The Canal House

by Mark Lee

  A thumping sound came from inside the ship. It wasn’t particularly loud, more like a hand slapping the base of an overturned washtub. The hatch cover was pushed away and four crew members scrambled out, followed by a plume of black smoke. The Seria shuddered and stopped moving. Captain Vanderhouten burst out of the wheelhouse and began screaming at the Indonesians.

  “No power!” he told us. “The engine just stopped!”

  Billy climbed down the ladder into the hold, then came up a few minutes later holding on to Pak. The first mate’s skin and clothes were black with smoke. He lay on the desk, gasping for air. Billy coughed and spat onto the deck. “Something’s on fire,” he said. “It’s down in the engine room.”

  Captain Vanderhouten kept shouting orders. Two crew members started a portable water pump and dropped its intake hose into the ocean. The pump coughed and sputtered like a sick lawn mower. Salt water leaked from the brass couplings. The crew caught the water in buckets and poured it down the hold. Gradually, the smoke subsided and we climbed down to the engine room. Everything was hot and covered with soot. Black marks appeared on our hands and clothing.

  Pak stood close to the engine and examined the destruction. It looked like he was trying to communicate with some deeper essence of the machinery. He shook his head and spoke to the captain.

  “Pak thinks the fuel line burst,” Vanderhouten said. We were pushing the engine when we left the harbor.”

  “Can you fix it?” I asked.

  “It’s going to be difficult. We don’t have any parts.”

  “We need to get back to Dili right away,” Julia said. “We’ll have to talk to General Bates.”

  “My shareholders are going to be very angry,” Vanderhouten said. “Who’s going to pay for this damage?”

  Billy reached out and grabbed the captain’s throat with one hand. Vanderhouten tried to pull himself away, but Billy tightened his grip. Terrified, the captain stopped struggling. His face turned pink and spit drooled from his mouth.

  “Listen up,” Billy said. “I could snap your neck right now and no one would give a damn. We’ll talk about money later, but right now we want off this bloody ship.”

  The crew found the rubber raft, but its outboard motor wouldn’t start and Pak had to put in a new spark plug. Now it was almost twelve noon. As each minute passed, we moved closer to sunset and Cristiano’s ultimatum. Richard switched on his sat phone and called his contacts at the United Nations. Although General Bates didn’t control the fleet in Dili Harbor, neither the Australians nor the British would allow their ships to be moved without a formal request from Interfet. Richard continued using the phone while we rode the raft back to the harbor. “Bates will see us,” he told Julia. “Just let me do the negotiation.”

  We landed on the beach and ran up the waterfront boulevard to the Turismo Hotel. Interfet headquarters was being moved to the airport, but General Bates still had an office there. Julia wanted to go upstairs immediately, but the Australian soldiers held us in the lobby. Young men in camouflage uniforms walked around carrying manila folders and I heard a short-wave radio playing the kind of bouncy pop music you’d hear in an exercise class. Bottles of water were stacked against the wall and the sergeant standing behind the hotel desk told us, “It’s free, mate. Take as much as you want.” I had a fantasy of water bottles and cans of diet cola and all the other products of the industrial world being tossed out of airplanes flying over East Timor. There were no parachutes in my fantasy. Nothing to slow the fall. And television sets and personal computers and lounge chairs and enormous bales of snack crackers were tumbling through the air and exploding on the ground.

  Major Holden came downstairs and guided us to the general’s new office on the first floor. A portable electric generator was chugging away down in the courtyard to power the general’s air conditioner. We walked into a pocket of cool, dry air and found Bates sitting at his desk with a stack of Australian newspapers.

  “We need a transport ship,” Julia said, then started to explain what had happened.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Dr. Cadell.”

  “We need—”

  “I’m quite aware of the situation.” General Bates looked annoyed. “My office has already contacted naval command and requested that the cruiser Botany Bay be sent down the coast to Liquica.”

  I took Julia’s hand and got her to sit down on a bench facing the general. “When will the ship leave the harbor?” I asked.

