Crustacean Shore A Novel By Radu Pintea

CRUSTACEAN SHORE

A Novel

by RaduPintea

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 14 years, age when boys grow their voice husky, gang around, and daydream of becoming flying aces aboard air force fighters, or computer wizards . . . 14 years, when girls try the first lipstick and the first eyeshade, the first kiss and because of it the first hurt, or itch, or full house blaze . . . 14 years to a book means enough as to let itself covered by glory, pause, or just dust on a library shelf. To my book, being written and unread so far, all this elapse meant agony. 14 years elapsed since Crustacean Shore has been written, accepted, and postponed publishing so many a time it burned in me all fat of pride that usually accompany any baby born, exhausting the stock of joy and hope of living to see it in print yet. If the novel is out today, this is the merit of Mrs. Aurelia Batali, editor at the Eminescu Publishers, and the merit of Mr. Constantin Dumitru. They invested trust where I put words. To A. B. , C. D. sails my gratitude today, and to E. E. also, whose 2

care, patience, and love turned Crustacean Shore into what it is. R. P. Bucureşti January 6, 1996

And what he hath seeneth and heardeth, he confesses, but his confession nobody receiveth.

JOHN, (3, 32)

CHAPTER ONE DUSK CREPT DOWN on the village, barely heralded by the rarer cries of the gulls. A limpid, frozen, translucent , crystal like peace followed in the aftermath of the yesterday's gale. In it, the stir of everyday life in the small fishermen village could be heard as clearly and peacefully as always ; some woman commanding her kids to thread the sturgeons thicker on a string here, some hammer nailing down a rooftop piece of torn away tinfoil there, some dogs baying to one side, fishmongers' foul curses as they restored the normal, keel down position of their upturned boats to another side, some song sung by a gal sitting on a porch into the slanted sunray blaze tempered by twilight.

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'Narvahl, you, sissy, don't pull that hard, least you'll break it 'a fifty years old or about so man yelled at an imp who did his best to help with stretching a net on a fence. Others were walking in straight to the bodega along the main road of the village, a sand strip a bit wider snaking among the clusters of better looking houses and their courtyards about which other sparser households lay randomly, each of them built as their proprietors rather could than would. Without exception all of them have been built of timber and seemed to grow up right from the floury fine sand of the beach. The gabled rooftops were made of reed, or tinfoil for those luckier at fishing. On top of most of them lay crammed sea weed bales up in the sun, to dry. On the fences lay nets of various sizes. Hanging on clotheslines there were laundry, up there to dry. If something was aplenty in Sin Hoe, it was the sun. And if there was a spot in the village where it shone especially bright, then those spots were the church belfry and the drinking water tank, the only buildings taller than the gabled roof of Martha's bodega. The belfry and the bodega were covered with shiny zinc foil. Sin Hoe had come to life on the ocean shore out of sand and water, growing up like any living creature spawning through its depths ; and as harmless as the plankton scintillating at night all over the place from one horizon to the other. Never before had been reported in Sin Hoe either epidemics or crimes to have taken place and requiring a city-based intervention. Its emissaries, a cop and a doc raided the place only seldom. They boarded the truck that brought Martha victuals for the bodega, and went back in the same truck laden with either dried or fresh fish. As the usual hassle for bargain was under way, the two of them prowled the hamlet prying left and right. They consulted a pregnant woman here, one who had just delivered there, they took a peek at the children they met, they had them sit in a chair and gently knocked their kneecaps with a rubber gavel, they took a look at the people's throat, they had them stick their tongues out which made the natives gag joyfully and put on funny faces. When they decided everything was okay as to whatever their concerns were, the doctor and the policeman came back at the Martha's pub. They ordered a high spirits mug each, drank it, clambered into the truck and gone they were for a long lapse, long enough for the Sinhoeans to forget about them.

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The priest was elected by free vote of the community from the elders who could meet only one requirement : know letters and their use. Each Sunday he had to pull a couple of times the ropes of a bell in the belfry covered with a zincfoil pyramid, a job not too difficult to perform since the lower end of the rope touched the ground so even a kid who chanced to pass by could be able to pull it if he got the notion, whereupon the whole village was summoned about the pyramid topped belfry and the priest was ready to read one and a half or two pages from the Bible, Holy Gospel and the New Testament, the only books in Sin Hoe. The bell's toll could be also heard at the baptismal, weddings and death of any of them. The newborn babies were baptized by immersion into the ocean, whereupon the involved party had a drink at Martha's ; the non-involved party had drinks too, same day same place. The weddings were fixed at Martha's also, since one could find handy room there. Whereupon the involved party drank, and to just do that, there was no need to move elsewhere ; only temporarily non-involved party moved. When someone died, both involved and non-involved drank. Sin Hoe drank. There was so much sun, and wherever 's sun thirst can't be far, and if fish had to be dried first in order to be preserved, and in order to make yourself a good seaweed mattress you had to parch it first, having the gullet dry like a reed pipe it's not something nature cherishes. Brain itself becomes lazy with some elans that only at a certain percentage of moisture may soar. Martha the pub tender knew all these better than anybody else, that's why she always knew what to order trucker to haul in. Brandy was the steady #1 item on the order list, top quality spirits to soak the gullets, grease the brain and turn loose the tongue in the process. Sin Hoe drank all right, but that didn't mean its fishermen were mere drunkards ; they just strove to put back whatever the merciless sun of the day tore apart. As it had assisted their birth in that particular spot on the ocean beach, it also ought to have stood watching to where the rye was born, elsewhere worldwide. Martha just happened to learn about the liquor and did nothing but connect it with the people of Sin Hoe whereof it didn't part ever since. In Sin Hoe only the dead didn't booze. They were put into a flour sack together with a deadweight and dropped into the sea after the free elected priest read in the way of a prayer -for-the-passing a couple or so pages from one of the three books the village had. Except Sin Hoe didn't have an ordinary cemetery, the citizens of the small dwelling place grown right up on the beach strand of the ocean had and enjoyed all the vices of the normal, inland people. 5

On the fortnight after the storm, Malachi, the old man who acted as a priest on Sundays and aforementioned events dragged his tired feet on the timber floored terrace under the firm written in flourish longhand announcing : MARTHA'S. 'Martha ! Martha ! Gimme a mug for Chrissakes, hear ? A big un an' full to the brim, wench. Hurry !' 'Aw right, aw right. Stop hollering, bigmouth, you. Here. Take it. Big un an' full. Like the other three darn mugs before as full as they were, you, knucklehead ol' hag. Someone might get notion Martha the pub tender drinks on her clients' account. I bet my tits no one can get a Martha mug to his lips without spilling a feew drops. ' Malachi raised a hand, died and sinewy and tanned like a smoked mackerel. 'Yeah, that's righto, wench, you spake truth, they really were full, which means they are not anymore, if you dig what I mean, 'Malachi explained sententiously, but not babbling at all. 'You suck like a regular leech, you, ol'hide, 'Martha said. 'One day the stingray will getchya with so much booze. ' The priest let his upraised hand drop with a brisk motion. 'The stingray will get us all someday , you know, Martha, no matter whether we guzzle or not, so I'd better guzzle while I can. So what ?Why, do tell me what you'll live off if it won't be us with our guzzling, huh ? You don't haul yourself off shore to trawl the school of fish, right ? It's always us who go out fishing, and when we return from the big, deep, salty water out there our gullet is as parched as smoked bonito pastrami. ' 'Hold it, ol'hide. Aw right, shut up that big, foul mouth of yours fer Chrissakes, you, ol'hide. You'd better tell us what about the guy you came up with yesternight ? What is he up to, eh ? I bet he's just another ne'er'do'well beachcomber, like they always are. ' The man who had ordered liquor was already soused. He scowled and kept quiet for a while. He just kept staring at the Klu Hill with eyes steamy from the amount and high quality of the refined alcohol he already put it below his belt. Martha pulled herself a chair and took place by the two men. She was buxom enough albeit she was not quite young now. The color spangled tattered dress she wore did poorly in the way of hiding a shapely body, rather generously built though, and her face, deeply tanned like any other fisherman, did not give away much about her age. There were three white hairs instead grown at her temples which lent her the air of a mamma and the woman vainly tried to get rid of by using and abusing manly phrases and 6

gestures. Martha had no children of her own. She was a widow. Three years elapsed from the funerals of her husband, and since then she had run the waterhole one shack with the enlisted help of just one cook , a girl named Ausonia. Martha's husband also had been a fisherman till one day when, as sometimes someone just happens to have it, disappeared, boat, rig and all out at sea. She didn't marry again despite the fact that it wouldn't have been hard to get solicitors for such ripe, robust and healthy a woman. She had had lovers, yes, like other women do every now and then. Many a time these beaus of her were party mates sharing the very same boat , they knew each other well, or even they chanced to be relatives, yet this woman not even once had triggered conflict. Martha belonged to everybody, same like her rye, and anybody who wanted Martha belonged to Martha all right by a chemistry completely alien to the poisonous taste of property. Martha had put together the bodega enlisting the eager help of her both been or to-be lovers, and they helped her with unloading the commodity, and all of it was theirs. Old Malachi dabbed at his eyes, hiccuped and smacked his lips, making the boards under him creak many times prior to bother to open his mouth and tell the story. The man in front of him, Drusilla by name, changed the direction of his stare from Martha's cook to the lips of the old man. In all fairness Drusilla could not be rated as quite handsome a man, but he was sturdy. His jowls were heavy, his teeth healthy and even spaced. When he smiled a good deal of them showed and their owner suddenly turned likeable ; he had a wide mouth, really. Drusilla also was interested in the subject. 'By the way, ol' man, ' he said. 'How about him, eh ? You found him in the sand ? Or maybe he just came all by himself or something ?' The wood boards creaked once more beneath the old fisherman's chair, and he smacked his lips again before uttering another word, slowly and reluctantly as his words usually were when he had to fight about two pounds of liquor just put under the belt. 'That un you mean ? Well, well, believe it or not, Martha, I have no idea myself. I've just run into him, I reckon, a guy who walked and staggered in the gale. Who wouldn't have staggered, I wonder ?' 'You vanished right after we hit shore, right about the time storm struck in all her might, 'Drusilla said lighting a cigarette. As he performed this action he didn't miss the chance to steal one more glance to where 7

Ausonia stood. The girl minded her own job though. The heavy jowled fisherman moved his eyes from the girl back to Malachi and said, 'Forzas called on you. You have no idea how much we have been looking for you along the beach. And Malachi was nowhere. We've been figuring the surf got you from behind. ' 'Oh, yes, Drusilla, oh yes, 'Malachi said nodding his head and if it was not thoughts to bear the blame for it, then there must have been the liquor. Then he guzzled another swig and said, 'I don't know either why and how I found myself fighting the elements on my way to the Lazarus's hut. ' 'The one outside the village ?' pub tender Martha asked, and she tightened her thighs with emotion beneath the wrought iron , zinc faced bodega table. She supported her jaw in her palm and stared with awe at the same old man only minutes ago vilified in the foulest vernacular there was. 'That's right, Martha. ' 'But what in the world were you doing there when your own hut is on the other side of the village ?' Malachi eyed her but was still reluctant to answer. His oily eyeballs were rolling to her face, but apparently lacking any determination. 'Yes, Martha, ' he said at last. . 'That's a one good question you put. Fact is neither at the time was I sober, nor now, when I am a bit, well, in the mood, let's face it, I barely have an idea why I did it ; or did I say "barely" ?No, I do have no idea, yessiree, absolutely no idea at all. ' And in order to extra stress his say, the improvised old priest shrugged his slumped shoulders, then added, 'I was trudging along to the Lazarus's ruined house, that much I know for sure. . . ' 'Jesus, folks, what a gale that was. And in February, mind you. Whoever saw such a thing ?' the pub tender exclaimed, watching the way Drusilla blew the smoke through his nostrils. Malachi echoed her, 'Yes, Martha, February, yes. This is an omen, Dru. Gale in February is a bad enough omen . . . . ' 'Hey, isn't that one the man we were just talking about ?' the pub tender cried all of a sudden. The two fishermen turned at the same time their slightly unfocused by alcohol stare to the particular direction the woman pointed to. Malachi's pupils were trying painfully to zoom in on both whatever they were supposed to see ahead, and at the same time at a nightold memory behind. Otherwise his sight was sharp enough for a man his age, and he saw even better when he was "in the mood" as he used to say, since

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then, as he used to boast, imagination worked like an enlarging lens set before the eyes. Yes, that one was the man he had met on that night of hell crashed on top of them in the very core of a season which never ever had known such a cauldron of unlashed forces ; at a small distance in front of him and against the broken shafts of the heavenly lightning, he had managed to imprint good enough in his brain the silhouette of the stranger. For Malachi could not be wrong on this , the man who staggered village bound along the hurricane swept beach was a stranger all right. Bent by the elements himself, the newcomer seemed rather frail, his face unshaven and cheeks sunken a little with the exhaustion. He was not clad the townspeople used to be though, and his age might have been anything around 35. He was bound straight for Sin Hoe. Actually, as Malachi remembered now, the man came from where the city lay. He would have asked him then and there whether he had crossed the Bora Bay in the boat pushed ashore which he got a glimpse at at a flash of a lightning, a big boat that couldn't be pulled ashore to safety by a single pair of hands, but the old priest of the village had been then much too dizzy with the roar of the storm to be able to figure out clearly all these slightly unnatural circumstances. Now that man seemed to be one of them though. He stepped along the waterfront dragging along a couple of boards. Headed for the Lazarus's ruins as everybody in the crowd at the Martha's pub could see. Even seen from that distance, the old fisherman sitting with Drusilla at the table figured the man didn't look frail now. He was darkhaired and wore a white shirt on, the same one like in the night of storm, and dark colored denim slacks. Barefoot. 'Hey, man, ' Malachi croaked suddenly in a hoarse voice. 'Hi , there, you, on the beach. ' As if he didn't hear the call, the stranger kept walking, leaving foot prints into the white, fine grained sand near an uninterrupted trail scrawled by the lower end of one of the boards he was toting along. 'What a snotty !' Martha snickered. 'Folks call him and mister don't give a damn to as much as acknowledge. Pretends it's fancy and dandy that way. Hanh ! Wait till I get him at the terrace, and then we'll see. Yeah, mister. You jes' wait an' see. ' Martha's reaction had taken place after a short moment of silent awe. No matter the circumstances, Martha loved mannish reactions ; and she emulated them herself at all times that more or less guarranteed her having the upper hand in a clash with a member of the opposite sex. Now she took 9

offense because that man on purpose didn't mind nor heed the friendly call from an old man who happened to be both her client and the village's priest. Drusilla felt content to just squint his eyes and utter not a single word. As to Malachi himself, he chewed at his liquor soaked and swollen tongue a great deal until he managed to say, 'He said just one word only. He said just "There", and pointed to the peak of the Klu Hill. ' Drusilla drank in one swig the rest of the brandy, rubbed his hands together and said, 'Over there where each night one sees the blue lightning bolts flicker ?' 'Right there. He just said but "There. " After a while I realized I was walking at his side, ' Malachi the priest said, tracking down with his eyes all the way the very person his story was about. 'We were bound to the village, 'he added after a while. 'Headed where ? To Sin Hoe maybe ?' Drusilla inquired carelessly. He cast another hot stare to Ausonia who had come to clear the table. 'To Sin Hoe, yep, 'Malachi agreed. 'All the way to Sin Hoe. ' 'What next ?' the youth pried some further. 'We took refuge at the Lazarus's ruins until that bitch of a storm cooled off some, 'Malachi said. 'Go ahead, ' Martha the reckless spurred him ; there were times when Martha could be terrible in some whims of hers which certain men of Sin Hoe knew only too well. The elected old priest raised his shoulders. 'Then he didn't utter another word for as long as we walked together, ' he said. 'I asked him where he comes from, who is he, but he didn't bother to answer. I even invited him to my hut, but he still said nothing, not a "mack". I've been figuring maybe he was damn mute, that's why he couldn't talk to me, tell me, Drusilla, isn't that so I could think him mute, no ? Jes' tell me am I right to to have thought him mute ?' 'Why, sure thing, ol' man, ' the young fisherman said surrepetitiously biting his upper lip on the inside, but a real tiny bit at that. 'And yet you said you heard a word from his mouth though, 'Martha said with concentration, still keeping her open palm under her jaw. 'He said "There", ' Malachi said. 'Jes' that :"There". Nothing else. ' 'Maybe he was hurt. Didn't you notice anything like this ? Or maybe scared shitless or something ?' Malachi's eyes got rounder , his shoulders smaller.

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'Hurt, you say ? Scared ? Oh, no, Martha, I shouldn´t think so. Anyway I didn't hear him cursing the bad weather if you ask me, that's for sure. Believe me, he didn't utter a single word all the way in except the one I've just told you he said. ' Somebody else called on the old man from a nearby table. 'Hi there, Malachi. Howdy, Dru. ' It was Forzas. He had come also to the bodega to "rinse his teeth". Malachi didn't answer; he was much too deep in thoughts, or alcohol for that matter. Same thing. 'Oh, hi, Forzas, ' Drusilla cried for both of them, then he added just on his only account : 'Ask the beauty by your shoulder why is she so blue, eh ?' Whenever Martha was either busy elsewhere or chatted with some client, it was Ausonia who took up and carried out orders. Otherwise she minded her kitchen or washed the dishes. Sometimes Narvahl , the cadet son of Rolo and Lucretia helped with her chores, or some other kid like him, and when the truck arrived fully laden from the city, whatever hands were available jumped at the occasion to make the job easier for her. Considering his friend's proposal, Forzas smiled at the girl, then ordered in his usual, soft spoken voice : 'I'll have a mug, babe, ' and after a short pause, 'So you heard what Dru said ?' Ausonia entered the bodega without further comment. "Martha's" was a square, squat building, more like a warehouse of sorts comprised of three sections : a store, a kitchen, and a canteen where they served when it rained. As he waited for the aeternal city-made brandy , Forzas rested his knuckles against the table's flat and then shouted again at his friend who enjoyed himself at the nearby table. 'Tell me, Dru, whatever bugs the ol'man ? Got mad at life again, or what ?' Drusilla pushed back his chair, stood up, extracted the bottom of his slacks from the cleft between his buttocks and moved over to the table where Forzas sat. They were about the same age Forzas and he, and about as tall. Forzas was not as heavy jowled as Drusilla was though, and in general, the lines of his face run a mite sweeter. Forzas had but one hand. Way back, when he was just a small boy bathing together with other kids a stray shark surfaced from the deep. Forzas saw it first and yelled to the bunch of children to scram for the shore quick, and he hurled himself 11

in front of the creature in order to offer the beast a clear option and doing so buy kids time enough to make it to the shore and safety. And they made it ; all except him. Later on, summoned by the shrill uproar children did, the grownups darted there in a hurry and killed the shark with harpoons. It was just a baby shark, big enough and rather hungry wading all by itself into the littoral waters of shallow bottom, a place where usually shark do not belong and don't reach ; it was for the first time such a beast popped up into the Bora Bay. Drusilla remembered the story well. He had been one of that bunch of kids. From that day on the fishermen in Sin Hoe fenced the gulf with an antishark net, and the place slowly became again , before long after the incident, the same old and natural playground and training camp of subsequent generations of fishermen. 'Whatever got into the old man ? Hears nothing, sees nothing, ' Forzas said. 'Why, he was just telling us the yesterday story, 'Drusilla explained to him. A slight frown alighted on the Forzas's face, but it didn't last long there. 'Hanh !' he puffed. 'Since I can remember I haven't seen another storm like this one. In February. Mummy said she can't remember either another one like this. ' Ausonia was back, put the mug in front of him, took the coins. Forzas looked up at her again. 'Thanks, girl. ' Ausonia cast a quick once over and murmured, 'You're welcome, Forzas. 'Then she was gone to attend her other duties. Forzas grabbed the mug with his only hand and said, 'Cheers, ' and sucked it all in one swig. Then he put it back empty on top of the table and said, 'World´s changing, Dru, ' and the scowl, otherwise alien to his mien visited his face again, a bit longer this time. Drusilla stared straight into his eyes and said, 'The ol' man says it was an omen. ' Forzas snickered as if he wanted to convey the impression of carefree fun. 'Don't tell me. Even so we've been lucky enough it hit us at sunset, when our boats were already close to the shore. What if it struck us while we were out at sea, huh ?' 12

Forzas reached his scruff with his hand and massaged it for a while, then he said, 'One more surprise like this and in Sin Hoe will be left only the women and the children. ' 'Come on now, Forzas, 'Drusilla said. 'You too, man ? If it come to you being the crybaby, Jesus, then we're mired and we'd better get ready for trouble. ' His crippled friend drank from the second helping and looked at Drusilla in childish amazement. 'Crybaby me ? Not a bit, take my word for it. If you really want to see the face of a thought-tormented man, just have a look at the Malachi man brooding right over there. He's in the blue all right, hook, line and sinker, rod and all, poor dear soul, 'Forzas said swinging his head toward the general direction of the table with Malachi himself , his mugs of brandy, and Martha the pub tender. 'Soused, you mean, 'Drusilla objected. Martha wind milled her arms while Malachi kept a steady stare at something someplace behind Forzas's shoulders. When Forzas turned his head, he saw the "something someplace" was a man wearing a white shirt and a pair of dark slacks like they wore. The man walked away toting a couple of wood boards. Forzas turned to his friend , eyeing him with a questioning look. Drusilla, who had watched all the details volunteered to explain. 'That's 'im. The guy. The one we were talking about. ' 'Who ?' 'The stranger. ' Forzas turned his head once more, out of curiosity, to take a better look at the small, moving dot that was fading north bound on the beach. 'And where's he supposed to be going now ?' Forzas wanted to know. 'Why, Lazarus's ruins, where else ? Anyway, that's where he holed up, or at least this is what they say, 'Drusilla said. Without turning his head, Forzas mumbled, 'This morning I've heard some rumors myself as we were just about to set off to fishing, I don't know, it was Rolo who mentioned it, or maybe somebody else . . . ' The sentence left by Forzas dangling was picked up and completed by Drusilla. 'Malachi says the guy was coming from the Klu Hill when he run into him last night in the storm. ' 13

Forzas turned his eyes back to Drsuilla. 'He came from town then, ' he said. 'Either from, or from the direction of the town, no one can say for sure which. Malachi failed to get that much from him , 'Drusilla said flipping the flat of his palm through the air as if to materialize a doubtful, elusive condition. 'He also says the guy was dressed up like a townspeople yester night. ' 'Whoever might be this newcomer, I wonder ?' 'We'll get the answer eventually, don't you worry. Provided he'll settle here. He talked to no one till now. ' 'How's that ? Not even to the old man when they met ? I reckon that 's where he disappeared last night when we were looking for him like mad and hollered his name till our voices grew hoarse. ' 'No, he didn't. He didn't talked to the old man either, I tell you. ' 'Well, maybe he's mute or something, 'Forzas voiced his opinion. 'Hanh ! Mute my foot ! ' Drusilla said. He perched over the table and whispered conspiratorially, 'Ol' man says he'd have said but one single word actually ; he didn't speak at all thereafter. Went stone mute. ' Forzas looked at Drusilla with growing curiosity. What he considered disquieting was not the mystery his friend tried to lend at any cost to that man's appearance in Sin Hoe, but the way he talked now, extremely fancy and bu all means strange for a simple and brave young man as he had always known him to be. Or maybe he had mired himself into the old man's net who when soused used to imagine all kinds of funny things ? Or maybe he was just a bit soused too . . . 'What word ?' the cripple asked unbelieving, shifting his eyes between Drusilla and the table of Malachi. The old man kept looking hard at the moving black-and-white dot vanishing into the distance, and when he turned his head unawares, he caught Forzas spying on his profile. Forzas admitted the unblinking stare of the old man carries in it some troubling don't-know-what, and that don't-know-what was contagious. Drusilla said, 'He's looking at us. ' Like an automaton Forzas turned his head too due north first where the stranger vanished. It was only then when he understood Drusilla had meant the old fisherman, not the stranger. 'Say, Drusilla, what word did you say that stranger mentioned ?' 'He mentioned just "There" -- or so Malachi claims he did, then looked himself too to the peak of Klu Hill. Or so the old man said. ' 14

Forzas drank some more, rinsed his mouth with the swig then swallowed it, at last. He put the glass on the flat of the table noiselessly, as he did the first time. Drusilla kept staring at him in an altogether brand new way until the crippled young man began to feel embarrassed. 'Whatsup, Drusilla ? Why are you ogling at me that way ? Huh ?Don't you know me, or what ?' Forzas slammed into the table with his only fist and a few drops of brandy spilt out from his glass. They fell on the floor boards. 'Hey, girl. One more mug over here, ' he was shouting ar Ausonia.

After he finished looking in the direction of the other table, Malachi resumed the watch on the tiny black-and-white dot still moving away due north along the waterfront. To the west the enlarged sun seemed to burst like an overripe pomegranate drop pressed with a thumb. The shadows on the "Martha's" terrace grew enormously long in the sand. Without heeding the crippled man's fit of temper, Drusilla went ahead, 'Ol'man claims it's because of him the hurricane hit us, ' then he paused again, awaiting with interest the other man's reaction. 'Crap, 'Forzas said brusquely. 'Bullshit. You sucked like some damned octopuses this here booze and lo! and behold, you started to see the unseeable. Crap, I say. ' Ausonia came with a new glass of brandy, took up the empty one and the money, and was gone. 'What’s up, Ausonia ? What are you doin' to-night ? Would you care for a walk up to the Bora and back ?' Drusilla barked off briskly, and he clamped his strong jaws a couple of times. Besides the twilight, an infantile greed also sparkled in his eyes brimming with lust for the girl. Ausonia had grown up all right, she was not a child anymore, and she was beautiful. At times, when he watched her closely, Drusilla felt this blossoming of the girl occurred almost overnight. Like yesterday it was when she was jocular and merry, playing with shells and marine snails whereof he made strings and earrings like the other girls her age, Bianca, Laura, Roxana, and all of a sudden she grew silent and serious, and a caster of stolen glances and soft speaking half-words only when necessary ; she seemed to have forgotten overnight all about the boys -- commendable thing in a way -- only among those boys happened to be himself also ; and that made it all not that commendable.

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He, who had dived so many a time into the Bora Bay, or even into the deeper seasto pick for her , and others like her in the bunch the most beautiful Cypraea Tigris and Rufa and Rapana Thomasiana, with their long and pointed spikes and their pink-purple speckled cleft, narrow and longish and fringed in a way that lured his imagination to configure something that made to-day his cheeks blush with the hot rushes of shame. 'Have a brandy -- my treat, will ya ?' Drusilla said as if he had already been answered the other questions. Drusilla turned serious once more, and ceased to clamp and unclamp his jaws. He shook his head in an attempt to get rid of the memories that had crowded him unawares plus the bitterness stirred by Ausonia's refusal. 'So that's why Malachi is musing like this, ahm, ' he concluded. 'You kiddin', Dru. He's that way because he's damn soused , that's why. As to that connection you mentioned, it's nothing but the spooky contraption of a chafed by sun head to another one not so hot enough yet, if you ask me. You'd better keep it under your hat unless you want to make yourself the laughing stock of the village. ' It was Drusilla's turn to cast a quizzical look to his friend. 'Point is not only he is who believes it, 'he said, after he had bummed, rolled, licked and stuck into his mouth a new cigarette. The shadows of the twilight had vanished. . Ausonia lighted a lamp in the kitchen. Dark gathered strength , same like the cool breeze from the ocean sweeping the Sin Hoe village. Malachi and Martha stood up. The old man went to the table where Drusilla and Forzas sat and asked Drusilla for a light. 'I told Forzas the story too, ' Drusilla informed him as he cuddled the burning matchstick into the scoop of his palm. 'Mmm, ' the old man grumbled, looking up at the sky. 'To-night there'll be no clouds. ' 'Say, old man, you scared Drusilla shitless, you know. I hardly knew it was him I was talking to. Really, whatever you did to him to change him like this ?' As he said this, Forzas sipped the rest of brandy, then he stood up also. All three of them stood up now. The old man stared northward and sucked greedily the smoke into his lungs. 'See ?' he mumbled to no one after a while. 'See what ? What's there to be seen, old man ?' Forzas and Drusilla said. 16

'Lightning bolts on Klu Hill. Do you see them ?' The two fishermen turned their eyes to where the old man said. Forzas was skeptical. 'So what ? Haven't they been there all along ?' he added without making his scorn a secret. 'Those ain't heavenly bolts. Beyond the hill lies the town and every night one can see out there a sort of bolts on it. Even a child knows this. You're drunk, old man. Go home and sleep. ' Three cigarette butts revived and died rhythmically into the thick, cool darkness embracing the littoral. 'I´m going to pay him a visit. Maybe we could change a word or two. Once . . . ' the rasp voice of Malachi could be heard as he kept staring at the place far off the village where the ruins of Lazarus's hut lay. Drusilla stole glances to the bodega. He said, 'Did you find 'em ?' 'Find what ?' 'Broken shell. Each morning I find them aplenty. ' 'So good night, old man. Drusilla, come along ?'Forzas the cripple yelled. 'Good night, Forzas. I'll stick around some more, I guess, 'Drusilla said. A wane smile appeared on Forzas's lips, then he added in a mite gentler voice, 'Let her be, man. She's still a girl. ' Damn sharp Forzas. But a sucker though. He knew nothing where women were concerned. He fell for the trick as he himself had been just about to fall ; Ausonia was not quite a girl anymore. 'One day I'll speak to the stranger myself. One day . . . ' Malachi muttered. 'Okay, Drusilla. Good night then, you, leech. Hi there, Malachi. ' 'Good night, Forzas, ' the chosen priest babbled, his eyes roving across the sky as he sounght the tormenting ghosts of clouds. And the three flickering cigarette butts parted company, each one of them picking its own, separate way into the dark.

The pale light from the pub's kitchen went off. Drusilla shivered. He sucked in one more timethe smoke then discarded the stuband put his hands in his pockets just to pretend he had something to do, as his custom was. On the horizon, a darken eyelid hovered on the bloodshot, injurylike light , as narrow as a rope.

17

A lonesome cricket began its creak, a clear, strong and very close a thing someplace overhead, and for a moment Drusilla experienced an eerie sensation. Only for the dead and buried crickets may creak overhead since the graves are always located deeper than the living and singing crickets' holes. He lived the instant revelation of a queer metamorphosis, earth to air, of his own body into spirit under that starry creak-creak-creak and the heretical conviction hurt his mind with quick, savage , scalding intensity of a white hot branding iron to almost an unbearable point. Maybe he was dead too, and what he had believed to be his own carnal body was in fact but a celestial spirit ; one that had very few things to do with what he had fancied he knew about himself and he was doing the young, jawy fisherman. His hair bristled, standing on end for a fleeting moment, then the epiphany lost its torrid intensity , turning into some sort of alert wakefulness, profoundly disturbing as to the things that could be known and named. Hey, that's it ! How could anyone name a thing he doesn't know in the first place ? Yet from the moment he learns it, the thing and its name are one, but then wasn't it true that all a man knows it's just the name ( or a bit of it ) under which he grows to know the grand work of the Making which is nothing else but the very God's name throughout cosmos it benevolently letting itself being deciphered by whoever housed in his soul the mere joy of will to as much as read it clear enough as to realize that God's name written everywhere around it's nothing else but the Lord Himelf ? He would have talked all these matters over with Malachi, who certainly would have been able to help him some with the tremendous burden of dawn and understanding ; after all, as he kept reading them out from the Holy Bible, wasn't the chosen priest the very responsible for or of solving exactly such matters, and moments of great panic and frightfullness when one felt the "muscles of brain" ( as Drusilla used to call them ) are just about to snap in spite of the trmendous efforts of willpower to bear and endure the truly big revelation of one man's life ? The creak-creak-creak was deafening, the stars' twinkle -blinding Drusilla sighed, scratched his scruff for a long while, and then, being careful with the snapping point of the "muscles of his brain"he mentally set the subject which stirred in him that strange, most peculiar torment and put it aside for later on, when he would discuss it with Malachi, hoping to get him sober enough, and, of course, provided he himself would

18

still be able to recall precisely and in accurate both spread and depth detail what he envisioned in these moments of revery under the crickets' song. He was saddened a little since it semed to him inconceivable ; it was so beautiful what he had felt and he was much too weak for confession of so grand an ecstasy, as exhausting as it was, so enthralling. He felt much too overwhelmed. Briskly he got mad at himself since he had perceived his own impotence-to-be of sharing that ecstatic experience with others, but the fit didn't last long. Eventually a burnt, spent, imbecilic beatitude caught him and within it he felt -- funny enough -- like a new born baby. Unawares and unwilling, something snapped in his head for ever and then got welded askew. Forever also. Gentle footsteps were heard on the board floor of the bodega, then on the sand. 'Mighty fine night, ' Drusilla cried out as he drew near in his lazy, swinging gait to the silhouette that halted but for a little while just to immediately dart past the man with his heart shrunk with apprehension. 'Ausonia, hey. ' 'Leave me alone, ' the girl hissed, albeit the man didn't even pull his hands out from his pockets, let alone touch her. 'Hey, Ausonia, wait a sec, really. Wait, wait . . . Let's have a walk to the Bora beach, willya ?' 'No, I must be home. ' 'Then maybe on this here beach. Just for a little while. ' 'No. Let me be. ' 'Just for five minutes, hey ?' No answer, just soft footsteps on the sand. 'Two minutes, maybe ?' 'Leave me alone, I tell you. ' 'I'll accompany you. If you want me to. ' 'No, I don't. ' Soft footsteps on the sand and Ausonia was no more, vanished into the eyelid of the darkness. The windows of some huts were lighted sallow with oil lamp light. The soft footsteps vanished toward them. Drusilla ground his teeth nervously and kicked the sand with his foot. 'You enjoyed the times when I was bringing to you shell off Bora Bay, and sea horses too. Now it's over, eh ? You don't know me anymore, eh

19

? Eh ?' he hollered with gusto and sudden bitterness he couldn't explain either. He kicked the sand once more and added, 'And cypraeas also I brought you, remember ?' with a tinge of innocent malice in his tone. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes and the matchbox. His gestures were frantic, awkward because of some unknown uneasiness he could explain in now way as well. The cigarette smoke was bitter. He raised his eyes to the sky. It was clear, as Malachi said it would be. The bloodshot injurylike eyelid on the horizon had vanished, and by now he could see the Milky Way's dust of lights twinkling. Since childhood he nurtured the wish for his soul to wander up there, in happiness sometimes after his death. He heard from the rear Martha's voice calling him. He turned his head from the Milky Way. Although he sensed she stood somewhere into the pub's doorway, the darkness was too thick to see her. 'Have a brandy. My treat, ' Martha was saying, and Drusilla imagined that it was only the night that was making slick innuendosto float free into her simple, direct words. At night, Drusilla discovered once many things and many beings turned extra luring, much more tempting then they used to be into the daylight and under the sun, but up to-day he didn't come up with an explanation either. Drusilla drew from the cigarette once more, then cast the butt and stepped upon the wood porch with a brittle, spiteful and contrite determination. Unwillingly he glanced once more time at the Klu Hill, then the door slammed shut. Outside and under the evening breeze, the firm's sign board of painteed iron foil bent by the hurricane barely hang by one single rusty nail only, and every now and then it creaked.

As he reached the door to his hut, before entering, Forzas looked one more timeat the sky. And he was forced to lie himself that he had been doing so just to foresee how the weather will be next day at dawn, when they'll set out for fishing again, at sea. Lightning bolts flashed out to the north, but they did seldom so, and they were pale, and unheavenly ; out there, always coming from the town and over the Klu Hill peak, as usual. And the night was mighty fine.

20

CHAPTER TWO

Rolo was the first to see the stranger’s boat. It bobbed lonesome about two miles due north from their fishing place. ‘My, my. If I’m not mistaken, it looks like a boat over there, or no ?’ Everybody shifted attention from their fishing nets big and small. They said, ‘You’re right, Rolo. ’

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Whoever could be, Forzas murmured as she stopped casting loose one of the hawser ropes. Drusilla, who used to work with him in the same boat, squatted down and smoked. They always went to fishing together, as a team. ‘I wonder why are you asking, Forzas ? It’s the stranger, you know, ’he said, and spit a bit of tobacco off the tip of his tongue. Almost everybody had heard the story one way or another. The evening before, while they were taking their time enjoying a pipe to go along after a hard day’s work, they had been talking over quite a lot the strange way the stranger kept himself aside when the moment came the small fleet of the village to set out. ‘why won’t he come with us ?’ an old man in Malachi’s boat had asked as he nibbled gingerly in his amber-hued beard at the stem of his pipe that was roughly hewn out of a clump of meerschaum. The priest sat down also, picking at the sticky, mother-of-pearl, reeking scales on his soiled clothes, like everybody else. He had squinted his eyes without uttering a single word. ‘That’s right, ol’ man. Where did he get that boat, anyway, eh ? It must be a great one, ’ had said somebody else, who up to that moment had been content with only glancing to one or another the way fishermen use to glance with their watchful, highly patiently eyes. ‘What’s really great indeed is that he managed to sail her all alone to a point where we together barely dare to venture, ’ some younger fisherman, Calavera by name, had growled, his ears also cocked. ‘That’s true, Calavera. As you said, just been wondering what the ray we’re keeping figurin’ we see him rowing and fishing all by himself in his boat no further off shore than us, who a after all are so many ? Not to mention he is a townsfolk not a thoroughbred fisherman like us. Or at least that’s what I could gather from what the old man said. ’ ‘Old man who ? The priest you mean ?’ ‘Him. ’ ‘So what ?’ he had mumbled to his mate, and this one back to him, ‘Don’t you see ?We’ve been talking only about that guy all along. All the time, all the village, right from then on, all along. I reckon we’ve gone banana with seeing him that much everywhere. ’ Calavera had scowled. ‘I don’t get you, Alfred, ’ he had said. ’So you believe . . . ‘Calavera had lowered his voice some more without being aware why not even himself. ‘Under normal circumstances, a man is seeing only what his eyes are able to see. I’m afraid to say these are some not quite normal circumstances, 22

from the night of the storm, at least, since everybody everywhere ever since is talking and figuring only about that newcomer and nothing else. What I wonder indeed is why you keep wondering why everybody’s ogling something that only their hot brains imagine ?’ And Alfred had made a gesture of having enough of it. ‘Do you think it could be an illusion ?’ Calavera had dared to volunteer, as he rubbed the flat of his palm against the rasp stubble on his strong jaw. Alfred had watched him as if he would a child. ‘Why, certainly it’s a mere illusion, ’ Alfred had said. ‘Tell me, could you, or anybody else for that matter prove it to me right now, this very minute that it’s not a simple illusion and nothing more than that huh ? Now, really, Calavera, we’d better mind our own nets. Oh, come on, say to me, are sturgeon, bonito, albacore or mackerel you haul in from you nets into the boat illusions as you can see them wriggling alive, cold, and shiny, and slimy, and nice to feel about your bare feet ? You have my word they aren’t, and I’ll defy whoever would try to tell me the contrary is true. Like I said, we’d better mind our own chores, if you ask me. ’ Whereupon he had turned back to his tools without joining again in the discussions stirred by the stranger’s presence in their waters. Once he had finished with the scales, Malachi had began looking at his nails, then locked up in silence had watched over the shoulder the waves, ranges upon ranges of them following each other endlessly for just the only purpose to foam the shore white ; to what purpose ? only God alone knew. ‘Leave him alone, Everard, ’ Drusilla had shouted. ’He hates talking about this. Or maybe not even he knows. ’ ‘My wife knows more than he does. ’ ‘Who doesn’t ? All the village knows, ’ Drusilla had said, making no gesture to help Forzas. The man without an arm could summon in his only arm left more strength that two robust hands could muster , and he would have rejected such a tentative with abhorrence. ‘Know this and know that, what you know ? You know nothing, ’ Malachi mumbled sourly. ‘I’ve seen him, Everard. I’ve seen him walking down the row. Don’t reckon he’s over thirty. ’ ‘Everard is right, but the guy gets no suntan, ’ Rolo volunteered. ’I’ve seen him too from close quarters I should say. Narvahl called me to show him to me. He said, “Dad, come quickly to see ‘im walk in the street. ” “See ‘im who , Narvahl ?” says me. “ The guy who came with the storm, ” 23

he says in a hurry. So I ran to the fence and it was then when I’ve seen him. He was toting along some boards. ’ Rolo had the habit to windmill hands as he spoke. ‘The old man says he took lodge at the ruined shack of Lazarus, isn’t that so, ol’ man ?’ Drusilla had asked, casting the cigarette butt far away, toward the ever shore-licking waters. Malachi’s answer had been this time too barely a mumble no one could distinguish. ‘Maybe he plans to live there after he gives it a fix. Say, didn’t he hit Martha’s pub yet ? Gee, not at all ?’ Everard had wondered and rightfully so looking up in astonishment at his countryfolks who nodded their heads in sign of sharing surprise. Pretty fishy thing this one -- for Everard and any other man in Sin Hoe for that matter. ‘He hit it, ’ Drusilla had said, and after he made sure that everybody stared at him in even greater surprise, he added, ‘But missed. ’ Rolo had grinned. ‘Say, Drusilla, ’ Rolo had said aloud for all to hear, ’whatever got last night to fix at such a wee hour that piece of tinfoil on the pub’s roof ?’ ‘What tinfoil ?’ Drusilla had said, trying to play the fool, although his reddened ears proved him in the know about the point Rolo was making. ‘The sign that reads “Martha’s”, eh ?’ Rolo winked to the left and right, making no special effort to keep that a secret from Drusilla whose crimson ears grew darker of hue. ‘You must have been worried we won’t be able to find the joint, perhaps, ’ Rolo prodded him him, and winked again for all to see. The fishermen within earshot burst into laughter. Only Forzas and Rolo smiled. As for Drusilla, he kept training his jaw muscles in a way that hardly could be called smile. ‘I came awake in the morning, ’ Rolo had went ahead with gusto. ‘It was 3 a. m. , or 3 and a half, maybe, something like that, and I hear knockknockknock. Now what the heck says. Lo! and behold. This mister here , hammer in hand stood astride the woman’s door. Nailed back in place the big sign of the terrace, the one that hangs at the entrance, you know. ’ Then Rolo joined the wild roars of laughter with the rest of them. Some of them, noticing Drusilla’s grin askew wiped their tears of unbridled joy. ‘Why, it used to creak a damn good deal, . . . ’ Drusilla had mumbled, but his tentative explanation triggered extra roars of laughter. ‘You heard that ? It used to “creak” of all things, oh, Jesus, why, sure thing, mister, now you don’t have to convince me, I believe you it creaked, ’

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the fishermen were playing turns at pulling the leg of increasingly dizzy Drusilla who kept mumbling, ‘Someone had to do it. Martha loves he joint a good deal and loves it neat and wished so much to have a solid, square firm-sign up the gate. Er, the other three nails were rusty, ’ he cried in a husky voice, and his babbled and mired excuses made Forzas’s smile grew wider. Red of face and hot on the inside, Drusilla failed to see how his efforts to stiffle and deny the rumors and innuendo circulating on both him and Martha’s account exposed him the more to the popular irony instead of providing him some shelter against the general amusement of his fellow villagers who had by now stood up ready to leave the terrace. ‘No more creakin’ from now on, Dru, no mistake about it, honest, ’Everard also contributed as he daubed at his cheeks with the back of his both palms in order to wipe the tears of lackadaisical amusement. ‘Hey, stop it, Everard, willya ? Now what’s so funny ?’ Forzas had suddenly sided with Drusilla, and without his friend put back to the wall being aware of it, he had also winked to Everard. In his boundless playfulness the fisherman didn’t notice Forzas’s gesture and ploughed ahead, ‘Say, men, now what’s the point of such a sign posted on a house all of us know full well what’s trading ? Does Malachi’s belfry bears the sign “church, ” what ?’ There was a hardcore of seriousness at the heart of the irony in which Everard dipped his words, and it had borne a jarring ring to Forzas’s ears. ‘Okay, enough it’s enough, now let him be, ’ the crippled had meddled up, eager to douse the things for his buddy. The older fishermen still laughed and puffed on the account of poor Drusilla caught in the cross-fire of their jesting mood. Only Malachi kept himself apart and sucked peacefully at his cigarette, and looked at them in a silence acknowledged and resented by all of them with just a touch of mild, astonished, unshared surprise : he was quiet all right, but until then they didn’t know just how really quiet he could be. Now it was Rolo who cried, ‘Everard, the rod !’ and the called turned and grabbed in a strong grip the bamboo stick whose tip jerked here and there; at times the tip touched the sea where apparently a fish that must have weighed over forty pounds led a losing battle with death. ‘Don’t lose it, Everard !’ ‘Hold it tight, Everard !’ 25

