Immutable

by Cidney Swanson

  She heard Matteo’s gasp—or the invisible equivalent. He chattered excitedly.

  We’ve got to swim with the dolphins. Like this. Invisibly. Right now.

  Martina veered sharply right for “yes” and then took them both out to meet the ocean. Along the shore, the sea was pale and creamy, like watered-down milk. She supposed the churning, crashing waves were responsible for clouding the water. The sand was fine as dust on some of these Caribbean islands. Martina remembered it from her seventh year, and again from her twelfth and fifteenth. The children had moved compounds every year, on Christmas, their “gift” from Father Helmann. How shocked she’d been to learn other children received actual gifts from Father Christmas.

  She longed to plunge headlong into the fine sand, to feel it slither through and past her. Another time. For now, there were dolphins to meet. She sensed Matteo’s unadulterated delight as they neared the pod.

  Seen from above, the ocean passed through dozens of variations in color depending on what grew or rested or lurked below. A hundred feet from shore, the water was clear, sand-colored, almost golden. Farther out, it shifted to pale turquoise. Farther again, it darkened to a rich azure. They passed over a bed of sea grass on their way out and the color shifted again. As they neared the dolphin pod, the ocean pulsed in tones of rich, sapphire blue.

  Matteo’s thoughts echoed in Martina’s mind: We’re really doing this!

  Martina veered right: yes.

  And then a question: Do you think the dolphins will know we’re there?

  Martina veered right again.

  Do you … know they’ll know we’re there?

  Martina veered right.

  Huh. Well, let’s go say hi.

  With Matteo in her invisible arms, Martina dove down, down, down to meet the sapphire sea. There was no change in temperature when they sliced into the water, gliding through it almost as easily as they glided through air.

  That’s always a bit disappointing, Matteo said. How water doesn’t feel … distinctive.

  Like stone or wood, thought Martina.

  Like glass or stone, said Matteo.

  Martina grinned and veered right.

  Now they were gliding alongside the dolphins. The creatures turned to greet them, and, when Martina took herself and Matteo to hover just at the water’s surface, the smiling dolphins took turns jumping over the intertwined pair.

  They really see us.

  Martina veered left.

  Okay, they don’t see us. But they know we’re here.

  A veer to the right.

  Freaky.

  Another veer right.

  Eventually, the dolphins seemed to decide they’d spent enough time with their invisible companions. The pod turned back and began to chase a catamaran, jumping and diving in its wake.

  We should find a glass-bottomed boat, Matteo told Martina. They have them for tourists. We could dive back and forth through the glass and provide free air conditioning at the same time!

  It was tempting—Martina loved shivering through glass. It would be silly. Like swimming invisibly with dolphins. Maybe she needed more silly. She was just about to veer right when Matteo spoke again.

  No, never mind. I want to get those flowers.

  He directed her to a lonely-looking ridge above a small village. Down below them, children shrieked with delight over some game involving four soccer balls and, inexplicably, an inner tube raised high by one of the taller children. Mothers gabbed nearby, cleaning fish and pounding plantains. It looked like a familiar life and Martina’s heart pinched for her own strange childhood, now lost in the past.

  Matteo pointed out a field of bougainvillea just ahead. It blazed like a living flame, vivid red-orange covering the hillside. As they approached, Martina descried smaller white flowers couching within the bright leaves. She felt a sudden desire to swoop down and through the bramble, curious how it would feel or smell. Silly, she told herself. Then she pulled them both downward.

  Oh! exclaimed Matteo, surprised.

  Within the bramble, it smelled damp and green, like a basket of fresh spinach brought in on a hot day. The orange color, apparently, contributed little to the scent. The brambles prickled in a way that didn’t hurt, exactly, but Martina felt no need to extend the experience. Climbing back up, she searched for a place they could land without touching the prickly plant.

  There! called Matteo, indicating a spot.

  Martina brought them to rest on solid ground. A moment later they were solid as well.

