Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival

by Don't Stop The Carnival(Lit)

  "Yah. I was dah when it happen. Hippolyte he sort of my cousin, like."

  The story he told was that Hippolyte had been having bad headaches, and had gone to the waterfront to try to get passage on an island schooner to Guadeloupe for treatment. A boat captain haggled with him about the price and got him angry. Hippolyte took out three hundred dollars in cash, tore the bills to pieces, and threw the scraps in the captain's face. Then he tore up his passport and papers and threw them at the captain, and followed this by ripping off his clothes piece by piece, in broad daylight on the busy waterfront, and pelting the captain with them. He announced he was going to swim to Guadeloupe, dived into the harbor naked, and started on his way. When the coast guard caught up with him, he was a mile and a half out and going strong, with sharks circling and darting all around him.

  "Hippolyte he a very powerful fella. Good fella," Lucien concluded. "He just fonny."

  Tilson said, "I don't see what's funny about taking a man's head half off with a machete. Even if it's only a Kinja policeman."

  "Oh, Hippolyte never do dat," the boat captain said with a peculiar grin, his small eyes crinkling shut.

  "Well, what do you say happened to that cop they found out there in the bushes in Hastings Estate? Did he cut himself shaving?"

  "I tink maybe he have a fight wit anudder cop."

  "What I want to know, is Hippolyte going to start chopping people's heads off at the Gull Reef Club? You know he's back there now."

  The Frenchman shook his head, his expression very solemn. "Oh, no, suh. Hippolyte all better now. In Guadeloupe dey give him electricity." He put one finger to each side of his head. "B-z-z-z-z! B-z-z-z-z! It hurt like hell, Hippolyte say, but he all better. So dey let him go."

  4

  Rainbow II anchored in a bay on the seaward side of Big Dog, out of sight of Amerigo. The white yacht was the only work of man in a world of sea, sky, sand, and green brush, except for a crazily leaning ruin on the beach. The sun was high and blazing, and the Negro mate was rigging an awning over the deck.

  "How hungry is everybody?" said Mrs. Tilson, speaking now a little more slowly than before, but without slurring. "I mean we can have just heaps of cheese and tuna and such, and so forth, or the boys can go looking for lobsters."

  "Lobsters!" said Iris and Norman, to which Tilson put a postscript, "And maybe one more drink all around to stave off those hunger pangs."

  "No, thanks," Iris said. "We're going exploring. Come on, Norm. Over the side."

  "Right behind you." Norman was putting on his mask and fins.

  "Ah youth, youth," said Mrs. Tilson, accepting another white rum on the rocks from the captain. After the noon hour the Tilsons always discontinued tonic water. Tom said that in excess it harmed the liver.

  The cool water, clear as air, felt wonderful on Paperman's heated skin. Far down on the bottom, pink conch shells abounded, foolishly smiling parrot fish grazed on brain coral and sea fans, and a turtle darted by in alarm, its greenish-white flippers working hard. The captain looked very strange, diving past them toward the reef, in his white long-sleeved shirt and ragged tan shorts.

  Iris made straight for the shore, swimming easily, and they soon climbed out on a powdery white strand.

  This was the first wild beach on which Norman had ever set foot. Big Dog had no human inhabitant. The ruined house, half hidden by climbing vines and sea grapes, was a mere pile of rotten slanted timbers painted a faded yellow. The iron sheets of the roof lay curled and rusting nearby on the grass or out on the beach-ripped off, Iris said, by a hurricane. Nobody knew who had built the house or lived in it. Some said a French fisherman; some, a Negro religious fanatic; and another story had it that a beautiful white woman from Canada had lived there alone for three years and drunk herself to death.

  "Follow me. Just watch out for thorns," Iris said, walking straight into the green tangle of brush. There was a half-obliterated footpath of sandy soil and dry leaves meandering through the trees. In the silence, the scuttling of lizards among fallen leaves was loud and scary. Iris turned here and there where the path branched, always moving down a slope. "Here we are," she said after a while. "How about this?"

