was walking hesitatingly toward the wheelhouse. He waved him back.
Soon, the second mate came in without speaking. He looked at the compass
under the binnacle light. Then he stood up and silently regarded Rio, who
gave the wheel a spoke or two. The mate became exasperated. He walked up
and down, staring out of the glass. Suddenly he came over and looked at
the compass again.
“You’re off six degrees. Heading this way, we might make Jamaica.”
“I had a wife there once,” said Rio, his face impassive. “It’s a good
island.”
“Wife! You said—‘wife’?”
“Yeah. Up in the hills. She was a good worker, too.”
The mate lit a cigarette. It was twelve-thirty and Rio struck one bell.
Attentively, the officer waited for a few minutes.
“Where’s that god-damned lookout?” He fastened his pea-jacket and went
out on the bridge. Rio could hear voices through the wind and shrugged
his shoulders. After awhile, the second mate came back puffing.
“A fine lot—a fine lot to work with!” he said.
A seaman stepped inside the wheelhouse and addressed the mate.
“There’s a man missin’, sir.”
“A man missing—a man missing? What do you mean? What happened?”
“I dunno. The sailors’ delegate got drunk ashore. He was a little foggy
and fell on the deck. He didn’t seem to mind and said he’d take a little
air topside. When he didn’t come down we went up and looked around.”
“Mother of Christ!” cried the second mate. “Break out the crew—No!” He
recalled the man. “I’ll get the skipper.” He ran out of the wheelhouse,
his jacket open.
The man who had reported the accident looked at Rio. Rio’s face was dark
and kindly from the glow of the binnacle light.
* * * * *
Several nights later they passed the Gulf Stream and when Rio got
up about eleven in the morning he saw the deep-purple waters of the
Caribbean Sea. It was getting warmer. He put on clean dungarees and
went to the sailors’ mess for a plate of soup. He could tell little
from the expression of the men around him, but rather, felt their
sullen disapproval and was indifferent to it. He ate his soup, asked for
another plateful, ate it and went up to the wheelhouse again. He had been
steering for about five minutes with the second mate beside him when the
latter went out of the house. Rio could hear him climb the ladder to
the flying bridge to check the compass. When he came down, he walked in
front of Rio and closed the door on the weather side, although it was hot
already. He came back, looked at the compass and smiled a peculiar smile.
Suddenly, there was a sharp noise and a saccharine odor and the second
mate, still smiling, went out on the lee side of the bridge.
Rio held his nose.
“A virgin,” he said to himself, leaving the wheel and throwing open the
door.
The mate returned and brought the door to. A curious expression was on
his face; but he still smiled as he left once more for the bridge.
“_That_ fish was picked up in Nagasaki,” said Rio aloud, and opened the
door again.
The second mate slammed the door this time, standing by the wheel only a
moment before wind cracked at his heels. Rio could see his tiny, blond
mustache jump in the sunlight. But this time, Rio did not open the door.
He followed the mate and stood beside him.
“For God’s sake! Get back to that wheel, you damned fool!” yelled the
officer.
“Not till both doors are open and the weather’s cleared,” said Rio in an
even voice. He leaned on the rail, his fine eyes glistening.
The second mate rushed into the house where the wheel had turned until
the ship was twenty degrees off her course. Nervously, but with a
calculated deliberation, he gave her a few spokes at a time, trying to
protect himself from the captain’s eternal damnation. After awhile Rio
walked past him, opened the weather door and took over. Neither man spoke
until Rio was relieved.
The next day Rio was chipping spots on the deck when he felt a knee
against his side. He pulled off his goggles and looked up. It was the
second mate. Rio laid down his hammer and said, “I can hear.”
“You can hear—what?”
“I can hear trouble if that’s the way you wake me up again.”
The mate grew excited.
“Listen! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know discipline?”
Rio got up. He didn’t say anything but his heavy brown face looked down
with contempt.
The officer tried to retain his dignity.
“Why did you raise hell in the wheelhouse?” he asked.
Rio continued to look down at him.
“Because I’m a quiet-livin’ man. I’m modest. And I don’t like to be
intimate.”
The second mate’s face turned red.
“Show me your union book,” he said briefly.
Rio shook his head.
“That’d be too intimate. You don’t carry your school-ship papers all the
time, do you?”
“By God!” shouted the mate. “I’ll have you thrown in the brig. It’s hot
in the forepeak.”
Rio grinned, a slow, malicious grin.