  “The dolphins were the best thing ever,” declared Matteo.

  “They were,” agreed Martina.

  “Oh, you can talk!”

  Martina raised one contemptuous brow. “Just like … always.”

  Matteo shrugged. The gesture was so familiar. So home-like. It made something in Martina’s chest skitter.

  “So, I thought of this field,” he said, “because one, it’s growing wild so I won’t be stealing and two, Mom really loved orange.” Matteo fished inside the bag he’d thrown over his shoulder. The items clanked together. He pulled out the trowel, sturdy-looking and covered in dirt.

  Martina wondered again about the hand-dug grave. Matteo couldn’t possibly have used that trowel. She hoped.

  He hunkered down beside a smallish specimen of bougainvillea. Then he held his cloth bag next to the plant.

  “Too big, with the roots,” he muttered. He found a smaller plant, approved it for “bag-fit” and started digging.

  Martina held the bag open. She gazed inside at the knife, the metal … thing, and the shirt, which was going to get very dirty with a dug-up plant on top. She had a sudden inspiration.

  “When you get ready to put the plant in the bag, let me put it in,” she said.

  Matteo looked at her as if to ask why, but then he shrugged in agreement and began to dig.

  As she watched, she didn’t think of grave-digging. She remembered channeled moats furrowed around sand castles. She remembered trying, with her brothers and Matteo, to shout the incoming tide back: Back! Back! And she remembered digging for carrots and potatoes, the squeal of delight when finding one that was more hideously misshapen than most and sharing the find with Matteo and her brothers.

  Happiness.

  That was what she was remembering. She had been happy. And maybe—maybe—she would be happy again. To have someone in whom she could confide, someone who knew her, someone who loved her. It was almost too much.

  She turned her face to the sun and felt its warming rays, careless of sunburn. Who could care about sunburn in the presence of such happiness? She had found Matteo again, and in finding him, she had found the place where her heart lived.

  “You ready?” asked Matteo.

  The bag. The plant. She’d forgotten what they were doing.

  He handed the plant to her and took the bag, holding it open for her. Martina became invisible and then she dropped the invisible plant inside the bag. Having done this, she solidified.

  “Did you just put an invisible plant in my bag?” asked Matteo.

  “Invisible. And weightless. And dirtless. And thornless.”

  “Ah. You are most wise.” Matteo nodded thoughtfully.

  Martina smiled in response.

  Then Matteo dug around in his trunks pocket and pulled out a watch. And frowned.

  “Listen, I have a job to do this evening. At six.”

  “What time is it now?” Martina asked, stifling a yawn.

  “Four. Ten at night for you. You still hungry?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Matteo shrugged. Martina stared at the tight surface of his abdomen. He was muscled, but he was also not very well-fed. Her heart squeezed for him, living the bare-bones existence his mother had provided. On the other hand, she hadn’t heard him complain. Maybe she was growing soft, living in France with her easy life. The thought made something twist uncomfortably in her stomach.

  “Let’s go to the harbor,” said Matteo. “I think I ca
n find us something to eat.”

  They disappeared and Martina “flew” them down. Matteo directed her to a ramshackle warehouse where they solidified. Martina glanced around at the corrugated metal walls; it looked like one good push would knock the whole structure over.

  From inside his bag, Matteo removed the metal thing Martina couldn’t identify. It still looked like it belonged in a kitchen. This was confirmed, five minutes later, when Matteo began to wheedle for an exchange with a tiny old woman cooking fish over a hibachi fire. The woman’s skin was black as dried walnut husks. Martina, feeling her own skin turning red in the sun, envied the tiny woman’s complexion.

  “A citrus press, my beauty,” said Matteo, addressing the old woman. She smiled, exhibiting matching rows of bright teeth. “Your new teeth are looking wonderful,” Matteo added.

  “I cannot complain,” she said.

