“Because it’s so damn hot. Don’t worry, I know what kind of man he is.” Ingrid turned over onto her stomach and rested her cheek on her forearms. “Where does a man like that go when the bar’s closed?”
Ali shrugged. “Maybe his house. Maybe to sea. Maybe it’s good that you don’t care one way or the other.”
She went to the swimming beach that afternoon and sat alone, watching the wind meet the waves, dusting their crests with spray. The sea was rough and the sails of dhows crossed one another rapidly in the bay. There was some sort of race going on. Young boys clung to wooden planks jutting out from the upwind keel and hung over the open water for ballast. Ingrid took a handful of sand and released it gradually at her knee. The grains cascaded along her shin to her foot, where some of them collected. Templeton was not coming. He had slapped her wrist and then urged her to leave in an obliquely protective note that did not even sound like him. Had she not seen his notebooks, she might not have needed to know what it was he was trying to protect her from. But leaving was no longer a possibility until she had found out. She had come too far.
And then there was Finn the messenger. He was both a part of this and separate. She could not guess at his involvement with Templeton, but she knew it was more significant than he was letting on. Direct interrogation had not advanced matters. Finn was someone who could not be badgered. It seemed she had no choice but to watch him.
She raised her eyes to the water. The sharp triangles of the dhow sails cut across the water, capturing and ferrying her eye to another place in the sea. Tireless children threw themselves into the surf. Sometimes a woman in her dark robe waded in cautiously, delight on her face as the fabric grew wet and floated freely around her legs. “Merry Christmas,” Ingrid murmured.
Later that night the door to her room groaned on its thin hinges and she could hear the coarse sound of a man’s breath. She felt someone standing in the dark. Ingrid sat up and pulled the sheet around her. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Finn.” Then a cough. The smell of cigarettes and alcohol wafted through the small room. “Boys were out late tonight. You’re lucky it’s me.” He cleared his throat. “There are no locks on these doors. It could have been anyone.” Ingrid tried to make room for him as he approached her narrow bed, tilting like a prop plane touching down in a strong wind. He was very drunk. As he reached out for balance she wanted, somehow, to slow the whole process down, to prevent him from crashing. “Why am I lucky?” she asked.
“I won’t hurt you.”
“Hurt me how?” she asked, when he had sat down.
“Did you find what you were looking for in that letter?”
Ingrid paused. “No.”
Finn lay down, suddenly and terminally exhausted. “Are you the professor’s girl?”
“No.”
“Danny’s girl?”
“No.”
“Whose girl?”
“No one’s girl.”
“Mmm.” Finn lowered his head to the pillow. “Me either.”
When he was asleep, Ingrid took the cigarettes from his shirt pocket and moved to the floor. “You’ve taken my bed,” she said to the steady, deep breath. Halfway through her second cigarette, she dozed off. An ember burned through her nightgown to her thigh. She swore and pressed the burn with a licked thumb. Instead of stubbing out the cigarette, she dropped it out the window and watched it land, sending up a thin blue plume of smoke on the street outside the guesthouse. Then she went out to the pillows and made herself a bed.
Sometime in the night, Finn lifted her from where she had fallen asleep and placed her back on her own bed. Ingrid willed herself to remain limp in his arms. She allowed her head to jostle closer to his bare chest and pressed it lightly into him, wanting to absorb the musty smell of sweat and salt. She couldn’t remember ever being carried by a man—and so lightly, as if she were a child.
When he came again the next night, she balanced herself on the edge of the bed. She had not imagined he would come back again, and again just to sleep. She didn’t fully understand why it did not matter that he neither looked at her nor touched her in the dark. She simply liked that he was there.
