Dancing on Coral

by Glenda Adams

  In her gray slacks, gray turtle-neck sweater, gray socks with silver threads, brown leather sandals, the long gold earrings dangling under the brim of her straw sun visor, and a beige chiffon scarf resting inert on her shoulders, Donna Bird looked like some kind of rodent in a school pantomime. She seemed to have contrived to appear even more outlandish than usual, appearing eccentric rather than original, as Tom liked to term it, but perhaps it was because she was away from her usual habitat. Around her neck hung a camera, a rectangular box in a brown leather case. Donna Bird’s long, wiry red hair was partly braided and partly hanging loose, and she kept looking at it in the glass of the portholes of the cabins that gave onto the main deck and in the glass of the bookcase in the dining room, where the Captain greeted her, his second passenger.

  “So kind of you to have me? Us?” she murmured to the Captain, extending her hand.

  The Captain of the Avis Maris clicked his heels and bent over her hand, as if to kiss it. “It is an honor to have the daughter of Professor Manfred Bird with us. You will keep us terrible men civilized.”

  Donna Bird smiled. “I shall be a mouse and stay in my mousehole.”

  “Moozel,” cried F.X.

  “And I shan’t cause any bother?”

  “You are looking at my unusual head?” the Captain asked.

  Lark had tried not to notice the Captain’s physical attributes when she had boarded and been greeted earlier. He was a small-bodied man, with a large balding head that looked soft all over, almost as if there were no skull within. “No,” Lark had answered to the same question. “Not at all.”

  “Yes,” said Donna. “Your head is unusual.”

  “War. Bad business. And now the world hates to see my head. It is good, the world thinks, that I spend my days at sea, out of sight. That is why I do not like passengers, especially lady passengers, who hate to see me. And they flit-flut all over the place, disturbing my good shipshape ship. Only outlandish lady passengers take a freighter, and we must talk little instead of big at dinner.”

  “And they bring frightful bad fortune,” said Mr. Fischer, the first mate. “This is busy ship.”

  “They trit-trot all over the place and poke in things. And they are never German. Always outlandish. A German woman knows not to go on freighter. But you, Miss Bird, are A-O.K. You are the daughter of Manfred Bird.”

  “I shall be a mouse,” said Donna Bird.

  “Mooze,” cried F.X.

  After greeting the Captain and his two officers, Lark had even been glad that Donna Bird would be on board, that there would be someone else during the twenty-one days at sea. And then when Donna Bird had crept on board and accepted the Captain’s strange head so easily, even enthusiastically, Lark remembered her dislike. Nevertheless, she had stepped forward and greeted her.

  “So, Lark,” Donna Bird said as they stood on the deck, “just us two? Off to Joke City and to Tom?” Behind her stood F.X. and Perce and the others in disarray, pushing at one another, hopping around. Behind Lark stood Henry Watter and Mrs. Watter, next to a lifeboat. Henry Watter carried a cotton sack with a drawstring on a stick over his shoulder, looking like Dick Whittington going off to seek his fortune. Lark and Donna were like two adversaries with their seconds and backups, about to choose their weapons. The sailors were securing the cargo of aluminum rods stacked on the deck. The last boxes and crates were swinging in nets and being lowered into the hold.

  “Ah, I recognize Mr. Watter,” said Donna Bird, “and this must be Mrs. Watter?” She stepped forward to shake their hands.

  Henry Watter knocked on the side of the lifeboat and listened. “You want to be sure these are seaworthy,” he said. “Ships can be tricky. Storms and such. Not to mention the people—pirates and smugglers.”

  “A German ship, going to America,” whispered Mrs. Watter doubtfully. “I hope you girls will be all right. I’ve heard they do dreadful things to women and children. If they had landed in England and placed their hands on those princesses, I dread to think.” She was fishing around in the overnight bag she had brought with her. “Henry, did you put in the champagne?” Then she found them, three little bottles of pink champagne, labeled “Baby Bubbly.” “Henry, you open them. And would you join us?” she said to Donna Bird, then peering past her to the group behind her, she added uncertainly, “Perhaps everyone could have a thimbleful—I’m afraid there isn’t much.” Henry Watter shook one of the bottles, then aimed the cork into the air. “Henry, please.” To Lark, she whispered, “Who are those young men?” She wrenched the bottle from Henry Watter and caught what she could of the overflowing champagne in one of the little glasses she had brought with her.

