Seeker

by Rita Pomade

  “How about it, Bernard?” If he was serious about selling the yacht in North America, this charter could go a long way towards making the money for the sails.

  “No,” he said. He gave no explanation.

  I was furious but held my temper. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of a stranger.

  “I’ve seen most of the Balearic Islands,” she said. “I’m just missing Menorca.”

  “Not interested,” he said and brushed past her to go on deck.

  She turned to me. “Do you want to go? I don’t feel like going alone. There’s a ferry we can take. I’ve already paid for a room and rented a car.”

  I had no idea there was a ferry on Mallorca. It reminded me how little we had explored the island even though we had been here several months.

  “Didn’t you know?” she said. “It runs from Alcudia, on the other side of the island. But I can drive us there.”

  “How soon can you get ready?” I asked. I wanted to get far away from Bernard as soon as I could. I needed time to settle my fury. I also welcomed the opportunity to explore Menorca by car. Perhaps it had more to offer than what we had seen when anchored there.

  Unfortunately, Menorca didn’t improve on second viewing, but it was nice to have a car and be driven around the island looking at something other than boats. I learned that Kit was an interior designer from New York who had just retired and was looking for an island in the Mediterranean where she could bask in her memories of an old lover.

  “I’d loved to have settled in Capri,” she told me. “It’s the most romantic of all the Mediterranean Islands. Thirty years ago I had a ten-year affair there with a man I was deeply in love with, but it ended badly, and I returned to New York. It would be too painful to go back. Besides, after all these years, it wouldn’t be the same, and that would be a disappointment.”

  She was looking for an island equivalent. Menorca didn’t do it for her. Neither did the other Balearic Islands. After a short liaison in Palma with a minor noble, she packed her bags and returned to New York.

  Kit and I remained friends until she died. It was an odd relationship. We had nothing in common. But she liked my writing. “I’m only interested in talented people,” she said after reading something I had written. As for me, I loved hearing stories about her past bohemian episodes, all unfortunately with tragic endings. The greatest of her loves, the man from Capri, called her just before he died. He phoned to say she had been his greatest love, but he could never leave his wife and children. He wanted her to know. She never fully recovered from his phone call and died a few years later.

  A few weeks before she died Kit confided in me: “Without romance in one’s life, one has nothing. I’m now no more than a fag hag.”

  “Fag hag?” It was the first I’d heard that brutal expression.

  “I only attract gay men,” she explained. “It’s not what I want to be.”

  She lived for and defined who she was through her ability to attract and bring lovers into her life. For whatever reason, I was the vessel she poured her stories into. In return for my “ear” she left me a Persian carpet that runs the length of my hallway. It ties me to this unique friendship that had such an odd beginning.

  On my return to the Santa Rita after spending the week with Kit, Bernard informed me that his mother, along with his eighty-year-old aunt, was coming for two weeks. This was his mother’s oldest sibling whom she claimed to hate. But then, Bernard’s mother didn’t like anyone except for her son and her dead neighbour’s mistress, who I was pleased she wasn’t bringing this time.

  Our strained relationship didn’t improve on her arrival, as “Madam” was quite a princess and never happy. But this time, no longer willing to accommodate her whims or placate her desires, I felt prepared for her antics. In Sri Lanka she was determined to make me feel like an outsider in my own home, and made it clear that I was not the woman she would have picked for her son. I thought the best solution was to leave her to her son and be away as much as possible with friends I had made on other yachts along the waterfront. By the second day of her arrival, she became aware that I wasn’t going to cater to her as I had during her visit to Sri Lanka. She called to me from the salon as I was about to go out the hatch, her voice saccharine-sweet.

  “Oh, Rita, aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friends? You’re always running off somewhere.”

  I turned around and smiled. “No, Dedé, stay here with your son. You see him so seldom. And your sister is here to keep you company. You’re such a good cook. Why don’t you make them a little something for lunch?”

