We said our goodbyes and I walked down the gangplank, onto the quayside, and away from the Abyss. I was wearing my natty new clothes and carrying a backpack with my ticket, money, new passport and the Master’s package. I strolled along the pavement, wheeling my board in a fancy new board-bag, feeling the same freedom I experienced windsurfing. The world was my oyster and I was as free as my friend—the wind.
I hailed a taxi, tied my board-bag to the roof-rack and set off for the airport. After the usual heated discussion with the check-in staff about excess baggage, I boarded the plane for Puerto Plata, on the north shore of the Dominican Republic.
We took off and headed west, out over the ocean where I’d so recently been adrift. I stared out of the window, thinking about the miracle of my survival and marvelling at the magnificent view of Mt Teide—the highest peak in Spain and the second highest volcano in the world. From the air Tenerife was truly spectacular: jagged red mountains gouged by deep ravines, black lava fields, green pine forests, bleached white hilltop towns, fishing villages clinging to the rocky coastline.
As the mountains were replaced by open water I settled into my seat and wondered whether I would ever return to this spectacularly beautiful island.
Part II
THE CARIBBEAN
“I think perhaps you have been sailing too close to the wind, Nick, just like Icarus was tempted to fly too close to the sun.”
(The Master)
6
Salsa On Speed
Puerto Plata Airport, Dominican Republic. Saturday, October 31, 2015, 17:00. This is the start of a new chapter for me, I thought, as the plane touched down. I was now officially: Malcolm Fraser, an English teacher from Sydney—a name I shared with Australia’s twenty-second prime minister. Adios Nick Kelly! He drowned in the Atlantic. R.I.P. I’m somebody else now and my new life starts here.
I stepped out of the plane and took my first breath of warm, moist Dominican air. The twenty knot breeze welcomed me like an amiga. It had a softness that was feminine and it smelt quite different from the harsh, dry, macho wind I’d left behind in the Canary Islands. The runway was only a few hundred metres from the surf and I’d caught tantalising glimpses of playful waves as we’d landed. I think I’m going to like it here, I thought, as I joined the queue of perspiring tourists at the passport control.
“Bienvenidos a la República Dominicana, señor Fraser” the immigration official said, as he stamped my new passport. I smiled, relieved at how easy it was to become someone else and still amused by my illustrious Australian namesake.
The arrivals hall had a distinctly third-world feel. It was swelteringly hot, humid and chaotic—like a fiesta in a Turkish steam bath. A melee of sweating passengers were waiting for their baggage while being harassed by the predatory porters. The usual conveyor belt and carousel were nowhere to be seen, along with air conditioning and most of the other facilities we tend to take for granted. In their absence luggage was being unloaded from a truck outside and thrown through a hole in the wall, to land randomly amongst the scrum. I waited anxiously for my beloved wave-board, dreading its imminent free-fall and trying to anticipate where it might land.
My board-bag appeared at the hole in the wall. I elbowed my way forward and just managed to catch it before major damage was done. The porters eyed the heavy bag greedily, jostling each other for possession of this windfall, keen to demonstrate their machismo. Brushing them off with the few choice words of Spanish slang I’d acquired, I dragged the aptly named ‘coffin’ bag through the scrum of tourists to the usual comments: “what you got in there mate? A dead body?”
Outside was just as chaotic but the breeze made it bearable. The taxi drivers were every bit as enthusiastic as the porters to have me as their client. There was plenty of shouting, posturing, even some wrestling as they argued over who would have the honour and how much they could sting me for the board-bag. Eventually, the alpha-male fought off the competition, grabbed the board and slung it onto the roof of his early sixties American gas-guzzler. Again my limited knowledge of street-slang Spanish was invaluable as we haggled over the fare. It wasn’t a particularly welcoming introduction to the country but I would soon learn that the cartel of airport porters and taxi drivers were among the few Dominicans who weren’t genuinely lovely people.
We set off along the coast road towards Cabarete. The half-hour journey was a crash course in familiarisation—nearly, but not quite, literally. Somehow we managed to avoid becoming dangerously over familiar with other road users and crashing, but there were numerous near misses. Clearly you needed local knowledge to drive here.