  The clearing they came into was carpeted ankle-deep in soft grass. It was almost circular, perhaps fifty feet across, and at one end was a tumble-down stone fireplace full of ash heaps and charred wood. The air was soaked in a penetrating sweet perfume; a dizzy humming of bees sounded everywhere; stunted trees, overgrown by vines and heavy with white flowers, ringed the clearing.

  "What on earth?" said Norman, sniffing the air.

  "Orange blossoms. Whoever built that house planted an orange grove. They've gone on growing wild. They're sheltered from the wind, and the rain drains down in here. Like it?" Humming the wedding march, Iris went to a tree and plucked two small, scrawny oranges. "They don't look like much, but they taste all right," she said, holding out the fruit. "Try it."

  Norman bit off rind and sucked the pale, seed-filled pulp. A wild bitter taste within the orange sweetness puckered his mouth. "Well, Big Dog will never be a threat to California," he said, "but this is sure as hell an orange."

  "Of course it is. The UDT boys love them. Bob Cohn says the Israeli orange tastes like this." Iris sucked her fruit with gusto.

  Norman broke off a sprig of orange blossoms and handed it to her.

  "What for?" she said.

  "Oh, a lot of things. For helping me make the beds at Gull Reef."

  As she was tucking the sprig in her hair, he took her in his arms, and they kissed. Iris pushed herself a little away; he still held her waist. "Norman, when did you say Henny was coming?" she murmured, her eyes brilliant and melancholy.

  "Day after tomorrow, Iris."

  She broke free. "I call this place Dingley Dell. Don't ask me why. Feel this grass. The wild goats keep it eaten down. There's just this fresh soft new grass, all the time. What are you doing tomorrow, Norman, anyway?"

  "Who, me? Not a thing, not a thing, to speak of. Thanks to Hippolyte."

  Iris said, with her strange awkwardly curved smile, "Don't you suppose we could borrow a boat, maybe Church's catamaran, and have a picnic here tomorrow? Just the two of us? Nobody else waiting in the boat and wondering why we're so long about it, and all? Don't you think we might do that?"

  5

  All was serene at Gull Reef when Norman and Iris got back; serene and busy. Church said that the people who had checked out during the water crisis were coming back from the Francis Drake, Casa Encantada, Hogan's Fancy, and Apache Marina, annoyed by primitivisms they had encountered there, and lured by the food, the location, and the beaches of Paperman's hotel. "There's no beating the Reef," said the bartender. "Sooner or later they all discover that."

  Norman was uneasy at finding Church not on his feet behind the bar, but sitting at the large center table amid seven twittering white girls in smart mainland sun clothes. Church blandly introduced them to Paperman one by one: daughters and granddaughters of hill-crowd families, home from school for the winter recess. They were a sort of informal sorority, it appeared; they had all grown up together in Amerigo, and they called themselves the Sand Witches. These pretty young Sand Witches were visibly fascinated, one and all, by the bearded, tanned bartender in his clam diggers and striped shirt; and Church, after several weeks of chastened conduct, unmistakably had the old stallion look in his eye.

  "See me in the office in about five minutes, Church," Paperman growled, turning to go.

  "Yes, sir." The slight mockery in the doleful tone set the seven girls into a chiming chorus of giggles, and Norman hastened off, embarrassed at being so old.

  He glanced behind the lobby tarpaulin. The workers had left for the day. Hippolyte was padding around, inspecting exposed pipes and wires, and honing his machete as he went. The job had progressed so far that Norman could see now what the new units would be like: six rooms on a new corridor off the lobby, narrow but comfortable chambers, each with a window, a bath, and a lar
ge overhead fan.

  "It's moving along now, Hippolyte."

  The Frenchman squinted at him from under his hat. "Not too bad."

  "When do you think it'll be done?"

  "Next Tuesday, Wednesday."

  "So soon? Have you any idea of the cost yet?"

  "Tousand. Maybe a little more."

  "A thousand dollars? For the whole job?"

  "Maybe tousand, tree four hunnerd. Labor. De materials was all here already," said Hippolyte, in an exceptionally long oration.

  "That's wonderful. It's terrific. I'm going to give you a handsome bonus, Hippolyte."

