When in Vanuatu

by Nicki Chen

  Diana had been fully prepared to be disappointed. In her experience, a hard sell meant an inferior product. Hideaway Island, however, turned out to be everything Carole Anne promised.

  “A simple bell,” Jay said, “a frame to hang it on, that’s all they’d need. They could even hang it from a tree.”

  Diana smiled. “Yeah, appropriate technology.” With all the out-of-the-way places Jay visited, you’d think he’d be used to the inadequate infrastructure one routinely found in developing countries. Wherever he went, though, his first instinct was to find a problem and then figure out how to solve it. That was his job, finding ways to make life better for whole populations. Sometimes Diana wished he’d take a break from trying to improve the world. Especially on a day like this.

  She reached out with her foot to stir the water, and a school of fingerlings scattered like silver sparks. This is my life now, she thought, filling her chest with clean, warm air. My life in paradise. Ever since that day in church when she’d prayed for Celeste and her baby, she’d felt something inside her loosening up. Fear, jealousy—whatever it was, it seemed to be fading away. And Diana was grateful for that. Rest in peace, dear Celeste.

  A boat was leaving the island now, its back end spraying white as it curved away from shore.

  “Here he comes,” Jay said.

  They picked up their bags and edged forward as the boat raced toward them. The young ni-Vanuatu boatman waited until he was seconds from crashing into shore before shifting into neutral. While Diana and Jay waded out knee-deep and climbed aboard, the boatman revved his motor and gazed into the distance. Then they were on their way, planing over the flat water. It was a short, exhilarating ride—the rush of air, the thrum of waves against the boat, the scatter-shot of spray flung up when you least expected it.

  Their friends were already there—Saudur, Abby, and the twins, and Alexi and Suling. A glorious day at the beach lay ahead; warm sun and sand, cold beer and lemonade, tasty sandwiches. And snorkeling. Diana loved to snorkel. In the water, she was a fish, a silent observer in a strange undersea world.

  Saudur and the boys were already in the water. Diana was quick to join them. Strapping on her snorkel and mask, she put on her fins and waded into the water. Soon she was swimming over coral that looked like blue-tipped trees, crystallized cauliflower, and bouquets of delicate pink flowers. She watched parrot fish, clownfish, and those tiny fish that dart out from the coral like electric blue sparks.

  Snorkeling again after lunch, she spied one of the most fantastic fish in the ocean, a red and white lionfish in full display. It was hovering in the clear open water, his poisonous dorsal spines splayed around him like the ribbons and silk fans of a Chinese dancing girl. Since he didn’t appear to be going anywhere, she took a chance and stayed for a while, bobbing over him like a jellyfish to admire his otherworldly beauty. It was a monster’s beauty, drawing her in with the bright colors and the grace and transparency of his fins. They were like wings. An angel’s wings and a devil’s face. She found herself floating close enough to see that he had red stripes in his eyeballs. It frightened her, then, how close she’d let herself get, and she quickly breast-stroked away without kicking, holding her torso and legs high in the water and flat. She didn’t get out of the water, though, not yet.

  The only ones who stayed in longer than she did were Saudur and the twins. “Those daffy fellows,” Abby said when Diana finally spread her beach towel in the sand beside hers. Suling was snoozing on a towel to their left. Jay and Alexi were drinking beer at the table a few yards behind them. Abby shaded her eyes with one hand and scanned the water for snorkels. “Those boys will grow gills before they get out. Saudur’s just as bad. He thinks a beach trip is a research and teaching opportunity.”

  Diana bent at the waist and shook the excess water out of her hair. “It must be nice for the twins,” she said, dropping onto her towel beside Abby.

  “Yeah. Every picnic’s a bloomin’ oceanography lesson. And they still haven’t eaten lunch.” Abby stood up. “Enough,” she said, teetering as she stepped into her flip flops. “Mama to the rescue.”

  Diana lay back on her towel. The breeze in the pandanus palms was just a whisper, the waves gentle as they sloshed in and rattled out through the broken coral. Jay and Alexi’s voices murmuring softly over their beers barely came through. She really should have washed the salt off her face and applied some sunscreen, but she felt immobilized, sun-drugged, lulled by the deep slow tune of Suling’s breathing. Tomorrow she would sketch the fish she saw today. The lionfish would be a challenge, but now, with her eyes closed, she could see him clearly, his spines and fins, the stripes in his eyes.

