The cabin was too small. Even with the door open, the drawn curtains kept out the breeze. The little fan did no more than recirculate warm air. He decided to go out on deck. Dr. Wordsworth was right; they were eating too much and exercising too little. He would make several laps around the deck. It would not be as good exercise as playing a great organ, but it would have to suffice.
Charles sat on his bunk, lotus position, and watched his father getting ready for bed. After Dr. O’Keefe had finished brushing his teeth, and would therefore be able to respond, Charles said, “Are you missing Mother?”
“Very much.”
“Poly and I miss her, too.”
“I know you do, Charles, but you’re enjoying the trip, aren’t you?”
“We’re having a fabulous time. But you can have two very different feelings simultaneously. You miss her differently from Poly and me, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Dr. O’Keefe pulled on his pajama bottoms.
“And the kids—Poly and I miss them, but that’s different, too.”
“I suppose it is, Charles.” Dr. O’Keefe turned on the fan over the washbasin.
“And I guess they miss us. But it’s really a good kind of missing, because we know it’s only for a month, and then we’ll all be together again, and maybe we’ll love each other more because of not having seen each other all that time.”
Dr. O’Keefe stretched out on his bunk. “Maybe we’ll appreciate each other more, but I doubt if I could love your mother or any of you kids more than I already do.”
“But love always has to grow, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Charles. You’re quite right.” Dr. O’Keefe had an idea that his son was leading up to something, so he lay back and waited.
“When Aunt Leonis dies, what will happen to Simon?”
“I suppose his Cousin Forsyth would take care of him.”
Charles was silent for so long that his father decided the conversation was over, without really having gone anywhere. But Charles said, “There’s something wrong about Cousin Forsyth.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. I just know it. The way I know things sometimes.”
Dr. O’Keefe did not contradict his son. It was quite true that occasionally Charles knew something in a way not consistent with reasonable fact. It was odd, and it was disturbing, but there was no denying that it happened. “What do you want me to do, Charles?”
“I don’t know. It’s all vague and foggy. There’s something wrong, and I don’t know what it is. I wish we weren’t getting off at Port of Dragons day after tomorrow and leaving Simon alone with Cousin Forsyth. I’m afraid, Daddy.”
Dr. O’Keefe did not scoff. “It’s not till day after tomorrow, and I’ll keep a close eye on both Simon and his cousin in the meantime.”
“Thank you, Daddy. If the worst comes to the worst, could we stay on the ship till La Guaira?”
“I doubt it, Charles. Let’s hope there’s no reason to.”
“All right. I’m not sleepy. I think I’ll go talk to Poly for a few minutes.”
“Please don’t worry her about this, Charles.”
“I wasn’t going to. But it’s hot tonight.”
When the boy had left the cabin, his father stared at the ceiling for some time, thinking. Charles’s intuitions were too often right for comfort, and he found himself wishing, along with his son, that they were not leaving Simon with Cousin Forsyth when they docked at Port of Dragons. There was something unpleasant about Forsyth Phair, despite his rather Latin courteousness. That bridge game, for instance. It had seemed to Dr. O’Keefe that Phair was baiting old Smith, and enjoying his discomfiture. But why? It also seemed to Dr. O’Keefe that Phair had taken uncommon trouble to learn about his fellow passengers.
—I know that I am well known in my field, he thought,—but Phair knows more about my experiments with starfish than I would expect a layman to know. And I think he suspects that I am going to Dragonlake for more than my own personal interest in marine biology.
But Phair, he hoped, did not know that in one section of Dragonlake starfish were no longer able to regenerate when they lost an arm. Or that on shore there had been reports of death as a result of industrial effluents poured into the lake. Or that there were rich and ruthless industrialists who would resent interference.
He picked up an article on mercury poisoning and tried to read, but he could not concentrate. Had he been foolish to bring Poly and Charles with him on this journey? Was he bringing them into danger? Had he, in his single-minded devotion to science, underestimated the greed and brutality of those to whom money and power are more important than human life?