“And there’s dark nights and twenty-foot shark in the Gulf of Darien—a
hell of a place for a snotty little mate to slip.”
The officer walked away. His eyes seemed red in the sun and he seemed to
be thinking.
Rio adjusted his goggles and went to work. He liked to see each rusted,
brown flake disappear under the blows of his hammer and uncover the
bright blue steel below. Suddenly, once more, he felt a knee against his
side. The mate had come back. He ordered Rio to move over to the port
side and chip rust near the fishplate. Rio crossed the deck, watching
from the corner of his eye the vicious look of the officer who was
crawling into No. 2 hatch. Rio grinned again.
“A good place for ’im if a freak wave shifts the cargo,” he thought.
He had worked for an hour when he heard men shouting. The captain came
down and ran aft, then back to the fore deck. Seeing Rio at work he
hurried to him.
“Have you seen the second mate forward?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. About an hour ago. He told me to chip rust by the fishplate,”
answered Rio.
The captain looked puzzled.
“By the _fishplate_? Quick, man!—was that the last you saw him?”
“That’s the last, sir.”
“Put her about!” the captain shouted up at the bridge. “See that a boat’s
ready.”
The ship had just swung round when the second mate’s head appeared above
the hatch. He blinked in the sunlight. His shirt was torn, his flashlight
was crushed and he had a skinned right arm. He limped slowly toward the
captain.
“I was just checking the cargo, sir,” he said. He turned angrily toward
Rio. “I know that man saw me go down.”
The captain addressed his officer severely.
“Why aren’t you on the bridge, Mr. Birch? Do you check cargo on your own
watch?—And with a beam sea like this running?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” answered the mate, looking away.
“Go and clean yourself up, Mr. Birch.” The captain turned to speak to
Rio, but the steady blows of the chipping hammer were sounding by the
fishplate.
* * * * *
Rio was standing outside the galley on the _Nancy II_ when she steamed
along the South American coast into the harbor of Santa de Marina. Once
before, when he had entered the bay, it had been night; and there, tucked
at the feet of the Andes, the town was obliterated by the proximity
of the moon. This time, by day, he knew that nature had sustained a
lasting brilliance to endure around the many-colored houses—beyond, the
olive shade of mountain; and before, the whitest line of sand between
the elbows of the cliff that closed upon a canvas of blue harbor. Lesser
energies surrendered in an atmosphere of light that dominated cooler
tones.
It was late morning and Rio saw the ancient, Spanish town suspended.
Soon it would be siesta time—a quiet drink and heavy sleep while native
children watched the ship and languorously ate their fruit. Rio did not
know he had the same pure look of indolence. The shore’s breath and the
sound of hidden insects were leeward to the ship; but Rio recognized
them all. This was a town so close to him with heat and spiced, familiar
odors, its bright mantle turned away the thoughts of other things. New
York—its equidistant problems that changed with unexpectedness—was left
behind, or so he felt; and just before him was a point of tropics with a
sweet demand he understood.
As the _Nancy II_ came alongside the banana docks she pulled up aft of
another ship of about the same tonnage. The letters on her stern spelled
_Swamp Rat_.
Rio ran forward to help with the lines. The gangplank was lowered and he
went back to the fo’c’sle to wash up. Later, he saw the first mate, spoke
with him and went down the gangplank into the heavy glare of the sun.
Longshoremen were already unloading No. 4 hatch and the banana machine
was being set up. A large gang of peons waited patiently to go to work.
A sad-faced one with a skin of pure black saw Rio looking at them. He
smiled suddenly, and from his squatting position jumped six feet in the
air, clicking his bare heels together rapidly and coming down on one
foot, his ragged trousers flapping. The rest of the peons clapped and
laughed, shoving each other. But the black was watching Rio; and when
Rio smiled, the black clapped louder than all the rest. Then quickly,
as though he had just thought of it, he ran to a stack of freshly-cut
bananas of a lizard-green. Seizing a huge bunch from the pile, he tossed
it in the air and Rio, moving nearer, could see the hard muscles of the
man strain as he caught it in both hands before it hit the ground. Some
of the peons were chanting now, and some were slapping the boards of the
warehouse with a native rhythm. But the black still watched for Rio’s
approval and this time, when Rio clapped, the peon squatted down again,
rolling his big eyes and making a clucking sound.
