Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast

The captain drank air slowly, then said, "I heard you doing it."

"I don't have a country," Father said. "And someday soon, neither will you, friend."

Mother said, "Captain, I'd like to go below decks and see the cargo holds, the engine room, and where the crew is. The children would be interested. It would be a good lesson — they could do some pictures of it."

"See, we're educating these kids ourselves," Father said. "I wasn't happy with the schools. They're all playgrounds and fingerpainting. Subliterate teachers, illiterate kids. The blind leading the blind. Of course, they'll all turn out rotten — it's despair."

"Home study has its limitations," the captain said.

"Ever tried it?" Father said.

The captain said the public schools were fine by him, and "I've never had any grief with the school system."

Hearing this, Father reached to one of the shelves and pulled a book out. He put it in Clover's hand. He said, "Open it, Muffin, and read what you see."

Clover opened it and read, "Compass error is sometimes used in compass clackuations as a sah-speficic term. It is the al-alga-alga-breek sum of the vary-variations and dah-viation. Because vary-variation depends on gee-geographic location, and dah-der-viation upon the ship's heading—"

"That's enough," Father said, and snapped the book shut. "Five years old. Fd like to see a school kid do that."

Clover smiled at the captain and put her hands on her belly.

"Smart girl," the captain said.

"Take this energy crisis," Father said. "It's the fault of the schools. Wind power, wave power, solar power, gasohol — it's just a sideshow. They have fun talking about it, but everyone drives to school on Arab gas and Eskimo oil, while they jabber about windmills. Anyway, what's new about windmills? Dutch people have been using them for years. The schools go on teaching worn-out lessons and limping after the latest fashions. No wonder kids sniff glue and take drugs! I don't blame them. I'd take drugs, too, if I had to listen to all that guff! And no one sees how simple it might be. Hey, I'm thinking out loud, but take magnetism. Ever hear anyone talk sense about magnetic energy?"

"Generators have magnets in them," the captain said.

"Electromagnets. They need energy. That means fuel. I'm talking natural magnets."

"I don't see how that would work."

"The size of a Ferris wheel," Father said.

"They don't come that big."

"A thousand of them, on a pair of wheels."

"They'd just stick together," the captain said.

"I'm way ahead of you," Father said. "You set them at various angles, over three hundred and sixty degrees, so there's a push-pull effect with the alternating magnetic fields."

"What's the point?"

"A perpetual-motion machine. The point is you could light a city with something like that. But tell anyone about it and he looks at you as if you're crazy." Father faced the captain, as if defying him to look at him that way.

Mother said, "Allie's an inventor."

"I was wondering," the captain said.

"Strictly speaking," Father said, "there is no such thing as invention. It's not creation, I mean. It's just magnifying what already exists. Making ends meet. They could teach it in school — Edison wanted to make invention a school subject, like civics or French. But the schools went for fingerpainting, when they could have been teaching kids to read. They encouraged back talk. School is play! Harvard is play!"

"The captain is offering you some coffee, Allie."

The captain held the coffeepot over Father's cup.

Father said, "Ain't that always the way? You get on to a really serious subject, like the end of civilization as we know it, and people say, 'Aw, forget it — have a drink.' It's a funny world. I'm damned glad we're saying good-bye to it."

"You won't have a coffee, then?" the captain said.

"No thanks. The caffeine in it makes me talk too much. Hey, I like this banana boat! I'll just go back to my cabin and smoke a joint."

I thought the captain's eyes were going to burst.

"Just joking," Father said.

THE Unicorn was moving more slowly now. I knew it from the pins on the map. I told Father this, and he said, "You keep an eye on those pins, Charlie. I've got my hands full, hiding from Gurney Spellgood and his gospelers. He prays for me to join him — I pray for him to leave me alone. We'll see whose prayers get answered."

Later that morning I was looking at the clustered pins when Emily Spellgood jumped behind me and said, "Why aren't you fishing?"

"Don't feel like it." I walked out to the deck.

She followed me, saying, "Where do you come from?"

"Springfield," I said, naming the biggest place I knew.

"I never heard of Springfield," she said. "What's their team?"

What was she talking about? I said, "It's a secret."

"We're from Baltimore. Baltimore's got the Orioles. That's my team. They almost won the World Series. I'm wearing a new bra."

I walked to the stern.

"I know why you aren't fishing," she said. "That seagull you killed took your fishing line away. You deserved to lose it, because you're a murderer. You murdered an innocent bird, one of God's creatures. They're good — they eat garbage. My father said a prayer for that bird."

I said, "My father said a prayer for your father."

"He's got no right to do that," she said. "My father doesn't need any prayers. He's doing the Lord's work. I bet you don't even have a team."

"Yes, I do. They're on television."

"What's your favorite TV program?"

This stumped me. We didn't have a television. Father hated them, along with radios and newspapers and movies. I said, "Television programs are poison." It was what Father always said.

"You must be sick," Emily said, and I felt that Father had let me down, because I did not know what to say next.

Emily said, "I watch The Incredible Hulk, The Muppet Show, Hollywood Squares, and Grizzly Adams, but my favorite is Star Trek. On Saturday afternoon, I watch the 'Creature Double Feature'—I saw Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster and Godzilla. They were real scary. On Sunday morning we all watch The Good News Show and sing the hymns. My father was on TV, on The Good News Show. He read the lesson. He lost his place and had to stop. He said the lights hurt his eyes. TV lights can give you a wicked burn — that's why all the people are red I'll bet your father's never been on a TV show."

I said, "My father's a genius."

"Yeah, but what does he do? "

"He can make ice with fire. I saw him."

"What good is that?"

"It's better than praying," I said.

"That's a sin," Emily said. "God will punish you for that. You'll go to hell."

"We don't believe in God."

This shocked her. "God just heard you!" she shouted. "Okay, who made the world, then?"

"My father says whoever it was did a bad job and why should we worship him for making a mess of things?"

"Jesus told us to!"

"My father says that Jesus was a silly Jewish prophet."

"He wasn't Jewish," Emily said. "That's for sure. You must go to a real dumb school, if you think that."

I did not want to talk about school — or God either — because I only half-remembered the things Father had told me.

Emily said, "We study communications at school. Miss Barsotti teaches it. She's got a new Impala. It's real neat — white, with red upholstery, and air-conditioned. It gets eighteen miles to the gallon. She gave me a ride, in the front seat. Our school in Baltimore has two swimming pools — one's an Olympic-sized. I've got my intermediate badge. That day — the day of the ride — Miss Barsotti bought me a Whopper and a Coke. She says her boyfriend's bionic."