by Lucia Berlin
“Time to eat,” the woman called to her. She and the child were taking dishes to the table.
“May I help you?” Eloise asked.
“Siéntese.”
Eloise hesitated at the table. One of the men stood and shook her hand. Squat, massive, like an Olmec statue. He was a deep brown color, with heavy-lidded eyes and a sensuous mouth.
“Soy César. El maestro.”
He made a place for her to sit, introduced her to the other divers, who nodded to her and continued to eat. Three very old men. Flaco, Ramón, and Raúl. César’s sons, Luis and Cheyo. Madaleno, the boatboy. Beto, “a new diver—the best.” Beto’s wife, Carmen, sat back from the table nursing their child.
Steaming bowls of clams. The men were talking about El Peine. Old Flaco had finally seen it, after diving all his life. The comb? Later, with a dictionary, she found out that they were talking about a giant sawfish.
“Gigante. Big as a whale. Bigger!”
“Mentira! You were hallucinating. High on air.”
“Just wait. When the Italians come with their cameras, I’ll take them, not any of you.”
“Bet you can’t remember where he was.”
Flaco laughed. “Pues … not exactly.”
Lobster, grilled red snapper, octopus. Rice and beans and tortillas. The child put a dish of honey on a far table to distract the flies. A long loud meal. When it was over everyone except César and Eloise went to hammocks to sleep. Beto and Carmen’s room had a curtain, the others were open.
“Acércate a mí,” César said to Eloise. She moved closer to him. The woman brought them papaya and coffee. She was César’s sister, Isabel; Flora was her daughter. They had come two years before when César’s wife had died. Yes, Eloise was widowed too. Three years.
“What do you want from Las Gatas?” he asked.
She didn’t know. “Quiet,” she said. He laughed.
“But you’re always quiet, no? You can dive with us, there’s no noise down there. Go rest now.”
It was dusk when she awoke. A lantern glowed in the dining room. César and the three old men were playing dominos. The old men were his mother and father, César told her. His own parents had died when he was five and they had taken him in, taken him underwater his first day. The three men had been the only divers then, free divers for oysters and clams, years before tanks or spearguns.
At the far end of the palapa Beto and Carmen talked, her tiny foot pushing their hammock. Cheyo and Juan sharpened speargun points. Away from the others Luis listened to a transistor radio. Rock and roll. You can teach me English! He invited Eloise to sit by him. The words to songs weren’t what he had imagined at all. Can’t get no satisfaction.
Beto’s baby lay naked on the table, his head cradled in César’s free hand. The baby peed and César swept the urine off the table, dried his hand in his hair.
Fog. Two white cranes. Rippling of the turtle tied near the boat. The wind flickered the lantern, lightning illuminated the pale green sea. The cranes left and it began to rain.
A young long-haired American stumbled in from the wet, shivering, out of breath. Oh God Oh God. He kept laughing. No one moved. He laid his pack and a soggy sketch pad on the table, continued to laugh.
“Drogas?” Flaco asked. César shrugged and left, came back with towels and cotton clothes. The young man stood, docile, while César stripped and dried him, dressed him. Madaleno brought him soup and tortillas; when he had finished César led him to a hammock and covered him. The young man fell asleep, rocking.
The compressor for air tanks was banging and clattering long before dawn. Roosters crowed, the parrot squawked on the outside pila, vultures flapped at the edge of the clearing. César and Raúl filled tanks; Madaleno raked the sand floor. Eloise washed at the pila, combed her hair in the reflection of the water, silver now. The only mirror was a broken piece nailed to a palm tree where Luis was shaving, singing to his smile. Guantanamera! He waved to Eloise. “Good morning, teasher!”
“Good morning. Dí ‘teacher,’” she smiled.
“Teacher.”
In her room she started to put her rose shift on over her suit.
“No, don’t dress—we’re going for clams.”
César carried the heavy tanks and weights. She had the masks and flippers, a string bag.
“I’ve never been diving before.”
“You can swim, can’t you?”
“I’m a good swimmer.”
