But this one was different, a once-in-a-decade category five. It wasn’t so much the wind, although gusts of around 150 mph were a bit much even for a wind-lover like myself, it was the rain that did the real damage. Scores of people drowned when rivers burst their banks and many more perished in devastating mudslides. The lucky ones, like us, merely had their houses destroyed.
At times like this, the community pulled together and I was proud to be part of it. We helped each other stash a few essential possessions in the shelter and afterwards, we rebuilt each other’s houses. Nicole managed to save a few of her most important paintings, including the one above the bed protecting her from her husband, and her portrait of us. I chose the wave-board that had saved me from drowning in the Atlantic.
We emerged from the shelter to a scene of utter devastation. Everything we’d built over the previous year had been destroyed: Nicole’s hut, her studio, the rest of the pueblo, the schoolhouse, our windsurfing school ... all gone! It was heartbreaking.
The most devastating thing was the loss of one of the dogs. We’d only been able to take Legba with us to the shelter. Simbi had run off into the jungle. When we returned to the pueblo we found his dead body next to the ruin of our hut. He must have come back to the village as the eye of the storm passed over and then been hit by a piece of flying debris. Legba lay there, next to his corpse, howling for his dead mate.
By the end of October we were just about coping. We’d survived one of the worst storms in living memory but Nicole became more stressed every day. We started to argue, the first fights in our year together. I knew that something was wrong but I couldn’t work out what it was. The hurricane seemed to have exposed a fault-line in our relationship—as if it was the pay-back for discovering such happiness. Perhaps sadness and joy are just two sides of the same coin and this was an inevitable part of the learning curve.
The only positives were the waves that arrived in the aftermath of the hurricane. I had some of the most intense sessions of my life sailing in huge surf on the reef, often alone, occasionally with a few of the most gung-ho locals. This was what they lived for, dudes like my barman friend. It was dangerous, even life-threatening at times, but I needed windsurfing more than ever to cope with the stress. Nicole had no release, no time for her art, and I could see how much she was suffering.
It was after one of these intensely challenging wave-sailing sessions that I returned to the pueblo to find she and Jacqueline were missing.
It was Tuesday, November 1, 2016—Día de Todos los Santos, a holiday when most Spanish Catholics celebrate their saints, and some who maintain links with a more ancient, pagan past revel in dressing up as skeletons and zombies to mark Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead.
The previous evening we’d gone into Cabarete for a meal to celebrate our anniversary. Las Brisas, the restaurant where we’d spent our first date, had survived the hurricane. It was a special place for us and they were grateful for our support. When we told them we were celebrating our year together they pulled out all the stops, starting with a bottle of champagne they’d stashed somewhere safe.
Our celebrations that evening were tinged with sadness for the devastation all around us—on the beach, in our community and the rest of the country ... But there was something else troubling Nicole. She seemed profoundly uneasy with me, as well as sad. I tried to drag it out of her but as the evening wore on she retreated into herself, into a shell of despair.
When we got back to the hut we made love with a desperation that scared me. Afterwards, she was crying but she wouldn’t tell me why. Tears rolled down her face and she couldn’t look at me. She turned her back and we slipped into our separate worlds.
The next morning she woke early and made some coffee. We drank it in silence, still unable to look at each other. It was already windy. The wind that had destroyed our community seemed to be tearing us apart now.
She sat there staring at the broken huts, the fallen trees, not speaking. I didn’t want to leave her like that but she insisted I go windsurfing. She told me it would help, but she said it with a kind of bleak fatalism that confused me. She gave me the saddest smile, kissed me gently, and wished me luck (very strange, I thought to myself). Then we said goodbye to each other. I grabbed my board and set off for the beach.
That was the last time I saw Nicole. When I returned to the hut she and Jacqueline weren’t there. There was no sign of Legba either. At first, I thought they might be with a neighbour. I walked around the pueblo, but nobody had seen them that morning.
Then I realised all their stuff was gone: clothes, the few school books we had, her paintings … All but one ... The Voodoo painting above the bed was missing, but her portrait of us: ‘The Kangaroo Kid and his Voodoo Child’ was still hanging on the wall.
For one terrible moment I wondered if Nicole’s husband had found her and kidnapped them. My stomach churned as I imagined assembling a group of vigilantes and going in chase. I don’t do violence particularly well but when needs must I can hold my own. Perhaps if we caught up with them before they reached the border ... but if they made it to Haiti—no way. All sorts of crazy scenarios flashed through my brain. My heart pumped and I felt dizzy with adrenaline.
Then I saw the letter on the table, with a package next to it wrapped in brown paper, and I knew this chapter of my life was over.
10
In Transit
I sat in the empty hut, staring at the envelope, willing myself to open it. My world had contracted to these four walls, the table, and what was on it. I looked at my watch—I’d been sitting there for an hour. What day was it? Tuesday ... and the date? The first of November.
Then it hit me: exactly one year had passed since I’d taken the path into the jungle to meet Nicole. “One hell of an anniversary” a voice-in-my-head muttered, bitterly.
