Long Voyage Back

by Luke Rhinehart

  `Some, I suppose - with gold, silver, diamonds, jewellery,' Philip replied. 'And, ah, with pot and pussy. Such are at present the six coins of your nation's former realm.' Frank and Neil looked at him uncertainly. 'You'll have to barter first with the precious metal dealers, then with the individual merchants. Very few shopkeepers will barter themselves, except a few will deal in dope and a lady's favours.'

  Ìs there much chance we can stay here, make a home here?' Jeanne asked. Philip looked at her, grimaced, and looked away. 'Not bloody likely,' he replied. 'I'm afraid the world here is becoming a bit of a black and white thing, you know? Blacks don't seem to appreciate the fact that whites are blowing up the whole world and . . . uh .

  . . then the survivors running to the blacks for help.'

  `But the Russians started it,' said Tony from the port cockpit. Àh, well, I'm not certain too many blacks are sure of that.' `St Thomas is all black?'

  Jeanne asked.

  `Pretty much so,' Philip replied. 'And most of the refugees are white or now Puerto Rican. The rich whites who live here are holed up in various enclaves - those that haven't left, that Is.'

  `What are your plans?' Neil asked abruptly from his seat in the corner of the wheelhouse. The big Englishman frowned. 'The bloody war's got too close,' he said slowly. 'I suppose you know San Juan got hit? . . . We've decided to leave. We want to be part of a fleet.'

  À fleet?' Neil asked.

  `Pirates. You can't go twenty miles in any direction without having them all over you. Bloody trouble is you can't know who to trust. A friend of mine sailed off with another ship four days ago and yesterday his ship turned up stripped and foundering while the other ship is reported sailing

  happily onwards a hundred miles from here. The world's not a nice place these days.'

  `But where are you going?' Neil persisted.

  `Thought we might try Australia,' the Englishman replied softly, staring at his hands. Àustralia!' Frank exclaimed.

  `My boat's too small, I know', said Philip, looking up intently. 'But I have a friend who's got a fine old wooden sloop, fifty-five-footer, she is, and . .

  `But Australia . . .' Frank said again. 'Jesus. That's quite a sail.'

  Ìt's quite a world, Frank.'

  `Yes. I guess it is.'

  Èngland doesn't much exist any more, you know,' he went on intently. 'And since they bombed Puerto Rico and Venezuela and the whites were massacred on Dominica, no one feels too bright about this whole area. Everyone who can afford it is getting out. Food was short before on all the islands. Now it's almost non-existent here. Things can only get worse, right?'

  `Have you stocked much food?' Neil asked.

  Philip snorted out a half-laugh in reply. 'There are two types here: those who've got their gold and silver and those who haven't. The rich are selling all to fly out of here now. And the rest of us fish.' He laughed and, though his belly shook, his eyes weren't twinkling.

  `What are you people planning to do?' asked his wife suddenly. Frank didn't answer and a strained silence ensued. `Survive,' Macklin finally growled. Òh yes, I know . . .' said Sheila. 'But

  . well . .

  Ì'm sorry, Frank,' said Philip. 'But I suppose I've got to ask also whether in this new world you're rich or poor.'

  `We're poor,' Jeanne said. 'We have little food left, and none of the mineral wealth that passes for currency. We could never barter for enough food to go to Australia.'

  `Bit sticky for us all, commented Philip.

  Ì'm glad you're poor, Jeanne,' Sheila said. 'Anyone who has gold on his boat seems to have a lead anchor in his heart. Phil was saying as we rowed over here, "Hope to Christ they're not hoarders." '

  Ìt's a paradox I guess you'd say,' commented Philip. 'The way things are, if you had plenty of gold you'd be the type that doesn't share, whereas since you, ah, haven't gold, we're likely to help each other.'

  `How do you figure to help us?' Frank asked.

  `Well, for one thing, give you advice on what you can and can't sell. For another, I've been here for almost a month and know not only St Thomas but what's been happening throughout the Antilles. For example, when the war started a few ships left for some of the islands south of here, but later starvation and revolution and civil war devastated two or three of the islands, and a lot of ships came back. And now after the explosion over San Juan, a lot of ships have departed again.'

