Pescador's Wake (12 page)

‘He is fine. Keep your coat,' Dmitri orders Carlos, before pointing to the ship's intercom. ‘Tell El Animal you want him up here now. I have a proposition for him and his Peruvian friends.'

Carlos does as instructed. Perhaps he underestimated the Russian, he thinks. El Animal, as the leader of the largest – and poorest—group on board, would be key to a successful mutiny.

At least the Australians appear content to remain astern. If they were armed, and serious about attempting a boarding, surely they would have made some attempt to cut them off at the pass.

Five minutes later, El Animal is at the door, stopping abruptly as he makes sense of the chaos in the wheelhouse. The long-haired Peruvian shouts in his native tongue to José, who is pointing his gun directly at him. Carlos makes out the angry words: ‘I saved your life!'

‘Stick to language we can all understand,' Dmitri scolds, shaking a finger. His voice is punctuated by the punch of the boat's hull against the troughs as the autopilot works hard to steer the vessel northeast towards Mauritius. ‘We have
been ordered back to Montevideo by Uruguayan Fisheries but we are running low on fuel after our time in the ice. The Australians are still pursuing us. If we are caught, we will lose our catch. We will each be individually fined and imprisoned.'

‘That's not true,' Carlos finds himself shouting, and quickly moderates his tone in an attempt to re-assert his calm authority. ‘Only the first officers will be charged. You have nothing to fear.'

‘Your future poverty
would
be sealed. I've seen it happen,' Dmitri insists. ‘However, we do have an advantage over the Australian boat.' He breaks his speech for dramatic effect. ‘As you will have noticed,' Dmitri holds up his weapon, ‘we have guns. Many guns. Your first mate was trafficking them.'

‘He's lying! They're his,' Eduardo spits, glowering at Dmitri.

The boat clashes with the unforgiving ocean and Carlos notices Dmitri rubbing his stomach through his clothes. It's something he has seen him do before. It's as if the Russian has an ulcer that is eating him from the inside—as if he is, in fact, consuming himself in a lunacy of self-destruction.

Dmitri perseveres, looking squarely at El Animal. ‘But, if we can help it, I'd rather not use the weapons. The solution is to head to Mauritius, as first planned. Once we are there, the Australians cannot touch us. And, at Port Louis, the authorities will turn a blind eye. We can sell the fish and the
guns, and split the profits between ourselves. You would never have seen so much money.'

Carlos can see the appeal of the plan. The way out. ‘He's asking you to become a murderer if we are boarded,' he says. ‘We knew nothing of these guns.'

‘They don't deserve your loyalty,' Dmitri presses on. ‘What your master is not telling you is that he and Eduardo used you. You owe them nothing. While you are being barely paid for your work, they were going to privately sell some of the catch that
you
caught.'

‘I will talk to the others,' El Animal says, turning to leave the wheelhouse.

Carlos, unable to find words to help his case, shakes his head and turns his attention to an albatross, visible through the wheelhouse windows. Its markings are different from others that he has seen. He sees Eduardo watching it, too. Normally the first mate would comment on the species, its habits even, but he is mute beside him. The bird veers off to the northwest, away from the
Pescador,
in the direction of home.

Carlos thinks how disastrously Eduardo's plan has come unstuck and dwells uncomfortably on Dmitri's knowledge of Julia's reluctance to go along with it: her plea that her husband not be involved. Eduardo must have felt the need to explain to the Russian the promise that he had made. But there was something else that the Russian was insinuating, something
less virtuous—an attempt, perhaps, to divide and conquer: to create a schism between the friends.

Carlos's eyes return to the picture of his wife and he smiles, determined not to give the Russian the satisfaction of appearing unnerved. He tries to predict how Julia will react when he tells her the lengths Eduardo went to to honour their agreement. For himself, however, Carlos isn't sure whether their friend's behaviour reflects extreme loyalty, bad judgment, or, worse still, a form of betrayal. How could Eduardo not have told him their buyer was on the same boat: the gloomy Russian, their engineer? When Eduardo had so keenly recommended Dmitri to Migiliaro for this voyage, was he already setting him up for this role? Surely it was taking their pact too far to keep this fact hidden. And the guns, even if Eduardo didn't know from the outset that they were on board, why didn't he say something a few days ago when, he claims, Dmitri told him? ‘I'll explain it all later,' Eduardo had said. Later, Carlos thinks, can't come soon enough.

Julia rolls over, heaving her pregnant belly from one side to the other. In recent nights she has been waking with backache and has resorted to sleeping on a folded blanket on the lounge-room floor, the hard surface easing the discomfort only marginally. She peers through the ground-floor window to the world outside. The apartment's small, shared garden with its clothesline and
Tipas
tree gazes back at her blankly. She extracts her diary from under her makeshift mattress, and attempts to organise life into neat little squares. She counts back the days, and calculates that it has been two-and-a-half weeks since the Australians started chasing Carlos's boat. Surely they have given up by now. But then why hasn't Carlos contacted her to let her know that he is safe?