“You’re strong,” he said, looking at her body. She flushed. Strong. Her students called her mean and cold. He strapped the weights around her waist, the tank onto her back. She reddened again as he brushed her breasts, fastening the clasp. He told her the basic rules, how to come up slow, how to turn on the reserve tank. He showed her how to clean her mask with spit, adjust the regulator. The tank on her back was unbearably heavy.
“Stop, I can’t carry this.”
“You will,” he said. He put her mouthpiece in her mouth and drew her underwater.
The weight vanished. Not just the tank’s weight but her own. She was invisible. She flippered, using fins for the first time, soaring through the water. Because of the mouthpiece she couldn’t laugh out loud or shout. Mel, this is wonderful! She flew on, with César next to her.
The sun came up through the frosted glass surface of the water, a pale metallic glow. Slowly then, like stage lighting, the world underwater came into being. Fuchsia anemones, schools of blue angelfish, blue and red neons, a stingray. César showed her how to relieve the pressure as they went deeper, farther out. Near the Terascan wall he swam down to the sunny bottom where he began to jab a spike into the sand again and again. When a bubble appeared he dug out a clam and put it into the bag. She motioned for the spike, swam along poking as he gathered clams until the bag was filled. They swam back toward shore through myriads of fish and plants. Absolutely everything was new to Eloise, each creature, each sensation. A school of sardines splintered into her like crisp jets of water. Suddenly she had no air; she forgot about the reserve tank, panicked, thrashing. César caught her, held her head, pulled her air cord with the other hand.
They surfaced. The green water showed nothing of what was beneath it. By the sun she realized that they had not even been down for an hour. With no weight you lose your self as a point of reference, lose your place in time.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you—we got a lot of clams.”
“What do you charge for lessons?”
“I’m not a diving teacher.”
She nodded toward Bernardo’s sign. “Lessons 500 pesos.”
“You’re not at Bernardo’s. You showed up to us.”
And that’s it, she thought later, at the breakfast table. The acceptance she felt from them wasn’t because they liked her or because she fit in. She had simply shown up, like the young man, who had since disappeared. Maybe it was because the divers were so much underwater, among such vastness. Anything was expected, of equal unimportance.
Yellow air tanks rolled and clanked in the bottom of the boat. La Ida. Not a name but The Going, the going out.
The fishermen were laughing, knotting and reknotting the rubbers of their spearguns, strapping knives onto scarred brown legs. Hiss of the tanks as César checked each one for air.
They told stories. The Peine. The killer whale. The Italian diver and the sharks. When Mario drowned, when César’s air hose broke. Even Eloise was to hear them again and again, the litany before each dive.
A manta ray played with the big boat. Madaleno veered sharply, keeping just out of its path. It flopped over high into the sky, white belly glistening. Parasite fish exploded away from it, ricocheting into the boat. Out to sea a pair of deep green turtles were mating in the waves. They stayed locked, rocked dreamily on and on, blinking sometimes in the glare.
Madaleno anchored in the north part of the bay, away from the rocks. Fins, masks, weights, tanks on. They sat in a circle on the rim of the boat. Flaco and R
amón went back first. They just fell back and disappeared. Then Raúl and Cheyo, Beto and Luis. César saw that Eloise was afraid. The waves were high, navy blue. With a grin he shoved her off the boat. Cold. A flash of blue sky and then a whole new translucent sky. Reality of the boat and anchor line. Deeper, colder. Go slow, he motioned.
A suspension of time. A multiplicity of time because of the gradations of light and dark, of cold and warm. Down past layers, strata, each with a distinct hierarchy of coexisting plants and fish. Nights and days, winters and summers. Near the bottom it is warm, sunny, a Montana meadow years ago. Moray eels bared their fangs. Flaco showed her what to look for. The glimpse of a blue lobster feeler. Wait—watch for the morays. The divers floated in and out of the crevasses like dancers in a dream. Eloise waved to the closest men when she spotted a lobster. Occasionally a huge lora or pargo would glide past and one of the divers would shoot it. A flash of blood. Shimmer of silver as it slid onto the rope line.
The next dive was out in the open sea. Eloise waited in the boat with Madaleno. He sang, she watched the frigate birds, dozed, lying against the slippery fish. Her dreams dissolved with shatters of spray, a yell from a diver, surfacing with his catch.
