by D R Sherman
She studied his hair. It was a light blond, almost white with the bleaching it had taken from the sun and the sea, the ends curling upward a little where it spilled across the nape of his neck. It suited him, she thought dreamily and irrelevantly, her mind and body lulled by the easy motion of the pirogue and the soft, monotonous chinkle of the oars splashing into the water. She wondered idly whether the curling ends which fell untidily across his neck might not curl a little more if she wound them round her finger. The desire to reach out and do it obsessed her. She sat up suddenly and plunged her itching fingers over the side and into the water, bewildered by the immodesty of her thoughts and the intensity of her emotions.
The boy turned his head slightly, checking his position in relation to the island which was now almost abeam on the left-hand side. He heaved once more on the oars and then shipped them quickly. He turned around and stood up, moving past her and into the bow. He knelt down and undid the anchor rope. He gave it another six fathoms and then wrapped it over and around the cleat in a figure-eight and secured it with two half hitches. He tugged at the rope perfunctorily and then he lifted the anchor in both hands and heaved it over the side. He stood up, and he remained motionless for a moment, watching the flight of the stone as it tumbled down through the clear water.
“Have you seen the marsouin?” the girl cried out.
In her excitement she rose suddenly, and the pirogue listed to the right precariously. The boy quickly shifted the weight of his body to his left foot and brought the boat back on an even keel. He turned round slowly, keeping the weight on his foot.
“No, I haven’t seen it,” he said, and then he indicated the thwart with a nod of his head. “You had better sit down, before you turn the boat over or fall into the water.”
She saw the same look of incontestable authority that had been in his eyes before, and she sat down obediently, the cutting rebuke dying on her lips. She glanced up at him as he shifted his weight once more, surprised at her own docile submission.
“Will we find the marsouin here?” she asked, her voice eager with anticipation.
“We do not find Marsouin,” the boy corrected her. “It is he who will find us.”
He stepped over the bow thwart and moved aft. He sat down on the planking, facing her. He picked up his mask and rinsed it in the sea. He shook the water from it and slipped it over his head.
“You are going to look for the marsouin now?” the girl cried excitedly.
“I told you,” the boy said patiently. “He will come to me.” “But how will he know where to find you?”
“I will call him when I am ready for him,” the boy answered simply.
The girl’s eyes widened respectfully. “You talk with the marsouin?” she asked in awe.
The boy shook his head, smiling diffidently. “I cannot do that, but I have a special way of whistling which brings him to me.”
He picked up his speargun and got to his feet. He watched the girl covertly, gauging the effect of his words. She was staring at him with a heightened regard. He felt a little bit dishonest, because he still had his doubts about whether it was the whistle or the splashing of the oars which summoned the big fish from the deep water. Still, it was a small price to pay for the look of admiration he saw in her eyes.
“But where are you going now?” the girl asked, mystified. “I am going to shoot a few fish for him.”
“He only comes when you have fish to feed him?” the girl asked curiously.
“How can he know that I have fish for him?” the boy rebuked her impatiently. “The fish is for later, after I have played with him and ridden on his back.”
“It is not you whom he truly likes then,” the girl crowed triumphantly. “It is only because of the payment in fish that he allows you to ride on his back.”
The boy looked at her, and the pity and disappointment on his face were not hidden by the mask. “Perhaps it is,” he said quietly, his voice nasal and distorted. “But I would give him fish even if he did not allow me to ride on his back. You see, the big fish is also my friend.”
She flushed angrily. “He will also be my friend when I have fed him,” she declared vindictively.
“It will be a good thing for him then,” the boy said.
He spoke without thinking of himself, and when he realized what he had said he felt a sudden stab of alarm. He did not want to share the big fish with anyone else. Animosity flared in him. He glared truculently at the girl. Even in his anger he could not help but notice that she was very lovely. He thought of the dolphin who was his friend, and he thought that the big fish might perhaps also like to have a girl such as this one for a friend. The jealous possessiveness in his heart died.
“If I am his friend?” the girl asked.
“Yes.”
“You do not mind?” she went on, incredulous and suspicious.
“Perhaps it will hurt me a little in the beginning,” the boy said simply. “But it will be better for him to have two good friends, will it not?”
The girl held his eyes for a moment. They were very steady and very calm, and even through the speckled faceplate of the mask she saw the mild reproof in them. She turned away, humiliated and confused.
“I will not be too long,” the boy said, moving into the bow of the boat.
“Can I come with you, Paul?” the girl asked.
She reached out impetuously and touched him on the thigh, and then just as quickly she withdrew her hand, the color coming into her cheeks and staining them red.
“You did not bring your gun,” the boy said. “How are you going to spear fish?”
“I don’t want to spear fish. I only want to watch you.” The boy shrugged. “If you wish.”
The girl began to tug on her mask. He stopped her, and then he took it from her hands and, crouching down, he wet it in the water of the sea. He straightened up and passed it back to her.
