(This part did not copy correctly. I have tried to correct it, but there may be places I missed. If some sentence does not make sense, that is the reason. I apologize, and I thank all of you who have read SHADOWS. Part Four is the conclusion.)
Part Four
1
Nelson Alexander opened his eyes. The cabin was full of
sunlight reflecting off varnish and brass. Through the overhead
hatch he saw a rectangle of blue. JUSTINE was still. The sea
must be smooth. He glanced at his watch. 8:10 a.m. Late for
him. He lay there a moment longer before pushing himself up
and taking the few steps to the galley, where he filled the kettle
and lit the propane stove. As he stood waiting for the water to
boil, he looked out the porthole and abruptly came wide
awake. So the noise he had heard the previous afternoon had
been another boat. She was now on the beach. Water
lapped at her stern, but her bow was surrounded by damp
sand. From this distance she did not appear to be damaged.
Someone had already set an anchor off her stern to prevent
her from going harder aground. The tea kettle began to
whistle. Nelson turned the gas off and climbed up the
companionway ladder to the deck.
Waves swirled around rocks off one end of the island,
which consisted of two low green hills connected by a low
sand saddle. A coral reef extended beyond the rocks. From
the low water on the reef and the damp sand near the
grounded vessel, he concluded that the tide was low. Tides
were usually only three or four feet in the strait, but the high
spring tides of the new moon were near. Depending on how
quickly the fishermen had managed to set the stern anchor
and assuming there was no damage to the far side of the hull,
the fishing boat might come off easily. Nelson’s eyes scanned
the shore, and there, sitting on the sand just beyond the fishing
boat’s bow, were two figures. They did not appear to be
injured, but they were motionless. For as long as he watched,
the men did not move.
Nelson went back down into the cabin and made and
drank a cup of instant coffee. While he did so he continued to
watch the men on the shore through the cabin portholes. They
conveyed no sense of urgency. Nelson did not see what he
could do to help them, and he anticipated that in all
probability he would not even be able to communicate withthem. Hello, goodbye, and thank you, which were the only
words of the local language he knew, seemed unlikely to prove
of much use in this situation. Of course he would go ashore
and see. If the boat did not come off on the next high tide,
perhaps he could take one of the men across to the mainland
to get help from their village.
By nature and training, Nelson did not like clutter, so he
rinsed and dried and put the coffee cup away, before he
returned to the cockpit and pulled the Avon dinghy from the
lazarette, along with its oars and foot pump. While he was
inflating the dinghy, he saw that the men ashore still had not
moved and he begin to worry about them. Perhaps they were
in shock. He placed the waterproof bag which held his
medical kit into the dinghy before starting to row ashore. As he
did he had no sense of foreboding. It seemed just another
chance encounter.
The dinghy had covered half the distance to them before
Deng said anything. He had seen a figure come onto the
sailboat’s deck several times, but he had not been able to
determine if it was the same man each time. No one was in
sight on the boat now, so perhaps this man was alone. Deng
glanced at his father, who had not spoken for more than an
hour, who had said almost nothing since that confusing
moment when the MAI KEW’s hull struck and he and his father,
who were sleeping on mats on the wheelhouse floor, were
thrown together.
It had been a confusing and frightening night; but with the
coming of dawn, Deng’s irrepressible spirits rose. The MAI KEW
had missed the rocks and come to rest on sand. Her hull was
undamaged. She should be easy to re-float.
The sight of the yacht came as a surprise. Deng had no
idea that any other boat was in the anchorage. He wondered
if it had come in before or after the MAI KEW. He pointed it out
to his father, who merely grunted. There were no yachts in their
homeland. That anyone would be so foolish as to go to sea for
pleasure intrigued Deng. What would they do at sea if they did not have to work? Deng tried to imagine such an existence, but could not.
Nhu watched the dinghy come closer. The man rowed
well enough, but Nhu still saw him as a rich foreigner. Only the
rich had boats for idleness. Nhu wondered why this man did
not have an outboard engine for his dinghy like the others. If
you were rich, you could have anything. If you were rich, your
daughter and your wife were not slaves aboard a fishing
trawler, perhaps being used at that very moment, perhaps at
any moment, in unthinkable ways he could not avoid thinking
of. Bare legs spread. Bare feet in the air. Breasts. Hands.
Mouths. Organs. Moans. Cries. Whimpers. Grunts. Imposed
themselves on him. They seemed phantasmal, but he knew
that they were not. Whatever he against his will imagined, the
very worst, was real, had happened, was happening, would
continue to happen, until perhaps after Kew and Mai had
been passed around the fishing fleet and everyone was tired of
them, the fishermen might put them ashore somewhere, as
they had a few others, or they might simply throw them
overboard. Nhu did not expect he would ever touch a woman
again. If you were rich, your elder daughter did not become a
whore, and your elder son was not killed in some unknown
jungle. Or so Nhu thought. If you were rich, you were not
driven from your home. No, that was not true. Even the rich,
like Kiang, were sometimes driven from their homes; but if you
were rich like Kiang, you managed quite well in your new
home.
