The Dutch Wife (23 page)

“What’s wrong with him?” Rowland said.

“He’s dead,” she said.

“Was he one of those who died in the earlier part of the voyage?” Rowland said.

“Yes, he was,” she said. And she began to talk about the ill-fated voyage of the
Derevaun
.

– 7 –

A GROUP OF NORTH AMERICAN ZOOS,
wishing to expand their African collections, engaged Alfredo Sorrentino to lead an expedition to West Africa. Eva begged him to take her along with him.

He agreed. Reluctantly. She found out why, during three months of misery.

Africa turned out not to be the Paradise she’d always imagined from her reading. From the moment she set foot on its soil, she suffered. Though she wore trousers and a long-sleeved shirt like the male members of the expedition, the mosquitoes and wasps and other stinging creatures seemed to seek her out especially. For one particular week each month, every blood-loving insect within miles hovered about her and made her life a misery.

To make matters worse, they had barely begun trapping animals when she came down with such a severe form of malaria she feared her bones would break to pieces from the violent shivering. Alfredo, anxious to complete his work, left her at a village of the friendly Benolo people to recuperate.

“Don’t drink water that hasn’t been boiled,” he said. “Remember the Guinea Worm!”

She’d seen some of the Benolo children infected with that abomination trying to reel the worms out of their bellies on little twigs. So she assured her father she’d be very careful and rest up.

But her stay at the village wasn’t as restful as it might have been. The Benolo women would barge in at all times of the day to stare at her and touch her white skin and strange clothes. When she went into the bush near her hut to empty her bowels, it became a spectator sport for the entire tribe. In spite of everything, however, she began to feel better. She was feeling quite fit when, much earlier than expected, Alfredo’s team emerged from the jungle with their quota of animals filled in record time.

After a few days’ rest, Alfredo hired fifty Benolo men to help with the transportation of the animals. They loaded them, in their bamboo cages, onto hitched pairs of dugouts and ferried them down to the estuary of the river.

Eva was taken immediately out to the
Derevaun,
where she could stay in relative comfort while the hardest part of the task was performed. The ship was anchored in the deep water half a mile off shore, beyond the breakers, and the animals had to be brought out there. For three days, she watched the cages being rowed across the breakers by the Benolo and hauled up onto the ship. It was exhausting and dangerous work. All things considered, the operation went very well.

The only mishap came on the last day when a cage containing seven capuchin monkeys was lost in the surf. The two rowers were also drowned.

That same night, the Benolo Chief and his Shaman came out to the ship to talk to Alfredo. Eva watched as they stood on the deck, their tribal tattoos and animal pelts odd against the mechanical winches and nautical apparatus, engineered in factories a world and an æon away. The two Benolo talked heatedly to Alfredo for a while then slid down a line into their canoe and headed for the shore.

Eva asked her father what was wrong.

“They say the drownings are a sign some of the animals were reincarnations of the Benolos’ ancestors,” said Alfredo. “The Shaman told me to release them all or he’d put a curse on us.”

“Then let’s do as he says,” said Eva. “Let’s leave them here, where they belong.”

Alfredo looked at her as though she wasn’t thinking straight after her illness. “Never,” he said. “It’s all superstitious nonsense. Remember what I told you: we’re saving the animals from extinction. That’s what counts in the long run.”

The next morning, the
Derevaun
upped anchor and began steaming away from that muggy shore. But even above the noise of the engines, drums could be heard, booming out landwards. From the deck, Eva, Alfredo and some of the deckhands saw a group of Benolo tribesmen beside a bonfire on the fringe of sand. In front of them, the Shaman was dancing a strange, convulsive dance, pointing his juju sticks towards the departing ship.

The Captain of the
Derevaun
joined Eva and Alfred by the rail. “What the devil are they up to?” he said, looking towards the beach.

“I’ve no idea,” said Alfredo.

Eva kept silent.

THREE DAYS OUT,
the sickness struck.

One of the crew who helped look after the animals was the first to come down with it. At lunchtime he was sitting at the table, joking and speculating with some of the others about what they’d do with all their money when they got back to civilization. At three in the afternoon, he collapsed on the deck and seemed to have trouble controlling his lips.
“Ma face ish shore,”
he kept saying till someone understood him. That evening when Eva went down to visit him, he was unconscious. By then, blood was welling out of his mouth, his nose, his eyes. Soon it was oozing out of his pores like sweat. An hour later, he was dead.

