God Carlos

by Anthony C. Winkler

  Again the elders offered to help him with the load, but he politely refused. One elder complained that it was the custom for several hands to bear a dead man to the burial cave, but when Orocobix insisted that he could do it alone, none of the old men argued with him.

  Occasionally, someone heading for the seacoast would come tramping down the trail, encounter the funeral procession, and look to see who had died. All the passersby had known Brayou. In the Arawak village lived about seven hundred souls, and everyone knew everyone else, if not deeply, then at least by name and kinship. Some of the passersby touched the dead body with respect and reverence as if to say goodbye. Others made a clucking sound with their tongues in quiet lamentation and averted their eyes as if not to see an unclean sight.

  In death, every part of Brayou, as he had been in life, was physically revealed to the sky, the sun, the wind, and to every passing eye. He had lived his entire life naked, and in death he was also naked, giving him the appearance of a defenseless creature that had crawled out of its protective shell. Every runic scar that the adventures of a long life had engraved on his flesh stood out in stark relief like an embossed hieroglyphic.

  A few passersby were moved by the sight of the dead man, and one or two women continued down the trail emitting a faint ululation of mourning. Uncle had died an old man, and the last years of his life had found him crotchety and blunt. There would be a feast to honor his death, but other than his immediate family, few in the tribe would truly mourn his loss.

  With frequent stops to rest, Orocobix, flanked by the solemn clutch of elders, trudged up the hillside and eventually came to the burial cave.

  Inside, he placed Brayou’s body atop a pile of old bones. Strewn throughout the dimness of the cave were skulls of Arawaks, young and old, all baring the humorless grin of the ancient dead. To some skulls a tuft of dark hair clung like a stubborn moss. Rib cages, emptied of lungs and viscera decades ago, curled symmetrical bones around the empty abdominal cavity like a partly clenched fist. Scattered all over the damp floor of the cave were elongated femurs, tibia shadowed by fibula, all etching in bone the shape of some long-dead Arawak. Painted on the walls of the cave, curious shapes and geometric figures bore mute testimony to an unknown mourner’s stifled grief. Every breath Orocobix and the elders drew in that cave tasted ripe with decay like the smell of a rotting tooth.

  Orocobix had to lay Uncle down on top of old, dislodged bones, as there was no room left in the cave for a body to lie by itself. He arranged the body as comfortably as he could.

  “We need another burying place,” old Guaroco muttered sympathetically. “There’s almost no room left for me.”

  “It is the young today who are too lazy to seek one,” Guaniquo said crossly.

  Guaniquo performed the ceremony of the dead, scattering some dust over the dead man and muttering incantations known only to him because of their secret powers. Orocobix stood with his head bowed, remembering his uncle as a younger man, and half listening to the shaman. At the mouth of the cave stood the remaining elders, their heads hanging as a sign of respect.

  Then everyone filed out of the cave and into the bright sunlight where the air smelled of blossoming trees and flowering plants and an enormous flock of parrots fluttered overhead in the breeze like a skein of green and blue tapestry, dragging behind them a gliding shadow.

  No one spoke, but it was clear from the long sighs of the elders that they were all glad to be away from the place of death. They trooped down the footpath toward the village, each man keeping his thoughts to himself.

  Orocobix said, like a man thinking aloud, “I wonder if Brayou will like guabasa.”

  Guaroco chuckled. “He had better grow to like it,” the old man said. “It is all that spirits eat.”

  “I do not know if I would like having nothing but that to eat,” one of the elders said contemplatively. “I’d rather stay here and eat fish and turtle.”

  A titter of amusement arose from the old men, and everyone felt normal again and relieved to be out in the sunlight and alive in the breeze on this day, March 30, in the year of our Lord Yochuna, 1520.

  * * *

  That night a feast was held. The dead man’s clan built a bonfire and there was singing and dancing and reminiscing about Brayou.

  The older generation remembered Brayou mainly for his sacrilegious opinions about zemis, but a few also recalled the night when the canaballi had attacked the village, and Brayou had killed three of them with their own spears, sending the others fleeing into the night. He’d had no sons or daughters of his own, even though he had lain with many women. His moin—his blood—was bad, the women said, and that was why he had no children.

  But now that Brayou was gone, the people gathered at the feast spoke about him the way people everywhere speak of the recently dead, with affection and forgiveness. Some of the women wept quietly, more for themselves than for Brayou. Everyone had a favorite memory to tell, and all listened respectfully to the stories.

  The crackling fire chewed a ragged chunk out of the tropical night and bathed everyone in a shimmering red and yellow hue. Children wandered among the adults looking stupefied. Occasionally, someone would dance to unheard rhythms, and someone would laugh out loud, and everywhere in the background came the drizzle of convivial banter. Alcos—the small, barkless dogs that Arawaks kept as pets and an emergency food supply—roamed everywhere throughout the gathered throng, making a ratlike squeaky sound of excitement and playing friskily with the children.

  So it was a celebration of a long life, and it was also a feast tinged with sadness as the fate of Brayou reminded people of the journey that also lay ahead for them and their loved ones.

