WHEN JOSEF LIFTED his head again, it was to rub salt out of his eyes. Hours must have passed. The sea had calmed and the scavengers were nowhere in sight. Still, the hollow sound of Mick’s head bobbing against the raft had not rung itself out of Josef’s ears.
He seemed to be drifting southward. He’d drifted out to sea a little way, too, though the shore was still in clear view. The wind had calmed, and for the first time in two days Josef felt the full brunt of the sun. His shirt had ripped, and part of his back was exposed—he could feel exactly where.
He lifted himself to a sitting position and looked nervously at the sea around him. No sign of Mick. Thinking it was safe now to head for shore, he yanked up one of the loose planks of wood and began to paddle. He propelled himself at an almost undetectable speed and filled his hands with splinters, but if he let himself drift, he might come across the Gulf Stream, and then there’d be no hope at all—he knew that from his books. In the Gulf Stream, he’d be carried north up the coast, toward the Carolinas, past Long Island and agonizingly close to his wife and aunt in Brooklyn, then up to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and beyond! Perhaps he’d catch other currents and then drift down along the coasts of Europe and Africa and back across the Atlantic in an endless and unbreakable circle. The current would hold him in its watery grasp, and what grief to drift eternally like that, nearly always within sight of land!
That fear alone was enough to keep him paddling. He put everything he had into it, and within an hour he saw he’d made progress. After two hours, his raft split apart in the break, and he swam the last hundred yards to shore. But the ocean currents had only been half his trouble. As he stumbled out of the surf, he was cured and marinated to perfection and ready to be roasted by the midday sun.
He looked down at his mail sack. It had hung from his neck throughout the entire ordeal and now, thoroughly soaked, it was an emblem of his incompetence. He dared not look inside it. If the letters and packages had not been shredded to pulp, they were at least unreadable.
Seeing no humans or animals to endanger him, Josef continued south along his mail route. At first he felt some contentment and relief. The simple, regular action of walking in the sand helped him to forget his recent troubles for a moment. He’d been through a lot, and it felt good to be back on the job again, though now the delivery was probably pointless.
But he was quickly reminded that walking the beach at this time of day was little consolation. His feet hadn’t had time to heal. Still red and sore, they began to throb in the heat. His skin began to blister where his shirt had ripped open.
The waves had kicked up a thick mist of ocean that hadn’t yet settled. This made breathing heavy and unsatisfying. He wheezed as he walked. He’d had little food since Lena left him, and he suddenly grew desperately hungry. There’d be food waiting for him at the Biscayne post office, but Biscayne seemed like a dream to him now, a faint image of his unreachable paradise.
The pain from the hot sand seemed to be the only thing keeping his feet moving. After a while, the sand grew too hot and his reactions too slow to make it bearable; he had to descend the beach and splash through the surf, so his pace slowed to a crawl.
It wasn’t long before his mind began to wander, perhaps in a natural defense against the torture of the elements, or perhaps in a prelude to madness. He tried to think joyful thoughts, of happier times. Yet every thought from his past led him down a fateful path to the horror of young Mick’s death, and the lying cowardice that caused it. He saw clearly how weak-willed and deceitful he truly was, how truly unfit for the New Paradise he’d only recently imagined so vividly. Even that image he now saw as little more than a cowardly haven to justify his own fears and prejudices. It hadn’t taken long for him to exclude the breeds of animals he didn’t like, or to admit the Indians as mere slaves working the great fans so Josef alone (and maybe a few close friends and family) could be happy and comfortable in the breeze. It hadn’t taken long for him to raise carnal pleasures to the one supremely important ingredient. His view of paradise had become little more than a Roman bath house! A self-aggrandizing fantasy! It hadn’t taken him long, either, to prove himself unworthy of even the most pale replica of Paradise. He hadn’t the purity of heart, or even a morsel of human compassion. Here was the paradise he deserved—alone and aching, on a beach too hot to walk and a surf that made him deny the happiest moments of his life, where the waves washed up and poured salt into his wounds and the sting of his sweat burned tracks in his raw skin, and the hollow thunk of Mick’s blonde pate cursed every step of his blistered and overexposed Brooklynite’s feet.
He saw Lena now, in her flowing white wedding dress and her great innocent smile of hope. She’d trusted him with the fulfillment of her own dreams, and he’d let her down in selfish pursuit of his private fancies. What a fool he’d been to bring her to the tropics! Any clear-thinking person could see she was not suited for it. Why did he think she’d grow accustomed to such a place? Why would she want to? She’d come only because she loved Josef, and he’d destroyed their marriage for the sake of his greed for glory. Like a fool, he thought he’d been meant for greatness. But it was clear he was an ordinary man at best, weak-willed and cowardly, deceitful and selfish, full of foolish dreams.
He saw Lena in her white dress, standing before him on the beach, always just out of reach, as though he were trapped forever in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Lena. Then her image began to waver and her features hardened and her hair shortened and changed color and suddenly there was young Mick standing before him, her foot cocked and ready to kick him for the injustice he’d done her. And he begged her, “Please kick me, please kick me, Lena. I deserve to be kicked by the one I love, painfully and forever kicked.” And he got down in the wash of the waves and begged her, “Kick me!” but always as the foot began its motion toward his ribs, the image disappeared with the sound of a thunk.
