(To be or not to be: the question answered.)
PEARLS
Accompanied by an occasional dull thump, small shadows darted feverishly across the ceiling like a shoal of minnows surprised by a predator. Their unceasing activity felt like a mournful echo of an experiment gone badly wrong. Nearby, on one side of the darkened room a gentle glow of light radiated, its constancy reassuring.
I lay in a semi-stupor in a warm cocoon of blissful abandonment. For what seemed like hours, I remained suspended in this curious womb, mentally investigating its elements as an infant might toy with newly discovered objects. Gradually, however, life began to insist on its price, with a mounting soreness manifesting throughout my limbs and torso. My body, bathed in gelatinous unguent, lay beneath a light sheet and, despite my stillness, moments of gross pain when it felt as if I were being seared with a flame, began to occur with increasing frequency. Anxiously, I listened for sounds of life from outside the room, but there was nothing, save for the sound of insects drawn by a nearby lamp bumping clumsily against the window-screen.
It was April, 1963. In response to a two-week invitation to stay from a former school friend Peter, I had arrived in Gibraltar from England three days before. Enthusiastically, I threw myself into the job of helping Peter, his French girlfriend, Nicole, his mother, Diana, and father, Bill, effect maintenance on their yacht, Merlin, a forty-foot Bermudan yawl which had been drawn up on a slip at the yard. Carelessly, I neglected even the simplest precautions against the effects of the Mediterranean sun, which blazed down mercilessly on our industry. On the second day I had gone to breakfast in the hotel where we were staying, conscious of something very wrong with my body. My eyes ached from the light, so that I averted their gaze from the window. My skin chafed painfully against the thin cotton of my shirt, as if it were instead coarse sacking. Waves of dizziness threatened my balance and moments of nausea dissuaded me from eating. Diana, shocked by my ruddy appearance, expressed alarm. The tone of her concern broke through my reserve and I experienced a nameless, mounting inner panic. Her alarm conveyed to the others, it was decided to return to their home in Spain, several hours drive along the coast. Despite dogged efforts to retain consciousness I passed out in the car, a victim of sunstroke.
Bill, who had been on Churchill's staff during the war, was retired. A tall, handsome man possessed of a robust physique and a patrician air, his urbanity and good humor were complemented by a practical temperament. Diana, formerly a cabaret dancer, was, in contrast, diminutive, impulsive, and possessed of a delicate disposition and emotional nature. Bill could be heartless; Diana’s maternal instincts were never far from the surface. They lived near Mijas, a small village overlooking the Mediterranean not far from Malaga. Attended by a Spanish couple, Consuela and Manuel, they made their life comfortably in a stuccoed villa with wrought iron accents. A swimming pool sunk in a flagstoned terrace and a large pig housed at the bottom of a sloping garden provided immediate diversion. The pig, Hortense, belonged to Manuel, and Bill, amused by pigs, provided housing and the animal’s upkeep in exchange for her presence. There had been a Hector, but the time had come to pay his debt to Manuel. For more sophisticated entertainment, the family engaged in a gentle round of socializing with other similar expatriates, making periodic trips to Gibraltar for items unavailable locally.
Almost all of my stay was up before I was well enough to engage with the family in their daily pursuits. During this time, Diana nursed me in conjunction with a local doctor's recommendations. Enquiring of my background and circumstances, she demonstrated affecting concern for the details. Gratefully, I shared the nucleus of my precarious situation.
*****
I was nineteen and some months out of public school. I had been accepted at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland for the following school year. Four years previously, without prior warning, I had received word in a letter while at school that my adoptive mother had moved to Switzerland from England. The move was permanent and the home I had known and all my possessions, except for what I had with me at school, were gone. I was advised that while she would continue to pay my school fees, I should seek holiday accommodations with school friends. I had heard discussion in the family that some tax problems had arisen, and this was the apparent cause for her decision to move. Apparent, for she provided no specific information.
