by D R Sherman
The echo of his softly spoken words was still alive in his mind when the boy stepped round the corner of the house and came limping up to the steps where the man sat. His left leg was two inches shorter than the right, and when he walked his right hip jutted backwards and a little way out to the side and the whole of his upper body rolled from side to side with each step he took. The shirt he wore had been patched in three places, and his shorts were no better than those of the man. He stopped in front of the steps and immediately dropped the weight of his body onto his left leg. He stood hipshot, resting his right leg, because that was the one which always became tired when he walked any distance.
In his right hand he carried a whole stalk of bananas. They were banane gabou, long and pale green, and most of the bunches were ripe and ready to be eaten and the others would ripen in a day or two. He held his left hand hidden behind his back and out of sight.
He stooped and laid the stalk of bananas carefully beside the steps. “Breakfast,” he grunted, speaking in the patois of the Creoles.
He straightened up and faced the man, his left hand still hidden behind his back. “I have a surprise for you, Papa,” he said, and his face lit up with a sudden, smile. “I do not think you will be able to guess what it is.”
”Tabac,” the man replied quickly, and he began to taste again the raw sweetness of smoke in his mouth and the hot satisfaction of it in his lungs.
“Not today,” the boy said, and the smile on his face grew wider.
The eager expectancy froze on the man’s face and then drained away. He tried to hide his disappointment, but he did not manage to conceal it altogether. The boy did not miss it, and he felt a sudden tightness inside his throat.
“I will borrow some for you this afternoon,” he said gruffly.
It meant getting right up to one of the thatched shelters where the coarse leaves were strung to dry out of the light of the sun. The shelters were erected close to the dwellings to discourage theft, and even at night it took a lot of care and stealth to be certain of getting away with a few choice leaves without being seen and chased and caught.
“But in the meantime,” the boy went on brightly, hiding his distress, “see if you can guess what I have in my hand.”
The man chuckled abruptly and eased the weight on his buttocks for a moment before settling back once again. “There are so many things which you borrow so well that it would take me all of the morning to go through the things which it might be.”
“Do you give up, then?” the boy asked triumphantly.
The man nodded and bowed his head in mock defeat. “Yes, I give up,” he said.
With a carefully restrained flourish the boy brought the hollow bambou calou from concealment. It was brimming with calou, which is the milky blood that is tapped from the baba of the coconut palm. The end of the baba or young shoot which bears the nuts is cut off before it flowers, and then it is bound firmly to prevent it from opening. It is shaved finely every day for about a week to make the sap flow more freely, and then after that a hollow bamboo is hung from the end of it. Sometimes for as long as six months it fills each day with the lifeblood of the tree, and twice every day the men who bleed it run the edge of a knife over the open wound and scrape it to make sure that it does not heal.
The man’s eyes lit up. “And from whose tree did you pluck that excellent fruit?” he asked. “Was it one of the trees of Jean Morel?”
He knew it was straightforward theft, but he felt that it was perfectly justified. When a man was hurt and unable to work, or when he toiled and came away empty-handed because his luck had run out, then it was his right to do anything to survive. He did not particularly like any of it, but there was not enough charity in the world to enable it to be otherwise. When a man had sufficient to exist, but stole from cupidity, then only was it a sin, because it was an unnecessary violation. He had spoken to his son of his thoughts when first it had become a matter of survival. But this calou now, there was no real need for it: the light in his eyes died.
“It is not food, my son,” the man said with gentle accusation. “You did not have to take it.”
The boy was astonished, and then indignant: he had expected praise and not reproach. “And what of the tobacco I steal for you?” he asked angrily. “Is that food?”
The man stared unwinkingly at the boy, but then he dropped his eyes. He had been smoking since he was ten, and he was now forty-six years of age. It was the habit of a lifetime, and it was more than his life was worth to try and break it now. He knew he could not explain such a thing to his son. He consoled himself by thinking that not all of the food which people ate was necessary, but to go without it altogether was inviting death.
“You are right,” he said, and he did not look up. “It is not food.”
The shame and humiliation on the face of his father shocked the boy. To him, all of it was an exciting game, and there was no question of right or wrong. The knowledge that his angry words had wounded was unbearable.
“Forgive me, Papa,” he said quickly, contritely. “It is only my quick tongue, making these words which are not true.”
The man looked up, and there was sadness and resignation on his lined face. “But it is true, mon garçon,” he said gently.
The boy fidgeted and looked away from the steadiness in the man’s eyes. After a few moments of discomfort he brightened suddenly.
“I will throw it away,” he said in a flash of inspiration. “And then everything will be all right.”
“Oh no!” the man exclaimed. “That would make the whole thing even worse.”
“Why is that?” the boy asked, puzzled.
“Because that would be a senseless waste, one more mistake on top of another.”
“I could try and return it to the tree,” the boy offered, but without much enthusiasm.
“No that is too great a risk to take. You may be seen, and then no matter what you say people will not believe that you were returning it. If you were seen climbing with the bamboo hanging from your mouth they would swear that you were returning to the ground with it. And if they observed you descending empty-handed after returning it, they would say that you were climbing the tree to steal it.”
