“Look, mi dulcinea, it’s John. Hey, amigo, what’s up?” His grin didn’t reach his eyes, as flat and malevolent as ever. “This time, I get the bird of paradise, no?”
“No.” John turned toward Tamarind. “Tamarind, dance with me.”
Jesus spoke for her. “She’s with me. Comprende?”
Tamarind, her smooth curls already frizzing from heat and sweat, lifted her chin and looked at Jesus. “Don’t worry, Jesus. It’s just a dance. I’ll be right back.”
Jesus slipped his arm around her waist, tight. “Just one dance, cariño. I am—how you say un amante celoso? A jealous lover.” He turned to John. “Take good care of her, amigo, or you’ll answer to me.”
Jesus nuzzled Tamarind’s neck before kissing it, his eyes on John. She tolerated the kiss but looked embarrassed. Jesus sauntered back to their table and grabbed his beer. When he turned to watch John and Tamarind dancing, he crossed one arm over his stomach while the other kept the bottle within easy reach of his mouth. John didn’t look at Raimunda.
He placed one hand around Tamarind’s waist and took her hand with the other. He glanced over at Jesus and smiled as if he meant it. As they danced, he spoke through his teeth; he found it difficult to take his eyes off of the small Culebrense waiting for Tamarind at the edge of the dance floor. “Tamarind, you need to be careful with Jesus.”
“Why?” Heat from her seeped through his t-shirt and the front of his pants. She smelled salty and like something else—like a mix of seaweed, sand, and sunshine. She smelled like freedom.
“Because he’s got a reputation for liking women. A lot of women.”
“So? You seem to like a lot of women yourself.”
A different heat scalded his neck and seeped out his palms. “That may be true, but I never force myself on anyone.”
“Force yourself on anyone?” Tamarind screwed up her brows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, John. I really must get back to Jesus. I think Raimunda—that’s her, isn’t it?—is waiting for you.”
The song still played but Tamarind halted and disengaged herself from John’s grip. Slipping out of his arms, she skipped over to where Jesus sat and held her hands out to him.
John didn’t remain on the dance floor to see Tamarind and Jesus dancing again. Instead, he returned to his table and leaned over Raimunda. Her dark hair smelled faintly of cloves and musk. He’d tried, and it hurt like hell.
“What was that about a meal? I’m hungry.”
She smiled and slid the neck of the bottle suggestively into her hollowed mouth before sipping. Then she licked the rim without taking her eyes from his face. “Let’s go where we can discuss this in private.”
John helped her to her feet and they walked out of Isla Encantada holding hands. He’d left the Samurai at Posada La Diosa so they walked south along 251 toward town. Here and there a few people sat on their patios in the dark, talking and listening to music. Sometimes the glow of cigarettes and the clink of glass joined the sounds of voices and Latin jazz energized the low-key gatherings, but the parties remained contained.
Valerie’s light still glowed in her room, but darkness shrouded the rest of the guesthouse. A black shape darted in front of John’s feet as he reached the front stoop and he nearly tripped over the stray cat that had adopted Valerie. It growled when he stepped on its tail and hissed as he stumbled away. Raimunda laughed, but the cat refused to come near her when she bent down and reached out a hand for it. John pulled out his key and turned to the side so that the moon illuminated the lock. While he fumbled to insert the key, Raimunda—still bent over—ran her hand along his calf.
They moved without speaking down the hall toward John’s room. John left the light off and pulled Raimunda in after him, groaning before kissing her and shutting the door. They tore at shirts, John pushing aside the low neckline of Raimunda’s peasant blouse and grasping her full breast. He pulled his face from hers, rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and then descended upon the hardened flesh with a hot mouth.
Raimunda raked fingers through his hair and then tugged at her skirt. Together, they worked at the button at his waistband and struggled to lower his shorts to a safe enough distance for him to climb out of them. Then they stumbled nearer to his bed before launching themselves at it. Now John clawed, kneaded, pinched, and sucked at every inch of flesh beneath him while Raimunda’s long hair cloaked him in clove and something spicy sweet. Grasping a handful, he wound it around his hand and pulled her face closer to his.