  She was taken aback by my change of behaviour, and this pleased me. The other upside of her visit was that I got to see parts of Mallorca other than Palma. The women wanted to explore the island and that meant renting a car, something Bernard had been unwilling to do until his family came. The four of us set out together, Bernard and me in the front, Dedé and her sister Suzanne in the back.

  For the duration of our motor trip, I ignored the mother, was kind to the aunt whom I had always liked, and without any expectation found myself enjoying the adventure. Travelling along the coast through the rugged Tramuntana Mountains invigorated me. It called to mind how much I loved mountains. We stopped at the Carthusian Monastery in Valldemossa, where Chopin had stayed with George Sand. We took the winding roads dotted with olive and citrus trees to the town of Deia, the last home of Robert Graves. With its beautifully aged buildings and winding, cobbled streets, Deia was home to an astonishing number of writers, painters and musicians. I could see myself living there quite happily. I played with the idea of returning after we sold the yacht.

  Once Bernard’s family left, he withdrew further from me. Everyone else was his friend. I had become his enemy. Even worse, he considered the Santa Rita as only his. I was treated as guest on board, as though he had picked me up in some port and let me stay due to his good graces. My wanting to sell the Santa Rita made for a tense relationship, in which the yacht took precedence over any personal commitment he might have felt toward me.

  “How nice that Bernard let you and your children sail with him,” an emaciated, thin-lipped British woman of “a certain age” said to me over dinner at the home of one of the ex-pats. Our yacht was a calling card for dinner at various homes by people who thought it was “interesting” to know yachties.

  What was he telling people? I was the one who encouraged him when he had doubts. I was the one who invested the money that helped make the sea voyage possible. Without me this adventure might never have happened. That’s what he told me in New York when we went there to buy some yachting equipment before leaving for Taiwan. “I know I owe a lot to you to have made this dream possible,” he had said. “I’ll never forget that.”

  These thoughts raced through my head, but I was tongue-tied, too shocked to find the words to reply. To this day I regret not setting the record straight. And this woman will live in my head forever because I could not vent my rage.

  This same brittle woman, who was so enraptured with the dashing Captain Bernard, told us about a classical guitar concert in town. We went several evenings later with Ann, an Australian woman sailing with her husband Robert, and my artist friend Jenny from Binissalem, a twenty-five minute drive from Palma. I had invited Jenny to spend the night aboard the Santa Rita so that she wouldn’t have to drive back to her village so late at night.

  After the concert Jenny and I couldn’t find Bernard anywhere. Jenny suggested he might have gone back to the yacht, but that didn’t seem likely to me. I couldn’t believe he would have left without saying anything. He had been standing beside me, and suddenly he was gone. We spent about an hour looking for him and then returned to the Santa Rita. It was past midnight. He wasn’t on the yacht. I was frantic.

  “Perhaps he’s on Ann’s yacht and has forgotten the time,” Jenny said. “I saw them talking together a few minutes before we left the concert hall.”

  I ran over to Ann’s yacht to ask if
she’d seen Bernard. When I went below deck, I found Ann and Bernard, in a drunken stupor, slouched over her galley table. I had no idea where Robert was. Maybe he had gone to bed.

  “Why are you here?” I blurted out. “I looked everywhere for you.”

  Bernard looked unperturbed. He didn’t understand why I was upset. “Ann told me she had a great bottle of wine on the boat. It seemed less boring than making chitchat with that expat crowd after the concert.”

  I stormed off the boat and made my way back to the Santa Rita. It was the last time I spoke to Ann. I learned she and Robert divorced when they returned to Australia. I wasn’t surprised. Good, I thought, though I was sorry for their twelve-year-old daughter.

  I felt humiliated. Until then I had kept Bernard’s drinking and the tension between us private. Now it was open season for the waterfront gossip brigade. I no longer spoke to Bernard. I stopped caring, making plans, coming up with ideas, or making meals. I hung out in cafés along the waterfront and came home to sleep. A week or so later, he finally noticed.

  “How would you like to go for a sail?” he asked one morning.

  In all the time we had been in Mallorca, he had refused to go anywhere with the boat.

