Son of the endless night, p.39
Son of the Endless Night, page 39
"My father," he said between mouthfuls, "says you will be more comfortable in the wheelhouse. There is more room."
"Thank you," Conor said, surprised to hear such good English from the boy.
He followed Socorro through the hatch topside, squeezing his shoulders together in order to make it, and was surprised again, intimidated by the sudden absence of land and the sight of so much water, the dark green vastness of an ocean running now to eight-foot swells and beginning to smash heavily over the lifting bow of what had seemed to be a very substantial boat when it was snuggled in against the stone quay of the calm harbor of Tenerife. Seventy-five feet bow to stern, with perhaps an eighteen-foot beam, it carried two big steel mesh seiners, each of which when loaded had the weight of a Brink's truck. All of this now felt frail and shaky to Conor, a bathtub toy at the mercy of a wind rising and beginning to wail. The sky was a sickly yellow, with streamers of inky clouds running before the wind. Spray lashed Conor, drenching his beard, and he felt the deck shudder beneath his feet as they dashed to the wheelhouse.
"How far do we have to go?" Conor said, as Francisco Aponte Olaya turned from the wheel with a little nod of welcome. Socorro had brought his father a sandwich; he turned the wheel over to the boy and braced himself serenely in a corner while he ate.
"Five hours, perhaps five and a half in such seas," Socorro answered.
"Is it a storm?"
"This? Not yet. If we're fortunate— " he shrugged.
Olaya smiled, not understanding Conor's words but assuming, from the look on his face, that he was concerned about heavy weather. He came forward and with an outstretched hand proudly indicated the modern navigational and radio equipment aboard. Then he took a ragged cheroot of black tobacco from a pocket of his denim shirt and lit up. The odor of it didn't help Conor's stomach.
To take his mind off his discomfort he asked Socorro, "Where did you learn to speak English?"
"School."
"On Heraclio?"
"Yes. The Sundial school. I went there for six years, until a few months ago, when my father said it was time for me to fish every day with him." The boy's lips pressed together in dissatisfaction. Olaya looked at him and smiled and gave him a pat on the back. He asked for a course correction in Spanish.
"Buen pescador," he said to Conor of his son.
"Is the school a part of the Sundial community?" Conor asked Socorro.
"Yes. They have many living there who speak English. I liked the school. But my father believes I will get too many ideas from them."
"Do you know Edith Leighton?"
The boy pondered the name, and shook his head. "No. She was not one of my teachers."
"I've come all this way to see her. I hope she'll be willing to see me."
A particularly big wave, higher than the top of the wheelhouse, rolled them to starboard. Socorro spun the pilot's wheel, and the San Patricio labored up out of the foaming sea. Conor swallowed hard and felt his heart running riot. Five more hours of this. Maybe he should have waited for the next plane, or tried to charter one.
"There is no problem," Socorro said, returning to their conversation. "The community accepts visitors. Except it is difficult to find Sundial unless you go with someone who knows the way."
"Could you take me?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
Socorro peered, frowning, at the ship's barometer, and summoned his father. They conversed in Spanish. It was apparent they had not anticipated, or been warned, of a sizable blow. They were worried. "Viento de diablo," the father muttered. The wind shrieked in reply. To Conor it seemed as if every timber and plank in the San Patricio was creaking, and the seas had begun to batter them ferociously. The sky outside darkened as the minutes dragged on. He was sweaty and felt light-headed. He needed air. He went to the door of the wheelhouse.
"Be careful!" Socorro said.
"I just— you know— "
Conor tottered outside, and tottered back helplessly as the bow reared up toward the threatening sky, now laced with shards of greenish lightning. He was terrified. Before he could make it to the railing he had puked all over himself. His unseaworthy legs wouldn't hold him up anymore, and he rolled on the deck as a wave poured over him. He glimpsed the faces of the Olayas within the green glow of the wheelhouse as the deck drained rapidly through scupper holes. Then he was being lifted, prostrate and trembling, along with the deck, up, up toward a bulging dark horizon shedding spray like a firehose. The bow came down with a terrific impact, and above him he saw the mailed fist of the new seining purse shuddering from the port boom arm. He was half drowned and desperately ill. The sky flared blindingly. The wind had become a gale and the San Patricio heeled to starboard: the seining purse dangled over his head.