“Where the fuck are you, Nicole?” another voice howled. “What happened to us?”
The carefully constructed stability of the past year began to disintegrate. The plans, projects, hopes and certainties all began to dissolve. My mind began to fracture, as it had when I was drifting alone in the Atlantic.
I picked up the letter, shaking as I stared at it. It was my lifeline—an explanation, a confession, perhaps even (I was shaking violently now) a suicide note ...
I ripped open the envelope.
It was none of these. It wasn’t even from her. It was the original letter from the Master to her—the letter I’d delivered one year ago, handwritten in his elegant, formal italic script:
Hola Nicole,
Espero que esta carta los encuentre a usted y a su hija en buen estado de salud?
No, I will write in English, because one year from today HE will read this letter and understand.
I gasped. My eyes darted around the room. For a moment I sensed his presence—as if his handwritten words had flown off the page and coalesced to form his hologram. Trembling, I read on:
I have sent this young man to deliver your contract, as we agreed.
Like you, he is fleeing from his past and I have given him a new identity, just as I did for you. Like you, he is a survivor. He has great strength of will, but he is flawed by self-doubt and betrayal.
You must help him to fulfil his potential.
This is your contract: you must teach him Friendship, Loyalty, Love, Charity—through your work with the children, and your art.
I was weeping now. So the year I’d shared with Nicole and Jacqueline had been ordered by him—to fulfil her contract? My life here, helping with the school and the pueblo, teaching the kids to windsurf—all of it was done on his orders. Everything? So it seemed …
You must teach him the value of education, how to live with material poverty but spiritual wealth, and you must teach him the Dark Arts—the Knowledge, from your country. You have this Power in your art, as a shaman—you must show it to him, as you did to me.
What did he mean: ‘shaman’? Was she some kind of witch who could control me wi
th the power of her ‘Dark Arts’? Had I been part of some bizarre Voodoo experiment for the past year?
The voices in my head were back, tormenting me with their questions. I stared at the letter, my lifeline, desperate for some answers ...
In this package are some documents, money, a letter for the messenger, and a second package. The money is to be divided: half is for you, and half for the messenger—the balance of his fee.
You must hide this letter, along with the package and the note for him. One year from today you will leave these items for him to find in your house.
Then you will take the new passport, money, and tickets (included in your package) and leave La República Dominicana forever, to start a new life.
You will leave nothing else in Cabarete—no trace that you have ever lived there. No word of where you are going.
His words ripped through me like a patient receiving electric shock therapy or a prisoner in the electric chair. Now I knew, with shocking finality, I’d never see her again.
The clock had been ticking for us from the day I’d arrived at Nicole’s hut with this letter. After she read it she’d asked me the date and when I told her she muttered: “Día de Muertos”. Now I realised she was already mapping out the year ahead, from one Day of the Dead to the next. We’d survived the hurricane but we couldn’t survive Día de Muertos—the day of the death of our love.
Now I understood Nicole’s distress in our final few weeks together, the sadness of our last evening, the desperation of our lovemaking, why she’d wished me luck with such finality that morning.
I gazed around the empty room, tears in my eyes as I stared at the spaces where her paintings had been. He’d ordered her to take everything with her but she’d made one last gesture of defiance. Her painting of the two of us: ‘The Kangaroo Kid and his Voodoo Child’ was still hanging there. I would never see her again, I knew that now, but at least I had this memento of our year together—proof that I hadn’t just imagined the whole thing.
I stared at that picture for a long time, reliving our year—a lifetime compressed into a square metre of canvas, before reading the final few sentences of his fucking letter:
This is your contract with me. It expires in precisely one year.
After you have fulfilled it you are free.
If you do not do exactly as I have instructed, the contract is invalid. In that eventuality, your estranged husband will be informed of your whereabouts, with the inevitable consequences for you and your daughter.
It was signed with the initials: A.A.L and dated: Sunday, November 1, 2015 (Día de Muertos)—the day I delivered the package to her.
So, that was that. Now I understood everything.
There was a package next to the letter on the table, wrapped in the inevitable brown paper. On top of it was an envelope, addressed to me. Inside was a single sheet of paper. I recognised the Master’s handwriting again:
Nick—by now you will have read my letter to Nicole outlining my contract with her, and you will probably be wondering what happens next.
“Fuck you!” the angry voice-in-my-head screamed. I’d kept alive a glimmer of hope there might be some word from Nicole in this second envelope. Now I felt helpless. I was his puppet and he was pulling my strings …
When our paths crossed a year ago, in the Atlantic ocean, you told me how you had betrayed the friend you loved. You were so consumed with guilt and self-loathing that you believed you deserved to die.
When you told me your story I suggested that you had been sailing too close to the wind. Now perhaps you understand what I meant.
I stared at his words until they began to float around like a cheap video effect … and then I had some kind of weird flashback to my vision of hell—the dream I had just before he rescued me—the dream with all the people I’d betrayed.