Knowing how to avoid the locals meant knowing which bit of the road to stick to. Enormous trucks, belching smoke, hogged the middle. Cars, taxis, and buses stuffed full of people, with yet more clinging on, took the rest of the road. Tiny scooters, carrying whole families plus a few live chickens and making a disproportionate amount of racket, clung to the edges, sometimes resorting to the pavement or ditch to avoid superior traffic. Lowest of all in the hierarchy, lower even than the occasional horse and rider, were the pedestrians. They crossed themselves, took their lives in their hands, and ran like hell!
It was a land of contrasts. On the ocean side of the road were grandiose resort hotels with faux ranch-style gates and frontages designed to impress. Directly opposite them, on the landlocked side, were shanty pueblos with tiny shacks of corrugated iron, palm fronds for roofs. The tantalising glimpses of surf I’d seen from the plane were just a taster. Gazing out of the taxi window I could see palm-lined beaches with fine white sand, endless reefs and empty waves.
We rounded the last corner and suddenly I was staring at a five-kilometre horseshoe bay, full of white horses. The reef was about eight hundred metres offshore here and I could just make out brightly coloured sails and kites playing in the waves. I’d arrived at my destination, my friend the wind was with me and my new life was looking promising.
Cabarete had a texture all of its own and all you had to do was walk down the main street to experience it. As I wandered along (anything more energetic was foolish in the heat and humidity) all my senses were bombarded with stimuli. Merengue music blasted out from trucks—manic, like salsa on speed. The aroma of pollo asado, plantain, beans and rice wafted out from the chiringuitos. Tattooed dudes in designer shorts strutted their stuff like peacocks, while their bikinied surf-chicks giggled and gossiped in French, German, Italian. Wasted-looking prostitutes propositioned me: “Señor, you liking fooky wid me, no?” Hombres with matted dreadlocks offered me bottles of aloe vera, ganja, Mama Juana (concocted from rum, red wine, honey and, believe it or not, tree bark!).
It was a heady mix, a rich tapestry: colonial Spanish, Latin-Caribbean meets trendy Euro surf-village, with a smattering of hippies to complete the picture. Merengue was its beating pulse—and what a beat! Jamaica moved to the heavy, hypnotic bass of reggae; Cuba danced to elegant, fluid salsa; Argentina to the sinuous, desperate passion of tango ... and the DR had its salsa-on-speed. Those furious Merengue guitar licks were everywhere, enforcing a manic little dance even in the heat, until you were dripping with sweat and the niños on the street were pointing and grinning at the gringo.
I followed a sandy alley away from the craziness of the main street onto the beach, sat down at a table and ordered both a cerveza and a Cuba Libre chaser. Why not? After all, I was celebrating the first day of my new life. I was tempted to try a Mama Juana—the barman told me it was the perfect cure for the hangover I would, no doubt, soon have. On the other hand, perhaps the exotic cocktail of rum and tree bark was a taste that could wait to be acquired.
My board-bag was propped up next to me and the rest of my possessions were in the backpack under the table. I still hadn’t opened the Master’s package but I was in no rush. I’d given him my word and I’d been good to it. Now I was more interested in checking out the conditions in the bay, finding somewhere I could store my board, buying some sails, locating the best steak in town, and
finding a bed for the night. I addressed these priorities in that order and the day ended with me in a comfortable room in the Windsurf Hotel with a full stomach and a quiver of new sails.
Sunday, November 1, 08:05. I opened the shutters and sauntered onto my balcony to find a perfect view of the bay and the reef. I could keep an eye on the windsurfing from the hammock that was thoughtfully installed there. Not much was happening right then. Clearly, the wind, like most of Cabarete’s other inhabitants, was in no rush to make an appearance.
By the time I’d finished a leisurely breakfast and jogged the length of the beach, it was a different story. White horses were dancing across the water, the surf centres were opening, people were rigging-up and the beach was buzzing with activity. It was time to ‘Check De Action’ as a famous windsurfer from Barbados1 is fond of saying. There’d be plenty of time for the Master’s mission once I’d ridden a few waves.
