18mm Blues (2 page)

Bertin made sure the compensation he promised the amas was generous. Fifty dollars a day each or a third of the worth of whatever pearls were found, whichever was more. Nothing in advance, pay when the diving was over. They were to meet him in Ban Pakbara.

For a while yesterday he'd thought they weren't going to show up or were lost. He waited at the boat all day and was beginning to speculate on how he might arrange for other divers when, around dusk, they arrived. The two women, and the boy. Carrying black canvas suitcases. No mention had been made about there being a boy and no explanation was offered. He was an obvious Amerasian, nine or ten years old, his bright blue eyes incongruous with his heavy black Japanese hair. For some reason Bertin had expected the amas would be younger, probably energetic girls in their late teens, however these were adult women. At least in their midtwenties or more was Bertin's guess. They were physical opposites. One taller, about five foot nine and slimmer and not very strong looking. The stockier, thicker-chested one, Bertin believed, would be doing the deeper, more strenuous diving.

Bertin had decided in advance that the forward part of the boat would be theirs. He didn't want them wandering around, coming into the wheelhouse and going down into the cabin, getting into his things. He'd made those terms clear right off and they'd politely accepted, had spent the night on the foredeck, and now that the boat was under way, they were still there. He couldn't see them from the wheelhouse because the superstructure of the cabin was in the way, so it was like he was alone out there on the boat. He wished there were someone to talk to, someone with a few things in common to trade lies with, only to pass the time. Not these Japs. He'd had no use for what few Japs he'd ever had anything to do with, the way they never said much and acted superior. It was as though they always knew what was coming next and had the ability to see into him all the way to his bones.

Bertin looped a line over the wheel to keep it steady on course. Went down into the cabin and gathered up his dirty laundry, adding to it the very soiled shirt and trousers he had on. Took them up to the stern, tied the bunch of them with a light nylon line and tossed them overboard. Fed out enough line so his laundry was dragging about fifty feet behind, skipping and skimming the water and being pulled through the peaks of waves. He reminded himself not to leave it out there too long. The last time after only twenty minutes all he'd got back was shreds.

He took notice of the distant southern horizon. Big explosive-looking clumps of clouds, gray as lead. That was no squall, he thought, but a really angry storm. He went into the wheelhouse and checked the barometer. Saw it was normal, holding steady. That far-off storm would stay far off, he told himself. It was probably on an east-to-west course across the Andaman, would miss him by miles. Still, he'd keep his eyes on it.

He glanced eastward and was reassured that the shoreline was still the same.

A sharp repetitious sound finally succeeded in making him aware that an inner shroud was loose and whipping against the mast, and when he looked up to it he saw also that one of the ties on the boom had ripped apart. He'd avoided considering the condition of the boat, but it was reminding him. No telling what was happening to the teak hull beneath the waterline. Worms had gotten to it in places, no doubt. He'd heard it said more than once that wooden-hulled boats had a lot of worm troubles in tropical waters such as these. Then there was the sail. He'd never had it up because he wouldn't know how to handle it, hadn't even hoisted it to air it or dry it out. Folded and lashed so tight to the boom, by now it was probably rotted. As for the engine, he was entirely dependent on it. That bothered him. Every time it coughed or one of its cylinders missed or it decided to change its sound the way boat engines seem to do arbitrarily, he got more worried.

He stood at the stern, reached down and found himself by way of the loose leg of his undershorts. Urinated into the wake. Two weeks ago he'd passed a couple of kidney stones that felt like shards of glass all the way out. He thought there had to be more of the same up in him, so ever since, every time he urinated, he expected such pain. But there wasn't any now. Only relief. He pulled in the line and his laundry, didn't spread it out, just tossed it in a bunch on the aft deck to dry.

The day was going. Bertin headed the boat for shore and put in at the first port he came to, which happened to be Khok Kloi. Finding the place on the chart gave him a fix on where he was. He refueled that night and got under way again the next dawn.