‘Hold tight, Eve. ’ ‘Feed out the line, Eve, or else you’ll lose it. ’ ´Give it more line and teach it pain. It’s real big one. ’ ‘Take it easy, Eve. Be gentle. Gingerly, boy, there you are. Else the line snaps and it’s gone, ’ the fishermen cried. all of them standing up each one in his own boat and jockeying the best they could for a better view of the fight. Rolo had grabbed the gaff, raised it slanting into the air until its sharp iron tip came level with his shoulder, then he froze. He watched in concentration the very spot where the line from Rolo’s rod pierced the sea. They had not arrived at their fishing zone yet, and zap! the first catch of the day squirmed just about to be hoisted into their empty boats. ‘What do you reckon it is, old man ? A mighty fine bonito twice as big the one Untling and Thorvald got last year about the same season ?’ Rolo hissed, eyes riveted to the liquid mass while Everard had began to reel the line in. ‘I’d reckon it’s a damn fine sturgeon. I almost can see its grey, studded back, ’ Drusilla said in excitement from his boat. ‘Let’s prey it’s not a shark, ’ Forzas said skeptically, hunting also for a better angle of vision of the deadly confrontation between life and fate. They never grew bored to witness such fight. Albeit it was a familiar, professional sight, it seemed to run aethernally fresh, as fresh are to the senses all those things of the Making which because of their immortality a bound to be lacking a history. Rolo’s arm had hurled the gaff, and the cries of victory hailed the accomplished action. Deep down in his heart Forzas felt sorry it had not been him the man at the right end of the harpoon, but unfortunately their boat floated a bit further when the fish hit, so he had to feel content with just lying in passive assistance. A heavy, tensed silence followed. The dark lilac hulk in indigo-metallic hues had ceased to twitch in the hook of Rolo’s gaff. The fisherman raised it up for all to see, then pushed the dead body and kicked it back into the sea. It bobbed for a while in company of the speechless fishermen, then began sinking slowly. ‘Damn, ’ Rolo muttered. He slammed the harpoon against the botom planking , a forbidden gesture that instantly stirred the cool, worried rage of

26

the fishing party. Such uncontrollable fits of anger could result in breaking a hull. Rolo blamed himself as he squatted at his plaee and bitterly gathered his both hands into impotent fists. Malachi was looking far away into the distance and over the sea. Forzas asked Drusilla who kept standing up, ‘What was it, Dru ?’ ‘Stingray, ’ Drusilla said disgusted. He raised his eyes and cursed with gusto. Then Forzas stood up also, propping himself gently against his friend. ‘Just too bad, ’ the armless said softly. It was, indeed. If the first catch on a rod in a fishing day is a skate, it’s no point to keep trying : you’ll hook no fish good to eat, and you’ll waste a full day’s work for nothing. ‘Everard , what the heck you got that bitch ?’ Thorvald reprimanded, but without any trace of malicious intent. He was about the same age as Malachi , and as pipe-addicted as he was illiterate. Way back in his time, when people had to elect a priest, he had regretted they had not chosen him, since as he never confess to anyone, he liked so much the sound the word “priest” made. ‘What the hell, old man, ’ Everard pledged not guilty. ‘It just bit. Aw, the hell with it. ’ ‘Don’t speak damnation, ’ intervened fisherman Untling, re-known for his speechlessness. Malachi looked at Untling first, and nodded meekly with his head, then at the other occupants of the boat. At last he said, ‘It’s not his fault. Just black-eye bit. Nothing to do about it. ’ ‘Hey, Malachi , Untling, you too, ’ Forzas cried from where he stood. ‘Is not possible for us to have just Everard’s boat getting back home or something and we keep fishing ?’ Youth sought advice from the elders. Binoculars at hand, Throvald spied the lonesome boat floating off, due north. ‘The stranger got a catch too, ’ Thorvald said. The fishermen without binoculars stirred with curiosity. Thorvald let the binoculars dangling and said bluntly, ‘It’s a lobster. A giant one. ’ As if it had not been enough of a bad luck the way it was, old hide Thorvald figured it was the moment to be funny with his bad joke. One single man grinned uncaring. His name was Alfred. 27

Drusilla looked askance at the old man and deemed to pull his leg for a change. ‘Don’t look through that shit, or else you’ll ruin your eyes, old man. Lobsters simply don’t reach this far off shore, okay ?’ ‘My word. It’s true, ’ the old man was adamant, passing the optical instrument on to Malachi . ‘Can’t see it though, ’ he said after a while, and returned the instrument. ‘He put it into the boat. It was a big, golden lobster he got. I’ve seen him, Malachi , what the ray, there was no mistake. I’ve seen it fine and clear. ’ The fishermen exchanged worried glances. The ocean, unfriendly on that particular day, right from the onset proffered them two bad omens. Yet whereas the stingray they hooked at the beginning rated as just a simple bad luck which was supposed to last one day only, the lobster could mean a menace to the life of the man who caught it, and who, ignorant or unmindful of the local custom, brought the marine animal home where intentionally or not he kept for keeps the shell of that otherwise tasteful creature. Without comparing notes, the fshermen of Sin Hoe could only dare to hope that the stranger who came along with the hurricane knew about that custom and observed it. ‘Maybe you just thought you saw it, ’ the priest murmured. Thorvald looked about him, and as he met their silent stare, nodded at last. ‘Maybe so. I’ll say no more. I could have been wrong. But if you really want to learn whether I was right or not, you have nothing left but to go over to him and ask. Or else . . . ’ he added after a short pause, ‘you do nothing but wait until . . . ’ As he uttered these last words, Ausonia’s grandfather clamped stubbornly the stem of his cold by now meerschaum pipe and said no more words throughout their whole rowing back home. ‘You don’t even guess what a big thing you said. Even today I must go see him and invite him to attend the liturgy. I’ll pry and see what about the lobster, Then we’ll see whether you saw it right or not, Thorvald, ’ Malachi said. Then since there was nothing else left for them to do at sea although the sun had not reached noon yet, Malachi gave the signal to cease work and grabbed in his calloused hands the shiny handle of his oar. Far to the north, the stranger´s boat gave no sign of cease work. 28

In their own boat, Forzas and Drusilla were talking. ‘When I’ve told you the other day the world’s changing, I was not mistaken. Can’t remember since when Untling spoke that much last. ’ ‘Now look, Forzas , this story seems to me a bit exaggerated. ’ ‘What story ?’ ‘The one Thorvald threw our way after he looked through his glass. I agree the stingray woe, I understand it, I know it, I’ve grown up with it; but taking up to crossing yourself and shiver only thinking that some stranger who lives more than two miles away from the village won’t know what to do with a lobster carcass , now that seems to me an old-man-turned-kid mind ballooney. Whoever he is , the stranger over there is a full fledged fisherman, he just proved it, and if so, it is impossible for him not to know what to do with a lobster shell -- all fishermen do. ’ ‘I’ve also heard about the lobster curse, ’ his one-handed man reprimanded him, but only mildly so. At each stroke he gasped, and the wooden oar squeaked in its iron eyelet pivoting in the gun whale. Then he continued, a warm smile on his face, ‘But then maybe it’s just as you say, the old men grow the brains of babies, and since we already know they’re wise, we just can’t keep us from putting old people and kids into the same, well, boat. As long as we’re in our full manhood we’re just as big dummies as could be. ’ ‘Forzas , I’ve heard about the thing too, but even if that fisherman who would bring home the lobster without being aware of the dire outcome for violating the custom, the curse would befall on his head only, not upon the community as a whole. Not to mention the fact that he took refuge at the Lzarus’s ruins. Who’s taking into account some ruins ? Heavens take no ruins into account, buddy, believe me . ’ ‘Lazarus was one of us, ’ the one-armed man rebuked gently as he manned his allotted oar with strong, decisive swings. ‘Sure thing, ’ Drusilla objected aloud, ‘ But he’s long time dead now. ’ ‘And his homestead stays and on it another dweller has come. ’ ‘Some stranger, ’ Drusilla said, whereupon the one-armed man’s smile turned mysterious. ‘Hold it, my friend. Cool down. You’re too hush-rush. Nobody’s a stranger just because he refuses to talk to you. He must have his reasons no to, I believe. ’ Forzas uttered the words gasping in the rhythm of his pulling at his oar for a square purchase against the dark, metallic bluish of the ocean. Drusilla , who was also rowing tuned with his friend, thought he was listening to a magical music. The complete trust he vested in Forzas made 29

him to consider everything he said truer than the truth itself, although sometimes, as the case seemed to be that very day, his one-armed buddy rather looked like hard-smitten with an exaggerated mysticism -- he meant no harm, of course. When he failed to grasp something, Drusilla rejected promptly that pathway, featuring the obstacle to understanding more like a prohibition under alternative of disaster rather than a coded lure to initiation. To him understanding meant all that could be beaded in a string of fairly normal, decent events that developed unhampered one from the other. To tell the truth, at times he felt the push of some tiny, wayward drives of willpower to see things that couldn’t be seen at all at a first sight, but such urges chanced seldom and ran weak as far as Drusilla could remember. The last one he recalled best had happened the other night, or the night before, when Ausonia, to whom he lately gave as gifts the most beautiful shell off the bottom of Bora Bay had ran away from him in fright, outscaring even a minnow. Why ? was one of those questions that contributed to the minimm bulk of obstacles his mind failed to cope with otherwise, Drusilla was strong as to ran shark-a-shoulder if he wished to. Now Forzas fiddled with the dark niches of his unsophisticated mind all fishermen usually develop throughout their lives. Forzas was a fisherman too, but one who saw things in a way which at times even old men like Malachi had to consider them wise. Forzas was a plain fisherman, young and without an arm, a detail that had to have some purport and contribution to the full development of his so early a sage’s ways. ‘Last night Malachi bid him hello, we used to be together at the terrace, the Martha’s, of course, for a drink. And the guy didn’t even as much as turn his head, as if both of us, Malachi and me were some jerks. He made it straight to the Lazarus’s hut. ’ ‘I guess I was there too, wasn’t I ? I’d say so, ’ Forzas said. ‘Yes, you were, but you checked in a bit later. ’ Forzas’s smile turned least visible and more tolerant. ‘Did the old man call him by name ?’ he querried as if by only casual interest. Drusilla replied in haste as Forzas knew too well he would since this was his die-in-the-wool habit. ‘Oh no, no one knows his name yet, ’ he said sententiously. ‘See ? If he didn’t call him by name how would the man know it was him Malachi addressed to ? And also don’t you forget he pronounced a word actually. ’ Drusilla brooded for a while at his friend’s remark, but not longer than two oar-stroke lapse. He said, 30

‘True enough. He said “There”. The priest says so. ’ ‘Why, maybe that’s his own name, ’ Forzas said. ‘Yet the old man claims the guy came in straight in from the town, and as soon as he said it, he pointed to the hillock. Or beyond the hillock lays the town, you know. ’ For three oar-strokes time Forzas kept silent, pondering in his wise mind whatever Drusilla had just said. ‘No wonder, ’ he muttered. ‘In a weather like that anyone could easily mistake a thing for another, a man for another, a word for another word. Simply “There” could very well be his own name. ’ Instinctively Drusilla turned his head to cast a glance astern. The stranger’s boat was a barely visible dot on the horizon. ‘Who knows, Forzas , who knows, ’ he murmured. ‘Maybe you’re right. ’ Forzas spoke with his usual , unflinching, unshakeable fortitude. ‘No one is a stranger, Drusilla . As for bidding hi, he must know what the people are like, big mouth they are, perverse, and taken to slander, and they might get the wrong notion that if someone bids them as much as a “hi”, the poor bastard is supposed to be sort of automatically bound to spill out everything he harbors in him holy, and most intimate. I say again, who knows, maybe There-man lived enough to learn all these, and that’s exactly why he keeps quiet, not even saying hello, and if situation amounts to what I feel it eventually would, well, then whoever happens to meet him casually has no need to be greeted nor in any other way acknowledged by him : merely his presence alone on the premises should suffice and do in the way of decency. ’ After these words he stressed with every stroke, Forzas looked again at his muted friend, then added after a ten-oar lapse when none of them spoke, ‘Did you notice what happens when standing up and the wind blows ?’ Drusilla turned his head and answered, ‘Sure thing, buddy. Boat’s rocking. ’ ‘That too, ’ Forzas agreed smiling as if he expected this sort of an answer. ‘What else ?’ ‘Beats me. Shirt’s ballooning and flapping, ’ his friend added casually. ‘Right. You jam the wind, and if you brace yourself and hold tight on your feet against the bottom planking, it throws you off balance ; it may even capsize. In any case the boat is rocking like mad. ’ 31

The crippled young man kept rowing in silence for a while, then added, ‘If you hold it tight enough, well, if you manage to do that, instead of having your boat rocking for no purpose, it will be driven by the very same wind that’s ballooning and flapping your shirt sort of. ’ Forzas looked to his friend on cue, trying to fathom in his eyes whether his own words sank home. Then he continued, ‘Had two people stood up in their boat instead of one, the wind would jam twice as much in their shirts, and therefore their boat is bound to sail , so to speak, times-two faster than if only one man stood up. ’ ‘Who would pull the oars if all aboard will stand up and jam the wind as you say ?’ Drusilla objected which taken Forzas aback with such crass misunderstanding. All of a sudden his face beamed with a broad smile. ‘Why, the wind itself, Drusilla . Take my word for it, you’re right. Why have them all standing up aboard when I reckon it would suffice to raise their shirts only instead, stitched up together, much like the way any woman in Sin Hoe pole her freshly laundered clothes up on a string to dry. ’ Drusilla looked at him as if he were a ghost, then he said in the conversational tone of someone who actually didn’t mind to carry out a job like this, ‘That would mean we’d have to stick out a rather long pole at the center of the boat. Post, sort of. ’ Forzas’s eyes glittered with glee. ‘Show me the guy who won’t let us to, ’ he cried out, his face shining with joy. It was now Drusilla’s turn to wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He said, ‘We’ll have to devise a contraption of some kind designed to hoist the bigger shirt atop of this central pole. ’ Drusilla smacked his lips and added with simplicity, ‘I don’t see why it won’t work, really. ’ Sitting beside him, Forzas glowered. ‘Do you realize, Drusilla , all fishermen could then just sit down without ever callousing their palms and breaking their backs, ’ Forzas dreamed aloud, getting extra boost from his friend’s backing and trust, and the crippled young man was able to see it almost a palpable thing, floating before his very own eyes and driven by only the finnicky, absolute master of all waves : wind. Drusilla said,

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‘Wait a minute, Forzas . What if the wind blows in our face and we want to sail ahead ? What are we going to do then ? Did you think abot that ?’ Forzas cut short the reverie. ‘I’m sorry, Drusilla , no. I didn’t think about it yet, ’ he said, and bit his lips like a suddenly scared kid. ‘Don’t get sad, Forzas , ’ Drusilla said as he realized the shock his friend got the minute that piece of criticism blew in his face ; a damn good piece of it. ‘We must give the thing a closer look someday. I’ll think about it, and we’ll build one. ’ ‘Really ? No shit ?’ Forzas said and shuddered with excitement. ‘Sure thing, buddy. It’ll spare us half the effort at least. And half of anything is a great deal worth working. ’ ‘It’s all for nothing, Drusilla , ’ the impaired went on somberly. ‘You’re right. If the wind blows from inland, maybe we could pull out off shore easier, no sweat. But we could never turn back home again ; the wind would sweep us God knows where. We’d die. ’ Drusilla spat in the water and said, ‘Stingray, huh ! . . . Well, we’ll give it a thorough thought and come up with something. Don’t get blue, man, your idea is just great for the case when wind blows from astern. From now on we’ll think about what to do if it sweeps from ahead. Yes, Forzas , that’s it. We’ll think about it, and I due course, we’ll make it ; and make it work. ’ Forzas turned his head and looked at his mate. Both of them kept their mouth tight lipped and set, but not with lack of trust and determination. And dipped into the water in rhythmical cadence of the rest of rowers, Forzas’s oar seemed to creak louder as it swung in its iron swivel in the gunwhale. Their oars were creaking and squeaking in unison. In other boats also the fishermen of Sin Hoe, sad because on their way back their boats are so high with emptiness, handled with somehow quicker, more superficial stroke the long poles of the oars. Way ahead, beyond the bow and the foamy crests of the surf it began to loom the slim, white line of the shore. Way above, the gulls, terns, and cormorants hovering to reconnoiter uttered deafening, piercing, cheeky cries of curiosity, as if they would have wondered, queried, and scalded men “Where’s the fish ?” whereupon the men of Sin Hoe lowered their chin, braced themselves and kept rowing 33

while their eyes scurried ashamed into the notches of the bottom wood planks. ‘I guess you’re right, Forzas , ’ Drusilla murmured. ‘There is no stranger just because seems to acknowledge no one. He must have a Mom and a Dad someplace, maybe even a wife ; children also, who knows ? Fact is he’s and angler and he’s lodged at the decrepit shack of Lazarus after he came to us with the storm, to settle perhaps. ’ Drusilla’s eyes glittered then like in front of a marvel, and his face glowered : he understood, and if what he felt could not be named understanding, at least an inkling of it had dawned on him. He said, ‘Speaking about him. You’re right to claim such a man could scorn the curse of the lobster the rest of us know and fear. He is a strong man, company of storms and bolts. Strong and unmindful. Needs nothing, no one. Not even our hospitality. ’ Drusilla was shaken. Forzas cast him a dour glance. He began to feel sorry he had talked to Drusilla so far. He was too green, too much of a big boy in spite of the fact that he had by now to stop loitering and settle himself the way normal grownups do, meaning get married to a girl his age from the village and build a hut and have babies. ‘Don’t speak damnation, ’ Forzas said. ‘No one can out power the time-honored customs. They’re older than Sin Hoe, and older even that the ocean itself. Not even There, the comer with the storm, in all his might cannot defy the custom of the lobster. ’ Their mates in the boat nodded approvingly. The fanatical sparkle had moved under the widely opened eyelids of Forzas. The way the sinews in Drusilla’s arm tensed bespoke of panic and astonishment. He muttered, ‘Really, I don’t see why you must shout, Forzas . I’m quite surprised to learn you do care about these things. ‘Well, I care. I feel perfectly comfortable to care, and if There can afford to overlook these things, then this is his business, but he’s not a full fledged fisherman, Forzas is telling you this much. ’ ‘Hey, cool down, buddy, will ya ?Suppose Thorvald had an illusion, ’ Drusilla said unexpectedly. He had dragged his words in an altogether special new way, his glance a mint slanted, although it could be blamed his lateral relative position with respect to Forzas rather than anything else. ‘You’re proud, ’ the crippled said after some pause. Under the worn thin shirt, the huge biceps of Forzas could be seen getting swollen in rhythm.

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During the sunny days of the hot season it was customary for people to walk about in shirtsleeves or no shirt at all. Yet Forzas always was wearing a shirt on ; no matter how old and patched it was. No one to date had been so rude as to ask him why he doesn’t drop it when everybody else did so. Just the muscles of his odd arm kept swelling and collapsing in rhythm under the cheap fabric, worn thin and bleached with so much exposure to water, sun, and salty perspiration , like some airbags of a gigantic cephalopod. ‘You’ll be less sour if you’d manage to douse a bit this big pride of yours, ’ Forzas said. Forzas felt his crony grow tense much like himself sometimes when he fancied he had the arm again with which he could, if he would, to pick up a pebble and throw it into the bay. But when he opened his eyes, he realized it had been but the usual ghost-limb all crippled experience every now and then. And yet the sensation was so vivid that he almost could feel in the tip of his fingers the coolness of the pebble, , its texture and shape, its weight ; additionally he could also feel even the sand under the nails, sort of, the effort, so magnificent, of the muscle line up to the shoulder’s deltoid accompanied by a unique sensation of silk rubbing the brain he had known so well from the remote childhood when he had used his full arm in such simple games. Today, when in his loneliness took to fiddle with such exercises, futile, he knew it too well, he used to clench his teeth every time he reached up to their unsatisfactory dead end : the miracle vanished as soon as he opened his eyes. That insignificant tiny pebble kept laying there where it was in the sand by his feet, always unpicked, not even budged until some kid sometime maybe would see it, take a fancy to pick it up and feel the urge to throw it far away into the sea, just so, for fun, or perhaps to best other kids in contest ; or else the sand itself would swallow it and ground it to dust and no other trace left. To the side of his missing arm, Forzas could feel his friend cramped. ‘Just what do you mean by that ?’ he asked. ‘Nothing, ’ Forzas answered, self content to just keep looking ahead.

The shore was close by now. The houses of Sin Hoe could be easily seen. The gulf stream had them adrift, but not much. Some kids ran on the waterfront. As soon as they saw the boats coming in they stopped whatever they were playing, nailing them down with inquisitive glances. They could not believe their eyes their parents would turn back from work that early. 35

The minute they recognized the boats, they began to yell and jump along the waterfront. ‘So what’s the grudge, buddy ? So that’s what’s nagging you, why I don’t come to Malachi’s belfry on Sundays, eh ? Well, well, even Narvahl knows this business is just a simple convention and nothing more. ’ ‘This is also a custom, Drusilla. But that’s not the point I was trying to make. ’ ‘Then what ?’ ‘Er, you’re much to proud. Too high and mighty, you know. That’s all. ’ For an oar-stroke lapse Drusilla was about to grow sad, but eventually he burst into genuine laughter. Then they landed and hopped ashore. The children helped them to turn the boats upside down and carry the gear , picking eagerly any bit of information they could. ‘He must be one hell of a man, ’ Drusilla boomed as he stretched out his cramped limbs with obvious pleasure. ‘True, ’ the crippled growled. He sweated abundantly all over, and he used his one palm with which he did everything to wipe his forehead and scruff first. Only after that he used a piece of cloth as handkerchief. ‘Everard hooked a stingray, ’ they explained, and Everard was black in the face with sorrow and would have welcome earth to come apart so he could scuttle in there where no one will be able to see him anymore. Only the old Malachi kept mumbling on and on, ‘It’s not him to blame, ’ as he kept watching out, tentatively, due north. They learned from the children that while they were gone out at sea, some people just checked in to visit the village : they were townsfolk

‘What about a brandy, hey ?’ ‘Later on, Drusilla . I’ve still got some chores to do at home. ’ ‘That’s all right. I’d better be going now. See you Forzas . ’ ‘See you, buddy. ’ Drusilla turned around looking for the priest. He said, ‘Hey, Malachi , what about a swig, hey ?’ ‘Why not, Drusilla . Let’s show ‘em we dare-an’-no-care. C’mon. ’

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‘Holy shit, ’ Martha said when she saw them coming. ‘What happened ?’ ‘Don’t you see what happened ? Here we are back home again, ’ Drusilla said tartly. ‘Now, really, do tell me whatever happened, old man. Why I see your mugs so mournful today ?’ ‘Bad luck, ’ the priest answered for all of them. ‘The stingray ?’ the woman said, and Malachi nodded approval, then added, ‘You’d better get that liquor real fast, wench. My throat is as parched as a chunk of pastrami. ’ Martha went in to bring them the bottle of brandy and the two fishermen were left alone for a while. The sad fishermen of Sin Hoe gathered one by one at Martha’s terrace. The woman showed up carrying a bottle and two glasses, but when she saw more clients checking in dismissed the wish to learn on the spot what actually had happened. She had chores to attend first. Everard the hairy one let himself drop exhaustedly at one of the tables. Drusilla saw him, raised his glass, and said, ‘Take it easy, Everard , c’mon. Let it go, what the heck. Can’t do a fucking thing anyway. No point to poison your heart for that. C’mon. Cheers to that. ’ Everard slammed his fist into the table and the noise resembled one made by a remote thunderbolt. Some of the newly arrived fishermen thought it came from aloft, and instinctively they cast frightened glances to the sky. ‘My gall bladder’s is bursting in me with sorrow, ’ the hirsute man said without glancing back to Drusilla . Rolo intervened, ‘Stop eatin’ your liver, Eve, Th’is no good for you to go on like this ; it’s jes’ another day of your life. Have a life. ’ ‘Aw right, Rolo, if you say so . . . Jesus, I can hardly stand waiting to have Martha’s brandy stashed over here, under the belt, ’ he said, sighed, and slammed once more the table that boomed ominously. About 3 p. m. two silhouettes were making steady headway along the littoral coming from south and north bound. The first of them, taller than the other, said, ‘Think he’s back ?’ ‘No doubt, ’ the shorter silhouette said. 37

‘Whatever makes you so sure ?’ ‘I’m telling you, he’s back. Take my word for it. ’ ‘Okay, we’ll see I guess. And what are you goin’ to tell ‘im ?’ ‘Join us at church the day after tomorrow. ’ ‘What if he’ll keep quiet all the way ?’ The two were Drusilla and Malachi . The second silhouette didn’t answer immediately. The first one kept nudging, ‘I failed to learn who were those townsfolk Martha kept talking about. What about you ? I mean did you get anything ?’ ‘For years the only townspeople who care to visit us every once in a while are only the doc and the cop. No, Drusilla , I have no idea what the four strangers are after. Maybe our stranger knows. ’ Drusilla cast a contemptuous glance to his priest. He mumbled, ‘How come that ? Weren’t he out at sea with us, fishing ? You forget ? He worked far off, due north, remember ?’ ‘I didn’t forget this, only he’s a newcomer fresh from the town, that’s all, and maybe he’s savvy with what’s afoot and we can’t have any idea about yet. ’ ‘How could he know details about some towns folks he never saw them to begin with ? This is a foolish thing to say, old man, realize that, don’t you ? And besides, how can you say this man is a stranger only because he seems to be tightlipped ? So what ? Then what about Untling ? You mean Untling is a stranger too just because he used to keep his trap shut ? Or take Little Lucretia, his granddaughter, for a change. Is Little Lucretia a stranger to you , what ? This man who came into our village with the storm said but one word, it was “There”, none but you said it, with your own candy box. Maybe that’s his name. Is he a stranger only because of this fact alone ? I got this notion from Forzas , you know. Damn smart, Forzas , ’ Drusilla concluded. ‘True enough, he’s smart, ’ the old priest admitted after a long pause. ‘If he’ll sample physical love of some woman some day he’ll become a great sage, if not, he’ll just turn another sour, peculiar jerk grown crazy with self abuse. ’ The first silhouette eyed the other with astonishment. ‘Well well, but he’s a man like few are. Tall and mighty, strong, and brave he simply gets all he needs for a man to be loved by women. ’ ‘All he needs, true. All except a hand. ’ ‘So what, Malachi ? He got the other one making for a pair or even three of them hands, strong ones. ’ 38

‘I know, but it eats him on the inside, the thing I told you, and women sniff from afar when a man’s eaten by something on the inside and they shy away, since they can’t stand a man thinking elsewhere but them at all times. Women are the most selfish creatures of all, women are, yes, learn that from me, Drusilla . ’ ‘Really ? You don’t say, ’ Drusilla said. ‘Aw, I reckon I wanted to ask you something but it slipped. Just figured I was about to say it out aloud, but missed. Now I had it right here , on the tip of may tongue, now was gone. ’ ‘You, sissy, aw Drusilla . Just why do you figure Roxana gave you the walking papers, huh ?’ ‘Why, Roxana is the most beautiful gal in Sin Hoe, ’ Drusilla said as if the talking was about some shell. Malachi went on, ‘Because you court all the girls at once and have no shame at all, that’s why. You’ve grown up now, and should have to make a choice. But you’ve grown up for nothing if your mind’s still green and your bearing so high and mighty. ’ The old man’s reprimands kept piling, overlapping somehow deep in his soul the ones his friend Forzas had made on the same issue so many times before. Truth was up to that very day he paid no special attention to the torture his one-armed buddy endured in this matter. Since childhood he grew used to the infirmity of his playmate, and he long time now looked at it like as natural a thing as the rest of people having two hands instead. In his simplicity and all honesty he could not conceive how such a man was not able to get himself a buxom girlfriend throughout Sin Hoe. Nothing new here, since not even he had been able so far to score a crush of some kind, but at this point Malachi was right, he prowled quite a lot, attacking everything in sight wearing skirt, true, he himself haunted by some obscure forces that handled him with paramount authority, taunting him, tempting him, luring him in this swampy slavery of senses with promises of the sweetest pleasures, somewhat related to the ones he tasted with Martha a couple of days back. Long before the argument he had with Malachi now, while they secretly scared a bit were heading to Lazarus’s ruins, Forzas had warned him about his pride. As to Roxana , she seemed to have got herself a boyfriend -- his mother gave him this bit of information the night before, and she was not surprised at all to learn her son had no idea what was going on. He had been always so indifferent. That night he only mimicked indifference though. Nothing could be done, he said, and he put the blame on his reckless, wayward ways. ‘So be it, ’ he scoffed. ‘It’s the pond I mind; the frogs can’t be far. ’ 39

And with this thought of relief he had gone to bed. They reached the Lazarus’s ruins. They stopped at a certain distance from it. Drusilla and Malachi looked at each other, young man and old man, astonished both. They saw now for the first time that the stranger had had no intention to fix in no way the deceased Lazarus’s hut; he had built a brand new one very close to the ruins themselves. The new hut was very small and it was plain obvious that it had not been there before. It was brand new and even smelled of freshly hewn timber. Malachi and Drusilla drew near in small, tentative steps ; by the Lazarus’s ruins there was something else except the ruins themselves, and that fact alone shook them both to the marrow. The stranger was nowhere to be seen. The boat was grounded in the sand and made fast on a boulder. The new little hut was built fisherman style, featuring one door and three other openings for light of day to come in, and covered on the inside with regular shutters. The roof ran singleslanted and was made of wooden boards smeared with tar. A few handsome sturgeons had been strung out to dry just beneath the low roof-drain. The two fishermen looked about for the golden lobster to see, the one old Thorvald had seen, but they didn’t. The stranger sat in the back of his house and was fixing a net. At a glance the old man realized the man was a professional ; only a highly skilled in the trade could run the stitch that fast through the eyes of the net and knot them with real know at the same time, the way stranger did. Engrossed in his work he seemed not to be aware about their presence, or not mind it at all. The two of them cast each other encouraging, get-together glances. None of them had any idea how to begin, what to say. The stranger wore the same clothes Malachi saw the first night and also the day when he had crossed Sin Hoe boards ashoulder right in front of the crowd having drinks at Martha’s. He was tall and dark haired, having the white complexion of a towns folk. He had acquired a fair, nice sun tan from the fishing though. His fingers were long, strong, able. His rounded, tall, prominent forehead ran scooped at the temples , and was different from the fishermen’s. ‘Good day, ’ Malachi said after a long lapse, without getting nothing in the way of some acknowledgment.

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‘Er, hi, . . . er. . . There, ’ Drusilla mimicked the old man’s casual tone, watching the strange amiably while keeping his fists in his pants pockets. The stranger didn’t answer as well. He cast a short, sharp glance that managed to fully take Drusilla aback. All of a sudden Drusilla understood victory. He grinned to the old man, “Did you see that he looked at me when I called him by his name ? Forzas was right, “There” must be his name. The crippled got more brains than all you ol’ hags bunched together, Malachi , ” his looks exuded what his mouth won’t dare to utter aloud. There kept minding his thread, and stitch, and net knotting eyes skillfully and untroubled. His victory over Malachi where the approach was concerned gave Drusilla extra boost and made the old man grow more shy. He studied him like a most peculiar bug, never seen before. Boastfully, Drusilla stepped forward and made the comment, ‘Good net you got. ’ Tipsy with success, it didn’t take much for Drusilla to put up the airs of already considering himself perfectly at home and par to their stubborn host. In order to prove this familiarity obviously condoned by the stranger with his lightning gaze but which lasted enough for Drusilla to mark and decode, he pulled out a hand from his pocket and actually bent over the handiwork to study it more carefully. He even dared to pick up a couple of threads which he rubbed connoiseur fashion between the tips of his fingers, then he nodded gravely his approval. The thread was real good, strong and raspy like sandpaper. He almost could see the fish chanced in the eye of such net and his losing fight against captivity. It was always challenging to imagine such things. No fish could get free again, not even an adult narvahl. After he declared himself satisfied with the results of the inspection, Drusilla stretched his back up again, jammed his hand in his pocket once more and nodded again his overall approval. ‘Yep. Damn good net, ’ he said as if to sum up everything said and happened up to that moment. Malachi deemed that it would prove interesting to know where he got the net from, but growing increasingly shy from Drusilla he could not find the proper wordage ;maybe Drusilla was thinking the same. The stranger on the beach dismissed them both. Drusilla felt rather taken aback some since the man had no reaction to his accolade, but only a little. Malachi coughed, cleared his voice, and asked, 41

‘Did you see any towns folks around here yet ?’ ‘Just how could he since he went, well, with us at sea, fishing ?’ Drusilla answered instead of the stranger. There reacted at the word “towns folks” glancing for a fraction to the Klu Hill. Drusilla didn’t miss that glance and on cue he saw in it clearly hatred and disgust. Also he felt no wonder he experienced at the same time the same hatred and the same disgust toward the un heavenly bolts and lightning from the skyline atop the hillock. That was a point he shared with the stranger and suddenly turned him a closer, more sympathetic human fellow. ‘You’re a mean boy, Drusilla , ’ Malachi said and in his voice the young man gauged a harshness he met then for the first time. Drusilla clenched his muscular jaws and said, ‘Really ?’ ‘I’ve asked this man whether he saw the towns folks, not you. ’ ‘Jesus, man, how could he when There long after we made port ? Don’t you remember how Everard hooked stingray and we turned back crestfallen because you decided we won’t have a chance all that day long ? Don’t you remember that ? And he, this man, was still there, fishing . . . ’Drusilla intervened irritably and pointing with his extended finger at the stranger who kept servicing his net they had no idea where he had got from, since it was simply impossible to believe that he himself had made it in just two days lapse. The stranger put the stitch down and stood up. Dusted the sand off the bottom of his trousers and without uttering a word stepped past the two villagers. He entered his hut. He had let the door wide open and the net outside, by the door. Malachi and Drusilla figured he had to come out soon. The two of them kept fusing , and bickering, and pecking at each other and eventually they wound up on the very threshold of the newly erected hut. They were just messing around while waiting for the stranger to show up again. Both of them resembled to a couple of beaten stray puppies. Unable to move away from the door frame and at a loss with words to address to each other they just stood up and watched the boards. Albeit they were curious enough up to what might be found inside, the slit of the door ajar left imagination a very narrow room to configure. All of a sudden Malachi thought he can see a tiny cloud hovering on the horizon. The seldom, un-heavenly lightning from above the top of Klu Hill became once more the object of his close scrutiny, and maybe that’s why at 42

the beginning he thought the wooden door swings fractionally in and out, as if a feeble draft of air swept past, then the old man almost experienced the very presence of a most gentle breeze, mildly cool, coming from the house, a strange movement of air more similar to the odors dead marine creatures reek rather than the homely smells of fried or broiled-in-hot-oil fish. Nearby Drusilla seemed preoccupied by the quality of the timber used to build the hut. He fondled it, plucked off with his nail small chips of it, rubbed it in all ways carefully, he ran the tips of his fingers along the edge of the planks put together by way of shiny brand new big nails having their heads deeply, honestly burried home into the wood fiber. The other hand he kept in his pocket. The stranger showed up all of a sudden between them and stepped past paying no attention to either of them. The man had just finished the chore he had to attend to inside and now had come out again to mend the discarded net that lay by the north wall of the hut where there was shadow, and besides shadow, the landscape also comprised the Lazarus’s ruins, the Bora Bay a mite farther with its palm trees around, and beyond it the Klu Hill, deserted and parched under the sun. The stranger didn’t even mind to close the door after, so it still was ajar after it creaked a little. Both young man and old man from the onset were astounded to see for themselves the newcomer didn’t settle at all in the Lazarus’s ruins themselves, but near them, and that he chose not to use the old and mostly rotten material he otherwise could have had it handy if the wished, but he had built from the scratch an entirely brand new hut still smelling of wood scents, by the old one ; as to craftsmanship such carpentry and tar laying, the stranger proved himself an accomplished, praiseworthy professional. The stranger sat down on the beach and untroubled resumed the mending of his net. Only Malachi alone was left beside him now, hands in his pockets, shifting his weight from one foot to the other painstakingly trying to find something to say -- anything -- and finding none ; Drusilla lagged behind as if casually. ‘Damn sound hut, ’ Drusilla said nodding his unwarranted approval, then with the stranger being unawares, he pulled quickly one of the hands out the pocket and pushed open some more the door of the new hut. That way he hoped the door won’t creak and thus drew attention of its uncaring owner. Hope came true. Drusilla stepped on the threshold and stopped. He expected to be able to take in the whole vista at a glance, in a single sweep. Light entered the

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room through the open shutters to the south and west. In that light Drusilla saw a traditional house of fishermen. A bed, a table, a chair. Propped by the wall in a corner two oars, in another corner a bunch of bamboo fishing rods. On the table an aluminum mug and a roasting grid with a roasted fish on top of it. A bonito. Under the table, a net. All of them brand new. A drop dipped from aloft befell unawares on top of his head. Drusilla looked up. He had never known a colder water drop in his whole life : the lobster was hanging just above the door. It was huge, indeed, especially when seen from downward. There was nothing else for Drusilla to see in the There’s hut, so he went out back first, then he closed the door. Once outside he suddenly realized he got himself all chafed. The door was apparently left ajar same like the stranger did. Drusilla breathed deeply twice and stuck his hands back into the pockets. He began whistling an idle tune. Out of Malachi only his hunch could be seen, then the head he kept turned to him. From the place where he squatted in the sand, the stranger could not be able to see Drusilla yet. Drusilla moved surrepetitiously his chin so the old man would get wise and learn he had discovered what they were after. It was doubtful the old man got instantly on cue with what Drusilla wanted to say ; at that time he was much to engrossed in finding a way to get some conversation going with the stranger. Drusilla entered at last the cone of visibility but the owner of the new hut seemed preoccupied by nothing else except the mending his net needed. ‘Yep, ’ Drusilla said aloud. ‘Damn good hut. ’ The seagulls were doing their evening flight crying every time they had to abort the dive for food. The children who were bathing in the Bora Bay could hardly be seen. Drusilla watched them for a moment ; he could have sworn they swam naked, the way he once did. He heard the old man asking once again the stranger about the towns folks. Malachi and his bothering question began to step on his nerves already ; if they kept going like this, all they could gain was to extra excite the stranger’s determination to play indifferent some more. There might have had his reasons to leave the places beyond the Klu Hill and settle by the Lazarus’s ruins. Some reasons which, of course, no one in the village was allowed to learn, at least for the moment. ‘What are you talking about, old man ? You keep yapping town folks here, town folks there. Keep pestering this here man with your stupid

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query. Now, what the heck, ol’ man, didn’t you get There didn’t see them ?’ For a second time the stranger cast a penetrating gaze in the direction of Drusilla , and the young man got the feeling this gesture had occurred as soon as the word “There” had been uttered, a feat that made Drusilla even more proud. Malachi frowned and studied him without saying a word though. The peculiar way the old man was now looking at him made Drusilla reconsider his own feelings in respect with the new group of townspeople all the village was chatting about. Actually he was sick of them, whoever they were. Besides he felt There’s thoughts were somehow related to his own and a new wave of sympathy engulfed him, obscure like all sympathies, and untold. Drusilla placed a hand on the old man’s arm and said, ‘C’mon, ol’ man. Let’s git goin’. There has work to do. We don’t want him annoyed with our small talk, now, do we ?’ In the third glance the stranger cast his way, Drusilla thought he reads a hidden, coded gratitude. Not that discreet though for Drusilla not to be able in his zest for any form of acknoledgment to raise it up to the level of plain readable normalcy. That’s why Drusilla was mighty glad he made the trip to these premises. ‘Just figured you saw them , or at least know who they are, ’ the old man said. ‘They visited us for the first time, looks like. ’ He felt Drusilla , instead of siding with him and help to best the communicational progress, was hampering it by design if not bringing it to a halt altogether. ‘Well then. I bid you farewell, There. If you want, you may discard it, if you choose to keep it, then you keep it, ’ Drusilla advised magnanimously, conciliatory. Not even this time There paid any attention ; to him the net in need of hasty repair was still the most important thing on earth to do. It was only then Malachi realized the connection between the little sign Drusilla made earlier and his words when they had prepared to leave the premises : the lobster existed and was right there in the new hut of the stranger. He looked at Drusilla like a stranger, then addressed to There : ‘So you know the custom. Farewell to thee. ’ ‘Farewell, ’ Drusilla mimicked him with a short, hoarse bark. Drusilla even felt no need to add to the leave-taking greeting the name that might have been true of the stranger the way it was suggested by smarts Forzas ; he simply felt so much used to it, so he figured between long familiar acquaintances being formal equaled being just snotty and ridiculous. 45

Same like before, the stranger minded his own business without acknowledging in any way the leave-taking salutation of some guests he didn’t invite and who it was plain and blunt that he didn’t welcome either. ‘Do come to the church next Sunday, ’ the appointed priest said as they walked, visibly bothered in making his sacred duty by the naughty Drusilla . Then the two SinHoans set out on their way back home. The impression the stranger made on Drusilla was awe. Had he won’t deem Malachi too old and scared by those customs of his, he’d talked about that awe throughout their trip back. For instance he could not decipher the There’s speechlessness like an obsession of sorts with something he had been run away from. Apparently in the night of the hurricane Malachi had not been able to realize the man he had met did nothing else but introduce himself saying out aloud his name. Nor he did realize that this man actually couldn’t see those townspeople since he came back from fishing after their coming. ‘One hell of a man, ’ Drusilla said when they were far enough as not to be within earshot. His words had the ring of a conclusion. A personal, indisputable conclusion. Malachi muttered something his companion didn’t quite catch. Drusilla asked, ‘What’s nagging you, ol’ man ?’ The priest muttered again apparently feeling content with just that. Clear enough he didn’t share the views of the younger fellow. ‘I wonder what are those town folks up to, ’ he said at last. Eventually he was laying out in the open the cause that had shaken him to the very pit of his soul. Drusilla looked at him with a cartain interest. They seemed to have that point in common ; this thought was bothering him too. And he couldn’t alleviate the worry in no way. And if he remembered right, this had actually been the first thing they were after, even before learning whether There had cast away or not the lobster spelling disaster, or anyway they were equally urgent. And whereas the old man seemed to be just worried about those newcomers, Drusilla simply hated their guts. If they were no cop and no doc, just who the ray could they be ? The villagers who had seen them reported that in those places the only two town folks in a way familiar to Sin Hoe wore an embroidered “P” for Punishment and a “Malachi” for Medic, the newcomers wore a 46

“T” meaning what ? no one could say or guess for that matter, not even Martha who anyway knew a lot of things most of them inaccessible to commoners of Sin Hoe. Drusilla made a mental note to ask Forzas on the first occasion. He had to have an answer. Truer than the truth itself. Narvahl had changed in a way that made him look strangely different from the kid he was before. Even his very parents were astonished. He who while helping Ausonia with washing glasses showered her with a lot o questions such as why she had two doughnuts on her chest while he didn’t, why she wore the hair long while he not, what is the lightning, where the fish come from and why they have no feet, where does the rain come from, why the sun doesn’s show up spliced in half, like the moon, demurred now as quiet as a fish. He walked about with a frown on his face, always somber and concentrated like in a some sort of game far too serious for his age to play but which he kept trying to just the same. He asked and answered no more questions any more ; whatever he had to do he did in perfect sudden quietness which he seemed perfectly okay with him, and if so, what good to chat about things any more ? Rolo and his wife would have been worried confronted with such oddities had they not manifested to the Untling’s granddaughter, Little Lucretia by name, and not only to her either but almost to every child in Sin Hoe under a certain age. Grandfather Untling had discovered his granddaughter on the shore. She stared thoughtfully at the surf, or maybe a bit higher. The old man had put his hands on her shoulders and had asked her gently, ‘What are you doing here, Little Lucretia ? Why are you alone and do not go to play with Narvahl and the other children, hm ? Some quarrel ? Is it from shell again ? Tell me. ’ ‘I’m looking at this so-much water and this so-much-ski, granddaddy Untling. ’ ‘And do you like what you see, Little Lucretia ?’ The little girl nodded. She was that tensed and purposeful in her concentration that she even forgot the quietness-for-play game and kept answering normally the questions that came from the rear voiced by the old man Untling.