I strolled next door to the centre where I was storing my equipment, introduced myself, asked what sail size they recommended and rigged-up. The wind here wasn’t as strong as in El Médano and it blew from the opposite side. I needed a bigger sail and a bit of time to get used to the unfamiliar tack: jumping on starboard, wave-riding on port. But after half an hour I was dialled in to the conditions and loving them.
Cabarete was jumping heaven. You were well powered right from the beach, blasted out across the bay meeting ever bigger ramps and then you arrived at the proper waves on the reef. I threw loop after loop and it wasn’t long before I’d landed my first ever forward on the unfamiliar tack. All around me people were smiling, especially the local blackfellas—they were pulling some incredible stunts. Even the kiters were giving me whoops when I landed a high back loop. The locals could get a bit nasty at some of the more hardcore breaks I’d surfed in the past but Cabarete was refreshingly mellow.
The waves were nothing special, but the dudes in the surf-centre assured me that if I stayed long enough I should get lucky with a big day and anyway ... here I was riding waves in the Caribbean, wearing just board-shorts, looking back at a perfect beach with topless sheilas and Cuba Libres at ridiculous prices—what more could a bloke want?
All the while I had the manic Merengue riffs playing in my head and it was like I was dancing to them. The tempo was perfect for windsurfing—high energy, like punk, but with the flow of salsa—punk salsa, salsa-on-speed.
I sailed for three hours without a break and was more than ready for a late lunch and a siesta. When I woke in the afternoon the Master’s package was still on the table and couldn’t be ignored any longer. My hands shook as I opened it, feeling as if he was somehow there, watching me through those mirrored sunglasses.
There was a letter and another package inside, just as he’d said. It was identical to the one I’d just opened: wrapped in plain brown paper, nothing written on it ... but there was a name on the letter: Nicole Jean-Baptiste Beauvais. No address.
I was relieved to find everything was as he’d told me it would be—no drugs, no weapons, and I was intrigued by the name on the letter. First: I wasn’t expecting to find it addressed to a woman. Perhaps it was his terminology: ‘the target’, or the all-male crew on his yacht, but I’d assumed it would be a man. And second: I knew I’d seen that name before, but I just couldn’t drag the details from my memory. It nagged at me like a déjà vu.
I stared at the letter, wondering what to do next. For a second I considered ripping it, and the package, open. He’d told me there would be money inside and now I was on the other side of the Atlantic, thousands of miles from him. What could he do if I just did a runner—disappeared into the woodwork and lived like a ghost here in the DR, as I’d done in Tenerife?
It wasn’t loyalty that stopped me and I don’t think it was fear of him, but a voice-in-my-head said: “you’ve been running long enough, mate—running from your past and from yourself—sailing too close to the wind, like he said. Your life’s been stalled long enough. Let’s try something different this time.”
I got dressed, put the letter in my pocket and walked out onto the madness of the main street to look for Nicole.
It didn’t take long to find someone who knew her. The barman in the second bar I visited smiled when I mentioned her name.
“Si hombre, everybody know Nicole. Una chica muy guapa. She one gorgeous chick but she classy, no? Una mujer muy elegante.”
“So where can I find this beautiful lady?” I asked him.
“—” He shrugged.
The sound system kicked into life with a wah-wah guitar—the iconic opening riff of ‘Voodoo Child’ by Jimi Hendrix. Sixties music was cool in Cabarete, a popular antidote to the manic monotony of Merengue. Jimi’s acid rock filled the space.
I placed several dollars on the bar and ordered a Cuba Libre, plus whatever he was drinking.
“It’s just that I’m supposed to deliver a package to her” I shouted over the music.
He picked up the money and mixed the drinks. We waited for a break in Jimi’s vocals before continuing the ‘conversation’.
“So, you’re like un amigo of Nicole?” He yelled, eventually.
“Not exactly. More un amigo de un amigo.”
It was hard to make myself understood, competing with Jimi, so I took the letter from my pocket and showed him her name on it. He nodded, cautiously.