Amused, yet abiding by an adolescent impulse to exhibit, Rio walked to
the bunch of bananas which the black had returned to the pile and took
firm hold of the large stem with one hand. He threw himself forward, then
backward and down, till the tip of the bunch was pointing upward and the
stem was braced against his neck. Slowly he came up, the veins pulsing
in his forehead and sweat trickling into his eyes. For a second he stood
at full height. Then the white heat, the black men and the misty, green
bananas began to turn. He staggered; but pulling himself together,
lowered the bananas to the pile again. The peons laughed loudly and the
big black jumped up and down. Easing closer, he examined Rio’s arm. At
last, he called out to the others.
“_Dos músculos en un brazo!_” he shouted triumphantly.
A young oiler from the _Swamp Rat_ nudged Rio.
“What did he say?” he asked.
“He said I have two muscles in one arm.” Rio turned to the black and
shook his head. “_Fué un engaño_—it was a trick!”
The peon grinned and his fellow-workers yelled, “_Engaño! Engaño!_—Trick!
Trick!”
They were still noisy when Rio started for town. Off the edge of the
wharf he heard children laughing happily. He noticed that a group of five
was huddled around a bunch of bananas which had fallen from a truck. One
of the children, a boy, dressed in a clean cotton shirt and ankle-length
trousers, had his back to him and was flicking a little whip at the
fruit. As Rio walked that way there was a shrill, warning whistle and the
boy with the whip turned as though he had been pinched. When he saw Rio
however, he straightened up and for a moment surveyed him carefully. Then
he modestly lowered his eyes.
“A penny, sir mate?” begged the child.
Rio stared at the boy and struggled to think clearly. The face was that
of Martin—the same chin, the same forehead. He had the same way of
standing. Yes, he was a dark replica of Martin, much younger and with a
more beautiful face—but still the face of his friend. One thing further
startled Rio. On each cheekbone of the child was a clearly defined disk
of rouge, the size of a dollar.
Rio felt a little angry and spoke roughly.
“What have you done to earn a penny?” he asked.
The boy seemed quietly mischievous and a flush appeared above the rouge.
Rio thought he posed against the sunlight.
“If I trap my enemy, sir tarantula, sir,” he said, “then will I earn a
penny?”
The rest of the children laughed.
“How will you catch him?” asked Rio, bending over the bananas for a
possible sight of the creature.
The boy cracked his whip and pointed to the edge of the wharf. At his
command several children ran and brought back an old piece of tarpaulin.
This they held silently over the bananas, making sure that no light
could filter in. Then the boy drew a line in the sand and spoke softly
in a jargon unfamiliar to Rio. Whereupon with a shout the others threw
back the canvas and a large, hairy spider which had crawled out into
the darkness was revealed. The boy flicked his little whip—and the
tarantula was divided. For a second, the halves quivered. The beauty of
the boy’s eyes sharpened and the other children shrieked with glee. When
the quivering ceased the lad stooped, and picking up one broken part of
the spider, fastened it to the end of his whip. Rio dropped a penny,
studying the little fellow, who looked down admiringly at his kill and at
the coin.
Rio was suddenly thirsty and headed down a road by the sea for the town.
It was a hot patch to cross that day and he stopped often to look at
the harbor which somehow gave him the illusion of coolness. Once, as he
stood, he noticed the boy with the little whip silently following. Rio
put his hands on his hips and waited for him.
The child was excited, but restrained. He had been running and was
breathing rapidly. His shirt was open and the damp cotton fabric was
plastered to his slender body. Ringlets of dark copper hung to the small
beads of perspiration on his forehead or curled away from his brow. His
intense brown eyes looked directly at Rio and he stood most straight as
though expectant and afraid. Rio was struck by the attitude and by the
sudden unnatural impression of maturity. He had never seen a lad so full
of fever—and knew this picture was as colorful as any wild and distant
fragment of his own. The boy stepped nearer and pointed toward the town.
“May I walk through you, sir mate?” he asked.
Rio nodded his head and when the boy came alongside he dropped his hand
on his shoulder. The lad was shaking. Rio took his hand away and the
boy quieted. Rio started sweating. This wasn’t sense. He walked on more
rapidly, the boy keeping pace with him.
“The Cafe El Americano stays open long, sir mate. Will you not see my
sister first? She comes from the sea.” The child took long strides,
matching those of Rio. He was nearly breathless. “Always ... out of the
sea ... come our sisters and daughters.... Even to your big hefty.”