  “The order has to go through the appropriate chain of command.”

  “Tell them to do it right away,” Julia said. “A boat has to get there by sunset.”

  “We’re following the correct procedure, Dr. Cadell. Obviously, you didn’t care to obey the rules and that’s why you got into trouble.”

  “It’s unfortunate that all this happened.” Richard’s voice was soothing and respectful. “But there is a deadline here. Perhaps the Australian ship could be heading toward Liquica while the order is being processed.”

  “I don’t like to be ordered around, Mr. Seaton. Especially by a bunch of misguided do-gooders who have deliberately disobeyed my instructions. Everyone involved in our effort here seems to be part of the program except the British. I told Captain Jenkins he could lead a reconnaissance patrol. Without my permission, he took along a group of civilians.”

  “We’re sorry for the confusion,” Richard said. “But right now we need to help Mr. McFarland. My Australian friends have told me that you’re the kind of man who can cut through all the clutter.”

  Bates smiled at Richard. “Interfet is handling the problem, Mr. Seaton. Now go outside and my staff will keep you informed about the situation.”

  We sat on the wicker furniture in the hotel waiting room and more people offered us bottled water. Around three o’clock Major Holden told us that the Botany Bay was leaving for Liquica. I went outside with Julia and we walked across the waterfront boulevard to the beach. One of the Australian cruisers that had been anchored near the wharf was already gliding out of the harbor. “That’s got to be the Botany Bay,” I said. “They’ll get there in time, Julia. Don’t worry.”

  I ran into Tristram Müller and he let me go to his hotel room to use his phone and computer. I downloaded the disc of photographs from Liquica, then called the Newsweek office and gave the story to John Scofield. Around five o’clock, I called an editor working for the Telegraph and told him about Daniel.

  It was close to sunset when I went back to the Turismo and found Julia and Richard in the hotel lobby. General Bates and Major Holden had left for the airport, but a neatly dressed Australian lieutenant knew about the situation and was monitoring the radio reports from naval command. Now it was getting dark outside, but none of us wanted to admit that the deadline had passed. Billy showed up an hour later and said that the Seria’s crew had gotten the engine started. Using a fraction of normal power, the ship had drifted back to the wharf.

  Julia sat on the couch in the lobby with her elbows resting on her knees. Although her eyes were open, she didn’t seem to be looking at anything. The lieutenant went upstairs for a few minutes and returned with a sheet of paper. His face had been so confident, so assured of his mission, that I had felt relaxed watching him. Now he looked embarrassed and ashamed.

  “We just received a radio message from the Botany Bay. The ship reached Liquica at approximately nineteen hundred hours. The captain sent a landing party to the beach, and when they arrived no one was there. I guess the militia went up into the hills with your friend.”

  Richard tried to call his military contacts in Australia, but everyone had left their office for the day. The lieutenant said he would radio General Bates out at the airport and ask for instructions, but he doubted that anything could be done until morning. Billy escorted Julia back to her cabin on the Seria and I walked through the dark streets to the Resende Inn. The hotel manager sold me a bottle of warm beer and a bowl of rice for twenty Australian dollars and I went upstairs to the room. I fe
ll asleep almost immediately, then woke up in darkness. The cut on my back was burning as if the skin had been touched with a white-hot piece of iron. Lying on the mattress, I listened to the sound of my breath, my heartbeat, my awkward prayer.

  19 SANTA CRUZ

  Someone pounded on the door of my hotel room early the next morning. I was sure it was Daniel. He had probably spent the night listening to Cristiano and then manipulated the young man’s vanity. And now you must let me go, comandante. So I can write your story and tell the whole world about your struggle.

  I pulled on my pants, opened the door, and found Captain Jenkins standing in the hallway with two of his Gurkhas. “The Australians picked us up with their helicopters,” he said. “Now they’re sending their soldiers down to Liquica.”

  “We told Bates not to do that,” I said, getting worried. “The militia might kill Daniel if they’re attacked.”