North along the coast until, in keeping with the chart, a group of islands came into sight. Various size islands. Some miles large but most were much smaller, no more than five hundred feet around. Craggy steep humps covered by the cling of tropical growths. No wash up or beaches around them. They looked as though the sea had thrust them upward, and perhaps at one time ages ago it had. The chart gave some of the larger ones names: Ko Phra Thong, Go Ra, Khao Pram. Bertin bypassed those because they were inhabited and the waters around them were probably already overworked. He'd have better luck in places more remote, he believed. Soon he came to a cluster of small islands occupied only by gulls. He ran between them, chose what looked to be a promising channel. Cut the engine and threw out the drogue, the conical-shaped device that more efficiently than the anchor would minimize the boat's drift.

He was excited.

About actually to become a pearler. Enormous wealth awaited on the floors of these waters and he intended to get a share of it, his share, plenty.

No need to tell the amas it was here that he wanted them to dive. They were already preparing. The taller, slender one named Setsu leaned over the side, peered down into the water, appraising its current, searching for anywhere the sun might be penetrating enough to reveal the bottom. She knew from experience that often such innocent-looking channels such as this turned out to be deep troughs. But the water there told her nothing. She gave up on it, stepped back, and with a total lack of self-consciousness removed her clothes. Folded them neatly, placed them just so next to her canvas bag. She contained her hair within the stretch of a white rubber swim cap and put on a pair of diving goggles, situating them, for the time being, on her forehead. Next a soft, woven cotton belt with a loop located at the hip to accommodate a twelve-inch flat steel bar with a bent tip, much like an ordinary pry bar but sharply pointed. The end of a hundred-foot length of cotton line was attached to her belt in back by Michiko, the other ama. She was Setsu's sister, at twenty-four younger by two years. She would remain on board to tend the lines and to teach the boy more about how that should be done.

Setsu dropped over the side into the water.

Michiko tossed her a woven hemp basket, then threw in the descending weight, keeping it well within Setsu's reach. The ten-pound weight was made of cast iron, shaped like an inverted mushroom, had an eye on its stem for a line to be tied to it.

Setsu lowered her goggles into position. Placed her feet on the flanges of the weight and began her breathing. Took a rapid series of deep-as-possible breaths that she blew out with such force they were whistles. Her nod signaled Michiko to play out the lifeline and, at a rate exactly fast enough, the weight line. Time of descent would cost breath.

Setsu rode the weight all the way down, felt, as usual, the temperature of the water become increasingly cooler. At bottom she estimated the depth was seven fathoms, slightly more than forty feet. Reflection had prevented her from seeing this far down, but now visibility was good, the bottom struck with adequate sunlight. She glanced up at the black underside of the boat, thought it ominous. Gave the weight line a signaling tug and swam from it.

It was second nature for her to be in an underwater realm such as this. She wasn't at all intimidated, swam about easily, using little effort, relying mainly on the propelling motions of her legs and feet. Quite a few amas had taken to wearing flippers and some had even resorted to using scuba gear. She'd tried both, and, although such assistance gave her more speed and allowed her to cover more area, it was wrong, reduced her freedom, spoiled it for her. She preferred not to be fettered, to rely purely on the specialness of her own given ama strengths and abilities.

She quickly surveyed the sea floor all around. Saw that this channel was divided into three sections: an abundance of mustardcolored sunward-reaching ropes of weed on the left and the same on the right. Between, a cleared swath thirty to forty feet wide ran down the channel. The bottom of that swath consisted of no pebbles that she could see and very little sand. It was mainly pale, bared granite, resembled an unpaved road of humps and dips, the sort formed only by much use.

She guessed the reason.

Swam from the edge of the swath toward the middle of it and there allowed herself completely to relax. At once, the current claimed her and began carrying her, supporting her. Face up as she was, deep away from the world and so comfortable, for an instant some part of her suggested she go along with it for as long as it would take her to be breathing water.

The current was deceitful, hidden from the surface. Its force had swept and created the swath. Its flow was too violent for there to be any oysters, she thought. With several strong kicks and a maneuvering twist she defeated the current and paused at the lesser agitated edge of it close to the seaweed.

