The Navidad Incident (24 page)

Most recently Matías had his Japanese think tank weighing the relative risks and merits of realigning the dollar-pegged Navidadian currency
to Japanese yen. With so many Japanese business dealings, why bother with exchange fluctuations all the time? This was just one more concrete step in his pro-Japan policy. Of course, certain pointy-headed intellectuals would grumble about Navidad forfeiting its economic independence, warning that encroaching Japanese corporations would pollute with impunity, calling it a step backwards toward colonialism. But hey, he's the President, what harm could there be in overlooking a few alarmist critics?

Late at night in the Western-style living room of his private quarters, Matías sits talking to Améliana over tea. There's something he wants to ask her. The aroma of Earl Grey fills the room.

“That Japanese guy I met with this afternoon, Suzuki—what do you make of him?” asks the President.

Dressed in the same white blouse and mousy gray skirt from the daytime, she says nothing at first as she watches the rising wisps of fragrant steam. “That person knows very little,” she confides to the teacups. “He says ten when he means three. A bad man, but only a messenger. Hides a lot behind his story but has nothing of his own to say.”

“So he's just an errand boy. He hardly said a word today, but usually he's the type who likes to talk big.”

Améliana says nothing, then concurs. “I can see that.”

“And what about me?”

“I can't say.” A firm answer. “If you speak to him directly, he changes. I can see only half—it's all misty, like the light between night and dawn.”

“And what you showed me yesterday at Brun Reef?”

“What I showed you when?”

“I tell you, I saw it myself.”

“Yes, but the future isn't clear. As I told you at the time.”

“Since when have you been able to see these things?”

“Since I was a child, every now and then.” She pauses, then speaks again. “When I was three, my mother had a jar of jam. It was from America, very precious. Once a month she bought bread for us to eat with the jam. We ate tiny dabs of it, so it lasted and lasted. The jar was up on a shelf. I saw how dangerous it was, and I said it would fall. But my mother said not to worry, the jar was far back on the shelf. The next day the jar falls and breaks. From the back of the shelf, suddenly it just falls. What could we do? We ate the jam off the floor, careful not to cut ourselves on the glass. We all thought it was funny, but my mother was heartbroken. These things happened many, many times.”

“Where were you born?”

“In Ku'uda, on Melchor.”

“Never been there, but I know what they say. That there are many people with special powers like yours from there.”

“Yes. One time, I see a storm coming, so we all head for the hills. The storm comes, destroys all our houses, but no one was hurt.”

“Were your parents pleased?”

“No, they scolded me.”

“Why's that?” Matías asks, leaning forward.

“They said things happen because you say they will. You make the jar fall, you make the storm come!”

“Parents would think that, wouldn't they. Then what?”

“I tried to stop, but sometimes I just had to speak. And each time, they scolded me. When I said a friend would get hurt and it really happened, they said I mustn't play with my friends anymore, or the other parents would blame them. They called me a bad luck child.”

“You never saw any good things?”

“Never. Only bad things.”

“Sorry to hear that,” mumbles the President, trying to imagine a life of constant calamities.

“…but nothing about myself, so I was never afraid. Sometimes I hurt myself, but I never knew until it happened. Because if I changed what was coming, made everything come out happy, I'd become a different person.”

“How would that change you?”

“I'd lose my foresight. I'd become an ordinary girl.”

“That quickly? Overnight?”

“I don't know, but soon enough.”

“So you were told not to play with the other kids and you played all alone.”

“I have three brothers and four boy cousins. I have girl cousins too, but I never played with them.”

“Only with the boys?”

“Yes. We went up in the hills. Or sometimes we went walking on the sea.”

“You did what?”

“Only when no one was watching. Sometimes we flew too, but that's dangerous. Because if someone sees you from below, you fall. Once a boy on a cliff saw us out on the sea and we sank. We all swam back laughing. But the boy never told on us. We made him doubt his own eyes and think we were swimming all along.”

“Can't swim if you fall from the air, though.”

“No, but we played other forbidden games.”

“Oh?”

“We all went hiding in the woods, to feel around inside each other's clothes.”

“With your brothers?”

“And cousins. We touched between our legs. All of us together.”

“You were the only girl?”

“No other girls allowed. No girls ever came near me.”

“And then?”

“Then later I began to have bleeding, I grew breasts, but still we played. We had fun, my brothers and cousins and me.”

“And your parents didn't yell at you?”

“They never knew. They scolded me for going out with the boys, but it was better than me seeing other children get hurt.”

“Your brothers never got hurt?”

“Sometimes, but I never saw it coming. Like with myself, I couldn't see with them. Then, my belly got big.”

“You did
that
with them too?”

“Yes. All of us together. Even my youngest brother. He was only twelve, but he got his little thing up. It was cute.”

“Naughty kids.”

“Were we wrong?” Améliana asks Matías to his face. “Was it bad?”

“Well, badly handled,” he hedges. He looks up at the ceiling and something catches the corner of his eye. Butterflies? He turns, but sees nothing there. Butterflies don't fly at night, not ordinarily.

“Perhaps. My belly was big, so my parents found out. They wanted to know the father, but I had no idea. It was the child of all seven boys.”

“Didn't you see where your fooling around would lead?”

“No, what happens to me I don't see. I can't see it at all.”

“And so?”

“I had a child. A beautiful little boy. But my mother took him away and told me to leave Melchor. I came to Baltasár City and finally found work with Madame Angelina.”

“And the child?”

“The boy is three years old, being raised on Melchor. I go to see him as often as I can. He thinks I'm a much older sister.”

