The Plover: A Novel (30 page)

*   *   *

A fishing boat like the
Plover,
originally designed for a crew of two (four in a fishing frenzy), is sparse with space even with an orthodox complement of crew, so you can imagine the press and bumble of a crew of
six,
one of whom is enormous, four of whom are men of substantial sinew, and the one who must be carried everywhere being long limbed and extensive in splay; plus a passenger, immobile as yet, but full-grown and occupying a good deal of the decking under the stern railing; and this is not even to count the gull and the warbler, who do not take up much space and are able to vacate the premises temporarily if need be; nor do we count the albatross, who, floating effortlessly nine feet over the stern, is not technically aboard the boat; nor are we counting the many small passengers on the hull and anchor and rudder, among which we find barnacles, algae (red, green, and brown), flatworms, chitons, sea spiders, sponges, sea squirts, and a flourishing village of mussels (tiny for the moment, but ambitious); a rough count of the passenger manifest, if we were being thorough, would be a thousand, ranging in size from Taromauri to an infinitesimal acorn barnacle, just born as this sentence began, and no bigger than the period which is about to arrive, here.

So that at night, when everyone is asleep, they are as close to being bundled and piled as possible without actually being entwined and entwangled; Pipa alone gets a bunk to herself, the horizontal closet, as Piko says, but Piko and Declan are ranged immediately alongside her, their shoulders pressed against either side of her box; the minister, despite his bulk, somehow sleeps jackknifed into a space half his height, from which he unfolds himself in the morning very much like you unfold and open a slipknife (and this is a good place to point out that somewhere along the line the minister became a serious student of knives that open and close, and once had, in his previous life, as he says, a collection of wooden-handled knives among which he counted a canoe knife, a sunfish knife, and a butterfly knife, any of which, as he says, had he had it on his person at the time of his vanishment, might have prevented or adjusted the manner of his emigratory adventure); and Danilo, on rainy nights, has slept in a space at the foot of the ladder that no kidding looks to be about twenty inches long, how
that
guy sleeps in
that
space is a Jesus blessed mystery to me, as the captain has said; and Taromauri, until she gave her tent to the burned man, slept in her tent in the stern; where exactly she would sleep in a storm now is another mystery to me, says Declan. Probably on the roof with the bird, who probably can say something that turns rain into carrots, for all I know. Jesus Christmas, the things that have happened on this boat.

And in the morning, when they wake, there is a comical jostling and muttering as they unfold, like a giant bleary bedraggled fist, and pull the pip out like a sardine from a can, extracting her, giggling (her feet are ticklish, and they tickle her feet every morning, Piko holding them up like chins to be chucked), from her redolent bunk, and make their way up the ladder, Pipa riding someone’s shoulders, into the brilliant day (for each day is lovelier than the last, these days), to find Taromauri sitting calmly on the hatch cover, waiting for them; at which point Declan orders her below to sleep, which command she gently declines, just as Danilo comes up with a pot of coffee, and they get their cups from where they hang in the cabin, and lounge sleepily in the sun for a moment, sipping the coffee, and Danilo gives Pipa coffee in a tiny cup that he and Taromauri made for her from palm wood. Soon enough they will get to work, and there will be cooking and fishing and course correction and safety inspection and medical rounds, but those first few moments, sipping coffee, ranged around the boat, blinking and stretching and yawning, not yet talking, their mouths and noses and ears washed with crisp salted air—those were the best moments of all. Those were the moments, years later, that all six of them remembered most; early in the morning, waking slowly, untangling and making jokes, hoisting the pip up the ladder, sipping coffee, listening to gulls and terns and the lap and slap of the sea, not yet doing anything except delicious nothing, yet. Those were the moments.

*   *   *

Later that morning it was Piko who noticed a slight change in the wind, a slight change in the species of birds lazing by, the advent of vegetative detritus in the water; the latter probably from a storm or series of storms washing over a sizeable landmass, he says. The Leewards, says Declan. We should be among them this morning. Nihoa and Nalukakala, Kauo and Kanemiloha’i, Punahonu and Papaapoho and Pihemanu, Mokumanamana and Mokupapapa, recite Piko and Pipa, happily recounting the
Plover
’s first venture among the Seamounts, forever ago, back when I was talkless, says Pipa, grinning.

A pod of whales, and then a second, followed a little later by porpoises, in arrowed phalanxes and formations; a second albatross, crossing the path of the first as precisely as a stitch; more terns by the hour; and then, far to the southwest, what certainly looked like an osprey but could not possibly have been an osprey, said Piko, unless it was.

