Calvin Baker - Grace

I met the boy on a later occasion; he was a bright boy, and around other bright children might be shaped into something fine. In the ambiently corrupt hothouse of special deals and special pleading they were setting him up to be something less. Not only were they mediocre, they trained their children to be as well.

“You know the gentleman,” another guest, a local, asked after I left the conversation.

“He is an acquaintance.”

“How does he have so high a position in the State Department?”

“He works hard. He is pleasant to people, dependable, does not bellyache or wet the bed, and plays the game they give him. That beats most people.”

“Yes, but don’t they know he’s an idiot with no idea what is going on here?”

“Yes, of course, they know he’s an idiot. That’s why they sent him somewhere he can do no harm.”

“You know, they say he works for the CIA.”

“I had not heard.”

He smiled at me knowingly. “You are a friend of Drew’s?”

“Yes. You know her husband, Diego?”

“Since we were tadpoles, this high.” He held his hand a foot from the floor. “How do you find the country?”

“What I’ve seen I enjoy.”

“If you truly wish to know a country and her people you must know the land. Our villages in the Islas del Lemuel are especially pleasant this time of year. Tell Diego if you decide to go. I will have my uncle and aunt show you around. It is the perfect place to rest and relax.”

It was high summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and the locals had all decamped to the coast and highlands, and after a few more days in the city I decided to follow their example.

Drew and Diego helped me arrange a house on an island up river, which promised good air and the peace of the water. I booked passage out of the city by train, and Farodoro was barely a memory by the time the ferry buzzed to a floating halt next to a dock in late afternoon, as the passengers scampered ashore before the gap between the boat and jetty grew too wide. If this happened, the pilot would go out into the river and back up to the landing stage again, yelling all the while at whoever was responsible, as the other passengers, who were forced into this time-stealing routine every time a greenhorn left the launch, regarded the new arrival with righteous annoyance for keeping them from their holidays and barbecues and sport and friendships and lovemaking.

Mornings I went swimming off the jetty behind my rented cottage. There was also a rowboat for my use that I liked to take out on the river, to fish at high tide. My second day there, though, the tropical rains came and the river overwhelmed its banks. I took the precaution of bringing the boat in from the dock, to tie it up in the yard before the storm, and set out early the next morning to row around the island. Besides mine there were only three other houses, all weekenders and empty, and I was alone that gray, watery morning with no idea or care for what would happen to me when I went back to New York. I was a free man in a free country, my own life in my own hands, and I was content with how simple and beautiful life could be, the way certain mornings make you want to live forever.

When the high water receded I discovered a trail that circled the inner perimeter of the island, which made for good exercise and nature-seeing whenever I was in a less amphibious mood.

I kept more or less to this routine, until I was told after the storm, by Doña Iñes, the woman who kept the market on a neighboring island, to be careful because someone had spotted a jaguar on one of the islands. They were native to the area, but no one had seen one in years. Whether it was a rumor or the truth, her warning had the opposite effect. My curiosity overrode my fear, and the possibility of spying such an elusive animal on its own terms made me add evening walks to the morning ones I already enjoyed, hoping to catch a glimpse.

I never saw the jaguar, only the woodpeckers and herons singing their Magellanic morning song, and sometimes a Pampas cat or two in the feral loneliness of dusk.

After my second weekend the other houses all closed down for the season, their inhabitants returning permanently to the city from the winter holiday, leaving me with the entire island to myself, which pleased me fine. I had brought books, and there was also an athletic club and bar on a neighboring island, which I would row to on those evenings when isolation overcame me and I required company. But mostly I swam and fished and enjoyed the watery sunsets and walked the land, trying to tame the hollering tempest within.

In the middle of my fourth week I made a trip to the main island to get supplies. I was back home, still in the kitchen after putting away my groceries, and reading to myself aloud from a book I had been trying to get through since college — watery consciousness, dirty language, fall from grace, a writer’s journey, a wife’s journey, golden bonds, a rock a tree a river circle and alchemy of life — when I saw a silhouette out beyond the screen door.

“May I help you?” I asked.

“Señor Roland?” A woman’s voice called.

“Yes,” I answered in Spanish. “How do you do?”

“We are friends of Diego’s family who live at the other side of the island. We saw your lights, and called the owners who told us you were still here. I’m Mrs. Saavardra and wanted to invite you to our place for an asador .”

“That’s kind of you, Señora.”

“Any night you wish, just come by. We usually take dinner around nine o’clock.”

“That’s very good of you.”

“This weekend we will have visitors from the city, so perhaps you might like to come by then. It should be a marvelous time.”

“Thank you,” I said. Señora Saavardra set back out for her side of the island, as I tried to decide whether she only meant to be good mannered, or was being busy, or whether it was the local custom and I was obliged to go. I thought to call Drew in the city to ask, but decided in the end I could not be obliged to do anything. I was there to be with the reality within myself. I no longer cared about how I was expected to behave, or what I was obliged to do, but simply where I was and how I would be with myself.

The local market was poorly stocked and I had taken the rowboat downriver toward the sea to try and earn my supper. By the time the sun began setting over the brackish water I still had not had any luck, and was dreading another meal of rice and lentils as I rowed back upstream.

When I reached the island the Friday ferry was docking at the little pier, and I bobbed in its wake while the passengers from the city came ashore. It was a bank holiday in Farodoro, and the residents of the other houses had returned for the long weekend, waking the island again with the buzz of laughter and activity. As I tied my boat and came ashore I saw everyone had left the dock except a woman sitting on top of her luggage with her back to me, looking around for her host.

I was so used to spending my time alone by then it did not occur to me to help her, and I walked away absent-mindedly, until I saw another resident stop and offer her directions and help with the bags. Her host, a white-haired gentleman in late middle age, had arrived by then, though, and they embraced familiarly before starting out for the other side of the island.

When she stood I saw clearly how striking she was, and the flash of beauty reminded me of what vanishes, time past and what was in it; and in the embrace I saw what remains, also time and what is in it now, and what might be in the fullness of the future for those with courage to seize and hold fast. I realized how much road was ahead of me still, and it was then I was stirred to go to the Saavardra’s party and no longer simply shut myself away.