Beyond the Sea

by Paul Lynch

  Hector’s eyes swivel towards somebody walking up the beach.

  Bolivar turns to see Daniel Paz and Arturo, the bossman’s gaze fixed upon him. Paz laughing at some joke.

  Bolivar takes a step towards Hector.

  Look, he says. I will give you half my share. That is the deal I have with Angel. You cannot do better than that.

  Hector’s sight falls upon the two men then falls upon the boat, travels across the sea to where the daylight hangs in a flattening colour.

  Bolivar watches the gaze go slack, the shoulders soften, how the hands sit restless in the pockets.

  Bolivar whispers, half.

  Arturo shouts, Porky!

  Bolivar turns and quickly speaks.

  Nothing to see here, bossman. When we get back we will party like wild animals for days. Isn’t that right, Hector?

  Arturo stops and studies the boat. He looks out upon the sea. Then he studies Hector and smiles.

  That guy you told me about, Porky. The one who can get rid of industrial waste. My brother knows a guy with a tank of spoiled molasses he needs to get rid of.

  * * *

  He becomes his hands and eyes and hands and eyes become the sea. The boat cutting a path through folding ocean. He has motored the panga between shore and lagoon. Past shorebirds staved upon sandbars. Turned then directly into the wind. A low haze of sea-made light. He pulls a pre-rolled joint and a yellow lighter from his pocket. As he exhales he thinks of Rosa. Next time you will bring limes for sure.

  Watching the water’s endless heave that has no place of origin. Watching as Hector leans upon the gunwale trim, the youth spitting into the wind, the spittle rushing like an insect. Bolivar begins to feel it under his skin, an itching here and there that is a deepening dislike of the youth. Only now does Bolivar see what is printed on the back of the boy’s sweater – a skull and crossbones.

  He thinks, Arturo is having a laugh, for sure.

  Bolivar stares at Hector’s thin attempt at a goatee beard. Then he lets out a pirate’s roar.

  Hector turns around with a puzzled look, meets the toothy disarray of Bolivar’s nut-brown grin.

  * * *

  At fourteen miles on the GPS he passes two shore-bound boats. Knows one of them for Ovidio’s boat, a stripe of yellow upon white. The way Ovidio stands with his foot upon the gunwale, his finger and thumb loosening a whistle. Then Ovidio shouts two blurry words but Bolivar stares straight ahead as though he has not seen them. Hector half-stands and waves until Bolivar picks up a sardine from the bait bucket and throws it at him.

  * * *

  He motors the boat blinking against fine spray. One eye upon the GPS, a thumb wiping the screen. It is this that he seeks. Farther ocean. The taste of salt on the lips. Time receding as the hair-fine shore falls away. He tries to read the sea but his gaze keeps meeting Hector. How the youth grips the gunwale while searching on his phone for a signal. When Hector asks how far left to go, Bolivar cups a hand to his ear and shrugs. He watches the youth turn away. Watches the wind pulling at the ponytail, the hair blowing this way and that, Hector tying it back into place. Bolivar takes off his baseball cap and puts on a woollen hat, hangs the cap on a hook under the seat.

  When Hector turns and asks a second time, Bolivar stares at him and shrugs. It is then he sees in Hector’s eyes a flashing look of anger. Bolivar turns away but holds up two tobacco-stained fingers.

  Two hours more, he says.

  It is quarter past five when Bolivar stops the motor.

  The world falls into a vast quiet. Just the sound of the sea carrying the breeze on its back. He rests an elbow on his left knee and shakes the stiffness out of his tiller hand. Then he curls his fingers around a joint.

  Hector turns with an expectant look.

  Bolivar sucks upon the joint and pulls from under his seat a pair of grey rubber gloves. He throws them at Hector and releases a cloud of smoke.

  Hector stares at his hands loose in the gloves.

  The sun falling beyond the sea.

  Bolivar says, now we begin.