“Tamarind.”
“I’ll be whoever you want me to be, amigo. Just fuck me.”
John’s chest seized and his breath stopped. The airless room encapsulated him and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think—couldn’t see in the suffocating black. Collapsing, he trapped Raimunda under him. She responded by squirming and kicking until she’d managed to roll him off of her and onto the bed.
“What the hell is wrong with you, gringo? You’re as hard as obsidian one moment and limp as seaweed the next—and you nearly crush me!” She sat up and pushed him away from her.
John opened his mouth, but nothing came in or out. Pricks of light danced in front of his vision. His blood roared in his ears. He felt Raimunda get off the bed and sensed rather than heard her search on the floor for her blouse and skirt. He tried to remember the sound of Tamarind’s humming, to feel her arms around him again as she promised to take care of him, but he couldn’t snag the memory and he felt the darkness winning. As he lost consciousness, he heard the door to his room click shut.
***
Ana scurried into the plaza near the ferry dock, her bag slung over her shoulder. She didn’t have much time. She laid the bag on a concrete table and pulled out the wire-wrapped Goddess that she’d bartered from Valerie, the hair that she’d taken from Tamarind’s sleeping mat, and the potion that she’d brewed using both items. Next came a copy of the destroyed blue batik dress, the one that John had bought for Tamarind weeks ago and that she’d worn the night they’d gone dancing. Muttering and turning, she waved her right hand in the air until the cloaking glamour reflected the night plaza seamlessly around her. Should anyone wander into the plaza, he’d see only empty tables next to the dock.
Stepping out of her skirt and blouse, Ana lifted the batik dress over her head and let it drop down over her shoulders. She squinted down at her discarded clothes and frowned. Muttering again, she wove both of her hands in the air above them. Now a small pile of paper cups and wrappers littered the pavement.
She lifted the bottle from the table and hefted it in her palm. So small, yet so crucial. She slid her thumbnail into and around the wax seal and then pushed the stopper out. A minute pop issued and she felt infinitesimal droplets as pockets of gas burst against the skin on the back of her hand. She waited until the bottle grew warm in her palm and then she tipped it up and let it slide down her throat in one breathless gulp. She coughed and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Her book said that the potion needed time to spread throughout her body, trailing change with it, but she had been a midwife a long time and had developed her own techniques, ones that improved upon the original.
She grasped the wire Goddess and rubbed the beads that Tamarind had so carefully bound there. Tamarind had also bound some of her own essence as well and Ana sought it now. Closing her eyes and whispering a chant, she drew upon the charm to speed her transformation. After only a few breaths, she opened her eyes again. It was done.
Fifteen
John came to with a sense of urgency. The room around him vibrated with the aftereffects of sound and he waited, certain an alarm or clap of thunder would rend the air. He heard nothing but the harsh rasp of his own breathing in the stifling dark. Sitting up, heart pounding, he tried to think. He glanced at the clock and saw that Isla Encantada had closed an hour ago. He groaned and twisted on the bed until his feet touched the floor and the clothes he’d left there. Without searching for the light first, he found his t-shirt and shor
ts and put them on. His sandals still lay just inside the door where he’d kicked them earlier and he slid them on, fumbling with the straps.
The stray cat passed him in the hallway, this time rubbing against his calves and purring. John ignored her and walked quietly past Valerie’s door. Once outside, he glanced toward her window and saw that it was dark. He hurried down the sidewalk. Everyone had long since gone to sleep in town; no streetlights lit his way. Only the sound of water lapping at the canal and the squeak of his sandals on pavement broke the utter silence.
He didn’t know where he planned to go, but he walked north on 250. At this hour in Isla Verde in San Juan, people wandered streets laughing and chatting while cars cruised along the avenida. Casinos and restaurants catered to restless tourists and young lovers, but here on Culebra, only wind and water spirits kept him company. After a few minutes, he heard voices and he picked up his pace. A young couple—he sat on the stoop and she stood between his bent knees with his hands on her hips—talked in the shadows of a doorway. John recognized the young man’s tennis shoes and his date’s ponytail. They were college students from the U.S. who’d bought a Let’s Go! Puerto Rico and had arrived on Culebra a week ago. Hearing his footsteps, they stopped talking and glanced in his direction. John waved. They waved back and he kept on walking.
