The Island (19 page)

L’Ollonois had drawn in his log a crude map of the region, and Maynard tried to compare it to his memory of the marine charts. Navidad was missing—Maynard guessed that l’Ollonois had never seen it—and West Caicos and South Caicos were rough lumps that bordered the Caicos Banks (a field of X’s, to indicate shallow water). L’Ollonois’ island was shaped like a kidney. It was off the air routes, out of the shipping lanes, surrounded (on modern charts) by warnings to mariners to steer well clear.

For more than three hundred years, the island had remained unseen, its people unmolested. No one had ever come here willingly, and, obviously, no one who had come had ever left alive.

If l’Ollonois’ life on the island had its merriments—and there was no indication in the log that it had—it was also short. The last entry in the log was dated January 6, 1673: “I will away at dawn, in the pinnace, with a dozen of the lads. I had thought that life would sustain itself on this hellhole, but a few necessities are damn’d scarce, to wit—mercury—for, all the whores—the damn’d lot!—are poxed; and citrus—Hizzoner’s teeth are loose as dice in a cup; and muskets, to replace those with rotten locks; and rum; and even gold, for there are ships I can not take with my tiny company and must barter with; and lastly a few young boys and a healthy girl or two—if any exist on earth! Too many young are dying in the womb or soon thereout, be it pox or what.

“I have left command with my infant son; that is, the speckled harlot tells me it is my son, though her scabbard has fit every sword in the company, but I need a son so I do not quarrel. He is a scrofulous imp and may not last. I have appointed the shaman Hizzoner to be regent—a fine conceit, as if I were king. Well, I am prince, as much as any free man. If the child dies, Hizzoner will rule until I return to poke another harlot. I trust him because he fears me greatly. He will kill to uphold my order, for he knows I would pursue him to the bowels of hell and skin him by bits. Fear is power.”

According to the documents, Hizzoner waited a year before he declared l’Ollonois dead. He then assumed complete, tyrannical command, paying only token obeisance to l’Ollonois’ slow-witted son, who bore, as a legacy from his mother, a white syphilis streak in his hair. Hizzoner wrote, and governed by, a covenant.

In 1680, a ship foundered on the inshore reefs. Among the survivors was the daughter of the governor of Puerto Rico, a little girl too young to have been exposed to venereal diseases. Hizzoner declared the girl to be his ward and sequestered her from the attentions of the other buccaneers. To the others, his purpose appeared entirely selfish. It was not.

When the girl was fourteen, Hizzoner impregnated her. As soon as she had borne a healthy boy, Hizzoner arranged the quiet demise of l’Ollonois’ son. In an elaborate ceremony, laced with religious and mystical nonsense (a Bible scholar, Hizzoner could find textual justification for virtually any act, however savage or depraved), he decreed that the new baby was the rightful heir to power. He would continue as regent until the boy was old enough to take command. The festivities were fueled with so much rum that no one found voice to object.

For instance, Hizzoner had three more children by the girl. Then, bored with her and wearied by the importunate pleas of the randy men, he released her to the company.

Hizzoner hung on until 1690, by which time his firstborn—though named l’Ollonois II and assigned lineage from the original—was fifteen. Hizzoner spent his last month drilling the boy on the covenant. When he was satisfied that he could do no more—he had, after all, given the community a new generation of undiseased leadership, as well as a code to live by—he removed his robe one night, went swimming in the sea, and never returned.

Maynard searched through the papers for a copy of the covenant. It was so prominent that he missed it twice: It was not a paper, but a roll of parchment, sealed against decomposition by a thick glossy varnish.

“Whereas we are a free people,” the preamble to the covenant began, “with right to make war or peace on any other people, but whereas we are also a community of men who must have order in their lives, now therefore we establish the following Covenant, and we swear by Almighty God to live by that Covenant, under pain of penalties set forth in each article hereunder.”

The articles followed:

1.

Every man shall obey the l’Ollonois, or in his absence, Hizzoner. Disobedience is a capital offense.

2.

He who shall flee, or try to flee, or keep secrets concerning the flight of others, shall be shot. Attempting to flee is a capital offense.