And the man rowing was foreign, because anyone who
was not from Nhu’s village was foreign. There were degrees of
foreignness. Nhu did not trust any of them. He did not trust
anyone or anything any more, not even the gods.
As the dinghy reached shallow water, Deng started to
stand, but Nhu made a small motion with his hand which kept
him seated.
The foreigner pulled the dinghy well up the beach before coming toward them. The man was tall and, Nhu guessed aswell as he could with foreigners, about his own age. As Nhu
stared up at the foreigner an odd sensation passed over him,
almost of danger, but the man did not appear threatening.
Then the foreigner said something unintelligible and the
moment passed.
When, as he expected, there was no response to his
question if the men were injured, Nelson gave what he hoped
was an encouraging smile and turned toward the beached
fishing boat. Deng stood, and, when his father did not stop
him, followed the foreigner.
Nelson and Deng walked around the bow of the MAI KEW,
although Nelson could not read the name. To Nelson and
even to Deng, who was more used to it, the fish smell was
overwhelming. At least there is something they can throw
overboard to lighten ship, Nelson thought. A few days’ catch is
a small enough price to pay.
The boat was heavily built of wood. Nelson guessed it
weighed thirty or forty thousand pounds, perhaps depending
on fuel and water and stinking fish, even more. There was no
way they were going to lift her without a crane, though it might
be possible as the tide came in to drive wedges under the keel
to help break her free. She did not seem to have struck hard or
to have dug much of a hole in the sand. None of her planks
was sprung. If she had gone onto the rocks or the reef, it would
be much worse. Aboard the JUSTINE he had tide tables for the
strait, but he doubted there was a correction for this tiny island.
It would just be a matter of how high the next tide, or even the
next few tides were, unless the weather changed again. A
strong wind driving waves from the west would quickly pound
the fishing boat to pieces. The sky appeared settled, but as he
had already seen, that had little meaning in this part of the
world.
Nelson tried to establish rapport with the younger man by
pointing at his noise and grimacing. The boy smiled and
nodded. When Nelson pointed at the broken chain dangling
from the bow, the boy looked serious and nodded again. Thatseems to be about the extent of communication, Nelson
thought.
They came around the stern and had to duck beneath a
thick line running taut out to the water. Fibers stuck out from
the line. Nelson touched them. Synthetic line had been the
norm in his world for decades. He could not recall when he
had last seen hemp.
Nelson walked back to where the older man squatted as
motionless as a statue. The boy was obviously all right, but
Nelson was less certain about the man. He tried to figure out
how to ask if he could help them. He pointed at the fishing
boat and then himself. The man made no response. He
wanted to suggest that they throw the fish overboard, but it
was not his place to tell them their business. Surely the man
knew his boat and the sea, as least these coastal waters, better
than he did. Nelson did not see anything physically wrong with
the old man and he could not simply begin to examine him.
Finally he pointed at himself and then at the JUSTINE and then
at a point in the sky where he thought the sun would be at high
tide.
As he rowed out, Nelson saw brightly colored fish
swimming in the coral beneath clear water. The fish were
flowers on the reef. It is a beautiful day, he thought. If your
boat isn’t on the beach.
He rowed in through a mass of dead fish. Dead fish eyes
stared blindly up at him. Dead fish scales scraped against the
dinghy. Dead white fish bellies emitted dead fish odors.
The two fishermen were much as they had been when
Nelson left them some hours earlier, the older one squatting, the
younger standing; but obviously they had been busy in the
meantime. Tons of fish littered the beach and floated on the
rising water beside the fishing boat. A pile of nets and other
equipment stood farther up the sand along with several long
poles cut from the trunks of palm trees. The boy smiled; but the
older man ignored him as he had before. The line running out
to the anchor had been repeatedly tightened as the tide
came in and was still taut. According to the tide tables, it washigh tide in the city right now, and would be high tide at a port on the mainland a few miles north of them in twenty minutes. Tides would be increasingly higher for the next few days, but if the fishing boat was going to come off easily, she would do so now.
The anchorage remained smooth. As is often the case,
the storm left a calm behind it. While they certainly did not
want a wind from the west, a slight swell might help break the
fishing boat free. Nelson chose a spot carefully, close enough
to the men to appear friendly but not so close as to intrude.
At least the foreigner has some manners, thought Nhu.
For a few more minutes he watched the water inch higher
along the MAI KEW’s keel. When the stem was covered and
the water was at the line of dark scum that marked the fishing
boat’s normal waterline, he released a breath that was the
only sign of the great tension which had been accumulating
within him for years, and said to Deng, “Now.”
Nelson watched the two men trot across the sand, lift one
of the palm logs and force it between the fishing boat’s keel
and the sand as a roller, then climb over the stern to the winch,
which was normally powered by the ship’s engine. Although
the engine’s cooling intake was beneath the water, Nelson
assumed that the fishermen thought it would suck up too much
sand to enable it to be used.
Spoked wheels about two feet in diameter extended on
both sides of the winch. The men each took a wheel and
began to turn. Only a few inches of line clicked in before they
came to a halt. Sinewy muscles in their back and shoulders
bunched. Necks corded. Veins popped out in their foreheads.
