Marisha Pessl - Night Film

My question caused a great deal of intrigue.

It wasn’t a minute before two fellow diners, as well as the Dutch bartender, were crowded around my table, hashing over the Polaroids — and probably me —in Spanish. The consensus was that, though no one recognized the tiny church, one of the locals — a petulant dark little man who, at the waitress’s urging, waddled awkwardly over to us, hinting he did better in water — claimed to have seen the black boulder with the hole somewhere along the coast south of Quicaví when he was a little boy. (The man, it should be noted, looked to be in his late seventies.)

“Quicaví? How do I get there?” I asked.

But the man only jutted out his chin, grimacing as if I’d just insulted him, and shuffled back over to his table.

The waitress leaned in with an apologetic look. “The Chilote, locals, we’re muy superticiosa about Quicaví. It’s north. About an hour’s drive.”

“Why are you superstitious about Quicaví?”

“That’s where the man arrives.”

“What man?”

She widened her eyes, as if unsure how to begin to answer, and swiftly moved off. “Just don’t go at night,” she offered over her shoulder.

The Dutch bartender suggested I rent a car from his friend down the road to reach Quicaví before nightfall— before nightfall seemed the most crucial part of the directions — which was why, not an hour later, I was behind the wheel of a green four-wheel-drive Suzuki Samurai dating back to the eighties, heading down a twisting road with no shoulder and a width that barely fit two cars. I had my passport on me, all of my money, both dollars and Chilean pesos, my cell, a switchblade, and Popcorn’s compass.

As I drove, checking the map and the compass, indicating I was driving northeast, the island seemed to shake loose around me. Undulating hills, horses galloping alone in fields — I passed an unmanned goat procession and two young boys escorting a sheep. I kept picturing my abandoned room back at the Unicornio Azul, as if it were a newly minted crime-scene photo imprinted in my head: my army duffel unzipped on the bed, clothes hastily thrown inside, the itinerary from Expedia in the inside pocket, red toothbrush on the edge of the sink, tube of Colgate Total indented from my hand, and, finally, the cruddy mirror that had held the last known sighting of my face. I wondered, suddenly, if I should have left a note, something for Sam, a small clue— just in case. I’d left Septimus with her, assuring Cynthia I’d be traveling only for a few weeks, so Sam would know I was coming back.

And I was.

The Suzuki began to gripe about some of the hills, and when we faced a particularly steep one — the road’s pavement had given out long ago, now it was dirt and rocks — I switched on the four-wheel drive, flooring it. This killed the engine. I pushed it to the shoulder of the road and began to walk.

As if by black magic, a boy in a truck passed me, backed up, and offered me a ride. He spoke no English, the radio playing Rod Stewart. Reaching the apparent edge of Quicaví, a thin sloping road splintering with dark houses — all of them leaning downhill as if desperate to reach the ocean, visible at the end — the boy dropped me off and continued on.

It was beginning to get dark, spitting light rain. I made a right onto another road, which led me into the heart of Quicaví. There was nothing overtly sinister about the town — cafés advertised free Internet and Pepsi; a large pig grazed in front of a grocery store. And yet every shop at ten minutes after six had dark windows, signs on the doors reading CERRADO. All that appeared to be open was a restaurant called Café Romeo, a few people hunched over the tables inside, and when I reached the beach, a shack at the very end, what looked to be some sort of cantina, its sharply pitched roof lit with lights.

I headed toward it across the sand, which was rocky and black, the water sluggishly lapping the shore. I realized with surprise I was alone out here. I ran through the last forty hours in my head, noting that starting with JFK airport at five A.M. some two days ago, until now, the number of people around me had been gradually dwindling — as if I’d walked into a roaring party and now, looking around, I saw I was the last guest left.

I reached the shack, and when I looked up, reading the weathered sign over the dark door, I stopped dead, stunned.

La Pincoya Negro. Black mermaid. That exact phrase had been scribbled above one of the doorways in the underground tunnels at The Peak. If I’d walked through it, would it have taken me here?

“Quiere barquito?”

I turned. A scrawny old man was standing far behind me, close to the water beside a stake in the sand, a trio of weathered boats tied to it. He was the only other person out here. He started toward me and I could see he had a kind smile, missing a few teeth, oil-splattered slacks rolled to his shins, and wisps of gray hair strung across his tanned head, as if a bit of sea mist still clung there.

I unfolded the Vanity Fair article, showing him the Polaroids.

The man nodded with obvious recognition at the church, saying something I couldn’t understand, which sounded like, “Buta Chauques. Isla Buta Chauques.” When he saw the boulder with the hole, he grinned.

“Sí, sí, sí. La trampa de sirena.”

He repeated the phrase, his parched lips twitching in excitement. I did the rudimentary translation in my head. The trap for the mermaids? The trap of the mermaids? I nodded in my confusion and he, taking it for some kind of agreement, grinned and lurched back over to his boats. He untied the largest and began to drag it toward the water.

“No!” I called out to him. “You misunderstood.”

But he was jerking it with surprising strength by the bow, the boat’s propeller digging into the sand as if trying to resist.

“Hey, forget it! Mañana! ”

The man made no sign of having heard me. Knee-deep in the water now, he was stooped over, yanking the starter cord.

I fell silent, watching him, and then found myself turning, staring back at the way I’d come.

There were a few lights, back at the end of that road. They looked lively and soft, and suddenly I was filled with longing, as if around the corners of those dark houses I might find Perry Street and my old life, all that was known to me and familiar, all that I loved, if only I had the inclination to walk back there. Yet as close as they appeared, they seemed also to be receding, warm rooms I’d already passed through, the doorways gone.

The man had managed to turn over the motor, thick smoke streaming out, a deep rumble tearing through the wind clattering across the rooftops of the shops behind me.

I walked to the boat and climbed in. An inch of seawater slurped in the hull, but the old man was unconcerned. Taking his position beside the engine, he unfolded a blue cap from his shirt pocket, pulled it low over his eyes, and with a single nod at me of evident pride, he began to steer us away from the shore.

We hadn’t gone two minutes when I spotted deep green, seemingly uninhabited islands surfacing like giant whales to my left. I assumed we’d stop at one, but the man kept driving us past, one after the other, until I saw there was absolutely nothing left in front of us, not a single landmass, nothing — only a black churning ocean and a sky, equally empty.

“How much longer?” I shouted, turning around.

But the man only held up a grizzled hand, muttering something voided by the wind, which seemed to charge his dirty gray shirt with volts of current, revealing a frame as withered as an old tree.