In sleep, his elbow extended into her and forced her off the mattress. She lifted the awkward wooden chair close to the bed and draped the mosquito net over them both. Tonight there was no question of sleep. She leaned toward him and examined his face in the half-light. The features seemed beyond rest. Minutes passed and nothing in them moved, no dream played in the eyelids or twitched the ends of the lips. Ingrid held her hand above his forehead and felt the warmth from it. She noticed bits of sand stuck to the damp skin. She bent over his unwashed hair and, finding the smell appealing, inhaled more deeply. Then she sat back and surveyed the whole picture of the man, from the long sheet-wrapped legs to the muscular torso, brown and dense and out of place on her narrow bed.
He woke early and all at once. Ingrid scooted her chair back as he swung his legs to the floor and squinted through the mosquito net toward the door. Without looking at her, he reached for her hand. He held it in both of his, spreading it before him like a map. Her skin, soft and pale next to his, was scarred in places with tiny half-moons and ridges, burns and cuts, because she was both careless and deliberate in the kitchen. He turned her hand upside-down and studied the bluest vein in her wrist, tracing its crooked lines. She could feel his breath on her hand. “Please,” she whispered. “Look at me.” He kept his eyes cast down, his head bent. She reached out and lightly touched a wave of his hair with her hand.
He stood up, dwarfing Ingrid in her chair. The mosquito net enveloped his head like a mist and he began to gather it up, every part of him in quick motion as the diaphanous material argued and then conformed. The net was now knotted again, and hung neatly above the bed. “Your professor,” Finn said. “You’ve come all this way for him?”
She did not answer directly. “I think you can help me find him.”
“But you haven’t come for me. Remember that.” He paused at the door, as if to say more, and then left.
CHAPTER
16
The Deep Sea
In the hotel office was a broken fax machine, flanked by two file cabinets, a basket of pamphlets and an upright, elderly man encased in a spotless white uniform. He was entering numbers into a ledger. Next to him on a wooden table was a telephone with no dial tone.
“Are the phones often out?”
“Often enough, miss.”
Ingrid opened one of the pamphlets. It detailed the recreational activities on the island, illustrated with brief sketches. “These drawings are wonderful,” Ingrid said. “Who did them?”
“Mr. Henrik Bergmann, the founder of Salama.”
“Interesting. I thought they had been done by a child.”
“That is what makes them good, don’t you think? No hesitation, no doubt.”
“Yes, you’re right. Though it doesn’t fit my picture of him.”
“And what is your picture?”
“I thought he was a hard man. Maybe even cruel.”
“He could look that way sometimes.”
“You knew him?”
“I was one of the first workers at Salama. I knew Mr. Bergmann well enough. Danny has told you about him?”
“Yes.”
“Danny knows nothing of Henrik Bergmann. He knows his son and the bottom of a bottle. The rest is his own creation.”
“You speak very good English.” Ingrid smiled. “Very accurate English.”
“Yes?” the old man tapped his pen for ink. “I have been told this. I had an excellent teacher in Henrik Bergmann.”
“Was he a good man to work for?”
“Very good. He taught me many things. After he disappeared, I thought maybe he knew it was going to happen, that he had prepared for it. A wise man foresees his own end.”
When he said no more, Ingrid skimmed the activities illustrated in the pamphlet. One could go snorkeling, take a sunset sail on a dhow,
sail to the ruins across the channel, go deep-sea fishing.
“Tell me about the deep-sea fishing.”
“For one hundred dollars, you go with a professional for the day, way far out in the ocean. Very exciting, this fishing. You fish for big ones, like marlin. You know the marlin?”
“Yes. The one with a long nose.”
“It is called a spear and it is very sharp. It could slice you like a knife. But don’t worry, lady, this won’t happen to you. Our fishermen are safe and very professional. The best is the son of Henrik Bergmann. A very fine fisherman.”
“Is he?” Ingrid closed the pamphlet with a small smile. “I think I’d like to go.”
“Good, good. You will never forget this experience. You go home and tell your friends how you fought the giants of the sea. How many in your party?”
“Just me.”
“Only one? You have no friends?”
“Just me.”
“It might be lonely for one to go alone.”
“I don’t mind. I’m perfectly happy to go by myself. If a hundred dollars isn’t enough, I can pay more.”