  The shaman told stories of wonder and magic during a lull in the feasting, and everyone respectfully listened to tales about the zemis and the gods and coyaba. He spoke particularly about the gods that now roamed among them, the gods from the sky whose coming had long been prophesied and who now dwelled not so far away in a settlement they had recently built.

  Only a few of the assembled men and women had ever actually seen these gods, and some would not speak of them because of shame. Among them was a young woman who had gone to the river and encountered three of the gods. She had never admitted it to anyone, for then she would have to tell the shameful story of what the gods had done to her, one after another, and how she had been torn open and left on the riverbank bleeding.

  She had been confused and shamed to have been so ill-used by the gods and felt that she must have done something wrong to cause their displeasure. She was an unmarried girl, barely sixteen, and she worried that if the village knew about what they had done to her, no one would take her as a wife.

  Among the assemblage were some young men who had also witnessed the cruelty of the gods. One of them had seen with his own eyes one of the gods take a thunder stick and strike down an Arawak from another village and then laugh joyfully about it. He had reported what he had seen to the cacique—the hereditary ruler of the tribe—and had been told to say nothing to anyone else lest his story awake terror in the hearts of the people.

  The shaman had heard some of the stories, but he did not believe them. He thought that the gods were good, but being gods, they were beyond understanding. One must simply accept what the gods do and pray that they will be merciful.

  This was the orthodoxy that the shaman preached, speaking in the superior tone of one who knew. He had to know, for if he did not know, what good was he as a shaman? So when he spoke about the gods, his voice was like a papal encyclical, and no one could doubt him.

  As for Orocobix, his heart was the heaviest among the people at the feast, for he had loved his uncle. Brayou had raised him after Orocobix’s parents had both been killed in a hurricane. Beside him at the feast sat old Yguana, Brayou’s last surviving sister, but her head was filled with the dizziness that came from smoking leaves of cohiba—the tobacco plant—and other than smiling at the revelers and nodding dumbly to the occasional
expression of mourning, she did not care.

  The shaman told how the original two Arawaks had lived with the sun in a cave watched over by a guardian. But one day their guardian became careless and the sun escaped. Left in the darkness, the two Arawaks were forced to exit the cave and follow the light of the sun until they came to Xamaca. Here they made their home and lived in peace and contentment until the coming of the canaballi—the devourer of children. It was their punishment for leaving the cave that the canaballi had been sent to torment them.

  As the shaman told his story, which everyone except for very small children had heard many times before, the cacique of the tribe—a young man by the name of Datijao—came and sat near Orocobix, paying a great honor to the memory of Brayou.

  The shaman nodded respectfully to the cacique, and continued his story, with the revelers drawn in a tight circle around the blazing fire, listening intently as the flames ate up the night and blotted out the stars and exuded such a sapping heat that heads, old and young, began to nod.

  There was a beginning, murmured the shaman, and the older people muttered sleepy assents. Indeed, life had had a beginning just as it had an ending.

  Orocobix listened, though he knew the recital by heart having heard it a countless number of times before. Deep within him he had a hunger to believe. And he did believe. He said it so intensely to himself that he shivered as though stricken by a sudden chill. The shaman noticed with pleasure, thinking that it was his telling of the story that had made Orocobix spasm.

  Chapter 9

  Aboard a sailing ship at sea, seamen often smell land long before they even glimpse it. At four a.m. one morning, Carlos was on the dog watch when he caught the aromatic whiff of blossoms and spices wafting from a distant land. For a moment, he felt the exhilaration of landfall that strikes every sailor at the end of a long voyage, and in his delight, he paced the poop deck restlessly, unable to contain his excitement. He looked around the deck of the dark ship for someone to talk to about what he had smelled.

  There was a watch forward, but he was an Azorean and had been a friend of de Morales. Carlos did not trust him and was wary whenever he came near. There was the helmsman below deck, but he was holed up in the cramped steerage and had to keep his mind focused on the handling of the ship. Moreover, he too had been a compadre of the slain man and Carlos was not sure whose side he took in the dispute.

  The Santa Inez had been at sea now for thirty straight days, and she was showing signs of wear. Her pumps had to be manned constantly to keep her afloat. Teredos—shipworms—were eating her bottom planking. She was also badly in need of careening which would involve beaching her and then scraping and recaulking her hull with oakum and pitch. Seawater had seeped into her bilge and she was beginning to wallow. Already the helmsman could feel the sluggishness in her steering.

  It had been an uneasy voyage for Carlos since he’d killed de Morales. He trusted no one. Always a loner, he kept even more stubbornly to himself, and when anyone drew too near him, he would openly slide his hand toward the dagger in his waist. If he was standing at the railing and anyone approached him, he would immediately step back with a glowering look of warning at the intruder to draw no closer.

  So he was especially glad for the smell of land in the darkness ahead of the ship. Land meant space between him and other men. It meant he could withdraw and brood when he was in a bad mood. He could be truly alone. Aboard ship, although he could sit by himself in the bow, someone else was always near at hand and within earshot.