It was Taromauri who noticed that the gull on the cabin roof had dozed all morning, which was unusual; and by noon the bird had slumped over and lay on her side, gasping fitfully. Piko climbed up and examined her, but found no evidence of disease or damage, not that I am an expert on gull anatomy and physiology anyways, he said. But I think she’s dying, yes. I have no idea why but I am pretty sure that’s what’s happening.

Taromauri lifted Pipa to the roof and clambered up herself and they sat with the gull. Taromauri put the bird’s head in Pipa’s hands. The gull’s eyes were closed and her breastbone heaved and staggered. The men climbed up one by one to touch the bird and make some last quiet remark to her; Declan muttered
misneach
and said quietly, bird, you were a hell of a good crew when it was just you and me, and you were even better later, and I owe you, and then he climbed down and went below to work on the hull patch for a while. Early in the afternoon they all heard, or thought they heard, the gull murmur something gentle, in the tone that people use when they say blessings or thanks, but no one could quite make out the words. Late in the afternoon the gull died, her head still cupped in Pipa’s hands. Taromauri lifted Pipa down and Piko sat with her in the stern. Enrique, sitting up, watched silently. Danilo made a small fire on the hatch cover. When it was hot enough Taromauri placed the body of the gull in the flames and they all watched as the fire ate the gull. When the first ashes fluttered up the minister reached for them but Taromauri shook her head and after that the ashes swirled and flew wherever they wanted. Some ashes got caught in various hair and some spun into mouths and noses but no one sneezed or gagged or said anything. The fire burned all the way down to tiny embers. Most of the ashes swirled up and over the railings and out to sea but some went into the cabin and peppered the chair and wheel and windows. One little group of four or five ash grains went into the cabin and swirled around like they were looking for something and then jumped all together right through the hole in the window from Enrique’s bullet and whirled away to starboard. Danilo used a long thin stick to push the embers closer together as they ebbed until there was nothing left to burn and the fire went out. Still no one said anything. After a while Danilo used his stick to separate what was left of the fire and when the ashes were cool Taromauri and Piko scooped them up carefully and carried them to the stern and let them sift into the sea. Piko saved a last little pinch of them and put them in Pipa’s hands and Pipa didn’t say anything but her father knew what she meant and he helped her open her hands and let the last of the ash drift into the sea. By then it was time for dinner but no one felt like cooking so they had fruit and tea and two bags of almonds that miraculously appeared between Volume the Sixth of Edmund Burke’s Writings & Speeches
(India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment)
and Volume the Seventh
(India: The Hastings Trial)
. Then everyone went to bed early, Declan taking the first watch.

*   *   *

He watched the stars be born; ever since he was a boy he loved to sit outside as dusk slid into dark and one by five by fifty the stars emerged, insisted, flared awake; in the worst years with his father raging or icy or drunk he would climb out of his attic room and sit on the roof, watching nighthawks and owls whir against the stars; the first few times he crawled out on the roof he was frightened, but soon enough it felt like the deck of a boat up there, tight and safe, above all seethe and turmoil; many nights in late summer he had slept on the roof, tied to the chimney with the first jackline of his maritime career, made from shreds of rope, shards of horse harness, plaited blackberry and plantain and spruce fibers, and the braided inner bark of cedar trees; he had worked for weeks on that jackline, and well remembered his father’s sneering laugh when he found it. Yet that line had lasted all the years of his childhood, and indeed never broke; it was lost overboard in one of the first storms he experienced when he first bought the
Plover,
and was learning how to maneuver it through thrashing water. Probably that jackline is alive and well somewhere under the sea to this day, he thought. Probably being used by a young seal or something, jacklining himself to his rock perch at night, a thought that made him grin in the dark.

Sir? came a voice in the dark; Enrique.

What?

Can we talk?

About what? says Declan, realizing that his baseball bat is tucked under the stern railing, right behind the tent.

What happens now?

What happens now is that we drop you off on an island.

Then what?

What do I care?

Pause.

Why did you rescue me?

I didn’t, says Declan. Another guy did. I would have left you in the water, probably.

Really?

Probably.

Pause.

I’m sorry.

For what?

All of it.

Yeh. Whatever.

I caused fear and I am sorry.

Yeh. We’re still dropping you off at a hospital. Make your own way.

Pause.

May I have some water?

