‘That was very interesting, Jesús,’ Wilson said. ‘’Specially that bit about the brick.’
Jesús looked up, his feet still marching in the dough.
‘You don’t understand the first thing about bread. You’ve spent too much time in the desert,’ he said, ‘addling your brains.’
Chapter 6
Suzanne could not bear to look at any part of the sky. It stretched above the town, taut and brilliant, the sun a core of brightness at the centre. Everything in the house was hot to the touch: the chairs, the walls, the plates — even the clothes that Imelda had laid out for her that morning. There seemed to be no escaping it. She could only think of sleeping under the fan as a way to pass the hours.
Then, towards eleven, Montoya’s carriage drew up outside. It was driven by the same man as usual, uniformed and taciturn, his body trussed with ammunition-belts. She had left the house almost before she knew it — the heat took the decision for her — and was immediately rewarded with a breeze as the carriage moved off down the street. A hot breeze, true — but any breeze was better than none. She began to try and imagine what a cruise in a submarine would be like. Under the water, she thought. Away from the sun. She was already smiling, in anticipation. It would be cool under the water. It might even be cold, like winter. It was the first time she could remember wanting to be cold, the first time she had ever thought of a shiver as a luxury.
The waterfront was crowded with children, all hoping for a glimpse of the submarine. They were being kept at a distance by a number of Montoya’s soldiers. When they saw Suzanne, though, they clamoured round her, hands opening and closing like sea anemones. She gave them lemon bonbons and some worthless French coins. Fights broke out. Her driver had to scatter them, his whip curling and snapping in the air above their heads.
She was ushered through the military cordon and out along the south quay to where the submarine lay moored. It was the strangest machine. Built from curving iron plates, dark-green, the shape of a cigar. ‘PACIFIC PEARL COMPANY’ had been painted along one side, but the white letters had peeled, flaked away, and the word ‘PACIFIC’ was half gone. Montoya stood inside what resembled a funnel, only the top half of his body visible. She called down to him. He glanced round. All his features seemed to leap.
‘I didn’t think that you would come,’ he said.
She watched him climb out of the submarine and mount the stone steps to the quay. He wore white, a simple, high-buttoning jacket and a pair of ducks; his head was bare. He looked young and efficient. You would never have thought he was the kind of man who would shoot a horse for no reason.
He stood in front of her, his eyes shining, yet forlorn. Any hopes he may have had were always haunted by a fear of impending disappointment.
‘Everything’s ready,’ he said.
He led her down the steps and on to the curving outer shell. The heels of her boots rang on the metal.
‘And it works?’ she said.
‘So they tell me.’
She climbed backwards down a vertical ladder and found herself in a narrow metal chamber. Montoya followed, his shoes clicking on the rungs, the soles, she noticed, hardly worn. He fastened the hatchway after him by spinning a wheel that looked like part of a bicycle. Light filtered down, conducted by two tiers of glass eyes. The chamber had been painted grey, but the walls bristled with levers and faucets and winches, and they were all bright-red, the colour of his uniform. She smiled to herself.
A Mexican ducked through a steel doorway and asked Montoya a question. Montoya gave him a curt nod, then turned to her.
‘That’s one of the crew,’ he said. ‘We have six men on board. Four to drive the propellor-shaft, one to control the pumps and valves, and one to navigate.’
He guided her forwards, into the nose of the craft, a cramped space with two folding leather seats bolted to the floor and a single round window, about a foot in diameter, that looked straight ahead. This was the observation room, he told her. While he went aft to issue orders to the crew, she took her place on one of the folding seats. In the window she could see the water of the harbour, almost on a level with her eyes. A tremor ran through her as she realised that they would soon be travelling beneath the surface.
The vessel shifted; the quay backed silently away. The water rose and fell, a steady rustling against the outer shell. They passed into the shadow of a freighter. The compartment darkened. She could see the side of the ship rising steeply above her, its hull studded with molluscs and barnacles. She was struck suddenly by the smallness of the vessel to which she had entrusted her life. Just for a moment she found it hard to breathe.
As the two arms of the harbour opened wide in front of her, offering the sea, a muted roar, like air being forced through a narrow gap, started somewhere beneath her feet. She was relieved to see Montoya appear in the chamber and sit down beside her.
‘Is everything all right?’ She hoped she had not conveyed too much of her alarm.
He smiled. ‘They’re opening the valves to let the water in,’ he said. ‘That is what will take us down.’
Take us down? It sounded threatening, almost final.
And it was too late to change her mind. The valves were already open and admitting water, and the ocean was rising in the window, and this time it did not drop again. They were beneath the surface now. The rustle of the waves against the vessel ceased. A hush descended — the silence in a wood at dawn. All she could hear was the creaking of the metal plates, a kind of birdsong, and the rush of water into the ballast-tanks below.
A shoal of blue-and-yellow fish curved past the window in a slow, smooth arc. Her apprehension lifted; wonder took its place. Other fish, much larger, came and hung in front of her with gaping mouths, their bodies cut from beaten tin. They gazed through the glass at her, quite motionless, as if fascinated, but if she moved her head or hand they vanished instantly.
Montoya showed her a row of gauges on the wall behind her. Lit by phosphorus, they glowed like ghosts’ eyes in the gloom. One recorded the air pressure, another measured depth. The needle flickered on the ‘30’ mark; thirty feet of water stood above their heads. And they were still diving. She returned to her seat and the hypnotic window. Rafts of sunlight leaned down through water that stretched out on all sides, clear as air. A ceiling overhead, a floor beneath; shells scattered on the sand like toys. She could imagine walls too, in the distance, still too far away to see. They might have been moving through some vast hall, the inside of a cathedral, perhaps — a place where voices echoed, a place where mysteries could be revealed.
‘How long can we stay down here?’ she asked.
‘There’s enough air for three hours,’ he said. ‘We could travel to the mainland, if we wanted to. That would not be difficult at all.’
She gave him a warning glance. He began to talk instead of how he had acquired the submarine. How he had seen it, lying on a beach near Cabo San Lucas, abandoned. How he had bargained with the scrapdealers, a Mexican and a Portuguese. How they thought that he was mad.
But she was only half listening. He had just reminded her that he could not be trusted. It occurred to her that nobody knew where she was. Not Théo, not even Imelda. Nobody.
They were turning in a half-circle now, manoeuvering to breach a reef. As they slid through a gap in the coral, its walls as intricate as lace, she saw something flap past overhead, a huge moving shadow, a cloak with a cruel mouth. She drew back from the glass, but her eyes were still fastened on the monstrous wallowing shape.
‘What was that?’ She had risen to her feet, one hand against her cheek.