“And your brothers?”

“No more fun and games for them. They come to see me when I visit, and we talk the whole day. My brothers and cousins all listen to what I have to say.”

Strange woman,
Matías thinks to himself.
Is hers a commonplace story, or is she totally mad?
Whatever the case, her powers of prediction might just be the real thing. Only, how to use them? They're wasted on her, and anyone who believes meets with misfortune. And what about her three brothers and four cousins? His political instincts are intrigued. Can they all be worked into some scheme of his?

On the ninth of August, 1783, the East India Company merchantman
Antelope
grounded upon the coral-reef'd isle of Coorooraa in the South Pacific. Having weighed anchor in Macau a fortnight prior, she met with a squall on her southward passage via a new route east of the Philippines but continued apace through high waves until First Watch, when just after Captain Henry Wilson ordered First Officer Benger to the helm, the wide open sea suddenly conspired to heave the vessel upon a sunken barrier that skirted a hundred-mile archipelago later known to the world as Pelew or the Palos Islands, though as yet unknown to the English Captain & crew of the
Antelope
. Whilst under full sail, with nary a warning, her keel struck coral just below the waterline, and she listed to a halt.

The tropic moon through the clouds that night shewed the acute nature of the
Antelope
's predicament. Much to the consternation of all aboard, she had voyaged alone, hence without a sailing partner to pull her right. With no hope in sight, the luckless Captain called all hands on deck to cut down her three masts lest they tempt a toppling wind, then lowered two rowing boats laden with water, provisions, weapons & compass over the side away from the reef, and thus made ready to abandon ship, explaining that whilst none were dead or injured, the chances of survival in those uncharted waters were slim.

Came dawn, they sighted land some three leagues to the south. And as the sky grew light, other formations appeared to the north and east, although so indistinct in the distance as to be unapproachable. The Captain sent out the two rowing boats to reconnoiter the closest outcropping to the south, with instructions that should they meet any native inhabitants they were to comport themselves agreeably. For well did the enlightened European of the age know that not all primitives were man-eating hostiles, and their own precarious position left them little choice. Savages whose paths they crossed might indeed oblige them with fresh water, sustenance & knowledge as to sailings for more civilised realms.

In the intervening hours until First Dog, the crew lashed together the cut masts to fashion a raft as a precaution lest the
Antelope
go asunder. Presently the boats hove into sight with tidings good & bad. They had in fact landed, and discovered a cave of habitable aspect, as well as potable spring water, but the isle appeared to be singularly deserted and without food. Whereupon they hastened to load the raft with supplies and make for the cave ere nightfall. As the raft afforded no grace for personal belongings, each man donned as much clothing & withal as he could muster, which measure proved hazardous under the circumstances. The Helmsman Godfrey Minks did doubly clothed fall into the drink and, thus twice encumber'd, sink and drown ere his mates could lend a hand. Unfortunate man! Much disheartened, the others remaining, together with two dogs, five geese, and a multitude of guinea fowl, were towed cautiously across the chop drawn by the rowing boats.

Reaching the isle past Second Dog, the sky dark and night well nigh, they moored the raft and waded ashore whilst the two boats returned to the ship. What joy it was to be safe on dry land! Lighting a fire, they supped on rations of hardtack & cheese & water, and so began their life in isolation. The following morning, one of the rowing boats delivered unhappy news. The
Antelope
was irreparably damaged; accordingly their sole recourse would be to salvage as many timbers as could be prized from their trusty vessel, ferry the planks to the isle, and there to wright a lesser craft.

Apparently their beachhead was but a small island in the chain, abundant in water, yet far from sufficing in provender to feed fifty hungry men. Thus marooned, they dared not hope for a passing ship, principally because no Europeans yet knew of this sea route, let alone an entire archipelago. Nay, salvation would not be forthcoming by sea. What then of the larger isles in the offing? Surely there might one find human settlement, whose inhabitants should have noticed a great ship run aground, boats oaring to & fro, bonfires by night. Though would such natives be friendly or belligerent? A most unsettling question.

Two days later, on the morning of the twelfth of August, two canoes were seen approaching. On the beach stood waiting the Captain & Bengal sailor Tom Rose whose command of several tongues had commended his hire in Macao as Interpreter. The other crewmen fell back into the trees, having been warned not to provoke their visitors unduly. Tom Rose hailed the canoes with a shouted greeting and was at first met with silence. Then presently came a response in Malay, which as Providence would have it, was one of the languages Rose possessed. He offered as they were from the wrecked English vessel, traders, not men of war. The two canoes landed a rank of savages naked save for their tattoos, who spake Malay through one man, whereupon the conversation proceeded amicably. The other crewmen came out of hiding, and as the hour of the noontide meal was come, they shared their rations with the visitors. It was learnt that this was Oroolong in the Isles of Pelew under the sovereign rule of King Abba Thule, who sent his two younger brothers & their canoes to bid warm welcome to the strangers. How fortunate for one & all!

Though in truth what were their fortunes? Their ship had foundered but not sunk, the deck boats had not been lost but were within rowing distance of a tiny isle, both Englishmen & Pelewans had Malay speakers amongst them (the native Interpreter, a Malayan called Soogul, had likewise been cast away here some ten months prior, and thence learnt the local argot), and the two canoes had arrived in time to enjoy a repast, thereby tempering all quite peaceably. Most fortunate of all, the Pelewans were not given to clubbing strangers and eating them, but rather accommodated them with gracious civility. Or as Captain Wilson was later to remark, ‘The barbarous people shewed us no little kindness'.