  "We see," said Hippolyte, whetting and whetting the cutlash, and crouching to peer at a maze of pipes. "Dis work not bad."

  "I'm sure it's fine."

  Norman was thinking that Henny would know tricks with wallpaper, and mirrors, and fabrics, to make the narrow cubicles seem like luxury suites. Twelve more beds a night to rent, at fifteen dollars a bed! It came to more than a thousand dollars a week, more than fifty thousand dollars a year. What a wise old thug Lester Atlas was, after all!

  Iris was leaning against the front desk, still in her bathing suit, reading what looked like a lawyer's letter. "Hi. Esm‚ says there's an urgent message for you."

  The black girl shyly handed him a blue envelope, hand addressed and unstamped. The flap opened at a touch, showing an embossed Cartier's trade-mark. On the flap was a single word engraved in blue: Broadstairs.

  "Iris, who's Bunny Campbell?"

  "Bunny Campbell? Gosh, is that from her?"

  "Yes, some driveling apology for the last-minute stuff, and will I come to her house this evening for cocktails and a buffet dinner."

  "Good Lord, Norman, you've arrived in Amerigo. You really have." Iris looked amused and surprised. "Go, by all means. Don't miss it."

  "Is she hill crowd?"

  "Baby, the Campbells are so hill crowd they don't even live on the hill. They have their own bay, their own beach, and a mansion to match, right on the water. Broadstairs. I've only seen it when I've gone by on a boat."

  "Are you invited?"

  "Me?" Iris laughed and shook her head. "Hurry and shower. Don't overdress. Hill crowd, week night, is sport shirt and Bermuda shorts Water buffaloes are all right."

  "Iris, I thought I'd have dinner with you."

  "I have a dinner date, dear. Heavy business." She waved her letter. "Go ahead. You'll tell me all about it tomorrow in Dingley Dell. I'll talk to Church about borrowing the cat."

  "Look, Iris, can you sail a catamaran? I can't, any more than I can fly a B-52. If you want me to hire a motorboat-"

  "A cat sails itself, more or less, sweetie. Getting it to come around can be sticky and beating upwind is rough, but I've had some practice. We'll have a marvelous time. Motors are so smelly and noisy."

  "God, I'm looking forward to tomorrow, Iris."

  "So am I, Norman Paperman."

  6

  It was dark when he set out for Broadstairs. Hassim, who was at the bar entertaining a young man in a cerise jacket without lapels, told Norman he had furnished every stick in Broadstairs, and gave him explicit directions. But Norman got lost in the dirt roads crisscrossing downward toward the sea, about five miles west of Georgetown, and only found the place by heading for a twinkle of far lights, amber and green and yellow in the starlit wilds. An arched stone gateway between poled flares, clustered about with Volkswagens, appeared just around a turn of the rutted road. He parked the Rover amid tall pipe cactus, and descended a grand stone staircase with elaborate curving balustrades, which, in the light of amber lamps set at knee height, looked like marble. A round-faced woman with unruly blond hair, a shapeless tub of a body and spindle legs, wearing a white shirt and yellow shorts, appeared at the bottom of the staircase. She held a large crystal tumbler in one hand and a spray can in the other. "Hello, there. You must be Mr. Paperman. I'm Bunny Campbell. Are you anointed? The sand flies are beastly tonight. Joys of waterfront property."

  'They don't seem to bother me."

  "Bless me, are you one of those lucky souls? I'm so sorry you can't see the gardens, it's so black dark. That's more or less the whole idea of our humble abode, the staircase and the gardens, but you'll have to come again by day, very soon." As Mrs. Campbell rattled on hoarsely in upper-class tones-Boston, or possibly Philadelphia, to Paperman's limited discernment-he followed her through a terrazzo-tiled foyer lined with paintings, including an unmistakable Degas, across a wide oblong room furnished partly with antiques and partly with good rattan furniture, and walled with paintings and oversize leather books. The far wall was all folding doors to a terrace facing the floodlit beach, tall palms, and the dark sea.