Conor, looking at open water, saw it as a graveyard; he was spilling into the sea but managed to seize a winch cable. He hung suspended for a long moment before he was slammed down stunningly to the deck, covered once again with a rushing wave, tumbled back to port. It seemed to go on for a very long time, with no chance to get to his feet and run for cover. He heard several loud cracking sounds, like gunshots, and assumed the boat was beginning to come apart from the pounding it was taking. And when he looked up again through burning eyes he saw the boom arm give way, the steely mass of the seining purse dropping down. Even though it was empty it weighed more than enough to splatter him like a raw egg across the deck.
He thought: I wasn't meant to get there.
Then he felt hands tugging at him and braced his feet against the railing, threw himself backward with all his remaining strength as the seining purse thundered down to the deck, missing him by inches. The jagged end of the boom arm followed, swinging wildly at the end of a single cable. It passed above his head and Conor heard a scream.
He looked around to see Socorro Olaya, kneeling behind him, just as the wooden arm, with splinters more than a foot long, sawed through the boy's face and neck and dashed his head overboard in a pink and billowing spray.
70
It wasn't the biggest news of the day, which happened to be April first, perhaps an unfortunate bit of timing on Adam's part; it competed for attention with genocide in a Latin American republic, the ill health of the Kremlin's leader, the death of a beloved country music star in a bus accident, and a drug bust involving a minor child of a prominent Washington political figure. Nonetheless the New York Daily News had the story on page 3, with photos, and the headline NO FOOLIN'! DEVIL MADE HIM DO IT! The New York Times, as might be expected, gave the story a more sober heading on page A7, which was dominated by a splashy Bloomingdale's fashion ad: DEFENSE TO PLEAD DEMONIC POSSESSION IN VERMONT MURDER TRIAL. The Boston Globe, closer to home, put the news on the front page, along with a brief interview with a prosecutor from the district attorney's office; he called the proposed defense a "sham," "meretricious," and "unworthy of the American legal system." The Braxton Call, closer still, was cautiously critical, but praised the firm's founder, Adam's grandfather, and his contributions to the law. The story rated from thirty seconds to two and a half minutes on CNN's Daybreak, the CBS Morning News, the Today show on NBC, and Good Morning, America on ABC.
Adam's phone at home began ringing at six thirty-four in the morning.
He was already up and shaving; he had been too nervous to do more than doze since midnight. He took no calls. When Lindsay got up at seven, the answering machine had already logged thirteen messages, two of them from presiding judge Nathaniel "Natty" Eames, also, apparently, an early riser. Lindsay watched a portion of the Today show with Adam: a brief interview taped on the street outside his office. The reporter, a blond third-stringer from the NBC News Department in New York, asked one of the most intelligent questions he had heard all afternoon.
"Mr. Kurland, what precisely will be required of you to prove demonic possession in a court of law?"
"Well, I believe it comes down to proving the existence of an evil, or negative, force that is operative in the world. The admission of psychic, as opposed to physical, evidence."
"A case which theologians have been making, or trying to make, for hundreds of years."
"Precisely. The Catholic Church is well aware of this force, which is as old as human thought and motivation— and implacably opposed to the natural order of things, the laws of God."
"How much help would the Church be able to give you in court?"
"Expert testimony.''
"One more question, please, Mr. Kurland. Are you a Catholic?"
"No, I am not."
Adam used the remote control handset to change channels. He got Porky Pig in an old Warner Bros, cartoon stuttering "Uh-b-b-b-b-uh, th-that's all, folks."
They both laughed. Lindsay kissed him on the cheek. "That's for the bravest man I've ever met."
"Or the dumbest."
The phone rang again.
"Better start taking calls, Linds."