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At some point Untling realized he had managed to break the wall of silence-pretending the girl had had herself wrapped in up to that moment, and once he scored this success, he kept prying a bit further in the same mellow manner. ‘Well, they don’t want to play together, so it’s okay with me and I don’t want either, ’ Little Lucretia said, and she was adamant. Untling tried to curb her fit of temper. ‘Tell me, what would you like granddaddy to buy for you tomorrow at the mart ? Would you like a red batik scarf ?’ ‘No. ’ ‘What about a nicely colored glass beads, hey ? Same like the ones Rolo’s Lucretia has, know them ?’ ‘No, ’ the little girl refused and kept looking slightly above the surf. ‘Then what ?’ Suddenly the girl recalled her game with the silence-for-playing and locked in silence for a long while. The old man Untling took Little Lucretia by the hand and both of them headed for the village. ‘Granddaddy, how is to be in the town like ? What means “town” ?’ she asked slowly when it was left just a few steps to go to their hut, while keeping her eyes riveted to where the Klu Hill was. They went past Roxana’s hut and the little girl looked at her. Roxana was the most beautiful girl to be married in Sin Hoe. Now she was whispering by the gate with her boyfriend, Calavera. They just sat by her gate and whispered from time to time to each other. Maybe they were talking about the next day and what shopping Calavera might want to do for her -- a scarf, or a bead string, or, who knows, maybe even an engagement ring. Sin Hoe said the affair was serious and for Roxana it was high time to do it, since she couldn’t wait very much longer -- she already felt the hot itch and painful longing all women do when their time has come. ‘Why, Little Lucretia, ’ Roxana cried in pleasant, gentle surprise. Untling’s granddaughter didn’t answer. She cast her a scornful gaze which in spite of her tender age topped the perfection, and Roxana stood stunned by the gate. Untling turned to her and smiled knowingly. He said to her to let her be, then he bid Roxana and Calavera good night and went home holding Little Lucretia by the hand. 48

For the first time that night the girl lacked appetite at dinner.

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CHAPTER THREE In Sin Hoe the mart held once a week, on Saturday. It was a day when all the village gathered in the open area just in front of Martha’s pub eager to haggle all day long with the traders who came in trucks inbound from Klu Hill, the only usable road in to their village. As for the apparel, the traders were not looking like townspeople. They didn’t wear the overalls made of thick, strong, silver fabric the townspeople did, neither protected their feet in their genuine leather boots with thick soles and soft like a sponge and that used to leave nice, neat patterns in the sand as they walked by, nor they wore their gloves and not even those scintillating epaulettes studded in mosaic-like silica solar cells that used to enable their owner a pleasant climate within his overall uniform. The traders seemed to be just plain people like them just came in from other remote but similar Sin Hoes hauling commodities which obviously produced themselves in abundance : silk, denim, cotton, linen, glass beads and so many others. All these they sold for fish or money, spawn or shell, shrimps or seegrass. Everybody in Sin Hoe , men and women alike, old and young eagerly waited for all the week long Saturday to come when men could replenish their stock of fish hooks and fishing rigs and tools, or shamefacedly some cheap present for their lovers, women had the opportunity to buy sewing needles and rolls of fabric in order to make fresh, new clothes for their families, children could hardly wait to enjoy the extraordinary toys merchants brought in their sacks, some toys had a somehow cubical shape and were adorned with many colorful glittering tiny lamps, others mimicked the shapes of animals, also extraordinary but heard of just the same from the hearsay. There were arrows of fire which shot aloft in a wink and could not be seen anymore except when blossomed up there all of a sudden some white balloon popped up like magic and made them arrows float away smooth like a seagull far away to be lost at sea most of them. And all these toys could be controlled at the children’s own will, and their joy was boundless when those little cubes making no sense to them but remote controlled from another little cube they kept in their hands did all 50

kind of thing as if they’d have a soul and a life of their own. And all these fabulous animals moved about with such exquisite grace they actually seemed to be true small as they were ! And all those moves ran controlled from the magical little box they and no one else kept it tightly in hand. And the children of Sin Hoe were overjoyed to see those tiny and unknown creatures crawling in the sand according to their jumpy wishes. And yet, on that particular Saturday like never before, the stands of the remote-controlled-toys traders have not been crowded by the noisy packs of kids, but a silent, mournful mob of teenagers who rummaged through the mound of toys apparently seeking one that none of them could find yet -- to the open astonishment of the merchants who had no idea what had happened. ‘What is it you want, little ones ? An elephant which sprinkles water on its trunk ? A remote controlled monkey ? A remote controlled tiger which actually -- a. c. t. u. a. l. l. y. -- mauls -- m. a. u. l. s. ! -- raw meat ? Do tell uncle what’s the desire of your heart ? Come now, you jes’ tell uncle what you wish, and it’s impossible not to find one to fit the whim of anyone, ’ the merchant ululated as tauntingly as he could. But the children, to whom the names he rattled sounded as strange and unfathomable as the deep of the ocean whereof their parents caught the fish and whereof they would do the same some day, kept rummaging the mound, same grim, quiet mask set on their faces. ‘Whatever got into them, good folks ?’ increasingly curious and confused traders asked the villagers. They raised the shoulders and minded their own serious haggling for a serious commodity. And yet some of them, such as old Untling, Thorvald, and mostly Malachi muttered and grumbled strange words and kept staring always to the north, where the Lazarus’s ruins were, or to the brand new hut of the stranger, or maybe to the top of the Klu Hill itself ; or maybe to the three of them. At one of the stands, Rolo was hassling for a reel of net thread, but the merchant won’t lower the price any further. ‘C’mon, man, let’s call it a deal and we’ll drink at Martha my treat, okay ? Almost one hundred pounds of fat sturgeon. C’mon man, stop hesitation and shake hands or else you’ll be sorry later, ’ Rolo cried in his high pitched voice, as he weighed the hefty reel in his palms. The merchant said,

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‘Huh, huh. Good riddance, my good man, I’ll be here waiting for some other fishermen who’d die to get a thread like that. You’d better watch it carefully, mister, ‘cause you’re bound not to see another one like it soon, un’erstan’ ? You’d better listen to me and make the deal my way least you’re not dying to get it, that’s why you’re hot to buy cheap in order to boast then to all village that you fooled me, huh ! You’ll stash it for keeps, mister, I can see it and don’t tell me no, or else you won’t run tightwad like that for a mere one hun’red an’ fo’ty pounds of fat sturgeon, what ?’ Fisherman Rolo sighed. He turned the reel in his hands on all sides hunting for a defect whatever small to hook on for a credit, but he couldn’t help to admit to himself that the thread was of the best quality, he had it already tested and the results were fine ; the only problem was that 140 lbs. sounded just too much. At a nearby stand, Roxana and Calavera fiddled with some platinum rings and hassled with the merchant also, not agreeing on the right price also. Martha with Ausonia in tow combed the mart all over the place, poking her nose everywhere, talking all prices and qualities she sometimes scrawled in a notebook with a stub of a pencil. She smiled and joked with the merchants she happened to know. Later in the evening when the mart ended they would get back to the pub for sealing a trade and calling a day. All of a sudden, out of the hum and buzz of the mart came out a shriek. It was so shrill and piercing that at the beginning people couldn’t tell whether it was human or not, and when they eventually realized it was a kid who were screaming, none could have told for sure whether it was out of pain or joy. The shriek was immediately followed by a cluster of children’s mixed voices wildly expressing a most various display of intimate feelings. Narvahl had grabbed some toy, hurled all the money he kept rolled in his tightly closed palm into the palm of the vendor and began running as fast as feet could pump to his house. The whole pack of kids howling like as many young hyenas darted in a second in his wake. Rolo and Lucretia who knew the voice of their son darted too, worried, father quitting the hassle for the reel of thread, mother hurling back on the stand the coral necklace she fancied to purchase. Their dog seemed to be enraged, it barked hotly, fangs on display and eyes popping out at the gang of kids who put under siege the Rolo and Lucretia’s hut where Narvahl took refuge with his precious buy that up to 52

that moment everyone in the gang of little chasers had looked for at all the toy stands of the Saturday mart. When Narvahl’s Mom and Pop arrived breathing hard, the gang made room for them. ‘What is it, buddies ?’ Rolo asked. ‘What’s the racket ? Little Lucretia ? You, Rudolf ? Do tell me, come. What’s up, kiddos ? Hey ?’ The eyes of the kids sparkled greedily from reasons alien to both man and his wife. ‘He bought it, ’ a feeble voice came from the circle of chasers ganged now on the fence. Another voice added, ‘That’s true. He found it and he bought it. Him, Narvahl himself. ’ Rolo turned to see who had spoken, but all of them yelled at the same time. ‘What did he buy ?’ Rolo asked as Lucretia had sneaked into the house just to make sure their son was well. As soon as she saw he was not hurt and all right, with his cheeks flushing pink with the effort, Lucretia calmed herself. She hovered and fondled his wet hairline. ‘What is it you have there, dear ?’ she asked him. The child’s heart was still pumping frantically with the excitement and running. Without uttering a single word, Narvahl produced from under his shirt a big, black, ugly, rubber crab. The replica was connected to a rubber ball by means of a thin rubber hose. The minute Narvahl gave the ball a quick squash in his fist, the crab jumped spectaculary and ominously to her, and Lucretia was startled and gave a short squeak. ‘Now what is this ugly beast, dear ?’ she stammered as she looked with disgust at the so-much-sought-for toy in Narvahl’s lap. ‘Why, Mom, this is a crab. Can’t you see ? Say, it err . . . looks like . . er. . . aw, never mind, Mom. You like it ?’ the boy cried overwhelmed with joy, trying at the same time to eavesdrop to what was being said outside, by their fence. ‘But . . . but this is simply awful, ’ Rolo’s wife stuttered. Rolo himself entered the hut and voiced the same opinion like his wife when he met the air-remote-controlled rubber beast. But the child was enraptured so his parents were glad that that awful looking toycrab at least managed to pry their son off his gloomy mood. Their joy was to be short lived though, as Narvahl let himself mired again in his swamp of speechlessness. And after he stashed away in a safe place the toycrab he had purchased on the mart he left the hut in a somber mien. 53

He crossed the yard at an even stride, then he broke in a run bound to the mart. There was still so much to be seen. ( TO BE CONTINUED ON THE NEXT DISKETTE) At the time the racket had begun, Drusilla was just loitering about, having nothing else to do. He smoked and peeped here and there just for the fun of it. When he chose to meddle with the mob that used to gather about some particular stand, he used to contribute something like this, ‘Hey, you, merchant-man, now that’s too much, ’ although he had no idea what that man sold nor what the price was. As for buying, he alway bought nothing. He just dropped in and made this remark when he chose not to let fly the opposite one, meant to prod prospective customers to produce their money from their pockets to spend them, ‘Take that. Do take it. Go ahead, man. It’s cheap, and it’s damn good. You won’t regret, nope, mister. ’ Then he nodded his head in grave, asbolute assent, and some of the prospective buyers and folks of Sin Hoe as well who also knew him well let themselves go butternosed in no time by Drusilla’s totally inept although goodwilling advice. Whereupon he left the stand just to drop in by another one in order to have his his same say over there too, or maybe just to have a look, or grin only. He always winked at he girls he chanced to meet in his amblings about the mart without ever being answered or at least be aknowledged in some other day. Whatever superficial or supercillious. Nothing of that sort. As soon as he had heard Narvahl’s shriek, Drusilla had cocked his ears then he broke into a run, dropped the cigarette butt and chased him out of pure, utterly genuine curiosity . He nurtured absolutely no intention to grab Rolo and Lucretis’s son who apparently was also chased by a whole gang of kids who kept running with him, and Narvahl in the lead presumably had something precious tightly tucked under the shirt as far as Drusilla could get his bearings right about what was going on. The young fisherman thought it was maybe some new game of theirs they were playing. As he saw Drusilla breathing right abreast with him, Narvahl thought the grown-up chased him also to try a grab at his toy, and panicked a good deal.

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But Drusilla was completely innocent about what was going on, and actually didn’t know about the crab, let alone snatching it from him. His shirt flapping loose and out , he just ran with the boy trying to keep close the best he could. He managed this up to the moment Narvahl simply hurdle-jumped the reed fence around his parents’ hut and Drusilla had to stop. In no time Rolo and Lucretia came by their own fence too, gasping and breathing hard , and Drusilla got himself instantly crowded by the pack of little children from Sin Hoe. Everyone breathed hard. ‘Where’s the crab, Drusilla ?’ Rudolf the red-haired asked. Drusilla bent forward from the waist, putting his hands on his kneecaps, wiped the perspiration off his hot forehead, breathed three times deeply, then he propped Rolo’s fence while he grinned before answering the young pup. ‘What crab, Rudi ?’ he said as he kept busy himself with bringing his breathing under control. Narvahl and him had quite a run, no joke. As he looked at him he felt happy he was still in good shape and there seemed nothing wrong with his stamina and sinews. Drusilla couldn’t make anything of the kid’s querry, and he frowned some. ´’What are you talking about ? What crab ?’ ‘ “What crab?”’ Rudolf aped him testily. ‘Narvahl’s toycrab, that’s the crab I was talking about. ’ Drusilla raised his eyebrows. ‘Did Narvahl had a crab that I missed ?’ Drusilla peeled his eyeballs not a bit closer to understanding than he had been before. ‘Why, I noticed no crab, ’ he declared. ‘Oh, yes, he’s got it, he’s got it. He brought it from the toy merchant, ’ the answer came promptly and hotly. ‘It was the only one the merchant had, so we ain’t able to buy us some more, ’ Rudolf finished off his explanation with a lofty smirk, gave him a quick once over and capped it with a flourish. The rest of the gang backed every word he said with sharp cries of excitement. ‘Narvahl was the most lucky , and now he has itand can afford to keep quiet like that man does. There’s no point for us to stay quiet from now on. We’ve no crab of our own. ’ Drusilla’s frown deepened, and he said, ‘Uhum, I see now. That’s why you were chasing little Narvahl, in order to wrestle that crab from him, right ? Oh, boy, oh boy, and I was 55

figuring it was just a speed contest you were running here, ’ Drusilla said honestly crestfallen. The gang of kids looked at him the way grownups stare at nitwits , he won’t grasp not a thing no matter how simple that thing happened to be. Meanwhile Narvahl came out empty handed , quiet and somber, from the house and cut through the gang as they made room for him and admiringly murmured some, enviously growled others. When Narvahl was safely past the group, he broke into a run, martbounf. The pack fell in his tracks soon with no one bothering to make clear for dummy Drusilla the ins and outs of the affair. Few minuts later, when Rolo and Lucretia also came out from the hut, they met a confused Drusilla who, hands in the pockets stood by their fence looking up and down the row for no special purpose. ‘Good day, Drusilla . ’ ‘Hi. ’ ‘What are you doin’ here ?’ Drusilla scratched for a while the top of his head with the nail of just one single finger. ‘Why , I ain’t doin’ nothin’, me. Just combed the mart, then I’ve done one hell of a sprint bout together with your son, just ended right here where I stand, to learn that he got himself a crab, sort of, or at least that’s what the little guys claimed a minute ago. ’ Lucretia’s hisband let out a sigh, made a gesture of open contempt, and said, ‘Yep. He did just that. Purchased it at the mart. ’ Rolo’s wife meddled, ‘The minute I saw them chasing him I thought they were out to sock him , or maybe that he had stollen from somebody. ’ Drusilla pulled out decisively a hand out of his pocket. ‘Oh, no, absolutely not. That simply couldn’t be. The merchant would have blown his bains screaming “Thief !”’ With a short nod, Rolo acknowledged Drusilla’s ratiocination, unable to say more. At last he murmured, ‘It’s horrible, Dru. All of it made of rubber. ’ ‘It uses to jump about on the earth when you squelch rather forcefully and briskly on a round contraption of sorts, also made of rubber, ’ his wife said, mimicking Rolo’s authentic scorn. ‘Really ? Let me see it, ’ Drusilla said, and Narvahl’s folks showed him in. 56

The crab was really big and was very much lifesize. It was all black, and as soon as he saw it Drusilla felt a worm wriggling and nibbling in his brain, but he wasn’t able to pinpoint exactly what it was. He fondled it curiously, then gave the rubber balloon a brisk squeeze whereupon the make-believe beast instantly darted with marvelously natural push. Drusilla actuated a couple of times more the crab whose jerky moves unnerved them so. ‘Looks like the There’s lobster, ’ he cried happily and in tranquility as he handed the toy back to Narvahl’s parents. They put it back, astounded to hear the young fisherman speaking up such a notion. They made no comment though, but Rolo went on affably, ‘Thus Thorvald was right, ’and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been to his place, you know, ’ Drusilla boasted. ‘He doesn’t mind. Minds nothing. Not at all. ’ ‘Really ?’ Rolo and Lucretia whispered. ‘Did he say anything ?’ Rolo’s woman pried quickly. Drusilla shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Jes’ nothing, like usual. The man is tough all right. He mended a net and he knew what he was doin’, believe me. ’ ‘By the way. I left at the mart some business dangling yet about some good fishing thread, ’ Rolo cried. Won’t you come along ?’ As the two men steppedd out in the sand covered row, the two men ran into Forzas just in-coming from the mart. He carried a kettle in his only hand. ‘This is for my mother, ’ he explained the moment he saw Drusilla and Rolo coming his way. ‘What’s new back yonder, Forzas ?’ Rolo asked. ‘Threadt merchant still there ? Or maybe he sold out and he’s gone by now, eh ?’ ‘Still there. still in business, never fear, ’ Forzas said after he pondered the question for a while. Then he added, ‘I’ve seen Roxana too. She was with Calavera . ’ Then he turned to his friend. Drusilla spat in the sand and moved his shoulders, obviously untinterested by this bit of news. So what if she was with Calavera ? Good riddance. As a matter of fact he also had spotted them earlier. He said, ‘So what would I care if Roxana was with Calavera ?’ Rolo cleared his voice and said, ‘I’ll go then least that guy will sell the reel. ’ He excused himself and headed for the mart not before asking Drusilla once more, 57

‘Comin’ ?’ Whereupon the young, square-jawed fisherman looked at him and said, ‘Er, not just yet, Rolo. I’ll talk with Forzas here for a spell, I guess. No, don’t wait for me. Git goin’. ’ ‘As you wish, ’ Rolo said and set out for the mart. ‘Been around lately ?’ Forzas asked Drusilla the minute only the two of them were left in the sandy row. ‘Yep. ’ ‘Bought anything yet ? ‘Nah. Nothing. Listen here, man. I’d very much like to ask you something if you don’t mind. ’ ‘Not even beads ?’ Forzas said, winked at his friend and laughed. Drusilla stared at him like a zombie. He said, ‘Beads you said ? Whom for ? Did any one of them deserve me to buy them beads ?’ ‘Why, Ausonia would qualify, I reckon. I’ve seen you as you stopped by her for a while. Looked like you were telling her things. ’ Drusilla smiled as he listened for his friend speak like this. ‘She told me I’m a jerk, then she stepped past me and went to Thorvald. ’ ‘She’s right, you know, ’ Forzas said. ‘She’s what ?’ Drusilla cried. ‘And pray what I’d be supposed to do for her to stop seeing me like some jerk ?’ ‘Fact is not only her is seeing you that way, buddy, ’ the crippled said in undertones. Whereupon Drusilla waved his hands in dismissal. ‘Aw, I know, I know, ’ he said. ‘ Who cares about the hamlet ? I for one don’t. What would they want me to do in order not to be a jerk anymore, I’m asking you ?’ ‘Get married. ’ ‘Huh !’ ‘High time for you to do it, ’the crippled said swinging the brand new, empty kettle in his only hand. ‘And you ? What about you ? High time for you to do it, too, ’ Drusilla said hotly, intently. ‘I’m crippled. ’ ‘So what ?’ ‘Why, you treat the girls of the hamlet like shit, so small wonder every each one of them cant’s stand being around you, that’s why, ’ Forzas

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changed tack instantly, and he ceased to swing the brand new kettle he had bought for his mother. ‘I don’t give a damn !’ Drusilla bursted. ‘I’m sick with them all. Not even one, understand ? one still is the way they used to be once, in our days, remember ? When we dived into Bora to get for them those dark picklillac hued shell, you know what I’m talking about, that resembled . . . and every each one of them wanted to have the biggest and the most colored one. Can you remember that, Forzas ?’ Forzas lowered his eyes into the fine powder of ground shell laying under the soles of his feet. ‘Yep, ’ he sighed. Drusilla’s eyes sparkled like those of kids when played, or of grownups when sick and in fever. ‘You do, maybe, buddy, ’ Drusilla said his instantly flaring temper somehow subdued a bit, ‘As for them, not one does, my friend. Not even one remembers anymore . . . ’ Forzas recalled those days when he still had his arm like a shore he’d never turn back to again. He felt sorry, although he acquainted with bitterness relatively late, at a moment when the fine ground salt of time was supposed to have healed and crust, and crystalize the old wounds on the soul, turning them in as many minerals insensitive to pains. He was not bothered at all by the nostalgia for his long gone now childhood, but the memory of those wonderful, pristine sensations he recalled now and which had never ceased to recall did bother him. He was most able to feel them in all their might and freshness every time he joined company of little girls, naked as they were, or wearing just their bathing slips on immediately after they came out from Bora, those little girls with their squeamish that put them on such fire then, with their crystal clear, jocular laughter that made him grow speechless with something unfocused then yet so clean cut and clear and so remote now, impossible to have it reached once again. From that unfortunate day when his arm had been stolen, he was not the child he had been at the dawn of that same day, and later on he did not grow the young man he should have had to become ; and afterwards almost nothing was for him the way it should have been. He was left with but o couple of jumbled, blurred memories about which he never had known what they were meant to become when in full blossom. The quiet, stunning pleasure he felt once when closed to the little girls had assumed unnoticed the sharp intensity of a persistent pain that shared company with him ever since. 59

In time that pain had grown calluses on those memories, and the crippled young man had gently pulled out from any prospective encounter with a girl or a woman, and when he had no choice, and back to the wall had to answer their questions, he did it his eyes gone away after shell. Like that day when he was little and collected them for Roxana . She had been smitten with her in those days when he still had two arms like the rest of the children, but no one had known about his first love ; not even himself. Until long time after, when one day, very much like this one, was talking with Drusilla , as well. Sheer time had washed and then dried up everything, the same way water and sun do with the clothes full of smells, perspiration and dirt. And time had passed galore. ‘You’re much too hot headed, Drusilla , my friend. Everything changes. Girls are not little girls anymore for exactly the same reasons women are not girls as well. ’ ‘You don’t say. And why won’t they take a fancy with you ?’ ‘Because I’m crippled, that’s why. ’ ‘So what ? Everybody knows the way you lost your arm, and it’s exactly for this reason alone that they should damn look at ya as ya’d have not one, but seven arms instead ! Not to mention that in your single arm have more might then any other two-armed fisherman throughout Sin Hoe. ’ ‘Yes, ’ Forzas barely murmured, but his friend gave his kettle a gentle fillip and it rang like tin. ‘Tell me, is there anybody to beat you at skanderbeg ? No. Nobody can. ’ ‘Well, ’ the crippled mumbled rubbing his nose with the hand in which he held the kettle. ‘Or maybe you you rate yourself some jerk, also, huh ?’ Drusilla said. He grinned, satisfied deep in heart about the fact that his argument with the skanderbeg contests, popular in a hamlet with no other distractions, had been quietly accepted. In this sort of sporting bouts, Forzas had no par. He had always been the mightiest. ‘Well, er, I don’t believe, but, wait, . . . ’ Drusilla interrupted, ‘They changed, you’re right Forzas , it’s perfectly true, but I hereby am telling you I want no more of that, un’erstand ? I’ve had it enough, okay ?’ And Drusilla couldn’t repress a gesture eloquently depicting that emotion. Sick with it in the face of none other than Forzas, his best friend and sidekick ever. 60

‘Ausonia likes you though, and is beautiful, ’ Forzas said. ‘If you’ll ask her properly to marry to in proper wedding, I’m sure she won’t turn you down. ’ Drusilla squinted his eyes. ‘What the heck are you mumbling back yonder ? I still feel young and strong and I don’t need to beg and play funny faces by the gate on none of these bitches. None of them deserves glass beads. They’re vicious, perverse, like the rays . . . say, it’s your Mom, eh ? Why did she have you go over to that damn mart to buy her a new kettle, eh ? Can’t the fish boil in the old one anymore ? I’m asking you a question, Forzas. ’ Forzas the armless sage looked half guilty half baffled at the object he had bought from the mart and now held it by the handle. ‘It was old, she said, ’ the crippled mumbled half heartedly which stirred a violent reaction in Drusilla . ‘Why, sure thing it was old and junk. And she wanted a new one, Mom wanted, right ? What was good all of a sudden, pouf! is no good anymore, right ? And has to be changed, right ? Right ! There’s always need for something else, something new and alien. To their eyes, buddy, you and me are just old, junk kettle as well, believe me, Forzas, I know what I’m talking. All the girls in Sin Hoe, each and every one of them to the very last, I know. ’ In his excitement Drusilla raked his hair with his fingers, sulking and adamant. Because of this, his face seemed even more square than it usually was. Forzas said, ‘You’re exaggerating, Drusilla . Ausonia likes you. And even Roxana . Had you not behaved that rough and unmindful with her . . . ’ Drusilla made a face of annoyance. ‘A bunch of stingrays, that’s what they really are. They’re no more the little girls they used to be once when we dived in Bora to pick shell for them. You . . . do you remember ?’ ‘Yep. I can remember. It was so nice . . . ’ ‘You can, they don’t. You remembered the way they used to laugh, and we held hands and, . . . and embraced each other, and then we built up a bonfire on the beach by Lazarus’s hut, and we fried fish, you remember, buddy ?’ ‘Yes, I remember, ’ Forzas the crippled said all of a sudden sad and getting more so as the enthusiasm of the other one mounted. ‘It’s long time since, when we used to blow in the embers to get the fish done well . . . ’

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The sparkles in Drusilla’s eyes turned suddenly blaze, and his anger melted from the furnace inside. He murmured, ‘You remember, they don’t -- no, buddy, they don’t anylonger. Not even Ausonia. Or Roxana for that matter, ’ he added after a short pause. ‘You know something ? I’m disgusted with all of them, especially when I see them the way they look askance, lids lowered and heavy with I don’t know what, the way they whisper among themselves, the way they banter or slander or rays know what they’re doin’ , and if you draw yourself near, they immediately go mute like fish and treat you like shit. Like a nothing. As if you’d be some stranger to them. Let’m go to the rays and the blazes. It’s something else they want, I guess. Find elsewhere that something they’re after. I for one don’t have it, nosir. Maybe in the town . . . ’ Forzas swang his kettle and said, ‘And yet you’ll have to marry. That’s the custom. ’ Drusilla raised his eyebrows and spat expertly through his clenched teeth. ‘Says who ? Who’ll dare to tell me I must marry ? C’mon. Show ‘im to me. I wanna see that man face to face. ’ ‘Hey, it’s just the custom, man. The way of all being, ’ Forzas said painfully with not so much of a heart. ‘Custom my foot !’ Drusilla said at the top of his scorn. ‘“Custom” you say, eh ? They don’t need that anymore; it’s something else they’re after, not custom. And besides, it’s only those men who felt the brush of deathwing fan their temples do get marry, you know . . . in panic I reckon. Ugh, I’m still young and strong for the time being and need none of those scheming, treacherous cats about. To me it suffices to lay listening to the fate coming down to me. ’ Forzas cast a strange gaze in his direction. ‘And what it’s saying, Dru ?’ he asked mildly. ‘It says I’ve still got much to do yet until I’ll get married, that’s what it says. ’ ‘Such as ?’ Forzas pried ahead. Drusilla shrugged his shoulders. ‘How should I know ? To blow into the dying out embers. ’ The two friends parted company. Forzas headed southbound where the hut he shared with his mother was, Drusilla didn’t moved yet. Hands still in his pockets, Drusilla watched the departure of his pal. ‘Forzas , ’ he cried all of a sudden. ‘What’s up, Dru ?’

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‘Forzas , just happens to have an idea about what could possibly mean the sign “T” branded on the town folks who checked in yesterday ?’ Drusilla queried, and drew with the rim of his sole in the sand a big sign for Forzas to see. Forzas turned his head, then turned back, watched the sign for a long time, and frowned. ‘I’ve heard about it too, from Martha if I’m not mistaken. ’ Drusilla nodded in silent confirmation. ‘Naturally, they’ve checked in at the pub first, but is that all you learned about them ? Did you talk with them yet ? What are they up to anyway ? What was it they wanted ? What they mess for ? Why the fuck don’t they leave us alone ?’ Drusilla walked now by the crippled young man increasingly excited by all these questions, to which not even Forzas with all his smarts could not answer. ‘If they come again, I’m goin’ to step in and see for myself what’s up. ’ ‘You’d better leave them alone, Dru. Who knows who they are and what their trade might be. ’ ‘That’s right, pal. That’s exactly why I’m goin’ to step in : to learn what’s their trade if they’re neither “P’s” nor “M’s”, see what’s on their minds, and if they step on my toes, I’m goin’ to break an oar on their backs. ’ ‘The man There might be able to know a thing or two , he’s also a towns folk now, isn’t he ?’ Forzas said. ‘He knows nothing. Me and Malachi dropped by at his place. ’ Forzas looked admiringly at his friend. ‘Did he spoke to you ?’ Forzas asked him, and the spread out Vee between the eyebrows deepened and raised higher. ‘Who, There ? Oh, actually no, but I’ve got a hunch he knows all right. ’ Forzas demurred in confusion. He couldn’t understand how his friend could have figured such a thing with the stranger uttering no word. , missing completely in the process the blatant incongruency of his both statements that claimed he didn’t know -- the first --, and that he knew -- the second. It was boggleminding. Drusilla said, ‘You should have seen the way he looked at Malachi the minute the old man asked him whether he had seen them people before. He can’t

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stomach them either a s far as I can figure. First time I run into them, I’ll break their fucking legs, ’ Drusilla added , his mien grim, his jaws set. ‘They also brought along some tools, sort of, ’ Forzas said. ‘A threelegged binocular and a bundle of colored shingles. ’ He proved himself well informed. ‘You jes’ wait and see what happens if I catch ‘em in here, ’ Drusilla renewed his menace. ‘Maybe it would be better to avow what are they up to, first, Drusilla , se what is this all about, maybe they harbor peaceful intentions, ’ the crippled tried to cool down his friend, but without much of a success. Drusilla’s jaws clenched rhythmically, and the lower jaw clamped every now and then with dull sounds chewing at a much sought for prey -just imaginary though. ‘I’ll break their eggs like eggs, sonsabitches. They’re neither Ms nor Ps, any they’re many of them. Three or four. How many did Martha say ?’ ‘Four, as far as I can remember. ’ ‘Four, sure thing, yep, ’ Drusilla declared himself content with the figure. ‘They must be spies, if not worse. ’ And Drusilla bit again at the air and hit aggressively , noisily a fist against his other open up palm. ‘Maybe they won’t come, Drusilla , ’Forzas with his new , empty kettle in his hand said. He seemed to argue with it. They had reached the hut Forzas and his mother lived in. Drusilla felt like a nagging at the back of his mind about the blunder he did when he smacked his fist with such a noise his crippled friend couldn’t miss a foul smell of lacking tact on his part : only two hands were able to produce such a noise, and it was not genteel to remember Forzas such a thing. Forzas was smart, no doubt, yet someone his age and status could hardly escape rowing as shy as a minnow. ‘Forgive me, ‘ Drusilla mumbled huskily. ‘Er, I didn’t mean to, you know. ’ ‘Sorry ? Oh, don’t mention, ’ Forzas replied. ‘If they know what’s good for them, buddy, ’ Drusilla said, and his voice had a menacing tinge in it. Forzas’s smile turned bitter. ‘Go see Ausonia, ’ Forzas whispered. ‘She’s speaking with Thorvald now. ’ Drusilla spat sideways through his teeth and shrugged shoulders in nonchalant dismissal.

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‘So. Glass beads, you say, eh ? Anyone, you -- me, are just mere despicable roaches to their eyes. ’ Then Drusilla made a farewell gesture with his hand, made a neat about face, and left. ‘So long, buddy, ’ the crippled said and entered, he and his brand new kettle in the see grass-roofed hut by the waterfront. Once he reached the shore, Drusilla began kicking the beach. Every now and then he cast hateful glances to the Knu Hill. His shirt had come out from his slacks and flapped at his back in the breeze. Having nothing else better to do, he kept strolling here and there to kill time. All of a sudden he stopped , rummaged through his pockets , then briskly changed direction. He put the pack of cigarettes back in the pants’ pocket after he lit one, then he put the matchbox back too. He sucked a couple of smokes greedily, lustfully, then stepped down from Martha’s wood board terrace, resuming his idle amblings through the mart. The crowd grew thinner by now. As soon as Martha opened up business in the late afternoon, most clients almost shouldered their way in eager to fill up the wrought iron on the chairs on the terrace and chat away peacefully in front of comfortably filled up brandy mugs, cosy in the cool shadow on the terrace. ‘Hey, Drusilla , ’ Rolo cried. ‘I’ve got that thread. Have a drink with me. My treat. ’ The jowly fisherman turned his head and said, ‘Don’t feel like it, buddy, believe me. Later on, maybe. ’ Rolo demurred quietly embarrassed, then said, ‘As you wish, Dru. Just don’t forget it. I invited you to have a drink with me. ’ The reel of thread in his hand and the thread merchant in tow, Rolo stepped up and into Martha’s premises. Children and women were still to be seen about the stands, and only here and there a fisherman. Drusilla saw Roxana by a stand. Calavera messed around. And the stand belonged to some jewel trader by the looks of it, since the two of them were examining carefully, intently some small, rotund glittering objects. Some rings. Most of the swarming, idle peepers who at that time haunted the open plateau which played the role of a square right in front of Martha’s pub were gathered by that very stand most of them not for purchasing platinum rings 65

at all, but itching with the ever eavesdropper’s, busybody’s nagging curiosity of eventually making out something worth talking over off the cryptic cooing the two young people in front of them exchanged every now and then. Drusilla dragged on his cigarette. He put his hand in his pocket, and the minute he made up his mind to take a closer look at the two of them in order to make sure once again in his general sickness of them just how much actually they worth both each one taken separately and put together, he saw There. He headed exactly to the place where the mob swarmed. Drusilla shivered violently for the third time in his life : the first one had been far back when Forzas, a minute or so before losing his arm, had shouted at them, “Scram the hell outta here! It’s a shark !” the second time he shuddered when upon his entering the stranger’s hut without asking permission, he had discovered the giant lobster hung above the doorway. He put again the cigarette to his lips and dragged. Driven by sheer instinct he took two steps ahead. The stranger’s stride was surefooted, like usually, without him looking at no one especially, Drusilla included, of course. He carried ashoulder a bundle of long, flexible fishing rods the inconspicuous type fishermen cherish everywhere with a special joy nobody but anglers understand. He seemed no to be especially interested by any stand, and it hardly could be said he had shopped yet. All onlookers who until that moment had kept their eyeballs riveted on Roxana and Calavera turned their glazed gaze at once, as if on cue, as if they had seen him all at the same time. Murmurs ceased. A hard, utter silence hovered on the Saturday mart in Sin Hoe. Roxana was quicker to grasp the queerness of the situation floating into the air. She raised her brow before Calavera did. She noticed all sights up to that moment turned on she and her beau focusing on some spot which apparently moved in her back. She turned again right in time to see the stranger brush past she and Calavera . The stranger paid no attention to her and kept minding his solitary walking further ahead. Whereupon only two steps more, the skirt Roxana wore went suddenly up, blinding everybody who happened to looke her way and the 66

stranger’s , as the latter kept -- and driving nuts many in doing so -pretending not to see at all those superb, long, tapered legs wonderfully rounded a little below the hip. One of the rods in the bundle the stranger carried along had bent a lot with the unexpected catch. The full-lighted picture of Roxana’s shapely legs laying out there all naked as if by magic printed in Drusilla’s soul like branded with red-hot iron, distorting and mangling his wits, burying its sizzling way in it for keeps. As he witnessed the enchanted vision, he experienced a scalding, devastating regret that laid him bare , but only for a short while ; the next minute found Drusilla moving about in the same waste land of indifference. Stupid Calavera out-lucked him. That was the situation and that was that, period. Nothing could be done about it. For as long as these things had taken place, Drusilla kept his eyes shut like some child bolt scares. The heavenly one, that is. Or maybe hoping to keep to himself only under his lids the magic that had been on display in full splendor for all to see, take in, and keep it for ever. The country folks of Sin Hoe demurred completely mute. Only seagulls took liberty to cry while in hovering flight across the ocean. When he opened his eyes again, Drusilla saw the stranger kneeled in the sand before Roxana . Bereft of all emotion, he was fumbling with his fishing hook fouled in the skirt’s fabric. Roxana stood up in front of him, blushing, and watched with mounting fascination the way that enigmatic stranger did his best with smooth, slow, unhurried gestures to set free the tiny naughty tool, and how he did so with utmost care least to tear even a thread of it. People were simply gaping at them like mesmerized. It was only then that Calavera , Roxana’s fiancé noticed what was taking place in that tomblike silence within barely a yard from where he stood up fiddling with the platinum rings in his palm, not being able to make up his mind yet. When he eyed the stranger kneeled down like in a prayer at the feet of his fiancée, instantly he became white of face. Cheeks blanched, turned the color of sand, then his hands began to tremble and he almost dropped the rings. He put them back by the other jewels on top of the stand and in a loud voice asked the stranger who like the most humble of the worshippers dared to touch his most beloved idol -- Roxana’s skirt hem, 67

‘What are you doin’ here Git goin’. C’mon. You hear ? Git. Mush. Go. Jes’ go least I git real mad. ’ But There paid him no attention, like usually, a fact that took aback the Sin Hoe fisherman who that moment recalled the words of Alfred when they were together out fishing. He felt like a man alive addressing a ghost, yet more than the ghost itself Calavera was scared by merely finding it so extremely close to him, much too close for his taste. Yet There minded his fumbling with the flowing, light fabric Roxana’s skirt was made of, eager to untangle the hook of one of those slender, long fishing rods that lay in sand close by. His appeal going unheeded , Calavera’s rage roared in him. His eyes got bloodshot, his breath began hissing. The foreboding of disaster turned him a brute. He grabbed the stranger by his shirt collar. He pulled him up on his feet and to his face, and after he shook him a couple of times like a sackful of shrimps, he punched him twice, hard. The stranger folded on himself and fell in a limp hulk by the wheel of an ox-wagon. He bled at his nose and the corners of his mouth. Calavera felt enthralled with a tremendous pleasure to have convinced himself it was not a ghost he hit, but a real man of flesh and bone, like himself. The feel in the guts was reassuring. Surprised and worried ejaculations gasped from the chests tensed with awaiting curiosity immediately followed in the wake of the peaceful quietness in which the stranger vainly tried to untangle his fishing doubleanchor hook chance had jammed it there good and tight. In that almost surreal tableau, a little boy and a little girl began running. They were Narvahl and Little Lucretia, Untling’s granddaughter. They made it straight to fallen There. They hurled themselves in his lap shaking him wildly as they shuddered with weeping and hiccupping. After he had assisted eyes popping at the first couple of punches Calavera let There have them in the face without the latter sketching the least reaction of defense, Drusilla told himself that that man , whoever he was, had pushed the joke about non-involvement a bit too far, and that it was high time for him, Drusilla that is, to take up steps strongly. Before the burly yokel would knock the poor newcomer out , off sheer jealousy perhaps.

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He sucked one last smoke from his just lit cigarette, then tossed it and jumped at Calavera the moment he was just poised for a straight, neat jab at the stranger’s liver. He reached him in three big, firm paces, but unfortunately , the minute he tackled Calavera by the shoulders and swiveled his surprised face to his own face, There had already fallen in a heap. Drusilla hit viciously one single straight jab in the solar plexus and one single at the face, whereupon Roxana’s fiancé was thrown right on top of the collapsible jewel stand. Blushing and glowering with intense, mixed emotion she had no idea what to make of, Roxana stood up, a big, dumb smile pasted on her beaming, milk-and-gold hued face while her fingers fumbled nonsensically with the flowing folds of her jumbled skirt. She reacted in no way the minute she saw Calavera flying in the air and falling , glittering jewels and all in the sand, where Drusilla won’t let him lay much long. He grabbed him by the shirt front and punched him again. And again. Down by the wagon’s wheel, the stranger slowly came back to his senses, choked to almost losing his breath by the cries of the two children squirming in his lap. ‘You’re a coward ! A coward ! Why didn’t ya hit back, huh ? What might you have if you let Calavera hit you that bad with you doin’ jes’ nothin’ but turning his other cheek, eh ? Why you duped us ? Why you led us to believe you’re as mighty as the hurricane ? Why ? Jes’ why ?’ The children’s tears rolled down their furiously crimson chubby cheeks, then dipped into the sand, on the stranger’s shirt or even his own face, since in their blind rage, Narvahl and Little Lucretia were actually clinging lovingly to his chest, as if driven by some magnetic force beyond comprehension, and when they came aside from the embrace, fury and dejection aimed toward their crumbled idol to burn even stronger. As the kids were punching him with their little fists, There kept his eyes closed as if he would implored the gods of Sin Hoe to prevent him from betraying himself, to crush the smile that kept pushing up to blossom on his face, and to cast the expression of his face in stone so no one of those gazers could be able to see the torrent of joy that flushed him with sheer feeling himself first hit by the fists of a grownup who shoved him off the ground and the feet of the beautiful girl he obviously dated, then those ineffectual little fists of those pure souled kids, that pure they have even been able to make an idol out of a living human being, to imitate him probably like some cute, mysterious little monkeys grown dejected, and annoyed, and 69

intolerant with his receding into a pitiful cowardliness, as they put it, no one could have possibly known what tremendous happiness harbored. And the stranger, as he against his will held Narvahl and Little Lucretia gingerly in his lap, lowered his lids shut on his smile as he postponed his departure from the burning core of that mound of embers-like dark and wild passions that haunt every now and then human dwelling places in a perpetual in-and-out rhythm very much similar to the tide of the ocean. Passions long time gone throughout the city laying north of the Klu Hill and also all the other the cities north of the Klu Hill as well. The fistfight between Drusilla and Calavera went on in perfect silence, with nobody uttering not even one single word, be it protagonists or audience. The only sounds that could be heard were the gasps and the smacks from the fist hitting cage-ribs or flesh, their quick, hissing, panting breath. The brawl would have certainly kept on and on had Everard didn’t come in a rush from the pub where he drowned his sorrow for the mischance they run in the other day, to cool off a revengeful Drusilla. Drusilla kept roaring as he managed eventually to pull himself loose from Everard’s grip and immediately shouted at Narvahl and Little Lucretia, ‘Leave him be. You hear ? Git away from ‘im, now. Git. Mush. Go, ’ he kept crying, and the two children, their chubby cheeks still wet with tears scurried among the group of grownups scattered everywhere about. Now they were scared of Drusilla . Drusilla was changed up to the point of utter dissimilarity from the man they had known so far. Some of the curious onlookers were afraid he would start hitting Everard now, but Drusilla didn’t do such a thing. He just kept looking about him, dark scowl on his face. It was only then that the stranger opened his eyes. And when he did that he seemed to be just an ordinary fisherman coming awake from a beautiful dream, but, as he sat face to the north, he saw again above the Klu Hill top the unheavenly bolts of the city beyond. Frowning Drusilla came near Roxana . By now he felt nothing of he had felt once. Roxana was beautiful. The blushing in her cheeks was still there and she kept looking due north as well the moment Drusilla came to her in an unwavering stride. He took the fouled hook and tore at brutally. Skirt’s hem turned to instant shreds.

