T. Boyle - San Miguel

They were lucky. Maybe the luckiest people on earth. And Herbie was out stalking his elephant seals and Jimmie ashore or maybe out on Bob Brooks’ other island because Bob felt responsible for him and tried to find him work as best he could, and there were strangers in the harbor and the sun shining bright and she was on her way down to greet them with her baby in her arms, just for the novelty of it, and the neighborliness, that too.

There were three of them hauling a rowboat ashore when she got down to the beach and strode across the strand to them, Marianne perched on one shoulder, the sand whispering beneath her shoes. They were dressed like any other fishermen, stained pants, peacoats, watch caps, except that they wore sandals instead of shoes. One of them — the captain, obviously — slipped out of his coat when he saw her coming and handed it to the man beside him. He was wearing a white jacket beneath it, with epaulettes on the shoulders. He said something to her, which she later realized must have been a thick-tongued variant on “Good afternoon,” and bowed deeply, as did his two shipmates.

She didn’t know what to do so she bowed back, then rose, smiling, and said, “Welcome, welcome to our island,” and she couldn’t help adding, thinking of Herbie, “the Kingdom of San Miguel.”

In the next moment they’d swarmed round her, their wide dark blunted faces opening up in amazement at the sight of Marianne, this prodigy in her arms, as if a child were the last thing they expected out here, and she wondered how long they’d been at sea and what wives and children they’d left behind. She thought of her own separation from Herbie, first at the Brooks’, then the Whites’, and how each day had slammed down on her like the door to a vault and how nothing had seemed right, not the sun in the morning or the food on the table or the air moving through the windowscreens, heavy with the scent of orange blossoms. But these men: they were ashore, feet on the ground, and they laughed aloud and held out their forefingers for Marianne to clutch in her tiny fist, made faces for her and talked baby talk in falsetto — their language, in that register, fluting like the wind in the tops of the trees. “Bebay,” the captain kept saying, looking from her to Marianne and back again, and she could see the words trying to shape themselves on his lips till he looked as if he were going to implode with the effort, but he got no further.

“Would you like,” she said, enunciating very slowly and distinctly, as if that would make a difference, “to come up to the house”—pointing now—“for some refreshment? I can make tea. Sandwiches.” She looked doubtfully from one to the other. “Do you like sandwiches?”

* * *

An hour later the three men were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the sofa that had once been a coffin, each with a teacup in one hand and a saucer in the other and their spines held perfectly rigid. She sat across from them, Marianne in her lap, and passed a platter of gingerbread cookies to the captain, who was positioned on the end of the sofa nearest her. “Good,” he pronounced, after taking a precise experimental bite of his cookie while the other two looked on for a signal as to how to proceed. She wished she could communicate with them, ask them where they were from, if they had families, what their religion was like, their food, what they thought of California, because here was an opportunity she would never have had in New York, where there were all types, but not any Japanese, or not that she could remember. Chinese, yes. But then, looking at them, how could you tell them apart? Maybe she had seen Japanese before without realizing it, but even if she had she’d certainly never sat across from them over a cup of tea and a platter of cookies.

Americans — and she was guilty of this too — tended to treat foreigners like children or idiots, like the deaf and dumb, simply because they had no English or fumbled with it, and yet here were people as articulate and full of passion and hope and experience as she was herself. They were polite. Beautifully mannered. They loved babies. And they had so much to tell her, she was sure of it, if only they could find the words. She set down her cup, shifted Marianne in her lap. And then — and she didn’t know why except that it was the language of diplomacy, of the world, and she was speaking before she could think — she tried French. “Parlez-vous Français?”

The captain shot her a look of interest, as if all this time he’d been waiting to hear just that phrase. He smiled. “Un peu. J’ai vécu à Marseilles une fois — il y a plusieurs années.”

And that was it, that was the key in the lock, and though his French was minimal and he spoke it with an accent she could only call bizarre, it enabled them to communicate, if fumblingly. She learned that he and his crew — there were eight more aboard — had sailed out of Yokohama six weeks before and that he knew the islands and the coast of California and its fisheries intimately, having captained beaucoup fishing vessels over the years. But it was slow going and frustrating, because suddenly she wanted to know all about him, about his life and his hopes and prejudices, a real live Japanese before her, a visitor from another kingdom. Or empire. It was the Japanese Empire, wasn’t it? To Es-ce que vous êtes marié? he replied, Non . To Vous aimez la vie de la mer? it was, Oui . And then, after a moment’s reflection, “Beaucoup.”

She was about to ask him if he’d been ashore in America, if he knew any Americans and if so what he thought of them and if the accounts of his country’s (how would she say it, belligerence, aggression?) had any basis in fact or if they were just typical newspaper hyperbole, when the door swung open and Herbie was there, the gun slung over his shoulder and the knapsack, crammed with something — driftwood, seashells? — dangling from one hand. Instantly, the three men leapt to their feet. They came up so fast they nearly knocked over the low table that held the teapot and platter, each man clutching his cup as if it were a shield.

She watched Herbie’s face work through its emotions, going from surprise to shock to distaste and finally a kind of feigned indifference all in an instant. How it had happened, she couldn’t say, but suddenly the room was thick with tension. “Herbie,” she called, trying to brighten her voice, “these are our guests, fishermen from Japan — that’s their boat in the harbor there. They”—and here she gestured toward them and they all, in unison, bowed, but it was a short bow, a nod of the head only, their eyes fixed on Herbie and his gun—“were just joining me in a cup of tea, paying a visit, that’s all. The captain”—another gesture, another bow—“speaks French. Un peu .” She smiled, first at Herbie, then at the man in the white jacket, but neither smiled back.

Herbie set down the bag beside him, nodded brusquely at the three men, then crossed the room as if he were measuring off each step, shrugged out from under the strap of the gun and with a kind of surgical deliberation placed it back on its mount on the wall. None of the men moved. They remained standing there, the teacups clutched in their hands, until Herbie swung round and leaned back into the wall, arms folded, so that he was framed by the slashing parallel lines of the guns, nine guns in all, from the tanegashima to the elephant rifle, and they leaned forward, one by one, to set their teacups back down.

Herbie didn’t say hello or welcome or anything of the sort, not in English, French or Japanese, or even in the language of common courtesy. No, he was rude, just plain rude, and it embarrassed her. Fixing his eyes on the captain, he said, “Ce que vous voulez ici, monsieur?”