She answered. She didn't get a chance to say another word for approximately half a minute. She rubbed at her ear as if it were scorching and turned the receiver over to Adam, who didn't have to be told with whom he was about to speak.
"I just want you to know I think you're a disgrace to the memory of two men I hold in the highest esteem: your father and your grandfather."
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Your Honor."
"Be in my chambers at ten o'clock sharp."
"Yes, sir."
Adam held the receiver against his chest for a few moments, his head bowed. Lindsay leaned sympathetically against him.
"I wonder how Conor's making out?" he said. "If he doesn't come through for us, I might as well pull down the old shingle."
71
For Conor, the sun that day had risen in hell.
After the late arrival of the storm-wracked San Patricio, with all aboard in a state of misery and mourning, and the inquiry by Heracliotian authorities into the tragic accident that had taken the life of Socorro Olaya, Conor had fallen exhaustedly asleep in his room in the Pensi6n del Papa-gayo, a nearly emptied bottle of plum brandy clutched against his chest. He was awakened by the braying of burros, an unidentifiable but hair-raising roar, metallic tinkling as some belled goats were herded down the narrow street beneath his windows, cheerful voices, church bells; by simmering light that came into the room through a gap in the shutters. The day was already hot.
He got out of the low bed where he had lain with his knees up and almost immediately emptied his lurching stomach into a large enameled basin on a wash stand. The remorse, the pity he felt for the bereaved family, remained like a bitter nugget. He condemned himself for the boy's death. Only superb seamanship on the part of Olaya and a boat that had proved itself through many bad gales had saved the rest of them. He wiped his weeping eyes, pushed wide the shutters on windows that faced north and east, and had his first good look at the island of Heraclio.
He saw a stunned and hazy landscape dominated in the distance by cinder cones and dormant volcanoes, all of it treeless, pocked with craters, black and dark brown and naked as elephant hide. The small city of Puerto Arroyo lay between this wasteland and the sea, which was a steel sheet burning incandescently by solar torch on the horizon, as if the vault of the world were being rudely opened. There were no clouds. It looked as if the land had never tasted a drop of rain.
Conor dressed and had weak coffee with a roll at an outdoor cafe on the pleasant main boulevard of Puerto Arroyo, which ran parallel to the long harbor, with a strip of park between the quay and the street. The park contained the only trees and flowering shrubs he saw growing anywhere. Its walkways served as a marketplace on this particular day, and the assembled stalls were heaped with fruits and vegetables of astonishing variety and dimension. He wondered where and how they were grown.
It was Friday, and the town had filled up early. Buses from other parts of the island arrived at a depot near the desalinization plant at the south end of the harbor. Conor carried his single piece of luggage to the depot and tried to find someone who could understand him.
An elderly gentleman wearing a pair of khaki shorts and no other clothing had brought his very young Heracliotian wife to the depot on the back of a grimy Vespa; he heard Conor attempting to communicate by phrasebook with smiling but uncomprehending natives and sauntered over. He was all bones beneath a deep tan. He had a white goatee and sharp little eyes, the unplaceable accent of the European polyglot.
"Is it Sundial you want? Yes, I know where they are. On the other side of Heraclio, on the western skirt of Montana del Fuego. The mountain of fire. Largest of the volcanoes that nearly blew this island off the face of the earth two hundred and fifty years ago. I believe there is a bus to La Loma in a short while; let me have a peek at the schedule, amorita . . . yes, here it is. La Loma. Departs nine fifteen. Once you reach the village you will have another five miles to go. Sundial community is on a ridge overlooking the lagoon at Playa Cascajo. Do you know someone who is living in the community?"
"No."
"Do not count on much of a welcome, then. They're odd ducks. Keep very much to themselves. Lead busy, active lives, which I am certainly in favor of. They are devout, but it is hard to say exactly what religion or philosophy they are devoted to. They certainly waste none of their energies proselytizing, although I have never heard of them turning away anyone who wished to settle there, as long as he adhered to whatever standards they have set for themselves. Can't see it, myself. The reclusive life. Retirement villages. That sort of thing. Think young. Act young. Stay young. That is my philosophy." He put an arm around his wife, who was delectable, perhaps not fully grown but highly pregnant. To Conor she didn't look much older than Hillary.