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‘Any question ?’ he barked burly at the people, and they backed off murmuring some. Blood on his face, Calavera crawled back to Roxana . He came to his feet with effort, using the upturned stand as a prop. ‘Where are those rings, merchant ? Hey, Roxy, whatchya sayin’, do we take them ? Do you like ‘em ? I’d say to pay whatever this mas says and take them. Whatchya sayin’honey ? Honey ? You say nothin’ , honey ?’ ‘What’s the point of such rush ?’ Roxana mused figuring, eyes roving away, always away. ‘Roxana !’ Calavera cried in a suddenly hoarse voice, his skin chalky beneath the blood that smeared almost all of his face. One eye was swollen and dark bluish. ‘You still love me ?’ he asked like a fool. Briskly he felt ridiculous even before hearing the answer he already saw it coming. The girl in a torn skirt was staring glazed eyes northbound. She whispered slowly, dreamily, ‘I don’t know. Could be I don’t love you anymore. I guess. Really, I don’t know anymore. ’ It was only now that the fisherman felt in full al the hardness of Drusilla’s blows and at last he let his brow touch the hand raking hungrily at the sand. Crawling by, the merchant was pecking in haste and concentration at his strewn about trinkets. Eventually the stranger pulled himself erect with the help of Drusilla . Drusilla kept mumbling gingerly, as if to con a bird. At least that was all the village trying again to eavesdrop was able to hear, but mostly it was curious about the way the stranger’s reaction to this whole strings of temptations and other un-nameable oddities. But he uttered no word and Drusilla seemed to be the most content and peaceful man about it. He turned his head once more to look at the villagers, then the two of them set out to the littoral, walking slowly bound to Lazarus’s ruins. All way long Drusilla was the only one who did the talking, but the villager found nothing wrong in it. He tactfully skipped mentioning the mart incident having the starting point in the fouling of the fishing hook in Roxana’s skirt, and also avoiding all by the ways as to his disinterested help with the cooling down of the jealous Calavera . No doubt whatever happened had a catch, and the village was quick to grasp : the catch read that Roxana was meant to be matched to There. But on neither of these topics Drusilla whispered not a single word in all his yapping to There. He was self-content with just having the opportunity to share a walk in the company who had come along with the 71

hurricane and apparently could afford to ignore the all mighty and terrible lobster’s custom, although he had proven himself as being just an ordinary fisherman, like them, a good one at that. Once they reached by the hut, There took his bundle of rods from Drusilla and thanked him -- or at least Drusilla saw it that way -- by way of some penetrant gaze a mite sweetened by the trace of a smile. He propped them against a wall, and entered the hut. Drusilla enjoyed the respite to lit a cigarette. If the stranger didn’t show him inside, he couldn’t prove himself so bad mannered as to bust in unwanted. He had no doubt one day that would happed, but as a general advise he just took to heeding, the things should be in no way hurried. Dusk crept back again on Sin Hoe. The stranger came out with a basin full of water and began washing the caked blood off his face. ‘Er, tomorrow Malachi invited you -- you know who’s Malachi -- to join the church. Have you seen the church ? It’s that belfry made of timber just by the water tower. Hamlet uses to gather there on Sundays, after the bell tolls, to listen Malachi reading off the Holy Books. It’s the only occasion when people get together. If you wish, you may come, ’ he added waving nonchalantly with the hand in which he held the cigarette. ‘Maybe I’ll come over there myself too, although I have no way of telling that for sure. You smoke ? No ? Good for you. But if you don’t want to go, well, I guess it’s no problem, don’t go. It’s not absolutely compulsory to listen to Malachi’s babbling if you don’t feel like it. If you fail to catch a place in front, you won’t be able to catch a word anyway. Drag a cigarette if you’re a smoker and take a look at the people. Chicks mostly. Hey, I’m telling you about the bell but maybe you don’t even know what’s a bell and what it looks like, right ? So, you don’t know what’s a bell, eh ? Well, ’ Drusilla said, and at the same time he realized he had no idea and no proper words stitch out some put-together explanation, so on the spur of the moment he made up his mind to try another tack. ‘Well it’s some contraption that makes big sounds. It goes something like this, “Dingdong, dingdong, dingdong, ” in the air. Only louder , very loud. Well, when you’ll hear these sounds in the air, you’ll know it’s a bell what you’re listening to, and also know that everybody in Sin Hoe is gathered around it. More or less, that is. Almost everybody, ’ he amended in an honest attempt of accuracy. The stranger cast a short gaze in his direction and went back into his hut. To wipe his face, maybe, Drusilla thought, hereby forced to interrupt his good willing explanatory comments. 72

All he was left with now was dragging on the cigarette. Drusilla noticed that the door ajar swung gently, exactly like it did when he first came in here to reconnointre the whereabouts for the lobster. That was the particular place that mysterious, haunting breeze came from making him shiver with cold runs amidst the full hot air of the early dusk, luring him and at the same time forbidding him under ominous peril to cross over the brand new threshold and step inside in the wake of the stranger. After all the stranger had come out at once, a chunk of fried-onembers sturgeon in one hand and a jug of water in the other. He put these before his guest without uttering a word, as well. There’s face was clean again, and Drusilla noticed he had got a handsome suntan too. He looked like any ordinary fisherman in Sin Hoe. Drusilla picked up the food from the hands of the stranger and resumed his discourse from the issue he remembered he had to cut short. ‘You like chicks, eh ?’ he spoke as she ate. It was he who answered himself also, ‘Huh! I bet you do. Who doesn’t ? Nah, buddy. It’s for nothing, man. No way, mind my words. They’ve changed. I’ll be damned if I know what the ray has got into them lately, but one can’t get himself to con’em into some sort of understanding anymore, you know what I mean. Except the times when the two town folks Punishment and Medicine-man make their duty tour over here. They come in a truck, you maybe know them already now, I’m sure you know them and please don’t say no to me. As I say, it is only then when one can see some of our chicks wearing bead strings about their necks, having their hair washed and even making it stay put in every conceivable hairdo style and smell of all kinds of scented dandy and fancy concoctions. each and everyone crazier than the next. Bought with real money also from these here swindling peddlers. Yep. ’ The stranger uttered for the second time since he joined the community, ‘There, ’ and stared to the Klu Hill top. At first Drusilla thought he didn’t heard well, and ceased chewing. Actually he almost choked with astonishment, aborted a gag , then felt a great, solar joy engulfing him. The stranger had talked to him. Didn’t matter he addressed to him but one single word only, the same one by the looks of it, he had uttered for Malachi to hear on the night of the hurricane. Then he felt somehow bridled by the menacing undertones in the man’s voice. 73

‘Yes, yes, over there, ’ he was barely able to mumble. ’There, ’ and he looked also in that direction whereof at dusk blue bolts could be seen every now and then flashing across the skies up to the far away reaches of the horizon itself. He happily rediscovered that his old suspicion as to the overall significance of the one and only word the stranger uttered since his arrival in Sin Hoe has vanished as if by sheer magic as soon as the man who took shelter by Lazarus’s ruins had addressed that word to him also, and -- even more significant yet -- at a time when he had referred to town site as a wicked place that twists the minds of little girls soon-to-be big girls, that helps making rougher relationships between the fishermen in Sin Hoe, in short, a place whereof all evil come from. There’s approval, since approval bespoke the harsh economy of words, had solved for him the quandary, turning it into a certitude about a fresh rush of abhorrence aimed against no matter what other new brand of city bound emissaries , and especially aimed against those mysterious newly come who wore a “T” sign embroidered on the chest and sleeve. Drusilla was now sure the stranger was sympathetic not at all with those new strangers, and due this thing alone, Drusilla felt a new surge of friendship toward the stranger beside him. He drank the water jug in one gulp and cast the sturgeon leftovers away. He proffered the empty jug and said thanks for the snack. He felt in debt, honored, and somehow in good spirits. ‘Say, what about a drink ?’ he smacked his lips at the top of the contentment. ‘My treat. ’ Drusilla’s courage and confidence got a new boost ; the very behavior of the stranger was entirely responsible for his new buoyancy. The stranger took up the jug and carried it into the house. And he stayed there too. Drusilla loitered for a while. He lit a cigarette and finished it off. Called the stranger a couple of times and when the stranger failed to answer, he realized the discussion was over. ‘Just don’t you forget, ’ he called at last, drawing himself closer to the wooden door. ‘When you hear the bell, ’ he added then set out bound to Sin Hoe, hands in his pockets as he used to, and his eyes combing the beach. Under the clear Saturday night sky a new joy dawned in his soul against those town folks. Since although there was no way for him to learn “T” was the acronym for “Topometrist”, he sensed “There” read “Town”.

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And this was everything Drusilla needed in the whole world to warrant his hatred. Thus the following day was Sunday. Both before and after the liturgy Malachi carried out by the belfry with its bell, Martha’s joint teemed with clients. When they passed out stiff drunk, the fishermen were toted home by their good neighbors soused to a lesser degree and slept like dead to wake up the next day at dawn to go out at sea again fishing. At Martha’s that very day the #1 talking topic was the mart event. They had given the subject such a thorough rake, that at a certain point it went downright ridiculous to hear for example Calavera himself who, eyes dark ringed from Drusilla’s punching, kept his arm about hot tempered Drusilla’s shoulder ranting like a madman for all to hear that only God’s sweet will meddled, that Him and only Him in His wisdom unfathomed by no human mind had the stranger’s fishing hook fouling into Roxana’s skirt , that this was an omen, and that no ifs and buts Roxana had to be There’s. ‘You’re right, Calavera , you know, ’ Malachi whispered from a nearby table he shared with Thorvald and Untling. The priest never drank in excess before the service, but afterwards he also used to take his full revenge. ‘Hey, what about Roxana ?’ a voice cried. ‘What says she ?’ ‘Why, she’s happy, you dummy. Is there anything to be said about it ?’ another voice cried over heads. ‘You bet she’s happy. Who won’t be in her place. ’ A third voice showed signs of reticence. ‘At least we knew Calavera . . . ’ ‘Just how can you compare our poor Calavera with the one who came with the hurricane and to whom the lobster custom means nothing also ?’ the raspy with alcohol voice suddenly muted Martha’s terrace cranking themselves ready for the Sunday liturgy. ‘Our Calavera might be a fine fisherman all right, sure thing, yes, but question is, can you match him to There ? I for one don’t think so. ’ From the old men’s table, Untling spoke, ‘I say, where did you get the notion that to There the lobster custom means nothing and that he overrides it ?’ ‘Why, Drusilla said it to me, Drusilla said it to me ! Ask ‘im, not me. He was at his place, not me. No, not me. ’ Untling cast a quiet, deep, interrogatory glance to Malachi . The latter nodded his head slowly. Untling cried, ‘Is that so, Drusilla ?’ 75

Drusilla chose not to answer the dubious question of Untling. He felt happy enough to just grin malevolently in the direction of their table and nothing else. From her place, alert Martha missed nothing, while quiet, energetic Ausonia minded the clients. ‘Just what are you sayin’ Untling ?’ briskly, whimsically Drusilla chose to answer the old man. ‘For me to tell you whether it’s true There doesn’t mind the lobster custom we all the rest fear ? But of course he doesn’t mind it. Dosn’t mind it at all. I’ve been there, you know. He has it ! He holds it! It hangs right above the doorway ! When he lays in bed he probably is able to look comfortably at it just like that. It’s big and yellow exactly the way Thorvald said he saw it after he looked through his binoculars way back when most of us snickered at him in disbelief. I for one beg your pardon, old man Thorvald, and please forgive me for being then one of those who made fun on your eyesight’s account. It is very real. ’ He raised the mug of brandy to his lips. ‘Cheers, Calavera , and to the rays with all these boggleminded women. Forget about them. Have a life. ’ ‘Cheers, Drusilla. Jesus, when you hit me the first time I saw green stars popping all over the place, you know. You get some fist all right, Dru, no shit. ’ The husky, coolheaded voice spoke again on the terrace, ‘If that stranger of yours is that strong as you say, then why didn’t strike for himself Calavera here who’s drinking like a pig now. Why played chicken and let himself beaten to pulp, softer than a jellyfish then, tell me ?’ It was a vicious question. In no time it split Martha’s pub in two groups. One side claimed the newcomer actually was much too strong to engage in a fistfight with a poor guy blinded by jealousy, the others countered by saying There was not that much strong the story went, anyway not stronger than an average fisherman in their hamlet. ‘I dare say, ’ the coolheaded voice cried loud enough to cover the blare also fomented by it, ‘I’ve got the guts to bet real money that he doesn’t beat Forzas at skanderbeg. ’ The uproar of the two opposing galleries reached the paroxysm the second they heard these words. Instantly the bets were set, and many, many mugfuls of brandy, fishing rods, nets, kilos of sturgeon, even boats were thrown into the jackpot. Everybody was drunk. A couple of them hollered they were ready to go right then and there, on the spot, to get Forzas and the stranger had they 76

weren’t so soused it would have been a miracle if they managed to crawl to their own homes, and reach them. ‘What ? What’s up, Drusilla ?’ ‘Didn’t you hear ?’ Drusilla said. ‘No. Hear what ?’ ‘Booming, sort of, ’ the jawy fisherman said , ears cocked in the wind to catch whatever was to be caught. ‘Could be they were just thunder, but I for one can’t hear nothing, ’ said Rolo who had joined Drusilla and Calavera at the same table. ‘Quiet ! It’s not thunder. Seems rather like a cracking. ’ ‘Keep quiet, you, fools, ’ Everard cried and he stood up. ‘Drusilla’s right. I can hear it too. Sounds like someone who’s knocking with a hammer in some iron foil. ’ The sharp sighted eyes of Everard squinted, black and piercing, sniffing at the horizon and into the wind. ‘Hear it now ?’ ‘Sure thing it hears now, louder and clearer, ’ Drusilla cried with new excitement. ‘Keep quiet for a spell, damn you, ’ he ordered impatiently, knifing through the air with his hand at the frenzied terrace. A few of the fishermen confessed they were hearing it too, only these belonged to the group who anyway couldn’t attend Malachi’s liturgy standing up. Vee’s upon vee’s of wild ducks flew by overhead. To them the day was as ordinary as any other one of their life. Now more villagers nodded their heads in worried concern, saying yes, they heard that booming too. Narvahl looked at the grownups awaiting order from his father to run their message to Forzas and There. He had sided with no party, but the truth was the contest would have been more than attractive to him. The grownups were sniffing in the air though, like dogs when weather changes or someone’s about to die in the hamlet. ‘Whoever’s working today, on Sunday ?’ Thorvald whispered. And amidst that frozen tranquility, when it seemed that everybody forgot even the bets, Forzas appeared. He said hello to everybody within earashot and tried to spot a chair. Everybody was watching him, and at a certain point he become flustered. ‘What’s up everybody ? Why are you staring at me like that, folks ?’ Perfect silence at Martha’s. ‘It was you who banged way back ?’ ‘Did I what ? Ausonia, babe, gimme a mug, please, ’ Forzas said. The coolheaded voice went purposefully on, 77

‘Was it you who hammered away in some iron plate, or something ? Did you fix anything lately ?’ ‘Today ?. . . ’ ‘No, why ?’ Forzas wondered and was able to see around him everywhere only faces distorted by expectation, drinking, and scare. ‘Haven’t you heard the booming ?’ Thorvald asked him at last, when Forzas was already sort of raw with harrassment, whereupon Everard went on as he squinted his eyes alternatively to the duckless sky and to the hamlet : ‘A couple of ugly sounds have been heard not long ago. Real ugly. ’ Forzas took a better look at them all and said, ‘Why, my goodfolks, you run amuck or somethin’ ? Or maybe got feeble minded like kids ? The other day I’ve seen Narvahl and Little Lucretia sitting sad on the waterfront, and silent as well, mind my words, instead of playing the way is just plain and regular for children their age to. And you know what ? They simply sat there, same like you, wide, glazed eyes, unmoving from scare or beats me what else, as they also heard whatever nobody else could hear. I don’t know what to think anymore ; it’s either you turned babybrained, or the other way around. Do tell me somebody what am I to believe. And now you’re just sitting out there and ogle at me as you’ve seen a zombie. ’ Forzas was highly embarrassed. The coolheaded voice pointed out once more, ‘We all bet you bend the guy at skanderbeg. ’ Forzas’s eyes went up with a lightning speed. They sparkled. ‘What guy ?’ he asked just to buy some time, since he knew full well who they were talking about, and he almost had seen it coming. ‘The newcomer, ’ the coolheaded voice dragged on the mere word. Forzas’s eyes were smoldering. Men waited in tension. The crippled pondered for a long time the answer he had to offer not only the bastard who buried himself in the multitude, but the whole hamlet came to Martha’s joint for a drink ; mostly the whole hamlet which stood there waiting in respectful silence an answer : his answer. Instinctively his back stooped a bit as if under an invisible, unexpected burden. ‘No. I do not compete with him, ’ Forzas said at last, and sipped at the brandy Ausonia brought it to him. Out of this an argument issued which seemed to carry no good news to come.

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‘You . . . afraid ?’ pried deeper the unidentified and unmerciful coolheaded voice on the terrace. Forzas watched them for a while at turns with sorrow and anger. Anyone, just anyone of them could have pronounced those words, they welcome those words, it was splattered on their face their full agreement and backing of whatever was taking place, and even sheer lust of anticipating a scene in which Forzas , sensing he had been framed or conned, felt increasingly lonesome. Yet no one no side felt the need to side with Forzas. Forzas slammed his big, bony fist in the table and then the lugubrious sound boomed clear for all present to hear. He said bluntly, ‘I ain’t afraid. ’ Although he had taken a swig from the brandy, he felt his mouth parched like never before. Then he turned slowly to the general direction that inciting voice had come from. ‘I just don’t want to. Is that clear ?’ ‘In that case you turn yellowbelly. Why don’t you say so ?’ the voice kept on perversely, sheltered by the anonymity not only harbored, but condoned by the tight hamlet collectivity which Forzas , without being able to say why, felt increasingly hostile. It was just funny in a wrong sort of way : albeit it was as clear as the daylight they had split in two parties, no one was siding with him, not even boost his morale a bit. Forzas slammed once more his big knuckles into the flat of the table, and once again the table boomed for a long time. In spite of what he felt sizzling in his soul, Forzas found himself unable to utter one single word. ‘How can you say you didn’t hear the booming, you crippled one, since we, all of us did. Isn’t that so, my good people ?’ Thorvald said. ‘That’s right. That’s so, ’ people cried gregariously. ‘Somebody works today, on a Sunday, or . . . worked. Who could have been that man if not . . . our crippled ?’ ‘Just how comes then you didn’t hear the sounds and we did ?’ Thorvald said. Forzas stood aghast. He stared at the old man swept by an impotent grief, he opened his mouth to say something, but clamped it shut again unable to articulate not even a syllable : never before had he listened Thorvald or any other fellow SinHoan for that matter calling him “crippled, ” and with such scornful undertone at that. He watched them all, each one at his turn, carefully, intently. All of them were soused, no doubt, and their eyes popping out in the sockets like 79

sparkling, oily glass balls. Their words carried no weight, of course. Forzas gaze stayed especially long with Drusilla, somber, questioning, somehow awaiting from him a gesture of sorts, some little, private sign of encouragement, or at least acknowledgment. Yet Drusilla seemed engrossed in a hot dispute with Calavera and paid no attention to Forzas , or only pretended not to mind him. Just the surf and the wind rustle could be overheard from the shore. Forzas stood up, climbed down from the terrace and headed for the hamlet without finishing his brandy. From the old men’s table Malachi stood up also. ‘Just about time, I guess, ’ he grumbled, then hollered after Forzas to wait for him ; he walked the same way too, ready to pull the rope in the belfry and sound the bell, ready for liturgy, ‘Don’t be sorry, Forzas , it’s just them, ’ old Malachi said in a plaintive, peaceful voice. ‘It’s not their fault. ’ ‘Can you tell me what’s going on, Father ? All these are happening just because of that damned lobster skeleton ? Drusilla told me he saw it hanging by the main roof beam, just above the doorway. With his very own eyes he saw it, so he says. Malachi shrugged the shoulders and said, ‘Who knows, son ? The lobster curse is strong. Nothing is there to appease. Way back when I was a child I used to listen to my old folks talking about lobsters, those ordinary, gray ones you know, as being regular disaster bringers but on the house which offers them shelter, but Drusilla claims is a giant one, like none before, and yellow of color. Honestly, I don’t even recall someone mentioning some beast like this before. Maybe the day the bad luck strikes, it will fit its size, thus possibly overlapping the yard of just one single homestead such as Lazarus’s ruins are. But again, who could say for sure since no one can remember such a thing not even in the remotest legends ? Who could know, Forzas ?’ Forzas spoke, making visible efforts to swallow back the disgust and bitterness that almost ran wild in him : ‘World’s changing, this much I can understand, all right, be it, but seeing how the people who once respected you and you respected them from day to day speak to you mean and behave worse than the town folks, now that’s up to my neck. At least for me. All of them seem to me struck with a sickness of some kind, or mortal longing -- maybe I’m struck too, and that’s exactly why I can’t be able to exactly corner the feeling I’m trying to tell you about. Drusilla was right, and I must only now, at last to admit it. Yes. Well, maybe now , today nothing is anymore what we used to believe 80

it was. Same like some crab shell long bereft of that little bit of soft, pink, alive flesh. ’ ‘Don’t blame old Thorvald either, ’the elected priest kept saying. I know it’s him you meant when you slammed the table with your fist. Try to understand him. Maybe he also wanted to take his own revenge for your refusing to believe he truly saw the lobster in the stranger’s boat. Maybe he’s entitled to get some satisfaction, although I reckon he made quite a wrong pick in you as his target practice for venting his rage. This is one point. The second point : on the other hand, just a little before your coming up, a rather big argument issued rather explosively I should say on the stranger’s account -- whose else ? no ? -- and, here I’m truly sorry to say -yours. Everyone in the hamlet to the one had gambled. Some put their money on you beating There in the contest, others contracted the opposite wagers. Let alone the fact that they were pretty drunk all of them at the moment. You don’t have to be hard on them, you’re a stout, clean, one-cut impeccable fisherman. ’ Immediately he regretted the words “one-cut” ; who knows what a crippled might think when he’d hear this “one-cut” bit spoken on his account. In order to boost his courage and to get rid of the sticky feeling of acute embarrassment, Malachi was trying to butternose Forzas with a show of nice words, ‘If he attends the liturgy today I’ll call him aside and talk with him. I’ll make him understand it was much better for all of us had he discarded that cursed lobster skeleton which fomented nothing but dismay. I swear on my cross I’ll say this to him. ’ Forzas stopped in his tracks doubtfully. Malachi’s wooden belfry was towering nearby. ‘If, ’ Forzas said and sighed, shrugging his brawny shoulder. ‘What ?’ the priest asked. ‘I said if he comes. Farewell, old man. ’ ‘Don’t you attend the liturgy ? I’m just about to sound the bell, ’ the old man said, whereupon Forzas answered to the bewildered old man, ‘I’m not stayin’ Malachi . After all, if I learned right, people with stains, marred people, marked people, those having blemish are not allowed to come to the church of God. ’ ‘Forget it, man. Ours is in open air and has no walls. ’ ‘I’ve got blemish though, ’ the crippled young man said resolutely. ‘Bear them no grudge, Forzas , please. Forgive them since that’s not their fault. C’mon. Do stay. Forget that wager. Come. ’ 81

‘Nope. I’m not stayin, ’ old man. At least today I’m not stayin’ no matter what you’ll preach to me just now, is that clear ?’ ‘You ganged up with Drusilla , ’ the old man cried, but he sounded tired and unconvincing. ‘I ain’t ganged up with Drusilla , ’ Forzas said bitterly, then his face lighted up all of sudden for no apparent purpose and he locked his eyes right in the priest’s eyes, then he made about face. When Forzas was out of the earshot, the elected priest of Sin Hoe murmured in his beard, ‘This ain’t your fault either, crippled one. ’ Then he entered his belfry and grabbed the thick hemp rope that hung by the bell cradle at the other, upper end. He bent his knees and began pulling at the rope with all the deadweight of his body parted from the ground and the moment when from the darkened steeple the first sound boomed the old priest closed his eyes as he always did and let himself float with the rope and the bell and thought he could hear all the anguished cries of the seagulls that have dived for the fish and missed. To the Sin Hoe fishermen, that day was unforgettable. Whole hamlet except Alfred wood crowded on the wood planks of Martha’s terrace or messed around awaiting with mounting excitement for There to turn back from the water tower. The shortest way to the water tower bound to Lazarus’s ruins cut right in front of the pub and everyone knew by now There always walked the shortest way home, and that he didn’t waste time on trifle things bare, immediate necessities did not cry for. This newcomer had proved himself to be a stalwart, one-cut man, and SinHoans, even the die-in-the-wool back talkers had begun to get used to him, or at least with his presence. Drusilla was the most excited of them all. He shifted aimlessly from one spot to the other and chain smoked. Always kept looking up the pathway to the water tower. He was in charge to accost There no matter what the very minute he showed up, and beg him on behalf of whole community to accept fighting the one-shot skanderbeg contest. His charge was to lure him. Con him, please him, whatever, only to get him say yes. ‘Showing up yet ?’ Roloc cried from his chair. He also itched with impatience. ‘Nah, Drusilla said squinting for the zillionth time up the road everyone simply died to see him coming. The suddenly Drusilla dropped the cigarette butt and the crowd on the terrace shivered. 82

Drusilla made a small sign. But un-mistakeable. ‘There he is, ’ he murmured, and gulped. ‘Wish me luck. ’ ‘May I come over ho help ?’ Martha cried. She was excited too in spite of her obvious efforts to play cool. ‘You mind yours, ’ Drusilla hissed , and pressed his hands extra deep in the pockets of his slacks. Meanwhile There had drawn close. Dogs barked at him not anymore when he chose to cut his way through the cramped rows of the hamlet. Just yapped playfully and wriggled their tails, and begged to be fondled. They got used to him, too, and when dogs got used with something, they don’t bark anymore. There was to them also just another ordinary fisherman despite his living at Lazarus’s ruins ; a grim one, to be sure, but a real, thoroughbread fisherman nevertheless. Thus There had come real close this time, holding in his hand his bucket full of water. Rolo’s dog wobbled its curtailed tail quickly and sniffed him in a friendly manner. There was just passing by Rolo’s homestead . Seen from afar he seemed not to mind the strangely deserted hamlet either. Nothing interested him except carrying back home his bucketful of fresh, drinking water. Nor was he interested to see the mob gathered as a pack on the terrace at Martha’s. Drusilla barred his way , saying to him in his usual, ‘Hi, There. Howdy ?’ The villagers had been thoughtful to have hand picked Drusilla as a messenger of such a request. They have grown wise to the fact that the stranger had somehow to show Drusilla some gratitude for the latter having intervened into the brawl way back, and getting the former out of the jealous Calavera’s hands, and by way of their scheme, there it was, he had been offered exactly such an opportunity to show his gratitude. Provided he would accept to involve himself into a skanderbeg contest in which everyone but Alfred had bet. The stranger raised his eyes to Drusilla and didn’t answer, a detail that didn’t bother the hamlet’s messenger at all. In the bucket the drinking water made soft, splotching noises. ‘They sent me, ’ Drusilla began pointing out with his stretched out palm toward the teeming terrace, ‘in order to ask you to fight in a skanderbeg hand game against Forzas . Whole place put wagers. I’ve bet on you. Of course. Victor drinks free for one week at Martha’s ; vanquished drinkes only two days -- to the limit. As you can see for 83

yourself, everything is set. If you don’t want to drink, don’t. No problem. I’ll do the drinking for you, only, please, There, come. Just look at them, There. They’re simply dying with impatience. ’ There set out , his filled up water bucket in hand, bound to Lazarus’s ruins. Drusilla was left standing up and mired in confusion. The hamlet began to hum, murmur, yap, boo. Eventually Drusilla managed to pull himself out of the panic that got him stiff for a spell, and ran as fast as he could after the stranger. The water in the bucket sloshed again and a few drops fell in the sand. They were absorbed at once. ‘Look. Afterwards they’ll leave you alone, I swear. I swear, There. Please ? Whatchya sayin’ ?Huh ? Hey, say yes, man. Drusilla here swears to you you’ll get the peace you crave for as soon as the fight’s over. C’mon fer Chrissakes. Jes’ come in, fight Forzas , stand up, and go. You’re free. Okay ?’ Drusilla had actually crowded There, had him cornered somehow and now struggled by gestures and monkey-faces to persuade him. Had he not succeeded, he would debase himself in front of everyone in Sin Hoe, and he simply could not tolerate such a thing to happen. The mob had brown quiet. Everyone was staring their way. Drusilla waved hands energetically, nodded his head quickly just about to kick the stranger with his brow. It was clear for everyone he did his best to persuade him by all means. There had stopped, bucket in hand, and looked intently with his deadpan face at the crazy gymnastics the jawy man in front of him performed. The villagers had begun stirring again ; they were just about to lose any hope to attend a skanderbeg bout. At least they saw There putting down his bucketful of drinking water, turning back, then following Drusilla . Deafening roars of cheering burst in a flash out of the compressed chests of the mob packing Martha’s terrace solid. ‘What do you reckon about the match ? Could Forzas beat him ?’ Everard asked. Provided the match would take place eventually, Everard was supposed to pamper, coddle, boost up Forzas’s morale, who anyway had to be convinced yet to accept meeting There at the skanderbeg table. Even now, of all times, when the hardest half seemed to be settled, or about to 84

be settled, it was absolutely mandatory for him not to be left alone, least he’ll fall easy prey to the thoughts’ swamp. Such an unfortunate occurrence would have been able to turn him soft exactly at a time when he should have to muster the most of his power. Nobody knew what could have occured to him, and it could make a real, general nasty moment for all of them if right then and there Forzas stood up from his chair and headed straight back home, refusing to fight. That was why Everard messed about him at all times in order to prevent such catastrophic a situation to develop, and on the other hand to restore to the best of his knowledge the self-confidence of the brawny crippled young man whose lack of fighting spirit was suspect. Forzas kept quiet. And also sipped from the elder-tree syrup Martha brewed as a refreshment soft beverage to be used at the contest to come. He looked once more to the two silhouettes. Deep in his heart he was trying to outguess the way the luring process could take place, as he knew Drusilla a talker by no means redoubtable. If the fight was convened though, Forzas did all his best to convince himself he won’t care a bit about the final outcome of the fight. Along with every new gulp from the tonic, sented juice, illusion shelter also against the swarm of black omens, Forzas was trying desperately to consolidate his trust that the one and only thing he could truly rely on was the living, clean force throbbing in his only arm left. He swallowed again off the fresh, cooling elder-tree juice. Hirsute Everard was kneading the hard muscles of his arm of a giant. Everard was the appointed coach for the fight to come -- or not -- to take place. He sat with him at the same table, poured juice for him from a decanter, rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, wiped his perspiration, talked to him cooing, and softly. Essential was not to give him any break that might let him foul in the net of thoughts exactly the way fish get tangled in the fishermen’s nets when out at sea in a work day. Forzas realized Everard was his coach and what that meant, and he grew somehow even humbler than before ; he was astounded to see himself swallowing a situation like this without comments. ‘Well, it’s settled then, ’ Everard hissed , and Forzas felt immediately his mouth go dry despite Martha’s refreshing juice. The prospective audience resumed their lively, wild house, shrill pitched comments, all of them glad to the outmost. Calavera sneaked over to him and slapped him on his shoulder. ‘Make him poppin’ his eyes, buddy, ’ he whispered. ‘Do it for me, okay ?’ he added, then vanished in the throng of onlookers. 85

In order to extra-hide his mounting emotion, Everard intensified the massage on the formidable muscular mass of the Sin Hoe Crippled. A couple of juice drops sloshed out of the decanter and scented the hot sand like a sacrificial offering. There had put down his bucket now and came over straight to them. Drusilla had managed to con him and made no efforts to show he was extremely pleased with himself. He kept circling and jumping and messing about his man like a puppy chained by the chuck wagon. To everybody was clear Drusilla was coaching the stranger and both of them were headed now for the table in the center especially set for the skanderbeg contest. It was one of the ordinary wrought-iron tables, except that no white linen tablecloth covered it. On one side a chair, on the other side, another chair. This fight table at which contestants met lay down in the sand at some distance away from the wooden terrace so everybody in there to be able to watch the fight unhampered. Drusilla and There drew themselves closer. As the throng cheered, they sat down at a second table especially prepared for their rest by Martha and Ausonia. Drusilla pulled the chair for There and invited him to sit down, then he went quickly to Ausonia and took from her lap the towel, the elder-tree bottle and the lime fruit. He came back to There’s table carrying all these and he immediately began to knead him like any professional coach. He opened the shirt buttons for him and rolled up a sleeve first, the one from the fighting had, and Drusilla made double sure that was the right hand. The moment he tried to roll the sleeve of the other hand, he met the discreet but firm opposition of his man ; carried away with his exhilaration, Drusilla was just about to commit a horrible blunder. Drusilla got the cue right away and felt buoyantly grateful to There for his preventing him in time about the gaffe he was about to let fly ; no doubt it could have extra damaged his dwindling credit with his fellow villagers. He poured some juice in the mug and proffered it to him. That day was hot. The sky was clear . The uproar at the terrace had keyed up in intensity. Many squatted right down in the sand, or on the wood board planking. The air had grown hot by the minute. Martha shuttled back and forth between the tables of the two contestants, careful at the last minute details prior to the encounter. At a certain point she cast a questioning gaze to Forzas’s table first. It was Everard who nodded his head in a curt, quiet approval.

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Martha looked then to There’s table. Drusilla gave his assent in the same haughty manner. So everything was set so the contest could commence. Martha preened the folds of her skirt and her apron, stepped in front of her clients and bid them to keep silence. When the cheering subdued, she cried out loud, for all the audience on the terrace to hear, ‘Good people. I have the honor and the pleasure to announce the skanderbeg match between Forzas and There. ’ Cheering went up to the sky from the pub’s terrace. Martha made a sign for them to cease shouting, and said, ‘The fight shall run for thirteen rounds, one empty-bottle lapse long each round. Victor shall be granted permission to drink at my place for seven days free, the vanquished -- my regrets -- only two days. ’ The crowd burst into laughter and clapped hands. ‘Plus the bottles for measurin’ time lapses, ’ she cried out after a figlike old hag Coco by his name queried what about the brandy they used as an hour-glass. Then Martha made a sign to the two men they could begin the fight. ‘Trainers and umpires : Everard and Drusilla here, ’ Martha added, then went to her place. There and Forzas drew near the table in the middle set for contest. Each of them sat in his chair. Forzas felt There with his eyes, There did the same with Forzas. The muscular mass, starting from the scruff, the deltoid, the twins, both biceps and triceps were gigantic and glistened in the day of light as they’ve been oiled by Everard . And yet it did not belittle There’s arm, as it stood out there, sleeve rolled up. His muscular mass was not as awe inspiring as the crippled one’s, but its strummed fibers tensed and slackened in a flash, bursting with vitality at the most inconspicuous move of the stranger. Drusilla did all his best to chafe the stranger and bring him at a peak form as fast as he could. Then Drusilla and Everard had kneeled one side and the other of the contest table and made themselves ready to arbiter the skanderbeg bout. The minute the two men clasped their hands one against the other, the audience went silent at once. Umpires made sure both palm-clutch were correct, and also the chair positions, the elbow positions as they had to touch and stick to the table throughout the bout, they they raised their hands, glanced at each other to set and time their consent, and cried together at once, 87

‘Fight !’ The brandy from the first hour-glass bottle began to spill in a small barrel nearby. Muscles throbbed. On one side, the hard, swollen, gigantic ones of Forzas , on the other side those slim, stringy, sinewy of the newcomer. The tips of their reciprocating fingers went white with mutual compression. Nails under pressure of the fingers that clawed each other one’s hand back grew gradually bluish of color. Sun dried up on their tanned skin the traces of any moisture that have been left by their respective coaches to chafe and elasticize the sinews. Breeze was dangling here and there a small curlicue tickling at Forzas’s forehead. The veins on his neck went suddenly thick and dark blue, and standing out. The stranger seemed to resist somehow easier this first round. Their crossed over forearms clasped together by way of their big bony fists stood both of them in a classical, regular, vertical position, no one being able to tilt the other one yet. Small alternate oscillations that could be detected only by the two umpires bespoke of temporary moments of light domination of either one or his challenger, but nothing decisive. Thus spilt the first brandy bottle into the barrel. ‘Break !’ the umpires shouted, and the first round was declared a draw. On the terrace the people resumed their vivacious chat. ‘Stron’ an’ mighty both of them if you ask me. ’ ‘Cool off, buddy. It’s just the first round. Forzas just fiddled with him now, remember. Just routine fiddling, see how much he’s worth. Wait till you see round #2. ’ ‘The newcomer is hard all right I should say. Did you notice he didn’t even blink ? But then, as you said, that’s only round #1. ’ ‘Hey, Forzas, make ‘im cry. Do that for me, boy. I bet on that two mugs against Coco. ’ The audience laughed heartily. Yet Forzas was in no mood for jocular spirits. He had sniffed trouble. He had felt the stranger. Had felt the hollow and the bridge of his palm. He had felt his wrist sticking to skin to almost skinning by his own wrist : rock hard. His fingers -- steel vise with perfectly balanced grasp as if meant to resist any outer power that gambled to crush. No, no, now he was sure it would not be piece-of-cake at all to defeat There, that a good many brandy bottles would have to go empty until he’ll be able to bring his forearm flat against the table. Maybe seven of them. Maybe ten. Or all thirteen of them. 88

‘Fight !’ Drusilla and Everard kneeling in the sand shouted. The vises of bone, muscle and sinews clasped at once standing up right at the vertical. Malachi put his mug at his lips and eyed Thorvald. The latter caught the glance and shook his head. The priest took another swig as a by way of an answer then went back to his watching the skanderbeg. The seagulls were crying far away off shore. Narvahl crawled by the table of contest. He stared with his mouth agape at the bunches of intertwined muscles on top of the wrought iron table. Rolo shouted a call to Narvahl, but the boy didn’t answer. Rolo went to him to bring him back, but after a short hassle he sat there too. The closer you witness a fight, the more passionate is the fight. After seven bottles of brandy Martha spilt into the barrel the skanderbeg score was still even. Everybody on the terrace had left the wrought iron chairs and moved right by the main table where the #1 skanderbeger in Sin Hoe and newcomer There were silently fighting each other in deadly lock. Drusilla was chafed and crimson like a broiled shrimp, as if it was him who did the fight. He kept mumbling and fanning his man with the towel. He experienced a close intimacy with There, and the reasons fo this closeness were both the promises and the menaces showered on his head from everywhere, but all those voices were mixed and dizzying, as if in a whirlwind. There sipped the home-brewed elder tree juice in small gulps and kept looking just ahead and nowhere else ; and ahead sat Forzas . Seven rounds away the crippled was squeezed like a lemon. Everard had realized the thing and tried by all means to extent the timeout and refurbish Forzas with the necessary sap by all the care available on the premises. And yet his shirt was drenched with sweat, and his roving eyes kept ricocheting against the unwanted challenger in front of him. He, Forzas himself, the invincible skanderbegerer in Sin Hoe was for the first time scared. ‘Give him the wristtrick, Forzas and quit sparing him, ’ his hairy coach whispered in his ear. The towel with which Everard wiped him was wet despite the hot day. Forzas grinned and said, ‘Who’s sparring ? He’s hard. That’s all. ’ 89

And the crippled young man resumed his worries and panting. His dark blue veins from his neck had barely found a small respite to get back at their place under the skin, where they belonged. Forzas studied more carefully now his opponent. Except for a light acceleration of his breathing, he let out no other outward telltale about his fatigue with the contest. He was the first two-handed man who resisted that far in the game. At the same time he suddenly he became aware of the embarrassing efforts Everard had been making since the last two timeouts to spare him. The fact that that sparring struck him like embarrassing was prove enough it was grounded. Forzas shook his head surrepetitiously, then lowered his chin and looked in the bottom of the mug where he had drank from. Roxana chewed her lips and her nails clawed unwillingly at Untling’s arm. Untling also attended the contest, and he did so with enrapture. He hadn’t seen such a fight in a lifetime. He was a child about the age Narvahl was now when Lazarus beat giant Thor at the end of an encounter as exciting as this one. Untling had bet ten mugs of brandy on the stranger, but Forzas was in all fairness strong. Stronger even than Lazarus was in his days. Eventually the old and quiet fisherman was so much carried away with the sheer beauty of the fight he paralleled the one in his childhood, between Lazarus and Thor, that he not even was he interested in its outcome any longer. Its sheer beauty made him revive the past time and best of his life. ‘I see you’re hot for him, right ?’ Untling growled smiling at Roxana. ‘Oh, God, please help him win, ’ she murmured. ‘Win who ?’ the old man pried a bit more. Roxana just sighed as a by way of any other answer whatever that was. Telling everything that had to be told. Drusilla and Everard raised their hands ready to shout, ‘Fight !’ for the eight round. As the end of the encounter drew nearer by the minute, the villagers’ excitement mounted. They were split in two mobs, each one occupying a place at the back of the man they were backing, and betting on goods or brandy mugs, and they kept frowning, grumbling, shrieking, gasping, they chewed their lips to blood, muttered, rubbed their chins and nibbled at their mustaches, bickered or let fly at each other in the heat of passion, whispered, and especially they jostled and shouldered into each other. At a certain point in all that swarming crowd who jostled and elbowed and jumped on top of each other as they were jockeyed for a better view, Narvahl and Little Lucretia were pushed right beneath the table of the two 90

opponents. From there they followed the match in their special way, looking in awe like the children they were at the bare feet of the fighters. There was not much to see, of course, yet Narvahl and Little Lucretia behaved under the table and kept staring as if mesmerized at the bare feet of both Forzas and the stranger, and also of both Drusilla and Everard who sat on their knees. All of a sudden some horribly loud cries erupted from the audience banged the little ones’ stomachs against their backbone. ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doin’, hey ? The crippled guy gets ya, hey ?’ Drusilla whispered into his man’s ear as he wiped with his towel the perspiration beads which eventually appeared at the temples and forehead. ‘Jus’ look at ya. Can’t ya see how stringy y’are ? Ain’t you no shame to let yourself run down by a crippled ? What the ray, come man, pull yourself to your senses and let him taste your might. He’s gone. Just look at him ; he’s finished. Can’t yu see the way he looks ? Why, he’s down right scared. Lost. Finished. Out of juice. The ninth it’s yours, There, this is no joke, right ? Get that damn well into your head. C’mon. Git. Git goin’ and bend ‘im. Break ‘im. ’ Drusilla’s lips unstuck his lips from the stranger’s ear, then Drusilla slapped his man on the shoulder. The stranger said nothing. He just breathed a bit harder than at the beginning, and kept staring at Forzas. Forzas was finished. His suntanned face had turned the color of parched earth. He cast frightful, pitiful glances about, but there were five rounds more to go. The roar was deafening and could not be controlled anymore neither by Martha, nor by the umpires. Yet at one time Forzas thought he distinguished a voice over the noise which probably belonged to Gabriel which was saying, ‘The crooked ones ate the right ones in the end, never fear. ’ It was a venomous undertone in what Gabriel had said, and in his whirlwind of raw emotions , Forzas turned yellow of face, like the sand under his feet. And that stranger who kept looking at him. Only at him. Never elsewhere, never. Forzas grew suddenly scared to death of another round. He craved so much to be able to just stand up from his chair in that very moment and break into a run. Back homebound, to his parents’ reed hut, where the shadow was cool and quiet.