But not a single additional click came from the winch.
The men continued to strain. Nelson found himself
straining with them. The boat’s bow seemed to move. Nelson
felt an unexpected joy. But no, it was just a movement of the
water. The boat was still stuck hard. With a gasp the older man
released his grip on the wheel and the younger man followed.
They stood, chests heaving for a few minutes, before the
older man said something and they both jumped on the sand
and tried to force the palm log farther forward between the
sand and the keel. But they could not move it either.
The water had crept a bit higher. Back they climbed onto
the boat and strained again on the winch without achieving
anything.
Standing on the beach, Nelson wanted to help, but he did
not want to interrupt the fishermen. Now, when, after catching
his breath, the older man climbed slowly down to the beach
and took another of the palm logs and levered it under the
bow, Nelson instinctively climbed over the stern and took a
place at the winch. The startled boy called something to his
father, who scowled at the distraction, glanced aft and gave a
brief nod, before continuing to wrestle the log forward. The
boy took a grip on the wheel at his side of the winch and
Nelson took the other. At a word from the boy, they both tried
to turn the winch.
Handling his own boat had kept Nelson fit and the boy
though small was work hardened. But no matter how they
strained, not matter what stances they took to increase
leverage, their efforts and those of the old man came to
nothing. They might as well have been trying to move the
island itself. The fishing boat felt as if it were welded to the
sand. Nelson’s hands slipped on the wheel. He was straining so
hard that he lost his balance and fell heavily against the
transom. He tried to resume his position, but his shoulder was
numb and he could not close his right hand. He stood, sweat
pouring into his eyes, chest heaving, staring stupidly at his
useless hand, thinking how carefully he had always treated that
hand during his years as a surgeon, what a marvelous hand it
was said to be, what incredibly complicated and delicate
procedures it could perform. Yet it failed to do something as
simple as hold onto a wheel.
As feeling began to return and he was able to flex his
fingers, Nelson looked up through the sweat. The boy had
stopped too and was breathing heavily, though not as heavily
as I am, thought Nelson. As well he shouldn’t be. He musthave thirty years on me. I am more than old enough to be his
father. Nelson placed his hands back on the wheel, but the
boy shook his head. Nelson had to admit that he was relieved.
He did not have much left. He leaned wearily against the
ships’ rail, suddenly aware of the oppressive humidity and the
blazing sun.
He did not realize how long he had been standing there
until he felt something touch his side. The boy held out a small
handleless cup of tea. The old man had climbed back aboard
and squatted, sipping from a similar cup. He did not
acknowledge Nelson in any way.
The boy went and got himself a cup and naturally
squatted too. Nelson felt himself towering above them. He sat
down on the deck and held up the cup and said in their
language, “Thank you.”
The boy said, “You are welcome.” And the older man
gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“He works hard for a foreigner,” said Deng.
Nhu only grunted.
“Well, he does. It is good of him to help us.”
Nhu not did raise his head. “Just keep working yourself.”
The tide had gone out and left the MAI KEW surrounded
by sand. With their hands, an old machete, tin cans, and a
bucket, they were digging around the hull. They had not asked
him to--they had no way to ask, and Nhu would not have done
so anyway--but the foreigner had followed their lead and was
working near the bow, while Nhu and Deng dug beneath the
stern.
The MAI KEW remained on an almost even keel, heeled
only a few degrees to starboard. Her bow was V-ed, but from
amidships aft she was flat. The three men had cleared the
sand away completely from the port side of the hull, but
because of the slight heel, had more trouble on the starboard
side, particularly near the stern, which was, Nhu believed, what
was holding the boat fast.
They had to dig their way under the hull, and there was
little room in which to move. The sand was compacted hard.Barnacles on MAI KEW cut Nhu’s back. No matter. Face
pressed into the sand, head turned sideways, he extended one
arm and scraped with a tin can. Despite the palm trees they
had chopped down to prop the hull, Nhu was acutely aware
of MAI KEW’s weight above him. If their digging was too
successful and the hull shifted, he would be crushed. Even if he
didn’t die immediately, the other two would never be able to
move the hull and he would be trapped and drown. Is that
what the gods have planned for me: drowning in ankle deep
water? It would be fitting after all they have put me through,
he thought; as he slowly pulled the tin of sand down the side of
his body and pushed it out to where Deng could reach and
empty it. Canful by canful. I might as well be digging with a
spoon. But what else is there to do?
They worked until the incoming tide stopped them and
then the three men stood back and surveyed their labor. They
had dug two-thirds of the hull free, but the remaining third,
where the work went slowly, was crucial. Only one man at a
time could work under the hull, and Nelson was too big, so Nhu
and Deng had alternated. As they studied the boat, none of
them thought they had done enough. And as high water
came and they strained futilely on the winch, they were proven
right.
When the water receded again, they were depressed to
see that not only had all their labor been to no avail, it may
have made matters worse, for the fishing boat settled deeper
into the sand their digging had softened.