He must warn Poly and Charles again not to mention that he was going to Dragonlake at the urgent request of Venezuela.
Mrs. Smith was preparing for bed, brushing her soft, sparse white hair. She took out her dentures and placed them carefully in a dish of water in which she had dropped a cleansing tablet.
Mr. Smith came through the curtains in the doorway.
Mrs. Smith, toothless, lisped, “Thay, Odell, where have you been?”
“Up on deck, having a cigar.” He began to undress, folding his clothes carefully.
Mrs. Smith hurriedly cleaned her dentures and fitted them back in her mouth. When she spoke, her speech was clear but her voice was tremulous. “Odell, you made too much of it.”
“Too much of what?” He folded down the top sheet and lay on his bunk, reaching for a paperback novel set in Costa Rica.
“Playing for a penny a point. It sounded as though—”
“As though what?”
“We lost last night. It sounded as though you didn’t want to pay if you lost …”
His mouth set in a rigid line. His voice was tight. “I can’t, Patty. Not even …”
She sat on the side of her bunk and looked at him across the narrow width of cabin. “Everybody thought it was strange.”
“You mean Forsyth Phair thought it was strange.”
“All right. But he did.”
“I’m sorry, Patty, but I’m like an alcoholic. You know that. I cannot and I will not start gambling again.”
“But you’re cured. It’s been over fifty years since—”
He looked at her over the book. “Patty, you know it cannot be cured. That you of all people should want to tempt me—”
Her soft lips trembled and quick tears rushed to her eyes, which were magnified by heavy cataract lenses. “I’m sorry, Odell, I didn’t mean—but I’d thought the past was over, that we could forget it—and one fear got the better of the other. If Mr. Phair should make the connection—”
Mr. Smith snapped, “I had been gone from the bank and back in the United States for ten years before Forsyth Phair came to work in Caracas. Everybody on the ship knows we are going to Costa Rica to visit our granddaughter and her family. It’s a pleasure trip for us, and we’ve been looking forward to it for months. There’s no reason anybody should think of Caracas in connection with me at all, or even know that we ever lived there. You’re just imagining things. Mr. Phair will get off at La Guaira with his precious portrait of Bolivar, and we can forget it as though it was all a bad dream.”
Mrs. Smith got into her bunk and picked up the baby’s bootee, now almost finished. “Oh, Odell, I hope so. I hope so. You paid back every cent of the debt, you’ve had a good name all these years. Oh, Odell, why does it have to come back to hurt us all over again?”
Captain Pieter van Leyden was on the bridge, but ready to turn the helm over to Lyolf Boon. The sea was calm; he expected no difficult weather conditions, and the report for Port of Dragons was clear. The radar was void of disturbance. Not even a fishing boat marred its serenity.
Lyolf Boon looked at his captain; van Leyden’s face was frequently stern; he ran a tight, albeit happy ship. Even though he permitted the guitar and flute and the sound of singing as long as the work was done, and well and promptly done, he seldom smiled or sang himself. A
t this moment he was frowning, not in an angry way, but as though he was worried about something; and he did not immediately hand the vessel over to his subordinate.
Boon checked the radar, found no cause in sea or sky for anxiety. He had learned early that it was not wise to ask questions of the Master of the Orion, so he continued to look at the ship’s instruments, finally saying, “An interesting group of passengers this voyage.”
“They are a pleasant change from our usual elderly types. I like the children. They are happy, not spoiled or noisy.”
Boon agreed. “The girl isn’t much now, but give her a few years and she’ll have every sailor looking at her.”
“A few years and a few pounds.” The captain nodded. “Geraldo seems to find her already attractive. Perhaps we should have Jan speak to him—though I do not think Geraldo will overstep.”
“Geraldo is a Latin.” Boon grinned. “Latins always overstep.”
