Isle of Passion (32 page)

“They are coming,” she told Ramón. “Let’s hurry and finish burying this. They’re coming back early. They must have made a good catch.”

They were coming at a gallop, bolting like colts, but carrying no food. They stopped in a circle around Alicia, without saying anything. She saw them panting, extremely pale, a wild look in their eyes.

“What’s the matter, for God’s sake? Someone fell down?”

“No, ma’am.”

“What happened? Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because you will scold us if we tell you, ma’am.”

“The children! Something happened to the children?”

“No, nothing to do with the children. It’s because up on the cliff we saw—We saw Lucifer.”

“Are we going to start that again?” barked Alicia, making no effort to conceal her fury.

Tirsa, who had lagged behind, came then.

“It’s true, Alicia. This time I saw him myself.”

“Did you see the devil? You, too?” There was more sarcasm than surprise in Alicia’s voice.

“Yes,” Tirsa said. “Me, too. I don’t know if it was the devil, but it was some horrible being.”

Then, all started talking at once: he was tall, big, his red hair standing out, hairy all over, hairy only on his back. His eyes spewed fire, no, they were human but he had a snout instead of a mouth. His face was that of a man. He walked on all fours. He didn’t walk on four, only on three. In any case, he was on two legs, but he did not walk like other people. His skin was dark, dried up, he had scales like an iguana. He smelled putrid, and before he appeared on top of the cliff they had perceived his stink, like a rotten corpse. He was naked, and his private parts were the devil’s, or at least very big, and anyway, he was truly male, no doubt about that.

“The devil surely he’s not,” Alicia decreed. “So he is a man or a beast. Or he’s nothing, like so many other ghosts around here.”

“He’s a beast,” some women said.

“He’s a man,” said the others.

“Could he be a shipwrecked sailor who got here?” Alicia asked.

“Well, if he was shipwrecked,” Tirsa answered, “he must have lived at the bottom of the sea for years.”

They decided that a few women, armed with sticks and headed by Tirsa, would go around the isle. They would go to places they had not been since they had set essential perimeters of action for themselves.

“We’d better not go today. It’s already late and darkness will soon close in on us,” Benita pleaded.

“Yes,” agreed Tirsa, “we’d better do it tomorrow when it’s light.”

“Better never,” Alicia said. “Let’s not look for him, but wait and see if he appears. There is no hurry, since he has caused no harm so far.”

The women had a restless though quiet night. At dawn Alicia summoned all to the beach. When they arrived, they saw in Tirsa’s hands two kitchen knives, which she was sharpening on a stone.

“Are we going to hunt that demon we saw?” they asked.

“No. We aren’t hunting any demons. We are going to cut our hair,” Alicia announced, “because it’s interfering with our tasks. Besides, we cannot take care of it anymore, and, unkempt like this, our manes look frightful. We have all discussed this several times, it was decided long ago, and we’re finally doing it. Who will be the first volunteer?”

Rosalía was first, then Benita and Francisca. Alicia and Tirsa would grab the long tresses and shear them just below the ears, throwing the cuttings on a single pile that started to look like a sleeping hairy animal. Then Alicia and Tirsa cut each other’s manes. Someone brought the broken mirror; they looked at their short haircuts, and they all laughed.

“Let me see how you look,” Francisca said to Benita. “I bet you will not get any beaux with your hair like that.”

“And whom did you have in mind for me? The cliff monster?”

“I’ll wait for this child to grow up and marry me,” Rosalía said, lifting Ramoncito up in her arms and smacking kisses on his face. “And by then, my hair will be long again.”

“We are already shorn,” Alicia said. “All but you, Alta.”

“Not me, ma’am, I’m not cutting it.”

“Come on, you’re not eating enough for you and your hair.”

“No, ma’am, I can’t . . . because my German friend likes it.”

“Let it be, then. This girl is really in love.”

The little girls came running with their porcelain doll all battered and ragged.

“Alta! Dear Alta! Make a real wig for the doll,” they begged her, “she is tired of having no hair.”

“No hair, no hands, and only one eye. The poor thing is hopeless,” Alta said while choosing a good chunk of hair for the wig.

That afternoon Benita separated from the group to go salt the fish. She came back breathless, her face all flushed.