“What is there to be done, then?” the boy asked.
The man was thoughtful for a while. He knew already what had to be done, but he was reluctant to bring it out into the open. With a little start of guilt he found that he was licking his lips in anticipation.
“I am sure,” he said, and though his face was very solemn his eyes were twinkling, “that the only sensible thing to do is to keep it and drink it.”
The boy stared at him in amazement for a moment, but then his face broke into a sudden smile. He stepped right up to the man, holding out the brimming eighteen-inch-long bamboo that was almost five inches in diameter.
“Will you drink some of it now?” he asked.
“Ah no!” the man exclaimed. “When it is sweet it is for young boys and little children. I will try it tomorrow and see whether it has enough strength for an old man like me, and if it has not, then I will wait another day.”
“Well, if it is for young boys when it is fresh from the tree, I will have some of it now myself.”
The boy lifted the bamboo in both his hands and put his mouth to the rough rim. He tilted it up slightly and drank deeply. He lowered the bamboo and smacked his lips together, savoring the effervescent sweetness of the toddy. He had drunk a two-day-old bottle of it once, but it was bitter and sour, and the whole of the next morning he had felt a great burning discomfort inside his chest from his throat right down to the bottom of his stomach. He had never bothered to drink it again.
He walked round the man and edged past him up the narrow steps to the gloomy little shuttered veranda. He hung the bamboo by the twisted cord of palm fiber which was fastened to it through two holes at the top, looping and knotting the tough rope over a long nail which had been in one of the wooden uprights ever since he could remem
ber. When he had finished he gave the bamboo a last tug to make sure that it was secure and then he walked back outside.
He broke two large bunches of bananas from the stalk. He gave one of them to his father and then sat down on the bottom step, being careful not to get too close to the leg which was broken in case he knocked against it accidentally.
The boy ate hungrily, peeling his bananas, wolfing the sweet fruit and then hurling the empty skin as far as he could down the side of the hill.
The man stopped chewing for a moment and spoke through his half-filled mouth. “You did not tell me yet,” he said conversationally. “But was the bambou calou from one of the trees belonging to Jean Morel?” He peeled another banana and took half of it off with one bite.
The boy shook his head vehemently. Jean Morel had a daughter, and for some reason which he did not understand he could not bring himself to steal from him. He had seen her more times than he could remember, especially in the late afternoons when he and his father came home from the sea and sold their catch, but he had never spoken to her, and he had always seen her from a distance.
She was white, and she was very rich: unlike his father, he was also white, but certainly he was not rich. He knew all about that too, because the man had told him the story from the beginning. Sometimes he wondered about his real parents, but it never worried him or made him sad, because the man had done the work of both and now he was his father.
He stared at the man, a little defiant, not knowing why he should feel embarrassed. His eyes were gray-green, and when he was angry they became quite green, sea-green like the sea was sometimes when the clouds were high in the sky and only a little of the sun reached down to touch the water.
“No it was not!” he said quickly. “The calou is from the property of François Albert. I took it in the dawn and hid it away up in the mountain, and I returned across the side of the hill which is why it took me so long to get back.”
“You did not take long,” the man said decisively. “Not for the distance you have been.”
He watched the boy finish his last banana and stand up suddenly, wiping his mouth with his forearm. He remembered wishing earlier that the boy would hurry home, and he felt ashamed of his thoughtlessness: his son had traveled far to get him the calou.
It is a pity only that he may not do it again, he thought gravely.
Hah! he exclaimed suddenly to himself, and the realization of his own duplicity made him smile.
You are a wicked man, he thought with laughter, and you get no better as you grow older.
“Why do you smile?” the boy asked.
“It is nothing,” the man said, becoming grave again. “But you must steal no more calou for me, otherwise I shall be forced to drink it against my wishes.”
The boy laughed delightedly. “No more, Papa,” he agreed. “And now I will get my gun and see what the sea has for our lunch.”
There were two rooms behind the small veranda, each with its own door opening on to it. They slept in one and ate in the other when it was raining and not possible to sit outside beside the fire or on the steps, and in the room in which they ate were stored the handlines of different lengths and thicknesses and also the gaff and the club and the hooks which gave purpose to their existence.
The boy went in through the door on the right-hand side. There were two beds inside the small room, each with a handmade mattress and pillow. There were no sheets or blankets. Between the beds was a crude table of native cedar. It was not painted or varnished. There was a small oil lamp on the table, and a few rusted hooks which the man had been working on, and on the side which was against the bed in which the man slept there was a small shiny tin can which had once contained beans but now served as an ashtray. There were no butts in it, only ash and stained pieces of brown paper. They had been dog ends yesterday, but they had been torn open since and plundered of their meager fillings. The box of matches beside the tin can looked somehow foolish and superfluous.
The boy walked over to his bed. His feet were bare, and the left foot made more noise than the right as he stumped across the hollow boards. He knelt at the side of the low bed, going down on both knees. He reached out with his left hand, but his groping fingers found nothing. His heart almost stopped beating. He dropped forward quickly, hardly daring to breathe, and with his cheek almost on the floor he peered into the gloom beneath his bed.