Shocked by what she’d seen, Eva went immediately to her father. “Maybe you should tell the Captain about the Shaman,” she said. “We could still take the animals back.”

“Don’t be silly,” Alfredo said. “Anyway, the Captain won’t turn back, but the crew might just be superstitious enough to throw the animals overboard if they hear about it. You don’t want that on our conscience, do you?”

Eva certainly didn’t.

THE SHIP’S DOCTOR,
whose two admitted specialties were Scotch whisky and tropical diseases, was at a loss as to what had killed the sailor. So he was no help the next day when one of the deckhands began complaining of pains in his face. This was followed by unconsciousness, the effusions of blood and subsequent death. Then a stoker started to display the same symptoms and died in due course. The Doctor said he’d never heard of anything so virulent and that everyone should be careful: the sufferers should be regarded less as patients than as enemies armed with a killer weapon. He was afraid even the slightest contact with them might be deadly.

The Captain gave orders for the immediate disposal of the bodies. Some members of the crew, muffled in heavy-weather gear for protection, threw the dead men, with their blankets and all their possessions, overboard.

That night, the Doctor himself began to feel unwell. He was philosophic about it and told the Captain he’d medicate himself with the only drug he really trusted—Scotch. He was found dead the next morning in a pool of his own blood.

For several nights thereafter, Eva had a nightmare about a mammoth beetle. These beetles were twelve inches long—she’d seen them during her stay with the Benolo. Slow-moving, hideous-looking insects, they were perfectly innocent leaf-eaters with kindly eyes, and the Benolo children used to keep them as pets. The mammoth beetle of her nightmare, however, had evil eyes and would creep into the bunk beside her, crawl down her belly and suck her blood.

She’d had that nightmare the morning she heard that Alfredo was ill. When the Captain told her, she insisted on seeing her father. But Alfredo had begged the Captain under no circumstances to allow Eva near him. Accordingly, the Steward had been ordered to padlock the cabin door.

She was able to call to Alfredo through the door and he was able to call back, his voice faint and distorted with pain.

“Goo’ba, goo’ba! Loo’ afta tha anamash!”

She could do nothing but stand outside his door and weep. He died later in the morning and his body was thrown overboard.

Five more crew members died that week. But some men who’d shown the early symptoms began to recover. The Captain said that in his opinion there were two possibilities: either the strength of the disease had diminished, or those who remained alive were too strong for it. Eva, who had ceased to be visited by her nightmare, wondered about a third possibility: that the
Derevaun
had now outrun the Benolo Shaman’s curse. But she thought it might be better to keep that to herself.

– 8 –

“SO,” ROWLAND ASKED
Eva Sorrentino after her account of the sickness that afflicted the
Derevaun,
“what do you think caused it? You don’t really think it was a curse.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m glad the animals are safe and will soon be in their new homes.” She looked at Will, and those wrinkles in the corners of her eyes were deepened by a smile. “They seem to like Will. He’s a natural with animals.”

Will, who’d listened to her story with great interest, just shrugged. “I enjoy them,” he said.

“Well, I have to admire both of you,” Rowland said. “The smell down there’s awful. How do you stand it?” He suspected Eva would have a ready answer, and she did.

“I don’t even notice it,” she said. “If I don’t notice it, it doesn’t exist. What about you, Will? Does it bother you?”

He was a little more wordy than usual. “Smells?” he said. “They can’t do you any harm.”

Eva smiled at him again.

– 9 –

THREE WEEKS OUT OF GLASGOW
and the god of seas was smiling on the
Derevaun
. The voyage towards the New World had been as uneventful as the voyage away from the Dark Continent had been horrific. She was nearing her destination. From her motion, Rowland could tell she had left the deep ocean behind and begun to cross the Continental Shelf. The shallower seas were a little choppier. At the rails, he watched a September iceberg a few miles to starboard. He could even feel the chill of it in the breeze. The Bosun, who tolerated him now, told him to enjoy such sights while he could. “We’re coming into the region of fogs,” he said. “You won’t be able to see much for the next few days.”