  I jumped at the chance to get out of Palma. “Sure,” I said. I hadn’t forgiven him, but I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity for a change of scene.

  Chapter 31

  HOMEWARD BOUND

  Summer 1986: Spain/Montreal

  If you do not change direction, you may

  end up where you are heading.

  — LAO TZU

  We sailed out of Palma on a sun-filled breezy morning under a brilliant blue sky. The Santa Rita, heeled to a perfect angle, and zipped through the water like a space ship towards infinity. I lost myself in sea spray and wind — my mind blank, my body alive to every nuance of the yacht’s movement. It released some of the tension I’d been carrying with me since that night I found Bernard with Ann. Towards evening, while entering Palma’s harbour, I noticed a well-dressed man in his thirties with a small, child-like woman beside him watching us from the water’s edge. This didn’t surprise me. The Santa Rita was a class act under sail. As we were tying up, the man asked if he could come aboard to see the interior.

  He came down the companionway and stroked the teak pole that separated the salon from the galley as though it were a favourite pet.

  “Teak, I like it,” he said. “Are you willing to sell?”

  Bernard gave him an outlandish price.

  He didn’t bargain. “I’ve business in Italy,” he said. “I’ll be back in two weeks with the money.”

  He then turned and left, with his little beauty scrambling behind.

  “He’ll never be back,” Bernard said.

  “Probably not,” I mumbled. Bernard had no intention of selling, and I felt trapped.

  Two weeks to the day, the buyer returned to the Santa Rita. Behind him was the tiny girlfriend carrying a leather briefcase. She placed the case on the salon table, and the buyer snapped it open to reveal more money than I had ever seen in my life. The bills, in American currency, were bound in neat little packets.

  “Count,” he said.

  Bernard was mesmerized by the treasure before him. He counted the stacks.

  Yes! I said over and over to myself.

  Bernard could still back out, and I was a bit nervous. But to my relief he didn’t.

  “There’s one problem,” the new owner said. “I don’t know how to sail.”

  “I’ll give you lessons,” Bernard said.

  “I’d rather you take me to Sitges. I have a friend there who’ll teach me.”

  I’d heard of Sitges, a small fishing village not far from Barcelona. I was excited about the prospect of going there. Once in Paris many years before our life on the Santa Rita, while strolling through Montmartre , Bernard and I looked in the window of a basement apartment where a small group of artists were about to share a pot luck lunch. The host invited us to join and later showed me a book of etchings by an artist friend.

  “Miguel Conde?” I said to the host. “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He’s an American who came to Europe on a Guggenheim and stayed. He and his wife Carola settled in Sitges.”

  “I’d love to meet him,” I said jokingly, never expecting it to happen.

  “It’s a small world,” our host answered. “Who knows?”

  The following day, the four of us set sail for Sitges. Once out on the sea, we learned that our buyer’s girlfriend had been picked out of a line-up of prostitutes in Peru and that his business took him from Brazil to Miami, Las Vegas, Mallorca and Italy. He had a home in Las Vegas and a ranch in Brazil.

  He then told us his friend in Sitges owned a bar. “He’s a Brit,” he said, “an ex-cop. After embezzling a large sum of money, he decided to move to Spain — no extradition between the two countries, you know. He bought the bar for his father who’d always wanted to own one.”

  Neither Bernard nor I answered. My mind was racing, wondering what we had gotten into. I was sure Bernard was having the same thought. The buyer then took out a good-sized bag of weed, rolled a hefty joint and offered us a toke. It shocked Bernard into action.

  “Throw that stash overboard,” Bernard ordered. “I could lose this boat if the Coast Guard comes aboard. Until we sign the papers this yacht is mine.”

  It was no secret that Mallorca was an easy place to buy pot, crack and cocaine. The stuff came in by boat and the area around the bay was closely monitored by the police. It dawned on me that our buyer might be in the business. That’s why he came with cash instead of a cheque.

