by Dan Newman
The growl of the engine and the force of the wind kept the conversation to a minimum, but Nate felt the need to be clear. “I appreciate what Smiley was saying,” he shouted. “But you understand I’m not leaving. I’m still headed to Ti Fenwe.”
Rachael glanced sideways and forced a smile. “I know,” she shouted back over the din.
Soon they passed the entrance to Castries harbor, and Rachael throttled back as they cut across the wake of a cruise ship that was steaming for the open sea. Once clear, she pushed the throttle forward again, and the Boston Whaler responded like a thoroughbred from the starting gates, digging into the water and lifting herself onto a plane with ease.
They passed deserted beaches and coves yet to be turned under the developer’s back hoe and it made Nate feel good that there was still raw island out there, like it was in his youth. And as he thought it, Rachael brought the Whaler around a headland and face to face with a huge refinery. It had scrubbed the countryside clear of green and replaced it with acres of cement and steel pipe, great slabs of white concrete on vast pilings, with long, squat tankers connected to bulbous tanks by ugly red umbilicals. It was as if a section of the island’s green coat had slid away into the sea, leaving an ugly scar and an unsightly skeleton never meant to be seen by the naked eye. Rachael saw the shock in Nate’s face. “That’s the refinery Smiley was talking about last night,” she shouted through the wind and the thunder of the motor. “Pretty, isn’t it.”
The Whaler passed around the next headland and mercifully cut the sight short, resuming a coastland punctuated with idyllic beaches, swaying palms and colorful fishing boats. But for Nate, something of the island’s beauty was now inexorably lost, whether he could see the Hersh oil refinery or not. Still they pressed on, running south, through the calm swells of the Caribbean Sea, past more yachts with their sails swollen and full, past fishing charters and scuba boats laden with holiday divers.
Finally Rachael throttled back and the sea behind them momentarily caught up with boat, gently lifting the stern. She motored into Marigot Bay at little more than an idle, and they turned into the naturally protected harbor, one that had provided mariners safety from storms for a hundred years. Nate immediately noticed the change. The Marigot Bay of his youth was a quiet inlet with a single stretch of so-so beach on a small, palm-laden sprit. There was one restaurant and maybe two or three private homes. It’s most defining feature was an old fiberglass snail’s shell, an abandoned movie prop used in the filming of the original Doctor Doolittle. It sat in the bush just off the beach, and kids would clamber around the six-foot structure that was, even then, in the process of falling apart. Other than that, Marigot Bay had been just a series of roughly constructed piers waiting quietly for the next glut of sailboats seeking shelter from a storm.
But now, as Rachael guided the Boston Whaler around the natural breakwater and into the harbor proper, Nate could see that it had become a developer’s dream. The simple piers and jetties had been replaced with elegant boardwalks that tumbled down to the water’s edge, designer condominiums clinging to the hillsides and stylish restaurants offering al fresco dining and drinks among million-dollar yachts. It was a different place now, one Nate felt he had never seen before. And as Rachael brought the Boston Whaler in to the dock, Nate had an odd moment of something he could only describe as nostalgic amnesia. The raped landscape of Cul de Sac Bay—now home to Hersh Oil, the new development in Marigot Bay—it all underscored an immense passage of time for him. What had he paved over in the last thirty years? The answer was ugly.
“Dennery’s a straight shot across the island from here,” said Rachael, tying a perfect cleat hitch to secure the boat at the dock.
Nate collected his small suitcase and hopped over the gunwale. All around him were shining condos and sleek yachts bobbing in their births. “Can we rent a car here?”
“No need. I own a few properties here for rent. Each has a car.”
In half an hour, they were across the island in a small SUV. They sat at the edge of a rather nondescript turnoff from the main road that wound down into Dennery proper—a sinuous thoroughfare densely lined on either side with thick tropical forest that seemed poised to reclaim the asphalt at any moment. Nate tried desperately to recall it, to connect with some memory that might evoke the excitement and thrill he would have felt as a kid when Vincent’s old Land Rover first made this very turn. But like his pursuit of memories of the police station after Richard’s death, there was nothing.