3.

He who shall attack another member of the Company, without fair warning, shall receive the Cat (thirty stripes). Should his victim die, the attacker shall be whipped unto death.

4.

He who shall lose a limb in battle shall receive five hundred pieces of eight; if his life, his assigns shall receive the tenth part of the next rich prize.

5.

He who shall deprive a righteous woman of her chaste treasure, without her permission, shall be shot. A righteous woman is a rare commodity, and sullying her is a capital offense.

The first Hizzoner had foreseen the changes time would work on the needs of the community, and beneath the articles he had added an afterword: “Whereas no man can tell the future, it may become necessary to add to the Covenant. There shall be no deletions: The articles are forever inviolate. Additions shall be known as amendments, and they shall be attached hereunder.”

To the bottom of the parchment was tacked a sheaf of papers—the amendments. There were twelve in all. A few set penalties for offenses that did not exist at the time the covenant was written. No individual could own a radio, for instance. The community kept one (all others were destroyed), and it was used only as a receiver. Transmitting any signal at all was a capital offense.

Nor could an individual own or consume any “pharmaceutical,” “lest the madness overtake the Company.” All pills and serums were destroyed, with the exception of penicillin, which was kept by the l’Ollonois and administered to anyone “who has fire in his water.”

Creating smoke or fire that might be seen by a passing ship or plane was a corporal offense during daylight, a corporal offense with torment at night.

Homosexuals had been admitted to the community, albeit grudgingly, in the middle of the nineteenth century. A young woman brought yellow fever to the island and gave it to all the other prostitutes. In the space of a month, the female population dropped from twenty-six to five, and without legislative relief the surviving five would soon have died from overexertion.

“Whereas all men are now deprived of their natural function,” went amendment number six, “and whereas their vitality and stoutheartedness are suffering from the deprivation, now therefore be it amended that a rank of catamites shall be established from the finest boys next taken. They shall have all the rights and restrictions of prostitutes, for prostitutes they shall be.”

That the recourse was regarded with distaste was demonstrated by an amendment to the amendment. “This amendment shall be expunged when the community of females has been revived. Until that time, the catamites shall be catamites and nothing else. He who interferes beyond his function shall be shot. An impudent catamite is a capital offender.”

One of the earliest amendments acknowledged the uselessness of money in the islanders’ daily lives. Foodstuffs and liquor were substituted for pieces of eight as compensation for injury and reward for prowess. The prostitutes were permitted to establish their own currency, and they chose delicacies (nuts, olives, and candy), lingerie, and fragrances. The various changes in currency were noted on a long list of addenda. At the moment, according to recent notations in the handwriting of the current l’Ollonois, the items most prized were, in order: “1. 6-12 family siz, 2. Deep Woods OFF, 3. Cutter (no good for nats), 4. meltin lead, 5. Haiti rum, 6. new guns.”

Why, Maynard wondered, were modern weapons given such low priority? And if they hadn’t used money for the last couple of hundred years, what had they done with the money they had gotten?

But of far more concern to Maynard was an amendment that had been drafted in 1900. Evidently, it had been accorded more importance than most, for it had a title:
ABOUT CHILDREN.

Whereas the state of innocence can be said to have been corrupted in all mankind by the age of adolescence, and whereas the loss of innocence brings the birth of worldliness, and whereas a worldly person is a threat to the community for he has notions and knowledge that call to question (and thus put in peril) the life we cherish, now therefore from this time forward the community shall accept into its number no person over the age of thirteen years. All others shall, upon their arrest, be given present death, for it can be said that their lives have been full led and they can offer to the community nothing but disruption and disunity, agitating, as has proved their wont, for escape and discovery. A child is a hungry diner, whose plate may be filled with proper food for thought; a worldly person’s plate is already filled with unwholesome fare.

A shadow crossed the doorway, quenching the light in the hut. The woman, Beth, unlocked the ends of the chain. She removed one end from the roof brace and left the other wrapped around Maynard’s neck.

“Stand.”