“It will stick better to your face when it is wet,” he explained. “And also, the glass will not become clouded.”
The girl studied him with renewed interest. “I did not know that,” she said.
“It is something to remember,” the boy said. “A little thing, but it is useful.”
He remembered feeling smug about it before, wondering whether she knew about the little trick of wetting a mask before putting it on. He felt no elation now, and it puzzled him. He shrugged inside his head.
It is as I told her, he thought, only a little thing.
The girl nodded respectfully. She fitted the mask to her face. She stood up carefully, making sure that her weight was evenly distributed. The pirogue rocked, but it did not list violently as it had done the last time she got to her feet. She stole a glance at the boy, hoping that he had noticed it.
“You are learning,” the boy said.
He turned away quickly, embarrassed, but at the same time secretly delighted that she should want his approval. He sat down on the gunwale and swung his legs over the side.
“Hold tightly to your mask when you go in,” he said, looking back at her across his shoulder. “You will get it full of water if you do not.”
He pressed the mask to his face and slipped into the water. He allowed himself to sink, making no attempt to arrest his downward movement. He twisted round in a circle, but the sea was clear and safe. He sank a little further, and then the pressure of the water arrested his momentum and began to lift him back towards the surface.
He struck out lazily, the girl completely forgotten. He felt the old familiar elation and contentment growing inside him. He kicked out with a sudden exuberance. He was free once more.
He was four feet from the surface when the milky film above him shattered like a splintering sheet of glass. The taut body of the girl plummeted past him. He jackknifed and went after her. He swam down swiftly, wanting to catch her up and then swim back to the surface beside her. To his dismay he shot past her. She was on the way up already, and he glimpsed the laughter behind the plate of her mask j
ust before she lifted her head and struck out for the surface.
The boy turned slowly under the water. He knew it was too late now to try to chase her. He drew his legs up, tensing them for that first scissoring kick which would start him moving. He threw his head back and stared after her. His breath caught at what he saw, and he hung unmoving in the water.
She was swimming upward at a slight angle to the surface almost directly above him. She was kicking her feet like a frog, and every time she drew her legs in her thighs moved apart and the tightening muscle hollowed the flesh on the inside of each thigh right up against the line of the black bathing suit. His eyes moved up, across the smooth lifting curvature of her stomach. He saw the indentation of her navel beneath the stretched costume. It looked like a flower, and as his gaze moved higher he saw the soft swellings of her beautiful young breasts. He looked at her face, searching for her eyes, but the mask obscured them. Her long hair streamed out behind her, and it reflected the light like gold.
He felt a leaping hunger come alive inside of him. It did not touch his body, but he felt the pain of it in his mind and in his heart. He thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He wanted to reach out and touch her, and hold all of her close against him and let the strange hurting run out of his body and into her. He felt a sudden constriction in his chest, and he woke and came alive and kicked out frantically for the surface.
He came up right beside her in the water. He got his breath back, and then he turned away from her and loaded the speargun. He lifted his head from the water, clearing his lungs and filling them again, and then he drew his legs up under his belly and rolled forward in the water. He dived immediately, without looking at her, and he went down kicking with the speargun held straight out in his extended right arm.
The girl watched him for a moment, head down and treading water, and then she took a quick breath and dived after him. But the boy went deep, and he stayed down long after all of her air had gone, chasing after a snapper, and she broke away suddenly and kicked out for the surface.
She watched him from there, swimming along above him, and in the next twenty minutes she saw him shoot three snapper, two wrasse, and a porgy which he was lucky to get because he shot wide and the fish itself darted forward straight into the path of the flying harpoon.
She saw all of it from where she was, looking down on him from above, but it was the sight of the boy himself as he stalked remorselessly through the silent world below that thrilled and fascinated her. Here there was none of the halting awkwardness which marred and punctuated his movements when he walked. In the water below her he was free, as free and as graceful as the fishes upon which he preyed. As she watched him she felt a murmuring excitement and wonder stir within her.
His long ragged hair no longer looked unkempt: each hair was separate and distinct, and it floated free in the water, moving and waving with each movement of his head. There was something flawed about the whole picture though, some little thing which struck a violent discord in her mind. She puzzled over it for a moment, and then in a sudden burst of perception she realized just what was wrong.
It was his patched shorts which destroyed the purity of what she had visualized. It was not the fact that they were patched, but just that he had no business wearing shorts of any kind in the blue silences through which he swam. He should have been naked, like the fishes, with his body bare and nothing of him hidden, so that he could be seen in all his beauty, with none of it diminished.
In her mind she saw him naked, and there was no shame in her heart because of the picture, only a whispering sadness and a dark sense of loss that she should not see him in the one way she was sure he was meant to be seen. She thought then, in a half-understood moment of comprehension and fantasy, that he had been born, not to live and move on the land like other human beings, but to live and rejoice in the quiet world that existed below the sea.
