Nazaré, page 4
“Here, Jesa,” he’d say, and hand over the money.
It was rare he kept anything for long—objects or cash—but the dinosaur femur now hung from Jesa’s wall like a totem calling from another world to this.
In the winter, Jesa sent him to find wood. She taught him to light fires whose embers would glow all night to ward off the spirits, and she taught him card games to help pass the time while the wind wailed outside and made the frames of her tumbledown house creak. And she never forgot what Fundogu had said of this mysterious child who had come into her life by chance, by the whim of a stranded whale—this boy owned the future.
*
Someone knocked on her door. Jesa opened it and saw the old man, Shadrak.
“The boy be here? I have news.”
“He’s not here, but you can come in,” said Jesa.
Shadrak made a great show of blowing the final whorl of cigarette smoke outside, tossing the butt, and removing his shoes—great clumpy fishing boots—and leaving them by the door. His socks were black with filth and thick as a blanket. Jesa offered him a seat.
“I have news,” he repeated.
“You already said that. Now tell me what.”
“They be goin’ baptize the boy tomorrow,” said Shadrak. “They fishermen talk and talk and talk and finally say yes. Some o they Japanese no in favor. They say he livin’ with a water widow, no can go out on the sea. But we got us a majority.”
The ritual meant Kin’s apprenticeship was over. He would be treated as an equal during fishing trips, entitled to a portion of the catch.
Jesa asked, “What time tomorrow?”
“Ain’t you happy, Miss Jesa?”
“I don’t know what took you so long.”
“It were you, Jesa. Boy livin’ with a water widow.”
“I took him in. He’s not my son.”
“We know. That’s why they agree. The stigma not on him. Tell the boy be at Socorro Point at 6:00 tomorrow mornin’. And I’m sorry: only the boy.”
*
After she’d told him the news, Jesa and Kin went to Shamans’ Hill overlooking the port to celebrate. They sat on the grass and watched Balaal in motion. In the other direction from the port they could make out through the haze the shape of the abandoned lighthouse half a mile from the shore, the sentinel that guarded their little lives.
“Look!” said Jesa, up on the hill.
A great black ship was edging its way out of the port. It was packed with massive shipping containers headed across the ocean. All around it were gaivota birds, battalions of them following the ship, either predators or protectors.
Kin watched and thought about the ceremony that would take place in the morning. It was along the beach where the whale had surfaced.
“You deserve it,” said Jesa. “You’ll be a real fisherman, ready to join a team. You can catch and sell your own fish.”
“No, not yet,” he said. “I’ll still be an apprentice until I have my own boat.”
“And you will one day,” she said. She put her arm around his shoulders. “Fundogu said it. The future is yours.”
*
The following morning, Kin walked the beach as always. He had been unable to sleep, so he was there at 5:00 a.m., an hour early for his baptism. A mist covered everything, making it impossible to tell sea from sky from land. He could barely make out the Japanese fishing crew—the best of them all—bringing in their night’s catch, so he went to the pier for a closer view and watched them unload.
The Japanese fishermen were muscled and ageless and they worked with a speed unmatched by the others, moving in unison, in a kind of dance, hauling nets or passing great barrels of fish from hand to hand.
“Ohayō gozaimasu!” shouted Kin.
They saw him and waved.
There were many other crews—the Spaniards, the Sudanese, the Eritreans, and the Guyanese—coexisting in shared waters, a delicate ecosystem in which no boat could bring in too big a catch. They nodded to one another and called out greetings, and made sure each had his own space in the sea.
Into this life Kin would be inducted that day. A rough life. On boats named after wives or homelands, the fishermen spent long hours contemplating and fighting the ocean, both loving and hating it and always fearing it.
Kin stood up and began walking his familiar route. He had no watch but knew by the heat of the sun that it was time to get to Socorro Point. He walked faster than normal and heard his breathing above the sound of the ocean.
When he arrived, there were a few fishermen waiting for him. Others trickled along the beach, appearing in the mist like omens, until there were twenty.