  `There seem still to be quite a few,' Jeanne said.

  Philip looked briefly out at the ships at anchor around them. 'About a third less than on Thursday,' he said. 'And half of these ships here are motor yachts. Almost all of them lack fuel to go anywhere even if they wanted to. Some came in yesterday from Puerto Rico.'

  Ìs it possible to rent a house?' Jeanne asked.

  Ì suppose anything is possible if you have the means to pay for it,' Philip replied. 'But you won't be welcome.'

  `Can we at least get water free?' Neil asked. 'We've less than three gallons left.'

  `Water's rationed. You'll get some, but not enough for a voyage.'

  `Jesus, what's happened to traditional Caribbean hospitality?' Frank asked, frowning. Ìt was obliterated, Frank,' Sheila replied, her face as gloomy as those of the others, 'the day the white man began

  bringing disease and death south with him instead of tourist dollars.'

  Her husband frowned too. 'And of course the other reason we're feared is the plague,' he said.

  `The what?' Frank exclaimed.

  `You'd best watch where you get your water from,' Sheila explained. 'There's some sort of mysterious disease on the islands, not many cases yet and worst on Capo Gorda, that kills about half the people it strikes.'

  Ìs that why the Customs people took our temperature?' Neil asked.

  `Yes,' Philip replied. 'It seems the disease is carried by Americans from the mainland, or so they say.' He was frowning and didn't raise his head to look at the others. There was an awkward silence.

  `Rain water's safe,' said Sheila.

  There was another silence.

  `When it rains,' Philip added gloomily.

  It only took them a few days on St Thomas to realize that conditions were appalling. Black antipathy to all whites was palpable in glances and gestures at every moment. In the month since the war the food shortages had already taken their toll. People looked gaunt, walked slowly, squabbled violently over the tiniest disagreement about food or water. They soon realized that the black men fishing at every bridge and breakwater and along most docks were not fishing for leisure, but for survival. The street vendor haggling over the price of two oranges was haggling not because of 'cultural tradition'

  but from economic desperation. The voluptuous black mother spending twenty minutes in the private office of the store manager was not coldhearted or neurotic but only a human being spending thankfully her last discovered economic asset. In this world there were no luxuries, only necessities.

  Human society on St Thomas was falling apart. The government was still paying its employees in paper dollars, which were no longer being accepted by the few farmers, fishermen and merchants who had things worth selling. Consequently, government employees, once the island's elite, were now working for nothing, whereas most other workers -half the population was unemployed - bargained to be paid in food and water. Pot-smoking and prostitution were now public and open since there were no facilities to jail offenders in, no food to feed them with, and only unpaid, disgruntled policemen to arrest and guard them. Bicycles and mules were the popular vehicles of the new world. The airport was usually deserted of both planes and people since most private planes had flown south and regular commercial flights to

  anywhere had ended through lack of fuel or the piracy of the commercial aircraft. The sight of a plane over St Thomas two days after Vagabond arrived had sent such a rush of people from town to the airport that when Neil saw it he thought he was witnessing some annual island bike race: over a hundred people pedalling out to the airport as if the
ir lives depended on it.

  Everyone who could afford to leave either had left or was trying to. With food inadequate on all the islands, the poor, with nothing to lose, were beginning to demand forcefully their fair share of the little that was still left. On their first walk through the streets of Charlotte-Amalie Neil, Frank, and Jeanne had seen the broken and unboarded windows of supermarkets and grocery stores, all of which were now empty and deserted. Some downtown blocks had so many looted and abandoned stores it seemed 'the revolution' must already have occurred, and yet the local whites they were able to talk to still spoke as if they feared a black uprising and takeover. There were tanks parked all along the waterfront. Except for the three white enclaves outside of town and the St Thomas Hilton, Neil didn't see that there was much left on St Thomas of value to 'take over'.

