‘Good job, good job. You will take me out for a spin soon, won’t you, old boy?’
About fifty people had gathered by the waterside. The ship was ready, waiting in the chocks to be pushed over the rubber mats and into the water. Papa Africa took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trouser legs to just below the knee. Joe, Engel and Christof did the same, and even Julius Eilander sat down to untie his laces. Three more men removed their shoes as well. John Kraakman of the Lomarker Weekly took pictures.
‘Are we going to be in the paper?’ India shouted.
Kraakman licked his lips.
‘Wait, don’t move, that’s right. .’
He took a photograph of India smiling at the camera with her big, strong teeth, behind her the men discussing the way to go about it. The sides of the ship were waist high and their bare feet made them vulnerable. Papa Africa slid out of his jacket and handed it to Regina, who draped it carefully over her forearm to keep it from wrinkling.
‘A kiss, my love!’ she said theatrically.
She gave him a real film kiss, full abandon, eyes closed. With one arm she held him loosely around the middle, the other, on which the jacket hung, she held prettily outside the embrace. He returned her kiss with a more workaday one, a kiss alloyed with embarrassment; where he came from, intimacies between the sexes were not displayed in public. Then he turned and went back to the others. The men took hold of the gunwales, Papa Africa moved to the stern. ‘On “go”.’
‘Yalla!’
They heaved as one.
‘Yalla!’
The ship slid a few inches. This was how the pyramids had been built, the Sphinx, the royal tombs. . Papa Africa shouted, the men leaned into it, an observer might have been reminded of a stranded whale being pushed back into the waves. Slowly the boat slid toward the water, the men in front already up to their ankles.
‘Yalla! Yalla!’
Two, three more times they pushed, then the felucca slid into the water with remarkable lightness. Papa Africa was standing up to his waist in the water with both hands on the stern.
‘Darling, your trousers,’ Regina said, but he couldn’t hear.
He climbed into the boat, loosened the halyards and lowered the sail into place. The ship almost rammed against the side of the ferry ramp. Everyone held their breath. Joe waded in up to his knees to help, but it was no longer necessary, Papa Africa secured the sail and fastened the boom. He ran to the helm and steered, away from the ramp, toward open water. Then he lowered the leeboard.
The ship drifted calmly into the stream. Kraakman’s camera clicked, Papa Africa brought the ship around on the wind. People sighed as the sail billowed and unfolded like a dragon’s wing. The ship was heeling, leaving a trail in the water. Papa Africa peered tensely at the top of the mast, then back at us. We couldn’t see the expression on his face, but when we applauded he waved. Sometimes pleats appeared in the sail and Papa Africa steered to catch more wind. A little further and he would be out of sight, past the Bethlehem freight docks.
The guests were cheerful. They had witnessed a victory; the launch had gone as well as one could hope, and that lent the afternoon a symmetrical beauty. Papa Africa disappeared around the bend in the river, the people went back to the table with soft drinks, beer and snacks. Mr Eilander remained barefooted, waiting at the waterside for the ship to return. Sparrows bathed in the dust beneath the poplars, the world was at peace. Regina’s gaze kept returning to the river.
‘So you’ll be attending polytechnic?’ Kathleen Eilander asked Joe.
Joe shook his head.
‘But I thought your mother said you were?’
They were silent for a bit. Then Kathleen, who was taller than Joe, leaned over to him again.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Become an artist. I guess you can’t really say that. You’re either an artist or you’re not, so you can’t really become one. The way I understand it, you go to art academy to figure out if you are one. Engel, for example, he’s an artist and everyone knows that. But me? I’m good at making things, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’
His gaze travelled over her face, his mouth headed toward a laugh.
‘What is it?’ Kathleen asked. ‘Is there something on my face? Here?’
She wiped her lips with her fingers.
‘Now there is,’ Joe said. ‘A little bit of lipstick, higher. . yeah, there.’
Kathleen dug into her handbag and pulled out a compact. She turned her back to him and dabbed vigorously at her mouth. Across the washlands, crooked columns of dust were rising up behind the threshers.
‘Is it gone now?’
He nodded. ‘It’s gone.’
‘Why do you let people call you Joe Speedboat?’ Kathleen asked pointedly.
‘Because that’s my name.’
‘But you don’t own a speedboat, do you?’
Joe shook his head.
‘And what about your real name?’
‘There is no real name, only a mistake my parents made.’
His smile placed the conversation in another, warmer light.
‘Joe Speedboat, that’s just my name, Mrs Eilander, really.’
‘Oh, please call me Kathleen. It makes me feel so old to be called “Mrs”.’
Kathleen looked toward the waterline, where her husband and a few others were waiting for the boat’s return like believers awaiting redemption.
‘He should wear his hat,’ she said. ‘He’ll get a sunburn like this.’ She sniffed. ‘Your stepfather has been gone for an awfully long time, if you ask me. I would be worried sick if I were Regina. After all, a boat can sink, can’t it?’
Regina and India were standing down by the water as well, apart from the others. India spoke words of comfort to her mother, who was bent over with worry. Julius Eilander came up the ramp, shoes in hand, and suggested they drive down-river a ways to see if they could find Papa Africa. He asked his wife for the car keys. The things-aren’t-what-they-used-to-be men didn’t wait to see what would happen, they thanked Regina clumsily for ‘all the hospitality’ and headed off to their bench.
Julius Eilander returned half an hour later. He had driven all the way down to the New Bridge but hadn’t seen the big sail anywhere. Faith in a happy ending had faded. A mood gray as a cloud of ashes settled over those still at the landing.
‘We should call the police,’ Julius Eilander said.
‘Not that they’ll do much around here,’ his wife said.
No one dared to look at Regina, as though just looking at her would hit the percussion cap of her fear and pain and result in something you couldn’t oversee. Julius Eilander drove back to Lomark; his wife stayed behind at the old shipyard, along with a few others who were saying, ‘Have you ever seen anything like it?’ and ‘if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes’. The flames went out under the hot trays, no one bothered to relight them, the waiting took on the character of a wake. The blue hour was rising up around us, the blackbirds sang and chased each other through the bushes. Mrs Tabak, whose house Regina cleaned, turned to leave. She said, ‘Try to stay optimistic, Regina, no matter how hard it seems.’
Two cars approached along the Lange Nek, Julius Eilander out in front and Sergeant Eus Manting’s police cruiser bringing up the rear. They parked on the landing. Manting climbed out slowly and shuffled toward the group like a worn-out circus bear. He nodded to Kathleen Eilander, whom he remembered from a complaint about obnoxious air traffic.
‘You’re Mrs Ratzinger?’ he asked Regina.
He took a notepad from his inside pocket, flipped it open and held it at bent-arm’s length.