From nowhere Fundogu appeared. He was wearing a white robe and seemed much older than he had been those few years ago when he had examined the whale. Fundogu nodded to the fishermen and looked the boy up and down.
“The boy becomes a man,” he said.
Kin smiled, then bowed his head. It was a time to be humble, to become a stoic like them. Fundogu took Kin by the arm and walked him into the water. It was ice cold and Kin shivered. Before them was the expanse of the ocean. When they were knee-deep, Fundogu said, “Learn the position of the lighthouse.”
Kin looked for it in the fog, just making out the ghosted shape barely visible on its island, and wondered why Fundogu was telling him this.
“The whale,” said the old man, as if in answer. “You remember the whale?”
“Yes, sir, of course,” said Kin.
“It was a messenger. My days are numbered, but you have a long life ahead that will be full of trouble.”
They kept walking until they were up to their waists.
“What kind of trouble?” said Kin.
“Every kind. You will do battle with monsters and you will do battle with men. And you will be a leader.”
“But… I’ll be a fisherman. Who will I lead?”
“The people. And remember, you must bury your enemies. And find out how Amador died.”
“Wait, I don’t know who that is, and what enemies?”
“I’m here to baptize you, boy. So I’ll baptize you and we’ll talk about these things another day. You have much to do and much to learn. First, I give you your new name. Kin das Ondas. Kin of the Waves.”
Fundogu suddenly moved behind Kin and grabbed him under the arms. Kin could feel the rings on Fundogu’s fingers digging into his skin. With surprising strength, the old priest hauled the boy backwards into the water. Kin submitted as he was supposed to and the freezing waves washed over him and turned his blood to ice. Fundogu began reciting in an ancient language some kind of paean to the ocean, begging its protection. From the shore, the fishermen looked on, arms folded, cigarettes dangling.
Fundogu pulled Kin up. The boy gasped. Salty water stung his eyes.
“Now wear this.”
Fundogu pulled from his pocket a necklace of red coral and placed it around Kin’s neck.
“This will protect you from evil spirits. You must wear it for the rest of your days.”
“I will,” said Kin, still shivering.
“Then it’s done,” said Fundogu, and he turned them both toward the shore. “Now dry yourself and run.”
The wash of the waves annihilated most sounds.
“What did you say?” asked Kin.
“Run.”
The fishermen made a huddle and applauded. They patted the boy on the back, but he looked uneasy. As a phalanx of seagulls lurched overhead, the sound of police sirens wound its way through the air. Still in the shallows of the ocean, where he walked slowly in Kin’s wake, Fundogu said, “Hear that? That’s your cue.”
CHAPTER 4
Tonto Macoute—The Butcher—ransack—boat in D major—the lighthouse
BALAAL’S SECRET POLICE, THE TONTO MACOUTE, WERE USELESS AT FINDING SUCH THINGS as criminals, but they were long-established upturners. They were experts at upturning wardrobes, cupboards, chests of drawers, offices, whole houses. When they really put their backs to it, they could upturn the contents of entire mansions in minutes. They were highly experienced ransackers, possessors of advanced degrees in vandalization and berserker pillaging. They were led by a man called The Butcher, who was the mayor’s brother. Between the butchery and the mayory, the citizens of Balaal were, for the most part, kept very quiet.
Three years to the day since the whale had appeared on the beach of the fishing village, the police knocked on Jesa’s door. Because it was early morning, she was barely awake and had no time to answer. They barged in and began upturning.
“Where’s the boy?” said The Butcher.
Jesa got out of bed and leaped to her feet. She was wrapped in a blanket.
“He’s not here!” she said.
There were four of them in her house, bumping into the hanging pots and pans and tripping over the nets in the corner.
“Where is he?!” The Butcher shouted.
“I don’t know!”