  Settling on St Thomas began to seem increasingly unlikely. In their first few days Frank was offered houses in exchange for Vagabond, but the desperation and hopefulness with which the two different owners advanced their offer sobered Frank considerably. He discussed with Neil the possibility of selling Vagabond to raise enough gold to fly most or maybe all of them to Brazil, but the prospect of arriving destitute in Brazil was unpleasant, and worse, they would have to sell the boat before they could have any sort of an assured flight.

  And to complicate their situation more, the news from the other Caribbean islands and from the rest of the world was dismal. Although the war seemed no longer to be being fought, conditions worldwide were still getting worse. No one dared pronounce the war over; no government proudly

  announced victory or abjectly offered surrender; but reports of new fighting had ceased - at least among the major powers. Battles for food and between refugees and neutral countries trying to keep them out were increasing. US government officials, still speaking from some unidentified underground headquarters, now, after three weeks of exhorting its citizens to rally to defeat the Soviet Union, spoke only of steps to be taken to save the surviving population. Although the government spoke, there was no evidence that anyone was listening. From what could be gathered from the shortwave radio and an occasional newscast on the local A. M. station, the country seemed to be divided up into areas and pockets, each struggling independently of the others to survive their particular problems. Reports seemed to imply that more than two-thirds of the US population was already dead.

  Starvation on the mainland of the US was not yet reported. It was July, and survivors had plenty of natural growing things for nourishment - if they lived in areas uncontaminated by radiation - but throughout much of the rest of the world it was the problem. Other diseases were now beginning to claim as many victims as radiation sickness and burns. Dysentery, typhoid and cholera were increasingly appearing throughout those areas of the world where loss of electricity and overcrowding meant reduced and polluted water supplies. Worst of all, the mysterious disease from the western United States was spreading to places untouched by missiles, as it had to the Virgin Islands. Colombia, Venezuela and four Central American countries had outlawed all immigration from the north, quarantining or exiling anyone caught illegally within their borders. The '

  flu' virus that had been talked about weeks earlier was now definitely more than a flu, but the etiology of the 'plague' remained unknown. All that had been established was that the incubation period was between a week and ten days; that transmission seemed to have to be oral - through ingestion of contaminated food or water, or through mouth contact with someone infected. Flies going from the sweat of an infected person could contaminate food.

  The prognosis was known now too. The disease began with stomach cramps, then a fever, then a high fever which might last five or six days, followed by either death or a remission of symptoms. Treatment was to try to reduce and control the fever - medication, ice packs, fluids, etc. Unfortunately, none of them was very successful. Although about a quarter survived with no ostensible permanent damage, and a similar number survived but seemed to be debilitated by the disease, lacking in energy and endurance, about half died.

  As a result, international travel and trade had almost ceased. Jeanne and Neil listened to a report that the Venezuelan Air Force had threatened to shoot down a Boeing 747 that wanted to land in Caracas after an eight-hour flight from Toronto. When the plane was almost out of fuel and circling outside the city the Air Force did shoot it down. No one survived.

  For the first time those aboard Vagabond discussed returning to the US mainland. It appeared that there they could still find sufficient food. The radioactive fallout would be diminishing eventually, or so they hoped. But the problem of avoiding the disease, and of avoiding the violence of those who feared they were carriers of the disease - this was frightening.

  Any area of the country untouched by the epidemic would be erecting the same kind of total and deadly barriers to possibly infected outsiders as were other areas of the world. Moreover, most of the stored and growing food would already have been confiscated and controlled by previous survivors in each area, and when winter came these sources would be barely enough for them. Outsiders would not only be feared and kept away because of the 'plague' but because of the burden they would place on the already limited subsistence of those already there. Neil had listened to one shortwave report of a small renegade group of soldiers and a band of survivalists

  fighting a pitched battle for the food and shelter the survivalists had prepared. The broadcaster didn't know who had won, but it wasn't a game that any of those aboard Vagabond had any heart for.

