Sara was already starting off for the elevators, determined to hop inside one before they could follow. “See you soon, boys.”
Three
The narrow tributary that wound inland toward Madagascar proper was stained the color of blood.
Lines of grazing pelicans and pirogues lined the river. Farmers drove cattle across the shallows, pointing the way to makeshift markets. If you didn’t happen to see these drives on your walk, you could at least follow their tracks toward commerce.
The bazaar was an informal marketplace where the locals converged to sell and trade their goods: A robust selection of white and paddy rice, corn, pistachio nuts, fish, and shrimp. There was sometimes also a man called Chingh who paid top dollar for sea cucumbers.
Which is why Mosi often went. He was sent by Nosy Berafia, a tiny island off the northwest side of Madagascar. Today, he had made a fortune selling sea cucumbers to the Chinese man.
That was all Mosi cared about.
His people earned their living farming the shallows for sea cucumbers. They worked in seven-hour shifts daily to harvest as many of the spindly echinoderms as could be gathered. There was seemingly no end to their reproduction, meaning their sliver of the world was a resource to be protected.
The goal each day was to gather one hundred. The men and able-bodied boys did this, and then prepared their cache for transport to the informal markets.
Today’s visit had been brief. Mosi waded through the bloody water, thigh-high and with a burlap sack of grains and produce slung over his shoulder.
He hated the sight of this river. Hated wading through. He was one of the few from Nosy Berafia who would do it. Most others preferred to go around, and that meant wasting the entire day.
Mosi had spoken to those from inland cities who promised the water was nothing to worry about. They claimed the coloration was from a salt-loving algae called Dunaliella Salina. It produced a red pigment that absorbed the energy of the sun in order to create more energy. Mosi thought that might’ve been true, but did not care. He only knew that the sight filled him with dread. Made him trudge hurriedly on, eager to cross to the other side.
And he got there at last, dropping the sack into his boat and wiping his brow. There were older moored boats sitting beside his, perched high and dry with sun-beaten hulls. The curved wood beginning to warp from perpetual un-use. Mosi did not know to whom these belonged, only that they had been here forever, and the island was too superstitious to clear them.
From here, Nosy Berafia seemed to bob on ocean waves. He stared at it from across the way. Thirty minutes to reach by rowboat.
One last push, and then you rest for the day, Mosi thought. He was one of the island’s best harvesters. But his people had been willing to lose his labor because he travelled faster than anyone. And he was stronger. Which meant he could carry more resources back.
Mosi un-moored his boat and the hull slipped into emerald green water. He waded in up to his hips and then swung over the side, hopping aboard and reaching for the paddle.
“It will not get you,” he whispered.
He began to paddle, flexing as the oar slapped the water, pushing the boat along with as much speed as he could give it. The sun was heavy and made the water sparkle. Mosi wouldn’t stop until he reached Nosy Berafia’s shallows. He wouldn’t be safe until then.
“Hey! Hey! My friend.”
A long piece of driftwood rocked atop the ocean a few hundred kilometers away. Underneath the blazing sun, Mosi could only see a silhouette lift up onto its forearms and wave a hand around.
“Please!” The voice was male. Possibly American. His hand reached out, stretching toward Mosi.
“Are you hurt?” Mosi called.
“Been floating for a day,” he said. “I can... barely remember...”
Mosi paddled harder, veering wide to get closer. “Where did you come from?”
A long pause. Mosi felt the stranger thinking, straining to remember. “...fishing trip... leaky boat...”
Mosi cleared some of the space between them, but the sun refused to let him see the man with any more clarity. Even when Mosi cupped a hand over his forehead, the drifter was still just a floating shadow.
“Actually, it didn’t spring a leak,” the man said, beginning to laugh. “You will not believe me.”
Mosi was close enough now to see him. He stopped paddling. The man was sun-beaten, his face full of broken blisters.
“Came right out of the ocean.”