He would be like a fish, she thought, staring down at him dreamily, and he would be the most beautiful boy fish in all the sea.
The sun was warm on her back, and she saw him going after the porgy. She turned her face lazily to one side and drew a breath, and then she looked down at him once more. She began to dream again, and in her mind she saw herself as a sirène. She did not have a tail like a mermaid, but her feet were webbed and her hands were webbed, and she swam beside the boy naked through the silent water.
She saw the sudden contraction of the rubbers on the speargun. The harpoon arrowed through the water, and she woke from her dream. She perceived instantly that it was going wide. She was beginning to feel an acute disappointment because he had missed, when the porgy darted forward and swam straight into the harpoon.
The boy surfaced, blowing and gasping, and he motioned the girl towards the pirogue. She reached it and climbed aboard nimbly, and then when he swam up beside it she took the gun from his hands and hauled in the line and the harpoon while he dragged himself over the stern and into the boat. He pushed the mask up on his face and then moved to her side. He took the gun and the harpoon from her, and he knocked the porgy off the harpoon and then screwed the head back on again.
The girl took off her mask and shook tier head from side to side. Drops of water sprayed from her long hair, and it was dark with the wetness of the water in it.
“And now, Paul,” she said, her voice catching with excitement. “Is it now that you call the marsouin?”
The boy nodded silently, and once again he felt an acute uncertainty about his ability to summon the fish with nothing but his whistle. He remembered the last time he had been in the pirogue, and how it had only come after he splashed the oars into the water. He did not want to have to do that, not in front of her. He wanted the big fish to answer his whistle, because there could be no ambiguity about such a thing. He swept his glance across the sea. The unbroken surface seemed to mock him. The enormity, and the impossibility of what he had to do began to weigh heavily on him, but then he remembered how he had called the fish to him in the shallow water with only his whistle, without even smacking his hand down in the water.
He lifted his head suddenly, before the rising confidence in him could begin to spoil with doubt, and he sent his whistle soaring and lifting and rolling out across the sea.
He waited awhile, not daring to look at the girl, but the dolphin did not appear. He searched the sea, his anxiety increasing. He stole a glance at the girl. She was staring at him with a mixture of accusation and disappointment on her face. He turned away quickly, crushed with humiliation and shame. He became conscious of the way he was standing, of the one leg of his which was shorter than the other and which always made him stand with his body leaning a little to one side. He wanted to dive over the side of the pirogue and hide himself under the water. Down there he was no different from the fish. He could swim, and he did not have to stand or walk.
He thought of the place in the sea where he had first seen the dolphin. He turned towards it, hope mounting in him again, and that was when the girl screamed and set the pirogue rocking dangerously with her wild cavorting.
“Paul!” she cried, stabbing her finger into the air again and again.
“The boat!” he said sharply. “Be careful or—”
“There, Paul!” the girl cried, and she took him by the arm and shook him wildly.
He turned in the narrow confines of the boat, and he followed the direction of her pointing arm. A great bursting relief swept through him suddenly. The dolphin was fifty yards away, its body half out of the water. It was standing straight up on its tail, watching him. Once again he felt a great love for the big fish, especially this time, because its coming had been more important to him than his life.
He wanted to shout and yell with all the happiness and joy that was bursting to get out of him when he remembered just in time that such a demonstration would be an admission of the doubt which had been in him.
The girl shook him again. “Do you not see it?” she cried. “It is there, look
ing straight at us.”
“Of course it is there,” he replied, making his voice indignant. “He heard my whistle and it is only natural that he should answer.”
He saw her eyes widen with awe. He kept his face stiff and impassive. It was not from any exaggerated idea of his own importance: if he had allowed the muscles in his face to relax, he knew he would not have been able to stop himself from grinning. He did not want to do that, because it would give everything away.
“Paul!” the girl shrieked in sudden alarm. “It is going!”
The boy did not share her dismay as the dolphin sank out of sight. It went straight down, and he drew his glance in along the surface towards the pirogue from the place where it had gone down in the water. He picked up the shimmering shadow that speared towards them a fathom and a half below the surface.
“He is not going,” he stated calmly. “Marsouin is coming to me.”
The dolphin came up beside the pirogue. Its head lifted out of the water. It watched him for a moment, and then the eyes which looked so unlike the eyes of a fish rolled in their sockets and focused on the girl. He thought he saw a flicker of apprehension in the brown eyes, but before he could make up his mind about it the dolphin dived and shot off under the water. It came up twenty-five feet away, and it rolled over once and then came up again and lay motionless with only its head above the surface of the water.
The boy whistled, and he called to it, but the dolphin did not respond. He sat down on the planking of the boat, and he leaned out over the side and smacked his hand down into the water. The dolphin did not move. He did it again, but still the dolphin took no notice. He tried it a third time, and he called and whistled again. The big fish swam in a little distance, but it veered off suddenly and darted away.