Nelson lay on the lower berth in JUSTINE’s main cabin; an
untouched cup of tea on the varnished table beside him.
Another day had passed, or as he had come to measure
time, two more tides. He had become a creature of the moon,
living, sleeping, working, from tide to tide. How many tides had
the fishing boat been aground? Five? Or was it six?
On the last tide he had moved the JUSTINE close to the
beached boat and set the big seventy-five pound hurricane
anchor that he had never before used. He did not carry much
aboard that he did not use. His rule was that if anything wasnot used for a year, it could continue not to be used, and he
threw or gave it away. Justine had always insisted that he give
things away or at least leave them some place ashore where
someone would have an opportunity to take them. But the
hurricane anchor was an exception. Buried at the bottom of
the cockpit locker, it had been far enough out of the way to
escape notice. He had to remove everything else from the
locker to reach it, and then found that he was almost too tired
to lift the anchor onto deck. This broken sleep, this hard labor,
was like being an intern again; but he was fifty years old now
and tired. The old man--I think of him as ‘the old man,’ Nelson
thought, yet he is probably my age. Well I feel like an old man
right now--the father then, for they seem to be father and son.
He doesn’t seem to be tired. He really doesn’t show much of
anything at all.
After the disappointment of the last tide, Nelson had
made eating gestures and pointed at the two men and himself
and then to the JUSTINE. The boy’s eyes gleamed in
anticipation, but the old man had nodded negatively. It is as
though he dislikes me, Nelson thought. Perhaps he distrusts all
strangers. Foreigners have not been kind to this part of the
world. For that matter the people who live here have not been
kind to one another.
Nelson knew his mind was wandering. His body
desperately needed sleep. There was no need for him to row
ashore and continue to try to help get the fishing boat off the
beach, particularly for people who did not even like him. He
could just raise anchor and leave them to their troubles. He
might even do more good by leaving and taking word to the
mainland. They had been fortunate that the weather had
remained settled for so long. If the boat did not come off
today, that is what he would do. The next two tides were the
highest for a month. They needed more men. They really
needed a bulldozer and a tug boat. But, he admitted to
himself, he wanted to be part of the salvage, not a messenger.
He wanted the three of them to succeed. This would have to
be the tide.
Nelson had wedged his storm anchor in a coral head and
run a two hundred foot length of one inch nylon line to the
fishing boat’s winch. From the dinghy he had seen that the
fishing boat’s own anchor had dragged until it too was caught
in the coral. They would never retrieve it, and he thought he
would probably lose his storm anchor as well, a loss he would
gladly accept if the boat would come off the beach. The line
from the fishing boat’s anchor also ran to the winch.
Clearly the three of them could not exert enough force on
the winch to move the boat. They had tried until they were
literally blue in the face. They had also dug half the beach
away, much of it repeatedly. You would have thought the tide
might have helped by undercutting the hull, but it had not.
You would have thought that nothing was left to hold the boat.
His aching muscles testified that he had dug enough sand to
free the QE II.
Through the hatch above him the daylight was dim. 6:30 by his watch. For a moment he could not recall whether it was
morning or evening. Had he just come through a night?
Had he slept through a tide?
Too quickly for his sore body, he stood and stared through
a porthole. No. It was morning. The tide was high. And in
another hour it will be higher. The highest it has been since the
boat first grounded. We have done as much as humanly
possible. Space has been cleared for the fishing boat’s cooling
intake and for her prop to turn. The old man would use the
engine this time, even if he ruined it, both to power the winch
and to try to break the suction with the prop; and Nelson would
simultaneously use JUSTINE’s engine to try to pull her off with a
tow line secured to the fishing boat’s stern. If the fishing boat’s
engine lasted only a few seconds before packing up, it might
be enough. If she lifted even a millimeter, she would come.
Surely she will come, Nelson told himself, staring shoreward at
the ungainly shape of the grounded boat and the two low hills
of the island linked by a line of silhouetted palm trees.
Deng shivered as he walked back from the trees. morning was cool, but he trembled with anticipation. The
In a fewminutes the MAI KEW would again be afloat. His father
declared flatly that she would come off on this tide or not at all.
And he, Deng, knew that she would come. He could feel it in
his bones. They had worked hard. They deserved to save the
boat. He would put everything he had into the effort. He felt
young and strong. This was something he would always
remember. It would become one of the stories long related in
the family. Then he remembered that there was no family.
Only himself and his father. But that was only temporary. He
did not think too much about what was happening to his
mother and Kew. Somehow he knew that they would all be
reunited one day. And he would soon marry and continue the
family himself. He had not yet told his father, but he already
knew the girl. Her name was Tien, and she was the daughter of
another refugee family in the detention camp where he and
his father were kept until Kiang found and sponsored them.
The sky was gray and the sea silvery. It is like being inside
an oyster, thought Deng. He carried a folded palm leaf with an
offering of flowers and rice down to the water’s edge and set it
down gently. But it did not float away. Deng frowned at the
bobbing leaf. Of course with an incoming tide and no wind, it
can do nothing else. It is not really a bad omen. I should have
made the offering earlier, but I was too busy or asleep. He was
ashamed that he had slept when he should have been casting
his offering to the gods. But he needed his sleep so he would
be strong for the upcoming effort. Besides the tide would go
slack while they were trying to get the MAI KEW off and the leaf
would surely be accepted by the gods at what would then be
the most propitious moment.