“Are you ready for this?” asked Rachael.
It didn’t matter if he was ready or not. He was here. And he was going. In the end he simply nodded.
Rachael swung the SUV onto the road and began immediately to climb up into the forest. The road was paved and nothing like the twin-rutted track it had been when he was a boy, and the trip was so much shorter than he remembered it to be. Back then he recalled a lurching, jarring roller coaster ride, an honest-to-goodness adventure that seemed to take a full day, but as they rounded the last bend in what was little more than a ten-minute drive, things began to drop familiarly into place.
The first thing he saw was the workers’ huts. They seemed, impossibly, not to have changed. They were still uncertain structures haphazardly constructed of cast-off wooden planks, and they still seemed to be fighting off the advances of the surrounding forest at their backs.
Nate immediately gravitated to one in particular.
He could feel the air pressing up into the very top of his lungs and he had to remind himself to breathe. “Hold on, hold on,” he said excitedly, and Rachael brought the vehicle to a stop. Nate stepped out of the vehicle and stood staring at the little lean-to, completely oblivious of everything else. In his mind he could see himself tumbling out onto the grass, locked in a flurry of arms and legs with Tristan, struggling and swinging but doing almost no damage at all. It made him smile.
He walked slowly over to the doorway, rested his hands lightly on the frame and leaned inside.
“I dun warn you once before,” came a Creole voice scratchy with age but spirited nonetheless. “An’ I can still reach you from ’ere!”
Nate jumped and pulled his head back, and the aged voice inside the shack laughed and laughed, and then began hacking and coughing. She quieted, and continued chuckling lightly. Finally Nate looked back inside.
“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to—” And then it hit him. He knew the woman sitting there at the table, that blue, chipped table. She was in the same spot she had been the last time he saw her more than thirty years ago. For a moment he wondered if she had been there the whole time, never moving, and the thought made him giddy. “Augustine?” he asked tentatively.
“De same,” she said, nodding once. “You no come back for a long, long time, chyle.”
Nate was astounded. She had been an old woman back then, maybe sixty or so he guessed, so she was easily ninety now. She was smaller now, much smaller, and her face seemed sunken—particularly around her lips. She smiled back and he saw there were only two or three teeth there, and her skin seemed papery and light. “You’re still here,” he said in wonder.
“Where I gone go? Dis me home!”
“No, I just…”
“You jus’ can’t believe me not dead yet!” she said, and then burst out laughing again, followed once more by more hacking and more coughing. Finally she stopped, and wiped her mouth with a white cloth clutched in her bony hand. “You find dem yet?” she asked casually.
Nate was confused and didn’t understand her question. But then again, Augustine was old. Perhaps even senile now. Christ, she probably didn’t even know who he was. He thought he should explain. “You probably don’t remember me, but I was here once…”
“Tell me somethin’ boy—why you so quick to see only pudding in de old woman’s mind?”
“No, I…”
“You not changed in all dese years. Still quick to jump up. Yes, little Nate. De little boy from
far, far away. I remember you fine. And I not de only one who remember you here,” she said waving a finger that seemed all knuckles.
“We met once. Just once, and you can still remember my name.”
“Mm hmm.”
He shook his head in astonishment. “Augustine, you asked if I found them yet. Who did you mean?”
“I mean de boys you come for. Richard especially.”
Something inside Nate sagged in disappointment. He should have known better—despite her ability to remember his name after three decades. She still believed Richard was alive.
Augustine continued. “Most all de boys gone quiet now. Most. But Richard…he still out dere by de river. Right where you boys lef’ him.”
Nate was flushed instantly cold. He had to reach for the door frame again to stop himself keeling over.
Augustine went on. “I unastan’ why you don’ come back ’ere. An’ de place here, well, it unastan’ too. But you a welcome soul ’ere, Nate. A welcome soul.” She smiled warmly, but Nate was shaken, right through to his center.