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Yet he kept sitting down in the wrought iron chair to clutch his palm again with the unmerciful one of There. He had to think a great deal at the prospect of those seven days of free drinking for as much as he could in order to be able to summon again his courage. He clasped once more his palm with the one of the stranger. He tried to feel its grain, temperature, shape, and hardness, build, one split second before the blaze of muscle to squelch away any other tender feeling. All of there were there, present and compact under his palm, all alive and fresh. As fresh as they could be. The few air trapped between the scoops of the two palms pressed together bled off briskly the moment the umpires Drusilla and Everard cried out aloud for the ninth time : ‘Fight !’ in front of whole Sin Hoe gone wild with overexcitement. That small pouched air smelled fragrant. Of fruit. The umpires lowered themselves on their knees with bettors squirming on top of them, all of them eyes riveted on the elbows of the two opponents. When skanderbeg matches stretch past the mid point, the umpires had to be extra careful at the elbows. The stress and fatigue is so intolerable at the shoulder joint of the arm that is almost impossible not to raise the elbow off the table. Do that and you’re out of competition. The true skanderbegerers have to fight twice when the match drags beyond the mid-round : once the challenger, and twice , this special fatigue which is tempting elbow to go up from the flat hardness of the table in search of some relief from strain even a one thousandth of an inch could provide . He who cannot control this extremely strong urge loses the title of challenger. After seven rounds fight with the strain becomes simply impossible to endure. All true skanderbegerers knew that. And Forzas was a true one. ‘C’mon There, don’t give up !’ Roxana cried. ‘You, stingray, you’re sidin’ with the newcomer, huh ?’ Bianca hissed, red of face with anger. ‘So what ? He who bets sides with the one he or she bet on, ain’t that so, handsome lady, ’ Roxana replied venomously. ‘You bet on Forzas , so go cheer him. Why mind other people’s business ? Mind yours. You’re a stingray, not I. ’ ‘Whore. Dated all of them, gal, ’ “handsome laday” hissed just to take revenge. Whereupon Roxana put up a face of scorn and considered the argument with Bianca at the par for the rest of the time left from the

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confrontation between the man she was intended for to marry and the crippled Forzas . She almost fainted with joy the minute she saw the huge single arm of the crippled commencing to bend and come closer to the table of confrontation under the gaining strength of There. His backers side exploded in delirious roars. Deep purple of face, Drusilla windmilled hands frantically as he cried in the ear of his friend advices and accolade helter-skelter. One could hardly believe that in that deafening caucus the just arrived townsfolk to have been understood a thing from the hiccupped, stilted babbling of the jawy fisherman playing his coach. He kept looking straight ahead, and drank the homebrewed juice Martha prepared for the competition, and he let himself wiped and cared for by Drusilla , his russet self-appointed coach. There won round #10. He won #11 as well. The last two rounds were won by him also, easily against a completely crushed psychically anf physically Forzas before the brandy bottles go empty into the barrel. On that day There beat in skanderbeg contest Forzas the Crippled, the invincible of Sin Hoe. The minute There brought down his hand back for the last time against the white, cold flat of the table, the wild cheers of his supporters and bettors carried far away to the seagulls, and to the Bora Bay laying in the shadow of palm trees. Drusilla was beyond himself with happiness. Forzas had stood up and babbled while bitter tears were rolling down on his cheeks, ‘I’m the mightiest skanderbegerer in whole Sin Hoe. The people who had lost wagers on his hand came to him and slapped him gingerly on his stooping, cramped back, in solace, ‘That’s okay, Forzas . Take it easy, son. ’ ‘That’s all right, boy. Face it. That’s it. ’ ‘Any godfather should have his godfather. Next time . . . ’ ‘Ugh, that’s it, I guess. So what ? I’ve lost a drink, this is no reason to kill myself for it, now, is it ? To the ray with the mug of brandy. ’ ‘Yep. There’s no way except facing it and walk on. ’ Eventually, weeping like a baby, Forzas broke into a run to his parents’ hut where the shadow was cool and quiet. In such a weather no place was as good as being home. Outside the heat was bitter and oppressive, and had undoubtedly come from inland. At such times it’s so 93

good to have a quiet, cool reed hut on the beach ; but not from the see grass laid out in the sun to dry on the rooftop was the choking heat of that day bitter . . . . Martha kissed There on the mouth and declared him officially winner, then he easily cut his way thorough the crowd and was gone without uttering a single word, headed for his drinking water bucket where he had put it down in the sand. It was lukewarm by now. He grabbed the handle using his rested hand and set out to Lazarus’s ruins. The bottom of his bucket had left a perfect, neat, circular print on the beach. ‘Hey, mister, just what do you think you’re doin’ ? Jesus, man, now wait a minute, ’ coach Drusilla cried in his wake. But the stranger paid no attention to anybody. The skanderbeg contest was over. He heeded their asking and now was on his way minding his own chores, his lukewarm water bucket and all. The Sin Hoe villages watched him as he walked off along the waterfront headed for the place where he had found a shelter. Some of them tried to run after him, but quit after just a few steps. Drusilla turned his head to the pub tender and said, ‘Look here, Martha. I’m goin’ to drink on his account, okay ? There is not much of a brandy drinker. He told me I can do the prize drinking for him, no problem, me being his coach, you know. As a coach I have the authority to represent him in all endeavors connected with his person. Therefore I’m also authorized to drink. Is it okay with you ?’ The woman looked at him askance. ‘Really, huh ?’ she mused. ‘Just who the hell do you think you are to drink in the winner’s place, eh ?’ ‘Well, I am There, ’ Drusilla cried to this buxom, well built , enticing woman who stood upright in front of him, and he volunteered no additional explanation. He grew impatient with zest and thirst and admitted no backtalk. He was the very winner’s coach after all, wasn’t him ? ‘At least five days, Martha, please ?’ he begged. ‘No. Not five -three. Is it okay with you only three ?’ he debased himself and put his arm about Sin Hoe pub tender’s shoulder as they walked back to the kitchen followed by the scornful glances of Ausonia and others who winning-orlosing put aside, didn’t considered there were solid grounds for celebration neither at Martha’s terrace nor elsewhere throughout the hamlet no matter how many drinks one might have.

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Winners of bets or not, everybody seemed to resent some insatisfaction beyond their power of understanding where the last few major events in Sin Hoe were concerned, and about the only visible result of this impotence of explanation of what had been taking place lately was a sticky sensation of embarrassment increasingly more people experienced when they talked with their folks, or when they attended the house chores, or the sea chores, or when at the end of a work day they just sat by and looked and tried to grasp but always failing why nothing was like it used to be once, why nothing they had known for sure to-the-date proved to have been just an illusion all along, why all the bulk of their lore seemed to recess like tide off a reef, leaving in its foamy wake to the attention of ever starved senses a stonecast marine jungle of shell. Little Narvahl was badly shaken by the events. He darted to follow the stranger, but then he saw the way poor Forzas was running, lonesome on the wide beach with his only arm dangling almost laughable at his side, and stopped in his tracks. And Narvahl looked again at There, the man who had beaten the invincible Forzas, and kept following the newcomer and skanderbeg victor as he drifted farther and farther along the same waterfront, his bucket full in his rested hand, and then he broke into a run in the wake of the latter. When he reached him, he cast a confused stare at him midway between regret and awe, then Narvahl rushed at him and fondled the muscles in that arm who vanquished Forzas, then he bent for show his own arm from the elbow and watched with funny carefulness his tiny blob of a biceps which he exercised for a couple of times. There watched him with disinterest and a vacant glitter in his sight, a perfunctory scrutiny that could turn hearts into icicles, then he resumed minding his way. Narvahl’s result of his mentally comparing notes must have proven deceitful, since he immediately broke away and into a run back, bound to the village as fast as his feet could stand.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Forzas walked about in a trance, like sick, for a month or so. He minded his fishing and rowing in the utmost silence, without uttering a single word. Nobody, not even Drusilla , his best friend, has been able to make him say even a syllable. Or maybe it was exactly Drusilla of all fishermen who had the least chance to make him speak up again. Slowly their boat became as quiet and mournful as the boat which used to carry the dead at sea, for burial. He had suddenly grown old. His cheeks had gone hollow, his huge biceps muscle had gone flabby although there seemed to be no slackness with his rowing, and his whole body had undergone a rather accelerated process of decrepitude. Drusilla tried for a while to shake him back to the former shape, but after a couple of failures in establishing contact, he gave up eventually and turned to Everard and Gabriel when it came to swapping a word or two. The priest had noticed the change, actually he had been perhaps the first to realize the pitiful metamorphosis undergone by the crippled, and he made his best also to talk to him in his usual, gentle manner, to soothe him the best way he could. He also suspected the real reason of his sorrow, and what was hiding beyond the natural woe incurred by an otherwise ordinary defeat in a mere game as skanderbeg was. The young crippled saw himself toppled from the only place where he was acknowledged by the hamlet as a certain authority, and this place was the skanderbeg table. Forzas must have known that to the eyes of the people in Sin Hoe, not being invincible anymore meant simply ceasing to be altogether. And by way of quietude, Forzas tried by himself to cease to be way ahead being forced to acknowledge their soon-to-come indifference in this matter. ‘I know why you’re so sad, Forzas , don’t you think I don’t know, ’ the old priest told him one night while on their way back home from 96

Martha’s pub and Malachi had maneuvered so only the two of them had been left alone. Forzas looked at him with oily eyes and smile askew. ‘Oh, really ?’ he said. ‘Don’t you forget he came along with the hurricane. If you’ll be able to remember this and take it into account as it deserves, you’ll be less bitter now, ’ the priest had said. ‘Oh ? And pray, with whom you’d have drunk today, Malachi , had I remembered that skanderbeger There or whatever-his-name had come along with the hurricane, eh ?’ ‘This is true, ’ the priest agreed. ‘I could not have imagined we’ll drink together. But all considered we felt fine now, didn’t we ?’ Malachi was not that tipsy not to be able to fathom with his customary acumen the effect Martha’s spirits had on the cripple’s mood. The crippled put up a pretty fair fight with the mugfuls of brandy. Albeit dead drunk, Forzas kept his lucidity of refusing to prop himself against Malachi . At the same quantity of alcohol stashed under the belt, the old hag proved stronger though. Matter of routine. As long as he took profit of the two days of free drinks Martha promised to the vanquished, nobody objected ; it was regular to take profit on Martha as far as she allowed you to. But after that on, as he took to drinking, Forzas’s good name with the villagers rapidly dwindled down to scorn. Anyhow, as they founded their reciprocal certitude on the respective illusions they made on each other, Forzas and Sin Hoe reciprocally fell one from the other’s esteem, and before long no one throughout the hamlet seemed eager to remember neither what kind of man Forzas had once used to be, nor even that he had lost his arm the way he did. In short Forzas was now a young man turned old before his age and who kept getting older by the day, a mute and heavy drinking fisherman. Some crippled among the two-handed fishermen of Sin Hoe. A cripple and an old man were passing on a late evening, coming in from Martha’s along the sandy rows in Sin Hoe. To the north lightning bolts flashed every now and then above the Klu Hill. On that particular Sunday but a couple of women past fifty and a couple of old men gathered about the steeple to listen to Malachi’s reading the liturgy. At the end of the Holy Service, Malachi put back at their place the three Holy Books. Thorvald and Ausonia closed by. 97

‘Neighbor priest, I want to talk to you, ’ Thorvald said. Malachi took a look at them both trying to guess on their faces what might be the argument about. ‘Well, then let’s have it in the open, Thorvald. Let me guess, isn’t this handsome young lady craving to sign up into womanhood now, is it or not, eh ?’ he said and smiled as he beamed at Ausonia. The girl was standing up two steps behind the old man. She didn’t lower her eyes, neither blushed at this open hint to marriage. She kept staring at him with a rather piercing gaze, a most peculiar thing with a girl, and that took Malachi aback a bit. Whereupon Malachi turned back again to Thorvald. ‘So. Let’s hear what’s the problem, neighbor. ’ Before commencing, Ausonia’s grandfather shifted his weight a couple of times. ‘Er, well, this gal here, would very much like to . . . er . . . ’ ‘Well ? What is it she would like, Thorvald ? I figure she’s entitled enough to whatever she wants now, so do tell me what is it. ’ Ausonia answered instead of her embarrassed granddaddy, who, obviously was a loss with the proper words for rendering the cause. ‘I want to leave this place. Quit. Go. Just go away. ’ Malachi turned to her and studied her in silence for a long time. ‘So you want to go. Go where, young lady ?’ he asked in bland astonishment. ‘There, ’ she uttered pointing energetically with her chin northward, then immediately resumed her insolent gaze right into the eyes of the elected priest. Malachi’s wrinkled face was smiling. ‘Uhm, I see. So you want to become a woman. Well, well, you’ve seen for yourself what happened the past days at the mart. ’ Martha’s barmaid frowned her eyebrows with strong determination. Her grandfather stole glances her way and moved his lips every now and then while her lips were thin and set and non-uttering a sound. ‘I miss the point. What connection might be between my decision to leave the hamlet and whatever happened at the mart ?’ the girl wondered. The priest’s smile went suddenly dry in the deep furrows that ploughed his sunburnt skin aplenty. The matter seemed to be real serious, so he felt the need to prepare his words carefully first. ‘Hm, ’ he began, ‘Therefore you must know it’s another girl in line to be engaged to There. Roxana I mean. ’

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‘ Sorry, old man, but Roxana has nothing to do in what I’m telling you here, ’ Ausonia said stubbornly. As soon as the liturgy was over, the elected priest in Sin Hoe became again an ordinary fisherman like anybody else. Malachi scowled with discontent. ‘I don’t understand you, young lady. Do you like the stranger who came to us, or not ? If you do, that’s too pity, and you’d better snatch him out fro m your dreams. Chance picked Roxana. ’ Ausonia looked at him the way people are looking at senile old men. She said, ‘I like no stranger, and care about no stranger either, old man. It happens, just happens I want to go to the town. Git away out from here. Is that clear enough for you to understand, now ?’ ‘Malachi , you tell her. She won’t listen to me anymore. The longing to be gone is upon her, and won’t go away from her not even for a minute, ’ Thorvald said. ‘You’d better shut up, granddaddy. ’ The mere tone in the girl’s voice froze Malachi and he kept this stance for a long lapse. It bespoke of a crass insolence alien to the little hamlet on the waterfront, and the old man wondered more about the novelty of such a behavior on their premises rather than the attitude of a young lady toward an old man bespeaking of such base morals. He felt the instinctive urge to punish on the spot the girl’s deportment, yet an the same time he was brought to a halt by what people usually call old people’s wisdom. ‘Then what do you want from me ?’ he growled. That was true. It was only then that Malachi had been able to notice : Ausonia -- young, and proud, and bursting with vitality ; and Thorvald -old, decrepit, miserable. All of a sudden he realized he himself qualified in the same category like Thorvald and instantly not only was, but felt himself humble, and decrepit, and miserable in front of this girl. Yes, decrepit and miserable, and parched like . . . pastrami, or . . . shell. Ausonia said, ‘To ask you to go to him and ask him for me where should I check in in the town, and what I’m supposed to be doing over there. That’s why I came here. You know him. It’s you who brought him into the village after all. ’ Malachi averted his eyes from her penetrating, intense, fanatic gaze. 99

‘He speaks to no one, young lady, in case you didn’t learn yet, ’ he grumbled bitterly. ‘He’ll never answer no question. And besides, I’m afraid you got it wrong, miss ; it was not me who brought him into our hamlet, and I don’t even know him any better than, say, you, or anybody else for that matter. ’ Thorvald nearby began begging, ‘Malachi , I did everything I could to dissuade her, but to no avail. Please, make her understand. ’ ‘Please, shut up, granny, do shut up, ’ Ausonia said, and this time her reprimand was more hissed, more inconspicuous, more perverse -more womanish. And her granny shut up. Somehow against his better judgment, Malachi asked mournfully, ‘Why do you want to leave that bad, Ausonia ? Won’t you tell me what’s the matter with you ?’ ‘Wait till you hear what she said. She said her Father turns dangerous to her own future. ’ ‘Drusilla shut up, fer Chrissakes, granny ! Do, really, do shut up, I say, ’ she burst in a scalding, hard core, womanish harshness. But that was old matter to the priest now. He also felt just the diehard sadness sticking on. A mysterious sadness, a sadness of the old age which keeps pushing and drifting everything to the shore, and strands it there what’s-its-name floating, and jams it there without notice which is unable to grasp not a thing of the youth waves that keep sweeping from the rear, or almost not a thing of them. All that’s been left adrift are only the chimeras of the past. ‘Because I want to go away, That’s why, Malachi . I want to quit that whore, to quit rinsing and washing glasses stinking of that piss of a brandy everybody guzzle like madmen, can you understand that ? I want to just go away from here ‘cause I’m sick with it, I want to go ‘cause I’ve just took a fancy to suddenly go places, and to me it’s enough of an answer as to why I want to leave here, and if you refuse to go to him and talk with him, well then, I’ll go see him myself, ’ Ausonia added hotly, bitterly. Thorvald kept munching at the stem of his pipe. And he looked miserable. ‘You, girl, you need no more advice as you’ve grown a mind of your own. Let her be, Thorvald, it’s the best and most you can do, ’ the priest said. ‘Just let her go away if that’s what she wants. ’

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‘I’m goin’ to see ‘im, ’ she said, and her words carried menacing undertones, as if they were an ultimatum, as if she would have doubted the priest of Sin Hoe got wise on the fact she meant serious what she just said. ‘Maybe he’ll tell you what he told no one so far, ’ Malachi said. After a quick glance back to her grandfather she could turn him loose from now on, the girl set out resolutely to the waterfront, headed for Lazrus’s ruins. Roxana uttered some cooing sounds which, without being neither articulate words, nor wordless laments, carried an inner harmony of their own, halfway between whistling and hissing, as she kept messing around in the house. ‘Are you happy, darling ?’ ‘Sorry ? If I’m happy ? Oh, Mother, I can hardly wait to get it happen. I think I’ll soon bust a gasket with impatience, ’ Roxana cried. ‘It will happen, my dear, and beautiful, and prim baby. It will happen. ’ The woman with grizzled hair fondled her daughter’s head. They were so very much alike mother and daughter. As she looked at her, Mother nurtured the impression of looking into a mirror steamed by the gentle tradewinds of past. ‘Ah, I can barely stand, Mom, I can barely stand. Can you imagine I am not able to think at nothing and no one except him. Him, Mother. Him. Only if you could have seen how proud he was, and how supremely serene he endured everything, and the minute he drew close to me I felt like itchy all over my body. Oh, my, how marvelous they’ve been those feelings. ’ Roxana’s mother smiled. She had known them too. ‘That’s the way it should be, my beautiful and prim one. ’ Roxana looked at her with her moist eyes scintillating with impatience and made an enchanting funny face, telltale of something that apparently bothered her. ‘Prim you say ? Aw, c’mon, Mom. Well, I don’t know, but I don’t believe I’m prim anymore if by prim you mean just what I’m thinking about this very minute. ’ The grizzled haired woman puckered her lips in astonishment, rounded her mouth but stopped suddenly afraid to speak out some more. Fortunately Roxana jumped to put her Mom’s mind at rest. While smiling a guilty smile while she let her thoughts wandering at something that actually made her cheeks blush, 101

‘I know, I know, but, pray, don’t think bad about me, please Mom, . . . But from then on . . . from then on I can’t keep thinking at nothing but at so many, many wonderful things I’ve never did before, . . . but so much I long to do them with him only, to him only . . . Why doesn’t he come ?’ ‘Patience, darling, be patient. Look, I’m sure right this very minute he’s thinking about you also. ’ Roxana’s eyes got the intense glitter of a cat’s eye. ‘Do you really believe he noticed me ? He always sees nobody, never. Tell me, please, do you really think he saw me ?’ The woman laughed . ‘Oh, you, sweet, stupid, spoiled child, you. All the hamlet’s boiling with the news and you doubt that ?’ Everywhere they keep telling on and on and on the way he kneeled down at your feet and how he touched your skirt with his hands. ’ ‘Really, Mom ? Is that so ? Tell me, please tell me it’s true since I still believe it’s been just a dream I had. Tell me, is this the way people speak ?’ she said after she had listened eyes popping to her Mother. The grizzled woman changed the tack. ‘Calavera didn’t attend the liturgy today. Perhaps he felt embarrassed to meet you there, although frankly, I don’t see what has to do his being sorry on you with attending the Sunday holy service. ’ The girl shrugged shoulders in innoncence. ‘Maybe he attended the pub instead. All of them are just guzzlers. All except him. He doesn’t drink, Mom, you know. No one saw him report to Martha’s to-date. ’ ‘Ups ups. You just wait and see, Roxana. In a little while, darling, we’ll have to tote him also back home stiff drunk off the bartender’s wood terrace, yes, you just wait and see. ’ ‘I don’t think so, Mom, ’ the girl voiced her objection in a haughty, self-confident tone. ‘O, I love him sooo much, ’ she added like an afterthought. These words had been uttered in the purest lack of control. She closed her eyes tightly, the she opened them up again, big, and round, and astounded as they stared at their Mom. ‘I wonder why Ausonia and Thorvald lagged behind. Did you notice they seemed to have a word to say to the priest ? I’m really curious as to what would Ausonia want to learn from him. Wait a minute . . . maybe she fell in love too, . . . and small wonder if . . . ’ She didn’t dare to keep voicing her thought aloud ; subconsciously she grabbed the knife for scaling fish instead. 102

Alert on the expression on her daughter’s face, the grizzled woman missed the seizing. She said, ‘Roxana , darling, what’s up ? Stop being so scatter-brained, honey, and just leave things be. No one can jump his own shadow. Don’t be so hush-hush, it’s not good for you. I know this is hard on you, I know. Hey ! Don’t go. Where do you think you’re going that late in the evening, hon ? Honey ?’ He was lying in his bed and was covered with a simple bed sheet. Holding his hands clasped and under his scruff, and propped against the pillow stuffed with dried algae, he stared at the lobster. In the scarce light of the oil lamp, its shell glistened softly like molten gold in dark nooks, glowing in orange-russet hues. He breathed rhythmically the marine aroma reeked through the pillow sheet from the dried see grass it was stuffed with. The muscular cramps had subsided. Every now and then he felt erratic throbs racking the muscle abused during the hand game imposed on him by the man Drusilla on behalf of the entire hamlet. Suddenly he thought he heard soft noise of light steps outside on the beach. He cocked his ears without raising his head. No more steps now -- hesitating, by all means. Then with a jerk, the door opened. It was a girl in the doorframe. Black, long, loose hair, wearing just a simple dress of light bleached color as most of the young women of the hamlet wore. She had made sure though to leave the door ajar when she stepped the threshold, obviously to have an easy way out provided she sniffed danger of some kind. Brunette and well built. Her breasts were big, dense, pointed, with conspicuous nipples oriented sideways even a blind man could see them through the threadbare linen of the dress the girl wore. Her slim, listless waist seemed to be in perpetual tiny motion above the ponderous, perfectly rounded hips that seemed also to float free on a high tide of barely refrained excitement. She saw the stranger laying in the bed, with only a bed sheet covering his body. Completely still and at ease, the man was looking her way, giving no sign of surprise, or curiosity, or or impatience, or annoyance. 103

In order to get herself used to the room, the girl completed a full circle with her eyes, and the moment she saw the lobster hanging by the roof beam and just about the doorway, she uttered a shriek and darted out banging the door in her wake, but the latch failed to snag home all the way in its slit, and the door creaked ajar again. The man in the bed heard the rustle of bare feet running in the sand. Then that soft noise ceased and after a short while, those light, tentative steps drew near once more. More careful and spaced in time this time, until eyes first, whole face next, the jet black, long hair, and at last her wavy body wrapped in that light colored dress appeared one by one against the ultramarine blue rectangle of the quiet twilight neatly cut by the darkened doorframe and the door ajar. Briskly the girl rushed inside and she frightfully put her back to the wall opposite to the wall where the huge, honey-hued lobster was hanging, glistening softly under the steady flame of the oil lamp. The flame flickered as the dark haired girl crossed quickly the room to the west wall. The stranger made a motion of sitting up in his bed, but the girl outguessed him as quickly as she seemed to grasp everything and fear nothing, and as she turned back to close the door firm she toppled the only chair as she sped past the table on top of which the oil lamp shod its light. The girl seemed now to be perfectly at ease, and in complete control of herself. Naturally, when the stranger manifested his intention of sitting up in order to close the door perhaps, the motion had the bed sheet fell off the man’s torso and laid him naked from the waist up ; the girl seemed to be satisfied her guess was right about the original man’s intention. After that the stranger put his head back on the pillow, unable to find anything else to do except staring devoid of any expression at the brunette girl who stormed his hut. Meanwhile the accelerated breath of the visitor appeased some, and more at leisure she began to watch carefully about her. She couldn’t mask her surprise to discover the room was very much alike one of any other genuine fisherman in Sin Hoe. This fact did not exactly meet her expectations. Had that huge, golden lobster hang not on the east wall, she could have pretty well figure she was visiting Rolo and Lucretia’s hut, or Thorvald’s , or Malachi’s for that matter, but she was aware no one throughout the hamlet would have dared to harbor in his house such a cursed carcass, herald and bringer of disaster. 104

At one point the girl cut short her inspection, and said bluntly, ‘Why did you beat him ? If you knew your might, you’d have realized skanderbeg was the only thing he had. Huh ! You fought a crippled and dare to call yourself a man ! You make me sick. ’ The stranger turned his face to the other side, tucked the bed sheet up to under his chin, and this gesture alone poured a magic potion of strange extra confidence into the peace and tranquility that had permeated the heart of the young woman with her jet black hair set loose and spread out like a wavy , silky cascade on her shoulders. ‘You’ve been cruel, you know. You could have run him to an even score, ’ she said, and craned her neck over the pillow to peep under the bed sheet and see for herself with a childish joy that the man who had beaten Forzas was stark naked. She kept on reprimanding him as if nothing had happened. ‘Up to the #12 round at least, and in the #13 to allow him to get you, even if he were finished. Everybody would have understood. Even he, maybe. Or him in the first place, maybe. He’s not stupid at all, you know. And everybody should have honored you a thousand times more rather for your wisdom than for your might. Today everybody loathe you instead, even those who put wagers on you and won. Even Drusilla , who boasted like a trumpet how big a friend he is to you. You could have won everything, yet out of pride, you lost everything and everybody instead. ’ The brunette visitor felt more confident now, more at home. Not a trace of the shy, wild thing who panting and eyes roving busted in not a minute before. And to top it all, she felt stronger now than ever while sailing alone at the sea of her illusions. Only from time to time she cast sneaky glances to the honey-hued omen hung by the roof to the east. The girl felt wonderfully dizzy with the fine scent reeked from the man’s pillow. She tempered her reprimand a bit, ‘Poor Forzas , not even a replay could be able to ask you. Unless you’d be willing to help him muster his courage to do it. He’s terribly dumbstruck with it. You have seen him, haven’t you ? Well, he’s looking even worse now. He lost all confidence in himself. You’ve broke him for keeps. ’ The stranger kept silent. ‘I’m Ausonia. Use to be maid at Martha’s. You must know Martha’s . . . and you must be that stranger, . . . ’ she suddenly whispered poised over the bed where the man lay rolled in his crisp bed sheet.

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The stranger uttered no word, not a sound. Maybe he had gone to sleep. Ausonia was tensed like a coil as she stooped over the bed. She was perfectly aware of his light, even, calm breathing, and she was also aware of his nakedness under the sheets. Ausonia came around the bed and stood in front of him. ‘Tell me, There, how is the town ? I want to get out of this hamlet, ’ she said slowly. ‘ Or maybe you want to sleep ? Why did you leave there ? You need nothing ? Nothing except this damn stinking fish ? Why did you say to Malachi that word, you know ? Have any idea what people in Sin Hoe call you ? None of your business ? Of course. There. They call you There. Oh, Jesus, how much I hate this hamlet, fish and all. I’m not much of a talker too, back yonder at the pub where I work for Martha. The pub, you know. Know the pub, right ? Have no one to talk with. There . . . I’d like to . . . I’m her, er, help. Help her with chores. All of them in Sin Hoe are guzzlers. You I didn’t see you back there, at the pub, and here, here at your place smells good. Not of stinking cigarette smoke. Smells, well, smells of see grass, isn’t that so ?’ Ausonia regretted now for having closed the door herself. After all what’s a door good for ? You may open, or you may close. Yet blurred passion bubbling inside, she had darted to the door like a fool, and doing so she had forfeited her only chance of seeing for the first time in her life a naked man nearby, in the very same room scented with the slightly bitter aroma of dried marine algae. And so much she would have loved to see him, that she blushed and whimpered some. Fortunately for her modesty the stranger’s eyes were not on her at the time thus he could not guess this shameful fancy for the virgin Ausonia was. The remorse ate at her heart, while her brain frantically rummaged through other possible tricks to make the stranger get out from the bed all naked right then and there under her very own eyes greedy with naked-men vistas. Meanwhile she daubed at her forehead in fever with the heat of flesh that hummed awake in her. She bent some more over the bed and touched with her fingers the stranger’s tanned shoulder, but instantly she recoiled like stung. The sheer contact with the sunburnt skin of a naked man, and not just any man, but a town folks, had given her shivers. Slowly, the temperature she felt a minute ago beading her forehead with garlick-scented perspiration lowered down and down within her body, until it swamped her completely and got her drowsy and sticky with longing and dirty desire.

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She could imagine what the naked sunburnt-shoulder-man felt like: a pain roving into the body -- half titillation, half hurtful scratches peppered with hot, fine ground sand, like powder. How sweet and round glistened in the hesitating glow of the oil lamp the shoulder of that stranger ! She saw coming the moment when the carnal instinct would squelch completely any wish to learn or understand, and it would erupt in full regalia victory, hungry, greedy, content with itself, being enough to itself. Before she’d know what would happen next under the claws of the honey-hued lobster in its dark nook of the chamber, Ausonia put one knee on the bed first, then the other, and froze in that stance as if for a prayer. Her heart pumping frantically with fright and lust, the dark haired girl was on the hunt to see what the stranger would say or do. Yet the stranger was stock still. Only his even and peaceful breathing could be heard. “Let’s hope he’s asleep, so help me, ” the girl thought, and she simply folded the bed sheet onto itself and tucked herself into the bed and under the bed sheet. As her head sank into the big, soft, and cool pillow smelling of the sea cradle, she kept her eyelids tightly closed. She swallowed a big lump when she felt the naked man’s skin touching her bare thighs and crotch, as her skirt went up to her waist and even upper the moment when she slipped herself into the bed, by the stranger, and experienced the cool feel of cleanness and tranquility. Yet her fever got worse and was roving now and racking like a living being all over her body that was cramped and tensed with expectation to the limit of madness which made her whole body get wrapped with the cold dew of a shiver-inducing sticky sweat. She didn’t even dare to open up her very own eyelids tacky themselves also with the tears of lust and want. With the passing of time, that inner living being which haunted her and tormented her wriggled and squirmed worse and worse under her burning, aching skin until it turned downright unbearable with its scraping, fondling, prodding, tempting. When at last her left hand moved, it touched the back of the man, and from her safe cache behind the pulled down lids like in front of the noon sun, was very surprised to learn her fingertips did not back off like burned, but on the contrary, they spread out even more to a better, larger purchase of the alien and so-silky muscles in which flickered such mysteriously and

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utterly unknown life, an enchanted peacefulness so much appealing and taunting. When the position grew uncomfortable and her left arm was just about to go stiff, Ausonia made up her mind at last to break up the spell and turned resolutely on one side. Then she placed both hands on the sturdy built neck, shoulders, and arms of the man who kept breathing evenly and peacefully as her heart kept pounding like a sledgehammer just about to bust her chest open. The second her body for the first time completely touched the other body, Ausonia was violently racked by a shiver that quickly struck off all trace of everything else but lust, and trancelike she turned again just to blow into the flame of the oil lamp on the table, and with the back of her hand wiped the perspiration beads on her forehead, and the she rolled her skirt up to her neck. Unwillingly, while she embraced in the darkness the man’s back, Ausonia was able to hear herself uttering some gentle sounds, unknown sounds, crooning-like rudimentary song that enchanted her to the tears, and inflamed her cheeks with hot, rapid rashes of blood. She saw into the dark white and black concentric circles evolving with increasing speed ; not for a second lapse worth she had any idea what she was doing, of course no one had told her neither how nor what she was supposed to be doing in such a circumstance, especially now, when the man’s lack of any interest or reaction with respect to her unleashing as a maid-woman proved downright shocking. At one point the girl turned him on his back and mounted him astride in a frenetic discharge, as if she meant to do everything by herself ; while the stranger made no movement at all under the hot embrace of her naked thighs. He just kept her eyes and jaws tightly closed, in impotence. After a while Ausonia halted exhausted, panting heavily with the futile waste of energy. A brand new feeling suffused her, and it was stirred by that impossible to explain frustration : spite. ‘There, There, ’ she managed to murmur. ‘. . . there, . . . there, . . . ’ the stranger growled through his clenched teeth. Ausonia leapt in the middle of the room. She trembled with rage and horror, and she had problems even with giving vent to her pent-up weeping. Nothing had happened of all she had expected to, and because of that she felt like howling or better yet, dying then and there. ‘. . . there, . . . there, ’ she listened in the dark to the man in the bad as he ground his teeth with tension and impotence. 108

The girl ran her hands to make neat again her crumpled dress, and after she cast a short, scornful glance in the dark to the man who came from beyond the Klu Hill, she darted out and broke into a run slamming behind her that door whose latch failed to travel all the way home in its slit. She ran along the cool beach more to put most distance in shortest time between her and Lazarus’s ruins rather than reaching the hamlet as soon as possible. Reach hamlet what for, after all ? Outside there was such a clear night with an indigo stars-spangled sky whereof a perpetual cricket song seemed to shower on top of her in a roaring, deafening cascade. Pressed and inconspicuous against the fence of Rolo’s homestead, Roxana awaited in ambush. Due the emotion which overwhelmed her by the minute she felt her chest in full boiling turmoil. Her eyesight probed the dark hovering on the beach strand. Atop of the Klu Hill un-heavenly, blue lightning bolts could be seen every once in a while. Under their harsh, short lived light one could distinguish rather good the palm trees of Bora Bay and the deserted sand strip at the waterfront edge of the hamlet. The wide leaves of palm glistened in metallic hues, like a bunch of curved-bladed scimitars brandishing, but alas! only reluctantly so, far away, in the distance with its thin, white line of shore, and on that wide expanse of sand, no one. Suddenly she thought she saw a shadow creeping in the back of the pub. Roxana shuddered. She said to herself that at the next lightning bolt she’ll be able to make sure whether there was someone lurking to spy on her in there, indeed, or it had been just a simple hallucination due to darkness and tension. Roxana knew also that if you look at a thing with the corner of your eye, two times out of ten you’ll be able to see some other things too, just phantoms with fantastical outlines. Illusions. Yet Roxana missed the doubtful shadow hiding in the shade of Martha’s terrace, since at the next bolt sparked atop the hillock, her full attention focused on a serious and true bearing : she had clearly seen a silhouette running along the beach and homing in from Lazarus’s ruins. Bound to the hamlet, and the silhouette was wearing a dress. Ausonia. Roxana tightened the grip of her fist on the scaling knife and made two steps ahead, overlooking the prowling , stalking shadow she seemed to have noticed earlier. Therefore her mother had been right all along. That was why Thorvald and this fishy bitch, Roxana, were lagged behind, to talk with 109

Malachi about the stranger she was fated for, she and only she. All the hamlet had seen it, and yet Ausonia had shamelessly gone to him though in spite of all eye-witnesses. She had to give her a punishment for that. Roxana cut in the way of the silhouette who ran along the beach, and cried, ‘Say, where you’re comin’ from, whore ? Spit it up, stingray, c’mon, say to me, where do you come from, bitch, eh ?’ A bolt on top of Klu sparkled as a reflection across the blade edge of her knife -- her thirst for revenge. Ausonia saw her, and heard her, and halted in her tracks. She also cried at her turn, ‘Is that you, Roxana ?’ And she burst into laughter. Demented laughter. On that moment the shadow who had stalked Roxana from the back of the pub jumped on her. It grabbed her by the wrist, gave it a quick twist, snatched the knife from between her clasped fingers, then stepped to one side, snickering . It was Drusilla . Blinded with fury since she had been disarmed, Roxana postponed the scuffle with the meddling man to jump instead and grab her rival by the hair first. One hell of a hair-pulling fight had just begun. Drusilla was standing aside and kept lighting matches like nuts in order for him to better watch the skirmish-between-gals voluptuously, and uttering small cries of pleasure. He took no side, encouraging both, prodding both by way of husky incomprehensible mumblings , far from articulate speech ; onomatopoeia, maybe. ‘Hah! Hah! Hah!’ he laughed and kept circling about them as if they were some yard-pen fowl to be occasionally searched for various ailments or parasites. The girls were screaming shrilly, called themselves names with a foul mouth, and at some point during the fight they threw themselves on the ground and began spitting at each other like cats. One of them Ausonia, filled up with venom to the nails due the despicable deportment of the man - man!-- and blinded with jealousy on Roxana, trying her best to figure a scheme of desfiguring the most beautiful girl throughout the hamlet, on the other hand Roxana , enraged to have just learned point blank that she had been usurped the place intended for her. And it was this bit of issue that did the most damage to her wits, and turned her into a mean, vicious beast. 110

‘Why, he’s one hell of a male, you know, Roxana , ’ Ausonia said with a mock-husky voice grinning and panting hair disheveled on top of Roxana put back to the earth. ‘All I wish is for you to get yourself such a man someday. If you’d only know how good and hard he . . . . me . . . ’ Roxana felt the blood mounting to her head and she toppled Ausonia eventually and she stood now on top of her pummeling her with a shower of punches and palm blows aimed at the head the other girl sheltered with her raised arms. ‘Hah! Hah! Hah! Hee! Hee! Hee!’ Drusilla guffawed apparently having a great time and slapped his buttocks in his gaiety as he kept nagging them, prodding them, setting them on to each other as if they were some bitches in heat. ‘Hah! Hah! Hah! Haw! Haw Haw! Go! Go! Hit her! Gouge her! Jabber, yeah, that’s it. Oh, boy, oh, boy. Fools. You keep fightin’ like some damn stingrays you sure thing both are, you whores. Just whores, period. Haw! Haw! Say, whores. So what, eh ? That’s what you are, just a pair of stingrays, the two of them. Yes. And you, Ausonia, and you Roxana . Both of you, no problem, hey. So what do you think you’re doin’ in here, eh ? Fightin’ eh ? And for what ? Stupid hens that you are, you hassle over something that your base talon can’t grab. There is by far too much of a man to find room enough beneath the skirt of either one of you. He is more of a man than all other ones taken either separately or together, no matter whether they brushed with the death, or not. ’ The girls’ vengeful mood had subsided. The tiredness of the brawl at night and the tacky, heavy sand of the littoral had added an extra drag on their moves and drained their reserves of eagerness, wearing down this wrestling bout to the appearance of a rather loving embrace. Imminence of night and of ocean distorted even the hatred, and turned it like magic in some strange communion of sorts. ‘Why did you go to him ? Why did you go, eh ?’ eyes brimming with tears of humility, Roxana begged of her rival, most of the rage bled off as well. Neither one nor the other paid any attention to Drusilla’s prodding, and childish chicanery, and nonsensical babble. Ausonia raked her hair with her fingers and pulled it to the back, to clear the tangled locks off her forehead . She said, ‘I’m goin’ to leave this hamlet of idiots, do you hear me, handsome dear ? An’ I’m goin’ to quit as soon as possible the fastest I can get, ’ Ausonia repeated on and on hatefully, like an automaton. She barely managed now to shake her rival-so-to-speak by the head.

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‘There is mine. Mine, understand ?’ the former fiancée of Calavera whispered her hands grappling at the throat of Martha’s maid-of-all-trades. She sobbed. Yet Drusilla had had his helping of laughter, and suddenly turning sick with it split with brutality the two girls. ‘Aw right. Enough is enough. Go ! I’m sick with your hassle. Sure thing, ladies. I said, go. Scram. Beat it. The argument is over. Just go, women. ’ ‘Now, really ?’ Ausonia said still hot. Drusilla had to admit she cut a rather impressive figure, although a bit pathetic, with her disheveled, black hair, hands akimbo and her threadbare linen dress hanging in tatters on her buxom, curvaceous body against the skylight and the lightning bolts. ‘Why, this is none of your damn business. Why are you meddling in a bickering between women ?’ ‘Nope. This here ain’t bickerin’, as you say, ’ Drusilla said. ‘Then what, wise guy ?’ ‘This is downright scuffle, if you ask me. ’ ‘Just the same. I fail to see the point of you meddling in this, ’ Ausonia parried. Drusilla’s temper flared. ‘If you fail to see my point, well, this may sound like a surprise for you, but I don’t, ’ he said tartly. ‘The point is you strangle each other for nothing, I’m tellin’ you. ’ ‘You don’t say ?’ Ausonia said unbelieving. Apparently she did the talking. ‘ “You don’t say”, ’ he mimicked her scornfully. ‘Well, I say. There is not the man for either of you. He is a man who took up a decision and sticks to it. What the hell am I doing here wasting my time and my breath with you ? You understand nothing anyhow of what a guy minds to tell you. I said, go home and mind your house chores, ’ Drusilla added in annoyed spitefulness. ‘Hey, you, Roxana . Come over here. Here. Take your knife. ’ Drusilla stood between them like a buffer, holding each one of the two foes to one side with a hand. Ausonia’s impudence surprised him. He had always known her modest and soft-spoken when not altogether quiet, but then, all considered, he had to take surprise back. Simply there’ve been so many changes in so short a time lately. He even chose to answer back to the girl who now tempted him to follow her this very night on the beach just the two of them, far out on the surf-lulled waterfront of Bora Bay and its towering palm trees. 112

‘H-hm, ’ he ejaculated. ‘Remember when I invited you and you refused me ? Now it’s me who says no. ’ ‘Don’t you want to ? Why don’t you want to ? Don’t you want to know me . . . better ? Deeper ?’ Ausonia wondered. Held in place with the other arm of the fisherman, Roxana was shaking with outrage seeing the way such a neat girl once could prove herself in such wanton, blatant a manner a harlot hooking men almost by force. ‘You, bitch, ’ Roxana hissed. ‘You, stingray, you, ’ she hissed again and darted to shake herself loose from Drusilla’s grip in order to hurl herself at the shameless tart. Drusilla prevented such a thing to happen with a quite energetic decisiveness, very much close to sheer barbarity. ‘So, ’ he resumed as he turned his attention to the girl locked in his other arm. ‘Mmm, let’s see. Why should we, you and I, stroll together on the Bora Bay beach, eh ?’ A large, sardonic grin blossomed on Ausonia’s face. ‘You’re such a big dumb boy, ’ she said, much to the disgust of Roxana who suddenly, then and there felt a serious urge to ran away from the two of them, as if they were plagued. Drusilla’s arm kept her hostage yet though, and his lock was firm. ‘Come now, you know very well why, ’ Ausonia said, pressing her body against his in such provocative a way Drusilla demurred troubled, but only for a short while, With a tremendous effort of will, he managed to punch back temptation. ‘I’m young and strong, and I still can afford not to coveat you girls, whenever either you or any other girl gets horny. Especially now of all times when I know for sure you just came in from out there. Therefore you’re a woman who needs more than just one man to be satisfied, and I am a young and strong man who didn’t learn the brush with death yet and thus I can use me as I please. I do not want you tonight, Ausonia. I’m telling you flat and square : I don’t want you no matter how handsome you are. Even if you’d be a thousand times more beautiful than Roxana. I’ve got something else to do now. ’ ‘You’re nuts, Drusilla . And your talking is crap, ’ Ausonia said, and she looked at him as he’d be a feeble minded person. But he kept on ahead with his idea, ‘I’ve still got something to do yet. Yes, that much I know. I feel it. And now scram. Split, both of you, ad go, and forget. One at a time. 113

Don’t scuffle again, I warn you. You first, ’ Drusilla ordered, and set Ausonia free. In spite of the darkness, she set her composure, pressed her apparel primly with the flat of her palms, drew herself erect rather haughtily, and gave him a last, scornful once over. . ‘Who knows, maybe you’re like him, also, ’ she said venomously, womanish way. ‘As long as you scared to have a date with me . . . ’ Thorvald’s granddaughter added then broke into a run least no one to be able to see her sorrowful sobs he could not repress any longer into her embittered heart. She ran head on in Malachi and almost knocked him off his feet. The priest was just passing by, fighting off his sleepless nights of old men, or maybe those incurred by priesthood only. Yet the young fisherman didn’t mind the saucy words of the running girl, and didn’t notice the priest either. After a while, when the other girl was far off on the beach, Roxana wanted to know, ‘Is it safe to turn me loose now, Drusilla ?’ Drusilla turned her loose and handed over to her the scaling knife with its blade worn thin like a sliver with the honing and wearing of so many years run. ‘Never try again doin’ such things, you hear ? They don’t suit you, Ausonia. And you are both alike. Alike with everybody else in Sin Hoe for that matter. Not just anybody is fit for things like that, you now. ’ He addressed to her in a soft-spoken voice, looking at the sharp instrument in her hand. The hostage barely turned free was listening to him in silence. ‘Why don’t you marry Ausonia ? What would you like her to do, beg of you like a minute before ? Kneel at your feet, perhaps ? She loves you, ’ Roxana said, unable to recover herself from the humility Martha’s maid had rubbed her nose in. ‘Really ?’ Drusilla said squinting his eyes mischievously. ‘Well well. If so, then she didn’t bother to much to let me get the cue yet. ’ Roxana sighed. ‘Now she’ll figure you set her free first on purpose for us to be left alone just you and me, so we could make l. . . you know what . . . on Bora Bay beach. ’ ‘The way you figure she did it with There, right ?’ Drusilla said looking at her askance.