  “It’s not my idea, Mr. Bettencourt. I don’t have any transport so I’m riding in one of the Aussie vehicles. Thought you might want to come along.”

  I finished getting dressed and grabbed my cameras. Julia had spent the night on the Seria and I knew she was planning to meet with General Bates as soon as he returned to his office. I scribbled a short note on the back of a chocolate-bar wrapper and gave it to the hotel manager’s nephew. Using a lot of gestures and a smattering of Portuguese I told him to take the message to the woman doctor living on the boat with the Indonesian crew. The boy ran off to the wharf and I followed Jenkins over to the Turismo Hotel.

  The Australians had assembled a convoy of Land Rovers. The officers bustled about carrying their Steyr assault rifles, talking to Interfet command on their radios. The lieutenant driving us to Liquica was a friendly young man. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he drank from a water bottle.

  “You want to hear some music?” he asked.

  “That’s not necessary,” Jenkins said.

  “It’s nothing loud, Captain. I brought my own tape cassettes along. We could listen to country western, jazz guitar—”

  “I don’t want to hear any bloody music.”

  “No worries, sir. Suit yourself.”

  Our convoy left the city. By now most of the fires had gone out. I could still smell burned rubber and oil whenever we passed a wrecked car, but the sky was clear and blue. We went through the airport roadblock, then traveled down the coastal road. Sitting in the front passenger seat, Jenkins swiveled around to talk to me.

  “They flew Corporal Mainla back to Darwin. It looks like he’s going to be all right. Private Rai is at the airport medical facility. He’s still a little shaky, but he told me the basic story. I thought you might give me your version.”

  I tried to explain what had happened, but the palm trees and the sunlight and little white waves on the ocean challenged the darkness of my story. The Land Rover we were traveling in was new and comfortable and the lieutenant kept offering us bottles of purified water. Three Black Hawk helicopters roared over us and continued west.

  “That’s our rangers,” the lieutenant said. “They’re coming in first.”

  By the time we reached the first bridge on the outskirts of Liquica the helicopters had landed and a platoon of rangers was fanning through the town. I could see them checking the wrecked buildings as we drove past the churchyard and down the cobblestone road to the beach. Everything in Liquica had become larger in my memory, but now it appeared small and shabby.

  The front Land Rover stopped at the end of the road and soldiers jumped out, ready for action. As the drivers switched off the engines all I could hear was the sound of waves and the screech of sea gulls circling over the dead bodies. I led Captain Jenkins down to the tennis court. The blown-up Land Rover was still parked on the sand near the ashes of the bonfire. Sergeant Gurung, Corporal Battis, and Private Thapa lay near the vehicle, covered with the cardboard strips. Five dead villagers were scattered across the tennis court along with bundles of cooking gear and clothing that had been left behind. The steel rods I had hammered into the ground were still there attached to the IV bags. The empty bags fluttered back and forth in the ocean breeze, dragging their plastic tubes across the concrete.

  Jenkins looked down at the dead soldiers and shook his head. “Who covered up the bodies?” he asked.

  “Daniel and I.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bettencourt. That was a decent thing to do.”

  I stepped through a hole in the chain-link fence and wandered across the tennis court. A rolled-up blue blanket lay near a suitcase. I assumed that the blanket was wrapped around a quilt until I saw a tuft of black hair. It was the girl who had died while I took her picture. The girl’s mother had covered the body before she followed the church truck to Dili.

  Standing in the bright sunshine, I realized that I had never come back to any of my photographs. I had become an absurd American movie, cutting quickly from one image to another, but never stopping to focus on one thing. For the first time I had looped back—and here was my old photograph, wrapped in a blue blanket while the gulls spiraled overhead.

  Wearing medical gloves, Jenkins and his men picked up Gurung’s body and slipped it into a black plastic bag. “Careful. Careful,” Jenkins whispered as if the sergeant was asleep and Jenkins didn’t want to wake him.

  The young Australian lieutenant got a message on his portable radio and then walked across the tennis court. “Mr. Bettencourt, would you please come with me.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “We found something.”