The men were jubilant on the way back, except for Luis. Sure it was a good catch, but they needed catches like that twice a day if they were going to keep La Ida. They were behind two payments, still owed 20,000 pesos. Their old boat had carried only four divers, tanks enough for only one dive. La Ida was a good idea, he said, if his father would let go of the three old men. The viejos catch two fish for every ten of ours. With three good divers we’d pay off the boat in months.
“Luis really wants to buy a speedboat,” César said, “to take gringas waterskiing. Que se vaya a Acapulco. I would never tell them they couldn’t dive. And don’t you ever tell me.”
Eloise went every morning with César for clams and on the first dive every day. They still didn’t take her down on the deep second dive of the day, although she was becoming surer and stronger, beginning to shoot her own good portion of fish. In the evenings she sat with the old men. Luis and César went over accounts, argued. Sometimes the sons went into town. There were consultations between Luis and Eloise about his clothes. Believe me, the white cotton pants are nicer than those green dacron ones. Of course leave the shark’s teeth around your neck.
One night César cut everyone’s hair. Even hers. She longed for a mirror, but it felt good, light, curling.
“Berry pretty,” Luis said. Very, she corrected him but knew he had discovered the charm of an accent.
Usually they sat silent as the sunset came, night fell. She listened to the click click of dominos, the creaking of the anchor rope. A few times she tried to read or work on the poem, but gave it up. I may never read again. What would she do when she got home? Who knows—maybe Denver will be entirely underwater. She laughed out loud at the thought.
“Estás contenta,” César said.
She shouted to him above the generator the next day.
“Can I go on a deep dive before I leave?”
“You need a bad dive first.”
“How do I get one?”
“You will. Maybe today. It’s rough. Rained all night.”
* * *
The first dive was in a rocky spot, with many sea urchins and moray eels. The water was murky; cold strong currents made it hard to see or to swim. A needlefish jabbed her in the arm. Ramón and Raúl surfaced with her, binding the cut tight with rags to keep blood from attracting sharks. Underwater again she lost sight of them; she hadn’t seen César at all. I hope this qualifies for a bad dive, she joked to herself, but she was terrified. She couldn’t see anyone, anything. She treaded water, like being lost in the woods. Her air ran out. She pulled the reserve cord but nothing happened. Don’t panic. Surface slow. Slow. But she was panicked, her lungs bursting. She surfaced slowly, jerking frantically on the cord. No air. César was there in front of her. She grabbed his mouthpiece away from him and put it into her own mouth.
She gulped air with a sob of relief. He waited, then calmly took the mouthpiece back, breathed himself. He led her to the surface, passing the air hose back and forth between them.
They broke water. Air, light. She was shaking; Madaleno helped her into the boat.
“I’m so ashamed. Please forgive me.”
César held her head in his hands. “I tied your reserve tank shut. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”
The divers teased her on the way back but all agreed she could go to Los Morros the next day. “Pues, es brava,” Raúl said. “Sí.” César grinned. “Ella podría ir sola.” She could go alone. He must think her one of those aggressive competent American women. I am competent, she thought, her head lying on the edge of the boat, tears swept away by the high waves. She closed her eyes and thought about the poem, knew how to end it. And thus all blood arrives / to its own quiet place.
* * *
The next day was dazzling clear. Los Morros was a stark monolith far out to sea, almost out of sight of land. White with guano, the island palpitated dizzily with a million birds. La Ida anchored far off but even above the shattering waves, the shrieking of the birds, was the ghostly flap and flutter of wings. The stench of urine and guano was nauseating, as intoxicating as ether.
Deep descent. Fifty feet, seventy-five, a hundred, a hundred and twenty. It was as if the mountains of Colorado were underwater. Crags and ravines, gulleys and valleys. Fish and plants that Eloise had never seen; the fish she knew were huge here, bold. She aimed at a garlopa, missed, aimed again and shot it just right. It was so big Juan helped her load it onto her stringer; the rope burned out through her fingers. Frenzied loading and shooting all around her. Loras, pargos, medregals. Sangre. She hit a mero and another garlopa, pleased because she hadn’t seen César, was on her own. Frightened then, but spotted him far away, flew fast down the jagged cliffs toward him. He flippered, waiting for her in the dark, then drew her to him. They embraced, their regulators clanking. She realized then that his penis was inside her; she twined her legs around him as they spun and undulated in the dark sea. When he left her his sperm drifted up between them like pale octopus ink. When Eloise was to think of this later it was not as one remembers a person or a sexual act but as if it were an occurrence of nature, a slight earthquake, a gust of wind on a summer day.
