Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival

by Don't Stop The Carnival(Lit)

  Norman wrinkled his face at the sly postscript. Like many of his Broadway friends he was a resolute reader of prestigious literature. His boast to his friends had been that in the Caribbean, with all his leisure as "mine host," he would at last be able to read Joyce's difficult masterwork. But not only did the book lie untouched in a suitcase; since his arrival, Norman had not yet looked at a magazine or a newspaper.

  He called the office with his bedside telephone. "Lorna, I'm going to have a nap. Don't disturb me now unless it's absolutely urgent."

  "No, suh. I do believe you does be too horossed. You needs a good rest."

  He set aside the breakfast tray, snuggled down among the pillows, put all his worries out of his mind-Akers, money, wall, water, bartender, and the rest-and fell asleep. For once nobody and nothing woke him. He slept deeply, peacefully, and long. He opened his eyes, calmed and refreshed, and saw the sun slanting low through the bougainvillea. With a loose, lazy motion he glanced at his watch. Quarter to five. Time to be "mine host" at the bar, and he felt very much in the mood for that. He rolled over, yawning and stretching luxuriously, and saw on the floor by the bed what appeared to be a black sweater. He didn't remember dropping a black sweater there, but all his recollections were confused these days. He absently reached down to pick it up but it wasn't a sweater. Something black came up in his hands, leaving most of the pile on the floor.

  In his sleepy, stupid state it took him a second or two to understand that he was holding several sheets of wet Kleenex swarming with ants. By the time he realized this, and threw the tissues away with a strangled shriek, it was too late. His right hand and arm were acrawl with ants to his shoulder.

  This would have disgusted anybody. But fastidiousness was Norman's chief trait. To find himself covered with creeping stinging black things like this gave him perhaps the single most horrible moment of his forty-nine years. He rushed to the bathroom, tearing off the kimono, making animal screams of revulsion; plunged into the shower and turned on both faucets full force. Water gushed on him, washing ants in streams down his twitching frame. He got them all off. Naked, dripping, he snatched up the aerosol insect spray bomb in the bathroom and forced himself to go back to that pullulating black pile.

  There it was, loathsomely alive, loathsomely moving; and feeding it, he now perceived, was a black trail that crossed the floor, mounted a wall, and disappeared behind a water color of a laughing, dancing West Indian in carnival costume, beating a drum. He held his breath, tightened his lips in disgust, and blasted the insect spray at the heart of the vile heap.

  What occurred next was not to be believed, but he saw it happen. It was as though he had dropped a stone in a pool, except that the stone was the spray, and the pool was the ants. Instead of wilting and dying, the ants came boiling away from the heap in black concentric widening rings. The sight was so blood-freezing, and it happened so fast, *that the two outermost rings washed over Norman's bare feet before he knew what was happening. The crawling and stinging mounted speedily toward his knees.

  Norman Paperman went sincerely insane. Shrieking, howling, buck-naked, he galloped out of the cottage and scrambled down the path to the sea, unaware of anything except the ants climbing and biting now up his thighs to his very crotch. He fell headlong into the water, bellowing "Aagh! Aagh!" not in the least conscious that he was making the sounds of a man being butchered. Hysterically he rubbed and washed himself, splashing and howling, keeping on the move to leave the drowning ants behind.

  What brought him to himself was Meadows, standing at the water's edge and barking almost as wildly as he was yelling. Iris came running down the path from her cottage, in a green silk bathrobe that fluttered open on naked legs and pink underclothes. "My God, Norman," she called. "What is it? Are you all right? Do you want me to pull you out?"

  "What? No, no, don't be silly, I'm fine," Paperman sobbed. "Just great. Just having a nice little dip. Go away, Iris."

  "Norman, there's something wrong. I'm coming in after you." She began to undo the robe.

  "No, Iris, no. For Christ's sake, will you go away? I don't have a stitch on. I'm bare as a baboon."