  For once, Bernard and I were on the same page. We had no idea who this guy was. If we were stopped with him aboard, we worried about what might happen. And even though he got rid of the pot, we didn’t know what else he might be carrying.

  “As soon as we get to Sitges, we go to a bank before signing papers. This money could be counterfeit,” Bernard whispered in the privacy of our cabin.

  As though he had overheard our conversation, the next morning the buyer offered a suggestion. “Why don’t you take the money to Andorra? I took it out of my account there, and you can open your own. My friend has a Mercedes. I can borrow it to take us up there. It’s a good place. No taxes.”

  We decided to go along with his suggestion. Sitges was a small Spanish seaside village. Andorra was a country no more than a threehour drive from Sitges. It was more likely we’d find a notary to handle paperwork in Andorra than in Sitges. There was also the added enticement of a beautiful ride through the Pyrenees to get there.

  When we docked the Santa Rita, the buyer went looking for his friend and returned about an hour later with the Mercedes. He drove us to Andorra like an insane person. He lost the door handle of the car by scraping against something, and at one point it looked as though he’d lose the whole door when he started the car before it was shut. We said nothing.

  We didn’t trust this man but didn’t want to anger him. He seemed crazy and irresponsible. In retrospect, I think he must have been high on something. I was so tense the whole way I could barely straighten out when I finally got out of the car. And I totally missed out on the mountain landscape. My eyes were glued to the back of the buyer’s neck the whole way, willing the car to stay on the road, afraid that if I looked away, we’d go over the edge.

  Bernard and I raced to the bank the soon-to-be-owner had suggested. Bernard opened an account. The teller counted the money. Everything went through without a hitch. Still, we wanted to get rid of this guy, and paperwork had to be done to transfer ownership. It was noon. Nothing would open again before 4 p.m. Bernard was frantic. In one legal office we found a secretary though the notary wasn’t there.

  “I speak Spanish,” Bernard said. “Dictate to me what should go into the sales contract, and I’ll write it. Then we only have to wait for the signature from the notary.”

  For some reason, she was willing. Bernard wrote
the document. The moment the notary came in, we had him sign it. The deal was done. Now we had to get back to Sitges with that madman. He raced back with the same disregard for life and limb as when we went. I couldn’t be sure we’d make it and marvelled that a friend could lend such an out-of-control person his car.

  Once in Sitges and safely out of the car, we relaxed and shook hands. Now whatever happened to the yacht was his responsibility. I thought I’d enjoy the moment, but I didn’t. I felt a heavy sense of loss. The Santa Rita had been my home and my refuge, and had kept my family safe. I recalled with a pang of nostalgia that awesome moment when I first saw her in the cradle at the Shin Hsing Boatyard. I still loved the Santa Rita, and hoped she was in good hands.

  The new owner was all smiles and good will. “If you’re ever in Sao Paulo, look me up,” he said.

  He gave me a card with his address. I played with the idea for a while. He had told us some wonderful stories about his ranch and the staff, and a dairy-loving boa constrictor that milked his cows until it was caught in the act. Then I let the idea go and threw away the card.

  We rented a small beach house in Sitges, and I finally met Miguel and Carola. My introduction to Miguel was to mention the man in Paris who had shown me the etchings. Carola and I became friends, and Bernard and I spent many evenings in their home eating gourmet meals cooked by Carola and drinking fine wine offered by Miguel. One of Miguel’s posters is the first thing you see when you enter my apartment. An etching from his Guggenheim series hangs on my living room wall. We have a mutual friend in Montreal who married a girl from Barcelona whose father collected Miguel’s work. When you travel the planet, it becomes a much smaller place.

  During our stay, we received a post card from our buyer saying he managed to sail to Brazil on his own. He added that he liked the name Santa Rita and decided to keep it. The Santa Rita carried my name, and having watched her birth and lived with her so intimately over such a long period of time, I felt a part of me was out there with her, just as a part of her was with me. Wherever she sails, I am there. But I was also ready to move on. Bernard wasn’t. He was adrift without the yacht. He had lost something very loved and with it, his identity.