  "Norman darling, you did come. How enchanting of you!" Imposing in a bottle-green evening dress with a very low neck, her red hair piled high above her head, Amy Ball came forging out of the crowd of drinkers on the terrace and sailed toward him. A powerful arm went around him, thickly painted lips smacked the air, and he smelled rose perfume and scotch.

  "Come get a drink, love. I hear you've been having sheer bloody hell for weeks, and now Hippolyte's back and everything's humming. How marvelous that you've got Hippolyte! He's the jewel of the island. If that utter bastard Thor hadn't fired him, I'd probably still be here, running the Gull Reef Club. I didn't know when I was well off."

  She took a fresh sizable tumbler of scotch at the bar, linked an arm in Paperman's, backed him into a corner of the terrace, sat him down, and poured out her woes. Mrs. Ball was drunk, but clear in her speech, although wide jolly smiles kept coming and going on her face with no relevance to what she happened to be saying. Also as she slumped toward Paperman for confidential passages of her tale, the neck of her dress fell away, and so far as he could see, there was nothing under the dress but Amy Ball, sagging, bare, and large. It made him nervous.

  Thor, according to Amy Ball, was a brute, a horror, a deceiver, a vampire who had sucked her dry and cast her off. Once aboard Moon-glow, she said, her two-year affair with him had come to an abrupt end. He loved the boat. He loved it as he had never loved her, as it was impossible for him to love any woman. He had pushed her bodily out of his cabin one night-Mrs. Ball said with a quick smile, "Of course we were lovers, dear, you knew that, I made no bones about it"-and he had humiliated her to the core by saying, "Dat stuff's no good on a boat." In Panama he wouldn't come off Moonglow. He made one excuse and another, always painting, hammering, sawing, or tinkering. When finally she had dragged him to a hotel one night, he had drunk himself senseless, lain like a log all night in his clothes, and returned to the boat at dawn.

  "He never loved me," said Mrs. Ball, smiling and looking tragic in the same second, "never, never, never. He pretended for two years, just to get me to buy that boat. And I fell for it." She raised her glass. "Lycka tilll The utter bastard."

  "Why don't you fire him and sell the boat?"

  "Oh, darling, don't you Suppose I've thought of that? Dreamed of it? The utter bastard talked me into buying the boat in both our names. Some kind of tax gimmick it was, or he said it was. I adored the monster so, I never thought twice about it. And now every penny I have in the world is in that filthy abominable scarlet horror of a boat, and he's through the Canal and heading for Hawaii. And here I am. Lycka till! Let's have another drink. The utter bastard."

  Tom Tilson was getting a drink at the bar. He did not appear to have changed the shirt, shorts, and sandals he had worn on the boat. Amy threw her arm around him, and kissed the air beside his ear. "Oh, Tom, how enchanting of you to come! I'm a defrauded, cast-off old bag, and Thor's turned out to be an utter bastard. Let's find a little corner and have a chat. Where's Letty?"

  "We had a big day, Amy. She stayed at home."

  Norman sat alone on the stone rail of the terrace, sipping his drink, and wondering why he had been invited. Amy Ball appeared to be guest of honor. She was clad more formally than the rest, and her return to Amerigo seemed the occasion for the dinner, if th
ere was one. Possibly Mrs. Ball had been curious about him and the Reef; but she had had him alone for half an hour, and she had talked entirely about herself. Broadstairs was beautiful, to be sure, and this awkward glimpse was worth while in any case. At the center of the terrace a small fountain plashed. Begonias and geraniums grew around the fountain pool in a circular planter covered with blue-and-white tiles, where several guests sat with their drinks. Another wide balustrade staircase descended to the beach, and to a flagstone path leading to an enormous illuminated blue swimming pool.

  Though the totally Gentile look of the party rather intimidated Norman, he nevertheless felt a peculiar relaxation here in Broadstairs, a new sense of being almost at home, or at least on familiar, non-Kinjan ground. He wondered whether it might not stem from the fact that the scene looked so much like a hundred New Yorker advertisements for rums and cigarettes, presumably consumed in such glamorous tropic settings. But, sitting there by himself, he puzzled out the real reason. Except for the two bartenders, and the servants setting up the buffet dinner, there was on the entire crowded terrace not one Negro face.