  Iris paused, her hands on her belt, staring out at him. He was in shallow water. He sank down in embarrassment to his chin. "Really? Why, Norman, what on earth? Birthday suit in broad daylight? Have you dropped your marbles, dear? And what was all that hideous screaming?"

  Norman felt his heart beating much too hard and fast. "Iris, honey," he said faintly, "will you bring me a towel and a big slug of scotch, or any other booze you've got?"

  "Baby, why don't I just bring you some trunks from your cottage?"

  "No, no, whatever you do, don't go in my cottage. And don't ask questions, Iris. Just do as I say."

  "Come on, Meadows."

  She returned without the dog, carrying a hotel towel, a pink terry-cloth robe, and a square crystal glass of whiskey. "We're almost the same size," she said. "Here." She dropped the robe and towel on the pebbles and turned her back.

  "Okay," he said in a few moments, having hastily dried himself and put on her scented robe. "Ye gods, I smell like Hassim, or something."

  She faced him, holding out the glass. "You smell like me, and no cracks. It costs plenty to smell that way. You look real darling, I must say. Pink becomes you."

  "Oh, shut up." He drank half the whiskey and sank to the beach. "Iris, Iris, I've had one bitch of an experience."

  She sat beside him. "So I gather. Tell me."

  He cradled his head on her soft lap, and recounted the misadventure of the ants. Then, he told her about Akers, Church, Gilbert, Collins, and the liquid gold that Anatone was delivering, tankload by tankload.

  "I'd heard about Church," Iris said, absently stroking his hair. "But what I heard sounded very unlikely, I must say. The way I heard it-"

  He leaped to his feet, dancing, and slapping at his legs. "Ants! Ants! Iris, get up! The beach is crawling with them! They're all over me! I feel them biting!"

  He splashed into the water, holding the robe up almost to his middle, shouting, "Ugh! Ugh!"

  Iris looked at her legs, and at the pebbles. She remained seated, slapping at her ankles. "Sweetie, your nerves are really shot. It's just the sand flies. They come out this time of day, when the wind's from the south."

  "Sand flies? What are sand flies?"

  "You poor innocent," Iris laughed, "don't you really know? They're the great guilty secret of the Caribbean. Sand flies, mi-mis, don't-see-ems, they've got many names. Tiny biting horrors. It's no problem, you just spray your legs with repellent. Gosh, I do it the way I wash my face. Morning, noon, and night."

  "Ye gods. Are they that bad? I haven't noticed them before."

  "Norman, sand-fly bites can build up to an allergic collapse. Some people are immune to them, and maybe you're one, but I've seen tourists carried aboard a plane in a stretcher from sand-fly bites."

  "Sand flies, eh?" said Norman in a dolorous, hollow, defeated*tone. "Sand flies."

  "Oh, so what? In New York they have rats and roaches, dear, don't they? Not but what we have our own roaches. There's a Caribbean roach that can fight a cat to an easy draw."

  "Iris," said Paperman, standing ankle deep in water, his shoulders sagging in the pink robe, "I believe I've made the biggest mistake in my life in buying this hotel. I may have made the biggest mistake any human being has ever made. I mean, on the scale on which I function. I'm not talking about, say, Hitler invading Russia. I haven't got that scope for my bad judgment. But within my modest limits I believe I can claim to have been perhaps the goddamnedest jerk in recorded history."

  "Nonsense. One day soon you'll laugh at all these petty things. Go dress yourself real handsome, the way you do. You're taking me to a cocktail party at Government House."

  "I'm what?"

  "See?" she said, holding out a pretty leg in the rosy waning light. That's a sand fly. There on my ankle."

  "That tiny speck? Is it alive?"

  "Ha!" She s
meared a thumb on it. "Not any more. His Excellency is having a reception for some congressman or other, Norm. Congress always gets very concerned about American interests in the Caribbean, right after the first bad snowfall in Washington. I need an escort, and you're elected."

  Paperman interposed objections, the chief of them being that he had to watch over the Club; but Iris said that on the contrary, he badly needed to get away from Gull Reef for an evening of fun. They might have dinner together and perhaps go to the movie. She started to climb the path to her cottage.

