The Edit Page 5

  Thus it was with some alarm that I realized the bats were no longer simply playing with me this morning. Their dives grew ever nearer, and they flew straight at my eyes. I could see their squinched little snouts—as if a rat’s face were crumpled in a sneeze—when at the very last instant of their dives, they flew upward and away. At first, I maintained my steady gait and did not throw up protective hands. That would have been giving in to their childish games.

  I saw the glistening fangs of one in the blood-red sunrise; smelled its gamy mustiness; felt the flutter of its wings on my cheek. Then, and I still shudder to think of it, one of the bats alighted on my shoulder, its wings flapping hot air against my cheeks, its birdlike claws digging into my flesh through the sweater I wore. I struck out at it, no longer able to control myself, and as soon as it was dislodged, another took its place. Soon it seemed I was enshrouded by the awful creatures and there was, in fact, a piercing pain at my neck where one attacked me. I gripped the animal, tugging it from my neck, and began running, stumbling along the road. There was a flurry of wings around me, and their piercingly high and fearful banshee cries echoed in my ears.

  The one in my hand no longer shrieked, and when I had finally outrun its companions, I stopped and looked down at it. I had crushed the bat in my grip, and the sight of this violence sickened me. I find violence done to helpless animals inexcusable. Though one must admit that this was clearly a case of self-defense, still I could not check my feeling of revulsion at this act. Despite my “notorious” past, I am, at heart, a rather frail creature in this regard. There was blood coming from the animal’s mouth; whether it was mine or its own, I could not tell.

  In itself, being attacked by a coven of bats is enough to unsettle one. But this had a larger significance for me: It was as if the bats no longer recognized me, no longer felt our old bond. Had they recognized some sort of diminution of my powers? Were they trying to warn me of something? These questions unsettled me more than did their attack.

  In the event, I should have heeded their warnings.

  The Irish was already on board when I reached the harbor, and she had brought a thermos of strong coffee with her even though I have an extensively equipped galley. It was a nice gesture, however, and the heavy aroma of the coffee when poured filled the boat. Some few fishermen were up as well, preparing for the morning tides. They waved—no one bothered speaking at such an hour. The Irish was wise enough to perceive the custom and kept her verbal responses to a minimum. She noticed the wound on my neck immediately, and when I went belowdecks and looked in the bathroom mirror, I saw two lines of blood flowing down from the bite, just like out of some ghoulish horror movie. It startled Miss O’Brien when I told her about the bats, but hardly incapacitated her. She washed the punctures thoroughly for me and then used ample doses of antiseptic from the first aid kit that I always keep on board. The alcohol burned into my flesh, yet I found myself hoping Miss O’Brien’s ministrations would not end: Her fingers, businesslike but soft, felt so comforting on my skin. I almost wished I had more than the one bite from the bats.

  She was dressed for the sea today. Where on Sunday she had been demurely outfitted in a cotton skirt, chambray shirt, and open-toed sandals, she was now wearing jeans, sneakers, and a pullover. Her hair was tightly braided and coiled on top of her head. She had, overall, the look of a woman not wanting to be hampered by signs of femininity. For my part, I hoped she was as competent on board as she had led me to believe she was. I do skipper the Clan alone on most of my secret night runs, but I usually bring along a crewman from the village for charter cruises. Today, there would be just the two of us.

  We set out just as the sun showed full above the village. It was warm and muggy; almost certainly there would be rain by afternoon. We were not five minutes out of the harbor when Miss O’Brien decided to shuck her warm pullover. Underneath was a white T-shirt and underneath that was clearly nothing but flesh.

  We spoke little. I set a course for the marlin run just off Cabo de la ____. The water there is deep, and the warm currents bring in the big fish. The water began to look murky with an oily sheen on top as it does before the first rains. The sky was fast becoming herringboned with low clouds. Miss O’Brien seemed to take note of this development, just as I did.

  There were no big ones off the cape. I had known that this would be the case the moment I detected the sheen on the water. We fished the area for a time, anyway: The Irish seemed content with the bream we were taking on the smaller side lines baited with squid. Meanwhile, the heavy line from the rod at the stern was silent. Not a bite.

  Miss O’Brien mentioned her family again—how much they would love the fishing here instead of battling the Atlantic storms. Either she has her story straight, or there is a large element of truth in it.

  But still I was not overly concerned about this. Rather, I spent my time watching the rise and fall of her breasts as she played the lines. Miss O’Brien is a powerfully built woman.

  For a time, I simply set the boat at anchor and continued to watch her pull in the bream. A slight drizzle set in and still she continued fishing, her T-shirt wetting through to display the flesh tones of her skin beneath the fabric. I made myself take my eyes from her—I shall not be reduced to voyeurism—and watched instead the graceful swoop and splash of a pelican fishing off our stern. Such birds are of ancient lineage: they remind me of the reconstructions of pterodactyls I saw at the Natural History Museum in Vienna as a child. This pelican dove headlong into the water in search of its prey. A noble animal, but soon the seagulls swarmed to the spot where the pelican had discovered fish. Seagulls are the scavengers of the bird kingdom and would ultimately spoil my lovely bird’s hunting. The pelican and the seagull: a mighty metaphor for human life, as well. The seagulls are like the hungry little people, who with their lemminglike natures, flock around the strong leader, then ultimately chase him away by their very number and greed.