He handed her his rope of fish when he saw a mammoth pintillo, shot it, strung it on the line. There was a pargo above them, far, and she raced after him toward it, met him at the mouth of a dark cave. The pargo had gone. César motioned to her to wait, held her back in the cold darkness. Particles of gold dust filtered in the murky purple. A blue parrot fish. Silence. Then they came. A school of barracuda. There was nothing else in the sea. Endless, subliminal, hundreds of them. The dim light turned their quick slickness into molten silver. César shot, shattering them into a spill of mercury that flowed quickly back together and disappeared.
La Ida lay low in the water, soaked in spray. The divers sprawled exhausted on the still-pulsating bodies of the fish. Beto had caught a turtle and the men dug inside her for her eggs, eating them with lime and salt. Eloise refused at first, self-righteous, turtle were out of season, but then, hungry, she ate them too. The boat was circling and recircling Los Morros. No one had said anything; at first Eloise didn’t notice that Flaco hadn’t surfaced, didn’t sense any fear until it was at least an hour after he should have been sighted. Even as the sun went down no one said he must be drowned, be dead. César finally told Madaleno to head for shore.
They ate by the light of the one lantern. No one spoke. When they finished, César, Raúl, and Ramón went back out to sea with lanterns and a bottle of raicilla.
“But they can’t hope to find him in the dark.”
“No,” Luis said.
She went to her room to pack, hang up her seersucker suit. She was leaving in the morning, a panga had been sent for. She lay awake in the damp bed, watching the pewter
moonlit night through the mosquito netting. César came into her bed, held her, caressed her with his strong scarred hands. His mouth and body tasted of salt. Their bodies were land-heavy, hot, rocking. Beat of the sea. They smiled in the pale light and fell asleep, locked like turtles.
When she awoke he was sitting on her bed, dressed in trunks and a shirt.
“Eloisa, can you give me the twenty thousand for the boat?”
She hesitated. In pesos it sounded like a lot. It was a lot. “Yes,” she said. “Can you take a check?” He nodded. She wrote the check and he put it in his pocket. Gracias, he said and he kissed her eyelids and left.
The sun was up. César was at the generator, black oil dripped down his arm. Eloise put on lipstick at the broken mirror. Pigs and chickens scavenged in the yard, scattering zopilotes. Madaleno raked the sand. Isabel came out of the kitchen.
“Pues ya se va?” Eloise nodded, started to shake Isabel’s hand to say good-bye but the old woman threw her arms around her. The two women swayed, embracing; Isabel’s soapy hands were wet, warm on Eloise’s back.
The motorboat was coming in just as La Ida passed the Terascan wall, out to sea. The men waved across the water to Eloise, briefly. They were checking their regulators, strapping on their weights and knives. César checked the tanks for air.
Good and Bad
Nuns tried hard to teach me to be good. In high school it was Miss Dawson. Santiago College, 1952. Six of us in the school were going on to American colleges; we had to take American History and Civics from the new teacher, Ethel Dawson. She was the only American teacher, the others were Chilean or European.
We were all bad to her. I was the worst. If there was to be a test and none of us had studied I could distract her with questions about the Gadsden Purchase for the whole period, or get her started on segregation or American imperialism if we were really in trouble.
We mocked her, imitated her nasal Boston whine. She had a tall lift on one shoe because of polio, wore thick wire-rimmed glasses. Splayed gap teeth, a horrible voice. It seemed she deliberately made herself look worse by wearing mannish, mismatched colors, wrinkled, soup-spotted slacks, garish scarves on her badly cut hair. She got very red-faced when she lectured and she smelled of sweat. It was not simply that she flaunted poverty … Madame Tournier wore the same shabby black skirt and blouse day after day, but the skirt was cut on the bias; the black blouse, green and frayed with age, was of fine silk. Style, cachet were all-important to us then.