My adoptive mother, Frances, forty-seven when she adopted me, was an enigma to most people. A wealthy American transplanted to England in 1926, she had brought with her two boys born of a short marriage to an American, which she had dissolved. A second marriage, to a Welsh doctor, had produced a girl and another boy, and had been equally swiftly terminated. In addition to these offspring, during the first twenty years of her life in England she fostered a string of male infants. Before the war, they came from nursing homes for illegitimate children; during the war, they were orphans of the upheaval. While most were passed on once they had entered childhood, one was raised for five years as if he was her own and then abandoned. She also adopted two boys, of which I was the younger, though the fact of my adoption was never mentioned.
I grew up in a series of country houses, which Frances either leased or purchased. She was a restless woman and seldom ever happy. Anxiety spilled over into hysteria at the slightest provocation and she was prone to play her children off against one another, creating further turmoil. Often physically absent and always emotionally distant, she left my upbringing to a series of nannies, maids and other household staff, who came and went with some frequency. My adoptive siblings I seldom saw, for the oldest was twenty-three years older than me and had left home before my arrival, while the youngest was nine years older and away at private school.
My education commenced at a private kindergarten, where I was enrolled as a boarder at the age of four. Subsequently, I attended two prep schools and a crammer before entering public school. The crammer was an intervention necessitated by Frances’ fears that I would not make the required educational standards. These fears were well-founded. Though I had shown promise as a pupil in the early years, at the age of seven I entered a decline. At that age I was conscious of her interest in me, such as it was, fading away, and I became subject to depression. This manifested itself in excessive eating, the debilitating consequences of which were made worse by an asthmatic condition. An eye damaged by an infection in infancy was virtually blind and wandered, causing me to feel self-conscious. The combination of depression and compromised health had a serious negative impact on my studies and sports participation. In the circumstances, Frances’ sudden departure from England and the loss of my home were nothing less than traumatic.
My response to this challenging development was necessarily haphazard, for I had no blueprint to follow. In order to address the problem of where to go during the holidays, I presented my predicament to those schoolmates I deemed sympathetic. It was an uncomfortable process. I had a hard time explaining what I myself could not fully comprehend and I felt like a beggar. Most whom I approached proved the aptness of my selection process and I was able to fill in the empty spaces. Still, it was a constant concern not to outstay my welcome, and I strictly rationed myself. Peter was one of these kind souls who opened their families’ doors to me.
While I completed my public school education with satisfactory exams, their level was not sufficient to ensure me entry to Oxford or Cambridge, universities which my male siblings had attended. Failing the process, I turned, with little enthusiasm, to Trinity College Dublin. Accepted for the following year, I set about a period of living in London.
First, however, I paid a visit to Frances, the first since she had left England three years earlier. She was living comfortably enough in Lausanne, whatever the nature of her tax problems. It was perhaps predictably an awkward stay and matters were not helped by her secretive nature, which forbade any discussion of awkward topics, such as why she had been forced to move. Despite efforts to convince myself that there were mitigating circumstances for her treatment of me, my anger boiled over more than once. Such outbursts were met with a wringing of the hands accompanied by pitiful exclamations at my ingratitude. All was not lost, however, for I joined a rowing club and shed twenty pounds on Lake Geneva. Returning to London, I moved in with a brother, who had a flat. Frances had appointed him a watchdog over me. I was given a small monthly allowance in the expectation that I would find a job and seek other accommodations.
Such relations as I had with my siblings were prejudiced from the start by Frances’ manipulative behavior. The oldest had left home before I arrived. As a teenager, he had fled in response to Frances’ neglect of him in favor of his younger brother, and I had only met him once in a brief and awkward afternoon visit, when I was ten or so. Despite the favored status, his brother, in turn, had fled Frances’ web as soon as he came of age. Buying a yacht, he spent ten years roaming the seas. Him, too, I had but the briefest glimpse of in a rare visit. Of the two siblings born of Frances’ second marriage, my sister and brother, fourteen and twelve years older than me, were away at private schools. As was Frances’ custom with all of us, during the holidays they were sent overseas in the care of a paid companion/tutor. Such trips provided a cultural education, though they were largely confined to European countries, and were an opportunity for extra coaching in school studies. The attention they paid me on their occasional visits home was tainted with jealousy. Apparently of the opinion that I was endowed with special qualities, Frances had commanded that I should be treated with respectful consideration. At the age of six I was told that I had been named Alexander, honoring the great library at Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great. Frances had pursued a graduate course in Classical Antiquity at Columbia. Not surprisingly, this biased attention resulted in my being subjected to some abuse when her back was turned. I was confused by their behavior until, at the age of twelve, I overheard them discussing ways of ejecting me from the family. They did not want me sharing in the money, of which I knew nothing except that Frances was well-off. It was the brother in this incident whom Frances appointed my watchdog. My remaining sibling, the other adopted male, was as distant as the rest, though more inclined to treat me kindly.