  * * *

  Caves of dying light in the sky. Each man dissolves into the gloom as they finish baiting the hooks. Hector feeding the unhurried line hand over fist as Bolivar reverses the panga. He watches the bleach-bottle floats become dim jellyfish. He watches for the last moment of light as it meets the dark, narrows his eyes and tries to see it. He has a bet with Angel about this, some day yet I will see it, for sure, the exact moment it happens. He imagines it making a sound – a gasp or a pop. He cuts the motor and listens to the world as though met with sudden loneliness.

  * * *

  Bolivar flicks a butt over the trim, looks up to see the full moon obscured behind clouds. He reaches for the battery lamp and flicks it on. Then he fixes a plastic headlamp over his woollen hat. Without a word they eat some bread and cooked liver and onions. Bolivar sprinkling a pinch of seawater on his food.

  He studies Hector by lamplight. How the youth slumps over his bowl taking small bites. The mouth hanging slightly open. The jaw born short under the mouth. He leans closer for a better look, thinks he has not really noticed this. The long face and the short jaw and how this seems to give the face an agape look.

  Hector leans across to free a smoke from the roll of Bolivar’s hat.

  Bolivar leans back, says, you have to ask first.

  Hector says, can I have a smoke, please, Porky?

  Bolivar frowns and leans forward.

  What did you say?

  Hector says, please, can I have a smoke?

  That is not what you said.

  Bolivar blinds the youth with the lamp, watches the eyes puzzle, the light of an uncertain thought passing across the face.

  Hector says, that is what I said.

  You called me a name.

  Hector swallows and studies his feet. He digs the toe of his shoe into the hull. Finally he looks at Bolivar.

  Isn’t that what Arturo calls you? Porky?

  Bolivar fixes upon Hector a withering look that goes unseen in the dark. Hector pulls at his hands then reaches slowly into his pocket.

  He says, do you like chocolate?

  I have never yet met a person who does not like chocolate. It is the one thing everybody can agree on.

  Do you want some?

  No.

  Bolivar switches off the battery lamp and the world falls into a limitless dark. He listens to the meshings of the wind and the sea, thinks he can hear Hector chewing. The tongue squirming the chocolate into paste against the teeth, the short jaw working.

  He thinks, damnit, Angel would have brought beer.

  A short while later, Hector says, it’s just over a month to Christmas.

  He begins to talk about the football last night, about who will win the game tomorrow, about this girl he is seeing, Lucrezia. How he spends all his money on her yet is not sure whether he likes her or not – one of her eyes is not right, it is her left eye, no, it is her right. You do not know if she is looking at you or not.

  Bolivar sucks a joint to life and passes it to Hector.

  He rolls another for himself.

  He listens to Hector shifting about the seat.

  Then, finally, he says, this is where they go.

  Hector says, who?

  The runners for the cartels.

  Hector’s voice returns pinched. Out here?

  For sure. Keep the lights off just in case.

  How do you know?

  These are their waters. One night close by here on the GPS, Angel swore he heard a boat being shot up. Heavy weapons. This might be true or not true but I was asleep, I didn’t hear anything. Victor Ortiz was out here with Pablo T one night last April when they heard screams and shouting. Let me tell you what happened. They cut their lights and sat and listened. That is definitely the sound of a boat in trouble, Victor Ortiz said. Don’t go to them, Pablo T said, I have a wife and children. But Ortiz gunned the motor and began in their direction in a zigzag motion. Pablo
T beaming a strong light. His light fell upon a boat. Then Pablo T quickly turned off the lamp. They watched that boat in the dark and both said later they were struck with the same feeling, that the boat they were looking at was empty and that they were being watched by a third boat hidden in the dark, a boat with no lights yet full of men in hoods or balaclavas with heavy weapons trained on them. Then Pablo T said a prayer and he turned on the lamp and trained it on the first boat. What they saw was an empty fishing vessel. The hull sprayed with bullets and not a soul upon it. After that, both Victor Ortiz and Pablo T said they would not come out this far again. Maybe what they heard were ghosts. Or maybe what they heard was the sound of people being fed to the sharks. That much is probably true. What do you think, Hector? Do you believe in ghosts?

  Bolivar stretches out across the seat and pulls the cap over his eyes.

