Flicker (88 page)

Later that day, it rains furiously for perhaps an hour. The island steams until evening. As the sun fades into the sea, the woman comes striding up the path, taking long powerful paces, carrying a well-laden wooden tray. Food. A covered bowl containing a fish stew. Bread, hard, but tasty. Unidentifiable fruits. Nuts and figs. She answers no questions, leaves the tray, goes. Our hero eats, sullenly but with good appetite. The food is really excellent, nicely spiced, well balanced. He reflects: a restaurant featuring such cuisine would do very well in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles!

When darkness falls, he spies a point of light by the jetty where the man and woman stay. And he is sure he sees another winking through the trees at the opposite end of the island. His head pounding with weariness and confusion, he sleeps undisturbed by the echoing rush of the waves, the chatter of birds in the trees.

End of day one.

Day two, day three, day four … no different. Same heat, same rain. Each day there is a crashing downpour in the afternoon. It starts and stops as if a faucet were being turned on and off in heaven. If our hero did not, like the dungeoned prisoners of fiction, scratch marks in the wall of his cabin, the identical days would begin to blur into an unmeasurable stream. He uses his time to explore his new home, the grounds around it, to venture along the path far enough to spy on the man and woman. This proves to be a boring project. The woman washes clothes in a big tub; the man carries coal to the generator. The man goes fishing in a tiny, primitive boat that he keeps inside the house, never paddling farther ‘out than the break-water. The woman cooks. In the evening, they sit together on their
porch. They rarely talk. When they do, it is in the same strange language.

In his cabin, our hero has found his luggage—most of it—stowed beneath his bed. Olga Tell's film is missing, so too his wallet and passport. And of course the sallyrand. It was not an honest gift, only a ploy to win his confidence and send him merrily on his way into captivity. He has hung up his clothes and set out his bathroom supplies as if for a long stay. In the drawer of his single table, he finds pencils (replete with the prints of the previous user's teeth) and paper—a couple of notepads with yellowing pages. He begins a diary (the notes on which this scenario will be based) but with no clear idea of the date. The days simply become day one, day two, day three. And soon, because after all he has no choice, he settles into the simple routine of his Napoleonic exile.

His condition is benign enough. The native couple are his servants, though not obedient to his orders. The woman brings food, launders his clothes, cleans his cabin. Apparently she has been instructed to meet other needs. One afternoon, after a perfunctory sweeping, she removes her skirt, stretches out across the bed, spreads her legs, fixes him with a balefully submissive stare. She needs no language to make the offer. Though none too clean, she is otherwise a reasonably attractive female; but our hero finds nothing arousing in her stolid dutifulness. She understands his refusal, accepts it impassively, leaves with skirt and broom in hand. With the exception of the woman's casual erotic invitation, one day is so much like the next that his diary often remains blank for long intervals. What is there to write after he has filled pages with his anger, fear, self-pity, unanswered questions?

One morning our hero wakes to see a ship anchored inside the breakwater. Well, hardly a ship. An ancient packet boat belching wreaths of sooty smoke. Without a second thought, he rushes off down the path. As he approaches the jetty, he spots two seamen at work unloading barrels, boxes, crates. Supplies from the outside world. The sailors are also of the swarthy native type, shouting to one another in the same lingo the servants use. Our hero makes a dash for the boat, covers several yards of open ground, sets foot on the jetty … and goes sprawling, a sharp bar of pain across his shin. He turns over to see the frowning male servant beside him holding a shovel. The man was there, guarding the way, reached out to trip
his fleeing charge and bring him down. Now he gestures, pointing sternly back up the hill; our hero retreats, limping, his hands and knees badly scraped by his fall. This is, thus far, his first experience of serious physical coercion. A warning.