Relations with my brother in London were expectedly cool and I sought a quick escape. Fortunately, I encountered some former schoolmates, who introduced me to an exciting round of social events. There were parties at fashionable addresses, weekends with the well-bred in the country and clubs of deliciously dubious moral value to visit. Making new friends, I soon found an opportunity to share a flat and moved out of my brother’s. Lacking the money of the crowd I had joined, I affected a front that passed standard scrutiny. I had the right accent and the right educational background: privilege will overlook most failings in defense of itself. Still, I remained essentially a beggar, and after a while it began to wear on me.
I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My oldest brother had become a Catholic priest in response to Frances’ neglect. His brother had taken to a life on the high seas. My sister had married a Swiss doctor and moved there. Her brother was studying for the bar. My adopted brother had created a family scandal while at Oxford. His name had appeared in a scandal sheet connected to that of an Asian actress. Later, he would join BEA for a spell as a flight attendant.
Frances, herself, had never worked in any conventional sense of the word. She was an impractical woman, forever making poor decisions about her money, which was derived from American trusts. A decline in her circumstances in the 50s, the result of fiduciary neglect in New York, caused a move to a smaller house than that to which she had been accustomed. While precipitating bouts of hysteria, the loss made little difference to her lifestyle, which revolved around the ownership of horses and attending the opera and theatre. At home, she was frequently on the phone, busy writing letters, and reading into the early morning while listening to concerts on the radio. Other than at mealtimes, I saw little of her.
As for myself, until Frances left England I existed in a world which presumed some orderly path into adult life. Her departure threw me into a state of shock. Never wholly comfortable with my peers – I sensed a different cultural heritage – I now felt rudely cut off from them. Their comfortable lives with expectations of more comfort as adults was no longer mine, and the prospect of the end of my schooling presented a void, which became more terrifying the closer it came.
While the allowance that Frances provided enabled me to pay my share of the rent in a succession of flats, I was often short by the end of the month and meals were thin. Through a former schoolmate I found temporary employment as a store detective at Foyle’s, the city’s oldest bookstore. The job ending in early spring left me facing six months before college would begin. Neither the immediate nor future prospects offered much inspiration and the damp streets of London weighed down my spirits further. It was at this point that I received Peter’s invitation. Without hesitation, I pawned some personal items and booked a flight. As the plane flew out over the south coast, I vowed to put aside all thoughts of the future.
*****
Following a brief discussion with Bill and Peter, Diana invited me to continue staying with them. I was to relax for a while, she explained, and not concern myself with the immediate future. My heart leaped at the invitation. I felt as if my life had suddenly taken a new and wonderfully brighter direction. I accepted, hardly believing my good fortune.
For a while I was lost in the distractions of my new environment. There were expeditions to Gibraltar in the family’s Jaguar, where we stayed overnight at a plush hotel. Frequently, we lunched at a small Indian restaurant, where I developed a taste for hot, spicy food washed down with ice-cold beer. During a trip to the top of the Rock in a taxi, one afternoon, one of the legendary group of monkeys that inhabit the peak jumped on the roof and, reaching in through a window unwisely left open, made off with Peter’s straw hat. Imperial high jinks, indeed! Across the straits lay Tangiers, where I was introduced to the art of haggling, as we wandered through the markets occasionally stopping to make a purchase amidst the noisy bustle. The air was redolent with the pungent aroma of donkey dung, and the enigmatic eyes of the veiled womenfolk suggested mysteries only exceeded by the likely mundanity of their lives. Traveling along the coast towards Marrakech, we stopped for a camel ride. Warned of the creature's vile breath and its occasional bad temper and accompanying tendency to bite, Peter and I climbed on to wooden saddles and were led across the dunes by a mounted Arab. Another on foot ran after us yelling and beating at the poor beasts with a stick, as they broke into a run with deep bellied groans. At a restaurant, we were brought a large platter of stewed lamb, complete with the dull glare of a greasy eyeball.