Van Leyden turned away from wheel and instruments, paused at the doorsill, and moved back toward his second-in-command. “There is one passenger—”
Boon waited.
It seemed that van Leyden would leave without completing his sentence, but at last he said, “I will be glad when we reach La Guaira. Not that I have anything to fear personally, but I have met Mr. Forsyth Phair once before—though I think he did not have the same name. It was on my first voyage.” He paused. He did not see the sudden look of surprise in Boon’s eyes. “He made life extremely difficult for the Master of the ship.”
There was another long silence, which Boon broke at last. “He does not seem unusually demanding. Quite the contrary.”
Van Leyden shrugged. “On my first voyage—I was only a seaman but I had eyes and ears—Mr. Phair went to the authorities when we docked at La Guaira and made accusations about carelessness in accounting for cargo. In the end it was impossible to prove that my captain had tried to pocket money for oil-well machinery, but it was also impossible for him to prove that he had not. However, I knew my captain. He would never have been caught in any kind of petty thievery or smuggling. The matter was dropped, but my captain wrote out his resignation as Master of his ship, and I will never forget the look in his eyes as he said goodbye to us all in Amsterdam and we knew he would not be going to sea again.”
Silence once more. The Orion slid quietly through the night.
Van Leyden went on, “The young man made a public apology. ‘If I was mistaken in this matter I am truly sorry. But we all know that there is considerable dishonesty over cargo.’ I did not feel that this was an adequate apology. I loved and honored my captain.”
Boon asked, “How on earth did you recognize him after all these years, particularly if the name is not the same? Are you sure?”
“I would take my oath on it. One does not easily forget one’s first voyage, especially such a voyage. The moustache is the same, and the nose and jaw, with that deep cleft. There is the same look to the eyes. The moment I saw him in Savannah, that first voyage of mine flashed before my eyes. I do not think I am mistaken.”
“Only a few days more,” Boon said, “and he will be gone. But why would he have a different name?”
“Many men find occasion when a change of name is helpful.”
“True,” Boon agreed. “I can think of one or two myself. Perhaps I should tell you a rather strange thing. Jan ten Zwick came to me just a few minutes ago with an odd story of a Quiztano name painted on the back of Mr. Phair’s portrait of Bolivar—not just any Quiztano name, one of Jan’s names. He seemed very concerned over this. I told him that it was probably no more than a coincidence, and asked him if he was absolutely certain of what he had seen. Apparently a board came loose on the crate as they were carrying it into the cabin, and he saw Umar written there. He said he went back later to verify this, and Mr. Phair came into the cabin and was extremely angry and disagreeable. I thought the whole business totally unimportant, but under the circumstances perhaps it is wise to mention it.”
The captain sighed. “Are there still rumors that the Quiztano treasure is somewhere around the Lake of Dragons?”
“There are always rumors. The treasure of Dragonlake is in the lake itself: the oil. But that is not colorful enough for some imaginations. It had not occurred to me that Jan might be wondering about the treasure, but that is possible. He told me once that the Quiztanos are awaiting the return of some Englishman who fought with Bolivar, fell in love with a beautiful Quiztano girl, and disappeared. They’ve apparently learned nothing from the Aztecs. But I don’t pay too much attention to his Quiztano fairy tales.”
The captain turned to leave. His face moved in one of his rare smiles. “I am just as happy that we are not carrying an Englishman with us.” He looked out to the horizon where sea met sky and no land was to be seen dividing water and air. “In any event, I will be glad when Mr. Phair leaves the ship at La Guaira and takes his portrait to Caracas. I would like to know how he got hold of such a portrait, and what he is being paid for it.”
“I understand that he is giving it to the Bolivar Museum in Caracas.”
“People like Mr. Phair do not give away valuable things for nothing.”
Simon undressed and brushed his teeth and drank a glass of ice water from one of the two thermoses which Geraldo filled morning and night. Cousin Forsyth had not yet come to bed.