The sidewalks were narrow and Rio sat down on the curb and rocked and
laughed and rocked till the charming old ladies crossed both themselves
and the street for the rum this sailor must have taken. In solemn
condemnation, they shook their fingers behind black fans with each
other—but hastened away where they could laugh delightedly in their
loneliness. At last, Rio stood up and wiped his eyes. He gave the boy
ten cents in silver, looked at the drying tarantula still fastened to
the little whip, and entered the Cafe El Americano. The lad’s face was
wistful. He shook the spider violently, flinging up one delicate, brown
hand.
Instead of standing at the bar, a group of seamen had grabbed some chairs
and were sitting around while the proprietor brought drinks. Rio pulled
up a chair and asked for a rum punch. The seamen were from the other ship
and he did not know any of them. They were teasing a young sailor who was
apparently making his first trip. The boy looked sullen. One good-natured
seaman with the face of a German butcher whom the others called “Dutch,”
was particularly amused. He turned to Rio, who was near him, and said,
“The kid did like all of us, first time out—struck bells for stars,
thinkin’ they was ships’ lights. The pay-off came after the mate gave
him the devil and told him not to miss a god-damned ship, but to skip the
stars; for we met the whole Pacific Fleet doin’ maneuvers, and the kid
hit so many bells the Old Man came down and asked where in hell the fire
was.”
The sailors roared and Rio smiled; but the harassed young seaman said,
“Aw, shut up. God! You’ve told that fifteen times.” His face was as red
as the German’s.
Dutch was still laughing.
“Wait till I tell it the thirtieth, lad—wait till I tell it to your
mutter.”
“Wait till you tell it to my ‘mutter’!—God!” The kid threw himself at
Dutch, both arms flailing. The sailors laughed and scrambled for him,
holding him from Dutch who had his head in his lap and was howling louder
than ever. Finally the kid was exhausted and the sailors set him up in
his chair. Dutch got up, went over to him and gave him a pat on the back.
“I’ll tell you the last one I picked up,” he said. “I was in Iran when I
got this yarn out of a peddler who had brought it down from Baghdad. He
sold it to me for coffee.”
The kid grinned and the sailors settled down.
“This peddler,” continued Dutch, “said there was a couple up there soon
to be married when the Sultan spotted the woman. He takes her into his
harem and bein’ a cruel son-of-a-bitch, orders his Chief Barber to
castrate the man. Then he plans to bring the poor bastard into the Royal
Household as Chief Eunuch so he can watch the guy suffer every time he
sees his old girl. The fellow asks one favor—that his father, who is also
a barber, be the one to do the trick.
“The Sultan says yes, but that he’ll take a look afterwards to see
there’s no funny business. Well, the father’s a sport and gives his son a
stroke with his blade ’midships, and fastens him up with a few stitches.
The man takes it like a good egg, only he fans himself a bit and takes
a bottle of spirits in one swig. He lays around for several days, and
finally gets up, a little pale, but whole in body except for his watch
pocket. Then he goes to the Palace and the Sultan takes a few sights at
the evacuated area and is satisfied.
“Now the Sultan has led a hell of a life, and the girl tips off her
sweetheart that in spite of turtle eggs, snake wine, pampas beetles and
blended herbs from Crete, the old boy can’t get it up. So the Chief
Eunuch tells her he has a little surprise for her; and they go down to
the lily pond to observe the constellations. Then he returns to his post
and she to her couch to sleep sweetly. A few months later the Sultan gets
suspicious.
“The Favorite says, ‘You did it in your dreams, Celestial Master.’
“‘O.K., my little sugared rose leaf,’ says the Sultan.
“And when the brat is born the Sultan slices off the heads of twenty
prisoners to celebrate.
“Well, it wasn’t no time before the Favorite sidles up to him again.
“‘You had another dream, Celestial Master.’
“But this time he’s wise. He hides behind the reeds of the lily pond one
night, and sees the Eunuch and his old girl come down the trail. In a few
minutes the Sultan’s eyes pop out of his head. He hears the rustle of the
grass and the next thing he knows, a tight mainstay and a tall foremast
is reflected in the water of the pond beside the lily pads.
“Of course, both heads was thrown into the Tigris. But the Sultan,
thinkin’ maybe the first time was a dream, handed over ten concubines and
the Great Emerald of Phallis to his son.”
Dutch stopped talking. The seamen’s faces were blank.
“I don’t get it,” said one of the sailors. “How could Balled Billy swing
it?”
“That’s what I paid coffee to find out,” said Dutch, solemnly. “There was
a god-damned testicle under his vest. It didn’t come down when he was
born. It was hangin’ high—but it worked.”