Closer to home, excursions were of a less exotic nature. There were visits into the mountains to villages where potters, leather workers, and basket weavers pursued their crafts in sleepy settings. Among the artisans were a few prized for scarcer skills, as watch repair or dressmaking, and items demanding such specialized attention were saved up against these trips. On the coast, where the commercial bustle of the Costa del Sol-to-come was starting to make itself felt, there were meals of paella washed down with sweating jugs of sangria in the doubtful shade of gritty beach restaurants. From Estepona, a small fishing village, there were day-sails aboard Merlin, the wind and sun and salt, the canvas, rope and varnish, banishing all doubts as to the rightness of the world. I dreamed, of course, that such a life might be mine.
Socializing included invitations from the colony of expatriates who inhabited the region. Of varying nationalities and expressing myriad interests in business, entertainment and the arts, their exotic lifestyles acted as a powerful aphrodisiac on one used to the drab conformity of England. There were beautiful people and ugly drunks, and beautiful people who were ugly drunks. There were crazed artists and con artists. Some had fabulous wealth; others penny-pinched on slender pensions. A number came from high stress lifestyles in northern Europe, and exposure to Spanish service, which could take months to effect the simplest of household repairs, often proved their undoing in bouts of frustration that provoked anger and disillusionment. The constancy of the still, hot weather, broken only by strong winds off the sea, levanters, and off the mountains, terrals, which, blowing for days on end drove sand into every conceivable crevice, was a subtle source of irritation for many. Some were driven to drink and dispute which, in turn, became the subject of endless gossip. Relationships continually failed. Paradise came at a price.
The siesta lasted from twelve to four, when it was too hot for any serious activity. Then, I found it pleasant to nap and read a book in my room, the swimming pool sunk in a terrace nearby inviting a cool dive. Beyond the steeply sloping hillside, the deep blue wash of the Mediterranean dotted with faint white caps stretched to the horizon, where it merged with the sky in a shimmering haze. Night-time was the moment of greatest relief. Following dinner at nine or ten, there were trips to night clubs and occasional parties. In the soft coolness of candle-lit vine-covered patios and the harsher air-conditioning of plushly ordered lounges, there were the bold staccato rhythms of flamenco, the cheesy flavorings of pop music, and the subtler tones of light jazz. At a club known as the Jacaranda in Marbella, I encountered my first, and an early, transsexual - male-to-female. Dressed in a shimmering pink evening gown, her shape and appearance reminiscent of the blonde English film actress and sex symbol, Diana Dors, she sashayed about the floor in the company of the owner, receiving introductions to several of the guests including ourselves. Alighting briefly at our table and noticing my stare, she leaned her perfumed curves into the shadows where I sat and, in a deep honeyed purr, asked: "Would you like to dance, darling?" Stricken with embarrassment, I declined with a shake of my head, instantly regretting my gaucheness. In a moment she was gone, soon to be seen dancing in the company of two more worldly men.
As the weeks passed and I became acclimatized to the round, I sensed that I was the object of an internal family discussion. One day, Diana drew me aside. Gently, as was always her way with me, she explained that there had been talk of adopting me into the family. Fearing complications for Peter, the idea had been rejected. By way of consolation, she pledged the family's help in finding me a job and accommodation in the area, should I be interested.
I was stunned by this news. I felt as if a deep wound had been re-opened, the scar tissue of which had barely had time to form from the emotionally wrenching effects of Frances’ disappearance from my life. The sense of loss was compounded by the warm feelings Diana’s kind treatment had engendered.
In my childhood, I experienced a recurring dream. In the dream I approached a large country house in the dark of night. The windows were lit and welcoming. Entering by the main entrance I found myself in a large hall, on one side of which stairs led up to a corridor that ran from left to right. Bathed in the bright glow of the light, a beautiful woman in a full, flowered evening dress stood in the passageway beckoning me with a warm smile from behind an ornate balustrade. I would wake from this dream feeling comforted by the image and full of longing. Once abandoned, an accident, perhaps; twice, the benefit of a doubt, plausibly; but three times passed over felt inescapably personal.
