Sea of Lost Dreams: A Dugger/Nello Novel

by Ferenc Máté

  But she gave no sign.

  He leaned on the rifle awkwardly and waited.

  “It’s such a burden,” she said, and said no more.

  Far ahead, in the canyon, voices began to shout.

  “It’s all such a burden,” she repeated, and reached out and touched the wrinkled petals of a hibiscus, which at her touch began to shed raindrops like tears.

  “If I’m not back in half an hour,” Nello said quietly, “he said he’ll sail without me.”

  “Then you must go now,” she said.

  “And you?”

  I’ll go with you, she thought. I’ll go with you as long as you hold me, as long as I’m close to you, touching you, because I’m so tired of being alone, alone every night, alone in the world. And I won’t be a burden, I’ll stand on my own, I’ll have all the strength I need as long as you are near.

  But she didn’t say anything. She let the hibiscus petal slip away, and pushed the raindrops from her eyes.

  “I had better go,” she said, her voice now full of strength. And she turned away and walked with much effort uphill, on the path full of shadows.

  “CAN’T WE LEAVE THE AWNING UP to give him some shade?” Kate asked.

  He’s dead, Dugger thought. The least of his worries now is shade. “It will foul the sheets,” he said. “I want to be ready to set sail.” But he stood there watching the shore, waiting for Nello.

  “I’m sure he won’t mind getting a last bit of sun, miss,” the Finn added, and kept untying the awning’s knotted lines.

  “I’ll cover him with his flag,” Dugger said. “That way, if the French catch us, we’ll say we were simply giving him last honors. We’ll say he asked for a burial at sea.”

  “I promised him I would bury him on the island,” the Finn said.

  “Let’s keep him a while,” Dugger said. “For insurance.”

  Father Murphy sat on the cabin top, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the column of black smoke suddenly paled, then all but disappeared. The sun fell. “I think they’ve slowed,” he said. “Perhaps even stopped.”

  “Maybe they blew up the boiler,” Dugger said hopefully.

  “That would be a blessing,” the priest said. Then he rose and went to the gunwale near the pirogue. “I think I’ll head home,” he said, looking at the empty village, its walls turning pink with the falling sun.

  “Why don’t you stay for supper, Father?” Kate said, and looked hard at Dugger.

  “Yes, Father,” Dugger said. “The more, the merrier.”

  “It’s safer here,” Kate insisted.

  “Sure,” Dugger said. “At least no flying sharks.”

  The Finn stood holding a shroud, staring into the distance at the darkening horizon. The bloody French, he thought. They’re out there waiting. Circling. Exactly like the sharks.

  Chapter 47

  It was a small, battered, single-cannon frigate that had been abandoned on the banks of the Chao Phraya River, downstream from Bangkok. When the Great War came and ships were scarce, they fastened steel plates over the worn planks of her bow, replaced the rings of her enormous pistons, and put the old frigate back in service.

  Then they found Pétard, a sea captain who’d sailed a two-masted brigantine all his life chasing pirates in the South China Sea, and they put him in command of the frigate and, in case the Germans came, sent him with a crew of twelve to French Polynesia.

  “Ça suffit maintenant,” the admiral with the great mustache said dryly into the brass tube, and swept displaced long tufts of hair over his balding head. He opened wide his tiny eyes, put his cap with the gold cording back on. “Je m’excuse, Capitaine Pétard,” he said, turning to the short, taut man beside him. “It is, after all, your ship.”

  Captain Pétard gave a tired smile. “But your fleet, Admiral.” He leaned to the speaking tube and said to the engine room with a tone of familiarity, “Merci, André. Laissez la reposer.”

  The admiral combed his mustache with his fingers, buttoned his white tunique, and smiled with self-contentment.

  “How long shall we stop, Admiral?” the captain asked, the tone of disgust barely disguised in his voice.

  “How long does it take for them to see the smoke stop before they begin to worry? Begin to doubt their own eyes, their own minds? A few minutes? An hour?”