He raised his eyes from the offending leaf. Twenty yards
away the sailboat was resting motionless on her reflection. She
was so graceful and so serene. She reminded Deng of Tien;
but then many things these days reminded Deng of Tien. Once
the two of them were caught by a sudden shower while
walking together about the camp and her soaked clothes
clung to her body and he had seen her small hard nipples
poking through the cloth and the dark shadow between her
legs and the curve of her hips. He had never touched her. Hehad only once even had the opportunity to kiss her. It was
certainly time for him to be married. He was very glad that the
MAI KEW would be afloat in a few minutes. If the engine was
not damaged, he and his father could be across the strait that
very afternoon, and back in the city in a few days. He would
not waste any time. There was always the chance that Tien’s
family would be sent to some other country. He would tell his
father that very day.
Nhu stood in the wheelhouse, watching his son walk
through the long shadows cast across the beach by the palm
trees. The sun was just rising behind those trees, infusing color
into a gray monochrome. Except for a few birds calling from
the jungle and from out over the sea, there was silence. The
water was perfectly still as it rose around the MAI KEW.
Although Nhu had seen the sea refuse his offering, Deng
seemed happy. He walked with energy. There was spring in his
step. Was I ever that young? wondered Nhu. What does he
hope for? Deng had always been resilient and optimistic. He
doesn’t see or even suspect that we are like that palm leaf,
drifting helplessly while unknown forces that we understand no
more than the palm leaf understands the wind and tide act
upon us.
Nhu had come to hate those forces. He had come to
hate this boat. It was too big. He was too tired. His body and
spirit were sore and cut in a thousand places. He felt as though
he had scraped MAI KEW clear of barnacles with his back. If
they had gone aground in his old gujong, it would have been
nothing. He recalled how in the past he had looked enviously
at boats like the MAI KEW. How proud he once would have
been to own such a boat, and now he did. Or he and Kiang
did. How he wished Mai could see him with such a boat. How
he had hoped that if he made enough money he might be
able to go to the ports frequented by the trawlers and leave
word that he was willing to buy back his wife and daughter.
But now even that hope was fading.
Desire brought sorrow. That was the lesson of the
wandering teachers. He had not wanted to believe them, buthis life proved them right. He hated everything: the boat; the
gods, who he had concluded were either stupid or evil; the
remote men, both foreign and of his own people, who wanted
war, and who took his older son and daughter and drove him
from his home.
Deng had never wanted anything unreasonable. Only a
wife and a family and to fish. Obviously even these modest
desires were too much. He had nothing left but consuming
anger and bewilderment at the injustice of life; and he had
Deng; and he had this obstinate boat that refused to leave the
beach.
Well, we will see, boat, Nhu thought. Either you are going
to come off this beach this morning, or I am going to destroy
you in the attempt.
2
JUSTINE’s diesel started smoothly.
After letting the engine warm up for a few minutes, Nelson
put it into gear and eased the sloop forward until the slack was
taken up in the line running to the fishing boat. As he did so he
watched the boy stand by the lines running from the fishing
boat’s winch to the two anchors. The fishing boat’s own power
was crucial. Nelson thought the old man looked grim enough
to burn out the engine if necessary. So far he hadn't even
started it. That was understandable. Despite their efforts, sand
was going to get sucked into the cooling intake. The system
would begin to clog almost the moment the engine was
switched on. The old man would have to go directly to full
power. All they needed was a few seconds. Once she was
free, JUSTINE could keep her under control.
Nhu did not trust engines. One of the men who ran
another boat in partnership with Kiang had taught Nhu about
the engine; but he was not comfortable with it. The wind he
understood; this lump of metal never. So, despite himself, he
said a prayer to the gods that they might relent, before he
called down to Deng, “Be sure the lines do not snarl.” Deng
nodded solemnly. Nhu pushed the ignition button.
For a brief interval nothing happened, and Nelson, who
could see from JUSTINE’s cockpit that Nhu was trying to start
the engine, wondered what was causing the delay. High
water would not last forever. Then the engine coughed and
caught and Nhu pushed the lever to give power to both the
winch and the propeller, and pushed another lever to put the
propeller in reverse, and a third which moved the RPM’s to the
edge of the red zone on the readout; and everything
happened very quickly.
As Nhu turned aft, the boat lurched and he fell against the
side of the deck house.
Deng fell too, but gladly as he realized that they had
broken free of the suction of the sand. The lines on the winch
were reeling in smoothly. But even as he looked up at them
from where he had fallen, they stopped. The winch continued
to turn, stretching the lines to their breaking points. Deng
scrambled to his feet, thinking the lines must be snagged
somewhere. But as far as he could see, they were not. The
boat itself was caught on something. The deck was shaking.