Acknowledging Diana’s past kindness, I expressed thanks for the many favors she had done me. I understood, I said, the reasons for the decision, but the import of my words left me numb. Sensing the depth of my dismay, she sought to comfort me with observations offering palliative insights. I was "different" she said, "not special, but different." Why couldn't I be special - for someone, at least? I thought bitterly. And, why was I different? Did I bear some mark that indicated unworthiness? The world was my oyster, but I would have a hard time opening it, she went on. I had already recognized the truth of this and its utterance only served to increase my frustration at events. She suggested I think over my decision for a week.
Until I began to sense Frances’ interest in me wane, I felt as if secured in a transparent cocoon. But if a cocoon is primarily protective, then this one was instead for display. Once her presence had faded, I began to feel unseen. Until it seemed that I and the world inhabited two different spheres. Yet, still I could be hurt by it. I wondered fruitlessly why Diana had undertaken to tell me of the family’s deliberations. I would have been none the wiser, if she had not. Instead, in a few brief moments I was reminded of my disconnection, adrift, again, in an alien world
After pondering the dismal alternative posed by a return to England, I decided to stay in Spain, accepting the offer of assistance in establishing a foothold. The cost of living was cheap; despite my unfortunate introduction, I liked the sun; and, I was young and vigorous. Perhaps fortune would shine on me in braving adversity. I felt no desire to return to a cold and clammy climate in a country where I would only be reminded of my deficits. I found a job as an assistant to a materials buyer on the site of a large oil refinery which was being built near Malaga. Encouraged, I began to look ahead enthusiastically, only to have my hopes dashed when I could not obtain the necessary work permit. My new patrons were dismayed, too, and, after further consideration, I was offered accommodation on Merlin, with pay for caretaker services to tide me over until I had decided what to do next.
Estepona, the fishing village where the yacht was berthed, provided simple moorings for a handful of private boats, in addition to hosting a local fleet of fifteen to twenty fishing vessels. There was little to attract the passing foreigner, save for an inexpensive restaurant overlooking the harbor run by a disgruntled English expatriate and his daughter. There, in a faded fly-blown bar, beneath a fan with a noisy bearing, occasional yacht crew and a few unwary tourists paused for relief from the heat. Food was available in an unvarying menu of fish from the daily catch, chicken and, periodically, cuts of tough meat, prepared without imagination on a gas stove and accompanied by greasy french fries, wilting lettuce and tasteless tomatoes. Years before, the owner had come out with his wife and child and their savings, fully expecting a bright future in the tourist trade. But the tourists drove on by to Marbella and Torremolinos and his wife left him for another. Unable to sell the business for the kind of money that would re-establish him in England, he had been obliged to continue running it, helped by his daughter. Soured by disappointment, he had sunk into a sullen torpor punctuated by occasional rants against the vagaries of the licensing laws on which he illogically blamed his failure. The daughter, helpless in the face of her father's depression and without much ambition, muddled along in his wake.
In time, life aboard Merlin ostensibly assumed an idyllic character. There was routine maintenance - decks to be washed, batteries to be charged and the like - and weekly trips to a distant supermercado for supplies in a dusty, battered Mercedes taxi. A swaying St. Christopher emblem suspended from the rear view mirror assured safe passage over the pot-holed and gravel-strewn roads. For relaxation, there was a short-wave radio, reading and swimming. There was the activity of the harbor to observe, with occasional invitations to cocktails and dinner aboard yachts in transit to other destinations. Most evenings I would make a dry martini and, leaning at the side of the hatchway in the cockpit smoking harsh Spanish cigarettes, watch the sun setting in a kaleidoscope of ochreous hues across the mountains above the harbor. The oranges burning to browns and the lights of the village beginning to twinkle, a slow, steady stutter of diesels would fill the air as the fishing fleet headed out to farm the deep. Then, the last boat fading into the night, I would row ashore and proceed to the restaurant for a drink and a meal, glad of company, tolerant of character, happy just to hear the mother tongue.