  Old Hernandez was the only other person he partly trusted—aside from the boy Pedro, who sometimes trailed after him when they were both off duty. To the rest of the crew, he was an outcast they shunned.

  Carlos did not think this was such a bad thing. It meant that none of them would come near enough to him under the guise of friendliness to bump him overboard or to stab him when he wasn’t looking.

  He ate his meals forward squatting on the deck by himself and never in company. It was the one time of the day when a man was most vulnerable, his attention focused on filling his belly and not on the nearby eater who might be an assassin. Once, as he was squatting on the deck eating bread and cheese, a crewman came and sat within a pike length of him and Carlos stared hard at the man until he got up and sauntered away as if indifferent. Perhaps the man meant no harm. But at sea a man who had killed another in a fight could not be too cautious.

  Carlos felt particularly vulnerable at night. He knew from experience that darkness at sea was a cloak for much wickedness. Yet in the normal rotation of the crew he had his share of midnight watches. Sometimes, this would mean he was in charge of supervising the turning of the ampolleta. On a pious ship this ritual would be accompanied by a chant either made up by the seaman who turned the glass or one that was commonly known to the fraternity of sailors. On the Santa Inez only an Andalusian grommet named Alonzo who liked to sing observed this tradition. Usually he would chant an impromptu ditty such as this one, in a shrill voice loud enough to be heard by all but not likely to awaken the deep sleepers:

  The third hour passeth

  All is well on God’s good ship.

  Lookouts be sharp and vigilant

  For we sail alone on a merciless sea.

  May almighty God bless our voyage.

  On this particular night, the Santa Inez was so far south that she was nosing her way through untrafficked waters. She did not fear collision at sea. At best, with a following wind, she was capable of seven knots, hardly a breakneck pace that would shatter her if she hit another ship. And given the direction of the wind, which blew off her quarter or off her beam, she was hardly likely to encounter another vessel going in the opposite direction with whom she might collide. What a ship in her circumstances risked was a midocean encounter with a whale or an uncharted island. But by far the greatest danger was the possibility of a sudden squall with high winds and heavy seas that would require reefing the sails or temporarily changing course.

  So the nightwatch required a sailor to be alert. But a veteran seaman like Carlos also found the night a relaxing time when a man could be at peace and lose himself in thought. He was trying to imagine what the land he could smell so keenly must look like in the sunshine when a hatch opened and de la Serena clambered onto the deck. Carlos waited for the older man’s eyes to become accustomed to the dark sea before he called out to him.

  “Land, señor!” Carlos said, his voice edged with excitement.

  “Where? Do you see a light?” De la Serena peered anxiously down the deck.

  “No light, señor. But I smell land.” And as if to demonstrate, Carlos drew a loud breath, his nose held high, and acted as if the scents were enough to make him feel intoxicated.

  “I don’t smell anything,” de la Serena replied sadly, sounding disappointed.

  Carlos inhaled with an exaggerated loudness. “Oh,” he said confidently, “it is land—beyond question.”

  “If it is land, it should be Hispaniola.”

  “Not Jamaica?”

  “It is the way of the tradewinds,” de la Serena muttered. “They take us farther east than we would wish. Our first landfall should be the island the Admiral called Hispaniola.”

  “But we will not stop there, señor?”

  “No,” de la Serena said crisply. “We steer straight for Jamaica, which is to the southwest.”

  “The ship is badly in need of careening,” Carlos mumbled.

  “I know what she needs,” de la Serena snapped back. “She’ll find it in Jamaica.”

  With that, de la Serena went forward to the bow where the Azorean seaman stood lookout, and peered into the dark night everywhere around the surging ship. He asked the Azorean if he thought landfall was ahead, but the man said he’d seen nothing. He asked him if he smelled anything, and the Azorean mumbled that he had always had a bad nose.

  Telling the man gruffly to keep awake and alert, de la Serena walked back to the poop deck where Carlos stood watch.

&
nbsp; “The forward watch says he sees and smells nothing,” de la Serena said.

  “Señor,” Carlos responded firmly, “we will see land at the first light.”

  Still disbelieving, de la Serena moved to the starboard side of the ship and peered down the cambered deck for the sight of land. Then he did the same from the port side. Carlos watched him with amusement.

  After standing at the port railing for five minutes, seeing and hearing nothing, de la Serena sighed like a lovelorn suitor, said goodnight, and went down below.

  Left alone on the poop deck, Carlos inverted the ampolleta and returned to his reverie.

  * * *

  A sailing ship on the night sea is a magical thing. She creaks and groans like an old woman, and the wind in her sail is like a lover’s whisper. The whole vessel moves with a sinuousness, every gentle lunge accompanied by a gurgling lullaby of wind and water.

  The Santa Inez carried no running lights. A candle flickered in the cabin occupied by de la Serena, but its illumination was a pinpoint. On the poop deck where the compass was mounted, a blazing cresset threw off a jittery glow that allowed the watch to keep an eye on the ship’s heading and to turn the ampolleta. Voyaging on an ocean now as dark and mysterious as any body of water on earth, the Santa Inez, unlit and unseeable like a hulking whale, was lumbering fearlessly through the night.