An unearthly wail came from the lines. Angry thumps from the
diesel. Groans from the hull. He glanced at the deckhouse,
but could not see his father. He ran to the side of the stern.
One of the palm trunks used to support the hull had fallen
beneath the keel. Without thinking how he could move it,
Deng jumped down to the sand just as the MAI KEW lurched
again and toppled onto its side.
Nelson’s emotions roller-coastered from elation when he
saw the fishing boat move, to shock when it fell, to elation
again as it continued to slip, seemingly unharmed, into the
water, where she righted herself, to concern as she kept on
coming. The winch continued to pull her blindly toward the
anchors. The lines were disappearing into an empty stern.
Nelson could not see either of the fishermen. Pulling in on the
now unnecessary line running from JUSTINE to the other boat to keep it from catching on their propellers, he started to wonder
if they meant to run him down. When the boat was halfway
between the beach and the JUSTINE, Nelson yelled, and the old man’s head appeared in a wheelhouse window. Nelson
could see him clearly. He seemed dazed. His eyes wandered
for a moment, and then he reached down and the engine
stopped. The fishing boat’s momentum carried her to JUSTINE.
Nelson fended her off. As he pushed against the other
boat’s bow, he wondered where the boy was.
Nhu stumbled down the wheelhouse ladder. He had hit his
head when he fell and felt dizzy, but otherwise he was all right,
and a little dizziness was nothing with the MAI KEW afloat. The
gods had relented. The stern was a mess of lines. He nodded
acknowledgment to the smiling foreigner who was only a few
feet away. Where was Deng? There was no response when he
called his name. Nhu took a few steps forward so he could see
around the wheelhouse to the bow. Perhaps the boy was
checking the hold for leaks. He glanced into the cabin. This
was ridiculous. It was beyond belief that he should be
deliberately hiding. Yet where could he be?
Nhu became angry. Did Deng think their work was over
just because the MAI KEW was afloat? They had much to do
and a long way to go before she was safe. The foreigner was
saying something. What did he want? With one hand he was
holding the two boats apart and with the other he was pointing
at the shore. Nhu followed the direction of his arm and there in
the hole the MAI KEW had left in the beach he saw Deng, lying
on his back, facing the sky. Nhu was about to yell at him to get
up, when he noticed that Deng’s legs were bent at impossible
angles. The foreigner said something and pointed at the
dinghy behind his boat.
As the foreigner rowed ashore, a folded palm leaf,
carrying flowers and rice and hope, drifted past them.
Deng did not understand what had happened. he lying on the beach? Where was the MAI KEW? Why was
Where was his father?
He remembered jumping from the stern and then
something hitting him. He thought it must have been the boat,
but he did not feel anything. The sky was very pretty. It wouldbe a fine day. His father would become angry with him if he
lay here much longer. Besides his legs felt wet. He must have
fallen half into the water. He recalled how as a small child he
had discovered that early in the morning the sea was often
warmer then the air. He liked to go swimming at dawn,
although his mother always worried about snakes and sharks.
His missed her very much and he desperately wanted her at
that very moment. She and Kew and Li and Tien all became
confused in his mind. He wanted to be held. He wanted a
woman’s comfort. He wanted to curl up and be protected.
Yet he did not know why or from what.
Something salty was running down his face. The sea was
salty, but so was blood. Had he been hit on the head hard
enough to bleed? It was a relief to realize that that was his
problem. He was confused because he had hit his head.
Carefully he raised his hands to his face. They did not come
away red. It was not blood. It was tears. He was embarrassed
to find himself crying. He must stop before his father saw him.
Where was his father? He must get up and find him. But this
was a very comfortable beach. Nevertheless he must get up.
There was work to do. The MAI KEW was afloat and was going
to take him back to the city to marry Tien. He turned his head.
Yes, there she was, floating beside the sailboat. He had
completely forgotten the other boat and the foreigner, but
there he was, rowing a dinghy with his father in it. They must
not find him like this, lying down and crying. He tried to push
himself up. He could only raise his head a few inches, but it
was enough. His eyes opened wide. With sight came pain. He
screamed.
The scream shattered the still morning where there had
been only the rhythmic splashing of oars. Water from oars. The
pond he had first rowed on as a boy. The old man said
something and stupidly tried to stand, which only upset the
balance of the dinghy and slowed them. Nelson guessed his
meaning and muttered, “I am rowing as fast as I can.” The
scream continued, became one continuous wail, filling the sky,
echoing over hills and palm trees, startling sea gulls into flight,passing the palm leaf out at sea. It was a scream to fill a cold universe. Nelson recalled the shriek of celestial light he had
written about in a boyhood story about the creation of the
universe, and found himself wondering how many thousands
perhaps millions of people in every part of the planet were
screaming in pain and terror and anguish and sorrow and
loneliness at that moment. What would it sound like, out in
space, this shrieking planet?
The old man did not wait. When the dinghy was in shallow
water, he leapt out and thrashed ashore. Nelson yelled at him
not to touch the boy, hoping that his tone of warning would
penetrate.