  Her vowels were distinctive; soft and hard only. Like French or British vowels: no hybridized American a-apple or o-other sounds. American speech had troubled all the children growing up, with its four or five ways to pronounce each vowel. But Helmann had insisted they learn both the Queen’s English and American English. Perhaps as a result, they spoke neither consistently.

  Matteo was talking again, matching his vowels to the old woman’s. “What do you say you offer a plate of fish and fried plantain and cake in exchange for my fine citrus press? Enough for me and my lady fair.” He pronounced the final word, “fey-yuh,” grinning for all he was worth.

  After a few minutes of haggling back and forth, the old woman agreed to trade cooked fish for one, cooked plantains for two, and cake for no one, in exchange for the citrus press.

  They found a deserted corner of beach and sat to eat, watching the waves catch tourists unawares. The sand was very hot; Martina was glad for her borrowed blue skirt, long and full. If the sand burned Matteo’s skin, he didn’t complain.

  It was the best fried fish Martina had ever tasted. But when she ate the plantains, cooked in diagonal slices from a fruit that had been allowed to fully blacken, tears came to her eyes.

  “Maduros,” she said softly, calling them by the name she remembered. “I haven’t had these for years.” She took another bite. The edges were crispy, fried in God only knew what kind of oil. The insides of the fritters melted in her mouth, all brown-sugar-and-bananas. “Mmmm,” she sighed with pleasure.

  “I eat them every day,” replied Matteo. “Sometimes they’re all I can trade for. Sorry I couldn’t get the cake. She makes really good cake.”

  “This is better than cake,” replied Martina, taking another melting bite of maduros.

  “Listen,” said Matteo, when the two had finished their shared meal. “This job I have to do. I need to go by myself. Okay?”

  Martina frowned. “What kind of job is it?”

  Matteo shrugged and stretched his long brown legs in front of him, toes digging into the white sand. Even his legs were beautiful, thought Martina. She stretched her own legs, pressing one against his.

  “Just a job. I deliver stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Just … stuff. You know.”

  “Stuff.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Drugs-stuff?”

  Matteo stood and stretched his arms. Brushed off the backs of his legs.

  Martina looked up from where she remained seated. “Matteo. Answer me.”

  He wouldn’t.

  “Mat-teo.” She heard the whine in her voice. Childhood habits died hard.

  He smiled and leaned down to kiss her on the top of her head.

  Lavender and saltwater.

  “I don’t ask what I’m delivering,” Matteo said. “It’s not addressed to me. It’s none of my business.”

  “I don’t like it.” Martina dug one hand deep, deep into the sand. It was cooler below.

  “It is what it is. Unless you’ve got a paid position hiding in my bag along with that invisible plant?” He grinned and offered her a hand up.

  Martina hesitated for a moment, but then she took his hand and stood, shaking sand from her skirt.

  “Let’s leave,” she said.

  Half an amused smile bloomed across Matteo’s face. “Leave?” He said it as if he was unsure what she meant.

  “Come away with me,” she said. Like Matteo used to say.

  He kissed her and his mouth was brown-sugar sweet.

  Martina smiled at him. “Tonight,” she said. “Forget about your job. We’ll leave right now.”

  Come away with me.

  A frown creased the space between his brows. “I can’t, Martina. Not tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have a job.”

  “If you’re going to leave with me anyway….” Martina kissed the side of his face.

  “I can’t just leave,” he said.

  “There’s that boat in Saint … Matthew-Mark-Luke-or-John.”

  “St. Thomas. It’s impounded. I need money to get it out.”

  Martina shrugged. “So sell the house. We’ll find a place, just the two of us. And we’ll fish and gather rain water, just like we dreamed about.”

  Matteo smiled, dimples marking his sun-browned face. He looked down. He took her hand. “I want to. But first I have to get the property conveyed to me, legally. Before I can sell it. And I have to sell it to afford to get the boat out of hock. So I can’t leave right now.”

  Martina sighed. She knew she couldn’t just take off like that, either. She had two weeks before she needed to be back in Nice, getting another injection of enzymes. “Don’t go,” she murmured. “Skip work. Call in sick.”

