by Cave, Hugh
"Do what?"
"What you just did."
Everything was going to be all right after all, he told himself when she complied.
Chapter Eight
They were bound for an island in the Bahamas, Clarisse now knew.
"Since you are not familiar with the many specks of land scattered through those waters, there is no point in telling you more," Polivien had added.
Why they were going to an island in the Bahamas she could not imagine, but she was heartily sick of the voyage. They had left Haiti at dawn on Saturday. It was now Tuesday, unless she had lost track of time. So for four days and three nights their world had consisted of this ugly fishing boat, not more than thirty feet long, with its stinking beast of an engine that was never silent.
"Can't we go faster and get there sooner?" she had asked Polivien's younger brother, Louis, who appeared to be second in command.
"Madame, we are making a commendable eight knots."
"I am not a sailor. How fast is that?"
"Slightly more than nine miles an hour."
"And how long a journey are we embarked upon?"
He shrugged. "Who knows, exactly? We should be there before midnight tonight."
"I'm delighted to hear it," she had replied sarcastically, though in truth she did not dislike Louis or even Polivien himself. Since leaving her homeland she had learned something about them from the twelve other passengers who, with their possessions, occupied the boat's crowded deck.
Formerly poor but respected fishermen, the brothers earned a somewhat better living now by netting fees from unhappy countrymen who sought transportation to the States. But they did not overload the boat or set forth with insufficient food and water, as some of the greedier ones did. They could even produce letters of gratitude from some of their former passengers.
Yes, the Poliviens were good men and probably capable, though on this voyage—thank le bon Dieu!—they had not been tested. The sea had remained reasonably calm, the weather had not once threatened, and no watchdog vessel of the United States had put in an appearance.
That was a worry, of course. Fear had been a ghostly passenger on this humble craft ever since its departure from Léogane. U.S. ships were known to be constantly on patrol, and no one could be certain when one might suddenly materialize.
But if all continued to go well, the voyage would end before midnight tonight. Good. It was nearly that now, and the sky glittered with stars.
But wasn't that a cluster of earthly lights just becoming visible off to the right, up ahead?
She must inform Margal.
He would be relieved, no doubt, though until today he had been content to sleep the time away or talk to the little girl. Even more amazing had been the behavior of the child. One would have expected little Merry Dawson to be frightened at being cooped up for so long. But when not with Margal, answering his endless questions about her parents and home life, she had made friends with the people on deck, watching the men at their card games and dominoes, helping the women prepare food over charcoal fires in cut-down oil drums.
To Merry this dreary voyage was obviously an exciting adventure. Did Margal control her mind?
Margal himself had seemed somewhat restless today, though. He had not talked much or taken his usual naps. For the past hour he had been sitting stiffly erect on his bunk, with his back against the cabin wall, like one who at any moment might spring into furious action. As though he were expecting something unusual to happen at any moment.
Did he already know what she was about to tell him? It would not surprise her.
Approaching his bunk, she waited for him to look at her. Then she said, "We are coming to something."
"I know."
"There are lights in the distance."
"Are they on land?"
"I think so. They don't move."
He looked at the bed where the child lay. "The ti-fi sleeps?"
She nodded.
"And you believe we are nearly there?"
"Louis said we would arrive before midnight." She glanced at the watch on her wrist. "It is now twenty minutes to."
"Get our things together, then. Tell Polivien we must be the first to leave the boat."
She carried out his instructions, and then stood beside the boat's owner, at the wheel, for the last few moments of the voyage. The lights she had first seen were behind them now. The man with the protruding ears pointed to others ahead. "You see Bootle Bay Village there? The spit of land we are approaching is part of Grand Bahama Island, less than a hundred miles from the east coast of Florida."
"And that is supposed to mean something to me?"
"Only that we are where we should be, and on time."
Apparently where they were supposed to be was a long stretch of beach, and except for a single boat lying at anchor in shallow water, it appeared to be deserted. The boat was a sailing craft. At least, it had two short masts that stood dark against the stars.
To her surprise, Polivien turned his craft in that direction.
"Are you mad?" she protested. "If any people are there, they will see us!"
"They are waiting for us."
"But—"
"Not now, please. I have things to do."
In the next half hour he indeed had things to do, and as he did them she recalled his telling her in Léogane that his boat had never been close to Florida.
Not his boat, perhaps. No. But there was a Creole peasant proverb that applied here, without a doubt: Pa blié grand chemin pou chemin travès. Don't let the crossroads make you forget the main road. Indeed.
She watched him with interest. First he brought his boat close to the sailboat so his brother could throw a line to two men on the other's deck. Then he talked with the pair for a moment while his passengers strained to hear what was said, which was impossible because all three voices were kept low.
Ignoring a barrage of questions from his passengers, Polivien then instructed Clarisse to go for Margal. And when she returned from the cabin with the legless one in her arms, she found Polivien standing shoulder deep in the sea, between the two boats, waiting for her.
He raised his arms. "Hand him down to me, Madame."