Simon knelt on his bunk and looked out his porthole into the warm dark of sea and sky. The ocean was calm, and he could see starlight reflected in the water. They would be at Port of Dragons too soon for comfort, and Poly and Charles would be leaving, and he was homesick for them in advance, which, in turn, made him homesick for Aunt Leonis, for his small cupboard of a room, for the wind stirring the Spanish moss in the live oaks, for old Boz, and for the dragon who was a vegetarian and ate only Spanish moss.
He sighed, pressing his cheek against the porthole frame, and looking out to the horizon where sky and water mingled. The light breeze was wet and salty.
He thought of being on the Orion without Poly and Charles and unaccountably shivered.—Am I moaning and groaning again? he asked himself, shook himself slightly, and then sang softly:
I met her in Venezuela
With a basket on her head.
If she loved others she did not say
But I knew she’d do to pass away
To pass away the time in Venezuela,
To pass away the time in Venezuela.
His mother had sung that song to him. Aunt Leonis had given him back the song by singing it, too. At first he had not wanted to hear it, but she had said, “Don’t put away the things that remind you of your mother because they hurt, Simon. It will hurt much worse later on if you try to wipe out such memories now.”
I gave her a beautiful sash of blue,
A beautiful sash of blue,
Because I knew that she could do
With all the things I knew she knew
To pass away the time in Venezuela,
To pass away the time in Venezuela.
It still hurt, but it was a bearable pain, and it was, at this moment, more nostalgia than anything else; the song was Aunt Leonis’s song even more than his mother’s, because it was Aunt Leonis, long before Simon was born, who had taught it to his mother.
He lay down on his bunk on top of the sheet. Cousin Forsyth still did not come, and he felt that it would be discourteous to turn out the overhead light and let Cousin Forsyth fumble in the dark. It was hot. Almost as hot as in the summer at Pharaoh. A sadness surrounded him like the breeze, a sadness which had nothing to do with reason.
He thought of going to Poly’s cabin and knocking and asking if he could come in and talk for a few minutes, but she had said she wanted to finish a book. Nevertheless, he stood up and pulled on his worn seersucker bathrobe. He left the cabin and went past the galley, through the foyer, and down the starboard passage. He paused at Poly’s cabin; the door was open and he could see the light through the flowered curtains, but somehow he hesitate
d to go in uninvited. He went on, past Mr. Theo’s cabin, out onto the back deck, and up the steps to the upper deck. Here he stood between the rail and one of the lifeboats. He remembered the captain’s warning, and stepped back slightly, but the sea was calm and was moving with very little roll, and as long as he kept one hand lightly on the rail he would be perfectly safe.
The old song kept going around in his head.
When the moon was out to sea,
The moon was out to sea,
And she was taking leave of me
I said, Cheer up, there’ll always be
Sailors ashore in Venezuela,
Sailors ashore in Venezuela.
The melody was minor and haunting and reminded him not of Venezuela, which he still had never seen, but of South Carolina. All those generations ago the land around Pharaoh reminded Quentin Phair of Venezuela, and perhaps Simon would feel a flash of recognition when he stepped on Venezuelan soil, but now he imaged only a small, comfortable shack protected by oak trees hung with moss.
He looked up into the sky and the stars were so close and warm he could almost feel their flame. The stars at home were clear, too, because they were not near any city lights.
He moved, within himself, back in time, as he and Aunt Leonis had so often done together. Now, standing on the Orion, on the way from one world to another, he remembered the first days after his mother’s death—days he had not thought of since that first year. But his pre-breakfast conversation with Mr. Theo had for no explainable reason brought it all back. Neither Mr. Theo nor Aunt Leonis would want him to moan and groan, and he didn’t intend to. But when a memory flickered at the corners of his mind he had learned that it was best to bring it out into the open; and rather than making him sorry for himself, it helped him to get rid of self-pity.
Dragons in the Waters Page 10