By day, as my continuing presence was noted and curiosity prevailed over natural reticence, there came to be regular visits from Pedro, a fisherman of the fleet, and the chief of police, Tomas.
At seven in the morning, if I was not already up, I was awakened by the sound of Pedro in a dinghy hailing me, as he held fast to the side of Merlin. At first he had arrived unheralded, bearing a fish from the night's catch which he urged on me as a gift. This was repeated for several days before he asked, in a halting mixture of Spanish and fractured English, if I would give him English lessons. Only too happy to oblige, for I was curious about his life and wanted to improve my Spanish, thereafter, I took coffee with him each morning, exchanging English for Spanish and a fish, which I cooked later in the day. Shy, he would not come aboard, except when I sought his mechanical advice in connection with the inboard engine. Neither would he accept payment for the small errands I occasionally requested of him. His childlike enthusiasm during our encounters, in which he told me of his wife and family, and expressions of respect and gratitude for my meager contribution to his education were infinitely touching. His toothy, gap-filled grin, his clean smell of honest work and generous Latin gestures made me wistful for a life less cruel than mine felt.
At ten o'clock, Tomas, his morning rounds completed, hailed me from the breakwater. A clean-shaven man of moderate build and unassuming manner, he was ever courteous. Bringing him aboard I gave him coffee, while he spoke of the comings and goings of the largely uneventful life of his community and made solicitous enquiry of my welfare.
I appreciated the direct and uncomplicated nature of these exchanges for, aside from them and my evening visit to the restaurant, I was glad to be alone. In respect of the future I had no concrete sense of where I might be going, merely a vague notion that I would become a beachcomber, a pursuit ideally suited to drifting. Such fantasies had no need of a plan: they would simply come about by way of blissful default. As for college, it was abandoned as an absurd relic of a fruitless past. In this magical vein, out of a desire to recreate myself and hoping romantically that such boldness would be rewarded with new opportunities, I assumed my birth father's name.
At the age of twelve, I had learned of my father’s identity on overhearing a whispered exchange between my sister and her brother. I gathered my father had been commissioned to paint the Queen and the society magazines were carrying the picture. Would this, they joked, allow our family to sport the royal imprint on our possessions? Unable to contain myself, I entered the room where they were and asked what they were talking about. Swearing me to utmost secrecy – never to mention it to Frances – they gave me some details: my father was a Russian aristocrat and a famous portrait painter.
I cherished the information, locking it away jealously. This was something that was uniquely mine. The picture they had given me was necessarily short on details, and in time I rounded it out with my own imaginings. My father was a count. He and his father, an adviser to the Tsar, had fled the revolution, re-establishing themselves in Poland. My father had fought in the Polish resistance in the Second World war. My mother was another resistance fighter who had been killed by the Germans My father had smuggled me out to London, where Frances had found me in a hospital for war orphans.
In the year following Frances’ departure, a sister-in-law, sympathetic to my plight, had slipped me the telephone number of my father’s London studio in the strictest confidence. Calling it, a woman answered. When I explained who I was, she instructed me firmly never to call again. I learned that my father died a few months later.
The impulse to share my change of identity with someone drove me to confide in my sister-in-law by letter. Not long after, I received an angry letter from Frances. I felt betrayed. She commanded me to return at once to England. I had no intention of complying with her wishes.
As summer wore on and the days rolled by in a routine broken only by the infrequent appearances of the family bent on a day's sailing, I sought a romantic dalliance with the restaurant owner's daughter. There were few amorous opportunities for her, as for me, and we fell pragmatically, out of mutual need rather than through choice, into a half-hearted relationship involving tepid intimacy. Though I supposed myself driven principally by physical considerations, her lack of conversational ability pointed up the void in my life, which I had been ignoring. When the affair threatened to fail out of neglect, I made no effort to prevent its collapse.
One evening as the fleet chugged out of the harbor, feeling a profound melancholy, I remained in the cockpit drinking dry martinis. Making no light, I let the darkness settle about me. It felt like a warm cloak. Contemplating the situation, I acknowledged the emptiness of my beachcomber notions. But what else? I saw myself as brighter than many of my contemporaries, but lacking in their social and cultural connections; my family situation would not bear thinking about; and, fate, if that's what it was, seemed to have it in for me. The idea of God appeared a particularly cruel joke.