“The monster appeared, ma’am,” she told Alicia. “He’s—It’s Victoriano Alvarez.”

“What do you mean? Victoriano Alvarez died months ago.”

“No, ma’am, he didn’t die.”

“Of course he did. Scurvy did him in!”

“No, it didn’t kill him. He’s disfigured, but he didn’t die.”

“It must be another apparition. Did you touch him?”

“He touched me. He really did touch me.”

Benita said that she was cutting the fish in fillets and separating the bones when she smelled a strong, unpleasant odor. She thought of the fetid lagoon, or that maybe there was still an unburied corpse. The monster then came up behind her without making any noise. When she realized it, she jumped up and screamed, and he told her not to be frightened, that he was Victoriano.

“Victoriano Alvarez? Are you dead?” Benita asked him, almost in a whisper.

“I almost died, but I came back to life all by myself.”

She looked very carefully at the ghost who was facing her and recognized in him a remote resemblance to the lighthouse keeper, to the big and strong soldier of old. His legs were now bent and full of boils. In order to stand up he needed to support himself on a stick. His skin was spotty and his thin mat of flaming red, spiky hair continued in hard corkscrew tufts all down his back. He had toadlike eyes, and his gums had shrunk. He had no teeth.

“What happened to you that made you so ugly, Victoriano?”

“Hunger and disease did it.”

He said he lay dying in his hammock for many days in the lighthouse lair, and when his soul left him, the crabs invaded his den. When he woke up, he was able to catch and eat them by simply reaching out, and that had saved his life because he was so weak he could not even get up. When he was very thirsty, he dragged himself across the floor and lay faceup in the rain. As time passed and there were no signs of other human beings, he thought they had all died and he was the only survivor. He recuperated some and began hunting and eating boobies. They were raw, slimy, and reeking of iodine. As he could not get to his feet, he lay there, dead still, waiting for hours at a time until a bird got close enough to be hit. It took him quite a while to be able to stand up. Then, leaning on a stick, he would take a step, two steps, and fall. He needed to wriggle like a snake in order to reach the hammock and rest, to catch his breath before trying again. Days and nights went by, and he was finally able to wade on the beach and harpoon fish, hurling his regulation bayonet. He began to notice signs that he was not alone, to suspect that there were other survivors, and in his search for them he ventured a bit farther each time. He also said that the pain in his legs tormented him and that walking was torture. Two weeks before, he had discovered the other survivors, the women, and he spied on them day and night without being seen. He found out that the rest of the men had died: he knew that he was the last man on Clipperton Island.

“Why didn’t you ask for help?” Benita asked him.

“When I did, you all tried to kill me.”

Victoriano told about the beating he had suffered the day Irra’s family was laid down.

“Those who beat you up are all dead,” the woman said. “Come home with me. Mrs. Arnaud and the others will welcome you.”

The man accepted, but on the way he drew a knife and pressed it against her neck.

“‘First I need to have a woman, so lie down,’” Victoriano demanded, Benita said.

“Oh, my God! And what did you do?” Alicia asked, terrified.

“Lie down, ma’am, what else could I do?” answered Benita, without offering any explanation. “He’s here now, around the corner, waiting for permission to come in.”

Alicia sent for him. First they perceived the stink of someone who, though reprieved at the last moment, still had the smell of death. When he crossed the threshold, the women found themselves face to face with the cliff monster. It was all true: scurvy, arthritis, and rickets had turned Victoriano Alvarez into a fright. Yet they were glad to see him, and after a while they got used to the way he looked. He was in a sorry state, but it was good to have a man around.

“You’re in bad shape, but you are alive, Victoriano,” Alicia said to him.

“But not thanks to you.”

“We are not alive thanks to you either. But this is no time for recriminations. We can help you, and you can help us. Provided you behave. You abused Benita, and that was evil. If you want to live with us, you cannot do that again, ever.”

“I needed to be with a woman, after so much loneliness.”

“Next time, you have to ask her whether she also wants to be with you.”

“And if she doesn’t want to?”

“Then you have to do without, as we do.”

They brought him food, and he spoke again of his struggle for survival.

“In the end, we are the only ones left, you and us,” Alicia said. “It’s not so strange, women and blacks are the most resilient races on the planet.”