  “Found what?”

  “Something that concerns Mr. McFarland. It’s up in the village.”

  The lieutenant and I got back into the Land Rover and he drove me over to the destroyed village mercado. We walked through the concrete columns, ashes all about us, clinging to our shoes. A concrete drainage ditch surrounded the mercado and three Rangers stood near one section of it. They stepped away as we approached them and then I saw Daniel lying on his back in an awkward posture. His face was unmarked, but he had been shot at close range in the chest and stomach. A pool of blood had formed beneath his body and some of it had trickled down the slanted ditch. His socks and shoes had been stolen.

  “Is that your friend?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Yes.” My voice was a harsh whisper. It didn’t sound like it was coming from me.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bettencourt. Bad luck all around.”

  Without thinking, I raised my Nikon and took a picture of the body. The click of the shutter ended something, as if I’d cut a taut string with a very sharp knife.

  WHEN I WAS COVERING the earthquake in Turkey, I met a woman whose husband and children had been crushed inside their apartment building. Instead of weeping and tearing her clothes she wandered around Adana looking for her lost cat. I thought she was crazy when I took her photograph, but now I understood. When there’s too much grief to handle, part of your brain clicks off and you concentrate on the small details that surround you. At the end of time, when Judgment Day finally arrives, a great many of us will be rearranging the cereal boxes in the pantry or cleaning out the shower stall.

  CAPTAIN JENKINS AND his Gurkhas appeared at the mercado a few minutes later. They knelt beside Daniel and placed him in one of the bags; Jenkins tied up the cords. I was watching Daniel disappear, but there was something false about the moment. I could still hear his voice and see his face in my mind. All those memories had a greater reality than the body in front of me.

  The four bodies were loaded into an armored personnel carrier and we followed it back to Dili. There weren’t any civilian hospitals or funeral homes in Dili and so we took the bodies to the new Interfet camp near the airport and lay them on the wooden floor of an army tent. When the job was done, Jenkins snapped to attention and saluted the three dead soldiers. He glanced at me, then walked over to Daniel and saluted him as well.

  “Don’t worry about the bastards who killed your friend,” Jenkins said. “We’ll track them d
own before they reach the border. There’s no justice in this world unless you make it yourself.”

  Jenkins left me alone. I sat down on the floor of the tent and stared at the body bag. It was my responsibility to tell Julia what had happened, but that demanded more strength than I had at the moment. For most of my life I had avoided having any kind of friend. I had been a coward with my heart, preferring to watch the pain or happiness of others. Daniel had ignored my defenses. Our friendship had occurred before I was even aware of it. You think you’re on a separate journey but then you suddenly realize that you’re traveling together.

  I don’t know how long I stayed in the tent. Sunlight came through one of the mesh windows and I watched a patch of brightness move slowly toward Daniel’s body. When the light touched the body I told myself I was going to do something—stand up, leave, go back to the Seria—but the moment passed and I remained on the floor. Motes of dust were in the air and I watched them float upward and downward like wayward atoms.

  All of a sudden, I heard Richard’s voice outside the tent. “Is this it?” he asked. “Is this the one?”

  Richard pushed back the canvas flap and entered the tent, followed by Julia. Billy and Major Holden were with them. Someone had already told Julia that Daniel was dead, but I could tell that she didn’t believe it. I jumped up as she came toward me with a frantic intensity; if she could find Daniel, just find him, then everything would be all right.

  “Nicky, they told me that—”

  I didn’t say anything, just nodded and motioned to the body. Julia knelt down beside Daniel, hesitated, and looked away. I watched her struggle with the pain, then gather her strength and untie the top three cords. She hesitated again, pushed back the heavy plastic and exposed Daniel’s face.

  No one spoke. Richard and the others stood there, watching. Julia raised her hand to her lips and kissed her fingers, then touched Daniel’s lips.

  “This is all my fault, Nicky. I shouldn’t have let Daniel go with us. We shouldn’t have gone at all.”