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Roxana moved her lips, but the dark was so deep only her white dress could be seen shimmering, and she felt comfortable about Drusilla not being able to notice her small gesture of spite -- no lightning bolt atop Klu Hill. Drusilla barked a short, sad laughter. The first sad laughter in his life. ‘That’s her business. Actually I don’t care if she’s such a fool as to scheme up such a thing. As to marriage, well, I don’t know whether you’ll be able to understand what I’m going to tell you now, but I’d like to postpone it the longest I’ll stand. I kind of feel after this there’s nothing much else left to expect, only death. I’ve still got something important to do, I really do feel it in my bones, Roxana in a way I could explain to no one, not even to myself. ’ He smiled, but his smile was also as cloaked in darkness as the fugitive small gesture of spite of the handsomest girl in Sin Hoe. ‘I’m young and strong, and I’ve still got ample time on my side for postponing that wonderful instant and without par, but until then, what I’m going to achieve one day will still strike me as important, anyhow more important than if the same thing I’d do, say, after marriage. Anyhow I’d still have to do yet the most wonderful thing of all -- marriage, eh ? That’s why I’m still waiting as long as I’m young, and strong, and confident. ’ ‘Poor fool. Just what do you think you’ll achieve beside hooking fish and holler at the girls who keep turning their back to you ? Or occasionally guzzle till getting drunk stiff ?’ Roxana voiced her thought aloud suddenly turned ripe by the fires of jealousy. Drusilla had changed much also. He was not talkative and playful anymore, but quiet and scowling, and when he deemed to speak , he used to talk about his “attitude” only, plus the extra “something” he was supposed to do sometime in the future. The only habits he had kept were fishing, smoking, drinking. Nor even kids were spared by that foul wind. From easy-going, quicksilver-like and playful, they suddenly turned out , somber, mischievous and lonesome. They spent all day long fiddling with those strange toys that way back they used to discard as soon as they got broken ; now they were fixing them instead, fingering and tinkering with extreme carefulness at their inner machinery putting their ear to their innards and listening for minutes at a stretch the way they had saw townsfolk Medic did to either humans or animals in the yards and pens, and struggling with all their force of their imagination to fathom what they mean rather than how they work, and did that with oldtimers , grim stubborness. 115

Even the attendance to Malachi’s liturgy dwindled. ‘So ? Ain’t you goin’ to him ?’ Drusilla had asked the handsomest girl in hamlet. ‘After all this ?’ Roxana wondered, bitterness in her voice, whereupon she had turned and left as well. Left alone, Drusilla rummaged through his pockets , crunched a curse on himself for overlooking to buy a new pack of cigarettes, and then he saw Malachi’s stooped outline offset against a lighted windowpane. He waited for him to come closer before crying out, ‘Hey, old man, I ran out of cigarettes. Could you spare me one ?’ ‘Why, is that you, Drusilla ? Not a minute back Ausonia was just about to knock me down. She seemed to come from here. Didn’t you see her ?’ the old man pried when he closed enough. Drusilla pursed his lips before answering. He figured a scheme to speculate the old man. ‘I’ll tell you if you’ll spare me a cigarette. ’ ‘Here. ’ ‘And a light. ’ ‘Here the light. ’ ‘Good. ’ After he lighted the cigarette, Drusilla dragged a couple of smokes, kept silence for a while, then said, ‘You know, Roxana was here too. No shit. ’ He sounded as if he had let old Malachi in on some big secret. Yet Malachi was surprised, indeed. ‘Really ? You don’t say !’ The old man’s surprised mien enjoyed Drusilla , and he added, ‘As far as I can see, you’ve got itches too. At least they have an excuse , I’ll grant that. But you ?’ ‘ “They” ? They who ? Have you seen anybody else around here lately ?’ Drusilla puffed. He barely could contain himself with pride. ‘You bet. Ausonia. ’ ‘Ausonia ? Now don’t tell me she was coming from out there too. ’ ‘Huh ! You bet your hat she did. ’ The old man became thoughtful. Drusilla went on in the same vein, ‘That’s why they scuffled a bit. Just the usual horseplay, you know. Anyhow chances are it could have gone far and fast and out of hand soon enough had I’d not chanced to be around. ’ ‘What are you talking about ?’ 116

‘Roxana was set to nick Ausonia tonight. Blood would have been shed obviously. ’ ‘Jesus Christ. What are you talking about, son ? You mean cold blood murder ?’ the priest cried unbelieving his ears. Until that particular instant Drusilla had spoken even and cool tempered, giving no visible hint he thrived on the surprise of the elder fisherman who walked his sleeplessness off on that expanse of deserted beach strand. Then Drusilla lost all patience. ‘Well. Ain’t it clear yet ? Ausonia went in there, and when Roxana came in , apparently she had stalked , or ambushed the other one -- she cut in her way. Hey, but what about you ?’ ‘You’ve been there too ? Malachi asked. Drusilla’s eyebrows arched upward. ‘Me ? Aw, shucks. What in the world should I go there for ? Oh, no, me not. Only Ausonia has been there. Afterward I tried to con Roxana to go too, but she said to me no, she’d better not, and afterward she turned back into the village . Women stuff. You two passed by each other’s way, I reckon, ’ Drusilla said and shrugged his shoulders apparently not giving a damn for the lot of this happenstances. ‘So they scuffled, you say, eh ?’ Malachi asked in a worried tone. The brand new laughter of Drusilla could be heard as a by way of all answer there was. ‘They didn’t fondle each other, I’ll grant that, ’ Drusilla pondered judiciously. ‘But what about you, old man ? What’s up ?What’s bugging you ? What are you looking for ? Who are you running from ? Tell me - you didn’t answer my question yet, remember ?’ ‘This ain’t her fault. This ain’t nobody’s fault for that matter, ’ the old man muttered. ‘I must speak to him. Either speak to him, or steal his lobster. Care to come along ?’ he said out of the blue. Drusilla recalled the fact that everything that had happened in Sin Hoe lately had come out of the blue too, and he winded up wondering whether all the string of events preceding the stranger’s arrival in the hamlet had also happened with nobody noticing nothing new. Lit by the flickering end of his cheap cigarette Drusilla’s face seemed thoughtful for the first time in a long time. He barely heard Malachi’s question being asked. ‘ Hey ? Son, do you hear me ? Made up your mind up yet ? May I count on your help ? All troubles spring from that quarters only. ’

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‘What quarters ?’ the young fisherman cut in bluntly with a tinge of suspicion. ‘Why, the lobster, of course. What did you think ?’ the priest said. ‘Uhm. I’d say it beats me. You mean actually steal it from him or what ? Why, sure thing, man, only I’ll be waiting for you right here. You can count on me. I’ll be here in this place when you’ll be done with the theft. Okay with you ? I’m afraid this is the one and only way I can be of any help to you. ’ ‘Aw right. So be it. But at least come with me just a little bit farther, please, ’ Malachi tried to squeeze from him the most he could get. ‘Okay, ’ Drusilla agreed at last. ‘But hand me down more cigarettes. ’ ‘Here. Take it, ’ the old man said, and put in his outstretched hand a full, new pack. ‘Now you sure can count on me, ’ Drusilla said as he slipped the pack in his pocket. They set out northbound at an idle, easy stride. At one point Drusilla growled, ‘Big fuss tonight about this stranger as far as I can see. Why this I have no idea, but I can see with my very own eyes , it’s quite a big fuss about him, no shit. I can feel it in the air, I can smell it, I can see it coming, ’ he said and sniffed with flaring nostrils at the breeze of night. After a while he said, ‘Ain’t you curious to ask me what’s coming ? Keepin’ your mouth shut, eh. You ain’t no curious. Why, it’s okay with me, no problem. Don’t want to -- aw right, I’m not going to spill it. You won’t understand anyhow. ’ He compensated the worried silence of the old man with a prattle aimed to the same meaning : to shade the fright that had come on top of him like the most villagers abiding in an interrupted lineage for generations and sharing in the lobster custom and none of them would dare to question or prove it for true or not true. Drusilla eyed the old man. Overwhelmed by the deed he was set to perform, the old man paced silently , sucking on a cigarette, his only solace. It would have been a thing of wonder for him to have heard Drusilla’s words. ‘That’s it. I stop here and won’t walk any further, ’ Drusilla said briskly, and halted. ‘i’ll be waiting just here, ’ the young fisherman added.

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So henceforth but the flickering end of his cigarette and the blue, unheavenly bolts behind the Klu Hill kept lighting the paces and the way of the old, elected priest on his self assigned mission. The stranger awoke briskly in the middle of the night, and lit noisily a matchstick. At the pale, dancing flame, he saw an intruder in his hut. The intruder was Malachi . By feel he had taken the chair , he had put it in the doorway, and was just about to snatch the lobster hanging on the roof beam. Caught in the act, the old man turned his head. After so much darkness, the tiny wick of light blinded him, and he blinked miserably. ‘Forgive me, ’ he said, and stepped down awkwardly from the threelegged chair. From his simple bed, the stranger stared at him, and the intensity of his gaze mounted as the wooden chip turned to embers between his fingers. Soon it would become a shimmering purple blade of parched grass. ‘Forgive me. Er, I’d better go now, ’ Malachi said, and yet, before walking out the door, he turned his face once more to the shimmering , dying, purple wood sliver, and growled, ‘Villagers are worried, There. You must discard the lobster. It is a bringer of woes. Just take a look at the weather outside. Whoever heard of a storm in this season of the year ? You know the custom. It means bad news for you too. ’ The sliver of embers went out completely between the fingertips of There. The darkness was dense now like liquid, and mixed with the elusive, catatonic substance of storm. Only the eyes seemed to have borrowed some of its malevolently saffron light. Gusts of wind salty and cold buffeted through the door ajar. His answer, was , like in so many past instances, silence. The old man went out overwhelmed by sorrow and furious on himself since he hadn’t been able to carry out his plan to completion. The curse of the lobster harbored within a human homestead kept being active on There and through him on the hamlet as a whole. The wind built up to increasing velocity, blowing from the sea. After Malachi left and closed the door carefully behind, There put his head back on his pillow of dried algae and lay wide eyed in the darkness of the hut for a long time. A couple of times he glanced in the general direction of the doorway, above which he could almost perceive the parched, minced carcass of the 119

ill-fated marine being he had caught. Someplace, not too far away there must have been a big river with either an estuary or a delta at its mouth whereof such sweet water creatures could have possibly ventured into the brine of the boundless ocean -- beings that straddle two realms, half biological, half mineralogical ; two habitats. A few times he thought he could barely see the lobster’s outline hovering over the doorway, under the bluish flashes of both heavenly and un-heavenly lightning bolts, or in the milky shimmering of the storm sapped through the rickety joints of the shutters, albeit he knew only too well the outside darkness was much too deep for him to be able to see even to as far as the opposite wall of his hut. He could only listen to the storm howling and the ocean. Eventually he fell asleep, as he listened to them. Exactly one year elapsed on that very night since his coming in.

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CHAPTER FIVE

The ocean roared -- liquid beast sheer night made her the more mysterious in her unlashed ferocity. No light from the hamlet either. The dark was complete except the occasional blue flashes that certainly took place into the town beyond the Klu Hill. Gusts of wind blew unawares raised around Drusilla ghostlike eddies of sand. He stood up from the spot where he had taken rest up to that moment and upturned his coat collar in a puny attempt to keep away the shiver. Then he began to stare at the elements, his mind idle. Drusilla was dragging on his last cigarette in the pack the old man had given him before parting company. Every now and then he cast preoccupied glances into the direction Lazarus’s ruins were. Drusilla’s skull buzzed with so many things he had never had knack for, nor grasped them as they should and probably deserved. And yet, on that very night of vigil watchfulness as he waited for Malachi to revert from his tentative robbery on the stranger, Drusilla experienced moments highly similar to those he spent while sharing company with Forzas and the crippled was talking to him in his soft-spoken voice and with his simple, straight wisdom about such thing or such thing, and he felt himself wondering in front of his own effort to mentally grasp the feel of fringing and fingering the outer limits of a brand new territory of things unreal yet true at the same time, things that could be neither drunk nor eaten, or smoked, or fondled. This strange joy fuelled Drusilla’s confidence and made him dizzy with promises of exquisite beauty which prodded him to keep going on ahead all by himself. Mostly he was full of joy since this time he had reached this territory of unknown things somehow by his own inner drive, without propping himself on the reliable, healthful, astute brain of his crippled and unfairly offended good friend. 121

A couple of times he had surprised himself wondering whether the old man succeeded or not to persuade There to get rid of his lobster, unless he had actually managed to steal it from him, and with astonishment he realized he didn’t care particularly much for such a thing. Instead he rated as far more essential his awaiting for the looming fulfillment fate reserved to him, and even had taken to some sort of hardcore confidence akin to the one he felt toward his old, poor buddy, Forzas . No one, not even Forzas not to mention the out fashion sages of Sin Hoe such as Malachi , Thorvald, or Untling could not as much as guess what had happened to-and-in his brain, the perfect, crystal-like clarity of his expectation beyond his absolute freedom of movement except the daily routine of setting out at sea, fishing. Maybe the new might he took so much pride in, plus his scorn he lately employed to yardarm the goings in Sin Hoe stemmed in this very liberty he thrived on. He in-took a deep breath off the salty air reeked by the liquid, noisy, shimmering beast of an ocean, then he checked again in the general direction of Klu Hill. Over the gusts of wind, his cocked ears detected curses, and instinctively knew what had happened. He laughed. ‘Hey, old man, ’ he cried. ‘Mission over, eh ?’ ‘You there, son ? I failed, to the stingray with it today, and ever, and ever after, amen. ’ ‘C’mon. Tell me, ’ Drusilla queried the minute the priest was nearby. ‘Why, I barely have managed to get my feet on top of the chair, when lo! and behold, the guy strikes a matchstick and sees me all right. ’ ‘And whatever you’ve done, ol’ man ? Didn’t he ask you what’s your business at his place, huh ? In the middle of the night of all times ?’ ‘Don’t ask me, son. Don’t ask me. He stared right at me all right, son, with those poppin’ eyes of his. Nah ! The damn stingray didn’t utter a single syllable. He demurred as mute as a fish, as usual, you know. ’ ‘What next ?’ Drusilla went on curious, smiling at the confused sadness of olf Malachi . ‘Why, nothing special if you ask me. He just kept quiet and stared at me, and that was the end of it. ’ ‘No jab, no socking, no cuffing whatever ? C’mon, give, don’t keep your mouth sealed since tomorrow at the light of day we’ll be able to see it anyhow. ’

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‘No jab, no kicking, no beating, nothing at all of this kind. And you know something ? I even haven’t been afraid to tell you the truth. The man was just laying naked in his bed, matchstick lit in hand and kept looking at me I believed he was going to spell me. ’ ‘And you ?’ the young man said disappointed a mite. ‘Me ? Oh, me, yes. I got down from the top of the chair and got out; after putting the chair back to its place. ’ ‘Howzat ? You simply went out and left ?’ Drusilla asked incredulous. ‘Sure thing, why ?’ ‘Why the hell didn’t you snatch that stinking shit hung above the doorway and git out quick before There was able to git out from his bed, grab you, and beat you to pulp ?’ Drusilla briskly went nervous with annoyance and dejection. ‘If you figure out you got that much guts, smartass, why didn’t you get in there, ’ old Malachi retorted hotly. ‘Okay, old man, okay, I mean no offence. Sorry. Of course you couldn’t have snatched it off the wall just like that. ’ Drusilla regained his serenity, and he kept it throughout the remaining walk from the beach to the hamlet. ‘And tell me, what else did you do then ? Bid him good night and be gone ?’ ‘Well. I invited him to join the liturgy on Sundays, as soon as he’ll be able to hear the bell tolling. ’ ‘I reckon you told him this because you had to tell him something after all, just in case, to butter his nose if nothing else. ’ ‘Listen here, son, ’ Malachi said. ‘What ?’ ‘Why won’t you try to con him ? Maybe he would listen to you like one who set him free of Calavera hittin’, at the mart, remember. ’ Drusilla cast a look his way as if he would be a child. He said, ‘I set him free of Calavera hittin’, didn’t I ? I reckon you must be kidding or something. You forget what he did to Forzas ? Why, he didn’t mind Calavera , believe me. ’ Drusilla puffed and went on, ‘Huh ! Real funny thing to hear, hey. Me setting him free from furious Calavera. Why, it’s rather the other way around, you meant sayin’, I protected Calavera from being squashed . That’s what I did. And after all it’s up to There and his liking to do with his lobster whatever he Goddamn please, and if you failed to steal it from him, or con him to get rid of that damn shucks, why, it’s not me who’d try to raise even a finger to make him, understand ? Not a finger. Just who says 123

I’m supposed to be the one who’ll have to talk to him ? To me it’s enough he exists. AS for the rest, well, for the rest, I simply don’t care. ’ ‘Now you don’t have to get mad. Just shouting out my mouth, that’s all. ’ ‘I ain’t got mad. ’ ‘What a storm, Jesus, what a storm. ’ ‘Yep. ’ For quite a long time now only the oars could be heard creaking in their swivel oarlock mounted on the boat’s gun-whale. Forzas’s biceps rhythmically got swollen and flat like a huge cephalopod. His haircut once short and neat and well groomed, hang now in long, curly, oily, unkempt locks behind his ears. Only seldom he raised his eyes from the wood planks on the bottom of the boat. ‘Today we’ve a fine day, ’ Drusilla said. For three-oar long an elapse he listened to the swivel oarlock creaking as the sole by way of an answer, before adding, ‘You get stubborn for nothing. You used to be the best skanderbeger in hamlet. ’ After another pause, he said, ‘Wagers were set. Look, there’s no point get stubborn. You’re going to grow a passion out of your muteness. You know it’s not like me to beg forgiving, yet here I am, saying to you now, please, forgive me. I must tell you this passion of yours is a weakness with you, and I used to trust and rely on your wisdom. I don’t want you to speak to me just now. But the minute you’ll find words to speak again, I’d very much like to know if you don’t fancy just aping There with his headstrong speechlessness. ’ ‘Stop bothering him, Drusilla, ’ fair-haired Alfred turned on him. ‘He’s blue enough as he is. ’ Usually Alfred didn’t meddle. And yet now he had done it. Nothing could stop garrulous Drusilla, ‘Only one man can keep quiet the way There does, and that man is There himself. All the rest in simply monkey business, and I’m surprised a smart guy like Forzas fails to realize this. Why, it’s obvious. ’ Drusilla was hot and his panting was hissed in between the strokes. Forzas kept quiet and bit hi tongue as he handled the polished end of his oar. He watched bluish, foamy ocean. With his arm he kept on the natural rhythm of the other rowers in the boat. The swivel locks kept swinging all of them in cadence, creaking under the fulcrum of reciprocal

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action and reaction, and the thick gun-whale of the boat skimmed awash across the waters completely matted with spume. ‘You do as you wish, Forzas , ’ Drusilla said. ‘Mind your oar, and let him be, ’ another fisherman sided with the crippled young man. Drusilla grew quiet. For a while only the creaking of the oars against their swivel locks could be heard , and the deep rumble of the vast expanse of waters. ‘When we’ll get back to the shore, we’ll have to grease this swivels a bit. They’re creakin’ like hell, ’ Calavera said. The fishermen agreed with Calavera ; they were creaking like hell those swivels of their. Most fishermen got used to these noises like they were used to the noise of the waves. One day, when they came in from fishing, the SinHoans were met on the beach by a bunch of quiet, somber faced children, more somber and quiet than they usually were. But neither their quietness, nor the fact that they carried in their laps mounds of those strange, remote controlled toys intrigued the fishermen ; they grew used to them more or less. In their grave mien there was something else instead of quickness of spirit, curiosity and interest, something that had not been before. ‘Hey, what’s up, Narvahl ? Little Lucretia ? Rolo, make me udnerstand what’s wrong with these kids, what are they up to ? Forzas , what do you make of it, buddy ?’ Drusilla made a fuss to no avail. ‘I’m amazed to see you that much excited, Drusilla. Didn’t you get used to their mournful ways lately ?’ Forzas said shrugging his only shoulder with his only arm. ‘You’d better tell me what about the new wind driven contraption with shirts and pole ? Are you willing to work on it, or not ?’ ‘Some other time, Forzas, ’ Drusilla said. Maybe Forzas was only joking, but Drusilla’s minds were elsewhere. Besides, being so much engrossed in studying the children’s faces he overlooked even helping his mate Forzas to push the boat ashore. But as the crippled didn’t cry out after him for help, it proved to be necessary to be given a discreet help from Everard while Drusilla was hopping and leapfrogging in the sand from one child to the other like some inquisitive Medic seeking for the hurt to be healed. ‘Come, Little Lucretia, do tell me what’s bugging you ? What’s up ? Why are you so astounded ? Don’t you know who are we anymore, or what 125

? Come, do tell Drusilla what’s up. Do you know me ? Who am I ? What’s my name ?’ ‘I know. You are Drusilla , ’ the little girl said. ‘Bravo, Little Lucretia, there a good girl. Now tell Drusilla what’s bugging you ?’ ‘We’re playing, ’ she said. ‘Oh. I see. You’re playing, eh ? But why are you gaping at us as if we’d be some critters just came out of the high seas ? Do we look like dugongs to you ?’ ‘No likeliness, ’ the girl said in a soft spoken voice. ‘What likeliness ?’ Drusilla snapped, ‘Tell me, Little Lucretia, just what likeliness you’re talking about, do come and tell Drusilla , okay ?’ The little girl noticed Narvahl nearby glancing scornfully at her, and then she closed her lips shut and didn’t utter a word. Drusilla didn’t miss the cue, and scowled at Narvahl. ‘Come, Little Lucretia, what likeliness you mean ? What is it that bear no likeliness to you, eh ?’ The girl seemed to stare right through him. Drusilla shivered slightly. Then he grabbed her by the shoulder, and shook her. ‘Tell me what has no likeliness to you. Tell me. TELL ME !’ ‘Leave her alone, Drusilla . You gone crazy, man, or what ? Let hr be and come on over here to help, ’ old Unling cried from the boats. Drusilla sundued a little his voice, but he neither turned to the boats nor he loosen the grip on the girl’s shoulders. ‘Come, Little Lucretia, do tell Drusilla what is it the thing that bears no likeliness to what, okay ?’ ‘Ain’t no likeliness to the town folks. ’ Instantly Drusilla frowned and asked her brutally, ‘What town folks ?’ ‘The ones with sticks at Martha’s, ’ the little girl spoke up. ‘You mean to tell me the town people are back into the village right now, right this very minute ?’ The Little Lucretia nodded her head twice as she held tightly at her breast her remote controlled doll ; at one point the talky doll went mute also and as nobody knew how to fix it, Little Lucretia had developed a special, stubborn, unshakeable attraction to it. ‘The Medic and the Punishment ?’ Drusilla asked panting quickly. The impatience distorted his face. Little Lucretia shook her head. 126

It was only then when Drusilla turned her loose and leapt to his feet. He shivered and strummed with excitement and joy like the tensed line of a lucky struck fishing rod. ‘How many ?’ he said with excitement. Little Lucretia assumed the crestfallen mien of someone who betrayed a secret ; she began to weep, sob, and smirk her nose, and her lips were trembling. The children had made a mute circle about her which grew tighter and tighter. Drusilla’s nostrils flared nervously. He cast the child a protective, benevolent gaze, and asked her again while using his fingers too this time, ‘Three ?’ The girl shook her head. ‘Four ?’ Drusilla tried again. The girl watched him carefully, his outstretched fingers ; by now she was high keyed too as she kept plucking at the doll’s hair in her concentration, and she frowned and apparently did her best to make a positive identification between the abstract fingers of Drusilla and what she had actually seen, then briskly nodded her head and she broke into a run. The tight circle of kids broke also. Drusilla put his lips to Forzas’s ear and whispered something, then he drew himself erect some so he could best watch, at leisure, the reaction his words stirred. His friend abandoned his nets for a while, and raised his eyes to him. ‘Aw right, ’ Forzas said. Drusilla’s broad face broke into a genuine smile. Then he turned and broke into a run bound to Martha’s joint. ’ ‘Hey, you, Drusilla , jes’ where do you think you’re goin’ man ?’ Thorvald and Malachi kept hollering in his wake. Yet Forzas defended his friend’s hasty departure, telling them Drusilla had some rather urgent job to attend right away. Then they began hauling the day’s catch into the baskets. Drusilla halted at about fifty paces away from the wooden terrace of Martha’s pub, more to cool down his sizzling emotions rather than regulating his breath. Right there, on the wooden terrace, at a table outside in the shade, sat four town folks.

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There was no doubt they were the same visitors of last time who made themselves present when the fishermen were out at sea. They were neither Punishments, nor Medics, but they wore the same overall dazzling white apparel, the same epaulettes glittered like small slabs of glass on top of their shoulders helping them with maintaining between skin and suit an optimum temperature, and on their feet they wore the same type of soft soled, light boots, snow white like the suit. They sat around the table in such a way Drusilla wasn’t able to see their badge sign because of the blinding flashes of their power-generating epaulettes, and on the other hand because of the general outset of those people with respect to the direction whereof he ran from. He would find a vantage point where could be able to assess prior of becoming himself object of assessment to the four town people’s attention. As if by a tantalizing coincidence, the light spot of the sun’s reflection onto the town people’s epaulettes seemed to be focused almost on purpose on him, so Drusilla had to circle for a long time until he eventually hit the right angle of sheltered vision which enabled him to distinguish clearly the badge on the shoulder of one of them. And this badge read, “T” It was only then when he felt the perspiration flushing him all over his body -- he had run all the way from the improvised marina to the pub on a bee line. He was drenched. Therefore those brazen town people had come back ! He drew himself nearer, trying to appease the pounding of his heart, to cool down his breathing. It experienced a rather nasty feeling to find himself in the position of taking such cunning precautions, but fact is eventually he had no choice but to use them as best fitting given the circumstances ; after all, it was his pub, not theirs. Getting extra comfort, confidence and buoyancy in this thought, he stepped on the terrace. Instantly he noticed two things that troubled him deeply. Young girls of Sin Hoe gathered in a compact group at a deferent distance from the strangers’ table gaped at them, at their impeccable overalls, at their epaulettes as scintillating as diamonds, at their poor, bored, almost nonexistent discussion.

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The other thing that struck Drusilla odd were the tools ; the fisherman had never seen such tools before in his whole life. These were the “sticks” Little Lucretia mentioned : a binocular of sorts , long and slim, and to be looked through with one eye only actually. This slim tube was mounted on top of three orange feet about the height of a man standing upright and were placed together with three lively colored boards pained black and red, and covered with incomprehensible signs. All these objects were propped against the pub’s wall. Drusilla sat a table , his eyes riveted on those mysterious objects. Why would the Tees bring them over to Sin Hoe ? Drusilla wondered with worry, forgetting even his usual cry “Gimme a mug !” to Martha or Ausonia. Martha and Ausonia were gaping at the strangers’ table too, although they weren’t able to understand a word out of five from what those men were saying. Every now and then the strangers cast openly, utterly scornful glances , or at least that was what Drusilla thought he detected. If at first curiosity prevailed over the hatred that was bubbling and sizzling in his heart earlier, those strange objects propped against the pup’s wall, the bunch of girls huddled together like some mesmerized cattle squinting their uncomprehending eyes at those four Tees, plus the fact of feeling overlooked by both joint’s patron and her employee, stirred his rage raw. He felt his body being set afire from the inside, as if from a second sun. And he hadn’t drunk his mugful of brandy yet. Automatically he said, ‘Gimme a mug, ’ and Drusilla slammed his bunched fist into the table. ‘Don’t shout like that. Take it easy, man. What got into you to rant like that, huh ?’ ‘Oh, yeah ? Why, yesterday I ranted no softer but you made no fuss about as fara as I can remember, ’ Drusilla said testily. ‘What’s up with you, woman ? Why are you sooo . . . er. . . jumpy, babe, eh ? EH ?’ ‘Ausonia, ’ he heard Martha calling, ‘Git and give him his mug of brandy. ’ Obviously regretful the maid left the group of girls and darted quickly inside to fetch the order from the short tempered fisherman. Martha’s tone took Drusilla seriously aback and saddened him to the marrow. His simple mind instantly made the convenient connection. So

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that the moment Ausonia slammed his mug in front of him, he asked aloud, on purpose for town people to hear, ‘Listen here, Ausonia, what is it they want ?’ Ausonia cast him a scornful look, or at least that was the way Drusilla felt like, and she barely managed to answer prior to go back quickly to the girl bunch gaping at the strangers. ‘They’re oopometrists, ’ she said. Which meant the same thing to either one of them : practically no answer. ‘Topometrists, ’ somebody made the due correction. ‘Just the same. Topometrists, ’ she acknowledged quickly, convinced there was no difference at all between oopometrist and topometrist. Drusilla had no idea how he could convert that word into some other equivalent whose meaning to be at least familiar with, but didn’t ask for further comments. Actually he had no need for them any longer. He had learned whatever he wished, namely those town people were neither Punishments, nor Medics, but something else. He put the mug of brandy at his lips and sipped. The minute the helping halted like a hot ball into the pit of his stomach he thought he heard laughter coming from the strangers’ table. He gritted his teeth. In comparison to his hatred, his puny curiosity toward the sticks propped against the wall for unclear purposes dwindled to almost nothing. ‘Narvahl, ’ he heard Rolo calling, ‘Git over here to help me with the net. ’ The quiet, somber faced boy, his remote controlled black crab in his lap minded his father not a bit, heeded him none. He had also come along together with other children about Martha’s joint and peeled their eyes at those newcomers who were neither feared Punishments, nor God blessed Medics. Malachi not even dreamed to have such respectful and profound a silence during his Sunday liturgies. Every now and then the Tees raised their glasses up to their lips, casting about supercilious glances. They smiled fade smiles to each other on cues known to them only. They were very much similar to each other in all respects. One could have sworn some jocular hobgoblin placed three crystal mirrors that rendered manifold copies of the same arrogance, pity, irony, all of them undisguised and slapped right up on their faces as white skinned as their overall suits provided with zippers about the neck and a longer one in front of the suit, running from chin to crotch.

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Under the bright, hot sun of noon, their power-generating epaulettes cast blinding flashes all over the place, configuring into the air ephemeral auroras that made a strong impression on the fishermen circling about at a respectful range. They had seen such epaulettes at the other town people, the Punishment and the Medic who made their duty tour in their hamlet every once in a while, but their epaulettes did not fascinate them as much as the Tstenciled-on-chest-and-shoulders did. ‘Hey, Narvahl, can’t you hear, boy ? Your Dad called you. Go help him fold the net at once and quit messing around with that shit in your lap, and quit gawkin’ okay ?’ Drusilla said. Reluctantly the boy headed heavyhearted to Rolo’s hut. ‘Hey, watch out, your toy’s dropped, ’ Drusilla cried in his wake. The black, rubber crab had fallen down, in the sand. The other children didn’t mind it either, although everybody had seen it falling off Narvahl’s hands. Eventually one of the little girls lectured Drusilla briefly and on a rather sour tone that Narvahl had no need for that crab anymore, and Drusilla shrugged as the best way he saw fit to express his carefree acknowledgment. Everybody, boys, girls, some elder SinHoans kept their eyes riveted on the strangers’ caucus table. Drusilla’s initial curiosity turned to antipathy. He took another swig of brandy, then stood up conspicuously from his table and walked right to the T-town people’s one where nobody else up to that moment had dared to draw close except Martha, of course, who brought them to drink and some snack. Drusilla would have dearly wished there would be just one other fisherman on the terrace beside him, but there was none ; all potentially available were gawking from a safe distance. First he came a full round about the Tees’ caucus table and during this assessment raid he was able to make extra sure these men didn’t give a chicken shit about his interrogative and somehow hostile presence within their immediate vicinity, but they kept addressing to each other, untroubled, simple words or short sentences that made no sense, in cultured, perfectly styled and even voices, bereft of any trace of giveaway tone. Not only their voices were neat, smooth, and lacking any expression, but their faces also, with their rotund, lidless eyeglobes. During his impromptu, reconnoitering raid, Drusilla noticed another strange thing with those men. Unlike the town people P and Malachi, they 131

addressed each other every now and then some utterly incomprehensible words, such as, “SW 125 degrees plus 5 elevation . . . NE 30 degrees minus 7 elevation” which one of the four seemed to master best. Now the young fisherman had the feeling that the general gawking, and especially the young blood’s gawking was trained on the Tees’ instruments propped against Martha’s shack, in the shade. Hands in his pockets, Drusilla poked the tip of his nose very carefully in between these tools, as if he wanted first to make sure they were not hot and are in no apparent way seriously dangerous. The instruments were very beautiful and were provided with round, glassy eyes also, similar to their masters’ own eyes, their sides and edges were highly polished and bright, and they also presented a multitude of sharp, right angled, neat edges. As far as the villager could see, the looking glass attached to the three collapsible feet was of an extremely simple build. It had but two holes, one at each end, and unlike Thorvald’s portable binoculars which had four. Drusilla put one of his eyes close to one of these holes, but he saw nothing, since there was pitch dark on the inside. He put a wondered mien, then got one of his hands out of the pockets and touched one of the colored boards scribbled in red signs with the tip of his fingers, but extremely gentle, as if one would make a tentative try on a presumably hot object. All of a sudden, a voice from the rear said in a cold, forbidding tone, ‘Don’t touch it !’ Well, well ! Surprise ! Quickly Drusilla turned his head, grinning at the prospect of catching the speaker in the act. Therefore these T-town folks, topometrists, had spotted him all right, and not only this, but had actually spoken to him also. And even more, they therefore cared somehow for those tools of theirs they had brought along to do with them who knows what. No matter how fast Drusilla had turned, he was in a position where he had to admit having no cues as to why he should suspect one more than another of the rest of three. All four of them were turned to him and looked at him with the same cold, arrogant stare. Anyone of them could have told him those words, “Don’t touch it !” 132

Drusilla drew himself erect and put his hand back in the pocket. After the pleasant shiver of the first moment’s surprise, a certain feel of frustration followed, which was fuelled by the fact that the young and the very young gawkers huddled together about the joint were dying to see what would happen next. Everything about seemed to have the label “To be continued” stuck to it. That haughty reprimand must have been offending for anyone within earshot. Drusilla walked two paces to the caucus table of the four, and then went stiff, legs slightly apart in a poise fomenting trouble. Seagulls and terns wailed, and chased, and played overhead. From where she was, the bartender cried, ‘Drusilla, you’d better behave. ’ Actually she was trying to avoid that foul smelling something that was floating into the air. Whereupon the young fisherman cast a murderous glance to the woman who had dared to meddle like a fly into the broth. She had no way to know about the insight that flashed through his mind right that very instant. He skipped answering her in plain words ; he had no time to waste. He turned his full attention to the four conceited, whitewashed mugs who kept staring at him. ‘What are you up to in Sin Hoe ?’ he asked, and, obviously, the four white, zippered, exquisite overalls, badge and solar batteries epaulettes sparkling like crunched grass and all, turned at once as if on cue back to their table. They grabbed the glasses of brandy by the handle, emptied them, then one of them -- the one who seemed to know everything -addressed to his mates, ‘Order should be put in here. ’ The other three agreed in their soft monotone. Then all of them stood up by-passed Drusilla as if he were a simple object stuck in their path, each of them picked his own tool, then stepped down on the sunny beach walking in line. When they went past the young and very young mobs of Sin Hoe gawkers, some of the latter touched with reverence and awe their dazzling white overall suits, of town people. The last of them to step down from the wooden terrace cast to the for pitiful worshippers a magnanimous gaze adulterated with a detectable mix of arrogance and pity ; or at least that was what Drusilla felt like, like one on the rampage against them,

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Left alone and awkward on his slightly parted, stiffened legs, Drusilla squinted his eyes. His wide jaw got extra wider. Slowly his palm balled into fists, bony and hard like a pair of maces. Even if those Tees didn’t made a fool out of him before the eyes of his countrymen, he had his own reasons to reciprocate their spite and scorn. From the curiosity at the beginning, only hatred had left now. Eventually he pulled himself loose from the catatonic, challenging stance he assumed to defy the strangers, and drained the rest of brandy on the bottom of his mug. Everard came in in a hurry. He panted. He scalded the youths idling about that quiet and haughty passage of those four Tees. ‘What the ray you think you’re doin’ here, hey ? Loitering, eh ? Git, now, I say, we’ve got fish. ’ Usually all the hamlet was waiting impatiently the coming back of the fishermen, and the young ones were the very ones who helped most wit hauling down from the boats the silver and tasteful catch. Yet now, like never before, the young ones seemed hardly eager to jump on the chore, so Everard windmilled his hands darting here and there in utter confusion and didn’t know what to say and what to do, and what to think about it. After he sipped the brandy to the last drop, hands-akimbo Drusilla licked and smacked his lips looking at the teenagers and the maiden who messed around as if they would have been a flock of sheep struck sick. He also had heard what Everard the hairy one said. Seeing his words have no effect on them, Drusilla himself stepped down on the beach and began reprimanding them, holler at them, and finally pushing at them to the shore. A couple of them he even needed to chase. Mostly the teenagers with remote-controlled toys in their arms and the young marriageable girls were reluctant, but they soon learned backtalk was the best incentive to feed Drusilla’s rage with. ‘Move. Move. Git. Ain’t you hear we got fish ? Instead of darting out there at once to help, you stick around and gawk like zombies at these bogies, Jes’ tell me what did they bring to you, eh ? Fish, maybe ? Well, if so, let’s see it !’ he cried out loud and clear . He dearly hoped his words would carry to the bogies. His hopes fulfilled, and one of them, who carried along one of the brightly colored boards covered with those mysterious, red scribble, whispered to his mates who walked in front, ‘Order should be put in here. ’

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‘Roxana ! Ausonia ! Little Lucretia ! What’s up ? Come now, come. Move, ’ Everard hollered impatiently, waving his hairy arms through the air. ‘Hey, you, Drusilla , ain’t you coming along too ?’ Hands akimbo, Drusilla scowled at him. He said, ‘Nope, Everard . I’ve got a scuffle to settle first. ’ ‘Listen here, man, ’ Martha meddled after she had watched carefully the fisherman all along, ‘Leave them people be. They ain’t done nothing personal to you, now, right ?’ Drusilla looked down on her in terrible anger. Since not so long ago he seemed to have no other way to look at people except this, but he not even dreamed to ask himself why. Drusilla hissed to the pub tender, ‘You’re as stupid as a sole. How do you know they ain’t done nothing personal to me ?’ ‘I guess you’ve got yourself sunstruck maybe. You keep rubbing in the shit on, and on, and on. Stay put, to the ray, at your place and behave, you ninny, least you run into trouble, ’ the pub tender said, and she was scared by how the irascible fisherman carried himself about. ‘Then you come along, or not ?’ the hairy fisherman people used to call Everard insisted one last time. ‘Not coming, ’ Drusilla said bluntly. ‘I’ve told you. Jes’ how many times do I have to tell you that ?’ ‘You’re headed for trouble, ’ the woman yelled for a last time feeling sorry for his young age, but Drusilla felt sorry not at all. He walked resolutely across the beach and under the hot sun of noon, bound for the research camp of the Tees. “Maybe that’s what I’m out for, ” Drusilla thought, but he saved his breath before such an undeserving, stupid-like-a-sole woman. Everard stared in his wake a bit confused as to the scuffle Drusilla had mentioned, then he turned back to shepherd the flock of children , sad and silent because they have been torn away from their worshipping. On the beach strip right across the terrace the air-controlled rubber crab of Narvahl lay abandoned ; it was coveted by no child now. ‘I wanna know jes’ what are you after in this here hamlet, anyway ?’ Drusilla cried in the wake of the four Tees. The four Tees turned then due north-west, and soon they obviously reached their worksite, since from the rear Drusilla was able to see them split and scatter, three of them walking off, colored boards and all, while the guy who seemed to boss the other three stayed on the spot he was, in 135

order to stick carefully the three feet of the bright orange looking glass into the sand and wait for the other three Tees to reach their assigned positions. ‘What are you after over here, in Sin Hoe, eh ?’ Drusilla repeated the question. He kept one hand akimbo this time and stood very close to the man who seemed to be the boss. The man didn’t even bother to glance down at him not even once. He kept minding his fiddling with the looking glass Drusilla saw nothing through when he put his eye to one of its end-holes, yet being reprimanded at once instead. By all means the town folk seemed to see, and very good at that, since he already was making clear signs with his hand to the other colored shingle bearer, who, without letting down his board not for a minute , kept moving it about exactly as asked by the open palm with outstretched fingers of the man who stood at the focus of many radiuses and seemed to be the boss. Although it looked very much like a game, Drusilla guessed beyond the Tees’ moves lurking some omens as much ghastly as they were impossible to name. It was only then when Drusilla explained to himself the hatred that haunted him lately. He was not able to pin point the reasons that incensed him against the Tees. A brand new component intervened in his behavior and he could still realize this, but the impotence of getting to the roots of this repulsion instead of stopping him, generated the whole string of events that eventually brought him all alone and embittered among four town people arrogant and obtuse in their menacing deeds barely disguised under the mask of silence, so disturbingly similar to There’s. And yet Tees’ silence was not exactly like the stranger’s one, or at least Drusilla thought so ;it actually stirred in a higher degree resents the town people felt in reciprocation toward the SinHoans, while There’s silence was not at all humiliating ; it was bland, tough, and all-embracing and one could put all his trust in it without err, or so Drusilla thought. The silence of the stranger was good, and ample, it encompassed just so many words that could have been addressed to the SinHoans, but have been not, and thus they were left to be walled alive in his skull, same like terns caught by the tsunami at home and drowned right there into their holes dug in the steep precipices of the tall rifts. So was There’s silence, always the size and magnitude of the soul that mirrored itself in it. Over enthralled with the truth looming out on the horizon of his understanding which invoked There’s presence in a pleasant, half-awake 136

state, Drusilla engaged the brawl right upon his escaping death by a narrow margin the moment a laser beam burst unawares from the “looking glass” of the T-boss who seemed to know more. Undoubtedly the beam would have punctured in him a hole smaller than a needle’s eye, and through that mini hole his soul would have flown away, naturally, and would have died, of course, had in his genuine jocularity didn’t jump clear off that elevation measurement board he childishly yard armed himself against, and by doing so he flamed the temper of the man who held it in his arm. The brush with death whose gentle breeze he sniffed mounted his excitement up to the bursting point. He somehow had guessed that that surreally straight, bright red bolt spurted off the looking glass on its three feet could have done him much harm, and even kill him instantly. Having no way to grasp he was looking at a high precision topographical measurements outfit, and not an intentionally overt, hostile attack, Drusilla balled his palms into fists and tackled the fight, eager to see those chalky faces turned sticky red with the blood spilt from broken nose and caved-in mouth. First he hurled himself at the guy who seemed to be the brainy one, and sent him a straight, right jab at the face with love. The town people dropped to the ground, in the sand. The zest to scuffle for a matter the horizon of his understanding could not find a name set Drusilla’s blood afire, the more he saw the three Tee-mates running at a breakneck speed to help the main guy , the one who seemed to be their savvy boss or something. Soon there would be pitted one against four, and the sheer mention of this odd forces incensed Drusilla even more. The impatience of seeing the fight over was now paramount to anything else but the sheer arousal of feeling the way fate set ready to scramble him into the trial. Drusilla didn’t mind chances of being overwhelmed were high against him, and that it would suffice just one blow with a board over his head from the rear and the town people would cool him stiff for keeps in no time. Mere seeing the Tee squirming down in the sand like an epauletted worm made his spirits soar in a perfectly inebriating way. Yet the situation grew critical. The three topometrists were close now, their colored measuring boards raised high over their heads and poised to strike. At that moment Drusilla stood with his back to the north.

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Suddenly, as though his own wish brought him there, right from his rear, There himself leapt into the skirmish, and when Drusilla saw him, he let out a long, wailing “Chiiii!” shriek sprang like a healing water creek right out from his loins, and he moved not a bit from his night predator stance as a wild, intoxicating burst of happiness which belittled any imagination leap or strength of endurance swamped his eyes in tears. With his blurred vision, Drusilla was able to see There in his white shirt of a fisherman and his dark blue denim. And also through his misty vision the stranger’s motions reached him as if run-relented, the way his muscles grew swollen under the white shirt’s fabric, the way every sinew in his body was stretched out to the breaking point, the way all geometrical difference between pupil and iris had vanished between his almost close and squinting eyelids ; and just a single, hard, sharp, icy cold glitter was left there for Drusilla to peep at. Compared to this look, the deepest, bitterest hatred meant little, a puny sub-multiple. Or not even that. He was carried away by the carrying away of the other man, and if Drusilla died right then and there , he should have no regrets. He had lived the supreme instant of friendship and togetherness, an instant when speech meant nothing but noise. The stranger did more than just talk. Even more yet, Drusilla thought that in his way the stranger let him in to sharing another scuffle than the one ignited out of the testiness of the barehanded fisherman he had already to be ashamed of. The other three Tees had quit, obviously afraid to share the fate of the one with the fancy “looking glass”. They had discarded their strange, colored boards and broke into a breakneck run bound to Klu Hill and town where escape was. Seeing them running, Drusilla felt the fight fever cooling off, and slowly the rest of the universe began to loom about him and fall into place at a normal, life size scale, the way it always did : the setting sun, the ocean roar, the dusk cries of the gulls, the sand, the Klu Hill towering on the Bora Bay with its dark, mineral green-leaved palms, Lazarus’s ruins gnawed away by ground shell and tempests. Drusilla thought he felt a subtle waft brushing, tickling almost at his whiskers. The muscles on the face of There stood no more tensed under the skin of his cheeks, and under the shirt’s fabric the main muscles of his body up to that moment on the bursting point, went slack and deflating.