“Look, what it is, hombre ... Nicole, she’s escaping from Haiti, y hay un rumor...” He tailed off, watching me carefully. Seeing no change in my expression he completed his sentence: “... si, el rumor is some peoples are looking for her—unos tipos malos!”
Jimi had reached the chorus and was belting out the hook now: “... cos I’m a voodoo child, Lord knows I’m a Voodoo Child!”
I sighed. “Hombre, no soy un tipo malo! Do I look like a bad guy, mate? I’m just an Ozzie windsurfer doing a favour for a friend of this Nicole sheila.”
He smiled. “¡De acuerdo! Why you no say you’re windsurfer, man? Now I know you no mal tipo. I windsurfista like you.”
We shook hands—members of the same tribe. He told me to go to the little school in the jungle on the downwind edge of town and ask for Nicole. She was the teacher there. I thanked him, gave him a couple of dollars for his time and said I’d look out for him on the water.
“See you on the reef, man” he replied, “this what los lugareños say aquí”
I walked out of the bar just as Jimi launched into the famous soaring guitar solo. I grabbed an imaginary guitar and joined him, dreadlocks swaying in the breeze. Nobody batted an eyelid. An Aboriginal half-caste playing air-guitar was nothing special on Cabarete’s main street.
Sunday, 16:30. I walked out of town and took a dirt track inland. Within a few minutes I’d left the cosmopolitan craziness behind and entered a different country, a world that had existed long before the tourists invaded. The one thing they had in common was the ubiquitous sound of Merengue. Here, in the jungle, it was drifting on the breeze from transistor radios in tiny shacks, rather than pumping like a hurricane from giant speakers on pimped pickup trucks.
Being a Sunday I hadn’t expected to find the school open but it turned out to be quite easy to find. I followed the sound of children until I reached a clearing in the jungle and there she was, surrounded by smiling kids, painting a mural on the wall of the little schoolhouse. I stood there for a moment taking in the scene: the kids’ infectious enthusiasm, the vibrant colours and bold images of their painting, and Nicole herself.
The barman hadn’t exaggerated—she was indeed una chica muy guapa and una mujer muy elegante—a pretty girl on the cusp of becoming an elegant woman. In her mid-twenties, slim, athletic, with skin like cafe con leche—an unusual, exotic blend of African and European—mixed race, mulatto, like myself. Her jet black hair was cut unfashionably short, like a French film star from the early sixties. The barman was right: she had a classic elegance, as if she’d just walked off the set of ‘Jules et Jim’.
“Hola, Nicole?”
&nb
sp; She turned to me, startled.
“Si. ¿Qué?” Some fear in her voice.
“Tengo algo para usted ... I have something for you ...”
This only increased her alarm.
“Merde!” She swore in French and took a step back towards the children, putting her arm around the nearest—a little girl who shared her teacher’s strikingly good looks.
“From the Master ...” I blurted out, desperate to reassure her.
There was still anxiety in her eyes, but they were clouded with confusion now as she tried to make sense of this strange gringo. I attempted a few more words of explanation in my stuttering Spanish before she stopped me:
“We speak English if you like. Is good for me to practice and good for the childrens to hear. I am teaching them a leetle.”
Her voice was musical, the accent an intriguing mix of staccato Spanish softened with legato French intonation.
“Thanks” I said, relieved. “I’m sorry to surprise you like this. The Master sent me to deliver a contract?”
I said the word questioningly, unsure of the effect it might have, but she seemed to understand and to trust me a little more now:
“OK. Wait some moments and I close the school. Ah, oui, it is Sunday, no? So, no is open and I no need close ...”
I smiled at her impeccable logic.
“... but we finish painting and is time to go home now. You come to la casa with us, no?”
I nodded. She cleared away the children’s paint and brushes, beckoned to the pretty little girl and introduced her daughter, Jacqueline, a shy child about eight years old and already sharing her mother’s beauty and poise. I told them my new name: Malcolm, remembering just in time that I was no longer Nick.
Too Close to the Wind Page 8