  "Iris."

  "Yes?"

  "Come with me while I-while I look at those ants."

  She smiled, approached him, and put a cool hand to his cheek. "Gad, you're squeamish. A month in the Caribbean will sure cure that."

  They mounted his path together, a colorful pair, the woman in smooth green, the man in fuzzy pink. The sodden pile of Kleenex was no longer alive, no longer black, but rather speckled gray with uncountable dead ants. The rest were gone. The black trail up the wall was gone. Paperman pushed aside the picture which covered their point of entry, a crack in the plaster two inches long. "God, is this where those billions and billions of horrors came and went? Is it possible?"

  "Certainly. They won't be back for a while," Iris said. "That's the main thing." She contemplated the pile with a wrinkled nose. "They like wet Kleenex. I'll have to remember that. Hey! Where are you?"

  From behind the bathroom door Paperman's bare arm appeared, extending the pink bathrobe. "Here. Thanks for the help. Brother will pick you up in half an hour."

  Iris's face twisted in a smile. "Well, well," she said, taking the robe. "That's good. Apparently the experience didn't have the usual effect on you."

  "What experience?"

  "Ants in your pants."

  "I'm coming out," said Paperman.

  "The hell you are," said Iris, slamming the bathroom door shut on him. "Half an hour."

  4

  When Norman came up with Iris in the long reception line on the Government House lawn, Governor Sanders blinked in glum surprise, then offered his lank yellow hand. "Hello, there. Glad you could get away. I understand you're having your troubles."

  "That's why I dragged him off the Reef, Governor," said Iris.

  "Mrs. Tramm, Mr. Paperman-Senator Finchley of Nebraska. Mr. Paperman owns the Gull Reef Club, Senator." Sanders pointed at the Club, visible over the low stone retaining wall. Norman and Iris had come late, and the Club lights were already on, reflecting white and yellow serpentines across the violet harbor.

  "Ah yes," said the senator, a dapper little ruddy man, with a full head of white hair. "I've been wondering what that was. It looks like fairyland. Mrs. Tramm, I'm delighted." He sized up Iris with appetite. She wore black and a pearl choker, and her eyes had a wild sparkle. "Do you live in Amerigo?"

  "Right now, yes."

  "I have a feeling I've met you. You're not from Nebraska, are you?"

  "As it happens, Senator, I was born in Omaha. My folks took me to San Diego when I was three."

  "Now I know what's been missing in the state of Nebraska," said the senator, waggling his heavy eyebrows.

  "Gosh, a whole live senator," Iris said as Paperman led her to the bar. "I had it wrong. We don't usually get senators till February. It must be damned cold in Washington. I'll have bourbon and water, please, Norm."

  A chilly damp breeze was blowing up the white cloth of the long table arranged as a bar, showing the sawhorses underneath. The crowd at the table was two deep; it took Norman a while to get the drinks.

  "Ah, thank you," Iris said. "The main job of my escort, dear, besides giving me some face as an honest woman, is to knock all drinks out of my hand after the second one. Cheers." She took a deep swallow.

  "Are you kidding?"

  "No, I'm not. I'm apt to get very ugly about it, too. Just slap me down, and if necessary, walk out on me. I'll come trotting along, using some dirty words you may not have heard." Paperman looked her in the eyes, still not certain she was serious. She said, "I mean it, Norm. Usually I'm all right. I know my limits. It's just that Government House, sort of gives me the hoo-ha's."

  "Well, it's an odd crowd," said Paperman, glancing around. There must have been two hundred people on the lawn, making a deafening volume of talk in the dim light of swaying paper lanterns. Most of them were Negroes, dressed in good current fashion, and the taste of the women for color enlivened the scene with many bright splashes. The clothes of some older Negroes were dated and dowdy. One bent grayhead wore a yellow pith helmet and a double-breasted blue suit. Iris told Norman that this man's family owned three thousand acres of the best land in Amerigo, including four white sand beaches, and that he lived in an unpainted two-room cinder-block house with a privy out in back. There were strange-looking whites, too, remnants of British colonial families; and here and there hill-crowd people, men in loud jackets and women in last year's New York styles.