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Both There and Drusilla drew themselves erect at the same time. Both said nothing. They stared. Far away, into the distance, the three Tees were still to be seen running for their dear life. Every now and then they turned their heads to make sure no one followed, and kept running. As the breathing of both himself and the stranger restored back to normal, Drusilla’s fists relaxed, opening into peaceful, calloused palms again. ‘Much obliged, ’ Drusilla murmured, shy with the brisk, huge gratitude he felt to There. Hatefully, violently, decisively There did actually push to the logic conclusion what he, Drusilla himself could not but figure and give it a try on a level no higher than a bare fistfight. Drusilla was happy. He repeated his thanks once more and stood up completely at ease with everything and himself. Dark of face, There stared at the dead town folk, and it was obvious that once the job done, he felt no pleasure to hold in his tightly clasped fist the bloodstained dagger, so Drusilla reached out his own hand and carefully pried the bunched fist open, and assumed with no words spoken what another willpower did it for him. Then he shook hands with There, Roman style, forearm clasping forearm. Jawy Drusilla clenched his teeth the hardest he was able. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself it he uttered just a single word, or even a sound for that matter in that absolute peace that had come down on him, out of the Klu Hill’s bolts heights, perhaps. It was only then when There turned with his back and headed for the hut by Lazarus’s ruins. And it was only when he saw himself ointed with the myrrh of the alien willpower, Drusilla allowed himself to be devastated by a limpid and fresh joy, like a babe’s. He hurled himself on the ground and rolled in the sand. He shivered with alternate fits of hot and cold, he roared and gasped, and panted like a beast during a sexual intercourse. He held tightly in his hand the dagger smeared with dark crusts of caked blood peppered saffron with the pale sand. Driven by dark forebodings, Martha was the first one to reach him. ‘What have you done, you, fool ?’ She cried. ‘You killed him. ’ Intoxicated with the sweetest of ecstasies, Drusilla mimicked her, ‘Yes, yes, ’ while he made perfunctory efforts to get back into his senses from the utterly dazzling confusion of that unworldly happiness which half closed his eyes and put a delirious tremor in his limbs. ‘What have you done, dummy ? Why did you kill him, why, Drusilla ? Oh, Jesus, you’re hurt ? Answer to me !’ 139

‘Yes, yes, ’ Drusilla kept babbling without actually hearing a word of what the pub tender said. . The woman tugged him by the sleeve. The fisherman was able to acknowledge the woman’s presence now. ‘Oh, is that you, Martha, ’ he said. ‘If you’d only know how good I feel. How at peace with anything. But you can’t understand that, no. No one could understand except Forzas and There. I did what I had to do, and this could happen but once in a life time. Gee, what a peace, and what a silence all of a sudden amidst that damn waiting ! Oh, Martha, I feel like a newborn to whom the past is just about to be actually lived from now on. Only now everything begin to make some sense, yes, only now . . . ’ Awkwardly Drusilla stood up and staggered on his feet in a perpetual dazzle. He took stupid-like-a-sole Martha in his arms and kissed her on her mouth. At first the woman put up some opposition, but her squirming grew weaker and weaker until they turned into full acceptance. With an effort, the woman pulled herself from the embrace, and said, ‘Punishment will come and who knows what they’re going to do to you because you’ve murdered one of them. ’ Drusilla spit gritty sand from between his crunching teeth. Suddenly the woman got the notion that a hidden concept lay within the man who embraced her, a concept familiar to only him, and yet she dared, ‘Perhaps we could have him buried. ’ ‘How would you know the Medic will come instead and redeem him and restore his life too, maybe ?’ Drusilla said in a strange way. ‘He was one of them after all, ’ he added, nodding his head to the stiff body on the beach. ‘I see no point in minding him any longer. He means nothing to us now. Besides, when they’ll come, tomorrow, or the day after, or -- who knows ? -- maybe even later, after the Punishment or the Medic, they’d dig it out anyway, in order to fetch him back where he came from, the town beyond the Klu Hill. Jus’ leave him right there to the stingray and let’s git goin’, ’ Drusilla said and felt a cold shiver running along his spine when he realized he had unwillingly pronounced the word “there. ” One of his arms put about Martha’s waist, the fisherman stared on and on to Lazarus’s ruins, then strode on, woman locked in embrace, headed both of them for her terrace.

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CHAPTER SIX The water tower was provided with a hand pump placed in an accessible place, and whoever came to fetch drinking water was liable to pump at least the same amount up into the overhung tank with its pyramidal silver foil cover, so the tank was kept full at all times. This was a place where usually people met and swapped a word or two. This was the place where one day Forzas met the stranger. A long time had elapsed since their skanderbeg bout the day Forzas and There run into each other at the water tower. There had just finished filling up his bucket, and when he raised his eyes from the wet, wooden grid he saw Forzas standing up right in front of him. He was standing up right about a dozen paces away. In his only hand he carried the bucket he had come with to fill it up. There hazed at him for a moment, then without uttering a word went to the hand pump and operated its handle about three dozen times to send water up into the tank, Forzas had drawn near the drinking water tap meanwhile and put his mouth to the pipestub. He sucked on it greedily, in big gulps that could not keep up with the thick flow gushed from the pipe stub, so most part of it poured on his chin, and down his chest, and dipped in a sparkling rivulet into the soaking woodgrid, russet of hue and pleasantly scented when one pored on it.

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There kept pumping meanwhile for the second time on that day since he stood by the water tower to compensate his own daily water consuption. There finished, took two paces forward, grabbed the bucket by the handle and hauled it off the sand. Forzas sprinkled water on his chafed-by-sun face and snorted loudly under the cooling caress of the running water. Forzas straightened up his spine, and with a genuine impulse stalled the stranger. ‘You didn’t have to do it, really, you know, ’ he said, ‘Even if you happened to come over to us along with the hurricane. ’ Water drops dribbled over his sunken cheekbones and down the arm with which he had halted the stranger. The stranger stared at him without blinking. After a while Forzas realized that was all he had meant and had to say, and let his hand down, limp at his side. Bucket full in hand, the stranger went past him along the sand pathway , cutting through the village and stretching far out barely visible to the charred débris of Lazarus ancient homestead, all the way to the palm trees on the Bora Bay beach, all the way to the Klu Hill. Left alone at the water tower Forzas , dejected and in anger, kept pumping with his eyes riveted on the silhouette growing smaller on the sandy path across the hamlet.

They came in on a Sunday, a little before Malachi had to commence his liturgy in front of the tinfoil-covered belfry. The days that followed the murder of the topometrist went on and off in a tension sensibly higher thah those before this event. The only people who didn’t mind it were There and Drusilla, but it was only Drusilla who had some further hunch as to the true reasons of upsetting in SinHoans, besides the damn puny homicide affair. Everything he did, the way he behaved and the way he spoke bore the mark of a genuine inner peace. He hollered after girls no more, but spoke to them gently and sweetly although their reactions to him were but slightly different from what they used to be before. The only man of full size confidence was Drusilla . And like never before on that particular Sunday he was smiling when the SinHoans ready to attend the liturgy had spotted the truck coming inbound from the Klu Hil. Rocking on its springs and stirring eddies of dust in its wake, the truck drew closer and closer to the hamlet. 142

A cormorant went curious for it, and took off from its way an instant before it was too late, three dogs barked at it but wound up by ducking to one side and keep themselves clear from the big, slowly revolving rubber tires, the minuscule sand castles built up by kids crumbled under the black, pneumatic wheels whose patterned tracks left neat, geometrical prints on the beach, and the children, scattered and burly in the beginning turned to curiosity, eyed the truck increasingly attracted by it, and then they began to run on both sides of it, waving their hands gaily. Never before the truck had come on Sunday. Everybody hushed and did nothing but stare at it. As usually, Drusilla was not present among the parish members who were ready to listen to Malachi’s reading from the Holy Liturgy. Briskly a girl at first, then a child, then another girl went over to meet the truck, and leaving the community clustered about the wooden steeple. Eventually everybody drifted as if attracted by a magnet somewhere to the rendezvous point to the oncoming truck. And it seemed some of the suspicion of the mob that circled the truck far at first, then closer and closer was rubbing off on its overall external aspect, such as its slightly crosseyed old fashion headlights, and the indented radiator grid between them. All of them had the same hunch as to why the truck had come on Sunday, but no one had the guts to admit it aloud. They seemed content enough to just look at each other and talk over other issues having no connection to the murder committed by Drusilla . Eventually, suspicious among peers, the truck halted his engine coughed and died in a cloud of sand amidst the mute circle of Sin Hoe onlookers. Two town people were up into the truck’s cabin, the Punishment and the Medic SinHoans were familiar with, more or less. Behind the dusty windows of the cabin, their faces made obvious efforts to look friendly and smiling, as if beg excuse somewhat, “See ? We’re back again. And this ain’t our fault, ” or something like that, since immediately a lot of town people began to jump like rubber balls from the truck’s box. And all of them wore “P” tags. Only after the surprise sank home, the other two in the cabin stepped down. The circle of SinHoans recoiled some, not much, but instantly reconsidered and stepped forward to meet them. Narvahl was the first to touch with his fingers the dazzling white apparel at the knee of a “P”, but the “P” recoiled in disgust.

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The Punishment and the Medic had come down by then. Maybe all of them reached the same conclusion at the same time, that after all never the “P” and the “M” they were somehow acquainted with never had to perform their duties before while patrolling their hamlet. Yet now the reason was strong and maybe that was why a full platoon of Pees had come in. They scattered in a hurry among the villagers, shying off some, proud and scornful of the shabbiness they encountered everywhere, and all of them seemed to be very high and mighty of their power-generating epaulettes that sparkled on their shoulders, their P-tagged perfectly white coveralls, their assignment, their coming from beyond the Klu Hill. ‘Where is he ?’ pried to the left and right the ones in the P-class. Undoubtedly they had hoped their coming they had kept under cover to the last instant sheltered by the boards of the truck box would take the whole hamlet by surprise ; they had to take it unawares in order for their man to be caught. They had no idea he had no idea of trying to run. ‘Where is he ?’ the Punishments inquired to the left and right. ‘Why, he can’t be far. He must be someplace around, ’ the villagers answered. ‘Keeps walking. No, he can’t be too far. He likes strolling around, you know. ’ ‘Martha’s maybe ?’ ‘Hey, Forzas haven’t you any idea about his whereabouts ?’ ‘Well, if he’s not over to Martha’s, then he must prowl at Lazarus’s ruins place, I’d say. Unless he’s not at Martha’s. Uses to help himself with a drink at her every now and then ; helps her too every now and then, and you know what I mean, or so the people say . . . ’ Everybody was looking for Drusilla , and for a while all of them seemed to be as many inquisitive Pees. ‘He is Drusilla , ’ Rolo said suddenly, and put a hand on his shoulder as Drusilla was just about to step up on the wooden planking of the terrace. Drusilla turned his head, rather astonished to hear Rolo saying this, and instantly, with unbelievable speed all the scattered about Punishments went for him, crowded and pinioned him , and doing so left him no other alternative but restore his hatred and scorn to them up to the previous intensity. All was over now, and the village was waiting breathlessly whatever would come next. They had never understood quite clearly what either Punishments or Medics for that matter were up to.

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The Punishment and the Medic who were somewhat acquainted to the villagers, cut in as a by way of an excuse, ‘A short trial will be held now at the site of the crime. ’ No one got wise to the fact that the other three Tees who should have to be present as eye-witnesses were nowhere to be seen among the townspeople-Punishment spread out from the truck box of their former, longer time acquaintances. Simply any SinHoan could have been turned in as being the culprit Drusilla , and any P should have treated him with the same brutality as if he actually were the killer of the T who seemed to be the brainy one among his peers. From Lazaru’s ruins the stranger came on at his even, unhurried stride. Drusilla spotted him first, and on his hardened, set face alighted a smile of obscure and begging complicity. The Sunday was clear and the sun was hot even at its half way to the west, and the gulls cried deafeningly and almost to no purpose. The surf mindlessly wasted its roaring might into increasingly bleached hues of green until they melted away onto the fine, chalk white like sand of the Sin Hoe shore line. For the first time since his coming into this hamlet, the presence of There who kept closing to the judgment place of Drusilla went unacknowledged by SinHoans, yet he kept striding on, evenly, unhurriedly, his shirt white and his denim slacks dark of color. At the wooden terrace of Martha’s all P-town people were displaced in an inquiring formation with Drusilla at the center, sat in a chair and his hands tied at the back. Only the longer time acquaintances Punishment and Medic were left out there on the beach, the ones who came in driving the truck. One of the old women of Sin Hoe , Thorvald’s former sweetheart murmured her hand at her mouth, ‘Today is a holiday, son. You had to do it just today of all days ?’ she asked no one specifically and shook her head adorned with silver hair fluttering in loose strands thin and light like spider web floating through the air on the days of late fall. The Punishment overheard her. ‘Sickness and felony observe no holiday, old woman, ’ he snapped, and the Medic, glittering solar battery cell epauletted the way many toys at the Saturday mart had, cast a glance at him, half agreement, half indifferent.

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‘And what are they going to do with him, son ?’ the former sweetheart of Thorvald queried , to whom it was the blasé Medic who answered instead of the Punishment. ‘They trial him now. That’s what they’re doing. Let’s go, ’ he addressed to the Punishment and they both commenced their patrolling the deserted hamlet, leaving the others to further attend the completion of their business. Never before SinHoans have been able to witness the way the two kinds of town folk used to do their respective jobs. Now they craved to see with their very own eyes what was going to happen to Drusilla whom the Pees tied up to the chair first thing. Up to that moment they could make no big difference between P and Malachi. The situation altered dramatically though and thus belittled any other interest. One of the Pees stood up feet apart tall and mighty before the gaping villagers. He asked in an even voice, ‘Do step forth he or she who saw it happen. ’ Nobody moved, so the P repeated the question without raising the tone, as if he had foreseen and rehearsed beforehand this only mildly interrogative replay. Roxana busted in a hurry and only Drusilla’s and town folks’ eyes turned to her only for an instant. When she saw Drusilla’s hands were roped at the back, she felt her heart beat faster, and then she saw the stranger and her heart seemed to stall completely. She drew close to him, propping her elbow as if casually against the very same pole There lent to. She looked at him in a funny way, mostly with the corner of her eye, the way only shrewd, cunning horse traders look while pretending actually not to, as she expected him to get wise about her presence and act accordingly. From his seat, Drusilla stood watchman on them both, blinking his squinting eyes on cue, as if in a mute request or a secret blessing maybe. Roxana was breathing hard not with the effort but when her flaring nostrils sniffed the marine algae scented waft coming right from There’s shirt, two-buttons opened across his wide, muscular chest. He kept staring at poor Drusilla , and so intently at that, as she noticed ; why ? Roxana couldn’t help to wonder. Why didn’t he look at her also ? Could it be he had forgotten the way his fishing rod got tangled one day in the hem of her dress ?

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And in front of a martful of people at that ! Everybody knew it and were talking they were meant to be wedded to each other. She also felt sorry for Drusilla but now they were as closest as they could be since the fishing hook story. They were so close, and nobody looked at them. Or maybe it would be better for her to speak up first ? Or else to keep this tantalizing silence up in order to lure him opening talking first ? Was such a thing on his mind yet ? Just how long he thought she was going to stand ? Roxana nibbled mindlessly her lower lip ; she had no idea it was trembling visibly. The town people trained their rotund, bulbous eyes on top of the villagers. His white face betrayed no emotion when he announced the man in the chair found guilty for murder will be punished according to the law, and that that was why they were there in the first place. The stranger darted forward as for speaking up, then went back leaning on his pole, as he was being told by Drusilla’s intent stare not to meddle, and he kept quiet. The P ended his speech as briskly as he commenced it, and joined his other P-mates. Out of everything he had said, the SinHoans were able to grasp but one single fact, namely Drusilla was liable to be punished. As to how he was going to pay for it, or what, it was anybody’s guess. Nothing similar was on the record. The show they were watching was a brand new one to everybody, but since they were able to make nothing out of its purport, they simply paralleled it to a regular leave-taking for a workday out at sea, fishing, so no one wondered his own Mum didn’t weep for him , and good, old buddies such as Forzas and Everard did nothing in excess to just staring at him with a mildly amused curiosity. Whereas old folks such as Thorvald, Malachi, or Untling felt content to just watch that show featuring for the first time so many Punishments pooled together in one place, silent and spiteful all of them. Only Roxana and Ausonia had a hunch that they’d never see wild man Drusilla no more for a while, maybe, and this foreboding fomented within their hearts a misty bitterness as misty were at that time the sentiments those two girls felt toward him. At one point Ausonia darted inside, and as she was followed all the way by the rotund, ball-like eyes of the Pees she came back soon, a brimming mug of brandy in her hand. 147

She came on in front of everyone, heading to the convict. With lightning, quiet, mutual nods of consent toward each other, the eye-popping town folks granted access to the prisoner. ‘Uhu, ’ Drusilla said with gusto, laughing out loudly. ‘You’ll have to pick the money yourself for that blessed mug, Ausonia. You’ll find it in my pants pocket, ’ he added. His face was etched in a calm, controlled tension. Ausonia put the mug at his lips for him, and as he drank in small gulps in order to enjoy, at leisure the spirit’s grade and aroma, the young, jowly fisherman looked at her as if she was one of those angels Malachi’s books kept talking about. ‘It’s good, ’ he whispered and blinked with pleasure. The girl wiped his mouth for him with her hand, and the man blinked with pleasure for a second time. ‘Why ?’ she whispered. He shook his head carelessly, defying the rotund, ball-like poppingeyes of the chalk faced Pees who surrounded them on a full circle now, but straining his sight to get a better view of the stranger beyond them. He seemed appeased. ‘Just one more thing was left for me to do, ’ he said, and blinked for a third time. ‘Ugh, who’s going to understand you, you, dummy, ’ she said, her eyes brimming with barely kept in control tears. Drusilla grinned in good humor. ‘Why, in order to find myself some handsome girl like you worth all the best shell in the ocean. Nothing else as important was left now except that thing I’ll never postpone again. ’ And Drusilla blinked again for the fourth time. The serene peace of his face was clearly visible now, casting a special light all over that shadowy place at Martha’s lean-to. Ausonia took hold of his head gently with one of her hands and allowed him to drink th rest of the brandy to the last drop on the mug’s bottom. All of a sudden they heard the big bell in Malachi’s belfry toll, and its sound floated into the air like some big bird’s fanning wings. A few drops spilt down Drusilla’s chin. ‘Hear that ?’ he said intently, briskly alert to the deep, ponderous vibrations, as if struggling to understand in the last minute its import he had missed all along until that very minute. ‘Let me pay for the brandy, now, girl. Put your hand into the pockets of my pants if you don’t mind. You’ll be able to find some small change if I didn’t drink all of it already. But even 148

if you happen to find none, book me in whatever records you keep until, . . . well, . . . you know, eh ?’ For one thing Ausonia was shy, for another, much stronger, went bold as she eventually bent over the young fisherman locked in his chair of trial, brushing her temple against his forehead, and smelled his brandy reeking breath and felt it running along her neck and then further down, along her spine, over her ribs, and aroused breasts. She slipped her small hand into his pocket. Their red-rimmed eyes popping, the town people began to stir with annoyance. Drusilla whispered to the girl nearby as he stared over to the place where There and Roxana stood shoulder to shoulder by the same pole. ‘Ain’t they wonderful, Ausonia ?’ Ausonia kept quiet. Her eyes moist, she looked like a wife parting with her just fresh called-in rookie husband summoned to duty. ‘Enough, ’ the unknown Punishment said, and Ausonia kissed Drusilla on the temple for everybody to see, town people and villagers alike, then she shook her jet-black back to its place, went past Drusilla and past everybody else, past Martha’s terrace, her back straight, her chin up, her eyes filled up, and was gone. ‘We must put order in here, ’ a P said. ‘Not just yet, mister, ’ Drusilla said bluntly, without looking at the P who had spoken. ‘We’re not yet prepared for your coming. ’ ‘What did he say ?’ another Punishment said as he drew close with a menacing air about him. ‘I said you’d better hit the road, that’s what I said. Get the hell outta here. Scram. Go. Just go away, ’ Drusilla said, his stare unmoving from an abstract and somber horizon unseen by no one else but him. ‘Well, he’s right after all, ’ the first Punishment admitted sarcastically. ‘Let’s get out of here. At once !’ he barked, army style. ‘Not before saying goodbye to my priest, ’ Drusilla retorted on a tone as harsh and loud so it carried to everybody’s ears. ‘So be it, ’ the first Punishment grunted. ‘Where is he ?’ ‘Right over there. His name’s Malachi, ’ Drusilla said. ‘Malachi, ’ the Punishment cried. ‘ Come here to see the prisoner off. You’ve got two minutes, ’ he added, then the Punishment retired. The question that upset him for so long, like a chip under the nail, c caught shape all of a sudden, and it blobbed unwillingly on his lips. ‘Malachi. Is it true we’re all dead ?’ ‘We who, you mean, Drusilla ?’ the old man asked cautiously. 149

‘Er, I mean is it true the living ones are dead ones ?’ The old fisherman puffed his cheeks as if to summon the courage to shoot out and answer he was cornered to mouth for the first time. ‘Those without faith are dead, indeed, Drusilla, even if they believe otherwise. We do have our faith. No temptation meant, why did you ask that ?’ ‘Why, I . . . aw, nothing. Just wanted to compare notes, I reckon, check up old things, you know. Actually something that happened to me way back, and it all adds up. I was right. ’ ‘That is ? I don’t get it, ’ the priest said. Drusilla let out a brisk, barked, forced laughter. ‘You . . . tempt me, or what ? -- to put it up in your own words. So what ? Be it. We’re all dead, priest, ’ he said bluntly. Malachi shook his head. Drusilla’s eyebrows arched on the spot, and he went on adamant, ‘Really ? You doubt it, I see, eh ? Do we have a faith, Malachi ? I’m just looking at you and see me, myself, us all for that matter. Drinking, smoking, and never skipping a chance to whore on the spot provided opportunity comes handy. Much as I’m ignorant about priesthood’s sacred mysteries, I’d rather reckon the clothes of a priest should better reek of myrrh, and perfumed incense, not tobacco, and his breath to smell of holy water rather than lousy plum brandy. Jes’ look at you. are you the elected, selected priest of ours, or some stray dog ? Ouch ! I can feel my guts turn inside outside when I look at you. Or take your Sunday reading. Have you the merest idea what you sound like ? You’re mumbling, Malachi, this is the word, believe me, and no one can tell your mumbling with your mug sour as if some ugly scabby boil between your buttocks annoyed you constantly and because of us and our presence you can’t feel free to slip your hand beneath your pants and give the damn thing a thorough scratch. ’ Drusilla put his hand in his pocket with an impulsive, furious gesture, rummaged but failed to find whatever he wanted, and in a fit of temper turned the pocket itself inside out. A few crumbs fell from it. He gave the outturned pocket a thorough, hateful shake with his palm, then he put it back clean and empty. ‘Are you a priest ? A caricature of a priest, maybe servicing a caricature of a hamlet. You could have made good faith, true Christians out of us, not some caricatures of Christians. ’ ‘The blindman leading blindmen, ’ Malachi murmured, quoting from his recollections. 150

‘Sorry ?’ Drusilla cried unmindful of anything else except his own train of thoughts. ‘Nothing, ’ the elected priest said shaking his head as coy as a fresh schoolboy. ‘I mean no temptation, far from me, ’ he added as he made obvious efforts to keep at bay a strange, novel so far emotion just turned loose he knew not where from. ‘Where you got such notions, Drusilla ? How ?’ Drusilla let out a simple sigh. ‘A couple of days ago, at twilight, as I was on my way homebound, I suddenly realized the crickets sang way over my head, on top of me sort of. And I’ve got the feeling of myself being entombed within the earth albeit I walked through the thin air all right, and see it too, no problem. Whereupon I said to myself that must be the way only dead men feel, unless the earth is air-light to us, the living-dead ambling about in a daze, perhaps. Anyway I felt a dead man alive, or a living dead man, I’m confused about how I should call it best. I trust you understand better than me these fishy matters. ’ The mere confession had stooped his shoulders and there was nothing for him to further say. ‘Umm. That cricket. I’ve heard it too, you know, ’ Malachi said. ‘Glad to hear, ’ Drusilla said, and nodded, and his glowering face showed it. He made about face and parted company. The two-minute elapse was over. At his back, using the thumb and the ring-finger, both of them stubby and cracked, cut by net lines and callous by oars’ handles he made a make believe of a circle, than he raised that hand in a stiff, anemic and downright futile gesture given the circumstances, yet something of wane beauty one would normally expect rather from a full fledged priest to make -- a blessing. Alas, it was just a caricature of it. With automatic moves he put that same hand in his dirty pocket, fumbling for his matches and his cigarettes, put one of the latter to his lips and lit the matchstick, then he cast both lit matchstick and unlit cigarette on the ground, spying about under his lowered, shaded eyelids to see whether somebody got wise on the instant he took his last decision. The almost-known Punishment and Medic had turned back from their patrolling by now, and the trial seemed to be over.

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‘From now on, ’ the first Punishment said, ‘and in order to prevent with vigilance and decisiveness such things to happen, two of us will stand permanent watchmen of this area. ’ Whereupon two Punishments were left there with no preliminary drawing lots, as if most naturally, two limbs of the same organism moved in in perfect agreement and understanding with the organism as a whole. The rest of them, Drusilla almost invisible amidst of them, headed for the truck box , carrying along the body of the T also. The almost-familiar to Sin Hoe Punishment and Medic smiled awry, and shrugged shoulders. At least one of them had had work to do. Then they also got into the dusty truck cabin, and the obsolete engine caught on and died twice, and it finally caught on, the truck began its slow, awkward, lumbering northbound where it had come from. Sin Hoe fishermen, Drusilla’s own mother among them watched it go until it could be seen no more. As though they would have normally do it for Drusilla had he went fishing in a boat all by himself. Only the pattern of the truck’s tyres could be seen now leaving arrowlike prints into the neat sand, outbound. Almost one full day they were there to be seen, then they also could be seen no more. In a little more while, all was over. Had it not been for the two dazzling white coveralls left behind to beach-comb bored and apathetic Sin Hoe every now and then, one could get the impression that actually nothing happened in the hamlet. Even the fact that as soon as the strange proceedings ended, There, with absolutely no concern for Roxana minded his way homebound, striding to Lazarus’s ruins along a parallel path to those freshly printed tyre tracks, seemed as natural as could be. Venomous, the other girls piqued on Roxana as they went by, ‘Do come, big girl, the bell tolls, can’t you hear ?’ ‘Coming, ’ Roxana said, feeling the rage swamping gradually whatever she had thought to be her right to be loved. Suddenly she felt a tremendous deliverance. She was free to look with fresh, keen interest to those spiteful Punishments. The Punishments were armed. ‘Have you noticed the way they were looking at you?’ Roxana didn’t answer. She seemed totally engrossed in beading the sturgeons on a string, but her mother could not be fooled. ‘What did you say ?’ ‘I said they ogled you, that’s what I said. ’ 152

‘Who, Mum ?’ ‘Why, the town folks, who else ?’ ‘The town folks ?’ the girl sitting down on the mat said slowly. ‘Come now, stop pretending. You can’t fool me. ’ ‘Oh, the town folks, yes, ’ the girl said, and sighed with annoyance. ‘Which means they noticed you, which means they’re humans like us. ’ Roxana frowned confronted by this piece of ratiocination. ‘I don’t get what you mean, Mum. ’ ‘You, sly, you. Stop peeling eyes like that. They’re men who might be able to change your life, dear. Our men know nothing but fishing, and fishing, and fishing all day long. They just go at sea, you care for them, wait for them ashore, and then they come back or not. That’s why these people look at us with such scorn ; they see the despicable way we live and we clothe. You saw with your very own eyes how ridiculous our tatters looked in comparison with their brightly white like spume apparell. And how dazzling and dashing their epaulettes sparkled ! Even the mother-ofpearl , marvelous as it was, looked laughable in comparison. And did you see their boots ? How soft their soles were, and those beautiful tracks leave in the sand as they go here and there. Like grills. It must be gorgeous to wear on your feet such exquisite things, I believe. ’ ‘So what, Mum ? What’s on your mind, eh ? Whatever bugs you, come, spill it out, stop beating around the bush, ’ Roxana said. The woman jumped like stung. ‘Well then. What I wanted to tell is that they’re people like us, also, that’s what I wanted to tell, even if they are more sunken of face than we are, and their eyes are redder. But that’s trifle beside the way they carry themselves, tall and mighty, and treating us like scum. ’ From outside, the steps of a man could be overheard. Instantly Mum lowered her voice. Even if she tried to explain to her husband the ins and outs of such things, he won’t understand none. ‘And have any idea about why they’re despising us so much ?’ she whispered. ‘ Because they’re not obligated to go out fishing every day on those damn seas, because they wear beautiful suits and we don’t, because they’re town folks and we ain’t. ’ At that moment the man entered, a man grown old before his age, stooping shoulders, with long arms and big, shovel-like palms; he was unshaven and reeking of raw fish. As soon as the man was in, the woman ceased comment.

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Yet Roxana was stirred by her mother’s words, and she knew her only too well not to sniff she had said but half of what she intended. ‘What’s the argument around here ?’ the man growled. ‘You two were bickering, don’t tell me no. I’ve heard you from outside. Or I’ve been just figuring, maybe, eh ? Come now, what’s up ?What ? Haven’t finished that lousing stringing fish yet ? Why didn’t you finish, huh ? OR maybe you want to see it go rotten, what the rays !’ ‘Hey, what about you, loudmouth ? Why are you so crestfallen today ? Had a bad day or something ? Or maybe Martha’s supply of brandy ran short ?’ the woman piqued him. ‘Aw. Fetch me some grub. I’m starved. Aw, no, no, the day was a fair enough day all right, and Martha’s supply of brandy was plentiful no sweat. Only . . . ’ ‘I’ll tell the table ready for you in a spell. Roxana , you keep on stringing those fish while I’ll bring your Father his meal. Come now, husband, tell me what’s up. ’ The man sat down in a chair, clasped his hands on top of the table and waited for his woman to place under his nose the fried-fish-all-day-dish. He sighed and bit a huge mouthful of the sole’s meaty back. In front of him, his wife waited patiently for his to begin both eating and talking. ‘They socked him, ’ he said as he chewed. ‘They socked him ? They socked him whom ? Who socked him ?’ the wife said. From down on the mat, Roxana started and looked up aat her father who kept his fingers and teeth busy at demolishing the sole fish. ‘There. They beat There, ’ he said, whereupon the woman breathed with relief. ‘Ugh, you scared me. I thought they socked one onf ours. Yet so, as it come out it was their scuffle. ’ ‘Mother !’ Roxana cried bolting instantly upright onto her feet from her string beaded sturgeons. She went out in a hurry. Her father looked in her wake. ‘Whatever occurred to her ?’ he said. ‘The woman put a long face as she watched her daughter running. ‘Why, she’s jumpy about that newcomer, you know. She’s smitten with him. ’ The man chose to make no comment about it. His wife went on, ‘Everard no, Drusilla no, Calavera no. Jesus Christ, who does she think she’d pick ? That lonesome whipoorwill who uttered not a syllable since he came into our hamlet ?’ 154

The husband cast a look of dead fish eye her way and the wife steamed herself down a bit. She began fumbling with the apron she wore in front, wiping her hands on it, sat on a chair then propped her chin on her palm. She muttered for a while under her breath, then she could contain herself no more, ‘Aw, let her go then. If she likes him, so be it. Why not pick him after all. Let her get ‘im whoever she fancies only she’d better make up her mind quickly, or else we wind up the laughing stock of the whole hamlet. They’d figure she’s sick or a nitwit or something. Really, husband, I don’t know whatever got into her lately. All day long she rattles about that idiot story every other single soul in Sin Hoe seem eager to rattle till kingdom come. Why, when she’ll be back I’m goin’t to let her have it square between her eyes, you watch : “Girl, it’s high time for you to get married. Out of so many men who wooed you, you’re either minded to pick yourself one, or else mush from my door. I don’t want to coddle a dolt. ’ ‘Roxana’s no dolt, the man retorted. Roxana’s just like me, and you simply can’t say about me I’m a dolt, so please you better stop calling her a dolt. ’ ‘Know what ? I’d rather fancy wedding her to one of them handsome town folk who keep walking the hamlet all over the place, ’ the woman dared to speak up her mind on an impulse. ‘Did you see how mighty beautiful their apparel is, and how their epaulettes are sparkling same like mother-of-pearl under the light of sun ?’ ‘What town folks, woman, the Punishment and the Medic ?’ he asked guzzling a glassful of water ; the brandy had been guzzled earlier and was sure to come later. The woman shook her head no. ‘These two other Punishments who stayed in here after the trial of Drusilla. I’ve been wondering why they wore the brand of Punishment as they punished nobody yet ?’ The man’s face scowled. ‘Them two new ones beat There to pulp, ’ he said simply and cast down on the floor the little drinking water left on the bottom of the glass. His wife clapped her hands together. ‘Oh, my goodness, ’ she said, ‘I bet Roxana went to him now. If the hamlet ever gets wind about that, that’ll make for a rumor. A big one. By the way what did they beat him for ? Why did they have to beat him ?’ Roxana ran at a breakneck speed bound to Lazarus’s ruins.

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The two Punishments bore down on her, barred her way and queried, ‘Halt ! Your papers. Heading ?’ To which she replied with a raging ‘Oh !’ and kept running on to the inert body laying a couple of paces from the hut. There was lying down in the sand exactly like he did at the mart event. Gingerly, the girl took his head in her hands and brushed the sand off his caked, matted hair and face. She whispered, ‘Close your eyes to keep grit off. ’ The order had been sweetly voiced, and the stranger obeyed. ‘Have any sweet water around ?’ she asked, as she fumbled with some rather serious blood caked spots. Waiting no more for the stranger to answer, she jumped eto her feet and went into his hut in a hurry. She started but not much as she saw the big lobster hanging by the main roof-beam of the hut. Then she gave the whole matter no thought anymore and concentrated on the next thing to do instead. While she looked about her searching for some drinking water jug or kettle, Roxana couldn’t help wondering at her own unmindfulness toward that foreboding crustacean. Eventually she found the jug and left the coolness on the hut interior in order to reach as fast as she was able to the chosen one of both fate and hers. He had pulled to his senses some now, although he was still lying on the beach. Roxana kneeled by him for a second time, put the water jug close by after she moistened her handkerchief first and wiped clean the injuries and blood stains on the stranger’s body. ‘Why didn’t you come to the hamlet lately ?’ she asked. ‘I’ve always waited for you. It’s not fair for you to play with the patience of a girl, you know, ’ she reprimanded him as her hands ran delicately along his body as sun-tanned by now as theirs, and smelling of salt and dried algae. She raised her eyes for a moment. Her thoughts buzzed like bees in a beehive, unable to focus on some object, her senses honed to perfect sharp edges by intense vigilance were ready now to absorb the sought-for signals that kept coming no more yet. Not a kick, not a sound except for the cries of seagulls which had failed the dive for the prey -- nothing except that suave, bitter-sweet peace at the peak of life where people reach -- as Drusilla put it -- only after they 156

felt the brush with the death cooling off their temples and putting there at times light touches of smattering and have all of it slip downhill for keeps. Then Roxana helped him to enter the hut and sit down on the bed. There uttered no gasping sound although his swollen face was telltale enough about the severe socking he got. Now he kept his eyes into the ceiling, and instead of any words’ worth only his Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down. The stranger swallowed either air or with difficulty. It was only then when Roxana felt her emotions stir under the form of a cold sweat that brought her back to earth : she was alone in a hut with a man, the man she liked. The mere thought stung her like a whip, pleasure and curiosity mixed in it. She sat on the bed by him with all tenderness she was able to muster, she put her hand to his forehead as if to check it for hot fits, but she knew perfectly well this was just an excuse for touching him, nothing else. The stranger wrapped himself into the bed sheet and rolled to the other side, and just the bitter waft of algae rustling into the pillow was left hanging on the increasingly painful confusion of the girl. She was not able to understand the nature of the thing There was afraid of now, when there were only the two of them left alone on the beach. All of a sudden a venomous miasma poisoned her thinking : that bitch Ausonia who out-jumped her into the bed of the stranger had certainly done the same gestures like her. She had also got herself ready to pull her dress up and off her. She had done it, of course she did it ! But what about him ? Him of all men ? Why did he do nothing ? At least if he so chose not to speak at all, why he had simply turned his back to her since he had led her to understand he liked her too way back on the day when he had kneeled at her feet in order to untangle the fishhook off the hem of her dress ? Since that kneeling had not happened at random ; There did not just bend to proceed with the retrieval of his hook, and did not hoisted the hem, hook and all to him while standing upright either ; he almost kowtowed before her as if begging forgiveness for having been him and nobody else, younger than him to whom the fact occurred. Could be that he failed to grasp such elementary a fact all hamlet had been aware of on the spot since the beginning ? Besides, in no way indifference was the name of that special light twinkling in his eyes at the time of meek, public penitence down at her feet when for an instant or so toyed with the idea of brushing her knees against her forehead or his lips, and the hook fouled into the hem most certainly

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was the looming sign of so much coveted a worldly knowledge even if it rated to no higher level than a promise. With her trembling hands from an unbridled emotion, Roxana benefited of the stranger being turned on the side back to her, and pulled her dress up in one single motion. It was late. Roxana’s father paced about trying to suppress the uneasiness he felt for the absence of his daughter. Mother talked instead, and talked, ‘This time she did it. Thank Heavens she did it. ’ ‘Whatever got into you ?’ the man grumbled. The woman wrung her hands and rubbed them against each other. ‘Let her come, oh, yes, you just wait and see what I’m going to do to her the minute she gets back. I’ll teach her some lesson she won’t forget soon, that much I promise, oh yes. That’s it. Umm, she’s done with maidenhood ? So be it. Oh, let her come, God, let her come to my itching palms. ’ ‘Whatever are you babbling there, woman ?’ the man snapped. The reaction was meant to mask his own upset mood and weakness, his own way of sink home such kind of news. ‘This time I’ll see to it she gets married at once, damned be her ribs. ’ ‘Woman, you nuts or something ?’ ‘Why, no. Not at all, husband. She likes the stranger ? Very well the. Off we go straight to the stranger’s and put her properly into his arms, summon Malachi, summon all hamlet -- whoever will care as to join us, and good riddance. I’d hate to become now the laughing stock for rearing a dolt and a ne’er-do-well in my yard. What’s the benefit of being handsome if she’s such a dolt ?’ ‘She’s not a dolt, I tell you. Jesus, woman, but I kin see you’re really hot on her now, ain’t you ?’ Then Roxana entered the hut. Quiet, pale of face, her eyes roving every minute or so either up into the ceiling, or down into the floor, or out the window when the spume of the surf was there to be seen as the breakers came and went on, and on, and on. As soon as the first instant of surprise passed the woman jumped at her with her mouth, ‘Where have you been, do tell me now where have you been since you’ve got that bit of news about the stranger. You’ve been to his place,

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right ?’ she tried to answer herself at her own question, her anger mounting from combined causes. Father sided with the girl. ‘Git off her hair, I tell you. Leave her be, you, foul mouth, you. Now git. ’ The woman didn’t feel like cooling off yet. On the contraryshe got her fury extra fuel from seeing herself antagonized by both father and daughter now. ‘You’d better shut up. You know nothing except fishing. You’re a nitwit. Didn’t know how to rear your own daughter as a girl should, so small wonder she’s wayward now, or no ? Like it, huh ?’ she cried bitterly, then she turned full blast again to Roxana, who kept staring without seeing and kept listening without understanding. ‘Say, at least he fucked you, eh ?’ the woman hands akimbo said waspish, womanish. The man slapped her over the face, once, short, and brisk with the back of his hand, then he growled, ‘Leave her alone, I’m telling you. ’ His wife apparently had gone off her rocker, and cried out aloud, ‘He fucked you good and hard, don’t tell me no. He fucked you. ’ Roxana shook herself awake by the second slap’s noise as if it was herself she had been hit. She did it just in time to be able to interfere between Ma and Pa before the latter’s hand back would lick the woman’s face for a third time. ‘No, Mum, ’ she whispered wanly from the very depth of her being. At first the woman didn’t catch the gist, then she froze. She had instantly realized that if her own daughter sided with him, it was from another reason altogether, and not out of some filial instinct , and this reason was that she had been right all along and her daughter acknowledged that. Far from keeping her satisfied and appeased, having her daughter siding with her father meaning she admitted she was such a dolt after all, the whole thing made the woman actually speechless and she was not able but to whisper, ‘Then git out of here. Git. Go away. ’ Roxana burst into convulsive weep. She wept bitterly , hiccuping with a childish hopelessness. Seeing her daughter crying in a way he had not seen her do it before, Father lost his mind.

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‘Enough is enough, woman, I’m telling you. Leave her alone at once. ’ The woman overrode the demand. She kept her eyes popped and mumbled on and on, ‘I don’t wanna see you again, dolt. Now, git. ’ ‘God took your minds off from you. Haven’t you heard There . . . not even touched her ? She said it with her own mouth, you deaf, mulish woman. ’ The woman stopped and stared at him, and a mint of hope gleamed in her bloodshot eyes. ‘Nothing, ’ she echoed. ‘Yes. Nothing, ’ her man roared. ’There is not a man like everybody else. I wonder how these foolish things failed to reach you. Ausonia, who ran crazy lately spread out a lot in the hamlet on his account. ’ ‘Nothing, ’ the woman murmured, hiccupping and wiping her tears with her house apron. ‘Nothing . . . he fouled the dear turtledove of her soul, that’s what he did. Didn’t you see how sunken her face is ? She seems not to be looking like our daughter, beautiful like a turtledove, but a strange, sallow-faced alien sunken like the dead ones, and you dare say he did nothing to her ? Shame on you, her very own Father, for harboring such notions, you idiot. The damned son-of-a-bitch vilified her, that’s what he did if you ask me. ’ Roxana went out prodded by a choking sensation further enhanced by the hovering darkness. She craved to die on that very minute, yet what she was able to do instead, and about the only thing at that, was to just stagger away like some regular drunkard along the row heading to the terminal beach sweetly wedged like a golden chip int the emerald ocean, unknown and all reviving. Un-heavenly, seldom bolts lighted indigo the Klu Hill top every now and then, and they seemed closer now than before. She toyed with the thought of leaving that forlorn hamlet , a place where she had known but woes and delusion, go anywhere maybe even beyond the Klu Hill where those strange lightning bolts could be seen, and where life by her reckoning at least should be different from merely an arithmetical addition of fishing, fish-cleaning, stringing, smoking, and lots of waiting. With the same sun blazing overhead from dawn to dusk, the same seagulls wailing every time they missed the dive for a vital victual underwater catch, the same sand and boundless and boring expanse of water with its rumble from the deep coming up precisely at twilight every day of the week.