  Captain Pétard pretended to busy himself with the charts, even though the course into the bay was without danger. The admiral felt his anger rise at being ignored, so he went on. “Let us wait until sunset. Then steam in slowly, just the black silhouette of the ship against the setting sun. Theater, Pétard. It’s all theater. Wait for the darkness. The indigènes have a terror of the darkness. Let us feed that terror. It is the best way, don’t you think?”

  Of course I do, Pétard thought. Let us scare them all to death and have a jolly time. Or we could just pretend we’re human, turn around and go home, and leave the poor bastards to themselves. Instead he quietly said, “We need to anchor before dark. It’s hard to find good bottom in there even in daylight.”

  “Bien sûr,” the admiral said dryly. “Bien sûr.” Then he looked past Pétard at the cannon.

  “This cannon the indigènes have,” the admiral inquired, as if making small talk. “What kind of range would you say . . . ?”

  “On target? I’d say maybe fifty yards. It’s old. Bought from a Yankee whaler. Not much more than a harpoon gun.”

  “Good. Let’s go in close, then, for a better show. Is there much roll in the bay?”

  “There will be today,” Pétard replied.

  “Then they’ll have even more trouble aiming.”

  With but little steam in her, the frigate sat and rolled in the beam seas.

  Chapter 48

  “It’s all right,” Joya said. “It’s really all right.”

  Guillaume clutched her against his chest, mumbling, “Dear God. My God,” and held her so tight she could barely breathe. He felt her blood pump against him from her chest. “I didn’t know. How could I?” he pleaded. “We’ll go . . .”

  Joya pushed out a tired smile. “You’re crushing me,” she whispered. Guillaume eased up slightly but placed his hand over the hole in her chest from where the blood was pumping.

  “What a funny ending,” Joya said.

  “You’ll be fine . . .” he sputtered. “The last person I expected in the world . . . Why didn’t you say something?”

  Joya touched his hand and clutched his finger. “If you had known it was me holding the gun . . .” she said. “I just wanted you not to shoot him. He has been good.” She felt a hard deep pain; when it left, she went on. “He dreamt with my father of the day the French were gone . . .” She gasped for breath. “Something is crushing my chest,” she said.

  Guillaume tore off his shirt and folded it into a pad, then pressed it against the hole.

  “I’m so tired,” Joya said. “When the old priest died I had to be the chief. I couldn’t be a girl anymore. It was hard being a girl. Now it’s harder being a man.”

  “If only we could . . .”

  “Run away . . .” She stopped when she saw the panic on Guillaume’s face as he looked at her chest where the blood was already seeping through his shirt. “It’s all right,” she said, touching his grizzled face, “It’s all right.”

  He looked into her weary eyes. The beauty of the woman of last night was gone. There was instead the spent face of a man. The flesh sagged, the eyelids slacked, the eyes took on a sadness overwhelmed by life.

  She turned her head and looked out to sea. “My father said, look at the sea. It has been the same for so long. And it will be the same for so long again. In the end it doesn’t matter. In the end . . . it’s all right.” She looked back at him and tears welled in her eyes, not for herself but at seeing Guillaume cry. “I’ll never forget our nights,” she said, her voice trembling. “Your tenderness. Such tenderness . . .”

  The demi’s groan rose from the shack. It fell and there was silence and
then it rose again. “The child soon,” Joya said, and her eyes turned wistful. “How happy she must be.”

  They saw the old woman vanish into the hut and the groaning stopped, and then they heard a serene and lulling singing. “You must promise not to kill him,” Joya blurted. “He’s a father. The child.”

  “Shhh,” Guillaume said. “Don’t wear yourself out. Shhh.”

  “Promise?”

  “I . . . promise.”

  She fell silent and her gaze grew distant. “You know, at first I hated being a girl. Then after a while I loved it. You know I loved it.” She stopped and smiled and gave a tired laugh. “The only sadness I felt was that I could never have a child. Give birth to a bit of both of us.”

  He moved to gather her up. “I’ll take you to the village.”

  “No,” she protested. “Leave me here. No, don’t leave me. Stay with me until . . .”

  “But you’ll—”

  “I know. But I want to stay. A while.”