“What did?” Mosi asked, beginning to resume his course to Nosy Berafia.
“Dunno,” he said, stretching his arm as if he were close enough to reach Mosi. “Please, friend, get me to land.”
Mosi held the paddle still as he considered the plea. This as he watched a splotch of discolored water grow beneath the man’s plank. Mosi rowed backward, pushing hard as the man receded and became a silhouette beneath the sun. The shape growing beneath the water was the size of a cabin cruiser. It continued growing and then broke the surface. The force of pelting water was great enough to drown him.
Mosi squinted. The water was like refracting crystal. Shimmers everywhere. The sun cooked his eyes even beneath squinting eyelids.
The man on the drift screamed. Mosi thrust his paddle into the water, forcing his boat away from the scene, away from the man who’d been abruptly silenced.
Mosi paddled hard. He should’ve kept his eyes on Nosy Berafia’s shore, even as the water behind him began to stir. One glance over his shoulder and the stern of his rowboat exploded into fragments, a rushing caudal fin cleaving it into oblivion. The oversized shadow glided through the murk beneath him, and by then it was already too late.
The hull was half gone and the bow was unstable, knocking him off balance. He slipped and his back hit the water where he began to splash.
His world went dark. His ribcage exploded beneath incredible pressure, as if squeezed by a vice. His jaw fell open and water rushed his throat, but by then it hardly mattered.
Mosi was long dead.
Four
Blake Jovish was at least forty miles away, riding shotgun in a jeep that barreled inland through thick swabs of jungle terrain.
Large green leaves wound back and flung in, leaving his arms lashed with surface cuts. The driver, a dark-skinned guide from the coast named Kahega, gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles glowed white as he swerved around several would-be collisions, laughing like a boy playing Xbox.
His English was about as smooth as broken glass, but he spoke it. And each time he looked at his passenger, the joy drained from his face. “Stop shaking, Little Sticks,” Kahega said. “Ima get you there in one piece, just like you paid for.”
Blake was ‘Little Sticks’ because his arms were like campfire twigs and the guide laughed each time he said it. Most of the for-hire guys were bulked from hard days of manual labor. There wasn’t much cubicle work on this continent outside the cities.
Kahega cranked the cassette radio so hard the speakers sang with distortion. “King of Wishful Thinking” by Go West. Blake had never heard the song before and the admission made Kahega indignant.
“What kind of American are you?” he said, trying to get Blake to pick up the song’s chorus and run with it.
“One born in 1994.”
“You want us to pick up some Justin Bieber at market?” The guide laughed and laughed and somehow that sound was louder than the blaring speaker static.
Sadder still was that Blake had spent most of his honeymoon with this man. And even worse? He somehow felt more relaxed around him.
When Blake got back to his life later today, there would be nothing but tension. Most of it because he was lying to Sara.
Blake didn’t have that with Kahega. Their relationship was transactional. Pay the daily fee in crisp USD, and you bought yourself enough loyalty to last till sunset. It was all so depressingly mercenary. But he figured it was also the same principle as any 9-to-5 gig, and more honest to boot.
/> The jeep sped on, the two of them ducking leaves and branches that seemed determined to reach into the cab and coldcock them. Every near miss prompted another deep-rumbling belly laugh from Kahega. They probably heard it on the summit of Mount Maromokotro.
The next song was “We Close Our Eyes” and Blake thought he might’ve heard that one somewhere before, though he was too nervous to concern himself with Kahega’s dated musical tastes.
He was busy stressing over the fact that he was nearly out of money.
Their Maine wedding had been done on a relatively small scale. It was immediate family, mostly Sara’s, along with close friends. Their money lived in a joint account and most of it had been squirreled away for this very trip.
It had taken the better part of a year to warm Sara to the idea of honeymooning in Madagascar.
