TWENTY

OVER THE NEXT WEEK AND MORE AJA THREW HIMSELF AND THE CREW into getting Loire to rights; in fact, his goal was to return the schooner to the best condition since her build. The crew worked enthusiastically, as he knew they would. Caleb Visser would not be left out, for being a fisherman he was quite good with splicing ropes and committed himself to re-rigging the ship. Even Little Eddy jumped in, now always at Visser’s side, and helped tar the rigging as it was sent up.

Paint pots were found below and brought up on deck and several of the crew began the tedious work of touching up the recently repaired railings and bulwarks damaged by Rascal’s shot. The gouges in the deck were smoothed out as much as possible and the ship’s boats thoroughly re-built. Holes in the hull had already been patched well enough to get Loire to Bermuda, but now the patches were gone over carefully and re-worked with fresh wood and paint until the ship was solid again and damage was close to invisible even to a careful eye.

Below decks, where the shot had come through the hull, the crew re-made furniture as they fought cockroaches and other vermin, for the cleaning and smoking would be saved for last. There was not an inch of the schooner that escaped attention, and each day saw the ship gradually come back to her old, original self. After two weeks, Loire was ready to leave Bermuda.

On their last night in St. George’s harbor Visser and Aja paused at the binnacle proudly looking the length of the ship. In all respects Loire was ready for sea. It was a contemplative moment, for who knew what the future might hold? The lapping of the wavelets against the hull and the soft, dark evening that embraced the ship seemed to draw them closer.

“It occurred to me,” said Visser to Aja, as the two of them stood together, “that of all the people I thanked for helping me bring my father home, I didn’t properly thank you. You have been more than supportive, I must say. Thank you, Aja.”

“There is no need, Caleb, sir,” said Aja humbly. “I am glad you have a father, and I hope he is ready to come home. Because we are going to find him.”

“How about your father, Aja?” said Visser. “Or, for that matter, your whole family? I’d like to hear more of you and where you came from, if you don’t mind.”

Aja grew quiet and looked at the stars, the blinking ones and the reddish ones and the bright whites, the same stars he had gazed at as a boy in Africa. He understood what they meant now, how they guided you when you were lost.

“My family were slaves before we were kidnapped into more slavery,” he said quietly. “We worked on a white family’s plantation in Senegal; I worked in the house, my mother and father worked in the fields. I learned English in the house and taught my parents to speak it a little. One night a group of men from a faraway village attacked the plantation and stole us, like you would steal cattle. I don’t know what happened to the white family, but I heard screaming. We were taken to the coast of Africa, along with many other slaves on the plantation, to an island called Goreé. My mother and sister were put with the other women and kept separated from the men. I could hear my mother crying and calling my name and I called back but I don’t know if she heard me. It was the worst pain I have ever felt. Sometimes I dream of her, and she is still calling my name, and I wake up crying.”

“I can’t imagine,” said Visser tenderly.

“I was put on a ship with my father,” continued Aja stoically, “and we were put with many men below decks. It was dark and I was very scared and men were crying and moaning. Some men seemed to die they were so scared. Every day the ship’s crew came through the holds and took the dead men to throw overboard. There was no light, so I don’t know how many days we sailed but it must have been many days and nights later that the ship was attacked by pirates who wanted to steal us. There were many men and women who tried to help the crew fight the pirates but they were all slaughtered. I hid behind some barrels and I could hear the pirates searching the ship but I made myself very small. When I couldn’t hear anything else I came out from hiding and searched for anyone else alive but there was nobody. I couldn’t find my father, so the pirates must have taken him.”

“My God, Aja,” said Visser. “How did you ever survive?”

“I ate some of the ship’s biscuit and there was water in the casks,” answered Aja. “Then two days later Captain Fallon found the ship and Cully found me hiding. I was taken aboard their ship, Sea Dog, but I was very afraid they were going to kill me or sell me again. But they didn’t; they saved my life and became my friends.”

“That is an amazing story, Aja,” said Visser. “A miracle, really. And now look at you. Second mate in Rascal! But you have seen much, too much, of the baser side of man’s nature, I’m afraid.”

Aja was quiet then, his eyes looking forward towards Loire’s bows, watching the men end the day talking amongst themselves.

“Yes,” he said, knowing he could still be surprised.

Little Eddy walked home from the ship that night very tired and very dirty, with paint smudges on his face and hands but a jingle in his pocket thanks to Caleb Visser. He was nine years old, but somewhat small for his age, and most people in St. George Town put him at eight or younger.

When his father left for sea, Little Eddy’s mother took in laundry and cleaned houses to make ends meet, but quickly tired of it. She was always good with advice to the women of the houses she cleaned, though, and became fascinated with tarot cards. The islanders knew of her and often dropped by to have their fortunes told, but no one really took what she said seriously. Well, until she read the cards for Nicholas Fallon’s mother one night and turned into a legend on Bermuda.

For, unfortunately, Fallon’s mother received the Death card, and a great depression came over her. She had spent a good deal of her life not feeling well and believing she was going to die, and she actually did pass on in three weeks after the card was revealed to her. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not, but soon after there was an influx of Bermudians wanting their fortunes read. Men were going to sea, a baby was to be born, a marriage proposal was about to be made—the usual stuff of worry. In very little time Madame Pauline’s Fortunes opened in the English basement of a dry good’s store in St. George Town.

Business was perhaps predictably good, for Madame Pauline had no real competitors on Bermuda for giving advice and telling fortunes. But her relationship with Little Eddy, never particularly close, suffered from loss of contact. He dodged school, scrounged the beaches during the day, and she worked at night. He was growing up mostly on his own.

Sometimes he snuck close by as his mother counseled various islanders on their life. He learned to understand the cards as his mother explained what they meant.

So he knew what he was doing later that night as he snuck out of his bedroom window, leaving what money he had along with the 8 of Cups on his pillow.

The figure on the face of the card was walking away. It meant he was leaving Bermuda.