At last, moved by habit, I made my way up to the restaurant. It was a calm night and the reflection of the building's lights broke in soft shards on the rippling surface of the sea, providing a pathway to the shore as my oars gently sluiced the water. At the bar I drank rather more gin than was good for me and, after a meal eaten more out of duty than desire, I made my way unsteadily back to the boat.
On board, confronting the dim light in the cabin and my soul torn by emptiness, the floodgates of misery burst and I found myself in the throes of a rapidly plunging depression. I opened a bottle of red wine. It was not long before I decided that there was little point in my continued existence. However, in so much as I had been unable to find the wit to fashion a future for myself, I, now, had little clear-cut notion of how to make it a moot point. As I got drunker, I took to shouting with angry frustration and began to abuse myself and my surroundings. Flailing wildly with my fists, I splintered a mirror and the door to which it was attached. Mercifully, at length, I collapsed.
I woke next morning, lying on the floor, to the sound of repeated raps on the coaming overhead. These were accompanied by persistent shouts of "Señor!" I recognized Tomas. My head aching, repelled by the stale smell of wine and vomit and feeling battered, I rose shakily, wincing at the sound of his knocking. The sight of the damaged door and mirror shards induced remorse and shame. Struggling to compose myself, I made my way out through the hatch to confront my visitor.
Overnight the weather had changed and a stiff levanter whipped waves briskly against the hull, while rigging slapped in a steady tattoo against the mast beneath scudding gray clouds. I could tell Tomas was relieved to see me. It was well after ten, he explained, and, failing to get my attention, he had rowed out to make sure all was well. It was not, but he was too respectful to comment on my appearance. For a few moments his troubled face contemplated me in silence, as we stood in the swaying cockpit. Then, with a nod, as if to say ‘come, you are with friends,’ he invited me ashore to join the fishermen who were eating a meal on the beach after their night’s labor. Though food was the last thing on my mind, not wishing to give offense, I accepted, begging a few minutes in which to refresh myself.
Wearing a clean shirt and shorts and face washed, I lowered myself over the stern towards Tomas’ tethered dinghy. As I did so, however, a gust of wind drove it aside. Too late to halt my progress, I made an ungainly leap and landed in the boat in a sprawl. This set it to rocking so violently that we nearly capsized. Grabbing Merlin’s mooring line, Tomas hauled us hand over hand to the breakwater. Scrambling up the wet mossy rocks to the concrete causeway I slipped. Tomas reached out a hand. I grabbed it and for a moment we teetered wildly in an awkward embrace above the breakers. Tomas bore my clumsiness without complaint. Descending the dry side of the breakwater, I followed him towards a group in the distance gathered about a fire.
At a point not far from the surf, the fishermen sat in a circle about a ring of stones at the edge of a burning pile of driftwood. As we approached, two or three looked up and space was made for us. A stick with a small silver fish speared at the gills was passed. Taking a cue from my neighbors I drove an end into the sand and leaned it against a stone, presenting it to the flames. A hunk of bread was offered and I tore off a piece. The bread and fish I could manage, but the goatskin of wine that was making its way towards me presented a challenge to my constitutional fortitude. Concerned not to give offense by refusal, I grasped the hairy sack nervously. Putting the neck to my lips I took a draft. The raw grape lashed at my stomach, but my boarding school training prevailed and I suppressed a wave of nausea. Careless of the cooked degree of my now ash-flecked fish, I bit into it tentatively. The seared flesh was gritty and laced with tiny bones. Bread helped hold it down.
The company busied themselves with food and small remarks to one another punctuated by the occasional belch. These were mostly men for a whom a good night’s catch was the principal necessity of their lives. That many could not swim testified to their faith in God. Touched by this faith, I drew warmth from this circle of strangers, who so readily made space for me. In the presence of their natural kindness and unabashed, unforced humanity I intimated mine for the first time. I, too, might make a difference by living.
The gathering broke up and I proffered thanks. ‘De nada. De nada.’ Shy, toothy grins, modest shrugs, palms turned up. As I moved away from the fire, wind-driven sand bit my ankles and a burst of late morning sun shred the clouds.
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