Declan considers for a moment. He could wake Taromauri, who is sleeping in the bow; he could tell the guy to wait until morning; or he could lean in and get the bat with his left hand as his right delivers water. He gets water and leans in and gets the bat with his left hand as his right delivers the water.

Thank you.

Yeh.

My name is Enrique.

Yeh.

That is my real name. My mother blessed me with it.

Sure.

What is your name?

Captain.

Pause.

I understand your anger, said Enrique quietly, and there is nothing I can do now but apologize. I am sorry. I am especially sorry to have frightened the child.

Pause.

I see how you love your boat, said Enrique. I liked mine, but I didn’t love it.

Pause.

I liked what it could do, said Enrique, but not the way you like yours for what it is.

Yeh, whatever, says Declan. You want more water?

No, thank you.

Pause.

Thank you for rescuing me, said Enrique, so quietly that Declan unconsciously leaned in another inch in the dark to hear him. I thought I died. It never occurred to me that I would live. I thought I died in the fire. What a surprise to wake up here.

Declan felt a silent presence behind him; Taromauri, who had heard the voices. She took the water cup and filled it and gave it to Enrique and sat down. How a person that large can fold down without a sound is a total blessed mystery to me, thought Declan. No one said anything for a long time and during that time about a thousand stars appeared without the slightest fanfare. We take stars totally for granted, as Declan said later to Piko. Jesus blessed miracles, they are, and we casually look up and say stupid things like
hey, stars,
when we should by rights be moaning and gibbering in wonder and fear that fecking nuclear furnaces are burning in the sky in numbers and at distances we cannot even imagine let alone bless me calculate. After a while Taromauri put her hand on Declan’s shoulder and he got the message and left her on watch and went below to sleep.

*   *   *

In the morning Declan and the minister are in the cabin sipping coffee and Declan says are you actually serious about this whole Pacifica thing or is this some kind of political con or shell game or circus or what?

Quite serious, said the minister. I am aware it sounds unworkable but I believe it can happen, with the right stimulatory activity and shepherding of creative energies. Nor is this a subtle entrepreneurial venture in which I stand to make a great deal of money. I believe that I have a role to play in helping a remarkable idea come to fruition. I do not wish to command the idea, I do not wish to profit from it, but I do very much wish to see it accomplished, and I believe it is eminently accomplishable. Consider the relevant facts. There are some thirty thousand islands in what we call the Pacific Ocean, although that immense basin has been called many other names over many millennia. The basin itself measures something like sixty million square miles. It is the biggest thing on Earth. But because it is mostly water with mountaintops peeking up here and there, we do not think of it as we think of other sorts of space, which are mostly contiguous mountains with water glimmering here and there. These latter constructs we consider countries, but not the former; this seems odd to me and I would like to amend the way we think about this. It seems to me that an enormous blue place in which hundreds of thousands of people live riveting and creative lives, in manners and cultures established over many centuries by their ancestors and forebears, surrounded by natural resources of intricacy and wealth for the most part still beyond our understanding or abuse, is indeed a country, a remarkable nation unlike any that ever was, and I cannot see any reason why it should not be called so, and organized as such for the protection and celebration of its character and inhabitants, and seen and saluted as such by the other nations of the world, not one of which can boast the natural resources and fascinating creative possibilities of Pacifica. Also I do not see any reason why any former imperial power in Pacifica should be given any sort of control, possession, or preference here, considering that imperial powers by nature arrive and steal and commit destruction as a matter of course, nor do I see any reason why current or rising imperial powers, of any sort or stripe, be they economic, cultural, or political, should be acknowledged as having the slightest right whatsoever to commit ruin and theft upon the people, lands, waters, and atmosphere of Pacifica. It seems to me that Pacifica is a proud and remarkable country, and should be defined and acknowledged and protected as such, and not be treated as a playground or gift basket for countries that think they can pluck islands here and there like ripe fruit, and thrash as they like through the ocean for all manner of treasures and riches, and treat people like slaves and serfs, and cut islands in half and pit the halves against each other, or persist in thinking that a theft that occurred centuries ago has any modern legitimacy by virtue of its hoary age. It seems to me that the residents of Pacifica ought to be able to decide for themselves how to organize themselves as a coherent economic, cultural, and political force, and that any former, current, or rising power that has the gall to insist that it can or should decide for the residents of Pacifica how they ought to organize themselves and conduct their lives is foolish, ridiculous, selfish, and criminal.