At first Captain López didn’t want to take us. “He’s too ill,” he said, looking at Edward, who sat shivering in his greatcoat, even though it was getting warm out.
“But you’ve been paid,” I protested. “The arrangements have already been made.”
“The arrangement was to take on two healthy men as crew. No one said anything about one of you being so sick.”
“But he’s not that sick.”
“And what if he dies at sea? Then the police find out the captain of the Pingüino is transporting prisoners.” He shook his head. “I can’t risk that, amigo. It’s not worth the money.”
I looked at him, to see if I’d correctly caught his meaning.
“And how much would it be worth?” I asked.
He stroked his beard. “Well . . .” He named a figure.
It was everything I had left, and I gave it to him.
The Pingüino turned out to be a dilapidated freighter with a crew of fifteen. Apparently it had once been under Japanese registry, because all the instructions on the ship were written in Japanese.
We were given a small cabin—just two bunk beds, a porthole and a tiny, foldable sink. The nearest head was on another deck. It had a couple of chipped enamel urinals and a toilet that stank not only of shit and urine but also of the lye in which the shit and urine was supposed to decompose. Not a very pleasant place to be sick, and even more unpleasant when you consider that to get him there I had to drag Edward halfway across the boat. The night was cold and the waves rough.
I remember kneeling on the floor of that head while Edward sat on the toilet, the Japanese instructions seeming to dance in front of my eyes as I tried to determine how to flush the thing.
I put him to bed soon after. He lay in a fever, alternately sleeping and thrashing beneath the sheets.
Outside the porthole, Spain receded, until it was a thin brown line at the edge of the horizon. Little waves lapped the prow.
“Headley, stop crying!” Edward cried out.
“What? What did you say?”
“Stop that crying this instant!”
I felt his hot head. “Headley isn’t here,” I said. “You were dreaming.”
“Where are we? Are we in the lorry?”
“No, we’re on the boat. We’re out of Spain now.”
“I think I have a temperature.”
“You do, but you’ll be all right. Now try to eat something—a piece of orange?”
“No!”
“How about some soup?”
“I couldn’t. I couldn’t eat.”
“Don’t worry, then. You don’t have to. Just lie back and rest.”
“But what if I have to go to the lavatory?”
“Then I’ll take you.”
“But it’s far!”
“It’s not that far; just down the corridor and up the stairs.”
“But I’m afraid I might not make it all the way, like that last time.”
“Don’t worry about that. The crewmen understand; they’ve all suffered from seasickness.”
“Is that what this is, then, seasickness?”
“Probably in part.”
“I hope that’s all. You know, I was dreaming just now. About that night we spent with the babies, Headley and Pearlene. Remember?”
“Of course.”
“I felt so happy that night.”
“So did I.”
“Really? I was never sure.”
“Yes, I did. Now try to rest, Edward. You must rest.”
He fell asleep again, gently snoring, the soiled bed sheets thrown about his feet.
I stepped out onto the deck for a cigarette. The wind had got strong. No land visible anywhere now, which was a relief.
“Have you got an extra one?” asked a sailor.
I gave it to him. We stood side by side, smoking, the water roiling beneath us.
“How’s your friend?” the sailor asked after a moment.
“Tolerable, thanks.”
“Most of the crew, they won’t go near him. They think it’s typhoid.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.”
“He shows all the symptoms.”
“He shows all the symptoms of a bad stomach flu.”
“Perhaps. Even so, they’re nervous. They don’t want to catch it.”
“And you?” I asked the sailor. “Aren’t you nervous? Don’t you think it’s a mistake to be smoking my cigarettes?”
“Not for me. I never get ill. I’ve got a charm. My cousin had polio when I was a boy. My sister died from the cholera. Me, not even the influenza, not even once.”
“You’re lucky.”
“My grandmother says it’s unnatural. She thinks I must be a demon. “He smiled at me. “What do you think, muchacho? Do I look like a demon?”
“You look more like an angel.”
He laughed, blew out smoke, threw the butt into the sea.
“Buenas noches,” he said, and shambled away down the deck.
A full moon cast a path of light over the ocean. “Look, Edward,” I said. “Look at the moonlight.”
He lifted his head. His fever had gone down; he seemed to be feeling better.
“When I was a kid we went to Margate once,” he said. “We’d never been to the seaside before. And Lucy and I, we’d go every night to look at that light. She called it the moon road. She said if you stepped out on the water you could walk along it all the way to the moon, where there was a great fat lady who’d give you sweets. ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘go take a walk on the moon road.’ So I did. You can imagine what happened next! I cried all night, and wouldn’t go in the sea for years.”
“That’s a terrible story,” I said.
“Funny. I suppose so. I hadn’t thought about it.”
The water got choppier.
“Brian,” Edward said, “when we get back to England, what’s going to happen?”
“We’ll live together.”
“But where? That same bed-sitter?”
“No, not there.”
“I’d like it if we could find a flat with a garden. I do like to garden. I’d put in peas, cabbages, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots. Only, as I recall, you’re not partial to carrots.”
“No, I find them too sweet.”
“Then no carrots. But flowers. Daffodils, tulips, roses—”
“That would be lovely.”
“—delphiniums, perhaps petunias. And pansies, of course, since we’re a couple of them.”