They began hurling things. Pans came clanging down. They smashed her dishes and swept her cups off the counter. One of them saw the dinosaur femur hanging on the wall and slapped it onto the floor. It landed with a crack. They upturned her table and left boot marks on the stove and then moved to her bedroom. One of the men looked under the bed, then kicked at the wooden chest which housed her dead husband’s possessions. It skidded across the floor. Because it was neither big enough for a boy to fit inside nor easily breakable, they left it alone. The Butcher went to the back of the house and bashed at the walls of the makeshift latrine.
Then he came inside and pointed his pistol at Jesa, who was backed up against a wall.
“We know he lives here. Now where is he?”
“I don’t know. He moved out.”
The Butcher and his men left Jesa’s house and jumped into an armored car. The Butcher began talking into a megaphone: “Fishmongers and whores, get up! This is your chief of police! We’re meeting in the town square right now! Get up.”
It wasn’t yet 7:00 in the morning, but Balaal was already stirring, and with the police banging on doors and shouting, it didn’t take long for the street to fill. Among the crowd, several of the fishermen came armed but saw immediately they were outnumbered. There was no town square, but in what constituted the center of the village, there was a bare patch of land off the beach. On this patch now sat armored cars with machine guns on turrets. Balaal’s police and the military had long ago become indistinguishable, and now there were fifty of them in the street overseeing the whole community: shopkeepers, schoolteachers, housewives with cowering children under their skirts.
The Butcher stood up in his armored car and through his megaphone announced, “We wish you no harm.”
The crowd snorted. The only reason the soldiers ever went anywhere was to dish out some harm.
“We’re looking for the boy called Kin. We have word that he’s in danger. We want to protect him.”
At that, the crowd couldn’t contain itself. Muffled titters. Rolled eyes. A couple of courageous washerwomen threw tomatoes, which fell short of The Butcher’s armored car.
“The boy is in danger,” continued The Butcher, “and as we are the police, our duty is to save him.”
More laughter. A dog barked. A handful of moldy apples rent the air and landed on the hood of the armored car.
“I repeat, we are removing him for his own protection.”
A flock of seagulls cackled. Someone threw a potato, which bounced off the front tire of the car.
“And we will not harm anyone.”
The village elders, who remembered the Slepvak Massacre and the Night of the Sixteen Daggers, grunted and scoffed, and a wet lettuce came flying through the crowd.
“Hold your damned vegetables,” hissed The Butcher, “or we’ll open fire.”
The people hushed and squinted nervously into the morning sunlight. Around the perimeters of the crowd the police gripped their triggers.
“We have nothing against you fishing people, but the boy comes with us.”
“Why?” came a woman’s voice. It was Jesa.
“For his protection. Whoever has him needs to release him now.”
“Protection against what?”
The Butcher paused and looked at Jesa more closely. He lowered the loudspeaker so it rested by his side.
“You’re the bruja,” he said. “The witch who lives in the green house. We’ve already searched your little shack, but we can have you interrogated too. We have experts. If I were you, I’d shut up.”
The sun was still ascending. A few people scuttled away to work. Others turned for home. The Butcher put down his megaphone and spoke to his men.
“Go through every house one by one. Check every attic, every cupboard, every box. If there’s a loose floorboard, rip it up. If there’s a chimney, climb it and find the little shit. The boy goes with us today.”
The policemen lumbered into position. They carried rifles and billy clubs. Handcuffs dangled from their belts. They wore body armor under their uniforms and were so laden down they moved like oxen.
Among the dispersing crowd were the fishermen. Shadrak had his knife but kept it sheathed, and the tough Japanese walked briskly to their boat, not looking back. This was a fight they couldn’t win.
In truth, several of the residents would gladly have given the boy away, for he lived with a witch and what was he to them? Just another runt, another piranha from nowhere, born in a shipping container, would probably die in one. Others remembered and admired the boy’s leap through a window at his trial three years earlier and his helter-skelter escape in broad daylight. Not many people evaded the Tonto Macoute even with the help of the roughedged fishermen. But no one except Shadrak and Fundogu had the faintest idea where Kin was, and they weren’t telling.