“Sit, boy. Sit.”
Nate obeyed robotically.
“Calm yourself now, chyle. I know you dun carry dat day wit you long time. An’ I know you have no blame. So calm yourself.”
Nate looked at the woman across from him and tried to steady his breathing. She just watched patiently, smiling and occasionally nodding. Finally Nate was able to speak. “What do you mean? You know what happened? Tristan told you?”
Augustine wiped her lips again with the white cloth. “No chyle,” she said, gently shaking her head.
“So it was Pip—Pip came here, too? They never told me.”
“No chyle,” she said again. “Him never come back here, and I feel him never will. Never can.” Augustine waved the white cloth in her gnarled old hand. “You remember you time ’ere, and what we talk upon dat night?”
Nate nodded. She spoke gravely, and her words were the only sounds in the world to Nate. “Everything dat ’appen on de estate is seen, chyle. Everyt’ing be watched.”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“Are you ready to go on?” came Rachael’s voice from the doorway.
Surprised, Nate turned and stood. “Sure, sure,” he said, like a man waking from a dream and unable to explain that clouded moment between the two worlds. In front of him Augustine only smiled warmly at the woman in her doorway.
“Hello, Augustine,” said Rachael. Her tone was respectful, but neutral.
Augustine nodded.
Rachael turned and went through the door with Nate behind her, and as he passed through the frame Augustine called his name just loud enough for him to hear. He stopped and turned.
“Calm yourself, chyle. Favors from de past will be repaid.” And then she smiled, stood from her chair, and shuffled into the next room.
30
Darkness was close now.
The green mass of the rainforest was pressing in on the boys from every side. Tristan stopped them on the path, and from what Nate could tell they were about halfway back to the estate house, and somewhere near the clearing. Nate looked around, fidgeting incessantly with a small stick he had collected along the way, fighting the gnawing sense of anxiety that was mounting inside him. The gathering darkness seemed to be taking on a physical form, a wall of impenetrable black that was coalescing just behind the bushes closest to the path. Darkness was certainly part of it, but the grisly scene they had just left was weighing heavily as well.
“Nate, stay here,” said Tristan in a tone so void of emotion that it caught Nate off guard. Nate simply nodded, and Tristan waved follow me at Pip, and then moved twenty or so paces up the trail.
Nate watched as the other two boys stood face to face further up the path, just far enough away that Nate was unable to make out any words. Tristan spoke, arms gesticulating wildly while Pip simply listened, never uttering a word. His physical form seemed to shrink as the boy in front of him drove home some point that Nate would never hear.
Finally Tristan turned away from Pip, and Nate could see the boy crying in a pitch almost too high to hear, and looking as hopeless as a person can. With an outstretched hand, Tristan curtly told Pip to wait, and then motioned for Nate to follow. The two jogged past Pip and then turned left off the path just twenty or thirty feet later, through a curtain of vines and leafy branches, and suddenly emerged into the open cathedral-like space of the clearing.
Nate followed Tristan over to the industrial-wire spool that served as the table, where they stopped and stood facing each other.
“I just wanna go. I just wanna go home now,” said Nate. He was quaking uncontrollably, and his tone was something close to pleading. “Come on. Let’s just get Pip and get outta here.”
But Tristan, who was in complete control, simply shook his head.
“Please Tristan, let’s just go. I just want to go back home. I just wanna be done with this.”
“You can’t,” spat Tristan caustically. You’re in this! You were there. You were part of it!”
Nate’s panic overflowed. “No! I was—”
“We’re all part of it. Especially you! You wanted to come out here again. It’s your fault we went to the river at all!”
“What are you talking about?”
Tristan cut him off again, leaning forward this time, crowding Nate and pushing an outstretched finger viciously into his cheek as he ratcheted up his indignation. “This is all your fault! You’re the one to blame! And when we get back my dad’ll get you. He’ll get you for this! For what you did!” Nate opened his mouth to object, but Tristan stopped him with an outstretched hand.