Already, far to the west, Rowland could see a rolling grey wall, its edge glinting in the sun, stretching from ocean to sky. Towards it the
Derevaun
steamed.

By noon that day, the ship had penetrated the flanks of the greyness. The railing Rowland leaned on dripped with dew. The bass rumble of the engines, which till this point in the voyage had been scarcely noticeable, now became dominant. It was accompanied by a chorus of animal howls rising through the open portholes of the lower decks.

The
Derevaun
’s foghorn now began its melancholy bleat every three minutes. Lookouts were doubled to watch for icebergs and other ships. The Bosun came and stood beside Rowland for a moment, the smoke from his pipe now indistinguishable from the general greyness. “This is a ship’s graveyard,” he said, gesturing towards the invisible sea. “Who knows how many thousands of vessels have foundered in these waters?”

Rowland, peering down, could make out the whitecaps of the waves lapping around the ship like the hooded ghosts of all the men who’d drowned here over the centuries.

When he went for lunch, the dining room was quiet, most of the sailors being on watch. Eva and Will ate quickly, for the animals were tense and needed comforting—especially the gibbons, which whooped nervously every time the foghorn sounded. Eva told Rowland she’d heard that whooping sound from gibbons once before, when she was ill in the Benolo village. “The gibbons could see army ants on a rampage,” she said. “That gave the villagers time to build a circle of bushfires to keep the ants away. Later on they left out baskets piled with fruit for the gibbons to thank them for the advance warning.”

“Well, there are no army ants out here in the ocean,” said Rowland.

WHEN HE WENT OUT
on deck again, it was just after two in the afternoon. He immediately noticed how warm the foggy air had become—as though the
Derevaun
were sailing in a huge steam bath. He went up the stairs to the wheel-house; its door was propped open. The Bosun and the Captain himself were at the rails peering into the fog, which now seemed even thicker.

“Why is it so warm?” Rowland said. “Is it because of the Gulf Stream?”

“I’ve sailed these seas a thousand times,” the Captain shook his head, “and I’ve never come across anything like this.” He was an elderly man, dragged out of retirement to finish this voyage.

The Bosun puffed at his pipe. Then he cocked his head. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t hear the animals any more.”

Rowland listened. It was true. The whooping from below decks had ceased. Now the only sound was the deep hum of the engines.

And something else, something very faint.

The Captain looked alarmed. “Signal the engine room: Stop Engines!” he called in to the man at the wheel.

The trembling of the engines ceased. From the invisible sea around, they could hear a hissing—the kind of hissing, Rowland thought, a million snakes might make. Yet even as he listened, the sound was becoming louder—no longer the hissing of snakes but a more familiar sound, the gurgle of water boiling. And the air seemed warmer, too. He even thought he could feel the heat of the deck through the soles of his shoes. Yes, it was as though the ocean had become a huge cauldron of hot water and that water was now beginning to bubble. From the rails, he couldn’t see the water because of the fog, but he could hear that bubbling sound all around them.

“Start Engines: Full Speed,” the Captain shouted to the man at the wheel. To the Bosun he said: “The quicker we get away from here the better.” The ship trembled as the engines came back on again, but now it was impossible to hear them amidst the gurgling. The Captain, his weather-beaten face anxious, took his place at the rails alongside Rowland and thus was in time to see the conclusion to this strange phenomenon.

The
Derevaun
began to rise up. At least, Rowland was sure he could feel the sensation of being lifted up, though he couldn’t see anything because of the fog. He held on to the rails, for the ship was shuddering its entire length and tilting as it rose into the air. The lifting lasted for perhaps ten seconds.

Then the
Derevaun
dropped.

That dropping broke her in two.

– 10 –

ROWLAND VANDERLINDEN PLUNGED DEEP
into a sea that was as warm as a hot bath. He kicked upwards with his shod feet till his head emerged into air that smelled so putrid, he choked and went under. Again he came to the surface, coughing the water out of his lungs, breathing in the foul air. He toed off his shoes and swam as hard as he could. His eyes were clouded and he couldn’t clear them to see where he was, but he swam and swam till he was exhausted, choking in the stench. He felt hands grip his shoulders and pull him out of the water.