Julia's stomach, scoured from anxiety and hunger, growls. For the first time in days, she feels hungry. A good sign. But the gastric virus that María brought home from school and passed on to her has left her two kilograms lighter, and she worries for her baby.

It's days like these that Carlos's absences make her want to scream from the injustice of being left alone at home. It's like she is already a fishing widow, one of the scores of wives
who've been left looking out to sea forever, waiting, wondering, grieving, resenting.

Yesterday Julia even resorted to phoning Cecilia to ask if María could stay there for the night. It wouldn't nearly begin to equal the tens of nights she has minded Sofia. Cecilia eventually agreed, but not without letting Julia know it was an inconvenience.

If only Paula was in town. Her best friend, another teacher, is in Spain for four months' long-service leave, and her absence has made Julia realise just how small her circle of friends has become since becoming a mother. She has many acquaintances, but no close friends who she can ask to help out when life turns on her, baring its teeth.

She misses her parents, and can't help feeling that they have also abandoned her. It was her father's decision to move to the country to manage a farm. He said it was the perfect way to pay for retirement: a way to secure an income at a time when Uruguay's economy was on a downward spiral. Julia knows it tore at her mother to leave her only child, but still she went, loyal to her husband to the end. When they visit, with their fragrant boxes of fresh-picked oranges and peaches, they only ever last one night on the mattress on the lounge-room floor—the same place she is lying now. Julia kisses them goodbye again through the window of their small farm truck, so out of place in the city street, and, with a lump in her throat, tells herself that it's the way of the world now. People
move away from family for work all the time, but she wonders if that makes it all right.

It's eight in the morning and, with María at Cecilia's, Julia enjoys the rare opportunity for a slow start to the day. She turns a page in her diary. Her obstetric appointment isn't for another few days. With any luck, the doctor will have some drug-free suggestions for relieving the back pain.

From her ground-level vantage point, Julia studies the long shadows in the grass and opens the window to the wet smell of soil after rain. The mother
gorrión
is rifling through leaves for insects just a metre from her face. Its deep, brown eyes are the same colour as María's. She wonders if this mother thinks of her lost chick, or if the daily chores help her to forget. A resilience born of necessity. The bird skewers a moth that rested a moment too long on the lawn.

Julia's stomach growls again, reminding her of her own young's need for nourishment. Thankfully she only need venture into the kitchen, no hunter-gathering required. As she throws back the blanket to rise, the bird starts and then drops the moth, its morning's work. The insect leaves a puff of dust in the still air and flies free.

‘
Lo siento,
' Julia apologises, before making a beeline for the kitchen. She promises the bird that she'll return with a crust from her toast to make amends.

As the kettle boils, Julia turns on her computer, deciding to send an email to Paula over breakfast. The computer, a relic
from the school office, fires up noisily and three new messages gleam at her in bold lettering. One is from Paula, speak of the devil. The second is from Julia's mother, who has only recently discovered that she can search the internet and send emails from her local post office. Her mother seldom offers any significant news, and her written language is more formal than her speech, but Julia looks forward to the messages nevertheless. The final email has been forwarded by Francisco. She opens that one first.

Dear Julia,

I haven't been able to make contact with Carlos's boat today and am suspecting a problem with the satellite. I am sure there is no need for concern.

On another matter, I'm forwarding a message from the wife of the Australian vessel's master. It seems she found my email address on the internet. My manager doesn't know I'm passing this message on to you. See what you make of it. And would you please contact me before you reply?

Cordialmente,

Francisco

Dear Sir/Madam,

(Can you please pass this message on to the wife/family of the
Pescador's
master? Perhaps she/they would be able to convince him to end the chase peacefully and quickly.)

My name is Margaret Bates. I am the wife of the Australian master of the
Australis,
the vessel pursuing the Uruguayan-flagged
Pescador.
I'm writing to ask your assistance in ending the high-seas chase. I hold grave concerns for the safety of our loved ones and their crews, and simply wish for them to reach port safely.

It appears that my husband, David Bates, is under instruction to pursue the
Pescador
all the way to Uruguay if necessary. It would also seem that your partner/family member has no intention of returning to Australian waters, as is the request of the Australian Government. I wonder if there is a chance that the two boats could instead go to a neutral port to resolve the issue. If you could please assist me in getting this message to the appropriate people, I would be most grateful.

Sincerely,

Margaret Bates

Julia is unsure what to make of the message from the Australian woman. She is grateful for the human contact from the other side of the world, but is suspicious of this woman's apparent concern for Carlos. Perhaps the Australian boat has lost sight of the
Pescador
and this is a ploy of the Australian authorities to extract information on the vessel's whereabouts. She certainly can't see how either she or Margaret Bates could influence the outcome of the chase. Still, she responds
directly, in English, without first contacting Francisco. There's nothing to lose.