  Perce jumped up in the air to catch the flying cork and then, holding it close to his body with both hands, as if it were a football, hunched over and ran down the deck and placed it at the rail. “Try,” he said. Perce hopped back to the group. He tapped Mrs. Watter on the shoulder in passing and inclined his head toward Lark. “You’ve got a little flower there. A real little flower. Does she iron a good shirt?”

  Mrs. Watter nodded politely. Perce hopped away. “Are they friends of yours?”

  “They are very intelligent,” said Lark.

  Henry Watter shook the second bottle and popped the cork. Perce and the others had fanned out to form a row of forwards and a row of defense. F.X. caught the cork with the side of his foot and kicked it over to Perce, who blocked it with his knee, brought it onto the deck, then trod on it, to stop it from rolling around. He picked it up in his toes and hopped with it down the deck toward the rail again.

  “Hold it?” cried Donna Bird. Perce stopped his hopping and stood still on one foot, the toes of his other foot curled around the cork, while Donna Bird unsnapped her camera. “Take one, action,” she cried, and the camera started whirring. The camera that hung around her neck was a movie camera.

  Perce resumed his hop and reached the rail. “Try,” he cried again. “Now I’m ready to score.” He turned and raised his eyebrows at Lark.

  “Would you all perhaps like a little champagne?” Mrs. Watter said brightly. “I’m afraid there is only a little.” Then, seeing Henry wrestling with the cork of the third bottle, she threw herself at him and seized the bottle. “Please, Henry.”

  This would soon be over, Lark thought. Only an hour, perhaps less, and she would be gone.

  Mrs. Watter pressed something into Lark’s hand, something hard and knobbly wrapped in tissue paper. “Look at it later, when all the fuss is over.” She handed around little glasses filled with a finger or so of Baby Bubbly. “We’ll have to take sips and share the glasses.”

  Lark slipped the little gift into her pocket.

  Perce raised his hand. “Fear not.” He opened the school case and displayed its contents, bottles of Tookey’s pilsener. “I can’t leave home without my bottle,” he said, handing around the bottles, while Mrs. Watter gathered back her glasses of champagne.

  Perce was making a toast. “Here’s to plucky girls and their voyage into the unknown. Here’s to pluck in general.” And he drank.

  “Pluck,” everyone echoed and drank.

  “So?” the Captain emerged onto the deck. “The pilot is on board. Now we will not bump into things.”

  “The pilots of Penzance,” said Henry Watter, and Donna Bird giggled crazily. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Loitering behind the Captain was a young, blond man in a white coat, wearing around his neck a metal ring with several keys on it. The steward. He stood behind the Captain, leaning against the bulwark, his arms folded, observing the passengers and their escorts, a rather scornful look on his face.

  “‘Take the current when it serves’?” said Henry Watter.

  “‘Or lose our ventures,’” answered Donna, waving her beer around.

  Henry Watter turned to her joyfully and clinked his little glass of champagne against her bottle. “Did you hear what she said?” Henry Watter could not believe it. He began again, softly, hardly daring
to hope for a reply. “‘There is a tide in the affairs of men.’”

  “‘Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,’” answered Donna Bird.

  “‘Omitted, all the voyage of their life,’” breathed Henry Watter.

  “‘Is bound in shallows and in miseries,’” whispered Donna Bird.

  “A girl after my own heart,” said Henry Watter, grasping her elbow.

  “Look at that,” said Donna Bird, pointing at a long box that had been lifted by the crane and was swinging low through the air just above their heads toward the hold. Henry Watter and Donna Bird ducked, although the box was several yards above them.

  “Looks like a coffin,” said Henry Watter.