  “Just a while.”

  “Yes. Just a while.”

  They sat silently and he held her in his arms.

  “Just a while,” she repeated. “I’d like to stay to hear the baby cry.”

  They remained in silence until the shout came again, this time less shrill, more resigned, as if expecting to go on for some time.

  “Do me something, Guillaume,” Joya whispered. “Find me a fresh gardenia.”

  He lowered her with great gentleness to the ground. He walked a few steps into the jungle shade. When he came back she was smiling. “Put it in my hair,” she said, and touched his hand. “Behind my ear. No, silly . . . my left ear. So when the stars look down, they will know I’m taken.”

  Chapter 49

  The ship’s bell struck four times. It was six o’clock. Dugger stood up with a sudden start on the foredeck and reached, without thinking, for something—anything—to do. He had readied the sails, set the sheets, fetched the halyards tight, and hove in the anchor chain until he felt the anchor flukes strain against the bottom. Then he waited. Every few minutes he looked up at the shore hoping to see Nello, but the shore was empty. Nothing moved and nothing changed, as if the world had resolved to remain unaltered until the end of time. When, at last, the sun fell and shadows deepened, the birds in the jungle grew incessant and loud, sounding their last trill and warble before the night.

  He turned and glanced far out to sea, where the dark smoke now spread like a black fog on the water.

  KATE STARED AT TESTARD’S ANKLES. They were thin and white, even whiter than his cuffs, and so frail she couldn’t imagine them holding him upright. She sat and rested her wounds and tried not to look at Dugger. I’m glad I’m not him, she thought. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to decide.

  The Finn slept. He lay on deck near Testard’s corpse, his face turned to the gunwale, and with the gentle pitch and rolling of the ketch he was lulled into a deep and distant dream. He was dreaming of a silent winter’s night with a light snow falling, each flake aglow with moonlight, with wolves howling in the woods, and anxious cows stirring in the barn. His forehead started knocking lightly against the gunwale, and there was a thudding in his ears. He popped open his eyes, but the sound still stayed and his head kept knocking. “They’re coming,” he whispered. “Their propeller . . .” He fell silent when he saw Dugger.

  The sun had just touched the curve of the horizon, and against its red orb there was a dark, deep scar. He saw it for an instant before being blinded by the sun, but every time he looked back, the dark scar seemed to grow. Above it, a gloomy mist spread across the sky, until little by little it darkened the last light.

  “We should get the rifles from the fortress,” the Finn said.

  “Sure,” Dugger said. “At least they’ll pay for his burial.”

  “You keep a tight account, Captain.”

  “Oh, yes,” Dugger mused. “I charge fourteen tons of gold per passage. But somehow I seem to never collect a dime.”

  THEY DUG A GRAVE FOR TESTARD in the sand at the base of the cliff, a few steps from the north wall of the fortress. The sand was easy digging, broken shells and pulverized lava, and they were already waist-deep in the hole when the frigate coasted into the bay, steered wide of the ketch and kept coming toward shore. The two of them dug while the priest washed the blood out of the flag, scrubbing the flag with sand in the sea, then he wrung it out. He told the Finn to hold one end, and they stretched the wrinkles from it. Then he draped it with ceremony, so the people on the frigate could see, over the corpse of Testard.

  WITH MUCH RATTLING OF THE CHAIN, the frigate dropped anchor.

  Its engine fell silent. The sun had set; lanterns were lit aboard. A squeeze-box began to play a wistful tune, then a ukulele joined in, and one by one the sailors started singing.

  On the unlit bridge, the captain raised the binoculars to his eyes. At first he studied the ketch, and, seeing but a lone woman, turned his attention to the shore. The jungle and the bluff stood like a wall of darkness. He saw the two men chest-deep in a trench, and the priest near them kneeling piously, bent over a lump draped under the flag. With the priest praying, the diggers toiling and the candlenut flames sputtering, it seemed to him a proper burial.

  “I don’t see Testard,” the captain said, and passed the binoculars to the admiral.

