by John Horst
“I know. I know, Marta. I’ve had the same feelings for a long time. Do you remember back at the tent, when we first met?”
“Yes.”
“You were cruel Marta.” She held up her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t know how to be decent. It wasn’t your fault, but when you told me in such an ugly way what was to be my fate, it scared me so. It made me think that I’d never ever let a man do that to me. I used to think, when I saw a little baby, a happy mother with her baby that this would never be the case for me, that I would never ever have a baby because I’d have to do that, and I didn’t want to.” She hesitated a moment, needed to get up the courage to continue, to tell Marta the most intimate secret she held for more than seven years. She continued. “Do you know what changed it?”
“What?”
“One time, when I was twelve, I saw Mamma and Daddy doing it.”
Marta grinned. “You’re kidding.”
“No. It was late and I got thirsty and went to get a drink and I heard them and I looked through the crack in the door and they were going at it. My Goodness, Marta, they were going at it. And I could tell that it wasn’t bad and that Mamma was happy, and Daddy was very happy, and then I realized that it doesn’t have to be so scary and ugly. And that’s when I decided that I wouldn’t be afraid, and you know what?”
“What?”
“I was right. Oh my God, I was right.”
Marta looked on, she found a cigarette she’d gotten from Del Calle. She opened a porthole and smoked and blew the smoke out the porthole so Rebecca didn’t have to smell it. Rebecca continued.
“So, Marta.” She walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “If you want a man, you should have a man, on your terms, and a good man. I know you like to dabble in the darker side of the human condition, and that’s fine, but get a man like daddy, not a man like, you-know-who.”
“Or a woman?”
“Yes, yes.” She grinned broadly, “But get one like me, not like mamma, mamma’s too dangerous.”
They were anchored in the harbor and a crowd had gathered to watch little boys in a canoe looking up at them. The passengers would throw pennies and the lads would dive for them. It was great sport and Marta found it revolting.
“That’s ridiculous.” She looked on at Del Calle, then on at Rebecca and Curtin. “They aren’t bloody trained monkeys. It’s demeaning.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a handful of change, she then demanded any from Del Calle. She threw the little pile of coins into the canoe. The boys were no longer interested in diving for pennies. They swiftly rowed away. Marta stood back, satisfied. They were disappointed, the onlookers, and soon began to drift away, off to pursue some other form of entertainment.
In short order the steam tenders were out to convey them to the Hotel Colonial. It was exciting as the hotel was big and beautiful and the grounds were adorned with palm trees and green lawns. Everyone was excited, anticipated the next adventure. Marta stood resolutely near the bow, her leg up on the gunnel, looking like George Washington crossing the Delaware.
They stepped off and were soon dining on boiled grouper, Terrine de Foie Gras, Pate de Gibier and cocoanut ice cream. They’d spend the night here. The girls each got a suite on the top floor, they would have only gotten one and stayed together, but Marta knew where Rebecca wanted to be and she didn’t want her sister staying in one of the matchbox rooms that Curtin had registered. It was really silly for him to get a room at all but the men ended up with the more modest quarters near the golf course on the ground floor. They were next door neighbors. They all split up and agreed to meet at three. Curtin did not bother even going to his room.
Marta waited in the palm shade and Del Calle was first to arrive. “What the hell is on your head, Pedro?”
He looked up and regarded the brim. “My hat.” And it was a big one. The big Marine campaign hat of his summer uniform.
“It looks ridiculous, take it off.”
“No!” He straightened it. He liked his campaign hat. It suited him. “It’s part of my uniform and I won’t take it off.” He was finally beginning to relax around Marta. She didn’t confound and outrage him so much anymore. He liked when she teased him and comfortably defied her commands every chance he’d get.
“Come on, you big galoot.” She hooked his arm in hers. She walked to the front desk and got the concierge’s attention.
“Yes, madam?”
“Call room seven-fifteen. Let it ring, they’ll be busy. Tell them that Marta said that the two bunnies should stay busy until four. Don’t come down.” The man was writing feverishly. He hesitated. “Yes, bunnies, she spelled it out b-u-n-n…yes, you got it.” She slipped some bills in the man’s hand, looked on at Del Calle and winked. “Come on you big brute, we can’t have you looking like this.”