  * * *

  In a skim of sleep he hears it. The maddened wind. Tunnelling out of dark to reach another dark more true than dream. He rolls the cap from his eyes, looks to where the moon should be. The sea is twisting the wrong way.

  This is unreal, he thinks. I cannot believe it. It has come in the flick of an eye.

  He tries to see the illumined dial of his watch. There is a roar and then a crash as a wave strikes the boat. The water transmitting sudden cold into the bones. Bolivar bends out of the blow wiping brine from his eyes.

  Hector screams awake.

  A quickness now of things, Bolivar a liquid black towards the bow. The boat riding the dark swells. He passes Hector who has come to be on hands and knees and he roars at the youth to bail. Hector not real now but an imagined thing cowering in the boat which is also the unimagined thing – Bolivar aware for an instant of this thought as it passes through his mind, his body moving without thinking.

  Without gloves he is upon the sea-cold line, fire in his hands as he hauls it. Behind him Hector is shrieking. Bolivar roars over his shoulder at the youth to bail, sees instead Hector taking hold of the battery lamp and shining it at the sky.

  A world come howling from a dream.

  * * *

  Salt stings his eyes. I am blind, Bolivar thinks. Then he flicks on the headlamp, a steeple of light in the dark. Hand over fist he pulls in the line, hitches it to the two-headed bitt, the boat pitching downward as he gaffs a shark in the mouth and hauls it. Then he unhooks the shark and sees by lamplight into the shark’s eye, is met with a fleeting unintelligible feeling of some other world. He clubs the shark on the head and throws it into the cooler.

  It is miracle work and yet he moves with a feeling that something is within reach, a defined edge of his being. Already he has landed and unhooked four big fish, the line laden, the bait has done its work. Whispering to himself about Hector who is cowering in the stern, screaming and refusing to bail.

  He thinks, you knew it the moment you saw him. It was in his walk, in the way he stood, in that short little jaw of his.

  He becomes aware of water touching his ankles. He turns towards Hector and shouts for him to bail but his voice is flung the wrong way. He hitches the line and walks down the boat, grabs the bailing bucket, ropes it to the underseat.

  The hissing salt-spray.

  Hector’s shouts thrown into whisper.

  Dear God, please, I don’t want to die.

  The sound of the wind funnelling through dark space.

  * * *

  How an hour becomes a life. Some distant part of Bolivar’s mind speaks but he does not listen. He is busy doing the work of two men, bailing the boat and hauling the line, gaffing fish after fish, throwing them into the cooler. Soon the cooler is half-full with tuna and a few sharks.

  For sure, he thinks, this is the best place yet. Just another hour or so and there will be light.

  He meets the blow of each wave while Hector can be heard sobbing. Now and then the youth begins to bail but stops when hit by a wave.

  It is a simple matter, Bolivar thinks. Staying alive. Doing what you are supposed to do without question. This boy is a fool, he will not listen.

  He thinks, this will make for some tale back home. He will never live this down on the strip.

  It is then that Bolivar turns and roars.

  Come on, we are going to do this.

  * * *

  It comes in whisper. An awareness that he is working against his own feeling. Then something deep sounds in the wind. He can feel his heart shake. His mind speaks words to what he already knows as feeling. That what has been has not yet met its limit.

  The boat shudders violently upward and he finds himself thrown onto his back. The boat is almost taken into the wave’s mouth. He turns and can see Hector crouched and kissing a crucifix necklace. He is calling for his mother, his father, calling for God to listen.

  Bolivar is caught in a tangle of line. He picks himself up and yanks a hook out of his shirt, tearing the flesh of a rib.

  He stares into the face of the north-easterly gale.

  There should be light now winging the west.

  He thinks, there isn’t time.

  He grabs the line and takes the gutting knife and begins to sever it. When the line slips off the bow he turns upon Hector, pulls him in a rage by the sweater so that they are face to face. Hector’s mouth opens, his eyes squeezing shut against the direct light of Bolivar’s headlamp, against the dark of the storm, the crucifix falling from the mouth.