"Can I walk from the village to Sundial?"
"I would not advise it. Incredibly windy, most days. And if you stray off the footpaths, well, the unwary have been known to crunch right through the skin of the lava on Montana del Fuego. Barely two feet below the surface it is still seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit. You will want to inquire locally for transport. Ah, I believe the blue and orange bus there is the one for La Loma. Safe journey."
Conor had little company on the trip west; a couple of islanders who looked as if they worked the fishing boats, and three German tourists, meaty and pink and somewhat baleful behind severely dark glasses. They carried a fortune in camera equipment and ate sausage for breakfast from a hamper. Conor, feeling desperately homesick, dozed, and mistook the jolting of the bus for the swells of the sea. He saw the troubled eyes of Socorro Olaya at the wheel of his father's boat, steering himself toward death. The tearful face of his own daughter came through with the clarity of a vision; she was calling to him from behind the gates of the convent of the Sisters of Mysala. Help me. Daddy. He remembered her taut look of despair as she had turned away from him. Indefinite confinement. Like a prison to Hillary. But what else could he do? Their lives fragmented now, Gina sick with worry. His last chance to help Rich was a woman he had never seen before. But she had already replied to Father Merlo's inquiry. Gentle finality. Regret that I am unable to help you at this time. "How can I take no for an answer?" Conor had asked Merlo. "Rich will die. . . . Maybe we are all lost."
The bus had stopped at a village that was no more than a crossroads, a gleam of white Mediterranean-style buildings set against the dry reds and browns of the lava fields of Montana del Fuego, which was a series of volcanic peaks 1,500 to 2,000 feet high. The sky was so deep a blue it shaded to purple around the shoulders of the mountain. There was a steady northeast wind, and grit pattered against the windows on one side of the bus.
Everybody got off except Conor. The driver had left the motor running, the air conditioning on. Camels were kneeling beside the road. They roared in protest, like lions, at the sight of the Germans, whom they were to transport up the basalt-strewn slopes of the mountain. A boy climbed aboard and tried to sell Conor cigarettes, fruit juice, figs. Conor shook his head and waited tiredly, eyes closing, for the idling, wind-buffeted bus to continue on to La Loma. The camels, never sweet-tempered beasts, were acting very badly today. One of them had run away. The others roared incessantly.
There was a corresponding roar, more distant, subterranean; and then a cracking sound, like a giant walnut shell fragmenting under pressure. The bus was severely jarred and settled a couple of feet. Then it began to tilt forward alarmingly.
Conor scrambled from his seat, banging his head on the overhead rack, as a boil of dust and heat enveloped the front of the bus. The steep tilting continued, until the bus was on its blunt nose at an angle of forty degrees. Conor felt it sliding slowly downward as the heat worsened. He heard shouts and screams of warning outside. He grabbed his valise from the floor and pulled back a window, hurled the valise into someone's hands. But the window space was too small for him to squeeze through. He knew he had very little time to find a way out.
Only the emergency door in the rear remained above ground; the bus continued to slide into the earth, its descent accompanied by more cracking, groaning, popping sounds, as if an acre of bottles and clay tiles were being pulverized by some infernal machine. Conor climbed up the steep aisle, using the backs of seats for handholds. The dust and fumes swirling into the bus had begun to suffocate him. The heat was terrible. Choking, he grabbed the release bar of the emergency door and tried to pry it up. The bar resisted him. He bent it almost double in a ferocious display of strength and kicked the door out. He jumped.
The bus fell away from him into the gusty pit. His shirt and hair were smoldering from numerous little biting cinders. Someone threw a blanket smelling oppressively of camels over him as he rolled on the ground. Helping hands pulled him to his feet and he ran, stumbling, away from the place where the bus had disappeared into the earth. When he looked back he saw nothing but a cloud of ashes and smoke rising from the hole in the road. The entire town had turned out to marvel at the sight. Conor, bent over, coughed uncontrollably.