She'd been under only about a minute, still had breath. But not enough for what she had in mind. She sighted upward for the hull of the boat, found it, swam diagonally up to it. Surfaced, for more deep, whistling breaths while Michiko again threw her the weight, and the boy threw her a smile with some relief in it and she took that with her as she rode the weight again the forty or so feet to the bottom.

The place to look, she thought, was along the sides among the kelp. She swam into the kelp, felt the familiar, friendly brush of its slick foliage. Saw the sinuous dancing of its shoots. There hadn't been a sign of a fish before but now here they were. Some brilliant yellow show-offs, a school of blue-brown others, more modest.

The bottom here was right, composed of sand, with bits of shell and fragments of coral in it. Her practiced eyes scanned the bottom and caught upon the proper sort of protrusion. An oyster with only the rounded, scalloped edges of its paired upper and lower shells exposed, the rest of it buried in the soft sand. The oyster was open about an inch, trying to feed and at the same time remain mostly hidden from predators such as starfish, octopi, skates and snails. Careful not to have the oyster snap shut on her fingers (how early she'd learned the pain of such a pinch), Setsu dug close around it with both hands and removed it from its refuge. It was, indeed, a pearl oyster, the sort pearlers call a silver lip, and scientists call
Pinctada margaritifera
. It was about eight inches in diameter with a rough brown exterior comprised of numerous radial ridges that showed a hint of white and a few pale yellow spots. A prize that might contain a prize. Setsu deposited it into her woven hemp basket.

She knew, according to the gregarious nature of oysters, where there was one there'd most surely be others. Perhaps she'd come upon a plentiful family also pretending to be asleep in their bed. She swam around among the gray coral and sponges and masses of weeds, found four more silver lips before surfacing again.

The moment Bertin saw those five oysters come up in Setsu's basket he just did manage to hold back shouting for joy. He took them to the stern and transferred them to a large tub, one of two he had placed there to receive the abundant catch he anticipated. At once he set about to open one of the oysters. Using an old Burmese knife designed especially for that purpose that had been among Miller's things, the sort of knife Burmans call a
dah-she
. Its long, somewhat curved blade was honed extremely sharp and attached, as though grafted, to a whalebone handle carved crudely with the saying
Buddha is generous
.

Bertin placed the oyster with its hinging part up on a wooden block. He forced the blade of the knife through the elastic ligament with which it held itself and its tough adductor muscle, causing it abruptly to surrender its determination to remain shut. The oyster sprang open.

Bertin immediately saw the pearl.

Plucked it out.

It was only about five millimeters in size, Bertin estimated, no larger than a baby pea. But a nice creamy pink and perfectly round. He held it up between his fingers to give its luster the benefit of the afternoon sun. Had it been double its size it would have been worth easily ten thousand dollars, perhaps twenty, wholesale. He was encouraged. Felt all around the squishy insides of that first oyster on the chance that it might contain another pearl. It didn't. He tossed it overboard and eagerly opened one of the others.

It had a twice larger pearl in it.

But badly misshapen, an asymmetrical lump. It was the sort that for the sake of selling was made to sound more desirable by calling it
baroque
. This one was even lamentable in that category, had many welts and pits and inconsistent luster. Why, Bertin thought, would an oyster with the wherewithal to produce a pearl of beauty create one as unsightly as this. Oh well, it would be worth something. He kept the
baroque
, placing it along with the first small perfect pearl in the nearby black lacquer bowl that he intended to fill.

Meanwhile, Setsu was diving, thoroughly searching the most likely sandy areas of the bottom. Over that afternoon she made thirty dives, stopping only once for a quarter-hour rest. She felt early on that this wouldn't be a really good place, however she gave it every possible opportunity to prove her wrong. Altogether she came up with only thirty-seven oysters. On her final dive she swam closer to the underwater wall of the nearest little island and found three awabi (abalone). These single-shelled creatures had clamped themselves steadfast to a rock. She pried them loose with the iron bar and put them in the basket. They were quite large, would do nicely for supper.