Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast

This speech left her breathless. I had no school, no swimming pool, no Miss Barsotti. I looked over the rail, into the green slab of ocean, and thought, If this is the kind of creep who goes to school, Father's right. But she knew things that I did not know, she moved in a bigger and more complicated world, she spoke another language. I could not compete. She demanded to know my favorite movie star and singer, and though I had heard Father dismiss these people as buffoons and clowns, there was no conviction in my voice when I repeated what he said. She wanted to know my favorite breakfast cereal — hers was Froot Loops — and I was too embarrassed to say that Mother made our cereal out of nuts and rolled oats, because it seemed makeshift and ordinary. She said, "I can do disco dancing," and I was lost.

I said, "Your father's a missionary. You don't live in Baltimore at all."

"Yes, we do. My father's got two churches. One's in Guampu — Honduras — and the other one's in Baltimore. The Baltimore one's a drive-in."

"What kind of drive-in?"

"There's only one kind — with cars, outdoors. The people drive in and pray — but on Sunday mornings, when there's no movie. Gosh, you're stupid. You're like a Zambu."

Emily Spellgood was from that other world that Father had forbidden us to enter. And yet it seemed glamorous to me. It was something you could boast about. It made our life seem dull and homemade, like the patches on our clothes. But if I could not have that life, then I was glad we were going far away, where no one would see us.

I was saved by Captain Smalls. He walked out to a balcony on the top deck and said, "Come on up, Charlie. I want to show you something."

"I'm going to help him steer the ship," I said, and walked away from Emily Spellgood.

On the bridge, Captain Smalls showed me the compass and the charts. He let me hold the wheel and he demonstrated the sonar — schools offish showed as shadows and bleeps. Two decks down and still at the stern, Emily stood at the rail. Near her were two crewmen, one hosing water against a cargo hatch and the other swabbing with a mop.

I said, "My father invented a mechanical mop. You sort of dance with it, but it works all by itself."

"Your father seems quite a fellow."

"He's a genius," I said.

"He'd better be," the captain said. "You know where he's taking you?"

"Yes, sir."

"See the man on that kingpost on the foredeck?"

The man was on the top of an orange pillar, brushing white paint on it.

"The reason he can do that so good is because he's half monkey. They practically live in the trees where he comes from. Some of them have tails. Ain't that right, Mr. Eubie?"

Mr. Eubie was at the wheel, but not moving it. He said, "They sure do, Captain."

"That's where you're all going — where he comes from."

I looked hard at the hanging man, and I could see his resemblance to the men at Polski's.

"The Mosquito Jungle," the captain said. "Some people there have never seen a white man or know what a wheel is. Ask Reverend Spellgood. If they want to eat, they just climb a tree and grab a coconut. They can live for nothing. Everything they need is right there — free. Most of them don't wear any clothes. It's a free and easy life."

I said, "That's why we're going."

"But it's no place for you," the captain said. "Picture a zoo, except the animals are outside, and the human beings are trapped in cages — houses and compounds and missions. You look through the fence and you see all the creatures staring in at you. They're free, but you're not. That's what it's like."

"My father will know what to do."

The captain said, "Tegoose is pretty bad, but at least it's a city. I wouldn't send my family alone into the jungle to get bitten alive and grinned at and yelled at."

"We won't be alone," I said.

"I hate bugs," the captain said. "You'll never see a bug on this ship. I don't stand for them. But your father must like them a lot. Snakes, beetles, bugs, flies, mosquitoes, mud, rats." He shook his head. "And stinks."

The telephone rattled. Captain Smalls answered it and an inhuman voice on the line jabbered at him. He said "Yep" and hung up, then spoke to Mr. Eubie. "We've got some weather ahead." To me he said, "We might be in for a blow. You better run along now, but you come back and see me."

At lunch, Father asked me what the captain had said about him. "I'll bet he's been running me down, eh?"

"No," I said. "He just showed me his sonar."

"I wonder what else he got for Christmas."

Jerry said that one of the younger Spellgoods had told him about scorpions. You died if they bit you. Clover and April had spoken to one of the crew members. Clover said, "He taught us 'grassy-ass.'"

Father said, "I got bitten by a scorpion once, and I'm still here. And I speak Spanish like a native. And as for sonar, Charlie, I've read up on it, and I could teach that captain more than he could learn!"

"You're paranoid," Mother said, and left the table.

"She's mad about something," Father said. Then he looked at us. "Do you think I'm paranoid?"

We said no.

"Then follow me."

He led us to the afterdeck. Rev. Spellgood had just begun preaching from his usual place on a winch platform. He stood there, under the cloudy sky, his hair blowing sideways, squawking to his assembled family. But seeing Father, he jumped down and welcomed him. Father said we were busy. Rev. Spellgood said he had a present for him — a Bible.

"Don't need it," Father said.

Spellgood thought this was funny. He cackled and looked over his shoulder at his family. "You need one of these, brother," he said, and showed him a book covered with dungaree cloth.

"Keep it."

"This is the newest one," Spellgood said. "The Blue-Jeans Bible. A whole team of Bible scholars in Memphis translated it. It was designed by a psychologist."

Father took it and turned it over in his hand. Then he held it between two fingers as if it were soaking wet.

"There's a Spanish version, too. We use them in our parish. Those people appreciate it. The other ones, with the gold leaf and the ribbons and all the begats, used to scare the wits out of them. That's for you, brother."

Father showed it to us. The dungaree cloth was real, stitched over the cover, and there was a little pocket riveted onto the back.

"Take a good look, kids," Father said. "This is the kind of thing I've been warning you about." He handed it to Rev. Spellgood, saying, "Your kingdom is not of this world, Reverend. Mine is."

"May God forgive you."

Father said, "Man is God."

We continued past the hatches on the afterdeck to where the tall steel pillar was. The booms we had seen swinging cargo from the pier in Baltimore were secured, each by six thick cables. Father said these were the shrouds. They held the booms in place, he said, and were attached by blocks to the top of the derrick.

"The kingpost," I said.

"Sorry, Charlie. The kingpost."

"That's what the captain called it."

"Well, if that's what he called it, that must be its name," Father said. "That there's a davit, and those, as I said, are shrouds. I wonder how high you could climb on those shrouds. Think you could make it to the top?"

The skies — three portions now — were purple and pale yellow and smoked. The wind was streaked with flying spit. Clouds had drifted into gatherings of old-fashioned hats, with peaks and plumes, and the sea no longer looked tropical. It was harbor-colored and streaming with chips of froth, and seemed pushed from below by shapes like whales' shoulders and sharks' fins.

"Think you can do it, Charlie?"

As the ship rolled slowly, I saw the post and the booms and the shrouds that held them, cutting back and forth. But looking up like this nauseated me. I told Father I felt seasick. He said to look at the horizon awhile and I would feel better.