  I looked back at Miss O’Brien, still busy with her bream lines, and she caught my gaze at her breasts.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll put my pullover back on.”

  “It’s the rain.”

  “Yes. Dampens the material. I hadn’t meant to be immodest.”

  “Was I staring?”

  “Gaping is more like it.”

  “That bad?”

  By way of response, she arched her eyebrows at me.

  “My only defense is that your breasts are quite lovely.”

  “Damned inconvenient, is more like it. Try sleeping on your belly with a set of these in the way, Señor ____. Or running bare-topped. Or even having a decent conversation with a chap who’s a head shorter than you. You can have them, that’s what I say. Men like breasts so much, they should have a pair themselves. … It’s getting cold, anyway. … You know, Señor ____, I haven’t been absolutely truthful with you.”

  “A client-relationship hardly calls for total divulgence, Miss O’Brien.”

  “But it’s about that. I mean, as to why I’m renting your boat.”

  “It would appear, from the carnage at your feet, that you are fishing.”

  “Oh, that’s in the blood. The whole family fishes. But I’m not really researching an article on big-game fishing.”

  “I rather thought not.”

  “Actually, I’m writing a book. A novel on the revolution.”

  “What revolution might that be, Miss O’Brien?”

  “You know. In ____.”

  “Oh. That one. We sometimes get boatloads of refugees from there.”

  “You aren’t political?”

  “That depends on what you mean by ‘political,’ Miss O’Brien.”

  “Are we getting lexical or just obtuse? You know, political. Involved.”

  “A leftist, or just political, Miss O’Brien?”

  “Have you been watching the pelican, Señor ____?”

  “As a
matter of fact, I have. It’s a lovely bird.”

  “It dives so wonderfully. All alone.”

  “Except for the scavenging seagulls, Miss O’Brien. They’ll soon ruin its fishing.”

  “But seagulls have their own kind of beauty, Señor ____. The immaculate white feathers. And no, I do not just mean leftist when I say political. But I do mean having a heart for people. That you want to do things to help the world, to make it better rather than worse.”

  “Absolutely. That was my whole life. …”

  “Go on, Señor ____.”

  “Old sea stories. Very boring.”

  “You’ve got a secret, Señor ____. No fair. I told you mine.”

  “The wind has turned. It’s coming out of the southwest now. We should head back in.”

  “But it’s like a bathtub out here.”

  “The weather is rather unpredictable this time of the year, Miss O’Brien.”

  “Still, the wind’s before the rain. We’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “It’s an old Irish saying: ‘When the rain’s before the wind, then your topsails you must trim; when the wind’s before the rain, hoist your topsails up again.’”

  “Quaint, Miss O’Brien. All the same, I do not want to stake Clan on a bit of folklore.”

  The marlin line rapidly played out with a high-pitched whine of the reel.

  “There, Miss O’Brien! Did you see him break water?”

  “He’s breaking the surface again. How do I get into this damn chair?”

  “There, up these steps. Good. Now strap yourself in first. No! Don’t touch the drag. Let him have as much line as he wants. Good. Yes, the buckle’s there. Now the feet are propped up here. Excellent. Yes, right in the stirrups. You may be here a while, best to get comfortable from the outset. No. Don’t tip the rod. Keep it in place. Let him run with the line.”

  “It’s buzzing like crazy. Is there enough line?”

  “Don’t worry about that. If we have to, we’ll run with him. But don’t think about that now. Just settle in. Take deep breaths. Grip the rod like this. Good. Fine. It’s letting up.”

  “Only a G sharp whine instead of high C.”

  “Keep the humor for later. You may need it. Now. Now! He’s stopped running. Reel in some line now. Slowly. Take your time. The other way!”

  “I thought it was coming too easily.”

  “I’ll untangle the line, you keep reeling in and keep the rod up. Otherwise he’ll snap the line. Slow and easy.”

  “Christ, he’s heavy! It’s like the line’s alive.”

  “It is, in a way. The fish is speaking to you through the line.”

  “Like tin can phones when we were kids—Shit!”

  “That’s all right. He’s bound to take more dives.”

  “All right for you, maybe. I’ve just lost all the line I reeled in.”

  “That’s the game. See! There he goes! He’s breaking the surface again. Lovely. He’ll be a fine fighter for you. Hands off the reel now. Let him go with it. Don’t fight him when he’s running. Let him take as much line as he likes.”