It was a hollow thunk, like a book slammed shut or a fist striking a nose. Delirious, Josef attributed the sound to his own feet splashing in the surf, and he edged deeper and deeper into the water until the waves crashed across his waist, soaking the mail sack before it had fully dried out. He waded slowly, the sun’s reflection blinding him, his legs driven with a dumb life of their own. He was crazed and stumbling, and his whole body burned and ached. He mumbled as he walked, “Kick me, please kick me, Lena!” But always he was let down, and he cringed at the sound only he could hear: thunk.
IT WAS LATE afternoon when he stumbled, breathless, dehydrated, and half crazy, onto several dozen men and women grouped on the beach just up from the posh Biscayne Grand Hotel. The group was fancily dressed in whites and pastels they’d had tailored just for their trip to the tropics. The women carried parasols. They were watching a salvage operation offshore, where a ship had broken up on the reef.
Josef walked through them, perhaps a little faster now, knowing he’d almost made it. As he did so, he bumped into some of them, and they turned and looked on him with horror—his face was red and taut, and his blackened eyes and broken nose had still not fully healed from that night in the postmaster’s restaurant. He wheezed and snorted as he dragged himself through the sunny crowd, some of whom made comments on his appearance and odor. But after their initial shock, they merely stepped back and let him pass, because they were wealthy Northeast-erners whose tropical holiday had already been interrupted, though not unpleasantly, by the excitement of the ship-wreck. All of them agreed, without having to say a word about it, that one bit of excitement could be dandy, but two at once was probably a strain to one’s constitution. And what with the ladies here and all, it would be better just to ignore this strange creature—this medicine man, or this alligator breeder, or whatever he might be—and keep one’s attention focused on this interesting shipwreck, so that each and every detail could be gathered into a fascinating tale to relate to one’s friends and colleagues back home.
Yet there was one man who stood out from this group, if only for the darker colors of his attire and the general carelessness—almost slovenliness—with which he wore it. He was a short, blank-faced gent with a thin moustache and dark, dark eyes. His bowler was pulled down just a little too far for the day’s fashion, and that made him seem as though he had something to hide. He was a reporter on assignment for The New York Times and had been sent to file a story about the growth of the transportation and trade industries in Florida, and the problems encountered in laying tracks and roads, and dredging channels and harbors. He was also to focus on the toll that the inhospitable subtropical climate took on the hundreds of northern workers who’d been brought in to do the work by big northern holding companies seeking footholds in the untapped marketplace. This shipwreck was timely and served his story to a tee, yet something in the corner of his eye made him stop his note-taking and look up.
He saw Josef moving in his direction, and he took a good look at Josef’s blazing red skin, the broken and discolored nose that hadn’t set properly, the trickle of blood that had dried on Josef’s upper lip, and the crazed and black-ringed eyes that seemed unable to focus, and the reporter thought he was looking at some evil apparition, lacking only the claws and horns to be a full-fledged voodoo devil. But he also knew he was looking at a damned good story.
“Say, bud,” said the reporter.
Josef stopped at the voice and his head fell to his chest. He couldn’t pull it up to look the man in the eye.
“You from the wreck out there?” asked the reporter.
“Wreck,” repeated Josef, his hoarse voice barely more than a whisper.
“SS Hudson Valley. Captain put her into the reef last night.” He laughed. “Some of the locals say he must’ve been mesmerized by a mermaid or a siren or something. Company doesn’t buy it. He’s got a history with the bottle, you know. Local sheriff’s holding ’im while they investigate. Say, you look like you’ve been through hell. You don’t know nothing about it?”
Josef turned the weathered and damp mail sack in front of him to identify himself as a carrier. It hurt too much to speak.
“Ah,” said the reporter, “you from that town up the coast? What’s it called?—Figulus?”
Josef lifted his head a fraction of an inch to nod.
“I heard they got plans for a shipping terminal up there—any truth to that?”
Josef coughed the sweat away from his lips, and the reporter took this as a negative.
“Well hey, bud,” said the reporter. “I’m John Thomas. New York Times. Thanks for the info.”
He held his hand out, but Josef couldn’t raise his more than twenty degrees, so John Thomas was forced to stretch his reach. He was shocked at the heat he felt coming from that hand. It was as though it had an energy source all its own.
Then Josef started forward again, remembering he was nearly there. The reporter followed him with his eyes, and noticed for the first time and with great surprise Josef’s burned and uncovered feet. They were astonishingly weather-beaten, and it was amazing they could still be of any use at all to their owner.
When Josef turned inland, toward the post office, John Thomas turned his attention back to the wreck. But he found it difficult to concentrate on his story. The encounter with Josef had started his mind whirring. There is something to this man, he thought. It was something he could not as yet define, but something that had begun, in fits and flashes, to take shape in his reporter’s brain.