She looked at Margal. He nodded. Having received him with the greatest of care, Polivien passed him up to the two men on the sailboat.
"Now the child."
Merry Dawson went aboard the other craft the same way, and was followed by their suitcase. Then the little man with bat-wing ears frowned up at Clarisse and shook his head. "Not you, Madame," he said.
As though struck by lightning, she stood rigid for a moment, gazing down at him, and then exploded. "What do you mean, not me? I go where my master goes!"
"No, no—you misunderstand. I simply mean I cannot be of help. You weigh too much."
"Oh." She was instantly mollified. "Well, then, I shall have to get wet, I suppose. But not these clothes. Oh no."
Calmly lifting her dress over her head and removing it, then stepping out of her shoes and underwear, she handed her things down to him and waited, huge and naked in front of them all, for him to pass them up to the men on the sailboat and position himself. When he had done that, she went over the side backward, with Polivien's hands on her buttocks to steady her, and joined him in the water.
Then she raised her arms to be helped aboard the sailing vessel by the two startled men standing on its deck.
When Polivien's other passengers had transferred themselves and their possessions, he came aboard the sailboat to introduce the two strangers now in charge of their destiny. M'sieu Sassine and M'sieu Treveau, he informed them, were Haitians living in the Bahamas. Sassine, Clarisse decided, had the face of a sick donkey.
"Good luck to all of you," Polivien said in dismissal. But before leaving, he escorted Donkey-face and Treveau to Margal, who sat between Clarisse's legs on the deck—she had put her clothes back on—and explained to them that the man with no legs was a last-minute addition to the passenger lis
t, along with his woman and the white child, but was to be given special treatment.
"You have been out of Haiti for several years," Polivien told them in Creole, "and perhaps have not heard of M'sieu Margal. Be assured he is a man of great repute, the most revered bocor our country has ever known, and you would be wise to help him in any way you can."
Impressed, the two solemnly shook Margal's hand, and the small donkey-faced man said fervently, "Whatever you wish on our brief voyage, m'sieu, you have only to ask for it."
Margal merely nodded.
Then Polivien returned to his boat, and the other craft, under rags of sail, crept away from the beach.
Chapter Nine
It was a pathetic wreck, this boat. Filled with apprehension, Clarisse approached the donkey-faced Sassine at the wheel to seek reassurance.
"We are going to Florida, I presume."
"We are, Madame."
"I do not understand. Why have we changed to this boat when Polivien could have taken us the whole way?"
"Because, Madame, were Polivien caught trying to land you from his excellent craft, you would be sent back to Haiti without question."
"But—"
"Whereas if we are caught in this miserable craft, and tell the Americans we have come all the way in it, risking our very lives in a desperate attempt to attain freedom, our chances will be somewhat better.
That, at least, is the situation at present. It changes from time to time." He shrugged. "I shall explain all this to the others presently, so that all will know what to say if we are apprehended."
The boat lumbered along through the darkness with its timbers incessantly groaning and the sea gurgling past its ancient sides. Clarisse returned to Margal, who lay near the bow with his head on their suitcase because now there was no cabin to shelter him. The child slept at his side.
When she repeated the boatman's words, Margal only nodded. She lay down next to him on the side away from the child and closed her eyes. After a while he reached out to grasp her shoulder.
"Do something for me."
She sat up, waiting to be told what.
"Tell Sassine or the other one I wish to talk."
"All right." Both men were at the wheel now. By the light of the stars she felt her way through the other passengers on deck, most of whom slept. She and Margal and the child had been blessed, she realized. What an ordeal the journey from Léogane must have been for those forced to spend the entire time exposed to blazing sun and cold night air!
It was the tall man, Treveau, who returned with her. Gazing up at him, Margal said, "Madame has already asked a number of questions, I know. But I have a few more."
"Certainly, m'sieu." Treveau squatted to bring his face closer.
"First, how long does your part of this journey usually take?"
"About twenty hours, m'sieu. We should arrive at dusk, which is good. The time and tide must be right."
"You land at a place called Sebastian, Polivien said."
"Yes. That is to say, we sail through Sebastian Inlet to the Intracoastal Waterway, which is wide there and called the Indian River. Then we go south a little way to an abandoned pier in Wabasso."
"Your passengers have friends there?"
"No, m'sieu. They are going to Little Haiti in Miami. But it is perilous to land near Miami."
"How will they get there?"
"Cars will be waiting where we land."
"I see."
A sudden gust struck the boat's ragged sails, and the squatting man had to put a hand on the deck to steady himself. When the moment passed, he said with a frown, "Where will you be going, m'sieu, if I may ask?"
"Polivien told me of a cousin of his who lives in a place called Gifford."
"Gifford?"
"A country town or village not far from where you will be putting us ashore, he said."
Plucking a worn and dirty map from his pocket, the tall man unfolded it with care lest it fall apart. For a moment he studied it by starlight. "Ah, yes, here it is—just north of Vero Beach. How will you get there, m'sieu?"
"I will find a way."
