At the moment of impact, a miraculous thread of dark green appeared in the bar, barely wider than the yawl, and the man at the helm followed it quickly and efficiently like a dog tracking game as he crossed the bar into the small basin. He continued sailing nearly to the shore and then rounded up, stopping the boat. Errol went forward and let go the anchor. Czarina dropped back slowly until the rode tightened and she hung in the light breeze. “A well-behaved vessel,” said the helmsman in Spanish. Errol gave him a puzzled smile. The three went toward shore, passing a post driven into the bottom to which was tethered a huge grouper, arriving at a long dock so decrepit it resembled part of a Möbius strip. The black men led, waving Errol along, and he followed on a path between old shell mounds, and soon came to a clearing with several houses made of salvaged timbers and monkey thatch, then around those houses to a well. “Wada,” said the older man with a smile. Errol looked down the well, not more than fifteen feet deep, with a bucket on a wooden windlass contraption and various ladles, two of which were cut down Coca-Cola bottles and the other coconut shells like the bailer in the skiff. When they went back to the clearing, Errol following obediently, several people, probably family members, had appeared from the houses, two women of indeterminate age, a very old man, and a teenage boy with dreadlocks. All smiled. At this, Errol turned to his hosts and told them in Spanish that he was quite comfortable speaking Spanish. The two men laughed and pounded his back.
“You were espying on us!” said the younger.
On reflection, the older man seemed less pleased with this deception. “What besides water do you wish from us?” he asked rather formally.
“I’m not sure I even need water. I was looking for a place to rest. I’ve been in that storm, you see.”
“Yes, that was a storm.”
“I’m a bit tired.”
“Of course you are tired. One hardly drifts about in such a situation. Great exertion is called for.”
“I have to admit, I nearly lost my nerve.”
“Evidently you didn’t, for here you are. You have a safe anchorage, and this place is good for rest if nothing else.”
Caught up in this colloquy, Errol was reduced to a small bow.
“You’re our only guest,” said the younger man. “We ate the others.”
General laughter.
“Wrong ocean,” said Errol. General appreciative laughter except from the old man, who seemed a bit disoriented. Errol had a whorish need to include all in admiring his wit and rested his glance on the old man long enough to determine that he was blind.
It was agreed that he would go on sleeping on the yawl and borrow the skiff for transport. One of the women, tall and Indian-looking, with a bright yellow-and-black cloth tying her hair atop her head, informed him in English that when dinner was ready someone would come to the shore and make a noise. Noting his pause at her choice of language, she said, “I from Red Bays.”
The older of the two men who’d brought him said, back in Spanish, “You’ll come, of course.”
Errol bowed all round and said, “Enchanted.”
All replied, “Equally.”
Errol returned to his boat, rowing past the great fish swimming slowly around its stake, tying the skiff alongside and climbing back into the yawl and the security it offered, especially after its latest and probably worst storm. He found himself disturbed and so particularly dreading the dinner that he made himself sit in the cockpit and puzzle over his aversion to such companionable people, an aversion so strong that he only abandoned the thought of sailing off when he admitted he’d never find the way back over the bar. Isolation seemed to have the attraction of a drug, and he reluctantly intuited that he must not give in to it. He’d have been less apprehensive about that dinner if it had been at the White House, but he believed, if he could pass this small social test, he could begin to escape the superstitions and fears that were ruining his life.
He had a short rest on the quarter berth with its view of blue sky over the companionway. The stillness of the yawl was a miracle, and he laid his palms against the wooden sides of the hull in a kind of benediction, or at least thanksgiving. For now at least it gave him the feeling of home.
He smelled buttonwood smoke. The sun was going down and he had to close the companionway screen to keep out the mosquitoes that always seemed particular to their own area: these were small and quick, produced a precise bite that was almost a sting, and couldn’t be waved away. Presently, he heard someone beating on a piece of iron. Poking his head out the hatch, he saw the younger of the two men announcing dinner with two rusty pieces and gave him a wave, upon which the man retired up the path between the shell mounds. A fog of buttonwood smoke lay over the water at the mangrove shoreline.
He pulled the skiff onto the beach and secured its painter to a palm log, which, judging by the grooves worn in its trunk, was intended for that purpose. He pulled his belt tighter and straightened his shoulders before heading up the path for dinner. Excepting the woman from Andros, the group, including the blind old man, were sitting by the fire watching strips of turtle roast over the glowing coals; which the older of the two men raked toward him. The remains of the turtle were to one side, heaped within its shell, and seemed to have concentrated a particularly intense cloud of mosquitoes. When Errol saw the rum being passed around, he reassured himself that the supply would be limited. No liquor stores out here! he thought, with creepy hilarity.
The unhesitating first swallow made everything worthwhile and was followed by an oceanic wave of love for his companions. When the Andros woman came to the fire with plantains to be roasted, he reached the rum out to her. The younger of the two, Catarino, seized his hand, said, “No,” and took the bottle himself. The woman from Andros cast her eyes down and went on preparing the plantains. At Errol’s bafflement, Catarino explained. “She is our slave.”
Looking at the bottle of rum and wondering why Catarino was so slow in raising it to his lips, Errol asked, “How can that be?” He wondered if he had misunderstood the Spanish word but he repeated it, esclava, and had it confirmed. He reached for the rum but it went on to the old blind man.
Catarino patiently explained further. “As you can see, she is black.”
Errol emitted a consanguineous giggle lest his next statement give offense and dispel the convivial atmosphere and — he admitted to himself — result in the withholding of the rum. “But all of you are black, aren’t you?”
The blind man threw his head back and in a surprising rumble of a baritone asked incredulously, “Black and Spanish?” Catarino looked at him sternly.
“We are as white as you, sir. I hope this is understood.”
“Oh, it is, it is,” said Errol, with rising panic.
The older of the two men, Adan, gazed at him with a crooked smile and said, “You must be hungry.”
Not seeming to hear him, Errol asked, “Will she eat with us?”
“Clearly not,” the blind man rumbled. “The American would do well to turn to our repast and that which makes all men brothers.” He held up the bottle. Errol decided not to express his thought, Except the slaves, again less out of principle than a fear of causing the rum to be withheld. When the Andros woman came back to the fire, Errol asked her in English what her name was and she told him Angela. The others nodded their incomprehension but encouraged this foreign talk with smiles.
“I’m told you’re their slave.”
“They believe that,” she said complacently.
“And it’s because you’re black?”