“No, no, miss, that is no problem. Hakuna matata. You will have an enjoyable time no matter what. Now you must wake early, very early. Is this a problem?”
“Not at all.”
“Good. Then you will go to the beach at first prayer call and Finn Bergmann will be there to take you to the boat. You are not afraid of the sea?”
“No.”
“Good, good. That is fine. A brave lady. You can pay me now, if it is convenient.”
Ingrid dreamt lightly and woke before the first prayer call, unsure if she had actually slept. Her dreams had been like distorted thoughts, which was unfortunate, because she had wanted to be strong for this day. Instead she felt wobbly and mistrustful of her instincts.
She dangled her hand from the bed to feel for her crumpled shorts and damp bathing suit and dressed in the predawn silence. Pausing before covering herself further, she stretched her bare arms to the ceiling, arching her back like a dismounting gymnast. And then she laughed.
She crept through the sleeping guesthouse and into the gray village, where a single goat bell clanged in the empty street. For a few yards, she swung her hips like a streetwalker. Near the hotel, a spotted cat appeared from an alley and followed her, mewing plaintively when she showed it her empty hands. “I have nothing for you,” she whispered. “But maybe later I will have some fish.”
The beach was empty, the sand chilled and sodden. Ingrid sat with her knees hugged to her chest. She stared hard at the flatness of the colorless expanse before her, focusing on the point where the sea stopped and the sky began, and waited. She could not judge how much time had passed before the sky began to change and a shape stirred on the periphery of her vision. A figure was walking down the seawall, sandals slapping on the hard surface. It was a small sound, but it carried through the morning like a call to prayer. The sandals were white and the brightest thing on the beach. Her eyes latched on to them as they hopped off the wall onto the beach, willing her focus not to travel farther. Soon the sandals had reached a skiff and were pivoting the boat toward the water. Ingrid rose and moved to stop them from getting in the boat without her.
Finn was startled. “What are you doing here?”
“Going fishing.”
“With whom?”
“You.”
He bent over to shove the skiff into the water. “The devil you are.”
“I paid. You have to take me.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“You should have checked your schedule.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. She could see he was tired. “Just you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not the best day, today. We were planning to go far.”
“I’d be happy to go far.”
Finn pushed the skiff past the small morning waves. “Get in, then. We’re wasting time.”
Ingrid waded into the water. “This is your job. You shouldn’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
She stepped into the skiff and sat opposite him. A few deep thrusts followed by long, silent glides brought them to Uma’s hull. Jonah appeared above them on the bigger boat, confused.
“Miss?”
“Ingrid,” Finn said dourly. “Miss Ingrid.”
Jonah whistled as he helped Ingrid out of the skiff.
Jonah trolled a line while Finn steered the boat. Ingrid sat next to him and watched Jonah control the rod with his foot. “Is that how you fish for the big ones?” she asked.
“He’s fishing for bonito,” Finn said shortly. “Bait.”
Jonah yanked the rod with one hand and a bright fish flipped on board. He leaned down and exclaimed happily in Swahili. “It’s a female,” Finn said. “Means good luck.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t say. The belief is older than I am.”
“It’s interesting that the female brings the luck,” Ingrid said. “Your island treats women like bad luck. It must create some confusion for you fishermen.”
Finn turned to look at her. She had wedged herself into the only shady corner on the boat, where she stayed as the morning moved into day and the sun beat down. Around noon she wished she had brought a hat. Jonah slowed Uma and then cut the motor. With two hands, he lifted the anchor and dropped it overboard. She kept to her corner as Finn set up the rods.
“I suppose you’ve done this before,” Finn said.
“No, never.”
“We’re refueling. Then we’re going to have some lunch.” Finn held a rod in one hand and a bonito in the other. “Now listen carefully. This is a rod. This is what brings the fish in. And this here is the bait; this is what they go after. The line is what connects you. It’s the thinnest, strongest part of the equation. It seems like it will break but it rarely does.”