She took him to a tailor in town. They had ready-made, which would have to do as they were in a hurry. She had him looking smart in a nice two button sack suit, no vest. She got him a stylish straw Panama and picked out his cravat. She found him shoes as well. She liked dressing him and he was especially handsome now. He would not let her pay, though he conceded letting her buy him the tie.
They were back by four and had cocktails in the lounge as they waited for Rebecca and Curtin. The Colonial was an opulent hotel and Marta was enjoying it all. The beautiful weather, a piano playing, Pedro del Calle looking like a hero from one of her novels and the finely dressed patrons wandering by made her forget all the stresses of the past days. She was enjoying herself a little, now.
Rebecca touched him gently on the arm to get his attention. “You look very nice, Pedro.” He smiled uneasily. He was not used to so much frivolity. Curtin returned with drinks for everyone. He handed them out and proposed a toast. He held up his glass. “To good friends.” He smiled, then looked on at Pedro who was now the happiest he’d been in a long time.
They wandered along Bay Street and found a taxi. Marta wanted to see some of the shoreline, away from the tourists and soon they were along a quiet stretch of beach. They had the place to themselves. Curtin and Del Calle hung back, smoking cigars and enjoying the women wander along the beach a good distance away. The girls discarded their over clothes and walked in their bathing suits. Marta had modified hers so that she was bare up to mid-thigh. She’d had it especially made for her, of cotton, not wool. It was especially shear when wet, and plunged significantly at the neckline. Rebecca was certain she’d be arrested the first time she wore it. She never wore stockings. She periodically waded out into the surf.
They came upon an islander, a fit, middle aged fisherman working hard at fighting a shark. He’d been fighting it for some time and it was beginning to tire. Marta found it all very fascinating and began asking the man what it was all about.
“Oh, he’s a nasty one, Miss. He’s a bull shark and he’s been breaking our nets, causing all manner of havoc.” The man deftly worked the rod. He was getting the creature close to shore.
“Let me help.” The man looked on at her, looked down at her immodest dress and then into her eyes. He could see that Marta was not fooling.
“Okay, Miss.” The shark was close in now. Not more than thirty yards off, just beyond the low breakers. He was deadly, scary. He was fat, at least eight feet and several hundred pounds, certainly big enough to easily kill a man. Every now and again he’d try to dive, and the fisherman would keep his head up, keep him from making a run. Soon the creature was lying over onto its side. He’d have him beached directly.
“Now Miss. I’ll hand you the rod. Have you ever handled a fishing rod?”
“Caught an eighty pound tarpon in the keys on my seventeenth birthday.” Marta lied. She’d read about tarpon fishing in the Saturday Evening Post. She’d never been to Florida and the biggest fish she’d ever landed was a two pound trout in the Adirondacks.
He held the rod out to her and she took it. “All due respect Miss, don’t put it down there.” He pointed with his eyes to
her nether region. “The end of that rod can do you serious harm if he runs again.”
She held the rod firmly, felt the beast on the end of the line. It was thrilling. She kept the rod tip up and kept the creature from sounding. The fisherman went through his kit, retrieving a sisal line, made a loop, like a makeshift reata, and waded out toward the shark.
Rebecca found her voice and called out. “What on earth are you doing?” The fisherman smiled back at her.
“I’ll get this around his tail, we’ll hoist him in together. Now, don’t let him make a run for me, Miss, need both my legs.”
Marta was pleased. A mistake would likely lead to the man losing his life. She liked this little game. She walked up the beach a ways and began slowly pumping the rod, reeling the great beast toward her with every crank of the handle. The animal was sideways now, looking at her with its beady little bull shark eye. These were the most ferocious sharks, the bulls. They were powerful and aggressive and did not mind fighting a human being if they had to. She cranked more, as the fisherman closed in. At ten yards, just as the water was breaking over the creature’s back, the fisherman threw his little reata and the tail was now under his control. Marta cheered and the two began backing, beachward as the shark moved sideways, nearly beached, nearly in their possession.