  Thus, although their stay in the harbour at Charlotte-Amalie permitted them to recover from the weariness of being at sea for almost three weeks, by the end of a week a new kind of weariness was afflicting them: the fatigue of searching endlessly for some end to the threat of starvation, and finding none. 01ly, with help usually from Jim, Lisa, and Katya, spent most of every day fishing, sometimes with hook and line, at others with a net along the shore, or raking for shellfish. Frank, possessive of Jeanne, took on with her the task of bartering for what little food was available in the city. Over the week they bartered away dozens of 'useless trinkets': watches, shirts, shoes, necklaces, blouses, a transistor radio, the rest of Macklin's stolen cigarettes, Jim's remaining small supply of grass. Yet during the week they ate no better than they had at sea and had no more reserve food supply than when they had first dropped anchor. They were running to stand still.

  So almost from the first day, on the torpid streets of Charlotte-Amalie Jeanne felt lost and uneasy. She arrived wanting to find a home for herself and Neil and the others, for the alternative seemed an endless sailing from one hostile place to another. But as she talked to government officials, to shopkeepers, as she pushed her way through the devastated and littered streets or along the waterfront bartering for food, she could feel no connection with anyone, black or white, mostly only a powerful, sullen hostility. She felt herself out of sync with the island and its people. By the third day she was just going through the motions. She wanted to leave.

  It wasn't simply that she was white in a world mostly black. It was more than colour. She sensed that for those who had lived on the islands for a few years anyone who had arrived after the holocaust - black, white, or Puerto Rican - was an outsider, an intruder - even, she realized with a start, a coward. To have fled one's homeland was to be guilty of selfish betrayal, even if that home had been blown off the earth and the homeland become a vast crematorium. And the anger and contempt with which most of the longtime residents responded to her and the other refugees was undoubtedly intensified by their own fear and their own desire to flee to some ultimately secure haven. A black woman whom she casually tried to befriend at the fish stall turned on her with unexpected hatred: 'Go way, rich lady,' she said fiercely. 'You best fly while you can!' The woman's rebuke acted to re-stir Jeanne's own fear; made her begin calculating if she were still 'rich' enough to flee.

  It hadn't taken long to learn beyond any doubt the commonness of the cu
rrency Philip had called 'pot and pussy'. Marijuana joints were traded as cigarettes had been during earlier wars. Bags of it were the big bills of island currency. And some women, if they were young and attractive and otherwise destitute, went to buy necessities from certain merchants quite reconciled to paying with the availability of their mouths or bodies. One merchant they'd heard about had, out of his own physical limitations, resorted to selling water or fruit or fish to certain women for 'IOUs' -payment to be upon future demand of the bearer of the IOU, the bearer not necessarily being the merchant himself. He, in turn, used the sexual IOUs to buy things he wanted from other merchants. The second real estate agent Jeanne had called upon, a dignified black man her own age, had offered her a month's free rent in a cottage he controlled in return for her `friendship'

  . The suggestion seemed to her not so much insulting as irrelevant, but it contributed to her feelings of uneasiness about St Thomas.

  So too did what was happening to Lisa and Jim. On their second trip ashore the two had discovered in the downtown city park a gathering of teenagers, black and white - the only

  part of the local life that seemed comfortably integrated -playing guitars and ukuleles and drums, singing, smoking pot, even laughing, and often gathering around the latest streetcorner prophet, haranguing about doom or salvation or both. Almost every day after they'

  d worked with Olly fishing or gathering shellfish they went ashore and spent time with new friends. Katya sometimes went with them.

  Lisa, although younger than most of the others, seemed determined to fit in with this society, one which disturbed Jeanne mainly because she knew so little about it and had no control over it. She could feel Lisa pulling away from her. Lisa and Jim would answer her questions about the Park Square people with code word replies: they were 'cool', '

  loving people', were 'non-violent', but Jeanne felt only a dull dread at what seemed an aimless passivity in their response to the threats of starvation and disease. Katya didn't help matters when she said that Jim and Lisa were just trying to hold on to a little more of their normal lives before existence became again solely devoted to day-to-day survival.