“And you have turned black.”

“Why, yes, that’s true, we’re dark like you now. The sun made us all look alike.”

“The sun and the suffering, ma’am, have toughened our skin.”

“If suffering darkens people, Victoriano, our souls must be coal black.”

As he bid farewell to return to the lighthouse, they brought him one of the bedsheets, a spoon, and a few other utensils he had asked them to lend him. They saw little of him during the following days. They knew sometimes that he was around because they could perceive his deathly stench, and because they learned to recognize the rattling of his bones and his limping steps. Alicia and Tirsa suspected that the purpose of his visits was to meet furtively with Benita. Once in a while he came by the house, bringing seafood or fish. The women would feed him, and he would sit around to ruminate the food in his misshapen mouth, without saying a word. They gave him any available remedies and some cod liver oil that they had extracted themselves. Rubbed in well, this warmed his body and offered some relief for his rheumatism. They made a paste out of ground mother-of-pearl to treat his old scars, which he complained still itched and burned.

Late one night they realized that Benita had not returned home. They searched around calling her, but she did not respond. They thought she probably was in the lighthouse lair and went for her. Victoriano was at the door, blocking their entrance.

“We have come for Benita.”

“She is staying with me, and you’re not taking her away from here.”

“Benita, do you want to stay?” shouted Alicia.

“Yes, ma’am, I’m staying,” came her voice from inside.

For several weeks the women did not meet either of them, until one morning while collecting shrimp by the ocean-bathed cliff. It was Rosalía who found Benita’s body. Her head was split, and she had red marks all over her body.

“She fell off the cliff and broke her neck, poor thing!”

“What are those things on her body? All those red marks.”

“They are Judas kisses.”

“An octopus sucked her dry.”

“No,” Tirsa said slowly and with sorrow. “Victoriano beat her up, then killed her. And he’s coming to take another one of us with him.”

That same night, they heard him come near, invisible in the dark. When the air turned rancid and they heard femurs and tibias clatter, Alicia and Tirsa came out to face him, pushing their big pregnant bellies ahead of them.

“You are a murderer, and you’re not coming into the house.”

“I can go in anywhere I want to, because now I am the governor.”

The clouds that were hiding the moon parted like a curtain, and a chalky light spread over everything. They were then able to see the ferocious aspect of the tattered leper pirate: he had three daggers tucked under his belt, a rifle in bandolier, and he was wielding a heavy club.

“Why did you kill her?”

“I killed her for being a disrespectful lazybones. Now I am the governor, see. I’m in command, and all the women are mine for whatever I want. I’ll take you two with me after you give birth.”

“You will pay for your crimes, Victoriano,” Alicia threatened.

“Oh really, ma’am. And who will make me pay? You?”

“Justice, when we are rescued.”

“Nobody is going to come, and if they do, I’ll kill all of you first, so there will be no tattletales left. If you don’t want a beating now, don’t stand in my way, because I’m going in.”

With a hard swipe of his left arm, he broke into the house and grabbed Altagracia. He jostled her, brought her down, and dragged her by the hair. Her long, blue-black, shiny hair.

“I’m taking this one with me,” he said, “so she can cook for me and be my woman.”

He walked away, tottering painfully on his shaky legs, with Altagracia on his shoulder. Eyes closed, ears and mind closed in order not to see, not to hear, not to feel, she let herself be carried like a sack of flour. Her hair was dragging, sweeping the floor and leaving a track through the pebbles and seashells.

A few hours later, Alicia went into labor prematurely. It was a baby boy, ethereal and fragile like a sigh, and no one doubted that such an angelical face would soon return to heaven. In order not to let him be held back halfway there, suffering in purgatory, they baptized him immediately with water on his head and salt on his mouth, and they named him Angel Miguel after Ramón father. Alicia was not even able to breast-feed him.

“You’re so anguished the milk cannot come down,” Tirsa told her.

The baby was kept alive with teaspoonfuls of coconut water and booby egg whites until Tirsa’s delivery. She had a baby girl, big and strong, and named her Guadalupe Cardona. Tirsa breast-fed both babies and neither was ever satisfied. They cried all the time. Lupe screamed loudly, and the boy squealed like a sick little bird. But neither wanted to die, and both consciously clung to life.