  The admiral scanned the beach for a long time, stopping at the lump covered by the flag. “I think I do,” he said.

  THE ADMIRAL ORDERED THE LIFEBOATS be launched and filled with food, rum, and anything else the natives might enjoy—kerosene lanterns, axes, matches, saws—and, as a final show of trust, an armful of new rifles.

  With the lifeboats loaded, he ordered everyone to board them and to man the oars—the eight marines from the island and all the frigate’s crew, the captain included. He ordered that torches be lit in the bows to give the floating procession a truly festive air, then he told the sailor to keep playing his squeeze-box and the others to sing, and be hearty about it.

  “And you, sir?” the captain inquired.

  “Oh, I’ll stay here. Let the men make a merry feast of it. Wouldn’t be much of a festive night with me hanging over them, would it? Give them extra rations, extra rum. And give poor Testard a proper Gaelic wake.”

  He climbed back onto the frigate’s bridge and watched.

  The sea flared purple-green just before the darkness, and the boats left folded wakes behind them as they went. Swirling purple eddies formed around the oars, as the men pulled in unison to the rhythm of their song.

  In the lead boat, the captain sat in silence, watching the ketch with a longing for the time when ships had sails.

  LIL’BIT CLAMBERED DOWN to the plateau of sacrifice, shouting about the smoke on the sea and the frigate coming, and where was Joya? Where was Ki’i? Where was anyone to lead?

  Sleepy people came from the meae, some still numb from the night’s kava, and listened without emotion, without a word of response. Finally her uncle Nataro said they should all go down to the village in the jungle, in case Joya or Ki’i returned. Go there before darkness came and the night filled with the spirits of the dead.

  They gathered up their clothes and drums and went in a ragged line through the fading light.

  On the silent plateau only an old woman remained, sitting beside the dead chief, who still lay where he died. She sat swaying, singing herself to sleep, so she wouldn’t be awake when his ghost came in the night.

  HOLDING JOYA IN HIS ARMS, Guillaume watched the shadows lengthen and a damp gloom descend from the mountains like a fog. The shouts from the shack below had become groans that diminished only with the dwindling light. On the far horizon a row of clouds marched on as if abandoning the world to the coming darkness.

  There was a cry.

  Joya had her gaze fixed far off on a shimmer on the sea. With her head on Guillaume’s chest, she listened to his heart. At the cry she turned her head. It was a weak but willful cry, tiny but demanding, fresh,
expectant, full of life. Hearing it, Joya smiled. Then she closed her eyes.

  Chapter 50

  The priest trod hard uphill, with the Zuo brothers behind him. The music of the sailors faded in the distance and they hurried through the canyon before they lost the light. All three were bearing gifts: one Zuo carried a small barrel of rum, the other a new fishing net, and the priest a wooden box packed with fragrant tea. Up ahead they could see the fires on the terraces of the village. They twisted up the narrow path when out of the gloom three figures—Nello, Darina and Lil’bit—stopped before them.

  “Testard died,” the priest gasped. “The frigate came . . . Finn told them a shark killed him . . . rescuing the lady of the ketch.” He had to stop talking in order to catch his breath. “The crew . . . the captain . . . there’s music and food and drink. A proper wake. They send gifts.”

  “And Dugger?” Nello asked.

  “He’s at the wake. The French sent these for the chief. There are a lot more gifts on the shore. All for the village: tools and rice, even guns for hunting. A show of goodwill. The admiral asks the village to come and share the wake. In friendship.”

  “Sounds like bullshit,” Nello said.

  “If you have no faith in God,” the priest snapped, “you could at least trust your fellow man.”

  “I did, once,” Nello said. “She pried the gold filling out of my tooth while I slept.”

  The priest ignored him. “Where’s the chief?” he asked.

  “The chief is dead,” Lil’bit said.

  “Oh, dear Lord!” the priest whispered. “Then where is Joya?”

  “Joya is gone,” Lil’bit said without emotion.

  “Gone where?”

  “No one knows.”

  “In heaven’s name!” the priest exclaimed. “Who on earth is in charge?”

  “No one,” Lil’bit said.