“This better not be some racist, ‘because you’re black shit,’” she’d said, jokingly. It was almost preferable she think that, because Blake couldn’t bring himself to own the truth. Not when it sounded so ridiculous. He’d spent the last twelve months practicing the speech, trying to find a way to blunt the absurdity of it, and never once managing to get there.
Sara didn’t know that as soon as they were pronounced man and wife, Blake had made one last withdrawal from their joint checking account—halving the down payment on their dream home in order to bankroll this endeavor.
Kahega had almost the entire thing, and if this gamble fizzled out, Blake was in a world of hurt and headed down the highway to divorce.
All in record time.
Treasure hunting on the down low wasn’t easy.
The jeep cut hard right and plowed to a harder stop. The guide reached between the seat cushions and whipped a gigantic revolver out, pointing it toward the tree line while the jeep’s overworked engine clacked and cooled.
Kahega eyed the treetops like something up there watched them.
“What’s the matter?” Blake said.
Kahega twisted the radio knob down and raised his free hand to signal silence. The gun went from one treetop to the next.
They sat frozen like that for a long time. Until he hopped from the jeep without warning, saying, “We walk from here.”
“Do I get to know where here is?” Blake said, sliding his backpack loops around his shoulders.
“Would you know if I told you, Little Sticks?”
“Fair.”
“This way.”
Blake thought trekking through the jungle should’ve been easier on his exhaustion. Here, the sun was almost entirely blotted by the drooping mangroves, but the foliage retained heat like an afghan on a summer’s afternoon. His scalp itched and dirty sweat tickled his eyes.
Kahega trudged on ahead, keeping just enough distance to know where Blake was. This was his move in case of danger. Not everyone in this part of the world was happy to see a western man. And some got downright hostile when Blake started asking questions about local history and folklore.
“Far enough,” a voice ghosted through the trees.
Blake looked up and found bodies in the branches, peering out from behind trunks. Armed men who’d been expecting them. Rifles hovered like angry specters ready to spit bullets.
The guide fired back in Malagasy—a language Blake didn’t understand. It became a volley of words fighting for supremacy. Chaos threatened to escalate and Blake began to fear just how much loyalty his money bought him.
“Tell me what it is you are doing here.” The voice boomed, this time in English. There was no speaker attached that either of them could see.
“I have someone here who wants something,” Kahega said.
“A white man,” the voice spat.
“Every man pays,” Kahega said. “This one better than most.”
Sure, Blake thought. Better than most.
This was the end of the line.
Blake felt the fear of death. Sara never flashed before his mind, though. He worried instead about missing his chance. He thought of the pages, safe and secure at the resort. He had studied them so often over the last twelve months that every detail lived inside his head.
He was closer than anyone had ever come. There was just one question on his mind today. And if he could get that answer, everything would be different. If not—
A man appeared in the clearing before them and the row of machine guns stood at ease. For a second, Blake thought he might be able to breathe. Until the leader tore a six-shooter from his holster and pushed it against Kahega’s temple.
The guide barely flinched.
“I should kill you for bringing this white man here,” the leader said.
“He cannot find his way out of the resort without me,” Kahega assured him.
The leader took one look at Blake, noticed his cargo shorts, Old Navy tee, and Crocs before concluding that Kahega was correct. “Talk fast.”
Kahega gestured to his pocket. The leader nodded and Kahega took that as permission. His fingers slid into his shorts and lifted a wad of Blake’s money into the air.
The leader counted the flopping bills and then snatched them. “Where is he from?”
“Maine,” Kahega told him.
“Maine is close to Canada,” the leader said.
“He does not speak French,” Kahega assured. “And he does not come looking for diamonds.”
“What else could be so important?” the leader wondered.
“We are here to discuss that very matter with you,” Kahega said.
The leader looked intrigued, stealing delight from Blake’s discomfort. Then he holstered his gun and waved them to follow, turning back toward the trees. “Let’s talk.”
