Calvin Baker - Grace

“ ¡Su hija! ” she exclaimed. “ ¿Perro, por qué llora? ”

“She is not my daughter.”

“ Ich kann nicht meine Vetters finden, ” the little girl wept, explaining her misery.

“No? But she speaks English.”

“She’s German. Have you seen her before?”

“No,” Doña Iñes said. “And there are not any Germans around here. They go to the south.”

I asked the child her name.

“Lenore,” she said.

“Und hast du einen Nachname, meine kleine Dame?”

She giggled. “ Ja. Himmelstein. ”

“That’s a funny name you have,” I said. Lenore laughed.

“Is there a Himmelstein family on the island?” I asked Doña Iñes.

“Ah, she must belong to Juan’s family. They live on the island just there,” she pointed across the watery flats to a spit of land with a single house perched on it.

“Can you telephone over?” I asked. The clouds were gathering more quickly, and I was anxious to get back before the downpour.

“Why don’t you take her?” Doña Iñes asked, incredulous. “It’s right there. You can see the house.”

I did not want to be responsible for a child, and made the excuse that I had left my house open and did not want it to flood.

“What is there to flood?” She laughed at me. “Ah, mi niño , you do not wish to be involved,” she gleaned. “Here we may not be rich as in your country, but at least if someone loses a child we do not worry they will sue us if our boat capsizes. Ferry the child.”

“Call to the house, and ask them to meet us at the dock,” I agreed reluctantly.

“ Sí, ” Doña Iñes smiled. Lenore beamed, and climbed into the boat. “You are doing the right thing.”

Lenore was sitting near the prow like a creature born of the sea, happy to be going home. I was never around children, and as I rowed her toward the island, did not know what to say, so asked the usual questions you would a stranger.

“Who do you think will win the elections?”

“I don’t know. I can’t vote.”

“What are your teams for the next World Cup?”

“I do not like sports,” she answered. “You seem sad. If I had such a wonderful boat I wouldn’t be sad.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. No one would be able to tell me where to go, or make me go anywhere I didn’t like, or ever be able to leave me.”

“Where would you go?” I asked, wondering about her parents.

“Oh, everywhere,” she lit up. “Even the moon, if I could row there. But everywhere on earth.”

“You’ll go lots of places, Lenore, when it’s your time for it,” I said. “When I was your age I had never been anywhere yet.”

“You think?” she asked, hopefully.

“Absolutely,” I assured her.

“Which place do you think is the best in the world to see first?”

“It does not matter,” I said. “It is just the land, the language, and the people that change.”

“Well, I can’t wait,” she hugged herself.

We neared shore, and she brightened to see her mother waiting on the dock. The mother was a handsome woman, but tipsy with drink and beside herself with worry, as she stooped down to lift Lenore from the boat.

“What happened?” The mother asked the child.

“They left me,” Lenore told on her cousins’ mischief. “And this nice man brought me home. Thank you.” She turned to me.

“Would you care to join us for a coffee?” the mother asked. She was ringless, and I might have been curious to hear their story on another occasion, but I realized I was uninterested in anyone but Sylvie. Besides that she had used the formal tense, and I had been in nature too long, so the remove seemed dissonant with the landscape itself. I shook my head, pointing to the clouds, which had already begun to open.

An Egyptian blue sky unfurled overhead, clear to the edge of space, and the prelapsarian air below fluttered with a clement, pure breeze to inspire the blood. The usually muddy delta waters shone like a mirror, rippling gently each time we broke the surface with our oars.

Near the market we crested alongside another couple, out rowing for sport. Sylvie began to pull with a quickened pace, and I followed suit, and they smiled at us, like-minded, pulling even again until we had a race.

“To the next island,” they cried.

“ ¡Vale! ” we answered. We sprinted prow to prow, exhausting ourselves, until they seemed to flag as we opened enough of a lead to be sure of victory. They took advantage of our slacking off to surge again, though, and soon began pulling even, but we had by then reached the island, doubled over from the effort.

“ Bravo, ” they called, and waved in a gesture of fellow feeling. We were all drenched with sweat and our hearts beat quick and glad, as we floated down near the sea basin, relaxing again. Sylvie and I smiled at our victory. I still felt the bliss of physical exertion and the bliss of being with her, making me never want to leave that little corner of the world.

“We make a good team,” she said, as we neared the open sea. She saw the fishing tackle under the seats and maneuvered it out through the slats. “May I?”

I took her oar. She baited the hook with a lure, then cast an expert line into the sterling water.

“You cast well,” I said.

“My family used to go when we were young. I did not like it, but it was always nice to be on the river with the people I cared for. I felt we could be anytime in all of history, and it would be just like that. I would cast my line, telling myself if I caught a fish I would get to the next epoch in history.”

“That was a lot of pressure.”

“I know.” She laughed at herself and her amber eyes shone, as her bare arms arced over the water with a sensuous poise.

I idled the boat on the current, letting us drift around toward one of the seaward islands in the full midday heat, though it was not as hot as it had been in previous weeks, so I felt the season beginning to ebb.

As we reached the open sea, I rowed around the island, the fishing line tensed.

“We caught something,” she said excitedly, the breeze playing in the folds of her white summer dress.

The fish leapt, and the line played out until I thought she was going to lose it, but she pulled up expertly and it was snagged sound. She began to reel it in toward us, but too quickly, and gave way when the line tensed tight to the point of snapping. The fish ran free again, fast toward the open sea, but she had it with both hands and all her might, so it was clear how big it was. She opened the line, letting the fish run until it seemed to tire. When it swam less furiously, she began reeling in intently. From the curve of the pole I was afraid it might snap, but she loosened it in time, as the fish ran back, in a mighty struggle I would not have imagined she had in her.

“Is it too much?”

“No.” Her face was furrowed with sweat, and I could see she took pleasure in the contest. But the fish was massive, and I put one hand on hers to help her steady it, helping her coax it hard or slack as the fish kept struggling below.

“Yes, you can help me now.”

We saw the fish down in the clear water, close to the boat, and began to haul it in, as the beast lunged angrily into the air. Sylvie let out a shriek of fear and surprise at the sheer size of it, then surprise and joy. The fish dove under again, and we pulled up again, one final time, to claim it silver and glistening into the boat.

“What do we do now?” She laughed, proud, but drawing away from its convulsive final moments. It was a giant river creature, but I managed to pick it up soundly by the gills, and hold it against the bottom of the boat, where I so took up an iki stick.