  Bolivar gives him a violent shake.

  Come on, he shouts. It is time to go. We can do this. I just need you to bail. We will sink if we take on any more water.

  Hector is crying or perhaps he is just trying to wipe the brine out of his eyes. Then he begins to nod. He moves towards the bucket and grabs it with both hands, begins to bail as though met with a sudden rage.

  Bolivar yanking the motor to life.

  * * *

  In sunless greylight Bolivar motors the boat, blinking furiously at a compass. Watching the needle teeter. Watching the rollers obscure the sky. He forges a path through each ravine, opening the throttle then slowing. Both of them bending to take the blow of each wave. For a moment Bolivar can see them on some prehistoric earth met by perpetual storm, time unravelled, no day or night, no distance to be measured. What the world once was or yet will be.

  He thinks of Rosa, his mind travelling down her skin towards her hips, the long bones of her thighs. This feeling now after so many years of looking at her. To lie with her each night would be to get the pain of wanting out of the body. What you have to say to her. Yesterday I was poor but today I am rich, that is the life of the fisherman.

  Bolivar roars out, that’s it, keep going! In a few hours we will have a few beers—

  The boat plunges then recovers and Hector whips his head up and stares at Bolivar, his face frozen by what he sees.

  Bolivar rising out of his bent posture with a wide laughing mouth, a great hand spread on his thigh.

  * * *

  The boat mounts a mass of reaching sea. Bolivar roars at Hector to grab the gunwale but the youth continues with outflung elbows to bail. Everything on deck begins to slide – the remnants of the fishing line, their bags, the buckets and knives, Bolivar locking his feet to the hull as he screams out at Hector, the fibreglass beginning to quake. He is aware for a moment of a feeling of emptiness as a mouth of ocean opens behind them. Then the sea becomes sky. He bends his head between his legs as the panga crests the top of the wave, an enormity of iced thunder breaking upon them. He finds himself seated, his hand gripping the tiller, and in the same instant without looking he knows Hector is gone. Quickness then as he swings his sight over the side, a thought that says, let the fool go. Yet it is then without thought that he reaches out and grabs Hector by the hair. He pulls the youth towards him as the boat continues its downward pitch. He can feel the fingers coming loose as the body is pulled away from him, his arm losing reach, there is no time to do this, he thinks, let him go, he will take you with him. It is then with his left arm that he takes hold of the gaff a
nd roars strength into the lift, pikes the youth into the boat by the hood of his sweater.

  Bolivar bends under another wave, blinks the salt out of his eyes. It takes a moment to see. There is Hector stunned but alive, an animal in the moment of birth. The mouth sucking for air, the eyes swollen tight, the body sealed in mucus. He rolls onto his side and spews water, begins to move as though met for the first time with weight and breath. His hand reaching upward to grab hold of the trim.

  It is then that Bolivar knows the motor is dead.

  He grabs the pull-cord and yanks it. Yanks and yanks it again. The engine’s powerhead is silent. He roars at it then turns and bangs it with the base of his fist. He begins again at the pull-cord.

  Finally he stops and looks up.

  Catches sight of a tossed bird.

  * * *

  He grabs the two-way radio from under the seat and shouts into it. The speaker is silent. He thumbs at the button and wipes the mouthpiece on his shirt, checks the channel and dials up the volume. He holds the radio to his ear, cannot tell if the radio is clicking or not.

  He looks across and sees Hector watching him, the youth grey-skinned, the whites of the eyes rawed to the colour of blood yet carrying a look of disbelief as if what is happening now might not be if only he could wish it.

  Bolivar shakes the radio then puts it down.

  He shouts, maybe it ran out of juice. We had no time to recharge it. Maybe it got wet. They are never truly waterproof.

  It is then the radio crackles. Bolivar thumbs the button and shouts. The radio clicks and a distant voice decays into static. He wishes it were Arturo but he knows it is not. It is probably another boat out here, no doubt Memo or one of the other boats is in trouble. He remembers what somebody once said, how a radio signal sent and never picked up can forever orbit the earth, a long-lost call of the dead.