  I watched the Irish fight her marlin for a couple of hours and she showed a good deal of courage throughout. She did not once request that I take over for her, though the grip of the pole showed a viscous smear from popped blisters after the first hour. She was in pain, yet she still joked about knowing now exactly how Captain Ahab felt. I liked her spirit and her spunk.

  I am not quite certain how I view these fights. I have seen too many of them in my life. Each person handles the fight differently; some of the pink-fleshed, bloated men who come down here for a week of fishing will hook into a fish like this, and it is as if they must prove their entire lives in this one instant of combat. I pity the poor fish then, cheer for it, in fact. That these men’s lives should be so empty as to need filling up by a battle with a dumb and beautiful animal!

  The Irish is among the other, smaller category who stumble upon the magnificent foe out of a life entire and rewarding. These few form a bond, a sort of pact with the fish—witness Miss O’Brien’s allusion to the tin can phone of her youth. The connection one forms with the fish is one of communication. Fish and fisherman, connected by the 150-pound test line, soon become one. The rhythms of one become those of the other; likewise the hurt and exultation. With these few people it is not the final kill or capture, not the final gaffing of the exhausted beast that matters. Rather it is the process. The communication, if you will. The Irish has this: She is obviously one of those already proofed by life.

  “I’m getting tired.”

  “I know. It’s been over two hours. Do you want me to—”

  “No. I’m not complaining. Merely explaining.”

  “More water?”

  “There’s enough of that about, thank you.”

  “Not a good day for fighting a fish, Miss O’Brien. We should go in.”

  “My rhyme was right though, wasn’t it, Señor ____? Wind before the rain? God! There he goes again. So close now.”

  “Rod up! Rod up! Don’t fight him now!”

  “Fuck!”

  “It’s all right, Miss O’Brien. There’ll be other fish.”

  “—”

  “Come on. Put the rod back in the holder. Get down here. You could use a hot drink and dry clothes.”

  “Sorry about the language.”

  “It’s disappointing, I know. I’ve lost some big ones, too.”

  “I’m glad he got away.”

  “I know, Miss O’Brien.”

  “So why am I crying?”

  “You’re exhausted. Here. Put this on.”

  “Hold me a second, okay?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I won’t break.”

  “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  We came back into port as the gray sky overhead was turning vermilion in the west. The squalls I feared never appeared, though we were both wet enough after a day out in the heavy drizzle, and Miss O’Brien was all done in from her adventure with the marlin. I did not bother getting the boat completely in order and secured. We were both too tired for that and, besides, we have a very honest village—the local constabulary sees to that. One could leave a wallet outside overnight and find it there in the morning untouched.

  It was that quiet, in-between time of day I enjoy so much here: the day not quite finished and the evening yet to begin. Normally, this is my hour for a small drink and settling in for a night of reading, or of working on my memoirs, or perhaps for the monthly game of gin rummy with Cordoba. Tonight would be one for reading, I thought.

  We both stood on the quay for a moment. The lights were just coming on in the village beyond the harbor. It is a fine little village, built in concentric rings up the hillside above the water. In the daylight, it is all sparkling white: cubist houses with red tile roofs built all jumbled atop one another. A broad palm-tree-lined esplanade just at the water’s edge is home for a few outdoor cafés and restaurants. The crisscrossing strings of lights were on at Hernando’s Café.

  This scene is very pleasant and has never ceased to fill me with a quiet sort of wonder. Ours is one of the remarkable villages along this coast. Most are poor and tumbledown excuses for villages. But ours is wealthy enough even to support a church with a four-hundred-year-old bell in its steeple and real gold candlesticks on its altar.

  We continued to gaze at the village at dusk, both loath to take our leave of each other. For an instant out there on the water, after the marlin had broken the line, Miss O’Brien and I had been linked with each other. I do not mean in any crude physical sense, but in a higher soul-mate manner. We had been in a symbiotic harmony of sympathizer and mourner. For that perfect instant as I held her to me, I was no longer an old man who had been on the run for decades on the edg
e of the jungle, but was again a young, virile man starting off on the adventure of life.

  Miss O’Brien finally commented on the sky, which by now had deepened from vermilion to almost puce. The intensity and variety of color over the bay has a near-frightening quality to it: One imagines that this is what the world will look like in its last instant before extinction. It is a light common to this time of year. I have experienced many such sunsets, yet they still produce in me a feeling of loss, loneliness, and longing. Tonight, as on many nights, I longed for company over a drink; for a consoling voice as the logs burned in the fireplace. Therefore, I asked Miss O’Brien if she would care to have some dinner with me at my place, and she readily accepted. She wanted only to stop by her hotel first to change into some dry things. The Land Rover was ready and waiting for us at the harbor, just as Cordoba had promised it would be. A competent man is Cordoba.

  Located on the Calle ____, Miss O’Brien’s hotel is far from magnificent, but it is the only one our tiny village has to offer. I myself stayed there my first winter while waiting for my house to be completed. Miss O’Brien pointed out her room from the Land Rover: I was pleased to notice that it was the same large front room I had occupied one winter long ago.