17 August 1984
The beach stinks of stewing moss, sargassum seaweed and the putrefying guts of beached fishes, rotting in the warming air. It is one of those mornings when the water remains hungover after a night of reckless abandon and has vomited on the sand before seeking to sleep it off. The tourists find that a walk along the shore is less about a stroll on the stretch of pink powder reproduced in the magazines and more the halting stop-and-start necessary to avoid the hidden jellyfish in the seaweed and the spines of sea urchins washed ashore and submerged in the sand and the glass-bottle pieces that have not yet been in the sea long enough to be smoothened and dulled by sun and salt and made into something worthy of the treasure-hunting of children.
Tone walks along Baxter’s Beach and his feet rely on their own eyes to avoid the stings and sticks and slicings waiting in the detritus. Tone is watching Adan’s house as he comes up the beach, acting like he isn’t watching it, like he is merely strolling along the sand at this early hour of the morning. In truth, no one would think anything amiss if they saw him there. Everyone knows that men of Tone’s genus are fixtures of the beach, an accepted part of the ecosystem that thrives there. But Tone is not a gigolo this morning, Tone is a worried lover and this is why he thinks he might arouse suspicion.
Adan’s house is at the very end of the stretch of beach, without a calm, clear bay for bathing. There are no tourist women here for Tone to offer handmade jewelry or a night in bed or a joint or a ride on a Jet Ski, but the view here is beautiful and luxury villas still open onto this stretch. Several of his clients tend to rent these houses, or to own them. It isn’t unusual for people to find him walking this beach at any given time of day or night. But it isn’t tourists that Tone is watching for; Tone is watching for Adan, and Adan is the reason he bobs and weaves behind coconut trees and vegetation every time he hears a sound he is not accustomed to, instead of continuing to walk out in the open.
Eventually he comes to sit in the ruins of a small fish market, where the fishermen used to beach their boats and blow a conch shell and announce to a bygone village that there was fresh fish to be had on the sand. This village died in the birthing of the big houses, because rich tourists who visit for a few months in a year do not wish to suffer the stink of a market in order to purchase food each day. Only Adan’s little old house, rising unsteadily from behind the coconut trees, and the ruins of the market are left. A few tiled stone structures like tall tables are spread across a paved square with a stopcocked pipe at one corner. Tone crouches beneath one of the tall tables, from which he can see the foot of the cement stairs to Adan’s house, and looks for Lala. She is sure to come down soon, he reasons. There are clothes to pick off the line and she’ll come down and he’ll talk to her, tell her that he’s sorry about Baby, offer her an out.
The ruins of a nearby public bath have long since been overrun by a colony of sea-grape bushes that have flourished and become colossal in proportion, with wide flat leaves that remind Tone of the upturned palms of the beggars in town. Tone considers making a break for the sea-grape trees and waiting there a few minutes to be sure that Adan will not return, but ultimately decides against it. What could Adan find amiss about him visiting the house to see after Lala, especially when her husband is in hiding, especially after what happened to Baby? His reasoning makes him bold and he is about to step out of the ruins when he sees Adan come back and approach the stairs.
Tone eases back into the ruins, backs away from the little wooden house. He settles a little farther away, near two fishing boats beached for repairs. He will wait there a while, Tone resolves; he will wait there until Adan leaves, and then he will visit her when it is safe.