Nelson had not dealt with a medical emergency for two
years, but his habit of making haste methodically asserted itself,
and he pulled the dinghy well above the high water mark
before grabbing his medical bag and running toward the
scream. They certainly did not want to have the dinghy drift
away and have to swim the boy out to the boats.
The moment he stood over him, Nelson knew the boy
would die. Not even with the facilities of a modern hospital
could much be done. Nelson could, he supposed, amputate
what was left of the legs, but there was no point. From just
above the rib cage the boy was crushed. Nelson could not
figure out how it had happened, unless the boy fell from the
boat on the first lurch and been crushed by the second. From
a distance the boat had not seemed to lurch that severely. It
really made no difference. However it had happened, the
boy’s body had burst. Bits of internal organs, bone, blood. The
stench was terrible. And the scream. Amazing that he was still
alive. At least he could ease the pain, though Nelson doubted
the boy was feeling much pain. The scream was shock.
Nelson turned to the old man, who was in shock himself.
He is the one I will have to treat, thought Nelson. He held his
medical bag up in front of the old man’s eyes and opened it so
he could see the instruments and medicines. Surely it obvious
that this is a doctor’s professional bag, not a boat’s
rudimentary emergency kit. Nelson spoke calmly,
communicating by tone and manner, as he always had donewith distressed relatives. “I am a doctor. I am going to give
your son an injection to ease his suffering. There is nothing else
to be done.” He put the bag down and took from it a syringe
and a vial. He let the man see him fill the syringe.
And he had thought the gods had relented, thought Nhu.
What had he done? What had Deng done? He was a good
son. What had Mai and Kew done? What had Duong or even
Li done? Could they really have been such monsters in their
previous lives?
He had not seen anything like Deng since the body in the
jungle the night he went looking for Duong. What was the
foreigner doing? Why was he showing him that bag? What
was he going to do with that needle? Nhu had been given a
few injections by foreigners who came to the village once a
year or so when he was young. He had been told that they
would protect him from evil. Obviously they had not. And he
had been given more shots when he and Deng were taken to
the refugee detention camp in the city. Those made him sick.
Why did the foreigner want to add to his son’s pain. He should
stop him. But Nhu did not move as the man knelt and pushed
a needle into Deng’s arm.
As the morphine took effect, Deng stopped screaming.
His father and the foreigner were above him. In a nearly
normal voice, he said, “Please tell Tien that I want to marry
her.” And he died.
Tien? Tien? thought Nhu. The only Tien I know is an old
woman in the village, old enough to be my own mother, if she is
even still alive. You want to marry Tien? Besides you are too
young to marry. No, that is not true. I was younger when I
married. Then you are too poor. And besides you are dead.
The foreigner killed you with his needle.
For a moment longer he thought: it is just as well. You
could not have lived anyway. Perhaps, my son, your next life
will be happier.
And then Nhu stopped thinking. He could endure no
more. He reached down and took a splintered piece of wood
and struck out at all the remote forces that had too often struck
at him. Distant, intangible, invisible; but inexorably, undeniably
real. He could not hit them, but he could and did, repeatedly,
hit Nelson Alexander, who was kneeling with his back turned
and did not feel anything after the first blow to his head.
Death, which since his father’s suicide he had spent a lifetime
thinking about, confronting, struggling against, caught him
completely unaware.
Nhu beat Nelson Alexander’s body long after he was
dead. The victim was less important than the act of striking out,
of striking back, of retaliating, of the atavistic satisfaction of
club against flesh. It was all right for the priests to say that one
must accept one’s destiny. Then it was this man’s destiny to be
killed by him. There was no such thing as an innocent victim.
Besides he was a foreigner. One of them. Besides he had killed
Deng. Some might say, some surely would say, that Nhu was
doing the foreigner a kindness by releasing him from this life. It
was like saving fish from drowning. Nhu began to laugh and
the sound of his own hysterical laughter brought him back to
himself.
He stared at the two bloody bodies lying on the sand and
then at the piece of wood in his hand. He noticed that it was
from one of the palm trees they had cut to support the MAI
KEW. He turned and gazed over the anchorage. Yes. They
had gotten her off. She was sitting near the foreigner's sailboat.
Nhu did not feel anything. Not tired. Not elated. Not
happy. Not sad. He did not think anything as he pushed
scattered pieces of wood into the hole left in the sand by the
MAI KEW.
Deng’s body fell apart when Nhu lifted it, and he had to
make several trips to carry all the parts. What he scraped up in
his hands did not sicken him. This was no longer his son. It was
like fish entrails, only bigger. His son’s spirit would be lingering.
Memories of the elaborate cremation he had witnessed as a
small boy returned: golden towers, white paper cows, foodand implements placed beside the bodies, smoke, hideous
masks, festive crowds. Deng, I cannot give you that. Hadn’t
he thought the same thing when he burned that unknown
boy’s body in the jungle?
When Deng was pretty much assembled, Nhu discovered
that he had no way to start a fire. He was about to get into the
dinghy to row out to the MAI KEW, when he thought to look in
the foreigner’s bag. He tossed tubes and bottles and
instruments onto the sand, until near the bottom of the bag he
found a box of matches.