Maynard stood. She took the hide trousers from the floor and helped him into them. The inside of the hides was still coated with wet blood and a film of fat, and the trousers squished as Maynard hiked them around his waist. Strands of mucous meat dangled against his kneecaps, and a putrid stench rose into his face.

She smeared hog grease onto his chest and back, gestured at the doorway, and said, “Outside.”

“Where are we going?”

“Tue-Barbe has consented to see you.”

“Who’s Tue-Barbe?” His senses had been fogged by pain; the name was like a moth that flitted in the twilight of his memory.

“Maynard Tue-Barbe, who was your son.”

Maynard looked at her. “Consented? Nice of him.”

“Remember,” she said, jiggling the chain to urge him toward the door, “the young are honored here, for they are the future. The likes of you are the past. Dead.”

C H A P T E R
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S
he led him by the chain along a twisting path through the underbrush. As they approached a bend in the path, Maynard heard laughter.

The path dissolved into a clearing. On the right was a rectangular hoganlike building, eight or ten times as large as Beth’s hut. A short, plastic, dime-store Christmas tree stuck out of the sand to one side of the door, decorated with tinsel and fruit rinds and shreds of colored cloth.

“Where did that come from?” Maynard asked.

“A prize.” Beth increased her pace, eager to reach the other side of the clearing.

There was another burst of laughter, and two young men came out of the building, shoving and slapping at each other. Maynard stopped and stared. The chain tugged at his neck.

One of the men wore a gaudy, flower-print sarong, half a dozen bracelets on each wrist, and rings on every finger. The other man was nearly naked. The white-blond hair on his head was cropped close to his skull. His long, lean body was tan and oiled and hairless. The only clothing he wore was a grapefruit-size black leather codpiece, swollen to the point of bursting.

When the men saw Beth and Maynard, they stopped frolicking.

Beth looked at them and spat in the sand and yanked the chain.

As Maynard was jerked forward, he glanced back and saw the two men return Beth’s contemptuous salute.

They came to another clearing, and Beth stopped a few yards before the end of the path. “Do not pause here,” she said, “or I will snap your neck.” She lowered her head, hunched her shoulders forward, and stepped into the clearing.

There were eight small huts in the clearing, each tended by a single woman. Two wore diaphanous gauze shifts, through which every detail of their bodies was visible. One wore a long, stained silk skirt and, above the waist, nothing but lipstick, which had been applied to her breasts in circles that made targets of her nipples. One wore a full set of long underwear, and when she saw the passers-by, she turned her back to them, bent over, unbuttoned the trap door in the rear of her trousers, presented her bare butt, and released a raucous fart.

One of them laughed and called to Beth,
“That’s
your salvation, Goody? He’s a scrawny one.”

Another crowed, “I’ll find you a dog with a better weapon than that.”

“Roche is more formidable dead than that is alive,” laughed a third.

“Your pallet is ready for you.”

“We’ll see you here before the new moon.”

Maynard blushed. He kept his eyes on the sand. He did not know that Beth had stopped until he ran into her.

She glared back at the whores, red-faced, furious. “You cows!” she bellowed. “I’ll die of old age before I join you!” She shot her hand down the front of Maynard’s pants and grabbed his balls. “If this seems nothing to you, it is because you lack the alchemy to make it worthy.”

She removed her hand and dragged him away.

Trotting along behind her, Maynard said, “How many women are there who aren’t whores?”

“Twelve, all wed.”

“And how many men without wives?”

“Perhaps two dozen.”

“Why can’t you marry one of them?”

“Married once, a woman has two courses: motherhood or whoredom.”

“Even if you do have a child by . . . by me, the child will grow up. You can’t be a mother forever.”

“Motherhood is permitted for thirteen years.”

“So after that, you’ll have to become a whore anyway.”

“You think you have the answers.” She laughed. “
I
have the answers.”

“You won’t be a whore?”

“If I live that long? Never. Who would pay to rut with the elderly?”

“What, then?”

She stopped and looked at him and said earnestly. “I will be venerable. Sage. Consulted. Respected. Fed. Until the time comes for me to be put to death. I want that. And this”—she pointed to his crotch—“can give it to me.”