His frantic eyes caught the glint of metal. He blew the frozen breath out of his lungs in trembling relief. He scuttled forward, nearer towards the head of the bed, and then he reached under it again and drew out his precious speargun and his mask.
He stood up, a smile of secret pleasure lighting his face, running a callused thumb exploratively across the point of the harpoon which was locked in position on the gun. His father had bought it for his last birthday in one of the big shops in Victoria, and the money for the gun and the mask had come from the envelope that came once every year. He had promised him a pair of flipper feet the next time it came, and thinking about it now made his heart race. Wearing them he thought he might be as swift as a fish of the sea. It was one thing to catch them on a line, but to enter into their own domain and hunt them down was far more exciting. He walked out, the gun over his left shoulder and the mask dangling from his right hand.
“Quick!” the man said, as the boy came down the steps. “Take those bananas and put them inside the house.”
“What is it, Papa?” the boy asked anxiously.
He heard the urgency in, the man’s voice, but he could think of nothing to warrant it. He had stolen the bananas, yes, but he was quite positive that he had not been seen.
The man pointed down the hillside without saying a word.
The boy turned his head and stared in the direction of the outthrust arm. He saw the bent figure a hundred yards down the side of the mountain, toiling slowly upwards. Even at that distance there was no mistaking the identity of the man. He lost sight of him for a moment, but then he came into view again from behind a clump of giant ferns. He watched his unfaltering ascent in fascination. For all his great size and bulk he moved with the effortless grace of a cat, and as he drew closer the boy could see the huge muscles in his great black legs bunching and then flattening out as his weight swung from one leg to the other.
“It is only Pierre Vigot,” he said, and then softly, as an afterthought and mostly to himself: “Whore of a mother, but he is the biggest man I have seen.”
“The bananas,” the man reminded the boy patiently, his eyes fixed on the approaching figure.
“But why?” the boy asked. “There is nothing he can say.”
“Yes, but what of the things he is sure to think? He knows that I have not been fishing, and he will also know that you have had no real luck.”
The boy nodded silently. He laid his mask and spear-gun on the ground, putting them down with the utmost care, settling the pistol grip of the speargun on a large stone and making sure that the well-oiled trigger mechanism was clear of the dirt. He picked up the stalk of bananas, swung it clear off the ground and then skipped up the steps. He laid it down in the far right-hand corner of the veranda and covered it over with a piece of old sacking. He prodded the covering a few times with his toe to camouflage its shape and then he turned and limped outside.
He retrieved his mask and slipped his left arm through the rubber headstrap, and then he picked up the speargun and cradled it against his body. He stood beside his father, watching Pierre Vigot climb the last few yards. He had taken a dislike to him from the beginning, ever since he had been old enough to see beyond a face.
“I wonder what he wants?” the man mused softly.
“It cannot be the rent, can it?” the boy asked.
“No, he never calls for it before the last day of the month.”
Seconds later the great bulk of Pierre Vigot vaulted nimbly onto the small square of flat terrace on which the house stood.
“Bonjour, Roger,” he said, ignoring the boy. He
tapped his chest and shook his head depreciatingly. “It is becoming a longer climb for me each time.”
Pierre Vigot was not even breathing heavily. The boy saw no reason for his remark, and the smile which accompanied it struck him as being quite false. The blue in the boy’s eyes began to go green, and his fingers tightened unconsciously on the stock of the speargun.
“Bonjour, Pierre,” the man replied. There was no expression on his face, but his eyes were watchful.
Pierre Vigot took a step forward and then squatted on his haunches. “How is the leg coming along, Roger?” he asked.
The man flicked his finger against the plaster: the noise it made had a brittle sound.
“I cannot tell,” he said. “But in another two weeks I will go to the hospital in Victoria and when they have taken off this terrible bandage I will be able to see the leg and try it out and then I will know.”
“Quite so, quite so,” Pierre Vigot rumbled soothingly.
The echo of his words was followed by an uncomfortable silence. He scratched at the dirt with the big toe of his left foot, pretending a great absorption with what he was doing. He glanced up suddenly, his eyes coming to rest on the boy.
“And how are you, Paul?”
“I am well,” the boy replied, and his voice was without warmth or enthusiasm.
There was another uncomfortable silence. Pierre Vigot again scratched at the dirt with his big toe. When he looked up he spoke to the man once more.
“There is no pain in the leg now, Roger?” he inquired solicitously.
The man became suddenly irritated. He leaned forward, fighting his rising anger. It was one thing to be patronized by a greater fisherman, but Pierre Vigot had never been a better fisherman and now he never would be.
“Come, Pierre,” he said dryly. “You yourself have said that it is a long climb. You did not come all this way to, ask me about my leg and the pain in it”
Pierre Vigot stood up. He did it slowly, and there was menace in the way his whole body seemed to uncoil from the ground and come erect. His eyes narrowed, and there was a dangerous glint in the deep fluid blackness of their depths.