  Matteo laughed. It was more of an exaggerated exhale, really. “I can’t. My employer is very … influential on this island. I need to stay on his good side. Besides, tomorrow I want to take you out for a real dinner.”

  Martina wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him she didn’t want anything more real than what they’d just shared. Wanted to keep him to herself.

  “When will you be back?” she asked.

  “Not late,” he said. “Not too late. You should stay awake.” He ran a hand around her waist and lowered his voice. “Or if you can’t stay awake, at least be prepared to be woken up.” He kissed the top of her head and squinted into the evening sun.

  She squinted into the sun as well, as if to scry what Matteo was seeing or planning or hiding from her.

  Then she gave herself a mental shake. Matteo was just delivering … stuff. Citrus presses or plantains. Nothing bad. He’d have told her the truth if it was bad. They didn’t keep secrets.

  “Okay,” she said. “You need a lift to get where you’re going?”

  A heavy exhalation. “That would not be … a good idea.” Matteo’s left foot twisted into the sand like he was trying to bury it there. “I mean, it’s crowded where I’m going. There’s no place to come solid without being seen.”

  Martina had the distinct and unpleasant impression he wasn’t being truthful.

  “Okay,” she said. “Thanks for dinner. I’ll see you when you’re done … delivering stuff.”

  “I’ll be thinking of nothing else all evening,” he said, placing both hands around her waist and drawing her close. Then he kissed her with his beautiful lips and smiled at her with his beautiful eyes and she felt better about, well, pretty much everything.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Au revoir,” he replied, correcting her.

  Until we meet again.

  “Au revoir,” she replied.

  Matteo took off at a run, back toward the dodgy looking warehouse they’d used to materialize inside. Martina followed him with her eyes. Why did the idea of this job make her so uncomfortable? This was Matteo, for goodness’ sake. But she couldn’t shake the feeling he was keeping things from her.

  She wanted to trust him. But maybe trust was a luxury only children could afford. She frowned. In another half-minute, he would be out of her sight, gone where her eyes couldn’t follow. She felt
a tightness in her lungs. Something wasn’t right. Martina decided to follow him.

  21

  FAVORS

  Sint Maarten, The Caribbean

  Slipping into a narrow alley, Martina rippled invisible. Then she shot herself upward, scanning for Matteo from twenty feet in the air. He was fast; already he’d traveled far ahead of her, jogging along a path he obviously knew very well.

  Martina prayed he was leading her to a plantain packing house.

  The buildings went from dodgy and flimsy-looking to dodgier and flimsier-looking. A few of the hovels she passed were constructed of only cardboard and sandwich board signs that looked like they might have wandered from their former premises without asking permission.

  Matteo danced his way between crying children and starved-looking cats. One cat had caught a rat, and a pair of children were eyeing the catch as if wondering what rat might taste like. Martina shuddered and kept following Matteo. He looked both directions before ducking into the hovel that was his destination. Martina sank slowly, slowly back down to Earth. She pressed herself into the thin walls of the tiny shack. She didn’t enter the room. If Matteo brushed past her, he would know why the room had a cold spot inside. She was probably colder than anything this island had ever known, air conditioning included.

  A tidy man sat at a tidy desk, facing the single entrance into the one-room hovel.

  “You are en retard,” said the tidy man.

  Late, Martina translated automatically.

  “My watch stopped,” said Matteo. He held it up for his employer’s better inspection. Martina could see it was keeping perfect time. So Matteo was not only a liar, he was a brave liar. This was unsettling.

  The employer didn’t bother to look. Perhaps Matteo had known he wouldn’t.

  “Your watch is not my concern. Your punctuality, however, is the concern of everyone connected with you.”

  “Connected to me?”

  The tidy man shrugged. “We are all connected to … someone.”

  “You can stop with the threats, Monsieur. My mother died.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” said the tidy man.

  Martina had never seen anyone look less sorry for anything.

  Matteo wasn’t buying it either.