  “Got ’em.” Abby plopped down on her towel.

  Diana raised her head and looked around. “Who?”

  “My blokes.” Abby pointed with her chin to where Saudur was walking, mask in hand, two child-sized snorkels plowing through the shallow water at his side.

  “Good for you.” Diana sat up. She pulled her straw hat out of her bag, and as she sat, one knee bent, straightening the brim, she glanced over her shoulder at Jay and Alexi. Slivers of light slipped through the palm-thatched roof of the fale, turning their black hair a dark mahogany and dancing on Jay’s broad back. Across the table from him, Alexi fidgeted, his attention scattered like a distracted puppy. An irresistibly attractive puppy, she had to admit. In a Kung Fu movie—she’d seen enough of them in Manila—they would cast him as the cute boyfriend, not the sober hero. But then, Alexi wasn’t the actor in the family.

  Lying back, she covered her face with the hat and inhaled the sweet straw smell. She wondered if Suling missed the life she’d lived before Alexi whisked her away from her acting career. Diana imagined her on screen with a sword, leaping and twirling.

  Soon, overcome by warmth radiating down from the sun and up from the sand, she sank into a sun-dazed lethargy. Before she dropped off completely, she felt Jay at the edge of the towel, urging her to scoot over so he could cuddle up next to her. She was vaguely aware of Alexi and Suling whispering and gathering up their snorkels and fins. Then, nothing.

  She was still sleeping when she felt Jay jerk violently away from her and spring to his feet. He sprinted away, electrifying the air with alarm and kicking sand on her. Her immediate reaction was annoyance.

  Later, it struck her how wrong it was that Jay and Alexi had been the first to respond. It should have been Saudur. He was the diver, the fisheries expert. He would have known exactly how to save Suling. But Saudur was up in the café chowing down on sandwiches and soda when she panicked.

  And what about her and Abby? They should have been right there watching Suling every time she dipped her toe in the water. You’ll love snorkeling, they’d told her on Thursday at their Scrabble game. It’s easy. We’ll show you how. And when she wouldn’t stop frowning and chewing her pretty scarlet fingernail, Abby had reached across the tiles and squeezed her other hand. “Listen, luv,” she said, “if you so much as swallow a mouthful of salty water, I’ll drag you back to shore myself.”

  “Or I will,” Diana had said, bragging that she was a good swimmer and mentioning the “A” she got in lifesaving. She’d laughed then, thinking of her high school swimming class, the make-believe rescues of fellow classmates.

  But when the time came, when a friend actually did need to be rescued, Diana and Abby were sleeping. Which left Alexi and Jay.

  By the time Diana opened her eyes, Jay had already raced across the sand and razor-sharp broken coral and was high-stepping through the shallow water. He was in deep water now, swimming, his arms revolving like Quixote’s windmill in a storm.

  She must have wasted a second or two trying to make sense of it, and then she too was running barefoot over the broken coral, high-stepping the waves, instinctively calculating the relative advantage of running vs. swimming in the shallow water as she strained to see what was happening.

  Beyond Jay, she saw an arm break the surface, then a head. The water was chu
rning in a way that brought only one thing to mind: sharks. She imagined a shark shaking its victim, its smooth animal body writhing as the struggling swimmer fought back. Suling or Alexi. Then Jay. And her. She winced at the thought of the shark’s teeth, its evil beady eyes. Sharks, always the first thing you thought of. Not barracudas or sting rays or . . . She pushed off the bottom in a shallow dive.

  Ah, my god! Her heart leapt to her throat. How could she have forgotten? The lionfish! She should have warned them about that small dangerous fish.

  Reaching long with every stroke, she kept her fingers tight together and kicked as hard and fast as she could. Head to the side and breathe.

  A wave forced water down her throat, and she coughed it back up. Easy enough to breathe in a swimming pool. Easy when you weren’t scared to death about your husband.

