dress,” said Klea, blushing as she acknowledged the complement. “It’s all they had in my size.”
Jonah laughed. “As you can see, I’m tough to fit in this part of the world.”
“I’m liking your skirt,” teased Klea right before Burhaan motioned for all in attendance to begin. Klea and Jonah obliged, and after a few minutes of uninterrupted eating, Jonah looked at Klea until she caught his gaze.
“I need you to translate,” he said.
“M’kay,” she answered, her mouth still full.
Jonah reached for the waterproof pack he’d taken from the raft and slowly withdrew his polymer pistol. He’d already disposed of the bullets, casting them into the ocean from the deck of the fishing vessel. Everyone in the room stopped to stare. Jonah carefully showed everyone the slide was back, the chamber empty. He laid the pistol flat in the palms of his hands and, with head slightly bowed, presented it to Burhaan.
“Tell him this is a gift,” said Jonah. Klea gulped loudly and translated.
Burhaan accepted the pistol, nodding wisely, testing the weight in his hand. He said something and handed it to Qaasin. The boy ran the weapon into another room and returned unarmed. Burhaan spoke in rapid-fire dialect to Klea.
“He says he could not possibly accept such a fine gift,” she translated. “It’s a tribal platitude. He completely intends to keep it.”
“Tell him the gift is barely worth a mention in comparison to his kindness and hospitality.”
“I don’t know the word for hospitality,” mused Klea, before choppily translating the message.
Burhaan smiled and clapped Jonah across the back like an old friend, then said something to Klea. She answered him without translating for Jonah.
“Yeah, he definitely liked it,” she said to Jonah. “Rifles in this area represent power, but pistols convey status. He asked the construction, I told him it was German. I think he was happy with that fact—said Germans make the best firearms.”
Everyone began talking at once and soon the plates were empty and the wives cleared the low table with the same order and efficiency with which they’d served the meal. The father gestured for Jonah and Klea to get up and join him as he exited the main building and the compound.
Jonah’s kilt hung just above his sandals, but Klea’s dress brushed against the sandy ground, forcing her to hold the hem up to the amusement of the other villagers gathered along the beach. Though the sun had set, the moon was nearly full, and several gas lanterns and other fires kept the small village illuminated with a low flickering light.
Jonah acknowledged the villagers as they passed, some of them reaching out to touch the tanned skin of his hands, others pulling at his short, blonde facial hair.
Despite the earnest warmth of the assembled villagers, Jonah felt something was wrong. A small cough here, a rattling exhalation there, a woman unsteady on her feet, a strange smell of sickness. Jonah realized his elaborate meal may have been more than many of the villagers had seen in some time.
“Come on,” said Klea, pulling at Jonah’s hand.
“What is it?” asked Jonah.
“He wants to show us something.”
Breaking away from the group of villagers, Burhaan stepped onto the beach, his bare feet sinking into the soft, immaculate white sand. He said something to Klea, but she shrugged, not understanding. He repeated himself, a little frustrated, pointing at his arm. Jonah caught a word—Bettencourt.
“He says Bettencorps is responsible for his missing arm,” said Klea, looking up at Jonah. “This is a great dishonor to him—forced to eat and wipe … well, you know. There is no dignity in this.”
“How?” asked Jonah, examining the stump. It looked like a clean amputation competently stitched closed. Maybe not surgical, but certainly performed by an able hand and a sharp implement
. Burhaan spoke quickly, forcing Klea to interrupt to translate.
“He was fishing,” said Klea. “And he found a round metal object. He thought it might be worth something, so he looked at it closely. It was leaking a yellow liquid, which ran down his arm when he held it up to the light. It smelled terrible, like peppers—peppers? I don’t know this word. But he threw it back in the ocean. His skin began to swell with terrible blisters that covered his entire arm. Very painful. Eventually a local doctor was forced to remove the arm. I think he’s describing an infection.”
“Probably a mustard gas grenade,” said Jonah. “I’ve heard similar stories coming out of Italy, the Baltic Sea, even the American eastern seaboard. Fishermen find some strange artifact and they have a reaction like he described. Turns out it’s an old piece of chemical munitions.”
Burhaan waited for Jonah and Klea to finish talking and then went on with his story. Klea listened closely, asking him to slow down so she could follow.
“He says it got worse,”
“His arm got worse?” Jonah asked.
“No—the situation became worse, not for him, but for his village. Over the past three years, many people have become sick with strange symptoms, many have died. He says it is the fault of Bettencorp, Anconia Island. But he’s not calling it Anconia Island. He’s calling it … I have no idea what he’s saying. Sun-killer? The moon of death? I’m at a loss.”
“Death Star?”
Kleah translated and Burhaan nodded and repeated the words in English. “Death Star.”
Jonah drew in a long breath. “If anything could earn the name Death Star, Anconia Island would be it.”
Burhaan continued and Klea translated. “He says they’ve been piling what they find over here,” said Klea, pointing to the far end of the beach.
As Burhaan and Klea followed, Jonah led the way across the beach towards a distant dark pile. The villagers didn’t follow. Soon it became clear that the pile was a large collection of rusting barrels and tanks, all washed up from the sea and leaking.
The Wrecking Crew Page 22