*
That day the police broke the mold. By custom, their atrocities and ransackings happened at night. The knock on the door. The fat beam of a flashlight. The unrecognizable silhouettes. The play of blood in the moonlight. They took pride in their history of massacres, pogroms, assassinations, and assorted slaughters, but all had been deniable. From the Night of the Sixteen Daggers to the burning of the Kandisha Citadel, the atrocities had been committed by men in masks. No one could prove it was the Tonto Macoute. Even when the loot was discovered in the mayor’s office (which was in the same building as the police station), there was no proof that the police were involved. And even if there had been, the judge, Ochiades, would never have put to trial the mayor or the chief of police, a man universally known as The Butcher. After all, they were his beloved great-grandnephews. And before them, the town was ruled by his beloved grandnephews, and before them his beloved nephews.
And so that day in the fishing village in the sprawling city of Balaal was something of an anomaly because it wasn’t even mid-morning when the Tonto Macoute went about kicking down doors and people. Four of those very officers felt a sweet pang of revenge, for they remembered that day three years earlier, when Ochiades had been sent home unwell (attacked by a local fly), and they themselves had been sent packing by fishermen wielding hooks and knives.
So now they thundered down the little streets of the little village that was so insignificant it had no name, moving house to house. First they knocked. Then they bashed. Then they upturned. Domestic birds went fluttering out the windows. Furniture flew.
The police for once were excellently organized. Four men to a house. One talker, one basher, one upturner, one looter. They came away with no little boy but a ton of loot: family jewelry, elaborate knives, wads of cash, TV sets, radios, ornate lampshades, leather shoes. Who knew humble fishermen had such good stuff? They loaded the booty into the armored cars and went back for more.
Shout. Bash. Upturn. Loot.
Seagulls shrieked in protest and an owl stared disdainfully from a rooftop.
The Tonto Macoute were indefatigable. Door to door. Street to street. Sacks of loot. They checked the scattered shipping containers where the homeless lived—the kids and the drunks, the lame and the addicted—and threw off the rancid blankets, upturning husks of cardboard and newspaper where the rough sleepers slept. They found a few children, but none who fit the description of the boy they were looking for.
And as The Butcher’s car wound its way down the cobbled streets he observed his men roving through the village, battering and whacking away at doors, hurling cutlery and plates, pinning these dumb fishermen against walls, and he looked on approvingly and thought lovingly of his father, instigator of the Night of the Sixteen Daggers, and his grandfather, the very first Butcher, responsible for law and order (and a few unfortunate massacres) in twenty provinces of Balaal, and his uncles, outstanding police captains bemedaled and enriched by their hard work, and his brother, the mayor, the tycoon with a twirling cane, who was perhaps a bit soft for this work, who perhaps preferred not to dirty his hands, but who had a thousand men at his command and six loving dogs yapping at his feet to the sound of his fancy clock collection chiming the hours away. Family was family.
Shadrak stood at his door. Blood poured from his head. They’d shattered his lanterns and plundered his den. His plate and bowl lay smashed on the floor, and his old fishing rods were snapped in two. They’d cracked him on the head with the butt of a pistol, but despite it all, there was a glint in his eye.
“Dumb as parrotfish these Tonto Macoute,” he said to himself. “They no find the boy in a million years. Boy done gone for good.”
*
An hour earlier, Kin had been walking, newly baptized, from the ocean. Fundogu was behind him when the sirens erupted, breaking open the morning’s silence. Because he was a born skedaddler, Kin always had an escape route. As he began to run, he turned to Shadrak.
“I’m borrowing your boat.”
“No can do use my boat. My boat my living, boy!”
Kin veered, mid-run, toward Shadrak. He stopped and spoke rapidly. “Sorry, no choice. Fundogu baptized me so I can sail now. The key’s under the bucket?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I have to escape.” He looked at the island of the lighthouse and Shadrak followed his eyes. “Get one of the others to send me a message when it’s safe to return.”