  Kick and stroke. Stroke. Breathe.

  All those fins on a lionfish, those beautiful, poisonous, porcupine spines. Just how poisonous were they? How fast acting? Was there an antitoxin? And if there was, who would have it?

  By the time she reached them, her chest was burning. Her arms felt like sunken logs. Suling’s mask and snorkel bobbed on the waves. No shark fin, but the water was swirling with the struggle. Suling rose head and shoulders out of the water and twirled like a swordsman, her arms slashing, her face, a Chinese terror mask. But where were Jay and Alexi? All she could see was an arm and then a dark head.

  In a split second she understood. She’d seen this very same scenario before. A swimmer cries out for help. Someone jumps in to save her, but the panicked swimmer, fighting for air, climbs on top of the would-be-rescuer. And now two people are fighting for their lives, kicking, clutching, gasping. Another Good Samaritan jumps in. The woman and the first rescuer grab for him, and soon the Good Samaritan has become the bottom man on their underwater totem pole. If not for the third rescuer who comes at them from behind and below, they might all drown.

  And that was exactly what Diana had to do—get them from behind and below. She circled around, and suddenly Alexi’s head broke the surface, and then Suling’s. She clawed at him, and they both went under. Who the hell was she supposed to save first? And where in the name of God was Jay?

  She dove below the surface, pulling herself down. Without a mask, everything was milky, a mass of foam and bubbles and . . . there, that was Jay’s foot, his leg, the hem of his blue trunks lifting over the white lining. She came at him from behind. Bending her knees, she coiled her body and struck, kicking Alexi away as she grabbed Jay’s hair and reached diagonally across his chest and under his arm. Even as she freed him, her mind was racing, figuring out her next move. Alexi and Suling had been there longer, probably swallowed more water. Suling might at this moment be suffering from the effects of a lionfish sting. True, all of it true.

  But Jay was the one she loved.

  Scissor-kicking to the surface, her arm wrapped tight across his shoulder and chest, she swam one-armed toward the shore.

  “Su . . . ling,” he coughed, gasping for air.

  “Don’t . . . struggle. I’ll get her.”

  “No. Too . . . late.”

  She tightened her grip and kicked harder. The density of his body made it hard to keep both their heads above water and still make much forward progress. When she looked up, there was Abby swimming toward her.

  “I’ll take him,” she said.

  Diana shook her head. Why couldn’t Abby just go get the others?

  Abby kept coming, though—her clumsy stroke, her hair hanging like corkscrews around her head. “Hand him over. Go.” She raised her chin toward Alexi and Suling. “You swim better.”

  It was true, but . . .

  “Here.” Abby reached out.

  And Diana handed him over, realizing—too late—how heavy he’d become. “Don’t let go,” she begged. “Please.”

  “I’ve got him.” Abby grabbed hold of Jay and started towing him away.

  “Abby . . .” He looked limp, almost lifeless. “Abby, is he . . .?”

  “Go.”

  And she did, trusting him to Abby as she swam in the opposite direction.

  In the distance, the water near where she’d last seen Alexi and Suling was roiling. A head popped up and then disappeared. She’d get Alexi first, she decided, come at him from below and behind. She swam a little closer and then slipped below the surface. On her left, a cliff of hazy pink, blue, and white coral soaked up the light. On her right was open water. A triggerfish flashed past. She was stroking toward the twisting bodies and pumping legs, bright blue fins on two of the four feet, when she saw the lionfish. It was only yards away, a mass of orangey-red stripes, tantalizing and confusing—stripes on its body showing through stripes that cut across its filmy fins. She stopped, and as it swam in front of her, she could see the stripes on its gnarled face and in its eyes.

  She had to come up for air. A gasping breath and she was down again, directly behind Alexi. Unless her stinging eyes deceived her, his back was marked with red stripes. She didn’t see blood, but if there was some, wouldn’t sharks be close behind? Suling was grasping his upper arm. In a single motion, Diana grabbed both of their arms, pushing Alexi down and Suling up and away. By some miracle, Suling let go. Even the death grip of fear eventually tires and loosens.