There was a moment of silence.
“God!” said the kid.
Rio went to the bar, had a small rum straight and left the Cafe El
Americano.
The boy who looked like Martin sat, half sleeping, on the sidewalk where
there was shade. He still clutched his little whip and Rio noticed that
the dried portion of the spider was still fastened to it. When the child
saw Rio he jumped up.
“At last, sir mate, are you ready to go to the house of my sister?”
It was mid-afternoon and as hot as a volcano. Rio wanted to find the
coolest place he could and take a nap; but he looked at the youngster and
said yes.
The boy piloted him through a small market. The siesta hour was over and
the stalls were being reopened. The air was heavy with the odor of pawpaw
and fish; heavier still with the heat. The cloying scent of khus-khus
arose from one section of the market as an ageless woman, more Indian
than Spanish, smiled between her shoulders and bobbed in front of Rio,
one arm around a bundle of the grass. Rio, enjoying its fragrance, handed
her a coin. In the stalls much of the fruit was so thickly covered with
flies it was impossible to tell its original colors. The vendors, mostly
Spanish, seemed indifferent to sales and followed Rio apathetically.
Once, he stopped to admire a woven mat, then walked on laughing at the
obscene pattern.
Alongside him the child waved his whip at the flies. At the next corner
he stole a piece of dried fish. They passed the square gray box which
was the solitary bank, the stucco houses with their virulent colors well
moderated by the prodigality of vines, went on to the outskirts of town
and into the Street of Curtains.
There was no sidewalk. They walked unhurriedly along the dusty road.
Everywhere, the heat fell like individual hammers. It lay in a
transparent film between the rows of houses and gathered in blue puddles
across their path. It was too early for the girls to work and everything
was quiet except for a wind from the harbor which disturbed the curtains
that formed the entire front wall of each house. Once a small brown arm
reached out languidly, and once they heard a giggle and a soft whistle.
“I like this Street, sir mate,” said the boy. “Everyone gets happy here
by ten o’clock every night. Believe me, sir, they get fine and drunk
here. Last night a girl smoked weeds and ran nakedly down the Street.
She screamed beautifully and nakedly. And a seaman from the _Swamp Rat_
wouldn’t pay El Gaucho.” The boy laughed.
“Who’s El Gaucho?” asked Rio.
“She is the biggest woman on the Street, and has four Snakes working for
her. When the seaman didn’t pay for one of her girls, we all knew what.
Yes, he was fine and bloody when she finished whipping him with her
garbage can. Some of the girls, sir mate, call her ‘Mister.’ And that
might be truth, for I saw her give money for just a feel to a woman. But
sir, we are home.” He took Rio by the hand, pushed aside the curtains and
they went into the house.
A girl was sitting in the corner, reading a book by the dim light of
a lamp. The boy ran to the table upon which the lamp was burning and
turned up the flame, although it was blazing outside beyond the tightly
drawn curtains.
The girl closed her book and looked at Rio steadily for a moment; and Rio
felt that he had entered a different country. There was a wild perfume,
sharp as a chemical. In the angle of light and cut of the draperies the
girl’s skin became darker. Rio tried desperately to find her eyes which
were vague under the heavy lashes. She was not so beautiful as her little
brother; but some mystical quality outlined her charm more severely.
“Hello,” she said.
The boy went to her and caught her about the waist, holding on until the
girl bent over and kissed him on the forehead.
“Hello,” said Rio, feeling awkward, and yet wanting savagely to hold them
both in his arms. That might be his salvation. He desired them both with
such a horrible necessity that for a second he was paralyzed. They moved
apart and Rio felt that one moment of fruition had been blasted into
Hell. He took off his cap.
“My sister isn’t from here,” said the boy to him jubilantly. “I love her,
and I like it here. But I wouldn’t want her from here.” He turned to the
girl. “I’m going to make a cool green drink for sir mate, and bring him a
cool towel, sister. For he’s had that bad rum at the Americano.”
The girl’s expression did not change when the boy had gone; but she
motioned Rio into a chair.
“Where did you find him?” she asked. “Where did you find my little
brother? Marius is a strange child. He drifts around, but he seems safe
from everybody—” her voice rose passionately, “—everybody.”
Rio replied absently, fascinated by the girl’s frail dignity, so contrary
to her enterprise.
“I found him playin’ in the sand by the banana docks,” he said. “He kind
of reminded me of my best friend. Somehow, he made me think of Martin.”
The girl spoke frankly.