Suddenly it hit me: the emptiness I was feeling right then must be how Robo felt when I ran off with Alison. I didn’t even leave him a note, no explanation—we just disappeared. Strange how I’d never really thought about it before. It took Nicole’s disappearance to show me what he must have gone through.
Tears streamed down my face, spilling onto the page, blurring the words. I moved the sheet of paper before they became illegible, and read some more …
When we met, your ego was defined by Loyalty and Betrayal. But the year you spent with a member of our Group has shown you other ways of thinking, other ways of living.
Now you must let go of your ego, just as you must let go of the year you shared with her.
“Fuck knows what that means.” The angry voice was back in my head, but now I understood what was at stake. He’d ordered Nicole to leave me because that was her contract with him. But did he do it to teach me a lesson—a lesson about ‘Loyalty and Betrayal’?
Now I felt fear as well as anger. If he was capable of manipulating Nicole like that, what else did he have planned for me?
“How could anyone be so cruel?” the voice demanded.
But it was only what I’d inflicted on Robo … and that was the lesson: love and loss—two sides of the same coin.
There were some final instructions. I fought wave after wave of panic as I read them …
It is time for your next mission, the next stage of the journey to fulfil your potential.
Tomorrow you are booked on a flight to London—the hub of my communications network. You will go to the transit lounge in Heathrow airport. Once there (and only then) you will unwrap the new package.
You will then receive further instructions.
It was again signed with his initials and dated: Tuesday, November 1, 2016—today’s date.
I sat in the empty hut staring at the Master’s note, bewildered, while the voices in my head argued about what I should do. One whispered: “Follow his instructions. Go with the flow. There’s nothing left for you here.” Another shouted: “No! Enough is enough! Just stay put.”
I sat there for a long time, drowning in thoughts and emotions. Eventually, emotion overwhelmed me. The sense of loss was too strong for rational thought. It was overpowering me, taking me down. I knew I wouldn’t survive if I stayed there. The gaping hole left by Nicole would swallow me. I was afraid for my sanity, perhaps even for my life. At that moment suicide was a real possibility.
Blinded by despair, I stumbled out of the hut into the jungle and wandered around aimlessly, calling her name. I looked for her for a few hours, asking everyone if they’d seen her leave. It was pointless, I knew that, but I needed to taste the futility, to hit rock bottom before I could crawl back out of the pit.
Eventually, I stopped asking people if they’d seen her and started saying adios to them instead. I’d come to a decision: I was going to take that flight to London the next day. It wasn’t what I’d call a rational decision but it did have some practical implications. I had some responsibilities to the community, to the people who’d welcomed me. I couldn’t just leave without tidying up the loose ends.
Somehow I found the strength to talk to the rental centre who’d supported my windsurfing school. I told them I was leaving and begged them to take it over. Of course, they wanted to know why I was going so suddenly—why hadn’t I given them a bit more notice? I was in no mood to explain but thankfully they didn’t need much persuading. They took one look at my face, desperation etched all over it, and promised to do whatever they could to keep the school running for the kids.
Saying goodbye to the windsurf niños was painful, especially saying adios to Miguel. I hugged him and told him he was The Man now, no longer a Kangaroo Kid, a special athlete who would do great things in our sport. I would never forget him and I’d be watching his career from wherever I was in the world.
Then I limped back to the hut, devastated, a black dog with his tail between his legs. I sat down and howled for an hour.
In the end what saved me was Nicole’s painting of us. ‘The Kangaroo Kid and his Voodoo Child’ was still hanging there. She might be gone but I was t
aking a part of her with me, like an urn of ashes. I took the painting from the wall, carefully removed the canvas from the cheap wooden frame and packed it in my board-bag.
Then I got seriously wasted on Mama Juana and some grass I’d bought in town. At some point that night I slipped into unconsciousness—the same deep, dreamless sleep I’d experienced in my first twenty-four hours aboard the Abyss.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016, 08:00—the morning after my Día de Muertos. I was woken, as usual, by the sounds of the jungle and my neighbours going about their business. But as soon as I opened my eyes I knew it wasn’t going to be a normal day for me. For a start, it felt like there was a machete buried in my head. I looked around for something to inspire me to get out of bed, rather than simply ending the agony there and then. The hut was bare—just my few possessions packed ready to leave, and the half-empty bottle of Mama Juana.
“Glass half-empty, or half-full?” a voice in my head demanded. A cackle of crazy, bitter laughter filled the room, frightening me—was that how my laugh sounded now?
Then I found my inspiration. I did something the locals had often urged me to try but until then I’d never been desperate enough to do: I took a slug of Mama Juana as a cure for the hangover—a so-called ‘hair of the dog’ cure—a black dog in my case. How on earth the evil concoction of rum, red wine, honey and tree bark was supposed to work God only knows, but that morning it did the trick. I dragged my protesting body out of bed, got dressed and took the path through the jungle into town for the last time.
Too Close to the Wind Page 12