The invitation brought them further into the forest. The leader’s grin was an awful, lopsided sneer. He pointed to a small trail and guided them along it until they reached a row of huts arced around a skinny mine adit.
“The Canadians have claimed this mine,” the leader said. “And the diamonds that are allegedly inside of it.” They entered the nearest hut and he poured himself a glass of whiskey without offering his guests the overspill.
The leader sat atop the corner desk with the gun in one hand and a drink in the other. His eyes were like fried eggs.
Blake despised looking at him.
“The money you pay is enough for me to hear your question,” the leader said.
Blake looked at Kahega, passing an unspoken question with his eyes. Was this the right time to take the warlord up on his offer? The guide gave a slow nod.
“I am looking for Zanahary’s tongue,” Blake said.
The warlord knocked his glass back and laughed, a bellow somehow deeper than Kahega’s. “Zanahary’s tongue,” he said. “Is nothing any white man should ever say.” He rose, crossed the room and stood nose-to-nose with Blake. His cheeks puffed. “Who told it to you?”
“An old man,” Blake said, words wavering. “My father.” That was a complete lie.
“What business had your father here?”
“He visited. Decades ago. Met a woman and shared her company on what he could only say was the island’s hook. The locals say that can only mean Zanahary’s tongue, the northernmost point on the island. But there is nothing there.”
“Who was this woman?” the leader asked.
“Someone my father loved very much.”
“If he loved her so much, then why—”
“Why’d he leave?” Blake said. “I know. It’s a question my father asked himself every day. This was 1986... civil war had made this place unstable and she was determined to stay and fix her homeland. By the time things calmed and he returned, she was missing.”
The leader watched his face for signs of the lie. Blake should’ve cracked, but needed this more than anything. Without it, he was nothing. His life was nothing. If he failed, he’d spend the rest of it wondering about that damn tongue. Dreaming about the life he could’ve had.
What he could’ve given Sara.
“Zanahary is from Malagasy oratur
e,” the leader said. “True, some of it has been written in books, but the tongue you speak of can only be one place. If you approach from land then you will not see it, because it refers to the rock face that judges Antsiranana Bay.” He looked to Kahega, eyeing the porter like he was a charlatan. “You do not know any of this?”
Kahega shrugged.
“You should,” the leader growled.
The guide averted his eyes and nodded again, faster this time. Eager agreement.
Blake looked at the floor. Truth was, Zanahary wasn’t anywhere in those pages. Instead, it was given to them by an elder merchant on the island of Nose Be who thought perhaps one line of the riddle corresponded with Malagasy lore.
It begins on the hook where you are the bait. Reach the throat and tip the tongue.
The elder they questioned said they would need to travel far into the underworld in order to get that answer, because it was smugglers and warlords who knew best the old names.
So Kahega brought him here.
“If you approach the northern tip from the coast,” the leader said, “Zanahary’s tongue is the name pirates use to describe the sunken jetty that sprawls across the ocean floor, but also rises up and connects to the rock face.”
“Thank you,” Blake said.
“Go,” the leader told them. “Back to your jeep and away from here. I see you again, white man, all the allies in Madagascar will not save you.”
They started to go. Kahega had the hut flap pulled aside when the warlord called after them. “Wait.”
They froze.
The warlord had the fistful of bills in hand, waving them around with mockery. “The information you just bought comes with a price.”
“It’s worth it,” Blake said.
“Not the money.” The warlord grinned. “Lives.”
Blake’s glassy eyes were uncomprehending.
“This money goes toward better weapons. Those rifles that greeted you, they are old. Always jamming. Slow rates of fire.” He waved the cash back and forth. “This upgrades me to a few fully automatic Russian rifles. We are going to wait here for the Canadians, kill them as soon as they arrive. When you stand on Zanahary’s tongue, thinking about that nice moment from your white father’s life, you will do so knowing that you’ve bankrolled the slaughter of trespassers.”
Ocean Grave Page 3