  Donna laughed. “That’s really funny. My father says this is an excellent ship. You might know of him, Manfred Bird, Professor Manfred Bird, the anthropologist? He knows and trusts this Captain. In fact, the ship was named after my father, in honor of his work. He often ships his stuff on it. It’s a good ship.”

  Henry Watter nodded. “I’ll remember that, if ever I’m wanting to ship my stuff.”

  “Manfred says the whole South Pacific is going to rack and ruin. The natives have no interest in preserving their culture. Some people say Manfred is a latter-day hero because he is dedicated to preserving this quarter of the globe from further corrosion. We’re very close, Manfred and I. I help him in his work. But I’m trying to save all four quarters of the world.”

  Henry Watter looked around for Lark. “She’s a very bright girl, this Miss Bird. Good to her father.” He took both Lark and Donna by the arm and drew them over to the lifeboat. “I’ll give you girls a last word of advice. Don’t accept drinks from strangers. They slip drugs in them and you’ll end up part of the white slave trade.” He inclined his head toward the young blond steward.

  “Please,” said Lark, embarrassed. “That’s another era altogether.”

  “I’m not kidding. I’ve been around longer than you two put together,” said Henry Watter.

  Donna Bird laughed, a girlish, tinkling laugh and gave Henry Watter a kiss on the cheek, then slipped out of his grasp and rejoined her friends.

  “There’s a very bright girl,” said Henry Watter. “Here.” He pulled a little leather pouch from his pocket. He cupped Lark’s hands for her and placed the bag in them. “Ten dollars, United States dollars, in change.” He held up his hand. “Don’t ask me how I got it. I’ve been collecting it for you. It’s for an ice cream or two when you get there.” He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t tell your mother.”

  Lark put the pouch in her pocket, along with the little tissue paper package. The weight of it all pulled her jacket down lopsidedly, and Lark almost cried out, “I don’t want to go.”

  “The pilot is ready,” the Captain announced. “All must leave.”

  Donna Bird and Lark stood at the rail and waved down to the motley little group on the wharf.

  “What good fun your father is?” Donna Bird said. “He’s such an original. So intelligent. And your mother, so genteel and refined? So gracious?”

  Lark looked at her for a trace of laughter or ridicule, but Donna’s face was shaded by her visor and hidden by her scarf.

  Mrs. Watter drew from her copious bag rolls of paper streamers and handed them around to Perce and F.X. and the others. They threw them up to Donna and Lark, so that quickly the delicate strands of colored paper formed an arch between the dozen or so standing on the wharf and the two on the deck. The gangplank had been drawn up, the lines pulled in, and the anchor weighed. Then Henry Watter produced his pièce de résistance. From the cotton bag he drew forth an enormous ball of old nylon stockings knotted together.

  “He is just darling.” said Donna Bird. “He has a sense of humor. He said one of the boxes being loaded was like a coffin.”

  “That’s not funny,” said Lark, “or very original.”

  “I think it could have a body in it, or a bomb. You know, plutonium, uranium, the works.”

  Henry Watter gave one end to Mrs. Watter. “Hold tight,” he said, then walked to the edge of the wharf. Mrs. Watter looked down at the stockings, her head nodding as she recognized her basement collection. Holding the immense ball balanced in his palm at his shoulder, Henry Watter sank back on one leg, as if he were about to put the shot, and bounced a little, getting ready to heave the ball up to Lark at her rail.

  “He is just darling,” said Donna Bird to Lark. “I simply adore him.”

  Then changing his mind, Henry Watter shifted his position, having decided that his well-tried lob used against the Bakers’ dog would serve him better, and he bent his legs and with both hands heaved the ball up to Lark and Donna.

  When the others understood what he was about to do they began to cheer.

  The ball climbed heavily through the air, defying gravity, unraveling as it traversed its arc. Mrs. Watter, somewhat bewildered, held onto her end. Lark, dismayed at this last display of her father’s, stood still, and it was Donna Bird who leant out and caught the ball at the top of its trajectory.

  The little group below cheered wildly. Perce skipped over and shook Henry Watter’s hand. F.X. clapped his back. Donna Bird handed her end to Lark. She unsnapped her camera again and filmed the spectacular nylon streamer.