"I must warn you not to depend on the cars I mentioned. They will be overcrowded even without you. A taxi is out of the question also. No one must know we—"
"I will find a way," Margal calmly repeated.
Treveau looked at the three of them. "I know of no way to help you, m'sieu, and I am sorry. Had we been told you three would be with this group . . . But Polivien had no time."
"It will not be a problem."
Shaking his head, the tall man returned to his donkey-faced partner at the wheel.
The boat lurched on through the night, and in time the sun rose flaming from the sea behind it. During the hours of daylight that followed, no other craft came suspiciously close. Still, the faces of the passengers showed relief when the same sun sank upon the land of their destination, now visible as a low dark streak on the horizon.
But as darkness fell and the craft neared the end of its journey, signs of tension appeared.
"We must all be very quiet now," Treveau warned. "No talking, please. No noise at all."
He was obeyed. The only sounds to be heard were the creaking of the craft itself, the occasional flapping of its sails, and the slither of the sea along its hull.
All at once an engine sputtered to life somewhere in the boat's bowels.
Startled, Clarisse reached out to halt Sassine as he appeared from below and would have hurried past.
"What is this? You warn us to make no sound, and now—"
"You see that light ahead, Madame?"
"Well, yes."
"It marks the entrance to Sebastian Inlet, where the current will be swift and treacherous even though the tide is with us. To rely on our sails there would be dangerous. We could be swept onto the rocks. But I assure you, the moment we are through the inlet—"
"You said we had to be a sailing craft in case the Americans intercepted us!"
"True."
"But if we have an engine—"
"Madame, it is a very old engine." The look of innocence on Sassine's donkey face was comical. "Had the Americans apprehended us before, they would have thought, ah, those stupid Haitians, when it comes to machinery they know absolutely nothing, not even that a part is missing. And one moment after we are safely through the inlet, that part will be missing again."
"I see."
"Now, Madame, I must shorten sail. Excuse me, please."
The engine continued its rumbling, and Clarisse now noted a difference in the way the craft moved through the water. The change was reassuring, like discovering that a drunken man leading her along some dark and dangerous road had suddenly become sober.
Presently there was the sound of swift water sucking and gurgling through a narrow passage, and, peering ahead, she saw a pair of white lights marking rocky shores. Another two, closer in, were like red eyes on what appeared to be pillars of a bridge.
The man at the wheel was intent upon steering the boat between the red ones, it seemed.
Suddenly, overhead, the bridge flew past like a huge, low-flying bird, and she knew why this particular boat had short masts. Taller ones could not have cleared such a structure.
Bridge and lights disappeared behind them, and now Donkey-face, who had been at the bow calling out instructions to his partner at the wheel, scurried past again on his way below. The sound of the engine ceased. Slithering on like a ghost ship, once more under sail, the deceptively ancient craft entered what appeared to be a broad lagoon pocked with small, dark islands, with the man at the wheel occasionally—and no doubt reluctantly—switching on a spotlight to catch the red and green glint of reflectors marking the channel. Then a blinking light indicated a place where the channel turned, and presently assorted other lights became visible on the right, some apparently on piers, others in houses.
The boat glided on past these until Donkey-face trimmed the sails and hurried below again. The engine recommenced its sullen
growl beneath the deck. But not for long. Only long enough for them to slide up alongside a dock that appeared to be as unsound as the boat itself.
The two men made the craft fast. Clarisse, feeling safe for the first time in hours, exhaled a moan of relief.
Sassine was at her side, she realized, speaking to Margal. "M'sieu, I will ask you three to depart first. Proceed along the pier, and you will come to a small road." He turned to one of the other passengers. "Alcide, go with them and carry their suitcase, please. You must walk to the road in any case to reach the cars. Make as little noise as possible."
A big fellow, the man spoken to responded with a shrug and picked up the suitcase as though it contained feathers. Clarisse knew what it weighed, and was grateful. She had been forced to cope with it since their departure from the house in Rue Printemps.
She lifted the legless Margal in her arms. With a quiet "Come, ti-fi," to the child, she stepped gingerly from deck to pier and trailed the big man along thirty yards of warped planks to solid ground, with dark water making soft gurgling sounds under her feet.
It was quite dark now. Were there houses here? If so, there were no lights turned on in them. With the little girl clinging to her hand she continued to follow the man with the luggage until he unexpectedly halted and she bumped into him.
"Here is the road," he said. "I leave you here."
"Wait," Margal told him.
"I can't wait. Don't you see the cars over there? They'll be crowded, and I want a good seat." He pointed, and Clarisse saw two hulking automobile-shapes standing without lights at the road's edge some twenty feet away. Putting the suitcase down, Alcide started toward them.
"Wait, I said." It was the tone Margal used when he would permit no discussion.
The man halted.
"Which car will you be riding in?"
"How should I know? We are supposed to be taken to Miami in two of them, that's all I know!"
"Go to the first one, then. Put the suitcase in it. Instruct the driver to come here."
"What are you talking about? There won't be room for extra passengers!"
"Look at me."