  A handsome, tall young Negro, in a silk Italian suit not much different from Norman's, went by holding drinks. "Hello dah, Mistuh Papuh."

  "Hello," Norman said vaguely.

  "You don' rekonize me?" The young man disclosed many gold teeth in a grin. "I'm Anatone. De fifteen loads all delivered. I did give Lorna de bill. She say you asleep."

  "I'll take care of it."

  Anatone glanced at the sky, and laughed. "Funny ting, de customers dey does get mad at me when dis happen. One fellow up on de hill las' year he ask me pump de water back out of his cistern." Anatone laughed very happily. "I do believe we fixin' to get a big rain tonight. De party finish inside."

  Paperman looked upward in exasperation as Anatone walked off. Iris said, "I didn't want to spoil your evening, dear, but feel that wind? And there isn't a star in sight."

  Paperman said, "You know what? I'll sue God."

  Iris burst out laughing, and took his arm. "Let's get me another drink. Why aren't you drinking yours?"

  "I am," said Paperman, a little nervous at the speed with which Iris had downed a large rich bourbon and water.

  "I'll tell you," Iris said when Paperman brought her the drink, "let's go inside. Or does the sociology of a Government House lawn party interest you? If it does rain, the panic will be a nuisance. I react badly to being shoved and jostled by Kinjans."

  "Okay."

  "They mean no harm, they do it to each other and think nothing of it, but-" Iris led him through the crowd to the wide stairway into Government House. "I know a nook where we can drink in peace."

  The first floor of the old stone building was thoroughly Americanized -white fluorescent lighting, soundproof partitions, rows of shiny steel cabinets, and even at this hour ringing telephones and one banging mimeograph-in strong contrast to the state rooms on the floor above. Here were grand salons full of gleaming old English furniture, their walls a-clutter with obsolete weapons, and faded prints of sea battles or West Indian scenery. The museum elegance of these antique rooms was crowned by a sweeping view, through tall French windows, of the Georgetown hills and the lamplit harbor. Iris showed Paperman the semicircular council chamber built in 1740, all dark mahogany and green leather, where the legislature still met. They passed down a long high mirrored hall.

  "Here we are," Iris said, opening a tall door covered by a mirror.

  "Speak of the devil!" said Chunky Collins, when Paperman came in. "Norman, do you always show up on cue like this?"

  He and Tom Tilson sat with their drinks in a startling replica of the drawing room of an old London house. The arched creamy wood molding, the green damask on the walls, the spindly furniture, the Adam fireplace with a red light glowing behind glass coals, the china and silver pieces, the leather-bound books in rows, all blended in an illusion as instant and convincing as that of a fine Broadway stage set.

  Tilson said, "Sit down. Hello, Iris. This is the only bearable spot in Government House, Paperman. The last British governor loathed the tropics, and he fixed up this room so he'd feel at home. He s
at in here day and night, they say, drinking gin and bitters and nursing his gout, until the Yanks came."

  "It's charming," Norman said.

  The large smile on the large face of Collins faded to a mask of sorrow. "Oh, say, Norman, I want you to know how awful I feel about Tex Akers. It was inevitable, I know, but still it's a shock. What a tragedy! If you want me to line up some bids from other contractors-"

  "What about Akers?" said Paperman, alarmed. "Did he kill himself?"

  "Him? Oh, no! He blew the island. Said he was going to Fort Lauderdale for a week, but he'll never be back. When he sent off his family last Saturday I knew it was coming. That's always the sign."

  Tilson said, "Let's see, that makes five contractors who have blown Kinja this year, doesn't it?"

  "Four or five. They come and they go. I lose count," said Collins. "Tex was something special, though. He's gone bankrupt to the tune of about a hundred forty thousand."