Dear Margaret,

(I am sending this message directly to you, not through the authorities here.)

I, too, want this chase to end. I have not, however, been able to speak with my husband now for almost a month and fear for his safety. The Uruguayan Fisheries office wants the boat to return to port here in Montevideo where our courts can decide whether or not they were fishing illegally.

When I speak with my husband again, I will be asking him to go to the nearest port. But I can make no promises. I hope that by the time I hear from Carlos again, the closest port for the
Pescador
will be here in Montevideo.

Perhaps you will have better luck convincing your husband to end the chase and deal with the matter in a court of law. I wish your husband and his crew a safe return.

Regards,

Julia Pereira de Sánchez

Julia presses send and watches the message disappear from her computer screen. She imagines it making its way to Australia, a place she has never been and has only clichéd imaginings of. It strikes her that she doesn't understand how email technology works. Are there cables carrying the
small concerns of mankind under the floor of the sea? Or is the electronic chatter of Earthlings relayed through space? If she and Carlos were both watching the sky at the same moment, would they both see the satellite that carries her message?

Julia opens a new email message and types in Virginia's address, then sends her a quick note relaying the latest news from Francisco.

Next, she opens the message from Paula. Her best friend is asking for some bibliographic details of classroom biology texts. There is a school in Madrid where she is interested in doing some work while her husband takes a university course.

Julia reaches up higher than is comfortable and drags the dusty school texts down from the bookshelf. She lowers herself heavily into the wooden chair beside the computer and forwards the publishers' details with a note telling Paula that she is only allowed to take the Madrid job for the duration of her husband's course and not a day longer. ‘I'll miss you too much,' Julia types, transmitting the message quickly before she can change her mind.

The third email contains a new recipe that Julia's mother writes ‘will be good for María's school lunches'. Julia prints it out and decides to make a batch of the fried biscuits for María when she arrives back home.

When she again stands, Julia is overcome by vertigo and she berates herself for delaying breakfast. She makes herself
a
mate
and a piece of toast, sipping the tea slowly while she re-reads the Australian woman's email. She will contact Francisco tomorrow, she decides, after she has slept on all of this. He was in no hurry to let her know about the chase. Perhaps the two women can achieve something the authorities, weighed down by bureaucracy, can't. Stranger things have happened.

Julia feels a tightening in her abdomen as the baby moves. They are strange and wonderful, these little reminders of a life in the making. Stirrings of being, providing reassurance that her baby is fine. Hope dispels fear. It's a line she recently read in a novel and has found herself repeating like a mantra. She hasn't had an ultrasound scan because of the cost, but the pregnancy seems uncomplicated enough so far.

She decides to go for a short walk down to the docks. Perhaps it will help ease her backache. At least it will make her feel closer to Carlos to be around all the things that he loves: the creaking boats, the nets, the salt-hardened ropes and the fish. Then again, sometimes the Puerto de Montevideo has the opposite effect on her, evoking instead a maddening feeling of being left behind. Marooned. She is jealous of the pull that the sea has on her husband, and hates the control it has over her life.

Before leaving the house, Julia makes a trip to the bathroom and feels her body vacate itself of fluid. Too much fluid. The copious gush doesn't stop.

‘No.' Julia's voice is quiet and pleading. Like she's in a dream. But this is all too real. She tells herself to stay calm as she walks gingerly to the phone. There is a trail of amniotic fluid on the tiled floor. ‘Please, no.' Her baby is not due for another thirteen weeks.

She dials for an ambulance and hears herself tell the operator in a high, trembling voice that her waters have broken prematurely. ‘I'm only twenty-seven weeks' pregnant,' she cries, her legs shaking.

She lowers herself onto the ground and removes her pants, which are drenched with hot fluid. She reaches for a hand towel and places it beneath her while she waits for assistance. The operator offers to stay on the line, just in case. She accepts the company, and lies down, holding the receiver to her ear. Her other hand seeks out her abdomen and she's alarmed at how much smaller it has become, and how much more vigorous the baby's kicks seem without the cushion of amniotic fluid. Almost panicky. She talks soothingly to her frightened child as the fluid leaves her body. The operator tells Julia to stay calm. ‘Help will arrive soon. Every moment that you delay labour will help your baby to survive.'

And there it is. Life and death, served up to her by a stranger on the other end of a phone line. Her baby could die. It's all being decided here on the tiles of her kitchen floor, right where she stands each morning to make breakfast. With
her head on the ground, she can see crumbs of white toast gathered in sympathy, like grieving relatives, under the cupboard doors where her broom has failed to reach. She exhales hard and the crumbs flee.