  Diana was losing focus. As she reached across Alexi’s chest, she saw Suling, slipping below the surface. How could she save them both? Her heart was pounding. She had to hurry. “Stop struggling.” She gripped Alexi’s arm.

  He tried to twist away from her. “No,” he cried. “No-o-o.”

  She dug her fingers into his flesh. Then she put her head down and started swimming. Where was everyone? Why didn’t somebody come and help her?

  When she looked up again, she saw a head, two arms slicing neatly through the water. “Saudur, is that you?”

  He waved and kept coming.

  Hurry, she thought, and when he was almost there, she released her grip on Alexi and gave him a push. “Take him,” she shouted. “I have to get Suling.”

  She flipped over and swam back. With her head down and eyes open, she followed the now-familiar underwater landscape toward the spot she remembered seeing Suling go under. When she raised her head to breathe, there was nothing breaking the surface. No one.

  Daddy, she prayed. Help me.

  She saw bubbles. Suddenly Suling’s head bobbed up, and Diana was looking into the eyes not of her friend but of a wild, dangerous adversary. Quickly she made a surface dive. Behind and below. Behind and below. As she started up, Suling turned, and Diana changed course. Maybe she should surface and start again. Her lungs were crying for air. And she was afraid. Suling was the better athlete—a dancer and a martial arts expert. For the first time that day, Diana realized this might not end well. She could die trying to save her friend.

  She hesitated a moment. Then she pulled herself up through the turquoise water. “I’ve got you,” she gasped, catching Suling across the chest. “You’re going to be all right. Yes, yes,” she crooned in Suling’s ear. “You’re okay now.” She felt Suling go limp, her head resting on Diana’s shoulder. Thank goodness! She wouldn’t have had the strength to fight her.

  Even so, it was hard to keep them both above water and still make any progress toward shore. The waves, which Diana had barely noticed before, splashed over her head now and into her mouth. They made her stomach turn with their sudden lifts and drops.

  When she saw Saudur, his strong, easy strokes cutting through the waves, she stopped swimming and wept from sheer weariness and relief.

  “I’ll take her,” he said.

  “Jay?” she asked as Saudur placed Suling over his shoulder. “Is he all right?”

  But Saudur had turned and was already swimming away. If he answered, she couldn’t hear it. She started after him, but she couldn’t lift her arms above the water. She was too exhausted. So she laid her head to one side and propelled herself forward with a clumsy sidestroke. It was all she could manage.


  She was in shallow water when she heard Jay’s voice. She tried to stand and come to him, but her legs collapsed under her.

  “Honey,” he shouted again. And he was running and falling and running again. “Diana. Sweetheart.”

  35

  It was embarrassing—Alexi and Suling thanking her, apologizing, Jay getting all dramatic. Not that the situation didn’t call for a little drama, some tearful hugs maybe, some exclamations of Thank God you’re safe! But Jay didn’t stop there. On their way back to shore, he paused several times to hold her, his eyes so soft and soulful that Diana had to look away.

  “I was afraid I’d lost my wife again,” he said, his voice quavering like an actor in a soap opera. She was too exhausted to grasp exactly what he was saying, too close to drowning right there in three feet of water.

  Then the others came, Saudur holding her elbow, Abby helping her lie down. Diana’s muscles, responding to the dry, sand-cushioned towel and the promise of rest, simply gave way. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was presented with a jigsaw puzzle of open mouths, dark nostrils, and pinched eyebrows. A chorus of Diana, Diana, Diana.

  She squinted, trying to focus on their faces. Alexi was hovering over her. “I’m so sorry,” he sputtered, his face as pale as bleached coral. “I should have been able to save her. My wife,” he sobbed. “I almost lost her. I’m so . . . so . . . sorry.”

  Sorry? For what? Wasn’t Diana the one who kicked him to get Jay loose? “No,” she croaked. “I’m . . . sor . . . ry.” But he turned away, coughing, and Suling took over, crying and apologizing. And it was true that Suling had reacted badly, but Diana should have warned her about the lionfish. That beautiful, venomous fish that brushed against Suling. Or maybe just frightened her. Unless she was frightened by something else. Or maybe she just swallowed too much water.