The next day a different woman brings breakfast. She is of the same race, speaks the same language, but is a little older, half of the new couple that has taken the place of the other. This rotation scheme will be repeated several times in the weeks ahead. ‘Always a dark-skinned man and woman, the man large, gruff, and intimidatingly strong. None are friendly, none will admit to understanding English. They all do their jobs with the same sullen punctiliousness. At some point, governed for all our hero knows by the phases of the moon, each of the women offers her body and indifferently registers his rejection. Whatever else they may be better or worse at, all guard the harbor steadfastly whenever the supply boat comes—which seems to be every month. But by the time of its fourth arrival, our hero's attention has drifted to the opposite end of the island, where, he has become convinced, there is another inhabitant. He has seen a light there and smoke rising above the trees. And on several occasions, he has seen one or another of the men travel to the promontory by boat, paddling close to shore with a load of parcels and a heap of coal bags. Making a delivery. To whom?

He has tried for some weeks now to explore this region of his domain but made halting progress. Beneath the tropic canopy, the island in that direction is sliced across by two rugged ravines. Through these he has had to pick his way carefully, fighting against abrasive undergrowth, stubborn vines. But then, having laboriously cleared a path, he discovers that the promontory which commands that end of the island, is, in effect, a second, smaller, island, a sharp rise in the terrain that is cut off for most of each day by the sea. For a few hours the water recedes, leaving behind a soggy sandbar. The sand is a problem. It is fluid enough to suck the shoes off his feet and then his feet up to the ankle. Our hero hesitates to cross it for fear of getting caught by the tide, trapped by the sand.

He wonders if the unknown inhabitant is another prisoner like himself. If so, he must make contact at all costs. And so, one day, casting away all caution, he races across the sandbar at low tide, sliding and tripping in the viscous muck. The distance is greater than he guessed—perhaps a hundred yards. He calculates he has at most an hour to reconnoiter before the sea cuts him off.

The promontory lifts sharply, then drops away toward the sea. Just over the rise, there is a building, a ramshackle bungalow fashioned from irregular stones. Cautiously peeping inside as he makes his way forward, he notes a table, chairs, a bed, some lamps—furnishings no finer than in his own cramped cabin. Behind the building, from a rough-hewn log shed against the hillside, he ‘hears the chug-chug-chug of a generator. Sacks of coal lean against one outer wall. The shed, he notices, is padlocked. Why? No need to fear burglars in this neighborhood. There are two windows of glass-bottle bottoms cemented in at either side of the door. He looks in, but can see nothing in the dark interior.

Sloping away from the bungalow is a stand of trees neatly spaced and pruned, each tree different, many bearing fruit. An orchard. He steps into the luxuriant grove, looking this way and that. He passes a row of trees, another, another … and suddenly, it is as if he has stepped into an Hieronymus Bosch painting. For there, to his left, stands a resplendent tropical tree loaded with great, succulent red blossoms that might be the disembodied sex organs of some unearthly species. And beneath the tree, seen straight on, is a pair of skinny human buttocks wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. Our hero halts, stares, shifts his position and sees that, of course, the buttocks are attached to a man who is bent over, facing away, scratching at the base of the tree with a rake. The man is naked except for the hat on his lowered head. His skin, stretched taut over his protruding bones, is nut-brown and gleaming under the noonday sun.

Our hero calls out—a good, cheery “Hello there!” The man gives no response. Our hero inches in closer, calls again. No answer. Closer. At last the bending man catches sight of him from the corner of one eye. He cranes his head around effortfully, not the least startled, gazes coolly, then straightens up on creaking limbs. He is old, very old, scrawny and wrinkled from top to bottom. His leathery flesh hangs loose at the breast and loins, but hugs his bones tightly at every joint. Our hero calls out again. The old man cocks his head and squints, gestures earward with one hand and shakes his ‘head.
Can't hear. Deaf.
Then pointing to a small basket of berries at his feet, he mimes the question “Something to eat?”

So this is where all the exotic fruits come from. And this is the gardener, a deaf old man, now grinning somewhat stupidly, revealing a nearly toothless mouth. Our hero steps forward, tries a question or two. No luck. The old guy shrugs and points at his ears, smiling
apologetically. It occurs to our hero that by now the tide may be closing in behind him. He waves goodbye, turns, and makes his way rapidly back across the sandbar, which is now ankle deep in swirling brine.

