Atlantic Triangle

by Geoffrey Stone (United States of America)

Making a local connection Brazil

“Someone once told me Salvador was a place to forget—I mean, where people go to forget.” Aguilar’s pupils went slack, then like a troller, jerked back. His fingernails tapped the wood table. He refilled my cup. “I was in Itaparica—” “In Bahia?” “Yes, in Brazil, visiting an old lover. There was an old Marseillais, Jacque. He lived in a tiny ruin of an inn. O Veleiro, it was called. Its walls were sky blue and like everything in the city, it sank to the sea. “Jacque must have been eighty, but he was strong—thick, footballer legs could move stones. His beard was dense as the forest; his face crushed like a stalk of cane. One eye was glass; his pinky, a gnarled burl. He sat in the courtyard by an old mermaid statue. Trapped in a clamshell, her face was mottled by the tides. “He could be morose, but he was a good host: fine, courteous to a fault—and my last night, I brought him a fine Cachaça as thanks. He caressed the garrafa, held it like an old wedding band. Then he wrenched the cap off, swigged. Must have been a two-inch tug, like most of us guzzle water. Eventually, his live-eye muted. He stared at the mermaid, la sirène—and grumbled, ‘all joy holds a kernel of hate.’ “He chucked the cap off the statue’s belly. He’d left Marseilles on a schooner the Corsicans needed to launder. He had misgivings, but she wanted to—Teresa, minha Teresa. They set sail for Cabo Verde. He’d skip his drop-off; friends in São Tomé could get him work in café. Off the coast of Tangier, Teresa vomited. A flotilla of green and brown sprayed across the sea. “Pregnant. Jacque paused; his eyes welled. Teresa would have their child in Juazeiro—Bahia. She’d promised her Mother, the midwife. There was no other option. “In the fall, un voyage transatlantique was a roll of the dice—at best. But Teresa wouldn’t back down. It was ridicule, but she stewed and stewed. Then she stopped eating. Her curves straightened. “Against the advice of everyone, they set sail in October. Jacque laughed. ‘Catastrophe, like fate, c'est prévisible.’ “Out at sea, the sky eclipsed. Squall followed. They bat down the hatch, anchored their torsos to the galley. Tossed side-to-side as if in the bowels of some great beast, they prayed themselves to sleep. They awoke to level ocean—but the mast sickled beyond repair. “Marooned, drifting, food almost gone; she needed protein, something beyond crackers. Fast out of fishing line, bullets, flares, he used his fingers for shark-bait—that horrible nub of a pinky. “She bled out one night, heaved as the boat bobbed lifeless. A few days later, a cargo ship spotted the wreck. The skipper towed them to Hamilton. “After that, Teresa was malade: profane, delusional, inhumain. Doctor after doctor, but it was just minha mãe, minha mãe. Sometimes, a man has no option but to stick it out. “So he mended the sails and charted a course for Salvador da Bahia. A few days out, Teresa’s fever kicked—it was her Mother, she’d passed, she knew. Upon docking, they resolved to forget the dead, their voyage, to sell the boat and disappear into the Pelourinho. “They say Carnaval can sooth all pain, but it never was the same, it never is. He got into pinga and he got into cards. One night at the boteco, Teresa disappeared com um cara da ditadura. “Jacque exhaled; his anger turned to bile. He posted Pessoa Desaparecida fliers at all the clubs. Seven weeks he searched: false leads from verdant cacau fields to endless sertão. One night, filthy drunk, he grabbed a raft and swam far as could. He came to by a lighthouse; he’d drifted less than a kilometer. “The next morning, a good vomit and a few stiff cafezinhos, he sold everything and set out for Itaparica, a sleepy backwater across the bay. When he saw the statue, he offered the owner, a Pai de Santo, everything he owned. ‘Aguilar,’ he said, ‘in Salvador, I forgot how to live. C'était tout un grand fantasme.’”