As he’d already known it would, Isla Encantada stood dark and empty when he came up to its entrance. He sat down on the curb outside the restaurant and propped his head in his hands. Darkness enveloped him like an old friend, its soothing arm laid across his shoulders. He smelled the dust from the sun-baked pavement around him, stale beer and cigarettes, old cooking oil, salt air and something else—a thin tang of green life holding out against the strength of the ocean on one side and the indifferent crush of humanity on the other.
Looking up, he studied the sky. It loomed impassively above, innumerable tiny twinkles mocking him. Culebra was a tiny island and he was just a speck on it. He sat still, staring at this yawning chasm, waiting for it to swallow him and blot out everything. Eventually the mosquitoes hummed so loudly in his ears that they compelled him to his feet in search of a better place to loiter. He shuffled onto 250 where not even the shadows had voices any more, his gaze polishing the rough pavement just a couple of feet in front of his sandals. He’d reached the fork in the road where 250 split into one-way streets, but just as he thought to stay on the left and continue toward Posada La Diosa, he spied something gleaming on the sidewalk at the fork. Bending down, he saw that it was one of Valerie’s wire-wrapped Goddesses. He picked it up, tossing it lightly in his palm and then absentmindedly rubbing the largest stone in its globular belly with his thumb.
An urge struck him to take the other fork before heading west and then north again toward Playa Melones. He hadn’t been to Playa Melones since April when Raimunda had led him there for the first time. The soft squeak of his sandals’ rubber soles sounded eerily loud in the still street where obsidian storefronts glimmered darkly at his passage. He needed to reach Playa Melones and the waves that whispered along its slight expanse.
Ten minutes later, John left the low buildings of Dewey behind and his sandals crunched on the thin gravel lining the path to the beach. He’d walked so quickly from town after finding the Goddess that a flush warmed him. He scowled at his pace but didn’t slow down until he’d reached the water’s edge. He gripped the wire figure in his hand so hard that it bit into his flesh. He scarcely noticed this, however, until it began to burn as if it contained a heating element. Yelping, John dropped the Goddess.
“What the fuck!” He sucked on his palm.
That’s when he heard a low sound, a moan of pain, from a mound of vegetation not far north from where he stood. Forgetting his own pain for the moment, he went to investigate. There was a break in the shrubbery and he crept up near it, not willing to barge in without seeing who and what lay before him. As he knelt down, he shot a glance around the deserted beach, suddenly aware of his isolation. He saw no one else.
Shivering, John held his burnt palm off of the stony ground and leaned closer to the opening in the thick vegetation. When he caught sight of the forms writhing on the ground in front of him, John stifled a laugh. He started to rise cautiously from his knees until the sound of his rising caught the attention of the woman lying sprawled beneath the frantic man. In the sharp-edged moonlight, there was no mistaking Tamarind. Their eyes met and she smiled, a wide smile that reflected the light.
For a moment, John’s throat constricted so painfully that he thought that he might be suffering an anaphylactic reaction. Swallowing hard, he nodded slightly at her and stood up without any more effort to quiet his movements. He took a step or two backwards and then swiveled on his left heel. Even though he could no longer see her face, John felt the strength of Tamarind’s gaze on his back as he lurched back across the sand and the path leading to town. As he passed by the spot where the wire Goddess lay after searing him, the stone in its belly glowed as if mocking him.
John squeezed his lips together and pushed his shoulders back. He walked faster and faster until he was running and panting and he didn’t stop until he’d reached Posada La Diosa. Even then, even as he struggled with the finicky lock on the front door and tiptoed down the main hall towards his room, his body quivered with the need for running. As he lay back onto his empty bed, his chest heaved. He gave himself over to the feeling of running, running as if he flew, running as if his legs would never tire. He fell asleep running on an infinite route through the clouds.