He was about to light the pyre, when he turned and tried
to carry the foreigner’s body to it. But the foreigner was too
heavy and Nhu could only drag him and then force the
awkward body part-way onto the wood. Two bodies were not
supposed to be cremated on the same pyre because the spirits
might intermingle and be reborn together. Nhu did not care.
Burning the foreigner was not a change of mind, or a decision;
it was simply something he did. Perhaps out of habit. He did
not know what the foreigner believed in, or had hoped for, or
suffered, or dreamed. He was not even sure anymore what he
himself believed in, and he no longer hoped for anything.
Once the fire caught, Nhu did not stay to watch. As a
child he had thought: one day I will be there in the flames. But
he hadn’t been yet. He only put other people in them.
3
The MAI KEW’s propeller shaft had bent when she came
off the beach, so Nhu towed her behind the foreigner’s boat.
He had never before been on a yacht, but the key was in the
ignition. He simply cast off the two anchor lines and moved the
remaining line from the MAI KEW’s stern to her bow. Smoke was still rising from the beach when he steered the yacht around the end of the island, with the MAI KEW trailing dumbly behind.
The day remained fine and calm and the water smooth.
Nhu maintained a course parallel to the shore, midway
between the track of the great ships further out and the small
fishing boats in close. He realized that the ships and boats hadbeen there all the time. Ever since the storm began, his world had been reduced to the island and the grounded MAI KEW.
Sunset came and night fell and Nhu remained at the
JUSTINE’s tiller. He was neither hungry nor thirsty. He did not
think about anything in particular, though he did once wonder
how much fuel was in the yacht’s tank. He had no plan
beyond continuing until he reached the city or the engine
stopped. If the engine stopped first, he would try to sail.
Toward morning the sailboat became sluggish. Nhu
looked astern and saw dimly through the darkness that the MAI
KEW was low in the water. She must have sprung some planks.
Nhu reached back and calmly cut the tow line. Let her go. Let
everything go. As the sinking boat vanished in the night astern,
Nhu experienced his first feelings since the events of the
preceding morning: he felt relief. Now there was nothing left.
He had nothing. He wanted nothing. A beatific smile formed
on his face. Perhaps this was the purpose of all the seemingly
meaningless suffering.
When daylight came he turned off the engine, and in
welcome silence began to sail the yacht. One sailboat is
fundamentally like another. There are lines to pull sails up and
lines to pull sails in. When he figured it out, Nhu thought the jib
furling gear was very clever.
He did not understand how to use the self-steering vane,
though he correctly deduced its purpose. The yacht was not
as fast as a gujong, but she was wonderfully responsive and
easy to steer for so large a vessel. He enjoyed sailing her.
Late in the afternoon he passed a volcano on the
mainland. From a distance the pure cone rising into the sky
seemed serene, but Nhu had once anchored near its base and
saw a barren field which had been covered by lava during an
eruption a few years earlier. Another fisherman told him that
an entire train passing at the wrong moment was buried
beneath the lava. He pointed out to Nhu where the twisted
rails disappeared.
Before darkness that second night, Nhu hove to. He found
himself taking pleasure in his ability to handle this boat, until herealized that such pleasure was a first step back toward desire. He needed to relieve himself and he needed to eat. He hung off the stern for the first and then climbed into the cabin to look for food.
He had not gone below deck before. He was impressed
by the varnish and the brass. A framed picture of a blond
woman stopped him. For a moment he felt guilt. Was she
waiting for the foreign man the way he waited for Mai and
Kew? Would she grieve for the foreign man the way he
grieved for Duong and Li? Then he hardened. If so, it was
nothing to him. Had anyone felt guilt at the grief they caused
him? Besides it was either nothing, blind chance, or it was
destiny, karma. What happened was meant to happen. And
guilt was seductive. It was not to be felt any more than any
other emotion. If the blond woman grieved, she must learn to
master her emotions.
In a galley locker Nhu found cans and crackers, and he
found a can opener in a drawer. After examining the pictures
on the cans, he opened one of spaghetti and another of
blueberries.
That night the wind died and Nhu started the engine. Out
in the strait, the lights of passing ships moved steadily toward
their destinations. Ahead of him loomed the lights of the city.
He took the sailboat to the main wharf and tied her
alongside. Great buildings towered silently above him, as he
stood for a moment looking down at the sailboat rocking
gently on black oily water.
He had no way of knowing how soon other fishermen
would use the island anchorage and find the charred bodies
and the tubes and bottles he had thrown from the medical
bag. He knew nothing about fingerprints and had never
understood why ink was smeared on their hands when he and
Deng first entered the detention camp. That was just one of
the many strange and incomprehensible things that had been
done to them, lost among the questions and physical
examinations and his desperate efforts to get someone to do
something to rescue his wife and daughter. But he was not sofoolish as to believe that the gods were through with him. His
only defense lay in having no desire. No matter what they did
he would try never to feel anything again. He was glad,
though, that he had struck back once. He wondered if he
should become a holy man.
Nhu turned and quickly climbed the stone steps and
disappeared into the city.