THE BISCAYNE POSTMASTER, Elijah J. Partridge, read what he could of the note from Postmaster Shank and gave Josef a surly welcome: Josef was a day late; he had let the postal sack drag in the water, and few of the letters and packages would ever reach their destination now—the addresses had been washed away by the surf, and some of the letters were nothing but tattered rags; this was an outrage in the eyes of the U.S. Government, a disservice to the entire country; furthermore, what had he done with his government-issued postal shoes?—only a fool would lose the shoes off his feet and expose that sensitive skin; those shoes had been expressly designed, and at great cost to the nation at large, to protect the carrier’s feet from the elements—snow, sleet, rain, hail, what have you—that fool postmaster in Figulus must have left his wits at home when he hired such an imbecile for so important a position!
Partridge continued to mutter indignantly as he filled Josef’s sack with northbound mail. Josef hadn’t the energy to put forth a word in his defense. He could only think with horror about the awful journey back to Figulus. Defeat whispered loudly in his ear, though he couldn’t collect his wits enough to understand it.
“These letters on top here have to be dropped off at the port on your way out,” said Partridge. “We have important guests at the hotels and they have to keep in touch with their families and business associates.”
Josef nodded.
“Now be on your way and for God’s sake get some coverings for your feet.” Partridge returned to mail-sorting, shaking his head.
At last Josef dragged himself out of the office and returned to the sunlight.
Still unsure of what he was going to do or where he might go, with growing doubts about who he was, even, Josef walked back toward the beach, moving his feet without the will to do so. He’d already forgotten about his delivery to the port.
His first step onto the sand seemed to wake him out of his trance, and he understood fully the extent of his failure. He had failed his wife first of all by dragging her into the nightmare of pioneer life. But that might have been rectified were it not for his carnal frolic with that squaw. He’d been with the squaw before he’d even consummated his marriage, and what kind of man did that?! He’d failed his fellow settlers in Figulus by destroying their letters to family, friends, and loved ones, letters posted in the solemn and unspoken trust that exists between a community and its postal carrier. He’d failed his dear uncle by not locating the fine loafers he’d practically sent from his death bed, and by failing to have the courage and strength of will to conquer the inconveniences of the tropics, and worst of all by denying the love and kindness his uncle had shown in teaching Josef to swim. Then there was his grandest failure of all: he’d failed his vision of Paradise and thus failed God Himself, for what is a man if he can’t do the work of the Lord? He’d been sent a beautiful image of the Paradise to come, and he’d been handed a role in its creation, but he’d taken it upon himself to revise the Lord’s will. There’d been handwriting on the wall, and he’d taken the liberty to edit it for his own selfish whims. He’d proved in the eyes of both God and man that he was nothing more than a fool, a nobody destined for an unremarkable life among all the other nobodies and their visions of personal contentment.
Such was Josef’s state as he stepped into the quiet Atlantic, mellow with late-afternoon sunlight. He stared at the horizon and was suddenly overwhelmed by a great sense of relief. It was an odd and seemingly inappropriate feeling, so much so that it made him weightless and giddy. He’d recognized himself for an incompetent fool, and as sad as the thought was at first, it now reemerged with a secondary effect: in acknowledging his failure, he had in one fell swoop relieved himself of all obligations to everyone and everything—all the weight of conquering the wilderness, of living up to the memory of his uncle, and of serving the Will of the Lord had been lifted from his shoulders. He trembled at this airy gift of freedom. He felt he could step up and walk on these waves, all the way to Africa if he so desired. He was giddy with foolishness. What a happy, stupid fool he was!
So he couldn’t help but break out in laughter, and he laughed like never before, loudly and without restraint, for he was now the town fool, of whom nothing was expected and nothing demanded. He was a joker in the deck, the wild card used by anyone for any purpose, and it was nothing to him because he himself was nothing. He laughed so loudly and with such abandon that he seemed to put something of himself in that laugh, and he sent it out across the quiet ocean like a message in a new tongue, a tongue so ambiguous that anyone receiving the message, no matter which language he spoke, would be free to read it in any way he so desired and use it for any purpose he so wished. It was laughter rich and resounding, a thing of pure and absolute beauty, the purest and truest thing Josef had ever made.
Then he cut it off all at once and lifted his mail sack off his neck and shoulder and raised it above his head, and with a shot-putter’s shout and a determination greater than any he’d known in his young life, he heaved the mail sack far out into the glassy water, where it disappeared with a ripple beneath a floating bed of seaweed.
Finally, in the first hints of darkness, he made his way to the docks at the Port of Biscayne, and up the ramp to the lone steamer anchored there. He spoke to the bursar who was ready to close up for the night until Josef asked to book passage. The man began to complete the forms for a ticket until he learned Josef’s name and he put his pen down and opened up a little drawer in his desk.
“Your wife was on our line just last week, sir,” he said. “She already booked your passage.”
The color went out of Josef’s face. He took the ticket and smiled faintly. She’d known all along. She knew him better than he knew himself. He went up on deck and located the first-class cabin Lena had reserved for him, inserted the key, closed the door behind him, and collapsed on the oversized bed in complete exhaustion and utter contentment.