Air and Fire (31 page)

The vessel shifted; the quay backed silently away. The water rose and fell, a steady rustling against the outer shell. They passed into the
shadow of a freighter. The compartment darkened. She could see the side of the ship rising steeply above her, its hull studded with molluscs and barnacles. She was struck suddenly by the smallness of the vessel to which she had entrusted her life. Just for a moment she found it hard to breathe.

As the two arms of the harbour opened wide in front of her, offering the sea, a muted roar, like air being forced through a narrow gap, started somewhere beneath her feet. She was relieved to see Montoya appear in the chamber and sit down beside her.

‘Is everything all right?' She hoped she had not conveyed too much of her alarm.

He smiled. ‘They're opening the valves to let the water in,' he said. ‘That is what will take us down.'

Take us down? It sounded threatening, almost final.

And it was too late to change her mind. The valves were already open and admitting water, and the ocean was rising in the window, and this time it did not drop again. They were beneath the surface now. The rustle of the waves against the vessel ceased. A hush descended – the silence in a wood at dawn. All she could hear was the creaking of the metal plates, a kind of birdsong, and the rush of water into the ballast-tanks below.

A shoal of blue-and-yellow fish curved past the window in a slow, smooth arc. Her apprehension lifted; wonder took its place. Other fish, much larger, came and hung in front of her with gaping mouths, their bodies cut from beaten tin. They gazed through the glass at her, quite motionless, as if fascinated, but if she moved her head or hand they vanished instantly.

Montoya showed her a row of gauges on the wall behind her. Lit by phosphorus, they glowed like ghosts' eyes in the gloom. One recorded the air pressure, another measured depth. The needle flickered on the ‘30' mark; thirty feet of water stood above their heads. And they were still diving. She returned to her seat and the hypnotic window. Rafts of sunlight leaned down through water that stretched out on all sides, clear as air. A ceiling overhead, a floor beneath; shells scattered on the sand like toys. She could imagine walls too, in the distance, still too far away to see. They might have been moving through some vast hall, the inside of a cathedral, perhaps – a place where voices echoed, a place where mysteries could be revealed.

‘How long can we stay down here?' she asked.

‘There's enough air for three hours,' he said. ‘We could travel to the mainland, if we wanted to. That would not be difficult at all.'

She gave him a warning glance. He began to talk instead of how he had acquired the submarine. How he had seen it, lying on a beach near Cabo San Lucas, abandoned. How he had bargained with the scrapdealers, a Mexican and a Portuguese. How they thought that he was mad.

But she was only half listening. He had just reminded her that he could not be trusted. It occurred to her that nobody knew where she was. Not Théo, not even Imelda. Nobody.

They were turning in a half-circle now, manoeuvering to breach a reef. As they slid through a gap in the coral, its walls as intricate as lace, she saw something flap past overhead, a huge moving shadow, a cloak with a cruel mouth. She drew back from the glass, but her eyes were still fastened on the monstrous wallowing shape.

‘What was that?' She had risen to her feet, one hand against her cheek.

‘You're very privileged,' Montoya told her.

She asked him why.

‘It was a manta ray. You don't often see them.'

He joined her at the window. They both stared through the glass at a world that now seemed empty, chilling. As if all life had fled.

He told her of the local fishermen's beliefs. Rays stood guard over the oyster beds. They were feared by anyone who had ever dived for pearls. They could measure more than fifteen feet across, and were known for their guile and their ferocity. They would appear from nowhere and hover in the water above a diver, cutting his supply of sunlight out. Plunged in sudden darkness, the diver lost his bearings. Made blindly for the surface. But the ray would be lying in wait. It would wrap the diver in its powerful folds and crush the life out of his body. Some said it could devour a man with its horned beak. Others said that it killed for the joy of it and that, when the struggle was over, it simply left the corpse to other creatures of the deep. One thing was certain: a man who came across a manta ray was unlikely to be seen again.