Curtin looked on from a hundred yards away. Focused on the girls when he heard Marta cheer. “What the hell is she up to now?”
Del Calle looked up as he was enjoying the various seashells and creatures cast on the beach at his feet. He looked back at Curtin. “Jesus, she’s a damned menace.”
They watched as the creature rolled in the surf, then suddenly shook its head violently, one more last attempt at freedom. The hook suddenly rocketed skyward, flying past Marta’s head as the fisherman immediately found himself thirty yards out into the water, being towed toward his beloved nets. The shark was moving fast, his great powerful tail turning back and forth working at freeing itself from the line.
Marta jumped into action. She dropped the now useless rod and ran for the fisherman. She grabbed onto him, held on tightly so that now the shark had an extra body’s weight to work against, yet they continued to ride out, deeper and deeper until they were a good fifty yards from shore. The fisherman looked on at Marta and she read his mind, immediately admonishing him, “don’t you dare let go!” He grinned nervously and held on. He looked out at the dorsal fin twenty feet away. If the shark stayed up, they’d have a chance.
Curtin and Del Calle were finally there. They called out for the pair to let go. Del Calle was removing his new shoes. He threw his jacket to Rebecca and began to wade after them as suddenly, the unthinkable happened. The animal did finally swim for the deeper water and the fisherman was forced to let go. Fin and sisal line disappeared toward the open water.
There was nothing for it, and the two wet anglers began to swim back for shore. The fin appeared, not thirty yards behind them and Rebecca screamed. “Hurry, hurry, he’s coming to get you!” Now they were the hunted.
Del Calle was on them. He grabbed Marta and pulled, got between her and the approaching fin, pushed her and the fisherman toward shore. They were able to wade now, and the tired shark continued onward. He was going to draw blood on someone, it was only a matter of time. Curtin called out to Del Calle. “Pedro. Catch!” He tossed a big gaff from the fisherman’s kit, Del Calle was now alone, standing resolutely between the fleeing anglers and the beast. Curtin waded toward him, closing, but not as fast as the shark.
Pedro waited, gaff held high. The creature too tired to make the lightning strike they were famous for. Del Calle, like a matador on a Saturday afternoon, poised, ready to drive the acero deep into the bull’s back, one thrust to end the deadly dance. The creature continued onward, Del Calle wishing he was somewhere else, anywhere else, fighting natives in the South American jungle, working his troops on a sweltering southern parade ground, even making mundane inspections of the heads, anywhere but in the Atlantic facing down a rogue bull shark.
He could see its eyes now, the little beady, hateful looking eyes, then the turn, the rotation so that he could get Del Calle’s torso fully in his turned-down mouth, the best, most efficient way to eviscerate the man, the best most efficient way to kill, pull down, drown, shake and dismember the man, as if the creature possessed some human trait, a human desire to exact the most complete carnage possible.
But Del Calle was faster. As if the world slowed, slowed so that it all took an eternity to complete, he reached out, grabbed the creature by the nose, held it while his right hand drove the gaff home, sinking it deeply into the creature’s brain. Curtin now standing by, waiting, as if awaiting execution at sunrise, waiting and standing by his new friend and companion, fellow combatants facing the Leviathan.
It shook and shuddered, Del Calle holding on, not letting up, not allowing the beast another chance. Marta was suddenly next to them, between them. She’d gotten the fisherman’s knife and now joined the attack, plunging her knife to the hilt again and again until they were both standing in a scarlet sea of shark blood. Curtin and the fisherman now grabbed the creature and everyone pulled it in together. They sat as the animal flopped about the pink beach, the last of its death throes knocking about little sprays of red sand.
No one spoke for several minutes. Marta looked on at Rebecca who was completely speechless. Marta remembered something now and walked over to the fishing rod. She retrieved it and pulled the line in.