I laughed. Another ship passed by, its smokestack letting out a high, thin drone.
“What happened at your trial?” I asked.
“It wasn’t much of a trial, really. Just a chat. With a Frenchman.”
“You mean Northrop wasn’t there? Rupert either?”
“What, the fellow who sprung me? No. In fact I didn’t meet him until he came to get me the next evening. How long ago was that?”
“Two days.”
“It feels like an eternity.”
“I know.”
I lay back.
“Brian.”
“What?”
“If Rupert hadn’t sprung me—what would you have done?”
“I—I would have wired the newspapers. They would have made an incident out of your imprisonment and embarrassed the brigade into letting you free.”
“You know, by the time it was over, I’d pretty much given up. I’d got tired of arguing. I thought, well, if they’re going to shoot me, they’re going to shoot me. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I might as well go with God.”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen, Edward,” I said. “I would have got you out.”
“Would you? I’m glad to know that.” He yawned. “I feel a bit better.”
“I can tell.”
“You know, I was really in a rage when I read your diary that day. Really. If you’d been there I might have hit you.”
I looked away, toward the water. “You had every right to be angry.”
“I did. You cheated on me.”
“And I lied to you.”
“And treated me badly.”
“And led you on.”
“Yes. All those things.”
“There’s no reason for you to forgive me.”
“Yes there is. This ship. This ocean. I probably owe you my life.”
I closed my eyes.
“Edward,” I said after a while.
He snored. He was asleep.
A stench woke me in the middle of the night. I stepped down from my bunk to find Edward shaking between drenched sheets. He had shit and vomited on himself.
I hoisted him out of the bed, and he cried out.
“We’re just going to clean you up,” I said, swinging open the cabin door.
“It hurts!”
“Here—just sit here.”
I pulled the stinking sheets off the mattress, hauled the mattress out onto the deck.
“Brian, it hurts!” Edward cried.
“I know, Edward! It’s all right, I’m here,” I said—holding him, stroking his hair, while his body shook.
Outside our cabin, the captain paced, cursing, praying that Edward might last till he reached England.
He didn’t care about Edward. He only cared about his own hide.
Meanwhile, inside, I parted Edward’s lips, trickled water into his mouth, spoonful by spoonful, to keep him from dehydrating.
“Edward!”
“What?”
“Edward, listen to me. There’s something I must tell you. I lied to you when I said I would have wired the newspapers. The truth is I never sent the wire. I was too afraid.”
“Yes.”
“And then I bought a ticket to Valencia. I was going to go back to London.”
“Yes.”
“You mean you knew?”
“Headley, stop crying!”
“Don’t you understand anything I’m saying? Rupert, not me, is the hero of this story!”
“I understand.”
“Edward, please hear me! You must hear me! I was going to abandon you! I was going to leave you there!”
“Stop crying! Jesus! Why won’t he stop crying?”
I opened the cabin door, stepped out into flooding sunshine.
“What’s happened?” the captain asked.
“He’s died,” I said. “He just died.”
“Madre de Dios.”
“It was typhoid, I think.”
“We will have burial at sea.”
“What?”
“Burial at sea! And when you arrive in England, you will tell them all he died in Spain, before you got on the ship, ¿Entiende? That is what you will tell them.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I’ll tell them whatever you like.”
I opened his bag, spilled its few contents onto the floor. He had managed to hold on to a few pairs of his drawers, his name sewn into the waistbands. There was a battered copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth, as well as The Communist Manifesto Northrop had given him, some tea in an envelope, some sugar in a paper bag, and his notebook.
This I opened.
March 6th [I read]. Breakfast: bread and coffee. Lunch: beans. Dinner: stringy meat and soup. Two bowel movements. No wanks. Read CM pp. 81–93.
March 7th. Breakfast: coffee only. Lunch: dried fish and rice. Dinner: beans. No bowel movements. Wanked once. Read CM pp. 93–102, plus reread chapter one of JTCOE.
March 8th. Breakfast: milk. Lunch: more beans(!). Dinner: tripe and potatoes. One bowel movement. No wanks. Read CM pp. 102–106, chapters two to five of JTCOE.
I pulled the sheet off his body. Looked at it. There was a small spray of pimples on his chin. These I ran my fingers over. Then I felt his hair, which was limp. Pulled open his eyes, which stared up at me, their greenness the greenness of marbles, suggestive of nothing.
His cock, deceptively small when not erect, was resting atop his balls. I touched it, and it twitched slightly. I pulled my hand back as if I’d been bitten.
He hadn’t cut his toenails in ages, it appeared. So I took some scissors and sheared off the ragged ends. They were the same yellowed color as the blouse of the woman at the hotel in Altaguera; the shape of quarter moons.
“Edward,” I said, smoothing his hair with my hand.
Then once again I covered his body.
With the coast of England just becoming visible, the captain and two of the crewmen wrapped Edward’s body in a canvas blanket and dragged it onto the deck.
A sailor played “God Save the King” on a flute.
For thirty seconds we stood, heads bowed, in silence. Then the crewmen dragged the canvas-colored mass to the edge of the railing and hoisted it over.
Head over heels the body spiraled, until, with a splash, it hit the ocean. White foam spread out in rings; the canvas darkened as it sopped up water.
Who killed him? Me? The war?
The sea swallowed Edward.
Then I went home.