She had been shuddering at the thought of being smothered in those cold blankets of flesh, and that phrase of his,
killed for the joy of it,
muttered like an incantation on the scene, and she had not noticed how he had moved nearer to her. Suddenly he was standing much too close. And had taken her hand and drawn it up towards his mouth. And was kissing the inside of her wrist, the place where excitement could be measured,
the place where her life beat. Pulling away from him, she caught her dress on a handle and the sleeve tore. He took one step towards her, and then stopped. His eyes had darkened. She stood facing him, her back against the cold curve of the wall. Such fury possessed her that she was quite incapable of speech.

He reached up, touched a bright-red lever. ‘I could let the water in,' he said, ‘and drown us both.'

It did not matter to him that he would be drowning his crew as well. Horses, men – all forms of life could be disposed of. Only he existed, and his love for her. There was no other world.

‘If you lay another hand on me,' she said slowly, ‘I will see that you are whipped.' She paused for a moment. ‘Like a dog,' she added. She did not know where she had found the words.

He had been smiling, but then she saw some nerve give way. His eyes lightened, and he moved to the far side of the chamber, his chin turned in towards his shoulder.

‘All I ask is that you come away with me – '

Her voice cut into his. ‘Turn the ship round. Take me back.'

‘If you could only see – '

‘Take me back,' she said. ‘This instant.'

He left the observation room, ducking through the narrow steel doorway. She was aware of having to sustain her fury and sustain it visibly, otherwise she might never leave this place.

Hours seemed to pass, with nothing happening. She turned round once, saw two men toiling over a wheel.

She put her face close to the window. At last a glimpse of sunlight, pure and undiluted. A rush of foam, fountaining against the glass. The torn edge of a wave. But she could not allow herself too much relief. Not until she stood on solid ground. She held her fury tight, a valuable possession, something nobody could take from her.

Footsteps rang on the metal floor behind her, and she knew that it was Montoya who had entered.

‘Your husband,' she heard him say.

She did not look up. ‘What about my husband?'

‘He's old.' Montoya stared out through the window, smiling as the town came into view. ‘Soon he'll be dead.'

She did not understand what he intended. Though she could see his horse rear back in its traces, a bullet driven deep into its brain. She could see the horse crumple on the ground. She could see its hind legs
twitching and the creeping pool of blood.

‘And then,' he said, ‘I'll be waiting.'

She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘As soon as we get back, I am going to write to the Mexican Government,' she said, ‘and have you removed.'

His smile remained. ‘I love you. You do not know how much.'

Through the foaming glass she saw the two arms of the harbour reach out to embrace the craft. It would not be long, she thought, before they were moored against the south quay. It would not be long at all.

‘Wilson?'

He had heard her voice so many times. Shifting on his bed of stones at dawn. At midday, as silence settled like the wings of vultures on the land. At dusk too, in the crackle of a fire.

The ache that rose through him split him clean in two. He remembered the epileptic miner and his vision of a painted man. Later that night Pablo had mentioned some pictures on a cave wall a few miles north of town. Tall men. Each one painted in the way the epileptic had described. Half their bodies red, half black. And Pablo had told him why. Half of you belonged to this world, he said, half to the next. But maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe it was love that had done it. Maybe love had cut them down the middle.

‘Wilson? Is that you?'

He turned in his saddle. She stood below him in a lemon dress whose hem caressed the dust. Her face tilted upwards in expectation, her green eyes shining from beneath the shadow of her parasol.

But he could not look at her too closely. Instead he sent a swift glance looping across the iron rooftops of the town. And spoke away from her.

‘Did I miss much?'

She smiled up at him. ‘Only me, I hope.'

He allowed her this.

‘Where have you been?' she asked.

He lifted an arm and pointed towards the graveyard. ‘South of here,' he said, ‘then west.'

‘Were you successful?'

‘No.' He stared down at his hands. The cracked leather of the reins chafed against the inside of his fingers. ‘Well,' he said, ‘I did find something.'