  The ship drew away from the wharf. The ball of nylon stockings unwound completely and began to stretch.

  “Don’t let go,” said Donna Bird to Lark.

  On the wharf, Henry Watter, diminishing as the ship drew farther into the harbor, took his end from Mrs. Watter and wrapped it around his wrist several times. As the rope stretched tight Henry Watter was pulled in little resisting steps to the edge of the wharf.

  “He’s going to be pulled into the water,” gasped Lark. She let go of her end and Henry Watter went reeling backwards across the wharf.

  The ship swung around, blocking Lark’s last glimpse of Henry Watter sprawled on his back on the wharf, with Mrs. Watter and the others gathered around him, bent over him the way members of a football team gather around an injured player.

  Lark turned away, her hands in her pockets. She took out the pouch of American coins and opened the little bundle wrapped in tissue. Her mother had made her a bracelet of fragments of river stones, polished to smooth pink, gold, green, and red, and dangling from a gold chain. With them was a note. “These stones I collected near home. I hope they help you remember your heritage, your past, your home.”

  “The fun is just beginning,” said Donna Bird, her eyes bright, her hand over her mouth, as if stifling giggles. “What a lark?”

  Lark stayed by the rail until the ship paused and the pilot climbed down the side onto his boat and headed back toward the harbor.

  II

  The Captain was infatuated with Donna Bird from the moment she stepped on board and showed an interest in, even admired, his strange head. Donna Bird made the Captain forget that they all believed that women on board brought bad luck.

  “Where is the other one?” he cried when Lark came in for lunch on that first day. The Captain, at the head of the table, pointed to the seat at his left, on the padded bench that ran along one wall in the tiny dining room. Mr. Blut, the second mate, sat on the bench on Lark’s left. The seat opposite Lark, on the Captain’s right, was for Donna Bird, who was late, and next to her place, opposite Mr. Blut, sat Mr. Fischer, the first mate. The dining room was like the inside of a trailer or an airplane. Everything had its place, everything fitted neatly. No bric-a-brac.

  “Guten Tag, guten Tag, guten Tag,” the three men muttered at Lark when she entered.

  “Our new lady passenger,” the Captain stated rather dully, distracted, waiting for the other passenger.

  They all stood up, Mr. Blut making a token rise of a few inches from the padded bench, the table over his knees keeping him anchored in a semisitting position, fixed, like the objects on the ship. They all shook hands. Lark sat down. The chair opposite her remained awkwardly empty.

  “It is a fine day
,” said Mr. Fischer, unsmiling.

  The steward in his white coat and the keys dangling around his neck loitered at the door. He had lunch on the trolley, ready to trundle it over to the table.

  “Bier, Herr Crouch,” the Captain called, and remaining in that slightly slouched, loitering position for a second or two, to show his disapproval at the delay in serving lunch, the steward, Mr. Crouch, went off to get the beer, then returned to his position at the door, leaning against it. He seemed to hold within him the potential for action of some sort, deeply buried.

  “Prosit,” said the Captain. Lark drank her beer. She had escaped, her adventures had begun, she was drinking beer on the high seas, and at the end of it all Tom was waiting for her. While they waited for the missing passenger, the men tried to engage Lark in polite English conversation. The Captain started telling jokes, beginning with, “Why does the Statue of Liberty stand on Liberty Island?” and answering it himself, “Because she cannot down sit, I mean sit down.”

  The Captain told Mr. Crouch to ring the bells again, and finally Donna Bird appeared, creeping past Mr. Crouch, yet managing with her conspicuously deferential manner to make him move out of the way. The Captain leapt to his feet.

  Donna Bird wore her visor and was now carrying a fan decorated with a woman’s face, with the wings of a beautiful insect forming the hair. She looked up to check that the overhead light was off, then slung her visor over the back of the empty chair on the Captain’s right. As she sat down, the other two men having more or less jumped up, mumbled their good days, and sat down again, she said, “I’m so very, very sorry? I was exploring, and I forgot everything.” She waved the insect fan in front of her face, cooling off.