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Life should have to be made of other things too, not necessary more pleasant or cozy than things in Sin Hoe were, but just different at least. She wiped her tears with the hem of her dress and ambled idly on the beach, when all of a sudden, two shadows barred her way. The two Punishments. On of them switched on a powerful light source and trained its beam on her face. ‘Who’re you ?’ the Punishment asked. Blinded by her own weeping and surprise, Roxana halted in confusion. ‘Who am I ? My name’s Roxana. Yours ?’ she said. ‘What are you doing on the beach at such late an hour ?’ said one of the two town folks left onto the premises after the Drusilla trial held at Martha’s terrace. ‘Leave her be, ’ the one with the flashlight said curtly. ‘I am a P. He is a P also and we were just making our duty tour. Would you care to join us?’ The one with the flashlight had spoken neither meekly nor roughly, but standard even, as if the question would have actually been an assertion , one which elicited also and assertion . Sheer surprise made Roxana gag as she went speechless. She hiccupped every now and then like a child, and looked at both of them as far as she was allowed by the bothersome light-beam object hand-held by the P who had asked her the second question. She was surprised that anyone could deem her accountable for a simple walk on the beach, taken by surprise by the query’s tone, but she was surprised most by what was smoldering deep down into her heart. The Punishment’s question looked like no other she had listened so far, mostly such as, “Who are you waiting for ?” or “Who’re you dating with ?” of the girls who pried when she used to wait sometimes every other girl did in the spot where the deserted beach expanse began. The light spot alive into the Punishment’s hand switched off briskly, and Roxana suddenly felt better. In the darkness grown thick the faces of the two looked not so white as they used to be at daylight, and their popping eyes not so red. Their luscious, mother-of-pearl like epaulettes mirrored every once in a while the seldom, bluish bolts atop the Klu Hill. Something more than mere curiosity carried her away when she said, ‘Yes. ’ The hand of the Punishment who switched off the light alive reached out and wrapped itself around Roxana’s waist. 161

That night Martha’s brandy had not been so good, or Calavera at least found it that way. And yet, he and Everard had been among the last ones to leave the table. At a certain point Calavera had had the impression of a some sort of contest being run between him and hairy Everard . A contest whose object was not who outdrinks who on that scented stuff, but who leaves the last one. Although only half drunk, Roxana’s been-fiancé smelled the hunt clear the very moment both of them stood up in order to leave. Everard said he wanted to have a walk, then he lit a cigarette and jammed the pub’s doorway with his body. ‘Crickets. Quite a lot of them, ’ Everard said. ‘Yep. Damned them crickets, ’ Calavera muttered. The old man let out the hint that the drinking was over for the day. Calavera grinned, but eventually he gave up. Maybe it was some understanding between Martha and Everard happened to come in a bit late, so all that was left for him to do was to leave the joint. He sighed and looked at Everard with his oily eyes with too much booze in-taken. For a while he fiddled with the idea of letting fly at him with a couple of well aimed words or about so, but eventually, with a bored gesture he chased away his own intentions and just said, ‘Good night, then, Everard. ’ ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at the boat, buddy. ’ Calavera had to wait for Martha if he took a fancy to squeak her under him some night unless she consented to let him make love to her that very night. ‘Crickets. Jesus Christ, that’s quite a passel of them out there. ’ ‘Sound coming from someplace up there, sort of, ’ Everard mumbled. ‘It makes me dizzy. Damned crickets, you true. ’ Calavera shrugged his shoulders and eventually made it bound to his hut along the luke warm sand of all pathway, As usually when he happened to waddle in such a mood, Calavera took to hard thinking. When he was sober, he was aware his philosophy only worked together with alcohol. For instance he wondered why the priest began to sound the bell in the belfry to announce the legal holiday since the Pees from the town grabbed Drusilla and carted him off along with them in the very same day. Could it be he failed to learn all hamlet witnessed the proceedings of Drusilla trial, the man who had killed in cold blood a T? Calavera smirked in discomfort, not even when he happened to be in such good a mood, best fit for meditation he seemed not to be able to 162

answer his own question satisfactorily, way back he had asked Malachi, whereupon the old man’s best answer had been merely a mumble -- and the second time as the young fisherman kept on prying he had muttered not even himself had any idea about the matter, but that was just the particular way he happened to see things on that particular time. All of a sudden, Calavera thought he just saw the outline of a human body against the skylight. Instinctively he pulled himself together and tried to keep under firmer control his hesitating, swinging stride, then he halted for a short instant. Long enough as to spot nearby the dark shadow of the two town people. Unwillingly he took shelter by the fence of Rolo’s homestead, hoping incongruously Rolo’s dog won’t begin to jump playfully or bark at him. The three of them were pretty far now but one of the town people put a light in the face of the silhouette Calavera had recognized : Roxana . Suddenly he felt his pulse beat faster. He looked about him like a man seeking for help. He bit his lips in a whirlwind of mixed emotions. Mostly he felt guilty and embarrassed for his own lack of foresight to have settled the date with Martha beforehand, when he should, and he regretted now his own stupidity as to the way he had reacted with that unfortunate story involving There and that poor fool Drusilla socked him. When he thought of all these things, Calavera’s breathing grew hard. He wondered just how long time now had it been all that ? Who knows ? He looked again toward the three human silhouettes. The light source in the Punishment’s hand was now switched off, and under the weak light from the lightning bolts atop the Klu Hill he saw clearly the two town folks putting their arms around Roxana’s waist, and, to his dismay, he saw Roxana’s consent. Then they set out. Far off into the distance, a dog bayed hoarsely. It was Thorvald’s dog. Untling’s bitch barked back on a tone a mite friskier. On that night other dogs bayed too the way they did every night. The Sin Hoe dogs keep baying until they get used to the thing or the man that happened to stir their incomprehensible remarks. It looks like every night happens something dogs can’t quite grasp, Calavera thought in a very good reflexive mood but a very bad psychical disposition. The lad raised his eyes to the sky suddenly swept by successive waves of hatred, fear, and curiosity. The three of them came on his way along the sandy row. Calavera took shelter by Rolo’s fence and stood there frozen until the three of them 163

went past. Had he reached out a hand, he would have touched them. The epaulettes of the Punishment who brushed past him closest had a perfect polish and the star-spangled skies mirrored in it without blemish. He took a deep breath and after a rather long while he left his shelter by Rolo’s fence. After he watched the way darkness engulfs the three nightwalkers far away, to the general direction of the Punishments’ cube, and Lazarus’s ruins, and There’s hut, and Bora Bay, and Klu Hill, and beyond -- the town itself. Unseen. His hand was shaking. After a good many tries he eventually managed to light a cigarette, and as soon as the blinding impression printed on his brain by the flame of phosphorous died out, he was able to see Roxana’s mother coming his way. Only half drunk now Calavera guessed what she was going to say, and clenched his teeth, making up his mind to avoid her. The woman outguessed him though and called him out. ‘I ain’t seen her, ’ Calavera answered burly. At the same time he was vaguely content he had foreseen correctly the true reason the woman combed the deserted beach at such a late hour. Martha’s brandy performed with excellence where his trains of ratiocinations were concerned, he pondered, finding at least in this respect a little comfort. As he saw disappearing into darkness the woman who in normal circumstances could have been his mother-in-law, his body jerked automatically as he cried in her direction, ‘Hey, wait a minute. ’ The town folks’ cube had also a window. It was high though, so it took two , one raising the other, in order to peep at the people inside. Quiet and sad Calavera jacked Roxana’s mother on his shoulders and held her tightly , clasping solid her hips, buttocks, and thighs least she fall, although he staggered under combined effect of deadweight and awkward position. Standing upright on top of him, the woman looked inside the cube, driven by an insane, hungry curiosity, ducking every now and then least she’d be overseen from within. Her lips moved quietly, gingerly, as if in a spell. ‘What are they doing out there ?’ Calavera asked from beneath, his voice husky from his own arousal. The woman kept on looking zestfully, and obviously she couldn’t have enough of it, and her own enrapture coming her way from within the town folks’ cube made her let herself loose and heavy against Calavera’s 164

stalwart shoulders, abandoning her body to his increasingly shameless fondling and kneading. Outside there was the deep of the night, and no one was there to be seen walking the Sin Hoe’s rows under the bluish bolts atop the Klu Hill. ‘They did it at last, ’ she breathed out with immense relief the moment Calavera bid her sign he grew tired and unable to hold her anymore, then he put her down and instantly was on top of her, struggling to make love to her on the spot. ‘Come, do tell me, don’t you want it too ?’ he growled under full arousal. The woman’s eyes glittered into the night. Night was a good cosmetic to her face, leveling age and turning loose the immortal, un-aging desire. The desire that just passes from man to man, from woman to woman. From one place to the next. ‘But it can’t be, don’t you see ? I’m far too old for you, boy. I could have been your mother-in-law, you know, ’ she said, despising herself at the very same time in the very core of her soul for having been shattered that sweetly intoxicating spell that engulfed her also into the lying night that hoaxes and distorts. Mostly one word of hers enhanced Calavera’s excitement : “boy. ” Calavera braced her tightly to his breast and kissed her on the mouth. ‘Aw right. But let’s get a swig first at Martha’s. Jus’ fer oilin’ purposes, you know. ’ ‘Why, sure thing. Let’s go, ’ Calavera cried enthusiastically, and his eyes were shining like eyes of a rampant lynx. He had lost his mind completely. The woman reprimanded him for holding his hand about her waist, least someone might chance to see them together and spread rumor, and it were not men like Malachi or other elders fighting off insomnia she feared most about such matters, but other people, greener to the world yet, and who might very well pop around anytime. Chuckling with anticipated pleasure Calavera hardly managed to take the woman’s advice into account. When they reached the wooden door of Martha’s joint they began knocking slowly and rarely at first, then louder and thicker, the Calavera cried, ‘Martha !’ He suddenly remembered Everard and Martha had a date for that very night, and the pub tender won’t open up for nothing at the dead of night just to humor the parched gullet of a sleepwalking guzzler. 165

He waved his hands with annoyance. ‘Aw, shit, ’ he said. ‘She won’t answer, the bitch. She’s with somebody inside. Aw, shit, shit !’ Calavera raised his chin desperately, the way all villagers did when something went wrong, or unexpected. He began to kick the sand spitefully. He had a hunch Roxana’s mother won’t accept readily to let herself laid on the bare boards of the terrace squirming with him for the best part of the night, or why not ? lay even right out on the beach, in the open, with their clothes used like bed sheets of sorts. Unless she was loaded first with a stiff amount of real strong spirits, that buxom woman who could have been his mother-in-law by now won’t be able to forget this particular piece of fact and won’t accept to spread out her legs for him risking in so doing to become the deadly source of slanders hatched and harbored by Sin Hoe especially at night, the ripe time for fantasy. And besides, Roxana’s mother was happy enough her daughter surrendered virginity at least and became a woman. ‘I’ve got the feel our boy is a bit short of luck, ’ she whispered, a luring grin pasted awry on her face. Now, since the much-sought outcome had turned true, she could afford to walk about all by herself as much as she pleased. Calavera stared her way. Something on her face, a shadow maybe, or maybe something else made him look forlorn. Crestfallen. Crestfallen always run short of luck. ‘What about the sand ?’ he tried for one last time. The woman smirked. ‘Oh, no. Not on the sand. My husband could get wise, you know. ’ ‘I’d give you a thorough brush thereafter, ’ he tried to con her, but without success. ‘Definitely not, ’ she said adamantly. ‘Aw, ’ Calavera said, breathing hard, and he tried to find her mouth in the pitch dark and kiss it. The woman ducked. Calavera combed his hair with his outstretched fingers. ‘C’mon, I’d make a mat out of my own clothes jus’ fer you, what do you say, eh ? the young man said panting with impatience, only by all makings Roxana’s mother had her mind set not to let herself used that night without a brandy for opener, especially on that very night when her daughter bid maidenhood goodbye for keeps. The whole situation was so utterly ridiculous it made Calavera actually whimper like a stray puppy. No noise came from the pub.

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Both Calavera and Roxana’s mother figured the two of them inside would have to be simpletons had they chose to betray their presence and spoil themselves a good time instead of pretend they slept, as it actually should at that particular hour of the night. ‘You ran out of luck, Calavera . That’s it, ’ she said hesitatingly. She sighed, and added, ‘Well, I’d better be going now, ’ a string of words whose cue the young man decoded when the woman was long time gone from him. ‘Hey, listen here ! Where are you ?’ he cried out, raising his chin briskly, but no one was around, except the night. He kicked viciously at the sands if it was the only culprit to blame for everything that had happened into the hamlet lately. He lit a cigarette and sucked hungrily at the smoke. The mere voluptuousness of scattering his mind over a large array of ratiocinations exactly at the wrong time when a quick, strong, accurate, decisive action was sought, had therefore made him lose mother next to first losing her daughter ; or maybe the daughter had been taken away from him ? He was not too sure which one. He felt sorry for not being drunker then he felt he really was so he could be able to take everything easier, and unfortunately he had to go back home in order to compensate whatever was there just waiting for him to be compensated. He sat on the edge of the terrace. He kept smoking the cigarette, dragging deeply into his lungs until the pain-limit was reached and coughing was just about to break out. As he propped against one of the cross-over timber beams a chip wedged itself under the skin of his palm, and this tiny event was the drop that made his remorse over flood into the valley of all vanity. He let his cigarette but drop and stood up. Booze and philosophy had taken command long time now and Calavera felt the urge to scream with frustration, but the urge to utter even a single sound was far from matching the intention barely looming out within him. He could hardly wait the fishing party next day so he could be able to forget this altogether miserable night, a night of defeat and musing. He was almost home when a strange glow came from the rear -- and it was unlike the bluish sparkling atop the Klu Hill. It was orange-purple. At the same time he smelled smoke. Briskly he made about face and all dizziness was gone. Martha’s pub was burning. On the first instant Calavera just stood there transfixed, then he broke into a breakneck run headed to the fire. 167

The silica on the gabled roof of the town people’s cube scintillated like diamond dust under the light of the blaze that consumed now the only drinking place in Sin Hoe. Since it was built out of timber, it was easy prey to the flames that made lightning bolts atop the Klu Hill seem pale. A Punishment left the cube pulling up the zip at his coverall as he ran ; he wore nothing else beneath. He pumped for a few steps, but nothing more. Roxana, hair disheveled and her dress crumpled, accompanied by the second Punishment came out too, right away. Nothing else in the way of a reaction in the behavior of the three, except maybe some quiet, shimmering satisfaction on their cheeks as they were lighted more and more by the flames grown taller and increasingly furious by the minute that seemed to encompass the whole horizon daubing on Sin Hoe a skein of late twilight. The thick smoke grew bigger and wider too in that breezeless night, and it seemed to swallow up the whole beach, making the most villagers who were pulled out of their houses by the macabre cracking sounds to cough their throats out and to clasp their breasts spitting out their lungs as if they were already torn inside. Rolo, whose house lay closest to the pub made the most fuss, afraid that the fire might spread out to his own hut also. ‘Narvahl, move your lazy ass ! You don’t want us to burn alive like some rats, now, do you ?’ Rolo cried. Together with Lucretia they sprinkled the burning terrace with the drinking water they could find handy. Men from the village volunteered to help. They made a human chain from both water tower and seashore and passed buckets on from hand to hand, but to no avail. The blazes just grew and grew. ‘Don’t stay up there least some burning timber will crash on top of you, ’ Lucretia cried and snatched her child away who just stood there mesmerized by the huge roaring pyre that grew higher and higher. Not even into the heart of summertime they experienced such intense a heat. ‘Looks like it’s summer, ’ Narvahl mused aloud. ‘What a mishap, what a mishap, ’ Malachi muttered handing out buckets. Pulled out by the people’s hollering and the blazes’ roar, Forzas too had run at a breakneck speed from the other side of the village to contribute his only and strong arm to the common cause. No one thought to replace him into the human chain. The strange slept long time now in his nicely scented bed sheets. The moment he rolled on the other side, he opened his eyes without a particular reason that he could name, and saw a shard of light wedging its way in through the gap between shutter and window sill to the south ; that tiny light 168

cast on the skeleton of the amber lobster hanging by the roof beam a magenta-orange tint he experienced for the first time in all the nights he had spent in Sin Hoe yet. He grew tense for a while trying to listen for the hamlet dogs herald trouble, and soon he seemed to acknowledge just that. He jumped down from the bed and opened the shutter to the south. He wasted no time anymore. He pulled his shirt and trousers on and broke into a breakneck run headed for the Sin Hoe blazing pyre. As he passed by the P-town people’s cube, There was able to distinguish through the haze three unmoving silhouettes, two men and one woman, and he relented some. The human outlines contemplated in utter motionless the burning pub vista. The woman jerked as if she’d trip forward but she was detained from behind to move any further. Somebody cried, ‘Calavera’s inside !’ Calavera had reached the terrace the moment the flames went higher than a man’s height. They licked by now in small, vertical outbursts the wall of the very room he sometime spent nights in Martha’s arms. Neither she nor Everard had come out so far. Something had to be done. Calavera took a couple of steps backward to gain extra impetus and hurled himself against the windowpane to the cantina. The hall was filled up with thick, tacky, black smoke and a scalding heat. Coughing and blinking his stinging eyes, Calavera felt by touch for the inner wooden stairs leading to that room. On that very moment the town people who went out first gave the signal to go back inside the diamond dust-like silica cell roof covered cube. ‘Splendid show, ’ he concluded as he turned to the second Punishment and Roxana. The girl’s eyes were roving and floating into an idiotic doubt the Punishment who held his arm about her waist didn’t miss. ‘Either now or later it was by default slated to be demolished anyway. Shell we enter, Roxy ?’ the first Punishment uttered in a clipped, elegant, cool grammar, his back always turned to the fire scene. The instant Calavera fell down on the inside floor accompanied by broken glass noise, Martha and Everard came out the side door staggering and coughing out their lungs. 169

The fisherman was naked and soot-black like a satyr, the woman had managed to wrap around her blistering body a charred, smoking bed sheet. Both of them were black and burned. Their skin was swollen, red in some exposed places and sallow blisters oozed colloidal liquid. They took a few steps, then fell unconscious the moment dull cracking, rumbling sounds inside announced the cave-in of the major roof beams of the only public building in Sin Hoe. Then over the hum of the multitude the bell toll was heard. The dingdong was widely spaced, unlike it did usually, tale-telling distress. The mob raised the eyes like one man to the spot in the darkness where the belfry was, almost forgetting the fire. ‘Hey, whatever occurred to the old man ?’ a voice said hotly. ‘Why, Malachi’s right here, ’ another villager said. ‘That’s right, he’s over here, with us, ’ the confirmation came quickly. ‘Then who’s sounding the bell ?’ ‘Hey, Gabriel, you leave that bell to the rays and you’d better mind Calavera’s down there, inside. ’ ‘Calavera ? What he was supposed to be doing over there ? Did anybody see him go in ?’ ‘Huh ! Now that’s a good question to ask, ’ the voice retorted quickly and sarcastically. Few of them managed to realize what the whole point was about. The man There belonged with those few. Without delay he took a bucketful of water, poured it on top of his head, then hurled himself into the roaring pyre. ‘He’s mad, ’ someone cried. ‘The house will crash on top of him any minute now. ’ ‘They’ll die both of them, poor guys. ’ ‘Whoever told you Calavera’s inside ? Calavera ! . . . Calavera !’ ‘No one saw him in the whole chain of volunteers so far all the way from the water tower and from the shore as well. Had it been him, somebody would have seen him, or no ?’ some smartass ventured, whereupon everybody seemed eager to share this opinion. The buckets passed quickly from hand to hand, but to no avail under the fleeting song of the bronze bell in Malachi’s belfry. Yet nobody seemed to hear it anymore. All of them raised prayers for the newcomer to salvage both Calavera and himself. Also they kept defending Rolo’s homestead from catching fire.

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With every second that passed, the hopes dwindled and the people watched in impotence the wood turning light and ashes where the former Martha’s terrace once was. ‘Peel your eyes, men. Watch out closely where he’ll get out and throw water on him as soon as he shows up. He can’t stay inside much longer now, ’ Rolo cried aloud, in order to cover the noise that reached the paroxysm. ‘Come, come, come. Give water, water, water. Don’t dally. Give water and stop yapping. ’ ‘Let’s hope the big barrel won’t break or burn, ’ a voice squeaked ; Coco’s voice. Skinny and pocket-sized as he was, you won’t guess the energy and skill he could muster for the purpose of putting the fire off and remove the burning débris off the way. ‘Jesus Christ, so you keep thinking at those barrels, you, prick, ’ Gabriel reprimanded him on the spot. ‘Why, he’s right to be mindful of those things. Sterling brandy burns all right. We’d better pray none of those vessels explodes, ’a husky voice ranted, and a good many of them felt their hair bristle and stand on end at their scruff. Forzas’s face bore the mask of pain. Nobody could have handled water in such a rhythm without getting tired after the first fifty buckets, and Forzas had hauled hundreds of them. The huge arm of the crippled man cramped now under the maniacal drive sprang from the lousy sentiment of his own infirmity and inadequacy, but physically he was unable to go on like this anymore. Gabriel drew himself near him and put his hand gently on his shoulder. At first Forzas shuddered about ready to say no, but the exhaustion had done its work clearly. He drew himself erect and relinquished his place to Gabriel. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, and asked, ‘What happened ?’ The man who had just replaced him at filling up the buckets rattled back quickly, ‘Matchstick or cigarette butt. Night breeze did the rest. Calavera jumped inside in order to salvage Martha. ’ ‘Where’s Martha now ?’ ‘Why, she’s all right. More or less. Well, it’s just a way of speaking, you know. But she’s alive anyhow, and that’s what counts, I guess. ’ ‘What about Calavera ?’ 171

‘Still inside. ’ Drenched with sweat, Forzas cut his way to the burning woodworks. The blazes ran hotter than ever now, and it became clear by the minute the villagers’ buckets and efforts were wasted for nothing. ‘Forzas don’t !. . . ’ old Thorvald cried. ‘Watch out that main beam, yonder, man. Git, Forzas, git off quick. Beware, man. ’ But the crippled won’t listen. He kept making headway, shading his face from the scalding heat with his only arm poised as a peak of sorts. At the last resort he ducked least to be hit by a big chunk of charred timber crashing from the corniche already turned half-ashes. Two human shapes seemed to be barely moving beyond the curtain of flames. Forzas spotted them in the last instant prior to quit the overhot place. Smeared with soot, Alfred drew near Forzas’s shoulder. For a short while Alfred’s eyes and the cripple’s eyes met. The stranger struggled to pull out the stiff body of Calavera. The crippled saw him staggering and almost buckling under burden and he rushed in to help There using his arm to unload the obviously unbearable charge that almost dragged the valiant stranger down to the ground. In a wink he saw the ugly skin bubbles of the extensive patches of blisters which disfigured his face and arms, and for a moment he forgot the hurt from the flame action working on his own body. Together with There and Alfred he managed to lay Calavera on the beach, far from the blazing pyre. Exhausted and choking, and hurt, the stranger fell in a heap by the man he had salvaged. Using his only palm Forzas wiped the soot and the crisp bloodcake crusts from the stranger’s forehead, then hollered at the people to bring over quick a Medic from the cube. Loose straps of bleeding skin dangled from his hand back. Narvahl was the messenger , and after a short while he turned back with the answer. ‘They said both of them are Punishments , and that thay don’t know what should be done in such cases. They had me to tell you they said so. ’ ‘You were right, Drusilla, ’ Alfred murmured to a memory. ‘Son-of-bitches, cursed be their guts, ’ Rolo hissed. ‘Dirty pigs. ’ He crunched his teeth and stared hatefully at the scintillating mother-of-pearl cube under the orange glow from the fire that was dying out now of its own after it had eaten up everything while making such noises no villager had ever heard in his or her life before.

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With a final crack sound of torn red-hot tin foil Martha’s gabled roof crashed in a cloud of sand, smoke, and sparkles that spent out gradually long before touching ground. After she realized she barely escaped death by some sheer miracle, Martha in tatters whimpered and wailed aloud as if out of her mind. ‘You, fools, you, poor witted dummies, it was only you who set it afire, you damn scum and sons-of-bitches, you wanted to burn me alive, like a rat, huh ? I’ll go away. I’ll go away right now from you, stinking scum, smelling of rotten, stinking fish guts. Yes, yes, I’ll better be going right away out of this stinking hamlet. ’ Malachi tried to appease her, but to no avail. Lucretia, who just sprinkled water on her for as long as she lay unconscious and had taken care of her, said quietly, ‘Who knows. You were with your sweetheart, got drunk, and . . . ’ Martha jumped like stung, and in an instant the two women were at each other’s throat. ‘Hey, women, cool down, whatever got into you ?’ one of the men intervened, but all he got instead was a thick, sharply aimed spit propelled right on target from the scornful mouth of Martha, the pub-tender. ‘You’re a hamlet of guzzlers and impotents, that’s what you really are, ’ she yelled shrilly. ‘I’m going away. I’m leaving for town. ’ ‘You’d better keep your trap shut, woman. Jes’ go. No one retains you in here, un’erstand ? If you wanna go, jes’ go and good riddance. What are you waiting for ?’ the voices barked harshly, and Martha went instantly mute and shy, and cooled off as if by magic. Everard stared vacantly at the dying out embers and at the sudden outbursts from beneath the torn, mangled tinfoil topping the ugly mound of hot ashes rising on the place where the former pub was. He was much too soused to understand what had been taken place. All he was able to feel was the coolness of dusk plus the intent stare of the villagers, same like on the day when out of all lures and all rods and all hooks the stingray had picked his. He stayed quiet for a while, then he shouted, ‘It ain’t my fault, it ain’t my fault. It just bit. All of you have been out there and you saw it. It bit. It just bit. It bit. ’ ‘Keep quiet, Everard. Nobody pointed a finger at you, you don’t need to plead not guilty. Why, of course, all of us have been out there. It could hit just about anyone’s lure. It bit yours, and that’s it. ’ ‘It could bit at anyone’s lure, ain’t that so ? Ain’t that so, priest ?’ ‘That’s right, Everard. Now relax, and try to get best rest you can. ’ 173

Malachi’s voice tried desperately to control the evil spirit that permeated the village whose citizens had gathered as a whole about the charred hillock of débris. Poor Martha had lost her head completely. Calavera vacillated between life and death, the stranger as well ; he saw Forzas bullying like a madman anyone in sight who as much as gave a hint of drawing near the stretched out bodies of both There and Calavera, and it was hard to say whether his fury was either jealous or satanic. Minute ago Roxana had been seen by all of them coming out of the mother-of-pearlish residential cubicle of the Punishments, Ausonia had already packed up and hunted for the skimpiest of reasons to hit the road, and the pub-tender presented it now to her on a silver tray. Stark naked as a fish after the counterpane had unwrapped off him and fell in a heap at his feet, Everard had stood up and shouted his tonsils out, ‘Then why you’re ogling me like that, huh ? Tell me why ? Malachi, you, two-dime a priest do tell me why everyGoddamnbody ‘s looking at me like that if all of you pretend to know the stingray could have hit just about anybody else’s hook ?You keep saying it’s because of me the woes hit Sin Hoe , right ? C’mon, speak up ! Why you keep that quiet now ? Why don’t you just spit it out instead, telling me what you really think even if I know fully well what you’re thinking : that I’m the guy who hooked that fucking stingray, that’s what’s on your mind. Everyone’s thinking that, yessir, I know, don’t tell me no. Calavera’s the guy who got the ray. ’ His voice grew more and more crybaby. He smirked his nose and cried out unawares, ‘I ain’t the guy who brought the hurricane on top of us ; it’s him, not me. It’s him, ’ Everard hissed as if at that moment some vision would have overwhelmed him, meant to set his soul free from all remorse. ‘It’s him, only him ! Him ! Him ! Only him !’ Everard ranted hoarse with excitement and pointed with his extended finger to the stranger’s body covered with blisters and raw, oozing injuries the hamlet baptized in “There” at the time and ever since to the best of their knowledge. The mob shivered. With difficulty Calavera managed to turn his eyes to the maimed body of the stranger who had saved his life at the risk of his own. He lay nearby, and Forzas was hurt also, and breathing hard and took care of him with his own arm. Blond Alfred was nearby too, only he was now so black with soot. Calavera looked up at There again in silence, with misty eyes, then in confusion ; the mist in the eyes condensed in just one single drop beginning to roll downward from his right eye slipping across his nosebridge to grow 174

bigger as it waded through the left eye and fall in the sand eventually where it sunk right away. Or maybe it was just mere sweat from the extreme heat. Calavera’s lips parted and whispered with considerable effort, ‘It was not an illusion, Alfred. ’ Alfred gave him some water to drink, and said, ‘I’ve been wrong. He was a man of flesh and bone. A man just like us. We had no right to behave the way we did. ’ Calavera closed his eyes and murmured, ‘Yes. Just like us. ’ His eyelids and chin were trembling. Then he became unconscious. In the sand, on the spot where Martha’s terrace once was, a mound of ashes raised, with bits of still smoldering wood chunks strewn here and there. Villagers’ buckets and pails rushed to put them out, and slowly, the darkness took over once again. ‘Don’t talk like that, Everard. He salvaged Calavera form the flame, ’ Gabriel raised his voice furiously and many a villager shared his views. But the hairy man ran wild and won’t argue anymore. ‘You just remember the day our sorrows began to pour into our hamlet, ’ he cried increasingly hot. ‘If I’m not mistaken, from that last February night of hell, when all of us had lost all hope to see our shore again, or no ?’ ‘Jes’ what do you mean by that, Everard ? Speak up your mind in plain, simple, straight words. Quit beating around the bush, ’ Gabriel croaked furiously. Everybody was on the point of nervous breakdown. Or scowling. His rage was fed by Forzas’s stubbornness of sticking like a watchdog to the two injured men. Everard kept quiet now and shivered uncontrollably. His eye globes sparkled in their respective sockets like two glass balls. The villagers waited. They kept perfectly quiet too, and scowled. Gabriel shouted with impatience, ‘C’mon. Answer to me. ’ On that moment, as if all of a sudden he had made up his mind, Everard shouted back loud enough for everybody to hear, including the two Punishments spying from the vantage point on the verandah of their cube. ‘Answer what ? There’s no need to say anything. Anybody with a fairly good memory can see for himself when the troubles began to creep on us. ’ ‘Look here, Everard, you keep spinning about yourself like a doggy chasing its own tail. Why in the world don’t you just speak up your mind ? 175

For instance, why don’t you explain to us how you believe There’s only to blame for all our present worries. C’mon, mate, do tell us that. It was Gabriel’s turn to be vehement now, especially since he was able by now to have a rather clear idea about what his country fellow was thinking, and in order to be more persuasive he was using on him his own type of ratiocination. Everard’s eyes gleamed with dementia in their sockets. He said, ‘I won’t tellya. There’s no need fer me to tellya nothin’, neither to you, Gabriel, nor to the rest of you. All there was bound to happen has already happened, even a blind man could see this. I’ll say this much though : we’re finished here, that’s it. ’ ‘Hey, hey, come now, Everard. That’s simply crap. You have no grounds to claim such preposterous a thing. If a damn drinking hole burned to the basement, that doesn’t automatically mean it’s the end of the world. So what if the terrace’s gone, huh ? So what ? Let it be. By all means we’ll build another one, a bigger one. Not just one -- ten. Jes’ exactly how many we fancy to build, ’ skinny Coco ranted. ‘The end of the world maybe not, but the end of Sin Hoe . . . ’ ‘And that because of There who sits like a leper two mile away from the hamlet ?’ Gabriel said sarcastically. Everard was much too hot to observe good behavior or mind warnings. ‘Why, yes, I daresay There only is to blame. ’ As he uttered these words, his voice got a strange pitch, as if it was not him the one who pronounced them, but somebody else, alien to both himself and the audience. Gabriel started, but Malachi intervened just in time, ‘Git off his hair, Gabriel. Leave him alone. It ain’t his fault. Come now, let him be. He escaped flames alive , he’s debilitated, burned, he’s a man to pity. Why, he must be scared shitless and that’s why he talks the way he does. I would appreciate if somebody would help him home. ’ Gabriel put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a cigarette and raised it to his lips. He lit it with a trembling hand, then he proffered the pack to Malachi. The old man rejected the offer, snatched the cigarette off Gabriel’s mouth , dropped it and said, ‘Smoke enough there has been around lately, and it still is. You’d better give up for the time being. ’ Gabriel shrugged his shoulders and obeyed. Everard growled like a dog, but said nothing, otherwise he felt content to just stare northbound. Over there, way beyond the Klu Hill top the un-heavenly lightning bolts were still to be seen once again. 176

‘Come now, Martha, stop crying. Calm down, ’ Malachi said as by way of appeasing. ‘We’ll raise a fund. Build up another one. I’m goin’ to give you a hand, that’s a promise. On next Saturday we’ll buy stock, we’ll find something at those merchant men, never fear. Martha left the priest in a brisk, hot fit of temper. ‘I don’t need your charity, ’ she hissed. Her hair was dangling loose over her face distorted with unmitigated scorn. ‘Don’t need your help, no, thanks, you, old prick, ’ she said venomously, and spat. ‘Nor anybody else’s help for that matter in this shit hole of a hamlet, dig ? Go to the rays both you and your belfry, you, old prick, since I’m going to leave this Goddamned village right away. ’ ‘I’m going with you, Martha, ’ somebody cried. It was Ausonia. Martha emptied the glass in one swig and the harsh expression lines on her face made ugly be recent experience turned a mite sweeter. She tucked surrepetitiously around her body the threadbare fabric of the bed sheet she had managed to grab in a hurry the moment she smelled the fire and popped her eyes to see better into the dark whoever had voiced his wish. ‘Why not, ’ she said, and grinned. ‘But why you want to leave here, gal ? I don’t mean to pry, but am just curious. Ain’t men enough for you around here, or what ? Whatever puts salt on your tail, gal ?’ ‘Martha. Look here, Martha, ’ Malachi insisted, then Gabriel gained the argument, then Coco who wailed pitifully, ‘All of us will help you build it up again, bigger, and handsomer, and roomy enough as to accomodate all the hamlet inside, you just wait and see. Hey, you, good folks, who helps Martha to build another restaurant ?’ ‘Not me, ’ Coco yelled the first and a few scattered laughter bursts could be heard here and there. ‘Me. ’ ‘Me too. ’ ‘I’ll contribute whatever I can. ’ ‘Count me on. ’ Into the scene that followed the bell could be overheard tolling twice alone, as if for burial, then its sound ceased. From the spot where he stood watchman on the two injured men, Forzas, who meanwhile had cooled off, turned his squinting eyes to the north first, then he looked again at the two men laying motionless at his feet. He cried eventually, ‘Me too. ’ 177

His personal example was instantly emulated. Narvahl also looked up at his father. ‘Dad, ’ he said, ‘ I’m leaving too, dad. I’ll go to town together with Ausonia and Martha. ’ Smack ! Rolo’s open palm slapped the child’s cheek. Narvahl clenched his teeth, wiped his tears of bitterness , yet finally he wasn’t able to keep them from flooding his eyes again and again. ‘Cursed be your hide, you, lousy, snotty prick. Git home, you hear ? Mush ! Mush home now. Now !’ Rolo said, dark of face. The bitter tears kept brimming the child’s eyes. ‘I wanted to make myself a Medic, while in here you can’t be nothing else but fisherman, ’ Narvahl said then he headed for the old hut wiping his moistened eyelids with one of his little punches as he kept the other tightly bunched into the bottom of his pocket, the way he noticed grownups do.

CHAPTER SEVEN Dawn. Just the wrought iron chairs and tables , blackened with soot were still to bear a far resemblence to what they once were. On top of their mournful flat surfaces, the cool breeze of daybreak still rolled soot flakes and pried loose tiny chips off the charred wood, pushed them around a bit first, then farther and farther from the spot where they have been torn off over, on the golden beach or sapphire sea slowly, along with the raising daylight. Calavera’s folks had picked Calavera to take care of him. Upon Roxana’s arrival Forzas moved from There without uttering a single word and without glancing at her not even once. Just she and the stranger were left out in the open now, in the crude, dazzling light of the sun that barely emerged from the ocean.

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Perched on him Roxana fondled his skinned, blistered hands, and every now and then she touched him with the tip of her tongue, cooing some alien, musical-like words. The stranger just kept his eyes shut, abandoning himself to the simple and much too ineffectual fondling where healing was concerned, and he uttered no word, as he used to, not even “There”, the word which had won him baptismal, name, or re-known, or who knows whatever else. Two white silhouettes kept strolling up and down the Sin Hoe beach aimlessly. Their silica epaulettes cast a haze of rays under the slanted, incoming beams from the solar disk. Fishermen had long time left for the sea. The tracks of their boats being pushed on the sand were still there. ‘Fine day today, as well, ’ one of the Punishments said. Some of the children lagging behind those who accompanied their fathers to the waterfront were spying on them rather scrupulously from something of a respectful distance. The two town people got wise and smiled a hidden smile, pretending they didn’t mind their curiosity at all. ‘Oh, yes, fine. ’ Closing their tour of duty, they reached again to the mournful black wrought iron chairs and tables. About the middle of the ash mound a few threads of smoke piped out while to the edges the soot had begun to mix with the fine sand as white as chalk dust, the result being a peaceful gray. As if by magic, only the piece of board with the sign “Martha’s” nailed down on it was left jutting into the sand together with a chunk of fence. Musing over the empty place and the metallic furniture resembling to the skeleton of a giant fish, one of the Punishments deemed funny the pitiful stubbornness with which that piece of board was trying to keep itself standing upright and on end, out-daring such dramatic events. The smile pasted on his face put up there on purpose for the spying kids to see got wider in some kind of mute interrogation, half mute, half ironical. He raised up his boot, and put the sole on the upper end of the erect piece of board. He pushed, gently at first, as if to give its strength a quick test, then pushed harder. The wayward board, made rickety by fire, gave in with a dull, dry, snapping sound, and the tinfoil sign reading “Martha’s” fell flat onto the sand of the beach.

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‘Hey, you. Come here, ’ the Punishment who assisted the proceedings only said. Narvahl drew near in a hurry. The second Punishment was smiling now. Narvahl halted respectfully at about two paces away from them. He watched in awe the glittering epaulettes of the town folks. ‘What’s your name ?’ ‘Narvahl. ’ ‘Whose son are you ?’ ‘My Father is called Rolo, my Mother’s name is Lucretia. ’ ‘Where are you living ?’ ‘Over there, ’ the boy said half turning and pointing to a hut with his extended forefinger. Had Martha’s joint would have been still there, Narvahl were not able to show it that easily to the Punishments ; he should have been forced to take a few steps to one side. Rolo and Lucretia’s hut could be seen now right across the smoking mound that had been a pub once. ‘Do you like them ?’ the other Punishment asked, as he came near. The child’s eyes moved quickly up and down a couple of times in a lively assent. The two Punishments had no problem with reading the wish printed on the boy’s face. ‘Would you want to have some like these someday ?’ Narvahl repeated the motion with the same liveliness. ‘For this you should go to town, you know. ’ Narvahl’s heart pounded on and on, too big a heart for to little a ribcage. How straightforward, and clean, and simple those town folks were talking to him ! The little boy gulped his emotion eventually, and managed to say, ‘I wanna make myself a Medic. How’s to be a Medic ?What do they see when they ram that shiny little spoon down our throats and have us say AAA ?’ The Punishments exchanged glances and burst into laughter. One of them said, ‘In that case you’ll have to wait until tomorrow, you know. ’ ‘And I could go to the town too ?’ the boy cried happily. ‘Sure thing you can. Say, care to join us in the duty tour, howzat, eh ?’ Pride made Narvahl’s breast fill up to the limit ; the most eloquent answer. And one of the Punishments put his arm on the boy’s shoulder.

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The boy looked back at his other playmates, as if he wanted to say, “Hey, watch me. Whatchya sayin’ now, eh ?’ while these play pals of his were running and chasing each other like puppies in the wake of the three silhouettes who strolled up and down the beach aimlessly. Narvahl looked at the ocean once more past the back of the two town people, and his forehead creased like a grownup’s. A man climbed up the northern side of the Klu Hill. The slope was sandy, which made the ascent rather difficult, so in order to make it easier it had to be done in zigzag. The man wore town folks’ apparel and carried in his hand a small suitcase with snug, highly polished sides. When he had still a small distance to go to the peak of the hillock, the man stopped longer. Someone could be able to decipher in him an intense emotion simmering which grew stronger by the minute and which had his moves and intentions rather shaky, and hesitating. At a certain point the man popped open his small, glossy suitcase, looked inside for a while and made up his mind to abandon it by the shoes he had just removed from his feet long ago. Barefoot and just a shirt on, he covered the remaining distance to the top of the hill with his memories swarming in a savage turmoil in his head. When he finally reached the summit of the Klu Hill, he saw an awesome vista out there into the bright, clear dawn. He rubbed his eyes a couple of times unbelievingly, looked back, then to the left, to the right, then again ahead. Then way beyond the hill. He reconnoitered the Bora Bay he could have recognized it blindfold out of a thousand other bays, he recognized the palm trees with their wide leaves and steeply canted trunks, perched on the waterfront, he recognized the beach with its erratic tufts of dark, green grass, same hue like the overhead palm trees, the white, fine grained sand like chalk powder ; and yet what he saw far south into the distance made his blood curdle. Tall, straight, crisp edged concrete buildings with glossy, dazzling façades and covered all over with an infinity of glittering windowpanes. Wide, tar reeking , black strips of asphalt snaked among that array of new edifices, and along those black, winding strips unending strings of cars crawled on and on the way he saw them when he just passed the town north of Klu Hill. The man broke into a run downhill, and it was only on the Bora Bay beach strip where he drew himself to a halt. 181

He cast quick, scared glances everywhere. All of a sudden a little boy and a little girl popped out of the water, both of them blond, right down at his bare feet. The children were naked, and small rivulets of water ran down their slim, heaving bodies. They watched him in fascination. The moment he was just about to open his mouth to speak up, the man thought better and changed his mind. He was afraid he had forgotten their language. Yet after a while, he briskly addressed to the boy, ‘Where’s Sin Hoe ?’ ‘There’ both children answered at once, pointing with their hands to the direction opposite to the one that man came. The crease in between his eyebrows melted in some sort of bitter, fugitive, tortured smile. Thank God the language was the same. ‘Your Mother ? Roxana ?’ he asked the girl this time. ‘Nope, ’ she said primly, ‘our Mother’s not Roxana. ’ The little boy mimicked her like a parrot. The man’s voice grew harsher, ‘Where’s Sin Hoe ?’ he said. ‘It’s right there, ’ they said again at unison. Then the man noticed that the little ones were holding hands while with their other ones both of them were pointing to the direction of the strange city arising on the seashore on the very place where, as far as he could recall, Martha’s pub had to be, and Malachi’s belfry too. ‘Where’s the hamlet Sin Hoe ? My hamlet !’ raised up his voice the man barely climbed down from the Klu Hill to the Bora Bay where the two stark naked children bathed. ‘Over There ! Over There’ the little boy and the little girl cried, and kept on holding their hands intertwined before that strange guy who pretended he was from Sin Hoe. The guy began windmilling his hands, and then shout louder and louder, ‘Where’s my hamlet ? Where’s Sin Hoe ? I want my village back. My village !’ Then he broke into a laughable run, briskly parting company with those kids. He ran at a funny stride, making jerky, un-elegant, unnecessary moves as he ran. At a certain point he stopped in his tracks and began spinning about as if he searched for specifically something. He kicked the sand with his bare

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feet a couple of times, he bent every now and then, collecting thin chips of wood, turned black by now and minced with the mere passing of time. Briskly he discarded them and kept kicking the sand with his feet, then shoveling it with his palms. After a while he seemed to have grown annoyed with the search, since he broke again into his hilarious run. After a few steps more he froze like shot in his tracks and just stood there transfixed. He kneeled real slowly, as though he floated free right in front of the skeleton of a giant lobster. It was old, as the amber-like hue of its carcass bespoke in a clear telltale. It lay half buried into the sand. Stunned, he watched it for a long time. Then he touched gingerly with the tips of his fingers, as if to fondle. He was afraid not to have it crumb and turn itself instantly to sand the way so many zillions of seacreatures do times and over again. He didn’t even notice the two children standing again nearby and studying him closely. He dug it carefully, and eventually he set it free. Prior to taking hold of it he hovered on it as if it were some beloved being smitten with serious disease, or as if for a difficult and dubious identification. He took hold of it and drew himself erect. Into the hot, unmoving air of the dawn, thin rivulets of sand poured down from the parched, translucent, thin carcass of the amber lobster, like as many gray, delicate needlepoint laces of the nothingness. Raising his hateful eyes, the man saw standing on top of those straight-edged, glossy-faced, tall buildings how some beings with single, giant, black, cyclopic and rectangular eye in the middle of their faces, holding in their hands some short, thin reed sticks, kept poring over a maze of long, thick treads grown upright like black grass blades, frozen in their outburst skywards. And at the end of those strange reeds which didn’t bend into the wind and handled by those cyclopic beings with their single, black, rectangular eye, blinding lightning bolts erupted, blue-greenish of hue. Un-heavenly bolts. He turned his head to the Klu Hill. He remembered that way back, on top of it such blue bolts were to be seen every night. There was the town where he turned fifteen years later. From the Bora Bay where he bathed so many a time when he was just a little boy, the children came in his wake, always holding hands and staring at him frightful and friendly at the same time, like two kittens.

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The man tried to smile to them, and having no idea whether he succeeded or not, barefoot and his shirt open, amber lobster in hand, he turned back and entered the Sin Hoe City on the ocean shore. That man was Drusilla.

1982 - 1996

In its original version this book was first published in Romania, at Editura Eminescu in 1996. Mr. Radu Pintea (52) currently lives with his wife, Lelia and their children Dimitra (8) and Andrei (6) in Bucuresti City, Romania. He is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish. Occasionally he writes poetry, plays classic guitar, enjoys the streetwise philosophy, sophisticated risk analysis and is a C++ programming enthusiast. Any comment is welcome at: [email protected]

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