***
The next morning, the sun woke John early. His upper back ached, his forehead ached, and fine sandpaper lined his throat. Blinking and squinting against the glare that accosted him through the wide-planked shades, he groaned and eased himself onto his side. After several more moments pinned to the mattress by an implacable bar of sunlight, he groaned again and swung his legs over the side. Dead weights that they were, his legs dropped to the floor, but his upper body refused to comply with their pull and remained leaning against the mattress. His whole body felt like a punching bag the day after the heavyweight champion pummeled it, and for a long time the strain on his waist from the awkward twisting of his upper and lower halves failed to compare.
At last his bladder chimed in with its burning fullness and he had to ignore the stabbing pain through his left eye and the wave of nausea that rose up as he leveraged his upper body away from the bed with his hands. He managed to piss into the toilet before the nausea overwhelmed him and then he collapsed onto his knees, clutching at the cool porcelain bowl as he threw up hot fermented coquitos into it. The sour tang of bile and partially digested coconut milk clashed with the acid of his urine, causing him to heave until the spasms echoed in his abdomen reflexively.
He gripped the edge of the bowl for a moment before pushing the handle down and standing up on trembling legs. His reflection grimaced at him as he gulped a mouthful of water and swished it around his nasty mouth. Although it helped, he couldn’t rid himself of the taste until he’d brushed his teeth and tongue.
Still weak, he managed to return to his room and find a pair of shorts and t-shirt on the floor of the closet that didn’t look too rumpled and smelled faintly of salt water. He pulled these on, buckled his sandals onto his feet and slid his sunglasses over his fragile eyes. Then he set out for the only mercado open at this hour, Mayte’s. He needed Tylenol and whatever liquid that his queasy stomach would tolerate. Later, when he returned to Posada La Diosa, he would try drinking coffee, but he doubted that he’d eat much.
“Stefan would laugh at me, getting hung over on only three drinks.”
Only the stray cat lying on the sun-warmed stoop heard him and she simply purred in response. Small yellow-and-black bananaquits squeaked nearby as they fluttered between several messy, globe-shaped nests and the bowls of sugar that Valerie left along the canal for them. John watched the bits of wild brightness dart for several moments, and then he sighed and headed into the morn
ing sun toward Mayte’s. When he got there a handful of Culebrenses shopped for necessities—eggs, bread, rice, beans—and a couple of them leaned against the counter, chatting with the dour owner, Luisa. They ignored John as he toured the aisles looking for Seven-Up and Tylenol. He’d just found the over-the-counter drugs when Sister Maria Margarita from La Virgen Del Mar entered the aisle from the other end.
“Buenos días, John.” She stopped, holding a basket over her right forearm, and looked him up and down. “You don’t look so good. Too much sun and sand or too much Medalla?”
“Neither.” John grimaced. “Look, Sister, I won’t be coming to Mass any more. I’ve decided it’s time to return to Pittsburgh and get back to work on my research.”
She nodded, pursing her lips. “There is a time for everything, as the wise man says. It is for you to judge when is your time to leave us, though I am sorry to see you go.”
“Being here has done me a lot of good, Sister. I used to sit on one of the playas sometimes and just stare out at the endless blue without thinking anything at all, just listening to my own breathing. I can really breathe here.”
“You can always breathe, John. You just need to remember how. God will remind you, you must trust in that.”
She placed her free hand briefly on his forearm and squeezed. She smiled a little and walked on down the aisle. John watched her for a moment and then he returned to his immediate search for pain medication.
***
Tamarind waited outside Ana’s house on the plot of bare earth that served as a porch, her feet curled under her on the aluminum chair. She watched the sooty terns take to the sky as the sun diluted it to pale saffron tinged with a deeper salmon along the horizon. In a stunted tamarind tree not far from where she sat, a laughing gull perched on a lower branch, its head half-tucked under a wing and a single bright eye watching her. She wondered if it was Ana’s favorite and whether Ana had set it to spy on her.
An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant Page 18