“I knew it.” She showed everyone proudly. “The hook failed.” She showed them the straightened hook. “I didn’t cause him to throw that hook, the hook failed.” She was proud. As if to say, it is okay that the four of us nearly died because I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all okay.
Curtin passed cigarettes around. The fisherman nodded and looked at his with satisfaction. Rebecca even reached over and grabbed one. She smoked as if she’d been doing so all her life.
Finally, Del Calle spoke. He looked at them, proud. Happy. He liked battle, and he behaved well. He behaved as he had in other battles. He was the hero of the hour. He looked down at his new and wet and bloody outfit. “Oh, well, guess that’s the end of this suit. You don’t suppose they’ll take it back?”
Curtin rested on the veranda overlooking the seascape while Rebecca dressed. He liked the seventh floor. She brought him a drink and kissed his head as she reached over the back of his chair. He grabbed her hand and held it to his cheek.
“Marta.” He couldn’t finish the sentence. He understood the loyalty siblings possessed and did not want to offend Rebecca.
Rebecca smiled and sat down next to him. She reached over and lit two cigarettes. She smoked while he regarded his love. She’d had time to think about Marta’s antics of earlier in the day and began.
“Why is it that men can do such things, but when women do them, then it’s reckless and irresponsible?” She wasn’t trying to pick a fight.
“Such as?” Curtin turned to face her, look her in the eye. They’d already developed a pattern of listening to each other.
“Men can fight bulls, fly aeroplanes, go into battle, ride broncos, and it’s all fine, but when a woman does it, then it’s bad.”
“I guess it’s imbedded in our brains somehow. Women are made to have babies. They’re meant to be preserved to continue the species. Men are expendable.” Curtin loved her. Loved her mind. He looked at her response to his comment and was compelled to qualify it. “I don’t think that.”
“Oh. But you don’t approve of Marta doing things.”
“Because I care for Marta. I also care for Del Calle and if he told me he was taking up bull fighting, I’d not be happy about that, either. It’s the person, not the act that I worry over.”
“She’s a good soul, you know.”
“You needn’t defend her, Rebecca. I know her type. She can’t help it. She’s a risk taker, she needs to do these things just as certainly as we need to breathe. It’s the great, she’s the great tragic h
ero of the ages.”
“I do worry over her.”
“As you should, but she’ll likely never stop. She’s the kind of person who goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel. There’s no rational reason for it, she just does it, needs to do it.”
“You two were grand.” She was proud of Curtin, proud of Del Calle.”
“Oh, I didn’t do much. Del Calle is the man of the hour. He’s a good chap.”
“And you?” She got up from her chair and sat in his lap. She kissed him on the mouth. “Are you a risk taker, Mr. Curtin?”
“Only calculated ones. Never just for the thrill, always for a payoff of some kind.”
She glanced at the bedroom and smiled. He picked her up as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “We have three hours until dinner and I’m not sleepy.”
“Neither am I.”
After a time he drifted off to a dream, a blissful slumber, the only kind of sleep that comes after the kind of intimacy they’d now regularly shared. He thought he heard an operetta, off, a long distance away, he listened in his dream and he heard it again, an angelic voice, la petite mort, la petite mort. He looked up and she was there, naked and beautiful, leaning on an elbow and absentmindedly, as if she too were in the same slumber and repeating the verse, over and over again, la petite mort.
His awakening brought her around, she looked on him and smiled. “Oh, hello.”
“What were you saying?” He reached over and pulled her head down onto his chest. “My French, is not good, I mostly slept through all the classes.”
“La petite mort. The little death.” She smiled. “Marta used to read naughty books to me at night, after all the lights were out. We’d make a little tent with the sheets and we’d have a flashlight. I’d hold the light and Marta would read under the tent. One book, about a woman in love,” she hesitated, a little embarrassed.
“Go on, please.”
“She would describe things, things we didn’t understand, of course we knew what they were doing, you know, it, but we didn’t fully understand. And she said, the character in the book said, she felt la petite mort. Every time it would happen, it was like a little death.” She looked up and kissed him on the mouth, moved her hand down over his body and smiled. “And now I know what she meant.”