“I didn’t know fishing was so poetic.”
He ignored this remark, curtailing his explanation. “Come here,” he said at last. “Let me snap you into a harness.”
“I don’t want to be snapped into the harness.”
“Well, then, if you hook a fish, you have to be prepared to go overboard.”
“Fine,” Ingrid said. “I was wanting to swim.”
“Jonah,” he called into the galley, “she isn’t serious. She doesn’t care about the fish.”
“I care,” Ingrid told him. “I’m just more interested in seeing you catch them.”
“She likes to observe,” he called to Jonah. “That’s what people who’ve got education do. Have you noticed, Jonah?”
“It seems Jonah’s not listening.”
“Jonah is always listening.”
“Just catch yourself a fish,” Ingrid said. “Do what you would do if I weren’t here.” Finn shook his head. “If it’s that bad,” she said, “you can just leave me out here. I’ll go away quietly, you’ll be surprised.”
Finn tossed her a flotation pillow. “Better take this with you.”
“Okay,” she said, standing up. She went to the side of the boat and sat on the edge. “Just carry on with your day.” She dropped the flotation pillow in the boat and tipped herself over.
She had two thoughts before she hit the water: that it was good for Finn to be surprised, and that she was scared. I am doing us both a favor, she thought.
All thoughts left her as she plunged down deeper. She wanted to continue but the buoyant water was already returning her to the glare of light and air above. She bobbed to the surface and stretched herself out, lying as if sleeping, her face to the sky, feeling calmer than she had felt in days. Don’t make me move, she thought. I don’t want to move.
Finn watched her from the boat. Her hair was spread around her like a halo. When she had drifted a certain distance, he pulled his shirt off his back and dove, pushing the water with his hands, moving as quickly as he could toward her. Opening his eyes underwater, he saw her pale form floating. He loop
ed his arm around her torso and pulled her close to him. She opened her eyes and began to cough.
“You’re hurting me,” she said and tried to push him away. He held her tighter. Their legs tangled, glancing off each other and returning. Finn caught her legs in his and held them. He pushed the hair from her face.
“What is it that you want?” he said.
“I’ve come a long way to see someone,” she said. “I want you to tell me where he is.”
“Are you crazy?” he said. “These currents are dangerous. Do you realize how far you’ve drifted?” She would not look at him. He held her head with his hand and spoke into her ear. “I don’t know what your professor is up to, but I can tell you one thing—you should stay out of it. Wherever he’s gone, it isn’t to do with what you read about in your books. Now swim with me or hold on to me. Jonah is refueling, so we have to get there on our own.”
Ingrid looked for the boat. She could not see it over the waves. “If I let it carry me, where would the current take me?” she asked. “Where would the Agulhas deposit me?”
“We have a long way to go,” he said sharply. “Come.”
He swam easily with her, as if she were a part of him. She released the lock she had made around his neck, flattening her palms on his chest and pressing her cheek to his back. She held on to him with the fierceness of a rescued swimmer. The water rushed by her and she thought of nothing but how she was relieved to be holding him this way. When she felt the rhythm of his strokes, she began to kick with her legs to help him, lying on him, moving with him. She felt herself gaining strength. Her mouth was near his ear. “You see how easy it is to save someone,” she said.
They were gentle with each other the rest of the day. Ingrid spoke little, read her book some and watched the graceful precision of Finn’s movements. He did nothing for show; his obvious competence was not for her, not for anyone. At lunch, she ignored her banana sandwich and drank her beer and half of his.
When they caught a decent-sized fish she came to life, clapping and hopping on the deck. After measuring and recording the fish, they released it, and Ingrid leaned over the edge to watch it disappear. Recovering from a glorious splash, it righted itself with a lash of its tail and wriggled into the depths. “I think I still see it,” she said. “That glint down there.” Finn stood next to her, silent. “Why is that so thrilling?” she asked, leaning so far over that the ends of her hair dipped into the water.
An Obvious Enchantment Page 17