Having found another resident of his island, Robinson Crusoe feels lonelier than ever.

These words were written eight days ago, ten days ago … I can't be sure. But here my mock scenario ends. Reality begins—with a jolt. What has happened is too serious a development to allow me to go on playing games. I return to my diary in earnest.

I've been forming habits in my captivity, little routines that help me get through the long, vacuous days. One of these has been to sleep until I hear the sound of my breakfast tray being deposited on the veranda. One or another of the silent native women—there have been four so far in the series, with one repeat—leaves my food there in the early morning, with usually enough to get me through lunch and keep me until dinner is delivered. For prison fare, it is surprisingly good. In truth, I've been eating better and more regularly than in my days of freedom. I can tell that the diet is intended to be wholesome and well balanced. Frequently there are little treats that come as appetizers or desserts. And invariably a generous serving of strange fruits, nuts, berries. Even those I can half recognize are unusual variants of the pears or citrus or bananas I knew in the outside world. These, as my recent explorations have taught me, come from the orchard at the far end of the island, lovingly raised by the decrepit old geezer I encountered there.

Then one morning several days after I had visited the promontory, there was a change. My morning tray arrived as usual, but this time accompanied by a basket piled high with a choice selection of produce. Amid the produce there was a clamshell containing a heap of perfect dates. And among the dates a note. I spotted it at once and snatched it up. It was in English, scratched in a light, unsteady hand. It read: “With my compliments. Please do me the honor to be my guest for dinner any evening soon.”

I shook off my drowsiness at once and took off at full tilt after the woman, who was already several yards down the path. As I raced along, I couldn't help but reflect on what an absolute savage this professor of film studies had become in some five months' time. My hair a haystack of uncombed locks, my face wearing the tatters of a
badly scissored beard (my electric shaver had proved unpluggable in the only outlet my cabin provided), my sunburned hide half browned and half peeling, my unsheathed penis flapping like an animated sausage against my churning thighs. For I was stark naked. I slept that way now and spent most of each lonely, torrid day not bothering to put on a stitch. Anything I wore would only be sweated through within a quarter hour. What was the point? The women who served me were used to the sight and totally unfazed. They frequently went about their chores unclothed themselves. Oh yes, we were a regular little tropical paradise.

When I caught up with the woman, I waved the note in her face and breathlessly asked her to confirm what I believed. “What? Who? Where?” At last, understanding, she pointed toward the far end of the island. The invitation was from the old man who worked there. Who else? More to the point, I mimed the problem of crossing the waterlogged sandbar. Was there any other way to get to him? This she had, or pretended to have a difficult time grasping. Finally she gestured toward one side of the island and mimed back the action of stepping on stones. I gathered she meant there was more secure ground to that side, though I'd never noticed. When I mimed the possibility of using her man's boat to make my way to the promontory by water, she frowned and gave an emphatic negative wag of the head—as I expected. That way might lie escape.

The note said “any day soon.” Why not that very day?

I was on my way to my unexpected soiree well before the dinner hour. By now I'd worked out a reasonably accessible route through the ravines and marked it well. As for the sandbar, I found it already under a half foot of water with the level rising. Following the woman's instructions, I explored the side she'd pointed out and discovered that, after one waist-deep section several paces long, there was indeed a series of boulders and clumps of coral that were only slightly submerged. They hardly provided the most secure footing; I took a few dips negotiating them, but the crossing did prove shorter than others I'd tried. About forty yards out there was an underwater walkway of lichen-covered sandstone that was only knee-deep. I was soon across into the old man's territory.

I found him once again at work, this time betrousered in a pair of shredded dungarees. Seeing me, he smiled his fey, picket-fence grin and doffed his straw hat to reveal a totally bald pate. Before I could approach to offer my hand, he turned and hobbled away into his
house. Was I being dismissed? No. In a moment he was back outside, puffing with the strain of his exertion. And now he was wearing a new item of apparel: a necklace whose centerpiece was the tiny black box of a hearing aid wired along the side of his neck and behind his head.