Something in Tristan was shifting, as if caught in a struggle between fury and control. Nate could only watch and wait.
Finally, Tristan took a deep breath and exhaled, seeming to gain control and some measure of calm. “Okay, look,” he said, taking Nate by the shoulders. “What’s happened here—it doesn’t matter who did what. We’re all in it. All three of us. Look at Pip,” he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “He understands. He gets it. He knows we’re all in it, but he also understands what separates us. I’m a De Villiers—a De Villiers, Nate—do you know what that means here? On this island? It means I’m untouchable. My father, my uncles and aunties—they own this place. The police, the schools, the judges, the lawyers…I can’t be touched here—not on this island. But you,” he said, his voice trailing off ominously. “Nate, you don’t understand how the island works. What do you think will happen when I tell them it was you?”
Nate’s panic unravelled him. He stuttered and faltered, tried to speak and managed only a few gurgled half words, a few unformed pleas. Finally his legs gave way, and he buried his head in his hands and began to cry.
“You have to understand, Nate,” said Tristan, almost imploring him. “This is my island. But you…You and Pip…” He slowly shook his head and stepped away from the puddle of a boy before him.
Nate sobbed quietly, feeling the island and its ruling class press unseen shackles into him from every direction. “But it wasn’t me, Tristan!”
The boy in front of him just shook his head. “That doesn’t matter, Nate. It only matters what I tell them.”
Nate’s head dropped as that truth—that hard local truth—washed over him. Finally he looked up, his eyes wet, wide and pleading. “What do I do?” asked Nate.
“There’s nothing you can do.”
Nate sobbed. “Please Tristan. What do I do?”
And then, as if giving in to a costly favor: “There’s only one chance for you. Just one.”
Nate heard the sliver of redemption offered in Tristan’s words and it lifted his chin.
Tristan slowly squatted down in front of Nate and placed both his hands on the boy’s shoulders once more. “Maybe there’s a way. One way I can help get you out of this.”
• • •
Nate was shaken by the strange encounter with Augustine, but didn’t have
time to let it really sink in. Ahead of him, sitting high on a set of dark arches sat the old estate house. There was little change from the house he remembered all those years ago. It was still tall and somehow sinister, and the windows up in the attic—in the space where the nutmegs would roll and roll—were still black as missing teeth. It was clear, though, that the house had been partially restored to some degree. The paint was fresh and bright, and the red tin roof was mostly free of the rusty streaks that had once been such a dominant feature.
The day that swirled around them was much the same as any day on the island. The sun beamed warmly down, birds chirped and sang, and palms swayed in the breeze to the applause of their many fronds. Aside from a curdling sense of dread in Nate’s gut, it was another perfect island day.
As the couple walked down the track—a track that was now carefully gravelled but still a track nonetheless—they passed a dilapidated square structure on their left, and Nate recognized it immediately as the old copra oven. Its roof had long since sagged and caved in, and the grass at its sides had grown tall and thick, like a million green fingers pulling it back down into the earth.
Up ahead, Ti Fenwe Estate stood waiting for them, and Nate stopped to take it fully in. The bank of windows was still there, lining the main bedroom, but the pole that held the battery they had shot at was gone. The doors and railings had been either replaced or refinished, and to those seeing it for the first time it might even seem quaint, perhaps even old-world charming. But even with its careful makeover, Nate still felt it emanating something else, something less welcoming, like a once flooded room that has never really lost the smell.
He couldn’t peg it, couldn’t quite understand what was bothering him. It wasn’t the general creepiness of the place—it still had that in spades—but it was something else. Something, well, structural.
“Are you okay, Nate?” Rachael asked.
Nate caught her glancing down at the worn paper bag he held in his left hand. She never asked what it was. Not when he fetched it from his case in the car, not when they walked up the gravel track past the old copra oven, and not now.