He reached into the saddlebag behind him. Took out a small parcel wrapped in cloth. And handed it to her.

‘For me?'

He nodded. ‘Open it.'

She begun to unwrap the parcel – carefully, as if even the rags were valuable. And now that she had turned her attention somewhere else he could look at her. He was surprised by what he saw. A brittleness. Something that could give at any moment. Like the clay that the Indians had to dig through for the copper. You could crumble her between finger and thumb.

‘It's beautiful.'

She held up the piece of turquoise that he had given her. He had thought of her as soon as he found it. Some quality it had, she had it too. Turquoise was just a name for that place between blue and green. Close as you could get with something as clumsy as a word. He saw her the same way. Unnameable, inaccessible, unique.

Her eyes lifted the colour of the stone into her face.

‘Why have you been avoiding me?' she said.

He denied it.

‘You have,' she said. ‘You've been avoiding me.'

‘I've been away, that's all.'

She was shaking her head. ‘You've never lied to me before. Don't lie to me now.' Something in her was crumbling, breaking up; she wrung her hands. She was the only person he had ever seen who actually wrung their hands.

He pointed at the turquoise, as if it were evidence of his good faith, but no words came to him. His hand faltered, moved up, adjusted the brim of his hat.

‘It was that letter,' she said, ‘wasn't it.'

He felt foolish, perched above her, looking down. A dumb man on a lame mule. He wished that he had never returned.

‘It shocked you.'

Then he was lying on his back. He thought he must have fallen from the saddle, but, looking up, he saw no mule, no sky. Just a ceiling. He was lying on his hotel bed. Fifty yards from where the dream had taken place.

He lay still, assembling things. It seemed to him that, if he went to the window and looked out, she would be standing in the street below, wearing the dress that he had dreamed her in. It seemed that she would have to be.

He climbed to his feet too fast. He had to steady himself, one hand
flat against the wall, and give the darkness time to lift. Then he moved towards the window, peered down.

The street was full of men. They were heading west, towards the main square, some with pickaxes in their hands, others holding spades. Not for work, though, but for violence. No longer tools, but weapons. They were moving in one determined body, arms and faces smeared with clay. He could hear a low droning sound, like a nest of wasps trapped under a bell jar.

He stepped back into the room and sat down on a chair. A fly landed, damp feet on the corner of his mouth. He shook his head. He feared to know the meaning of those men who filled the street, with their features sharpened at the edges, notches cut by a million resentments. He did not want to understand the purpose of the crowd. His dream still seemed real, and what was real, dreamt. He no longer trusted what he saw.

Her voice rose out of the droning of the men.
You've been avoiding me. You have.
And though he had his reasons, all listed, catalogued, all marshalled in his head, none of them stood up in daylight, not one of them stood up. Not reasons, but excuses – and weak at that. The dream had served his own true thoughts up to him like a plate of bitter roots.

Another lesson from his father, this time on the subject of women: ‘Don't never take up with another man's wife.'

It was Wilson's first time in the mountains. He was twenty-three, twenty-four. They had no money that year, not even enough to go panning for gold. Instead they headed north, took jobs logging in the redwood forests, all through the fall, all winter too. Hard work, and no strong drink allowed. Only tea with no milk, two cups enough to brown your teeth. And no women either. Hence the talk.

‘One summer I was working in the docks, unloading pineapples from Hawaii, five dollars a ton.' His father was sitting on a split log, three other men around him. A river rushed below, swollen with melted snow from higher in the mountains. Spring in Oregon. ‘This woman came up to me. I'd seen her before, worked with her husband further up the coast. Nice-looking woman. She comes up to me and says, “How about you and me go down behind the warehouse when you get off?'” His father sighed, flung a woodchip into the river. ‘That's the trouble right there. She wanted to spit in her husband's eye, and that was all I'd be if I went with her.'

‘So did you?' This came from a grinning, gap-toothed man with forearms as thick as some of the wood he felled.