Denis Johnson - Fiskadoro

“We go play para tu,” Fiskadoro told the Israelites. He and Mr. Cheung followed along behind.

The six Israelites carrying Grandmother Wright in her red chair didn’t seem capable of tiring, but after the group of them had passed beyond Twicetown, with the old woman floating in their midst and Mr. Cheung and Fiskadoro trailing them closely and nearly every vendor following also in a spontaneous parade, the Orchestra Manager found space for his grandmother on a mule-cart, and they put her aboard.

Grandmother faced out the back of the cart, rocking to and fro with each step of the burro, and she clutched the arms of her chair as she had clutched the side of the bunk on the boat that had saved her from the waves nearly ninety years before, as she had clutched the metal side-rails of the stretcher on which she’d been unloaded from the boat, and as she had clutched the higher railings of the bed she’d failed to sleep in at the naval infirmary at Sangley Point in the Philippine Islands.

Today was one of her clearer days. She was recalling these things on purpose — flinging herself onto these memories as onto a solid place while wild men followed her onto the beach — because the Ocean’s smell and the sounds of water were too much for her. It was better to recall in her mind a terror that was finished than to face, in some confusion, these salt waves and their very doubtful intentions.

The Israelites knew the proper place. It was only a few hundred meters downshore from their tiny village, a miscellany of lean-tos surrounding their wrecked vessel. They stepped hard, three or four of them, on the rear of the mule-cart and tipped it toward the sand, taking hold of the rocking chair. They set down Grandmother Wright with a thump before the mud flats some distance from the action of the waves.

There were more people here than Mr. Cheung had ever seen in one place at one time. Possibly, everyone was here. His wife Eileen had come along with the mob of vendors who’d left their tables behind and hurried here to watch and sell nothing. Eileen gave him a kiss and wandered off. At one point or another he saw every member of The Miami Symphony Orchestra, but they all pretended they didn’t see him. At least two dozen fishing boats sat where the outgoing tide had beached them, all in a row with their anchor lines sprouting from the mud, and most of the Army population seemed to be present. Fiskadoro’s two little brothers were here, the smaller one riding the shoulders of the larger. Mr. Cheung thought he saw Fiskadoro’s mother, but then remembered that she’d passed on. The bodyguards employed by his own half-brother, Martin, appeared and disappeared on the edges of the crowd; and Martin himself, and Park-Smith, also avoiding the two clarinetists, convened and dispersed in various corners of the gathering.

Only Mr. Cheung and Fiskadoro played for the Israelites. But far from being disappointed in the ensemble’s size, these savage people were all enthralled. They came around and for once stood quietly in one place, tipping their heads, closing their eyes, and listening as if this music came from far away, or as if they were remembering it fondly from a time in their lives more sensible and beautiful than this one.

The Orchestra Manager and his pupil played improvisations based on the Sidney Bechet exercises. Fiskadoro played better than his teacher: as soon as he tasted the reed with his tongue, he forgot himself and turned into music. The tide lay far out, and their songs flew over the mud flats and died above the small waves. After an hour, as they took a break and Mr. Cheung cleared the spit from his mouthpiece with a bit of cloth, he said to Flying Man, “Tell me, please, what this is all about.”

Flying Man nodded his head and danced two steps, shaking all his feathers. “Bobbylon all over now. Time nex’ planet now — planet Israh-el!”

Mr. Cheung saw that Grandmother Wright’s forehead was veiled with perspiration. He wished he could wipe it away, but all he had was the rag he’d already used to clean his mouthpiece. The town behind them was desolate, he was sure not a soul remained there. Still, he felt bad about bringing her here into the elements. He hoped his grandmother would be able to survive this experience.

Grandmother was remembering the flight from Vietnam, and the crash that ended it.

When the helicopter crashed into the sea the Lieutenant was the first, of those who surfaced, to go down, because he hadn’t taken his shoes off soon enough — he’d wanted to protect his feet from sharks. He’d exhausted himself trying to stay afloat with his feet in canvas combat boots with heavy soles. By sundown he’d gone under and untied the laces and let them go, willing at that point to lose his shoes, and his feet, if necessary, to live another minute, to draw a few more breaths. But it was too late to get any strength back, and before sundown he’d begun slipping under the waves, coming up coughing, moving his arms and legs around as eventually Marie had done at the end — not to swim, but to find a purchase, the solid place that was certain to be around here somewhere — and going down more and more often, until the new energy of panic was exhausted and he slipped away and didn’t come up. They saw him surface face-down some meters off, and Marie saw the body only as something she might grapple with to help her stay afloat, but she didn’t have the strength to go after it. He’d wasted his energy trying to keep his shoes — but it wasn’t his pair of shoes, or his fear of sharks, that killed him. He died because he wasn’t saved.

He’d been bent on improving his chances, and he’d almost gotten out a life jacket as they’d crashed — as soon as Captain Minh spoke to him and smacked the faces of the helicopter’s dials and instruments with alarm, the Lieutenant had turned in his seat and managed to move people off the service locker, ordering them at gunpoint to squeeze themselves impossibly against the others as he stood up, and Marie knew she had to move or he would shoot her, so she did her best to crush the bones of the people behind her to give him room. He had the locker’s lid raised ten centimeters and one hand caught in its open mouth and touching a canvas life jacket, his revolver in the other hand, when the craft descended, very slowly, to the water’s surface.

They were raised once by a wave, and Marie was beginning to wonder how long they would float here before they were rescued or starved to death, when Captain Minh leapt from the door, which now, only two seconds after their touching down, was filling with water. Marie waited, while her heart beat twice, for the people between her and the door to jump also, and then she clawed and broke her way through them and into a sea which was suddenly up to the level of her throat.

She swam away, and when she turned around, treading water, the helicopter was gone.

Upturned heads floated around her in a green waste. Between the blasts of wind rolling over it, there wasn’t a sound but the water. The shock of being here was no greater than the shock of being defiled by this filthy secret, the noises the ocean made all alone in the middle of itself. Its infinitesimal salt bubbles hissed and breathed, and the surface water turned over and licked along itself and coughed softly.

Under these circumstances the China Sea looked like nothing. Here was the difference between something big — as seen from the craft, horizon to horizon — and something enormous, engulfing, mind-erasing, seen only in series, swell after swell, too absolutely filled with itself to admit any mercy, to know its name or take any thought. It was as if, having found herself all wet, she’d taken an astonished breath to say, “Look what happened!” but was stalled in the astonishment and couldn’t exclaim, or even exhale.